Dialogues of the Gods

1XANTHUS Take me to you, Sea, for I’ve suffered terribly. Please put a stop to my burning wounds. SEA What’s this, Xanthus? Who has burnt you? XANTHUS Hephaestus. See how I’ve been charred to cinders all over, poor thing that I am, and am at boiling point. SEA Whatever made him attack you with his fire? XANTHUS It’s all because of the son of Thetis here. He was butchering the Phrygians, and I begged him to relent from his anger, but he wouldn’t; he only blocked up my stream with their bodies. Out of pity for the poor wretches, I attacked him, hoping to swallow him in a flood, and frighten him away from them.

2XANTHUS Then Hephaestus, happening to be near, attacked me, with all the fire he had in his forge it seemed to me, yes, with all his fire in Etna, and burnt my elms and tamarisks, roasting my unhappy fish and my eels, and making me myself bubble all over, and nearly dry all up. You can see the state I’m in from my burns. SEA You’re muddy and hot, Xanthus, as is only natural, what with the blood from the bodies and the heat from that fire you’ve been talking about—and quite right too, when you had the cheek to attack my grandson†though he was the son of a Nereid! XANTHUS Was it wrong for me, then, to feel sorry for my neighbours of Phrygia? SEA Or wrong for Hephaestus to be sorry for Thetis’ son, Achilles?