Statius, Achilleid Book 1 (scroll down for Book 2)
Translated by J. H. Mozley
Tell, O goddess, of great-hearted Aeacides and of the progeny
that the Thunderer feared and forbade to inherit his father’s
heaven.1 Highly renowned are the warrior’s deeds in Maeonian
song,2 but more remains untold: suffer me--for such is my desire—to recount
5 the whole story of the hero, to summon him forth from his hiding-place
in Scyros with the Dulichian trumpet,3 and not to stop short at the dragging
of Hector, but to lead the youth through the whole tale of Troy.
Only do thou, O Phoebus, if with a worthy draught I drained
the former fount, vouchsafe new springs and weave my hair with
10 propitious chaplets; for not as a newcomer do I seek entrance to
the Aonian4 grove, nor are these the first fillets that magnify my brow.
The fields of Dirce5 know it, and Thebes counts my name among
her forefathers of old time and with her own Amphion.
But thou whom far before all others the pride of Italy and Greece regards
15 with reverent awe, for whom the laurels twain of poet and warrior-chief
flourish in mutual rivalry--already one of them grieves to be surpassed6 --
grant pardon, and allow me anxiously to toil in this dust awhile.
Thine is the theme whereat with long nor yet confident preparation
I am labouring, and great Achilles plays the prelude unto thee.7
20 The Dardan shepherd had set sail from the Oebalian shore,8
having wrought sweet havoc in thoughtless Amyclae,
and fulfilling the presage of his mother’s9 dream was retracing
his guilty way, where Helle10 deep sunk below the sea
and now a Nereid holds sway over the detested waves:
25 when Thetis--ah! never vain are a parent’s auguries!—
started with terror beneath the glassy flood at the Idaean oars.11
Without delay she sprang forth from her watery bower, accompanied by
her train of sisters: the narrowing shores of Phrixus swam,
and the straitened sea had not room for its mistresses.
30 As soon as she had shaken the brine from off her, and entered
the air of heaven: “There is danger to me,” said she, “in yonder fleet,
and threat of deadly harm; I recognize the truth of Proteus’ warnings.
Lo! Bellona brings from the vessel amid uplifted torches a new
daughter-in-law to Priam; already I see the Ionian and Aegean seas
35 pressed by a thousand keels; nor does it suffice that all the country
of the Grecians conspires with the proud sons of Atreus,
soon will my Achilles be sought for by land and sea, ay,
and himself will wish to follow them. Why indeed did I suffer Pelion
and the stern master’s cave12 to cradle his infant years?
40 There, if I mistake not, he plays, the rogue, at the battle
of the Lapiths, and already takes his measure with his father’s spear.
O sorrow! O fears that came to late to a mother’s heart!
Could I not, unhappy that I am, when first the timber of
Rhoeteum was launched upon my flood, have raised a mighty
45 sea and pursued with a tempest on the deep the adulterous
robber’s sails and led on all my sisters against him?
Even now – but ‘tis too late, the outrage hath been wrought in full.
Yet will I go, and clinging to the gods of ocean and the right hand of
second Jove13 —nought else remains--entreat him in piteous supplication
50 by the years of Tethys and his aged sire for one single storm.”
She spoke, and opportunely beheld the mighty monarch;
he was coming from Oceanus his host, gladdened by the banquet,
and his countenance suffused with the nectar of the deep:
wherefore the winds and tempests are silent and with tranquil song
55 proceed the Tritons who bear his armour and the rock-like sea-monsters
and the Tyrrhenian herds,14 and gambol around and below him,
saluting their king; he towers on high above the peaceful waves,
urging on his team with his three-pronged spear:
frontwise they run at furious speed amid showers of foam,
60 behind they swim and blot out their footprints with their tails:--
when Thetis: “O sire and ruler of the mighty deep,
seest thou to what uses thou hast made a way o’er the hapless
ocean? The crimes of the nations pass by with unmolested sails,
since the Pagasaean bark broke through the sanctions of the waters
65 and profaned their hallowed majesty on Jason’s quest of plunder.
