n in the contest of speed. That report was no idle tale; for
she did excel them. Nor couldst thou have said, whether she was more
distinguished in the merit of her swiftness, or in the excellence of her
beauty. Upon her consulting the oracle about a husband, the God said to
her, 'Thou hast no need, Atalanta, of a husband; avoid obtaining a
husband. And yet thou wilt not avoid it, and, while {still} living, thou
wilt lose thyself.' Alarmed with the response of the God, she lives a
single life in the shady woods, and determinedly repulses the pressing
multitude of her suitors with these conditions. 'I am not,' says she,
'to be gained, unless first surpassed in speed. Engage with me in
running. Both a wife and a wedding shall be given as the reward of the
swift; death {shall be} the recompense of the slow. Let that be the
condition of the contest.' She, indeed, was cruel {in this proposal};
but (so great is the power of beauty) a rash multitude of suitors agreed
to these terms. Hippomenes had sat, as a spectator, of this unreasonable
race, and said, 'Is a wife sought by any one, amid dangers so great?'
And {thus} he condemned the excessive ardour of the youths. {But} when
he beheld her face, and her body with her clothes laid aside, such as
mine is, or such as thine would be, {Adonis}, if thou wast to become a
woman, he was astonished, and raising his hands, he said, 'Pardon me, ye
whom I was just now censuring; the reward which you contended for was
not yet known to me.'

"In commending her, he kindles the flame, and wishes that none of the
young men may run more swiftly than she, and, in his envy, is
apprehensive of it. 'But why,' says he, 'is my chance in this contest
left untried? The Divinity himself assists the daring.' While Hippomenes
is pondering such things within himself, the virgin flies with winged
pace. Although she appears to the Aonian youth to go no less swiftly
than the Scythian arrow, he admires her still more in her beauty, and
the very speed makes her beauteous. The breeze that meets her bears back
her pinions on her swift feet, and her hair is thrown over her ivory
shoulders and the leggings which are below her knees with their
variegated border, and upon her virgin whiteness her body has contracted
a blush; no otherwise than as when purple hangings[55] over a whitened
hall tint it with a shade of a similar colour. While the stranger is
observing these things, the last course is run,[56] and the victor