So over the deep the Minyans went sailing.
They had seen Phineus, dragging out his years
In everlasting night, and Boreas' sons
Had driven the Harpies from the poor old king.
They suffered much, but came at last with Jason,
Their brilliant leader, to the muddy waters
Where Phasis meets the sea. They went to the king,
Claiming the golden fleece, by Phrixus given,
And heard the dreadful terms, enormous labors.
And the king's daughter burned with sudden passion,
And fought against it long, and when her reason
Could not subdue her madness, cried: "Medea,
You fight in vain; there is some god or other
Against you. I am wondering whether this
May be the thing called love, or something like it.
Why should my father's orders seem too cruel?
They are too cruel! A fellow I have hardly
Much more than seen may die, and I am fearful!
What for? Unhappy girl, shake from the bosom
This burning fire, if you can. If I could do it,
I would be more sensible, but some new power
Holds me against my will, and reason calls
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One way, desire another. I see, approving,
Things that are good, and yet I follow worse ones.
Why do you bum for a stranger, royal maiden?
Why think of marriage into a foreign circle?
This land can give you something to love. If he
Should live or die, let the gods decide; but let him
Live! That I can pray for, even without loving.
What has he done? Only the cruel-hearted
Would not be moved by Jason's youth, his manhood,
His noble birth. And even if these were lacking,
His beauty would move a heart of stone--at least
It has moved mine. And if I do not help him,
The bulls will blow their fiery breath upon him,
The enemy he has sown in earth attack him,
The greedy dragon snatch and seize upon him.
And this, if I allow it, will prove me daughter
Of tigress, stony-hearted, iron-hearted!
Why can not I look on as he is dying,
Disgrace my eyes by looking on? Why can not
I urge the bulls against him, and the warriors
Sprung from the earth, and the unsleeping dragon?
God grant me better grace! But this is not
A question of praying, but doing. Shall I then
Betray my father's kingdom, rescue a stranger,
Who, saved, sails off without me, marries another
Leaves me to punishment? If he can do it,
If he can place another woman above me,
Then let him die, the ingrate! No! He could not,
He does not look as if he could, his spirit
Is noble, his body handsome. I need never
Fear he would cheat me, or forget my service.
And he will give me a promise, and the gods
Will be our witnesses; I shall compel them.
So, you are safe; why do you fear? Make ready,
Dawdle no more. Jason will owe you, always,
One thing, himself, and he will join you to him
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In marriage, and through all the Grecian cities
The women all proclaim how you have saved him.
Do I sail away, then, leave my sister here,
My father, brother, native gods and country?
My father, though, is a savage, and my land
Is barbarous, and my brother is a baby,
My sister is on my side; as for the gods,
The greatest god is the one in my own spirit!
I shall not leave great things, but go to meet them:
Great things--a savior's title, and the knowledge
Of better soil than ours, cities whose fame
Thrives even here, civilization, culture,
And one thing more, a man, Jason, my husband,
For whom I would give up gladly all the riches
The rich world holds. I shall be dear to Heaven
As Jason's wife, and my crown shall reach the stars.
But what about those what-do-you-call-em mountains
That clash in the midst of the sea? what about Scylla
With sea-hounds barking in Sicilian waters?
And what about Charybdis, dread of sailors,
Sucking waves down, spitting them up? Ah, holding
That which I love, and safe in Jason's arms,
I shall be borne over long oceans; safe
In his embrace, I shall fear nothing, nothing,
Or, maybe, fear a little for his sake.
You think of him as husband: are you married,
Already, Medea? You had better be watching
What evil you draw near, and flee from crime
While still you may." And, as she finished speaking,
Before her eyes stood Duty, Modesty,
Devotion, and Love was ready for flight, and beaten.
She went to Hecate's old altar, hidden
Deep in a shady forest; she was strong,
Now, and the flame dying down, and she saw Jason,
And the flame rose. Her cheeks grew red, her face
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Was burning: as a spark, under the ashes,
Glows at a breath and catches on the tinder,
So now her love, smoldering, almost dying,
You might have thought, blazed into flame again
As Jason stood before her. He was handsome,
Resplendent in that light; no wonder she loved him.
She looked at him, as if she had never seen him,
Thought him a god, infatuated girl,
And could not turn her face away. He spoke,
The stranger, took her hand, asked her to help him,
Promised her marriage, and she answered, weeping:
"I see what I am doing; I shall never
Be fooled by ignorance of the truth, but love.
I will help you, save you--only, keep your promise!"
He swore he would, by the triple goddess' altar,
By any power known to the grove; he swore
By Jove, who sees all things, by his own dangers,
His hope of victory, and she believed him,
Gave him the magic herbs, gave him instruction
In how to use them, watched him happily turning
Back to his lodging.
And the next day came
And all the people gathered in the acres
Sacred to Mars, from the high places watching,
And in their midst the king himself, in crimson,
Holding the ivory sceptre. And they came,
Bronze-footed bulls, fire-breathers, withering grass
>From their hot breath. As furnaces roar loud,
As stones in the limekiln hiss with water on them,
Such was the seethe and snort and roar and rumble
>From those burnt chests and throats. But Jason went
Forward to meet them, and they lowered their faces
Toward him, most terribly; the horns tipped with iron
Came toward him, and they pawed the ground and bellowed.
