All fearful, I read what you wrote without so much as a murmur, lest my tongue unwittingly might swear by some divinity. And I believe you would have tried to snare me a second time, did you not know, as you yourself confess, that one pledge from me was enough. I should not have read at all; but had I been hard with you, the anger of the cruel goddess might have grown. Though I do everything, though I offer duteous incense to Diana, she none the less favours you more than your due, and, as you are eager for me to believe, avenges you with unforgetting anger; scarce was she such toward her own Hippolytus. Yet the maiden goddess had done better to favour the years of a maiden like me—years which I fear she wishes few for me.
For the languor clings to me, for causes that do not appear; worn out, I find no help in the physician’s art. How thin and wasted am I now, think you, scarce able to write this answer to you? and how pale the body I scarce can raise upon my arm? And now I feel an added fear, lest someone besides the nurse who shares my secret may see that we are interchanging words. She sits before the door, and when they ask how I do within, answers, “She sleeps,” that I may write in safety. Presently, when sleep, the excellent excuse for my long retreat, no longer wins belief because I tarry so, and now she sees those coming whom not to admit is hard, she clears her throat and thus gives me the sign agreed upon. Just as they are, in haste I leave my words unfinished, and the letter I have begun is hid in my trembling bosom. Taken thence, a second time it fatigues my fingers; how great the toil to me, yourself can see. May I perish if, to speak truth, you were worthy of it; but I am kinder than is just or you deserve.
So, then, ’tis on your account that I am so many times uncertain of health, and ’tis for your lying tricks that I am and have been punished? Is the s the reward that falls to my beauty, proud in your praise? Must I suffer for having pleased? If I had seemed misshapen to you—and would I had!—you would have thought ill of my body, and now it would need no help; but I met with praise, and now I groan; now you two with your strife are my despair, and my own beauty itself wounds me. While neither you yield to him nor he deems him second to you, you hinder his prayers, he hinders yours. I myself am tossed like a ship which steadfast Boreas drives out into the deep, and tide and wave bring back, and when the day longed for by my parents dear draws nigh, at the same time unmeasured burning seizes on my frame—ah me, at the very time of marriage cruel Persephone knocks at my door before her day! I already am shamed, and in fear, though I feel no guilt within, lest I appear to have merited the displeasure of the gods. One contends that my affliction is the work of chance; another says that my destined husband finds not favour with the gods; and, lest you think yourself untouched by what men say, there are also some who think you the cause, by poisonous arts. Their source is hidden, but my ills are clear to see; you two stir up fierce strife and banish peace, and the blows are mine!
Tell me now, and deceive me not in your wonted way: what will you do from hatred, when you harm me so from love? If you injure one you love, ’twill be reason to love your foe—to save me, I pray you, will to wish my doom! Either you care no longer for the hoped-for maid, whom with hard heart you are letting waste away to an unworthy death, or if in vain you beseech for me the cruel goddess, why boast yourself to me?—you have no favour with her! Choose which case you will: you do not wish to placate Diana—you have forgotten me; you have no power with her—’tis she has forgotten you!
I would I had either never—or not at that time—known Delos in the Aegean waters! That was the time my ship set forth on a difficult sea, and I entered on a voyage in ill-omened hour. With what step I came forth! With what step I started from my threshold! The painted deck of the swift ship—with what step I trod it! Twice, none the less, my canvas put about before an adverse wind—ah, senseless that I am, I lie!—a favouring wind was that! A favouring wind it was that brought me back from my going, and hindered the way that had little happiness for me. Ah, would it had been constant against my sails—but it is foolish to complain of fickle winds.
Moved by the fame of the place, I was in eager haste to visit Delos, and the craft in which I sailed seemed spiritless. How oft did I chide the oars for being slow, and complain that sparing canvas was given to the wind! And now I had passed Myconos, now Tenos and Andros, and Delos gleamed “before my eyes. When I beheld it from afar,” Why dost thou fly from me, O isle? “I cried; “art thou afloat in the great sea, as in days of yore?”
