Metamorphoses (Miller)/Book VI
BOOK VI
BOOK VI
Tritonia had listened to this tale, and had approved of the muses' song and their just resentment. And then to herself she said: "To praise is not enough; let me be praised myself and not allow my divinity to be scouted without punishment." So saying, she turned her mind to the fate of Maeonian Arachne, who she had heard would not yield to her the palm in the art of spinning and weaving wool. Neither for place of birth nor birth itself had the girl fame, but only for her skill. Her father, Idmon of Colophon, used to dye the absorbent wool for her with Phocaean purple. Her mother was now dead; but she was low-born herself, and had a husband of the same degree. Nevertheless, the girl, Arachne, had gained fame for her skill throughout the Lydian towns, although she herself had sprung from a humble home and dwelt in the hamlet of Hypaepa. Often, to watch her wondrous skill, the nymphs would leave their own vineyards on Timolus' slopes, and the water-nymphs of Pactolus would leave their waters. And 'twas a pleasure not alone to see her finished work, but to watch her as she worked; so graceful and deft was she. Whether she was winding the rough yarn into a new ball, or shaping the stuff with her fingers, reaching back to the distaff for more wool, fleecy as a cloud, to draw into long soft threads, or giving a twist with practised thumb to the graceful spindle, or METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI embroidering with her needle: you could know that Pallas had taught her. Yet she denied it, and, offended at the suggestion of a teacher ever so great, she said: "Let her but strive with me; and if I lose there is nothing which I would not forfeit." Then Pallas assumed the form of an old woman, put false locks of grey upon her head, took a staff in her hand to sustain her tottering limbs, and thus she began: "Old age has some things at least that are not to be despised; experience comes with riper years. Do not scorn my advice: seek all the fame you will among mortal men for handling wool; but yield place to the goddess, and with humble prayer beg her pardon for your words, reckless girl. She will grant you pardon if you ask it." But she re- garded the old woman with sullen eyes, dropped the threads she was working, and, scarce holding her hand from violence, with open anger in her face she answered the disguised Pallas: "Doting in mind, you come to me, and spent with old age; and it is too long life that is your bane. Go, talk to your daughter-in-law, or to your daughter, if such you have. I am quite able to advise myself. To show you that you have done no good by your advice, we are both of the same opinion. Why does not your goddess come herself? Why does she avoid a contest with me?" Then the goddess exclaimed: "She has come!" and throwing aside her old woman's disguise, she revealed Pallas. The nymphs worshipped her godhead, and the Mygdonian women; Arachne alone remained unafraid, though she did start up and a sudden flush marked her unwilling cheeks and again faded; as when the sky grows crimson when the dawn first appears, and after a little while when the sun is up it pales again. Still she persists in her 291 challenge, and stupidly confident and eager for victory, she rushes on her fate. For Jove's daughter refuses not, nor again warns her or puts off the contest any longer. They both set up the looms in different places without delay and they stretch the fine warp upon them. The web is bound upon the beam, the reed separates the threads of the warp, the woof is threaded through them by the sharp shuttles which their busy fingers ply, and when shot through the threads of the warp, the notched teeth of the hammering slay beat it into place. They speed on the work with their mantles close girt about their breasts and move back and forth their well-trained hands, their eager zeal beguiling their toil. There are inwoven the purple threads dyed in Tyrian kettles, and lighter colours insensibly shading off from these, As when after a storm of rain the sun's rays strike through, and a rainbow, with its huge curve, stains the wide sky, though a thousand different colours shine in it, the eye cannot detect the change from each one to the next; so like appear the adjacent colours, but the extremes are plainly different. There, too, they weave in pliant threads of gold, and trace in the weft some ancient tale.
