Metamorphoses
as sand grains in the pile. My words escaped
before I’d thought to say, ‘unaging years.’
He gave the years and promised endless youth
if I would let him love me—but I spurned
the gifts of Phoebus and remained a maid. 210
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“My better days have turned their back on me,
and scant old age with palsied step draws near,
which I must suffer for a long, long time,
for seven centuries have been accomplished,
and three more yet remain to me before
my years are equal to those grains of sand:
three hundred harvestings of grape and grain.
“A time will come when many days reduce
my body to near nothing, and old age
whittles my limbs to where they scarce can bear
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their meager burden; nor will I then seem
to have inspired love in a god’s breast;
Phoebus himself perhaps will not remember,
or may deny that he desired me:
these are the changes I will come to bear,
but when I am no longer visible,
I will be recognized by my voice still,
according to the promise of the Fates.”
So while they journeyed up that sloping road,
the Sybil told her story to Aeneas;
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they exited the underworld at Cumae,
and there Aeneas offered customary
sacrifices, then landed on the shore
that, as yet, did not bear his nurse’s name.
Cyclops revisited
Macareus, companion of Ulysses,
had lingered here, weary of wandering.
He recognizes Achaemenides,
who had so long ago been left behind
on rocky Etna, and who, now discovered
so unexpectedly among the living,
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causes astonishment: “What luck, what god
has saved you, Achaemenides?” he asked.
“What is a Greek doing on a Trojan ship,
and what land are you seeking in this vessel?”
Now like himself, no longer clad in rags
that thorns had torn and then had pinned together,
Achaemenides answered him with this:
“May I behold Polyphemus again,
his gaping jaws awash in human blood,
if I prefer my home and Ithaca
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to this ship, or if I should venerate
Aeneas less than I do my own father;
nor would I ever, though I gave my all,
be able to discharge my debt to him!
“I speak, I breathe, I look up at the stars
in heaven, always mindful, always grateful!
His gift was that I did not end my life
in the Cyclops’ mouth—that if I should die now,
I’d have another grave besides his gut!
“What feelings came to me—or would have come,
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had dread not left me numb to all sensation—
when I beheld you make for the open seas!
I wanted to cry out to you, but feared
to give myself up to the enemy:
Ulysses’ outcry nearly sank you all!
I saw a boulder broken from the mountain
and hurled into the middle of the water!
I saw him flinging out enormous rocks
with his great arms, as from a catapult,
and feared that wind and waves would sink your ship—
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having forgotten I was not on board.
“But after you had fled from certain death,
the groaning Cyclops prowled all over Etna
and shook the trees to search them with his hands,
and blindly hurled himself against the rocks,
and stretching his misshapen arms out seaward,
he damned all Greeks entirely and said,
“‘If only by some chance that knave Ulysses
were brought back here—or any of his men
on whom I might now ventilate my rage,
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whose guts I might devour, and whose lives
might be extinguished in my strong right hand,
whose blood might run in rivers down my throat,
whose shattered limbs might quiver in my jaws—
little or nothing would my blindness seem!’
“This and much more he said, just as ferocious,
while pale-faced horror gripped me at the sight
of those grim features, stained with recent slaughter!
Those hands! The empty socket of that eye!
That beard, now stiff with human gore! Those limbs!
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“My death was right before my very eyes,
although it was the least of all my troubles,
for now I reckoned that I would be caught,
that my own viscera would merge with his:
I couldn’t get that image from my mind,
how I had seen two of my companions
snatched up, their bodies dashed against the ground
three or four times, before he crouched above them,
and like a shaggy lion at his prey,
had crammed his belly with their guts, their flesh,
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the marrow of their bones, their twitching limbs!
“A tremor seized me: there I stood, stock-still,
my face a funeral as I watched him chew
and spit out remnants of his bloody feast
and vomit gobbets mixed with sour wine,
and I pictured the same fate in store for me
and hid myself away for many days,
trembling at every sound I heard,
fearing my death and wishing but to die,
and living off of acorns, grass, and leaves,
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helpless, alone, abandoned to my death,
until, after a long time had gone by,
at a great distance, I beheld a ship,
and begging with dumb gestures for relief,
I raced down to the shore: I touched their hearts
and a Trojan ship allowed a Greek on board!
