Book 5

5. Their thirst driven off by the river, the host, having plundered the deep of the flood, was leaving the banks and the lessened stream; more keenly the steed seizes the plain, and the foot-soldier fills the fields, exulting; back to the men came their spirits and their threats and their vows, as though from bloody springs they had drunk the mingled fire of war and great minds for battle. Arranged again in squadrons and to the law of strict order, as each had his place and leader before, they are bidden to renew the march. Already the earth grows with the first dust, and the woods send across the lightnings of the arms. As across the sea, caught by the Pharian fair weather, the hoarse flocks withdraw from the Paraetonian Nile, whither the fierce winter drives them: they, in fugitive clamour, a shadow over the seas and the fields, fly, and the pathless air resounds. Now to endure Boreas and the rains, now to swim in the loosened rivers it pleases them, and to summer beneath bare Haemus.

Here again, with the chiefs ringing him round in a like crown, the leader, son of Talaus, as it chanced beneath an ancient ash was standing, leaning, with Polynices brought near, upon his spear: but yet, 'O whoever you are,' he says, 'to whom—such great glory— we have come, owing a debt of cohorts numberless by fate, a honour which not even the sire of the gods himself would scorn, come, tell, since now eager we depart from your waters, what home or land, by what stars you have drawn your life? Say, who too was that father? For not far from you are the divine powers, though fortune may have passed away, and through your face a greater blood, and reverence breathes in your afflicted countenance.'

She groaned, and, lingering a little with modest weeping, the Lemnian began her tale: 'Monstrous wounds, captain, you bid me renew, the Furies and Lemnos and the close arms thrust among the marriage-beds, and the males slain by the shameful sword; lo, the horror returns, and cold to my heart is the Fury. O wretched women, on whom this frenzy was laid! O night! O father! For I am she, lest perchance you blush at a kindly host—I am she, leaders, who alone, snatching away my father, hid him. Why do I weave a long beginning to my woes? You too the arms call, and the great preparations in your heart; to have recalled this is enough: born of illustrious Thoas, I, Hypsipyle, captured, serve your Lycurgus.'

They turned their minds, and she seemed greater and worthy of honour and equal to so great a task; then to all the desire was born to know her fortunes; the father Adrastus above the rest urges her: 'Nay come, while far off we send forward the ranks of the common throng —for it is not easy for Nemea to unroll its broad strength, since it is covered with foliage and an inextricable shade— unfold the horror and your own praises and the groans of your people, whence, cast down from your kingdom, you come to these labours.'

Sweet it is for the wretched to speak and to bring back old laments, she begins: 'By the Aegean Nereus, flowed round about, Lemnos is pressed, where Mulciber, wearied, breathes again from fire-bearing Aetna; with a vast shadow neighbouring Athos clothes the earth and darkens the sea with the image of its groves; the Thracians plough opposite, the Thracian shores fatal to us, and thence the horror. The land flourished, rich in nurslings, nor was it of worse fame than Samos or resounding Delos and the countless isles that the foaming Aegon dashes against. It seemed good to the gods to trouble our homes, nor are our hearts free from blame: no fires did we hallow to Venus, no seat for the goddess; grief moves even heavenly hearts at times, and the Penalties creep in with a slow column. Leaving old Paphos and her hundred altars, not the same in face or hair, she is said to have loosened her bridal girdle and to have sent far off her Idalian birds; there were those, at least, who would spread abroad that in the shade of midnight the goddess, bearing other fires and greater weapons, flitted among the Tartarean sisters into the marriage-chambers, and how with twined serpents she had filled the secrets of the houses and the marriage-thresholds with savage dread, nor pitied the people of the faithful husband. Straightway, tender Loves, you fled from Lemnos, mute was Hymen, the torches turned, and cold was the care of the lawful bed! No nights return into joys, no sleep is there in the embrace, harsh Hatreds everywhere and Frenzy, and Discord reclines in the midst of the couch. The men's care is to throw down upon the opposite shore the proud Thracians and by warring to break the savage race, and, though their homes are over against them and their sons stand on the strand, sweeter it is to face the Edonian winters and the pressing North, or at last after the battles, in the silent night, to hear the sudden ruins of the broken torrents. Those women, meanwhile, sad—for then virginity free from cares and my years protect me—by night and day, sick with constant tears, mingle comforting converse, or gaze across the seas at savage Thrace.

