Greek Myth---Callisto, Yet Another Sweetheart of Jupiter`s(卡利斯忒 --朱庇特的又一位情人)
Callisto was another maiden who excited the
jealousy of Juno, and the goddess changed her into a bear. "I will take away, " said she, "that beauty with which you have captivated my husband," Down fell Callisto on her hands and knees; she tried to stretch out her arms in supplication-they were already beginning to be covered with black hair. Her hands grew rounded, became armed with
crooked claws, and served for feet; her mouth, which Jove used to praise for its beauty, became a
horrid pair of jaws; her voice, which if
unchanged would have moved the heart to pity, became a growl, more fit to inspire terror. Yet her former disposition remained, and with
continual groaning, she bemoaned her fate, and stood
upright as well as she could, lifting up her paws to beg for mercy; and felt that Jove was
unkind, though she could not tell him so. Ah, how often, afraid to stay n the woods all night alone, she wandered about the neighborhood of her former haunts; how often, frightened by the dogs, did she, so lately a huntress, fly in terror from the hunters! Often she fled from the wild beasts, forgetting that she was now a wild beast herself; and, bear as she was, was afraid of the bears.
One day a youth espied her as he was
hunting. She saw him and recognized him as her own son, mow grown a young man. She stopped and felt inclined to embrace him. As she was about to approach, he, alarmed, raised his
hunting spear, and was on the point of transfixing her, when Jupiter, beholding, arrested the crime, and snatching away both of them, placed them in the heavens as the Great and Little Bear.
Juno was in a rage to see her rival so set in honor, and hastened to ancient Tethys and Oceanus, the powers of ocean, and in answer to their inquiries, thus told the cause of her coming. "Do you ask why I, the queen of the gods, have left the
heavenly plains and sought your depths. Learn that I am supplanted in heaven-my place is given to another. You will hardly believe me; but look when night darkens the world, and you shall see the two of whom I have so much reason to complain exalted to the heavens, in that part where the circle is the smallest, in the neighborhood of the pole. Why should anyone
hereafter tremble at the thought of offending Juno, when such rewards are the consequence of my
displeasure! See what I have been able to effect! I
forbade her to wear the human form-she is placed among the stars! So do my punishments result-such is the extent of my power! Better that she should have resumed her former shape, as I permitted Io to do. Perhaps he means to marry her, and put me away! But you, my foster-parents, if you feel for me, and see with
displeasure this
unworthy treatment of me, show it, I
beseech you, by forbidding this guilty couple from coming into your waters." The powers of the ocean assented, and
consequently the two constellations of the Great and Little Bear move round and round in heaven, but never sink, as the other stars do, beneath the ocean..
最后由 Jorma 于 2006-02-28 21:42 编辑关键字:
双语阅读生词表: