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.”
After she had poured forth these words from her grief-laden bosom, distractedly
clamouring for requital against his heartless deeds, the celestial ruler
assented with almighty nod, at whose motion the earth and the shuddering waters
quaked, and the world of glittering stars quivered. But Theseus, self-blinded
with mental mist, let slip from forgetful breast all those injunctions which
until then he had held firmly in mind, nor bore aloft sweet signals to his sad
sire, showing himself safe when in sight of Erectheus' haven. For it is said
that before, when Aegeus entrusted his son to the winds, on leaving the walls of
the chaste goddess's city, he gave these commands to the youth with his parting
embrace:
“O my only son, far dearer to me than long life, lately restored to me
at extreme end of my years, O son whom I am forced to send off to a doubtful
hazard, since my ill fate and your ardent valour snatch you from me unwilling,
whose dim eyes are not yet sated with my son's dear form: nor gladly and with
joyous breast do I send you, nor will I suffer you to bear signs of helpful
fortune, but first from my breast many a complaint will I express, sullying my
grey hairs with dust and ashes, and then will I hang dusky sails to the swaying
mast, so that our sorrow and burning of mind are shown by rusty-dark Iberian
canvas. Yet if the dweller on holy Itone, who deigns to defend our race and
Erectheus' dwellings, grant you to besprinkle your right hand in the bull's
blood, then see that in very truth these commandments deep-stored in your
heart's memory do flourish, nor any time deface them. As soon as your eyes shall
see our cliffs, lower their gloomy clothing from every yard, and let the twisted
cordage bear aloft snowy sails, where resplendent shall shine bright topmast
spars, so that, immediately discerning, I may know with gladness and lightness
of heart that in prosperous hour you are returned to my face.”
These charges, at first held in constant mind, from Theseus slipped away as
clouds are impelled by the breath of the winds from the ethereal peak of a
snow-clad mount. But as his father sought the castle's turrets as watchplace,
dimming his anxious eyes with continual weeping, when first he spied the
discoloured canvas, flung himself headlong from the top of the crags, believing
Theseus lost by harsh fate. Thus as he entered the grief-stricken house, his
paternal roof, Theseus savage with slaughter met with like grief as that which
with unmemoried mind he had dealt to Minos' daughter: while she gazed with
grieving at his disappearing keel, turned over a tumult of cares in her wounded
spirit.
But on another part [of the tapestry] swift hastened the
flushed Iacchus with his train of Satyrs and Nisa-begot Sileni, seeking you,
Ariadne, and aflame with love for you. ... These scattered all around, an
inspired band, rushed madly with mind all distraught, ranting
“Euhoe,” with tossing of heads “Euhoe.”
Some with womanish hands shook thyrsi with wreath-covered points; some tossed
limbs of a rended steer; some girded themselves with writhed snakes; some
enacted obscure orgies with deep chests, orgies of which the profane vainly
crave a hearing; others beat the tambours with outstretched palms, or from the
burnished brass provoked shrill tinklings, blew raucous-sounding blasts from
many horns, and the barbarous pipe droned forth horrible song. With luxury of
such figures was the coverlet adorned, enwrapping the bed with its mantling
embrace.
After the Thessalian youth were sated with the desire of gazing, they began to
give way to the sacred gods. Hence, as with his morning's breath brushing the
still sea Zephyrus makes the sloping billows uprise, when Aurora mounts beneath
the threshold of the wandering sun, and the waves move forth slowly at first
with the breeze's gentle motion (plashing with the sound as of low laughter),
but after, as the wind swells, more and more frequent they crowd and gleam in
the purple light as they float away,—so quitting the royal vestibule
the folk left, each to his home with steps wandering hither and thither.
After their departure, Chiron came, chief from the summit of Pelion, the bearer of sylvan spoil: for
whatever the fields bear, what the Thessalian land on its high hills breeds, and
what flowers the fecund air of warm Favonius begets near the running streams,
these did he bear enwreathed into blended garlands wherewith the house rippled
with laughter, caressed by the grateful odor.
Speedily Penios stands present, for a time leaving his verdant Tempe, Tempe whose overhanging trees encircle, to the Dorian choirs, damsels Magnesian, to frequent;
nor empty-handed,—for he has borne here lofty beeches uprooted and the
tall laurel with straight stem, nor lacks he the nodding plane and the lithe
sister of flame-wrapt Phaethon and the aerial cypress. These wreathed in line
did he place around the palace so that the vestibule might grow green sheltered
with soft fronds.
After him follows Prometheus of inventive mind, bearing diminishing traces of his
ancient punishment, which once he had suffered, with his limbs confined by
chains hanging from the rugged Scythian crags. Then came the sire of gods from
heaven with his holy consort and offspring, leaving you alone, Phoebus, with
your twin-sister the fosterer of the mountains of Idrus: for equally with
yourself did your sister disdain Peleus nor was she willing to honour the
wedding torches of Thetis. After they had reclined their snow-white forms along
the seats, tables were loaded on high with food of various kinds.
