Metamorphoses

  For that reason,

  lest the earth produce one greater than himself,

  although the fire that he felt for her

  was anything but tepid, Jupiter

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  shunned intercourse with Thetis, ordering

  his grandson, Peleus, to take his place

  in making love to her in word and deed.

  In Thessaly, there is a sickle-shaped

  bay with two arms extending out to sea;

  if it were deeper, it would be a port,

  but the surface there lies just above the sand;

  the shore is solid: footprints leave no trace,

  and the sand is free of seaweed, firm to walk on.

  There is a myrtle grove nearby, whose trees

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  are thickly hung with their berries red and green,

  and in the middle is a grotto, made

  by nature or by art—it isn’t easy

  to say which of them has the greater claim,

  but art would seem to.

  Here you would often come,

  Thetis, riding on your bridled dolphin,

  and usually naked; here as you lay

  disarmed by sleep, Peleus embraced you,

  and after you rejected his desires,

  resorted to force, wrapping both his arms

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  around your neck; and had you not employed

  your customary arts, his audacity

  would have won him what he was trying for:

  but now you are a bird, which he holds fast,

  and now a heavy tree that he must cling to;

  you next appeared to be a spotted tigress,

  which frightened him, so that he let you go.

  At which point, baffled Peleus entreats

  the sea gods for their aid, offering wine

  mixed with their element, and burning up

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  great clouds of incense and the guts of sheep,

  till Proteus emerges from the deep:

  “Peleus,” he said, “you may obtain

  what you desire in the way of bed,

  if you do this: when she is fast asleep

  in the unyielding cave, and unawares,

  bind her in snares and chains to hold her close,

  and do not let her work her wiles on you,

  though she take on a hundred lying shapes:

  press her, whatever she will be, until

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  she reassumes the form that she first had.”

  So Proteus spoke and quickly sank from sight

  beneath the waves that covered his last words.

  Now in his tilted chariot, the Sun

  was hastening down toward the western sea,

  when lovely Thetis, leaving the deep water,

  returned once more to her accustomed bed;

  Peleus had just barely got a grip on

  her virgin limbs, when she assumed new shapes,

  continuing until she realized

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  her movements were constrained: she had been bound,

  and both her arms were now securely pinned.

  She groaned and told him, “You would not have won

  without the intervention of the gods,”

  and then appeared to him in her own form,

  and he achieved what he desired to,

  and filled her womb with fabulous Achilles.

  Daedalion

  His son and wife proved Peleus to be

  one of the fortunate, a man to whom,

  if you ignore his butchery of Phocus,

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  good only happens: stained with his brother’s blood,

  and driven from the palace of his father,

  he found a refuge in the land of Trachin.

  Here ruled, with great benevolence, the seed

  of Lucifer, whose name was Ceyx,

  a son whose father’s splendor shone in him,

  though at that time he was unlike himself,

  in mourning for a brother snatched away.

  Exhausted by his cares and by his travels,

  Peleus, with a few companions, entered

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  the city, after leaving flocks and herds

  in a shaded valley just outside the walls,

  and when permitted to approach the king,

  extended, in the sign of supplication,

  the olive branches wound around with wool,

  and told him his and his own father’s name,

  concealing nothing other than his crime,

  and lying about the reason for his flight;

  he sought, in city or in countryside,

  a competence.

  The ruler of Trachin

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  gently replied, “Even the common folk

  find opportunities within our realm,

  nor is our kingdom inhospitable;

  your reputation and descent from Jove

  provide another motive that unites

  with our natural benevolence;

  waste no more time with your petition, then:

  you will have everything you ask us for,

  just take your share of anything you see—

  if only there were better to be seen!”

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  Then he broke down and wept.

  Moved by his grief,

  Peleus and his companions asked its cause;

  the king replied, “Perhaps you thought this bird

  of prey, the terror of all other birds,

  has been one always—but that isn’t so:

  he used to be a man, and so unchanging

  are our characters that even then

  his edgy bellicosity was noted,

  as was his readiness to pick a fight—

  his name? Daedalion. Like me, the son

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  of the god who calls Aurora to her duties

  and exits from the heavens last of all;

  my interests were in preserving peace

  and being with my wife; my brother, though,

  found pleasure only in ferocious war,

  in subjugating by his strength of arms

  rulers and their nations; now transformed,

  he agitates the dovecotes of Boeotia!

  “Daedalion had a daughter named Chione,

  endowed with beauty to a rare degree,

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  who had a thousand suitors by the time

  she was old enough for marriage at fourteen.

