the cause of my
misfortune; for while I was passing with slow steps along the sea-shore,
on the surface of the sand, as I was wont {to do}, the God of the Ocean
beheld me, and was inflamed; and when he had consumed his time to no
purpose, in entreating me with soft words, he prepared {to use}
violence, and followed me. I fled, and I left the firm shore, and
wearied myself in vain on the yielding sand. Then I invoked both Gods
and men; but my voice did not reach any mortal. A virgin was moved for a
virgin, and gave me assistance. I was extending my arms toward heaven;
{when those} arms began to grow black with light feathers. I struggled
to throw my garments from off my shoulders, but they were feathers, and
had taken deep root in my skin. I tried to beat my naked breast with my
hands, but I had now neither hands nor naked breast. I ran; and the sand
did not retard my feet as before, and I was lifted up from the surface
of the ground. After that, being lifted up, I was carried through the
air, and was assigned, as a faultless companion, to Minerva. Yet what
does this avail me, if Nyctimene, made a bird for a horrid crime, has
succeeded me in my honor?"

[Footnote 71: _Two-shaped._--Ver. 555. Cecrops is here so called,
and in the Greek, +diphues+ from the fact of his having been born
in Egypt, and having settled in Greece, and was thus to be
reckoned both as an Egyptian, and in the number of the Greeks.]

EXPLANATION.

Ericthonius was fabled to be the son, or foster-child, of Athene, or
Minerva, perhaps because he was the son of the daughter of Cranaus,
who had the name of Athene, by a priest of Vulcan, which Divinity was
said to have been his progenitor. St. Augustine alleges that he was
exposed, and found in a temple dedicated to Minerva and Vulcan. His
name being composed of two words, +eris+ and +chthon+, signifying
'contention,' and 'earth,' Strabo imagines that he was the son of
Vulcan and the Earth. But it seems that the real ground on which he
was called by that name was, that he disputed the right to the crown
of Athens with Amphictyon, on the death of Cranaus, the second king.
Amphictyon prevailed, but Ericthonius succeeded him. To hide his legs,
which were deformed, he is said to have invented chariots; though that
is not likely, as Egypt, from which Greece had received many colonies,
was acquainted with the use of them from the earliest times. He is
also said