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 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VII goddess was provoked and exclaimed: 'Cease your complaints, ungrateful boy; keep your Procris ! but, if my mind can foresee at all, you will come to wish that you had never had her'; and in a rage she sent me back to her. As I was going home, and turned over in my mind the goddess' warning, I began to fear that my wife herself had not kept her marriage vows. Her beauty and her youth made me fear unfaithfulness but her character forbade that fear. Still, I had been absent long, and she from whom I was returning was herself an example of unfaithfulness; and besides, we lovers fear every- thing. I decided to make a cause for grievance and to tempt her chaste faith by gifts. Aurora helped me in this jealous undertaking and changed my form; (I seemed to feel the change). And so, unrecognizable I entered Athens, Pallas' sacred city, and went into my house, The household itself was blameless, showed no sign of aught amiss, was only anxious for its lost lord With much difficulty and by a thousand wiles I gained the presence of Erechtheus' daughter; and when I looked upon her my heart failed me and I almost abandoned the test of her fidelity which I had planned. I scarce kept from confessing the truth, from kissing her as was her due. She was sad; but no woman could be more beautiful than was she in her sadness. She was all grief with longing for the husband who had been torn away from her. Imagine, Phocus, how beautiful she was, how that grief itself became her. Why should I tell how often her chastity repelled my temptations? To every plea she said: ' I keep myself for one alone. Wherever he is I keep my love for one.' What husband in his senses would not have found that test of her fidelity enough? But I was not content and strove on to my own undoing! 393