Prevod

Neptune’s heroic son asked the god what caused his groans and his mutilated brow, and the Calydonian river, his unadorned hair wreathed with reeds, began: “You ask a sorrowful favor. What defeated man would willingly recall his battles? Still, I shall tell it all in order. The shame of losing was less than the honor of having fought, and so great a victor offers me great consolation.

If the name of Deianira has ever reached your ears—she was once a maiden of surpassing beauty, the coveted hope of many rival suitors. With them I entered the house of the man I hoped to call my father, and said, ‘Son of Parthaon, accept me as your son-in-law.’ Alcides said the same. The others yielded to us two. He declared that he offered Jove as a father-in-law, the glory of his labors, and the fulfillment of the tasks his stepmother had imposed.

I answered, ‘It is shameful for a god to yield to a mortal’ (for he was not yet a god). ‘You see in me the king of the waters that wind their way through your dominions. I shall be no stranger sent from foreign shores to wed your daughter, but a man of your own land, a part of your own realm. Only let it not count against me that royal Juno does not hate me, and that no labors have been laid on me as punishment.

For Jove, whose son you boast yourself to be, son of Alcmena, is either falsely called your father, or truly so through sin. You claim a father at the cost of your mother’s adultery. Choose: would you rather Jove were not your father, or that your birth were shameful?’ All this while he had been watching me speak with a savage glare, scarcely mastering his blazing anger, and answered with these few words: ‘My right hand is better than my tongue.

Win with your words, so long as I win in combat.’ Then fiercely he closed with me. Ashamed to yield after my lofty words, I threw my green robe from my body, raised my arms, and held my hands spread out before my chest, taking my stance and bracing my limbs for battle. He scooped dust into his cupped hands and scattered it over me, then in turn grew yellow with the touch of tawny sand.

Now he reached for my neck, now for my darting legs, or feinted at a hold, assailing me from every side. My weight defended me; his attacks were all in vain, as waves assault a massive breakwater with a mighty roar: it stands unmoved, secure in its own weight. We drew apart a little, then came together again to fight, and stood our ground, resolved not to give way. Foot pressed against foot, and, leaning forward with all my weight, I locked fingers with his fingers, forehead against forehead.

So have I seen fierce bulls clash, when the prize they sought was the loveliest heifer in all the pasture. The herds look on in dread, not knowing which awaits the victory that will give him such dominion. Three times Alcides tried in vain to thrust my straining chest away from his; at the fourth attempt he broke my hold and freed himself from my encircling arms, then shoved me aside—I am determined to tell the truth— and swiftly turned me round, clinging heavily to my back.

Believe me, for I seek no false glory in this account: I felt as though a mountain weighed upon me. Only with difficulty did I thrust my sweat-streaming arms between us and loosen his fierce grip upon my body. He pressed me as I gasped, giving me no chance to regain my strength, and seized my neck. Then at last my knee was forced to earth, and I bit the sand. Outmatched in strength, I turned to my own arts, and slipped from his grasp by changing into a long snake.

When I had curled my body into winding coils and flickered my forked tongue with a savage hiss, the Tirynthian laughed, and mocked my arts: ‘Conquering snakes was the work of my cradle,’ he said. ‘Though you surpass all other serpents, Achelous, what fraction of the Lernaean Hydra would one snake like you make? She multiplied through her own wounds, and not one of her hundred heads could be cut off without reprisal: its neck grew stronger, with two heirs to replace it.

Yet I subdued that branching creature, whose slaughter bred fresh snakes, who flourished through her injuries, and, having subdued her, cut her open. What do you think will become of you, a counterfeit snake wielding borrowed weapons, concealed beneath a form not truly yours?’ He spoke, and fastened his fingers round the top of my neck. I choked as though my throat were gripped in pincers, and struggled to wrench my windpipe free of his thumbs.

Defeated in this shape as well, I had a third form left, that of a savage bull. Changed to a bull, I renewed the fight. He threw his arms around my bulging neck upon the left, and ran beside me as I charged, pulling me along, then forced my lowered horns into the hard earth and laid me low in the deep sand. Nor was that enough: while his savage right hand gripped one sturdy horn, he broke it, tearing it from my maimed brow.

The Naiads filled it with fruit and fragrant flowers and consecrated it: through my horn, bountiful Plenty is rich.”