Metamorphoses

whatever any of these maidens touched,

  turned into grain, or wine, or olive oil:

  a profitable metamorphosis!

  “When Agamemnon, the great scourge of Troy,

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  learned of this gift (lest you should think that we

  had not experienced your trials), he

  at once resorted to the use of force,

  dragged the reluctant girls from my embrace

  and ordered them to use their heavenly gift

  to supply provisions for the Argive fleet.

  “Each of them fled where she was able to:

  two of the girls sought refuge in Euboea,

  the other two, in Andros with their brother.

  The Greeks arrived and threatened him with war

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  unless he gave them up: the ties that bind

  in piety were overcome by fear,

  and he surrendered them for punishment:

  a brother’s pardonable cowardice,

  for he had no Aeneas to defend

  his Andros, and no hero like great Hector,

  who helped you to endure for ten long years.

  “Now as the Greeks were forging manacles

  to bind my daughters, they all raised their arms

  to heaven, and together they cried out,

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  ‘O father Bacchus, deliver us from this!’

  “The author of their gift delivered them—

  if you can call it a delivery

  to lose your human form in some strange way—

  I couldn’t understand then how they lost it,

  nor am I able to explain it now.

  But I do know how this evil came to end:

  they put on plumage and became the birds

  attending Venus, your immortal consort:

  my daughters were all changed to snow-white doves.”

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  The daughters of Orion

  And there were more such stories until dinner

  concluded and they sought their beds.

  At daybreak,

  the oracle of Phoebus bade them seek

  their ancient mother and related shores;

  the king presented gifts on their departure:

  a scepter to Anchises, and a robe

  and quiver to Ascanius his grandson;

  a goblet to Aeneas which a guest

  had brought back from Aionia for the king.

  The precious goblet was the handiwork

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  of Alcon of Hyleus, who had engraved

  a lengthy narrative along its side.

  The scene: a city having seven gates,

  by which the viewer knows that it is Thebes;

  funeral services were taking place

  before the city walls: at sepulchers,

  flames leapt into the air from blazing pyres

  and mothers with bared breasts and unbound hair

  proclaimed their grief; and even water nymphs

  wept at the ruin of their dried-out springs;

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  the trees were all bare and goats gnawed dry rocks.

  But look, where in the middle of the city,

  the daughters of Orion, both of them,

  are exhibiting unwomanly behavior:

  this one exposes her throat to the blade,

  while that one bares her breast to the cast spear;

  they sacrifice themselves to save their people;

  then with great ceremony, they are borne

  through the city’s crowds, to where they are cremated.

  And to prevent their family’s extinction,

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  twin boys (whom fame has named the Coronae)

  spring from the still-warm ashes of the virgins;

  these lads at once join in the services

  commemorating their maternal cinders.

  These figures had been brilliantly depicted

  around the outside of that ancient bronze;

  its lip was decorated with a rough

  border of gold-engraved acanthus leaves.

  Nor did the Trojans offer gifts less worthy:

  they gave Apollo’s priest an incense box,

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  a saucer, and a crown of gold and gems.

  From there, recalling that Teucrians

  sprang from Teucer, they sailed off to Crete,

  but couldn’t bear for long the wrath of Jove

  and left that island of a hundred cities,

  eager to reach the shores of Italy.

  Fierce storms of winter tossed their ships about,

  and when at last they came to the deceitful

  harbor of the Strophades, Aëllo,

  a Harpy, terrified them with her threats.

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  And then to Samos, where Neritos dwells,

  and Ithaca, the kingdom of Ulysses

  the deceitful; they sailed past both of these,

  and saw Ambracia, contested by the gods,

  with its image of a judge turned into rock,

  but better known now for Apollo’s deeds;

  they saw Dodona, of the talking oaks,

  and Chaonia’s bay, where once the threatened sons

  of King Molossos managed to escape

  the impious flames on wings that they both sprouted.

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  They next sought out the Phaiakhian’s land,

  felicitous for its abundant orchards,

  and landed in Epirus at Buthrotos,

  a town that was a replica of Troy,

  and ruled by Helenus, a son of Priam;

  thanks to the prophecies of the Phrygian seer,

  they were aware of what the future held for them,

  and after that, they came to Sicily.

  That island has three capes that run to sea

  in three directions: Pachynus is turned

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  to the rainy south, while Lilybaeum faces

  the gentle western breezes; Pelorus

  looks north and sees the Great and Lesser Bears,

  two groups that never set beneath the sea.

  By strength of oar and by the favoring tides,

  the Teucrians arrived and beached their fleet

  at nightfall on the sands of Messana:

  Scylla assails the whole coast on the right,

  and, on the left, unsleeping Charybdis;

  the latter devours and regurgitates

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  the ships that she has captured, while the former

  is girdled with wild dogs from the waist down.

