OVID: HEROIDES
I-VII
Translated by A. S.
Kline ã2001 All Rights Reserved
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Contents
Your Penelope sends
you this, Ulysses, the so-long-delayed.
Don’t reply to me
however: come yourself.
Troy lies in ruins, an
enemy, indeed, to the girls of Greece -
Priam, and all of
Troy, were scarcely worth this!
O I wish, at that time
when he sought Sparta with his fleet,
Paris, the adulterer,
had been whelmed beneath angry seas!
I would not have lain
here, cold in an empty bed,
nor be left behind, to
complain, at suffering long days,
nor my hand, bereft,
exhaust me, working all night long
to cause deception,
with my doubtful web.
When have I not feared
dangers worse than all realities?
Love is a thing full of
anxious fears.
I imagined the
Trojans’ violent attacks on you:
often I grew pale at
Hector’s name:
if someone told of
Antilochus defeated by Hector,
Antilochus was the
reason for my fears,
if of Patroclus, dying
in Achilles’s armour,
I wept that tricks might
fail of success.
Tlepolemus warmed the
spear of Sarpedon with blood,
Tlepolemus’s death is
then a new cause of anxiety to me.
In short, whoever of
the Greek camp was killed,
the heart of a lover
was chilled like ice.
But the god, who
favours pure love, truly gave protection:
Troy is turned to
ashes: by a hero who’s unharmed.
Our generals return to
Greece, the altars smoke,
barbarous gifts are
set before the country’s gods.
Wives give thanks, for
the gift of living husbands:
who sing in turn of
their Troy conquered by fate:
upright old men and
trembling girls marvel,
the wife hangs on her
husband’s words as he speaks.
And one seated at
table describes the fierce battle
and draws all of Troy
in a little wine:
‘Here was Simois, here
Sigean ground,
here stood aged
Priam’s towering palace:
here Achilles camped,
here Ulysses,
here mangled Hector
scared the galloping horses.’
Indeed Nestor related
it all to your son Telemachus,
sent to enquire about
you, then he to me.
And he told of Rhesus
and Dolon dead by your sword,
so that one was
betrayed by sleep, the other by guile.
It was brave, oh you,
who are more and more forgetful of your own,
to enter the Thracian
camp, with night’s deception,
and kill so many men,
with the help of one!
Then you were truly
cautious, and thinking first of me!
My heart shook all the
time, with fear, while my dear hero
was depicted, riding
through the army on Ismarus’s horses.
But what benefit to me
if Troy’s cast down, by your arms,
and the walls that it
possessed are razed to the ground,
if I wait here, as I
waited while Troy still stood,
and my husband away,
with no end in sight?
Destroyed for others,
Troy remains, for me alone,
where the victor lives
to plough with captive oxen:
there are fields now,
where Troy once was, and the earth,
beneath the scythe,
crops densely, rich with Phrygian blood:
half-buried bones of
heroes are struck by the curving plough,
and grass conceals the
ruined houses.
The victor is absent,
and I am not allowed to know,
the reason for his
delay, or in what land he cruelly hides.
Whoever turns his
wandering vessel towards this shore
departs weary of being
questioned by me, about you:
and what he’ll deliver
to you, if he sees you anywhere,
will be letters
surrendered to him, written by my hand.
I sent to Pylos, to
the Nelean fields of ancient Nestor:
doubtful rumours
returned from Pylos:
and I sent to Sparta:
no known truth from Sparta either.
What land do you live
in, or with whom do you delay so long?
It would be better if
Apollo’s walls still stood:
alas I’m angered
myself by my thoughtless prayers!
I might have known
where you were fighting, and only fear the war,
and my complaints
would then have be joined with many others.
I don’t know what to
fear: I fear everything, insanely,
and my anxieties are
open to wide speculation.
Whether the sea
contains the danger, or the land,
such long delays
equally cause me to suspect.
While I foolishly fear
it, that is your wilfulness,
you could be captive
now to a foreign love.
And perhaps you tell
her, that your wife’s an innocent,
considered to be
almost like raw wool.
Let me be deceived,
and let this charge vanish in thin air
and let your returning
sails not be wilfully absent.
My father Iscarius
forces me to leave my empty bed,
and rebukes me for my
continual, endless waiting.
It’s all right for him
to rebuke me continually! I’m yours, I should
be spoken of as yours:
I’ll be Penelope, wife to Ulysses, always.
Yet he weakens knowing
my piety, and my chaste prayers,
and he moderates the
force of it himself.
An insistent crowd of
suitors comes to ruin us,
from Dulichium and
Samos, and those who hold high Zacynthus,
and they rule in your
palace, without restraint:
they tear your
possessions to pieces, and my heart.
