Читать книгу Metamorphoses - Ovid - Страница 45

Jupiter, pursuing Io, the daughter of Inachus, covers the earth with darkness, and ravishes the Nymph.

There is a grove of Hæmonia,88 which a wood, placed on a craggy rock, encloses on every side. They call it Tempe;89 through this the river Peneus, flowing from the bottom of mount Pindus,90 rolls along with its foaming waves, and in its mighty fall, gathers clouds that scatter a vapor like thin smoke,91 and with its spray besprinkles the tops of the woods, and wearies places, far from near to it, with its noise. This is the home, this the abode, these are the retreats of the great river; residing here in a cavern formed by rocks, he gives law to the waters, and to the Nymphs that inhabit those waters. The rivers of that country first repair thither, not knowing whether they should congratulate, or whether console the parent; the poplar-bearing Spercheus,92 and the restless Enipeus,93 the aged Apidanus,94 the gentle Amphrysus,95 and Æas,96 and, soon after, the other rivers, which, as their current leads them, carry down into the sea their waves, wearied by wanderings. Inachus97 alone is absent, and, hidden in his deepest cavern, increases his waters with his tears, and in extreme wretchedness bewails his daughter Io as lost; he knows not whether she now enjoys life, or whether she is among the shades below; but her, whom he does not find anywhere, he believes to be nowhere, and in his mind he dreads the worst.

Jupiter had seen Io as she was returning from her father’s stream, and had said, “O maid, worthy of Jove, and destined to make I know not whom happy in thy marriage, repair to the shades of this lofty grove (and he pointed at the shade of the grove) while it is warm, and while the Sun is at his height, in the midst of his course. But if thou art afraid to enter the lonely abodes of the wild beasts alone, thou shalt enter the recesses of the groves, safe under the protection of a God, and that a God of no common sort; but with me, who hold the sceptre of heaven in my powerful hand; me, who hurl the wandering lightnings—Do not fly from me;” for now she was flying. And now she had left behind the pastures of Lerna,98 and the Lircæan plains planted with trees, when the God covered the earth far and wide with darkness overspreading, and arrested her flight, and forced her modesty.