Hymn to Artemis

Artemis we sing—for it is no light thing for singers to forget her— to whom the bow and the hunting of hares are a care, and the spreading dance, and to make sport upon the mountains; beginning from the time when, seated on her father's knees, the child, still a little girl, spoke thus to her parent: "Grant me to keep my maidenhood, papa, forever, and grant me many names, that Phoebus may not vie with me. Grant me arrows and a bow—nay, father, I ask of you no quiver nor a great bow; for me the Cyclopes will straightway fashion the shafts, and for me a well-bent bow; but grant me to be the bearer of light, and to gird myself with a tunic bordered, reaching to the knee, that I may slay wild beasts. And grant me sixty Oceanid maidens for my chorus, all nine years old, all still girls ungirdled. And grant me twenty handmaid Amnisian nymphs, who shall tend well my hunting-boots, and, when I no longer shoot at lynxes or stags, my swift hounds. And grant me all the mountains; and assign me whatever city you will—for seldom will Artemis go down into a town. On the mountains I shall dwell, and the cities of men I shall visit only when women, racked by the sharp pangs of birth, call me to their aid—me, on whom the Fates, at my very birth, laid the lot of helping them, because my mother bore me and carried me without pain, and laid me from her dear limbs without travail." So spoke the child, and would have touched her father's beard, but stretched out many hands in vain before she could reach it. Her father nodded, smiling, and said, fondling her: "When goddesses bear me such children as this, little need I care for the wrath of jealous Hera. Take, child, all that you ask of your own will, and your father will give you yet other things, even greater. Thrice ten cities I shall grant you, and not one tower only, thrice ten cities, which shall know to glorify no other god but you alone, and to be called of Artemis; and many cities you shall share in common, both inland and the islands; and in all of them shall be altars and groves of Artemis. And of the streets and harbours you shall be the warden." So having spoken, he confirmed the word with a nod of his head. And the maiden went to the white Cretan mountain crowned with woodland; thence to Ocean; and she chose out many nymphs, all nine years old, all still girls ungirdled. And the river Caeratus rejoiced greatly, and Tethys rejoiced, because they sent their daughters to be the Letoid's companions.

Then straight she went after the Cyclopes; she found them in the isle of Lipara (Lipara now, but then its name was Meligunis) at the anvils of Hephaestus, standing about a mass of glowing iron; for a great work was being hastened— a horse-trough they were fashioning for Poseidon. And the nymphs were afraid when they saw the dread monsters like to the crags of Ossa, and beneath the brow of each the single eye, like a fourfold shield of oxhide, glaring terribly from below; and when they heard the din of the ringing anvil, and the great loud blast of the bellows, and the heavy groaning of the Cyclopes themselves— for Etna cried out, and Trinacria cried out, the seat of the Sicani, and neighbouring Italy cried out, and Cyrnus raised a great shout, when, lifting their hammers above their shoulders, they smote in turn the bronze seething from the furnace, or the iron, and laboured mightily—therefore the Oceanids could not bear, untroubled, to look upon them, nor to receive the clang in their ears. No wonder: those whom even the daughters of the blessed gods, no longer little, never look upon without a shudder. But when one of the maidens is disobedient to her mother, the mother calls the Cyclopes upon her child, Arges or Steropes; and from the inmost recess of the house comes Hermes, smeared with burnt ashes; straightway he plays the bogey to the girl, and she dives into her mother's bosom, laying her hands upon her eyes.

But you, maiden, even earlier, while still but three years old, when Leto came carrying you in her arms, at the call of Hephaestus, that he might give you welcome-gifts, and Brontes set you upon his sturdy knees, you grasped from his great breast the shaggy hair and plucked it by force; and to this very day even now the middle of his breast remains hairless, just as when on a man's temple a fox has settled and eaten away the hair. Therefore very boldly did you then address them thus: "Cyclopes, for me too fashion some Cydonian bow and arrows and a hollow casket for the shafts; for I too am a child of Leto, even as Apollo. And if with my bow I take some lone beast or monstrous creature, that shall the Cyclopes have to eat." You spoke; and they fulfilled it. Forthwith you were armed, goddess, and quickly you went again after the hounds; and you came to the fold of Pan in Arcadia. He was cutting up the flesh of a Maenalian lynx, that his whelping bitches might have it to eat. And to you the bearded god gave two dogs half-white, three with hanging ears, and one of dappled hue, which, dragging back lions themselves, when they had seized them by the throat, hauled them yet living to the fold; and seven he gave swifter than the winds, Cynosurian hounds, which are quickest to chase the fawns and the hare that never closes its eyes, and to mark the lair of the stag and where the porcupine has its den, and to lead upon the track of the gazelle.

