book II

II

The Story of Phaethon

The royal palace of the Sun rose high
On lofty columns, bright with flashing gold,
With bronze that glowed like fire, and ivory crowned
The gables, and the double folding-doors
Were radiant with silver. Manner there
Had conquered matter, for the artist Vulcan
Carved, in relief, the earth-encircling waters,
The wheel of earth, the overarching skies.
The sea holds blue-green gods, resounding Triton,
Proteus who changes always, and Aegaeon
Gripping the backs of whales, the sea-nymph Doris
And all her daughters, swimming, some, and others
Sitting on sea-wet rocks, their green hair drying,
And others riding fishes. All the sea-girls
Seem different, but alike, as sisters ought to.
And the land has men and cities, beasts and forests,
Rivers and nymphs and woodland gods. Above them
The image of the shining sky is fashioned,
Six of the zodiac symbols on the right,
Six on the left.

And here Clymene's son


[page 29]

Came climbing, up the stairway to the palace,
Entered the palace which might be his father's,
Turned toward the face that might have been his father's,
And stopped, far off; he could not bear that radiance.
Clothed in a robe of crimson, there was Phoebus
High on the throne, with brightest emeralds gleaming,
To left and right the Days, the Months, the Years,
The Centuries, stood, and the Hours, at even spaces,
Young Spring was there, wearing a crown of flowers,
And naked Summer, carrying sheaves of grain,
And Autumn, stained with trodden grapes, and Winter,
Icy, with hoary hair.

And from their center
The all-seeing Sun saw this young man, who trembled
At all the strangeness. "Phaethon," he said,
"What have you come here for, to this high dwelling?
What do you seek, O Phaethon, my son,
Undoubtedly my son?" And the boy answered:
"O common light of the great universe,
Phoebus, my father, if I have the right
To use that name, and my mother is not Iying
To hide some guilt with false pretence, my father,
Give me a proof, so people will believe me,
Know me for what I am, and let my mind
Be free from doubting!" As he spoke, the Sun-god
Put off his diadem of light, and called him
Closer and held him fast, and said, "My son,
You are worthy of acknowledgment; your mother
Has told no lies about your birth. To prove it,
To make you doubt the less, ask any favor,
Whatever you will; it surely will be granted,
I swear by Styx. I have never seen that river,
But no god takes his name in vain, so let him
Be witness of my promise."

As he ended,
Or even before, the boy asked for the chariot,


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Control, for one day, over the winged horses.
Too late to take the oath back, but the father
Repented having sworn it; over and over
He shook his shining head. "Your words," he said,
"Have made mine rash: could I take back the promise,
This is the only thing I would deny you.
So, let me try persuasion. What you want,
My son, is dangerous; you ask for power
Beyond your strength and years: your lot is mortal
But what you ask beyond the lot of mortals.
Poor ignorant boy, you ask for more than gods
Have any claim on. Each of them may do
Much as he will, but none of them has power,
With one exception, your father, to hold the reins
Riding that fiery car. Not even Jove,
Hurler of thunderbolts, could drive this chariot,
And who is greater than Jove? The road at first
Is steep, up-hill, and the horses hardly make it
With all their morning ardor fresh upon them.
Then it runs very high across mid-Heaven,
So very high that I myself am frightened
Sometimes, to see the world so far below me.
Last it descends as steeply as it rises,
Needing the tightest kind of rein: the goddess,
Tethys, who takes me to her ocean waters,
Has often feared for me in that downward plunging.
To make bad matters worse, the sky is always
Whirling with dizzy motion, and the stars
Wheel with its speed. I make my way against it,
I drive against the turning systems, safely,
But you--suppose you had my chariot, could you
Keep the wheels steady, fight the spin of the world?
Do you think there are cities there, and lovely woodlands,
And temples rich with gifts? No, no, my son!
That highway runs through every lurking danger,
Past fearful monsters. Even on the course,


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Even with no mistake at all, you must
Pass the Bull's lowered horns, the savage Archer,
The Lion, open-mouthed, the wicked Scorpion
Curving the sweep of his arms in one direction,
The Crab another. And it is not easy
To hold those horses, hot with fire, and snorting
>From mouth and nostrils. I can hardly hold them
When they warm up for the work and fight the bridle.
Beware, my son! I do not want to give you
The gift of death; there is time to change your prayer.
Of course you want the most convincing proof
I am your father. That I give you, surely,
By fearing as I do. I am proved a father
By a father's fear. Look at me! You see my face;
Would you could see my heart and all the cares
Held there for you, my son. Or look about you,
Ask something, anything, from all those riches
Of Heaven, earth, and ocean: you shall have it!
Only this one thing do not ask, I beg you;
A punishment, not a favor. Silly boy,
Why put those pleading arms around me? Doubt not,
It will be given, whatever you choose. I swore it.
But choose more wisely!"