The Minyans stiffened in fear, and Jason
Moved in, and did not feel the fire, the panting.
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The herbs, it seemed, had too much virtue in them.
His hand went out to stroke the hanging dewlaps,
To stroke and pet them, to put the yoke upon them
Over the shoulders, made them draw the plough
Through fields that never before had known a furrow.
The Colchians were stunned, but Jason's people
Cheered, and his spirit responded to the cheering.
>From the bronze helmet he took serpent's teeth,
Sowing the ploughland with them, and earth softened
The poison-saturated seeds he planted.
They grew, took on new forms, the way a baby
Grows in the womb, in its slow time, and only
Comes forth when fully formed, so, in the earth,
Their pregnant mother, these forms of men were growing,
And when they rose, they rose on teeming soil,
Hundreds and hundreds, and what is even stranger
Rose in full armor, brandishing their weapons,
And the people saw them, aiming spears at Jason,
And their hearts shook and faces paled. Medea
Had made him safe, she knew, but she was frightened,
Bloodless and cold, to see one man the target
Of all those pitiless spears. The herbs might fail,
The charm prove weak, and so she sang a spell,
Called secret arts to her aid. But Jason, hurling
A giant rock among them, turned their fury
>From him to each other, and the earth-born brothers
Wounded and killed each other. And they cheered him,
Colchians and Minyans both, and caught him
In arms, to lift him shoulder-high, and held him
With eager arms. Medea would have held him
With eager arms, victorious, but Medea
Had to be modest; Medea would have held him
With eager arms, but there were people watching,
There might have been remarks. What she could do,
She did, and that was look upon him, happy,
Not saying a word, just looking, and in her heart
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Thanking the gods, the charms and spells they gave her.
One task was left, to put to sleep the dragon
Who never sleeps, the monster with the crest,
The triple tongue, the crooked fangs, the guardian
Of the golden tree. And Jason sprinkled on him
Juice from Lethaean herbs, chanting, three times,
Words that bring quiet slumber, and put to rest
Most angry seas, and stop swift-flowing rivers.
Then sleep came into those eyes, which never before
Had known of sleep, and Jason won the spoil
Of gold, and in his pride took with him also
Another spoil, the woman who helped him win it,
And so at last came home to Iolchos' harbor,
A victor with a bride.
Thessalian mothers,
Thessalian fathers, for their sons brought home
In safety, brought their offerings, burned incense
In the flames of the altars, sacrificed the victim
With gilded horns, as they had vowed. But Aeson
Was not among them in their great rejoicing.
Aeson, the father of Jason, was old and dying,
Sick, weary with the weight of years. And Jason
Spoke to Medea: "O my wife, I owe you
My safety, surely, and my return: your gifts
Were greater than my hopes; how can I ask
More than the all you have given me? But still,
I ask one thing, if spells of yours can do it,
And what can spells of yours not do? Take from me
Some of my years, and give them to my father."
He wept, and Medea, moved by his devotion,
Thought, for a moment, of another father,
Her own, Aeetes, whom she had forsaken,
Shown little enough devotion to. She answered:
"That is a wicked thing to ask, my husband
I can not do it, and I would not do it,
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Even if I could, give any one else a portion
Of Jason's life; it is wrong of you to ask me,
And Hecate would never allow it, never.
But I will try to give you something better,
Greater, than you have asked for. By my art,
Not by subtraction of your years, I will try
To add days to your father's life, if only
Hecate will stand by me."
So she waited
Three nights till the moon came full and the round circle
Shone brightly down on the world, and then she went
Out of the house in flowing robes and barefoot,
Hair streaming over her shoulders; all alone
Into the midnight stillness, while the birds
And beasts and men reposed in deepest slumber,
With never a stir in the hedges, never a rustle
In the silent leaves, never a motion of air,
Only the glitter of starlight. And she raised
Her arms to the stars, three times, and turning thrice,
Thrice sprinkled her head with quick-caught running water,
Thrice cried a wailing call, and knelt, and prayed:
"O Night, most true to mysteries, O stars
Whose gold with the moon's silver shines and follows
The fires of day, O Hecate, triple goddess,
Witness and helper of magic art and charm,
O Earth, provider of the herbs of magic,
O winds, O little breezes, O streams, O mountains,
O lakes, O groves, O gods of the groves, O gods
Of night, come, help me, help me, help me!
You have before this, when I wanted, seen me
Make streams return to their sources, while their banks
Wondered; you have seen me still the angry oceans,
Rouse the calm waters, drive the clouds away
Or marshal them together, exile winds,
Recall them; you have seen me break the fangs
Of serpents with my charms and incantations,
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Root up the rocks from the soil, root up the oak-trees,
Move forests, shake the mountains, make earth rumble,
Call ghosts from graveyards. I can make the moon
Darken, the car of the Sun turn pale at my singing,
The Dawn turn pale at my poisons. The flame of the bulls
Cooled at my order, with your aid; the necks
Bent to the weight of the yoke. You helped me turn
The seed of the Dragon, the savage earth-born brothers,
To fight among themselves; you lulled the Dragon
To slumber he had never known; you brought
The golden prize back to the cities of Greece.
What I need now is a potion by whose power
Old age may turn to the bloom of youth, regaining
The early years once more. And you will give it.
The stars flash bright in answer, and my car,
Drawn by the winged dragons, is ready and waiting."
The car, as she was speaking, had descended
>From upper air. She stood there, for a moment,
Stroking the necks of the dragons, and then mounted,
Shook the light reins, went soaring high, high over
Tempe, towards lands she knew. All herbs that Ossa,
Pelion, Othrys, Pindus, and Olympus
Produced, she studied, and the ones that pleased her
She cut with the bronze sickle or pulled up
With roots still clinging to them. Many grasses
She took from many river-banks, among them
An herb that gives long life, not yet made famous
By what it did to Glaucus (but that, as someone,
A long time later, said, is another story).
Nine days, nine nights, her car went on its journey,
And she came home, with the dragons sleek and shining
In bright new skins, though nothing but the odor
Of the gathered herbs had touched their ancient bodies.
Come home, Medea halted: she would not cross
The threshold, enter the door; she would not let
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Her husband touch her; under the open sky
She built twin altars of turf, the one on the right
To Hecate, the one on the left to Youth.
She covered these with vervain and with branches
Grown in the wildwood, and dug ditches near them,
Performed her rites, cutting a black ram's throat,
Soaking the ditches with his blood, with wine
Poured out of bowls, with milk still warm, and calling
The gods of earth to come, and the dark monarch
Who, with his stolen bride, rules over the shades,
To linger in the shadows, not to hasten
To take an old man's spirit from his body.
So the long murmur of her prayers appeased them,
Gods high and low, and then she told the people
To bring King Aeson and his tired old body
Out under the open sky, and made him slumber,
Full-deep, and Iying like a dead man there
On a bed of herbs. And she made Jason go
Far off, and made the household go far off,
And told them not to look, not to profane
Her mysteries by watching. They obeyed her.
And she, with streaming hair, went stepping round
The burning altar-fires, and dipped her torches
Where the blood ran in the ditches, and she lit them
With altar-flame, and over Aeson sprinkled
Triple purification, using water
Three times, and fire three times, and, three times, sulphur.
And all the while the brew in the bronze cauldron
Boiled and frothed white; in it were root-herbs gathered
>From Thessaly's lonely vales, and seeds and flowers,
Strong juices, and pebbles from the farthest shores
Of oceans east and west, and hoar-frost taken
At the full of the moon, a hoot-owl's wings and flesh,
A werewolf's entrails also, and the fillet
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Of fenny snake, the liver of the stag,
Long-lived, the eggs, the head, of the crow whose years
Run for nine generations. All of these
Were in the cauldron, and a thousand others,
Things without names, out of the world of mortals,
And the barbarian woman stirred them well,
Mixing them, top to bottom, with a branch
Of olive, dry and dead, and the old dry branch,
Stirring the brew, turned green, and green leaves sprouted
Along its length, and suddenly it was loaded
With olive fruit: wherever the scum spilled over
And the hot drops fell on the ground, the ground turned
green,
Soft grasses grew and flowers broke into blossom.
And when Medea saw this, she drew her knife,
Cut Aeson's wrinkled throat, and let the blood
Run out, all the old blood run out, and filled
The veins with the new mixture. Aeson drank it
With his own mouth, and through his wound, and strangely,
Strangely, and quickly, his beard was black again,
No longer gray, his flesh filled out, the waxen
Complexion changed, the wrinkles all smoothed over
He walked as young men walk, and in his wonder
Remembered the forgotten self, that Aeson
Of forty years ago.
Bacchus had seen
This marvel from the sky, and learning from it
That his old nurses might be young again,
Implored Medea's aid, and the boon was granted.
Mischief is hard, it seems, to put an end to.
Medea, feigning trouble with her husband,
Fled, as a suppliant, to the house of Pelias,
Whose daughters, since the king was old, received her
With welcome, and she, in cunning ways, deceived them
With a false show of friendship. She told them stories
[page 163]
About her magic, dwelling on her prowess
In making Aeson young, and Pelias' daughters
Began to hope that by Medea's magic
Their father might have green youth again. They pleaded
Begged her to name her price, how great, no matter.
Medea seemed to take some time about it,
Keeping them in suspense--a serious business
--But finally gave her promise. "And" she said,
"To give you better proof, I bid you bring me
The oldest ram in the flock, and watch me make him
A lamb again." A wooly ram was brought her,
Worn down with years no man could count, the horns
Curving around the hollow of his temples.
She cut his skinny throat, and the blade of the knife
Was hardly red, so little blood was in him.
