Heroides by Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) — Free Audiobook

1 01 - Penelope to Ulysses 9:55

Dear Ulysses, Your Penelope sends this epistle to you, so slow in your return home. Write not any answer, but come yourself. Troy is no more, that city so justly odious to the Gretan domes, scarcely were Prime and all his kingdom worth such a mighty stir. Oh, how I wish! that the infamous adulterer, when he sailed for Lacedaemon with his fleet, had been swallowed up by the raging seas. I had not then lain caught in a solitary bed, nor thus forlorn complaint of the tedious days. The pendulous web would not then have tied my tender hands, while by such means I sought to elude the lingering nights.

How often has my apprehension magnified your dangers? Love is a passion full of anxiety and fear. I often fancied you to myself assorted by furious Jojans, and on hearing the name of Hector always turned pale. If anyone informed me that Antilochus had been slain by that hero, the fate of Antilochus proved the cause of fresh disquietity to me. Or if informed that Patroclus had fallen in counterfeit armor, I lamented that this stratagem should fail of success. Clepolemus had stained the Lycian spear with his blood. My anxiety was renewed by the catastrophe of Clepolemus. Infine, as often as any fellow in the Grecian camp, my fond heart was chilled with icy fear. But the righteous gods, at regard to my chaste flame, my husband lives, and Troy is reduced to ashes.

The Grecian chiefs have returned. Our altars smoke, and the spoils of the barbarians are offered up to our gods. The matrons present grateful gifts for the safe return of their husbands. They, in their turn, sing the fate of Troy, constrained to yield to their better fortune. The good old men and timorous maids are stricken with admiration, and the eager wife hangs upon her husband's tongue as he relates. Some, ordering a table to be brought, describe upon it the fierce battles in which they were engaged, and with a little wine trace out the whole of Troy, This way, they say, flowed simmers. Here is a Sigean field. Here stood the lofty palace of Old Prime. There was a tent of Achilles. Yonder that of Ulysses.

Here mangled Hector, frightened the foaming horses. For Old Nestor related all to your son, whom I sent to inquire after you, and he again to me. He told me likewise that Rezes and Dolan had been slain, how the one was surprised in his sleep, the other betrayed by guile. You also, my dear husband, alas, too—too forgetful of your family at home, adventured to enter the Dracian camp by stratagem in the night, and assisted by Diomedes alone, to kill so great a number of men. No doubt you were wonderfully cautious, and did not forget your Penelope before the dangerous attempt. My heart never ceased beating till I heard how you rode victorious through the army of your friends upon Thracian horses.

But what does it avail me that Troy has fallen by your hands, and that the spot where formerly its wall stood is now a level plain? If I still continue forlorn as when Troy flourished and my husband is absent never to return. Troy remains to me alone. To others it is destroyed, and the victorious inhabitant tills it with a captive ox.

Now corn grows, where once Troy stood, and the ground, Patent by Phrygian blood produces a rich crop that tempts the hand of the reaper. The half-buried bones of heroes are ploughed up by the crooked chair, and rising grass covers the ruins of the houses. Though victorious, you are still absent. Nor can I possibly know the course of your long stay, or in what corner of the world my cruel Ulysses lurks. Whatever stranger touches upon these coasts is sure to be teased with a thousand questions about you, and when he departs is charged with a letter to deliver to you in whatever region of the world he may chance to see you. We sent to Pylos, the Nelian kingdom of Old Nesta, but we thence received no account besides in certain report.

We sent likewise to Sparta, but Sparta, Being equally ignorant of the truth, left us uncertain that land you might be wandering over, or where you could make so long a stay. It would be better for me if the walls of joy were still standing. Alas, unstable and unhappy! I am offended out of my own wishes. I should know in what part of the world you fought, and read only the dangers of war. Nor should I be without companions to join in my complaint. Now I know not what to fear most. I am apt to fancy you exposed to every kind of hazard, and find myself bewildered in a wide field of care. Whatever dangers arise either from sea or land, these, I suspect, may be the causes of so long a delay.

While I thus fondly revolve these things within myself, You, it is possible, are the slave of some foreign beauty. Such is the inconstancy of men. Perhaps, too, you divert her by telling what a homely wife you have, who minds only the spindle and the distaff. But I may be deceived, and this imaginary crime may vanish into mere air and conceit. Nor can I persuade myself that, if free to return, you would be absent from me. My father, Icarus, urges me to leave this widowed state, and never ceases chiding me for my continued delays. Let him chide on. I am yours, and must be called yours. Penelope will ever remain the wife of Ulysses. He at length is softened by my piety and chaste prayers, and forbears to use his authority.

A dissipated set of woes from Dalicium, Samus, and Lofty Secantus, tease me without intermission. They reign uncontrolled in your palace and devour your wealth, are very alive in support. Why should I mention Pysander, Polybus, Aglomedon, and Covetous Eurymachus, and Antinous, besides many others, who all, in your absence, live upon the means gained at the hazard of your life? Indigent Iris, and your ghost-herd Melanthus serve to finish your disgrace. We are only three in number, unable to defend ourselves. Your wife, weak and helpless. Laertes, an old man. And Teherimachus, a child. That beloved boy we were lately in danger of losing, as against all our wills he prepared to go in quest of you to Pylos.

May the gods grant that by the order of fate he may be appointed to close my eyes, to close also yours.

The neathard, swine-hard, and aged nurse all join in this prayer. Laertes, now unfit for arms, is unable to maintain your right against such a crowd of enemies. Telemachus, it is true if spared, will arrive at a more vigorous age, but at present he requires his father's protection. Nor can it be supposed that I am able to drive away this hostile crowd. Come, therefore, speedily, you who are our only defence and sanctuary. You have, whom heaven preserve, a son, whose tender years should have been formed to his father's virtue and prudence. Think of Laertes, and that it is your duty to close his eyes. He now languishes on the verge of dissolution. Surely I, who, when you left me, was but a girl, when your return must appear old and decayed.

End of Penelope to Ulysses

2 02 - Phyllis to Demophoon 11:28

Translated by an unknown translator. First published in Phyllis to Demophon. Oh, Demophon. Phyllis, your Thracian hostess, complains of your absence beyond the promised time. You engaged to drop anchor on our coast, when the moon should have completed her orb. Already she hath four times waned, four times renewed her full orb, and your Athenian ships do not yet stem the Thracian tide. If you reckon time in the minute manner we lovers do, this complaint will not appear to have come before its day. Hope forsook me slowly, too. We are unwilling to believe what may be injurious. But now I feel it, and, in spite even of love and myself, must believe. Often have I lied to myself for your sake, often flattered myself that the raging south winds would drive hither your swelling sails.

In my resentment I have cursed Theseus, imagining that he would not suffer you to depart. Yet he, perhaps, was no cause of your stay. Sometimes I dreaded that, in making towards the shallows of Hebrus, your ship might have been swallowed up by the foaming deep. Oft before the altars with offerings of incense have I, in a suppliant manner, implored the gods for your safety, O perfidious man! Oft seeing the winds favorable, the heavens serene, and the sea calm. Surely, said I to myself, if alive he will come. In fine, my indulgent love represented to me all the obstacles that might prevent a speedy return, and I became ingenious at finding out excuses for you. But still you linger. The gods whom you invoked have not restored you to me, nor, moved by a sense of my love, do you return.

O dear Moforn, you have given both your words and sails to the winds. Your sails, alas, have failed to bring you back, and your words were insincere. What have I done, unless, perhaps, I have loved you to excess? But surely this crime might have rather endeared me to you. My only fault is to have loved and entertained you, faithless man. Yet this fault with you ought to be a merit. Where is now your honour? Where are your oaths and plighted troth? Where are the many gods who dwelt on your perjured tongue? Where is now your matrimonial vow of constancy, which was to me the pledge and security of my phasing conjugal hopes? You swore by the tempest-beaten main which before you had often crossed, and on which you were again to hazard yourself.

You swore, too, by your grandsire, If he also is not falsely called so, who soothes the boisterous waves. By Venus, doubly armed with her torch and bow, too successful, alas, with both against me. By Juno, who presides over the marriage-bed and the sacred mysteries of the torch-bearing goddess. If each of these wronged powers should be disposed to take vengeance for the dishonour of invoking them falsely, you alone would be insufficient for the deserved punishment. Fool that I was! I even repaired your leaky ships that you might have a trusty fleet wherein to desert me. I supplied you also with rowers to help forward your flight. Wretched beyond expression to be thus wounded by my own darts! Alas, I foolishly gave credit to your deluding words of what you have such command.

I confided in your race and kindred gods. I trusted to your tears. Are these too taught to dissemble? Yes, even they have their artifices, and often conspired to delude. In fine, I believed your false protestations. Why did you commit so many perjuries to gain credit with me, when unhappily I was too willing to trust you? Nor do I repent that I received you into my harbour and kingdom. This ought to have been the utmost bound of my indulgence. I am only ashamed of having crowned my hospitality with the present of my bed, and yielded myself up to your embraces. Oh, had the night preceding that fatal one been my last, Phyllis had died chaste and honest. I hoped the best, because I was conscious I deserved well of you.

Hope, founded upon dessert, is just and unblameable. Surely it is no mighty glory to deceive a credulous maid. My innocent simplicity merited a kind return. You have by your flattering words deluded a woman, and one that loved you. May the gods grant that this may be your greatest boast. May you stand in the midst of the city among the posterity of ages. May the statue of your father, graced with inscriptions and trophies, stand first. When the stories of Scyron and stern Procrustus shall be read, Sinus and the Minotaur, Thebes brought under subjection, the Centaurs dispersed, and the dark palace of the infernal god alarmed. May thy hated image bear this inscription. This is he who betrayed his innocent, believing hostess.

Of all the mighty acts of your father, Ariadne deserted seems to please you most. You admire only in him what alone seems to want an excuse, and are the perfidious heir of your father's treachery. She, nor do I envy her, enjoys a better match, and rides in state drawn by harnessed tigers. But the Tracian youths whom I scorn before now shun my embraces, because I prefer the stranger to my own subjects. Some in derision say, Let her now repair to learned Athens. We will find another to rule over warlike Thrace. The end proves all things. May heaven deny him success in everything, who presumes to judge of actions by the event. For were your vessels to plough the Thracian waves, I should still be said to have studied my own and my people's good.

But alas, I have consulted neither. You think no more of my palace, nor will you ever again bathe your wearied limbs in the Thracian lake. Our parting scene still presents itself to my fancy. Your fleet being in readiness to sail, you embraced me, and, falling upon my neck, oft repeated the long-breathed kisses. You mixed your tears with mine, and complained that the wind was favorable. Then, parting, cried, Be sure, Phyllis, to expect your demophon. Can I expect one who left me never to return? Can I expect ships never designed to visit these coasts? And yet I still expect you. Return, though late, that your only crime may be too long a stay. Unhappy Phyllis, what do you pray for? He, perhaps, is detained by another mistress, and a love that banishes all remembrance of thee.

Alas, I fear that, since you left me, you have never once thought of Phyllis. Cruel fate! Should you be at a loss to know who I, Phyllis, am, and whence! I, who admitted you, after a long course of wandering into our Thracian harbours, and entertained you in so hospitable a manner! Who increased your wealth for my own stock, supplied your wants by many gifts, and intended to have enriched you still more! Who subjected to your rule the spacious kingdom of Lycurgus, Too warlike and fierce to be awed by a female name, even from Meridope, covered with eternal snow, to Shady Hymas, and where gentle Hebrus rolls his sacred stream, on whom in an unlucky hour I bestowed my virgin love, and whom I suffered with treacherous hands to untie my chaste girdle.

Doubtless, Tisiphone, Howled over us in that fatal night, and the wandering owl complained in mournful notes. A lacto too was present, her hair wreathed with curling snakes, and lighted the tapers with infernal flame. Disconsolate, I tread the rocks and shore overgrown with shrubs, wherever the wide sea lies open to my eyes. Whether by day, when earth, relenting, feels the genial heat, or by night, When the stars shine and cold damps fall, I am anxious in observing the course of the winds. If by chance I can espy a distant sail, forthwith I divine it to be my dimophon. I run towards the shore, whither the inconstant billows flow, and can scarcely be restrained even by the waves. The nearer they approach, the more my fears increase.

Till at last, fainting away, I am carried home by my train. Near my present abode is a bay, bent in the manner of a bow, whose sides, running out into the sea, form a precipice of rocks. Hence my despair has often urged me to throw myself headlong into the raging flood, and I am still resolved upon it, because you continue to deceive me. The friendly waves may perhaps waft me over to the Athenian shore, and my unburied remains may there meet your unexpected eyes. Though more hard-hearted than iron or adamant, here even than yourself, you will in pity say, Alas, Phyllis, you ought not to have followed me thus. Oft I thirst after poisons, oft resolve to pierce my heart and perish by a bloody death.

Sometimes I think of Tying a silken knot upon that neck round which you have so often twined your treacherous arms. It is fixed. I must repair my ruined honour by a speedy death. When the mind is once determined, it is easy to choose the mode of dying. You shall be marked upon my tomb as the cruel cause of my death, and handed down to posterity in these or similar lines. Phyllis died by the cruelty of Dimorphon. A faithful mistress by a perfidious guest. He was the barbarous cause. She herself gave the fatal blow.

End of Phyllis to the Mophoon.

3 03 - Briseis to Achilles 12:53

Translated by an unknown translator. First published in Briseis to Achilles.

The letter, which you now read in broken Greek, Written by a foreign hand, comes from captive Briseis. Whatever blots you observe were occasioned by my tears, but even tears are often more prevalent than words. If it may be allowed to complain a little of my lord and husband, I have a few causes of complaint against you, who are both. I do not blame you that I was so tamely delivered up to the king when demanded. And yet even in that point you are not altogether without blame, for no sooner was I demanded by Eurybates and Talthybius than I was delivered up to be carried away by those military heralds. Each, regarding the other with a look of surprise, inquired in whispers, Where is there so famed love?

I might have been detained somewhat longer. Delay of misery would have been grateful. Alas, when torn from you, I gave no parting kisses, but my tears flowed without ceasing. I tore my hair, and hapless seemed to myself for the second time a captive.

I have often thought to deceive my keeper and escape, but trembled at the apprehension of falling into the hands of the enemy. I dreaded that upon leaving the Grecian camp I might again perhaps become a captive, and presented to some of the daughters-in-law of Priam. But I was delivered up, because so it must be. Though absent many nights, I am not demanded back. You linger, and are slow of resenting. Patroclus himself, when I was carried away, whispered in my ear, "'Why do you weep? Your stay with Agamemnon will be very short.' But your neglect of requiring me again from the king is the least part of your crime. You even strive against my return. Weigh now with yourself what right you have to the name of a lover.

The sons of Telamon and Amintur came, ambassadors from Agamemnon, the first related to you by blood, the other your friend and guardian. The son also of Laertes came, by whom I might have returned attended. Softening entreaties were added to their costly presents, twenty shining vessels curiously wrought in Corinthian brass, and seven tripods alike in weight and workmanship. To these were added twice five talents of gold, and twelve spirited steeds matchless in the race, and, what might have well been spared, lesbian girls of exquisite beauty, captives of that pillaged island. With these? But what need of this? You had the choice of one of Agamemnon's three daughters for a wife. You refused to accept me with gifts which, had Agamemnon consented to my ransom, you ought with joy to have carried to him.

What have I done thus to merit your neglect, Achilles? Whither has your changeable love so soon fled? Does cruel fortune incessantly pursue the wretched? Shall no propitious gales favor my chaste hopes?

I saw the walls of Lonesus give way to your irresistible attack. Nor was I an inconsiderable part of my native country. I saw three fall, brethren in blood as well as in fate, who all sprang from the same mother. I saw my husband, too, stretched upon the bloody plain, and tossing with anguish his breast drenched in gore. Yet all these losses were recompensed in you alone. You were to me instead of a husband, a lord, a brother. You swore to me by the sacred deity of your sea-green mother that it should be my happiness to have fallen a captive into your hands. For instance, to refuse me, though offered to you with a large dowry, and reject the riches which you are urged to accept with me. It is even reported that when returning Aurora gilds the mountains, you will open your flaxen sails to the cloud-bearing south winds.

Soon as this cruel resolve reached my trembling ears, the blood forsook my breast. I was without life or soul. You will then abandon me.

Oh, barbarous man! What misery are you preparing for, hapless Briseis? What solace can I expect in my forlorn state? Sooner may the gaping earth swallow me up or the missile bolts of jove overwhelm me, than I, abandoned, be doomed to behold the sea foaming after your Thessalian oars, and your ships deserting my distracted view. If you are determined to return and visit again your native fields, I can be no very cumbersome load to your fleet. I submit to follow you as a captive subject to her conqueror, not as a spouse accompanying her husband. My hand will not disdain the meanest office. May the fairest of the Grecian dames become the happy partner of your bed, one worthy of such a father-in-law as the grandson of Jupiter and Aegean, to whom old Nereus will not disdain to be related.

I, her humble handmaid, will diligently ply my tusk, and the twisted thread shall lessen the loaded distaff. Grant only that your wife, who I fear will regard me as a rival, be not suffered to treat me cruelly. Let her not tear my hair in your presence, while you, unconcerned, say, This girl was once dear to me.

But I will submit to bear even this rather than be left behind helpless and neglected. The dread of such treatment shakes my wretched frame. What can you wish for more? Agamemnon repents of his anger, and disconsolate grief falls at your feet. You who are conqueror everywhere else be master also of yourself and your passions. Why is insulting hector allowed to triumph over the Grecian troops? Take alms, brave grandson of Aeacus, after first receiving me to your embraces, and urge their vanquished troops with a victorious spear. Your resentment was first kindled for my sake. Let it cease also for my sake. May I be both the cause and measure of your disgust. Nor think it dishonorable to yield to my entreaties.

Meliega took up arms at the request of his wife. I have it only by hearsay, but you are acquainted with the whole story. Althea's brothers being slain by her son, the unhappy parent devoted him with many imprecations. A war ensued. He, disgusted, laid down his arms, retired, and obstinately refused to assist his native country. His wife alone had power to move him, thrice happy she. But my words, alas, have no weight with you.

Yet do I not repine, nor, though often called to my lord's bed, did I ever boast that I was your wife. One of the captives, I remember, called me mistress. You only increase, said I, the weight of my servitude by that name. I swear by the slightly buried bones of my husband, those remains which must ever appear venerable to me, by the sacred ghosts of my three undaunted brothers who bravely died for and with their country, by your lips and mine which we have so often joined in love, and by your conquering sword, too well known to my house, that Agamemnon has shared none of the joys of my bed. If I speak falsely, may I be eternally forsaken by you. Were I now to say, do you, too, great hero, swear that you have tasted no joys apart from me?

Must you not refuse? And yet the Greeks fancy you plunged in grief. You, meanwhile, solace yourself with the harp, resigned to the soft embraces of a fond mistress. Should anyone ask why you so obstinately refuse to fight, you say, War is become hateful, only night love and music charm. It is safer to be content with domestic pleasures, to cherish a beloved mistress and exercise the fingers upon a Thracian harp, than to grasp a target and sharp-pointed spear and load the head with a weighty helmet. Hertofore you preferred the glory of illustrious actions to ease, and the fame acquired in war was all your aim. Could martial deeds then only please till I was made captive? Is your thirst of praise extinguished by the fall of my country?

Heaven forbid! May the Pelian spear urged by your victorious arm pierce the loins of Hector. Send me, O ye Greeks, as your ambassador to solicit my lord. I will enforce your requests with a thousand melting kisses. Trust me, I can do more with him than Phoenix, more than the brother of Teucer, even more than eloquent Ulysses. There is rhetoric in throwing my once familiar arms round his neck. and putting him in mind that it is his Briseis who urges the request. Though you are cruel and more obdurate than the waves of the sea, my silence and tears must prevail.

Now then, so may your father Peleus measure out his full term of years, and Pyrrhus enter upon war with your propitious fortune. Brave Achilles, Have respect to your Briseis, oppress'd with a load of anxiety, nor kill her with your cruel delays. Or, if your former love is turn'd to disdain, rather hasten my fate than force me thus to live without you. And even as it is you hasten it, my beauty and bloom have fled, and the remaining faint hope of your love alone supports life. If this also should fail, my hard destiny will soon join me to the shades of my brothers and husband, nor will it add to your fame to have occasioned the death of one who loved you. But why thus torment me by a lingering death?

Plunge into my breast your naked poniard. I have still blood enough left to stream from the gaping wound. Let your sword, which, had not Minerva interposed, would have reached the heart of Atrides, find its way to mine. Ah! rather preserve a life that is your own gift. I ask no more from my lover than what he formerly granted me when an enemy. The walls of Troy, built by Neptune, will afford more ample matter for your resentment. Hunt ruin in the hostile field. Let me only request, whatever be your design, whether to remain here or navigate your fleet home, that in right of master you command me to attend you.

End of Briseis to Achilles.

4 04 - Phaedra to Hippolytus 11:28

Phaedra to Hippolytus.

Phaedra of Crete wishes to Hippolytus, born of an Amazon, that health which, if he will not give it, she herself must want. Read this, at least. How can the reading of a letter hurt you? Perhaps, too, you may meet with some things in it that will be agreeable. In this manner, secrets are conveyed over land and sea. Even enemies look at the letters sent from each other. Thrice I essayed to speak with you, thrice my tongue failed. Thrice the words forsook me at my tongue's end. Modesty is to be joined with love, as far as is possible and convenient. Love commands me to write what I was ashamed to speak. It is not safe to slight the commands of love. He reigns uncontrolled, and has power even over the sovereign gods.

He first commanded me, when full of doubts and fears, to write. Write, said he, though hard as steel, he will yield his captive hands. Be present, love, and as you nourish in my bones a wasting fire, fix also in his breast a dart that may soften it towards me. Yet will I not by any crime stain my connubial vows. My fame, search into it, you will find fair and spotless. Love, the later it seizes us, rages the more. I burn inwardly, I burn, and my breast feels the hidden wound. As the tender bull is at first impatient of the yoke, and the young courser is with difficulty rendered obedient to the rein, so my unconquered heart resists the first attacks of love, and this unusual burthen sits heavy on my unpractised mind.

When love is habitual from our cradle, we may learn by art to manage it, but in our riper years it assaults us with violence. You will taste the first offerings of my spotless fame, and the guilt will be the same in both. There is a pleasure in plucking the ripe apples from loaded branches and gathering with an industrious hand the earliest roses. If yet my chastity, hitherto unstained, must be blotted by an unusual crime, it is happily fallen out that I burn with a noble flame. A worthless partner of my crime, something still worse than the crime itself, cannot in my case be objected.

If Juno should resign her brother and husband in my favor, even Jupiter would probably be disregarded in competition with Hippolytus. And now, what you will scarcely believe, my inclinations carry me after new and unaccustomed delights. I long to assault you with the savage breed. Already the Delian goddess, distinguished by the crooked bow, presides in my thoughts. Your judgment in this determines also mine. I am impatient to range the woods, to pursue the stage into the toils, and cheer the nimble hounds along the rocky cliffs, or lance the trembling dart with a vigorous arm, and stretch my wearied limbs on a grassy bank. Oft I am pleased to drive the nimble chariot involved in dust, and guide the panting steeds with steady rein.

Now, wild, I rave as a bacchanal when full of the inspiring God, or like those who on the Idean hill urge with redoubled strokes the sounding brass. Yea, more wild than those whom the dryads half-divine and horned satyrs strike with terror and amazement. For when this fury abates, I am informed of all, and silent, feel that conscious love rages in my breast. Perhaps I am urged to this love by the fate of my blood, and Venus exacts this tribute of all our race. Jupiter loved Europa, hence the first rise of our family, disguising the god under the form of a bull. Pasiphae, my mother, enjoyed a deluded bull, was in time delivered of her guilty load. Perfidious Theseus, guided by the faithful thread, escaped by my sister's help the deluding labyrinth, Lo, I, too, that I might not belie the race of Minos, yield the last to the powerful laws of my blood.

Surely it was our destiny, one house gained the inclinations of both. I am charmed with your shape and appearance, my sister yielded to the attractions of your father. Theseus and his son have triumphed over two sister nymphs, raise trophies of your victory over our race.

Oh, how I wished that I had been wandering in the fields of Crete when first I saw you enter Eleusis, the city of Ceres. It was then, chiefly—yet even before that time you had charmed me—that the penetrating flame of love raged in my bones. White was your robe, your hair was adorned with a garland, a modest blush had overspread your comely face. That countenance which appears to others stern and fierce was in Phaedra's eyes noble and full of manly courage. I hate youths fond of dress and female nicety. A manly form requires little fashioning. That sternness, those careless locks, and noble face stained with dust, are becoming. Whether you bend in the fiery steed's reluctant neck, I am delighted to see him wheeling in the narrow ring.

