Legendary Passages #0114,
Philostratus the Elder,
Imagines Book 1,
Image 14,
Pasiphae & Semele.
Previously, Theseus abandoned Ariadne on Naxos, where she was rescued by the god Dionysus. In this passage there are descriptions of three paintings: Semele, mother of Dionysus; Ariadne, wife of Dionysus; and Pasiphae, mother of Ariadne and the Minotaur.
The first image is of the fire that consumed Semele and gave birth to Dionysus. Semele was the youngest daughter of Cadmus, and after she became pregnant by Zeus, Hera tricked her into asking Zeus to show his true self. She was burned to death by his godly form, but the fetus of Dionysus survived, and his father placed him inside Zeus' own body to carry him to term.
The second image is that of Dionysus watching a sleeping Ariadne as Theseus sails away. Dionysus is usually depicted with ivy, horns, leopards, thyrsi, faun-skins, cymbals, flutes, and satyrs; but here the god is recognized by his love alone. Theseus looks entranced, having apparently forgotten the Minotaur and his love for Ariadne.
The last image is primarily of the workshop of Daedalus, who constructed the hollow wooden cow that, uh, facilitated the union of Pasiphae and the Cretan Bull. About the workshop are unfinished statues, and little cupids aid Daedalus in constructing the wooden cow.
Pasiphae & Semele,
a Legendary Passage from,
Arthur Fairbanks translating,
Philostratus the Elder,
Imagines Book 1,
Images 14-16.
https://www.theoi.com/Text/PhilostratusElder1A.html#14
1.14 SEMELE
Brontè, stern of face, and Astrapè flashing light from her eyes, and raging fire from heaven that has laid hold of a king’s house, suggest the following tale, if it is one you know.
A cloud of fire encompassing Thebes breaks into the dwelling of Cadmus as Zeus comes wooing Semele; and Semele apparently is destroyed, but Dionysus is born, by Zeus, so I believe, in the presence of the fire. And the form of Semele is dimly seen as she goes to the heavens, where the Muses will hymn her praises: but Dionysus leaps forth as his mother’s womb is rent apart and he makes the flame look dim, so brilliantly does he shine like a radiant star.
The flame, dividing, dimly outlines a cave for Dionysus more charming than any in Assyria and Lydia; for sprays of ivy grow luxuriantly about it and clusters of ivy berries and now grape-vines and stalks of thyrsus which spring up from the willing earth, so that some grow in the very fire. We must not be surprised if in honour of Dionysus the Fire is crowned by the Earth, for the Earth will take part with the Fire in the Bacchic revel and will make it possible for the revelers to take wine from springs and to draw milk from clods of earth or from a rock as from living breasts.
Listen to Pan, how he seems to be hymning Dionysus on the crests of Cithaeron, as he dances an Evian fling. And Cithaeron in the form of a man laments the woes soon to occur on his slopes, and he wears an ivy crown aslant on his head – for he accepts the crown most unwillingly – and Megaera causes a fir to shoot up beside him and brings to light a spring of water, in token, I fancy, of the blood of Actaeon and of Pentheus.
1.15 ARIADNE
That Theseus treated Ariadne unjustly – though some say not with unjust intent, but under the compulsion of Dionysus – when he abandoned her while asleep on the island of Dia, you must have heard from your nurse; for those women are skilled in telling such tales and they weep over them whenever they will.
I do not need to say that it is Theseus you see there on the ship and Dionysus yonder on the land, nor will I assume you to be ignorant and call your attention to the woman on the rocks, lying there in gentle slumber. Nor yet is it enough to praise the painter for things for which someone else too might be praised; for it is easy for anyone to paint Ariadne as beautiful and Theseus as beautiful; and there are countless characteristics of Dionysus for those who wish to represent him in painting or sculpture, by depicting which even approximately the artist has captured the god.
For instance, the ivy clusters forming a crown are the clear mark of Dionysus, even if the workmanship is poor; and a horn just springing from the temples reveals Dionysus, and a leopard, though but just visible, is a symbol of the god; but this Dionysus the painter has characterized by love alone. Flowered garments and thyrsi and fawn-skins have been cast aside as out of place for the moment, and the Bacchantes are not clashing their cymbals now, nor are the Satyrs playing the flute, nay, even Pan checks his wild dance that he may not disturb the maiden’s sleep. Having arrayed himself in fine purple and wreathed his head with roses, Dionysus comes to the side of Ariadne, “drunk with love” as the Teian poet says of those who are overmastered by love.
As for Theseus, he is indeed in love, but with the smoke rising from Athens, and he no longer knows Ariadne, and never knew her, and I am sure that he has even forgotten the labyrinth and could not tell on what possible errand he sailed to Crete, so singly is his gaze fixed on what lies ahead of his prow.
