Sabinus: EPISTULAE TRES AD OVIDIANAS EPISTULAS RESPONSORIAE

PERTULIT ad miserum tandem tua casus Ulyxen,
Penelope, chartis verba notata piis.
Agnovi caramque manum, gemmasque fideles:
Solamen longis illa fuere malis.
ARGUIS ut lentum: mallem quoque forsitan esse,
Quam tibi quaeque tuli dicere, quaeque feram.

At last your misfortunes reached wretched Ulysses, Penelope, words noted on pious sheets.
I recognized your dear hand, and the faithful gems:
they were a solace in my long miseries.
You blame me as slow: perhaps I would rather be so,
than tell you each thing I have endured and each thing I shall endure.

Non hoc obiecit mihi Graecia, quum mea fictus
Detinuit patrio litore vela furor.
Sed thalamis nec velle tuis, nec posse carere,
Causaque fingendae, tu mihi mentis eras.
Nil tibi rescribam curae est, properemque venire:
Dum propero, adversi vela tulere Noti.

Greece did not object this to me, when my feigned madness
held the sails upon my native shore.
But for your bridal-chamber neither to will nor to be able to be without,
and as the cause for my feigning, you were the thought of my mind.
I have naught to reply to your care, and that I hasten to come:
While I hasten, contrary Notus bore my sails away.

Non me Troia tenet , Graiis odiosa puellis;
Iam cinis, et tantum flebile, Troia , solum.
Deiphobusque iacet; iacet Asius, et iacet Hector;
Et quicumque tui causa timoris erat.
Evasi et Thracum caeso duce proelia Rheso,
In mea captivis castra revectus equis.

Troy does not hold me, hateful to Greek girls;
Now Troy is ashes, and only a weeping mound, Troy alone.
And Deiphobus lies; Asius lies, and Hector lies;
And whoever was a cause of fear to you lies there.
I escaped even the battles of Thracian Rhesus, his leader slain,
and was carried back into my captive camps on horses.

Tutus et e media Phrygiae Tritonidis arce
Fatalis palmae pignora capta tuli.
Nec timui commissus equo, male sedula quamvis
Clamabat vates: «Urite, Troes, equum;
Urite: mendaci celantur robore Achivi,
Et Phrygas in miseros ultima bella ferunt.»
Perdiderat tumuli supremum munus Achilles,
Sed Thetidi est humeris redditus ille meis.
Nec laudem Danai tanto renuere labori:
Erepti pretium corporis arma tuli.

Safe, and from the mid-citadel of Phrygian Tritonidis
I bore away the pledges taken of the fatal palm.
Nor did I fear, entrusted to the horse, though an over-zealous seer
Cried out: «Burn, Trojans, the horse;
Burn: within its deceitful strength the Achaeans are concealed,
And they bring the last wars upon the wretched Phrygians.»
Achilles had lost the tomb’s supreme rite,
But that man was returned to Thetis upon my shoulders.
Nor did the praise of the Danaans refuse such toil:
I carried the arms, the ransom of a body snatched away.

Quid refert? pelago sunt obruta; non mihi classes,
Non socii superant: omnia pontus habet.
SOLUS adhuc mecum, qui me tot casibus unus
Duravit, patiens ad mala, perstat Amor.

What does it avail? they are drowned in the sea; I have no fleets,
No comrades survive: the sea has them all.
SOLUS still with me, he who alone through so many misfortunes
Endured me, patient toward evils, Love abides.

Illum non avidis canibus Niseia virgo
Fregit; non tumidis torta Charybdis aquis;
Nori ferus Antiphates, nec in uno corpore dissors
Parthepope, blandis insidiosa modis.
Non quod Colchiacas artes tentaverit herbis,
Non quod solemnes altera Diva toros.
Utraque se nobis mortalia demere fila
Spondebat; Stygias utraque posse vias.

He was not broken by the Nisean virgin with greedy dogs;
nor by Charybdis, twisted with swollen waters;
nor by fierce Antiphates of Nor, nor by Parthepope, discordant in one body,
treacherous with flattering ways. Not that he tested Colchian arts with herbs,
not that another goddess tried the customary bridal-beds.
Each pledged to us to cut away mortal threads;
each vowed she could traverse the Stygian ways.

Te tamen, hac etiam, spreta mercede, petivi,
Passurus terra tot mala, totque mari.
SED tu femineo nunc forsan nomine tacta,
Non secura leges cetera verba mea;
Quaeque mihi Circe, quae sit mihi causa Calypso,
Iamdudum ignoto sollicitere metu.
Certe ego quum Antinoum, Polybumque, Medontaque legi,
Heu!