She threw the carcass in a deep bronze kettle
With powerful herbs and juices, and the body
Shrank, and the horns grew smaller, and the years
Melted away, or seemed to, and a thin bleating
Simmered inside the kettle, and out came jumping
A little lamb, all skippety-hop, all eager
To find a milky udder.
Pelias' daughters
Believed, if not their eyes, at least her promise,
Urged action on her. And three days went by,
Three nights went shining by, and Medea, slyly,
Built a quick fire under another cauldron,
But this had nothing but clear water in it,
No powerful herbs at all. A sleep like death
Held Pelias, held his guardians, a sleep like death
Caused by her magic spells and incantations.
The daughters, with Medea, entered the chamber,
Standing around his bed. "You sluggish creatures,
Why do you dawdle now?" Medea asked them.
"Draw swords, let his old blood out: or how can I
Fill up his veins with youth? It is in your hands,
[page 164]
His life, his season. Where is your devotion
Where are your silly hopes? Perform your duty!
Take his old age away: the sword can do it,
The sword can let the old blood flow!" Each sister
Struck with perverse devotion; never a one
Could watch the blow strike home; each turned her eyes;
Blind girls with cruel hands, they struck, and, bleeding,
He had strength enough to raise himself a little,
To try to leave the bed. "What are you doing,
Daughters?" he cried, "What arms you to this purpose,
A father's murder?" All their strength and spirit
Failed them; what more he might have said Medea ended
With the knife at the throat, and the mangled body
drowning
In the boiling water.
And this she would have paid for,
Had not her dragon car been there to take her
Swift through high air, past Pelion's shade and Othrys,
Regions well-known because of old Cerambus,
Whom the nymphs helped in time of flood, uplifted
On wings above the drowned world of Deucalion.
She passed Aeolian Pitane on the left
With its long dragon made of stone; she passed
The grove of Ida, where Bacchus changed a bullock
Into a deer, disguising his son's thieving.
She passed the tomb, the little heap of sand
Where Corythus' father lay, on over the fields
Which Maera used to frighten with her barking,
Over Eurypylus' city where the women
(That was in Cos) wore horns when Hercules left them.
Over Apollo's Rhodes she flew, and over
The isles of Ialysus, whose eyes that blighted
Everything with their gaze, were darkened and drowned
Through the hate of Jove deep under Neptune's waters.
And she went on, beyond Carthaea's ramparts,
That ancient town on Cea, where Alcidamas
[page 165]
Would marvel, some day, that his daughter's body
Could give birth to a dove. Then Hyrie's lake
She saw, and Tempe; that was the place where Cygnus
Became a swan. Phyllius, the story ran,
Had taken orders from him, tamed wild birds
And a lion at his bidding, and brought them to him,
And Cygnus was not satisfied, and told him
To tame a wild bull also, and he did it,
But would not give the bull to Cygnus, angry
At having his love refused. "You will be sorry!"
Cygnus cried out, and leaped from a cliff. All men
Thought he had fallen, but on snowy wings
He floated in mid-air. His mother, Hyrie,
Knew nothing of it, melted away in tears,
Became the pool that bears her name. Nearby
Lies Pleuron, where Ophius' daughter, Combe, also
Made use of wings to flee her murderous sons.
Her voyage was almost over; she saw the island,
Fertile Calaurea, sacred to Latona,
Whose king and queen were changed to birds. Cyllene,
Far down, was on her right; there Menephron
Would, later, be the lover of his mother,
Coupling like animals. Far off from there
She saw Cephisus' river, the god whose grandson
Apollo changed to a seal, and Eumelus' home
Mourning a son, now bird, dweller in air.
At last, on snaky wings, she coasted down
To Pieria's spring, where, in the earliest days,
So legend had it, men were born from mushrooms.
Jason, by then, had a new bride; Medea
Killed her with burning poisons, and dyed the sword
Red in her children's blood, a dreadful vengeance,
And fled from Jason's fury, borne aloft,
Once more, on dragon wings, and came to Athens,
Where Periphas, Alycone, and Phene
[page 166]
Were skimming the air, new swallows, on level wings.
And Aegeus took her in; that was enough
To be his doom, but he was not contented:
He made himself not only her host, but husband.
And now came Theseus, his son, a stranger
To his own father, though from sea to sea
Well-known as hero, but Medea loathed him.
She brewed a poison for him; she had brought it,
Long since, from Scythian shores: it once had dripped
>From a dog's jaws, that Cerberus, the hound
Of Hell's dark caverns, Cerberus, the hound
Whom Hercules dragged up, in chains of iron,
While the great dog, fighting, turned his eyes away
>From daylight's flashing radiance. All three throats
Bayed in his fury, and from his triple jowls
White foam dripped on the fields of green, and grew,
Men say, and thrived in the rich strong soil, and gained
The power to hurt. Such noxious weeds they are
They will even grow on rocks, and people call them
The flower of stoniness.
This was the poison
Aegeus, through the cunning of his wife,
Gave to his son to drink, a father, treating
His son, an enemy. He had taken the cup,
Raised it, when Aegeus noticed on his scabbard
Emblems familiar to him, and struck the death
>From his son's lips, and once again Medea
Rode in a whirling cloud of magic darkness
Out of the reach of death.