Circe revisited
“But you, most welcome comrade, tell your adventures—
what leader, what companions went with you
when you entrusted yourself to the sea?”
Macareus told them of how Aeoleus,
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son of Hippotes, ruled the Tyrrhene Sea,
imprisoning the winds: he gave Ulysses
a gift worth mentioning: a bag of winds,
and aided by the breezes it contained,
he sailed nine days until he came in sight
of the desired land. But at first light
of the tenth day, his crew was overcome
by greed and envy: after reckoning
the bag was full of gold, they loosed the string
that bound it up and were blown all the way back
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across the waves until their ship regained
the harbor of Aeoleus the king.
“And after that,” Macareus went on,
“we came to Formiae, in ancient times
founded by Lamus the Laestrygonian;
Antiphates was ruler in this kingdom.
I was dispatched to him with two companions,
and barely managed, after taking flight,
to save myself and one of my two men:
the other’s blood was smeared across the faces
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of the inhospitable Laestrygonians.
“Antiphates pursued us as we fled,
urging his forces on: they came together
and hurled great rocks and timbers after us
and sank our men and sank our ships as well.
U
lysses and I, however, got away
on one of them.
“We mourned our lost companions
and with much lamentation found that land
which, at a distance, you can see from here—
believe me when I say that from a distance
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is the best way to see it!
“O goddess-born,
most righteous man of all the Trojan race
(whom I may not describe as ‘enemy,’
now that the war is over), heed my warning:
avoid the shores of Circe!
“We landed there,
but with Antiphates still fresh in mind
and the barbaric Cyclops, we refused
to leave our ships; so men were picked by lot
whose task was to approach her secret palace.
“The lot sent me and loyal Polites
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as my companion with Eurylochus
and Elpenor (who was too fond of wine)
and eighteen others to the walls of Circe;
as soon as we’d arrived there and were standing
upon the threshold of her palace,
a thousand wolves, she-bears, and lionesses
came rushing at us, frightening us all;
our fears were groundless, for they meant no harm
and even joined us, followed in our tracks,
wagging their tails and fawning just like dogs,
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until we were received by her attendants
and brought through marble courtyards to their mistress,
who sat upon her throne within an alcove
in a robe of purple and a golden veil.
“Nymphs joined with Nereids in serving her,
their nimble fingers plucking at no wool
nor deftly spinning it to useful thread:
instead, they went through piles of herbs and flowers
and sorted plants out into separate baskets;
she supervised the work that they were doing,
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who knew the purpose of every leaf,
and how to blend ingredients together,
and weighed and measured them out carefully.
“When she had noticed us and made us welcome,
she gazed upon us warmly and gave signs
that our prayers were going to be answered.
She ordered her attendants to prepare
refreshments at once: they produced a drink
of roasted barley, honey, and strong wine
with curds of milk, whose sweetness would conceal
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the drops of juice she furtively slipped in.
“We took the cups the goddess offered us,
and when we’d thirstily consumed it all,
the goddess touched each of us with her wand
atop our heads. It shames me, yet I’ll say it:
bristles began to sprout all over me,
and I lost my ability to speak:
instead of words I only managed grunts,
my face was turned completely to the ground,
and I could feel my mouth becoming hard
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and turning into an extended snout—
my neck grew thick with wrinkles, and that part
which only recently had held the cup
was now creating hoof prints in the dirt!
I was enclosed in a pigsty with all those
likewise transformed—so potent was that drink!
“We saw that just one man, Eurylochus,
persisted in his shape: he alone had shunned
the proffered cup; had he not done so,
I would still be among that herd of porkers,
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nor would he have been able to inform
Ulysses of our tragic situation,
nor he have come to Circe, seeking vengeance.
“Peace-bearing Mercury had given him
a white flower, which the gods call moly:
it springs up from the soil out of black roots.
With this, and with the deity’s instructions
to keep him safe, he entered Circe’s palace:
he too was offered the deceitful cup,
but struck away the wand with which she tried
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to stroke his hair, and terrified the witch
with his drawn sword.
“And afterward, when they
had pledged their faith and shaken hands on it,
and she had taken him to be her spouse,
he made her, for his dowry, restore us;
then we were sprinkled with the healing juices
of an unknown herb, and tapped upon the head
with the other end of her enchanted wand,
and words were spoken to undo the words
that had been spoken to make us the herd’s.
