Ovid: HEROIDES

Litora Thessaliae reduci tetigisse carina
     diceris auratae vellere dives ovis.
gratulor incolumi quantum sinis; hoc tamen ipso
     debueram scripto certior esse tuo.
nam ne pacta tibi praeter mea regna redires,
     cum cuperes, ventos non habuisse potes:
quamlibet adverso signatur epistula vento,
     Hypsipyle missa digna salute fui!

You are said to have touched the shores of Thessaly with your returning keel
     you are said, rich with the fleece of the golden sheep.
I congratulate you, safe and sound, as much as you allow; yet of this very thing
     I ought to have been made more certain by your own writing.
For, so that you might not pass beyond my realms, bound by our pacts,
     whenever you wished, you could not have lacked winds:
however adverse the wind, an epistle is sealed—
     I, Hypsipyle, was worthy of a salutation sent!

Cur mihi fama prior quam littera nuntia venit:
     isse sacros Martis sub iuga panda boves,
seminibus iactis segetes adolesse virorum
     inque necem dextra non eguisse tua,
pervigilem spolium pecudis servasse draconem,
     rapta tamen forti vellera fulva manu?
hoc ego si possem timide credentibus "ista
     ipse mihi scripsit" dicere, quanta forem!
Quid queror officium lenti cessasse mariti?

Why did fame come to me earlier than a letter-messenger:
     that you had brought the sacred oxen of Mars beneath their bowed yokes,
that, the seeds cast, harvests of men grew up,
     and that for their slaughter there had been no need of your right hand,
that the ever-watchful dragon had guarded the spoil of the sheep,
     yet that the tawny fleece had been snatched by your stout hand?
If I could say to the timidly believing, “he himself wrote these things to me,”
     how great I should be!
Why do I complain that the duty of a slow husband has stood idle?

obsequium, maneo si tua, grande tuli.
barbara narratur venisse venefica tecum
in mihi promissi parte recepta tori.
credula res amor est.

Obedience, if I remain yours, I have borne in great measure.
a barbarian sorceress is said to have come with you
admitted into my share of the promised bed.
Love is a credulous thing.

utinam temeraria dicar
     criminibus falsis insimulasse virum!
nuper ab Haemoniis hospes mihi Thessalus oris
     venerat et tactum vix bene limen erat,
"Aesonides," dixi, "quid agit meus?" ille pudore
     haesit in opposita lumina fixus humo.
protinus exilui tunicisque a pectore ruptis
     "vivit?

would that I might be called rash
     to have accused my husband with false crimes!
recently a Thessalian guest from Haemonian shores
     had come to me, and the threshold had scarcely been well touched,
"Aesonides," I said, "how does my own fare?" he, in shame,
     stopped short, with his eyes fixed on the ground before him.
immediately I sprang up, and with my tunics torn from my breast
     "does he live?

an," exclamo, "me quoque fata vocant?"
"vivit," ait timidus; timidum iurare coegi.
     vix mihi teste deo credita vita tua est.
Utque animus rediit, tua facta requirere coepi:
     narrat aeripedes Martis arasse boves,
vipereos dentes in humum pro semine iactos
     et subito natos arma tulisse viros,
terrigenas populos civili Marte peremptos
     inplesse aetatis fata diurna suae.

"or," I exclaim, "do the Fates call me too?"
"He lives," he says, timid; I compelled the timid one to swear.
     scarcely, with a god as witness, was your life believed by me.
And when my spirit returned, I began to inquire of your deeds:
     he recounts that the bronze-footed bulls of Mars had plowed,
that viperine teeth had been cast into the ground as for seed,
     and that the suddenly-born men had borne arms,
that the earth-born peoples, slain by civil Mars,
     fulfilled within a single day the fates of their lifetime.

devictus serpens. iterum, si vivat Iason,
quaerimus; alternant spesque timorque fidem.
Singula dum narrat, studio cursuque loquendi
detegit ingenio vulnera nostra suo.

The serpent has been vanquished. Again, if Jason lives,
we ask; hope and fear take turns with our belief.
While he narrates each particular, with zeal and the rush of speaking
he uncovers our wounds by his own ingenuity.

heus, ubi pacta fides? ubi conubialia iura
faxque sub arsuros dignior ire rogos?
non ego sum furto tibi cognita.

hey, where is the pledged faith? where the connubial rights
and the torch more worthy to go beneath pyres about to blaze?
I was not known to you by stealth.

pronuba Iuno
affuit et sertis tempora vinctus Hymen.
at mihi nec Iuno nec Hymen, sed tristis Erinys
praetulit infaustas sanguinolenta faces.
Quid mihi cum Minyis?

pronuba Juno
was present, and Hymen, his temples bound with garlands.
but for me neither Juno nor Hymen, but a sad Erinys
held forth ill-omened blood-stained torches.
What have I to do with the Minyans?

quid cum Tritonide pinu?
quid tibi cum patria, navita Tiphy, mea?
non erat hic aries villo spectabilis aureo,
nec senis Aeetae regia Lemnos erat.

what have I to do with the Tritonid pine?
what have you to do with my fatherland, sailor Tiphys?
here there was no ram conspicuous for a golden fleece,
nor was Lemnos the palace of old Aeetes.

certa fui primo—sed me mala fata trahebant—
     hospita feminea pellere castra manu
Lemniadesque viros—nimium quoque!—vincere norunt:
     milite tam forti vita tuenda fuit!
Urbe virum vidi tectoque animoque recepi.
     hic tibi bisque aestas bisque cucurrit hiems.

I was resolved at first—but evil fates were dragging me—to drive you, as a hostess, from my camp with a feminine hand;
and the Lemnian women too—far too well!—know how to conquer men:
with so strong a soldier, life had to be defended!
I saw the man in the city and received him beneath my roof and into my spirit.
here for you twice the summer and twice the winter ran.

tertia messis erat, cum tu dare vela coactus
     inplesti lacrimis talia verba tuis:
"abstrahor, Hypsipyle. sed dent modo fata recursus;
     vir tuus hinc abeo, vir tibi semper ero.
quod tamen e nobis gravida celatur in alvo,
     vivat et eiusdem simus uterque parens!"
Hactenus.

it was the third harvest, when you, compelled to set sail,
     filled such words with your own tears:
"I am torn away, Hypsipyle. But may the Fates only grant a return;
     your husband I go from here, your husband I shall always be.
but let what, conceived from us, is hidden in your womb,
     live, and may we both be its parents!"
Thus far.

et lacrimis in falsa cadentibus ora
     cetera te memini non potuisse loqui.
Ultimus e sociis sacram conscendis in Argon;
     illa volat, ventus concava vela tenet.
caerula propulsae subducitur unda carinae:
     terra tibi, nobis adspiciuntur aquae.

and with tears falling upon your lying face
     I remember you were not able to speak the rest.
Last of your comrades you board the sacred Argo;
     she flies, the wind holds the concave sails.
the cerulean wave is drawn away from beneath the propelled keel:
     land is seen by you, by us the waters.

in latus omne patens turris circumspicit undas;
     huc feror et lacrimis osque sinusque madent.
per lacrimas specto cupidaeque faventia menti
     longius adsueto lumina nostra vident.
adde preces castas inmixtaque vota timori
     nunc quoque te salvo persoluenda mihi!

a tower open on every side looks out over the waves;
     thither I am borne, and my face and bosom are soaked with tears.
through tears I look, and my eyes, favoring my desirous mind,
     see farther than is accustomed.
add chaste prayers and vows commingled with fear,
     now too, with you safe, to be paid by me!

Vota ego persolvam? votis Medea fruetur!
cor dolet atque ira mixtus abundat amor.

Shall I discharge the vows? Medea will enjoy the vows!
my heart aches, and love, mixed with ire, abounds.

dona feram templis, vivum quod Iasona perdo?
hostia pro damnis concidat icta meis?
Non equidem secura fui semperque verebar,
ne pater Argolica sumeret urbe nurum.

Shall I bring gifts to the temples, when I lose Jason alive?
Shall a victim fall, smitten, for my losses?
Indeed I was not secure, and I always feared,
lest his father take a daughter-in-law from an Argolic city.

Argolidas timui—nocuit mihi barbara paelex!
non expectato vulnus ab hoste tuli.
nec facie meritisque placet, sed carmina novit
diraque cantata pabula falce metit.