And look at Ariadne, or rather at her sleep; for her bosom is bare to the waist, and her neck is bent back and her delicate throat, and all her right armpit is visible, but the left hand rests on her mantle that a gust of wind may not expose her. How fair a sight, Dionysus, and how sweet her breath! Whether its fragrance is of apples or of grapes, you can tell after you have kissed her!
1.16. PASIPHAË
Pasiphaë is in love with the bull and begs Daedalus to devise some lure for the creature; and he is fashioning a hollow cow like a cow of the herd to which the bull is accustomed. What their union brought forth is shown by the form of the Minotaur, strangely composite in its nature.
Their union is not depicted here, but this is the workshop of Daedalus; and about it are statues, some with forms blocked out, others in a quite complete state in that they are already stepping forward and give promise of walking about. Before the time of Daedalus, you know, the art of making statues had not yet conceived such a thing.
Daedalus himself is of the Attic type in that his face suggests great wisdom and that the look of the eye is so intelligent; and his very dress also follows the Attic style; for he wears this dull coarse mantle and also he is painted without sandals, in a manner peculiarly affected by the Athenians.
He sits before the framework of the cow and he uses Cupids [Erotes] as his assistants in the device so as to connect with it something of Aphrodite. Of the Cupids, my boy, those are visible who turn the drill, and those by Zeus that smooth with the adze portions of the cow which are not yet accurately finished, and those that measure off the symmetrical proportions on which craftsmanship depends. But the Cupids that work with the saw surpass all conception and all skill in drawing and colour. For look! The saw has attacked the wood and is already passing through it, and these Cupids keep it going, one on the ground, another on the staging, both straightening up and bending forward in turn. Let us consider this movement to be alternate; one has bent low as if about to rise up, his companion has risen erect as if about to bend over; the one on the ground draws his breath into his chest, and the one who is aloft fills his lungs down to his belly as he presses both hands down on the saw.
Pasiphaë outside the workshop in the cattlefold gazes on the bull, thinking to draw him to her by her beauty and by her robe, which is divinely resplendent and more beautiful than any rainbow. She has a helpless look – for she knows what the creature is that she loves – and she is eager to embrace it, but takes no notice of her and gazes at its own cow.
The bull is depicting with proud mien, the leader of the herd, with splendid horns, white, already experienced in love, its dewlap low and its neck massive, and it gazes fondly at the cow; but the cow in the herd, ranging free and all white but for a black head, disdains the bull. For its purpose suggests a leap, as of a girl who avoids the importunity of a lover.
https://www.theoi.com/Text/PhilostratusElder1B.html#16
This passage continues with Hippodameia, but in our next passage we return to Athens on The Ship of Theseus.
Greek and Roman mythology from the original sources, from Atlantis to Hercules to the Trojan War. Email: LegendaryPassages@gmail.com
Monday, December 16, 2019
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
LP0113 cat64b Ariadne's Curse
Legendary Passages #0113,
The Poems of Catullus,
Part II of Poem [64],
Ariadne's Curse.
Previously, Catullus described a couch covered with images of Theseus and Ariadne. Here the passage continues with her lamentations, her curse, and her rescue, of sorts.
Ariadne had hoped for marriage, would have endured slavery, but being left to die alone was the ultimate betrayal by Theseus. She insulted his parentage, complained to the uncaring wind about the evilness of men, and despaired that even if she escaped off the island, she had no where else to go. Her love spurned, her fate sealed, as her final act she cursed Theseus to die alone.
Meanwhile, his mind in a haze, Theseus dimly recalled his father Aegeus' parting words to him. Aegeus believed that Theseus would die as had all the youths before him, thus the tribute ship was given a black sail, the color of grief and death. Should a miracle occur, the Minotaur slain and he survive, Theseus was told to hoist a white sail, to let his father know that he yet lived.
The final section has Ariadne rescued by the god Dionysus, here called Bacchus, and his strange entourage of followers and satyrs. It is hinted that Bacchus himself compelled Theseus to leave, and the god of liberation declared his own love for Ariadne. Bacchus throws a massive party for their wedding, she became a goddess, and received her happily ever after.
Ariadne's Curse,
a Legendary Passage from,
A. S. Kline translating,
Gaius Valerius Catullus,
Part II of Poem [64].
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789
But what should I relate, digressing further
from my poem’s theme: the girl, abandoning
her father’s sight, her sisters’ embraces, and lastly
her mother’s, she wretched at her lost daughter’s joy
in preferring the sweet love of Theseus to all this:
or her being carried by ship to Naxos’s foaming shore,
or her consort with uncaring heart vanishing,
she conquered, her eyes softening in sleep?