Lo! freighted with another wicked theft, the spoils
of hospitality, sails the daring arbiter of unjust Ida,
destined to cause what sorrow alas! to heaven and earth,
and what to me! Is it thus we requite the joy of the Phrygian triumph,15
70 is this the way of Venus, is this her gift to her dear ward?
These ships at least--no demigods nor our own Theseus do they
carry home16 --o’erwhelm, if thou still hast any regard for the waters,
or give the sea into my power; no cruelty do I purpose; suffer me
to fear for my own son. Grant me to drive away my sorrow,
75 nor let it be thy pleasure that out of all the seas I find a home
in but a single coast and the rocks of an Ilian tomb.” 17
With torn cheeks she made her prayer, and with bare bosom
would fain hinder the cerulean steeds. But the ruler of the seas
invites her into his chariot, and soothes her thus with friendly words:
80 “Seek not in vain, Thetis, to sink the Dardanian fleet:
the fates forbid it, ‘tis the sure ordinance of heaven that Europe
and Asia should join in bloody conflict, and Jupiter hath issued
his decree of war and appointed years of dreary carnage.
What prowess of thy son in the Sigean dust, what vast
85 funeral trains of Phrygian matrons shalt thou victoriously behold,
when thy Aeacides shall flood the Trojan fields with streaming
blood, and anon forbid the choked rivers to flow
and check his chariot’s speed with Hector’s corpse
and mightily o’erthrow my walls,18 my useless toil!
90 Cease now to complain of Peleus and thy inferior wedlock:
thy child shall be deemed begotten of Jove; nor shalt thou suffer unavenged,
but shalt use thy kindred seas: I will grant thee to raise the billows,
when the Danaans return and Caphareus19 shows forth his
nightly signals and we search together for the terrible Ulysses.” 20
95 He spoke; but she, downcast at the stern refusal, for
but now she was preparing to stir up the waters and make
war upon the Ilian craft, devised in her mind another plan,
and sadly turned her strokes toward the Haemonian land.
Thrice strove she with her arms, thrice spurned the clear water with
100 her feet, and the Thessalian waves are washing her snow-white ankles.
The mountains rejoice, the marriage-bowers fling open
their recesses, and Spercheus in wide, abundant streams flows
to meet the goddess and laps her footsteps with his fresh water.
She delights not in the scene, but wearies her mind
105 with schemes essayed, and taught cunning by her devoted love
seeks out the aged Chiron. His lofty home bores deep
into the mountain, beneath the long, overarching vault of Pelion;
part had been hollowed out by toil, part worn away by its own age.
Yet the images and couches of the gods are shown, and the places that each
110 had sanctified by his reclining and his sacred presence21 ; within are
the Centaur’s wide and lofty stalls, far different from those of his wicked
brethren. Here are no spears that have tasted human blood,
nor ashen clubs broken in festal conflict,
nor mixing-bowls shattered upon kindred foemen,
115 but innocent quivers and mighty hides of beasts.
These did he take while yet in the prime of age; but now, a warrior no more,
his only toil was to learn herbs that bring health to creatures doubting
of their lives, or to describe to his pupil upon his lyre the heroes of old time.
On the threshold’s edge he awaited his return from hunting,
120 and was urging the laying of the feast and brightening his abode
with lavish fire: when far off the Nereid was seen climbing upward
from the shore; he burst forth from the forests--joy speeds his going—
and the well-known hoof-beat of the sage rang on the now unwonted plain.
Then bowing down to his horse’s shoulders he leads her with
125 courtly hand within his humble dwelling and warns her of the cave.
Long time has Thetis been scanning every corner with silent glance:
then, impatient of delay, she cries: “Tell me, Chiron, where is
my darling? Why spends the boy any time apart from thee?
