Ovid’s Metamorphoses #054/111: “Achelous and Hercules”

What this project is about.  

This one is from Book 9.

How long it took to read this (aloud): 5 mins 44s

What it’s “about”: Theseus is still yakking with Achelous, who tells of losing a fight for the right to marry against Hercules (before he had become immortal)

Words I didn’t know: none

Quotable quotes: 

The river thrust lank reeds around his curls 

And said, “It’s a sad story, hard to tell — 

Which one of us likes to talk about his failures? 

I’ll tell the truth and nothing but the truth, 

For if one does fail, there’s a touch of glory 

In having tried at all.

AND

And as he spoke 

He seized my throat, and as my jaws fell open 

I felt his iron hands. I sloughed my skin 

To take my third disguise — a raging bull 

That charged him where he stood. At my left side 

He threw an arm around me, kept in step 

As though he raced a circus course with me, 

Then with full weight he heaped himself upon me, 

My neck bent double, the left hom fast in earth, 

My left side burned in the sand. Nor was he done. 

His murderous right hand plucked at my right horn 

And tore it root and bone from my poor forehead.

How it lands to my eco-sensibility: xx

Obvious allusions, ways it was used (that I am aware of already) : xx

What I know I didn’t ‘get’: xx

To my knowledge, who’s used it why/how (RACC): xx

Further research questions: xx

Anything else: xx