Carmina

Perseus Latin · Perseus Latin · 544 sections

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nor does the bull tear up the clods with the prone-bending plowblade, nor does the sickle prune the shade of the spreading tree-branches, squalid rust steals over the neglected plows. But this mansion, throughout its innermost recesses of opulent royalty, glitters with gleaming gold and with silver.
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Ivory makes white the seats; goblets glint on the boards; the whole house delights in the splendour of royal treasure. Placed in the midst of the mansion is the bridal bed of the goddess, made glossy with Indian tusks and covered with purple, tinted with the shell-fish’s rosy dye.
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This tapestry embroidered with figures of men of ancient time portrays with admirable art the heroes’ valour. For looking forth from Dia’s beach, resounding with crashing of breakers, Ariadne watches Theseus moving from sight with his swift fleet, her heart swelling with raging passion,
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and she does not yet believe she sees what she sees, as, newly-awakened from her deceptive sleep, she perceives herself, deserted and woeful, on the lonely shore. But the heedless youth, flying away, beats the waves with his oars, leaving his perjured vows to the gusty gales.
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In the dim distance from amidst the sea-weed, the daughter of Minos with sorrowful eyes, like a stone-carved Bacchante, gazes afar, alas! gazes after him, heaving with great waves of grief. No longer does the fragile fillet bind her yellow locks, no more with light veil is her hidden bosom covered,
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no more with rounded zone the milky breasts are clasped; fallen down from her body everything is scattered here and there, and the salt waves toy with them in front of her very feet. But neither on fillet nor floating veil, but on you, Theseus,
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in their stead, was she musing: on you she bent her heart, her thoughts, her love-lorn mind. Ah, woeful one, with sorrows unending distraught, Erycina sows thorny cares deep in your bosom, since that time when Theseus fierce in his vigor set out from the curved bay of Piraeus,
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and gained the Gortynian roofs of the iniquitous ruler. For it is said that once, constrained by the cruelest plague to expiate the slaughter of Androgeos, Cecropia used to give both chosen youths and the pick of the unmarried maidens as a feast to the Minotaur.
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When thus his strait walls with ills were vexed, Theseus with free will preferred to yield up his body for adored Athens rather than such Cecropian corpses be carried to Crete unobsequied. And therefore borne in a speedy craft by favouring breezes,
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he came to the imperious Minos and his superb seat. Instantly with longing glance the royal virgin saw him, she whom the chaste couch breathing out sweetest of scents cradled in her mother’s tender enfoldings, like the myrtle which the rivers of Eurotas produce,
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or the many-tinted blooms opening with the springtide’s breezes, she bent not her flashing eyes away from him, until the flame spread through her whole body, and burned into her innermost marrow. Ah, hard of heart, urging with misery to madness,
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O holy boy, who mingles men’s cares and their joys, and you queen of Golgos and of foliaged Idalium, on what waves did you heave the mind-kindled maid, sighing often for the golden-haired guest! What dreads she bore in her swooning soul!
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How often did she grow sallower in sheen than gold! When craving to contend against the savage monster, Theseus faced death or the palm of praise. Then gifts to the gods not unpleasing, not idly given, with promise from tight-closed lips did she address her vows.
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For as an oak waving its boughs on Taurus’ top, or a coniferous pine with sweating stem, is uprooted by savage storm, twisting its trunk with its blast (dragged from its roots prone it falls afar, breaking all in the line of its fall)
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so did Theseus fling down the conquered body of the brute, tossing its horns in vain towards the skies. Thence backwards he retraced his steps amidst great laud, guiding his errant footsteps by means of a tenuous thread, lest when coming out from tortuous labyrinthines
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his efforts be frustrated by unobservant wandering. But why, turned aside from my first story, should I recount more, how the daughter fleeing her father’s face, her sister’s embrace, and even her mother’s, who despairingly bemoaned her lost daughter,
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preferred to all these the sweet love of Theseus; or how borne by their boat to the spumy shores of Dia she came; or how her husband with unmemoried breast forsaking her, left her bound in the shadows of sleep? And oft, so it is said, with her heart burning with fury
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she poured out clarion cries from depths of her bosom, then sadly scaled the rugged mounts, whence she could cast her glance over the vast seething ocean, then ran into the opposing billows of the heaving sea, raising from her bared legs her clinging raiment,
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and in uttermost plight of woe with tear-stained face and chilly sobs she spoke thus:—Is it thus, O perfidious, when dragged from my motherland’s shores, is it thus, O false Theseus, that you leave me on this desolate strand? thus do you depart unmindful of slighted godheads, bearing home your perjured vows?
