- Ovid, Metamorphoses , IV , Eusden’s Tr. :— “ ‘Come, my Harmonia, come, thy face recline Down to my face: still touch what still is mine. O let these hands, while hands, be gently pressed, While yet the serpent has not all possessed.’ More he had spoke, but strove to speak in vain— The forky tongue refused to tell his pain, And learned in hissings only to complain. “Then shrieked Harmonia, ‘Stay, my Cadmus, stay! Glide not in such a monstrous shape away! Destruction, like impetuous waves, rolls on. Where are thy feet, thy legs, thy shoulders, gone? Changed is thy visage, changed is all thy frame— Cadmus is only Cadmus now in name. Ye Gods! my Cadmus to himself restore. Or me like him transform—I ask no more.’ ” And V , Maynwaring’s Tr. :— “The God so near, a chilly sweat possessed My fainting limbs, at every pore expressed; My strength distilled in drops, my hair in dew, My form was changed, and all my substance new: Each motion was a stream, and my whole frame Turned to a fount, which still preserves my name.” See also Shelley’s “Arethusa”:— “Arethusa arose From her couch of snows In the Acroceraunian mountains— From cloud and from crag With many a jag Shepherding her bright fountains.
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