Book 4
an infant son of Hermes, surely his
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of Aphrodite gotten in the caves
of Ida, for the child resembled both
the god and goddess, and his name was theirs.
The years passed by, and when the boy had reached
the limit of three lustrums, he forsook
his native mountains; for he loved to roam
through unimagined places, by the banks
of undiscovered rivers; and the joy
of finding wonders made his labour light.
Leaving Mount Ida, where his youth was spent,
he reached the land of Lycia, and from thence
the verge of Caria, where a pretty pool
of soft translucent water may be seen,
so clear the glistening bottom glads the eye:
no barren sedge, no fenny reeds annoy,
no rushes with their sharpened arrow-points,
but all around the edges of that pool
the softest grass engirdles with its green.
A Nymph dwells there, unsuited to the chase,
unskilled to bend the bow, slothful of foot,
the only Naiad in the world unknown
to rapid-running Dian. Whensoever
her Naiad sisters pled in winged words,
“Take up the javelin, sister Salmacis,
take up the painted quiver and unite
your leisure with the action of the chase;”
she only scorned the javelin and the quiver,
nor joined her leisure to the active chase.
Rather she bathes her smooth and shapely limbs;
or combs her tresses with a boxwood comb,
Citorian; or looking in the pool
consults the glassed waters of effects
increasing beauty; or she decks herself
in gauzy raiment, and reposing lolls
on cushioned leaves, or grass-enverdured beds;
or gathers posies from the spangled lawns.
Now, haply as she culled the sweetest flowers
she saw the youth, and longing in her heart
made havoc as her greedy eyes beheld.