Or if, with vigorous arm, you dart the heavy spear, still my eyes watch the manly throw. Or do you brandish the hunting spear of broad-pointed steel? In fine, everything you do gives me delight. Leave your cruelty to the woods and mountains, nor let me, undeserving of such a fate, perish for your sake. What pleasure can it give to be wholly taken up in the exercises of Diana, and deny Venus the vows and engagements due to her? What admits no interval of rest cannot subsist long. Rest renews our strength and refreshes our wearied limbs. The bow, and surely the arms of your favorite goddess may furnish an example for your imitation. If always bent, will lose its force. Cephalus was famed in the woods.

By his hand were many wild beasts slain, yet he was no enemy to the delights of love. Aurora wisely forsook old age for him. Oft, under a spreading oak, were Venus and Adonis seated on the yielding grass. Meleager, too, burned for Ariadean Atalanta. She, as a pledge of his love, enjoyed the spoils of the Caledonian boar. Let us also be now first joined to this glorious crowd. If you banish love, the forest will be turned into a desert. I will be the partner of your toils. Neither the rocks hideous with dens and caves, nor the fierce aspect of the threatening boar shall terrify me. There is an isthmus seated between two seas. The rising billows beat against either shore. Here will I meet thee at Troasin, once the kingdom of Pythias.

Already it is dearer far than my native country. The hero of Neptune's race is happily absent, and will be so long. He is now in the country of his dear Pirithous. Theseus, unless we dispute what is manifest, prefers Pirithous, both to his Phaedra and to thee. Nor is this the only injury he has offered us. For we have both been wronged in matters of great importance. The bones of my brother, broken with a knotted club, he scattered on the bloody ground. My sister was left a prey to wild beasts. You boast of a mother worthy of the bravery of her son, of distinguished valor among the Amazonian maids. If you inquire after her, Theseus inhumanly stabbed her. Nor could so great a pledge protect the unhappy mother.

Nor was she wedded, nor received with the nuptial torch. Why all this, but to exclude you from your father's throne? He has added, moreover, brothers to you by me, who have been bred up by his command rather than mine. I could wish, loveliest of men, that the child who may stand in competition with you had died in the birth. What reverence after all this can be due to your father's bed, which he even shuns himself and has deserted? Nor let vain fears alarm you that this commerce between a son and mother-in-law is infamous. This old-fashioned piety, which could not subsist long, suited only the rustic age of Saturn. Jupiter has made pleasure the test of piety, and has given us an example in espousing his own sister.

That tie of blood is firmest which is strengthened by the bonds of Venus. It will be an easy matter to conceal it. The name of relative will justify our freedoms. Whoever sees our mutual embraces will praise us. I shall be thought of a stepmother, tender of my husband's son.

No stubborn gates are to be forced open in the night, no watchful keeper to be deceived. One house served us both, one house will still serve us. You caressed me openly, and may do so still. Here you will be in safety, and our freedoms, far from exposing us to blame, will gain us praise. Only banish delay, and hasten to consummate our mutual loves. So may the tyrant that rages in my breast prove gentle to you. I condescend to address you by prayers and entreaties. Where is now my pride? Where are my wonted boasts? I had resolved to hold out long, and not easily yield to a crime, if love were capable of any steady resolution. But, subdued by its power, I turn to prayers, and with my royal hands clasp your knees.

Lovers, alas, are seldom awed by a sense of decency. Shame and modesty have fled. Think favorably of my fond confession, and pity my sufferings. What though my father holds the empire of the seas, and my great grandsire darts the rapid thunder. What though my grandfather, crowned with pointed rays, guides the resplendent chariot of the day. Nobility gives place to love. Have some regard, however, for my race, and if you undervalue me, yet show respect to mine. The famous island of Crete falls by inheritance to me. Here shall my Hippolytus reign supreme. Conquer that stubborn soul.

My mother could even inspire a bull with love, and will you be more cruel than a fierce bull? Hear, then, for Venus's sake, who is all-powerful with me, so may you never love a scornful fair. So may swift Diana still attend you in the remote forests, and the woods offer you the best game. So may the satyrs and mountain gods protect you, and the boar fall pierced by your quivering spear. So may the kind nymphs, though you are said to hate the softer sex, allay with grateful streams your burning thirst. Many tears accompany these prayers. Think, while you read over the words of your Phaedra, that you see also the tears streaming from her eyes.

5 05 - Oenone to Paris 12:03

V. Ovid's Heroides. V.

Ovid's Heroides, translated by an unknown translator, first published in Oinone to Paris.

May I hope that you will read this? Or, overawed by your new bride, must you treat it with neglect? Read it over. I entreat you. It is no threatening letter sent you from my kine. I, the nymph Oinone, famous in the Phrygian woods, complain of injuries received from you. whom I am still fond to call mine, if you permit.

What god opposes himself to my wishes? What crime have I committed, that I no longer possess your love? Where we suffer deservedly, we ought to bear it with patience, but unmerited calamities set heavy upon us.

You were yet in low circumstances when I, a nymph sprung from a mighty river, was contented to receive you for my husband. Though now the son of Priam, excuse my freedom, you were then no more than a slave. Nor did I disdain to wed you even in that meanest rank. Oft under the shade of a tree have he quietly rested amidst the flocks, Where the ground strewn with leaves afforded a pleasant couch, often our lowly cottage, secure from hail and freezing winds, have you contentedly reposed on straw or a bed of hay? Who showed you the forest bestocked with game, or pointed out the rocky caverns where the savage dam concealed the young? A constant companion of your toils, I often spread the knotted net and cheered your sweeping hounds along the mountain's brow.

The beaches still preserve my name carved by your hand, and Oinoni, the work of your pruning-knife, is read upon their bark, and as the trunks increase the latter still delayed. Grow on and rise as testimonies of my just claim. There grows a poplar. I remember it. By the river-side on which is carved the motto of our love. Flourish, thou poplar, fed by the bordering stream, whose furrowed bark bears this encryption. Sooner shall Xanthus hasten back to his source than Perus be able to live without his oinone. Xanthus, flow backward. Backward flow your streams. Perus still lives, though fadeless, to his oinone. My misfortunes began from that unhappy day in which Venus, Juno, and Minerva, most graceful when clad in shining armor, appointed you judge of the price of beauty.

It was then that a black storm overcast my former peace. My heart failed while you repeated the fatal tale, and a cold trembling shot through all my bones. I acquainted the aged matrons and sages with my just fears, And they all agreed that some misfortune was approaching. Trees are cut down, ships are built, and the sea-green waves bear up your well-appointed fleet. When about to depart, you melted into tears. This, at last, you need not be ashamed your own. The present love is far more guilty than the past. You wept and witnessed my melting grief. The mingled tears spoke our mutual sadness. You clasped your arms round my neck, more closely than the curling vines embrace a towering elm. How did your companions smile when you complained of the unfriendly winds?

They favored, but love detained you. How often at parting did you repeat the ardent kisses, while your tongue was scarcely able to utter last farewell?

A propitious gale swells your sails, ballying from the rigid masts. And the sea foams after the repeated strokes of the oars. Hapless, I pursue with my eyes the lastening canvas, and water the scents with my tears. I implore the Nereids for your speedy return, a speedy return indeed to my sorrow. Have then my praise brought you back only for the sake of another? And have I solicited the gods on behalf of an injurious harlot? A high rock formed by nature overlooks the boundless sea. This recipes opposes itself to the beating waves. Hence I first aspired your swelling sails, and hardly could forbear plunging into the deep. As I waited with impatience for your arrival, I discerned upon the deck a purple garment.

This made me tremble, as I well knew that it was not your dress. The ship approached, and, urged by a favorable gale, reached the land, when, with a throbbing heart, I espied my hated rival, whose head, even—why delayed I to leap into the sea—rested upon your bosom. And this I tore my hair, and beat my breast, and, urged by despair, scratched my face with my inhuman nails. Ida's sacred growth resounded with my mournful complaints. And hence I bore them to those case which were conscious of our former love. So may Helen also complain, and mourn like me, a faithless spouse. May she, too, taste of those sorrows which, on her account, I now so severely feel. You are at present charmed with one who forsakes her lawful husband, and follows you over the wide sea.

But when a poor shepherd— You attended your little flock, Oinole alone made you an offer of a bed. I have no eye to your riches, nor am I moved by your stately palace. I have no ambition to be numbered among the daughters of potent Priam. Yet Priam needs not be ashamed of owning himself the father-in-law of a nymph. Nor needs Hecuba dissembled that I am her daughter, I married, and wished to become the consort of a powerful prince. Nor would a ragged sceptre ill become my hands. It is no dishonor to have lain with you upon the new-fallen leaves. I am the more fit to ascend the bed of state. Add that you are safe in my love. No wars threaten you. No revengeful ships plough the waves. Fugitive Helen is demanded back by hostile arms, and sees with pride that the war must be her dowry.

Ask of Hector, your brother. Polydamus or Diphobus was assured to be restored. Consult with the sage Antinor and your aged si'r Priam, whom years and long experience have taught wisdom. It is scandalous to prefer a mistress to your native country. You, engaged in a shameful cause, her husband raises a just war against you. Nor flatter yourself that this Lacedaemonian will long prove constant, she who was so easily enticed to your embraces. As young Atreides complains of his dishonored bed, and mourns the injury done to him by a foreign love, so shall you lament in your turn. Chastity, when once sullied, can never be recovered. One false step ruins it forever. She now burns for you. Thus she once loved men allows.

He, too easy of belief, lies now in a forlorn bed. Happy Andrew Mackay, the worthy consort of a faithful spouse. My fidelity merited alike returned from you. You are lighter than withered leaves driven by the inconstant winds, or than stalks of wheat parched by the continual heat of the sun. Herefore your sister, now I recollect, forewarned me of all, and with her hair dishevelled thus prophesied my approaching fate. What is it you hope for, Oinone? Why bury you thus your seat in the sand? Why plough you up the shore with unprofitable steers? The Grecian hypha comes, fatal to you, to Troy and our ancient house. She comes, forbid it heaven, and now, while it may be done, overwhelm the guilty ship.

Alas, how is she fraught with Phrygian blood, she said. Her servant carried her off full of the guard. My hair was erect with fear. Ah! you two truly foretold my wretched fate. This hiver now feeds on my lawns. Though fair to look upon, she is yet a prostitute, whom strangers have easily enticed from her native home. Thus, theesouse, if I do not mistake the name, won theesouse formally made her a prize. It is likely, no doubt, that she was restored safe and untouched by youths passionate and fond. If you wonder how I obtained knowledge of this story, I answer, said I, love. You may call it violence, and think to hide a fault by a specious name. It is evident that one who has been carried off so often must have contrived to the rape.

But I know he continues faithful to a perjured spouse, and yet I might have returned the enduring kind. I was pursued by the satyrs, a lustful crew, and to escape their violence concealed myself in the woods. Faunce too, adorned with garlands of pine-leaves, draised me over Ida's swelling summits. Phobos, the guardian-god of Troy, obtained at last by violence what others had struggled for in vain. I tore his hair and left on his face the marks of my rage. Yet I desired no sordid recompense of jewels or gold, nor would me any prostitute my free charms for hire. He thought me worthy to be entrusted with the healing art, and rewarded me with the same knowledge for which he is himself so famed. My skill reaches to every herb and healing root which the fertile earth produces.

But unhappy that I am, my art avails not my own cure, nor are herbs sufficient to heal the wounds of love. Even Phobos, the founder of our art, fed, We are told to the hurt of Admetus, nor could he withstand the pointed flames. Not Heaven nor Earth, with all his bounty store, can ease my pain. It is from you alone that I expect relief. Paris can relief, and I have deserved it. Pity a maid who merits and loves you. My alliance will bring upon you no dangerous bloody wars. I am yours. And with you innocently pass my infant years. Heaven grant that what yet remains of life may be also spent with you.

End of Oinone to Paris.

6 06 - Hypsipyle to Jason 12:14

Translated by an unknown translator. First published in 1813. Hypsipyle to Jason. You are said to have reached the Thessaladian coasts in your returning bark, enriched with the prize of the golden fleece. I congratulate your safety, as far as I am permitted. But I ought to have known this by a letter from yourself, for, though unfavourable winds might have hindered you from landing in my kingdom had you even desired it, yet a letter might have been sealed and sent. Surely Hipsipyle deserved this testimony of your love. Why is fame the first messenger of your success? Why did I first hear from report that the bulls, sacred to the stern god of war, had submitted to the yoke? That harvests of armed men sprang from the sowing of the dragon's teeth, and did not want your right hand to cut them off?

That the yellow fleecy spoils, though guarded by a vigilant dragon, were yet a prey to your valiant arm? If I could assure those who believe with diffidence that all this was confirmed to me by a letter from yourself, how great would be my happiness! Why do I complain that my husband, by so long an absence, has failed in the respect he owes me? If your heart continues mine, I have still all I ask. You are said to have brought with you a barbarian-enchantress, and admitted her to his share of that bed which you had promised to me. Love is credulous and full of fears. I wish it may be found that I have rashly charged my husband with false crimes. A stranger lately arrived here from Thessaly. Scarcely had he touched the threshold when I enquired how my Jason was.

He, overcome with shame, stood silent and fixed his eyes upon the ground. Impatient, I ran up to him. and in wild distraction tearing his coat from his breast. Tell me, I cried, does he still live, or has fate determined also to end my days? He lives, said he. I forced the intimidated stranger to confirm the statement by an oath, and could scarcely be convinced of your existence even by the testimony of a guard. After recovering from my surprise, I began to inquire of your exploits. He tells me how the brazen-footed bulls of Mars turned up the furrowed plain, that the teeth of the dragon were thrown into the earth for seed, and a sudden crop of ironed men sprang up, and that these earth-born heroes, cut off by civil broils, had filled up the short span of life allotted to them by fate.

Upon hearing of the serpent overcome, I again asked if Jason still lived, My heart beating alternately with hope and fear. While he proceeds in recounting one thing after another in the current of his discourse, he at last discovers the wounds made in your heart. Alas, where is now your promised faith? Where are now the nuptial ties? And Heman's torch, fitter to have lighted up my funeral pile? I was not known to you by stealth. Juno was witness to our vows, and Heman also, having his temples bound with garlands. But neither Juno nor Heman but cruel Erinus bore in procession the inauspicious torch. What concern had I with the Argonauts? What with the ship of Pallas? What did your pilot Tithis think of touching at this coast?

Here was no ram to entice you by his golden spoils. Nor had Aeetes his royal palace at Lemnos. I had determined But my unhappy destiny overruled me, to expel the strangers with a female band. The Lemnian ladies have too glaringly shown themselves an overmatch for man. My life and peace ought to have been defended by so trusty a band. I allowed Jason to enter my city, and admitted him into my house and heart. Here two summers and two winters rolled away. It was now the third harvest when, forced to unfold the spreading sails, with tears in your eyes you uttered these soft and tender words. Alas, I am torn from you, Hepsipyle, but if heaven grant me a safe return, as I depart thine, so will I ever remain thine.

Let the pledge of our mutual love that you now carry about in your teeming womb be fondly cherished, That it may prove the joy and blessing of its parents. Thus far you spoke, while, the tears trickling down your deceitful cheeks, grief deprived you of the power to proceed. You were the last to ascend the sacred ship. She flies, and a favourable wind fills the swelling sails. The sea-green waves recede from before the stemming prow. Your eyes are fixed upon the shore, while mine follow you through the deep. An adjacent tower opens the prospect on all sides towards the sea. Thither I bend my course, my face and bosom bedewed with tears. I view you through my tears, and my eyes, favouring the eagerness of my mind, carry forward my sight beyond its usual bounds.

I address heaven with chaste prayers and timorous vows, vows to be performed now that you are safe. Must I then pay vows for the triumphs of Medea? My heart yields to grief, and my love flames into rage. Shall I carry offerings to the temples because Jason lives, and lives for another? Are victims to be slain in return for my disappointments? I was indeed always diffident, and dreaded that your father might choose a daughter-in-law from some city of Greece. I feared the Greeks, but suffer from a barbarian harlot, and am wounded by an unexpected hand. She has not charmed you by her beauty or won you by her accomplishments. She holds you by her enchantments and cuts the baneful herbs to the magic sickle.

She endeavors to charm the reluctant moon from her orb and involve the chariot of the sun in darkness. She bridles the waves, stops the winding currents, and removes from their seats the woods and banging rocks. She wanders through the tombs with her hair dishevelled and collects bones from the yet smoking pyres. Her witchcraft affects even the absent. She molds the images of wax and gores the wretched liver with torturing needles. Add a multiplicity of other magic artifices which I am better than acquainted with. Love should be gained by merit and beauty, not by herbs and philtries. How can you receive her into your embraces, or quietly trust yourself in her treacherous arms? As formerly the bulls, so has she forced you also to submit to the yoke, and bound you with the same fetters wherewith she before chained the dragons.

Add that she boasts of having contributed to your success and that of your companions, and the fame of the wife eclipses that of the husband. Those of the Pelian faction ascribe all to sorcery, and the malicious world is too ready to believe them. It was not Jason, say they, but Medea of Colchis that bore away the rich fleece of the consecrated ram. If you will be governed by the advice of a mother, she disapproves your choice. Nor does your father relish her bride from the frozen zone. Let her seek a husband from the borders of the Ternes, the marshy fence of Scythia, Or her native bangs of faces. Inconstant Jason, more unstable in the vernal breeze. Why are your words without their promised weight?

You departed, my husband, and return wedded to another. But as I was your wife when we parted, let me be still the same since your return. If nobility and great names move you, I boast a descent from Thoas, the grandson of Minos. I have Bacchus for my grandfather, whose spouse, adorned with a radiant crown, eclipses the inferior lights by her more refulgent rays. Lemnos is my dowry, a fertile land that crowns the labour of the cultivator, and I myself am not to be overlooked amidst so many noble gifts. I am also a mother, and bore the load with pleasure for the father's sake. Let us both rejoice in this auspicious pledge. I am happy, too, in the number, and have brought forth twins, a double pledge of Lucina's favour.

If you enquire concerning their likeness, you may be known by them. They are indeed strangers to treachery, but in everything else, the express image of their father. These had been sent envoys for their mother, but a cruel stepdame prevented the intended journey. I dreaded Medea. Medea is more cruel than even cruelty itself. Medea has hands ready for every kind of wickedness. Would she, who could scatter the dismembered joints of her own brother, scruple to imbue her hands in the blood of these innocent pledges of my love? And yet, O deluded man, intoxicated with the philtress of Colchis, this is the woman for whom you are said to have deserted Hypsipyle. She basely associated with the husband of another.

We were chastely united by the hymnial torch. She betrayed her father. I saved mine from destruction. She deserted her native land. I still remain at Lemnos. But what avails it if her wickedness triumphs over my piety, and she gains the heart of her husband by her very crimes? Far from admiring the cruelty of the Lemnian ladies, I blame it, Jason. Although indignation and resentment stirred them up to arms. Tell me, if, driven by inhospitable winds, you and your companion had entered my ports, and I, accompanied by my twin offspring, had gone out to welcome you, would you not have wished the earth to open and swallow you up? With what face could you have beheld the harmless babes, and me your faithful wife?

What punishment could have been inflicted upon you equal to your perfidy and ingratitude? You would indeed have been safe and unhurt, not because you deserved it, but in consequence of my softness and good-nature. But I would have satiated my eyes with the blood of that harlot, and you, the slave of her sorceries, should have beheld the tragedy. I would have been Medea to Medea. If you, O just Jupiter, hear from heaven the prayers of my injured love, may this base intruder into my chaste bed Grown under the same pangs which I now feel, and herself experienced that treachery of which she has set the first example. And as I, a wife and the mother of twins, am left destitute and forlorn, may she also be ravished from her husband and children.

May she soon lose and shamefully abandon these ill-gotten trophies, exiled and wandering a fugitive over all the earth. What sister she was to her brother! What daughter to her parent? Such a mother and wife may she prove to her children and husband. When she has traversed the earth and sea, let her attempt the air, till, destitute and hopeless, she end a miserable life by her own hand. These are the prayers of the disappointed and injured daughter of Thoas. May you live an execrable pair, the partners of a devoted bed.

End of Hipsipyle to Jason

7 07 - Dido to Aeneas 16:20

of Ovid's Heroides, translated by an unknown translator, first published in 1813. Dido to Aeneas.

Thus, the silver swan, when death approaches, bemoans her fate among the willows on the banks of meander. Nor do I address you from a hope of being able to move you by my prayers. That, the gods averse to my request forbid. But having lost merit and fame, my honor and myself, why should I fear to lose a few dying words?

You are then resolved to depart and abandon an happy Dido, and the same winds will bear away your promises and sales. You are, I say, O Aeneas. Resolve to weigh at once your rancor and your vows, and go in quest of Italy, a land to which you are wholly a stranger. Neither my new-built Carthage and her rising walls have power to detain you, nor is the supreme rule which you are in vain urged to accept. You fly a city already built, and seek one that is yet to be razed. The one realm is still to be conquered. The other is subject to your command. Even if you had disembarked on the wished-for coast, how can the natives be induced to resign it? What people will grant the property of their lands to strangers?

You must first be so fortunate as to find another love, another affectionate constant dido. You must again bind yourself by vows which you cannot keep. Yet when will you build a city flourishing like Carthage, and from your lofty towers avaive the crowds below? But where are all events to meet your desires, so that not even a wish remained unanswered? Where will you find a wife to love, like me? I burn like waxen torches smeared with sulphur, or pious incense cast into the smoking censer. Aeneas is ever before my wakeful eyes. The image of Aeneas haunts me both by day and night. He, indeed, is ungrateful. and regardless of all my good offices, and I am a fond fool not to tear him instantly from my heart.

In spite of all his ill usage, I have not power to hate him. I can only complain of his baseness, and when my complaints are over, love him more than ever.

Pity of Venus, your daughter-in-law. Piers, O Cubit, the unrelenting heart of your brother, and teach him to fight under your banners. Teach me also, who have already begun the pleasing task, for I deny it not, and let him prove an object worthy of my tenderness and concern. I rave, and the enchanting image deludes my eager mind, nor does he retain any portion of the softness of his mother.

You are certainly the offspring of rocks and mountains, or the hardened oak that rouses out of the hanging cliff. A savage tigress, or the tempestuous ocean, such as it is now, when, swelped by gathering storms, gave thee birth. But whither can you shape your cause? Or how stem the force of opposing billows? You prepare to set sail. A stormy sea forbids. Let me enjoy the blessing which such a rough winter offers. Behold, how the blustering east wind raises the foaming waves. Let me owe that to winter and the stormy sea, which I would rather owe to your love. The winds and waves have more of justice than you. Although thou deserve us to perish, cruel and barbarous men, yet I am not of such value that in flying from me you should lose your life.

It is a costly hatred, and of too great a mount if you despise death while you endeavor to shun me. Soon the wind will cease, a calm succeed, and Triton, drawn by sea-green horses, wheel along the surface of the deep.

Oh, how I wish that you may also change with the winds, and surely it will be so, unless you have a heart harder than the Nottetoke. What, as if yet unacquainted with the dangers of a raging sea, can you still trust in an element that had so often proved fatal to you? Were you even to weigh anchor and sail along a level deep, an extensive ocean has still many dangers in store. Waves bear the vengeance of the gods against the violators of vows. It is here that perfidy is overtaken by severe punishment, especially treachery in love. For Venus— The mother of soft and tender desires is said to have sprung naked from the waters that murmur round the island of Cythra. Though lost, I am anxious for your safety, and avoid doing hurt to one who has loaded me with injuries.

I am afraid that my enemy shipwrecked may be overwhelmed in the raging sea. For heaven's sake, live! I would rather lose you thus. than by the grave. Live, I say, and be rather the cause of my funeral. Suppose you are overtaken by fierce whirlwind. For pity, gods, that my words carry in them any omen. What thought or courage will you then exert? The perjuries of your deceitful tongue, and the thought of wretched diado killed by Phrygian perfidy will then fly in your face. The mournful image of your forsaken wife will stand before your eyes, Disconcolate and bloody, with hair disheveled. You will then own that you have met with your deserved fate, and think each flesh of lightning aimed at you.

Delay for a time your cruel flight, and tempt not the raging sea. A safe voyage will be the certain reward of your stay. If you are regardless of me, yet think of Tandy Euless. It is enough for you to be branded as the cause of my death. What has Ascanius, what have the gods deserved, that they who have so lately escaped the flames should be exposed to perish amidst the waves? But neither did you bring your gods with you, nor, as you falsely boasted, did your shoulders bear these sacred relics, and a father, through flames and danger. You deceived me in all. Or am I the first credulous fool deluded by that perjured tongue, or the first who have suffered from a rash belief? If we ask after the mother of beautiful Ulis, we find that she felt deserted by a cruel and hard-hearted husband.