Is it not with reason that my sleep is troubled, and terrible portents from
130 the gods and fearful panics--would they were false!--afflict his mother’s
heart? For now I behold swords that threaten to pierce my womb,
now my arms are bruised with lamentation, now savage beasts
assail my breasts; often--ah, horror!--I seem to take my son down
to the void of Tartarus, and dip him a second time in the springs of Styx.
135 The Carpathian seer22 bids me banish these terrors by the
ordinance of a magic rite, and purify the lad in secret waters beyond
the bound of heaven’s vault, where is the farthest shore
of Ocean and father Pontus23 is warmed by the ingliding
stars. There awful sacrifices and gifts to gods unknown—
140 but ‘tis long to recount all, and I am forbidden; give him to me rather.”
Thus spoke his mother in lying speech--nor would he have given him up,
had she dared to confess to the old man the soft raiment and dishonourable
garb.24 Then he replies: “Take him, I pray, O best of parents,
take him, and assuage the gods with humble entreaty.
145 For thy hopes are pitched too high, and envy needs much
appeasing. I add not to thy fears, but will confess the truth:
some swift and violent deed--the forebodings of a sire
deceive me not—is preparing, far beyond his tender years.
Formerly he was wont to endure my anger, and listen
150 eagerly to my commands nor wander far from my cave:
now Ossa cannot contain him, nor mighty Pelion
and all the snows of Thessaly. Even the Centaurs often complain
to me of plundered homes and herds stolen before their eyes,
and that they themselves are driven from field and river;
155 they devise violence and fraud, and utter angry threats.
Once when the Thessalian pine bore hither the princes of Argos,
I saw the young Alcides and Theseus--but I say no more.”
Cold pallor seized the daughter of Nereus:
lo! he was come, made larger by much dust and sweat,
160 and yet for all his weapons and hastened labours still pleasant
to the sight; a radiant glow25 shimmers on his snow-white
countenance, and his locks shine more comely than tawny gold.
The bloom of youth is not yet changed by new-springing down,
a tranquil flame burns in his glance, and there is much of his mother
165 in his look: even as when the hunter Apollo returns
from Lycia and exchanges his fierce quiver for the quill.
By chance too he is in joyful mood--ah, how joy enhances
beauty!--; beneath Pholoë’s cliff he had stricken a lioness
lately delivered and had left her in the empty lair,
170 but had brought the cubs and was making them show their claws.
Yet when he sees his mother on the well-known threshold,
away he throws them, catches her up and binds her in his longing arms,
already violent in his embrace and equal to her in height.
175 Patroclus follows him, bound to him even then by a strong affection,
and strains to rival all his mighty doings, well-matched in the pursuits and ways
of youth, but far behind in strength, and yet to pass to Pergamum with equal fate.
Straightway with rapid bound he hies him to the nearest river,
and freshens in its waters his steaming face and hair:
180 just as Castor enters the shallows of Eurotas on his panting steed,
and tricks out anew the weary splendours of his star.
The old man marvels as he adorns him, caressing now his breast,
now his strong shoulders: her very joy pierces his mother’s heart.
Then Chiron prays her to taste the banquet and the gifts
185 of Bacchus, and contriving various amusements for her
beguiling at last brings forth the lyre and moves the care-consoling
strings, and trying the chords lightly with his finger gives them
to the boy. Gladly he sings of the mighty causes of noble
deeds: how many behests of his haughty stepmother the son
190 of Amphitryon performed, how Pollux with his glove smote down
the cruel Bebryx, with what a grip the son of Aegeus
enfolded and crushed the limbs of the Minoan bull, lastly
his own mother’s marriage-feast and Pelion trodden by the gods.
Then Thetis relaxed her anxious countenance and smiled.
195 Night draws them on to slumber: the huge Centaur lays him down
on a stony couch, and Achilles lovingly twines his arms about his shoulders--
though his faithful parent is there--and prefers the wonted breast.