What should I say of
how you, shamefully absent, nourish
Pisander, Polybus,
cruel Medon, the greedy hands of Eurymachus, and Antinous, and others: all of
them, with your blood?
Irus and Melanthius
driving in the flocks to be slaughtered
add the final insult
to your ruin.
The unwarlike ones are
three in number: a wife with no strength,
old Laertes, and
Telemachus your son.
He, recently, was
almost taken away from me by trickery,
when he prepared to go
to Pylos, against their will.
I pray the gods decree
that, in the natural order of things,
he will close my eyes
in death, and yours!
The faithful guardian
of the filthy sty makes up another three,
along with the
herdsman, and your very ancient nurse:
but Laertes, has no
power to hold his own among enemies,
he whose weapons are
useless to him.
Telemachus, if only he
lives, will become stronger with age:
now he ought to be
protected with his father’s help.
I have no strength to
drive these enemies from the house:
you must come quickly,
to your harbour and refuge!
You’ve a son, and I
pray he’ll be one who, in his tender years,
will be educated in
his father’s arts.
Consider Laertes: who
keeps death back to the very last day,
so that you might
close his eyes.
You’ll find that I, in
truth, a girl when you went away,
though you soon
return, have become an aged woman.
Phyllis, your Thracian
friend, complains to you, Demophoon,
for being absent
beyond your promised time.
When the moon’s horns
had touched once more, at the full,
you agreed to anchor
by our shores.
Four times the moon
has hidden, four times waxed to the full,
without the Thracian
sea bringing Athenian ships.
If you measure hours
closely, as lovers measure,
my complaint does not
come before due time.
Hope too was long
drawn out. We’re slow to believe what wounds
us, when we do: now
you seem guilty, reluctantly, to your lover.
I often deceived
myself, for you, often I imagined
storms from the south
brought back your white sails.
I cursed Theseus,
because he did not wish to let you go:
or perhaps could not
remember your course.
Now and then I feared
lest, heading for Hebrus’s shallows,
the ship was wrecked,
sunk in the white waves.
Often I have begged,
impiously, of the gods that you be well,
have wished for it in
prayer at incense-burning altars:
often, seeing
favourable winds from sea and sky,
I said to myself: ‘If
he’s well, he will come,’
Lastly, love supposed
you faithful, whatever prevented haste,
and I was imaginative
as to the reasons.
But you are
indifferent, in your absence! No oaths to the gods
bring you back, nor do
you return moved by my love.
Demophoon, you gave
words, and sails, to the wind:
I long for the sails’
return, lacking faith in the words.
Tell me what I have
done, except to love unwisely?
Could I have deserved
you, through some crime of mine?
There is only one sin
in me, that I pledged myself to you,
wicked man, but it has
the weight and likeness of justice.
Where now is the pact
of loyalty, hand linked to hand,
and how were so many
oaths in one lying mouth?
Where is that Hymen
now, who, through long years of friendship,
was sponsor and
guarantor to me of marriage?
You swore to me by the
sea, all stirred by winds and waves,
over which you surely
travel, over which you were to go,
you swore by Neptune,
your grandfather, unless that too is a lie,
who calms the waters
roused by the winds,
by Venus, and those
weapons, made so much so to me,
one weapon the bow,
the other the torch,
and by Juno, whose
kindness presides over the marriage bed,
and by the mystic
rites of the torch-bearing goddess:
if each of these many
injured gods took vengeance with their powers,
your life alone would
not be enough, in punishment!
Ah, like a madwoman, I
even had your damaged fleet rebuilt,
so that there was a
sound ship ready for your desertion:
I gave you oars so
that you might abandon me in flight.
Alas! I suffer wounds
from weapons I created!
I believed the
flattering words, of which you had a store:
I believed in your
breeding and your titles:
I believed your tears.
Or might even they be taught to deceive?
Might they have arts
as well, to flow when commanded?
I believed them, too.
Where now those many pledges of ours?
Any one of them was
enough to imprison me.
I am not disturbed
that I helped you with harbour and shelter:
but that should have
been the end of my kindnesses!
I regret that
friendship was shamefully crowned
by the nuptial bed,
and body was entwined with body.
I would rather the
night, before that night, had been my last,
while Phyllis could
still die virtuously.
I hoped for better
things, and thought I deserved them:
whatever hope comes
from kindness, is just.
I cannot believe that
to cheat a girl is anything
to boast of: my
innocence deserved friendship.
The lover and the
woman were deceived by your words:
may the gods let this
be the one thing you are known for!
And let your statue be
set up in the midst of the city,
among the sons of
Aegeus: Theseus, your great father,
his honours before
him: Sciron with his bed, grim Procrustes,
and Sinis, and the
Minotaur, man and bull joined together,
and Thebes conquered
in war, and the Centaurs routed,
and the blind,
shattered kingdom of Pluto, the dark god:
your statue inscribed
with its title after theirs:
‘Here’s he who stole
love from a stranger by a trick.’