Often loud shrieks cried the frenzy in her ardent heart
poured out from the depths of her breast,
and then she would climb the steep cliffs in her grief,
where the vast sea-surge stretches out to the view,
then run against the waves into the salt tremor
holding her soft clothes above her naked calves,
and call out mournfully this last complaint,
a frozen sob issuing from her wet face:
‘False Theseus, is this why you take me from my father’s land,
faithless man, to abandon me on a desert shore?
Is this how you vanish, heedless of the god’s power,
ah, uncaring, bearing home your accursed perjuries?
Nothing could alter the measure of your cruel mind?
No mercy was near to you, inexorable man,
that you might take pity on my heart?
Yet once you made promises to me in that flattering voice,
you told me to hope, not for this misery
but for joyful marriage, the longed-for wedding songs,
all in vain, dispersed on the airy breezes.
Now, no woman should believe a man’s pledges,
or believe there’s any truth in a man’s words:
when their minds are intent on their desire,
they have no fear of oaths, don’t spare their promises:
but as soon as the lust of their eager mind is slaked
they fear no words, they care nothing for perjury.
Surely I rescued you from the midst of the tempest
of fate, and more, I gave up my half-brother,
whom I abandoned to you with treachery at the end.
For that I’m left to be torn apart by beasts, and a prey
to sea-birds, unburied, when dead, in the scattered earth.
What lioness whelped you under a desert rock,
what sea conceived and spat you from foaming waves,
what Syrtis, what fierce Scylla, what vast Charybdis,
you who return me this, for the gift of your sweet life?
If marriage with me was not in your heart,
because you feared your old father’s cruel precepts,
you could still have led me back to your house,
where I would have served you, a slave happy in her task,
washing your beautiful feet in clear water,
covering your bed with the purple fabric.
But why complain to the uncaring wind in vain?
It is beyond evil, and without senses, unable
to hear what is said, without voice to reply.
It is already turning now towards mid-ocean,
and nothing human appears in this waste of weed.
So cruel chance taunts me in my last moments,
even depriving my ears of my own lament.
All-powerful Jupiter, if only the Athenian ships
had not touched the shores of Cnossos, from the start,
carrying their fatal cargo for the ungovernable bull,
a faithless captain mooring his ropes to Crete,
an evil guest, hiding a cruel purpose under a handsome
appearance, finding rest in our halls!
Now where can I return? What desperate hope
depend on? Shall I seek out the slopes of Ida?
But the cruel sea with its divisive depths
of water separates me from them.
Or shall I hope for my father’s help? Did I not leave him,
to follow a man stained with my brother’s blood?
Or should I trust in a husband’s love to console me?
Who hardly bends slow oars in running from me?
More, I’m alive on a lonely island without shelter,
and no escape seen from the encircling ocean waves.
No way to fly, no hope: all is mute,
all is deserted, all speaks of ruin.
Yet still my eyes do not droop in death,
not till my senses have left my weary body,
till true justice is handed down by the gods,
and the divine help I pray for in my last hour.
So you Eumenides who punish by avenging
the crimes of men, your foreheads crowned
with snaky hair, bearing anger in your breath,
here, here, come to me, listen to my complaints,
that I, wretched alas, force, weakened, burning,
out of the marrow of my bones, blind with mad rage.
Since these truths are born in the depths of my breast,
you won’t allow my lament to pass you by,
but as Theseus left me alone, through his intent,
goddesses, by that will, pursue him and his with murder.’
When these words had poured from her sad breast,
the troubled girl praying for cruel actions,
the chief of the gods nodded with unconquerable will:
at which the earth and the cruel sea trembled
and the glittering stars shook in the heavens.
Now Theseus’s mind was filled with a dark mist
and all the instructions he had held fixed in memory
before this, were erased from his thoughts,
failing to raise the sweet signal to his mourning father,
when the harbour of Athens safely came in sight.
For they say that when Aegeus parted from his son,
as the goddess’s ship left the city, he yielded him
to the wind’s embrace with these words:
‘Son, more dear to me than my long life,
son, whom I abandoned through chance uncertainty,
lately returned to me in the last days of my old age,
since my fate and your fierce virtue tear you away
from me, against my will, whose failing eyes
are not yet sated with my dear son’s face,
I don’t send you off happily with joyful heart,
or allow you to carry flags of good fortune,
but start with the many sorrows in my mind,
marring my white hairs with earth and sprinkled ashes,
then hang unfinished canvas from the wandering mast,
so the darkened sail of gloomy Spanish flax
might speak the grief and passion in my mind.
