INO AND ATHAMAS, FROM OVID’S “METAMORPHOSES” 1619
Michel Fault, for Renouard's French translation of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'
From the “Metamorphoses:
“…A cliff overhung the water, carved out at its base by the breakers, and it sheltered the waves it hid, from the rain. Its summit reared up and stretched out, in front, over the water, into empty space. Ino climbed up there (madness had lent her strength) and unrestrained by fear threw herself and her burden into the sea: the wave foamed white where she fell. Venus, pitying her granddaughter’s undeserved sufferings, coaxed her uncle, saying ‘ O Neptune, god of the waters, whose power only ceases near heaven, it’s true that what I ask is great, but take pity on those who are mine, whom you see, fallen into the vast Ionian waters, and add them to your sea-gods. Some kindness is due me from the sea, if once I was made from the spume in the midst of the deep, and from that my Greek name, ‘foam-born’ Aphrodite, remains.’ Neptune accepted her prayer, and taking from them what was mortal, gave them greatness, giving them at the same time new names and forms, calling the god Palaemon, and his mother, Leucothoë, the white goddess.