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METAMORPHOSES BOOK II

she was now a bear; with constant moanings she shows her grief, stretches up such hands as are left her to the heavens, and, though she cannot speak, still feels the ingratitude of Jove. Ah, how often, not daring to lie down in the lonely woods, she wandered before her home and in the fields that had once been hers! How often was she driven over the rocky ways by the baying of hounds and, huntress though she was, fled in affright before the hunters! Often she hid at sight of the wild beasts, forgetting what she was; and, though herself a bear, shuddered at sight of other bears which she saw on the mountain-slopes. She even feared the wolves, although her own father, Lycaon, ran with the pack.

And now Arcas, Lycaon's grandson, had reached his fifteenth year, ignorant of his mother's plight. While he was hunting the wild beasts, seeking out their favourite haunts, hemming the Arcadian woods with his close-wrought nets, he chanced upon his mother, who stopped still at sight of Arcas, and seemed like one that recognized him. He shrank back at those unmoving eyes that were fixed for ever upon him, and feared he knew not what; and when she tried to come nearer, he was just in the act of piercing her breast with his wound-dealing spear. But the Omnipotent stayed his hand, and together he removed both themselves and the crime, and together caught up through the void in a whirlwind, he set them in the heavens and made them neighbouring stars.

Then indeed did Juno's wrath wax hotter still when she saw her rival shining in the sky, and straight went down to Tethys, venerable goddess of the sea, and to old Ocean, whom oft the gods hold in reverence. When they asked her the cause of her coming, she began: "Do you ask me why I, the