but no
daughters, exposed her, on her birth, in a desert, that she might
perish. A she-bear found the infant, and nourished it, until it was
discovered by some hunters. As the damsel grew up, she made hunting
her favourite pursuit, and slew two Centaurs, who offered her
violence, with her arrows. On her parents pressing her to marry, she
consented to be the wife of that man only who could outrun her, on
condition that those who were conquered by her in the race should be
put to death. Several of her suitors having failed in the attempt,
one of the name of Melanion, by using a similar stratagem to that
attributed by Ovid to Hippomenes, conquered her in the race, and
became her husband. Having profaned the temple of Jupiter, they were
transformed, Melanion into a lion, and Atalanta into a lioness.
According to Apollodorus, her father's name was Iasius, though in
his first book he says she was the daughter of Schoeneus. He also
says that she was the same person that was present at the hunt of
the Calydonian boar, though other writers represent them to have
been different personages. Euripides makes Maenalus to have been the
name of her father.

Atalanta had by Melanion, or, as some authors say, by Mars, a son
named Parthenopaeus, who was present at the Theban war. AElian gives a
long account of her history, which does not very much differ from
the narrative of Apollodorus.

FABLE X. [X.708-739]

Adonis being too ardent in the pursuit of a wild boar, the beast
kills him, on which Venus changes his blood into a flower of crimson
colour.

"She, indeed, {thus} warned him; and, harnessing her swans, winged her
way through the air; but his courage stood in opposition to her advice.
By chance, his dogs having followed its sure track, roused a boar, and
the son of Cinyras pierced him, endeavouring to escape from the wood,
with a wound from the side. Immediately the fierce boar, with his
crooked snout, struck out the hunting-spear, stained with his blood, and
{then} pursued him, trembling and seeking a safe retreat, and lodged his
entire tusks in his groin, and stretched him expiring on the yellow
sand.

"Cytherea, borne in her light chariot[64] through the middle of the air,
had not yet arrived at Cyprus upon the wings of her swans. She
recognized afar his groans, as he was dying, and turned her white birds
in that direction. And when, from the lofty sky, she beheld him