These things you yourself related, and yet they made no impression. Go on to torment me, since I so much deserve it. Your punishment will be the less because of my crime. Nor can I doubt that even your own gods are offended. It is now the seventh winter that you have been tossed by land and sea. When the waves have thrown you on the shore, I welcomed you to my kingdom, and entrusted you with the government, scarcely knowing even your name. I most sincerely wish— That I had confined myself to these kind offices alone, and that the fame of your having shared my bed were buried in eternal oblivion. That was the unhappy day of my ruin, when a sudden dark storm drove us into a hanging cave. I heard a strange voice, and fancied that the mountain nymphs approved.

Alas, too late I now find that the furies presaged my unhappy destiny.

O violated, chastity, the vengeance due to injured Sicarius, to whom, wretch that I am, I hasten, full of shame and anxiety.

I preserve in a little chapel of marble a pious statue of Sicarius, writhed with flowers and white wool. From this doom I seemed to be four times called, and my dear husband, as I imagined, in a low, hollow voice said, Dido. Come. I will come without delay. I, who am thy wife due to thee alone, will come, but with diffidence, because conscience, of the wrong I have done you. Pardon my unhappy error. I was misled by one form to deceive. Let his attractions be the excuse of my folly. His mother, a goddess, and the pious lord of his aged sire, gave me hopes of a constant and unshaken husband. If I did err, yet my error claims an honorable excuse, suppose him faithful, and I might yield up my heart to him without a blush.

The same fate which persecuted me before continues still to harass me, and mars the quiet of my present hours. My husband fell murdered before the elders, and a bloody brother reaped his wealth as a reward of that impious deed. I am banished from my own country, and forced to abandon the dear remains of my husband. Pursued by my enemies, I take shelter in a foreign land. I was wafted to an unknown coast, and having thus escaped from the cruelty of my brother and the dangers of the sea, I purchased the land which I have made over to you. I built a city, and marked out my walls to such an extent as to raise The envy of the neighboring states. Wars threaten me, though a helpless woman. I am prepared to carry on a war with strangers, and with difficulty fortify my new city and arm my troops.

A thousand rivals make pretensions to my love, while joining complaining that they are slighted for the sake of this stranger. Why do you hesitate to deliver me captive to Getole and Yalbas? I have put it in your power to use me thus basely. I have, moreover, a brother whose wicked hands, already stained with the blood of my husband, may be stained also with mine. Leave your gods and those sacred relics which were polluted by thy touch. An impious right hand ill becomes the worship of the heavenly powers. The gods disdain a sacrilegious homage, and to avoid thy worship Would willingly return to perish in the Grecian flames.

Perhaps, barbarous men, you abandon me in a state of pregnancy, and when a part of you lies hidden in my womb. The unhappy infant will share the fate of its mother, and you will prove the cause of death to one yet unborn. The brother of Eulis will be involved in his parents' unhappy destiny, and one stroke will carry off both at the same time. But the god commands you to be gone. I wish he had forbidden you to touch upon our coast, and that the street of Carthage had never been trodden by the natives of Troy. It is doubtless under the same guide, this divinity forsooth, that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that you—that are now the sport of unfavorable winds, and waste the time in traversing tempestuous seas.

Scarcely ought you to expose yourself to so many dangers to recover Troy itself, though in the same flourishing condition as when defended by Hector? At present, you are not in quest of Simeus, at the banks of the Tiber, where, when you arrive, you will be no more than a precarious guest. And as it is far off, and eludes your search, it may perhaps remain undiscovered even to your old age. It would be better to accept the dowry of my kingdom, a sure inheritance, and the treasures snatched from Covey to Spigmalion. You may more happily transfer your Troy to Carthage, and sway the sacred sceptre with kingly rule.

If you are fond of war— If Euless is impatient to gather laurels in the field, that every thing may be to your wish, he shall find foes to conquer. Here you may taste the blessings of peace, or engage him the toils of war. I adjure you by your parent goddess, by the arrows of Cupid, your brother, by the gods of Troy, companions of your flight. So may all that you bring with you from Troy survive the attacks of fortune, and that war prove the period of your calamities. So may Ascanius fill up the measure of his years, and the bones of all's ancestors rest in peace. Have pity on me, whose fate is in your hand, whose only crime is to have loved you too well. I am not of Mycenae, or descended from hostile Achilles.

Nor did my husband or father ever bear arms against you. If you think we am worthy to be your wife, receive me under the name of your hostess. Dido will submit to anything if she may be yours.

The seas that beat against the African shore are well known to me. At certain seasons they favor and they frown. When the winds invite you to be gone, you shall spread the swelling sails. Now the moored ships are surrounded with floating seaweed. Let it be my care to observe the season proper for sailing. You shall go when you may with safety, nor, if you should even desire it, would I suffer you to stay.

Your companions will be pleased with a little rest, and the shattered fleet, not completely repaired, requires some delay. I also ask a small respite. If I have any merit with you, if you value my love, or the ties by which I am yours, that the ways that my love may assuage, that by time and use I may learn to bear my sorrows with fortitude, if not, I will end my misery with my life, nor shall it be long in your power to use me thus barbarously.

Oh, that you could represent me to yourself as writing this letter! I write, and on my lap lies a drawn sword. The tears flow down my cheeks upon that weapon, which, instead of tears, will be soon stained with blood. How well are your gifts fitted to my destiny? You raise my sepulchre at an easy rate. Nor does this dart now first pierce my breast. It previously felt the wound of cruel love. And you, my dear sister, The confidant of my guilty flame shall soon pay the last duty to my unhappy remains. Nor let my monument boast that I was a wife of Sicaeus.

May the marble bear only this inscription. Aeneas afforded the coarse and instrument of Dido's death, but she fell by her own hand.

End of Dido to Aeneas.

8 08 - Hermione to Orestes 9:13

VIII. Hermione to Orestes. I, unhappy Hermione, address the man, lately my kinsman and spouse, now my kinsman only, for another possesses the name of husband. Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, impetuous as his sire, forcibly confines me here, contrary to honor and justice. I resisted with all the force which I could exert that I might not be detained, nor was it in the power of female hands to do more. "'What are you doing, grandson of Aeacus?' exclaimed I. Think not that I am without an avenger. The maid whom you injure has a master of her own. But he, more deaf than the raging waves, dragged me by the hair into his hated palace, calling for aid upon the name of Orestes. What could I have suffered more in the ruin of Lacedaemon had a troop of barbarians led captive the Grytian dames?

Triumphant Greece did not so harass unfortunate Andromache when the wealth of Phrygia became the prey of Devouring Flames.

But, O, Orestes, if you have any care or thought of me, assert with courage and resolution your undoubted right. Will you take up arms if any one should break in upon your sheepfolds, and yet be slow to free your wife from violence? Imitate the example of your father-in-law, who boldly reclaimed his ravished spouse, and thought the injury offered him in a woman a sufficient cause of war. Had Menelaus remained indolent in his deserted palace, my mother would have still continued the wife of Paris as once she was. There is no necessity for a fleet, or powerful army. Come only yourself. Not but that I deserve to be demanded back in this manner, nor is it any reproach to a husband to have waged a furious war for the honor of his nuptial bed.

Have we not the same grandfather, Atreus, the son of Pelops? And, were you not my spouse, you are still my kinsman.

Both as your wife and kinswoman, I beg your aid. Remember that you are under a double tie to this good office. I was given to you by our ancestor, Tyndareus, considerable for his experience in years, and one who, as my grandfather, had the undoubted disposal of me. But my father, not knowing this, had given his promise to Iacades. Surely that of Tyndareus, as first in authority and time, ought to have the preference. When espoused to you, my flame was just and unexceptionable. But if I should be married to Pyrrhus, you will be injured in me. My father, Menelaus, will easily be brought to approve our love. He himself hath yielded to the winged arrows of the god. He will make such allowance for your love as he took to himself in his.

His attachment to my mother affords an example to excuse ourselves. You are to me what my father was to Helen, and Pyrrhus acts the part of the Trojan guest of old. Let him boast without ceasing of the mighty acts of his father. You also can relate the glorious deeds of yours. The descendant of Tantalus commanded all the Grecian host, even Achilles himself. That hero headed only a single troop. Agamemnon was general and chief. You also glory in being of the race of Pelops and Tantalus, and if you reckon farther, are the fifth in a direct line from the father of the gods. Nor are you destitute of courage, but you have borne arms in an invidious cause, constrained to engage in the just revenge of a father's death.

Oh, how I wished that you had given proof of your valor in a less direful cause! Yet was it not choice, but necessity. You yielded to the urgent call, and shed the blood of that villain, Aegisthus, who had so cruelly murdered your father. But Pyrrhus censures it, and calls that praiseworthy revenge a crime, and even presumes to do it in my presence.

I am distracted. My cheeks, as well as my heart, glow with rage, and my breast is scorched with flames pent up. Shall any one dare to blame Orestes in Hermione's presence? I have, indeed, neither strength nor arms, but I may shed tears. Tears assuage grief. Tears flow from my eyes in floods. These alone I always can command, and these I always shed profusely. My neglected cheeks are watered by a continual stream. By this fate of our race, which reaches down even to the present age, we matrons of the house of Tantalus fall a sure prey to every ravisher. I need not mention the deceit of the swan, or how Jupiter lurked under the disguise of feathers. Hippodamia was conveyed by foreign wheels, to where the isthmus, stretching to a great length, divides two seas.

Helen was restored to the Emclean brothers, Castor and Pollux, from an attic city. Helen, conveyed beyond sea by an Adean stranger, raised in arms the whole power of Greece to recover her. Scarcely do I remember the time, yet, young as I was, I remember it. All appeared full of grief, all discovered manifest tokens of anxiety and concern. My grandfather wept. As did also her sister and twin brothers. Leta called on the heavenly powers, and her own Jove. I myself, with tresses torn, which even yet are not long, complained in a mournful voice, Alas, mother, are you gone without me? Have you left me behind? For Menelaus was absent. Lo, I too, that I might not belie the race of Pelops, and made the prey of hated Neoptolemus.

Oh, that Achilles had escaped the arrows of Apollo! He would doubtless have condemned the insolence of his son. He neither approved formerly, nor now would have approved, that a forsaken husband should lament the rape of his spouse.

What crime of mine has raised the indignation of the gods? Unhappy that I am, what ominous star obstructs my felicity? I was deprived of my mother in my earliest youth. My father was engaged in a foreign war. Thus, though both were alive, I was destitute of both. I did not, O my mother, in my younger days fondle and flatter you with my prattling tongue. I caught you not round the neck with my infant arms, nor sat a pleasing load upon your knee. You had no care of my education, nor was I led by you to the nuptial bed. I came out to meet you at your return, And to own the truth I could not distinguish my mother's face. I only fancied you to be Helen, because you were the most beautiful. Nor did you know, before a friend informed you which was your daughter.

My only good fortune was having Orestes for my husband, and he too will be lost unless he should maintain his right by arms. Pyrrhus hath obtained me from my victorious father. It is all I have gained by the fall of Troy. When the sun in his resplendent chariot mounts the mid-heaven, my misfortunes then suffer some remission. But when night conceals me in my chambers, howling and heaving bitter groans, and I have thrown myself upon my mournful couch, instead of being closed by sleep, my eyes overflow with tears, and I shun my husband when I can, as I would an enemy. Oft rendered insensible by my misfortunes, and unmindful of the place and persons, I am apt to stretch over Pyrrhus my unwary hand.

But as soon as I recollect my error, I start from the hated touch, and think my hands polluted. Oft, instead of Pyrrhus, the name of my Orestes escapes me, and I am glad to interpret the mistake as a good omen. I swear, by our unhappy race and its almighty sire, Who shakes the earth and seas and heaven by his nod. By the bones of your father, my uncle, which, bravely revenged by your hand, now rests in a peaceful urn, I will either prematurely die, and be extinguished in my early youth, or, as I am a descendant of Tantalus, be married to one of my own race.

End of Hermione to Orestes

9 09 - Deanira to Hercules 12:26

Ovid's Heroides.

Deionera to Hercules.

I give you joy that the conquest of Eucalia is now added to your other trophies, but I am sorry that the conqueror is forced to submit to the conquered. For a report that tends greatly to your dishonour, and which by your actions you must study to discredit, has been suddenly propagated through all the cities of Greece. That he whom neither the malice of Juno nor an endless series of toils could subdue is now a captive to the charms of Ioli. Eurystheus has much longed for this, as has the sister of the Thunderer. And your stepmother triumphs in this stain of your character. But it is far from pleasing him to whom, if fame can be believed, one night was not sufficient to beget you, great as you are.

Venus has injured you more than Juno. The wife of Jove raised by endeavoring to depress you. The other goddess keeps your neck beneath her footstool. Think how the world lies hushed in peace by your avenging arm, wherever the blue ocean circles this vast tract of earth. To thee the earth is indebted for peace, and the sea for a safe navigation. Thy glory hath filled both houses of the sun. You previously bore up the heavens that must at length bear you. Atlas, by your aid, supported the stars. Yet all this tends only to spread abroad your shame, if your former brave deeds are stained by an infamous miscarriage. Are you not said to have wrung to death two horrid snakes when, young and in your cradle, you showed yourself worthy of your father Jupiter?

You began with more honour than you are like to end. The last parts of your life fall short of the first. How preposterous to show yourself a man in this! In that a child. He whom not a thousand monsters, not the son of Sthenelus, his obstinate enemy, not implacable Juno could vanquish, is yet vanquished by love. But I am thought honorably wedded, because I am called the wife of Hercules, and boast of him for my father-in-law, who, riding on his fiery steeds, rends the poles with his thunder. As when unequal steers are yoked in the same plough, so does the wife of an inferior degree suffer from her mighty husband. A rank that oppresses is no honour but a burden. She who desires to wed well will do wisely to wed with her equal.

My lord is ever absent, and a stranger is better known to him than his wife. He is always in pursuit of monsters and ferocious beasts. Oft I address heaven with chaste vows, and tremble in my solitary home, lest my husband should fall by some savage enemy. My imagination hurries me amidst serpents, boars, furious lions, and three-headed devouring dogs. The entrails of the sacrifices, the vain phantoms of sleep, and secret omens of night alarm me. I am terrified with every surmise of doubtful fame, and feel the full misery of a breast racked by alternate hope and fear. Your mother is absent, and complains that ever her charms engage the notice of a powerful god. I have neither the society of your father, Amphitrion, nor that of your son, Hillis.

I feel only Eurystheus, the minister of Juno's unjust rage, and the unrelenting wrath of that goddess. But it is not difficult to bear this. You add also foreign loves, and any one may be a mother by you. I shall not speak either of Orge de Florid in the vales of Arcadia, or of your offspring by Astidemia, the daughter of Orminus. You shall not be reproached with the fifty sisters of the house of Theotrantes, all of whom you debauched in one night. Your late crime I resent, in preferring an adulteress to me, By whom I am made stepmother to the Lydian Lamus. Meander, which wanders so much in the same plains, whose winding streams flow back by frequent channels, has seen the neck of Hercules adorned with a string of pearls, that neck to which the heavens were an easy load.

You have not been ashamed to bind your arms with chains of gold, and deck your solid joints with shining gems. And yet under these arms did the Nemean lion expire, Whose skin now forms a covering for your left shoulder. You had the weakness to bind your rude locks with a mitre. A garland of poplar would have better adorned the temples of Hercules. Nor did you think it a dishonour to confine your waist with the girdle of Omphali, after the manner of a wanton maid. The image of barbarous Diomedes, who savagely fed his mares with human flesh, was not then surely in your mind. Had Bucyrus beheld you in that unmanly attire, the conquered would have been ashamed of his conqueror, and T. would have torn the pearls from your nervous neck, ashamed to submit to so effeminate a victor.

You are said to hold the basket amidst the other attendants of Umphali, and tremble at the threats of a mistress. Degenerate Alcides. Are you not ashamed to employ in servile offices those nervous hounds which have been victorious over a thousand dangers? To apply your manly thumb in fashioning the long thread, and measure out the task given you by your fair mistress? How often, while with rough fingers you draw out the slender thread, have your sinewy hands broken the feeble distaffs? You are said, unhappy man, to tremble at the thongs of the whip, and, falling prostrate at the feet of your mistress, to beg a respite from stripes. You hope to appease her by boasting of your great deeds and pompous triumphs, Exploits which, in those circumstances, it would be better to dissemble, by relating how, when an infant in your cradle, you grasped hideous serpents, not terrified by their extended jaws or forky tongues, how the Arcadian boar was slain upon Cyprus-bearing Erymanthus, and burthened the earth with his enormous weight.

You tell also of the heads that were fixed upon Thracian gates, and the mares fattened by the blood of men, Of Gerion, that threefold monster, rich in Iberian herds, who had three bodies in one. Of Kerberus, forming three dogs from the same trunk, having his hair wreathed with hissing snakes. Of the astonishing serpent, which multiplied by its wounds, and gathered strength from the greatness of its losses. Of the enormous burthen, which, poised between your left arm and side, you by main strength pressed to death. And the troop of Centres, who, vainly trusting to their feet and double-limbed form, were dispersed on the craggy summits of Thessaly. Are you not ashamed to recount these exploits, when you are clad in Tyrian purple?

And is not your tongue restrained by a sense of the unseemly dress? The daughter of Iodonus has moreover adorned herself with your armour, and wears the mighty trophies of her captive lover. Raise now your courage, and boast of your warlike deeds. She has taken the name of hero because you are unworthy of it, and is as much above you as it was a harder task to subdue you—the greatest of conquerors, than those whom you overcame. The glory of your actions redounds to her. Resign your claim of praise—a mistress has become heir to your trophies. For shame, do you suffer the bristly hide torn from the ribs of the savage lion to enfold her feeble limbs? Weak man to be thus deluded! These are not the spoils of the lion, but yours.

You have indeed triumphed over the savage monster, but she triumphs over you. A woman, scarcely able to sustain the distaff loaded with wool, bears the darts dipped in the poison of the Lynaean hydra. She has armed her right hand with the club which could subdue the most ferocious beasts, and has viewed in a mirror the armour of her spars. These things, indeed, I only heard, and was willing to disbelieve common report, but now the mournful tale forces itself upon my senses. A foreign harlot is caressed in my sight, and it is no longer in my power to hide what I suffer. I am not even allowed to be absent. The captive, whom I behold with unwilling eyes, is led through the midst of the city, not in the manner of slaves, with her hair dishevelled, and hiding her face in token of her disaster, but in triumphal pomp, Adorned with shining gold, and clad in the same attire which you wore when in Phrygia.

She carries her head high amidst the captives subdued by Hercules, as if Arcelia still stood, and her father yet existed. Perhaps, too, laying aside the name of Mistress, she will be received as your spouse, and Deionera of Aetolia be banished from your bed. An impious marriage may join in unchaste bands, Ioli, the daughter of Eurytus, and the infatuated Alcides. My mind sickens with apprehension. A shivering coldness spreads itself over all my limbs, and my languid hands lie motionless upon my knees. You loved also me among many others, but your love to me was without a crime. Think it no dishonour that twice you fought victorious in my behalf. Achelaus gathered his shattered horns upon his oozy banks, and plunged his mutilated temples in the muddy stream.

Nessus the cento fell near the stream of fatal Avenus, and tinged the waters with his unnatural blood. But why do I now mention these things? Even while I write, fame brings me the news that my husband perishes by the poison of the shirt that I sent him. Alas, what have I done? Whither has my despairing love driven me? Impius Deionera, do you yet doubt whether you should die? Shall your husband perish miserably on Mount Oeta, and you, the cause of that barbarous crime, survive? If aught yet remains to be done by which I may show myself the wife of Hercules, death shall be the confirmation of our union. You also, Meliga, shall own in me a true sister. Impius Deionera, do you yet doubt whether you should die?

Oh, ill-fated house! Agrios usurps the lofty throne, and a desolate old age oppresses Oeneus. My brother Tydeus wanders an exile on unknown coasts, the other perished alive in devouring flames. My mother transfixed her heart with steel. Impius De Aeneira, do you yet doubt whether you should die? It is my only request, by all the most sacred ties of marriage, that I may not be thought to have betrayed you to your fate. Nessus, when his breast was pierced by the flying arrow, said to me, This blood of mine contains the powers of love. I sent you a robe, stained with the poison of the centaur.

Impious De Aneira, do you yet doubt whether you should die? And now, my aged sire, and sister Gorgie, adieu. Farewell, my country, and my brother banished from your native home. Adieu, light of day, the last to my now fading eyes. Farewell, my husband, O, that thou couldst fare well. Hyllus, my dear Hyllus, adieu.

End of Daenera to Hercules.

10 10 - Ariadne to Theseus 13:07

X of Ovid's Heroides. Translated by an unknown translator. First published in Ariadne to Theseus. Beasts of the most savage nature have proved more mild and gentle to me than you. Nor could I have been entrusted to more faithless hands. The epistle which you now read, Theseus, is sent to you from that shore whence your ship, leaving me behind, was borne by the spreading sails, where soft sleep, and you also, who barbarously watched the opportunity of my slumbers, fatally betrayed me. It was the season when the earth begins to be covered with shining frost, and the birds, lurking among the leaves, complain of the decaying year. When, half awake and still in slumber, languidly reclining, I stretched my arms to grasp my Theseus.

No Theseus was there. I suddenly pulled back my hands, and then tried once more to find him. I wandered with my arms over all the bed. Still, no Theseus was there. Fear instantly shook off sleep. I started up in a consternation, and headlong threw my limbs from the deserted bed. Forthwith my breast resounded with the repeated strokes of my hands, and I tore my hair, as yet disheveled from sleep. The moon shone. I looked round. if I could discern any thing besides the shore. My eager eyes found naught to look at but the shore. I ran sometimes here, sometimes there, and with wild disorder on either side. The deep-yielding sands impeded my tender feet. Meanwhile, the hollow rocks over all the shores resounded the name of Theseus to my incessant cries.

As often as I named you, the place re-echoed the sound. The very place seemed willing to alleviate my wretched lot. Near the spot was a mountain, whose top was thinly covered with tufted shrubs, and where a steep rock, undermined by the beating waves, impended. I mounted the ascent, my passion gave me strength, and thence, with wide prospect, I surveyed the mighty deep. Hence, for the winds also were cruelly unkind, I could observe your sails full stretched by stiff southern gales. I either saw, or when I thought I saw, remained cold as ice, and half dead with concern. Nor did grief long permit this indolent respite. I was roused by that sensation. I was roused, and in a loud complaining strain called upon Theseus, Whither do you fly?

Return, perjured wretch! Change your course! The ship has not her complement. Thus I complained. I made up in shrieks what was wanting in articulate sounds, and mingled my words with repeated blows upon my breast. My hands waved high in the air, made signs, that if you could not hear, you might at least perceive me. I also held out a white robe upon a long pole, to admonish you of her whom you had left behind. But alas, I soon lost sight of you. It was then I began to weep. My tender cheeks had hitherto been stiffened with grief. What could my eyes do better, after ceasing to behold your sails, than help me to bemoan my forlorn state? Sometimes I wandered solitary, With my hair disheveled, like the raving priestesses inspired by the Theban god.

Sometimes, fixing my eyes upon the sea, I silently seated myself upon some pointed rock, cold and senseless as the stone whereon I sat. Often I repair to the bed which once sheltered us both. Alas, it will never more exhibit the once happy lovers. I kiss the print left by your dear body, and love to repose myself upon the spot which your dear joints have warmed. I throw myself down, and watering the couch with profuse tears, here, I cry, we press thee together. Bring us together again. Hither we both came. Why not both also depart? Perfidious bed! What is become of my dearer half? What shall I do? Whither, thus desolate and forsaken, shall I fly? The island lies uncultivated, and affords no prince, either of men or cattle.

The sea encompasses me. No mariner appears, no ship to bear me through the ambiguous tract. And suppose a ship, companions, and winds were in my power. What could I do? My native country denies access. Even if, in a prosperous ship, I should traverse the quiet seas, Aeolus restraining the murmuring winds, still I should remain an exile. I shall never more behold you, O Crete, planned out into a hundred cities, the isle where infant Jupiter was nursed. I have basely betrayed my father. and his kingdom ruled by just laws. Names that must be ever dear to me. For you have I betrayed them. When anxious lest the victors should be bewildered in the labyrinth, I gave you a clue to guide your uncertain steps.

When you deceived me by false protestations, and swore by the dangers from which you had escaped, that while life remained we should be inseparably one. We live. And yet, Theseus, I am no longer thine. If indeed an unhappy woman, oppressed by the treachery of a perjured man, can be said to live. If you, barbarous man, had murdered me with the club with which you slew my brother, my death would have absolved you from your vow. Now I not only figure to myself those ills which I shall suffer, But every mishap that can befall one in my forlorn condition. A thousand shapes of death wander before my eyes. Death itself appears less terrible than the lingering life that threatens me. Sometimes I fancy that ravenous wolves may rush upon me unseen and tear my bowels with their bloody teeth.

