Anaxarete

Woman into Statue

 

Iphis courts Anaxarete without success. Depressed, he kills himself. She decides to watch his funeral procession go past her house.

 

“Scarce had she Iphis on the bier beheld,

When harden'd grew her eyes; a pallid hue

O'erspread her body as the warm blood fled.

Her feet to move for flight she try'd, her feet

Stuck fast; her face she try'd to turn away;

She could not turn it; and by small degrees

The stony hardness of her breast was spread

O'er all her limbs. Believe not that I feign,

For Salamis the figure of the nymph

Still keeps; and there a temple is high rear'd

Where Venus, the beholder, they adore.