The Sun, midway in his labours, was balancing on highest Olympus his gleaming horses, as if he stood still; four times on the clear axle it thundered, four times the caverns of the smoking god thrust forth their panting peaks, and with the winds absent Aegon was stirred and struck the shores with a vast sea: when suddenly Polyxo, ripe in years, is lifted into dreadful frenzies, and unused, leaving her chamber, flies forth. As a Teumesian thyiad, snatched away by the insane god, when the rites call her and the Idaean boxwood urges and Euhan is heard from the topmost mountains: so, her cheeks lifted up and her sight overspread with trembling blood, she drives the deserted city with raving cries to and fro, and, knocking at the closed houses and thresholds, she calls a council; her ill-starred company clung to her as she went, her sons. And they no more slowly, all of them, burst from their roofs, and to the topmost citadel of Pallas their rush: hither in haste we are crowded and gathered in no order; soon, with sword drawn, she bade silence, instigator of crimes, and in the midst thus dared to speak: 'The highest of matters, by the prompting of the gods above and by deserved grief, O widows—arm your spirits and drive out your sex!— Lemnian women, I prepare to sanction; if it wearies you for ever to keep empty homes, and the foul rust of youth's flower, and barren years in long griefs, I have found, I promise, a way—nor are the divine powers wanting— by which Venus must be renewed: only put forth strength equal to your griefs, and indeed let this first be granted me to know. The third winter sings; whose are the bonds of wedlock, or the secret honour of the marriage-bed? Whose breast has warmed with a husband? Whose labours has Lucina seen, tell, or whose vows swell, throbbing for the lawful months? Beasts and birds are granted a custom of mating in peace, alas, slothful ones! Could a Greek father give avenging weapons to maidens, and, glad of his griefs, bathe in blood the carefree sleep of young men: but are we an idle herd? But if there is need of deeds nearer home, lo, let the Rhodopeian wife teach our spirits, who avenged with her hand her marriage-bed and feasted alike with her husband. Nor do I drive you free of crimes or untouched by them: full is my house and vast, lo, behold, my sweat. These four, alone, the glory and solace of their father, in my lap, though they delay me with embrace and tears, I will drive the sword through, and the gore and the wounds of brothers I will mingle, and add their father too among the breathing, which of you promises her spirit to so many slaughters?' She urged with more; before us gleamed sails on the deep: it was the Lemnian fleet. Polyxo seized the chance, rejoicing, and repeats: 'When the gods above call us of their own accord, are we wanting? Behold the ships! A god, an avenging god, brings these into our angers and favours our undertakings, nor was the image of my rest vain: Venus stood with naked sword, bright to be seen by me, and over my sleep, "Why do you lose your age?" she says, "come, cleanse your chambers of the husbands turned from you, I myself will join other torches and better covenants." She spoke, and this iron upon my bed, this iron, believe me, she laid. Nay, O wretched ones, while there is time to do the deed, take counsel; lo, the seas, overturned by strong arms, foam, perhaps the Bistonian wives are coming.' From this come vast goads, and a great clamour rolls up to the stars. You would think Scythia boiled with Amazonian tumult and the crescent-shaped column came down, when their father grants arms and moves the gates of savage War, nor is there a varied murmuring or a dissension carried into opposing zeal, as is the way with a crowd: the frenzy is the same in all, the same the mind to lay waste their homes and to hurl down the distaffs of young men and old, and to dash the little ones against the full breasts, and to go out with the sword through all ages. Then in a green grove—the grove darkens the ground near the high ridges of Minerva, black of itself, but above it a vast mountain presses, and by the double shade the suns perish— here they pledged their faith; you, Martial Enyo, are witness, and infernal Ceres, and the Stygian goddesses, with Acheron unbarred, came before their prayers; but everywhere Venus, mingled, deceives, Venus holds the arms, Venus moves the angers. Nor was the blood after the wonted manner: the wife of Charops offered her son; they gird themselves, and his wondering breast with iron, and at once, greedy on every side with gathered hands, they break through, and over the living blood they swear the sweet wickedness, and the new shade flies round its mother. What horror was in my bones as I beheld such things, or what colour was over my face! As when a hind, surrounded by bloody wolves, having in her soft breast no strength and thin confidence in her flying course, hastens her suspended flight, and already, already believes herself caught, and hears the cheated jaws snap together.