Pallas pictures the hill of Mars on the citadel of Cecrops[1] and that old dispute over the naming of the land. There sit twelve heavenly gods on lofty thrones in awful majesty, Jove in their midst; each god she pictures with his own familiar features; Jove's is a royal figure. There stands the god of ocean, and with his long trident smites the rugged cliff, and from the cleft rock sea-water leaps forth; a token to claim the city for his own. To herself METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI the goddess gives a shield and a sharp-pointed spear, and a helmet for her head; the aegis guards her breast; and from the earth smitten by her spear's point upsprings a pale-green olive-tree hanging thick with fruit; and the gods look on in wonder Victory crowns her work. Then, that her rival may know by pictured warnings what reward she may expect for her mad daring, she weaves in the foui corners of the web four scenes of contest, each clear with its own colours and in miniature design. One corner shows Thracian Rhodope and Haemus, now huge, bleak mountains, but once audacious mortals who dared assume the nanes of the most high gods, A second corner shows the wretched fate of the Pygmaean queen, whom Juno conquered in a strife, then changed into a crane, and bade her war upon those whom once she ruled. Again she pictures how Antigone once dared to set herself against the consort of mighty Jove, and how Queen Juno changed her into a bird; Ilium availed her nothing, nor Laomedon, her father; nay, she is clothed in white feathers, and claps her rattling bill, a stork. The remaining corner shows Cinyras bereft of his daughters; there, embracing the marble temple- steps, once their linbs, he lies on the stone, and seens to weep. The goddess then wove around her work a border of peaceful olive-wreath. This was the end; and so, with her own tree, her task was done. Arachne pictures Europa cheated by the disguise of the ull: a real bull and real waves you woul tink them. The maid seems to be looking back upon the land she has left, calling on her companions, and, fearful of the touch of the leaping waves, to be drawing back her timid feet. She wrought Asterie held by the struggling eagle; she wrought Leda, 295 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI beneath the swan's wings. She added how, in a satyr's image hidden, Jove filled lovely Antiope with twin offspring; how he was Amphitryon when he cheated thee, Alcmena; how in a golden shower he tricked Danaë; Aegina, as a flame; Mnemosyne, as a shepherd; Deo's daughter, as a spotted suake. Thee also, Neptune, she pictured, changed to a grim bull with the Aeolian maiden; now as Enipeus thou dost beget the Aloidae, as a ram deceivedst Bisaltis, he golden-haired mother of corn, most gentle, knew thee as a horse; the snake-haired mother of the winged horse knew thee as a winged bird; Melantho knew thee as a dolphin. To all these Arachne gave their own shapes and appropriate surroundings. Here is Phoebus like a countryman; and she shows how he wore now a hawk's feathers, now a lion's skin; how as a shepherd he tricked Macareus' daughter, Isse; how Bacchus deceived Erigone with the false bunch of grapes; how Saturn in a horse's shape begot the centaur, Chiron. T'he edge of the web with its narrow border is filled with flowers and clinging ivy intertwine Not Pallas, nor Envy himself, could find a flaw in that work. The golden-haired goddess was in dirnant at her success, and rent the embroidered web with its heavenly crimes; and, as she held a shuttle of Cytorian boxwood, thrice and again she struck Idmonian Arachne's head. The wretched girl could not endure it, and put a noose about her bold neck. As she hung, Pallas lifted her in pity, and said Live on, indeed, wicked girl, but hang thou still; and let this same doom of punishment that thou mayst fear for future times as well) be eclared upon thy race, even to remote posterity. So saying, as she turned to go she sprinkled her with 0 the juices of Hecate's herb; and forthwith her hair, touched by the poison, fell off, and with it both nose and ears; and the head shrank up; her whole bod also was small; the slender fingers clung to her side as legs; the rest was belly. Stll from this she ever spins a thread; and now, as a spider, she exercises her old-time weaver-art.
All Lydia is in a tumult; the story spreads throughout the towns of Phrygia and fills the whole world with talk. Now Niobe, before her marriage, had known Arachne, when, as a girl, she dwelt in Maeonia, near Mount Sipylus. And yet she did not take warning by her countrywoman's fate to give place to the gods and speak them reverently. Many things gave her pride ; but in truth neither her hus- band's art nor the high birth of both and their royal power and state so pleased her, although all those dd lease, as her children did. And Niobe would have been called most blessed of mothers, had she not seemed so to herself. For Manto, daughter of Tiresias, whose eyes could see what was to come, had fared through the streets of Thebes inspired by divine impulse, and proclaining to all she met: Women of Thebes, go throng Latona's temple, and give to her and to her children twain incense and pious prayer, wreathing your lair with laurel. By my mouth Latona speaks." They obey; all the Theban women deck their temples with laurel wreaths and burn incense in the altar flames, with words of prayer But lo! comes Niobe, thronged about with a numerous following, a notable figure in Phrygian robes wrought with threads of gold, and beautiful as far as anger suffered her to be; and she tosses her shapely head with the hair falling on either shoulder. She halts aud, drawn up toher full height, casts her haughty eyes around and cries: "What madness this, to prefer gods whom you have only heard of to those whom you have seen? Or why is Latona worshipped at these altars, while my divinity still waits for incense? I have Tantalus to my father, the onlv mortal ever allowed to touch the table of the gods; my mother is a sister of the Pleiades; most mighty Atlas is one grandfather, who supports the vault of heaven on his shoulders; my other grandsire is Jove himself, and I boast him as my father-in-law as well. The Phrygian nations hold me in reverent fear. I am queen of Cadmus' royal house, and the walls of Thebes, erected by the magic of my husband's lyre, together with its people, acknowledge me and him as their rulers. Wherever I turn my eyes in the palace I see great stores of wealth. Besides, I have beauty worthy of a goddess; add to all this that I have seven daughters and as many sons, and soon shall have sons- and daughters- in-law. Ask now what cau se I have for pride; and then presume to prefer to me the Titaness, Latona, daughter of Coeus, whoever he may be–Latona, to whom the broad earth once refused a tiny spot for bringing forth her children. Neither heaven nor earth nor sea was open for this goddess of yours; she was outlawed from the universe, until Delos, pitying the wanderer, said to her: 'You are a vagrant on the land; I, on the sea, and gave her a place that stood never still. And there she bore two children, the seventh part only of my offspring. Surely I am happy. Who can denyit? And happy I shall remain. This also who can doubt? My very abundance has made me safe. I am too great for Fortune to harm; though she should take many from me, still many more will she leave to me. My blessings have banished fear. Even suppose that some part of this tribe of children could be taken from me, not even so despoiled would I be reduccd to the number of two, Latona's throng, with which how far is she froı childlessness? Away with you, hasten, you have sacrificed enough, and take off those laurels from your hair." They take off the wreaths and leave the sacrifice unfinished; but, as they may, they still worship the goddess with unspoken words.
