Coroneus in the land of Phocis, and—nay, scorn me not—rich suitors sought me in marriage. But my beauty proved my bane. For once, while I paced, as is my wont, along the shore with slow steps over the sand's top, the god of the ocean saw me and grew hot. And when his prayers and coaxing words proved but waste of time, he offered force and pursued. I ran from him, leaving the hard-packed beach, and was quickly worn out, but all to no purpose, in the soft sand beyond. Then I cried out for help to gods and men, but my cries reached no mortal ear. But the virgin goddess heard a virgin's prayer and came to my aid. I was stretching my arms to heaven, when my arms began to darken with light feathers. I strove to cast my mantle from my shoulders, but it was feathers, too, which had already struck their roots deep into my skin. I tried to beat my bare breasts with my hands, but I found I had now neither breasts nor hands. I would run; and now the sand did not retard my feet as before, but I skimmed lightly along the top of the ground, and soon I floated on the air, soaring high; and so I was given to Minerva to be her blameless comrade. But of what use was that to me, if, after all, Nyctimene, who was changed into a bird because of her vile sins, has been put in my place? Or have you not heard the tale all Lesbos knows too well, how Nyctimene outraged the sanctity of her father's bed? And, bird though she now is, still, conscious of her guilt, she flees the sight of men and light of day, and tries to hide her shame in darkness, outcast by all from the whole radiant sky."
In reply to all this the raven said: "On your own head, I pray, be the evil that warning portends; I scorn the idle presage," continued on his way to his
