The young man’s ghost stood by his disconsolate father, wearing the shadowy form of a dappled stag; but from his eyelids he poured tears of understanding and spoke with a human voice :
You sleep, my father, and you know not my fate. Wake, and recognize my unknown changeling looks ; wake, and embrace the horn of a stag you love, kiss a wild beast with understanding, one born of Autonoe’s womb! I whom you behold am that very one you brought up ; you both see Actaion and hear Actaion’s voice. If you desire to clasp your boy’s hand and fingers, look at my forefeet and you shall know my hands. If you want my head, behold the head of a stag ; if human temples, look at the long horns ; If Actaion’s feet, see the hind-hoof, If I have seen my hairy coat, it was my clothing. now your son, my father, whom Apollo did not save ! Mourn your son, my father, whom Cithairon did not protect! Cover in the sad dust your boy in disguise, and he not misled by this changeling incredible aspect, that you may not leave your dead fawn unburied and unhonoured. Father, if you had only kept me unversed in hunting ! I should never have desired the Archeress of the wilds, I should never have seen the Olympian shape. If only I had loved a mortal girl! But I left earthborn women and quick-fated wedlock to others, and I desired an immortal : the goddess was angry, and became a dinner for my dogs, father— the hills are my witnesses, or if you do not believe rocks, ask the Naiad nymphs—my trees know all, ask my wild beasts (with forms like mine) and the shepherds whom I summoned.
I do beg, my father, for one last grace : they knew not what they did, so do not kill my slayers, in your love and sorrow for your child ; pity those who slew your son, for they are not to blame—they did not mean it, they were misled by my beast-like looks to take me for a beast. What hound ever spares a stag? What man is angry with dogs for killing a fawn? How the poor creatures scamper about the hills all round, this way and that way, searching for the thing they have killed! They drop understanding tears from their eyes, and throw their forepaws round the nets with what might be an affectionate embrace, like sorrowing men, and weep over the place where lie with mournful bellings. Yes, I pray you, do not kill the mourners! It was my face, but they saw only a hairy skin ; they did not obey my prayers, they did pot stay their teeth, because they heard only the bellow of my changeling voice, and in whimpering tones questioned my cliff —’ To-day someone has stolen Actaion: tell us, Rocks, whither he plies his pricket-chasing course ? Tell us, Nymphs So the dogs; and the hill made answer, ’ What hillranging pricket hunts the pricket himself? I never heard of a stag turned stag-shooter but Actaion has changed into another shape and become a fawn with a mind, he who once killed the wild beasts—he who has the blood of the Hunter in him is hunted by a manslayer himself, by Archeress!” So shouted the cliffs to the sorrowful bounds. Often Artemis said to my hunting murderer, ’ Down, heavylabouring hound trace no more the wandering slot. Do you seek Actaion whom you carry in your belly Do you seek Actaion whom you have killed ? If you like, you shall see the orts of your meal, nothing but bones.’
“But I will tell you my fate, father, in due order. There was a long-leafy thicket, part of wild-olive, part of orchard olive. Like a fool I left Phylia’s name-fellow growth and scrambled up a handy branch of the pure olive, to spy out the naked skin of Artemis—forbidden sight! I was mad— I committed two outrageous sins, when I climbed Pallas’s tree to look on the Archeress’s body with bold eyes ; from which the danger of heavy resentment attacked Actaion, both from Artemis and from Athena. For Artemis newly sweating in the vapour of the oppressive fiery heat, after coursing her familiar game, was bathing in the pure water; and as she bathed, her brilliance shooting snowy gleams on the waters against my eyes dazzled me. You might have said the full moon of evening was flashing through the water near the refluent stream of Oceanos. The Naiads all shrieked together; Loxo cried aloud with Upis in concert, and checked her sister Hecaerge who was swimming in the calm stream. Darkness pervaded the air and covered my eyes ; I slipt down from the tree headlong into the dust, and suddenly got me a dappled shape. Instead of a human form I had a shape unknown, covered all over with hair, and the hunting-dogs all at once drove their fangs into me,
But I will not speak of all that—why should I inflict a second pain or I may cause you to groan again even in sleep. Often you passed that tree where lies what is left of Actaion ; often you went by those pitiable bones of a dappled fawn, disjointed, scattered on the ground far apart, torn from the flesh by many eaters. But I will tell you another sign of my death which you will believe. You will see my quiver and bow near the tree where the trouble began, unless the winged arrows have been transformed also, unless Artemis in her anger has changed my bow back to its native wood and transformed the quiver, Otos was happy, that he became no wandering fawn. The dogs did not rend Orion the dogmaster. Would that a scorpion had killed Actaion also with a sharp sting! I was a fool—empty rumour deceived my mind. I heard that Phoibos, the Archeress’s brother, slept with Cyrene and begat my father, and thought to draw Artemis to marriage in the family. I heard again that shining Dawn carried off Orion for a bridegroom, and Selene Endymion, and Deo embraced a mortal husband Iasion, and thought the Archeress’s mind the same.
I beg you, father, give burial to the changeling stronghorned shape, let it not be a toy for other dogs!
if you cover what is left of me in the hollowed earth, grant me this boon also: fix my bow and arrows beside my tomb, which is the honour due to the dead. But no, father, never mind bow and arrows, because Archeress delights in shafts and bends a curving bow, And ask a skilful artist to carve my changeling dappled shape from neck to feet, but let him make only my face of human form, that all may recognize my shape as false. But do not inscribe my fate, father ; for the wayfarer cannot shed a tear for fate and shape together.”
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