The son was safe,
The father happy, though he trembled still
With horror at the close escape. He kindled
Fire on the altar, and he brought rich offerings
For all the gods, and the axe struck at the victims,
Great-muscled bulls, whose horns were tipped with gold.
[page 167]
No happier day had ever dawned in Athens,
With councillors and common folk together
Sharing in song and wine and celebration:
"Hail, Theseus, most mighty! Marathon
Gives praise for the killing of the bull from Crete,
And Cromyon's farmers owe their fearless tilling
To the work of your great hands, and Epidaurus
Adds praise for the death of that club-swinging menace,
The son of Vulcan; and Cephisus' river
Is happy for the slaying of Procrustes,
And Ceres' town, Eleusis, gives rejoicing
For Cercyon's death. Your merciful hand slew Sinis,
The strong, who bent the tops of pine-trees over
For catapults, with human bodies as missiles.
The way is safe and open to the walls
Of Lelege, with Sciron slain, that Sciron,
The robber-bandit, whose dismembered bones
Not earth nor ocean would give a place to rest in
Until they hardened into cliffs, still keeping
The name of Sciron. Theseus, if we counted
Your years, your deeds, the deeds would far outnumber
The tally of years. Hail, hero! In your honor
We give our public praise, we drain our goblets."
So all the palace rang with loud rejoicing,
Homage and laud, and never a trace of sorrow
In all the town.
And yet--how often it happens!
--No joy is ever complete, and sorrow always
Intrudes on happiness, so, to Aegeus,
Rejoicing had an anxious cloud above it.
Minos was threatening war; he was strong in soldiers,
Stronger in sailors, strongest in thirst for vengeance
Over his son, Androgeos, slain. More allies
Were what he craved, and over the seas he found them:
[page 168]
Anaphe came to aid him, Astypalaea,
One drawn by promise, one by threat; Myconos,
Low-lying, and the chalky-fields of Cimolus,
Scyros, where thyme grows wild, and marble Paros,
Betrayed by Arne, who never lived to spend
Her treasonable gold, but now, black-footed,
Black-winged, a daw, still keeps her passion for it.
There were some islands which did not help the Cretans:
Tenos and Andros, Didymae, Oliaros,
Gyaros, Peparethos, shining with olives.
These Minos gave wide berth to, steering leftward
To a land once called Oenopia, but now
Aegina, named by Aeacus for his mother.
There a great crowd came pouring out to meet him,
Minos the famous: Telamon came, and Peleus,
A younger man than Telamon, and Phocus,
Younger than either, and Aeacus came with them,
Not young at all, but slow with the weight of years.
"Why have you come here, Minos?" And the question
Brought home to the ruler of a hundred cities
The grievance of the father. He made answer:
"I take up arms for my son's sake; I beg you
Share my devoted soldiering. I ask
Rest for his troubled spirit." Aeacus answered:
"You ask in vain, for there are things my city
Cannot and will not do. We are close to Athens,
There are strong bonds between us." "Those strong bonds
Will cost you plenty," Minos said, and left him;
It was better, he thought, to threaten war than wage it,
Wasting his strength too soon. The Cretan navy
Had hardly left Aegina, when a vessel,
Under full sail from Athens, came to the harbor
With Cephalus and the greetings of his country.
The young men knew him, though the time was long
Since they had seen him last; they gave him welcome,
[page 169]
Brought him to Aeacus. Here was a man
Worth looking at, still handsome, and he came
Bearing the olive-branch, an elder statesman,
With younger aides on left and right. Their names
Were Clytos and Butes. and they were sons of Pallas.
After the formal greetings, Cephalus told them
What the Athenians hoped for, and he mentioned
The old alliance, adding that not Athens
Alone, but all of Greece, was Minos' target.
They needed little persuasion; Aeacus, resting
His hand on the sceptre, spoke: "Ask not our aid,
But, rather, take it. Count our forces surely
Part of your own. We are strong, we prosper;
I have the men, to meet my need, to face
All enemies. We thank the gods we have not
The least excuse for absence." "Be it so,"
Cephalus answered, "and I pray your city
May grow and prosper. I was very happy,
As I came here, to see such fine young men
Come out to meet me, but I remember others
When I was here before, and now I miss them."
Aeacus sighed: "A better fortune followed
A sad beginning; I am very sorry
I cannot mention one without the other.
I will try to make the story brief. They are
All bones and ashes, now, those men you ask for.
How great a part of my fortunes perished with them!
A dreadful plague came on our people. Juno
Hated our land, named for a rival of hers,
But this we did not know; we thought the cause
Was mortal, and we fought with every resource
Of medicine against it, but the evil
Had too much strength for us. In the beginning
Was darkness, and a murk that kept the summer
Shut in the sullen clouds, four months of summer,
[page 170]
Four months of hot south wind, and deadly airs.
