Metamorphoses

And then he told more stories, just as true,

  of lands and seas he’d seen from high above,

  and of the stars his wings had whisked him past;

  and ended there, before it was expected.

  But one of that company of nobles asked

  why none of her sisters but Medusa wore

  those serpents interwoven in her hair.

  The guest responded: “Since what you would know

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  happens to be a story worth relating,

  listen to me and I will tell you why.

  “She was at one time very beautiful,

  the hope of many suitors all contending,

  and her outstanding feature was her hair

  (this I have learned from one who saw her then).

  But it is said that Neptune ravished her,

  and in the temple of Minerva, where

  Jove’s daughter turned away from the outrage

  and chastely hid her eyes behind her aegis.

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  “So that this action should not go unpunished,

  she turned the Gorgon’s hair into foul snakes;

  and she, to overwhelm her foes with terror,

  bears on her breast the serpents she created.”

  BOOK V

  CONTESTS OF ARMS AND SONG

  Perseus and the suitors Minerva visits the Muses The daughters of Pierus Calliope’s hymn to Ceres: Proem The rape of Proserpina Stellio Ascalaphus The daughters of Acheloüs Proserpina transformed Arethusa’s tale Triptolemus and Lyncus The P-Airides

  Perseus and the suitors

  While Danaë’s heroic son regaled

  the Ethiopians surrounding him

  with his adventures, raucous tumult filled

  the hall of the palace: this was not the clamor

  which signifies a wedding feast in progress,

  but that which tells of warfare breaking out,

  as, unexpectedly, the marriage banquet

  became a riot, which you might compare

  to when the sea’s calm waters, angered by

  the rabid winds, make agitated waves.

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  Phineus was the first to take up arms,

  the instigator of this thoughtless action,

  who shook his bronze-tipped ash-wood spear, and said,

  “Look over here at me, come to avenge

  my stolen bride: your wings will not avail you,

  nor Jupiter, transformed into fool’s gold,

  defend you from the havoc I will wreak!”

  As Phineus prepared to cast his spear,

  his brother Cepheus cried out to him,

  “What are you doing? What insanity

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  is urging you to perpetrate this outrage?

  Do his great services deserve such thanks?

  Will you repay the saving of a life

  with such a dowry? For to tell the truth,

  it was not Perseus who took her from you,

  but the grim deity of the Nereids,

  and Ammon of the horns, and the sea monster

  who came to sate his hunger on my child;

  you lost her at the moment she was taken

  to be destroyed—unless your cruelty

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  would have her dead to cover up your shame,

  and ease your grief at the expense of mine!

  “That you, her uncle and her fiancé,

  could see her bound and not attempt a rescue,

  that should have ended any claim you had.

  But now, because another saved the girl,

  will you cry foul and try to take his prize?

  If his reward now seems excessive to you,

  you should have tried to win it on the rocks,

  when she was chained to them. Now let that man,

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  who has delivered me from an old age

  that would have lacked the comfort of a daughter,

  keep what his actions—and my pledge—have won him,

  and realize that he has been preferred

  not to you, merely, but to certain death.”

  He made no answer, but looked back and forth

  to Perseus and to the other man,

  unable to decide which one should get it,

  but after a few moments’ hesitation,

  he hurled his mighty spear at Perseus.

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  It stuck out from the couch beside the hero,

  who, when he noticed it at last, leapt up

  ferociously, and sent it whizzing back;

  it would have torn the breast of Phineus

  were he not hiding out behind the altar,

  where, shamefully, that criminal found refuge.

  Nevertheless, his throw could not be said

  to be entirely without effect:

  the spear caught Rhoetus full in the face,

  and after it was plucked out of his skull,

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  he lay there writhing in his agony,

  and spattered the table settings with his gore.

  The crowd went totally ballistic, then;

  spears filled the air, and there were those who said

  that Cepheus should die with Perseus,

  but the old man had already slipped away,

  swearing by Faith and Justice and the gods

  of hospitality that this was done

  against his will. Warlike Athena appeared

  and covered up her brother with her shield

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  and gave him courage.

  From India had come

  a youth named At his, whom the nymph Limnaee

  (herself a daughter of the river Ganges)

  gave birth to, underneath its glassy surface,

  or so they say. The exceptional good looks

  of this still adolescent innocent

  were well enhanced by his distinguished wardrobe,

  especially his gold-fringed purple mantle;

  a golden necklace ornamented his neck,

  and a headband held his perfumed locks in place;

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  he was a master of the javelin,

  quite capable of hitting a bull’s-eye

  from far away, and even more accomplished

  with the bow, which, at that moment, he was bending,

  when Perseus snatched up a smoking brand

  from the sacrificial fires of the altar

  and struck him with it, shattering his face.

