Metamorphoses

Ovid

Ovid. Metamorphoses. More, Brookes, translator. Boston: Cornhill Publishing Co., 1922.

  1. The merit of Aeneas now had moved
  2. the gods. Even Juno stayed her lasting hate,
  3. when, with the state of young Iulus safe,
  4. the hero son of Cytherea was
  5. prepared for heaven. In a council of the gods
  6. Venus arose, embraced her father's neck,
  7. and said: “ My father, ever kind to me,
  8. I do beseech your kind indulgence now;
  9. grant, dearest, to Aeneas, my own son
  10. and also your own grandson, grant to him
  11. a godhead power, although of lowest class,
  12. sufficient if but granted. It is enough
  13. to have looked once upon the unlovely realm.
  14. And once to have gone across the Stygian streams.”
  15. The gods assented, and the queen of Jove
  16. nodded consent with calm, approving face.
  17. The father said, “You well deserve the gift,
  18. both you who ask it, and the one for whom
  19. you ask it: what you most desire is yours,
  20. my daughter.” He decreed, and she rejoiced
  21. and thanked her parent. Borne by harnessed doves
  22. over and through the light air, she arrived
  23. safe on Laurentine shores: Numicius there
  24. winds through his tall reeds to the neighboring sea
  25. the waters of his stream: and there she willed
  26. Numicius should wash perfectly away
  27. from her Aeneas every part that might
  28. be subject unto death; and bear it far
  29. with quiet current into Neptune's realm.
  30. The horned Numicius satisfied the will
  31. of Venus; and with flowing waters washed
  32. from her Aeneas every mortal part,
  33. and sprinkled him, so that the essential part
  34. of immortality remained alone,
  35. and she anointed him, thus purified,
  36. with heavenly essence, and she touched his face
  37. with sweetest nectar and ambrosia mixt,
  38. thereby transforming him into a god.
  39. The throng of the Quirini later named
  40. the new god Indiges, and honored him.