Straightway he put on the features and dress of Diana and said: "Dear maid, best loved of all my followers, where hast thou been hunting to-day?" The maiden arose from her grassy couch and said: "Hail thou, my goddess, greater far than Jove, I say, though he himself should hear." Jove laughed to hear her, rejoicing to be prized more highly than himself; and he kissed her lips, not modestly, nor as a maiden kisses. When she began to tell him in what woods her hunt had been, he broke in upon her story with an embrace, and by this outrage betrayed himself. She, in truth, struggled against him with all her girlish might—hadst thou been there to see, Saturnia, thy judgment were more kind!—but whom could a girl o'ercome, or who could prevail against Jove? Jupiter won the day, and went back to the sky; she loathed the forest and the woods that knew her secret. As she retraced her path she almost forgot to take up the quiver with its arrows, and the bow she had hung up.
But see, Diana, with her train of nymphs, approaches along the slopes of Maenalus, proud of her trophies of the chase. She sees our maiden and calls to her. At first she flees in fear, lest this should be Jove in disguise again. But when she sees the other nymphs coming too, she is reassured and joins the band. Alas, how hard it is not to betray a guilty conscience in the face! She walks with downcast eyes, not, as was her wont, close to her goddess, and leading all the rest. Her silence and her blushes give clear tokens of her plight; and, were not Diana herself a maid, she could know her guilt by a thousand signs; it is said that the nymphs knew it. Nine times since then the crescent moon had grown full orbed, when the goddess, worn with the chase and over-
