Epistles

Perseus Latin · Perseus Latin · 259 sections

1.1.1
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 Grecian dames: scarcely were Priam and all his kingdom worth such a mighty stir. Oh, how I wish that the infamous adulterer, when he sailed for Lacedæmon with his fleet, had been swallowed up by the raging seas! I had not then lain cold in a solitary bed, nor thus forlorn complained of the tedious days; the pendulous web would not then have tired 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 assaulted by furious Trojans; and on hearing the name of Hector always turned pale. If any one informed me that Antilochus had been slain by that hero, the fate of Antilochus proved the cause of fresh disquiet to me; or, if informed that Patroclus had fallen in counterfeit armour, I lamented that this stratagem should fail of success. Tlepolemus had stained the Lycian spear with his blood, my anxiety was renewed by the catastrophè of Tlepolemus. In fine, as often as any fell in the Grecian camp, my fond heart was chilled with icy fear. But the righteous gods had 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 Simois; here is the Sigæan field; here stood the lofty palace of old Priam. There was the 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 enquire after you; and he again to me. He told me likewise, that Rhesus and Dolon 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 Thracian 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 walls 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 the captive ox.
1.53.1
Now corn grows where once Troy stood; and the ground, fattened 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 share; and rising grass covers the ruins of the houses. Though victorious, you are still absent; nor can I possibly know the cause 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 Neleian kingdom of old Nestor; but we thence received no account beside uncertain report. We sent likewise to Sparta; but Sparta, being equally ignorant of the truth, left us uncertain that lands you might be wandering over, or where you could make so long a stay. It would be better for me, if the walls of Troy were still standing. Alas! unstable and unhappy, I am offended at my own wishes. I should know in what part of the world you fought, and dread 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, your it is possible, are the slave of some foreign beauty (such is the inconstancy of man). 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 Icarius 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 wooers from Dulichium, Samos, and lofty Zacynthos, teize me without intermission. They reign uncontrolled in your palace, and devour your wealth, our very life and support. Why should I mention Pisander, Polybus, ugly Medon, and covetous Eurymachus and Antinoüs, beside many others, who all in your absence live upon the means gained at the hazard of your life? Indigent Irus, and your goat-herd Melanthius, serve to finish your disgrace. We are only three in number, unable to defend ourselves; your wife weak and helpless, Laërtes an old man, and Telemachus 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 neat-herd, swine-herd, and aged nurse, all join in this prayer. Laërtes, 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 you return must appear old and decayed.
2.1.1
O DEMOPHOÖN, 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 heaven 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 Demophoön, 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 honor? 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 dishonor of invoking them falsely, you alone would be insufficient for the deserved punishment.
2.45.1
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 which 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 conspire 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 hospiality 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 desert, is just and unblameable. Surely it is no mighty glory to deceive a credulous maid; my innocent simplicity merited a kind return.
2.45.2
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 Ægeus! May the statue of your father graced with inscriptions and trophies stand first! When the stories of Scyron and stern Procrustes shall be read, Sinis, 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 Thracian youths whom I scorned before, now shun my embraces, because I preferred a 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 every thing, 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 is 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 Demophoön. 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.
2.103.1
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 from 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 Rhodope covered with eternal snow, to shady Hæmus, 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. Alecto 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, where-ever 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 and distant sail, forthwith I divine it to be my Demophoön. 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 unexpecting eyes. Though more hard-hearted than iron or adamant, year 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 honor 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: Phyilis died by the cruelty of Demophoön; a faithful mistress by a perfidious guest. He was the barbarous cause; she herself gave the fatal blow.
3.1.1
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 their so famed love? I might have been detained somewhat longer; delay of miscry 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 hing is the least part of your crime; you even strive against my return. Weight now with yourself what right you have to the name of a lover. The sons of Telamon and Amyntor came ambassadors from Agamemnon; the first related to you by blood, the other your friend and
3.27.1
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 favour my chaste hopes?
3.45.1
I saw the walls of Lyrnessus 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 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! O 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 Ægina, to whom old Nereus will not disdain to be related. I her humble handmaid will diligently ply my task, and the twisted threads 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 Greece falls at your feet. You
3.75.1
who are conqueror every where else, be master also of yourself and your passions. Why is insulting Hector allowed to triumph over the Grecian troops? Take arms, brave grandson of Æacus, 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. Meleager took up arms at the request of his wife. I have it only by hearsay; but you are acquainted with the whole story. Althæa'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.