I had set foot upon land; the light was almost gone, and the sun was making ready to take their yokes from his shining steeds. When he has likewise called them once more to their accustomed rising, my hair is dressed at the bidding of my mother. With her own hand she sets gems upon my fingers and gold in my tresses, and with her own hand places the robes about my shoulders. Straightway setting forth, Ave greet the deities to whom the isle is consecrate, and offer up the golden incense and the wine; and while my mother stains the altars with votive blood, and piles the solemn entrails on the smoking altar-flames, my busy nurse conducts me to other temples also, and we stray with wandering step about the holy precincts. And now I walk in the porticoes, now look with wonder on the gifts of kings, and the statues standing everywhere; I look with wonder, too, on the altar built of countless horns, and the tree that stayed the goddess in her throes, and all things else that Delos holds—for memory would not serve, nor mood allow, to tell of all I looked on there.
Perhaps, thus gazing, I was gazed upon by you, Acontius, and my simple nature seemed an easy prey. I return to Diana’s temple, with its lofty approach of steps—ought any place to be safer than this?—when there is thrown before my feet an apple with this verse that follows—ah me, now again I almost made oath to you! Nurse took it up, looked in amaze, and “Read it through!” she said. I read your treacherous verse, O mighty poet! At mention of the name of wedlock I was confused and shamed, and felt the blushes cover all my face, and my eyes I kept upon my bosom as if fastened there—those eyes that were made ministers to your intent. Wretch, why rejoice? or what glory have you gained? or what praise have you won, a man, by playing on a maid? I did not present myself before you with buckler and axe in hand, like a Penthesilea on the soil of Ilion; no sword-girdle, chased with Amazonian gold, was offered you for spoil by me, as by some Hippolyte. Why exult if your words deceived me, and I, a girl of little wisdom, was taken by your wiles? Cydippe was snared by the apple, an apple snared Schoeneus’ child; you now of a truth will be a second Hippomenes! Yet had it been better for you—if that boy really held you captive who you say has certain torches—to do as good men are wont, and not cheat your hope by dealing falsely; you should have won me by persuasion, not taken me whether or no!
Why, when you sought my hand, did you not think worth declaring those things that made your own hand worth my seeking? Why did you wish to compel me rather than persuade, if I could be won by listening to your suit? Of what avail to you now the formal words of an oath, and the tongue that called on present deity to witness? It is the mind that swears, and I have taken no oath with that; it alone can lend good faith to words. It is counsel and the prudent reasoning of the soul that swear, and, except the bonds of the judgment, none avail. If I have willed to pledge my hand to you, exact the due rights of the promised marriage-bed; but if I have given you naught but my voice, without my heart, you possess in vain but words without a force of their own. I took no oath—I read words that formed an oath; that was no way for you to be chosen to husband by me. Deceive thus other maids—let a letter follow an apple! If this plan holds, win away their great wealth from the rich; make kings take oath to give their thrones to you, and let whatsoever pleases you in all the world be yours! You are much greater in this, believe me, than Diana’s self, if your written word has in it such present deity.
Nevertheless, after saying this, after firmly refusing myself to you, after having finished pleading the cause of my promise to you, I confess I fear the anger of Leto’s cruel daughter and suspect that from her comes my body’s ill. For why is it that, as oft as the sacraments for marriage are made ready, so oft the limbs of the bride-to-be sink down in languor? Thrice now has Hymenaeus come to the altars reared for me and fled, turning his back upon the threshold of my wedding-chamber; the lights so oft replenished by his lazy hand scarce rise again, scarce does he keep the torch alight by waving it. Oft does the perfume distil from his wreathed locks, and the mantle he sweeps along is splendid with much saffron. When he has touched the threshold, and sees tears and dread of death, and much that is far removed from the ways he keeps, with his own hand he tears the garlands from his brow and casts them forth, and dries the dense balsam from his glistening locks; he shames to stand forth glad in a gloomy throng, and the blush that was in his mantle passes to his cheeks.