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Was no thought able to bend the intent of your ruthless mind? had you no clemency there, that your pitiless bowels might show me compassion? But these were not the promises you gave me idly of old, this was not what you bade me hope for,
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but the blithe bride-bed, hymenaeal happiness: all empty air, blown away by the breezes. Now, now, let no woman give credence to man’s oath, let none hope for faithful vows from mankind;
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for while their eager desire strives for its end, nothing fear they to swear, nothing of promises forbear they: but instantly their lusting thoughts are satiate with lewdness, nothing of speech they remember, nothing of perjuries care. In truth I snatched you from the midst of the whirlpool of death,
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preferring to suffer the loss of a brother rather than fail your need in the supreme hour, O ingrate. For which I shall be a gift as prey to be rent by wild beasts and the carrion-fowl, nor dead shall I be placed in the earth, covered with funeral mound. What lioness bore you beneath lonely crag?
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What sea conceived and spued you from its foamy crest? What Syrtis, what grasping Scylla, what vast Charybdis? O you repayer with such rewards for your sweet life! If it was not your heart’s wish to yoke with me, through holding in horror the dread decrees of my stern sire,
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yet you could have led me to your home, where as your handmaid I might have served you with cheerful service, laving your snowy feet with clear water, or spreading the purple coverlet over your couch.
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Yet why, distraught with woe, do I vainly lament to the unknowing winds, which unfurnished with sense, can neither hear uttered complaints nor can return them? For now he has sped away into the midst of the seas, nor does any mortal appear along this desolate seaboard.
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Thus with overweening scorn bitter Fate in my extreme hour even grudges ears to my complaints. All-powerful Jupiter! would that in old time the Cecropian ships had not touched at the Gnossan shores, nor that the false mariner, bearing the direful ransom to the unquelled bull, had bound his ropes to Crete,
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nor that yonder wretch hiding ruthless designs beneath sweet seemings had reposed as a guest in our halls! For whither may I flee? in what hope, O lost one, take refuge? Shall I climb the Idomenean crags? but the truculent sea stretching far off with its whirlings of waters separates us.
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Dare I hope for help from my father, whom I deserted to follow a youth besprinkled with my brother’s blood? Can I crave comfort from the care of a faithful husband, who is fleeing with yielding oars, encurving amidst whirling waters? If I turn from the beach there is no roof in this tenantless island,
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no way shows a passage, circled by waves of the sea; no way of flight, no hope; all denotes dumbness, desolation, and death. Nevertheless my eyes shall not be dimmed in death, nor my senses secede from my spent frame,
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until I have besought from the gods a just penalty for my betrayal, and implored the faith of the celestials with my last breath. Wherefore you requiters of men’s deeds with avenging pains, O Eumenides, whose front enwreathed with serpent-locks blazons the wrath exhaled from your bosom,
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come here, here, listen to my complaint, which I, sad wretch, am urged to outpour from my innermost marrow, helpless, burning, and blind with frenzied fury. And since in truth they spring from the very depths of my heart, be unwilling to allow my agony to pass unheeded,
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but with such mind as Theseus forsook me, with like mind, O goddesses, may he bring evil on himself and on his kin. After she had poured forth these words from her grief-laden bosom, distractedly clamouring for requital against his heartless deeds, the celestial ruler assented with almighty nod,
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at whose motion the earth and the shuddering waters quaked, and the world of glittering stars quivered. But Theseus, self-blinded with mental mist, let slip from forgetful breast all those injunctions which until then he had held firmly in mind,
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nor bore aloft sweet signals to his sad sire, showing himself safe when in sight of Erectheus’ haven. For it is said that before, when Aegeus entrusted his son to the winds, on leaving the walls of the chaste goddess’s city, he gave these commands to the youth with his parting embrace:
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O my only son, far dearer to me than long life, lately restored to me at extreme end of my years, O son whom I am forced to send off to a doubtful hazard, since my ill fate and your ardent valour snatch you from me unwilling, whose dim
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eyes are not yet sated with my son’s dear form: nor gladly and with joyous breast do I send you, nor will I suffer you to bear signs of helpful fortune, but first from my breast many a complaint will I express, sullying my grey hairs with dust and ashes,
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and then will I hang dusky sails to the swaying mast, so that our sorrow and burning of mind are shown by rusty-dark Iberian canvas. Yet if the dweller on holy Itone, who deigns to defend our race and Erectheus’ dwellings,
