lamia summary

Lamia summary

The god Hermes (Mercury), having fallen deeply in love with a nymph who has hidden herself from him, hears a voice complaining of being imprisoned in a snake's body. The speaker is a beautiful serpent. She tells Hermes that she knows he seeks a nymph and offers to make the nymph, to whom she has given the power of invisibility, visible to him providing he will restore to her her woman's body. Hermes gladly agrees. The nymph becomes visible to Hermes; the serpent turns into a beautiful woman and disappears.

Lamia, the serpent-turned-woman, while in her serpent state, had the power to send her spirit wherever she wished. On one of her spirit journeys she had seen a Corinthian youth, Lycius. Now, as woman, she reappears and stands at the side of a road along which she knows Lycius will come on his way to Corinth. When he arrives, she addresses him, asking him if he will leave her all alone where she is. Lycius looks at her and at once falls violently in love with her. Together…