Page:Metamorphoses.djvu/239

 METAMORPHOSES BOOK IV tear. Each turned to stone and kept the pose in which she was overaken. Still others were changed to birds, and they also, once Theban women, now on light wings skim the water over that pool. Cadmus was all unaware that his daughter and little grandson had been changed to deities of the sea. Overcome with grief at the misfortunes which had been heaped upon him, and awed by the many portents he had seen, he fled from the city which he had founded, as if the fortune of the place and not his own evil fate were overwhelming him Driven on through long wanderings, at last his flight brought him with his wife to the borders of Illyria. Here, overborne by the weight of woe and age, they reviewed the early misfortunes of their house and their own troubles. Cadmus said: Was that a sacred serpent which my spear transfixed long ago when, fresh come from Sidon, I scat- tered his teeth on the earth, seed of a strange crop of men? If it be this the gods have been avenging with such unerring wrath, I pray that I, too, may be a serpent, and stretch myself in Even as ne spoke he was stretched out in long snaky form; he felt his skin hardening and scales growing on it, while iridescent He fel1 long snaky fornm spots besprinkled his darkening body. prone upon his belly, and his legs were gradually moulded together into one and drawn out into a slender, pointed tail. His arms yet remained; while they remained, he stretched them out, and with tears flowing down his still human cheeks he cried: " Come near, oh, come, my most wretched wife, and while still there is something left of me, touch me, take my hand, while I have a hand, while still the serpent does not usurp me quite." He wanted to 219