Then never more would her hand touch the beloved hand of Caunos. Never more would she see the gleam of his black eyes, his dear head, and wavy hair. Never again would they sleep side by side in each other’s arms upon the same bed of leaves. The forests no longer knew his name.
An overwhelming outburst of despair made Byblis hide her face in her hands, but such an abundance of tears moistened her inflamed cheeks that she seemed to feel a miraculous spring washing away her sufferings like dead leaves upon the waters of a torrent.
The tears which had been gradually born in her, rose to her eyes, welled up, overflowed, trickled in a warm flood over her cheeks, bathed her tiny breasts and fell upon her entwined legs. She did not feel them trickle one by one between her long lashes: they were a gentle and never-ending stream, an inexhaustible flood, the outpouring of an enchanted sea.
But awakened by the moonlight the deities of the forest had gathered from every side. The bark of the trees became transparent and allowed the faces of the nymphs to be seen; and even the quivering naiads left the water and the rocks and came into the woods.
They all crowded around Byblis and spoke to her, for they were frightened because the river of the child’s tears had traced in the earth a sinuous track which was slowly extending towards the plain.
But now Byblis could hear nothing, neither voices, footsteps, nor the night wind. Her attitude little by little became eternal. Her skin had assumed beneath the deluge of tears the smooth white tint of marble washed by the waters. The wind would not have disturbed one of her hairs which were as long as her arms. She died like pure marble. A vague light still illuminated her vision. Suddenly it went out; but fresh tears still flowed from her eyes.
In that way was Byblis changed into a fountain.
There was not light enough in which to clearly see any creature or thing; it was twilight, the time of the gauzy haze that haunts our dreams.
Moonbeams were beginning to light up the blackest branches of trees: moonlight and the shine of flinching silver stars.
There were four young Corinthians reclining upon the ground near to three young men. They were deep in pleasant thought, but opened their eyes wide when the grave Melandryon said these words--