The woman did the new solution hear: The man diffides in his own augury, And doubts the gods; yet both resolve to try. Descending from the mount, they first unbind Their vests, and veil’d, they cast the stones behind: The stones (a miracle to mortal view, But long tradition makes it pass for true) Did first the rigour of their kind expel, And suppled into softness as they fell; Then swell’d, and swelling by degrees, grew warm, And took the rudiments of human form. Imperfect shapes: in marble such are seen, When the rude chisel does the man begin; While yet the roughness of the stone remains, Without the rising muscles and the veins. The sappy parts, and next resembling juice, Were turn’d to moisture, for the body’s use; Supplying humours, blood, and nourishment; The rest, too solid to receive a bent, Converts to bones; and what was once a vein, Its former name and nature did retain. By help of power divine, in little space, What the man threw assumed a manly face, And what the wife, renew’d the female race.