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grant you to besprinkle your right hand in the bull’s blood, then see that in very truth these commandments deep-stored in your heart’s memory do flourish, nor any time deface them. As soon as your eyes shall see our cliffs, lower their gloomy clothing from every yard,
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and let the twisted cordage bear aloft snowy sails, where resplendent shall shine bright topmast spars, so that, immediately discerning, I may know with gladness and lightness of heart that in prosperous hour you are returned to my face. These charges, at first held in constant mind, from Theseus slipped away as clouds are impelled by the breath of the winds
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from the ethereal peak of a snow-clad mount. But as his father sought the castle’s turrets as watchplace, dimming his anxious eyes with continual weeping, when first he spied the discoloured canvas, flung himself headlong from the top of the crags,
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believing Theseus lost by harsh fate. Thus as he entered the grief-stricken house, his paternal roof, Theseus savage with slaughter met with like grief as that which with unmemoried mind he had dealt to Minos’ daughter: while she gazed with grieving at his disappearing keel,
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turned over a tumult of cares in her wounded spirit. But on another part [of the tapestry] swift hastened the flushed Iacchus with his train of Satyrs and Nisa-begot Sileni, seeking you, Ariadne, and aflame with love for you. These scattered all around, an inspired band, rushed madly with mind all distraught,
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ranting Euhoe, with tossing of heads Euhoe. Some with womanish hands shook thyrsi with wreath-covered points; some tossed limbs of a rended steer; some girded themselves with writhed snakes; some enacted obscure orgies with deep chests,
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orgies of which the profane vainly crave a hearing; others beat the tambours with outstretched palms, or from the burnished brass provoked shrill tinklings, blew raucous-sounding blasts from many horns, and the barbarous pipe droned forth horrible song.
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With luxury of such figures was the coverlet adorned, enwrapping the bed with its mantling embrace. After the Thessalian youth were sated with the desire of gazing, they began to give way to the sacred gods. Hence, as with his morning’s breath brushing the still sea
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Zephyrus makes the sloping billows uprise, when Aurora mounts beneath the threshold of the wandering sun, and the waves move forth slowly at first with the breeze’s gentle motion (plashing with the sound as of low laughter), but after, as the wind swells, more and more frequent they crowd
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and gleam in the purple light as they float away,—so quitting the royal vestibule the folk left, each to his home with steps wandering hither and thither. After their departure, Chiron came, chief from the summit of Pelion, the bearer of sylvan spoil:
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for whatever the fields bear, what the Thessalian land on its high hills breeds, and what flowers the fecund air of warm Favonius begets near the running streams, these did he bear enwreathed into blended garlands wherewith the house rippled with laughter, caressed by the grateful odor.
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Speedily Penios stands present, for a time leaving his verdant Tempe, Tempe whose overhanging trees encircle, to the Dorian choirs, damsels Magnesian, to frequent; nor empty-handed,—for he has borne here lofty beeches uprooted and the tall laurel with straight stem,
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nor lacks he the nodding plane and the lithe sister of flame-wrapt Phaethon and the aerial cypress. These wreathed in line did he place around the palace so that the vestibule might grow green sheltered with soft fronds. After him follows Prometheus of inventive mind,
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bearing diminishing traces of his ancient punishment, which once he had suffered, with his limbs confined by chains hanging from the rugged Scythian crags. Then came the sire of gods from heaven with his holy consort and offspring, leaving you alone, Phoebus,
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with your twin-sister the fosterer of the mountains of Idrus: for equally with yourself did your sister disdain Peleus nor was she willing to honour the wedding torches of Thetis. After they had reclined their snow-white forms along the seats, tables were loaded on high with food of various kinds.
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In the meantime with shaking bodies and infirm gesture the Parcae began to intone their truth-naming chant. Their trembling frames were enwrapped around with white garments, encircled with a purple border at their heels, snowy fillets bound each aged brow,
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and their hands pursued their never-ending toil, as of custom. The left hand bore the distaff enwrapped in soft wool, the right hand lightly withdrawing the threads with upturned fingers shaped them, then twisting them with the prone thumb it turned the balanced spindle with well-polished whirl.
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And then with a pluck of their tooth the work was always made even, and the bitten wool-shreds adhered to their dried lips, which shreds at first had stood out from the fine thread. And in front of their feet wicker baskets of osier twigs took charge of the soft white woolly fleece.