Who knows but the island may nourish savage lions. Perhaps, too, it is infested with fierce tigers. The shores are said to be fertile in sea-calves. How am I screened from the stroke of a piercing sword? But most, I dread to be led captive in cruel chains, and to prosecute the toilsome task with servile hands. I, who boast of Minos for my father, who was born of the daughter of Phoebus, and, what is still more to me, Who was solemnly engaged to you? If I turn my eyes toward the sea, the earth, or the winding shore, both earth and waves threaten me with a thousand dangers. Heaven only remains. And yet, even here I fear the forms of the gods. I am left a prey, a food for savage beasts. If men inhabit or cultivate these fields, I am apt to mistrust even them.

Already a sufferer, I have learned to be slow in giving credit to strangers. Oh, that Andradeus had still lived, nor the land of Cecrops been condemned to expiate that wicked deed by its funerals! Oh, that thy strong arm, Theseus, had never killed my monstrous brother—half ox, half man, with a knotted club! And that I had never given you the thread to guide your returning steps, the thread often grasped by your alternate bands. No wonder that victory declared for you, and the prostrate monster tinged with its blood the Cretan ground. A heart so steeled could not be pierced by the sharpest horn. Had you encountered him with your breast uncovered, you were yet safe from harm. There you were, armed with flint and adamant.

There you bore Theseus, yet harder than adamant. Cruel sleep! Why did you bind me over to a fatal sloth? It had been better for me to have sunk in eternal night. You also, barbarous winds, too readily conspired against me. Ye officious gales have been to me the cause of many tears. O inhuman right hand! The bane of both me and my brother, and faith, an empty name, plighted at my request. Sleep, the winds, the strongest vows, combined against me, and concurred in deceiving a harmless, unsuspecting maid. Alas! must I then here breathe my last, nor see the tears of a pitying mother? Shall none attend to close my dying eyes? Must I breathe out my mournful soul in foreign air, and no friendly hand anoint my motionless limbs?

Shall my unburied frame be left a prey to devouring vultures? Are these the proper returns for all my affectionate services? When you enter the port of Cecrops, and, welcomed by your country, mount the lofty citadel that overlooks the town, when there you relate your victory— over the doubtful monster, and your escape from the intricate prison branched out into a thousand windings. Tell also how I was abandoned in a desert land. I ought not to be forgotten in the train of your exploits. Surely Aegeus was not your father. Aethra never gave birth to you. You sprang from pointed locks or the raging sea. Oh, if you could have viewed me from the stern of your ship, the mournful figure had surely moved compassion.

As you cannot now observe me with your eyes, only imagine me to yourself, hanging over a frightful rock, undermined by the waves that dash against it below. Consider me with my hair dishevelled, and carelessly spread over my disconsolate face. Behold my clothes heavy with tears as from a shower, my body trembles like corn shaken by the north winds, and the letters proceed unequalled from my faltering hand. I do not urge you now by my merit, since my favours were so ill-bestowed, nor expect any retribution as due to my kind offices. But then, What pretence have you for ill-usage? Had I not contributed, in the smallest degree, to your safety? Even this is no reason why you should be the cause of my death.

To thee, wretched Ariadne stretches over the wide sea her hands. Faint, with often beating her sorrowful breast, disconsolate as I am, I remind you of the few mangled tresses that yet remain. I conjure you by the tears shed for your cruel departure. Turn your ship, dear Theseus, and bear back your inverted sails. If I die, ere you arrive, you may yet collect my scattered bones.

End of Ariadne to Theseus.

11 11 - Canace to Macareus 9:33

XI. Canacee to Macarius.

If any of these lines should appear stained and obscured by blots, know that they will be occasioned by the death of the writer. My right hand holds the pen, my left a drawn sword, and the paper lies unfolded in my lap. This is the true picture of Canacy writing to her brother. It is only in this manner, it seems, that I can satisfy a hard-hearted father. I could wish him to be a spectator of my untimely death, that the blow might be given in the presence of a stern father who commanded it. Fierce and far more cruel than his east and ministers of storms, he would view without a tear the mortal wound. For it is infectious to live with savage winds, and therefore he contracts the temper of his people.

He commands the south, the zephyr, and the northern blasts of Thrace, And surly east, he checks thy rigid wing. He controls indeed the winds, but, alas, he has no power over his own unmeasurable wrath, and governs a kingdom less intractable than his own vices. What avails it that I am allied to the gods above, that Jupiter is in the number of my kindred? Does it snatch from my trembling hind the destructive steel, that Fatal gift and weapon, alas, unfit for me. O Macarius, I wish that the hour which joined us had come later than that of my death. Why, brother, did you ever love me otherwise than as a brother? And why did I regard you more than became a sister? For I also felt the powerful flame, and perceived I know not what God taking possession of my glowing heart.

but such as I had often heard described. The color had forsaken my cheeks, a leanness had spread itself over all my joints, and my mouth took with reluctance even the smallest food. No gentle slumbers refreshed me, the nights seemed tedious and lingering, and I often sighed to myself, though no apparent grief oppressed me. I could not give any reason why I was thus disconsoled. Nor, though in love myself, did I know what it was to love. My aged nurse first divined the growing mischief, and, wise through years, first told me that it was love. I blushed, and, full of shame, fixed my eyes upon my bosom, signs which, accompanied with silence, too clearly testified my confession. And now my womb swelled with the guilty load, and the growing weight pressed my sickly limbs.

What herbs, what medicines, and not my nurse procure, and with her impious hands apply that the increasing load, this alone we hid from thee, might be entirely discharged. But, alas, the tenacious infant too well withstood our best artifices, securely screened from all hostile attacks, And now the splendid sister of Phoebus had nine times completed her course, and the tenth moon was guiding forward her light revolving steeds, when some unknown cause afflicted me with sudden pangs. I was a stranger to the movements of child-bearing, and a mere novice in this kind of discipline. I suppressed not my cries. "'What,' said my nurse, "'do you thus openly proclaim your guilt?' And knowing the cause of my complaint, she stopped my mouth with her hand.

What could I do in that unhappy case? Pain urtered my groans, but shame, fear, and my nurse pressed me to silence. I, nevertheless, strove to repress my groans and struggled with my cries, and was forced to drink the tears that trickled from my eyes. Death seemed to hover round me. Lucina refused her aid, and even death was a grievous crime, had I then expired. When entering, with thy hair and garments torn, my bosom-cherishing close pressed to dine, thou saidst, Live, my sister, O live, my dearest sister, nor rashly destroy two lives in one. Strengthen yourself by hope, for you shall soon be wedded to your brother, and become the wife of him by whom you have been made a mother. Though taint and almost dead, yet, Believe it, your words revived me, and the guilty load sprang forward from my womb.

Why do you rejoice at this danger over? In the mid-hall sits Aeolus, and from a parent's eyes our crimes must be concealed. The cunning old nurse shrouds the babe with leaves, white olive-boughs and holy fillets, and while she feints sacred rites and mutters prayers, the people, and even my father, make way for the solemnity. And now she had almost reached the threshold, when the infant's cry invades my father's ears, by its own evidence, alas, betrayed. Instantly he seizes the child, and unveils the faint solemnity. The palace resounds with his raging voice, as the sea quivers when brushed by the curling breeze, or a tall ash when shaken by the stormy south wind, so you might see my pale limbs shiver with fear, and the bed shake, under my trembling body.

Aeolus rushes in with violence and publishes my shame by his clamours. Hardly could he restrain his hands from my face. I, overwhelmed with conscious guilt, answered only by my tears. Fear had bound up my frozen tongue. Now he commanded his little grandchild to be thrown out, a prey to dogs and hungry birds, and left in some solitary place. The helpless babe cried out as if he understood his doom, and conjured his grandfather with what voice he could. Imagine, dear brother, what anguish of soul I must then feel, for you may easily guess the state of my mind by your own, to hear my bowels doomed in my presence, a prey to mountain wolves and the savage beasts of the woods. My father left me. Then was I at liberty to beat my breast and wound my cheeks with my nails.

Meantime a messenger came from my father, his countenance sad and his words full of cruelty. Aeolus sends thee this sword, he then gave the sword into my hand, and says that the sense of thy own demerits will teach thee what it means. I know what it means, and will boldly urge the piercing steel, My father's gift shall be treasured in my breast. Are these the gifts with which your father graces my nuptials? Is this the dower with which you enrich your daughter? Deluded, Hymenaeus, remove far hence the nuptial torch, and fly with hurry and trepidation from this detested place. Let the hideous furies bring hither their internal brands, that, kindled up by them, my funeral pile may blaze. Do you, my sisters, wed, blessed with more propitious fate, but, warned, be ever mindful of my crime.

What has my infant son, so lately born, committed? What could one, scarcely brought forth, do to offend his grandfather? If it were possible for him to have deserved so hard a fate, let him be thought to have deserved it. Alas, unhappy balls, you suffer for the guilt to your mother. O, my darling son, to be your mother's grief and the prey of wild beasts. Alas, doomed to be destroyed on the very day of your birth, ill-fated babe, the mournful pledge of our unhappy loves, this was your first day of life. This also must be your last. I was not allowed to shed over you a mother's tears or offer upon your sepulchre my surer hair. I did not hang over thy lightless frame, or snatch from thy mouth the cold kisses.

My bowels, alas, are made a prey to savage beasts. But I will soon follow by this wound thy infant shade. Not long a mother, nor long shall I be called childless. But thou, in vain, alas, thy wretched sister's hope, fail not to gather up the scattered members of thy son. Bear them to his fond mother's grave, and unite them with her in the social tomb. Let the same urn, though small, contain us both. Live ever mindful of your cannessy, and shed some tears over my wound, nor fear to touch the breathless body of one whom you loved. Fulfill these last commands of thy hapless sister, and I will execute the cruel mandates of my unrelenting sire.

End of Canacy to Macarius.

12 12 - Medea to Jason 15:40

XII. Section Twelve of Ovid's Herodes, translated by an unknown translator first published in 1813. Medea to Jason.

Well, I remember that, though Queen of Colchis, I found leisure to provide for your safety when you requested the help of my art. Then, if ever, the sisters who measure out the thread of human life ought to have finished the number of my days. Then might Medea have died honorably. Life, ever since, has been a series of woes. Alas, why did the Thessalian bark, manned by a troop of resolute youths, sail in quest of the Golden Fleece? Why did Argo come within sight of Caucasus, or a Grecian band drink of the water of Fatsis? Why was I so much pleased with your golden locks, your personal attractions, and the dissembled eloquence of your enchanting tongue? Doubtless, as a strange ship had arrived on our coast, and landed a set of bold, enterprising youths, ungrateful Jason should have been left to rush, unfortified with spells, upon the glowing nostrils of the fire-breathing bulls, and there their lofty looks.

He should have been left to sew the serpent's teeth, and feel the arms of his numerous foes. That the forward cultivator might thus have fallen by his own harvest. Perjured wretch! How much perfidy had been prevented by your fall! How many heart-piercing griefs might I have escaped! It is some relief to upbraid the ungrateful with the favors which they have received. This I can still enjoy, and it is indeed the only pleasure you have now left me. Commended by your uncle to sail to Colchis with the unproved ship, you entered the happy kingdom of my native land. There Medea held the same place which your new bride holds here. My father, in wealth and dominion, came not short of hers. He rules over Corinth, placed between two seas.

My father commends all that part of Snowyscythia, which runs along the left side of the Oxine Sea. Ites gave a kind and noble reception to the Pelesgian youths, and placed them on richly embroidered couches. It was then I first saw you, and understood who you were. That was the dreadful day of ruin to my quiet and peace of mind. How did I gaze, how did I imbibe the fatal poison, and burn with fires I had not felt before, like a pine torch when lighted up at the sacrifices of the gods? You were beautiful. and charming, and my unhappy destiny pushed me on. My eyes remained continually fixed upon yours. Base men, you too clearly perceived it, for who was ever discreet enough to hide love? A flame that betrays itself by its own light.

In the meantime, the law of victory is laid down, that you train to the unusual plough the unbroken necks of the fierce bulls. These bulls, Sacred to Mars, were not only terrible by their horns. They breathed out streams of flame. Their feet were guarded with brazen hoofs. Blades of brass also covered their nostrils, which were rendered black by their glowing breath. You are farther required to scatter over the wide fields with devoted hen, seed, that will suddenly bring forth a harvest of men who will attack you with their self-born darts, a crop Fatal to the laborer. Your last and greatest toil is artfully to elude the eyes of the watchful dragon, eyes unacquainted with the power of sleep. Here Aethees ended.

You all rise up sad. The table is removed and stripped off the purple carpets. Where was then the kingdom you receive as a dowry with Creuza? How little was your father-in-law or the daughter of mighty Crean than in your thoughts? You left us thoughtful. I followed your departing steps, with eyes moistened in tears, and my tongue, in a soft accent, bade you farewell. When, with a heart fatally wounded, I had retired to my quiet bed, the whole night was spent in shedding floods of tears. The fierce boles and threatening crop of armed men stood before my eyes. But most I was haunted by the image of the watchful dragon. On the one side was love, on the other fear, but fear served only to augment my love.

It was now morning, when my darling sister entered my chamber and found me lying upon my face, my hair disheveled, and the bed under me wet with my tears. She entreats me in behalf of the argonauts. One asks, and another shall reap the fruit. She craves that aid which I freely grant to the young son of Eson. There is a grove where a darksome shade is formed by pitch-trees and leafy oaks. Scarcely can the rays of the sun find admittance. Here had long been, and still was, a temple sacred to Diana, with a golden statue of the goddess, the work of a barbarian artist. Perhaps, as you have forgotten me, so have you also the place. Thither we came, when thus you addressed me with your deluding tongue.

Fortune has given you the disposal and command of my lot. My life and death are in your hands. If you glory in the possession of power, it is enough that you can destroy. But to preserve me in danger will you do greater honor. I implore you, by my distresses, which your art alone can succur, By your race and the majesty of your all-seeing grandfather, by the deity and sacred mysteries of the threefold goddess, and whatever other gods this nation adores. Amiable Virgin, take pity on me, take pity on my companions, and bind me eternally to you by your good offices. If you disdain not to give up your heart to a Grecian youth, but why should I flatter myself that the gods will be so favorable and indulgent?

Sooner may my soul vanish into air than any besides Medea be received a partner of my bed. May Juno, who presides over the marriage-bed, bear witness to this oath, and the goddess in whose marble temple we are. These declarations, and how small a part is this of what you promised, made too great an impression upon the mind of an innocent credulous maid, and your right hand was joined to mine. I saw, moreover, your tears. Are these two capable of deceit? Thus was I easily betrayed by your enchanting words. You yoked the brazen-footed bulls, unhurt by their flaming breath, and cleft the hard earth with the commanded plough. You sowed the land with the teeth of poisonous serpents instead of seed, and a harvest of soldiers sprang up armed with swords and bucklers.

Even I, who secured you by my art, sat pale and trembling. When I saw this sudden crop of men grasp their arms. But at length the earth-born brothers, mournful catastrophe, turned against one another, their ready-armed right hands. And now, lo, the watchful serpent, terrible by his sounding scales, hisses and sweeps the ground with his winding breast. Where was then your rich dory? Where then your royal spouse? In the Isthmus which divides the circling sea, even I, Medea, Whom you now despise as a barbarian, whom you deem indigent and criminal, forsaken Medea, locked up his fiery orbs in enchanted sleep, and left you, the golden fleece, a secure and easy prize. I betrayed my father, I abandoned my kingdom and country, and fancied that, with you, even exile was some gratification.

My virginity became the prey of a foreign ravisher. I left the best of sisters, and a darling mother. Alas, why did I not leave my brother also? Here, conscious guilt rests my hand, and commands me to draw a veil over my crying. My hand refuses to write what it dared to commit. In this manner, ought I to have been torn to pieces, but with you, who also deserve the same fate. Nor did I fear, for what after this could make me afraid. Though a weak woman, And now a guilty wretch, to trust myself to the sea. Where was then the majesty of heaven? Where were the gods by whom you had falsely sworn? Why did we not undergo the just punishment, you, of your falsehood, and I, of my credulity? Oh, that the meeting Simplagades had crushed us into one, and my bones had been made to incorporate with yours, or that the valerian Scylla had made us the prey of hungry dogs, For thus ought Scylla to use ungrateful men, or that the gulf which alternately vomits up and drinks in the waves had overwhelmed us in its circling current.

But fate had otherwise decreed. You returned safe and victorious to the Grecian states, and made an offer of the rich fleece to the gods of your country. Why should I mention the daughters of Peleus, bloody through piety, and the slaughter of a father by the hands of virgins? However others may blame, yet you were bound to commend me, for whose sake I have so often made myself guilty. You had the barbarity. Oh, words are wanting to equal my grief. You had the barbarity to forbid me the house of your father isen. Compelled, I left the house, accompanied only by my two sons, and by that affection for you which never ceases to haunt me. Soon, The new nuptial sounds reached my ears, and the torches shone with the spreading flame.

The flute also struck off the social lines, to me more mournful than the funeral trumpet. I was frightened to distraction, nor could yet fancy you so completely base, but a coldness spread itself over all my breast. The rebels shouted and invoked Hymen. They redoubled their cries, and as they approached the words seemed more dreadful. The servants wept in the corners, and each strove to hide his tears. For who among them would be the messenger of so great a calamity? I was also better pleased to be ignorant of whatever passed, but still my mind, by some secret foresight, forbode my misfortune. When my younger boy, by my command, and moved by curiosity, stood at the entrance of the double gate, "'Look,' said he, "'Mother, my father Jason has the procession.

An arrayed investment of gold urges the harnessed horses. I then tore my garments and bit my breast. Nor was my face safe from the impression of my nails. My rage urged me to rush into the midst of the crowd and tear the garlands from the well-dressed locks. Scarcely could I restrain myself from appearing with my hair torn, taking hold of him and claiming him as mine. Injured father, forsaken Colchians, now rejoice and be satisfied with the sacrifice made to the manes of my murdered brother. I am deserted by my husband after abandoning my kingdom, country, and home. He was all to me. Have I then been able to tame the serpents and raging bulls, and yet cannot vanquish a single man? Could I by magic arts repress the fire-breathing bulls, and not conquer the flames of love that rage in my own breast?

Have my enchantments, herbs, and skill abandoned me? Can Diana and the rites of powerful Hecate yield no relief? Day is odious to me. The night are full of cruel bitterness. No soft slumbers soothe my anxious breast. I, who can do nothing to myself, could yet lull to rest the dragon. My art is useful to every one but myself. A rival embraces those limbs which I preserved. She now enjoys the fruit of my toil. Perhaps, too, while you endeavor to recommend yourself to your silly spouse, and say what may be agreeable to her partial ears, you unjustly ridicule my faith and manners. She stupidly laughs and rejoices at my defects. Laugh on, proud fair, and pride yourself in your purple bed. Soon you shall mourn, and burn with flames more fierce than mine.

While fire, sword, and poisons may be had, no enemy of Medea shall escape her resentment. Yet if prayers are able to touch your obdurate heart, hear me now, descend to requests below my usual greatness of soul. I address you with the same submission with which you have often applied to me, nor delay to throw myself at your feet. If I am now despicable to you, yet think of your children, those common pleasures of our former love. Shall my offspring be exposed to the rage of a cruel stepmother? Alas, they too strongly bear your likeness, and strike me with a resemblance. As often as I look at them, my eyes swim in tears. I implore you, by the gods above, by the splendor of my grandfather's chariot, by the love I always bore you, and your two sons, those dear pledges of what I once was, restore me to that bad, for which I have made so many sacrifices.

Make good your promises, and give me relief. I ask not your aid against the bulls, and earth-born heroes, or to Lul to rest the watchful dragon. I demand you whom I have dearly purchased, who yourself made a surrender of your heart to me, by whom I likewise have been made a mother. If you inquire for my dory, remember the field that was to be ploughed up before you could carry off the golden fleece. My dory is that golden ram. Beautiful by his rich wool, which, if I should demand back, would you ever consent? I bring for a dowry your own safety, and that of all the Grecian youths. Go now, perjured man, and boast the ill-gotten wealth of Sisyphus. To me you owe your life, that you have a spouse, a powerful father-in-law, or even that you can be ungrateful.

But hold, I will quickly be revenged. Yet what avails it to threaten beforehand? Rage drives me upon the deepest destruction. I will yield to all the madness of rage, however I may afterwards repent. I even now repent the aid I granted to a perfidious wretch. The God who rages in my breast can alone penetrate these designs. I only know that my mind conceives something vast and worthy of myself.

End of Medea to Jason.

13 13 - Laodamia to Protesilaus 12:17

Translated by an unknown translator. First published in 1813. Leodemia de Protessilaus. Leodemia of Thessaly, wishes health to her Thessalian husband, and ardently prays that the gods may convey this health whither she sends it. It is said that you are detained at Aulus by contrary winds. Ah, cruel winds! Where were ye when he first parted from me? It was then the seas ought to have opposed themselves to your oars. That was the proper season for the waves to rage. I would have given him many kisses, many admonitions. For I had an abundance of admonitions to give. You were suddenly hurried from me. An inviting gale called forth the sails, a gale grateful to the mariners, not to me. A gale that exactly suited their views, but not those of an unhappy lover.

I was torn from the embraces of my dear Protessilaus. My faltering tongue gave you its last charge in broken words, and scarcely was I able to utter the mournful adieu. The north wind sprang up, and stretched the swelling sails. My pretzolus was soon carried far from me.

While my husband remained in sight, I found a pleasure in looking at him, and incessantly pursued your eyes with mine. Even after I could no longer see you, I still could behold your sails. The sails kept my eyes long fixed upon them. But when I could no more perceive either you or the flying sails, And nothing appeared to my aching sight beside the sea. Light fled also with you. A darkness hung round me, nor were my tottering knees longer able to support my pale frame. My father-in-law, Iphiclus, the good old Acastus, and my sorrowful mother, hardly recovered me by sprinkling my face with cold water. They were taken up in a kind, good-natured office, but ungrateful to me. Who mourned that I was not suffered to finish a wretched life.

With my senses my grief also returned, and a just love preyed upon my chaste heart. I now neglect the care of my hanging locks, and refuse to adorn myself with cloth of gold. I wander wherever my madness urges me, like those whom Bacchus is supposed to have touched with its rod. The Thessalian matrons flock round me. Put on, they cry, Laodamia, the royal robes! Shall I shine in robes of Tyrian purple, and my husband be engaged in a bloody war under the walls of Troy? Shall I adorn my hair, while his head is loaded with a helmet, or strut in new apparel, while he bears about a coat of mail? I will at least be said to copy your hardships in the negligence of my dress, and pass the time of this fatal war and sadness.

O Paris of the house of Priam, beautiful to the destruction of your country, May you prove as cowardly an enemy as you were a perfidious guest. How I could wish that you had disliked the countenance of the Lacedaemonian Queen, or that she had found less cause to admire yours. And you, Menelaos, who shewed too great anxiety about one who so easily consented to be ravished from you, how fatal an avenger will you prove to many. Avert, ye gods, the dire omen from me. and grant that my husband may consecrate his spoils to Jupiter, the author of his safe return. Yet I am full of fears, and as often as I think of the horrible war, the tears drop from me like snow melted by the sun. Ilion, and Tenedos, and Simoes, and Xanthus, and Eda are names which by their very sound strike me with terror.

A stranger would not have ventured to carry her away. Had he not known himself able to defend the prize, doubtless he was well acquainted with his own strength. He came, as fame reports, adorned with gold and jewels, and made a show in his person of the riches of Phrygia. He was backed with ships and armed men, by which wars are carried on. And yet how small a part of the population of his country followed him! It was by these, I suspect, daughter of Leda and sister of the famous twins, that your heart was gained. These, I fear, may prove fatal to the Greeks. I have a strong dread of some one named Hector. Hector, Paris was wont to say, knew how to support a war with bloody rage. Beware of Hector, whoever he is, if you retain any regard for me.

Let this name be deeply engraven in your mindful breast. When you shun him, Remember also to shun others. Fancy that there are many hectares within those walls, and do not fail to say within yourself, as often as you prepare for battle. Leodimia enjoined me to take care of myself for her sake. If fate has ordained that Troy shall fall by the hand of the Greeks, it may fall without your receiving any injury. Let Menelaus fight. and rush among the thickest ranks of foe, that he may recover from Paris what Paris unjustly ravished from him. Let him force his way through them, and as he triumphs in a better cause, triumph also by arms, and recover his wife from amidst his enemies. The case is different with you.