3.101.1
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 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. Where 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, mean-while, solace yourself with the harp, resigned to the soft embraces of a fond mistress. Should any one 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. Heretofore 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 a captive? Is your thirst of praise extinguished in 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 Phœnix, 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.
3.127.1
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, oppressed with a load of anxiety; nor kill her with your cruel delays. Or, if your former love is turned 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 poignard; 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.
4.1.1
Phædra 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
4.25.1
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 has 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 by objected. If Juno should resign her brother and husband in my favour, 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 with you the savage breed; already the Delian goddess, distinguished by the crooked bow, presides in my thoughts; your judgement 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
4.40.1
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.
4.51.1
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 by 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 wish 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
4.67.1
with a garland; a modest blush had overspread your comely face. That countenance which appears, to others, stern and fierce, was in Phædra's eyes noble and full of manly courage. I hate youths fond of dress and a 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, every thing 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 Areadian Atalanta: she, as a pledge of his love, enjoyed the spoils of the Calydonian boar. Let us also be now first joined to this glorious crowd. If you banish love, the forest will be turned into a desert.
4.103.1
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 Trœzen, once the kingdom of Pittheus: 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 Phædra 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 enquire 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
4.117.1
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 the 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 a stepmother, tender of my husband's son.
4.141.1
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 my 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 shew respect to mine. The famous island of Crete falls by inheritance to me: here shall my Hippolytus reign supreme. Conquer that stubborn soul.
4.168.1
My mother could even inspire a bull with love; and will you be more cruel than a fierce bull? Hear, then, for Venus' 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 Phædra, that you see also the tears streaming from her eyes.
5.1.1
MAY I hope that you will read this? Or, over-awed by your new bride, must you treat it with neglect? Read it over, I entreat you: it is no threatening letter sent you from Mycenæ. I, the Nymph Œnone, 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 sit 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. Thought now the
5.3.1
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 we quietly rested amidst the flocks, where the ground, strewn with leaves, afforded a pleasant couch. Oft in our Iowly cottage, secure from hail and freezing winds, have we contentedly reposed on straw or a bed of hay. Who shewed you the forests best stocked with game, or pointed out the rocky caverns where the savage dam concealed her young? A constant companion of your toils, I often spread the knotted net, and cheered your sweeping hounds along the mountain's brow. The beeches still preserve my name carved by your hand; and 'Œnone,' the work of your pruning-knife, is read upon their bark; and, as the trunks increase, the letters still dilate. Grow on, and rise as testimonies of my just claim. There grows a poplar (I remember it) by the river's side, on which is carved the motto of our love. Flourish. thou poplar, fed by the bordering stream, whose furrowed bark bears this inscription: Sooner shall Xanthus hasten back to his source, than Paris be able to live without his Œnone. Xanthus,
5.29.1
flow backward; backward flow, ye streams! Paris still lives, though faithless to his Œnone. 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 prize 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 least you need not be ashamed to own; the present love is far more guilty than the past. You wept, and witnessed my melting grief; the mingled tears spoke our
5.35.1
mutual sadness. You clasped your arms round my neck, more closely than the curling vines embrace the 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 a last farewell!
5.53.1
A propitious gale swells your sails bellying from the rigid masts; and the sea foams after the repeated strokes of the oars. Hapless, I pursue with my eyes the lessening canvass, and water the sands with my tears. I implore the Nereids for your speedy return; a speedy return indeed to my sorrow. Have then my prayers brought you back only for the sake of another, and have I solicited the Gods in behalf of an injurious harlot? A high rock formed by nature overlooks the boundless sea. This precipice opposes itself to the beating waves. Hence I first espied 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. At this I tore my hair and beat my breast, and, urged by despair, scratched my face with my inhuman nails. Ida's sacred groves resounded with my mournful complaints; and hence I bore them to those caves 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, Œnone alone made you an offer of her 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 to be ashamed of owning himself the father-in-law of a Nymph; nor needs Hecuba disscmble that I am
5.84.1
her daughter. I merit, and wish to become the consort of a powerful prince; nor would a regal 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 a 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 a war must be her dowry. Ask of Hector your brother, Polydamas, or Deiphobus, whether she ought to be restored. Consult with sage Antenor, and your aged sire Priam, whom years and long experience have taught wisdom. It is scandalous to prefer a mistress to your native country. You engage in a shameful cause: her husband raises a just war against you. Nor flatter yourself that this Lacedæmonian will long prove constant, she who was so easily enticed to your embraces. As young Atrides 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 for ever.