  She has a virgin’s face, and, if our poets

  are not to be completely disbelieved,

  was once a maiden ardently pursued

  by many lovers, all of whom she scorned,

  finding among the sea nymphs (who adored her)

  a shelter from unwanted male attentions,

  where she could boast of outmaneuvered swains.

  And there once, while she offered Galatea

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  her hair to groom, that lovelorn Nereid,

  sighing repeatedly, told her this tale:

  Polyphemus, Galatea, and Acis

  “Without a doubt, O virgin, you attract

  men of refinement, those of a better class,

  whom you can brush off without any fear

  of consequence; but I, although the daughter

  of two immortals, Nereus and Doris,

  and although guarded by a throng of sisters,

  could not escape from the undesired

  attentions of the Cyclops without grief.”

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  A flood of tears kept her from saying more.

  The other smoothly scrubbed away the tears

  from Galatea’s eyes and soothed her, saying,

  “Tell me the reason for your sorrow, dear,

  do not conceal it—I’m a faithful friend!”

  And Galatea answered Scylla so:

  “Acis
, the son of Faunus and a nymph,

  gave pleasure to his parents, but gave me,

  a pleasure even greater, to be sure:

  we were inseparable. At sixteen,

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  he was a gorgeous boy, whose tender cheeks

  displayed the faintest down: I felt for him

  exactly what the Cyclops felt for me:

  incessant longing. Nor, if you had asked,

  would I have been capable of telling you

  whether my detestation of the Cyclops

  meant more to me than did my love of Acis:

  for they were equal!

  “O Venus most benign,

  how powerful a governance is thine!

  “For see where that wild creature which the woods

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  are terrified to look upon, the host

  no stranger ever safely sees, the one

  who disregards Olympus and its gods,

  now realizes what love’s all about,

  and as he burns with powerful desire,

  entirely ignores his rocks and flocks;

  you give attention now to your appearance,

  Polyphemus, and now you take a rake

  against your matted locks, and are well pleased

  to trim your shaggy beard with a great scythe,

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  observing your hirsuteness in a pool

  and practicing an ardent swain’s expressions.

  “Your love of slaughter and bloodthirstiness

  now disappears, and ships can come and go

  in perfect safety.

  “Meanwhile, Telemus,

  son of Eurymus, an unerring seer,

  had landed here on Sicily, near Etna.

  “He said to terrible Polyphemus,

  ‘That eye of yours, the only one you’ve got,

  and which you wear in the middle of your head,

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  is going to be taken—by Ulysses!’

  “The Cyclops laughed and said, ‘O foolish seer,

  you are entirely mistaken here:

  another has already taken it!’

  “So he dismissed the one who tried in vain

  to warn him, and set out with heavy heart,

  walking with leaden steps along the shore

  or turning back, exhausted, to his cave.

  “A sloping, wedge-shaped cliff juts out to sea,

  washed evenly on both sides by the waves:

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  the brutal Cyclops scrambled to its top

  and sat down in the middle of the rock,

  soon followed by his sheep, now leaderless.

  “And after placing by his feet the pine

  he used as walking stick—though others might

  employ it as the yardarm of a ship—

  he took his pipes made from a hundred reeds,

  and piped away: the mountains felt it keenly,

  and the waters, too; a rock concealing me,

  I lay in the lap of my darling Acis,

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  whence I could hear, so very far away,

  words of the song the Cyclops sang to me,

  and kept them afterward within my mind:

  “‘O Galatea, whiter than the snowy white

  flowers that decorate the privet hedge,

  richer in blossoms than the meadow is,

  taller, more slender than an alder tree,

  brighter than crystal, more skittish than a kid,

  smoother than a seashell on the shore

  worn by the ceaseless motion of the waves,

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  more pleasing than the shade in summertime

  or sun in winter, swifter than the deer,

  and even more remarkable to see,

  far more conspicuous than the tall plane tree;

  clearer than ice, sweeter than ripe grapes,

  softer than swans’ down or the curdled milk,

  and, if you would not always flee from me,

  more beautiful than an irrigated garden.

  “‘Yet you, the very selfsame Galatea,

  are fiercer than an untamed heifer is,

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  harder than oak, more feigning than the sea,

  tougher than willow wands or bryony,

  less movable than the rock I’m sitting on,

  rougher than rapids, prouder than a peacock,

  fiercer than fire, bitterer than thistles,

  grumpier than a nursing mother-bear,

  more unresponsive even than the ocean,

  less apt to pity than a stepped-on snake,

  and, finally, the worst of all your faults,

  the one that I most wish to rid you of:

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  not only swifter than the deer pursued

  by the baying pack, but even swifter than

  the winds and the swiftest breezes in the air!

