When he (whose name I do not know) was done,
and all had heard what happened to those Lycians,
another was reminded of a Satyr
who had contended with Latona’s son:
a contest on the flute (one of the sort
Minerva had invented): he who won—
Apollo—punished him. The Satyr cried:
“Why do you tear me from myself? Oh, I
repent! A flute is not worth such a price.”
He screams; the skin is flayed off all his form,
and he is but one wound; upon all sides,
his blood pours down; his sinews can be seen;
his pulsing veins glow with no veil of skin;
you could have tallied up his throbbing guts;
the fibers in his chest were clear, apparent.
The country Fauns, the woodland deities,
his brother Satyrs, and Olympus (he
whom Marsyas—even in his death throes—loved)
mourned him, as did all those who, on those slopes,
had shepherded their woolly flocks and herded
horned cattle. And the fertile soil was soaked
with tears that fell; and these, Earth gathered up
and drank them deep into her veins; then these
she changed into a watercourse and sent
Latin [373–98]
into the open air. From there the river,
within its sloping banks, ran down to sea:
it is called Marsyas—Phrygia’s clearest stream.