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.

Then gifts to the gods not unpleasing, not idly given, with promise from tight-closed lips did she address her vows. For as an oak waving its boughs on Taurus' top, or a coniferous pine with sweating stem, is uprooted by savage storm, twisting its trunk with its blast (dragged from its roots prone it falls afar, breaking all in the line of its fall) so did Theseus fling down the conquered body of the brute, tossing its horns in vain towards the skies. Thence backwards he retraced his steps amidst great laud, guiding his errant footsteps by means of a tenuous thread, lest when coming out from tortuous labyrinthines his efforts be frustrated by unobservant wandering. But why, turned aside from my first story, should I recount more, how the daughter fleeing her father's face, her sister's embrace, and even her mother's, who despairingly bemoaned her lost daughter, preferred to all these the sweet love of Theseus; or how borne by their boat to the spumy shores of Dia she came; or how her husband with unmemoried breast forsaking her, left her bound in the shadows of sleep? And oft, so it is said, with her heart burning with fury she poured out clarion cries from depths of her bosom, then sadly scaled the rugged mounts, whence she could cast her glance over the vast seething ocean, then ran into the opposing billows of the heaving sea, raising from her bared legs her clinging raiment, and in uttermost plight of woe with tear-stained face and chilly sobs she spoke thus:—

“Is it thus, O perfidious, when dragged from my motherland's shores, is it thus, O false Theseus, that you leave me on this desolate strand? thus do you depart unmindful of slighted godheads, bearing home your perjured vows? Was no thought able to bend the intent of your ruthless mind? had you no clemency there, that your pitiless bowels might show me compassion? But these were not the promises you gave me idly of old, this was not what you bade me hope for, but the blithe bride-bed, hymenaeal happiness: all empty air, blown away by the breezes. Now, now, let no woman give credence to man's oath, let none hope for faithful vows from mankind; for while their eager desire strives for its end, nothing fear they to swear, nothing of promises forbear they: but instantly their lusting thoughts are satiate with lewdness, nothing of speech they remember, nothing of perjuries care. In truth I snatched you from the midst of the whirlpool of death, preferring to suffer the loss of a brother rather than fail your need in the supreme hour, O ingrate. For which I shall be a gift as prey to be rent by wild beasts and the carrion-fowl, nor dead shall I be placed in the earth, covered with funeral mound. What lioness bore you beneath lonely crag? What sea conceived and spued you from its foamy crest? What Syrtis, what grasping Scylla, what vast Charybdis? O you repayer with such rewards for your sweet life! If it was not your heart's wish to yoke with me, through holding in horror the dread decrees of my stern sire, yet you could have led me to your home, where as your handmaid I might have served you with cheerful service, laving your snowy feet with clear water, or spreading the purple coverlet over your couch. Yet why, distraught with woe, do I vainly lament to the unknowing winds, which unfurnished with sense, can neither hear uttered complaints nor can return them? For now he has sped away into the midst of the seas, nor does any mortal appear along this desolate seaboard. Thus with overweening scorn bitter Fate in my extreme hour even grudges ears to my complaints. All-powerful Jupiter! would that in old time the Cecropian ships had not touched at the Gnossan shores, nor that the false mariner, bearing the direful ransom to the unquelled bull, had bound his ropes to Crete, nor that yonder wretch hiding ruthless designs beneath sweet seemings had reposed as a guest in our halls! For whither may I flee? in what hope, O lost one, take refuge? Shall I climb the Idomenean crags? but the truculent sea stretching far off with its whirlings of waters separates us. Dare I hope for help from my father, whom I deserted to follow a youth besprinkled with my brother's blood? Can I crave comfort from the care of a faithful husband, who is fleeing with yielding oars, encurving amidst whirling waters? If I turn from the beach there is no roof in this tenantless island, no way shows a passage, circled by waves of the sea; no way of flight, no hope; all denotes dumbness, desolation, and death. Nevertheless my eyes shall not be dimmed in death, nor my senses secede from my spent frame, until I have besought from the gods a just penalty for my betrayal, and implored the faith of the celestials with my last breath. Wherefore you requiters of men's deeds with avenging pains, O Eumenides, whose front enwreathed with serpent-locks blazons the wrath exhaled from your bosom, come here, here, listen to my complaint, which I, sad wretch, am urged to outpour from my innermost marrow, helpless, burning, and blind with frenzied fury. And since in truth they spring from the very depths of my heart, be unwilling to allow my agony to pass unheeded, but with such mind as Theseus forsook me, with like mind, O goddesses, may he bring evil on himself and on his kin.”