So his warning ended,
And did no good, as Phaethon insisted
On what he first had asked, to drive the chariot.
All that the father could do was keep him waiting,
But he finally consented, led him down
To where the chariot stood, the work of Vulcan,
Axle and pole of gold, and tires of gold,
And spokes of silver, and along the yoke
Chrysolites shone, and every kind of jewel
Gave back the bright reflection. And the boy
Was marveling at the craftsmanship, when, look you,
Aurora, watcher of the rosy morning,
Opened the crimson portals and the courtways


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All full of roses, and the stars were gone,
Whom Lucifer, last of all to leave the heaven,
Marshalled along their way.

The Sun-god saw him,
Saw the world redden, and the moon's thin crescent
Vanish from sight, and bade the speedy Hours
To yoke the horses, and they did so, quickly,
Leading them from the lofty stalls, with fire
Breathed from the nostrils, and well-fed, on juices
Of rich ambrosial fodder. Then the harness
Was put in place, and the Sun-god, for protection,
Touched his son's face with holy medication,
Put on the radiant diadem, and sighed
>From his foreboding heart, and said: "At least,
My son, perhaps you can obey a father's warning:
Go easy on the whip, hard on the reins;
They need no urging, the trouble is, to hold them.
Do not cut straight through the five zones of Heaven:
The course runs on a slant, a middle pathway
Missing the north and south. Follow the wheel-tracks,
You will see them clearly. Sky and earth both need
Equal degrees of heat: too low, you burn
The one, too high the other. The middle is safest.
Beware, on the right, the writhing of the Serpent,
Beware, on the left, the dangerous sunken Altar:
Keep between both. The rest I leave to Fortune
To help you, and to give you, or I hope so,
Better direction than you give yourself.
And now, while I am talking, dewy night
Has reached her goal in the West. We cannot linger.
Our call is on us. Look! The dawn is glowing,
The shadows gone. Here, take the reins, and hold them,
Or better still--there still is time--be taking
My counsel, not my chariot. Let me light
The world, and you stand there, on solid ground,
And watch in safety."

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But while he was talking
The boy was in the car, and stood there proudly,
Holding the reins, all happiness, and thanking
His father for the gift he gave unwilling.
Meanwhile the horses, Pyrois, Eous,
Aethon, and Phlegon, filled the air with neighing,
Snorting, and pawing at their bars. And Tethys,
Ignorant of her grandson's fate, let fall
The barriers: they had their chance at Heaven,
The horses, now, and took it, and their hoofs
Cut through the clouds before them, and their wings
Bore them aloft, and they overtook the winds
That rose from the same east. But the weight was light,
Not such as they were used to, and the yoke
Without its usual pressure; so, as schooners,
Unballasted, careen and roll and yaw
Out of the proper course, so the bright chariot
Tosses and bounds, as if there were no driver.
It did not take the horses long to know it,
To run away, beyond control; the driver,
In panic, does not know in which direction
To turn the reins, does not know where the road is,
And even if he knew, he could do nothing
With those wild plunging animals. The Bear,
For the first time in all his life, grew hot
And tried, in vain, to seek forbidden oceans
For coolness, and the Serpent, near the pole,
Torpid and harmless with the chili upon him,
Burned into angry fury, and the Plow-Ox,
Clumsy and tame in the shafts of his heavy wagon,
Went dashing off in terror.

From the Heaven
The unhappy boy looked down. Far, far below him
He saw the lands, and he grew pale; his knees
Trembled beneath him, and the darkness came
Into his eyes from too much light. He wishes


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He had never touched those horses of his father.
To have learned his birth was nothing, to have gained
By pleading now seems worse than loss; he might be
The son of Merops, he would be even eager
To have them call him so. But he is borne
Like a ship before a gale, unsteered, unmastered,
Abandoned to the gods and useless praying.
What should he do? Much of the sky behind him,
Much more is still ahead. Imagination
Measures them both, and his eyes, at times, look forward
To the West he will not reach, again look back
Eastward, and he is dazed and stunned and dazzled,
And neither drops the reins or really holds them.
He does not know the horses' names. And terror
is doubled, tripled, as he sees around him
Strange figures in the sky and savage beasts,
The Scorpion, for instance, arms outreaching
In two half-circles, and the other members
Spread over infinite acres, and black poison
Stinking and rank, and the threatening curved stinger.
Out of his senses, with cold fear upon him,
Phaethon dropped the reins.