The goddess was angry, and on the top of Cynthus she thus addressed Apollo and Diana : "Lo, I, your mother, proud of your birth and willing to yield place to no goddess save Juno only, I have had my divinity called in question; and through all coming ages I shall be denied worship at the altar, unless you, my children, come to my aid. Nor is this my only cause for resentment. This daughter of Tan- talus has added insult to her injuries: she has dared to prefer her own children to you, and has called me childless-may that fall on her head!-and by her impious speech has displayed her father's unbridled tongue." To this story of her wrongs Latona would have added prayers; but here Phoebus cried: "Have done! a long complaint is but delay of punishment!” Phoebe said the same. Then, swiftly gliding through the air, they alighted on Cadmus' citadel, covered in clouds.
There was a broad and level plain near the walls, beaten by the constant tread of horses, where a host of wheels and the hard hoof had leveled the clods beneath them. There some of Amphion's seven sons mounted their strong horses, sitting firm on their backs bright with Tyrian purple, and guided them with rieh gold-mounted bridles. While one of these, Ismenus, who was his mother's first-born son, was guiding his charger's course round the curving track and pulling hard on the foaming bit, " Ah me!" he cried, and, with an arrow fixed in his breast, he dropped the reins from his dying hands and slowly sank sidewise down to the earth over his horse's right shoulder. Next, hearing through the void air the sound of the rattling quiver, Sipylus gave full rein; as when a shipmaster, conscious of an approaching storm, flees at the sight of a cloud and crowds on all sail that he may catch each pass- ing breeze. He gave full rein, and as he gave it the arrow that none may escape overtook him, and the shaft stuck quivering in his neck; while the iron point showed from his throat in front. He, leaning forward, as he was, pitched over the galloping horse's mane and legs, and stained the ground with his warm blood. Unhappy Phaedimus and Tantalus, who bore his grandsire's name, when they had finished their wonted task had passed to the youth- ful exercise of the shining wrestling-match. And now they were straining together, breast to breast, in close embrace, when an arrow, sped from the drawn bow, pierced them both just as they stood clasped together. They groaned together; together they fell writhing in pain to the ground; together as they lay they moved their dying eyes; together they breathed their last. Alphenor saw them die, and beating his breast in agony, he ran to lift up their cold bodies in his arms; and in this pious duty he fell; for Apollo pierced him through the midriff with death-dealing steel. When this was removed, a piece of his lungs was drawn out sticking to the barbs, and his life blood came rushing forth into the air. But one wound was not all that pierced youthful Damasichthon. He was struck where the METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI lower leg just begins, and where the sinews of the hough give a soft spot; and while he was trying to draw out the fatal shaft with his hand, a second arrow was driven clear to the feathers through his throat. The blood drove it forth and gushing out spurted high in air in a long, slender stream Ilioneus was the last; stretching out his arms in prayer doomed to be vain, he cried: "Oh, spare me, all ye gods," not knowing that he need not pray to them all. The archer-god was moved to pity, but too late to recall his shaft. Still the youth fell smitten by a slight wound only, since the arrow did not deeply pierce his heart. Rumour of the trouble, the people's grief, and the tears of her own friends informed the mother of this sudden disaster, amazed that it could have happened, and angry because the gods had dared so far, that they should have such power; for the father, Anm phion, had already driven a dagger through his heart, and so in dying had ended his grief and life together. Alas, how different now was this Niobe from that Niobe who had but now driven the people from Latona's altar, and had walked proudly through the city streets, enviable then to her friends, but now one for even her enemies to pity. She threw her- self upon the cold bodies of her sons, wildly giving the last kisses to them all. From them she lifted her bruised arms to high heaven and cried " Feed now upon my grief, cruel Latona, feed and glut your heart on my sorrow. Yes, glut your bloodthirsty heart! In my seven sons have I suffered sevenfold death. Exult, and triumph in your hateful victory. But why victory? In my misery I still have more than you in your felicity. After so many deaths, I triumph still!" 