You must fight that you may live, and return safe to your wife's tender caresses. Spare, O Trojans, this one out of so many enemies. And spill not my blood by the wounds you give him. He is not formed to engage cruel foes in close fight, or march up with an undaunted breast to their foremost ranks. He acquits himself better in the combats of love. Let others engage in bloody wars, but let Protesilaus fight under the banner of Cupid. Now, I own that I would gladly have called you back. My heart strongly inclined me to it, but my tongue was silent from the fear of giving a bad omen. When you set out for Troy, from your father's gate, your foot gave a presage by striking against the threshold. When I saw it, I groaned and said quietly to myself, May the gods grant that this may be a presage of my husband's safe return.

These circumstances I now relate to you that you may not be too forward in the field, but by your caution may make all my fears vanish in empty air. Fortune hath also doomed some one to an untimely fate, who shall, first of the Greeks, set his foot upon Trojan ground. Unhappy she, fated first to deplore her lost lord. Grant, O ye gods, that Pertesilaus' courage may then fail. May thy ship be the last of a thousand, and in the rear of all the fleet plough the foaming deep. I farther admonish you, that you be the last to leave the ship. The shore to which you hasten is not your native soil. But, when you return, urge the bark with sails and oars, nor delay a moment to set foot upon the coast of your own country.

Whether Phoebus hides his beams, or high in his chariot overlooks the earth, both by day and by night you fill my mind with grief and anxiety. Yet the mournful image haunts me more at night than during the day. Night is grateful to those whose necks are environed by clasping arms. I catch it empty dreams in a forlorn bed, and must put up with false joys, because the true have fled. But why does your pale shadow stand before me? Why do I incessantly hear you uttering mournful complaints? I start from my sleep, and adore the nightly powers. These Scythalian altars cease not to smoke with sacrifices for your sake. Incense is offered, and tears are shed over it in abundance. With which the flame burns bright, as if sprinkled with wine.

When shall I again clasp you in my longing arms, and be elate with joy in your embraces? When, happily united with you in the same bed, shall I hear you recount your noble deeds in war? Though I shall be pleased with the recital, yet will your relation be often interrupted by our mutual kisses. These always occasion an agreeable pause in discourse. The tongue is rendered more prompt by such alluring delays. But when I think of Troy, of the winds and the sea, flattering hopes give way to anxious fears. I am alarmed that your fleet is detained by adverse winds. How can you think of sailing when the sea forbids? What man returns to his own country when the winds are against him? Why, then, did you spread your sails to leave it when the sea forbids?

Neptune himself stops up the way to his city. Whither hurry you so rashly? Let each return to his own home. Whither, I say, O ye Greeks, do you hurry so rashly? Attend to the voice of the forbidding winds. This delay is no work of blind chance. It comes from the gods. What do you intend by this mighty war but to regain a base adulteress? Return, ye Grecian ships, while it yet may be done with honor. But why do I thus call you back? Forbid ye gods every bad omen, and may an inviting gale bear you through the quiet waves. How I envy the lot of the Trojan wives! For if they are doomed to see the mournful funerals of their husbands, the enemy is, however, not far off. The youthful bride will, with her own hand, fix the helmet upon the head of her gallant spouse, and buckle on his shining armor.

She will buckle on his armor, and as she performs the task, often snatch a kiss. This sport of office will be grateful to both. She will partly attend him in his march, affectionately enjoin him to return, and advise him to caution that he may triumph and dedicate his arms to Jupiter. He, bearing in mind the fresh injunctions of his beloved spouse, will fight with due care of himself, and think of her, whom he has left at home. At his return, she will take from him his shield and unbuckle the ponderous helmet while he reclines his weary breast upon her soft bosom. Unhappy, we are racked with uncertainty, and anxious fear makes us apt to fancy you surrounded with a thousand dangers. Yet while you bear armor, and are fighting in remote lands, I take a pleasure in contemplating the wax which inhabits your likeness.

As if you were present, I make use of the softest expressions, and address it in words due only to my Pertesilaus. I even embrace and caress it. Surely it must be so. This image is more than what it seems. Add speech to the statue, and it will be my Pertesilaus himself. My eyes are incessantly fixed upon it. I press it to my bosom as if it were indeed my husband, and pour out my complaints to it, vainly hoping for an answer. I swear by yourself and your return. So dear to me above all things, by the nuptial torch and that glowing heart which is only yours. By your beloved head, which, O you propitious gods, restore to me unhurt, and give me to see at length venerable with grey hairs, that I am ready to fly whithersoever you call me, and will readily share your fate, whether that should happen which, alas, I too much fear, or the gods should graciously preserve you.

Permit me to conclude my epistle with a small request. If you have yet any love for me, be sure to show it in the care you take of yourself.

End of Laodamia to Protesilaus.

14 14 - Hypermnestra to Lynceus 12:13

Hypermnestra sends to the only survivor of so many brothers. The rest have all perished by the crime of their wives. I am closely confined and loaded with the weight of chains. My piety is a silk horse of my punishment. I am deemed guilty. Because my hand trembled, he urged the sword to my husband's throat. Had I dared to commit the bloody deed, I should have been extolled. It is better to be thus deemed guilty than please a father by an act of barbarity. I can never repent that my hands are unstained with murder. Should my father torture me with the flames, that I have not dared to violate, or throw in my face the torches used at the nuptial rides, should he pierce me with the very sword which he gave me for an inhuman purpose, and destroy the wife by the death from which he saved her husband, yet would all his cruelty be insufficient to make my dying-lip's own repentance?

I have a minister is not one who will repent of her piety. At Danau's, and my bloody sisters testify penitence for their wickedness, this usually follows deeds of guilt. My heart sickens at the remembrance of that bloody night, and a sudden trembling enervates the joint of my right hand—that hand, which a sword strong enough to engage in the murder of a husband, even dreads the right of a murder that he did not commit. Yet will I attempt to describe the horrid scene.

Twilight had overspread the earth. It was about the close of day, and night hastened on. We, the descendants of Inacus, are led to the palace of the great Pelasgus, and a father-in-law receives into his house daughters armed for the destruction of their husbands. Lamps adorned with gold shine through all the apartments, and impious incense is offered to the unwilling gods. The people invoke Hymen, but Hymen neglects their call. Even the wife of Jove forsook her beloved city. The bridegrooms made their appearance, high in wine and enlivened by the acclamations of their attendants. Their anointed heads were adorned with garlands of flowers. They entered their bedchambers, chambers doomed to be their graves, and reposed their limbs on beds fitter for their funeral piles.

Thus they lay, overcome with food, wine, and sleep, and a dead silence reigned in unsuspecting Argus. I seem to hear around me the groins of dying men. I indeed heard them, and it was really as I feared. At this the blood forsook my limbs, the vital heat departed, and the coolness spread itself over all my joints. As the bending reeds are shaken by the mild zephyres, or the rough northern blasts agitate the poplar leaves, alike, all more violent shaking seized me. You lay quiet, lulled to rest by the sleepy draw which I had given. The commands of a violent father had banished fear. I started up and seized with a trembling hand the deadly sword. Why should I deceive? Thrice I took hold of the pointed steel, and thrice my feeble hand dropped the hated load.

I aimed at your throat. Blame me not if I acknowledge the truth. I aimed at your throat, the blade I had received of my father. But fear and piety opposed the bloody deed, and my blameless right hand refused the hated task. I tore my purple garments, I tore my hair, and with a faint voice uttered this mournful complaint. A cruel father you have, Hypermolester. Think of executing his commands and make Linkeus also a companion to his brothers. I am a woman and a virgin, mild both by nature and ears. These gentle hands are unfit to wield the face of steel. But take courage. And while he lies defenseless, imitate the bravery of your resolute sisters. It is very probable that ere now all their husbands are slain.

Alas, if this hand could perpetrate a cruel murder— It must first be died in the blood of its owner. How can they deserve death by possessing the wrungled realms which yet must have been given to foreign sons-in-law? Even if our husbands have deserved death, what have we done? Why am I urged to a crime which, if committed, robs me of my claim to piety? What have I to do with a drawn sword? Why are warlike weapons put into the hands of a girl? A spindle and distaff battered through these fingers. These things I revolved with myself, and as I complained, the mournful words were accompanied with tears, which, gently falling from my eyes, bedewed your naked limbs. While you sought to embrace me, and half-awake stretched your clasping arms, your hand was almost wounded by the drawn sword.

And now I began to dread my father, the guards, and the approaching light. From these my words roused you from sleep. Rise speedily, grandson of Beelus. Now the only survivor of so many brothers. Unless you are quick in escaping, this is fate to be your eternal night. You start up in a fright. The fetters of sleep are all loosened, and you behold in my hand the pointed weapon. As you ask the cause, fly, interrupted I, while night permits. You escape, favored by the darkness of the night, while I remain. And now morning coming on, Dino's numbers over his slaughtered sons, one only was wanting to complete the bloody crime. He stormed at his disappointment in the death of a single kinsman, and complained that too little blood had been shed.

I am torn from my father, as I am brazed his knees, and dragged by the head, brison.

Is of this the due reward of my piety?

So it is that youna's resentment has ever pursued our race, since Jove transformed Io into a cow, and the cow into a goddess. But was it not sufficient punishment for the unhappy maid to lose her natural form, and, stripped of her beauty, be no longer able to please the almighty Jove? She stood amazed at her new shape, upon the banks of her flowing parent, and beheld in this paternal mirror the unusual horns. Striving to complain, her mouth was filled with lowings, and she was equally terrified at her form and voice. Oh, happy maid! Why this mad rage? Why do you wonder at your own shadow? Why do you number your feet formed to new joins? This beauteous rival, once dreaded by the sister of Almighty Jove, now allays her raging hunger with leaves and grass.

She drinks of the running stream, and is astonished to behold her own shape. She even trembles at the arms she wears, and thinks that them ain't against herself. You, lately so rich as to be deemed worthy even of Almighty Jove, now lying naked and defenceless in the unsheltered fields. You wildly run through the sea over lands and through kindred rivers. Even seas, lands, and rivers permit your wanderings. What is the cause of your flight? Why, Io, do you thus traverse the spacious main? It is impossible to fly from your own shadow. Whither, daughter of Inakas, do you run? It is the same individual who flies and who pursues. You lead, and at the same time follow the leader. The Nile, which pours into the ocean through seven floodgates, restored to her former shape, this beloved of Jove.

But why should I mention remote times, and accounts for which I am beholden to old age? Even the present years a fort crowd have complained. My father and uncle are at war. We are driven from our kingdom and home, and wander exiles on earth's remotest verge. My savage uncle singly possesses of the throne and sceptre. We, a destitute crowd, follow, this consulate, A helpless old man. You only—how small a part—remain of a whole nation of brothers. I mourn both for those who perished, and those who gave the fatal stroke. I have not only lost a multitude of brothers, but also a like number of sisters, and both losses equally demand my tears. Lo, even I am reserved to a cruel punishment. Because I saved your life.

What fate is left for the guilty when I, who merit only praise, am thus accused? And must I, once the hundredth of a kindred tribe, suffer death for saving one of so many brothers? But, my dear Linkius, if you have any regard to the piety of your sister, Or any remembrance of her love and the life she gave you, help me in this extremity. Or if death should set me free before you can arrive, bear privately my breathless frame to the funeral pile, and sprinkle my ashes with unfeigned tears. When you have faithfully performed the last obsequies, engrave upon my tomb this short inscription.

Hypermonestra. An unhappy exile was, as a reward for her piety, unjustly doomed to that death from which she had saved her brother.

I wish to write more, but my hand fails, disabled by weight of chains, and ill-boding fears deprive me of the power of reflection.

End of Hypermonestra to Linchius

15 15 - Sappho to Phaon 16:06

Sappho du Fayon. At the sight of this letter, written by an anxious hand, Will you not instantly know the characters to be mine, or must even the name of the unhappy writer be added to prove the person by whom the few lines are sent? You may perhaps wonder why I address you in alternate measures when lyric numbers so much better suit my genius. But unsuccessful love complains in melancholy notes, and elegy is the most proper for the expression of my woe. No harp can serve to paint my flowing tears. I burn like a ripened field of corn when driving east winds spread the catching flames. Phaon honors the distant fields of burning Etna, while flames fierce as those of Etna prey upon my heart. I no more take pleasure in forming my numbers to the tuneful strings.

Music and poetry are the employment of a mind at ease. The deums of Pyrrha, Methymna, and the other cities of Lesbos, please no more. Anactore and Phrysitno have lost their charms, and Athys of late so grateful to my sight, with hundreds of others, once the objects of my guilty love. Fateless man, you alone engrossed at heart, formerly shared by many. You are happy in a fine face, and years fit for pleasure and dalliance. Oh, enchanting looks, so fatal to me and my repose. Take the harp and bow, and you will pass withal for Apollo. Adorn your head with wreaths of ivy, and you will appear beautiful as Bacchus. Yet Apollo was enamored of Daphne, and Bacchus of the Cretan maid, though neither of them excelled in lyric measures.

To me the muses dictate the sweetest lays, and the name of Sappho resounds through all nations. Even great Alceus, the partner of my country and my harp, has not more renown, though he sings in loftier notes. If unfriendly nature has denied me an engaging form, yet the charms of my wit abundantly compensate that deficiency. I am short of stature, yet I have a name that fills the whole earth, and by my own merit have gained this extensive renown. What if I am not fair? Was not even Perseus pleased with Andromeda, an Ethiopian dame? Doves of various colours often unite, and the white turtle matches with the shining green. If no charms can gain your heart but such as equal your own, no charms will be ever able to gain Fion.

Yet, when you read my lays, I then seemed formed to please. You were never enough delighted with my voice, and swore that it became me alone to speak. I remember when wont to sing, for, ah, How vast a memory have lovers! How you stopped my tongue with kisses, even these you praised. I pleased in all, but more particularly when united with you in the close bonds of love. Then you were fired by my amorous sport. Each motion, each glance, each word inflamed you, till, dissolving in tumultuous raptures, gentle faintness surprised our wearied limbs. But now the Sicilian maids take up all your thoughts. Why was I born at Lesbos? Why am I not a native of Sicily? But ah, Sicilian nymphs, beware, and banish from your isle this deceitful wanderer.

Be not deceived with the fictions of an insinuating tongue. Those faithless vows have all been made to Sappho. You, too, Erisina, who range the Sicilian hills, think that I am thine, and pity the sorrows of your poetess. Shall cruel fortune still pursue the same sad tenor, and obstinately persist in heaping woes upon me? Scarcely had I completed my sixth year, when the ashes of a deceased parent drank my tears. My brother next, despising wealth and honour, Burned with an ignoble flame, and rashly plunged himself into shameful distresses. Reduced to want, he traversed the blue ocean in a nimble bark, and basely hunted after those riches which he had foolishly lost. My many good counsels he repaid with hatred.

Such was the reward of my piety and plain dealing, and, as if fortune had determined to oppress me without ceasing, an infant daughter has been lately added to my cares. Yet adverse fate still pursues me, and sends you, the last and greatest of my woes. Alas, how much is this tempestuous voyage of life agitated by unfriendly gales? My locks no more hang curled in ringlets round my neck, nor do the glowing gems o'dawn my joints. I am clad in homely weeds. No braids of gold bind the flowing tresses, nor do Arabian engines breathe their sweet perfumes. For whom shall I adorn myself, unhappy wretch? Whom shall I thus study to please? The only object of my tenderness is gone. The light darts of cupid easily wound my gentle heart, and still there is some cause why Sappho still should love.

Whether the sisters have so fixed my doom from the birth and formed my life to the softer ties of Venus, or my manners are fashioned by my studies and those arts in which I excel, the muse suddenly forms my mind to answer the moulting notes of my tongue. What wonder if my tender age yields to the gentle violence and those years that recommend to the addresses of men? How was I afraid that Aurora might seize you for Hercephalus? And she would have done it, had she not been detained by her first love. If Cynthia, whose eye extends over all, should chance to fix it upon you, Phaon would be commanded to prolong his sleep. Venus would have borne you off in a chariot of ivory to the skies, but she foresaw that you would no less charm her beloved Mars.

Oh, scarcely a youth, and yet not a tender boy, useful age for lovers! O pride and glory of thy age, come to these arms. Return, darling of my soul, to my soft embraces. I ask not your love, but that you will kindly receive mine. I write, and as I write, the starting tears flow from my eyes. See what a number of blots stain this very place. If you were determined to abandon me, it might yet have been done in a kinder way. Was it too much to say, Farewell, my lesbian maid? You saw none of my tears. You received no parting kisses. Nor did I at all apprehend what a load of grief awaited me. You have left nothing with your suffer but wrongs and woes, nor have carried any pledge with you to renew the memory of our loves.

I gave you no charge, nor, indeed, had I any other charge to give than that you would be always mindful of me.

I swear to you by the God of love, by whom let me never be abandoned, and by the sacred Nine, those deities whom I adore, that when first told, I hardly know by whom, that you and all my joys had fled. I had neither the power of speaking nor of weeping. My eyes did not grant me the relief of tears, and my tongue was deprived of all motion. A death-like coldness seized my boding heart. But when Impetuous grief at last found a vent, I beat my breast and rent my scattered locks, raving in all the wildness of furious despair, like a pious mother who bears to the funeral pile the breathless body of her darling son. My brother Caraxes rejoices at the disaster, and barbarously triumphs in my griefs.

His hated image is ever before my eyes. And, to reproach me with a shameful cause, he asks, Why all this sadness? Your daughter still lives. Love and shame are ever inconsistent. With garments torn and my bosom bare, I proclaim to all the world my guilt. You, Fion, take up all my thoughts, my care by day and the nightly object of my dreams, dreams that charm more than the brightest day. In these I find you, though flat to remote regions. But, alas, the joys of sleep are vain and short-lived. Oft you seem to wind your arms round my yielding neck. Oft my arms fondly encircle thine. I soothe and address you in softest words, and my mouth is prompt to utter the language of my heart. I seem to give and take endearing kisses.

And yield to joys which I blush to mention, while yet I must confess how much they please. But when the rising sun spreads his light over all, as if once more deserted, I complain that sleep has fled so soon. I retired to the caves and groves, as if caves and groves could yield relief, and fondly caught the haunts that have witnessed your dear embraces. Thither I run, my hair loose and disheveled, like those who are infatuated by some powerful sorceress. There I behold the caves beset with rugged cliffs, that to me were more pleasant than the finest Phrygian marble. I find the grove that has often afforded us a flowery bed, and sheltered us from the heat by its spreading leaves. But I no more find him with whom I haunted these beloved shades.

They now can please no more, for to him they owed all their charms. I view the pressed grass on which we have reposed our wearied limbs, where the bending turf retains the print of our double weight. I kiss the earth pressed by our lovely limbs, and bedew with tears the grateful herbs. For thee the trees, dropping their leaves, seem to mourn, and the tuneful birds deny their songs. The Phocian bird alone, that is consoled mother, who took so cruel a revenge on her Thracian lord, mourns the hard fate of Itis. The nightingale mourns the fate of Itis. Sappho laments that she is deserted by Phaon. All else is silent, and involved in the shades of night.

A spring there is, whose waters run clear and transparent as crystal. Here, as many think, a deity resides. Above, a flowery lotus spreads its shading branches and seems itself a grove. The banks around are etched with eternal green. Here, while after an infusion of tears I rested my wearied limbs, a naiad suddenly stood before my eyes. She stood and said, O you who burn with an ill-requited flame, fly to the Echarnanian shore. Apollo from an impending rock surveys the extended ocean below, which is called By the inhabitants, the sea of Actium and Leucate. Hence Deucalion, inflamed with the hopeless love of Pyrrha, plunged himself unhurt into the main. Forthwith love changing, possessed the obstinate heart of Pyrrha, and Deucalion was freed from his flame.

Such is the law of the place. Haste, then. Throw yourself from high Leucadia, nor dread the threatening steep. She spoke. and disappeared with the voice. I rose amazed, and my dim eyes overflowed with tears. I go, O nymph, to prove these healing rocks. Fear recedes, borne down by powerful love. My fate, whatever it is, will be milder than at present. Blow up, gentle gales, beneath my falling body, and lay me softly on the swelling waves. And thou too, gentle love, bear up my sinking limbs with outspread wings, and let not Sappho's death profane the guiltless Leucadian flood. I will then hang up my lyre to Phoebus, and under it write this inscription. Grateful Sappho consecrates her harp to Phoebus, a gift that suits both the giver and the god.

But why, relentless youth, do you drive me to distant coasts, when you can so easily cure me by your return? Your charms are more powerful than the Leucadian waves, and your merit and beauty make you a Phoebus to me. Can you bear, O more hard-hearted than the rocks and waves, to be reputed the cause of my untimely death? Wouldst thou rather see this breast dashed on pointed rocks than pressed to thine? This breast which you— Phaon have so often praised as the seat of love and genius. But now genius is no more. Grief checks my thoughts, and the edge of my wit is blunted by my misfortunes. My wanted strength no more furnishes the flowing lines. My lute is silent, and the sounding notes sink under a weight of woe.

Ye lesbian virgins and dames, so often celebrated by the Aeolian lyre, Lesbians, the objects of my guilty love, cease to hope that I will more touch the sounding harp. Fion is gone, and with him all my joys have vanished. Unhappy wretch! I'd almost called him mine. Make him return. No more shall you complain to the absence of your poetess. It is he, he only, that inspires or quenches the poetic flame. Can prayers avail nothing? Is your savage breast proof against all tender feelings, or have the flying zephyrs lost my words in air? Oh, that the winds which bear away my words would bring back your welcome sails. It is what, if you are wise for yourself, you ought now, though late, to hasten. Or are you already on the way, and are sacrifices offered for your safety?

Why do you tear my heart with cruel delays? Spread your sails. The sea-born goddess will smooth the waves, and prosperous gales speed your course. Only weigh anchor and set sail. Cupid himself, sitting at the helm, will govern the bark. He, with a skilful hand, will unfold and gather in the sails. Or do you choose to fly from unhappy Sappho? Alas, what have I done to be thus the object of your aversion? At least inform me of this. By a few cruel lines, that I may plunge myself with all my miseries amidst the Leucadian waves.

End of Sappho to Phaon.

16 16 - Paris to Helen 32:47

Paris to Helen.

Paris, the son of Priam, sends health to Helen, that health which he can himself no otherwise enjoy than as it is your gift. Shall I then speak? Or is it unnecessary to inform you of a passion that betrays itself? Has not my love already laid itself too open? I could indeed wish it to lie concealed till the time comes when we can taste of joys unalloyed by any mixture of fear. But it is in vain that I dissemble, for who can smother a flame that always discovers itself by its own brightness? If yet you expect that my tongue should confirm what my actions have so long declared, I burn. This message brings you the true sense of my heart. Forgive this kind confession, and do not peruse what remains with a severe look, but with one that best becomes your heavenly form.

Already it gives me pleasure to think that my letter is well received, for this creates a hope that I may also meet with the same kind entertainment. Heaven grant that my hopes may be confirmed, and that the Queen of Love, who urged me to this voyage, may not have promised in vain. For that you may not offend through ignorance, Know that I came hither by a divine admonition, and that one, not the meanest of the divine powers, favors my design. The prize I seek indeed is great, yet what I may justly claim. For Venus promised you, fair as you are, to my bed. Guided by her, I abandoned the Sygian shore, ventured upon a doubtful fate, and did not decline to plough the pathless deep in the Fericlean bark.

She commanded a gentle breeze, and stretched the canvas with auspicious gales, for, having sprung from the teeming deep, she still retains her empire over the main. May she still persevere, and as she calms the sea, so may she calm the tempest that rages in my breast, and bring home all my vows and sighs to their desired port. My flames I brought with me, for I did not first find them here. They were the cause of my undertaking so long a voyage. For no threatening storm or mistaken course drove us hither. My fleet was designed from the first for the coast of Laconia. Nor fancy that I plough the waves in a ship laden with merchandise. The gods have already blessed me with ample wealth. Nor came I so far to view and admire the cities of Greece, My own kingdom is filled with richer towns.

It is you that I seek, whom beautiful Venus promised to my embraces. I wished for the enjoyment of your love even before I was acquainted with your charms. Long before my eyes beheld you, I had formed an image of you in my mind, for fame was the first messenger of your beauty. Nor is it so great a wonder that, pierced by the swift-winged arrow at such a distance, I offer you my heart. So the fates have ordained, which, that you may not strive to resist, attend to a relation that carries in it nothing but truth. I was yet enclosed in the womb of my mother, Now pregnant with a burthen almost struggling for birth. She, in a mysterious dream, seemed to herself to be delivered of a burning torch. She was frighted, and related to Priam the tremendous visions of the gloomy night.

He consulted the sacred seers. The prophet foretold that the flames of the ruined Troy were portended by the threatening torch. But surely fate meant the flames that now rage in my breast. Though exposed among shepherds, yet my form and native greatness spoke the nobility of my birth. In the thickest groves of Eida there is a place remarkably retired, and shaded with oaks and pitch-trees. The grass upon this spot is not touched by the bleating sheep, The goat delighting in rocks and cliffs, or the laborious ox. As here I stood leaning upon a tree, and beholding from afar the walls, lofty towers, and winding bays of Troy, lo, suddenly the ground seemed to be shaken with the tread of feet. I speak the truth, yet scarcely will it be able to gain the credit due to truth.