Departing thence (and the hounds sped along with you), you found by the foothills of the Parrhasian mountain deer leaping, a great prize; they were ever pasturing upon the banks of the black-pebbled Anaurus, larger than bulls, and gold gleamed from their horns. Suddenly you were astonished, and said to your own heart: "This would be a first quarry worthy of Artemis." Five there were in all; four you caught, running swiftly without the chase of hounds, that they might draw your swift car. But the one that escaped across the river Celadon, by the contriving of Hera, that it might be a labour for Heracles in time to come, the Cerynean hill received.

Artemis, Maiden, Slayer of Tityus, golden was your gear and your girdle, and a golden car you yoked, and you cast golden bridles, goddess, upon your deer. But where did your horned chariot first begin to bear you? On Thracian Haemus, whence the blast of Boreas comes, bringing chill cruel breath to the cloakless. And where did you cut your pine, and from what flame kindle it? On Mysian Olympus; and you put into it the breath of a light unquenchable, which your father's thunderbolts distil. And how many times, goddess, did you make trial of your silver bow? First at an elm, the second time you let fly at an oak, the third again at a wild beast. But the fourth time, no longer at these, but you cast it at the city of unjust men, who against their own and against strangers wrought many a lawless deed, the wretches; on whom you shall press your grievous wrath. Plague devours their cattle, and frost their works, and the old men cut their hair in grief for their sons, and the women either die smitten in childbed, or, if they escape, bear children of whom none stands upright upon its ankle. But on those whom you look with smiling and gracious eye, for them the cornland bears the ear abundantly, and abundantly the brood of their four-footed beasts, and abundantly their wealth increases; nor do they go to the tomb save when they carry one full of years; nor does faction wound their race, which has harmed even well- established houses; but the sisters-in-law and the husband's sister set their seats about one board in concord. Lady, among such men be my true friend whoever is true, and may I myself be such, O queen, and may song be ever my care; in it shall be the marriage of Leto, in it you yourself much, in it Apollo too, in it all your labours, in it the hounds and the bows and the chariot-rails, which lightly bear you in your splendour, when you drive to the house of Zeus. There, meeting you in the forecourt, they receive— Hermes Acacesius your weapons, and Apollo whatever beast you bring; before, at least, ere mighty Alcides came; but now Phoebus has no longer this task, for such an anvil-block is the Tirynthian, ever standing before the gates, watching whether you come bringing some fat morsel; and at him all the gods laugh unceasingly, and most of all his own mother-in-law, when from the car he brings a bull, a very great one, or a tusked boar, holding it by the hind foot as it struggles; with cunning word, goddess, he thus instructs you: "Shoot at the evil beasts, that mortals may call you their helper as they do me. Let the does and the hares feed upon the mountains; what harm could does and hares do? It is boars that ravage the fields, boars the plants. And oxen are a great bane to men; shoot at them too." So he spoke, and busily toiled about the great beast. For though his limbs were deified beneath the Phrygian oak, he ceased not from his gluttony; still he has that belly with which once he met Theiodamas at the plough.

For you the Amnisian nymphs rub down the deer, loosed from the yoke; and they bring from Hera's meadow much to graze beside them, having reaped it, the swift-running clover with three leaves, which the horses of Zeus also eat; and they fill the golden troughs with water, that the deer may have drink to their liking. And you yourself go to your father's house; and all alike call you to a seat; but you sit beside Apollo. And when the nymphs ring you round in the dance near the springs of Egyptian Inopus, or of Pitane (for Pitane too is yours), or in Limnae, or where, goddess, on your way to dwell at Araphenian Halae, you came from Scythia and laid aside the customs of the Tauri— let not at that time my oxen, for a hire, cleave a four-acre fallow under an alien ploughman; for surely, lamed and worn in the neck, they would come back to the dung-heap, even if they were Stymphaean draught-oxen, nine years old, drawing by the horn, which are far the best to cut the deep furrow; for the god, the Sun, never passes by that fair dance, but stays his car to gaze, and the daylight is lengthened.