But if the one who dwells in sacred Iton, who promised
to defend the people and city of Erectheus, allows you
to wet your hand with the blood of the bull,
then make sure this command is done, buried in your
remembering heart, not to be erased by time:
that as soon as you set eyes on our hills,
strip the dark fabric fully from the yards,
and hoist white sails with your twisted ropes,
so that seeing them from the first, I’ll know joy
in my glad heart, when a happy time reveals your return.’
These words to Theseus, once held constantly in mind,
vanished like clouds of snow struck by a blast of wind
on the summits of high mountains.
But when his father, searching the view from the citadel’s height,
endless tears flooding his anxious eyes,
first saw the sails of dark fabric,
he threw himself head first from the height of the cliff,
believing Theseus lost to inexorable fate.
So fierce Theseus entered the palace in mourning
for his father’s death, and knew the same grief of mind
that he had caused neglected Ariadne,
she who was gazing then where his ship had vanished
pondering the many cares in her wounded heart.
But bright Bacchus hurries from elsewhere
with his chorus of Satyrs and Silenes from Nysa,
seeking you, Ariadne, burning with love for you.
In rapture his Bacchantes raved madly, crazed in mind,
with cries of ‘euhoe’ and tossing heads,
some brandished the thyrsus with hidden tip,
some flourished the torn limbs of bullocks,
some wreathed themselves with twining snakes,
some celebrated the secret rites of the hollow box,
rights they wished the profane to hear in vain:
others beat the drums with the flat of their hands,
or raised a clear ringing from rounded cymbals:
they blew endless strident calls on the horns
and the barbarous flute shrilled with fearful tunes.
Such the splendid workings of figured tapestry
covering the sacred couch its cloth embraced.
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789
This passage continues with the wedding of Peleus & Thetis, but in our next episode we hear the stories of Pasiphae & Semele.
The Poems of Catullus,
Part II of Poem [64],
Ariadne's Curse.
Previously, Catullus described a couch covered with images of Theseus and Ariadne. Here the passage continues with her lamentations, her curse, and her rescue, of sorts.
Ariadne had hoped for marriage, would have endured slavery, but being left to die alone was the ultimate betrayal by Theseus. She insulted his parentage, complained to the uncaring wind about the evilness of men, and despaired that even if she escaped off the island, she had no where else to go. Her love spurned, her fate sealed, as her final act she cursed Theseus to die alone.
Meanwhile, his mind in a haze, Theseus dimly recalled his father Aegeus' parting words to him. Aegeus believed that Theseus would die as had all the youths before him, thus the tribute ship was given a black sail, the color of grief and death. Should a miracle occur, the Minotaur slain and he survive, Theseus was told to hoist a white sail, to let his father know that he yet lived.
The final section has Ariadne rescued by the god Dionysus, here called Bacchus, and his strange entourage of followers and satyrs. It is hinted that Bacchus himself compelled Theseus to leave, and the god of liberation declared his own love for Ariadne. Bacchus throws a massive party for their wedding, she became a goddess, and received her happily ever after.
Ariadne's Curse,
a Legendary Passage from,
A. S. Kline translating,
Gaius Valerius Catullus,
Part II of Poem [64].
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789
But what should I relate, digressing further
from my poem’s theme: the girl, abandoning
her father’s sight, her sisters’ embraces, and lastly
her mother’s, she wretched at her lost daughter’s joy
in preferring the sweet love of Theseus to all this:
or her being carried by ship to Naxos’s foaming shore,
or her consort with uncaring heart vanishing,
she conquered, her eyes softening in sleep?
Often loud shrieks cried the frenzy in her ardent heart
poured out from the depths of her breast,
and then she would climb the steep cliffs in her grief,
where the vast sea-surge stretches out to the view,
then run against the waves into the salt tremor
holding her soft clothes above her naked calves,
and call out mournfully this last complaint,
a frozen sob issuing from her wet face:
‘False Theseus, is this why you take me from my father’s land,
faithless man, to abandon me on a desert shore?
Is this how you vanish, heedless of the god’s power,
ah, uncaring, bearing home your accursed perjuries?
Nothing could alter the measure of your cruel mind?
No mercy was near to you, inexorable man,
that you might take pity on my heart?
Yet once you made promises to me in that flattering voice,
you told me to hope, not for this misery
but for joyful marriage, the longed-for wedding songs,
all in vain, dispersed on the airy breezes.
Now, no woman should believe a man’s pledges,
or believe there’s any truth in a man’s words:
when their minds are intent on their desire,
they have no fear of oaths, don’t spare their promises:
but as soon as the lust of their eager mind is slaked
they fear no words, they care nothing for perjury.
