Then Aura checked her swinging whip, and holding up the prickets with the golden bridles, brought the radiant car of her mistress to a standstill beside the stream. The goddess leapt out of the car Upis took the bow from her shoulders, and Hecaerge the quiver ; the daughters of Oceanos took off the well-strung hunting-nets, and [another took charge of] the dogs ; Loxo loosed the boots from her feet. She in the midday heat still guarded her maiden modesty in the river, moving through the water with cautious step, and lifting her tunic little by little from foot to head with the edge touching the surface, keeping the two feet and thighs close together and hiding her body as she bathed the whole by degrees.” Aura looked sideways through the water with the daring gaze of her sharp eyes unashamed, and scanned the holy frame of the virgin who may not be seen, examining the divine beauty of her chaste mistress ; virgin Aura stretched out her arms and feet at full length and swam by the side of the swimming divinity. Now Artemis lady of the hunt [stood] half visible on the river bank, and wrung out the dripping water from her hair ; Aura the maid of the hunt stood by her side, and stroked her breasts and uttered these impious words :
“Artemis, you only have the name of a virgin maid, because your rounded breasts are full and soft, a woman’s breasts like the Paphian, not a man’s like Athena, and your cheeks shed a rosy radiance ! Well, since you have a body like that desirous goddess, why not be queen of marriage as well as Cythereia with her wealth of fine hair, and receive a bridegroom into your chamber ? If it please you, leave Athena and sleep with Hermes and Ares. If it please you, take up the bow and arrows of the loves, if your passion is so strong for a quiver full of arrows. I ask pardon of your beauty, but I am much better than you. See what a vigorous body I have ! Look at Aura’s body like a boy’s, and her step swifter than Zephyros ! See the muscles upon my arms, look at my breasts, round and unripe, not like a woman. You might almost say that yours are swelling with drops of milk ! Why are your arms so tender, why are your breasts not round like Aura’s, to tell the world themselves of unviolated maidenhood ?
So she spoke in raillery ; the goddess listened downcast in boding silence. Waves of anger swelled in her breast, her flashing eyes had death in their look. She leapt up from the stream and put on her tunic again, and once more fitted the girdle upon her pure loins, offended. She betook herself to Nemesis, and found her on the heights of Tauros in the clouds, where beside neighbour Cydnos she had ended the proudnecked boasting of Typhon’s threats.’ A wheel turned itself round before the queen’s feet, signifying that she rolls all the proud from on high to the ground with the avenging wheel of justice, she the allvanquishing deity who turns the path of life. Round her throne flew a bird of vengeance, a griffin flying with wings, or balancing himself on four feet, to go unbidden before the flying goddess and show that she herself traverses the four separate quarters of the world : highcrested men she bridles with her bit which none can shake off, such is the meaning of the image, and she rolls a haughty fellow about as it were with the whip of misery, like a self-rolling wheel.” When the goddess beheld Artemis with pallid face, she knew that she was offended and full of deadly threatenings, and questioned her in friendly words :
“Your looks, Archeress, proclaim your anger. Artemis, what impious son of Earth persecutes you ? What second Typhoeus has sprung up from the ground ? Has Tityos risen again rolling a lovemad eye, and touched the robe of your untouchable mother ? Where is your bow, Artemis, where are Apollo’s arrows ? What Orion is using force against you once more ? The wretch that touched your dress still lies in his mother’s flanks, a lifeless corpse ; if any man has clutched your garments with lustful hands, grow another scorpion to avenge your girdle. If bold Otos again, or boastful Ephialtes, has desired to win your love so far beyond his reach, then slay the pretender to your unwedded virginity. If some prolific wife provokes your mother Leto, let her weep for her children, another Niobe of stone. Why should not I make another stone on Sipylos ? Is your father pestering you to marry as he did with Athena ? Surely Cronion has not promised you to Hermes for a wife, as he promised pure Athena to Hephaistos in wedlock ? But if some woman is persecuting you as one did to your mother Leto, I will be the avenger of the offended Archeress.”
She had not finished, when the puppybreeding maiden broke in and said to the goddess who saves from evil :
“Virgin all vanquishing, guide of creation, Zeus pesters me not, nor Niobe, nor bold Otos ; no Tityos has dragged at the long robes of my Leto ; no new son of Earth like Orion forces me : no, it is that sour virgin Aura, the daughter of Lelantos, who mocks me and offends me with rude sharp words. But how can I tell you all she said ? I am ashamed to describe her calumny of my body and her abuse of my breasts. I have suffered just as my mother did : we are both alike — in Phrygia Niobe offended Leto the mother of twins, in Phrygia again impious Aura offended me. But Niobe paid for it by passing into a changeling form, that daughter of Tantalos whose children were her sorrow, and she still weeps with stony eyes ; I alone am insulted and bear my disgrace without vengeance, but Aura the champion of chastity has washed no stone with tears, she has seen no fountain declaring the faults of her uncontrolled tongue. I pray you, uphold the dignity of your Titan birth. Grant me a boon like my mother, that I may see Aura’s body transformed into stone immovable ; leave not a maiden of your own race in sorrow, that I may not see Aura mocking me again and not to be turned — or let your sickle of beaten bronze drive her to madness !
She spoke, and the goddess replied with encouraging words :
“Chaste daughter of Leto, huntress, sister of Phoibos, I will not use my sickle to chastise a Titan girl, I will not make the maiden a stone in Phrygia, for I am myself born of the ancient race of Titans, and her father Lelantos might blame me when he heard : but one boon I will grant you, Archeress. Aura the maid of the hunt has reproached your virginity, and she shall be a virgin no longer. You shall see her in the bed of a mountain stream weeping fountains of tears for her maiden girdle.”
So she consoled her ; and Artemis the maiden entered her car with its team of four prickets, left the mountain and drove back to Phrygia. With equal speed the maiden Adrasteia pursued her obstinate enemy Aura. She had harnessed racing griffins under her bridle ; quick through the air she coursed in the swift car, until she tightened the curving bits of her fourfooted birds, and drew up on the peak of Sipylos in front of the face of Tantalos’s daughter with eyeballs of stone. Then she approached the haughty Aura. She flicked the proud neck of the hapless girl with her snaky whip, and struck her with the round wheel of justice, and bent the foolish unbending will. Argive Adrasteia let the whip with its vipers curl round the maiden’s girdle, doing pleasure to Artemis and to Dionysos while he was still indignant ; and although she was herself unacquainted with love, she prepared another love, after the bed of Pallene, after the loss of Ariadne — one was left in her own country, one was a stone in a foreign land like the statue of Achaian Hera — and more than all for the ill success with Beroe’s bed.
“Nemesis now flew back to snowbeaten Tauros until she reached Cydnos again. And Eros drove Dionysos mad for the girl with the delicious wound of his arrow, then curving his wings flew lightly to Olympos.
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