With wishes for the welfare which she herself, unless you give it her-, will ever lack, the Cretan maid greets the hero whose mother was an Amazon. Read to the end, whatever is here contained—what shall reading of a letter harm? In this one, too, there may be something to pleasure you; in these characters of mine, secrets are borne over land and sea. Even foe looks into missive writ by foe.
Thrice making trial of speech with you, thrice hath my tongue vainly stopped, thrice the sound failed at first threshold of my lips. Wherever modesty may attend on love, love should not lack in it; with me, what modesty forbade to say, love has commanded me to write. Whatever Love commands, it is not safe to hold for naught; his throne and law are over even the gods who are lords of all. ’Twas he who spoke to me when first I doubted if to write or no: “Write; the iron-hearted one will yield his hand.” Let him aid me, then, and, just as he heats my marrow with his avid flame, so may he transfix your heart that it yield to my prayers!
It will not be through wanton baseness that I shall break my marriage-bond; my name—and you may ask—is free from all reproach. Love has come to me, the deeper for its coming late—I am burning with love within; I am burning, and my breast has an unseen wound. As the first bearing of the yoke galls the tender steer, and as the rein is scarce endured by the colt fresh taken from the drove, so does my untried heart rebel, and scarce submit to the first restraints of love, and the burden I undergo does not sit well upon my soul. Love grows to be but an art, when the fault is well learned from tender years; she who yields her heart when the time for love is past, has a fiercer passion. You will reap the fresh first-offerings of purity long preserved, and both of us will be equal in our guilt. ’Tis something to pluck fruit from the orchard with full-hanging branch, to cull with delicate nail the first rose. If nevertheless the white and blameless purity in which I have lived before was to be marked with unwonted stain, at least the fortune is kind that burns me with a worthy flame; worse than forbidden love is a lover who is base. Should Juno yield me him who is at once her brother and her lord, methinks I should prefer Hippolytus to Jove.
Now too—you will scarce believe it—I am changing to pursuits I did not know; I am stirred to go among wild beasts. The goddess first for me now is the Delian, known above all for her curved bow; it is your choice that I myself now follow. My pleasure leads me to the wood, to drive the deer into the net, and to urge on the fleet hound over the highest ridge, or with arm shot forth to let fly the quivering spear, or to lay my body upon the grassy ground. Oft do I delight to whirl the light car in the dust of the course, twisting with the rein the mouth of the flying steed; now again I am borne on, like (daughters of the Bacchic cry driven by the frenzy of their god, and those who shake the timbrel at the foot of Ida’s ridge, or those whom Dryad creatures half-divine and Fauns two-horned have touched with their own spirit and driven distraught. For they tell me of all these things when that madness of mine has passed away; and I keep silence, conscious ’tis love that tortures me.
It may be this love is a debt I am paying, due to the destiny of my line, and that Venus is exacting tribute of me for all my race. Europa—this is the first beginning of our line—was loved of Jove; a bull’s form disguised the god. Pasiphae my mother, victim of the deluded bull, brought forth in travail her reproach and burden. The faithless son of Aegeus followed the guiding thread, and escaped from the winding house through the aid my sister gave. Behold, now I, lest I be thought too little a child of Minos’ line, am the latest of my stock to come under the law that rules us all! This, too, is fateful, that one house has won us both; your beauty has captured my heart, my sister’s heart was captured by your father. Theseus’ son and Theseus have been the undoing of sisters twain—rear ye a double trophy at our house’s fall!
That time I went to Eleusis, the city of Ceres, would that the Gnosian land had held me back! It was then you pleased me most, and yet you had pleased before; piercing love lodged in my deepest bones. Shining white was your raiment, hound round with flowers your locks, the blush of modesty had the ged your sun-browned cheeks, and, what others call a countenance hard and stern, in Phaedra’s eye was strong instead of hard. Away from me with your young men arrayed like women!—beauty in a man would fain be striven for in measure. That hardness of feature suits)you well, those locks that fall without art, and the light dust upon your handsome face. Whether you draw rein and curb the resisting neck of your spirited steed, I look with wonder at your turning his feet in circle so slight; whether with strong arm you hurl the pliant shaft, your gallant arm draws my regard upon itself, or whether you grasp the broad-headed cornel hunting-spear. To say no more, my eyes delight in whatsoe’er you do.
