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MET MORPHOSES
translated
by
ROLFE
HUMPHRI S
INDI N UNIVERSITY PRESS • Bloomington
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Copyright
Ig55
Indiana University Press
LIBR RY
OF
CONGRESS C T LOG C RD
NUMBER
5 6269
Manufactured in the United States of America
CL. ISBN
0 253 33755 0
PA. ISBN
o 253 2000 I 6
7 28 9 89 88 87
note: This pdf is a scan of a used book I bought somewhere orother. The highlighter marks came with the book, and you cansafely ignore them.
-Mr. Bigley
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OOK
he Story
of
Orpheus and urydice
So
Hymen
left there, clad in saffron robe,
Through
the
great reach
of
air, and
took his way
To
the
Ciconian country where
the
voice
Of
Orpheus
called him, all
in
vain.
He
came there,
True but brought with him no auspicious words,
No joyful faces,
lucky
omens. The
torch
Sputtered and filled the eyes
with
smoke; when swung
t
would
not blaze: bad s
the
omens were,
The
end
was worse,
for
as the bride
went
walking
Across
the
lawn, attended
by
her naiads,
A serpent
bit
her
ankle, and she was gone.
Orpheus
mourned her to
the
upper
world
And then, lest he should leave
the
shades untried,
Dared
to descend to Styx, passing the portal
Men
call T aenarian. Through the
phantom
dwellers,
The buried ghosts, he passed, came to the
king
Of
that sad realm, and to Persephone,
His consort,
and he swept
the
strings,
and
chanted:
Gods of the world below
the
world to whom
All of us mortals come, if I may speak -
Without deceit,
the
simple truth is this:
I came here,
not
to see dark
Tartarus
234
note: We're jumping in at the beginningof Book 10 in a 15-book epic. The lastbook ended with a wedding, so Hymen,the god of marriage showed up. He's thetransition device to a new story here inBook 10, as he attends the wedding ofOrpheus, the world's best singer. Itdoesn't end well. -Mr. Bigley
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lines z 1 5z
0 R
PH EU
S
AND
E U R Y D I E 2
~
Nor
yet
to
bind the triple-throated monster
Medusa's offspring, rough
with
snakes. I came
For
mywife's sake, whose_growing years were taken
)'.:a
snake's venom. I wanted to be able
To
bear this; I have tried
to
. Love has conquered.
T his god
is
famous in the world above,
B
ut
here, I do
not
know. I think he may be
Or
is it
all a lie,
that
ancient story
Of
an old ravishment, and how he brought
The
two
of
you together? By these places
All full
of
fear,
by
this immense confusion,
By this vast kingdom's silences, I beg you,
Weave over Eurydice's life, run through too soon.
T o you
we
all, people and things, belong,
Sooner
or
later,
to
this single dwelling
All of us come,
to our
last home; you hold
Longest dominion over humankind.
She will come back again,
to
be
your
subject,
After
the ripeness
of
her years; I am asking
A loan and
not
a
gift
.
f
fate denies us
This privilege for
my
wife, one thing is certain:
I do
notwant
to
go
back either; triumph
n
the death
of
two.
And with
his words, the music
Made the pale phantoms weep: Ixion's wheel
Was
still,
Tityos
vultures left the liver,
Tan
alus tried no more
to
reach
for
the water,
And
Belus' daughters rested from their urns,
And
Sisyphus climbed
on
his rock
to
listen.
That
was the first time ever in all the world
The
Furies wept.
Neither
the king
nor
consort
Had
harshness to refuse him, and
they
called her,
Eurydice. She was there, limping a little
From her late wound,
with
the
new
shades
of
Hell.
And
Orpheus received her, bjlt one
r m
Was
set: he must not, till he
11assed
A vemus,
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lines
52 Br
They climbed the upward path, through absolute silence,
Up the steep murk, clouded in pitchy darkness,
They were near the margin, near the upper land,
When
he, afraid that she might falter, eager to see her,
Looked back in love, and she was gone,
in
a moment.