Fountains and lakes went dry, serpents came crawling
Over deserted fields, thousands on thousands,
Tainting our streams with poison. The animals
Went first, the dogs and birds, the sheep and cattle,
The beasts of the wild woods. The unlucky farmer
Stood in dumb wonder as the strong bulls stumbled,
Fell, in the furrow, and the wool fell off
The feebly bleating sheep, with wasted bodies.
The race-horse, whose proud spirit used to bring him
Home winner over the dust of the track, trains off,
Trails off, to nothing, droops and sags in his stall.
The boar forgets his raging, and the deer
No longer trusts his swiftness, and the bear
Lets the weak herds alone. A life in death
Seizes them all. In woods and fields and highways
Lie bodies rotting, and the air is all
One smell of death. Even the very buzzards,
Jackals, gray wolves, refused to touch this carrion.
Contagion thickens, and the plague, grown stronger,
Fastens on men, on the walls of the great city.
Men's vitals seem to burn: the proof is given
By a red flush and difficult breath; the tongue
Thickens, and lips are cracked and dry; the sick
Can not lie still in bed, they cannot bear
The weight of covers over them; they try
To get some coolness from the ground, and lie there,
And get no coolness from the ground, which burns,
Itself, from the heat of their fever. Even our doctors
Fare as the others do, or worse; the nearer
One comes to the sick, the greater his devotion
In looking after others, the more quickly
He comes to the share of death. As hope of safety
Departs, men see no end, or one end only
To suffering; abandoned, they care for nothing,
There is nothing to care for. So, with no compunction,
[page 171]
They lie in the spring, the streams, any basin of water,
In rabid thirst, cured only by death, not drinking.
And many, too feeble to rise, die in the water
And others drink that water. In delirium
Many poor souls leap from their beds, and stagger
Too weak to stand, and others, too weak for leaping,
Roll out on the ground. They flee their household gods,
Since no man's home is sacred. Each man's home
Seems to him Death's abode. Since no man knows
The cause, he blames his little habitation.
You could see them walking along the roads, half lifeless,
As long as they could totter; you could see them
Sobbing, and Iying on the ground, and rolling
Their dull eyes upward with a last weak effort;
You could see them holding out their arms to heaven,
Breathing their last wherever death had seized them.
What was my feeling then? As any man would,
I hated life and longed to join my people.
Wherever I looked was a great heap of bodies
Lying like rotten apples or wormy acorns.
You see Jove's temple, from its great stairs rising?
Who did not come there, bringing his silly incense?
How many times a husband for his wife
Prayed there, or father for son, and even in prayer
Gone down to death before the prayer was finished,
The incense in the dying hand still smoking!
The sacrificial bulls, brought to the temples,
While priests were praying over them and pouring
Wine over their horns, went down and never waited
The sacrificial axe. I had this happen
Myself, when I was making sacrifice
To Jove, for kingdom and country and my sons.
The victim bellowed, and before I touched it,
Dropped dead, and had so little blood it barely
Turned the knife red, and the entrails had no markings
[page 172]
Of truth or the gods' will, for this corruption
Ate even into the entrails. The temple doors
Were choked with corpses, and the very altars
Reeked with death's hateful smell. Some hung themselves
Driving the fear of death away by death,
By going out to meet it. No one buried
The dead in the old way; there were too many.
They lay on the ground, or high on funeral pyres
Were stacked, all honorless. There was no honor
By now for dead men; people fought for pyres,
Stole fire to burn them with; there were no mourners.
The souls, unmourned, went wandering out, the matrons,
The brides, the old, the young. There was no more room
For graves, there was no more wood for funeral pyres.
Stunned, shaken, I cried: 'Great Jove, unless men lie
Calling you lover of Asopos' daughter,
Aegina, whose name we have given to our country,
If you are not ashamed of being our father,
Give back my people to me, or strike me down
To darkness with them!' And the thunder sounded,
The lightning flashed, as if he heard. I took it
For favorable omen, a binding pledge.
There was an oak nearby, a great tree spreading
Its branches wide, a holy tree, a scion
Of old Dodona, and I saw a column
Of ants along its wrinkled bark, grain-bearers,
Each with its tiny jaws holding its load,
Keeping its path. I wondered at their numbers,
Praying: 'O kindly Father, grant our people
May equal theirs, and fill our empty walls!'
The leaves all rustled in the windless air,
And I was frightened, but I kissed the ground
The tree; I did not dare admit that I
Was hoping, but I was, and in my mind
I kept m prayers alive, and night came on
[page 173]
And sleep prevailed over our anxious bodies.
I saw the oak again, and all those branches,
And all those little creatures, shaking, stirring
With the same motion as before, and falling,
The ants, grain-bearing, on the ground. They seemed
Suddenly to grow larger, larger, always,
To raise themselves, to stand upright, to lose
Their wiry shape, their feet, and their black color,
To take on human limbs and form. Sleep left me,
And I thought little of my dream, lamenting
The helplessness of the gods. But a noise sounded,
Confusion in the palace, a stir, a murmur,
And I thought I was hearing voices I had known
Unheard for long in my hallucination,
But Telamon came running, 'Father, father!'
He cried, flung open the door, 'There is more to see
Than you could ever believe or dare to hope for!