They were at hand, and now the keels struck the first shores; they vie to touch the land with a leap, headlong, wretches, whom neither bristling valour beneath the Odrysian Mars, nor the harshness of the mid-sea had swallowed up! The deep shrines of the gods also reek, and draw the promised flocks: black is the fire on all the altars, and in no entrails breathes the god entire. More slowly Jupiter cast night down from the moist Olympus, and held back, I think, the heaven turned with gentle care, while he forbade the fates; nor ever longer did new darkness linger after the sun was done. Late, yet, the stars came to the world, but to them both Paros and wooded Thasos and the thronging Cyclades shine back; one alone lies wholly buried under the heavy sky, Lemnos; to her come sad clouds, and a blind tract above is woven, Lemnos alone unrecognized by the wandering sailors. Now scattered through their houses and through the shade of the sacred groves they indulge in rich feasts and empty into the depth of their unmeasured wine the gold, while what battles were along the Strymon, what toil sweated over on Rhodope or icy Haemus, there is leisure to recount; nor less, the impious band, the wives among the garlands and festal feasts, in what greatest array each lies; gentle had Cytherea made the men on that last night, and after long time a brief peace, in vain, and had breathed upon the wretches with a fire about to perish. The choirs fell silent, to the feasts and wanton play a limit comes, and the murmurs of the first night die down, when Sleep, mingled with the darkness of his kindred Death, dripping with Stygian dew, embraces the city about to die and pours heavy idleness from his unquiet horn and sets apart the men; the wives and the daughters keep watch for the crime, and gladly the savage Sisters sharpen the wild weapons. They set upon the horror; in every breast its own Erinys reigns; not otherwise through the Scythian fields the herds the Hyrcanian lionesses have shut in, whom the first hunger drives at dawn, and the greedy young implore the teats. What fortunes for you, I doubt, out of the thousand shapes of crimes I shall unfold. Rash Gorge Elymus, bound with branches and on a high heap of tapestries breathing out the swelling wine in sleep, standing over him, gropes for his wounds with his garment cast aside, but from him the ill-starred sleep flees, with death brought near, and troubled, with waking eyes he seizes in an embrace the uncertain foe, nor more slowly does she drive behind into the ribs of the one who holds her, until his own breast she touched with the iron; that at last was the limit of the crime; he lifts his face, still caressing, and trembling in his eyes and with a murmur seeks Gorge, nor looses his arms from her unworthy neck. Not now will I unfold the cruel deaths of the common throng, but I recall a grief from my own stock: that you, Cydon, on the ship, that you, Crenaeus, untouched with your tresses poured down your neck, who shared the breast with me and a sidelong descent from a father, and brave Gyas, whom I, betrothed, feared, I saw fall by the bloody wound of the Myrmidons, and Epopeus, whom amid the garlands and couches as he played his barbarous mother stabbed. Weeping over her age-mate brother Cydimus, the disarmed sister Lycaste will stand, alas, gazing at the face like his own on the perishing body and the bloom of his cheek and the locks which she herself had fashioned with gold, when her savage parent, her husband now slain, stood by and drives her on with threats and thrusts on her the sword. As a wild beast, which, unwonted to fury under a gentle master, more slowly moves to war, and with goads and frequent lashes refuses to go against its nature, so she fell upon the prostrate man, and, sunk down, in her bosom receives the streaming gore, and presses her torn locks into his fresh wounds. But when I beheld Alcimede, even now in his murmuring, carrying her father's severed face and the sword bereft of blood, my hair stiffened, and into my vitals a savage horror went: that was my Thoas, that my dread right hand, it seemed to me! At once, troubled, I am borne into my father's chamber. He indeed had long—what sleep is there for one watching great things?—been turning over with himself, though his house lay withdrawn far in the city, what were the noises, what the murmurs of the night, why the trembling quiet. In trembling order I lay open the crime, what the grief, whence my spirit fails: 'There is no force to ward off the raging; follow this way, O pitiable one; they press and will be upon you if you delay, and with me perhaps you will fall.' Moved by these words he raised his limbs from the bed, and we are borne through the byways of the vast city and the huge heap of the nightly slaughter everywhere, as the cruel evening had laid each low in the sacred groves; hidden in a covering cloud we spy them out, here, with faces pressed into the couches and hair standing forth from the laid-open breasts, and the broken fragments of great spears, and through the bodies garments torn by iron, bowls overturned and feasts swimming in the slaughter, one could behold, and, from the throats just opened, Bacchus, returning into the cups mingled with the streaming blood; here a band of young men, and a throng of old men, not to be harmed by any arms, and, laid over the faces of their groaning fathers, half-dead boys at the threshold of their trembling life sob out their fluttering spirits; not more savagely on cold Ossa run riot the feasts of the Lapiths, if ever in the deep wine the Cloud-born grow hot; scarce is the first paleness from anger, and, the tables overthrown, they rise to battle.