Surely I rescued you from the midst of the tempest
of fate, and more, I gave up my half-brother,
whom I abandoned to you with treachery at the end.
For that I’m left to be torn apart by beasts, and a prey
to sea-birds, unburied, when dead, in the scattered earth.
What lioness whelped you under a desert rock,
what sea conceived and spat you from foaming waves,
what Syrtis, what fierce Scylla, what vast Charybdis,
you who return me this, for the gift of your sweet life?
If marriage with me was not in your heart,
because you feared your old father’s cruel precepts,
you could still have led me back to your house,
where I would have served you, a slave happy in her task,
washing your beautiful feet in clear water,
covering your bed with the purple fabric.
But why complain to the uncaring wind in vain?
It is beyond evil, and without senses, unable
to hear what is said, without voice to reply.
It is already turning now towards mid-ocean,
and nothing human appears in this waste of weed.
So cruel chance taunts me in my last moments,
even depriving my ears of my own lament.
All-powerful Jupiter, if only the Athenian ships
had not touched the shores of Cnossos, from the start,
carrying their fatal cargo for the ungovernable bull,
a faithless captain mooring his ropes to Crete,
an evil guest, hiding a cruel purpose under a handsome
appearance, finding rest in our halls!
Now where can I return? What desperate hope
depend on? Shall I seek out the slopes of Ida?
But the cruel sea with its divisive depths
of water separates me from them.
Or shall I hope for my father’s help? Did I not leave him,
to follow a man stained with my brother’s blood?
Or should I trust in a husband’s love to console me?
Who hardly bends slow oars in running from me?
More, I’m alive on a lonely island without shelter,
and no escape seen from the encircling ocean waves.
No way to fly, no hope: all is mute,
all is deserted, all speaks of ruin.
Yet still my eyes do not droop in death,
not till my senses have left my weary body,
till true justice is handed down by the gods,
and the divine help I pray for in my last hour.
So you Eumenides who punish by avenging
the crimes of men, your foreheads crowned
with snaky hair, bearing anger in your breath,
here, here, come to me, listen to my complaints,
that I, wretched alas, force, weakened, burning,
out of the marrow of my bones, blind with mad rage.
Since these truths are born in the depths of my breast,
you won’t allow my lament to pass you by,
but as Theseus left me alone, through his intent,
goddesses, by that will, pursue him and his with murder.’
When these words had poured from her sad breast,
the troubled girl praying for cruel actions,
the chief of the gods nodded with unconquerable will:
at which the earth and the cruel sea trembled
and the glittering stars shook in the heavens.
Now Theseus’s mind was filled with a dark mist
and all the instructions he had held fixed in memory
before this, were erased from his thoughts,
failing to raise the sweet signal to his mourning father,
when the harbour of Athens safely came in sight.
For they say that when Aegeus parted from his son,
as the goddess’s ship left the city, he yielded him
to the wind’s embrace with these words:
‘Son, more dear to me than my long life,
son, whom I abandoned through chance uncertainty,
lately returned to me in the last days of my old age,
since my fate and your fierce virtue tear you away
from me, against my will, whose failing eyes
are not yet sated with my dear son’s face,
I don’t send you off happily with joyful heart,
or allow you to carry flags of good fortune,
but start with the many sorrows in my mind,
marring my white hairs with earth and sprinkled ashes,
then hang unfinished canvas from the wandering mast,
so the darkened sail of gloomy Spanish flax
might speak the grief and passion in my mind.
But if the one who dwells in sacred Iton, who promised
to defend the people and city of Erectheus, allows you
to wet your hand with the blood of the bull,
then make sure this command is done, buried in your
remembering heart, not to be erased by time:
that as soon as you set eyes on our hills,
strip the dark fabric fully from the yards,
and hoist white sails with your twisted ropes,
so that seeing them from the first, I’ll know joy
in my glad heart, when a happy time reveals your return.’
These words to Theseus, once held constantly in mind,
vanished like clouds of snow struck by a blast of wind
on the summits of high mountains.
But when his father, searching the view from the citadel’s height,
endless tears flooding his anxious eyes,
first saw the sails of dark fabric,
he threw himself head first from the height of the cliff,
believing Theseus lost to inexorable fate.
So fierce Theseus entered the palace in mourning
for his father’s death, and knew the same grief of mind
that he had caused neglected Ariadne,
she who was gazing then where his ship had vanished
pondering the many cares in her wounded heart.
But bright Bacchus hurries from elsewhere
with his chorus of Satyrs and Silenes from Nysa,
seeking you, Ariadne, burning with love for you.