Come out!' I came, and with my waking eyes
Saw men as I had seen them in my slumber,
Coming to me, and greeting me as ruler.
I offered thanks to Jove, and gave the city
In shares to my new people, assigned them fields
Forsaken by their previous possessors,
And gave them a name, The Myrmidons, a title
True to their origin. You have seen their bodies,
And they still have their customary talents,
Industry, thrift, endurance; they are eager
For gain, and never easily relinquish
What they have won. These men will follow you
To the wars; you will find them, both in years and courage,
Good steady men. When the east wind shifts to the south,
They will be ready to sail."
The lingering day
Ended in feasting, and the night in slumber,
But the wind still blew from the east in the golden morning,
There was no use spreading sail for the homeward voyage.
[page 174]
The sons of Pallas, attending Cephalus,
Went to the king, but Aeacus was sleeping,
And Phocus was the one who gave them welcome
As they drew near the threshold; the other princes
Were marshalling the warriors. Into the court,
Into the rich apartments, Phocus led them,
And they sat down together, and Phocus noticed
The javelin Cephalus carried, with head of gold,
And a shaft made out of a wood he did not know.
There was a little idle conversation,
Broken by Phocus. "I am fond of hunting,"
He said, "I know the woods, but I have never
Seen such a shaft; I am curious about it.
Surely, if it were ash, it would be yellow,
If it were cornel, knotty: what it comes from
I do not know. I do know I have never
Seen one more beautiful, or better balanced."
One of the brothers answered: "You will wonder
More at its use than at its beauty; always
It flies unfailing to the mark you aim at,
Chance never guides its flight, and it comes flying
With blooded barb, back to the hand that flung it."
Then Phocus, more than ever, kept asking questions:
Why was it so? where did it come from? who
Had been the giver of such a prized possession?
Cephalus answered all except one question,
What had it cost him? For a while, in silence,
He grieved for his lost wife, and then, with tears,
Began the story.
"This weapon makes me weep,
It will make me weep, as long as ever I live.
Would I had never owned it, the destruction
Of my dear wife, of both of us together.
Her name was Procris, or, if you have heard
[page 175]
Of Orithyia, the ravished Orithyia,
My Procris was her sister, and, if you ask me,
More worthy of ravishment than Orithyia.
Her father, King Erectheus, joined her to me,
Love joined her to me; people called me happy,
And I was happy, or lucky, but the gods
Had other ideas about it, or I might
Be happy to this day. We had been married
Only two months, and I was out one morning
Spreading my nets for the wide-antlered deer,
When the golden goddess of the morning saw me
>From the top of Mount Humates, where the flowers
Are always blossoming. The golden goddess,
The Dawn, who drives the shadows away, beheld me,
Carried me off, against my will. She may
Forgive me for telling the truth, but I loved Procris,
I was in love with Procris, though Aurora
Is surely lovely with the blush of roses
Shining upon her, holding the double portals
Of day and night, and nourished by the nectar.
In silence and in speech I worshipped Procris,
Kept talking, always, of her, of our marriage,
Of our first night together, till the goddess
Was angry at me. 'You ungrateful fellow!
Stop your complaining! Keep your precious Procris!
Still, if I know one thing about the future,
You will come to wish that you had never had her!'
And so she sent me home, in rage and anger,
And as I went, I did a little thinking,
Turning over, in my mind, the goddess' warning.
I began to be afraid: had Procris kept
Her marriage vows? Her beauty and her youth
Pointed one way, her character another.
Still, I had been away; I was returning
>From one who was no paragon of virtue,
And a man in love, besides, is always fearful.
[page 176]
So I decided to give myself a reason
To have a grievance; I would test her honor
With costly gifts. In this Aurora helped me,
Changing my form--I seemed to feel the change
--And so, unrecognized, I came to Athens,
Entered my house. The house itself seemed blameless,
No sign of anything wrong, but only anxious
For its lost master. Using a thousand ruses,
All kinds of trouble, I came at last to Procris,
And when I saw her, wanted to abandon
The silly test. It was not easy for me
Not to confess the truth, and not to kiss her
As she deserved being kissed. She was sorrowful,
But never was a woman lovelier
In sorrow than Procris, longing for her husband.
Imagine, Phocus, how beautiful she was,
Her very sorrow most becoming to her!
What use is there in telling you how often
Her chastity rejected my temptations?
'I keep myself for one,' she would always tell me,
'Wherever he is, I save my pleasure for him.'
What more could any sensible man have wanted?
I was not satisfied, I kept on fighting
To wound myself. I promised her a fortune
For just one night, and as I doubled the promise
I made her hesitate, and then, victorious,
Wickedly so, exclaimed: 'Ha, evil woman!
I was no real seducer, but your husband,
Both witness and detective!' She said nothing,
Never a word, but a shamed and beaten woman
Fled from her treacherous husband and his house,
And hating him and all the race of men
Went wandering the mountains, all devoted
To the worship of Diana, virgin huntress.
