>>6551761Actaeon, grandson of Cadmus who founded Thebes.
He stumbled upon the goddess Artemis at Noon as the sun reached it's zenith and was beginning it’s march to night and death.
After a morning hunting his party weary. While they rested Actaeon grew bored and followed his ideal contemplations into the forest. He wandered deep and chanced upon a thickness of cypress and pine, their branches interwoven fast. He penetrated into the thickness, groping blinding pulling bows aside. At last the limbs relented and he stumbled forward into glade.
Cool soft grass matted the forest floor and sloped down forming the bed of a crystalline pool. Here were Nymphs pouring water from silver pitchers over the goddess Artemis. Her weapons and clothes lay to the side and as the water streamed over her skin Actaeon could not bare to look away.
Startled the nymphs shrieked and cast their bodies to shield the naked goddess. Artemis, looking for her bow and found only water and flung it at Actaeon crying “Now go and boast that you have seen a goddess in the nude”!
As the water hit his skin it grew soft fur. He felt his neck become great and his head grow heavy, his arms grow long and his hands and feet turn into hooves. Turning in terror he marveled at how swift he moved. Stopping to breath and drink he knelt over a pool and fell back in surprise for he saw not his own reflection but the magnificent antlers and head of a great stag.
Barking in the distance and joy at the sound of his hunting hounds, steadfast and loyal, quickly turned to horror. He fled but his hounds had his scent and he was caught and finished off by his companions when they arrived.
Artemis was now at ease.