The grandson of great Atlas and Plione, borne through the air on nimble wings, stood before my eyes. As I was permitted to see, so may it be allowed me to relate what I have seen. The gods stood, and in his sacred hand was a golden rod. Three goddesses, too, Venus, Juno, and Pallas, gently pressed the grass with their tender feet. I stood amazed, and a chilling horror raised my hair in bristles, when the winged messenger thus addressed me. Banish fear. You are appointed the judge of beauty. Settle therefore the contests of the goddesses, and name one who must claim the prize of beauty from the other two. And, that I might not decline the task, he laid his commands upon me in the name of Jupiter, and then mounted aloft through the aerial way.

My mind seemed to gather strength, and I was conscious of an unusual boldness. Nor did I fear to fix my eyes upon each of them with attention. They all seemed worthy of the victory. And I, their judge, was grieved to think that all could not equally carry off the prize. Yet even then there was one that pleased me more, insomuch that it was easy to discover in her mien and heir the Queen of Love. So strong was the contention for superiority that they began to solicit my favour by bribes. The wife of Jove offered me a kingdom, palace, prudence, and valour, whilst I myself could not resolve to which to give the preference. But Venus, sweetly smiling, said, Let not gifts like these, Paris, weigh you, for both are full of fears and anxieties.

I will give you to taste of the pleasures of love, And fair leaders, yet fairer daughter, shall receive your fond caresses. Thus attractively she spoke, and, equally powerful by her gifts and beauty, returned to heaven with victorious pace. In the meantime, the fates beginning to be now more propitious, I am known by undoubted signs to be the son of royal Priam. The court is overjoyed to recover a son who had so long been lost, and grateful Troy adds this day also to her festivals. And as I now languish for you, so did the beauties of Troy for me. You alone reign over my heart, for which many sighed in vain. Nor was I only desired by the daughters of kings and heroes, I was also the darling and care of heaven-born nymphs.

But all these, Tenderess, met with a return of cold disdain when the hopes of your embrace had fired my breast. All the day fancy placed you before my eyes. At night, too, when my eyes were sealed by gentle sleep, you stood before me in my dreams. What surprise, then, must your presence give, whose absent image so far occupied my thoughts? I was consumed with the flame, though it scorched at so great a distance. Nor was I able to restrain my ardent hopes from seeking the desired object through the blue ocean. The stately Trojan pines were cut down with a Phrygian axe, And every tree that was fittest to plough the yielding deep. The steep gargery and summits were despoiled of their lofty woods, and spacious ida furnished me with the finest planks.

Stiff oaks were bent to form the doubling hold, and the rising sides were knit with jointed ribs. Sails and sail-yards were added to the lofty masts, And the bending stern was adorned with painted gods. On my own ship stood the goddess, who promised to make me happy in your embraces, accompanied by her little son, Cupid. The fleet being thus completely prepared, I longed to traverse the wide Aegean Sea. My father and mother opposed their entreaties to my desires, and with pious requests withstood my intended voyage. Cassandra, too, my sister, with loose and disordered locks, just as the ships were ready to set sail, exclaimed, Whither do you hurry without thought to bring back fire and destruction?

Alas, you little think what raging flames threaten us from beyond these seas. True were her predictions. I have felt the threatened fires. Tyrannic love rages in my yielding breast. Yet I set sail, and, urged by propitious gales, arrived, fairest nymph, on your native coasts. There I was kindly entertained by your husband, and this did not happen without the concurrence and contrivance of the gods. He showed me everything that was remarkable or worth notice in Lacedaemon, but in vain these objects solicited the attention of one who was wholly possessed with the desire of beholding your celebrated beauty. I saw—I saw—I saw—I saw And stood amazed. Stricken to the inmost soul with your charms, I felt my heart well with new cares.

Such was Venus, so far as I can remember, when she descended from heaven to submit to my decision. If you had also come to bear a part in that contest, even Venus could have scarcely pretended to the prize. Fame, indeed, has so diffused the report of your beauty that no country is a stranger to your charms. Not even Phrygia can boast of your equal, nor from the rising to the setting sun is there one to rival you. Believe me when I tell you that your fame comes far short of the truth. For even report has invidiously denied the share of praise due to your charms. I found you greatly to exceed what that had given ground to hope, and that your fame in everything fell below your merit. Well, therefore, might Theseus, who knew all, feel the power of so many charms, and think you a prey worthy of so great a hero.

When, after the manner of your country, you contended in the wrestling ring, and disputed with the other sex the prize of manly exercise. I commend the bold theft, but wonder how he ever could restore you. So inestimable a prize ought always to have been retained. Sooner should this head have been severed from the bloody neck than any one be suffered to tear you from my embraces. Would ever this right hand have permitted you to be carried off? Could I, while aught of life remained, have tamely seen you ravished from my bosom? If necessity had compelled me, yet I would not have left you before I had received some pledge of your love, some earnest of the strength of our mutual flame. I would have tasted of your virgin charms, or, if that bliss had been denied, have ravished a thousand kisses.

Fly then to my arms, and try the firmness and constancy of Paris. The funeral flames alone shall extinguish the flames that rage in my breast. I preferred you to a kingdom once offered by the sister and the wife of Jove. Even prudence and valour, the gifts of Pallas, were postponed to the sweet pleasure of throwing my arms round your neck. Nor do I repent or charge myself with having made a foolish choice, My mind continues firm in its first resolve. You only, to obtain whom no labour can appear great, do not, oh, do not suffer my hopes to vanish into air. I am not one whose birth will disgrace the noble line of his spouse, nor is it beneath your dignity to be wedded to Paris. The Pleiades and great Jove himself ennoble my pedigree, Not to mention the long race of succeeding kings.

My father sways the sceptre of Asia, a kingdom rich and fertile, whose ample bounds stretch as far as the rising sun. There you will behold innumerable cities, houses roofed with gold, and temples becoming the gods to whom they belong. You will see Ilion and its walls strengthened with lofty towers, all built to the harmony of Apollo's lyre. Why should I mention the vast multitudes of people? The country is scarcely able to sustain its inhabitants. The Trojan matrons will meet you in troops, nor will our halls accommodate the concourse of Phrygian dames. How often will you say, What a poor, naked country is Greece! And that one Phrygian palace is richer than whole cities there. Nor mean I by this to despise your native land, for the region in which you first drew your breath must ever be to me a dear and happy country.

Yet Sparta is poor, Whereas you are worthy of the richest ornaments. That sordid city ill-suits a form so lovely. Your face ought to shine with rich attire, and be set off with all the ornaments and luxuriance of dress. When you so much admire the habit of the Trojans who attend me, what, think you, must be that of the Phrygian ladies? Only therefore be kind. Nor do you, a fair Spartan, disdain to receive a husband of Phrygia. He was of Phrygia, springing from our race, who is now advanced to temper the nectar of the gods. Tithonus, too, was of Phrygia, whom the goddess that measures out the night received to her rosy bed. Anchises also was a Phrygian, With whom the mother of winged loves delighted to associate on the summits of Ida.

Nor do I think that Menelaus, whether you compare our persons or age, can have the preference even in your judgment. You certainly will not have a father-in-law who made the sun withdraw his light and turn away his frighted steeds from the dire banquet. Nor is Priam the son of one stained with the blood of a father-in-law, or whose crime gives a name to the Myrtoan waves. No great-grandfather of mine catches at apples in the Stygian flood, or, set up to the chin in water, is tortured with thirst. But what does this avail me, if one so descended possesses Helen? And Jove himself is a father-in-law to this line. Yet he, O ye gods, a wretch unworthy of so much happiness, passes whole nights with you, and shares uninterrupted your fondest caresses.

I can scarcely have a short glance of you at table, and even then there are many things that give me pain. May such feasts fall to the lot of my worst enemies as those I often meet with in your palace. I repent of my entertainment at his court when I see him throw his rude arms round your snowy neck. I swell and am ready to burst with envy, yet why do I thus relate all, when he folds his flowing robe round your tender limbs? But when you give and take in my presence the melting kisses, I am then forced to take the cup and hold it before my eyes. As often as you close in strict embraces, I cast my eyes upon the ground, and the loathed food becomes more and more nauseous to my taste. I often sigh to myself, and have observed you repaying my sighs with a scornful smile.

Oft have I essayed to conquer my flame with wine, but it continued to increase, and, drinking, I found added fuel to the fire. Sometimes I turned away my eyes that I might not see too much. But you soon called back my wandering sight. What can I do? I am pierced with grief to witness all, but it is still a greater grief not to gaze upon your charms. I strive with all my power to hide my flame, but the dissembled passion breaks through all restraints. Nor is it my aim to deceive. My wounds are well, too well known to you. Oh, that they were only known to you! How often have I turned away my face to hide the falling tears, lest he should inquire the cause of my sadness! How oft, when warmed with wine, have I told some tale of love!

Applying every word to your dear face, and, under a feigned name, have made a discovery of my own passion. In these instances, if you knew it not, I was the true lover. Sometimes I have even feigned intoxication to excuse my greater freedoms in discourse. Once, I remember, your loose garments revealed your naked breasts, and discovered them freely to my gazing eyes. Breasts whiter than milk or the purest snow, whiter than Jove when, in the shape of a swan, he made love to your mother. Whilst surprised at the sight I stood gazing, for by chance the cup was in my hand, the wreathed handle insensibly slipped from my fingers. If you kissed your young Hermione, I instantly snatched from her lips the envied bliss.

Sometimes, laid supinely along, I sang love-songs, and by winks and nods gave secret signs of my flame. I even tried with all the softness of eloquence to persuade your favourite attendants, Ithra and Clymene, to promote my addresses. But their answers served only to heighten my despair, and they cruelly deserted me in the midst of my entreaties. Oh, that the gods would make you the reward of some gallant enterprise, and crown the victor with the possession of your charms! As Hippomenes carried off Atalanta, the prize of his dexterity in the chariot-race, as Hippodamia was pressed to the bosom of a Phrygian hero, as brave Alcydes broke the horns of the god Achelloas while he fought for the prize of Dianyra's charms.

My courage would have nobly dared the rude encounter, And you would have soon found yourself the reward of my bravery. Now naught remains but to address you in suppliant prayers, and prostrate at your feet, embrace your knees. O you who are the glory of your family, and ornament of the brother's stars! O worthy of the bed of Jove, but that you sprang from himself! I will either reenter the Phrygian ports carrying you as my wife, or here, an exile, becovered with Laconian earth. My breast is not lightly pierced with the pointed arrow. The wound hath reached even to my bones. My sister truly foretold, for now I recollect, that I should be wounded by a heavenly dart. Beware, therefore, Helen, of despising a love ordained by the fates.

So may you have the gods still propitious to your desires. Much more I have to add, but, that I may say all to yourself, receive me into your apartment during the silent night. Are you ashamed, or do you fear to loosen the matrimonial tie, or violate the just rites of a lawful bed? Is it possible, then, Helen, you should be so simple as to fancy that so lovely a face can be exempt from faults? Either change that face, or you must be less cruel, for chastity and beauty are ever at variance. Even Jupiter and lovely Venus herself indulge these stolen delights. It is in consequence of these that you boast of Jupiter for your father. If you retain aught of your parents, can the daughter of Jupiter and leader be chaste?

Yet then may you be chaste, when I with you shall have reached Troy, and let a compliance with me be your only crime. Let us now commit a fault which marriage shall afterwards amend, If Phenus has not deluded me by false promises. Even your husband, if not by words, yet by his actions, persuades you to this. And that he may not be an obstacle to the stolen joys of his guest, he is absent. Had he no time more opportune for a visit to the Isle of Crete? O husband of wonderful sagacity! He went. and in going said, My dear, I recommend it to you, that you take the same care of our Idean guest as you are wont to do of me. You neglect, I aver it, the commands of your absent husband, nor ever think about the care of your guest.

And can you hope, Ferris Tindereus, That one of so little discretion understands the just value of such a treasure of charms? You are deceived. He is far from understanding it. Nor, if he thought the jewel valuable, would he trust it in the hands of a stranger. If neither my persuasions nor the ardour of my passion avail, yet how can we avoid taking advantage of the inviting opportunity? We should exceed even him in folly if we should neglect a conjecture so secure and tempting. He has, in a manner, with his own hands, forced a lover upon you. Let us then make the best of the simplicity of this thoughtless man. You lie in a solitary bed during the long winter nights. I also lie single in a desolate bed.

Let mutual joys join us strictly together, and that night will outshine the brightest noon. Then will I swear by all the powers above and bind myself to you forever in your own words. Then, if my confidence does not deceive me, I will prevail that you fly with me to my kingdom. If shame and fear dissuade you from the appearance of a voluntary flight, I will free you from blame by taking all the crime upon myself, for I will follow the example of Theseus and your brothers, nor are there any others that can touch you more nearly. Theseus carried you off, and they bore away the two daughters of Leucippus. I shall be named the fourth in this illustrious role. The Trojan fleet is at hand, well appointed with arms and men.

Oars and an inviting gale shall forward us with nimble speed. You shall walk a mighty queen through the cities of Phrygia, and the people will adore you as a new deity. Wherever you tread, the finest spices shall smoke, and the falling victims beat the bloody ground. My brothers, my sisters, and mother will load you with gifts, the Aelian matrons and all Troy following the example. Alas, all I have yet said is nothing. You shall there meet with much more than this letter mentions. Nor fear that this rape will draw after it a cruel war, or that powerful Greece will summon her strength to recover you. Who of the many that have been thus stolen was demanded back by arms? These, trust me, are vain and frivolous fears.

The Thracians, under the name of Boreas, stole the daughter of Erechtheus, and yet the kingdom of Thrace was not attacked by war. Jason of Thessaly carried off in his flying bark the Colchian maid. Yet Thessaly was not invaded or distressed by an army from Colchis. Theseus, too, who stole you, stole also the daughter of Minos. Yet Minos did not once think of arming the Cretans to recover her. In these cases the fear always exceeds the danger, and when that is over we begin to be ashamed of our fear. But suppose, if you will, that a dreadful war may ensue. I have strength to repel it, and my darts can wound. Nor does the power of Asia yield to that of Greece. It is a rich land, abounding both in men and horses.

Nor does Meneleus exceed Paris in bravery, or deserve the preference for military skill. While I was a mere boy, I recovered the stolen herds after slaying my foes, and thence borrowed a new name. While, yet a boy, I carried off the prize in various exercises from the other youths, among whom were Ivan, Ileoneus, and Diophobus. Nor think that I am only to be dreaded in close combat. My arrows always hit the appointed mark. Can you ascribe to him these acts of early youth? Can you honour the son of Atreus with my envied skill? But were you to allow him all these, will you also boast that he has such a brother as Hector? This one hero is equivalent to whole armies. You know not the extent of my power.

My strength is in a great measure hidden from you, nor do you imagine what kind of man he is who solicits to be received for your husband. Either, therefore, no war will be raised to demand you back, or the Grecian army must be vanquished by my superior force. Nor think that I shall be unwilling to draw the sword for such a wife. A prize so noble is well worthy of the contest. You, too, if all the world should arm for your sake, will acquire a name famous to the remotest ages. Fly hence, then, full of hope while the gods are propitious, and demand with full assurance that I make good these promises.

End of Paris to Helen.

17 17 - Helen to Paris 20:37

Helen to Paris.

When your epistle violated my chaste eyes, it seemed no small glory to write back my resentment. Dare you, a stranger, in defiance of the most sacred rites of hospitality, presume thus to invade the just allegiance of a lawful wife? Was it for this that our laconian harbors sheltered you from stormy winds and seas? Were our palace gates frankly open to you, though from a foreign court, that you might return this injury as the reward of so much good usage? Was it a stranger or an enemy whom we received with so much kindness and friendship? These just complaints, I doubt not, will to your partial judgment appear rustic. Of what consequence is the imputation of rusticity while my chastity is unstained, and the whole tenor of my life above reproach?

Though I have not a countenance severe with dissembled looks, nor form my eyebrows into an artful frown, my fame is yet unspotted, my easy frankness never rose to a crime, nor can any vain seducer boast the spoils of my virtue.

I therefore may reasonably be astonished at the bold scheme, and wonder whence your hopes came to share of my favours. Was it because the hero of Neptune's race forced me away? Did you conclude that, being once compelled, I was fit to be made a second prey? Mine would have been the crime had I been enticed to a compliance, but as I was carried off by violence, what could I do more than show reluctance? Nor did he ultimately obtain the desired reward of his boldness. I returned unhurt by anything but fear. The forward youth snatched by rude force a few reluctant kisses, but that was all he ever had of me. You, wicked as you are, would not have been thus satisfied. But the gods were more favorable.

He was of a temper very different from you. He restored me untouched, and by a modest usage atoned for his crime. It is evident that the young man repented the bold insult. Did Theseus repent that Paris might succeed, and my name never cease to be the object of busy tongues? Nor am I yet displeased for who was ever offended with love, if the affection you profess is sincere and undissembled. But that I doubt. Not that I suspect your honor or distrust the power of my own charms, but because I know that a too-easy faith often proves fatal to our sex, and a dissembling man ruins us by feigned professions. What if others yield, or matrons are seldom chaste? May not my name occur among the rare instances of virtue?

My mother's story seems, at the first view, a fit example to soften me to a compliance, but my mother was deceived by a borrowed shape, and harmless feathers covered the unsuspected ravisher. If I offend, what have I to plead? By what error can I excuse the darling's sin? Her frailty was happily redeemed by the dignity of the ravisher, but what Jupiter will take from the infamy of my crime? You boast your descent from a race of kings and heroes. What, then? Our line, too, is sufficiently ennobled by illustrious names. Not to mention my father-in-law Atreus, the great-grandson of Jupiter, or the honorable pedigree of Tyndareus, and Pelops, the son of Tantalus. Leda, deceived by a borrowed shape, who fondly cherished in her bosom the unsuspected bird, gives me Jupiter for my father.

Go, then, and boast your Phrygian descent and the honorable race of Priam, which I am far from undervaluing, but Jupiter, who ennobles your line, is the fifth from you, from me the first. The sceptre of Troy I am apt to believe powerful, but still I fancy that our own is not less so. If you exceed us in riches and number of people, Yet yours is only a country of barbarians. Your letter is filled with ample promises, such as might move even goddesses to yield. But if ever I violate the laws of chastity, yourself shall be the more powerful cause of my crime. For either I will always retain my honor without a stain, or follow you, rather than the high hopes you give. Not that I despise or slight them, for those gifts are always most acceptable which derive a value from the giver.

But it is still more that you love me, that you run such hazards for my sake, and follow hope through all the dangers of the main. Nor do I overlook the signs you make at our table, though I artfully dissemble all notice. I observe your ardent, wistful looks, and those meaning eyes that almost dazzle mine. Sometimes you sigh, and, snatching the cup, fix your lips where mine had been before. Ah, how oft have I marked the hidden signs wafted from your fingers, and the lively language expressed in your eyebrow! I often dreaded that my husband might observe it, and blushed at the two open signs you made. Oft I said, murmuring to myself, "'This man will stick at nothing.' Nor was my conjecture erroneous.

I have also upon the edge of a table read, marked with wine under my own name, "'I love.' I, with a frowning eye, seemed not to believe, but now—' Alas, I have learned to speak the same language. Were I capable of being one, it must have been by those soft allurements. These only could have made an impression upon my heart. You have, it must be owned, an enchanting face, and charms that may make any one gladly fly to your embraces. A more fortunate maid may possess you with innocence, but my engagements forbid a foreign love. Learn by my example to live without the desired beauty. It is the highest degree of virtue to abstain from unlawful pleasures. How many youths wish for the same happiness as you, who make no advances?

Or do you fancy that Paris only has eyes? It is not that you see better, but that you rashly venture more. Your passion is not greater, but your confidence.

Oh, that you had then visited our coasts in a nimble bark when a thousand rivals solicited my virgin love! Had you appeared, you would have triumphed over the thousand, nor could my husband have justly blamed my choice. Now, alas, you come too late to joys that are the right of another, and your slow hope invades a plighted love. But although it would have been more to my wish to live with you, yet does not Menelaus possess me against my will. Cease then, for heaven's sake, to urge a too sensible heart, nor strive to injure one whom you profess to love. Suffer me to live contented with the lot which fortune has given me, nor aim at the ruin of my unspotted fame. But Venus, you say, promised this reward, and three goddesses offered themselves naked to your judgment in the vales of towering ida.

One offered you a kingdom, another the glory of successful war, and the third promised to make you husband to a daughter of Tyndareus. But I can scarcely believe that heavenly nymphs would have submitted to your decision in the case of beauty. And were this even true, yet the other part is undoubtedly feigned where you pretend that I was offered to bribe your judgment. I am not yet so vain of my own charms as to fancy myself the greatest reward, even in the opinion of the goddess. I am fully contented with my share of human praise. The applause of Venus can only produce envy. But I deny nothing these flatteries are also grateful, for why should I reject what I so fondly wish? Nor be you too much displeased that I am rather incredulous, for things of moment are not credited with ease.

My chief joy is to have the applause of Venus, and my next, that I was esteemed the greatest reward by you, that neither the honors offered by Pallas nor those of Juno were preferred to the famed beauty of Helen. You therefore chose me in place of valor, in place of a noble kingdom. It would be inhuman not to receive a heart so wholly mine. But trust me, I am far from being inhuman, and only struggle against loving a man whom I scarcely can hope ever to possess. Why do I vainly strive to tear up the thirsty sand with a bending plough, and cherish a hope which every thing conspires to defeat? I am a stranger to the artifices of love. Witness, heaven, that I never yet by any deceit abused my faithful husband.

And now that I privately commit my thoughts to writing, my hand engages in a new and unusual task. Happy are they whom practice a friended expert. I, unskilled in intrigue, imagine the weight of vice hedged round with thorns. This fear perpetually haunts me. Even now I am covered with blushes, and imagine the eyes of all fixed upon me. Nor is this apprehension wholly groundless, for already the rumor spreads among the crowd, and Eithra accidentally overheard some whispers. It is fit you dissemble all, unless you think it better to desist. But why desist, you who can so well dissemble? Love still, but secretly. The absence of Menelaus gives more freedom, but does not allow of all. He is gone upon a long journey, called by urgent affairs.

A great and weighty concern occasioned his sudden departure, at least so it appeared to me. I, seeing him unresolved what to do, said, Go, and return with all possible dispatch. He, pleased with the omen, fondly kissed me. To your care, says he, I recommend my palace, my kingdom, and the Trojan guest. Scarcely could I refrain from laughter, and while I strove to stifle it, I would only answer, it shall be so. He, it is true, spread his sails for Crete with a favorable wind, yet do not from this fancy yourself wholly secure. My husband, though absent, has still watchful eyes over me. Are you unacquainted with the proverb that princes have long hands? My fame, too, is a great obstacle, for the more lavish you are in my praise, the more reasonable ground has he for suspicion.

That glory, once so grateful, is now my bane. Far better it had been to be less known to fame. Nor wonder at his absence, or that I am left here with you. He trusted to my virtue and unspotted life. My beauty and shape implied danger, but my probity and fame made him secure. You desire me not to lose so fair a season, or neglect the opportunity given by the simple good-natured man. I am willing, but afraid, My resolution is still unfix'd, and my breast glows with all the anguish of suspense. My husband is absent, you pine in a solitary bed, and we are each bless'd with a form that mutually pleases. The nights are long. We often converse. One house contains us, and you are kind and pressing. Let me die if all things do not conspire to crown our loves, and yet I do not know what fear still holds me back.

It would be better to employ force than caught with words. My bashfulness might have been overcome by a gentle violence. Wrongs are sometimes grateful even to those who suffer them. It is thus I would be made happy by a seeming force. But let us strive rather to suppress in its birth the growing flame. A little water easily extinguishes the kindling spark. Strangers are incapable of lasting love. Their passion wanders like themselves. And while we fondly believe it to be sure and unchanged, all is over. Hipposypyle and the Minoan maid are examples of this, who both were left to mourn their deserted beds. You, too, faithless man, are said to have abandoned Oinone, who had been dear to you for so many years.

You must not attempt to deny it, for know that it has been my care to search narrowly into all. Add that were you inclined to a constant faithful love. It is not in your power. Already the impatient Trojans prepare your sails. While you are yet in discourse with me, while the wished-for night is assigned, a propitious gale calls you away to your own country. You must abandon the unfinished pursuit, and break asunder our new-felt joys. The relentless winds will bear away my love. Shall I then follow, as you advise, and visit the famed towers of Troy? Shall I become a wife to the grandson of mighty Laomedon? I am not yet so indifferent to the reports of spreading fame as to suffer it thus to fill the earth with the sound of my reproach.