Of all your father’s
many deeds and affairs
only the abandoning of
Ariadne sticks in your mind.
The thing in him
needing to be excused, is the one thing you admire:
your father’s heir,
deceiver: you act out his sin.
She – I don’t begrudge
it –is blessed with a better husband
and rides high above
Bacchus’s team of harnessed tigers.
But the Thracian men I
despised flee from marriage with me,
because I allowed a
man strange to me to be preferred.
And some said: ‘Let
her go to learned Athens:
there will be someone
else to rule armed Thrace.
Outcomes justify
actions.’ I hope that anyone who thinks
what I did is wrong
because of its result, also lacks success.
But if our water does
foam under your oar,
they’ll say now I look out for myself, then my
people.
But I have not looked to myself, and you will
not touch
my shore, or bathe your limbs in Thracian
water.
My eyes cling still to the sight of your going,
when your departing fleet sat in harbour.
You dared to embrace me, and, clinging to my
neck,
poured out a lover’s slow kisses, through long
moments,
and, as your tears mingled with my tears,
you complained at the favourable wind in your
sails,
shouting to me, as you left, at the top of your
voice:
‘Phyllis, make sure you wait for your
Demophoon!’
Should I wait, for you who are absent and never
wish to see me?
Should I wait for the
sails that are denied my seas?
And still I wait. Only
return, though late, to your lover,
seeing that your
promise might lapse through time alone!
Why should I beg,
miserably? Perhaps another wife
has you, and that love
which served me so badly, now:
How I’m forgotten by you,
I think: a no-body, the Phyllis you knew.
Ah me! If you ask what
Phyllis this might be, and from where,
I’m she who gave you
shelter and friendship in Thrace:
you, Demophoon, driven
by long wanderings:
I who added my wealth
to you, to whom, rich in effect,
I gave many gifts,
many that I was given:
she who brought you
the wide kingdom of Lycurgus,
scarcely fit to be
ruled in a woman’s name,
where sacred Hebrus
extends, from icy Rhodope
to shadowy Haemus, and
drives out the gathered waters,
you, who took my
virginity, with sinister omens,
and loosed my chaste
ties, with a deceiving hand.
Tisiphone, in
attendance, howled at this marriage,
and the gloomy bird
gave its solitary cry.
Allecto was there,
entwined with tiny snakes,
and the lights were
changed to funeral torches.
Though I am gloomy, I
walk the cliffs and tangled shore:
wherever the wide sea
is open to my gaze.
Whether the earth is
warmed by day, or the cold stars shine,
I look to see what
wind stirs the waves.
And whatever sails I
see far-off, approaching,
I take them straight
away as a sign from the gods.
I rush into the fickle
sea, struggling with tenacious waves,
there, where the ocean
breakers extend.
As the sails grow
larger, I am less and less able to stand,
I faint and fall into
my servants’ arms.
The bay is drawn in a
faintly scythe-shaped arc:
the ends of its horns
rise in a sheer cliff.
Here I had a mind to
hurl myself into the swelling waves
- and since you will
go on failing me, I will.
The tide will carry
me, abandoned, to your shore
and your eyes will
meet with my unburied body.
so that, though iron,
and steel, and you, excel in hardness,
you will say:
‘Phyllis, this was not the way to follow me!’
Often I thirst for
poison, often I’d like to die
a bloody death,
pierced by a sword.
My neck too, since
faithless arms offered to encircle it,
I’d like to entangle
in a noose.
Mature thought upholds
tender honour by dying:
there is little point
in delaying the choice of death.
Inscribe the hateful
reason on my tomb,
you’ll be known by
these or similar lines:
‘Demophoon, the guest,
gave loving Phyllis to death:
he offered her reason
to die, by her own hand.
The letter you read
comes from Briseis, a captive:
its Greek, hardly
written well by a barbarian hand.
Whatever you read,
will be blotted with tears:
but still even tears
carry the weight of my voice.
If it’s right to
complain, a little, of you my lover,
and master: of master
and lover, a little, I complain.
It’s not your fault I
was quickly ordered to be handed over,
to King Agamemnon –
however this is your fault:
when Eurybates and
Talthybius both called to take me,
I, your companion, was
given to Eurybates and Talthybius.
Glancing at each
other’s face, they questioned,
silently, where our
love might be.
I could have delayed:
delayed punishment might have been welcome.
Ah me! I gave you no
kiss in leaving!
But I shed tears
endlessly and tore my hair:
I am unhappy finding
myself, once more, a prisoner.
I have often wished I
might return, deceiving my guard:
but whoever might
catch this timid girl, is an enemy.
If I could get right
away, however, I feared I’d be caught at night,
to be sent as a gift
to some woman of Priam’s household.
