A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

"Hear me, Arethusa!" it said. "I am Alpheus, god of the river that now
thou hast made sacred. I am the god of the rushing streams--the god of
the thundering cataracts. Where the mountain streams crash over the
rocks and echo through the shadowy hollows of the hills, I hold my
kingship. Down from Etna I come, and the fire of Etna is in my veins. I
love thee! I love but thee, and thou shalt be mine, and I thine forever."
Then Arethusa, in blind panic, fled before the god who loved her.
Through the shadowy forest she sped, while he swiftly gained upon her.
The asphodel bent under her flying feet, and the golden flowers of the
Fiori Maggio were swept aside as she fled. Yet ever Alpheus gained
upon her, until at length she felt that the chase was ended, and cried to
Diana to save her. Then a cloud, grey and thick and blinding as the mist
that wraps the mountain tops, suddenly descended and enfolded her,
and Alpheus groped for her in vain.
"Arethusa!" she heard him cry, in a voice of piteous
longing--"Arethusa!--my belovèd!"
Patiently he waited, with the love that makes uncouth things beautiful,
until at length a little breath from Zephyrus blew aside the soft grey
veil that hid his beloved from his sight, and he saw that the nymph had
been transformed into a fountain. Not for a moment did Alpheus delay,
but, turning himself into a torrent in flood, he rushed on in pursuit of
Arethusa. Then did Diana, to save her votary, cleave a way for her
through the dark earth even into the gloomy realm of Pluto himself, and
the nymph rushed onward, onward still, and then upward, until at
length she emerged again to the freedom of the blue sky and green trees,
and beheld the golden orange groves and the grey olives, the burning
red geranium flowers and the great snow-capped mountain of Sicily.
But Alpheus had a love for her that cast out all fear. Through the
terrible blackness of the Cocytus valley he followed Arethusa, and
found a means of bursting through the encumbering earth and joining
her again. And in a spring that rises out of the sea near the shore he was
able at last to mingle his waters with those of the one for whom he had
lost his godship.