Epistulae

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.

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.

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,

if alive, he will come.

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.

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.

Let her now repair to learned Athens; we will find another to rule over warlike Thrace: the end proves all things.

Be sure, Phyllis, to expect your Demophoön.

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.