But I may be given
back, since I was given. I’ve been absent
so many nights, and no
recall. You are idle, and slow to anger.
Patroclus himself,
when I was handed over, whispered
in my ear: ‘Why cry, you’ll be here again in a little
while.’
Scarcely thought of:
you disagree with my return, Achilles.
Go, now, and keep your
name as a fond lover!
Ajax and Phoenix came
to you, Telamon and Amyntor’s sons,
the one related to you
by blood, the other a friend,
and Ulysses, Laertes’s
son: I might be returned through them:
they added many
valuable gifts to their entreaties:
twenty cauldrons made
of yellow bronze,
and seven tripods of
equal weight and art.
Added to that were ten
talents of gold,
and twelve horses,
always accustomed to winning.
And, what were
superfluous, girls of outstanding beauty,
captured when their
island of Lesbos was overthrown:
and with all this –
but you don’t need a bride –
a bride, one of
Agamemnon’s three daughters.
If I might have been
ransomed to you by Atrides, at a price,
why did you refuse to
accept what you ought to have given?
For what fault of mine
did I deserve to become worthless to you, Achilles? Where has gentle love gone,
fleeing so swiftly, from us?
Or does sad fortune
press hard on the wretched,
and no sweeter hour
may come to my endeavours?
I saw you destroy the
walls of Lyrnessus by your warfare
and I was an important
person in my country.
I saw three brothers
fall, who were born and died together,
whose mother was my
mother also.
I saw my husband, how
dear to me, spilled on the cruel earth,
his bloodstained chest
heaving.
Yet, with so many
lost, you alone made up for them:
you were lord, you
were husband, you were brother to me.
Swearing by your
mother the sea-goddess Thetis’s power,
you said to me that to
have been a captive was useful in itself –
no doubt, so that
though I came with a dowry, you might reject me, and shun me, and what might
have given wealth to you!
Indeed it’s even said
you’ll set full sails to the South wind,
that brings the cloud,
when tomorrow’s dawn shines clear.
What a crime that the
fearful winds of misery touched me,
and the heart of life
was empty of feeling.
You’ll go - O pity me!
– to what violent man do you abandon me?
Who will comfort my
tenderness when I’m deserted?
I pray that I might be
swallowed by some sudden crack in the earth,
or be burned by red
fire hurled out by the lightning,
before Phthian oars
whiten the waves without me,
and I see your ships
sail, leaving me behind.
If it’s your return
and your father’s gods that please you now,
I’ll be no great
burden to your fleet.
I’d follow the victor
as his captive, not a husband as his wife:
I could work the wool:
its fitting for my hands.
Far off among the
Greek women the most beautiful bride
will enter your bed,
and she’ll be worthy to be a daughter-in-law
to her father-in-law
Peleus, descendant of Jove and Aegina,
of whom old Nereus
well might wish to be a grandfather to the wife.
I’ll be a humble
servant spinning out the day’s work
and thinning the full
distaff into my threads.
I beg you not to let
your wife scold me too much,
not knowing if she
will be at all kind to me,
nor suffer my hair to
be pulled out in your presence,
with you saying
lightly: ‘She too was mine.’
Perhaps suffering’s
better, since I’m indeed contemptible, forsaken:
here fear shakes my
bones – alas the wretchedness!
Still, what do you
wait for? Agamemnon regrets his anger
and lays out all
Greece, in mourning, before your feet.
Conquer your feelings
and anger, you who’ve conquered all else!
Why should Hector
actively destroy the Greek forces?
Take up your arms,
Aeacides –but take me back first –
and overcome those
troublesome men aided by Mars!
Your anger was stirred
because of me: through me let it fade,
and let me be the
cause, and end, of your sorrows.
Don’t think it
shameful to yield to my prayers:
Meleager was turned
towards war by his wife’s prayer.
It’s a tale I’ve
heard, one known to you: bereaved of her brothers
by her son, her hope
and heir, the mother cursed him.
There was a war: he
proudly withdrew, refusing battle,
and, stubborn of mind,
refused aid to his country.
Only his wife could
persuade the man – happier was she! –
but my words fail, and
carry little weight.
Yet I’m not displeased
that I’ve not performed as a wife,
as a slave I was
summoned more often to my master’s bed.
I remember once some
captive called me mistress –
I said: ‘The weight of
that name adds to the slavery.’
Yet I swear by my
husband’s bones, scarce buried
in a hasty grave: they
are always sacred, to my judgement:
and by the three
spirits of my brave brothers, gods to me,
who died well, for and
with their country,
and by your body and
mine that we joined as one,
and by your swords
known to our weapons,
no Mycenean has shared
the bed with me:
you might wish to
abandon one who deceived.
