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 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI the goddess gives a shield and a sharp-pointed spear, and a helmet for her head; the aegis guards her breast; and from the earth smitten by her spear's point upsprings a pale-green olive-tree hanging thick with fruit; and the gods look on in wonder Victory crowns her work. Then, that her rival may know by pictured warnings what reward she may expect for her mad daring, she weaves in the foui corners of the web four scenes of contest, each clear with its own colours and in miniature design. One corner shows Thracian Rhodope and Haemus, now huge, bleak mountains, but once audacious mortals who dared assume the nanes of the most high gods, A second corner shows the wretched fate of the Pygmaean queen, whom Juno conquered in a strife, then changed into a crane, and bade her war upon those whom once she ruled. Again she pictures how Antigone once dared to set herself against the consort of mighty Jove, and how Queen Juno changed her into a bird; Ilium availed her nothing, nor Laomedon, her father; nay, she is clothed in white feathers, and claps her rattling bill, a stork. The remaining corner shows Cinyras bereft of his daughters; there, embracing the marble temple- steps, once their linbs, he lies on the stone, and seens to weep. The goddess then wove around her work a border of peaceful olive-wreath. This was the end; and so, with her own tree, her task was done. Arachne pictures Europa cheated by the disguise of the ull: a real bull and real waves you woul tink them. The maid seems to be looking back upon the land she has left, calling on her companions, and, fearful of the touch of the leaping waves, to be drawing back her timid feet. She wrought Asterie held by the struggling eagle; she wrought Leda, 295