the son of Ixion denied the gods' power to grant or take away forms. In response, Lelex, another of Theseus' companions, sought to instill the reality of divine power in his listeners by citing the example of Jupiter and Mercury. He told how Jupiter and Mercury, appearing in human form in Phrygia, were honorably received by Philemon and his wife Baucis. The gods granted them whatever they might ask of the divine. The other townspeople, who had refused hospitality to the gods, were punished by having their town turned into a lake. But the home of Philemon and Baucis was transformed into a temple, and when they reached the end of their long lives, they themselves turned into trees—he into an Oak and she into a Linden.

By chance, as they stood before the temple steps and spoke of the site’s history, Baucis saw Philemon begin to sprout leaves, and the elder Philemon saw Baucis likewise turning green with foliage.

This was not to be doubted, as the gods even allowed Proteus, the son of Oceanus and Tethys, to change into various forms, just as Metra, the daughter of Erisichthon, was able to do by divine permission.

In the ninth book, the Poet relates how these examples were recounted by Achelous to impress the reality of divine power upon human minds. Achelous himself was accustomed to assuming various shapes, most notably when the father of Deianira—the daughter of Oeneus and the most beautiful of the Aetolian maidens—decided to give her in marriage to whoever won a wrestling match. Thus, Achelous entered the contest with Hercules, mocking him by taking on different forms. Finally, he assumed the shape of a bull, but when Hercules tore the horn from his forehead, the defeated Achelous dissolved entirely into a river.

...Achelous hid his rustic features and his mangled head beneath the middle of the waves.

His daughters, the Naiads, later filled this horn with every kind of flower and fruit, calling it the "cornucopia." Victorious Hercules then took Deianira as his wife and, after the death of the youth Eurynomus, began the journey back to his homeland. Reaching the river Evenus, he entrusted his wife to the centaur Nessus to carry her across. However, Nessus attempted to violate the woman and was killed by Hercules with an arrow dipped in the Hydra’s blood. As he died, Nessus gave his blood-stained garment to Deianira, claiming it possessed such power that whenever Hercules wore it, he would hate all women except her. When rumors reached Deianira that Hercules burned with a great passion for Iole, the daughter of Eurytus, she saw to it that Hercules received this garment. As soon as he put it on, he was immediately driven into a frenzy and hurled his servant Lichas from Mount Caeneus into the Euboean Sea; Tethys later transformed Lichas into a reef.

Indeed, a former age told of him turned into hard flint; even now in the Euboean deep, a short reef rises above the whirlpool, still preserving the traces of a human form.

Finally, Hercules laid himself upon a constructed pyre and, shedding his human form, was placed among the heavenly host by Jupiter. His mother, Alcmena, used to recount her son's deeds and once told her misfortunes to the young Iole. While she was carrying Hercules, she called upon the goddess Lucina due to the difficulty of the labor. But Lucina, acting on Juno's orders to obstruct rather than aid the birth, sat before the door in the guise of an old woman, clasping her knees with her hands. Suspecting some ill intent, the handmaid Galanthis approached and announced to the "old woman" that Deianira had already been delivered. Believing this, Lucina leapt up, and immediately Deianira gave birth to Hercules. Deluded by Galanthis' trick, Lucina transformed her into a weasel, a change the Poet describes thus:

It is said that Galanthis laughed at the success of her deception. As she laughed, the cruel goddess dragged her by her hair and, as she tried to lift her body from the ground, prevented her, changing her arms into forelegs. Her old agility remains, and her back has not lost its color, though her form is different from before. And because she had helped the laboring mother with a lying mouth,