Then first beneath the night did Thyoneus, to the trembling ones, unveil himself, bringing to his son Thoas the last helps, and suddenly he flashed forth with much light, and I knew him: not he indeed with temples swelling with garlands nor had he bound his hair with the yellow grape: clouded, and an unworthy rain in his streaming eyes, he addresses me: 'While the fates granted you, son, to keep Lemnos powerful and feared even by foreign nations, never did my care fail your just labour: the sad Parcae have cut short the cruel threads, nor with words, which as a suppliant I poured in plenty before Jove in vain, and with tears, was it given me to turn aside the grief; an unspeakable honour he granted to your daughter. Hasten your flight, and you, O worthy offspring of mine, by this path, maiden, guide your father, where the arms of the double wall go to the shore: there, where you think the silences are, at the gate funereal Venus stands, and girded with iron aids the raging women—whence those hands, whence these Martial breasts in a goddess?—: do you commit your father to the broad deep, I will succeed to your cares.' So speaking, into the air again he is dissolved, and our path, the warding shades being seen, he gently lit up with a track of a long flame. Where the signs were given, I follow; then, shut in curved oak, to the gods of the sea and the winds and to the Aegaeon who embraces the Cyclades I commend my father, nor was there ever a limit to our mutual weepings, until now the Morning-star dismisses the stars from the Eastern sky. Then at last on the hoarse shore, much turning over in fear and scarcely trusting Lyaeus, I part from him, my own step pressing on, but my heart anxious, looking back, nor is there rest, but I gaze at the breezes rising in the sky and the waves from all the hills. The bashful day arises, and Titan, unweaving the heaven turned away from Lemnos, brings back its beam and his declining yokes with a cloud set against them; the nightly frenzies were laid open, and at the fear of the new light to all, though among their like, came a sudden shame; they bury the impious crimes in the earth or burn them with hasty fires. Now the band of Furies had fled the captured citadels, and Venus, glutted; it was permitted to feel what they had dared, and to disturb their hair and to wet their eyes with weeping. The island rich in fields and wealth and arms and men, known for its site and lately enriched by the Getic triumph, not by the sea's incursion, not by an enemy, nor by an evil heaven, lost, bereft, all its natives at once, and was cut off at the root: the men do not turn the fields, nor the seas; the homes fell silent, the blood lies deep and all things are red, smeared with thick gore, and in the walls of the great city we alone, and the savage shades, breathe through the roofs. I too, in the secret recesses of the dwelling, build a pyre with high fire, and over it I cast the sceptre and arms of my father and the garments, the well-known robes of kings, and near, sad, I stand by the pyre with confused fires and a bloodstained sword, and I bewail the deceit and the empty tomb in fear, lest perchance they press me, and I pray that the vain omen to my parent and the doubtful fears of death go this way. For these my deserts, when by the cunning of the false crime belief was won, the kingdom and to sit upon my father's throne —a punishment!—is given me; was I, besieged, to refuse them? I approached, having often called the gods and my faith to witness, and my undeserving hands; I take up—O dread power!— a bloodless empire and Lemnos, sad without its head. Now more and more grief begins to torment my waking senses, and the groans grow loud, and little by little Polyxo is hated, now it is wickedness to remember, now it is permitted to set up altars for the shades and much to swear by the buried ashes. So when the heifers have been amazed to see their leader and the lord of the stall, in whose keeping were both the glades and the glory of the grown herd, broken beneath the Massylian foe, the maimed herd goes without honour, and for the slain king the field itself, the rivers themselves and the dumb cattle mourn.