What may Sparta say of me, and all Greece? What the nations of Asia, and even your own Troy? What will Priam, Hecuba, and your brothers think, and what will all the modest Phrygian matrons? And even you, what confidence can you have in my fidelity? Or how avoid an anxiety from my compliance in your own case. Every stranger who may arrive upon the Phrygian coast will be a fresh cause of fear on my account. In your rage you will not fail to upbraid me with my crime, forgetting the part you bear in it yourself. You, who are the author of my guilt, will be the first to reproach me. Oh, may the earth rather overwhelm me forever. That I shall shine in trojan riches and all the ornaments of a happy dress.

You tell me that I shall meet with a reception far beyond even your promises, that purple and embroidered garments shall be given me, and that I shall be enriched by a mass of gold. But forgive the frank confession, these gifts have no charms for me. The ties that bind me to my own country are far more powerful. Who among the Phrygians will resent the injuries which may be offered? What aid from brothers or a father could I there implore? Deceitful Jason won Medea by his unbounded promises, but was he less ready to banish her from the house of his father Aeson? She had then no Aetes to whom she could fly for relief, no mother Ipseia or sister Calciope to hear her complaints. I, indeed, fear none of this, but neither did Madea fear.

Love often contributes to its own deceit. What ship now tossed by stormy waves did not sail first from the port with a favorable wind? I am terrified, too, by the flaming torch which in your mother's dream seemed to spring from her womb before your birth. Add to this the prophecies which foretell that Ilium shall be consumed with Grecian fire. It is true that Venus favors us because she carried off the prize, and by your judgment triumphed over two. But then I fear again the resentment of the two, who in this contest, so much to your honor, lost their cause by your sentence. Nor can it be doubted, if I follow you, that troops will be raised to recover me. Our love, alas, must make its way through sword and slaughter.

Did Hippodamia of Attrax instigate the Thessalian heroes to that cruel slaughter of the centaurs? And can you fancy that Menelaus will be slow to revenge in so just a cause, or that my brothers and father will not contribute their aid? You boast highly of your valor and recount your noble acts, but your face gains no great credit to your words. Those limbs are better formed for the delights of Venus than the rude encounters of Mars. Let heroes distinguish themselves in war, Paris will shine in the softer pursuits of love. Hector, whom you so much commend, may bravely defend you against the foe. A different warfare suits those graceful motions. Were I bold and daring as many of my sex, I would throw myself into your soft embraces.

But time and you may at last bring me to yield, When laying aside this foolish shame, I will gladly extend my consenting hand. You demand a private meeting, that you may acquaint me fully with all. I know your meaning, and what you aim at by this conference, but you are too forward. Now is your harvest not yet come to ripeness. This short delay may perhaps promote the object of your hopes. Thus far my epistle bears the secret message of my heart, but the betraying pen has tired my tender hand. The rest you will learn of aethra and clymene, my faithful companions and counselors.

End of Helen to Paris.

18 18 - Leander to Hero 21:43

Leander of Abydus sends to his girl of Cestus those wishes for her health which he would rather bring himself if the rage of the sea should abate. If the gods are favorable and wish well to my love, you will run over this with discontented eyes. But they, alas, Are far from being favorable. Why else are my hopes deferred? Why am I forbidden to swim over the known seas? You see that the heavens are dark as pitch. The billows swell with the wind, too fierce to be stemmed by the hollow ships. One mariner, more daring than the rest, who brings you this epistle, venture to leave the harbor. Here I intended to embark. If, when he weighed anchor, all Abidus had not viewed us from the eminences, I could not, as before, have dissembled with my parents.

And that love which prudence requires us to conceal would no longer have been unknown. Writing being now my only relief, I wrote, Go, said I, happy epistle, soon with a graceful smile will she extend to thee her fair hand. Perhaps too, thou mayest be pressed to her ruby lips, as with her ivory teeth she eagerly breaks the seals. After muttering this in gentle whispers, my ready right hand quickly marked down the rest. How much would I rather it should dash through the swelling flood, than thus in languishing accents write my complaints? How much rather it should bear me sedulous through the well-known waves? For better does it indeed serve to lash the foaming deep. Yet it is no unfit minister of my warmest thoughts and wishes.

It is now the seventh night. A space to me more tedious than a year, that the raging sea has tossed her sounding billows. May the angry sea prolong her rage with tenfold heat, if, in all these lingering nights, my distracted breast has tasted the sweets of soothing rest.

Mounted on some rocky cliff, I pensive view the beloved shore. And am carried in thought whither I cannot convey myself in person. My eyes too behold, or seem to behold, upon the tower's top, the watch for light that is to guide my course. Thrice I stripped, and laid my clothes upon the dry sand. Thrice I attempted, naked, the threatening watery way. But the swelling sea opposed my bold, youthful attempts, and, as I swam, overwhelmed me with adverse waves. But you, North, the most inexorable of all the raging winds, why do you obstinately raise up against me a malicious opposition? If you are not already aware, Know that it is against me, and not the seas that you thus terribly rage. What would you do?

Were you wholly a stranger to love? Cold as you are, perverse, Boreas, you cannot deny that you were once warmed by Actaean fires. When keen to snatch the joys of love, had anyone shut up the aerial way, how would you have taken it? Pity me then for heaven's sake, and blow more mildly the gentle gales. So may Aeolus lay no harsh commands upon you. In vain I beg. He murmurs and rages at my petitions, nor offers to smooth the billows which he has so violently agitated. Oh, that Daedalus would gift me with daring wings! The Icarian shore so near causes no terror in me. I will boldly venture, whatever be the issue. Let me only mount my body aloft in air, as it has often hovered upon uncertain waves.

Meantime, while the winds and waves thus cross all my hopes, I revolve in my mind the first moments of our stolen delights.

Night was coming on, for there is a pleasure in calling to remembrance past enjoyments, when, full of love, I left the gates of my father's house. Then, without delay pulling off my clothes, and casting away at the same time all fear, I, with pliant arms, cut the yielding tide. The moon, Like a faithful attendant to direct my way, furnished a trembling light as I traverse the flood. Regarding her with a wishful look, Bright goddess, I said, favor my design, and call to mind the happy Latmian cliffs. Endymion cannot allow that you should be of an unrelenting mind. Favor therefore with a friendly look these my stolen delights. You, Though a goddess left heaven in quest of a mortal, why should I not speak the truth?

She whom I pursue is a very goddess. For not to mention her manners, the truest tokens of a heavenly mind, a beauty so exquisite can only fall to the share of a goddess. No face, Venus and you excepted, can equal hers. Nor trust entirely to my words, but view her yourself. As all the stars of heaven disappear before your superior brightness, when you shine out in the full splendor of your silver rays, in like manner, when she approaches, all other beauties are overlooked. To doubt of this, Cynthia, would be owning yourself destitute of sight.

Having addressed her thus, or in words to the like purport, I, in the silent night, bore through the yielding waves. The surface of the deep shone with the reflection of the moon's rays, and in the dead of night was a light clear as that at midday. No voice, no sound reached my ears, but the deep murmurs of the broken waves. The kingfishers alone, mindful of the once dearly loved siix, uttered in the softest strains I know not what moving complaints. And now, my arms from each shoulder being spent with toil, I raise myself high upon the surface of the waves, and discerning at some distance a light. My flame, cried I, is there! These shores point out the darling light. Swift as thought, my wearied arms feel the returning vigor, and the billows seem to bear me up more gently than before.

The love that warms my panting breast prevents me from feeling the coldness of the briny sea. The more I advance, the nearer I come to the wished-for shore. In fine, As the distance lessens, I feel my strength greater to proceed. But no sooner had I come within sight than, observing you a spectator from the top of your tower, I felt a new accession of spirits, and a fresh tide of vigor flowing in upon me. I studied to please my mistress, by showing a dexterity in swimming, and tossed my arms graceful in her sight. Scarcely was your tender nurse able to restrain you from rushing into the sea. I saw this also. Nor was it an artifice to deceive me. Even all her endeavors could not wholly keep you back.

You pressed forward to meet me till your ankles were covered by the dashing waves. You received me into your embraces, and almost smothered me with fragrant kisses. Kisses, great gods, more than a full reward for the dangers of crossing the sea. You gave me the robes which you had taken from your own shoulders, and smoothed my locks wet with briny dew. Ourselves, the night, the tower, and that shining light which guided my way through the uncertain deep, were conscious. of the rest. The joys of that happy night are no more to be numbered than the seaweed cast upon the shore by the raging waves of the Hellespont. The less the time allowed us for these stolen pleasures, the greater was our care that not a moment should be lost.

And now, The wife of Tithonus, preparing to drive away the night, Lucifer, the forerunner of Aurora, rose above the earth. We rushed into each other's arms, and mutually snatched the ardent kisses. We complained of the night, that her stay was so short. At length, after many admonitions from your rigid nurse, and as many delays, I left the tower and took my way to the cold beach. We parted in sadness. I entered the Virgin Sea, often looking back while my mistress remained in view. If any credit is due to truth, when making for your coast I swim with ease. But as I return, I am threatened to be overwhelmed. Believe me further when I tell you that the way to my hero is by a gently declining path.

But in leaving you, I seem to climb an immovable mountain of waves. Who can believe it?

I returned to my native country with reluctance. It is now against my will that I remain in my own city. Alas, why, when thus conjoined in inclination, are we separated by the waves? Why, as we have the same mind, do we not inhabit the same soil? Let me either dwell in your cestus, or you in my abiders. For the earth which you tread Is as dear to me as that which I tread is to you. Why am I thus troubled as often as the sea is disturbed by storms? Why are the winds an unstable cause of anxiety to me? The bending dolphins are now conscious of our tender loves. Nor are the fishes of the sea strangers to my flame. The course of the well-known waves is now distinctly marked, like a highway paved by the frequent attrition of the chariot-wheel.

I have often complained that there was no way given but this. But now I complain that this also is shut up by the cruel winds. The straits of the Hellespont foam by the breaking of the enormous waves. Nor are the ships secure even within their harbors. Such, I imagine, was this raging sea when it first bore the name of the unhappy Virgin. This spot is already too infamous by the fate of Heli, and, though I am spared, the name will be a monument of its crime. I envy Phrixus, Who safely crossed those stormy seas upon the ram that yielded the golden fleece. Nor do I yet require the aid of ram or bark. Let me have only a smooth sea, that with nimble joints I may plough the yielding deep. I depend upon no art.

Let me only have leave to swim. I will at once be ship, mariner, and pilot. I mind not Helicae and Arctos, the constellations that guide the Tyrian mariner. A love like mine asks no aid of vulgar stars. Let others observe Andromeda, or the bright diadem of Ariadne, and the Arcadian bear that shines from the frozen pole. Nymphs loved by Perseus, Jupiter, and Bacchus, I by no means wanted to guide my uncertain paths. I trust to another light, whose directions are much safer. While this points out the way, my love can never wander in darkness. By observing this, I may sail to the Colchian realm, the remotest regions of Pontus, and all the coasts visited by the famed Thessalian ship. In swimming, I would bear away the prize from young Polymon, and from Glaucus, who was suddenly transformed by powerful herbs into a sea-god.

My arms often languish through the continued agitation, and, nearly exhausted with toil, are scarcely able to bear me over the wide sea.

But when I tell them, You shall soon receive the glorious reward of your labor, and encircle the snowy neck of your amiable mistress. Instantly they gather strength, and eagerly strive to obtain the reward, as when a fleet horse starts from the Elian lists.

It is mine, therefore, to observe the flames that glow within my breast, and follow you, My charming fair, who better deserve a place among the stars? You merit, indeed, to be translated into heaven. Yet leave not these earthly abodes, or teach me, in what manner I also may be exalted among the gods. You are still here, and yet, how seldom in the embraces of your wretched lover, The seas and my mind are in equal disorder. What avails it that I am not separated from you by a vast ocean?

Does this narrow strait less oppose our coming together?

I doubt whether it would not be better that, divided from you by Earth's whole extent, I might be equally removed from hope. And my mistress. The nearer you are, the more violent is the flame that rages within me. And though the object of my hope is often absent, yet hope itself never ceases to haunt me. I almost touch with my hand, so near our abodes, the darling of my soul.

But alas! This almost often fills my eyes with sorrowing tears. Wherein does this differ from catching at the flying apples, or following after the deceitful flood? Shall I then never hold you in my arms, but when the unstable waves permit?

Must storms ever be a bar to my happiness? And while nothing is more uncertain than the winds and waves, must my happiness ever depend upon the winds and waves? It is now, too, the warm season. What am I to expect when the Pleiades, Arctophylax, and the goat deform the sea? Either I mistake in judging of the rash attempts of love, or even then, thoughtless, He will urge me to plunge into the waves. Nor imagine that I promise this because the time is distant. You shall soon have a proof of the reality of my design. Let the sea continue to rage for a few nights longer. I will again attempt to force my way through the opposing billows.

Either, happily daring, I shall safely reach your beloved shore, or a speedy death will put an end to all my anxieties.

Yet I could wish to be cast where my hero lives, and that my shipwrecked limbs might be borne into your ports. You will mourn my fate, and honor my breathless body with a last embrace. Then, sighing, Say, Alas, I have been the cause of his death. Perhaps you will be offended with this threatening omen of a sudden fate, or alarmed by the suspicions which my letter betrays. But I desist. Dispel, therefore, your fears, and join your prayers with mine, that the rage of the sea may abate. It is requisite that it should be calm for a time till I convey myself to yonder shore. When once I have reached the coast of my hero, let the storm return in all its violence. There is the fittest asylum for my shattered bark.

There my ship may with the greatest security ride at anchor. Let the north wind shut me up there where delay is sweet. Then, if ever, I shall be averse to swimming, and cautiously avoid danger. No reproaches will be thrown out against the unrelenting waves, no complaints made that the sea forbids a return to my native shore. Let me be alike detained by the winds and your folding arms. Let both these causes conspire to prolong the sweet delay. When the storm abates, my arms shall cut the liquid way. Only remember always to place in view the guiding torch. Till then, let this epistle supply my place, and heaven grant that I may follow it without delay.

End of Leander to Hero.

19 19 - Hero to Leander 16:50

Come, my Leander, that I may really enjoy that welfare which you so kindly wish me in your letter. Every delay that stands in the way of our happiness seems doubly tedious. Pardon the confession, but I love not according to the common measure. We glow with an equal flame, but my strength is unequal to yours. For I imagine that men are endued with more steady and resolute souls. In women, the mind is weak as well as the body. Delay a little longer, and I sink under the weight of your absence. You can elude the tedious hours by differently dividing your time, sometimes intent upon hunting, sometimes employed in cultivating the prolific earth. The forum, perhaps, may interpose. Or the inviting honors, or the palestra.

Perhaps you are busy in forming the generous deed, and teaching him to bathe rain. Now snares are laid for the feathered tribe, now hooks are baited for the finny prey, and the lingering hours of night are lost in copious goblets of wine. As for me, to whom all these reliefs are denied, what remains? Were I even less the slave of a headstrong passion, but to love and endure? It is so. I indulge this sole relief, and love you, O my only happiness, above expression or return. Either I engage with my faithful nerves in silent discourse about you, and wonder what course can so long delay your coming, or casting a look upon the sea, I chide, Almost in your own words, the waves tossed by spiteful winds, or when the angry sea remits little of its rage, I complain that you might, but have no desire to come.

Amidst these complaints, the tears flow in streams from my lovesick eyes, and are wiped away by the trembling hand of my aged nurse. I often search if I can find the print of your feet upon the shore. As if sand could retain the deepening mark. Eager to hear of you, or write to you, I am always inquiring whether any one has arrived from Ebydos, or who thinks of going thither. Why should I mention the many kisses I lavish upon the clothes you put off when about to plunge into the waters of the Hellespont? But when light vanishes— And the more friendly hour of night, in chasing away the day, exhibits the sparkling stars. Forthwith we plant the watchful light upon the tower's top, the known guide and mark of your watery way, and, lengthening by the swiftly turning spindle, the twisted threads elude the tedious hours in feminine employment.

Perhaps you may inquire what I am talking all this while. No name but that of Leander is in your hero's mouth. What do you say, my nurse? Do you think that my only hope has yet left his father's house? Or are all awake, and is he afraid of being observed by his parents? Do you think that he is now pulling the clothes from his shoulders, and anointing his limbs with oil? She gives a nod of assent. Not that she is moved by my embraces. But sleep, gently stealing upon her, shakes her aged head. Then, after a short delay, I say, it is certain now that he swims, and tosses his pliant arms amidst the yielding waves. Then, after finishing a few treads, and letting the winding spindle touch the ground, I ask whether you may have yet reached the middle of the strait.

Sometimes I look wishfully forward. Sometimes I pray, with the faltering voice, that propitious gales may give you an easy run. I greedily catch at every sound, and fondly imagine I hear the noise of your approach. When thus the greater part of the eluded night is past, sleep insensibly steals upon my wearied eyes. Then, in dreams, I find you by my side. And perhaps much against your will you are induced to come. For sometimes I seem to behold you swimming near the shore. Sometimes you recline your humid arms upon my shoulders. Now I read you the robe to throw round your yet moist limbs, and on I clasp you shivering to my pounding breast. With much more besides— Not fit to be mentioned by a modest pen, what in doing may give great pleasure, but which, when done, delicacy forbids me to name.

And, heavy wretch, it is but a short and fleeting pleasure, for you always vanish with my dream. Grant heaven that such ardent lovers may at length be joined together by surer bonds, nor let our enjoyments be destitute of a firm basis. Why have I passed cold and comfortless so many solitary nights? Why, my dear swimmer, are you so slow? Why so often absent from me? The sea, I own, is rough and intractable, but last night it blew a gentle gale. Why was that opportunity lost? Why did you not dread that following storms might hinder you? Why was so fair an offer suffer to escape, and no attempt made? Should a like opportunity of crossing with Kays invite you, yet the other, as first in time, was far the best?

Soon, it is true, was a phase of the trouble deep changed, but when eager you have a cusset across it in a shorter time. If you are detained here by storms, what is this to make you complain? No tempestuous sea can hurt you when locked a mian races. I could then calmly listen to the loud, threatening winds nor fatigue heaven with prayers to smooth the swelling deep. But what has lately happened to cause this unusual dread of the sea? Why do you tremble at those waves you formerly despised? For I remember your coming when the sea was no less obstinate and threatening, or at least not much less so. Then I condone you to be wisely daring, that I might not have cause to lament the fatal effects of your baldness.

Whence arises this new fear? Whither has your former courage fled? Where is that illustrious swimmer who nobly despised the threatening waves? Yet rather continue thus than again expose yourself to former hazards and plunge secure into a calm, inviting sea, provided only you— Are unalterably the same, provided your love with the same ardor with which you ride, and this noble flame never changes into cold, lifeless ashes. I am not so much afraid of the winds that disappoint my earnest wishes as of your love, that it may prove like the wind changeable and inconstant. I fear, as not being held in the same esteem, that the dangers may be thought greater than the reward, or that I am accounted too mean in recompense of your toil.

Sometimes I am uneasy, from an idea that my country may detract from me, and that a Tracian girl may seem an unequal match for a citizen of Abydos. Yet I can patiently bear any affliction, whatever, sooner than the apprehension of your being detained by another flame. Ah! Let me rather perish than suffer under so cruel a distress. May fate end my days before I hear of the dreadful crime. Nor do I mention this from any reason you give me to suspect approaching grief, or because I am alarmed by some new spreading rumor. But I am subject to every fear. For when did love yet settle in a quiet mind? Distance and absence feed my anxious thoughts. Happy they who, always together, know at once what they have to fear, nor feel the piercing grief of false alarms.

We are as much disturbed by unjust fears as ignorant of real injuries, and each error begets equal anxiety. Oh, how I wish that you were here, that either the wind or your parents and no rival fair may be the cause of your long stay. For, believe me, to hear of a rival would kill me with grief, and it is now long that you have been in thought, if you thus aim at my destruction. But you are not in thought. These, my terrors, I know, are groundless. The envious wind alone oppose your desired approach. Dreadful, how the shores are lashed by the vast billows, how the day is hidden by gathering clouds. Perhaps the disconsolate mother of hell hovers over the deep, and her unhappy daughter is lamented in distilling drops.

Or does her stepmother, changed into a sea-god, as deformed the channel that bears the hated name of her daughter-in-law? This sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the sea—the Such as it is now, is far from being propitious to tender maids. Here Hel perished. I also am crossed by these obstinate waves. But you, surely, Neptune, if you call to mind your many flames, can never be an enemy to gentle love?

If neither Amemon nor Tyre of exquisite form are vain rumors of your guilt. If fair Archeon, Sirs, and the daughter of Elamone, Medusa, her hair not yet wrothed with serpents, Blooming Laodice and Silano, ranked among the stars with many other names I remember to have read, were ever dear to you. These, Neptune, with many more, are sung by the poets to have lain in your embraces. Why, then, having yourself so often felt the power of love, do shut up the accustomed way by rough whirlwinds.

Be mild, stern father, and reserve your tumult for the wide ocean. This is merely an arm of the sea that disjoints two neighboring tracts. It is yours, triumphant, to toss the vast bulk of ships or sternly boisterous disperse hoof-fleets. It is below the god of the ocean to terrify an adventurous youth, a brace unworthy of the boast of the meanest lake. He, indeed, Is a noble offspring of an illustrious line, but derives not his pedigree from Ulysses of hated memory. Permit him, then, to come, and save the life of two. He only at his true swims, but my hope hangs upon the same waves with Leander. Hark! The taper crackles, for it burns beside me as I write. It crackles, and gives propitious signs.

See, my nurse pours wine upon flames. That yield a favorable omen. She cries, To-morrow we shall be more, and bears a goblet to her mouth. O Leander, whose image only fills my heart, strive to summand the dividing waves, and add in yourself another to our number. Return to your own camp, thou deserter of social love. Why are my limbs single in the midst of the bed? Nor is there any ground of fear. Venus herself will favor the attempt, and, sprung from the sea, will smooth the sea-green way. I have doffed myself, resolved to plunge amidst the waves, but this stormy strait is more favorable to the other sex, for why, when attempted by Phrixus and his sister, did she only give name to this vast bulk of water?

Perhaps you fear there will be no opportunity of returning, or you cannot bear a weight of double toil. Let us then, setting out from opposite shores, meet in the midst of the sea, and snatch the mutual kisses upon the surface of the waves. Let us then each return home—a small enjoyment, indeed, but still better than none. How could I wish that powerful shame, which obliges us thus to conceal our love, would yield to desire, or trembling love give way to the dictate of fame? Honour and passion— Things, alas, incompatible, come at each other. Which shall I follow? Or where end my suspense? On one side is decency, on the other pleasure. Jason of Thessaly, soon after entering Colchise, bore away Medea in his nimble bark.

When the faithless Trojan at once arrived at Lacedaemon, he quickly returned triumphant with the spray. As often as you grasp the object of your love, you abandon her, and swim even then when it is dangerous for ships to cut the liquid way.

But yet remember, O daring youth, who have so often waved the swelling waves, that you so despise the threatening deep as not to venture rashly in times of danger. Ships formed with exquisite art are often mastered by the foaming sea. Can your feeble arms cut the deep like laboring oars? You, Leander, fondly spring forward to swim, an attempt that startles the daring mariner. This is their last resource when compelled by shipwreck. Alas, how unhappy! I want to dissuade you from what I yet earnestly wish, and pray you may be balder than my own admonitions allow. Yet so that you may still come safe and clasp my exulting shoulders with your wearied arms often plunged in the foaming waves. But as often as I turn my eyes towards the blue extent of the sea, I know not what coolness spreads over my pounding breast.

Nor am I less disturbed by the vision of last night, although expiated by many sacred rides, for about the approach of morning, When the taper gave a faint and glimmering light, at the time when dreams are usually counted true, my fingers, deadened with sleep, had dropped the lengthening threads, and my neck was gently reclined on the barren ridge. Here I spied a dolphin glide through the raging waves. I saw its real spectre, a no-deluding phantom, which, after being dashed by the waves upon the bubbling sand, Was at once abandoned by its element in life. Whatever it may portend, I am full of fears. Despise not the ominous dream. Nor trust your limbs but to a calm, unruffled sea. If you are regardless of yourself, yet think of your dearer half, who will never be able to survive your untimely fate.

But I hope for a sudden calm to the troubled ways. Then plunge with safety. and glide along the level tides. Mean time, as the threatening waves forbid your desired cause, let this epistle soften the hated delays.

20 20 - Acontius to Cydippe 18:22

XXX of Ovid's Heroids.

Translated by an unknown translator. First published in 1813. Acontius to Banish all fear. You shall not here again swear in favor of your lover. It is enough that you have once solemnly vowed yourself to me. Read. So may that painful illness which spreads over all your joints and racks my soul with a thousand fears leave every affected part. Why does the blush kindle in your cheek? For I fancy I see your color change, as in the temple of Diana. I demand nothing, criminal. I only ask the divinity and allegiance which you promised in the temple of Diana. I love you as a lawful husband, not an infamous adulterer. Ah, only repeat yourself to those binding words, which the unthinking fruit thrown by my hands presented to your chaste eyes.

