Kitap 5
she recognized the God, and said; ‘O thou
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shalt go no further, Pluto, thou shalt not
by force alone become the son-in-law
of Ceres. It is better to beseech
a mother's aid than drag her child away!
And this sustains my word, if I may thus
compare great things with small, Anapis loved
me also; but he wooed and married me
by kind endearments; not by fear, as thou
hast terrified this girl.’ So did she speak;
and stretching out her arms on either side
“The son of Saturn blazed
with uncontrolled rage; and urged his steeds,
and hurled his royal scepter in the pool.
Cast with a mighty arm it pierced the deeps.
The smitten earth made way to Tartarus;—
it opened a wide basin and received
the plunging chariot in the midst.—But now
the mournful Cyane began to grieve,
because from her against her fountain-rights
the goddess had been torn. The deepening wound
still rankled in her breast, and she dissolved
in many tears, and wasted in those waves
which lately were submissive to her rule.
“So you could see her members waste away:
her hones begin to bend; her nails get soft;
her azure hair, her fingers, legs and feet,
and every slender part melt in the pool:
so brief the time in which her tender limbs
were changed to flowing waves; and after them
her back and shoulders, and her sides and breasts
dissolved and vanished into rivulets:
and while she changed, the water slowly filled
her faulty veins instead of living blood—
and nothing that a hand could hold remained.
“Now it befell when Proserpine was lost,
her anxious mother sought through every land
and every sea in vain. She rested not.
Aurora, when she came with ruddy locks,