Do you only lay aside your hardness upon the forest ridges; I am no fit spoil for your campaign. What use to you to practise the ways of girded Diana, and to have stolen from Venus her own due? That which lacks its alternations of repose will not endure; this is what repairs the strength and renews the wearied limbs. The bow—and you should imitate the weapons of your Diana—if you never cease to bend it, will grow slack. Renowned in the forest was Cephalus, and many were the wild beasts that had fallen on the sod at the piercing of his stroke; yet he did not ill in yielding himself to Aurora’s love. Oft did the goddess sagely go to him, leaving her aged spouse. Many a time beneath the ilex did Venus and he that was sprung of Cinyras recline, pressing some chance grassy spot. The son of Oeneus, too, took fire with love for Maenalian Atalanta; she has the spoil of the wild beast as the pledge of his love. Let us, too, be now first numbered in that company! If you take away love, the forest is but a rustic place. I myself will come and be at your side, and neither rocky covert shall make me fear, nor the boar dreadful for the side-stroke of his tusk.
There are two seas that on either side assail an isthmus with their floods, and the slender land hears the waves of both. Here with you will I dwell, in Troezen’s land, the realm of Pittheus; yon place is dearer to me now than my own native soil. The hero son of Neptune is absent now, in happy hour, and will be absent long; he is kept by the shores of his dear Pirithous. Theseus—unless, indeed, we refuse to own what all may see—has come to love Pirithous more than Phaedra, Pirithous more than you. Nor is that the only wrong we suffer at his hand; there are deep injuries we both have had from him. The bones of my brother he crushed with his triple-knotted club and scattered o’er the ground; my sister he left at the mercy of wild beasts. The first in courage among the women of the battle-axe bore you, a mother worthy of the vigour of her son; if you ask where she is—Theseus pierced her side with the steel, nor did she find safety in the pledge of so great a son. Yes, and she was not even wed to him and taken to his home with the nuptial torch—why, unless that you. a bastard, should not come to your father’s throne? He has bestowed brothers on you, too, from me, and the cause of rearing them all as heirs has been not myself, but he. Ah, would that the bosom which was to work you wrong, fairest of nun, had been rent in the midst of its throes! Go now, reverence the bed of a father who thus deserves of you—the bed which he neglects and is disowning by his deeds.
And, should you think of me as a stepdame who would mate with her husband’s son, let empty names fright not your soul. Such old-fashioned regard for virtue was rustic even in Saturn’s reign, and doomed to die in the age to come. Jove fixed that virtue was to be in whatever brought us pleasure; and naught is wrong before the gods since sister was made wife by brother. That bond of kinship only holds close and firm in which Venus herself has forged the chain. Nor need you fear the trouble of concealment—it will be easy; ask the aid of Venus! Through her our fault will be covered under name of kinship. Should someone see us embrace, we both shall meet with praise; I shall be called a faithful stepdame to the son of my lord. No portal of a dour husband will need unbolting for you in the darkness of night; there will be no guard to be eluded; as the same root’ has covered us both, the same will cover us still. Your wont has been to give me kisses unconcealed, your wont will be still to give me kisses unconcealed. You will be safe with me, and will earn praise by your fault, though you be seen upon my very couch. Only, away with tarrying, and make haste to bind our bond—so may Love be merciful to you. who is bitter to me now! I do not disdain to bend my knee and humbly make entreaty. Alas! where now are my pride, my lofty words; fallen! I was resolved—if there was aught love could resolve—both to fight long and not to yield to fault; but I am overcome. I pray to you, to clasp your knees I extend my queenly arms. Of what befits, no one who loves takes thought. My modesty has tied, and as it fled it left its standards behind.
Forgive me my confession,.and soften your hard heart! That I have for sire Minos. who rules the seas, that from my ancestor’s hand comes Inn-led the lightning-stroke, that the front of my grandsire, he who moves the tepid day with gleaming chariot, is crowned with palisade of pointed rays—what of this, when my noble name is prostrate under love? I lave pity on those who have gone before, and, if me you will not spare, O spare my line! To my dowry belongs the Cretan land, the isle of Jove—let my whole court be slaves to my Hippolytus!
Bend, O cruel one, your spirit! My mother could pervert the bull; will you be fiercer than a savage beast? Spare me, by Venus I pray, who is chiefest with me now. So may you never love one who will spurn you; so may the agile goddess wait on you in the solitary glade to keep you safe, and the deep forest yield you wild beasts to slay; so may tin Satyrs be your friends, and the mountain deities, the Pans, and may the boar fall pierced in full front by your spear; so may the Nymphs—though you are said to loathe womankind—give you the flowing water to relieve your parching thirst!
I mingle with these prayers my tears as well. The words of her who prays, you are reading; her tears, imagine you behold!
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