Which of the islands, what mountain pleased you most, what harbour, what city? Which of the nymphs did you love beyond the rest, and what heroines did you have for companions? Tell, goddess; you to me, and I shall sing to others. Of islands, Doliche, and of cities Perge pleased you, of mountains Taygetus, and of harbours those of Euripus. And beyond all others you loved the Gortynian nymph, the fawn-slaying Britomartis, sure of aim; for whom once Minos, maddened by love, ran over the mountains of Crete. Now the nymph hid herself beneath the shaggy oaks, now in the water-meadows; and for nine months he ranged the crags and cliffs and did not stay his pursuit, until, all but caught, she leapt down into the sea from a high headland, and sprang into the nets of fishermen, which saved her; whence afterward the Cydonians call the nymph Dictyna, and the mountain whence she leapt Dictaean, and they have set up altars and do sacrifice; and the garland on that day is of pine or of mastich, but the hands keep clear of myrtle; for then a sprig of myrtle was caught in the robe of the maiden when she fled; whence she was greatly wroth with the myrtle. Oupis, queen, fair of face, light-bearer, you too by that name the Cretans call, after that nymph.

And Cyrene too you took for comrade, to whom once you gave two hunting hounds, with which the maiden, daughter of Hypseus, won the prize beside the Iolcian tomb. And the fair-haired wife of Cephalus, son of Deioneus, lady, you made your fellow-huntress; and they say you loved fair Anticleia even as your own eyes. These were the first to bear the swift bows and, about their shoulders, the arrow-holding quivers; their right shoulders were unburdened by the strap, and the breast was ever bare and showing. And you praised utterly swift-footed Atalanta, the boar-slaying daughter of Iasius, son of Arcas, and taught her the chase of hounds and good marksmanship. The summoned hunters of the Calydonian boar do not blame her; for the tokens of her victory came into Arcadia, and it still holds the beast's tusks; nor do I think that Hylaeus and senseless Rhoecus, even hating her, will in Hades find fault with her archery; for their flanks will not bear them out in the lie, their flanks, with whose blood the Maenalian height ran.

Lady of many shrines, of many cities, hail, Chitone, dweller in Miletus; for you Neleus made his guide, when he set sail with his ships from Cecropia. Chesias, Imbrasia, first-throned, to you Agamemnon laid up in your temple the rudder of his ship, a charm against a windless sea, when you bound his winds for him, at the time when the Achaean ships sailed to vex the cities of the Teucrians, wroth on behalf of Rhamnusian Helen. Indeed for you Proetus set up two temples, one of Coria, because you gathered together his daughters who wandered the Azanian mountains, and the other in Lusi to the Gentle One, because you took from his children their savage temper. For you too the Amazons, lovers of war, once in seaside Ephesus set up an image beneath an oak-trunk, and Hippo performed your rites; and they themselves, queen Oupis, danced a war-dance, first in their shields the armed dance, and then in a ring they set up a wide chorus; and the shrill, slender pipes accompanied, that they might beat the ground in time; for not yet had they pierced the bones of the fawn, the work of Athena, a bane to the deer; and the echo ran to Sardis and to the Berecynthian pasture. And with their feet they rattled loud, and their quivers clattered. And afterward about that image a wide foundation was built, than which the Dawn shall behold nothing more divine nor more wealthy; easily would it surpass Pytho. Therefore in his madness the insolent Lygdamis threatened to lay it waste; and against it an army of mare-milkers he led, the Cimmerians, like the sand in number, who dwell encamped by the very strait of the cow, Inachus's daughter. Ah, wretched among kings, how he sinned! For he was not to return to Scythia again, neither he himself nor any other of those whose waggons stood in the Caystrian meadow; should return; for your bows are ever set in defence of Ephesus.

Lady of Munichia, watcher of harbours, hail, Pheraea. Let no one dishonour Artemis; for not even to Oeneus, who dishonoured her altar, did fair contests come for his city; nor let any strive with her in deer-slaying or in marksmanship; for not even the son of Atreus boasted at small cost; nor let any woo the maiden; for not even Otus, nor Orion, wooed a good marriage; nor let any shun the yearly dance; for not even Hippo without weeping refused to circle about the altar. Hail, greatly reigning one, and meet my song with favour.