Pleased with
its flavor and taste, he drank so freely that he fell
asleep, and tumbling from an eminence, one of the natives
cut of his head. He left a daughter called Tristia.
The poets ordinarily attribute to Triton, the office of
calming the sea, and stilling of tempests: thus in the
Metamorphoses we read, that Neptune desiring to recall the
waters of the deluge, commanded Triton to sound his trumpet,
at the noise of which they retired to their respective
channels, and left the earth again habitable, having swept
off almost the whole human race.
This god is exhibited in the human form from the waist
upwards, with blue eyes, a large mouth, and hair matted like
wild parsley; his shoulders covered with a purple skin,
variegated with small scales, his feet resembling the fore
feet of a horse, and his lower parts terminating in a double
forked tail: sometimes he is seen in a car, with horses of a
bright cerulean. His trumpet is a large conch, or sea-shell.
There were several Tritons, but one chief over all, the
distinguished messenger of Neptune, as Mercury was of
Jupiter, and Iris of Juno. |