In rapture his Bacchantes raved madly, crazed in mind,
with cries of ‘euhoe’ and tossing heads,
some brandished the thyrsus with hidden tip,
some flourished the torn limbs of bullocks,
some wreathed themselves with twining snakes,
some celebrated the secret rites of the hollow box,
rights they wished the profane to hear in vain:
others beat the drums with the flat of their hands,
or raised a clear ringing from rounded cymbals:
they blew endless strident calls on the horns
and the barbarous flute shrilled with fearful tunes.
Such the splendid workings of figured tapestry
covering the sacred couch its cloth embraced.
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789
This passage continues with the wedding of Peleus & Thetis, but in our next episode we hear the stories of Pasiphae & Semele.
Thursday, December 5, 2019
LP0112 cat64a Of the Argonauts & Ariadne
Legendary Passages #0112,
The Poems of Catullus,
Part I of Poem [64],
Of the Argonauts & Ariadne.
Previously, Princess Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos. In this passage we revisit how she came to be stranded there.
Now the structure of this poem is quite odd. It begins with the voyage of the Argonauts, where Prince Peleus fell in love the mermaid goddess Thetis, and Jupiter, King of the Gods, approved of the marriage. The people of Pelion Thessaly abandoned farm and field and gathered at the palace for the wedding of the hero and goddess.
It is here that Catullus describes a magnificent purple and ivory couch, decorated with images of an unkempt Ariadne, standing half-dressed on shores edge, watching Theseus row off without her.
Then as an aside, a summary of how they came to meet. Her brother Androgeus slain, Athens plagued by the gods, and the young boys and girls due to Minos as tribute, for which Theseus volunteered. It was love at first sight for Ariadne; she gave him the thread to escape from the Labyrinth, so that they could live together, happily ever after. But fate had other plans for them....
Of the Argonauts & Ariadne.
a Legendary Passage from,
A. S. Kline translating,
Gaius Valerius Catullus,
Part I of Poem [64].
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789
64. Of the Argonauts and an Epithalamium for Peleus and Thetis
Once they say pine-trees born on the heights of Pelion
floated through Neptune’s clear waves,
to the River Phasis and Aeetes’s borders,
with chosen men, oaks of the Argive people,
hoping to steal the Golden Fleece of Colchis
daring to course the salt deeps in their swift ship,
sweeping the blue waters with fir-wood oars.
The goddess herself who guards the heights of the city,
who joined the curving fabric to pinewood keel,
made their ship speed onwards with light winds.
That vessel was first to explore the unknown sea:
so, as she ploughed the windblown waters with her prow,
and whitened the churning waves with foam from the oars,
the Nereids lifted themselves from the dazzling white
depths of the sea, amazed at this wonder of ocean.
In those, and other days, mortal eyes saw the sea-nymphs
raise themselves, bodies all naked, as far as their nipples,
from the white depths.
Then Peleus, they say, was inflamed with love of Thetis,
then Thetis did not despise marriage with a mortal,
then Jupiter himself agreed to Thetis’s marriage.
O heroes, born in a chosen age, hail, godlike race!
O offspring of a blessed mother, hail once more.
Often I’ll address you, in my song.
And I address you, so blessed in your fortunate marriage,
chief of Pelian Thessaly, to whom Jupiter himself
creator of gods, yielded his beloved:
did not Thetis possess you, loveliest of Nereids?
Did not Tethys allow you to lead off her grand-daughter,
and Oceanus, who embraces the whole world with sea?
When at the time appointed the longed-for flames arise,
all of Thessaly crowds together to the palace,
the halls are filled with a joyful assembly:
they bring gifts with them, declaring their joy in their looks.
Cieros is deserted: they leave Pthiotic Tempe,
Crannon’s houses, and Larissa’s walls,
they gather in Pharsalia, crowd under Pharsalia’s roofs.
No one farms the fields, the necks of bullocks soften,
nor does the curved hoe clear beneath the vines,
nor does the ox drag earth outward with the blade,
nor does the sickle thin the shade of leafy trees,
coarse rust attacks the neglected plough.
But the palace gleams bright with gold and silver
through all the rich receding halls.
The ivory chairs shine, cups glisten on tables,
the whole palace gladdened with splendour of royal wealth.
In the midst of the palace a sacred couch, truly joyful
for the marriage of the goddess, gleaming with Indian ivory,
stained with the red dyes won from purple murex.
The cloth depicts in ancient forms, with marvellous art,
in all their variety, the excellence of gods and men.
Here are seen the wave-echoing shores of Naxos,
Theseus, aboard his ship, vanishing swiftly, watched
by Ariadne, ungovernable passion in her heart,
not yet believing that she sees what she does see,
still only just awoken from deceptive sleep,
finding herself abandoned wretchedly to empty sands.