307 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI She spoke, and the taut bowstring twanged, which terrified all save Niobe alone; misery made her bold The sisters were standing about their brothers' biers, with loosened hair and robed in black. One of these, while drawing out the shaft fixed in a brother's vitals, sank down with her face upon him, fainting and dying. A second, attempting to console her grieving mother, ceased suddenly, and was bent in agony by an unseen wound. She closed her lips till her dying breath had passed. One fell while trying in vain to flee. Another died upon her sister; one hid, and one stood trembling in full view. And now six had suffered various wounds and died; the last remained. The mother, covering her with her crouching body and her sheltering robes, cried out: " Oh, leave me one, the littlest! Of all my many children, the littlest I beg you spare-just one! And even while she prayed, she for whom she raved fell dead. Now does the childless mother sit down amid the lifeless bodies of her sons, her daughters, and her husband, in stony grief. Her hair stirs not in the breeze; her face is pale and bloodless, and her eyes are fixed and staring in her sad face. There is nothing alive in the picture. Her very tongue is silent, frozen to her mouth's roof, and her veins can move no longer; her neck cannot bend nor her arms move nor her feet go. Within also her vitals are stone. But still she weeps; and, caught up in a strong, whirling wind, she is rapt away to her own native land. There, set on a mountain's peak, she weeps; and even to this day tears trickle from the marble. Then truly do all men and women fear the wrath of the goddess so openly displayed; and all more zealously than ever worship the dread divinity of 309 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI the twin gods' mother. And, as usual, stirred by the later, they tell over former tales. Then one of them begins: "So also in the fertile fields of Lycia, peasants of olden time scorned the goddess and suffered for it. The storv is little known because of the humble estate of the men concerned but it is remarkable. I myself saw the pool and the place made famous by the wonder. For my father, who at that time was getting on in years and too weak to travel far, had bidden me go and drive down from that country some choice steers which were grazing there, and had given me a man of that nation to serve as guide. While I fared through the grassy glades with him, there, in the midst of a lake an ancient altar was standing, black with the fires of many sacrifices, surrounded with shivering reeds. My uide halted and said with awe-struck whisper: 'Be merciful to me!and in like whisper said: Be merciful!'Th en I asked my guide whether this was an altar to the Naiads, or Faunus, or some deity of the place, and he replied: ' No, young man; no mountain deity dwells in this altar. She claims its worship, whom the queen of heaven once shut out from all the world, whom wandering Delos would scarce accept at her prayer, when it was an island, lightly floating on the sea. There, reclinin on the palm and Pallas' tree,1 in spite of their step- mother, she brought forth her twin babes. Even thence the new-made mother is said to have fled from Juno, carrying in her bosom her infant children, both divine. And now, having reached the borders of Lycia, home of the Chimaera, when the hot sun beat fiercely upon the fields, the goddess, weary of her long stiggle, was faint by reason of the 1 i.e. the olive. 811 METAMORPHOSES BOOK vI sun's heat and parched with thirst; and the hungry children had drained her breasts dry of milk. She chanced to see a lake of no great size down in a deep vale; some rustics were there gathering bushy osiers, with fine swamp-grass and rushes of the marsh. Latona came to the water's edge and kneeled on the ground to quench her thirst with a cooling draught. But che rustic rabble would not let her drink. Then she besought them: " Why do you deny me water? The enjoyment of water is a common right. Nature has not made the sun private to any, nor the air, nor soft water. This common right I seek; and yet I beg you to give it to me as a favour. I was not preparing to bathe my limbs or my weary body here in your pool, but only to quench my thirst. Even as I speak, my mouth is dry of moisture, my throat is parched, and my voice can scarce find utterance. A drink of water will be nectar to me, and I shall confess that I have received life with it; yes, life you will be giving me if you let me drink. These children too, let them touch your hearts, who from my bosom stretch out their little arms." And it chanced that the children did stretch out their arms. Who would not have beein touched by the goddess' gentle words? Yet for all her prayers they persisted in denying with threats if she did not go away; they even added insulting words. Not content with that, they soiled the pool itself with their feet and hands, and stirred up the soft mud from the bottom, leaping about, all for pure meanness. Then wrath postponed thirst; for Coeus daughter could neither humble herself longer to those unruly fellows, nor could she endure to speak with less power than a goddess; but stretching up her hands to heaven, she cried: "Live then for ever 318 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI in that pooi." It fell out as the goddess prayed. It is their delight to live in water; now to plunge their bodies quite beneath the enveloping pool, now t thrust forth their heads, now to swim upon the surface. Often they sit upon the sedgy bank and often leap back into the cool lake. But even now, as of old they exercise their foul tongues in quarrel, and all shameless, though they may be under water, even under the water they try to utter maledictions. Now also their voices are hoarse, their inflated throats swell up, and their constant quarrelling distends their wide jaws; they stretch their ugly heads, the necks seem to have disappeared. Their backs are green; their bellies, the largest part of the body, are white; and as new-made frogs they leap in the muddy pool Then, when this