You, however, even with this reward spurned, I sought,
About to endure so many evils on land and sea.
SED you, perhaps now touched by a feminine name,
Will not read my other words with confidence;
And whatever Circe is to me, whatever cause Calypso is for me,
Have long vexed me with a fear unknown.
Surely when I read Antinous, and Polybus, and Medon,
Alas!

toto sanguis corpore nullus erat.
Tot iuvenes inter, tot vina liquentia, semper
(Hei mihi! quo credam pignore?) casta manes!

throughout the whole body there was no blood.
Among so many youths, among so many flowing wines, always
(Alas me! to what pledge shall I trust?) you remain chaste!

Curve placent ulli, si sunt in fletibus ora,
Deperit et lacrymis non decor iste tibi?
Pacta quoque es thalamo, nisi mendax tela moretur;
Et coeptum revoces callida semper opus.
Ars pia!

Why should anyone find them pleasing, if there are cheeks in tears,
Does not that beauty perish even with tears for you?
You are also pledged to the bridal bed, unless a lying web detains;
And you, crafty one, always recall the work begun.
Pious art!

sed quoties oculos frustrabere lana,
Successum toties ars dabit ista tibi?
Au! melius, Polypheme, tuo superatus in antro,
Finissem ingratos ad mala tanta dies!
Threicio melius cecidissem milite victus,
Ismaron errantes quum tenuere rates!

but how often will wool frustrate the eyes,
will that art so often grant success to you?
Ah! better, Polyphemus, having been overcome in your cave,
that the day had come to an end for me amid such ungrateful evils!
Better I had fallen, conquered by a Thracian soldier,
when the wandering ships held Ismarus!

Crudelemve illo satiassem tempore Ditem,
Quo redii Stygiis fata moratus aquis!
Vidi ubi (nequicquam quod me tua littera celat)
Sospes digresso quae mihi mater erat.
Rettulit illa domus eadem mala; meque querentem
Fugit, ab amplexu ter resoluta meo.

Or might I have satisfied that cruel Dis at that time,
when I returned, having lingered by Styx’s waters, to the fates!
Where I saw (in vain — which your letter conceals from me)
the mother who was safe after my departure.
That same house brought back the same evils; and she, me lamenting,
fled from me, thrice loosened from my embrace.

Phyllaciden vidi; contemptis sortibus ille
Primus in Hectoreas intulit arma domos.
Felix laudata cum coniuge! laeta per umbras
Illa suum fortes it comitata virum.

I saw Phyllacides; he, scorning the lots,
First bore arms into Hector’s halls.
Happy, praised with his wife! Joyful through the shades
She goes, having accompanied her brave husband.

Necdum illi Lachesis dictos numeraverat annos:
Sed iuvat ante suum sic cecidisse diem.
Vidi, nec lacrymas oculi tenuere cadentes,
Deformem Atriden (hei mihi!) caede nova.
Illum Troia virum non laeserat; ille furentem
Nauplion, Euboicos transieratque sinus.

Not yet had Lachesis numbered to him the years said;
But it pleases that he should thus have fallen before his appointed day.
I saw, nor did my eyes hold back their falling tears,
the misshapen son of Atreus (woe is me!) with fresh slaughter.
Troy had not harmed that man; he had passed raging Nauplius,
and had crossed the Euboean bays.

Quid refert? animam per vulnera mille profudit,
Iam reduci solvens debita vota Iovi.
Tyndaris has illi laetas pro foedere poenas
Struxerat, externos ipsa secuta viros.

What does it matter? she poured forth her soul through a thousand wounds,
now, paying the vows owed to Jove for a return.
Tyndaris had for him, by a pact, built these joyful penalties,
she herself having followed foreign men.

Ah! mihi quid prodest (captivas Teucridas inter
Quum staret coniux Hectoris atque soror),
Defectis Hecuben potius legisse sub annis,
Ne tibi suspectus pellicis esset amor?
Prima meis omen metuendum puppibus illa
Fecit, non membris ipsa reperta suis.
Latratu miseras finivit moesta querelas,
Et stetit in rabidam protinus acta canem.

Ah! what profit to me (while she stood among captive Trojans
the wife and sister of Hector),
that Hecuba, her years failing, had rather read beforehand,
lest to you love of a pelt be suspected?
Prima she made that omen, to be feared, for my ships' sterns,
not herself found within her own limbs.
With a barking she ended my wretched complaints,
and, driven on, she straightway stood a rabid dog.