  Now when Assyrian Lycabas saw

  that much-admired beauty wallowing

  in his own blood, expiring beneath

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  that bitter wound, he wept for his true love

  and closest mate, then took up his friend’s bow

  and said I will provide you with a contest;

  you will not long rejoice in this boy’s fate,

  which brings you far more odium than glory.”

  He had not finished saying all of this

  when the penetrating dart leapt from its string

  to miss the mark and dangle helplessly

  from the robe of Perseus, who turned on him

  and thrust into his breast that scimitar

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  first tested in the slaughter of Medusa.

  His vision blurry with advancing night,

  he sought a glimpse of Athis as he died,

  and fell upon him, bearing to his grave

  the solace that they were now joined in death.

  But look, where Phorbas, son of Metion,

  and Amphimedon, a Libyan, appear,

  both eager to commit themselves to battle,

  both skidding helplessly, then crashing down

  into the blood that made the floor all slippery;

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  and as they struggled to regain their footing,

  one caught it in the ribs, and one, the throat.

  But Perseus did not employ his sword

  when he found Eurytus, t
he son of Actor,

  whose weapon was the double-headed axe;

  he hoisted in both hands a huge and weighty

  wine-mixing bowl, artistically engraved,

  and sent it crashing down onto the man,

  who fell upon his back, expiring

  in the bright red blood that he had vomited,

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  and his head thumped in spasms on the floor.

  Then Perseus struck down Polydegmon

  (who was descended from Queen Semiramis),

  Caucasian Abaris, Lycetus of Thessaly,

  unbarbered Helices, Phlegyas, and Clitus,

  and trod upon that heap of dying men.

  Phineus did not dare engage in close

  combat, but hurled a javelin instead,

  which accidentally struck Idas, who

  had vainly sought to maintain neutrality.

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  Idas, dying, glared at the man and said,

  “Since I have been forced to take sides in this,

  accept the enemy you’ve made of me,

  and pay the price for that wound now, with this one—”

  He had withdrawn that weapon from his body

  and was about to hurl it back at him,

  when he collapsed, completely drained of blood.

  Then Hodites, the second in command

  to Cepheus, was slain by Clymenus,

  and Hypseus struck down Prothoenor,

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  and was himself transfixed by Lyncides.

  There was an old man named Emathion,

  a friend of justice and of piety;

  since he was kept from combat by his age,

  he warred with words, and boldly now stepped up

  to execrate their irreligious arms;

  as he clung tremulously to the altar,

  a blow from Chromis’ sword cut off his head

  which dropped at once onto the altar stone,

  and his half-conscious tongue continued to

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  upbraid them till his failing breath no longer

  stirred sacrificial flames.

  The next to fall

  were Broteas and Ammon, who were twins;

  unbeaten in the ring, they would have won,

  if boxing gloves were any match for swords:

  in close combat, Phineus slew them both.

  Ampycus, priest of Ceres, with his brows

  adorned in sacramental fillets, fell;

  you also fell, Lampetides, not meant

  to shine in situations such as these;

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  yours were the deeds of peace, reciting poems

  which you accompanied upon the lute;

  you had been summoned here to solemnize

  the wedding feast with song.

  Pedasus, grinning,

  saw how he kept himself and his instrument

  out of harm’s way, and shouted to him, “Sing

  the remainder of your song to the shades below,”

  lodging his shaft above the bard’s left eye;

  and as he fell, his dying fingers struck

  the lyre’s strings, and on that plaintive note

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  the poet and his song came to an end.

  Infuriated by that sight, Lycormas

  did not allow him to go unavenged,

  but seized a beam from the right side of the door

  and brought it crashing down upon the spine

  of grinning Pedasus, and broke his neck,

  and he collapsed like a sacrificial bull.

  Pelates, a North African, attempted

  to tear out a pillar on the left-hand side,

  and as he struggled, his right hand was pinned

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  against the wooden beam with a spear cast

  by Corythus, come from Marmarica.

  And as he hung there, Abas cut him open

  and bled him dry; he did not fall to the ground,

  but dangled helplessly until he died.

  And Melaneus too was overcome,

  one of the followers of Perseus;

  and Dorylas as well, the wealthiest

  in Libya, where no one else possessed

  estates or heaps of spice as vast as his;

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  a spear cast from the side tore through his groin,

  a fatal place.

  When Halcyoneus

  of Bactria, who’d given him that wound,

  observed his victim gasping up his soul

  and rolling his eyes in agony, he said,

  “Of all the many properties you own,

  you may keep only what you lie upon,”

  and left his lifeless corpse.