But lo, parting the brazen waters with its prow, the Pelian pine of the untouched sea draws near, a stranger to the deep, far and wide; the Minyans drive it, a twofold crash grows hoary along its lofty sides; you would think a torn Ortygia went from its roots, or that a mountain, broken off, ran down upon the sea, but when the seas fell silent at the suspended oars, a voice gentler than aged swans and than the plectrum of Phoebus comes from the midst of the stern, the very seas approach the keel—afterwards it was given to know: there Orpheus, son of Oeagrus, leaning on the mast, sounds amid the rowers and bids them not to know such great labours. For them the way was into the Scythian Boreas and the shores first narrowed by the Cyanean rocks of the sea; but we, thinking by the sight that Thracian wars assailed our roofs in varied tumult, after the manner of crowded flocks or fleeing birds, alas, where now is the frenzy? The harbours and the walls that embraced the shore, where from afar there is a view over the open sea, we climb, and the lofty towers; hither stones and stakes and the sad arms of men and swords stained with slaughters we carry up, trembling; nay, the squalid mesh of corselets and helmets with loosened face we are not ashamed to enter; Pallas, marvelling, blushed at the bold troops, and Gradivus laughed on Haemus, turned away. Then first from our minds the headlong madness departed, nor does that ship seem to come on the brine, but the late justice of the gods over the sea, and the punishment of crimes, seem to come. And now they were from the land as far as the Gortynian arrows run, when Jupiter, with a sky heavy with dark-blue rain, over the very cloud halts the tackle of the Pelasgian ship, driving it; thence is horror on the waters, and the day, snatched from all the sun, mingles darkness, with which straightway the wave is of one colour; the straining winds tear the hollow clouds and rend the sea apart, the moist earth returns with black whirlpools, and the whole sea, with the south winds contending, hangs and now, now almost to the stars on its arched back, breaks; nor now has the uncertain keel its former force, but it sways, bearing Triton, who stands forth on its beak, now in the lowest gulf, now in the sky; nor does the strength of the demigod heroes avail, and the maddened mast scourges the stern and, falling with unstable weight, drags down the curved waters, and the oars fall back empty upon the breast. We too, from the cliffs and from every rampart of the walls, while that toil is on the men and the seas rage at the south winds, from above, with weak arms, hurl floating weapons— what did our band not dare?—against Telamon and Peleus we scatter them, and the Tirynthian is aimed at by our bow. They—since at once they labour with war and the sea— part fortify the ship with shields, part empty the waters from the bottom; but others fight, yet their bodies sluggish in movement, and their suspended strength lacks effort, we press on with the casting of weapons, and an iron winter contends with the storms, and vast stakes and broken millstones and darts and many a missile streaming with flame now on the sea, now on the ship fall, the covered pine gives a crash, and the planks groan again from the loosened hollows. Such, with Hyperborean snow, does Jupiter lash the green fields; every kind of beast is buried on the plains, and the caught birds fall, and the harvest is laid low by the bitter frost; thence is a crash on the ridges, thence are angers in the rivers. But when the fire, hurled by Jove from on high, dashed out the clouds and the huge sailors were laid open in the lightning, their spirits stiffened, and with their hands let go in horror the foreign arms fell, the sex returned into their breasts. We behold the sons of Aeacus and Ancaeus, threatening monstrous things at the walls, and Iphitus driving off the cliffs with his long spear; manifest above in the astonished host is the son of Amphitryon, and, alternately on either side, he weighs down the ship and burns to descend into the midst of the waves; but light Iason, not yet known to wretched me, through the cross-benches and the oars and the bent backs of the men, now great Oeneus' son, now with his exhortations Idas and Talaus and the son of Tyndareus, dripping with the white spray of the sea, again, and in the cloud of his icy parent labouring at the sail, Calais, to fasten to the mast with voice and hand he asks; they with their thrusts shake now the seas, now the walls, but neither do the foaming waters yield, and the spears, struck back from the towers, return. Tiphys himself wears out the heavy floods and the rudder that refuses to obey, driving them, and grows pale and changes many commands, and twists the helm left and right into the waves that the prow, eager, may rush against the ship-wrecking rocks, until from the wedge of the ship's stern the son of Aeson lifted up the boughs of Pallas's olive, the gift of Mopsus, and, the throng forbidding it, demanded of his comrades a covenant; the headlong storms wrapped up his voice, then was the limit of arms, and the exhausted winds together grew still, and the day looked back over the confused Olympus. Those fifty, after the manner of their bound timbers, from afar shake the new shores with an abrupt leap, the high glories of great fathers, now serene of brow and to be known by their bearing, after the swelling and anger left their faces; so, secret fame says, the dwellers of heaven burst forth from the gate, if ever it is their love to enter the homes and the shore of the ruddy Ethiopians and the lesser tables; the Rivers and Mountains give place, then the Earth is proud of their steps, and a little the heaven-bearing Atlas breathes again.

Here both Theseus, proud from lately liberated Marathon, and the Ismarian brothers, the pledges of Aquilo, either of whom had each temple whirring with a tawny feather, we behold, here Admetus, the elder, with Phoebus not disdaining it, and Orpheus, in no way like to harsh Thrace, then the offspring sprung from Calydon, and the son-in-law of deep Nereus. With ambiguous error the twin sons of Oebalus assail the sight; a cloak for this, a cloak burns for that one too, both bear a lance, each with bared shoulders, each with bare cheeks, with a like star their hair flashes. Hylas dares the journey and, following, changes the steps of great Hercules, and, though he bears himself with slow bulk, scarcely does the tender boy equal him in his course, and, lifting the Lernaean arms, rejoices to sweat beneath the huge quiver.

Therefore again Venus and Love try the harsh hearts of the Lemnian women with silent flames. Then royal Juno insinuates the arms and bearing of the men and the marks of the fair race into their minds, and eagerly in turn all the doors were opened to the strangers; then was the first fire on the altars, and to the unspeakable cares came forgetfulness; then feasts and happy sleep and quiet nights, nor without the will of the gods, I think, did the confessing women please. Perhaps too the care to know the excusable fate of our fault, leaders, you have; the ashes and Furies of my own I call to witness: that I touched the foreign torch not willingly nor in guilt —the care of the gods knows it—although coaxing Iason was one to give bonds to new maidens: its own laws the bloody Phasis has; other loves, Colchians, you beget. And now the stars, stripped of frost, grew warm with long suns, and the swift year rolls back on its own track. Now a new offspring, and the births vowed for in prayers, and Lemnos is hailed with unhoped-for nurslings. Nor less, however, did I myself bring forth the very memorials of the forced marriage, twins, and beneath the harsh stranger, a mother, I renew my grandsire's name; nor is it given to know what fortune befell them, left behind; now four full lustres go on, if only the fates allow and Lycaste, being asked, has reared them.

