Page:Metamorphoses.djvu/57

 which she had snared, vying with the virgin Phoebe. A single fillet bound her locks all unarranged. Many sought her; but she, averse to all suitors, impatient of control and without thought for man, roamed the pathless woods, nor cared at all what Hymen, love, or wedlock might be. Often her father said: "Daughter, you owe me a son-in-law"; and often: "Daughter, you owe me grandsons." But she, hating the wedding torch as if it were a thing of evil, would blush rosy red over her fair face, and, clinging around her father's neck with coaxing arms, would say: "O father, dearest, grant me to enjoy perpetual virginity. Her father has already granted this to Diana." He, indeed, yielded to her request. But that beauty of thine, Daphne, forbade the fulfilment of thy desire, and thy form fitted not with thy prayer. Phoebus loves Daphne at sight, and longs to wed her; and what he longs for, that he hopes; and his own gifts of prophecy deceive him. And as the stubble of the harvested grain is kindled, as hedges burn with the torches which some traveller has chanced to put too near, or has gone off and left at break of day, so was the god consumed with flames, so did he burn in all his heart, and feed his fruitless love on hope. He looks at her hair hanging down her neck in disarray, and says: "What if it were arrayed?" He gazes at her eyes gleaming like stars, he gazes upon her lips, which but to gaze on does not satisfy. He marvels at her fingers, hands, and wrists, and her arms, bare to the shoulder; and what is hid he deems still lovelier. But she flees him swifter than the fleeting breeze, nor does she stop when he calls after her: "O nymph, O Peneus' daughter, stay! I who pursue thee am no enemy. Oh stay! So does the lamb flee from the wolf; the deer from the lion; so do doves on fluttering wing flee from the eagle; so every 37