If I now said to you:
‘Bravest, you too swear to me
you’ve never made love
without me’ – you’d refuse.
Now the Greeks think
you’re grieving – but you play music,
a sweet friend clasps
you to her warm breast.
and if anyone asks why
you decline to fight –
fighting’s harmful,
while Venus, and nights with the lyre, delight.
It’s safer to lie
there in bed, holding a girl tight,
strumming the Thracian
lyre with your fingers,
than bearing a shield
and a sharp-pointed spear in your hands,
and a helmet that
presses down on your hair.
Yet, instead of
safety, conspicuous action pleased you,
and a glorious part in
the fighting was sweet.
Or was it merely that
while you might still capture me,
you approved of fierce
war, and your glory died with my country?
May the gods alter
that! And I pray, that the spear from Pelion,
hurled from a strong
arm, pierces Hector’s side!
Send me to him, you
Greeks! As delegate, I’ll beg my lord,
and mingle many kisses
with your requests.
I’ll achieve more than
Phoenix, more than eloquent Ulysses,
more than Ajax,
Teucer’s brother, believe me.
It’s something to have
been embraced by familiar arms
and to have recalled
his eyes to oneself in person!
Though you may be
harsher, and fiercer than your mother’s waves,
I’ll suppress my tears
in order to stay silent.
Now too – so that your
father Peleus may complete long years,
so your son Pyrrhus
might take up arms under your auspices! –
have regard for
anxious Briseis, mighty Achilles,
don’t oppress the
miserable girl, cruelly, with long delay:
but if your love has
turned to loathing of me,
force me to die, who
am forced to live without you!
Yet you do force me.
My flesh and colour fade:
the one hope I still
have left is that of your feelings.
If I lose that, I’ll
join my husband and my brothers:
why even order it?
Attack my body with your naked sword,
I have blood that
should flow from my pierced breast.
Attack me with that
sword, which, if Thetis had allowed,
would have entered
Agamemnon’ breast!
Ah! Rather, save my
life, your gift to me!
What the conqueror
granted his enemy, I ask as a friend.
You can destroy better
things, those that Neptune gave
to Troy: seek matter
in the enemy you kill!
Only, order me, on my
lord’s authority, to come: whether you prepare your fleet to be driven by oars,
or whether you stay!
The Cretan girl, who
lacks health unless he grants it her,
wishes good health to
the man who’s an Amazon’s son.
Read what is here. How
could reading a letter harm you?
There might even be
something in it that pleases you.
My secrets are
carried, by these letters, over land and sea:
even enemies read
letters received from their enemies.
I’ve tried to speak to
you three times, three times my tongue
clung to my mouth,
three times the sound died on my lips.
It’s right and natural
that shame is mingled with love:
love ordered me to
write, to say what shames me.
Whatever love commands
cannot be wholly denied:
he rules and is a law
among the gods.
He told me to pen
words, in my first confusion:
‘Write! Having
conquered, he’ll give his cruel hand.’
He helps me, and,
seeing that he heats my marrow with greedy fire,
he may also fix your
affections as I wish.
I would not break my
marriage contract through sin –
you can enquire – my
reputation’s free of any stain.
Love that comes late
is deeper. We burn within: we burn:
and our feelings
suffer the secret wounds:
I suppose that, as a
young ox is chafed by the yoke,
and a horse captured
from the herd scarcely suffers the harness,
so with great
difficulty, with rawness, the heart suffers new love.
and this burden does
not lie easy on my spirit.
When guilt’s fully
learnt in early years, it becomes an art:
love that comes with
the claims of time, loves less easily.
You will enjoy a new
libation, one that has been guarded from sin,
and both of us will
become equally guilty.
What’s plucked from
the loaded branches in the orchard
is valuable, and the
rose first gathered by slender fingers.
But even if that first
purity, that I bring you free of sin,
were to be marked by
this unaccustomed stain,
then I would still
accept being burnt by a worthy fire:
a vile adulterer is
more harmful than the adultery.
If Juno yielded me
Jupiter, her husband and brother,
I’d consider
Hippolytus preferable to Jove!
Now too – you’ll
scarcely believe this – I take up new arts:
I have the urge to be
among wild creatures:
now my chief goddess
is Diana, known for her curved bow:
in following her I
follow your preference:
I love to pass through
the woods and drive deer into my nets,
urging my swift hounds
over the tops of the hills,
or launch a quivering
spear from my trembling arm,
or throw my body down
on the grassy earth.
often I delight in
driving a light chariot through the dust,
and twisting the bit
in the mouth of a fleeing horse,
Now I’m swept away,
like the Maenads roused by Bacchic frenzy,
like those who beat
their drums on the slopes of Mount Ida,
or those semi-divine
Dryads, and twin-horned Fauns,
who are stunned,
touched by his power.