But Thetis, standing by night upon the sea-echoing rocks,
this way and that divides her purpose, and ponders in what hiding-place
200 she will set her son, in what country she shall choose to conceal him.
Nearest is Thrace, but steeped in the passionate love of war;
nor does the hardy folk of Macedon please her, nor the sons of Cecrops,26
sure to excite to noble deeds, nor Sestos and the bay of Abydos,
too opportune for ships; she decides to roam the lofty Cyclades.
205 Of these she spurns Myconos and humble Seriphos,
and Lemnos cruel to its men,27 and Delos, that gives all the world
a welcome. Of late from the unwarlike palace of Lycomedes28
had she heard the sound of maiden bands and the echo of their sport
along the shore, what time she was sent to follow Aegaeon29 freed
210 from his stubborn bonds and to count the hundred fetters of the god.
This land finds favour, and seems safest to the timid mother.
Even so a bird already taking anxious thought, as her deliver
draws nigh, on what branch to hang her empty home,
here foresees winds, there bethinks her fearfully of snakes,
215 and there of men; at last in her doubt a shady spot finds favour;
scarce has she alighted on the boughs, and straightway loves the tree.
One more care abides in her mind and troubles the sad goddess,
whether she shall carry her son in her own bosom o’er the waves,
or use great Triton’s aid, whether she shall summon the swift winds
220 to help her, or the Thaumantian30 that is wont to drink the main.
Then she calls out from the waves and bridles with a sharp-edged shell her
team of dolphins twain, which Tethys, mighty queen,
had nourished for her in an echoing vale beneath
the sea;--none throughout all Neptune’s watery realm had such renown
225 for their sea-green beauty, nor greater speed of swimming, nor more
of human sense;--these she halts in the deep shore-water,
lest they take harm from the touch of naked earth.
Then in her own arms she carries Achilles, his body utterly relaxed
in a boy’s slumber, from the rocks of the Haemonian cave down
230 to the placid waters and the beach that she had bidden be silent;
Cynthia lights her way and shines out with full orb.
Chiron escorts31 the goddess, and careless of the sea entreats
her speedy return, and hides his moistened eyes and high upon
his horse’s body gazes out towards them as suddenly they are whirled away,
235 and now--and now are lost to view, where for a short while the foamy marks
of their going gleam white and the wake dies away into the watery main.
Him destined never more to return to Thessalian Tempe
now mournful Pholoë bewails, now cloudy Othrys,32
and Spercheos with diminished flood and the silent grotto
240 of the sage; the Fauns listen for his boyish songs in vain,
and the Nymphs bemoan their long-hoped-for nuptials.
Now day o’erwhelms the stars, and from the low and level main Titan
wheels heavenward his dripping steeds, and down from the expanse of air
falls the sea that the chariot bore up; but long since had
245 the mother traversed the waves and gained the Scyrian shores,
and the weary dolphins had been loosed from their mistress’ yoke:
when the boy’s sleep was stirred, and his opening eyes grew conscious
of the inpouring day. In amaze at the light that greets him he asks,
where is he, what are these waves, where is Pelion? All he beholds
250 is different and unknown, and he hesitates to recognize his mother.
Quickly she caresses him and soothes his fear:
“If, dear lad, a kindly lot had brought me the wedlock
that it offered, in the fields of heaven should I be holding thee,
a glorious star, in my embrace, nor a celestial mother
255 should I fear the lowly Fates or the destinies of earth.
But now unequal is they birth, my son, and only on thy mother’s
side is the way of death barred for thee; moreover, times of terror
draw nigh, and peril hovers about the utmost goal.
Retire we then, relax awhile they mighty spirit, and scorn not
260 this raiment of mine. If the Tirynthian took
in his rough hand Lydian wool and women’s wands,33
if it becomes Bacchus to trail a gold-embroidered robe
behind him, if Jupiter put on a woman’s form,34 and doubtful sex
weakened not the mighty Caeneus,35 this way, I entreat thee,
265 suffer me to escape the threatening, baleful cloud.