But uncaring the hero fleeing strikes the deep with his oars,
casting his vain promises to the stormy winds.
The Minoan girl goes on gazing at the distance,
with mournful eyes, like the statue of a Bacchante,
gazes, alas, and swells with great waves of sorrow,
no longer does the fine turban remain on her golden hair,
no longer is she hidden by her lightly-concealing dress,
no longer does the shapely band hold her milk-white breasts
all of it scattered, slipping entirely from her body,
plays about her feet in the salt flood.
But, not caring now for turban or flowing dress, the lost girl
gazed towards you, Theseus, with all her heart, spirit, mind.
Wretched thing, for whom bright Venus reserved the thorny
cares of constant mourning in your heart,
from that time when it suited warlike Theseus,
leaving the curving shores of Piraeus,
to reach the Cretan regions of the unbending king.
For then forced by cruel plague, they say,
as punishment, to absolve the murder of Androgeos
ten chosen young men of Athens and ten unmarried girls
used to be given together as sacrifice to the Minotaur.
With which evil the narrow walls were troubled until
Theseus chose to offer himself for his dear Athens
rather than such Athenian dead be carried un-dead to Crete.
And so in a swift ship and with gentle breezes
he came to great Minos and his proud halls.
As soon as the royal girl cast her eye on him with desire,
she whom the chaste bed nourished, breathing
sweet perfumes in her mother’s gentle embrace,
even as Eurotas’s streams surround a myrtle
that sheds its varied colours on the spring breeze,
she did not turn her blazing eyes away from him,
till she conceived a flame through her whole body
that burned utterly to the depths of her bones.
Ah sadly the Boy incites inexorable passion
in chaste hearts, he who mixes joy and pains for mortals,
and she who rules Golgos and leafy Idalia,
even she, who shakes the mind of a smitten girl,
often sighing for a blonde-haired stranger!
How many fears the girl suffers in her weak heart!
How often she grows pallid: more so than pale gold.
As Theseus went off eager to fight the savage monster
either death approached or fame’s reward!
Promising small gifts, not unwelcome or in vain,
she made her prayers to the gods with closed lips.
Now as a storm uproots a quivering branch of oak,
or a cone-bearing pine with resinous bark, on the heights
of Mount Taurus, twisting its unconquered strength
in the wind (it falls headlong, far off, plucked out
by the roots, shattering anything and everything in its way)
so Theseus upended the conquered body of the beast
its useless horns overthrown, emptied of breath.
Then he turned back, unharmed, to great glory,
guided by the wandering track of fine thread,
so that his exit from the fickle labyrinth of the palace
would not be prevented by some unnoticed error.
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789
This passage continues next episode with the homecoming of Theseus, and Ariadne's Curse.
The Poems of Catullus,
Part I of Poem [64],
Of the Argonauts & Ariadne.
Previously, Princess Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos. In this passage we revisit how she came to be stranded there.
Now the structure of this poem is quite odd. It begins with the voyage of the Argonauts, where Prince Peleus fell in love the mermaid goddess Thetis, and Jupiter, King of the Gods, approved of the marriage. The people of Pelion Thessaly abandoned farm and field and gathered at the palace for the wedding of the hero and goddess.
It is here that Catullus describes a magnificent purple and ivory couch, decorated with images of an unkempt Ariadne, standing half-dressed on shores edge, watching Theseus row off without her.
Then as an aside, a summary of how they came to meet. Her brother Androgeus slain, Athens plagued by the gods, and the young boys and girls due to Minos as tribute, for which Theseus volunteered. It was love at first sight for Ariadne; she gave him the thread to escape from the Labyrinth, so that they could live together, happily ever after. But fate had other plans for them....
Of the Argonauts & Ariadne.
a Legendary Passage from,
A. S. Kline translating,
Gaius Valerius Catullus,
Part I of Poem [64].
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789
64. Of the Argonauts and an Epithalamium for Peleus and Thetis
Once they say pine-trees born on the heights of Pelion
floated through Neptune’s clear waves,
to the River Phasis and Aeetes’s borders,
with chosen men, oaks of the Argive people,
hoping to steal the Golden Fleece of Colchis
daring to course the salt deeps in their swift ship,
sweeping the blue waters with fir-wood oars.
The goddess herself who guards the heights of the city,
who joined the curving fabric to pinewood keel,
made their ship speed onwards with light winds.
That vessel was first to explore the unknown sea:
so, as she ploughed the windblown waters with her prow,
and whitened the churning waves with foam from the oars,
the Nereids lifted themselves from the dazzling white
depths of the sea, amazed at this wonder of ocean.
In those, and other days, mortal eyes saw the sea-nymphs
raise themselves, bodies all naked, as far as their nipples,
from the white depths.