And then others relate
it all, when the madness abates:
I silently burn,
conscious of love.
Perhaps by my fate I’m
paying for the passions of my race,
and Venus may be
seeking a tribute from all the tribe.
Jupiter loved Europa,
as a bull, hiding his godhead,
–
she was the first
origin of our people.
A burden and a
reproach was born from the womb
of my mother,
Pasiphae, mounted by a bull she tricked.
Treacherous Theseus,
following the guiding thread
escaped the labyrinth
with the help of Ariadne, my sister.
Indeed, I now, lest I
might be thought no child of Minos,
am the latest to be
subject to the common rules of my tribe.
This was destined too:
one House pleased both of us:
your beauty captivated
me, your father’s my sister.
Theseus and his son
have seized on two sisters:
build twin memorials
to us then in your house!
At the time when I
entered Ceres’s Eleusis –
the soil of Crete
should have held me back –
then you above all
pleased me (though you had before):
fierce love clung to
me in the depths of my bones.
You were clothed in
white, your hair surrounded by flowers,
a modest blush tinged
your golden cheeks:
others call your face
grim and severe,
in Phaedra’s judgment
that severity is strength.
let men who are
adorned like women stay far from me:
beauty loves the
masculine, adorned in moderation.
That severity of yours
suits you, hair placed without art,
and the light dust on
your distinguished face.
I admire it if you
struggle with the arched necks of fiery horses,
forcing them to turn
their hooves in a tight circle:
or if you calmly hurl
the javelin with your strong arm,
your warlike face
turned towards your shoulder:
or grasp the
wide-bladed hunting spear of cornel wood –
in the end whatever
you do delights my eyes.
Only expend your
harshness on the wooded hills:
I’m not a fit subject
to be destroyed by you.
Why delight in the
study of high-girt Diana’s occupation,
and avoid what you owe
to Venus?
What lacks rest now
and then, will not last:
rest renews the
powers, and restores weary limbs.
The bow (indeed, your
weapons imitate Diana’s)
which never ceases to
be strung, grows slack.
Cephalus was
distinguished in hunting, and many creatures
were killed, among the
grasses, by his blows:
yet he didn’t do badly
in yielding to Aurora’s lovemaking:
the discreet goddess
went to him from her aged husband.
The grass beneath the
oak trees often held
Venus and Adonis,
both, lying there relaxed.
And Meleager was on
fire for Arcadian Atalanta:
she had the wild
boar’s hide as a token of his love.
We too could soon be
numbered in this throng!
If you take Love away
your woods are uncivilised.
I’ll come myself as
your companion, the hidden rocks
don’t worry me, nor
fear of the boar’s curving tooth.
Two seas pound the
Isthmus with their waves,
and the slender
stretch of land hears both their waters.
There I might live
with you, in Troezen, Pittheus’s kingdom:
it’s now a country
dearer to me than my own.
Theseus, Neptune’s
son, has been away a while, and will be, longer,
Pirithous keeps him
there in his country.
Theseus, unless we
deny what’s obvious,
prefers Pirithous to
Phaedra, and Pirithous to you.
That is not all:
injury comes to us from him:
we have both been
wounded deeply, in fact.
Breaking my brother’s
bones with his three-knotted club,
he scattered them over
the soil: left my sister a prey to wild beasts.
Your mother, worthy,
by her energy, of her son, bore you,
she the most
courageous of the axe-wielding Amazon girls.
If you ask where she
is, Theseus pierced her body with his sword:
not even such a child
as you guaranteed her safety!
Indeed she was not
even a bride, experiencing the wedding torch –
why, if not that you,
a bastard, mightn’t hold your father’s kingdom?
Brothers he took from
me, he gave to you. Yet I was not
the reason for taking
them all away, he was.
O I wish the harm done
you, in your heart’s core,
might be ended by the
most beautiful of actions!
Come now, show your
respect for your worthy father’s bed like this:
he who fled, and
himself disowned his deeds.
Nor, because I’d be
seen as a stepmother coupling with her stepson, should you let your mind fear
those empty names.
That old morality was
held to be dying, as far as future ages,
were concerned, by
Saturn, in his primitive kingdom.
Whatever might give
Jupiter pleasure he declared lawful,
and divine law allows
any sister to be married to her brother.
The tie is firm that’s
made by procreation,
those bonds that Venus
herself imposes.
It’s no effort to hide
them, though! Seek the gift from her
of being able to mask
guilt by known kinship.
Let someone see us
embrace: we’ll both be praised,
I’ll be said to be a
stepmother loyal to her stepson.
Not for you the
unbarring of a harsh husband’s gate,
in the shadows, nor
the deceiving of a guardian:
the house will hold as
one, what it held as two.
Open kisses you gave,
open kisses you’ll give.
You’ll be safe with
me, and guilt will earn praise,
even if you are
observed in my bed.
