Afterwards from the bed of Aristaios and Autonoe, arose Actaion. His passion was for the - rocks ; and having in him the blood of the Hunter, he took the mould of his huntsman father, and became a mountainranging servant of Artemis—no wonder) that ill-fated Actaion learnt the practice of the chase, when he was born grandson to lion-slaying Cyrene. Never a bear escaped him on the hills; not even the baneful eye of the lioness with young could make his heart flutter. Many a time he lay in wait for the panther, and laid her low as she leapt on him high in air. Shepherd Pan would ever gaze at him over the bushes with wondering eyes, while he outstripped the running of the swift stag. But his running feet availed him nothing, his quiver helped him not, nor the straight shot, the cunning of the chase: but the Portioner destroyed him, a scampering fawn worried by dogs, while still breathing battle after the Indian war. For as he sat up in a tall oak tree amid the spreading boughs, he had seen the whole body of He Arron bathing : and gazing greedily on the goddess that none may see, he surveyed inch by inch the holy body of the unwedded virgin close at hand. A Naiad nymph unveiled espied him from afar with a sidelong look, as he stared with stolen glances on the unclothed shape of her queen, and shrieked in horror, telling her queen the wild daring of a lovesick man. Artemis half revealed caught up her dress and encircling shawl, and covered her modest breasts with the maiden zone in shame, and sank with gliding limbs into the water, until by little and little all her form was hidden,
Actaion heavy-fated! At once your manly shape was gone—four feet had cloven hooves—long cheeks drew out on your jawbones—your legs became thinner —two long bur of wide-branching antlers curved over your forehead—a borrowed shape, its body all covered with hair, dappled every limb with motley spots—a windswift fawn had nothing of you left but the mind With quick-faring leap of the hoof he ran through the unfriendly forest, a hunter in terror of hunters. But in this new shape his dogs no longer knew their former master, angry Archeress in resentment maddened them with a nod—there was no escape; infuriated with wild frenzy, they whetted the double row of their fawn-killing teeth, and deceived by the false appearance of a stag they devoured the dappled changeling body in senseless fury. But that was not all the goddess meant : the dogs were to tear Actaion slowly to pieces with their jaws little by little, while breathing still and in his right mind, that she might torment his mind even more with sharper pains. So he with a man’s feeling groaned for his own fate, while he cried aloud in a lamentable voice : Happy Teiresias ! You saw without destruction the naked body of Athena, reluctant but pitiful. You did not die you did not get the shape of stag, no poking horns raised themselves on your brow, You lost the light of your eyes, but you five and the brilliancy of the eyes Athena transplanted - to your mind. Archeress is more deadly in anger than Tritogeneia. O that she had given me a pain like that! O that she also had attacked the eyes, as Athena did! O that she had transformed my mind with my form—for I have the alien shape of a beast, yet a man’s feeling is in me! Do beasts ever lament their own death? They live without thought, and know not their end. I alone keep a sensible mind perishing : I drop intelligent tears, under the brows of a beast I Now for the first time, my hounds, you are really wild ; when before have you hunted a lion with frenzied leap like this!
Sing a dirge for Actaion, my beloved hills ! Yes I beseech you, and the beasts do the like! Cithairon, tell Autonoe what you know ; with story tears describe to Aristaios my father, my end and the maddened hounds unmerciful. O dreadful fate ! With my own hands I fed my murderers! If only a hillranging lion had brought me low, if only a dappleback panther had dragged me and torn me, if only furious bears had pierced me about with sharp merciless claws, and feasted on the seeming fawn with flashing jaws, not my own familiar hounds had brought me down : no longer they know my shape, no longer the voice with a sound so strange !
Half dead he spoke, and as he prayed, the cruel hound did not understand the prayers poured out in sorrow with the voice of a beast ; the stories he told had meaning, but instead of a human voice, only a noise of unmeaning sound rang out.
Already Rumour self born had flown from the hills to Autonoe, proclaiming her son’s fate torn to pieces by his dogs : not indeed that he had donned the thick-haired shape of a stag, only that he was dead. His mother in her passionate love, unshod, unveiled, was scourged by grief. She tore her hair, she rent all her smock, she scored her cheeks with her nails in sorrow till they were red with blood ; baring her bosom, she reddened the lifegiving round of the breasts which had nursed her children, in memory of her son; over her sorrowing face the tears ran in a ceaseless flood and drenched her robes, Actaion’s hounds returning from the mountain confirmed the tidings of woe, for they revealed the young man’s end by their silent tears. When the mother saw their mourning she wailed louder still. Cadmos shore off his hoary hair, Harmonia cried aloud ; the whole house resounded heavy-booming with the noise of women wailing in concert.
Autonoe along with Aristaios her husband went in search of the scattered remains of the dead. She saw her son, but knew him not; she beheld the shape of a dappled deer and saw no aspect of a man. Often she passed the bones of a fawn unrecognized, lying on the ground, and did not understand ; for her boy was dead, and she looked to find a human shape. I blame not unhappy Autonoe. The relies of her son which met eyes were of alien shape ; she noticed the jaws of a face unrecognized and did not see the circle of his countenance, touched horns and did not know a son’s temples, found slim legs and did not trace his feet, saw slim legs and saw not the rounded boots. I blame not unhappy Autonoe ; she saw not the human eyes of him that was gone, she saw no image of a shape, she saw not the well-known chin marked with the dark flower of bloom. Passing over the forest ridges with wandering feet, she trod the rough back of the rugged hill, unshod, with loosened robe, and returned home from the mountainranging task; grieving for her unsuccessful cares she fell asleep at last beside her husband, unhappy father were haunted by shadowy dreams, their eyes glimpsing the wing of a nightingale sleep.
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