unknown story-teller had told the destruction of the Lycian peasants, another recalled the satyr whom the son of Latona had conquered in a contest on Pallas' reed, and punished. "Why do you tear me from myself?" he cried. "Oh, Irepent! Oh, a flute is not worth such price!" As he screams, his skin is stripped off the suriace of his body, and he is all one wound: blood flows down on every side, the sinews lie bare, his veins throb and quiver with noskin to cover them: you could count the entrails as they palpitate, and the vitals showing clearly in his breast. The country people, the sylvan deities, fauns and his brother satyrs, and Olympus, whom even then he still loved, the nymphs, all wept for him, and every shepherd who fed his woolly sheep or horned kine on those mountains. The fruitful earth was soaked, and soaking caught those tears and drank them deep into her veins. Changing these then to water, she sent them forth into the free air. Thence the stream 315 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI within its sloping banks ran down quickly to the sea, and had the name of Marsyas, the clearest river in all Phrygia. Straightway the company turns from such old tales to the present, and mourns Amphion dead with his children. They all blame the mother; but even then one man, her brother Pelops, is said to have wept for her, and, drawing aside his garment from his breast, to have revealed the ivory patch on the left shoulder. This at the time of his birth had been of the same colour as his right, and of flesh. But later, when his father had cut him in pieces, they say that the gods joined the parts together again; they found all the others, but one part was lacking where the neck and upper arm unite. A piece of ivory was made to take the place of the part which could not be found; and so Pelops was made whole again. Now all the neighbouring princes assembled, and the near-by cities urged their kings to go and offer sympathy: Argos and Sparta and Peloponnesian Mycenae; Calydon, which had not yet incurred Diana's wrath; fertile Orchomenos and Corinth, famed for works of bronze; warlike Messene, Patrae, and low-lying Cleonae; Nelean Pylos and Troezen, not yet ruled by Pittheus; and all the other cities which are shut off' by the Isthmus between its two seas, and those which are outside visible from the Isthmus be- tweenits two seas.1 Butof all cities--whocould believe it ?-you, Athens, alone did nothing. War hindere this friendly service, and barbaric hordes from over sea held the walls of Mopsopia2 in alarm. Now Tereus of Thrace had put these to flight with his relieving troops, and by the victory had a great name. And 1 That is, the Peloponnese and Northern Greece. 9 Athenn, from King Mopsnpius. 317 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI since he was strong in wealth and in men, and traced his descent, as it happened, from Gradivus, Pandion, king of Athens, allied him to himself by wedding him to Procne. But neither Juno, bridal goddess, nor Hymen, nor the Graces were present at that wedding. The Furies lighted them with torches stolen from a funeral; the Furies spread the couch, and the uncanny screech-owl brooded and sat on the roof of their chaber. Under this omen were Procne and Tereus wedded; under this omen was their child conceived. Thrace, indeed, rejoiced with them, and they themselves gave thanks to the gods; both the day on which Pandion's daughter was married to their illustrious king, and that day on which Itys was born, they made a festival: even so is our true advantage hidden. Now Titan through five autumnal seasons had brought round the revolving years, when Procne coaxingly to her husband said: «If I have found any favour in your sight, either send me to visit my sister or let my sister come to me. You will promise my father that after a brief stay she shall return. If you give me a chance to see my sister you will confer on me a precious boon." Tereus accordingly bade them launch his ship, and plying oar and sail, he entered the Cecropian harbour and came to land on the shore of Piraeus. As soon as he came into the presence of his father-in-law they joined right hands, and the talk began with good wishes for their health. He had begun to tell of his wife's request, which was the cause of his coming, and to promise a speedy return should the sister be sent home with him, when lo! Philomela entered, attired in rich apparel, but richer still in beauty; such as we are wont to hear the naiads described, and dryads when they move about METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI in the deep woods, if only one should give to them refinement and apparel like hers. The moment he saw the maiden Tereus was inflamed with love, quick as if one should set fire to ripe grain, or dry leaves, or hay stored away in the mow. Her beauty, indeed, was worth it; but in his case his own passionate nature pricked him on, and, besides, the men of his clime are uick to love: his own fire and his nation's burnt in him. His impulse was to corrupt her attendants care and her nurse's faithfulness, and even by rich gifts to tempt the girl herself, even at the cost of all his kingdom; or else to ravish her and to defend his act by bloody war. There was nothing which he would not do or dare, smitten by this mad passion His heart could scarce contain the fires that burnt in it. Now, impatient of delay, he eagerly repeated Procne's request, pleading his own