And when the horses
Feel them across their backs, and none to check them,
Bolting, they charge the air of unknown regions,
Wherever impulse hurls them, lawless, crashing
Against high stars; they keep the chariot bounding
Through pathless ways, now high, now low, toward Heaven
Or plunging sheer toward earth. The Moon, in wonder,
Watches her brother's horses running lower
Than her own steeds. The scorched clouds smoke. The
mountains
Of earth catch fire, the prairies crack, the rivers
Dry up, the meadows are white-hot, the trees,
The leaves, burn to a crisp, the crops are tinder.
I grieve at minor losses. The great cities


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Perish, and their great walls; and nations perish
With all their people: everything is ashes.
The woods and mountains burn, Athos and Taurus,
Tmolus and Oete; all the springs of Ida
Dry up, and Helicon, home of the Muses,
Haemus and Aetna blaze, twin-peaked Parnassus,
And Eryx, Cynthus, Othrys. The snow is gone
>From Rhodope at last; Dindyma, Mimas,
Mycale, burn, and holiest Cithaeron.
The cold cannot save Scythia, whose landmark,
Caucasus, burns, and Ossa burns, and Pindus,
And Mount Olympus, greater than both together,
The Alps, the cloud-topped Apennines, are burning.

And Phaethon sees the earth on fire; he cannot
Endure this heat, the blast of some great furnace.
Under his feet he feels the chariot glowing
White-hot; he cannot bear the sparks, the ashes,
The soot, the smoke, the blindness. He is going
Somewhere, that much he knows, but where he is
He does not know. They have their way, the horses.

And that was when, or so men think, the people
Of Africa turned black, since the blood was driven
By that fierce heat to the surface of their bodies,
And Libya was desert, and the nymphs
Mourned for their pools and fountains. And the rivers,
Wide though they might have been, had no more safety:
The Don was smoking, and the Erymanthus,
And Xanthus, which would know a second burning
In years to come, the serpentine Maeander,
Yellow Lycormas, Thracian Melas, perish,
And Sparta sees Eurotas burn: Orontes,
Thermodon, Danube, Bablyon's Euphrates,
>From Ganges to the golden sands of Tagus,
All burning, burning: the Maeonian swans


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Whose melodies were heard along Cayster
Were heard no more. And the Nile fled in terror
And hid its head in earth, and it stays hidden,
No man to-day knows where. The seven mouths
Are empty, filled with dust, seven dry channels.
Hebrus and Strymon dry up, and the Western rivers,.
The Po, the Rhine, the Rhone, the very Tiber
Promised dominion over all the world.
The earth gapes open and the light goes down
Deep to the underworld, whose king and queen
Blink in their terror of it. Even the ocean
Shrinks to a plain of sand; the hidden mountains
Emerge to join the Cyclades; the dolphins
Dare leap and curve in the high air no longer;
The fish dive deep, and the dead seals are floating,
White-bellied, on the surface. The story has it
That Nereus and Doris and their daughters
Found even their deep-sea caverns hot and stifling.
Neptune, with scowling countenance, dared lift
His arms, three times, above the waves; three times
He could not bear the fiery air.

And Earth,
Our mother, circled by the ocean,
Amid the waters and the shrinking fountains
Contracting into her darkness, parched by heat,
Raised up her stifled face, and put a hand
To shield her forehead, and her trembling made
Everything shudder. She sank down again,
Lower than ever before, and then she spoke:
"O greatest of the gods, if this is pleasing
And I deserve it, why hold back the lightning?
If I must die by fire, then let me perish
By fire you send, and lighten the destruction
Because you are its author. I can hardly"
--The smoke was suffocating--"open my lips to speak;
Look at my hair, burned crisp; look at the ashes


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In eyes and face! Is this what I am given
For being fruitful, dutiful? for bearing
The wounds of harrow and plowshare, year on year?
Is this my due reward for giving fodder
To flocks and herds, and corn to men, and incense
For the gods' altars? Maybe I deserve it,
But what about the ocean, and your brother?
Neptune's allotted waters ebb and vanish,
Farther and farther from Heaven. Well; never mind him,
Never mind me, but have a little pity
For your own skies. Look! On both sides the poles
Are smoking. If that fire corrupts the heavens
Your palaces will topple. Even Atlas
Strains and can hardly bear his white-hot burden.
If sea and land and sky are lost, we are hurled
Into the ancient chaos. Save us, father;
Preserve this residue; take thought, take counsel
For the sum of things."

The Earth could say no more,
So fierce the smothering heat, and she sank deeper
Into the caverns nearer the world below us.
But the almighty father called for witness
All of the gods, and most of all the Sun-god
Who had given his son the chariot, that all things
Would perish if he did not help, and quickly.
And then he sought the citadel of Heaven,
Its very peak and pinnacle, whence he spreads
Clouds over the world and sets his thunder rolling
And hurls his lightning-bolts. But now he has
No clouds to veil the earth with, and no rainfall:
But he makes thunder sound, and poises lightning
Head-high in his right hand, and flings it from him,
Striking the charioteer, and the bolt smashes
His car, his life. So fire extinguished fire,
And the mad horses leapt, tore loose the yoke
Broke from the broken reins. The axle lies


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Far from the pole, the spokes and wheels are shattered,
The wreckage scatters far.

