d, she said, "Let her contend with me. There is nothing which, if
conquered, I should refuse {to endure}." Pallas personates an old woman;
she both places false gray hair on her temples, and supports as well her
infirm limbs by a staff. Then thus she begins to speak: "Old age has not
everything which we should avoid; experience comes from lengthened
years. Do not despise my advice; let the greatest fame for working wool
be sought by thee among mortals. {But} yield to the Goddess, and, rash
woman, ask pardon for thy speeches with suppliant voice. She will grant
pardon at my entreaty." {The other} beholds her with scowling {eyes},
and leaves the threads she has begun; and scarcely restraining her hand,
and discovering her anger by her looks, with such words as these does
she reply to the disguised Pallas: "Thou comest {here} bereft of thy
understanding, and worn out with prolonged old age; and it is thy
misfortune to have lived too long. If thou hast any daughter-in-law, if
thou hast any daughter {of thy own}, let her listen to these remarks.
I have sufficient knowledge for myself in myself, and do not imagine
that thou hast availed anything by thy advice; my opinion is {still} the
same. Why does not she come herself? why does she decline this contest?"

Then the Goddess says, "Lo! she is come;" and she casts aside the figure
of an old woman, and shows herself {as} Pallas. The Nymphs and the
Mygdonian[6] matrons venerate the Goddess. The virgin alone is not
daunted. But still she blushes, and a sudden flush marks her reluctant
features, and again it vanishes; {just} as the sky is wont to become
tinted with purple, when Aurora is first stirring, and after a short
time to grow white from the influence of the Sun. She persists in her
determination, and, from a desire for a foolish victory, she rushes upon
her own destruction. Nor, indeed, does the daughter of Jupiter decline
{it}, or advise her any further, nor does she now put off the contest.
There is no delay; they both take their stand in different places, and
stretch out two webs {on the loom} with a fine warp. The web is tied
around the beam; the sley separates the warp; the woof is inserted in
the middle with sharp shuttles, which the fingers hurry along, and being
drawn within the warp, the teeth notched in the moving sley strike it.
Both hasten on, and girding up their garments to their breasts, they
move their skilful arms, their eagerness beguiling their fatigue. Th