Perimele Turned Into an Island
The nymph Perimele suffers violence from the river-god Achelous, and is cast into the sea by her enraged father—Neptune, in compassion, converts her into a rock.
“But yonder far, lo! yonder does appear An isle, a part to me for ever dear; From that (it sailors Perimele name) I doting, forced, by strength, a virgin’s fame. Hippodamas’s passion grew so strong, Gall’d with the abuse, and fretted at the wrong, He cast his pregnant daughter from a rock; I spread my waves beneath and broke the shock; And, as her swimming weight my stream convey’d,
I sued for help divine, and thus I pray’d: ‘O powerful thou! whose trident does command The realm of waters, which surround the land; We sacred rivers, wheresoe’er begun, End in thy lot, and to thy empire run; With favour hear, and help with present aid Her whom I bear, ’twas guilty I betray’d. Yet, if her father had been just or mild, He would have been less impious to his child;
In her, have pitied force in the abuse; In me, admitted love for my excuse: O let relief for her hard case be found, Her, whom paternal rage expell’d from ground; Her, whom paternal rage relentless drown’d. Grant her some place, or change her to a place Which I may ever clasp with my embrace.’
“His nodding head the sea’s great ruler bent, And all his waters shook with his assent: The nymph still swam, though with the fright distress’d; I felt her heart leap trembling in her breast; But, hard’ning soon, while I her pulse explore, A crusting cased her stiff body o’er; And, as accretions of new-cleaving soil Enlarged the mass, the nymph became an isle.”