Then Peleus, they say, was inflamed with love of Thetis,
then Thetis did not despise marriage with a mortal,
then Jupiter himself agreed to Thetis’s marriage.
O heroes, born in a chosen age, hail, godlike race!
O offspring of a blessed mother, hail once more.
Often I’ll address you, in my song.
And I address you, so blessed in your fortunate marriage,
chief of Pelian Thessaly, to whom Jupiter himself
creator of gods, yielded his beloved:
did not Thetis possess you, loveliest of Nereids?
Did not Tethys allow you to lead off her grand-daughter,
and Oceanus, who embraces the whole world with sea?
When at the time appointed the longed-for flames arise,
all of Thessaly crowds together to the palace,
the halls are filled with a joyful assembly:
they bring gifts with them, declaring their joy in their looks.
Cieros is deserted: they leave Pthiotic Tempe,
Crannon’s houses, and Larissa’s walls,
they gather in Pharsalia, crowd under Pharsalia’s roofs.
No one farms the fields, the necks of bullocks soften,
nor does the curved hoe clear beneath the vines,
nor does the ox drag earth outward with the blade,
nor does the sickle thin the shade of leafy trees,
coarse rust attacks the neglected plough.
But the palace gleams bright with gold and silver
through all the rich receding halls.
The ivory chairs shine, cups glisten on tables,
the whole palace gladdened with splendour of royal wealth.
In the midst of the palace a sacred couch, truly joyful
for the marriage of the goddess, gleaming with Indian ivory,
stained with the red dyes won from purple murex.
The cloth depicts in ancient forms, with marvellous art,
in all their variety, the excellence of gods and men.
Here are seen the wave-echoing shores of Naxos,
Theseus, aboard his ship, vanishing swiftly, watched
by Ariadne, ungovernable passion in her heart,
not yet believing that she sees what she does see,
still only just awoken from deceptive sleep,
finding herself abandoned wretchedly to empty sands.
But uncaring the hero fleeing strikes the deep with his oars,
casting his vain promises to the stormy winds.
The Minoan girl goes on gazing at the distance,
with mournful eyes, like the statue of a Bacchante,
gazes, alas, and swells with great waves of sorrow,
no longer does the fine turban remain on her golden hair,
no longer is she hidden by her lightly-concealing dress,
no longer does the shapely band hold her milk-white breasts
all of it scattered, slipping entirely from her body,
plays about her feet in the salt flood.
But, not caring now for turban or flowing dress, the lost girl
gazed towards you, Theseus, with all her heart, spirit, mind.
Wretched thing, for whom bright Venus reserved the thorny
cares of constant mourning in your heart,
from that time when it suited warlike Theseus,
leaving the curving shores of Piraeus,
to reach the Cretan regions of the unbending king.
For then forced by cruel plague, they say,
as punishment, to absolve the murder of Androgeos
ten chosen young men of Athens and ten unmarried girls
used to be given together as sacrifice to the Minotaur.
With which evil the narrow walls were troubled until
Theseus chose to offer himself for his dear Athens
rather than such Athenian dead be carried un-dead to Crete.
And so in a swift ship and with gentle breezes
he came to great Minos and his proud halls.
As soon as the royal girl cast her eye on him with desire,
she whom the chaste bed nourished, breathing
sweet perfumes in her mother’s gentle embrace,
even as Eurotas’s streams surround a myrtle
that sheds its varied colours on the spring breeze,
she did not turn her blazing eyes away from him,
till she conceived a flame through her whole body
that burned utterly to the depths of her bones.
Ah sadly the Boy incites inexorable passion
in chaste hearts, he who mixes joy and pains for mortals,
and she who rules Golgos and leafy Idalia,
even she, who shakes the mind of a smitten girl,
often sighing for a blonde-haired stranger!
How many fears the girl suffers in her weak heart!
How often she grows pallid: more so than pale gold.
As Theseus went off eager to fight the savage monster
either death approached or fame’s reward!
Promising small gifts, not unwelcome or in vain,
she made her prayers to the gods with closed lips.
Now as a storm uproots a quivering branch of oak,
or a cone-bearing pine with resinous bark, on the heights
of Mount Taurus, twisting its unconquered strength
in the wind (it falls headlong, far off, plucked out
by the roots, shattering anything and everything in its way)
so Theseus upended the conquered body of the beast
its useless horns overthrown, emptied of breath.
Then he turned back, unharmed, to great glory,
guided by the wandering track of fine thread,
so that his exit from the fickle labyrinth of the palace
would not be prevented by some unnoticed error.
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789
This passage continues next episode with the homecoming of Theseus, and Ariadne's Curse.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)