Soon will I restore the plains and the fields where the
Centaurs roam: by this beauty of thine and the coming joys
of youth I pray thee, if for thy sake I endured the earth and an
inglorious mate, if at they birth I fortified thee with the stern waters
270 of Styx36 --ay, would I had wholly!--take these safe robes awhile,
they will in no wise harm thy valour. Why doest thou turn away?
What means that glance? Art thou ashamed to soften thee in this garb?
Dear lad, I swear it by my kindred waters, Chiron shall know
nought of this.” So doth she work on his rough heart,
275 vainly cajoling; the thought of his sire and his
great teacher oppose her prayer and the rude beginnings of
his mighty spirit. Even so, should one try to subdue with earliest
rein a horse full of the mettlesome fire of ungoverned youth,
he having long delighted in stream and meadow and his own
280 proud beauty, gives not his neck to the yoke, nor his fierce mouth
to the bridle, and snorts with rage at passing beneath
a master’s sway and marvels that he learns another gait.
What god endued the despairing mother with fraud and cunning?
What device drew Achilles from his stubborn purpose?
285 It chanced that Scyros was keeping festal day in honour of Pallas,
guardian of the shore, and that the sisters, offspring of peace-loving Lycomedes,
had on this sacred morn gone forth from their native town--a licence
rarely given--to pay tribute of the spring, and bind their grave tresses
with the leaf of the goddess and scatter flowers upon her spear.
290 All were of rarest beauty, all clad alike and all
in lusty youth, their years of girlish modesty now ended,
and maidenhood ripe for the marriage-couch.
But as far as Venus by comparison doth surpass the green
Nymphs of the sea, or as Diana rises taller by head and shoulders
295 than the Naiads, so doth Deidamia, queen of the lovely
choir, outshine and dazzle her fair sisters.
The bright colour flames upon her rosy countenance, a more
brilliant light is in her jewels, the gold has a more alluring gleam;
as beauteous were the goddess herself, would she but lay aside
300 the serpents on her breast, and doff her helm and pacify her brow.
When he beheld her far in advance of her attendant train, the lad,
ungentle as he was and heart-whole from any touch of passion,
stood spellbound and drank in strange fire through all his frame.
Nor does the love he has imbibed lie hidden, but the flame pulsating
305 in his inmost being returns to his face and colours the glow upon his
cheeks, and as he feels its power runs o’er his body with a light sweat.
As when the Massagetae darken milk-white bowls
with blood-red dye, or ivory is stained with purple,
so by varying signs of blush and pallor does the sudden fire
310 betray its presence. He would rush forward and unprovoked fiercely
break up the ceremonies of his hosts, reckless of the crowd and forgetful of
his years, did not shame restrain him and awe of the mother by his side.
As when a bullock, soon to be the sire and leader of a herd,
though his horns have not yet come full circle,
315 perceives a heifer of snowy whiteness, the comrade of
his pasture, his spirit takes fire, and he foams at the mouth with his
first passion; glad at heart the herdsmen watch him and check his fury.
Seizing the moment his mother purposely accosts him: “Is it
too hard a thing, my son, to make pretence of dancing and join hands
320 in sport among these maidens? Hast thou aught such ‘neath Ossa
and the crags of Pelion? O, if it were my lot to match two
loving hearts, and to bear another Achilles in my arms!”
He is softened, and blushes for joy, and with sly
and sidelong glance repels the robes less certainly.
325 His mother sees him in doubt and willing to be compelled,
and casts the raiment o’er him; then she softens his stalwart neck
and bows his strong shoulders, and relaxes the muscles
of his arms, and tames and orders duly his uncombed tresses,
and sets her own necklace about the neck she loves;
330 then keeping his step within the embroidered skirt
she teaches him gait and motion and modesty of speech.