The spirits of the sea sank, and a gentler South wind calls the sails: the ship itself hates the delay and the quiet harbours and strains the cables of the opposing rock. Thence the Minyans turn to flight, and Iason, savage, calls his comrades; O would that even then past my shores he had sailed by straight waters, he to whom his own pledges were not at heart, nor his promised faith; surely the fame stands among remote nations: the fleeces of sea-borne Phrixus have returned. When Tiphys felt the appointed light on the sea and the coming sky, and the couch of the setting Phoebus grew red, alas, again were groans, and again it is the very last night. Scarce was the day unbarred, and now from the lofty ship Iason bids them go, and first the leader strikes the sea with his oar. Them, from the cliffs and from the topmost peak of the mountain, cleaving apart the foaming back of the outstretched deep, we follow with our gaze, until the light wearied our straining eyes and seemed to weave the sea long into the sky and pressed the straits with the margin of the farthest heaven. Fame entered the harbours, that Thoas, carried across the deep, reigned with his brother in Chios, that there was no crime of mine, and that the pyres had burned empty; the impious people roar, inflamed by the goads of the guilty, and demand again the deed. Nay, even hidden voices grow loud among the throng: 'Was she alone faithful to her own, but we glad for the deaths? Was this not a god, and one carried off? Why does she rule the unspeakable city?' Lifeless at such words—and the grim punishment draws near, nor does the kingdom help me—I follow by stealth the wandering shores, unaccompanied, and leave the funereal walls, by the way my father's flight is known; but Euhan met me not again, for a band of pirates, driven hither, snatched me away as I was silent and sent me, a slave, into your shores.'

While the Lemnian exile repeats such things to the Lernaean kings and consoles her long losses with a long lament, forgetful of the absent nursling—so, gods, you counselled!— he sinks his heavy eyes and languishing face into the grassy ground, and, wearied at length by his childish doings, slips into sleep, his caught hand clings to the grass. Meanwhile in the fields, the sacred horror of the Achaean grove, an earth-born serpent arises, and with loosened coil bears its monstrous self along and leaves behind its back, a livid torch in its eyes, on its mouth stands the foam, green with swelling venom, thrice its tongue quivers, threefold the ranks of its hooked teeth, and the cruel glory of its gilded brow juts forth. The Inachian husbandmen called it sacred to the Thunderer, whose care the place was and whose poor honour at the woodland altars; now it, gliding, encircles the god's temple with a wandering circle, now the oaks of the wretched wood it wears away and thins the vast mountain-ashes with its embraces; often over the rivers it lies, a continuous rampart on the double bank, and the river, cut by its scales, surges. But now, since at the Ogygian commands the whole land of the god pants and the trembling Nymphs lie hidden in the dust, more savage, twisting back its sinuous coils on the ground with the bending of its sides, and harmful with the fire of its dry venom, it rages, through the pools and parched lakes and the choked springs it rolls and wanders in the empty valleys of the rivers, and, set aflame with thirst, now it licks the liquid air with upturned mouth, now, grazing the groaning fields, stooping it clings to the ground, if the green grasses sweat anything; the herbs, struck by its hot breathings, where it bore its mouth, fall, and the field dies at its hissing: as great as the Serpent that divides the heaven from the northern wains and goes on out into the southern and the alien sphere; as great as that which moved the horns of sacred Parnassus, twisted in its spires, until, fixed by you, Delian one, it bore off a forest of reeds with a hundred wounds.

What god, little one, gave you the weight of so great a fate by lot? Do you lie thus, scarce at the first threshold of life, by the enemy? Or that thenceforth, sacred through the ages to the Greek nations, and worthy of so great a tomb, you should die? You perish, brushed by the lash of the serpent's farthest tail, the snake unaware, a boy; at once sleep flees your limbs, and your eyes opened only into death. Yet when, dying, the wail fell from your lips into the astonished air, and you grew dumb of mouth with your laments broken off, such as dreams accomplish, not whole voices, Hypsipyle heard, and the knees that denied her an easy course, lifeless, sick, she hurries on; now certain of woes by the augury of her mind, and with her gaze scattered over all, she scours the ground, seeking, and the well-known names for the little one she redoubles in vain: nowhere is he, and the meadows have lost the fresh tracks; the lazy foe lies upon the green, gathered into a circle, and fills the spacious acres, so too, his neck thrust forth on his sidelong belly. The unhappy one shuddered at the sight, and with a long cry kindled the deep wood; nor was he terrified, but lies still; the tearful wailing struck the Argive ears; at once, at the leader's warning, the burning Arcadian horseman flies up and reports the cause; then at last the scaly one, grim, at the gleam of the arms and the roar of the men, moves his neck: with a vast effort he seizes a stone, by which the field was divided, and into the empty air drives it, lofty Hippomedon, with what whirl in war once the balanced millstones leap against the bars of the gates. Vain is the leader's valour: already, his soft neck poured back upon his coil, the serpent had escaped the coming blow, the earth gives a sound, and through the byways of the woods the dense coils dash apart. But, 'These are not my wounds,' cries Capaneus, and with his ashen shaft he comes against him, 'never will you escape, whether you, a fierce dweller of the timid grove, or a pleasure granted to the gods—would that to the gods!— not if upon these limbs of mine you should bear up a Giant joined to you.' The spear flies trembling and enters the gaping mouth of the monster and cuts the wild bonds of the threefold tongue, and through the standing crest and the mark of the gleaming head it darts forth, and, drenched with the gore of the black brain, is driven deep into the soil. Scarce did the long pain run through all its limbs; swift, with rapid coil, it circled the weapon and, bearing it torn out, fled back into the shady temple of the god; here, having measured the earth with its great weight, it hisses its imploring spirit out to its master's altars. For it both the indignant pools of kindred Lerna, and the Nymphs wont to strew it with spring flowers, and the field of Nemea where the boy crawled, and through all the groves you groaned, woodland Fauns, with broken reed-pipe; Jupiter himself too had now demanded his weapons from highest heaven, and for a while the storm-clouds and tempests were gathering, had not the god's anger been less, and had not Capaneus been preserved to deserve heavier weapons; yet the breath of the stirred thunderbolt ran, and grazed the topmost crests on his head.