And Phaethon,
His ruddy hair on fire, falls streaming down
The long trail of the air. A star, sometimes,
Falls from clear heaven, so, or seems to fall.
And far from home, a river-god receives him,
Bathes his poor burning face, and the Western Naiads
Give burial to the broken body, smoking
With the fire of that forked bolt, and on the stone
They carve an epitaph:

Here Phaethon lies,
Who drove his father's chariot: if he did not
Hold it, at least he fell in splendid daring.
And his poor father, sick at heart, refused
To show his countenance, and one whole day,
Or so men say, went by without the sun.
The fire supplied what light there was--how useful!
And the boy's mother, after she had said
Whatever could be said on such occasions,
Out of her mind with grief, tearing her bosom,
Went wandering over the world, to find the body,
Or anyway the bones, and found the bones,
At last, but buried by a foreign river.
She threw herself beside the tomb, her tears
Fell on the letters graven in the marble
Where she could read his name, and her arms fondled
The gravestone to her breast. And all her daughters
Joined in her useless ritual of sorrow.
By night and day they call upon their brother
Who will not hear them, ever, and they lie there,
Before the sepulchre, and the moon filled
And waned, and filled, four times, and in their custom
(By now it was a custom) still they sorrowed,
Wanted to fling herself to earth, and could not
Till one day Phaethusa, the oldest daughter,


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Because, she made complaint, her feet had stiffened;
Lampetia, the fair one, tried to help her
And could not move at all, suddenly rooted
In earth; another sister, tearing her hair,
Pulled leaves away, and another, and another,
Found shins and ankles were wood, and arms were branches,
And as they looked at these, in grief and wonder,
Bark closed around their loins, their breasts, their shoulders,
Their hands, but still their lips kept calling Mother!
What could Clymene do but follow impulse,
Run every which way, try to kiss each daughter,
Tear loose the bark, break off the little twigs
At the fingers' ends? But the broken twigs were bleeding,
And each one, wounded, cried, "Don't hurt me, mother!
That is no tree you are tearing, but my body.
Farewell, farewell!" And then the bark closed over
The last words each one said, but still their tears
Kept flowing down, till, hardened in the sunlight,
They turned to amber, and the shining river
Receives them, bears them on, to be the jewels
Of Roman brides, hereafter.

Cygnus saw it,
The son of Sthenelus, a distant cousin
Of Phaethon, but closer bound in spirit,
And he too mourned, and left behind his kingdom,
Liguria, which he ruled with her great cities,
And went lamenting by green banks and waters,
And through the woods, with the new young trees,
the sisters,
And as he went, his voice grew thinner, shriller,
White feathers hid his hair, and his neck lengthened,
A web began to join his ruddy fingers,
Wings came along his sides, his lips extended
Into a blunted beak: what once was Cygnus
Was a new bird, the swan. But he remembers
The fire that Jove, unjustly, sent from Heaven,


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And so distrusts the sky, and haunts low water,
The pools, the spreading lakes; hater of fire,
He chose to cherish water.

And the Sun-god,
All this long while, remained in deepest mourning,
Gloomy, without his brightness, darkened always
As in eclipse, and hates himself and daylight,
Gives way to grief, to grief adds rage, refusing
His duty to the world. "From time's beginning
I have had no rest," he says, "and I am weary
Of all this thankless toil, this endless labor.
Let anybody else who wants to drive it,
The chariot of light; if no one wants to,
If all the gods admit they cannot do it,
Then let Jove take the trouble himself, and some day,
Perhaps, he will be, for once, too busy holding
The reins, and have to put aside his lightning,
Those evil bolts that murder sons for fathers.
Then he will learn, once he himself discovers
How strong they are, those fiery-footed horses,
A boy who did not guide them well should hardly
Pay for his crime with death."

As he was speaking
The gods all stood around, and pleaded, humbly,
That he should not spread darkness over the world.
And even Jove asks pardon for that lightning,
Adding a royal threat or so. The Sun-god
Yokes the two teams again, still wild and trembling,
Yanks at the bit, cuts with the lash; he blames them,
Puts all the blame on them, for his son's downfall.

Jove in Arcady

Then the Almighty Father made the round
Of the great walls of Heaven; he must be sure
The fire had weakened nothing. All stood firm
In its immortal sureness: what of earth,


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What of the realm of humans? Arcady
He cared for most of all, restored her fountains,
Her timorous rivers; he brought back the grasses,
The leaves, the woodland's greenness. As he went
About his business there, he caught a glimpse
Of an Arcadian girl, a nymph, and fire
Ran through his marrow-bones. She had no need
To spin the wool to softness, nor to vary
The way she wore her hair: a brooch for her dress,
A ribbon for her hair, Diana's maiden,
With spear or bow, she wandered, and her goddess
Held her most dear, but no one's hold on dearness
Lasts very long.