  “‘If only you would get to know me well,

  you would regret your giving me the rush,

  condemn yourself for holding out against me,

  and do your best to keep a catch like me:

  a large part of this mountain is my own;

  I have my caves, cut from the living rock,

  protected from excessive summer heat

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  and winter’s chill; my apples strain their branches,

  and yellow grapes are hung upon their vines

  like lumps of gold, and purple ones as well:

  to serve you, maiden, there will be both kinds;

  and in the summer, you yourself will gather

  delicious strawberries in wooded shade,

  in autumn, cherries, and the sweet black plums,

  and not just those, but the big yellow ones,

  which have the color of fresh new wax.

  “‘Nor will you lack, with me as your mate,

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  chestnuts and fruit of the arbutus tree,

  and orchards will be placed at your disposal.

  “‘This flock is mine entirely, and many

  others are out there grazing in the valley,

  many I have in the woods, and many more

  are penned in stables deep within my caves;

  and if you were to ask, I could not say

  how many sheep are mine, for only paupers

  can tally up the number of their flocks;

  but don’t trust me when I sing my own praises:

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  just look around you here and trust your eyes,

  see how these sheep can scarcely get around,

  with their teats hanging down between their shanks.

  “‘The little lambs are kept warm in their folds,

  as are an equal number of small goats.

  The milk I get from them is snowy white,

  and part of it is kept for drinking fresh,

  and the rest of it is made into my cheeses.

  “‘You’ll get no ordinary gifts from me,

  and nothing that is easily obtained,

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  like deer, and hares, and goats, and pairs of doves,

  or a bird’s nest lifted off a treetop:

  on a mountainside, I found a pair of twins,

  too like for you to tell one from the other—

  playmates for you! Cubs of the shaggy bear!

  I cried out, when I found them, “For my mistress!”

  “‘Come on now, Galatea, now’s the time

  to lift your pretty head above the waves!

  Come on now, don’t despise my offerings!

  I have a good opinion of myself:

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  lately I saw my image in the water,

  and my appearance pleased enormously.

  “‘Just look how big I am! Not even Jove—

  this Jupiter that you go on about,

  who you say governs heaven—is as big!

  Abundant hair hangs over my fierce face

  and shoulders, shading me, just like a grove; br />
  but don’t think me unsightly just because

  I am completely covered in dense bristles:

  unsightly is the tree that has no leaves,

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  the horse without a mane; birds have their plumage

  and sheep are most attractive in their wool,

  so facial hair and a full body beard

  are really most becoming in a man.

  “‘In the middle of my forehead is one eye,

  as large in its appearance as a shield:

  what of it, then? Does not the mighty Sun

  see everything that happens here on earth?

  And as for eyes, he too has only one!

  “‘And furthermore, my father Neptune rules

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  your waters; I present him as a gift

  to be your father-in-law—if you will only

  have pity on my prayers and supplications!

  “‘For only you do I bow down before,

  despising Jupiter and heaven too,

  and his all-penetrating thunderbolt!

  I fear you, Galatea, and your wrath,

  far more ferocious than Jove’s armaments!

  “‘But I could bear your scorn more patiently

  if you fled everyone—though you do not:

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  how can you spurn the Cyclops, but love Acis,

  preferring his embraces to my own?

  Well, he may please himself for all of that,

  but what I don’t like is, he pleases you,

  Galatea—just let me at the guy,

  he’ll learn that I’m as strong as I am big!

  I’ll tear his living gut out and I’ll scatter

  his body parts in fields and in your waters,

  so you can mingle with his mangled limbs!

  “‘I burn indeed, and your offense against me

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  blazes within more fiercely than a fire:

  I feel as though Mount Etna in eruption

  has been transported into my own breast,

  and none of this makes any difference

  to how you feel about me, Galatea!’

  “And after uttering these vain complaints,

  he stood erect (for I saw everything),

  and as a bull whose cow is snatched away,

  unable to stand still, goes wandering

  through forests and familiar fields, until

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  that wild one catches sight of me with Acis,

  and we both unaware and fearless too:

  “‘I see!’ he cried out, ‘and I will see to it

  that this fond coupling will be your last!’

  And these words spoken in a frightening voice,

  such as an angry Cyclops ought to have,

  that left Mount Etna shaken to its core.

  “In fear, I dove into the nearby waters,

  while my Sicilian hero turned and fled,

  crying out, ‘Galatea! Help me! Please!’

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  and ‘Help me, parents! Admit into your kingdom

  the son who otherwise will be soon dead!’