Metamorphoses: A New Translation by Charles Martin
Ovid, Bernard Knox, Charles Martin
p 82 to 84
Book II
-- excerpt --
She headed straight to Envy's squalid quarters,
black with corruption, hidden deep within
a sunless valley where no breezes blow,
a sad and sluggish place, richly frigid,
where cheerful fires die upon the hearth
and fog that never lifts embraces all.
... Arriving here, the warlike maiden stood
before the house (for heaven's law denied
her entrance) and with her spear tip rapped
upon the doors, which instantly flew open,
revealing Envy at her feast of snakes,
a fitting meal for her corrupted nature:
from such a sight, the goddess turned away.
...The object of her visit sluggishly
arises from the ground where she'd been sitting,
leaving behind her interrupted dinner
of half-eaten reptiles. Stiffly she advances,
and when she sees the beauty of the goddess
and of her armor, she cannot help but groan,
and makes a face, and sighs a wretched sigh.
...Then she grows pale, and her body shrivels up.
Her glance is side wise and her teeth are black;
her nipples drip with poisonous green bile,
and venom from her dinner coats her tongue;
nor does she know, disturbed by wakeful cares,
the benefits of slumber; when she beholds
another's joy, she falls into decay,
and rips down only to be ripped apart,
herself the punishment for being her.
...Although the goddess hated Envy, she
addressed her nonetheless with these few words:
"Infect one of the daughters of the Cecrops.
That is the task. Aglauros is the one."
With not another word, the goddess fled,
placing the tip of her spear against the ground
and using it to vault back up to heaven.
...Muttering sourly beneath her breath,
she eyes the fleeing goddess with distrust,
already saddened by Minerva's joy.
She takes her staff, bristling with thorns,
and sets off in a mantle of black clouds,
flicking the heads off flowers as she passes,
blighting the grasses and destroying trees,
her breath polluting houses, cities, states.
...At last she sees the city of the goddess;
its wealth, its work, its joyous flourishing
and peaceful temper all affect her so,
she's scarcely able to prevent herself
from weeping -- for there's nothing here to weep for.