Was it he, or she, reaching
out
arms and trying
To hold
or to
be held, and clasping nothing
But empty air? Dying the second time,
She had no reproach
to
bring against
her
husband,
What was there
to
complain of? One thing, only:
He loved her. He could hardly hear her calling
Farewell when
she was gone.
The
double death
Stunned Orpheus, like the man who turned to stone
At sight of Cerberus, or the couple of rock,
Olenos and Lethaea, hearts so joined
One shared the other s guilt, and Ida s mountain,
Where
rivers run, still holds them, both together.
n vain the prayers of Orpheus and his longing
To cross the river once more; the boatman Charon
Drove him away.
Fm
seven days he sat there
Beside the bank, in filthy garments, and tasting
No food whatever. Trouble, grief, and tears
Were
all his sustenance.
At
last, complaining
The
gods of
Hell
were cruel, he wandered
on
, To Rhodope and Haemus, swept by the
north
winds,
( Where, for three years, he lived
without
a woman
Either because marriage had meant misfortune
Or
he had made a promise. But many women
Wanted
this
poet for
their own, and many
Grieved over their rejection. His love was given
To
young boys only, and he told the Thracians
That
was the better way:
enjoy that springtime,
ake
those first flowers/
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86 121
ORPHEUS ND
EURYDICE
37
There
was a hill, and on
it
A wide-extending plain, all green, but lacking
The
darker green of shade, and when the singer
Came
there
and
ran
his fingers
over the
strings,
The
shade came
there to
listen. The oak-tree came,
And many poplars, and the gentle lindens,
The beech, the virgin laurel, and the hazel
Easily broken, the ash men use for spears,
The
shining silver-fir, the ilex bending
Under its acorns, the friendly sycamore,
The
changing-colored maple, and
the
willows
That
Jove the river-waters, and the lotus
Favoring pools, and
the
green
boxwood
came,
Slim tamarisks, and myrtle, and viburnum
With dark-blue berries, and the pliant ivy,
The
tendrilled grape, the elms, all dressed with vines,
The
rowan-trees,
the
pitch-pines,
and the arbute
With the red fruit, the palm, the victor s
triumph
The bare-trunked
pine with spreading leafy crest,
Dear to the mother of the gods since Attis
Put off his human form, took on that likeness,
And the cone-shaped cypress joined them, now a tree,
But
once a hoy, loved by the god Apollo
Master of
lyre
and bow-string,
both
together.
The Story of
yparissus
There was a deer, whom the Carthean nymphs
Held
sacred, a
great
stag, whose spreading antlers
Were his own shade-tree.
Golden
shone those horns,
And
round
his glossy
neck
a string of jewels
Fell to his shoulders, and a silver bubble,
Fastened with little straps, gleamed on his forehead,
With
earrings, made
of
bronze,
at
either temple.
He
had no fear at all,
would
enter houses,
Let even unfamiliar people pet him,
But most of all he was
fond
of Cyparissus,
note: At this point, Orpheus has begun singing, and therest of Book 10 is stories that he tells in his song. We'llskip those and move to Book 11, where his own story
picks up again.
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BOOK
XI
The
eath
of rpheus
So with his singing
Orpheus
drew the trees,
The beasts, the stones, to follow,
when,
behold
The mad Ciconian women, fleeces flung
Across their maddened breasts, caught sight of
him
From
a
near
hill-top, as he joined his song
To the lyre's music. One
of
them, her tresses
Streaming in the light air, cried out:
Look
there
There is
our
despiser and she flung a spear
Straight at the singing mouth, but the leafywand
Made only a
mark
and did no harm. A
nother
L
et
fly a stone, which, even as it flew,
Was
conquered
by
the
sweet
harmonious music,
Fell
at
his feet, as if
to
ask for pardon.
