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Updated: June 2, 2025
"No, for that very resemblance affrights me; I should have liked something more in the manner of the Venus of Milo or Capua; but this chase-loving Diana continually surrounded by her nymphs gives me a sort of alarm lest she should some day bring on me the fate of Actaeon."
All were in the condition in which Actaeon saw Diana, when "all undrest the shining goddess stood," though they did not, when discovered, glow with: "such blushes as adorn The ruddy welkin or the purple morn." Indeed, they appeared to be quite unaware that there was anything remarkable about their deficiency of clothing.
The constant change of landscape which attends even the slow progress of a loitering gait puts one on the alert for discoveries of all kinds, and prompts one to suspect every leafy covert and to peer into every wooded recess with the expectation of surprising Nature as Actaeon surprised Diana in the moment of uncovered loveliness.
"I shall send an arrow through his heart, or change him into a stag, as I did Actaeon, if he peeps from behind the trees!" "Me take his scalp!" cried the Indian chief, brandishing his tomahawk, and cutting a great caper in the air. "I'll root him in the earth with a spell that I have at my tongue's end!" squeaked Moll Pitcher.
The ceiling was painted blue and flecked with golden stars, whilst the walls were hung with deep blue tapestries on which was figured in grey and brownish red a scene which, I was subsequently to learn, represented the metamorphosis of Actaeon. At the moment I did not look too closely. The figures of Diana in her bath with her plump attendant nymphs caused me quickly to withdraw my bashful eyes.
What generous, ardent, imaginative soul has not a secret pleasure-place in which it disports? Let no clumsy prying or dull meddling of ours try to disturb it in our children. Actaeon was a brute for wanting to push in where Diana was bathing. Leave him occasionally alone, my good madam, if you have a poet for a child. Even your admirable advice may be a bore sometimes.
While they held their master, the rest of the pack came up and buried their teeth in his flesh. He groaned, not in a human voice, yet certainly not in a stag's, and falling on his knees, raised his eyes, and would have raised his arms in supplication, if he had had them. His friends and fellow-huntsmen cheered on the dogs, and looked everywhere for Actaeon, calling on him to join the sport.
But a fatality hung over the family of Cadmus in consequence of his killing the serpent sacred to Mars. Semele and Ino, his daughters, and Actaeon and Pentheus, his grandchildren, all perished unhappily, and Cadmus and Harmonia quitted Thebes, now grown odious to them, and emigrated to the country of the Enchelians, who received them with honor and made Cadmus their king.
To the least of these he confided that he wanted his sister, when she innocently piloted him to the school-room, where Wilmet, with her hat on, was keeping guard over three victims detained by unfinished tasks. Every one gazed at him as if he had been a sort of Actaeon; but nothing daunted, he answered his sister's anxious exclamation.
The prospect was so little encouraging to the associates that they were glad when the Intendant bade them cheer up and remember that all was not lost that was in danger. "Philibert would yet undergo the fate of Actaeon, and be torn in pieces by his own dog."
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