=146. Acheloüs and Hercules.=[195] A similar contest took place between Hercules and the river-god Acheloüs. The cause of the strife was Dejanira of Calydon, whom both heroes loved. Hercules boasted his divine descent. Acheloüs, not content with advancing his claim as lord of the mightiest and most ancient river of Greece, insinuated suspicions with regard to the value of Hercules' pretensions. Then began a mighty struggle. Finding he was no match for Hercules in the wrestler's art, Acheloüs glided away in the form of a serpent. Hercules, remarking that it was the labor of his infancy to strangle snakes,[196] clasped the neck of Acheloüs and choked him. Then Acheloüs assumed the seeming of a bull. Whereupon Hercules, seizing him by the horns, dragged his head to the ground, overthrew him, and rent one horn away. This trophy the Naiads consecrated and filled with flowers for the goddess of Plenty, who, adopting it as her symbol, named it Cornucopia. [Illustration: FIG. 114. NEREÏDS AND SEA MONSTERS] =147. Milton's Sabrina Fair.= No writer in modern times has made more graceful poetic use of the divinities of the streams than has Milton. The following song, chanted by a Spirit in invocation of "the gentle nymph" (of the poet's invention) "that with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream," is but one refrain of many caught by the poet from the far-echoing chorus of classical verse: Sabrina fair, Listen where thou art sitting Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of lilies knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair; Listen for dear honor's sake, Goddess of the silver lake, Listen and save. Listen and appear to us In name of great Oceanus. By th' earth-shaking Neptune's mace, And Tethys' grave, majestic pace, By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look, And the Carpathian wizard's hook, By scaly Triton's winding shell, And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell, By Leucothea's lovely hands, And her son that rules the strands, By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet, And the songs of Sirens sweet, By dead Parthenope's[1] dear tomb And fair Ligea's[197] golden comb, Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks, Sleeking her soft, alluring locks, By all the nymphs that nightly dance Upon thy streams with wily glance; Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head From thy coral-paven bed, And bridle in thy headlong wave, Till thou our summons answered have. Listen and save.[198] FOOTNOTES: [183] Theocritus, Idyl VI. See Andrew Lang's translation. [184] Theocritus, Idyl XI (Lang's translation). [185] Ovid, Metam. 13, 750-867. [186] Ovid, Metam. 13, 898; 14, 74; Tibullus, 3, 4-89. [187] From Keats' Endymion. [188] §§ 50, 52, and Commentary. [189] See §§ 239, 250, Adventures of Ulysses and Æneas. [190] Apollodorus, 3, 15, § 8. [191] Ovid, Metam. 4, 432-542.