I was lonely, and my passion burned the fiercer
In loneliness; I pleaded for her pardon,
[page 177]
Confessed that I had sinned and might have yielded,
As she had, if such gifts were offered to me.
There was, it seemed, some satisfaction for her
In my confession: she came back to me,
And so we spent delightful years together.
As though the gift of her sweet self was nothing,
She brought me more, a hunting hound Diana
Had given her, swiftest of all in coursing,
And the javelin you see here in my hands.
The story of both gifts is worth repeating.
Oedipus, Laius' son, had solved the riddle
No man had fathomed, and the Sphinx lay broken,
But a second monster loosed itself on Thebes,
And all the country-dwellers fled in terror
From that fierce beast that ravaged herds and people.
We, young men all, came and spread wide our nets
Around the fields, but the monster overleapt them.
We loosed the hounds; they might as well have followed
Birds in the air, so then they came and asked me
To turn my Laelaps loose (that was the name
Of the hound that Procris gave me). He was straining
Against the leash, against the strap that held him.
We had hardly let him go when he was gone
Out of our sight completely. The warm dust
Still held his footprints, but we could not see him.
No spear was ever swifter, no arrow ever,
No leaden bullets from the curved sling flying.
I climbed a hill-top, watched the strange pursuit:
The beast was almost caught, in the grip of the jaws,
Then gone again, not running straight, but doubling,
Wheeling, eluding the charge, and Laelaps, after him,
Has him, almost, then seems to have him, snapping
At empty air. I got the javelin ready,
Poised it, looked down a moment, to fit my fingers
Into the thong, looked up, and saw--a wonder!
[page 178]
--Two marble statues in the plain, one fleeing,
One in pursuit, or so it seemed. Some god,
If there was any god there, must have willed it
That neither one should lose."
As he fell silent,
Phocus began to prompt him: "And the javelin?
What could have been the matter with the javelin?"
So Cephalus went on: "The matter, Phocus,
Was that my grief began in happiness.
What joy it is, oh son of Aeacus,
To call to mind that blessed time, those days
When we were fortunate, she in her husband,
I in my wife. We loved each other dearly,
Even Jove's embrace was less to her than mine was,
And I would not have traded her for Venus,
So equally each heart burned for the other.
I was young then; I loved hunting; early mornings,
When the sun came over the mountains, off I went
To the deep woods, and no companions with me,
No hound, no horse, no nets. I trusted fully
In javelin alone, and when my hand
Had all the game it needed, I came back
To the cool shadows, and the stir of air
>From the cool valleys, waiting for the breeze,
Wooing the breeze, that came to cool and rest me.
I even gave the breeze a name. 'Dear Aura,'
For that was what I called her, I remember,
'Dear Aura, come and comfort me; receive me
In your most welcome graces, and allay
The heat I burn with!' And I may have added
Further endearments (as my fate would have it),
Saying, 'You are my greatest joy, my comfort,
My recreation, and I love the woods
And solitudes because they bring you to me.
How sweet your breath on lips and cheek! Dear Aura!'
And someone overheard me, and thought Aura
[page 179]
Was the name of a girl or a nymph, and that I loved her,
And ran to Procris with a reckless story
Of my unfaithfulness, told in a whisper.
How credulous love is! Procris believed it,
Fell in a faint, revived, and called herself
Unhappy, doomed unfairly, all the while
Complaining of my faithlessness, and driven
By nothing more than idle talk to fear
Nothing at all, an empty name, no more,
As if a living woman was her rival.
Still, she would doubt, and hope, would not believe it,
It would take more than a story to convince her,
She said, she would not believe her husband guilty
Until she caught him in the act.
Next morning
In the early light, I left the house again,
Hunting, and sought the woods, and the hunt was good,
And I lay resting on the grass, and called
'Come to me, Aura!' And I thought I heard
A sigh, or a moan, in answer. 'Dearest, come!'
I cried, and the fallen leaves made a slight rustling.
I thought I heard a beast and flung the javelin.
It was Procris, not a beast, who cried in anguish.
I knew her voice, rushed to the sound, and found her
Dying, her clothes all bloodstained; she was trying,
Poor thing, to pull from her wounded breast the weapon
She once had given me. With loving arms
I raised her body, so much dearer to me
Than was my own; I tore aside the robes,
Bound up the wound, and tried to staunch the blood,
Begging her not to leave me, with the guilt
Of her death for my curse. Her strength was going,
But in her dying effort she could manage
To speak a little: 'By the gods
Above, by my own gods, and by the bonds
We shared in bed together, dearest husband,
[page 180]
I beg you, if you ever had reason to love me
As I love you, so much so that my love
Has brought me death, never allow this Aura
Inside our room!' And so I understood,
Mistake, misunderstanding of the name,
And made my explanation, but what good
Was explanation then? She fell back dying,
Her last strength going with her blood, but looking,
While she could look at anything, at me,
Whose lips took her last breath, unhappy spirit.
And yet, her face seemed, almost, to be smiling.
I think she died at peace."
The story ended
With every one in tears, as Aeacus
Entered with both his sons, and the new soldiers
Strong in their armor, for Cephalus to welcome.