But
still
the warfare
raged, there was no limit,
Mad fury reigned, and even so, all
we
apons
Would have been softened by the singer's music,
But there was
other
orchestration: flutes
Shrilling, and trumpets braying loud, and drums,
Beating of breasts, and howling, so the lyre
Was overcome, and then at last the stones
Reddened with blood, the blood of the singe
r,
heard
No
more
through all that
outcry. All
the birds
259
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B K L E
V N
lin s 21 50
Innumerable, fled, and
the
charmed snakes,
The train
of
beasts, Orpheus glory, followed.
The
Maenads stole
the
show.
Their
bloody
hands
Were turned against
the
poet;
they
came
thronging
Like birds who see an owl, wandering in daylight;
They bayed him down as in the early morning,
Hounds circle the doomed stag beside the game-pits.
They rushed him, threw the wands,
wreathed
with green
leaves,
Not
meant
for
such a purpose; some
threw
clods,
Some branches
torn from
the
tree,
and
some
threw
stones,
And
they
found fitter weapons
for
their madness.
Not
far
away there
was a team of oxen
Plowing the field, and near them farmers, digging
Reluctant earth, and sweating over their labor,
Who fled before the onrush of this army
Leaving behind them hoe and rake and mattock
And
these
the
women
grabbed,
and
slew
the
oxen
Who lowered horns at them in brief defiance
And
were torn limb from limb, and then
the
women
Rushed
back
to
murder
Orpheus, who
stretched out
His hands in supplication,
and
whose voice,
For the first time, moved
no
one.
They
struck him down
And through those lips to
which the
rocks had listened,
To
which
the
hearts
of
savage beasts responded,
His spirit
found
its
way
to winds and air.
The birds wept for him, and the
throng
of beasts,
The flinty rocks,
the
trees
which
came so often
To hear
his song, all
mourned
. The trees, it seemed,
Shook
down
their leaves, as
if
they might be women
Tearing
their hair,
and
rivers, with
their
tears,
Were
swollen,
and their
naiads and
their
dryads
Mourned
in
black robes. The poet s limbs lay scattered
Where they
were
flung in cruelty or madness,
But Hebrus
River
took the head
and
lyre
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DE TH O F O R P H U S 26
And
as they
floated down the gentle
current
The
lyre maae mournful sounds, and
th
e tongue murmured
In
mournful harmony, and the banks echoed
The
strains
of
mourning. On the sea, beyond
Their
native stream,
they
came
at
last
to
Lesbos
nd
grounded near the city of Methymna.
nd
here a serpent struck
at
the head, still dripping
With
sea-spray,
but
Apollo came and stopped it,
Freezing the open jaws
to
stone, still gaping.
And Orpheus ghost fled under the earth, and knew
The
places he had
known
before, and, haunting
T he fields of the blessed, found Eurydice
nd took her
in
his arms, and
now
together
nd
side
by
side
they
wander, or Orpheus follows
Or
goes ahead, and may,
with
perfect safety,
Look
back for his Eurydice.
But Bacchus
Demanded punishment for so much evil.
Mourning
his
singer s loss he bound those women,
All those
who
saw the murder, in a forest,
Twisted their feet to roots, and thrust them deep
Into unyielding earth. As a bird struggles
Caught
in
a fowler s snare, and flaps and fl.utters
nd
draws its bonds the tighter
by
its struggling,
Even so the Thracian women, gripped
by
the soil,
Fastened
n
desperate terror, writhed and struggled,
But the roots held.
They
looked to see their fingers,
Their
toes, their nails, and saw the bark come creeping
Up the smooth legs;
they
tried
to
smite their thighs
With grieving hands, and struck on oak; their breasts
Were
oak, and oak their shoulders, and their arms
You well might call long branches and be truthful.
The
tory
of
Midas
And even this was
not
enough
for
Bacchus.
He
left those fields, and
with
a worthier band
note: That's the end of Orpheus, but the linked stories keep on going. If you want to know what Bacchus has to do with Midas, I'll lend you the book. -Mr. Bigley
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