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These, with clear-sounding voice, as they combed out the wool, out-poured fates of such kind in sacred song, in song which no age yet to come could tax with untruth. O with great virtues augmenting your exceeding honour, mainstay of Emathia, most famous in your issue,
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receive what the sisters make known to you on this happy day, a truth-naming oracle! But run, you spindles, drawing the thread which the fates follow, run, spindles! Now Hesperus will come to you bearing what is longed for by bridegrooms, with that fortunate star will your bride come,
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who steeps your soul with the sway of softening love, and prepares with you to conjoin in languorous slumber, spreading her smooth arms beneath your sinewy neck. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! No house ever yet enclosed such loves,
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no love bound lovers with such pact, as abides with Thetis, as is the concord of Peleus. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! To you will Achilles be born, a stranger to fear, to his foes known not by his back, but by his strong breast,
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who, often the victor in the uncertain struggle of the foot-race, will outrun the fire-fleet footsteps of the speedy doe. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! None in war with him may compare as a hero, when the Phrygian streams trickle with Trojan blood,
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and when besieging the walls of Troy with a long, drawn-out warfare perjured Pelops’ third heir lays that city waste. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! Often will mothers attest over funeral-rites of their sons his glorious acts and illustrious deeds,
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when the white locks from their heads are unloosed amid ashes, and they bruise their discoloured breasts with feeble fists. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! For as the reaper, plucking off the dense wheat-ears before their time, mows the harvest yellowed beneath ardent sun,
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so will he cast prostrate the corpses of Troy’s sons with grim swords. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! His great valour will be attested by Scamander’s wave, which ever pours itself into the swift Hellespont, narrowing its course with slaughtered heaps of corpses
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he shall make tepid its deep stream by mingling warm blood with the water. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! And finally she will be a witness: the captive-maid handed to death, when the heaped-up tomb of earth built in lofty mound receives the snowy limbs of the stricken virgin.
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Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! For instantly fortune will give the means to the war-worn Greeks to break Neptune’s stone bonds of the Dardanian city, the tall tomb shall be made dank with Polyxena’s blood, who as the victim succumbing beneath two-edged sword,
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with yielding knees shall fall forward a headless corpse. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! Come then! Conjoin in the longed-for delights of your love. Let the bridegroom receive his goddess in felicitous compact; let the bride be given to her eager husband.
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Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! Neither will the nurse returning with morning light succeed in circling her neck with last night’s thread. [Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles!], nor need her solicitous mother fear that sad discord will cause a parted bed for her daughter,
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nor need she cease to hope for dear grandchildren. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! With such soothsaying songs of yore did the Parcae chant from divine breast the felicitous fate of Peleus. For previously the heaven-dwellers used to visit the chaste homes
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of heroes and to show themselves in mortal assembly when their worship had not yet been scorned. Often the father of the gods, resting in his glorious temple, when on the festal days his annual rites appeared, gazed on a hundred bulls strewn prone on the earth.
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Often wandering Liber on topmost summit of Parnassus led his howling Thyiads with loosely tossed locks, when the Delphians tumultuously trooping from the whole of their city joyously acclaimed the god with smoking altars. Often in lethal strife of war, Mavors,
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or swift Triton’s queen, or the Rhamnusian virgin, in person did exhort armed bodies of men. But after the earth was infected with heinous crime, and each one banished justice from their grasping mind, and brothers steeped their hands in fraternal blood,
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the son ceased grieving over departed parents, the sire craved for the funeral rites of his first-born that freely he might take of the flower of unwedded step-daughter, the unholy mother, lying under her unknowing son, did not fear to sully her household gods with dishonor:
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everything licit and lawless commingled with mad infamy turned away from us the just-seeing mind of the gods. Wherefore neither do they deign to appear at such assemblies, nor will they permit themselves to be met in the daylight.
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Though outspent with care and unceasing grief, I am withdrawn, Ortalus, from the learned Virgins, nor is my soul’s mind able to bring forth the sweet fruit of the Muses (so much does it waver amidst ills:
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for but lately the wave of the Lethean stream washes with its flow the poor, pale foot of my brother, whom the land of Troy crushes beneath the Rhoetean shore, stolen from our eyes. [Never again will I hear you speak,]
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never again, O brother, more lovable than life, will I see you. But surely I will always love you, always will I sing elegies made gloomy by your death, such as the Daulian bird pipes beneath densest shades of foliage, lamenting the lot of slain Itys.—
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Yet amidst sorrows so deep, O Ortalus, I send you these verses recast from Battiades, lest by chance you should think that your words have slipped from my mind, entrusted to the wandering winds, as it was with that apple, sent as furtive love-token by the wooer,
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which leapt out from the virgin’s chaste bosom; for the hapless girl forgot she had placed it beneath her soft robe—when she starts at her mother’s approach, out it is shaken: and down it rolls headlong to the ground, while a tell-tale flush bears witness to the girl’s distress.