cause under her name. Love made him eloquent, and as often as he asked more urgently than he should, he would say that Procne wished it so. He even added tears to his entreaties, as though she had bidden hn to do this too. Ye gods, what blind night rules in the hearts of men! In the very act of pushing on his shameful plan Tereus gets credit for a kind hear and wins praise from wickedness. Ay, more- Philomela herself has the same wish; winding her arms about her father's neck, she coaxes him to let her visit her sister; by her own welfare (yes, and against it, too) she urges her prayer. Tereus gazes at her, and as he looks feels her already in his arms; as he sees her kisses and her arms about her father's neck, all this goads him on, food and fuel for his passion; and whenever she embraces her father he wishes that he were in the father's っ!『2e--indeed, if he were, his intent would be no 321 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI less impious. The father yields to the prayers of both. The girl is filled with joy; she thanks her father and, poor unhappy wretch, she deems that success for both sisters which is to prove a woeful happening for them both. Now Phoebus' toils were almost done and his horses were pacing down the western sky. A royal feast was spread, wine in cups of gold. Then they lay them down to peaceful slumber. But although the Thracian king retired, his heart seethes with thoughts of her. Recalling her look, her move- ment, her hands, he pictures at will what he has not yet seen, and feeds his own fires, his thoughts preventing sleep. wringing his son-in-law's hand as he was departing, consigned his daughter to him with inany tears and said Dear son, since a natural plea has won me, and both my daughters have wished it, and ou also have wished it, my Tereus, I give her to your keeping; and by your honour and the ties that bind us, by the gods, I pray you guard her with a father's love, and as soon as possible-it will seem a long time in any case to me-send back to me this sweet solace of my tedious years. And do you, my Philomela, if you love me, come back to me as soon as possible; it is enough that your sister is so far away." Thus he made his last requests and kissed his child good-bye, and gentle tears fell as he spoke the words; and he asked both their right hands as pledge of their pronise, and joined them together and begged that they would remember to greet for him his daughter and her son. His voice broke with sobs, he could hardly say farewell, as he feared the forebodings of his mind. Morning came; and Pandion, 323 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI As soon as Philomela was safely embarked upon the painted ship and the sea was churned beneath the oars and the land was left behind, Tereus ex- claimed: "I have won! in my ship I carry the ful- filment of my prayers!" The barbarous fellow triumphs, he can scarce postpone his joys, and never turns his eyes from her, as when the ravenous bird of Jove has dropped in his high eyrie some hare caught in his hooked talons; the captive has no chance to escape, the captor gloats over his prize. And now they were at the end of their journey, now, leaving the travel-worn ship, they had landed on their own shores; when the king dragged off Pandion's daughter to a hut deep hidden in the ancient woods: and there, pale and trembling and all fear, begging with tears to know where her sister was, he shut her up. Then, openly confessing his horrid purpose, he violated her, just a weak girl and all alone, vainly calling, often on her father, often on her sister, but most of all upon the great gods. She trembled like a frightened lamb, which, torn and cast aside by a grey wolf, cannot yet believe that it is safe; and like a dove which, with its own blood all smeared over its plumage, still palpitates with fright, still fears those greedy claws that have pierced it. Soon, when her senses came back, she dragged at her loosened hair, and like one in mourning, beating and tearing her arms, with outstretched hands she cried: " Oh, what a horrible thing you have done, bar- barous, cruel wretch! Do you care nothing for my father's injunctions, his affectionate tears, my sister's love, my own virginity, the bonds of wedlock? You have confused all natural relations: I have become a concubine, my sister's rival; you, a husband to both. Now Procne must be my enemv. Why do you not 325 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI take my life, that no crime may be left undone. you traitor? Aye, would that you had killed me before you wronged me so. Then would my shade have been nnocent and clean. If those who dwell on high see these things, nay, if there are any gods at all, if all things have not perished with me, sooner or later you shall pay dearly for this deed. I will myself cast shame aside and proclaim what you have done. If I should have the chance, I would go where people throng and tell it; if I am kept shut up in these woods, I will fill the woods with my story and move the very rocks to pity. The air of heaven shall hear it, and, if there is any god in heaven, he shall hear it 9 too. l'he savage tyrant's wrath was aroused by these words, and his fear no less. Pricked on by both these spurs, he drew his sword which was hanging by his side in its sheath, caught her by the hair, and twisting her arms behind her back, he bound thenn fast. At sight of the sword Philomela gladly offered her