The sun was high in the heaven
And the nymph entered the woods that no year ever
Had put an axe to. She slung off the quiver,
Unstrung the stubborn bow, and on the ground
All green with grass, lay down, and the bright quiver
Was a pillow for her head. And as Jove saw her
Tired out, and no one watching, he did some thinking:
Juno will never catch me here, he figured,
Or if she does, well, well, it might be worth it.
So he put on Diana's face and garments
And said: "Dear maiden, where have you been hunting?"
She rose from the green turf. "All hail, great goddess!
Greater, I think, than Jove, and he might hear me
For all I care." Jove, listening, laughed, rejoicing
To be preferred even to himself, and kissed her
The way a maiden does not kiss, or should not,
And just as she was starting in to tell him
What forest she had hunted, he stopped the story
And gave himself away with his embracing.
She really struggled against him (even Juno,
Had she been there to see, might have forgiven)
But girls are frail, and anyway, who could conquer
The might of Jove? He won, and then, a victor,


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Went back to Heaven, and she loathed the forest,
The knowing woods, and fled, almost forgetting
To take her bow, her quiver, and her arrows.

And here Diana came, with all her chorus,
Down the Maenalian ridges, proud of trophies
Won in the chase, and saw the nymph and called her,
Who fled, at first, on being called: this might
Be Jove again! But then she saw the others,
And felt secure, came strolling up to join them.
Alas! how hard it is not to betray
A guilty conscience, by just one expression!
She scarcely raised her eyes, she did not hurry,
As once she did, to walk beside her goddess,
To lead the others, but her silence spoke,
Her blushes told her story; if Diana
Were not, herself, a virgin, she could have noticed
A thousand signs of guilt: the other handmaids
Had a pretty good idea.

Nine times since then
Moons waxed and waned: Diana, tired with hunting,
Warm with the burning sun, found a cool grove
Where a stream went murmuring over the smooth sands.
She praised the place, she dipped her feet in the water,
How pleasant it was! She called to her companions,
"No one can see us here: let us jump in, naked!"
They all obeyed, undressed, except one girl,
Who could not seem to hurry, so the others
Stripped her, and saw the truth. She stood in terror
Trying to move her hands to hide her belly.
"Be off!" Diana cried, "this pool is holy,
Do not pollute it!" And the girl was banished.

Juno, of course, had known it for a long time,
But put her vengeance off, to have it better
When the right time had come. And now that time


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Had surely come, for a boy was born, to make it
So much the worse; the girl had named him Arcas.
Juno, with blazing mind, and the great eyes blazing,
Knew it and cried: "Of course, it had to be
This way, no other, you little adulterous bitch,
To go get pregnant, to advertise the scandal
By giving birth, to have a living witness
Of Jove's disgraceful conduct. You will never
Get away with this unpunished. I will fix you!
The form you so delight in, the lovely form
That caught my husband's eye, I shall take from you!"
She grabbed her hair, pulled it down over her forehead,
Flung her down to the ground, and the girl, reaching
Her arms toward her in pleading, saw them blacken,
Grow rough with shaggy hair; her hands curved inward,
Turned into feet, with claws; the lips, that seemed
To Jove so lovely not long since, became
Broad ugly snout and jaws; the power of speech
Might have been dangerous for her to plead with,
So that was taken, and her voice became
An angry threatening growl. Her human feelings
Were left her in her bear-like form; she moaned
Held up her hands (I mean her paws) to Heaven,
Blamed Jove's ingratitude, and ah! no longer
Dares rest in the lonely woods, but prowls forever
Past what was once her home, her fields; now, driven
By barking hounds across the rocky places,
The huntress is the hunted. She would fear
Wild beasts, herself a beast, and hide from bears
Forgetting she was one; she feared the wolves
Though her own father, once the man Lycaon,
Roamed with the wolf-pack now.

And the boy Arcas
Lycaon's grandson, lived through fifteen years
And never knew his mother. He was hunting
One day, in Arcady, seeking the game


[page 44]

