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the vine-bearing Massie mount throws back to Gaurus the echoes that scatter on every side. Quiet Cyme marvels at the noise, and the Liternian lake and sluggish Savo.

But Vulturnus,^[1] his yellow head and wide-flung watery tresses entangled in soft sedge, raises his face and leaning against the mighty arch of Caesar’s bridge pours out from his strident throat such words as these: “Gracious benefactor of my plains, who, while I poured o’er trackless vales nor knew how to dwell within my banks didst bind me by the law of a strict channel, now do I, that turbulent and dangerous stream, who once scarce brooked frail vessels, already endure a bridge, and am trodden by travellers underfoot; I who was wont to whirl forest and field to ruin, shame on me! am beginning to be a river. But I give thee thanks, and my servitude is worth the while, because under thy rule and at thy command I have yielded, and because thou wilt be read of perpetually as supreme lord and conqueror of my bank. And now thou honourest me with splendid embankments,^[2] nor sufferest me to be foul, and far and wide dost purge away the evil shame of barren soil; so that the gulf of the Tyrrhenian sea need not cleanse my muddy, sky-polluting stream, like to Cinyphian Bagrada crawling between silent banks through Punic fields: nay, so brightly shall I flow that I shall challenge the calm sea with my sparkling current, or neighbouring Liris with my unstained waters.”