They both started; he, by one stride, first, For she half pitied him so beautiful, Running to meet his death, yet was resolved To conquer: soon she near'd him, and he felt The rapid and repeated gush of breath Behind his shoulder. From his hand now dropt A golden apple: she lookt down and saw A glitter on the grass, yet on she ran. He dropt a second; now she seem'd to stoop: He dropt a third; and now she stoopt indeed: Yet, swifter than a wren picks up a grain Of millet, rais'd her head: it was too late, Only one step, only one breath, too late. Hippomenes had toucht the maple goal With but two fingers, leaning pronely forth. She stood in mute despair; the prize was won. Now each walkt slowly forward, both so tired, And both alike breathed hard, and stopt at times. When he turn'd round to her, she lowered her face Cover'd with blushes, and held out her hand, The golden apple in it. "Leave me now," Said she, "I must walk homeward." He did take The apple and the hand. "Both I detain," Said he, "the other two I dedicate To the two Powers that soften virgin hearts, Eros and Aphrodite; and this one To her who ratifies the nuptial vow." She would have wept to see her father weep; But some God pitied her, and purple wings (What God's were they?) hovered and interposed.[133] But the oracle was yet to be fulfilled. The lovers, full of their own happiness, after all, forgot to pay due honor to Aphrodite, and the goddess was provoked at their ingratitude. She caused them to give offense to Cybele. That powerful goddess took from them their human form: the huntress heroine, triumphing in the blood of her lovers, she made a lioness; her lord and master a lion,--and yoked them to her car, where they are still to be seen in all representations in statuary or painting of the goddess Cybele. =104 Hero and Leander= were star-crossed lovers of later classical fiction.[134] Although their story is not of supernatural beings, or of events necessarily influenced by supernatural agencies, and therefore not mythical in the strict sense of the word, it deserves to be included here both because of its pathetic beauty and its long literary tradition. The poet Marlowe puts the story into English thus: