Book IX, 362

Delightful Alpheus, stream that nourishest the crowns of Zeus, winding with thy muddy water through the plain of Pisa, tranquil at first, but when thou reachest the sea plunging eagerly under the waves of the vast main, now made a bridegroom conducting the current of his love in a self-made channel, thou dost hie to Sicilian Arethusa to be her watery bed-fellow. Then she, taking thee to her tired and panting, wipes off the weed and the bitter flowers of the sea, and joining her lips to thine, clasping like a bride thy Olympian stream in the sweet bonds of her embrace, lulls thee to sleep lying in her bosom. ... and thy limpid fount was defiled by showers of blood, and no longer was thy heart filled with desire for thy Syracusan love, but thou didst hold back thy waters, repressed by blushing shame, saving from pollution the sea and thy bridal bed; yet, often compelled by thy longing for nuptial intercourse, wouldst thou pass the sea to thy beloved liquid bride and stand gazing at the stainless water of Arethusa. And the lovely Arethusa, looking on thee surging with tears from the Pelorian rock, would pity thee and beat her breasts, and melt like the dew on roses, the Sicilian fount responding to the lament of the river of Pisa. But he did not escape the eye of all-seeing Justice, that man of blood who mowed down the unwedded harvest of Greece, whereat many wives of the heroes wept for the short-lived children to bear whom they had suffered in vain.