I feared the Argive women—a barbarian paramour has harmed me!
I took a wound from an unlooked-for enemy.
She pleases neither by face nor by merits, but she knows charms,
and with a sickle she reaps dire herbs sung over by incantation.

illa reluctantem cursu deducere Lunam
     nititur et tenebris abdere Solis equos;
illa refrenat aquas obliquaque flumina sistit,
     illa loco silvas vivaque saxa movet.
per tumulos errat passis discincta capillis
     certaque de tepidis colligit ossa rogis.
devovet absentis simulacraque cerea figit
     et miserum tenues in iecur urget acus.

she strives to draw down the reluctant Moon from her course
     and to hide the horses of the Sun in darkness;
she reins back the waters and halts the oblique rivers,
     she moves woods from their place and living rocks.
she wanders through the burial-mounds, with hair let loose, ungirded,
     and gathers certain bones from the tepid pyres.
she curses the absent and fixes waxen simulacra,
     and presses slender needles into the wretch’s liver.

et quae nescierim melius: male quaeritur herbis
     moribus et forma conciliandus amor.
Hanc potes amplecti thalamoque relictus in uno
     inpavidus somno nocte silente frui?
scilicet ut tauros, ita te iuga ferre coegit:
     quaque feros angues, te quoque mulcet ope.

and things which I had better not have known: ill is love sought by herbs,
     a love to be conciliated by morals and by form.
Can you embrace this woman and, left in one bedchamber,
     fearless enjoy sleep in the silent night?
Surely, just as she has compelled bulls, so she has forced you to bear the yokes;
     and by the same aid with which she soothes fierce serpents, she soothes you too.

adde quod adscribi factis procerumque tuisque
     se favet et titulo coniugis uxor obest.
atque aliquis Peliae de partibus acta venenis
     inputat et populum qui sibi credat habet:
non haec Aesonides, sed Phasias Aeetine
     aurea Phrixeae terga revellit ovis.
non probat Alcimede mater tua—consule matrem!—
     non pater, a gelido cui venit axe nurus.

add, too, that she favors having herself ascribed to the deeds of the grandees and to yours,
     and that, by the title of spouse, the wife is a hindrance.
and someone from the faction of Pelias imputes the deeds to poisons,
     and he has a populace to believe him:
not the son of Aeson did these things, but the Phasian girl of Aeetes
     tore away the golden fleece of Phrixus’s sheep.
your mother Alcimede does not approve—consult your mother!—
     nor your father, to whom the daughter-in-law comes from the icy axis.

illa sibi a Tanai Scythiaeque paludibus udae
     quaerat et a patria Phasidis usque virum.
Mobilis Aesonide vernaque incertior aura,
     cur tua polliciti pondere verba carent?
vir meus hinc ieras, vir non meus inde redisti—
     sim reducis coniunx, sicut euntis eram.

let her seek for herself a man from the Tanais and the wet marshes of Scythia,
     and all the way from the fatherland of the Phasis.
Changeable, Aesonid, and more uncertain than the spring breeze,
     why do your words lack the weight of your pledge?
my husband you had gone from here; not my husband you returned from there—
     may I be the consort of the returning, as I was of the one going.

si te nobilitas generosaque nomina tangunt:
     en ego Minoo nata Thoante feror.
Bacchus avus: Bacchi coniunx redimita corona
     praeradiat stellis signa minora suis.
dos tibi Lemnos erit, terra ingeniosa colenti;
     me quoque dotalis inter habere potes.

if nobility and noble names touch you:
     lo, I am said to be born from Minos and from Thoas.
Bacchus is my grandsire: the consort of Bacchus, wreathed with a crown,
     outshines with her own stars the lesser constellations.
a dowry for you will be Lemnos, a land ingenious for the cultivator;
     me too you can have among the dotal things.

Nunc etiam peperi. gratare ambobus, Iason—
dulce mihi gravidae fecerat auctor onus.
felix in numero quoque sum prolemque gemellam
pignora Lucina bina favente dedi.

