Jupiter, an eagle swooped and
bore him down through darkness into a mossy jasmine-bower. With a sense
of ecstasy, chequered by an unsatisfied longing for his unknown love,
Endymion prepared himself to sleep:

"And, just into the air
Stretching his indolent arms, he took, O bliss!
A naked waist. 'Fair Cupid, whence is this?'
A well-known voice sighed, 'Sweetest, here am I!'"

The lovers indulged their passion in kisses and caresses; he urgent to
know who she might be, and she confessing herself a goddess hitherto
awful in loveless chastity, but not naming herself, though perhaps her
avowals were sufficiently indicative,[19] and she promised to exalt him
ere long to Olympus. The rapturous interview ended with the sleep of
Endymion, and awaking he found himself alone. He strayed out, and
reached an enormous grotto. Two springs of water gushed forth--the
springs of Arethusa and Alpheus, whose loves found voice in words.
Endymion, sending up a prayer for their union, stepped forward and found
himself beneath the sea.

_Book 3._ Soothed by a moonbeam which greeted him through the waters,
Endymion pursued his course. Upon a rock within the sea he encountered
an old, old man, with wand and book. The ancient man started up as from
a trance, declaring that he should now be young again and happy. This
was Glaucus, who imparted to Endymion the story of his ill-omened love
for Scylla (it is told at considerable length, but need not be detailed
here), the witchcraft of Circe which had doomed him to a ghastly marine
life of a thousand years, and how, after a shipwreck, he came into
possession of a book of magic, which revealed to him that at some
far-off day a youth should make his appearance and break the accursed
spell. In Endymion, Glaucus recognized the predicted youth. Glaucus then
led Endymion to an edifice in which he had preserved the corpse of
Scylla, and thousands of other corpses, being those of lovers who had
been shipwrecked during his many cycles of sea-dwelling doom. Glaucus
tore his scroll into fragments, bound his cloak round Endymion, and
waved his wand nine times. He then instructed Endymion to unwind a
tangled thread, read the markings on a shell, break the wand against a
lyre, and strew the fragments of the scroll upon Glaucus himself, and
upon the dead bodies. As the final act was performed, Glaucus resumed
his youth, and Scylla and the drowned lovers returned to life. The