  “It happened that Apollo was returning

  from Delphi as it chanced that Mercury

  was on his way back from Cyllene’s heights:

  both saw her at the same time, both caught fire.

  Apollo deferred his longed-for satisfaction

  until the nightfall, but the other one

  would not delay: with sleep-inducing wand,

  he touched the virgin’s lips; its influence

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  made her lie down at once beneath the god

  and bear his thrusts; Night spread the sky with stars;

  came Phoebus in the guise of an old woman,

  and he attained his long-delayed delight.

  “Now, when her time had come, a son was born

  of the wing-footed god: Autolycus,

  a thief with all his father’s cleverness,

  and able to persuade you white was black

  and black was white; of Phoebus there was born

  (for Chione had given birth to twins)

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  Philammon, later famous for his skills

  as singer and musician.

  “Having delivered

  a pair of twins and having pleased two gods;

  having a father who is powerful,

  and a grandfather noted for his brilliance—

  is this a guarantee of satisfaction,

  or is such glory often just a trial?

  “Well, certainly, in this case, it was so,
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  for Chione, in her own estimation,

  surpassed Diana in attractiveness,

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  and found fault with the goddess’s appearance;

  enraged, Diana answered, ‘Deeds be my words!’

  And without pausing, fitted to the string

  of her curved bow an arrow and released it,

  piercing, deservedly, Chione’s tongue,

  which lapsed into silence; neither voice nor word

  ensued, as she attempted to speak out,

  and blood and life both drained away from her.

  “Wretched, I took her in my arms and held her,

  bearing my brother’s sorrow in my heart,

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  attempting to console him with my words,

  which had no more of an effect on him

  than the murmuring of waves upon the rocks,

  as he mourned for his daughter snatched away;

  and when her father saw her body burning,

  he tried four times to leap into the flames,

  and after being thrown back the fourth time,

  he fled in agitation, like a bullock

  with a cloud of stinging wasps around his neck,

  who plunges off the pathway.

  “Even then

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  he seemed to run much faster than a man;

  you would have thought his feet had put on wings,

  as, in his eagerness to kill himself,

  he outstripped all of us and gained the peak

  of Mount Parnassus.

  “Apollo pitied him

  when he had thrown himself down from the heights,

  and changed him to the kind of bird that hovers

  on unexpected wings; gave him a beak

  and curving claws, but left his former courage

  and strength out of proportion to his size;

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  he lives now as a hawk, at odds with all

  the other birds he preys on savagely,

  grieving himself, and a source of grief to them.”

  The wolf of Psamathe

  While Ceyx, the son of Lucifer, recounted

  the marvel of his brother’s transformation

  to his rapt guest, the herdsman, Onetor,

  came rushing in all breathlessly and cried,

  “Peleus, Peleus, I bring you news

  of a catastrophe!”

  And while King Ceyx

  sat trembling in anxious expectation,

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  Peleus ordered Onetor to speak:

  “I’d driven the weary cattle down to shore,”

  he started and then started once again,

  beginning with, “At that time when the sun

  was highest, in the middle of his course,

  with as much seen as there was left to see,

  some of the cattle knelt on the yellow sands,

  and rolling on their flanks, gazed out upon

  the watery pastures; meanwhile, others roamed

  unhurriedly here and there, and some

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  swam out and stood up to their necks in water.

  “There was a temple very near the sea,

  not famous for its marble or its gold,

  but built of thick-hewn timbers, in a grove

  of ancient trees that shaded it, and sacred

  to Nereus and the Nereids, his daughters

  (a sailor who was drying out his nets

  along the shore informed me that these are

  sea deities); close to the temple grounds,

  in a thick grove of willows, is a marsh

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  created by the back flooding of the sea;

  now from this marsh, with an appalling noise,

  a racket that upsets the neighborhood,

  this very, very huge-sized animal,

  a wolf, emerges from the marshy growth,

  his jaws all dripping foam and clotted blood,

  and his eyes blazing with their own red flames!

  “Driven by rage and hunger equally

  (though rage seemed sharper), he attacked the herd,

  not simply out of hunger, but to wreak

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  havoc upon the cattle that he slaughtered,

  assaulting them as though they were his foes!

  “And some of us as well were badly wounded,

  torn by his fangs as we attempted to

  repel the beast, and given up for dead;

  the shore, the shallow waters, and the swamp

  reverberating with the groans of cattle

  turned red with blood!

  “Delay is ruinous,

  nor does this matter let us hesitate!

  While something yet remains for us to save,

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  let us unite and eagerly take arms,

  and together bring the battle to the foe!”