There you will find yourself to be bound by that vow, which I could wish you had rather remembered than the goddess. But now I tremble even for that. While this hope has already gathered strength, and my flame increases every moment. For that love, which was always violent, is now increased by tedious delays, and by the hope you have cherished in my breast. You gave me hope. My love rested upon this foundation. Nor can you deny a thing that was done in the presence of the goddess. She was present and overheard your vow, and her statue was seen to give a nod of approbation. I allow you to accuse me of having deceived you by an artful management, if, at the same time, you own it was love that prompted me to the ingenious deceit.

What did all my artifice aim at but to be joined to you alone? What you complain of should render me rather doubly dear to you. My ingenuity came neither from nature nor from long practice. It is only you, dear girl, that can make me thus inventive. Love, fertile and expedient, furnished the form of words by which I bound you so close to myself, if indeed I really bound you. I inscribed a marriage contract in words dictated by him. It was by following his suggestions that I became so expert in the law. Let this stratagem then bear the name of fraud. Let me be called cunning and deceitful. If it can be called a fraud to aim at the possession of what we love, See? I write a second time, and send you my prayers and entreaties.

This, too, no doubt, is a fraud. You have in this also a ground of complaint. If it is a crime to love, I own it, and must still be guilty without end. I must still pursue you, should even you yourself avoid my eager hopes. Others have carried away by force the Virgin whom they loved, and can it be a crime in me to write a few words with artifice? How earnestly do I wish I could bind you by a thousand other ties, that no liberty might remain to plight your faith to another. A thousand stratagems are still left. I struggle hard to mount the difficult steep, nor will my ardent flame leave any expedient unassayed. It is uncertain, perhaps, whether you can be gained, but assuredly you shall. True, the event belongs to heaven.

Still, you shall be mine. Should you escape some, It will be impossible to elude all my snares. Love has spread more than you are well aware of. If artifice be unsuccessful, recourse must be had to violence, and ye shall be borne by force into the arms of your eager admirer. I am none of those who blame the brave attempt of Paris, or of any who have shown themselves men of steadiness and courage. I also will—but I am silent. Were death to be the punishment of the daring rape, yet that is still less than to be deprived of you, were you moderately fair, you would be pursued with a moderate impatience. But a form so enchanting makes us rash and resolute. You and your deluding eyes do ail this, those eyes that eclipse the sparkling stars, and have raised the flame that rages in my breast.

Why lay you not the blame upon your golden locks and ivory neck, And those fair hands which, oh, how happy, were they fondly circled round my neck. Why not upon your comely looks, and that enchanting face, where modesty shines without rusticity, your feet, which I can scarcely imagine are equaled by those of Thetis? Were I able to command the rest also, I should be much happier. Nor do I question that the whole frame is uniformly beautiful. What wonder, then, If, overruled by so many powerful charms, I was anxious to have your promise, as a pledge of your love. Let it be so, then, provided you are forced to own that you are deceived. I shall grant likewise that you were deceived by my address.

Let me bear the envy, but let not the sufferer go without his reward. Why do I not reap the harvest of so great a crime? Telamon forced away Hesion, And Achilles Briseis, each captive followed her conqueror. Blame me as much as you will. I allow you even to be angry with me. If, though angry, I may be yet permitted to call you mine, I, who have raised this storm, will do all in my power to appease it. Let me only have some opportunity of softening and quieting your resentment. Let me stand before you, drowned in tears, and second my tears with the language they will naturally dictate. And, as is usual with slaves when they are afraid of the whip, let me clasp my suppliant hands round your knees.

You seem not to know the right you have over me. Summon me before you. Why am I accused in my absence? Command me to appear in the right of one that has been long my mistress. Though full of resentment you tear my hair and disfigure my face with your nails, I will patiently suffer all. I may indeed perhaps be apprehensive that those fair hands may be hurt in taking revenge. It will be needless to secure me with chains and fetters. Love is a bond that will retain me beyond the power of an escape. When your resentment is fully satiated, you will be forced to say, How patiently he loves! When you observe me submissively endure all, surely you cannot avoid saying, Who serves so well? Let him continue to serve.

Now I am accused in my absence, and my cause, though highly just, is lost for want of an advocate. But if it be allowed that the words I wrote, induced by love, are an injury, you have cause of complaint only against me. Does Diana also deserve to be deceived? If you will not perform the promise made to me, perform your promise to the goddess. She was present, and saw your blushes on finding yourself deceived. She treasured up your words with a recollective ear. May all the omens vanish in air. Yet it is certain that no one takes a severer revenge when, which, heaven forbid should be your case, she thinks the homage due to her neglected. As an instance of this, the Caledonian boar may be mentioned, for we know that a mother was found more barbarous towards her son than even the savage beast.

Other examples may be found in Actaeon, who appeared a savage to those very dogs with which he had formerly hunted down savages, and in that haughty mother turned into a stone, who now stands disconsolate in the Magdonian plains. Alas, Cytope, I am afraid to speak the truth, lest you should think I admonish you falsely for my own sake. Yet I must speak. It is on this account, believe me, that you are so often seized with sickness when preparing to wed. Diana herself wishes you guiltless, and strives to hinder you from running into perjury. She desires that, with faith unsustained, you may avoid giving offense. Hence, as often as you are in danger of being perfidious, the goddess prevents the fatal crime.

Cease, then, to provoke the deadly bow of the implacable goddess. She may yet be softened, if you will not obstinately persist. Forbear, amiable nymph, to enfeeble your tender limbs by praying fevers. Preserve that blooming face for the sake of Acontius. Preserve those enchanting looks formed to raise a flame in my breast, and the lively bloom that varies your snow-white face. If any enemy interposed to obstruct my happiness, may he feel the same torments under which I languish when sickness threatens you. I am equally upon the rack, whether I hear of your intended marriage or illness, nor is it easy to determine which apprehension gives most anxiety. Sometimes I am distracted to think that I should be the unhappy cause of your grief, and fear that my innocent artifice may have fatal effects.

Grant, Heaven, that Cytop's Perjurix may be upon the head of her lover, and that the punishment may be transferred to me alone. Yet, always restless till I know how it is with you, I creep silently to your gate, full of anxiety. There, whispering privately to some one of the slaves, I inquire whether you've been relieved by gentle slumbers or refreshing food. Oh, were I blessed as the physician to reach out the cordial draughts, press your soft hand, or lean gently upon the bed. But how hard, and yet more than wretched is my fate, to be thus banished from your presence, while he, who most I fear, sits perhaps close by you. Hated alike by the gods in me, he is yet allowed gently to squeeze your hand and lean over your fading cheeks.

Fond of every pretence to fill the beating vein, he slides his daring hand along your snowy arm, hides it in your bosom, and snatches the fragrant kisses, a reward too great for his officious care. What right have you to reap the harvest of my bliss? Or how are you empowered to encroach upon another's bounds? Aye, that bosom is mine. You basely rob me of my kisses. Take off your hand from a body promised to me, traitor. Take off your hands. You touch a bosom that will soon be mine. In doing this hereafter, you will become an infamous adulterer. Choose from among others, where no prior right is claimed. For know that another lore commands that breast. Nor trust to my testimony. Read the form by which she engaged herself.

And, to prevent a possibility of deceit, make even Cytope repeat the binding vow. Again, then, I say, depart from another's bed. What brings you here? Begone. This bed is already possessed. For even if it be allowed that you also have a promise of the beauteous prize, yet the justice of your claim comes far short of mine. I rely upon a promise made by herself. You claim the promise of a father. Surely she is to herself in a degree nearer than that of father. Her father barely promised. She hath vowed herself to her lover. He called men to witness, but she bound herself in the presence of a goddess. He fears a breach of promise. She dreads the guilt of perjury. Can you doubt after this which has the juster ground of concern?

In fine, that you may be the better able to compare the danger on both sides, reflect only upon the events that threaten each. He enjoys perfect health. She lies in hazard over life. We also enter the lists unequally matched. Neither our hopes nor our fears are alike. You unconcernedly solicit the fair. To me, a repulse is more insupportable than death. I am at present deeply enamored of what you, perhaps, may love sometime hence.

If you have any regard to right and justice, you ought frankly to yield to my superior flame. And now, when he inhumanly contends in an unrighteous cause, be attentive, Cytope, to the counsel my epistle gives you. It is he that brings on your present illness, and makes you suspected by Diana. Forbid him, therefore, if you are wise, any more to approach your gate. It is your compliance in this case that subjects you to these painful calamities of life. Why is not he who occasions all these disasters punished in your stead? Banish him only from you, nor show an affection to one disapproved by the goddess. You will instantly recover your health, and restore me to myself in happiness. Banish, therefore, fear, amiable maid.

You shall enjoy an established health. Only neglect not the temple conscious to your sacred vow. The heavenly powers are not appeased by slaughtered beasts. Truth only, in a faithful regard to our vows, can avert their anger. Let others to recover health run through fire and sword. Let them hope for relief from bitter droughts. You have no need of these. Avoid only the guilt of perjury, perform the promised vow, and preserve both yourself and me. The not knowing that you were in fault will excuse what has passed. The form by which you bound yourself may have slipped out of your mind. But now you are fully admonished, both by my words and those fetters, which as often as you endeavor to break from them, bind you the faster.

But could you get happily clear of even these, still remember that you must invoke her aid in the pressing hours of child-bed, She will attend, and calling to mind the promise you made, inquire to what husband the birth belongs. If then you make a vow for your recovery, the goddess will disregard it, knowing you to be false. If you confirm it by an oath, she still knows you can forget your engagements to the gods themselves. I am not so much concerned for my own fate. A still greater care burdens my mind, and fills me with fear and anxiety for your life. Why do your trembling parents mourn your doubtful fate while you keep them in ignorance of your daring crime? And why are they kept in ignorance?

It is proper that you disclose all to your mother. There is nothing, Cytopi, of which you need be ashamed. Repeat all to her in order. Say that I first saw you as you were engaged in the solemnities of the buskened goddess. Tell her that as soon as I saw you— If perhaps you gave any attention to what I then did, my eyes were immovably fixed upon every limb and feature, that, while I was thus lost in admiration, the sure sign of a growing love, my cloak insensibly dropped from my shoulders, and that afterwards you perceived an apple, uncertain whence, come rolling towards you, but cunningly marked with ensnaring words, which, as they were read in the sacred presence of Diana, Made the goddess a witness that your faith is tied down to me.

But that she may not be ignorant of what was contained in the writing, repeat to her the words you at that time read in the temple. Mary, without hesitation, she will say, The youth to whom the gracious gods have joined you, let him only be my son-in-law, whom you have solemnly sworn to accept in that character. Whoever he may be, as he has already made himself agreeable to Diana, he is agreeable also to me. Such will be your mother's behavior, if she really acts the part of a mother to you. Yet you may admonish her to inquire who and what I am, nor will she find the goddess to have been holy regardless of your happiness. An isle, by the name Ceos, formerly ennobled by the Corician nymphs, is surrounded by the Aegean Sea.

This is my native country. And if you are pleased with illustrious names, my ancestors will not fall below your hopes. I have also riches. My morals are without reproach. And, if no other recommendations existed, love makes you mine by the justest claim. You might even be pleased with such a husband, had no vow passed your lips. Such an one might be acceptable, did no prior engagement intervene. These words the illustrious huntress dictated to me in my sleep. These, too, wakeful love commanded me boldly to write. I am already deeply wounded by Cupid's darts. It is yours, fair nymph, to beware of being pierced by the arrows of Diana. Our welfare is inseparable. Have compassion, both on me and yourself.

Why do you delay the only cure that remains for both? If I should accomplish this object, I will, when the sacred solemnity begins, and Delos is sprinkled with votive blood, consecrate a golden image of the happy apple, and upon it inscribe our fates in the following distich. Acontius proclaims, by the consecrated image of this apple, that the inscription engraven upon it was fulfilled to his desire. But not to fatigue you, already too much exhausted by a long epistle, and to end all in the usual terms of concluding, Farewell.

21 21 - Cydippe to Acontius 17:23

Translated by an unknown translator. First published in 1813.

Cyedippe to Aconteus.

I read over your letter in silent fear, nor suffered so much as a murmur to escape me, lest my tongue might rashly swear by some of the gods. I even think you would have ensnared me again, but that, as you own yourself, you knew it was enough I was once promised to you.

Nor would I have read it over but from a fear that my obstinacy might have increased the anger of the too cruel goddess. Although I forget nothing to appease her, and adore her with the smoke of pious incense, yet the partial goddess still remains your friend, and according to your own wish leaves no room to doubt that the injury with which you are threatened is the cause of her resentment. Scarcely was she so favorable to her own Hippolytus.

It is surely more proper for a virgin not to shorten a virgin's years. I am afraid she has only allotted a few to fulfill my fate. For the wasting illness remains, the cause lies hidden, and I languish without hope of relief from the physician. You can scarcely conceive how thin and feeble I am when I write you this, or with what difficulty I support my wasted limbs in the bed. I am also full of apprehensions that some beside my faithful nurse may know of our thus conversing with each other. She always sits by the door, and that I may write to you with the greater security tells every one who inquires after me that I am asleep. But when sleep... The best pretence in the world for long privacy ceases to be a plausible excuse for the tedious retirement, and when she observes persons coming to whom she can hardly with a good countenance deny admittance, she coughs and warns me of the danger by some known sign.

Intent as I am, I leave the half-written words, and slip the well-dissembled epistle into my beating bosom. I take it out thence when alone. And it again fatigues my moving fingers. Judge only yourself what pain and anxiety it costs me. And yet, to be honest, let me die if you deserve it. But I am kind beyond what is due, or even what you could in reason expect. Have I then on your account so often hazarded my life? Have I suffered, and do I still suffer the punishment of your too successful artifice? Is this the fruit I reap from a beauty that made you an admirer? And must I pay so dearly for appearing agreeable to you?

Had it been my good fortune to seem ugly, how happily might I have escaped this train of disasters! Now, because I am admired, I groan in anguish. Now I am undone by your rival contentious, and perish by the wounds I receive from my own beauty. For while you refuse to yield, and he imagines himself in no respect your inferior, each stands an invincible obstacle to the other's desires. I, in the meantime, am tossed like an uncertain ship, driven by a strong north wind to the open sea, but forcibly kept back by the tide and waves. When now the nuptial day— So earnestly wished by my dear parents is at hand. A burning fever spreads over all my joints, and at the very time appointed for the threatening solemnity, stern Prosperine knocks hideous at the palace gate.

I blush, and, though conscious of no crime, dread that I may be thought to have in some respect merited the wrath of heaven.

Some imagine that my illness is merely from chance. Others pretend that the present nuptials are not favored by the gods. Nor think that you have wholly escaped censure on this occasion, for many believe it brought on by your dark contrivances. The cause is unknown. My sufferings appear to all. You, banishing peace, are engaged in restless opposition. I bear the punishment of all. It is now indeed my desire that you continue to deceive me in the manner usual to you, for what will you do in your hatred, if where you love you create so much mischief? If you thus bring misery upon everything you love, it will be wise in you to love your enemy. Pray, make it your wish that I may be undone, for this only, I find, can save me.

Either you have lost all regard for the girl you so much loved and coveted, in thus cruelly suffering her to perish by an undeserved fate, Or, if you in vain supplicate the unrelenting goddess in my behalf, why do you boast of her concern for you? It is evident that you have no farther power with her. Choose which you will. If you were not inclined to mitigate the goddess, this is being forgetful of me. If you cannot, she has then abandoned you. Oh, I could wish that Delos, surrounded by the Aegean Sea, had remained ever unknown to me, or at least had not been visited by me at that time. The ship that carried me sailed through an inauspicious sea, and in an unhappy hour I entered upon the intended voyage.

With what foot did I first set out? With what step did I leave the gate of my father's house, or touch the painted texture of the nimble bark? Twice our sails drove us back, swelled by adverse winds. Adverse, did I say? Far from it! That, indeed, was the favorable gale. That, I say, was the favorable gale which retarded my unhappy steps, and struggled to prevent an ill-fated voyage. How I wish that it had continued obstinately to oppose the spreading sails! But it is ridiculous to complain of the inconstancy of the wind. Attracted by the fame of the place, I was eager to come within sight of Delos, and seemed to traverse the deep with languid pace. How often did I chide the oars as slow in bearing us along, how often complained that our sails were not stretched by the stinted blasts!

And now I had passed my cony, Tenos, and Andros, and bright Delos was within view, which I no sooner saw that I cried out, Why does the island seem to fly me? Do you, as in time past, fluctuate in the vast ocean? Nor reached I land till towards the close of day, when Phoebus was preparing to unharness his purple horses. When these had been recalled to their accustomed way, my mother gave orders to dress my flowing locks. She adorned my fingers with gems and my tresses with braids of gold, and threw over my shoulders the embroidered robe. We then walked towards the temple, and offered frankincense and wine to the guardian deities of the island. While my mother was engaged in sprinkling the altars with votive blood, and throwing the sacred entrails upon the smoking fuel, My officious nurse led me through the several courts of the temple, and we traversed the sacred place with wandering steps.

Sometimes I walked under magnificent porticos, sometimes admired the rich gifts of kings, and the finished statues that adorned every part. I admired, too, the famous altar made of innumerable horns wonderfully, darefully joined together, and the tree that supported the pregnant goddess. With whatever other curiosities, for I cannot now recollect them, nor am I inclined to mention all I then saw, Delos boasts.

While I was thus busy in viewing everything, you, Aconteus, by chance espied me, and my simplicity made me seem fit to be ensnared. I returned to the temple of Diana, placed high on rising steps. What place should yield a surer defense from harm than this? The apple with the insidious lines is thrown at my feet. Ah, me! I had almost sworn to you a second time. My nurse first took it up, and, wondering what it might be, desired me to read it. I read, too successful poet, your ensnaring words. At the name of wedlock, overwhelmed with shame, I felt a blush spread over all my face. My eyes remained fixed upon my bosom, those eyes which had been so subservient to your deceitful aims. Traitor, why do you triumph?

What glory will this add to your name? Or where can be the praise to have deluded an unsuspecting maid? I did not stand fenced with a buckler and armed with an Amazonian axe like Penthesilia when she traversed the Ilian plains. No girdle adorned with studs of gold as that gained from Hippolyte remains the prize of your victory. What cause of boasting that I was deceived by your well-framed words, or that an unthinking, imprudent girl should fall into the cunning snare? Saedipi was deceived by an apple. It was an apple that deceived also Atalanta.

You are now become a second Hippomenes. Doubtless it had been better, if urged by the little boy, who you say, wounds with I know not what dangerous arrows, according to the rule inviolable with men of honor, not to debase your hope by fraud. I ought to have been openly solicited, not artfully circumvented. Why did you not think of asking me in marriage, and urging those considerations that might have made you appear worthy of being solicited by me? Why did you prefer deceit to persuasion, if the knowledge of your rank was sufficient to have gained me? What advantage can you expect from the form of oath you tendered, or my tongues invoking the present goddess? It is the mind that swears, but no oath binds me there.

It is that only can give authority to what we say. Design, and a soul conscious of its own views, can alone give validity to an oath, nor can any chains bind us but those of the judgment. If my consent accompanied the promise I made to be joined to you in wedlock, you are at liberty to insist upon the rights of a nuptial bed. But if all amounted only to a few sounds without will or meaning, it is in vain to depend upon your words destitute of validity. I took no oath. I barely read a form, nor was that a decent way of choosing a husband. Endeavor by the same artifice to deceive others. Let the apple be followed by an epistle. If a promise thus made binds, make over to yourself the large possessions of the rich.

Make kings swear that they will resign to you their dominions, and artfully secure whatever on earth is to your liking. Believe me. This would make you more considerable than even Diana herself, if every letter you write commands the care of so powerful a goddess.

And yet, after all I have said, after this peremptory refusal to be yours, and fully weighing the case of my extorted promise, I must own that I still dread the wrath of avenging Diana, and suspect that the present calamity comes from her hand. For why, as oft as the nuptial rites are to be solemnized, do the languid joints of the bride sink under a load of sickness. Thrice glad Hymen approaching the sacred altars fled. Thrice he turned away, frighted from my chamber door. The lamps, too, thrice filled up by the wearied hand, are with difficulty lighted. Scarcely are they to be lighted up by the flaming torch. Ointments often distill upon his hair crowned with garlands, and his mantle of bright saffron dye sweeps the ground.

But no sooner did he reach our gates than naught was to be seen but tears, a dread of my approaching fate, and everything the reverse of his joyful rites. Instantly he tears the crown from his mournful forehead and wipes the rich essence from his flowing tresses. He is ashamed to appear joyful in so disconsolate a crowd, and the red that was in his mantle mounts into his face.

But my limbs are wasted by the raging heat of a fever, and the coverings seem to press upon me with double weight. I see my parents weeping over me with earnest looks, and instead of the nuptial am threatened with the funeral torch. Compassionate my sufferings, O goddess that delights in the painted bow, and grant me relief by the health-restoring aid of your brother. It is a reproach upon you that he should ward off the causes of death, while you bear the blame of my untimely fate. Did I ever, as you bathed in a shady fountain, impertinently gaze at you in your retirement? Did I neglect to offer sacrifice to you, alone, of all the heavenly powers? Or did my mother ever treat Latona with contempt?

I have offended in nothing but reading what led me into an unwilling perjury, and understanding too well the force of those ensnaring lines. But do you also, Acontius, if the love you pretend is not mere dissimulation, offer incense for me? And let the hands that have done me so much hurt be now employed for my relief. Why does the goddess, so much incensed that the maid promised to your embrace has not yet fulfilled her vow, herself obstruct the execution of that promise? Everything is to be hoped from the living. Why does the cruel goddess threaten to take away my life and blast all your promising hopes? Nor would I have you imagine that he to whom I am destined for a wife has suffered to cherish my sickly limbs with his gentle hand.

He sits, indeed, at my bedside, for that is allowed him, but he, at the same time, remembers that mine is the bed of a virgin. Besides, he seems to be sensible of my coldness, for tears often fall from him without any apparent cause. He caresses me with less boldness, and seldom snatches kisses. When he calls me his dear, it is with a faltering tongue. Nor do I wonder that he perceives my repugnance to his addresses, when I myself have betrayed it by manifest signs. If he approaches the bed, I turn upon my other side. I refuse to speak and close my eyes as if inclined to sleep, or if he offers to touch me with his hand, reject it with some warmth. He groans and sighs within himself, and, though far from deserving such usage, observes me cold and averse to him.

Me! How you rejoice! What pleasure this confession gives you! How silly to own thus frankly my thoughts of him! If I were to speak like myself, you who contrived these snares for me were far more deserving of my disdain. You write for leave to visit me in my present illness. You are far from me, and yet, distant as you are, you wound deeply. I wondered with myself how you came to be named Acontius, but find now that you can dart wounds from far. It is certain that I have not yet recovered from this wound, pierced from far by your letter as by a javelin. But to what end should you come here, to see my feeble body, the double trophy of your ingenuity? I am a-waisted to a skeleton. My color is become pale, such as I remember to have observed in the apple you threw at me.

My fair cheeks are no more adorned with a becoming red, but have rather the appearance of a newly polished marble. Or silver at a feast, when deadened by the chillness of water. Were you to see me now, you would deny me to be the same with her you first saw, nor think me worthy to be sought by so many artifices. You would gladly release me from the promise I made of being joined to you forever, and wish that the goddess herself might also cease to exact the performance. Perhaps, too, you might endeavor to make me swear the contrary of my former oath, and throw at me another form of word, to be in like manner read over. Yet I could wish that according to your request you might see me, and learn the feeble condition of one whom you wished for your bride.

Had you a heart, Acontius, more hard than steel, yet you could not forbear addressing the gods in my behalf. But not to keep you ignorant of the only means left to restore me to my health, Recourse has been had to the god who predicted futurity, Apdelphi. He also, as fame reports, complains of broken vows. This a god, this a poet, this even my own lines proclaim. But nothing of that kind is wanting to give force to your wishes. Whence all this favor to you? Unless, perhaps, you have found the secret to bind the gods themselves by a new form of words? If you thus find the gods propitious, it is fit that I submit to their will. And as they have made you their choice, make you also mine. I have already acquainted my mother with the vow into which you artfully betrayed me, keeping my eyes full of shame fixed all the time upon the ground.

The rest must be left in your care. It is even more than becomes a virgin that I have thus ventured to make known my sentiments to you by a letter. My feeble fingers are now sufficiently tired by the pen, and my sickly hand is unable to bear longer fatigue. What remains for me to write, but that it is now my wish to be forever thine? Farewell.

End of Ovid's Heroides

queue_music Chapters 21