Some person, maliciously officious, with retentive lips carried the words he had heard to the timid ears of his wife. Procris, when she heard the name of Aura [breeze], as though of a rival, fainted away, and with this sudden apprehension she was mute. She turned pale, just as the late leaves become wan, which the coming winter has nipped, the clusters now gathered from the vine; and as the quinces [1122] which in their ripeness are bending their boughs; and as the cornels not yet quite fit for food for man. When her senses had returned, she tore her thin garments from off her body with her nails, and wounded her guiltless cheeks. And no delay was there; raving, with dishevelled locks, she flew amid the tracks, like a Bacchanal aroused by the thyrsus. When she had come near the spot, she left her attendants in the valley; and with silent footsteps, in her boldness, she herself stealthily entered the grove. What, Procris, were thy feelings, when thus, in thy frenzy, thou didst he concealed? What the impulse of thy disquieted breast? Each moment, forsooth, wast thou expecting that she would come, whoever Aura might be, and that their criminality would be witnessed with thine eyes. Now dost thou repent of having come, for indeed thou wouldst not wish to detect him; and now thou art glad; fluctuating affection is tormenting thy breast. There is the spot, and the name, and the informant to bid thee give credence; and the fact that the lover always apprehends that to exist which he dreads. When she beheld the grass beaten down, the impress of his body, her trembling bosom was throbbing with her palpitating heart. And now midday had made the unsubstantial shadows small, and at an equal distance were the evening and the morn. Behold! Cephalus, the offspring of the Cyilenian God, [1123] returns from the woods, and sprinkles his glowing face with water of the fountain. In thy anxiety, Procris, art thou lying concealed. Along the grass he lies as wont, and says, "Ye gentle Zephyrs, and thou Aura [breeze], come hither." When the welcome mistake of the name was thus revealed to the sorrowing fair, both her senses and the real colour of her face returned. She arose; and the wife, about to rush into the embrace of her husband, by the moving of her body, shook the leaves that were in her way. He, thinking that a wild beast had made the noise, with alacrity snatched up his bow; his arrows were in his right hand. What, wretched man, art thou about? 'Tis no wild beast; keep still thy weapons. Ah wretched me! by thy dart has the fair been pierced. "Ah me!" she cries aloud, "a loving heart hast thou pierced. That spot has ever retained the wound inflicted by Cephalus. Before my time I die, but injured by no rival; this, O Earth, will make thee light when I am entombed. Now is my breath departing in the breeze that I had thus suspected; I sink, alas! close my eyes with those dear hands."