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The more she sang, the more upright we stood;
bristles dropped off, and our cloven hooves
were turned back into feet, and our shoulders
and upper arms resumed their normal shapes;
weeping, we clung to our weeping leader,
embraced him and threw our arms about his neck,
but nothing said until we all had thanked him.
“We lingered there with Circe for a year,
and in that time I witnessed many things
and took in much by listening: for instance,
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this story told me privately, by one
of her four slaves, assigned to sacred rites.
Circe and Picus
“One day, while Circe dallied with Ulysses,
this woman that I mentioned pointed out
a statue of white marble which depicted
a youth with a woodpecker on his head;
it had been placed in a temple of its own
and was distinguished by its many wreathes;
but who the marble figure represented
and why it had its cult here in this temple,
450
and why the bird, were things I wished to know!
“‘Listen to this, Macareus,’ she said,
‘and learn how powerful my mistress is;
apply yourself to what I have to say:
“‘Picus, the son of Saturn, was the king
of Ausonia, and one who understood
the purpose of the cavalry in combat.
His manly form was as you see it here,
but if you could have seen the living man,
you would have found the truth superior
460
to its depiction by an artist’s hand.
He hadn’t yet gone four times to the games
they celebrate at Elis twice each decade.
“‘He turned the heads of all the dryads born
in the mountains of Latium, and was pursued
by water nymphs and by the naiads who
haunt Tiber’s stream, as well as those beside
the waters of Numicius and Anio,
brief-running Alma, swiftly flowing Nar,
and Farfarus, hidden under its shade trees,
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and those as well within the woody pool
of Scythian Diana and its nearby lake.
“‘All these he spurned, attracted just to one,
a nymph, delivered on the Palatine
(or so the story went) to Venilia,
and fathered by the double-facing Janus;
when she had reached the marriageable age,
she was betrothed to Picus, much preferred
to all other suitors.
“‘She was exquisite
not just for beauty, but the art of singing,
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and for which she was given the name Canens:
she moved the trees and rocks, and tamed the beasts
and stilled great rivers with her lovely voice;
she charm
ed the birds right back into their tree.
“‘And while his wife was singing prettily,
Picus of Latium set out from home
to hunt the wild boar native to that region;
dressed in a purple tunic trimmed with gold,
he pressed his legs against his horse’s back,
holding a pair of spears in his left hand.
490
“‘The daughter of the Sun had quit those fields
that bore her name—Circeaen—and had come
to these same woods, out to collect fresh herbs
on the abundant hillsides. From within
a thicket, she caught sight of him: at once
astounded, she let fall her gathered herbs;
she blushed, and that bright color penetrated
right to the very marrow of her bones.
“‘As soon as she had pulled herself together
and had recovered from the shock of passion,
500
she was about to tell him what she wanted
but wasn’t able to get near enough,
so swift his steed, so great his entourage.
“‘“Not even on the wind could you escape me,
not if I know my powers and myself,”
said Circe, “not if I still know my herbs,
not if my charms have not abandoned me!”
“‘She spoke and formed an incorporeal
image of a wild boar and ordered it
to start across the trail before the king,
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then to appear to plunge into a thicket
full of fallen trees, where the woods were densest,
impenetrable to a man on horseback.
“‘Swiftly dismounting from his frothing steed,
Picus, all unaware, sought out his prey,
pursuing an illusion through deep woods,
without companions.
“‘Circe now began
to utter certain prayers and incantations,
addressing unknown gods with unknown charms,
which would allow her to conceal the moon
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and hide her father’s face behind rain clouds.
“‘Then, by the recitation of her prayers,
the sky grew dark, fog rose up from the earth,
and the king’s companions wandered all amazed,
unable to protect him in his danger.
“‘The hour and the setting are arranged:
“Oh, by your eyes,” she cried, “which have taken mine,
and by your figure, O most beautiful,
which has converted me, a goddess, even,
into a suppliant, I implore you
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to assuage my passion’s fires and accept
the all-seeing Sun as your father-in-law,
nor harshly spurn the Titan’s daughter, Circe!”
“‘She spoke; he savagely rejected her:
“Whatever you are,” he said, “I am not yours;
I have been captured by another,