普洛克里斯之死

A young woman lies dead in the grass, a wound at her throat. A satyr, half man and half goat, kneels over her with startling tenderness, one hand at her shoulder, and a brown dog sits watching at her feet. The old name for this panel, painted in Florence around 1500, ties it to Ovid's story of Procris, killed by accident by her own husband's spear while she spied on him hunting. The National Gallery is more cautious now and simply calls it a satyr mourning a nymph, partly because the satyr is nobody Ovid mentions. Whoever she is, Piero di Cosimo gives the scene a strange stillness. The grief is carried as much by the dog, sitting upright and alert, as by the creature bending over her. Far off along the shore, more dogs and long-legged birds go about their business in the pale light, indifferent.