throat to the stroke, filled with the eager hope of death. But he seized her tongue with pincers, as it protested against the outrage, calling ever on the name of her father and struggling to speak, and cut it off with his merciless blade. The mangled root quivers, while the severed tongue lies pal- pitating on the dark earth, faintly murmuring; and, as the severed tail of a mangled snake is wont to writhe, it twitches convulsively, and with its last dying movement it seeks its mistress's feet. Even after this horrid deed-one would scarce believe it-the monarch is said to have worked his lustful will again and again upon the poor mangled forrm With such crimes upon his soul he had the face to return to Procne's presence. She on seeing him 327 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI at once asked where her sister was. He groaned in pretended grief and told a made-up story of death; his tears gave credence to the tale. Then Procne tore from her shoulders the robe gleaming with a broad golden border and put on black weeds; she built also a cenotaph in honour of her sister, brought pious offerings to her imagined spirit, and mourned her sister's fate, not meet so to be mourned Now through the twelve signs, a whole year's journey, has the sun-god passed. And what shall Philomela do? A guard prevents her flight; stout walls of solid stone fence in the hut; speechless lips can give no token of her wrongs. But grief has sharp wits, and in trouble cunning comes. She hangs a Thracian web on her loom, and skilfully weaving purple signs on a white background, she thus tells the story of her wrongs. This web, when completed, she gives to her one attendant and begs her with gestures to carry it to the queen. The old woman, as she was bid, takes the web to Procne, not knowing what she bears in it. The savage tyrant's wife unrolls the cloth, reads the pitiable tale of her misfortune, and (a miracle that she could!) says not a word. Grief chokes the words that rise to her lips, and her questing tongue can find no words strong enough to express her outraged feelings. Here is no room for tears, but she hurries on to confound right and wrong, her whole soul bent on the thought of vengeance. It was the time when the Thracian matrons were wont to celebrate the biennial festival of Bacchus. Night was in their secret; by night Mount Rhodope would resound with the shrill clash of brazen cymbals; so by night the queen goes forth from her house, equips herself for the rites of the god and 329 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI dons the array of frenzy; her head was wreathed with trailing vines, a deer-skin hung from her left side, a light spear rested on her shoulder. Swift she goes through the woods with an attendant throng of her companions, and driven on by the madness of grief, Procne, terrific in her rage, mimics thy madness, O Bacchus! She comes to the secluded lodge at last, shrieks aloud and cries «"Euhoe !" breaks down the doors, seizes her sister, arrays her in the trappings of a Bacchante, hides her face with ivy-leaves, and, dragging her along in amazement, leads her within her own walls. When Philomela perceived that she had entered that accursed house the poor girl shook with horror and grew pale as death. Procne found a place, and took off the trappings of the Bacchic rites and, uncovering the shame-blanched face of her wretched sister, folded her in her arms. But Philomela could not lift her eyes to her sister, feeling herself to have wronged her. And, with her face turned to the ground, longing to swear and call all the gods to witness that that shame had been forced upon her, she made her hand serve for voice. But Procne was all on fire, could not contain her own wrath, and chiding her sister's weeping, she said: "This is no time for tears, but for the sword, for something stronger than the sword, if you have such a thing. I am prepared for any crime, my sister; either to fire this palace with a torch, and to cast Tereus, the author of our wrongs, into the flaming ruins, or to cut out his tongue and his eyes, to cut off the parts which brought shame to you, and drive his guilty soul out through a thousand wounds. I am prepared for some great deed; but what it shall be I am still in doubt." 331 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI While Procne was thus speaking Itys came into his mother's presence. His coming suggested what she could do, and regarding him with pitiless eyes, she said: «Ah, how like your father vou are!" Saying no more, she began to plan a terrible deed an boiled with inward rage. Butwhen the boy came up to her and greeted his mother, put his little arms around er neck and kissed her in his winsome, boyish way, her mother-heart was touched, her wrath fell awa and her eyes, though all unwilling, were wet with tears that flowed in spite of her. But when she perceived that her purpose was wavering through of mother-love, she turned again from her son excess to her sister; and gazing at both in turn, she said:Why is one able to make soft, pretty speeches, while her ravished tongue dooms the other to silence ? Since he calls me mother, why does she not call me sister? Remember whose wife vou are, daughter of Pandion! Will you be faithless to vour husband? But taithfulness to such a husband as Tereus is a crie." Without more words she dragged Itys away, as a tigress drags a suckling fawn through the dark woods on Ganges' banks. And