In haunts he knew they chose. He had spread his nets
And came upon his mother. She stood still
Looking at him, and almost seemed to know him,
And he shrank back at those unmoving eyes
Forever upon him. He did not know why,
But he was frightened. She was coming nearer,
Or trying to; he would have thrown the spear,
And tried to throw it, but his father stopped him;
Jove stopped him, took them all away together,
Mother and son and evil deed, and whirled them
Upward through space to Heaven, and he set them
Together there, as neighboring constellations.
So with her rival a shining star in Heaven,
The wrath of Juno burned, and she went down
To the gray sea-goddess Tethys in the ocean
And to old Ocean himself: the upper gods
Hold both of these in reverence. They asked her
Why she had come, and she retorted: "Ask me
Why I have come, indeed! Another queen
Has taken my place in Heaven. You will see her
Tonight, when the world darkens; you will see them,
The new stars there, at the very peak of Heaven,
Their honors being my wounds. What reason is there
For anyone, now, to dread offense to Juno,
To shudder at her power? I have no power
For harming; if I want to, I only help them.
How much I have done! How great my power is, truly!
I would not let her be a human being;
What is she now? A goddess! So I punish
The guilty for their sins! What awful power,
What majesty, is mine! The one thing left
Is that he give her back her human features
As once he did for Io. Why not, also,
Now that Queen Juno has no place in Heaven,
Marry her, too, and take her to my chamber,
Become Lycaon's son-in-law? It may be


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You have a trace of something like compassion
For me, almost your daughter. So, I pray you,
Deny these bears your blue-green depths forever,
Drive off the stars who sold themselves for Heaven,
Keep out that little whore from this pure water."
They nodded that they would, and Juno rode
In her swift car to Heaven, through clear air
Borne by her colored peacocks, brightly jewelled
With Argus' thousand eyes. Remember Argus
When he was slain, at that same time another
Went through a change, another bird, the raven,
Once white, was turned to black. Now hear the story.

The Story of the Raven, and the Raven's Story

The raven once was white, in fact, so much so,
Not snowy doves, nor swans, were ever whiter,
Nor even the geese, whose latter-day descendants
Cried out and saved Rome's Capitol. However,
He talked too much, and that was his undoing.
Once white, and now white's opposite, the talker
Brought this upon himself by too much talking.
There was a girl, Coronis of Larissa,
None prettier in all Thessaly: Apollo
Found pleasure in her, surely, just as long
As she was chaste, or, anyway, undiscovered.
Apollo's bird, however, learned the truth
And fluttered off, an incorruptible witness,
To tell his master, and a gossiping crow
Came tagging after, eager for the gossip,
But when he heard the reason for the journey,
He said: "This is a useless kind of business!
Listen to me! I ought to know. Consider
What I am now, what I was once, and ask me
How merit is rewarded. You will find
Good faith is ruinous. Once upon a time
A child was born, named Erichthonius,


[page 46]

A boy without a mother. Pallas hid him
In a chest of willow, and gave it to three girls,
Daughters, they were, of double-bodied Cecrops,
And Pallas told the girls to do no looking,
No prying into mysteries. I watched them,
Hiding myself in the leaves of a dark elm-tree,
To spy what they were up to. Two were faithful,
Pandrosos was, and Herse was; the other,
Aglauros, called her sisters timid creatures,
Unbound the fastenings, and saw the baby
Lying inside the box, and there beside him
A snake, stretched out full length. Of course
I went and told the goddess. Lovely thanks
I got for that! She threw me out, and put me
Below the owl. My punishment should warn
All birds Keep out of trouble, and be quiet!
Maybe you think I asked for this, and Pallas
Did not come looking for me? Well, go ask her!
She would admit the truth, for all her anger.
I was a princess in the land of Phocis,
A famous king, Coroneus, was my father,
And I had many suitors. Do not give me
That look of scorn--why, everybody knows it!
My beauty was my ruin. I was walking
Along the shore one day, in my own fashion,
Slowly, almost on tiptoe, over the sand,
And the god of ocean saw me, and his passion
Blazed up; he found he wasted time in pleading,
In using flattering words, so then he offered
Force, and came after me. I ran; I wearied
In the soft sand; I called on gods and mortals
For help, and never a mortal came to help me.
A virgin goddess, pitying a virgin,
Brought help to me. I held my arms to heaven,
My arms began to darken with soft plumage;
I tried to pull the cloak from off my shoulders,


[page 47]

The cloak was plumage, and I could not move it.
I tried to beat my naked breasts, and found
I had neither breasts nor beating hands. I ran,
Not as I used to, through the holding sand,
But over it, just over it, and rising,
Air-borne, unsullied, given to Minerva.
Much good it does me. Now Nyctimene
Has taken my place, another sinful woman
Changed into bird, and everybody knows
Nyctimene was sleeping with her father.
And still her guilt compels her, though a bird,
To shun the light, the sight of men; she hides
Her shame in darkness; she is always driven
Out of the shining sky."

The raven answered:
"That ought to teach you something; as for me,
I find it very silly," and he kept going
And told Apollo he had seen Coronis
Lying beside some young Thessalian fellow.
The god lost countenance, and color also,
His laurel crown came sliding off his forehead,
He dropped his lyre, and, as his anger mounted,
He took the bow, he bent it, fired the arrow
Into the breast he had felt against his own.
And the girl groaned, and tugging at the arrow
Saw her white body redden with crimson stain,
And cried: "The punishment was due, Apollo,
But giving birth was also due: I might have
Brought forth my son; now two of us are dying."
And that was true; cold death took body and spirit.

