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 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VII " But what charge have you to bring against the javelin itself? " asked Phocus. The other thus told what charge he had against the javelin: " My joys, Phocus, were the beginning of my woe. These I will describe first. Oh, what a joy it is, son of Aeacus, to remember the blessed time when during those first years I was happy in my wife, as I should be, and she was happy in her husband. Mutual cares and mutual love bound us together. Not Jove's love would she have preferred to mine; nor was there any woman who could lure me away from her, no, not if Venus herself should come. An equal passion burned in both our two hearts. In the early morning, when the sun's first rays touched the tops of the hills, with a young man's eagerness I used to go hunting in the woods. Nor did I take attendants with me, or horses or keen-scented dogs or knotted nets. I was safe with my javelin. But when my hand had had its fill of slaughter of wild creatures, I would come back to the cool shade and the breeze that came forth from the cool valleys. I wooed the breeze, blowing gently on me in my heat; the breeze I waited for. She was my labour's rest. 'Come, Aura,' I remember I used to cry, 'come soothe breast, most welcome one, and me; come into my , as indeed you do, relieve the heat with which I burn.' Perhaps I would add, for so my fates drew me on, more endearments, and say: 'Thou art my greatest joy; thou dost refresh and comfort me; thou makest me to love the woods and so itary places. It is ever my joy to feel thy breath upoin my face.' Some one overhearing these words was deceived by their double meaning; and, thinking that the word 'Aura' so often on my lips was nymph's name, was convinced that I was in love with 899