But for me—ah, wretched!—my limbs are parched with fever, and the stuffs that cover me are heavier than their wont; I see my parents weeping over me, and instead of the wedding-torch the torch of death is at hand. Spare a maid in distress, () goddess whose joy is the painted quiver, and grant me the health-bringing aid of thy brother! It is shame to thee that he drive away the causes of doom, and that thou, in contrast, have credit for my death. Can it be that, when thou didst wish to bathe in shady pool, I without witting cast eyes upon thee at thy bath? Have I passed thy altars by, among those of so many deities of heaven? Has thy mother been scorned by mine? I have sinned in naught except that I have read a false oath, and been clever with unpropitious verse.
Do you, too, if your love is not a lie, offer up incense for me; let the hands help which harmed me! Why does the hand which is angered because the maiden pledged you is not yet yours so act that yours she cannot become? While still I live you have everything to hope; why does the cruel goddess take from me my life, your hope of me from you?
Do not believe that he whose destined wife I am lays his hand on me to fondle my sick limbs. He sits by me, indeed, as much as he may, but does not forget that mine is a virgin bed. He seems already, too, to feel in some way suspicion of me; for his tears oft fall for some hidden cause, his flatteries are less bold, he asks for few kisses, and calls me his own in tones that are but timid. Nor do I wonder he suspects, for I betray myself by open signs; I turn upon my right side when he comes, and do not speak, and close my eyes in simulated sleep, and when he tries to touch me I throw off his hand. He groans and sighs in his silent breast, for he suffers my displeasure without deserving it. Ah me, that you rejoice and are pleased by that state of my will! Ah me, that I have confessed my feelings to you! If my tongue should speak my mind, ’twere you more justly deserved my anger—you, for having spread the net for me.
You write for leave to come and see me in my illness. You are far from me, and yet you wrong me even from there. I marvelled why your name was Acontius; it is because you have the keen point that deals a wound from afar. At any rate, I am not yet well of just such a wound, for I was pierced by your letter, a far-thrown dart. Yet why should you come to me? Surely but a wretched body you would see—the mighty trophy of your skill. I have wasted and fallen away: my colour is bloodless, such as I recall to mind was the hue of that apple of yours, and my face is white, with no rising gleam of mingled red. Such is wont to be the fairness of fresh marble; such is the colour of silver at the banquet table, pale with the chill touch of icy water. Should you see me now, you will declare you have never seen me before, and say: “No arts of mine e’er sought to win a maid like that.” You will remit me the keeping of my promise, in fear lest I become yours, and will long for the goddess to forget it all. Perhaps you will even a second time make me swear, but in contrary wise, and will send me words a second time to read.
But none the less I could wish you to look upon me, as you yourself entreated—to look upon the languid limbs of your promised bride! Though your heart were harder than steel, Acontius, you yourself would ask pardon for my uttered words. Yet, that you be not unaware, the god who sings the fates at Delphi is being asked by what means I may grow strong again. He, too, as vague rumour whispers now, complains of the neglect of some pledge he was witness to. This is what the god says, this his prophet, and this the verses I read—surely, the wish of your heart lacks no support in prophetic verse! Whence this favour to you?—unless perhaps you have found some new writing the reading whereof ensnares even the mighty gods. And since you hold bound the gods, I myself follow their will, and gladly yield my vanquished hands in fulfilment of your prayers; with eyes full of shame held fast on the ground, I have confessed to my mother the pledge my tongue was trapped to give. The rest must be your care; even this, that my letter has not feared to speak with you, is more than a maid should do. Already have I wearied enough with the pen my weakened members, and my sick hand refuses longer its office. What remains for my letter, if I say that I long to be united with you soon? nothing but to add: Fare well!
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