Page:Metamorphoses.djvu/483

 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VII her thinness made her joints seem large, her knees were swollen, and her ankles were great bulging lumps. <« Vhen the nymph saw her in the distance (for she did not dare approach her), she delivered to her the goddess' commands. And, though she tarried but a little while, though she kept far from her and had but now arrived, still she seemed to feel the famine. Then, mounting high in air, she turned her course and drove the dragons back to Thessaly. " Famine did the bidding of Ceres, although their tasks are ever opposite, and flew through the air on the wings of the wind to the appointed mansion, Straight she entered the chamber of the impious king, who was sunk in deep slumber (for it was night); there she wrapped her skinny arms about him and filled him with herself, breathing upon his throat and breast and lips; and in his hollow veins she planted hunger. When her duty was done, she left the fertile world, and returned to the homes of want and her familiar caverns 'Still gentle Sleep, hovering on peaceful wings, soothes Erysichthon. And in his sleep he dreams of feasting, champs his jaws on nothing, wearies tooth upon tooth, cheats his gullet with fancied food; for his banquet is nothing but empty air. But when he awakes, a wild craving for food lords it in his ravenous jaws and in his burning stomach. Straightway he calls for all that sea and land and air can furnish; with loaded tables before him, he complains still of hunger; in the midst of feasts seeks other feasts. What would be enough for whole cities. enough for a whole nation, is not enough for one. The more he sends down into his maw the more he wants. And as the ocean receives the streams from a whole land 463