Too late, alas, lover and god repented
The cruel vengeance, and hated both his anger
And willingness to listen, and most of all
Hated the bird for telling. He hates the bow,
Hates quiver, arrows, and the aiming hand.


[page 48]

He lifts the fallen girl, as if caressing
Might bring her back to life; he tries to conquer
Her fate, beyond all help or hope of healing,
Even by the healing god. And when he saw
The pyre made ready for the final burning,
He sighed and moaned--no god can weep--his moaning
Was pitiful, almost like the mournful lowing
Made by an animal mother, when her calf
Goes down before the butcher's smashing hammer.
Over her breast, unfeeling now, Apollo
Pours incense, gives the last embrace, does all
That can be done, and never seems worth doing.
One thing he could not bear, that his own son
Die in that fire, unborn; and so he took him
Out of the mother's womb, and took the baby
To the cavern of the Centaur, to Chiron's keeping.
As for the raven, sitting there, and hoping
For some reward for bringing a truthful story,
All he received was the divine injunction
To keep away from all white birds forever.

The Story of Ocyrhoe

Chiron was happy with his foster-son,
Finding his care a pleasure and an honor,
When here his daughter came, Ocyrhoe,
The auburn hair falling across her shoulders,
Daughter of Chariclo, a nymph, who bore her
Beside a running stream. Ocyrhoe
Was not contented with her father's arts,
And learned prophetic singing. And this time,
Seeing the child, she felt the mantic fury
Swell in her bosom to burning, and she cried:
"O child and savior of the whole wide world,
Increase in grace! Often shall mortal bodies
Confess themselves your debtor, and your power


[page 49]

Shall give the souls new life. But, having dared
This once, against the older gods, whose lightning
Will take that power away, you shall go down
>From god to lifeless body, and rise again,
And twice renew the fates of life. My father,
Immortal now, it seems, and destined ever
To live beyond all centuries, there will come
A day when you will beg for one power only,
The power to die, when wounded limbs are tortured
With the slain serpent's blood. And in that anguish
The gods will make you mortal, and the Fates,
The triple sisters, spin and break your thread,
Even as they do for many many others."
There was more to tell, but suddenly she sighed,
Ending through tears: "The Fates forbid my speaking.
My power of speech, it seems, was hardly worth it,
This future-knowing, which brings down upon me
The wrath of Heaven. To have known the future
--I would rather not have known it. Human features
Seem to be going from me. I am driven
To canter over meadows, and for food
Grass is my craving. Part of me, I know,
Was always animal, but even so
My father, at least, was always partly human."
And even as she spoke, the words were neither
Human nor neighing, but the kind of sound
Made when men try to imitate the horses,
But soon there was no mistaking that she whinnied,
Her arms were forelegs, and the fingers fused
With the nails forming horny hooves; her mouth
Grew larger, and her neck stretched out, her gown
Swept into a hairy tail, her hair a mane
Falling on the right shoulder: she was changed
Completely, voice, appearance, even name.
And Chiron, weeping, vainly called for aid
On the great lord of Delphi, for Apollo


[page 50]

Could never change the will of Jove: moreover,
Even if he could, he was not there, but living
In Elis at the time, where he had taken
A shepherd's cloak, a pipe of seven reeds,
A forest wand for staff, and all his thinking
Of love and playing music, so his cattle
Went wandering off and Mercury saw them, stole them,
Drove them into a forest where he hid them.

Meanwhile the warrior goddess turned her eyes
Upon Aglauros, and breathed such a sigh
Her breast was shaken, and the aegis shaken
That lay upon her breast, for she remembered
This was the girl who, with profaning fingers,
And disobedient, had stripped off the secrets,
Uncovering and peeping at the child
Born from no mother. And here she was now, planning
To please a god, to please, alike, her sister,
Rich with the gold her avarice demanded.

The House of the Goddess Envy

Minerva could not bear it! In her anger
She came to Envy's house, a black abode,
Ill-kept, stained with dark gore, a hidden home
In a deep valley, where no sunshine comes,
Where no wind blows, gloomy, and full of cold,
Where no bright fire burns ever, where the smoke
Is the grey fog of everlasting mist.
The goddess, maiden, warrior, might not enter
Any such dwelling, so Minerva halted
Before the door, and struck it with the spear-butt.
The battered doors swung open; there was Envy
Eating the flesh of snakes, the proper food
To nourish venom with. Minerva turned,


[page 53]

As Envy rose, torpid and slow, the snakes
Half-eaten on the ground, and she came forward,
Torpid and slow, and as she saw the goddess,
All bright and beautiful in all her armor,
She groaned aloud and sighed for that bright presence.
Pale, skinny, squint-eyed, mean, her teeth are red
With rust, her breast is green with gall, her tongue
Suffused with poison, and she never laughs
Except when watching pain; she never sleeps,
Too troubled by anxiety; if men
Succeed, she fails; consumes, and is consumed,
Herself her punishment. Minerva hates her,
Yet gives her orders, curtly: "Poison her,
Aglauros, Cecrops' daughter. I command it."
She said no more, but with the spear as lever,
Spurning the loathsome ground, took off for Heaven.

