Son of Saturn and king of the Ausonian land, skilled in horses and hunting, wed to the singer Canens — whom Circe changed into a woodpecker when he refused her on the Laurentine plain, leaving Canens to waste away searching the woods until she melted into air.1
Picus ruled Latium, beautiful and virtuous, wed to Canens — called so because her voice moved woods and rocks, tamed beasts, and stayed wandering birds. While she sang in their Laurentine palace, Picus rode out to hunt boar on the fields.2
Circe saw him on the plain and burned to have him. She smeared his path with magic herbs; when he returned on his horse she blocked him with charms and offered herself. Picus refused — he belonged to another — and Circe struck him with her wand and changed him into a bird with crimson crest: the woodpecker that still pecks at oak trees.3
Ovid also names Picus among the gods who disguised themselves as reapers and vine-dressers to woo Pomona — the same Latian king in another episode of Italian metamorphosis, not a separate figure.4
⁂
the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story