And now, having wandered the fields, the unhappy Lemnian, when the place was free of the snake, from a low rampart far off, pale, looks out on the grasses stained with bloody dew, hither she snatches her course in great grief, wild, and recognizes the horror, and dashed upon the guilty earth after the manner of a thunderbolt, in her first grief she has no words, no tears: she only redoubles wretched kisses, leaning over him, and the fleeing of his spirit through the warm limbs she seeks, gaping; no face is left in its place, no breast remains, the skin torn away, the thin bones lie open and the joints wet with the shower of fresh blood, and the whole body is in a wound. And as when, the seat and the brood of the winged parent a lazy serpent has plundered in the shady ilex, she returns, and, marvelling at the quiet of the querulous home, now stands stupefied, hanging over it, and from her sad mouth shakes out the food she brought, shuddering, when in the tree alone appears blood and feathers wandering through the seized nests.

When the pitiable one received the mangled limbs in her lap and wove them with her hair, at last, loosened to grief, her voice found a way, and her groans melted into words: 'O sweet image to me, bereft, of my own children, Archemorus, O solace of my affairs and of my taken-away country and glory of my slavery, what guilty gods extinguished you, my joy, whom, lately parting, I left frolicking and harassing the grass with prone course? Alas, where is your starlike face? Where the words imperfect with bound sounds, the laughter and the murmurs understood by me alone? How often I was wont to speak to you of Lemnos and Argo, and to coax sleep with a long lament! So indeed I solaced my grief, and gave the breast, motherly now, to the little one, for whom now comes, vain, of the bereaved one, the milk, and the unhappy shower melts into the wounds. I know the gods: O harsh forebodings of my sleep and nightly fears, and never with impunity through the shadows was Venus seen by my stricken self! What gods do I accuse? I myself—why should I fear to confess, about to die?— exposed you to the fates; what madness drew my mind away? Did such forgetfulness of so great a charge hold me? While I rehearse my father's misfortunes and the ambitious beginnings of my own fame—this is great piety and faith!— I have paid you, Lemnos, your crime; where is the death-bringing snake? Bring it, leaders, if there is any thanks for my hard service, if any honour for my words, or kill me yourselves with iron, lest I revisit my sad masters and bereaved Eurydice, my enemy, though my care in grieving will not have yielded to hers; shall I, bearing this joyless burden, pour it into a mother's lap? What earth shall first sink me into the lowest shades?' At the same time, her face soiled with earth and blood, she turns about among the footsteps of the great kings and silently charges the waters upon those who mourn.

