rivalry by Greeks of every realm, wherever the winding Hellespont1 embraces his lands. I am she, O Minos, whom by sacred compact thou didst call wife this thou hearest, albeit thou payest no heed. Shall I in bonds float o'er the waves of so vast a sea? In bonds shall I be suspended for so many days, each following each? Yet that I am worthy of other punishment I may not plead, seeing that thus I surrendered my motherland and my dear home to foemen and to a tyrant-though I knew it not-thus pitiless. Yet shame so foul as this methought my countrymen might work me, should some mischance first disclose our alliance, and when their city walls were razed I, cruel one, alas! assailed their shrines with flames; but if thou wert victor, I deemed that the stars would change their courses ere thou shouldst do such deed to me, thy captive. Now, now 'tis wickedness that conquers all!2 Did I, forlorn one, love thee above my father's realm? Did I love thee? Yet 'tis not strange. A maiden, deceived by thy face-as I saw, how was I lost! how a fatal frenzy swept me away! -I did not deem that from that form of thine such guilt could spring. With thy beauty thou wouldst deceive even the stars! 433 "I was moved not by a palace rich in its delights -rich in frail coral and amber tears-was moved not by damsels of like youth and beauteous to behold; no fear of gods with its menace could hold me back : Love conquered all: for what could Love not conquer? 1 The Hellespont is perhaps put for the whole Aegean; cf. Culex, 33. 2 A variation on omnia vincit Amor (Ecl. x. 69). So Lin. forth. Others would render "thy crime surpasses all. 8 = Eclogues, VIII. 41. non mihi iam pingui sudabunt tempora myrrha, 440 magna queror: me ne illa quidem communis alumnam omnibus iniecta tellus tumulabit harena. mene inter matres ancillarisque maritas, mene alias inter famularum munere fungi coniugis atque tuae, quaecumque erit illa, beatae 445 iam tandem casus hominum, iam respice, Minos 439 odores HL. 447 454 455 460 465 441 me ne Heyne: ne ut (nec et or ut): ne tu... tumulabis Ellis. 448-453 the transposition of verses as indicated in the text is due to Sudhaus. So Vollmer. 450 livescunt Heinsius: labescunt (labascunt). 461 pristes Barth: pestes or pisces. 455 sola HAR: Scyllam Haupt. 457 incerto Scaliger: incepto. 459 resoluta Heinsius. 464 et magni Schrader. Corinthum Heyne. 469 heu heu] secum heu. No more shall my temples drip with rich myrrh, nor shall the bridal pine kindle its pure flames, nor shall the Libyan couch be strewn with Assyrian purple. Chiefly do I thus complain: even yonder earth, that is common to all, will not entomb me, her fosterchild, with sprinkling of sand! Might not I, amid the mothers and married slave-women-might not I, amid other handmaids, have performed their task, and for thy happy wife, whoe'er she be, have unrolled the spindles, weighted with their coils? But O that at least, by law of war, thou hadst killed me, thy captive! Now, pray, now, O Minos, give heed to the chances of human-kind!1 Be it enough that I, and I alone, have looked upon thus much misery! Grant that this disaster has been due to me by fate, or has come by uncertain chance, or in fine by a guilt that deserves it: aught shall I believe rather than that thou hast been its author!" 459 Meanwhile, set free from the shore, the fleet glides forth; the great sails swell with the sudden Northwest; the oar bends in the green salt water; the feeble wailing of the weary maid dies away in the long voyage. Behind her she leaves the Isthmus, shut in with its narrow throat, the rich realm at Corinth of the great son of Cypselus; 2 forthwith she passes Sciron's steep heights, and goes beyond the dread tortoise's cave, so fatal to her fellowcitizens, and the cliffs, stained with the blood of many a guest. And now indeed she sees afar secure Piraeus, and looks back-alas! alas! in vain-upon 1 She means that no human being has ever suffered like her. 2 Periander. The robber Sciron used to throw his victims to a tortoise. iam procul e fluctu Salaminia suspicit arva florentisque videt iam Cycladas; hinc Venus illi Sunias, hinc statio contra patet Hermionea. linquitur ante alias longe gratissima Delos Nereidum matri et Neptuno Aegaeo. 470 475 477 448 450 prospicit incinctam spumanti litore Cythnon non tulit ac miseros mutavit virginis artus esset ut in terris facti de nomine Ciris, 477 sementiferam A2L. The verse is faulty. thinks two half lines are lost after simul. 453 478 480 485 Vollmer 481 vexarier B: vexavit Z. undis] aegros (aegram). 484 aeternum Kreunen: alternat Leo: alternans Vollmer : eternam (externam). 489 Amyclaeae Heinsius. famous Athens. Now at a distance, rising from the flood, the fields of Salamis she espies, lying apart from the waves, and now she sees the shining Cyclades on this side the Venus of Sunium opens to her; on that, opposite, Hermione's town.1 Then she leaves Delos, dearest beyond all to the mother of the Nereids and to Aegean Neptune; 2 she sees afar Cythnus, girt with foaming shore, and draws near to marble-white Paros and green Donysa, with Aegina and health-bringing Seriphus.3 Now at length her strength flees from her weary frame, her head falls back heavy on her bended neck, her marblewhite arms grow livid under the close-drawn knots. Monsters of the sea, giant forms of the deep, throng about her on all sides, and in the blue-grey waters threaten her with lashing tails and gaping mouths. Onward she moves, tossed to and fro by uncertain winds (even as a tiny skiff when it follows a great fleet, and an African hurricane riots upon the wintry sea) until Neptune's spouse, queen of the azure realm, brooked it not that such a beauteous form should be harassed by the waves, and transformed the maiden's hapless limbs. But still she purposed not to clothe the gentle maid with scales for ever, or establish her amid treacherous fishes (all too greedy is Amphitrite's flock): rather she raised her aloft on airy wings, that she might live on earth as Ciris, named from the deed wrought 5—Ciris, more beauteous than Leda's Amyclaean swan. 1 The poet incorrectly substitutes Venus (Aphrodite) for Athena, who had a temple on Cape Sunium. Hermione was 2 cf. Aen. III. 74. in the Argolid. 3 An allusion, probably, to the story of Danae and Perseus, whose ark was washed upon the coast of Seriphus. • Amphitrite. Ciris is from Keiрew, "cut" or "shear." |