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
990
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,
1020
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.
1030
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.
1040
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
1050
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
1060
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,
1090
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
1100
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,
1110
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
“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:
1130
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,
1140
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,
1150
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,
1160
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
1180
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:
1200
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,
1210
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:
1220
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;
but don’t think me unsightly just because
I am completely covered in dense bristles:
unsightly is the tree that has no leaves,
1230
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
1240
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
1260
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!’
1280
and ‘Help me, parents! Admit into your kingdom
the son who otherwise will be soon dead!’