Carmina

Pines once sprung from Pelion's peak floated, it is said, through liquid billows of Neptune to the flowing Phasis and the Aeetaean territory, when the picked youth, the vigour of Argive manhood seeking to carry away the Golden Fleece from Colchis, dared to skim over salt seas in a swift-sailing ship, sweeping the blue-green ocean with paddles shaped from fir-wood. That goddess who guards the castles in topmost parts of the towns herself fashioned the car, scudding with lightest of winds, uniting the interweaved pines unto the curving keel. That goddess first instructed untaught Amphitrite with sailing. Scarce had it split with its stem the windy waves, and the billow vexed with oars had whitened into foam, when arose from the swirl of the hoary eddies the faces of sea-dwelling Nereids wondering at the marvel. And then on that propitious day mortal eyes gazed on sea-nymphs with naked bodies bare to the breasts outstanding from the foamy swirl. Then it is said Peleus burned with desire for Thetis, then Thetis despised not mortal marriage, then Thetis' sire himself sanctioned her joining to Peleus. O heroes, born in the time of joyfuller ages, hail! sprung from the gods, good progeny of mothers, hail! and may you be favourably inclined. I'll address you often in my song, you too I'll approach, Peleus, pillar of Thessaly, so increased in importance by your fortunate wedding-torches, to whom Jupiter himself, the sire of the gods himself, yielded up his beloved. Did not Thetis embrace you, she most winsome of Nereids born? Did not Tethys consent that you should lead home her grandchild, and Oceanus too, whose waters enfold the total globe? When in full course of time the longed-for day had dawned, all Thessaly assembled and thronged his home, a gladsome company overspreading the halls: they bear gifts to the fore, and their joy in their faces they show. Scyros remains a desert, they leave Phthiotic Tempe, Crannon's homes, and the fortressed walls of Larissa; at Pharsalia they gather, beneath Pharsalian roofs they throng. None tills the soil, the heifers' necks grow softened, the trailing vine is not cleansed by the curved rake-prongs, nor does the bull tear up the clods with the prone-bending plowblade, nor does the sickle prune the shade of the spreading tree-branches, squalid rust steals over the neglected plows.

But this mansion, throughout its innermost recesses of opulent royalty, glitters with gleaming gold and with silver. Ivory makes white the seats; goblets glint on the boards; the whole house delights in the splendour of royal treasure. Placed in the midst of the mansion is the bridal bed of the goddess, made glossy with Indian tusks and covered with purple, tinted with the shell-fish's rosy dye. This tapestry embroidered with figures of men of ancient time portrays with admirable art the heroes' valour. For looking forth from Dia's beach, resounding with crashing of breakers, Ariadne watches Theseus moving from sight with his swift fleet, her heart swelling with raging passion, and she does not yet believe she sees what she sees, as, newly-awakened from her deceptive sleep, she perceives herself, deserted and woeful, on the lonely shore. But the heedless youth, flying away, beats the waves with his oars, leaving his perjured vows to the gusty gales. In the dim distance from amidst the sea-weed, the daughter of Minos with sorrowful eyes, like a stone-carved Bacchante, gazes afar, alas! gazes after him, heaving with great waves of grief. No longer does the fragile fillet bind her yellow locks, no more with light veil is her hidden bosom covered, no more with rounded zone the milky breasts are clasped; fallen down from her body everything is scattered here and there, and the salt waves toy with them in front of her very feet. But neither on fillet nor floating veil, but on you, Theseus, in their stead, was she musing: on you she bent her heart, her thoughts, her love-lorn mind. Ah, woeful one, with sorrows unending distraught, Erycina sows thorny cares deep in your bosom, since that time when Theseus fierce in his vigor set out from the curved bay of Piraeus, and gained the Gortynian roofs of the iniquitous ruler.

For it is said that once, constrained by the cruelest plague to expiate the slaughter of Androgeos, Cecropia used to give both chosen youths and the pick of the unmarried maidens as a feast to the Minotaur. When thus his strait walls with ills were vexed, Theseus with free will preferred to yield up his body for adored Athens rather than such Cecropian corpses be carried to Crete unobsequied. And therefore borne in a speedy craft by favouring breezes, he came to the imperious Minos and his superb seat. Instantly with longing glance the royal virgin saw him, she whom the chaste couch breathing out sweetest of scents cradled in her mother's tender enfoldings, like the myrtle which the rivers of Eurotas produce, or the many-tinted blooms opening with the springtide's breezes, she bent not her flashing eyes away from him, until the flame spread through her whole body, and burned into her innermost marrow. Ah, hard of heart, urging with misery to madness, O holy boy, who mingles men's cares and their joys, and you queen of Golgos and of foliaged Idalium, on what waves did you heave the mind-kindled maid, sighing often for the golden-haired guest! What dreads she bore in her swooning soul! How often did she grow sallower in sheen than gold! When craving to contend against the savage monster, Theseus faced death or the palm of praise.