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Updated: June 15, 2025
Actæon, quieting the animals, approached cautiously with bow ready to draw, and as he parted the curtain of leaves he saw in the centre of an open space enclosed by the trees his two friends Rhanto and Erotion. The boy was seated on the ground before a pile of red clay which he was carefully modeling, wrinkling his brow, and whistling intently.
Sic lare perpetuo, sic turba sospite, solus Flebilis in terra sit lapis iste tua' so prettily Englished by Leigh Hunt: 'Underneath this greedy stone Lies little sweet Erotion, Whom the Fates with hearts as cold Nipped away at six years old.
Actæon did indeed cherish them in his memory. He still retained the impression caused by the vision of the lovely shepherdess, and at the same moment his eyes searched the tattered tunic, seeking with an artist's delight the warm tones of her amber skin. But Rhanto's mind, after evoking these recollections, began again to wander. Where was Erotion? Had Actæon seen him?
She advanced slowly, raising her head at times, looking up at the men on the wall, and finally stopping at the foot of the stone steps she murmured in a supplicating voice, like the convulsive sobbing of a child: "Erotion! Erotion!"
Actæon envied the felicity of these care-free youths, who loved each other frankly, living beneath the trees, strong and beautiful as wild creatures who had no thoughts beyond their companionship. "Saguntum is about to be attacked. War is at our gates. Did you not know it?" "We have not heard of it," said Erotion, with a scornful gesture. "I am interested in nothing but Rhanto."
I love you, Rhanto! You are my last love; the flower which blooms in the winter of my life! I love you, Rhanto! I have loved you since that day when I saw you revealed like a goddess. Live and let me be your Erotion!" The girl, her face clouded by the shadow of death, smiled, murmuring: "Actæon, good Greek, thank you, thank you!"
So wrote Shirley the dramatist, and so does he truthfully explain the popularity of the epitaph as distinguished from the epigram. Who ever wearies of Martial's 'Erotion'? 'Hic festinata requiescit Erotion umbra, Crimine quam fati sexta peremit hiems. Quisquis eris nostri post me regnator agelli Manibus exiguis annua justa dato.
Erotion, as if obeying an unspoken request from his beloved, drew from his bosom a flute made of a hollow reed, and began to blow upon it softly, producing tender, pastoral music, to which the goats responded with bleating. The Greek realized that his presence was becoming undesirable to the happy lovers, for they gradually slackened their pace. "Farewell, children!
The shepherdess, completely nude, with the assurance of healthy and innocent beauty, happy in being admired, was smiling at Erotion, her cheeks flushing lightly every time the artist raised his eyes from the clay to the model. Actæon drank in with his eyes the form of her vernal body. He felt the enthusiasm of the Greeks in the presence of beauty, intensified by the ardor of manhood.
She went everywhere escorted by Erotion and Rhanto. Life in the narrow limits, and a community of danger, had drawn her to the two children, and they followed in her wake listening to her words with enthusiastic smiles, and applauding the rich woman's warlike suggestions. Rhanto was no longer a shepherdess.
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