when they reached a remote part of the great house, while the boy stretched out pleading hands as he saw his fate, and screamed, "Mother! mother! and sought to throw his arms around her neck, Procne smote him with a knife between breast and side--an with no change of face. This one stroke sufficed to slay the laa; but rhilomela cut the throat also, and they cut up the body still warm and quivering with life. Part bubbles in brazen kettles, part sputters on while the whole room drips with gore spits; This is the feast to which the wife invites Tereus, ittle knowing what it is. She pretends that it is s METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI acred feast after their ancestral fashion, of which only a husband nay partake, and removes all and slaves. So Tereus, sitting alone in high ancestral banquet-chair, begins the feast and gorges himself with flesh of his own flesh. Anod in the utter blindness of his understanding he cries: Go, call me ltys hither!" Procne cannot hide her cruel joy, and eager to be the messenger of her loody news, she says: "You have, within, him whom vou want." He looks about and asks where the boy is. And then, as he asks and calls again for his on, just as she was, with streaming hair, and all stained with her mad deed of blood, Philomela springs forward and hurls the gory head of Itys straight into his father's face; nor was there ever any time when she longed more to be able to speak, and to express her joy in fitting words. Then the Thracian king overturns the table with a great cry and invokes the snaky sisters from the Stygian pit. Now, if he could, he would gladly lay open his breast and take thence the horrid feast and vomit forth the flesh of his son; now he weeps bitterly and calls hinmself his son's most wretched tomb; then with drawn sword he pursues the two daughters of Pandion. As they fly from him you would think that the bodies of the two Athenians were poised on wings: they were poised on wings! One flies to the woods, the other rises to the roof. And even now their breasts have not lost the marks of their mur- derous deed, their feathers are stained with blood. Tereus, swift in pursuit because of his grief and eager desire for vengeance, is himself changed into a bird Upon his head a stiff crest appears, and a huge beak stands forth instead of his long sword. He is the attendants his ες hoopoë, with the look of one armed for war. 335 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI This woe shortened the days of old Pandion and sent n down to the shades of Tartarus before old age came to its full term. His sceptre and the state's control fell to Erechtheus, equally famed for and for prowess in ars. Four sons were born to him and four daughters also. Of these two were of equal beauty, of whom thou, Procris, didst make happy in wedlock Cephalus, the grandson of Aeolus. Boreas was not favoured because f Tereus and the Thracians 1; and so the god was long kept from his beloved Orithyia, while he wooed and preferred to use prayers rather than force. But when he could accomplish nothing by soothing words, ough with anger, which was the north-wind's usual and more natural mood, he said: <"I have eserved it! For why have I given up my own weapons, fierceness and force, rage and threatening and had recourse to prayers, which do not at become me? Force is my fit instrument. By force I drive on the gloomy clouds, by force I shake sea, I overturn gnarled oaks, pack hard the snow, pelt the earth with hail. So also when I meet brothers in the open sky-for that is my battle struggle with them so fiercely that the mid-heavens thunder with our meeting and fires leap justice daughters moods, all the and y - ground-I bursting out of the hollow clouds. So also when have entered the vaulted hollows of the earth, and ave set my strong back beneath her lowest caverns, I fright the ghosts and the whole world, too, by my beavings. By this means I should have sought my wife. I should not have begged Erechtheus to be ." With ny father-in-law, but made him to be so 1 Since the home of Boreas was in the north, he was ncluded in the hatred felt at Athens for Tereus aud the T'hracians. 837 METAMORPHOSESBOOK VI these words or others no less boisterous, Boreas shook his wings, whose mighty flutterings sent a blast over all the earth, and ruffled the broad ocean. And trailing along his dusty mantle over the mountain- tops, he swept the land; and wrapped in darkness, the lover embraced with his tawny wings his Orithyia, who was trembling sore with fear. As he flew bis own flames were fanned and burned stronger. Nor did the robber check his airy flight until he came to the people and the city of the Cicones. There did the Athenian girl become the bride of the cold monarch, and mother, when she brought forth twin sons, who had all else of their mother, but their father's wings. Yet these wings, they say, were not born with their bodies; while the beard was not yet to be seen beneath their yellow locks, both Calais and Zetes were wingless, but soon and at the same time wings began to spring out on either side after the fashion of birds, and the cheeks began to grow tawny. So these two youths, when boyhood was passed and they had grown to man's estate, went with the Minyans over an unknown sea in that first ship to seek the bright gleaming fleece of gold. 335
- ↑ Ovid here confuses the Acropolis with the Areopagus. See Herod., viii. 55; Apollodorus, iii. 14, 1.