Shorter Poems 4: Description of a Herd

Not such were the beauteous herds that the land once ruled over by triple Geryon produced. Not such the bulls thou bathest, Clitumnus, in thy stream for pious vows to offer duly to Tarpeian Jove. Not such the steer that, they say, scattered the sand of Tyre what time he brought home his well-loved burden. Not the fields of Crete, nor Gnossos that knew of passion for a bull, nor Ida could have pastured the like. Even he whose monstrous figure united ill-assorted limbs, the Cretan child who by his strange form revealed his mother’s shame--even he could scarce have shown a shape so fair had all his rough limbs resembled those of his sire.