In the meantime with shaking bodies and infirm gesture the Parcae began to intone
their truth-naming chant. Their trembling frames were enwrapped around with
white garments, encircled with a purple border at their heels, snowy fillets
bound each aged brow, and their hands pursued their never-ending toil, as of
custom. The left hand bore the distaff enwrapped in soft wool, the right hand
lightly withdrawing the threads with upturned fingers shaped them, then twisting
them with the prone thumb it turned the balanced spindle with well-polished
whirl. And then with a pluck of their tooth the work was always made even, and
the bitten wool-shreds adhered to their dried lips, which shreds at first had
stood out from the fine thread. And in front of their feet wicker baskets of
osier twigs took charge of the soft white woolly fleece. These, with
clear-sounding voice, as they combed out the wool, out-poured fates of such kind
in sacred song, in song which no age yet to come could tax with untruth.
“O with great virtues augmenting your exceeding honour, mainstay of
Emathia, most famous in your issue,
receive what the sisters make known to you on this happy day, a truth-naming
oracle! But run, you spindles, drawing the thread which the fates follow, run,
spindles! “Now Hesperus will come to you bearing what is longed for by
bridegrooms, with that fortunate star will your bride come, who steeps your soul
with the sway of softening love, and prepares with you to conjoin in languorous
slumber, spreading her smooth arms beneath your sinewy neck. Run, drawing the
thread, run, spindles! “No house ever yet enclosed such loves, no love
bound lovers with such pact, as abides with Thetis, as is the concord of Peleus.
Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! “To you will Achilles be born,
a stranger to fear, to his foes known not by his back, but by his strong breast,
who, often the victor in the uncertain struggle of the foot-race, will outrun
the fire-fleet footsteps of the speedy doe. Run, drawing the thread, run,
spindles! “None in war with him may compare as a hero, when the
Phrygian streams trickle with Trojan blood, and when besieging the walls of
Troy with a long, drawn-out warfare
perjured Pelops' third heir lays that city waste. Run, drawing the thread, run,
spindles! “Often will mothers attest over funeral-rites of their sons
his glorious acts and illustrious deeds, when the white locks from their heads
are unloosed amid ashes, and they bruise their discoloured breasts with feeble
fists. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! “For as the reaper,
plucking off the dense wheat-ears before their time, mows the harvest yellowed
beneath ardent sun, so will he cast prostrate the corpses of Troy's sons with grim swords. Run, drawing the
thread, run, spindles! “His great valour will be attested by
Scamander's wave, which ever pours itself into the swift Hellespont, narrowing its course with
slaughtered heaps of corpses he shall make tepid its deep stream by mingling
warm blood with the water. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles!
“And finally she will be a witness: the captive-maid handed to death,
when the heaped-up tomb of earth built in lofty mound receives the snowy limbs
of the stricken virgin. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! “For
instantly fortune will give the means to the war-worn Greeks to break Neptune's stone bonds of the Dardanian city,
the tall tomb shall be made dank with Polyxena's blood, who as the victim
succumbing beneath two-edged sword, with yielding knees shall fall forward a
headless corpse. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! “Come then!
Conjoin in the longed-for delights of your love. Let the bridegroom receive his
goddess in felicitous compact; let the bride be given to her eager husband. Run,
drawing the thread, run, spindles! “Neither will the nurse returning
with morning light succeed in circling her neck with last night's thread.
[Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles!], nor need her
solicitous mother fear that sad discord will cause a parted bed for her
daughter, nor need she cease to hope for dear grandchildren. Run, drawing the
thread, run, spindles!”
With such soothsaying songs of yore did the Parcae chant from divine breast the
felicitous fate of Peleus. For previously the heaven-dwellers used to visit the
chaste homes of heroes and to show themselves in mortal assembly when their
worship had not yet been scorned. Often the father of the gods, resting in his
glorious temple, when on the festal days his annual rites appeared, gazed on a
hundred bulls strewn prone on the earth. Often wandering Liber on topmost summit of Parnassus led his howling Thyiads with loosely
tossed locks, when the Delphians tumultuously trooping from the whole of their
city joyously acclaimed the god with smoking altars. Often in lethal strife of
war, Mavors, or swift Triton's queen, or the Rhamnusian virgin, in person did
exhort armed bodies of men. But after the earth was infected with heinous crime,
and each one banished justice from their grasping mind, and brothers steeped
their hands in fraternal blood, the son ceased grieving over departed parents,
the sire craved for the funeral rites of his first-born that freely he might
take of the flower of unwedded step-mother, the unholy mother, lying under her
unknowing son, did not fear to sully her household gods with dishonor:
everything licit and lawless commingled with mad infamy turned away from us the
just-seeing mind of the gods. Wherefore neither do they deign to appear at such
assemblies, nor will they permit themselves to be met in the daylight.
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