  But Perseus,

  avenging him, snatched from the still-warm wound

  the bloody spear and flung it back at him;

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  it broke his nose and drove right through his neck,

  projecting from the front and from behind.

  While Fortune favored him, the hero slew

  Clytis and Clanis, who, though both were born

  of the same mother, died of different wounds,

  for Clytis had been shafted through both thighs

  while Clanis ate the spear that did him in.

  Then Celadon of Mendes also fell,

  and Astreus (his mother Syrian,

  his father dubious) and Aethion,

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  once shrewd enough at seeing what would come,

  now victimized by a deceptive omen;

  and Thoactes, the royal armorer,

  and Agyrtes, the ill-famed patricide.

  Although worn-out by all that he had done,

  there was still more to do: it was one man

  against a mob united to destroy him;

  from all sides he was set on by opponents,

  a moving front, the servants of a cause

  assailing his merit and the promise made him.

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  On his side, he could count on the support

  of his father-in-law and his new bride

  and the bride’s mother—all filling up the hall

  with pointless lamentation, now drowned out

  by the groans of the dying warriors,

  as fierce Bellona shames the household gods

  with fresh-spilled blood and stirs the conflict up.

  Phineus and his thousand followers

  surround one man: past him the missiles whiz

  on either side, beyond his eyes and ears,

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  thicker than hailstones in a winter storm.

  He leans his shoulders flat against a column,

  and with his back safe, faces his opponents

  massed on both sides and ready to attack:

  Chaonian Molpeus leads the left

  and Nabataean Ethemon, the right.

  Just as a tigress, goaded by her hunger,

  who has heard the lowing of two separate herds

  in different valleys, cannot quite decide

  which to take on, but burns to take on both,

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  so our Perseus is hesitant

  as to which side he ought to strike at first:

  Molpeus takes a spear shaft in the shin

  and is permitted to remove himself,

  but Ethemon cuts Perseus no slack,

  and charges, with his sword held shoulder high,

  aiming to wound our hero in the neck,

  a powerful, though ill-considered thrust:

  he strikes the column and his shattered blade

  rebounds and lodges in its master’s throat.

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  That wound was not sufficient to dispatch

  the helpless man, who raised up trembling hands

  in unsuccessful prayer as Perseus

  now ran him through with Mercury’s curved sword.

  Then seeing that the mob would overwhelm him,

  Perseus said, “You’ve forced me into t
his;

  I will seek aid from my own enemies!

  If there are any friends here, hide your eyes,”

  and speaking, lifted up the Gorgon’s head.

  “Find someone else to worry with your wonders,”

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  said Thescalus, who raised his deadly spear

  to cast it, but was frozen in that gesture,

  as motionless as any marble statue.

  And then came Ampyx, rich in self-esteem,

  who, with his sword tip, sought the hero’s heart,

  and as he sought it, his right hand grew stiff

  and powerless to move the sword it held.

  But Nileus, who falsely claimed descent

  from the Nile, whose seven mouths were all engraved

  in gold or silver on his shield, cried out,

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  “Look, Perseus, upon my origin:

  it will much comfort you when you are dead

  and wandering among the silent shades,

  that you were slain by such a one as I—”

  but the last part of what he said was stifled;

  it would have seemed to you as though his mouth

  opened to speak, but words could not pass through.

  Then Eryx scornfully rebuked them, saying

  “Defective courage, not effect of Gorgon,

  brings on this inertia—attack with me,

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  and cast him and his magic weapons down!”

  He started in; the earth clung to his feet,

  and he remained there, having turned to flint,

  the immobilized shape of an armed man.

  Now all of these deserved their punishment,

  but one of them, a soldier on the side

  of Perseus named Aconteus, didn’t:

  while he was fighting for our hero, he beheld

  the Gorgon’s face and hardened into rock;

  supposing that the man was still alive,

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  Astyages struck him with his long sword

  which leapt back, clanging shrilly from the blow.

  While Astyages stood there all astounded,

  the very same force turned him into marble

  and left him an astonishment of stone.

  It really would take far too long to name

  the ordinary soldiers; when it ended,

  two hundred men returned to their own side,

  two hundred others were left petrified

  from looking at Medusa’s horrid visage.

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  Now Phineus has finally repented

  of his unjust war, but what is he to do?

  He sees these likenesses in diverse poses,

  and realizes that they are his men,

  and calling each by name, asks for his help,

  and reaches out to touch the nearest man

  in disbelief—all are made of marble!

  He turns his face away but holds his hands out

  in supplication, confessing his defeat: