When the sisters are silent, Alcithoë is called on next. Standing there, running her shuttle through the threads on her loom, she said ‘I will say nothing of that well-known story, the love ofDaphnis, the Idaean shepherd-boy, whom a nymph, angered by a rival, turned to stone: so great is the pain that inflames lovers. Neither will I tell you how, the laws of nature conspiring to alter,Sithon became of indeterminate sex, now man, now woman: how Celmis, you too, now changed to steel, were a most loyal friend to the infant Jupiter: how the Curetes were born from vast showers of rain: how Crocus and Smilax were turned into tiny flowers. I will reject all those, and charm your imaginations with a sweet, new story.
‘Now you will hear where the pool of Salmacis got its bad reputation from, how its enervating waters weaken, and soften the limbs they touch. The cause is hidden, but the fountain’s effect is widely known. The Naiads nursed a child born of Hermes, and a goddess, Cytherean Aphrodite, in Mount Ida’s caves. His features were such that, in them, both mother and father could be seen: and from them he took his name, Hermaphroditus." - The Metamorphoses
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