Even as the waxen images that the artist’s thumb will make to live
take form and follow the fire and the hand that carves them,
such was the picture of the goddess as she transformed her son.
335 Nor did she struggle long; for plenteous charm remains to him
though his manhood brook it not, and he baffles beholders by
the puzzle of his sex that by a narrow margin hides its secret.
They go forward, and Thetis unsparingly plies her counsels and persuasive
words: “Thus then, my son, must thou manage thy gait, thus thy features
340 and thy hands, and imitate thy comrades and counterfeit their ways,
lest the king suspect thee and admit thee not to the women’s
chambers, and the crafty cunning of our enterprise be lost.”
So speaking she delays not to put correcting touches to his attire.
Thus when Hecate37 returns wearied to her sire and brother from
345 Therapnae, haunt of maidens, her mother bears her company
as she goes, and with her own hand covers her shoulders and bared arms,
herself arranges the bow and quiver, and pulls down the
girt-up robe, and is proud to trim the disordered tresses.
Straightway she accosts the monarch, and there in the presence of
350 the altars: “Here, O king, “ she says, “I present to thee the sister of
my Achilles—seest thou not how proud her glance and like her brother’s?—
so high her spirit, she begged for arms and a bow to carry on her shoulders,
and like an Amazon to spurn the thought of wedlock.
But my son is enough care for me; let her carry
355 the baskets at the sacrifice, do thou control and tame her
wilfulness, and keep her to her sex, till the time for marriage come
and the end of her maiden modesty; nor suffer her to engage in
wanton wrestling-matches, nor to frequent the woodland haunts.
Bring her up indoors, in seclusion among girls of her own age;
360 above all remember to keep her from the harbour and the shore.
Lately thou sawest the Phrygian38 sails: already ships that have
crossed the sea have learnt treason to mutual loyalties.”
The sire accedes to her words, and receives the disguised Achilles
by his mother’s ruse--who can resist when gods deceive?
365 Nay more, he venerates her with a suppliant’s hand,
and gives thanks that he was chosen; nor is the band of
duteous Scyrian maidens slow to dart keen glances at the face
of their new comrade, how she o’ertops them by head and neck,
how broad her expanse of breast and shoulders;
370 then they invite her to join the dance and approach the holy rites,
and make room for her in their ranks and rejoice to be near her.
Just as Idalian birds,39 cleaving the soft clouds
and long since gathered in the sky or in their homes,
if a strange bird from some distant region has joined them
375 wing to wing, are at first all filled with amaze and fear;
then nearer and nearer they fly, and while yet in the air
have made him one of them and hover joyfully around with
favouring beat of pinions and lead him to their lofty resting-places.
Long, ere she departs, lingers the mother at the gate,
380 while she repeats advice and implants whispered secrets
in his ear and in hushed tones gives her last counsels.
Then she plunges into the main, and gazing back swims
far away, and entreats with flattering prayers the island-shore:
“O land that I love, to whom by timid cunning I have committed
385 the pledge of my anxious care, a trust that is great indeed,
mayst thou prosper and be silent, I beg, as Crete was silent
for Rhea40 ; enduring honour and everlasting shrines shall gird
thee, nor shalt thou be surpassed by unstable41 Delos; sacred alike
to wind and wave shalt thou be, and clam abode of Nereïds
390 among the shallows of the Cyclades, where the rocks
are shattered by Aegean storms, an isle that sailors
swear by--only admit no Danaan keels, I beg!
‘Here are only the wands of Bacchus, nought that avails for war;’
that tale bid rumour spread, and while the Dorian armaments
395 make ready and Mavors rages from world to world--he may, for aught
I care--let Achilles be the maiden daughter of good Lycomedes.”
Meanwhile avenging Europe, inflamed by war’s
sweet frenzy and the monarchs’ complaining entreaties,
excites her righteous ire; more earnestly pleads that
400 son of Atreus whose spouse abides at home, and by his telling makes
the Ilian crime more grievous: how without aid of Mars or force of arms
the daughter of heaven42 and child of mighty Sparta was taken,
and justice, good faith and the gods spurned by one deed of rapine.