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He who scanned all the lights of the great firmament, who ascertained the rising and the setting of the stars, how the flaming splendour of the swift sun was darkened, how the planets disappear at certain seasons,
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how sweet love with stealth detaining Trivia beneath the Latmian crags draws her away from her airy circuit: he that same Conon saw me, a lock of hair from Berenice’s head, in the celestial light,
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gleaming brightly, which she outstretching graceful arms promised to all of the gods, when the king, magnified by his recent marriage, had gone to lay waste the Assyrian borders, bearing the sweet traces of nightly contests, in which he had borne away her virginal spoils.
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Is Venus abhorred by new brides? And are the parents’ joys turned aside by feigned tears, which they shed copiously within the threshold of the bedchamber? Their groans are untrue, by the gods I swear! This my queen taught me by her many lamentings,
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when her bridegroom set out for stern warfare. Yet, when deserted, you did not grieve the widowed couch, did you, but the tearful separation from a dear brother? How care consumed your marrow, sad deep within! Such that, your whole bosom being agitated,
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and your senses being snatched from you, your mind wandered! But in truth I have known you great of heart ever since you were a little maiden. Have you forgotten that noble deed, by which you gained a royal marriage, than which none dared other deeds bolder? Yet what grieving words you spoke when bidding your bridegroom farewell!
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Jupiter! how often with sad hand [you wiped] your eyes! What mighty god changed you? Was it that lovers are unwilling to be long absent from their dear one’s body? Then did you promise me to the whole of the gods on your sweet consort’s behalf, not without blood of oxen,
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if he should be granted safe return. In no long time he added captive Asia to the Egyptian territory. For these reasons I, bestowed amidst the celestial host, by a new gift fulfil your ancient vow. Unwillingly, O queen, did I quit your brow,
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unwillingly: I swear to you and to your head; if anyone swears lightly, may he bear a suitable penalty: but who may claim himself equal to steel? Even that mountain was swept away, the greatest on earth, over which Thia’s illustrious progeny passed,
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when the Medes created a new sea, and the barbarian youth sailed its fleet through the middle of Athos. What can locks of hair do, when such things yield to iron? Jupiter! may the whole race of the Chalybes perish, and whoever first began to seek the veins beneath the earth
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and invent the hardness of iron! Just before severance my sister locks were mourning my fate, when Ethiop Memnon’s brother, the winged steed, beating the air with fluttering wings, appeared before Locrian Arsinoe,
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and he bearing me up, flies through aethereal shadows and lays me in the chaste bosom of Venus. Zephyritis herself had dispatched him as her servant, a Greek settler on the Canopian shores. For it was the wish of many gods
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that the golden crown from Ariadne’s temples stay fixed, not alone in heaven’s light, but that we also should gleam, the spoils dedicated from your golden-yellow head; when moist with weeping I entered the temples of the gods, the goddess placed me, a new star, among the ancient ones.
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For touching the Virgin’s and the cruel Lion’s gleams, hard by Lycaonian Callisto, I turn westwards, a guide before the slow-moving Bootes who barely sinks into the vast ocean. But although the footsteps of the gods press upon me in the night,
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and the daytime restores me to the white-haired Tethys, (grant me your grace to speak thus, O Rhamnusian virgin, for I will not hide the truth through any fear, even if the stars revile me with ill words, yet I will unfold the pent-up feelings from truthful breast)
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I am not so much rejoiced at these things as I am tortured by being forever parted, parted from my lady’s head, with whom I, in all ointments having not a share, drank many thousands when she was still a virgin. Now do you, whom the gladsome light of the wedding torches has joined,
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yield not your bodies to your desiring husbands nor throw aside your robes and bare your nipples, before your onyx cup brings me delightful gifts, your onyx, you who seek the dues of chaste marriage-bed. But she who gives herself to foul adultery,
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ah! may the light-lying dust responselessly drink her vile gifts, for I seek no offerings from folk that do ill. But rather, O brides, may concord always be yours, and constant love ever dwell in your homes.
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But when you, O queen, while gazing at the stars, will propitiate the goddess Venus with festal torch lights, let not me, your own, be left lacking of unguent, but rather gladden me with large gifts.
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Why do the stars hold me back? would that I become a royal tress, that Orion might gleam next to Aquarius.
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O dear in thought to the sweet husband, dear in thought to his sire, hail! and may Jove augment his good grace to you, Door! which of old, they say, did serve Balbus benignly, while the old man held his home here;

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