Rid yourself of delay,
and join quickly in a compact!
Love will spare you,
then, that which rages in me now!
I don’t scorn to be a
suppliant, or beg humbly of you.
Ah! Where are pride
and noble words now? Lost!
And I was certain I’d
struggle for a long time –
if Love can be certain
– and not submit to sin.
Conquered, I beg you,
and clasp your knees with royal arms.
No lover thinks about
what’s fitting.
I have no shame, and
shame, fleeing, relinquishes its standards.
Acknowledge the favour
given and conquer your hard heart!
For Minos, who is my father,
rules the seas,
the lightning comes
from one grandfather, Jupiter’s raised hand,
the other, Sol, his
forehead fenced with sharp rays,
drives his gleaming
chariot through the heat of day –
Nobility lies here
subject to love: pity my forefathers
and if your power
cannot spare me, spare them!
The land of Crete,
Jupiter’s island, is my dowry:
all my kingdom would
serve Hippolytus.
Cruel man, change your
mind! My mother could seduce a bull:
will you be more
savage than that wild bull?
Spare me, I beg you,
by Venus who’s closest to me:
and so may you never
love, what scorns you:
may the nimble goddess
be with you in secret glades,
may the deep woods
offer you creatures for plunder:
may the Satyrs and the
Pans, mountain gods, favour you,
and the wild boar fall,
pierced by your opposing spear:
may the nymphs, though
you’re said to hate the girls,
give you that water
which quenches parching thirst!
I add tears also to
these prayers. You who read
words of prayer,
imagine that you can also see my tears!
The Nymph sends words
you ordered her to write,
from Mount Ida, to her
Paris, though you refuse her as yours.
Will you read them? Or
does your new wife forbid it?
Read! This is not a
letter created by a Mycenean hand.
I, Oenone, the fountain-nymph,
famous in Phrygian woods,
wounded, complain of
you, who are my own if you allow it.
What god opposes my
prayers with his divine will?
Might I be suffering
from some crime of yours that harms me?
Whatever one deserves
to suffer should be borne lightly:
what comes
undeservedly, comes as bitter punishment.
You were not important
as yet, when I was happy
with you as my
husband, I, a nymph born of a mighty river.
You who now are a son
of Priam, (let fear of the truth be absent)
were a slave: the
nymph endured marriage with a slave!
We often rested our
flocks, hidden among the trees,
leaves, mingled with
grass, offered us a bed.
Often lying on straw,
and in the deep hay,
a humble roof
sheltered us from the hoar frost.
Who showed you the
glades that suit the quarry,
and where the wild
beast hides her cubs among the rocks?
Often, as your
companion, I’ve set the wide-meshed nets,
often I’ve led swift
hounds over the long slopes.
The beech trees guard
my name, cut there by you,
and I read ‘Oenone’,
written there by your knife:
And as the trunk
grows, my name grows the same:
grow, and rise
straight, in honour of my name!
I remember, a poplar,
rooted by a flowing stream,
on which letters are
carved, testaments to us.
Live, poplar, I pray,
which rooted on the edge of the bank,
that holds this verse
in your wrinkled bark:
‘If Paris breathed
while Oeneone were forsaken,
Scamander’s waters
would flow backwards to their source.’
Scamander, rush
backwards, turn your streams around!
Paris allows Oenone to
be deserted.
That day spoke my
miserable fate, on that evil day
winter began to
transform our love,
when Venus and Juno,
and Minerva, who is more comely armed,
came, naked, to
receive your judgement.
My stunned heart
trembled, and a cold tremor,
ran through solid
bone, as I heard that being told.
I took council (not
afraid of much as yet) with old women
and age-old men: they
agreed it was wrong.
Fir-trees were felled,
and timbers cut, a fleet prepared,
and the blue waves
received the new-caulked vessels.
You wept on leaving.
Don’t deny that, at least:
your love is more
shameful to you than in the past.
You wept and saw my
eyes filled with tears:
we both mixed our
grief and tears together.
The elm’s not
smothered, by the vine, more closely
than I, your arms
entwined with my neck.
Ah how many times,
when you complained the wind
was feeble, your
companions laughed – it was fine.
How many times you
dismissed me repeatedly!
How your tongue could
scarcely bear to say: ‘Farewell!’
The light breeze
stirred slack sails on the firm mast
and the oars whitened
the swirling water.
Unhappy I followed the
departing sail with my eyes,
as is right, and my
tears wet the sand,
and I begged the
sea-green Nereids that you might come back soon –
so, no doubt, you
could return quickly to my harm.
Did you return at my
prayers, returning with another?
Ah me, my flattering
speech was for a rival!
A vast natural cliff
looks down onto the deep,
(once part of the
mountain) and meets the ocean tide:
Here I was first to
recognise the sails of your ships
and I desired to rush
into the waves.
