METAMORPHOSES BOOK IV god enters the apartments of his love, assuming the form of Eurynome, her mother. There he discovers Leucothoë, surrounded by her twelve maidens, spin- ning fine wool with whirling spindle. Then having kissed her, just as her mother would have kissed her dear daughter, he says: 'Mine is a private matter. Retire, ye slaves, and let not a mother want the right a private speech.' The slaves obey; and now th , when the last witness has left the room, declares: ' Lo, I am he who measure out the year, who behold all things, by whom the earth beholds all things the world's eve. I tell thee thou hast found favour in my sight.' The nymph is filled with fear; distaff and spindle fall unheeded from her limp fingers. Her very fear becomes her. Then he, no longer tarrying, resumes his own form and his wonted splendour. But the maiden, though in terror at this sudden apparition, yet, overwhelmed by his radiance, last without protest suffers the ardent wooing o the god.
- t Clytie was jealous, for love of the Sun still burned
uncontrolled in her. Burning now with wrath at the sight of her rival, she spread abroad the story, andi especially to the father did she tell his daughter's shame. He, fierce and merciless, unheeding her prayers, unheeding her arms stretched out to the Sun, and unheeding her cry, 'He overbore my will, with brutal cruelty buried her deep in the earth, and heaped on the spot a heavy mound of sand. The son of Hyperion rent this with his rays, and made a way by which you might put forth your buried head; but too late, for now, poor nymph, you could not lift your head, crushed beneath the heavy earth, and you lay there, a lifeless corpse. Naught more pitiful than that sight, they say, did the driver of the swift steeds 195