Prodigio tali placidum Thetis abstulit aequor,
AEtolus infusis incubuitque Notis.
Pervagus hinc toto non felix differor orbe,
Et, quocumque vocat fluctus et aura, feror.
SED si Tiresias tam laeti providus augur,
Quam verax vates in mala nostra fuit,
Et terra et pelago, quidquid mihi triste canebat ,
Emensus fato iam meliore vagor.

By such a portent the placid sea of Thetis was taken away,
AEtolus sank upon the infused South Winds.
Thence I am borne, a not-happy wanderer through the whole world,
And whithersoever wave and breeze call, I am carried.
SED if Tiresias, so provident an augur of good fortune,
And as truthful a vates in our evils as he proved,
Had, on both land and pelago, measured whatever sung sad to me,
By fate now I wander in a better lot.

Iam mihi nescio quo comitem se in litore iungit
Pallas, et hospitibus per loca tuta trahit.
Nunc primum Pallas versae post funera Troiae
Visa mihi: medium temporis ira tulit.
Quidquid Oilides commiserat, omnibus unus
Peccavit: Danais omnibus ira nocens.

Now Pallas, I know not by what, joins herself to me as a companion on the shore
and leads me, for guests, through places safe. Now for the first time Pallas, after the turns following Troy’s funerals,
was seen by me: anger took away the middle of my time. Whatever Oilides had committed, in a single act
he sinned against all: an anger harmful to all the Danaans.

Nec te, Tydide, cuius modo noverat arma,
Eximit: errato tu quoque ab orbe venis.
Non Telamone satum capta de coniuge Teucrum;
Non ipsum, pro quo mille fuere rates.
FELIX Plisthenide!

Nor you either, Tydeid, whose arms he had but now known, does it spare: you too come from an errant world.
Was not the Trojan woman seized from a husband sprung from Telamon?—not him, for whom a thousand ships were launched.
FELIX Plisthenide!

quacumque in sorte fuisti
Coniuge cura cara, non gravis illa fuit.
Seu venti fecere moras, sive aequora vobis,
Ad nulla est vester damna retentus amor.
Oscula nec venti certe tenuere, nec undae;
Promptaque in amplexus brachia semper erant.

Whithersoever in fate you were
With a dear spouse the care was not burdensome.
Whether the winds made delays, or the seas for you,
Your detained love suffered no harm.
Certainly neither winds nor waves held your kisses;
And arms were always ready for embraces.

Sic utinam errarem! faceres tu mollia, coniux;
AEquora; te socia, nil, mihi triste foret.
Nunc quoque, Telemacho tecum mihi sospite lecto,
Omnia sunt animo iam leviora mala.

Would that I were thus mistaken! If you would make the seas gentle, my wife;
with you as my companion, nothing would be sorrowful for me.
Even now, with Telemachus safe and you beside me in bed,
all my troubles are already lighter in spirit.

Quem tamen infestas rursus queror ire per undas,
Herculeam Sparten, Nestoreamque Pylon.
Ingrata est pietas, cui tanta pericula subsunt;
Nam male commissus fluctibus ipse fuit.
SED labor in fine est.

Whom, however, I lament as going again through hostile waves,
Herculean Sparta, and Nestorian Pylos.
Piety is ungrateful, to whom such great perils lie beneath;
for he himself was ill-consigned to the waves. SED labor in fine est.

Occursum in litore vates
Dixit: «In amplexus, care, ferere tuos.
Noscendus soli veniam tibi: tu preme solers
Laetitiam, et tacito gaudia conde sinu.
Non vi certandum, nec aperta in bella ruendum.»
Sic cecinit laurus ille monere suas.

I met on the shore a prophet
who said: “Bring your embraces, dear, bear them.
You must be made known to the sun and obtain pardon for yourself: you, clever, repress
joy, and hide delights in a silent bosom.
Do not strive by force, nor rush into open wars.”
Thus that laurel sang to give its warnings.

Forsitan ante dapes, interque vacantia vina,
Ultoris pharetris utile tempus erit,
Et modo despectum subito mirentur Ulyxen.
Heu! precor, ut properet velle venire dies,
Antiqui renovet qui laetus foedera lecti,
Et tandem incipias coniuge, cara, frui!

Perhaps before the feasts, and amid the vacant wines,
There will be a useful time for the avenger’s quivers,
And may they now suddenly marvel at Ulysses, once despised.
Alas! I pray that the wished-for day may hasten to come,
Which, rejoicing, may renew the ancient pact of the chosen,
And at last may you begin to enjoy your spouse, O dear one!