Now too I have given birth. Congratulate us both, Jason—
the author had made the burden sweet to me, pregnant.
I am fortunate also in the number, and a twin progeny
I have given, double pledges, with Lucina favoring.

si quaeris, cui sint similes, cognosceris illis:
     fallere non norunt, cetera patris habent;
legatos quos paene dedi pro matre ferendos;
     sed tenuit coeptas saeva noverca vias.
Medeam timui—plus est Medea noverca—
     Medeae faciunt ad scelus omne manus.
Spargere quae fratris potuit lacerata per agros
     corpora, pignoribus parceret illa meis?

if you ask to whom they are similar, you will be recognized by them:
     they do not know how to deceive, they have the rest of their father;
legates whom I almost sent to be borne in place of their mother;
     but the savage stepmother held to the paths she had begun.
I feared Medea—Medea as a stepmother is something more—
     Medea’s hands are ready for every crime.
she who could scatter the torn limbs of her brother over the fields—
     would she spare my pledges?

hanc, tamen o demens Colchisque ablate venenis,
diceris Hypsipyles praeposuisse toro?
turpiter illa virum cognovit adultera virgo,
me tibi teque mihi taeda pudica dedit.
prodidit illa patrem—rapui de caede Thoanta.

this one, however—O madman, and carried off by the Colchian poisons—
are you said to have preferred to Hypsipyle’s couch?
shamefully she came to know a man, an adulterous maiden,
the chaste torch gave me to you, and you to me.
she betrayed her father—I snatched Thoas from the slaughter.

deseruit Colchos—me mea Lemnos habet.
Quid refert, scelerata piam si vincit? et ipso
crimine dotata est emeruitque virum.

she deserted the Colchians—my Lemnos holds me.
What does it matter, if the criminal outdoes the pious? and by the crime itself
she has been endowed and has earned herself a husband.

Lemniadum facinus culpo, non miror, Iason!
     quamlibet ignavis ipse dat arma dolor.
dic age, si ventis ut oportuit actus iniquis
     intrasses portus tuque comesque meos
obviaque exissem fetu comitante gemello—
     hiscere nempe tibi terra roganda fuit!—
quo vultu natos, quo me scelerate videres?

I blame the deed of the Lemnian women, I do not marvel, Jason!
     however much, to the fainthearted, grief itself gives arms.
come, say, if, driven by adverse winds as was fitting,
     you and your companion had entered my harbors
and I had gone out to meet you, with twin offspring accompanying—
     surely the earth had to be entreated to gape for you!—
with what countenance would you, criminal, look upon the sons, upon me?

     perfidiae pretio qua nece dignus eras?
ipse quidem per me tutus sospesque fuisses,
     non quia tu dignus, sed quia mitis ego.
paelicis ipsa meos implessem sanguine vultus,
     quosque veneficiis abstulit illa suis.

     for the price of your perfidy, by what death were you deserving?
you yourself indeed, through me, would have been safe and sound,
     not because you were worthy, but because I am mild.
I myself would have filled my face with the paramour’s blood,
     and those whom she took away by her own poisons.

Medeae Medea forem. quod si quid ab alto
     iustus adest votis Iuppiter ipse meis,
quod gemit Hypsipyle, lecti quoque subnuba nostri
     maereat et leges sentiat ipsa suas
utque ego destituor coniunx materque duorum,
     a totidem natis orba sit aque viro!
nec male parta diu teneat peiusque relinquat:
     exulet et toto quaerat in orbe fugam.

I would be a Medea to Medea. But if righteous Jupiter himself from on high attends to my prayers,
     what Hypsipyle laments, let the second wife of our bed also mourn, and let her herself feel her own laws;
and as I am deserted, a wife and mother of two,
     let her be bereft of just so many offspring and of her husband!
nor let her long hold what was ill-gotten, and let her leave it in worse case:
     let her live in exile and seek flight through the whole world.

quam fratri germana fuit miseroque parenti
filia tam natis, tam sit acerba viro!
cum mare, cum terras consumpserit, aera temptet;
erret inops, exspes, caede cruenta sua.
haec ego, coniugio fraudata Thoantias, oro.

as to her brother she was a sister, and to her wretched parent a daughter, so to her children, so let her be bitter to her husband!
when she has consumed the sea, and the lands, let her try the air;
let her wander needy, without hope, blood-stained with her own slaughter.
these things I, the daughter of Thoas, defrauded of wedlock, pray.

vivite devoto nuptaque virque toro!

live, both bride and husband, upon a devoted nuptial bed!