And now a sudden messenger through the house of the sacrificing Lycurgus had filled with tears the man himself and his home, him as he came near from the sacred peak of the Persean mountain, where he had given offerings to the Thunderer turned away, and, returning, was shaking his head at the angry entrails, here he keeps himself untouched by the Argive arms, not empty of spirit, but the temples and altars held him, nor yet had the responses of the gods and the ancient warnings fallen away, and the voice received from the deep shrines: 'First, Lycurgus, you will give deaths to the Dircaean war.' This he guards against, and, sad at the dust of the neighbouring Mars, he is anguished at the trumpets and envies the arms about to perish. Lo—the faith of the gods!—accompanying the mangled exsequies of Thoas's offspring, the mother comes to meet him from the other side, leading the female bands and the lamenting columns, but to great-hearted Lycurgus piety is not idle: he is the stronger for his woes, and the father's mad anger drinks back his tears, with long stride he seizes the fields that delay him, crying aloud: 'But where is she, to whom the small loss of my blood is a glad thing? Does she live? Drive her, seized, bring her quickly, comrades; I will see to it that all the tale of Lemnos and the father and the lies of a holy race, swollen with pride, fall away.' He went, and prepared to bring death with his snatched sword, raging; against him as he came the Oeneian hero briskly, with shield set against him, drives back his breast, and at once gnashing: 'Stop this frenzy, madman, whoever you are!' and equally Capaneus and keen Hippomedon were there with sword drawn back, and the Erymanthian with straight blade, and they dazzle the youth with much light; but from there a band of the country folk for their king, among whom Adrastus more gently, and Amphiaraus, fearing for the bonds of his allied fillet, says: 'Forbear, I pray! Cease from the iron, one blood are these ancestors, and do not indulge your frenzy, and you the first.' But Tydeus, with no calmed heart, rejoins: 'Did you dare, before so many thousands of the ungrateful, to slay upon the tombs the leader and saviour of the Inachian cohort—how great an avenger of a funeral!— whose kingdom and sire is Thoas and whose ancestor of his stock is bright Euhan? Is it too little a thing for the coward, that, when your peoples are driven on every side to arms, amid the rushing ranks you alone have peace? May you have it, and may the victory of the Greeks find you still groaning at the tombs at these fates.' He had spoken, and at last, more moderate with his anger lingering, the other answers: 'I indeed did not think you had come to the walls of Thebes, but here as hostile bands, go on into ruin, allies, if so great is your pleasure in blood, dip your arms at home, and this temple of Jove, long now profaned—for what is not lawful?—let impious fire bear away, since, thinking, when such great griefs pressed my breast, that I had right over a worthless handmaid as her master and leader, but he sees these things, the ruler of the gods sees, and to the deeds late indeed, yet his anger remains.' So he spoke, and looks back at the citadel, and there with another contest of war the roofs roar; the swift wings of the horsemen recent Fame had outrun, embracing twin tumults with her wings: that those were being snatched to death, and those now sinking in death; so they repeat that Hypsipyle deserved it, and believe it, nor is there delay to their anger; now torches and weapons threaten the household gods, they roar to overturn the realm and to carry off Lycurgus, snatched, with Jove and with the altars; the halls resound with female wailings, and grief turned gives its back to fear. But lofty Adrastus on the car of the swift-footed steeds, bearing the murmuring daughter of Thoas with him before the men's faces, goes amid the squadrons, and 'Spare, spare!' he cries, 'nothing has been savagely done, nor did Lycurgus deserve such ruin, and lo, here is the finder of the welcome river!' So when the seas have been overturned by opposing storms, here by Boreas with its Furies, there by the black south wind with its rains, the day is driven off and the tempests reign, the king of the deep sea comes, lofty on his steeds, and twin Triton at the foaming bridles gives signs far and wide over the sea to the sinking gale of his birth, and now Thetis is level, and the mountains and shores grow.

What one of the gods, comforting the death with so great a vow, balanced the tears and brought back unhoped-for joys to sad Hypsipyle? You, Euhan, the founder of her race, who the twin youths, carried from the shore of Lemnos, had brought into Nemea, and were preparing wondrous fates. The cause of the journey was their mother, nor had the inhospitable house of Lycurgus offered them entrance, and straightway that was the messenger to the tyrant of the offspring extinguished by a pitiable wound. Therefore the comrades are at hand—O chance and the blind mind of men, unknowing of the future!—and favour the king; but when Lemnos first came to their ears, and Thoas was named, through the weapons and the hands they had rushed, and both with greedy embraces seize their weeping mother, and in turn exchange their breasts. She, like a rock, stony with unmoved gaze, clings, and dares not believe the gods she had proved. But when both their faces and the Argive signs by the swords laid aside, and Iason woven on the shoulders of both, her griefs gave way, and, troubled by so great a gift, she sank down, and her eyes grew wet with another weeping. Signs were added in the sky, and with a glad howling tumult the drums and the bronzes of the god clattered through the stirred air.

Then the pious son of Oecles, when softer anger first gave silence to the throng, and gentle approaches to their ears: 'Hear, O leader of Nemea and you chosen mighty sons of Inachus, what sure Apollo, urging it on, makes plain. This grief indeed, not long undue to the Argive arms, is here, the Parcae descend by a straight path: both the thirst at the death of the rivers, and the death-bringing serpent, and the boy, alas, marked with the name of our fate, Archemorus—all these things, sent down from the highest mind of the gods, flow; postpone your spirits and lay aside your hasty weapons; the infant must be given lasting honours, and he has deserved it; let beautiful valour grant fair offerings to his shade, and would that you might go on, Phoebus, to weave more delays, and that we might ever be forbidden to wage war by new misfortunes, and that you, funereal Thebe, might ever recede! But you, having passed the fate of your great parents, are happy, for whom hence through the ages a long name, while the Lernaean marsh and while father Inachus flows, while Nemea shall cast trembling shadows over the plains, do not violate the sacred thing with weeping, do not lament the gods: for that one is a god, a god, nor would he have chosen the fate of Pylian old age, or to live longer than the Phrygian years.' He had finished, and night clothed the heaven in hollow shadow.