While I hesitated, I
became afraid of royal-purple robes
that gleamed towards
me from the height of the prow:
to wear that was no
fashion of yours.
It grew nearer, and
the boat touched shore with the swift breeze:
with trembling heart I
saw a female face.
As if that was not
enough – why did I still wait there madly? –
your vile mistress
clung to your chest!
Then truly I tore my
clothes, and beat my breast
and scratched my wet
cheeks with sharp nails,
and filled sacred Ida
with howls of complaint
I carried my tears
there among the rocks.
So may Helen grieve
and weep, abandoned by her lover,
let her suffer what
she first brought me!
Now those women suit
you, who leave their rightful husbands
to follow you over the
open sea.
When you were a poor
man, and a shepherd driving the flock,
the poor man had only
his wife Oenone.
I’m not amazed by
wealth, nor does your palace move me,
nor to be spoken of as
one of Priam’s many daughters:
however Priam would
not refuse to be father-in-law to a nymph,
nor would that
daughter-in-law be concealed by Hecuba.
I am worthy, and wish,
to become the wife of a powerful man:
I have hands that
might grace a sceptre.
Don’t despise me,
because I lay with you among the beech leaves:
I’m more suited to a
bed of royal purple.
In the end my love is
safe: here no war’s prepared
the waves carry no
vengeful ships.
The fugitive daughter
of Tyndareus needs dangerous weapons:
she comes to your bed
with a magnificent dowry.
Ask your brother
Hector, or Deiphobus or Polydamas,
whether she should be
returned to the Greeks:
consult as to what
grave Antenor, or Priam himself, would urge,
who have been in
command for many years.
It’s shameful to start
preferring a stolen woman to your country.
It’s a cause of shame
to you: a just husband takes up arms.
Don’t expect the
Spartan to be loyal to you, if you’re wise,
she who fell so
quickly into your embrace.
Like Menelaus who
cries out at the desecration of his marriage bed,
and wounded grieves at
this love for a stranger,
you will also cry.
Wounded chastity is restored
by no art: it remains
lost for ever.
She’s on fire with
your love: just so, she loved Menelaus;
now, too trusting, he
lies there in an empty bed.
Happy Andromache is
truly married to a good husband:
take your brother’s
wife as an example.
You are lighter than
leaves, without weight of sap,
flying along, dried by
the fickle winds.
And there’s less
weight in you than a fragile ear of wheat,
that stiffens, parched
by the continual sun.
Your sister Cassandra
once chanted, (now I recall)
prophesying to me,
with her hair unbound:
‘What are you doing,
Oenone? Why sow seed in the sand?
Ox, you plough the
shore in vain!
The Greek heifer
comes, who will destroy you house and lands!
Oh prevent her! The
Greek heifer’s coming!
While you can, sink
the obscene vessel in the sea!
Alas! How much Trojan
blood she carries!’
She spoke: her
servants led her away, her madness in full flight,
but my yellow hair
stood on end.
Ah, prophetess, you
were only too right about my woes:
see, the Greek heifer
occupies my field!
Though her beauty is
distinguished, she’s truly adulterous:
captivated by a guest,
abandoning her husband’s gods.
Theseus (unless the
name’s wrong, I’m unsure which Theseus)
stole her away from
her country before.
A young man, and passionate, do we believe she
returned a virgin?
How did I learn all
this, you rightly ask? I love!
You might call it
violence, and hide her crime, by a word:
but she who gets raped
so often, offers herself to rape.
Oeonone remains
chaste, though betrayed by her husband –
and you might have
been betrayed yourself, by your rules:
The swift Satyrs, with
hasty foot, an insolent crowd,
searched for me (I hid
secretly in the woods)
and horned Faunus, his
head crowned with bristling pine,
there, where Mount Ida
swells up in vast ridges.
Noble Tros, who built
Troy, loved me truly:
he took the prize of
my virginity.
By a struggle too: all
the same, his hair was torn,
and his face was
scratched, by my fingernails.
I didn’t ask gold and
gems for the price of my unchastity:
it’s shameful for
gifts to buy a free-born body.
He entrusted me with
his arts of medicine, certain I was worthy,
and allowed my hands
to use his gifts.
I know every useful
herb, with power to aid,
and every healing
root, growing in the world.
Alas for me, that
love’s not curable with herbs!
The skill in that
art’s lacking from my arts.
The creator of these
gifts himself they say herded
Thessalian cattle:
and was wounded by my passion.
What neither the
fruitful earth with its herbs, nor a god,
can create, that help
you can bring to me.
You can and I deserve
it. Pity this worthy girl!
I don’t bring Greeks
and bloodstained weapons.
But I am yours, and I
was yours in our tender years,
and I pray