  So spoke the rustic. Peleus kept calm,

  despite his losses: mindful of his crime,

  he realized that the grieving Nereid

  intended them to be a sacrifice

  to her son Phocus in the underworld.

  The king ordered his men to arm themselves

  and to prepare for battle; when it seemed

  that he too was preparing to go join them,

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  his wife, Alcyone, drawn by the tumult,

  sped from her chambers with her hair undone,

  undoing it still further in her flight,

  and threw herself upon her husband’s neck

  and with her words and tears together begged

  that he should send relief, not go himself,

  and thereby save two lives by saving one.

  And Peleus to her: “Put off, O Queen,

  your dutiful and most becoming fear:

  the aid that you have promised me is welcome,

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  but I do not intend to take up arms

  against this hideous new apparition;

  the powers of the sea must be appeased!”

  A lighthouse stood atop the citadel,

  a welcome sight to vessels in a storm,

  which they ascended, and looking out, beheld

  (and groaned to see), upon the bloody shore,

  the slaughtered herd and devastating beast

  with gore-stained jaws and bloody matted pelt.

  Lifting his arms in invocation, Peleus

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  prayed to the sea-blue goddess, Psamathe,

  and begged that she would end her enmity

  and give him aid; the pleas of Peleus

  left Psamathe unmoved until his wife

  joined his prayers with her own, and then the goddess

  relented and forgave him.

  But even when

  commanded to desist his slaughtering,

  the wolf continued, maddened by his blood lust,

  until, as he was clinging to the neck

  of a wounded heifer, he was turned to stone;

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  his color changed, but all else stayed the same:

  the change in color shows he is a wolf

  no longer, and no longer to be feared.

  The Fates, however, still did not permit

  the exiled Peleus to stay in Trachin;

  and so he wandered to Magnesia,

  and here, from King Acastus, he obtained

  an absolution for the murder he’d committed.

  Ceyx and Alcyone (1)

  His brother’s transformation and some weird

  portents that followed it left Ceyx perturbed

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  and eager to consult the oracles

  that comfort men in their perplexity,

  but on account of Phorbas and his brigands,

  the road to Delphi was too dangerous,

  so he prepared to undertake a journey

  to Phoebus’ shrine at Clarium instead.

  Of course, before he did so, he consulted

 
you, most loyal Alcyone; at once

  the marrow of your bones took a great chill,

  your face turned white as boxwood, and your cheeks

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  were soaked with tears. Three times you tried to speak,

  but could not manage it for weeping so,

  as sobbing interrupted your complaints:

  “Dearest,” she said, “what have I done amiss

  to change your heart? Where is the consideration

  that you have always showed me? Are you now able

  to take your leave without a thought for me?

  Does a long journey have such great appeal?

  Does absence make me dearer to you now?

  “But I suppose you’re traveling by land,

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  and though I will be sorry, I won’t fear,

  and my concern will be unmixed with dread.

  The sea is terrifying, and that sad

  image of the deep: a little while ago

  I saw parts of a broken ship on shore,

  and often, upon gravestones yet uncarved,

  I’ve read the names of those about to die!

  “Don’t put your confidence in the wrong place,

  relying on your father-in-law, Aeolus,

  who keeps the storm winds locked up in his prison,

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  and, when he wishes to, can calm the waves,

  for once they break loose and reach open seas,

  the winds are wholly uncontrollable,

  and earth and sea alike are unprotected;

  indeed, they even vex the clouds in heaven,

  and shake the lightnings from them by collision!

  The more I know the winds—I came to know them

  from frequent observations as a girl

  in my father’s house—the more they frighten me!

  “But if your purpose, dear, will not be changed

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  by a thousand prayers, if you are fixed on going,

  then take me with you, and most certainly

  we will experience the storms together,

  nor will I fear what I must undergo;

  whatever will be, we will bear the same,

  in the same ship, borne on the open sea!”

  Her starry husband could not but be moved

  by this lament of the daughter of Aeolus,

  for an equal fire burned in his heart too;

  however, he did not wish to abandon

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  the sea journey that he proposed to make,

  nor let Alcyone share in its dangers;

  his words poured forth, intended to console her,

  but did not win consent until he added,

  in order to alleviate her pain,

  one last concession; it was this alone

  that let his loving spouse give her permission:

  “Delay of any sort seems long to us,”

  he said, “but by my father’s light I swear

  that if the Fates permit, I will return,

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  before the moon has filled his circle twice.”

  When her hopes for his return had been renewed