5.105.1
She now burns for you. Thus she once loved Menelaus. He, too easy of belief, lies now in a forlorn bed. Happy Andromache, the worthy consort of a faithful spouse! My fidelity merited a like return 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. Heretofore your sister (now I recollect) forewarned me of all, and, with her hair disheveled, thus prophesied my approaching fate: What is it you hope for, Œnone? Why bury you thus your seed in the sand? Why plough you up the shore with unprofitable steers? The Grecian heifer 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 servants carried her off full of the God. My
5.121.1
hair was erect with fear. Ah, you too truly foretold my wretched fate! This heifer now feeds in my lawns. Though fair to look upon, she is yet a prostitute, whom strangers have easily enticed from her native home. Thus Theseus (if I do not mistake the name), one Theseus, formerly made her a prize. It is likely, no doubt, that she was restored safe and untouched by a youth passionate and fond. If you wonder how I obtained a knowlege of this story, I answer, that I love. You may call it violence, and think to hide her fault by a specious name: it is evident that one who has been carried off so often, must have contrived the rape. But Œnone continues faithful to a perjured spouse; and yet I might have returned the injury in kind. I was pursued by the Satyrs, a lustful crew, and, to escape their violence, concealed myself in the woods. Fauns too, adorned with garlands of pine-leaves, traced me over Ida's swelling
5.135.1
summits. Phœbus, 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 recompence of jewels or gold, nor would meanly prostitute my free charms for hire. He thought me worthy to be intrusted with the healing art, and rewarded me with the same knowlege for which he is himself so famed. My skill reaches to every herb and healing root which the fertile carth produces. But, unhappy that I am! my art avails not to my own cure; nor are herbs sufficient to heal the wounds of love. Even Phœbus, the founder of our art, fed (we are told) the herds of Admetus; nor could he withstand the pointed flames. Not heaven, nor earth with all its bounteous store, can ease my pain; it is from you alone that I expect relief. Paris can relieve; 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 passed my infant years: Heaven grant that what yet remains of life may be also spent with you!
6.1.1
You are said to have reached the Thessalian 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 unfavorable 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 Hypsipyle deserved this testimony of your love. Why as fame the first
6.7.1
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 a 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;
6.23.1
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 God. After recovering from my surprise, I began to enquire 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 armed 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 Hymen'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 Hymen also, having his temples bound with garlands. But neither Juno nor Hymen, but cruel Erinnys, bore in procession the inauspicious torch. What concern had I with the Argonauts?
6.47.1
what with the ship of Pallas? Why did your pilot Tiphys think of touching at this coast? Here was no ram to entice you by his golden spoils; nor had Æetes 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 men. My life and peace ought to have been defended by so trusty a band.
6.55.1
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.
6.55.2
"Alas! I am torn from you, Hypsipyle; 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 you deceitful checks, grief deprived you of the power to proceed. You were the last to ascend the sacred ship: she flies, and a favorable 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 a 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, favoring the eagerness of my mind, carry forward my sight beyond its usual bounds. I address Heaven with chaste prayers and timorous vows,—vows to the 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
6.75.1
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 with a magic sickle. She endeavours 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 disheveled, and collects bones from the yet smoking pyres. Her witchcraft affects even the absent; she moulds the images of wax, and gores the wretched liver with torturing needles. Add a multiplicity of other magic artifices, which I am better unacquainted with. Love should be gained by merit and beauty, not by berbs and philtres. 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
6.97.1
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."
6.105.1
If you will be governed by the advice of a mother, she disapproves your choice; nor does your father relish a bride from the frozen zone. Let her seek a husband from the borders of the Tanais, the marshy fens of Scythia, or her native banks of Phasis. Inconstant Jason, More unstable than 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
6.107.1
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 labor 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 favor. If you enquire concerning their likeness, you may be known by them: they are indeed strangers to treachery, but, in every thing 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?
6.129.1
And yet, O deluded man, intoxicated with the philtres 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 hymeneal 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
6.144.1
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 injured love, may this base intruder into my chaste bed groan under the same pangs which I now feel, and herself experience 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!
7.1.1
THUS the silver swan, when death approaches, bemoans her fate among the willows on the banks of Mæander. 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 unhappy Dido; the same winds will bear away your promises and sails. You are, I say, O Æneas, resolved to weigh at once your anchor 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 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 raised; 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 resignit? 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 survey the crowds below? But were 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. Æneas is ever before my wakeful eyes; the image of Æneas baunts me both by night and day.
7.13.1
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, O Venus, your daughter-in-law; pierce, O Cupid, 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 rises out of the hanging cliff. A savage tigress, or the tempestuous ocean, such as it is now when swelled by gathering storms, gave thee birth. But whither can you shape your course, or how stem the force of opposing billows? You prepare to set sail, a stormy sea forbids: let me enjoy the blessing which a rough winter offers. Behold how the blustering east-wind raises the foaming waves. Let me owe that to winter and a stormy sea, which I would rather owe to your love; the winds and waves have more of justice than you. Although thou deservest to perish, cruel and barbarous man, yet I am not of such value, that in
7.37.1
flying from me you should lose your life. It is a costly hatred, and of too great amount, if you despise death while you endeavour to shun me. Soon the winds will cease, a calm succeed, and Triton, drawn by sea-green horses, wheel along the surface of the deep.
7.51.1
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 knotted oak. What? as if yet unacquainted with the dangers of a raging sea, can you still trust in an element that has 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 waves, that murmur round the island of Cythera. 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 a fierce whirlwind, (forbid, ye 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 Dido killed
7.68.1
by Phrygian perfidy, will then fly in your face. The mournful image of your forsaken wife will stand before your eyes, disconsolate and bloody, with hair disheveled. You will then own that you have met with your deserved fate, and think each flash 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 tender Iulus. 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 do you bring your Gods with you; nor, as you falsely boasted, did your shoulders bear these sacred reliques, and a father, through flames and danger. You deceived me in all; nor 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 Iulus, we find that she fell 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, be-
7.83.1
cause 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 had thrown you on the shore, I welcomed you to my kingdom, and intrusted 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. Exact, O violated chastity, the vengeance due to injured Sichæus, to whom (wretch that I am!) I hasten full of shame and anxiety.
7.99.1
I preserve, in a little chapel of marble, a pious statue of Sichæus, wreathed with flowers and white wool. From this dome, 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 conscious of the wrong I have done you. Pardon my unhappy error:
7.102.1
I was mis-led by one formed to deceive. Let his attractions be the excuse of my folly. His mother a goddess, and the pious load 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 altars; and a bloody brother reaped his wealth, as the 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 lands which I have made over to you. I built a city, and marked out my walls to such
7.118.1
an extent, as to raise the envy of the neighbouring states. Wars threaten me, though a helpless woman. I prepare 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, who all join in complaining, that they are slighted for the sake of this stranger. Why do you hesitate to deliver me a captive to Getulian Iarbas? 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 reliques 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 man, 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
7.131.1
of Iulus will be involved in his parent's unhappy destiny; and one stroke will carry off both at the same time. But a God commands you to be gone. I wish he had forbidden you to touch upon our coasts, and that the streets of Carthage had never been trodden by the natives of Troy. It is doubtless under the same guide, (this Divinity forsooth), that you 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 Simois, but the banks of the Tyber; 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 covetous Pygmalion. You may more happily transfer your Troy to Carthage, and sway the sacred sceptre with kingly rule.
7.153.1
If you are fond of war, if Iulus 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 in 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 old Anchises 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 Mycenæ, or descended from hostile Achilles; nor did my husband or father ever bear arms against you. If you think we unworthy to be your wife, receive me under the name of your hostess. Dido will submit to any thing, if she may be yours. The seas that beat against the
7.168.1
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 sea-weed. 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 your's; that the waves and 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. O 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 checks upon that weapon, which instead of tears will be soon stained with blood. How well are your
7.172.1
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 wounds of cruel love. And you, my dear sister, the confidante of my guilty flame, shall soon pay the last duty to my unhappy remains. Nor let my monument boast that I was the wife of Sichæus; may the marble bear only this inscription: Æneas afforded the cause and instrument of Dido's death; but she fell by her own hand.
8.1.1
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 honour 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 Æacus?" 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
8.9.1
more in the ruin of Lacedæmon, had a troop of barbarians led captive the Grecian dames? Triumphant Greece did not so harass unfortunate Andromache, when the wealth of Phrygia became the prey of devouring flames. But, Oh! 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
8.27.1
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 and years; and one who, as my grandfather, had the undoubted disposal of me. But my father, not knowing this, had given his promise to Æacides. 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 in
8.46.1
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 wish 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 Ægisthus, who had so cruelly murdered your father. But Pyrrhus censures it, and calls that praise-worthy revenge a crime; and even presumes to do it in my presence.
8.57.1
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 Amyclæan brothers, Castor and Pollux, from an Attic city. Helen, conveyed beyond sea by an Idæan 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: Leda 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, am 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
8.85.1
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 the 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
8.104.1
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 rest 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.
9.1.1
I GIVE you joy that the conquest of Œchalia 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 dishonor, and which by your actions you must study to discredit, has been suddenly propagated through all the cities
9.3.1
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 Iole. Eurystheus has much longed for this, as has the sister of the Thunderer; and your step-mother 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 endeavouring to depress you: the other goddess keeps your neck beneath her footstool. Think how the world lies hushed in peace by your avenging arm, where-ever 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
9.18.1
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 shewed yourself worthy of your father Jupiter? You began with more honor than you are like to end: the last parts of your life fall short of the first. How preposterous to shew 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 thouht 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 inferior degree suffer from her mighty husband. A rank that oppresses, is no honor, but a burthen. 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 ad-
9.34.1
dress 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 engaged the notice of a powerful God. I have neither the society of your father Amphitryon, nor that of your son Hyllus. 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
9.45.1
Auge deflowered in the vales of Arcadia, or of your offspring by Astydamia, the daughter of Ormenus. You shall not be reproached with the fifty sisters of the house of Theutrantes, 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 Lydian Lamus.
9.55.1
Mæander, 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 new forms a covering for
9.61.1
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 dishonor to confine your waist with the girdle of Omphale, 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 Busiris beheld you in that unmanly attire, the conquered would have been ashamed of his conqueror. Antæus 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 Omphale, and tremble at the threats of a mistress. Degenerate Alcides, are you not ashamed to employ in
9.75.1
servile offices those nervous hands 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 cypress-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 Geryon, that three-fold monster, rich in Iberian herds, who had three bodies in one; of Cerberus, forming three dogs from the same trunk, having his hair wreathed with hissing
9.59.1
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 Centaurs, 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 Iardanus has moreover adorned herself with your armour, and wears the mighty trophies of her captive lover.
9.105.1
Rouse now your courage, and boast of your warlike deeds. She has taken the name of hero, because you were 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
9.104.1
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 Lernæan 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 spouse. 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 disheveled, 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 dead high amidst the captives subdued by Hercules, as if Œchalia still stood, and her father yet existed. Perhaps too, laying aside the name of mistress, she will be received as your spouse, and Deianira of Ætolia be ba-
9.121.1
nished from your bed. An impious marriage may join, in unchaste bands, Iole the daughter of Eurytus, and the infatuated Alcides. My mind sickens with the 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 dishonor that twice you fought victorious in my behalf. Achelous gathered his shattered horns upon his oozy banks, and plunged his mutilated temples in the muddy stream. Nessus the Centaur fell near the stream of fatal Evenus, 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? Impious Deianira, do you yet doubt whether you should die? Shall your husband perish miserably on Mount
9.147.1
Œta; and you, the cause of that barbarous crime, survive? If aught yet remains to be done by which I may shew myself the wife of Hercules, death shall be the confirmation of our union. You also, Meleager, shall own in me a true sister. Impious Deianira, do you yet doubt whether you should die? Oh! ill-fated house! Agrios usurps the lofty throne, and a desolate old age oppresses Œneus. My brother Tydeus wanders an exile on unknown coasts: the other perished alive in devouring flames. My mother transfixed her heart with steel. Impious Deianira, 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 Deianira, do you yet doubt whether you should die? And now, my aged sire, and sister Gorge, 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, (Oh that thou could'st fare well!) Hyllus, my dear Hyllus, adieu!
10.1.1
BEASTS of the most savage nature have proved more mild and gentle to me, than you; nor could I have been intrusted 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 fiom 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 nought to look at but the shore. I ran sometimes here, sometimes there, and with wild disorder on either side: the deep yielding sands impeted my tender feet. Mean-while the hollow rocks over all the shore 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.
10.55.1
I throw myself down; and watering the couch with profuse tears, Here, (I cry,) we pressed 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 prints 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, Æolus restraining the murmuring winds, still I should
10.66.1
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 victor 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 lin-
10.81.1
gering 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 a 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 Phœbus; 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, and 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 Androgeos 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!
10.105.1
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.
10.114.1
O inhuman right-hand, the bane of both me and my brother; and faith, an empty name, plighted at my request! Sleep, the winds, and 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 Ægeus was not your father; Æthra never gave birth to you: you sprang from pointed locks, or the raging sea. Oh if
10.131.1
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 disheveled, 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 unequal from my faltering hand. I do not urge you now by my merit, since my favors 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.
11.1.1
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 Canace 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
11.8.1
stern father who commanded it. Fierce, and far more cruel than his eastern 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 Macareus, I wish that the hour which joined us had
11.22.1
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 disconsolate; 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 me-
11.35.1
dicines 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 Phœbus 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 urged my groans; but shame, fear, and my nurse, pressed me to silence.
11.51.1
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 thine, 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.
11.65.1
Why do you rejoice at this danger over? In the mid-hall sits Æolus; 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 feigns 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 feigned 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. Æolus rushes in with violence, and publishes my shame by his clamors: 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. And 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
11.80.1
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 checks with my nails. Meantime a messenger came from my father, his countenance sad, and his words full of cruelty. Æolus 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 a father graces my nuptials? Is this the dower with which you enrich your daughter? Deluded Hymenæus, 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
11.105.1
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 balse, 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 shora hair. I did not hang over thy lifeless 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
11.121.1
both. Live ever mindful of your Canace, and shed some tears over my wound: nor fear to touch the breathless body of one whom you loved. Fulfil these last commands of thy hapless sister; and I will execute the cruel mandates of my unrelenting sire.
12.1.1
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
12.3.1
troop of resolute youths, sail in quest of the golden fleece? why did Argo come within sight of Colchis, or a Grecian band drink of the water of Phasis? 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 dare their lofty looks: he should have been left to sow the serpent's teeth, and feel the arms of his numerous foes; that the forward cultivator might thus have fallen by his own harvest.
12.18.1
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. Commanded 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 her's. He rules over Corinth placed between two seas: my father commands all that part of snowy Scythia, which runs along the left-side of the Euxine sea. Æetes gave a kind and noble reception to the Pelasgian 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
12.33.1
Gods! You were beautiful and charming, and my unhappy destiny pushed me on; my eyes remained continually fixed upon your's. Base man, you too clearly perceived it; for who was ever discrete enough to hide love? A flame that betrays itself by its own light. In the mean time 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; plates 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 hand, 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 Æetes ended. You all rise up sad; the table is removed, and stripped of the purple carpets.
12.53.1
Where was then the kingdom you receive as a dowry with Creusa? how little was your father-in-law, or the daughter of mighty Creon then 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 bulls 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 Æson. 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
12.67.1
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 do you greater honor. I implore you by my distresses, which your art alone can succour; 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
12.84.1
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 too 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,
12.93.1
lo the watchful serpent, terrible by his sounding scales, hisses, and sweeps the ground with his winding breast. Where was then your rich dowry? where then your royal spouse, and 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.
12.109.1
I betrayed my father, 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 arrests my hand, and commands me to draw a veil over my crime. 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 deserved the same fate. Nor did I fear, (for

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