And Envy watched her, sidelong, out of sight,
Mumbling and muttering, sorry to be helpful
In any victory, picked up her staff
All wound with thorns, put on the cloudy mantle
In which she travels, and wherever she goes
The grasses wither, the tall trees are blighted,
And towns and houses and their people tainted.
At last she looked on Athens, that fine city
Shining with art and wealth and peace and pleasure,
And weeps almost, since she sees nothing there
That anyone could weep at. She goes on
Into Aglauros' chamber, and fulfilling
Minerva's order, lays her festering hand
On the girl's breast, and fills her heart with thorns,
Breathes pestilence through her nostrils, spreads the poison
Black through her bones. To give her cause, she pictures
Her sister's happy union, and the god
With her in all his beauty; she more than doubles
The wonder of it all. Aglauros, maddened,


[page 54]

Eats her heart out in secret, anxious always,
By day, by night, and wastes away, most wretched
In dissolution, slow as ice is melted
When the sun shines wan and fitfully across it.
Herse is happy, she believes; Aglauros
Burns with a sullen hopeless kind of burning
The way weeds smolder, set on fire, no blazing,
No flame, but only sullen slow resistance.
She would rather die than see her sister happy:
This was a crime; she ought to tell her father,
That stiff unyielding man. She went and waited
Blocking her sister's threshold, like a sentry,
To halt the god if he should come. He came,
And coaxed and wheedled in his sweetest manner.
"Stop it!" she said, "I shall not stir, I promise,
Till after you are gone." "Agreed!" he answered,
And struck the door with the wand. The door swung open.
Aglauros tried to rise, to block his entrance,
And found she could not, doubled as she sat there,
Too heavy to stand: she fought against that stiffness,
That numbing cold, blue-veined, blue-nailed, and helpless
As people are when cancer spreads infection
Through every part. The cold of winter came
Into her lungs, her heart. She gave up trying
To speak, could not have spoken if she tried to.
Her neck was stone, her features hard as marble.
A lifeless statue sat there, and the statue
Was black, not white, dark with her evil spirit.
And Mercury, this punishment inflicted
For the girl's wickedness of word and feeling,
Left Athens and went soaring back to Heaven.

Europa

And back in Heaven, he found his father waiting;
Jove had an errand for him; he did not say
Love was the reason for it, but simply told him:


[page 55]

"My son, my ever-willing faithful servant,
Be quick, glide back again, go down to Sidon,
You will find a herd, the king's, of cattle grazing
Along the mountains. Drive them to the sea-shore!"
There was no delay; the herd was quickly driven
>From the hillsides to the shore, where the king's daughter
Used to go playing with her Tyrian comrades.
Do majesty and love go well together
Or linger in one dwelling? Hardly. Jove
Put down his heavy sceptre: the great father,
Great ruler of the gods, whose right hand wields
Triple-forked lightning, and whose awful nod
Makes the world tremble, put aside his might,
His majesty, and took upon himself
The form of a bull, went lowing with the heifers
Over the tender grass, showy and handsome,
The color of snow, which never a foot has trodden,
Never a raindrop sullied. The great muscles
Bulged on the neck, the dewlaps hung to the chest,
The horns were small, but every bit as perfect
As if a sculptor made them, and as shining
As any jewel, and the eyes and forehead
Offered no threat, and the great gaze was peaceful.
And the king's daughter looked at him in wonder,
So calm, so beautiful, and feared to touch him,
At first, however mild, and little by little
Got over her fear, and soon was bringing flowers
To hold toward that white face, and he, the lover,
Gave kisses to the hands held out, rejoicing
In hope of later, more exciting kisses.
Is it time? Not quite. He leaps, a little playful,
On the green grass, or lays the snowy body
On the yellow sand, and gradually the princess
Loses all fear, and he lets her pat his shoulder,
Twine garlands in his horns, and she grows bolder,
Climbs on his back, of course all unsuspecting,


[page 56]

And he rises, ever so gently, and slowly edges
>From the dry sand toward the water, further and further,
And swimming now, with the girl, trembling a little
And looking back to the land, her right hand clinging
Tight to one horn, and the other resting easy
Along the shoulder, and her flowing garments
Filling and fluttering in the breath of the sea-wind.