Is this then Phrygian honour? Is this the intercourse of land with land?
405 What awaits the common folk, when wrong so deadly attacks
the foremost chieftains? All races, all ages flock together:
nor are they only aroused whom the Isthmian barrier with
its rampart fronting on two seas encloses and Malea’s wave-
resounding promontory, but where afar the strait of Phrixus sunders
410 Europe and Asia; and the peoples that fringe Abydos’
shore, bound fast by the waters of the upper sea.
The war-fever rises high, thrilling the agitated cities.
Temese43 tames her bronze, the Euboean coast shakes with its
dockyards, Mycenae echoes with innumerable forges,
415 Pisa makes new chariots, Nemea gives the skins of wild beasts,
Cirrha vies in packing tight the arrow-bearing quivers,
Lerna in covering heavey shields with the hides of slaughtered bullocks.
Aetolia and fierce Acarnania send infantry to war,
Argos collects her squadrons, the pasture-lands of rich Arcadia
420 are emptied, Epiros bridles her swift-footed nurslings,44
ye shades of Phocis and Aonia grow scant by reason of the
javelins, Pylos and Messene strain their fortress-engines.
No land but bears its burden; ancestral weapons long renounced
are torn from lofty portals, gifts to the gods melt in the flame;
425 gold reft from divine keeping Mars turns to fiercer use.
Nowhere are the shady haunts of old: Othrys is lesser grown,
lofty Taygetus sinks low, the shorn hills see the light of day.
Now the whole forest is afloat: oaks are hewn to make a fleet,
the woods are diminished for oars. Iron is forced into countless
430 uses, for riveting prows, for armour of defence,
for bridling chargers, for knitting rough coats of mail
by a thousand links, to smoke with blood,
to drink deep of wounds, to drive death home in conspiracy
with poison; they make the dripping whetstones thin
435 with grinding, and add wrath to sluggish sword-points.
No limit is there to the shaping of bows or heaping up of bullets
or the charring of stakes or the heightening of helms with crests.
Amid such commotion Thessaly alone bewails her indolent
repose, and brings a twofold complaint against the Fates,
440 that Peleus is too old and Achilles not yet ripe of age.
Already the lord of war had drained the land of Pelops
and the Grecian world, madly flinging aboard both men
and horses. All aswarm are the harbours and the bays
invisible for shipping, and the moving fleet stirs its own storms
445 and billows; the sea itself fails the vessels,
and their canvas swallows up every breath of wind.
Aulis, sacred to Hecate, first gathers together the Danaan fleet,
Aulis, whose exposed cliff and long-projecting ridge
climb the Euboean sea, coast beloved by the mountain-
450 wandering goddess, and Caphereus, that raises his head
hard by against the barking waves. He, when he beheld
the Pelasgian ships sail by, thrice thundered from
peak to wave, and gave presage of a night of fury.45
There assembles the armament for Troy’s undoing, there
455 the vast array is sworn, while the sun completes
an annual course. Then first did Greece behold
her own might; then a scattered, dissonant mass took
form and feature, and was marshalled under one single lord.
Even so does the round hunting-net confine the hidden beasts,
460 and gradually hem them in as the toils are drawn close.
They in panic of the torches and the shouting leave their wide
pathless haunts, and marvel that their own mountain is shrinking,
till from every side they pour into the narrow vale;
the herds startle each other, and are tamed by mutual
465 fear; bristly boar and bear and wolf are driven together,
and the hind despises the captured lions.
But although the twain Atridae make war in their own cause
together, though Sthenelus and Tydeus’ son surpass in eager valour
their fathers’ fame, and Antilochus heeds not his years,
470 and Ajax shakes upon his arm the seven leaders
of the herd46 and the circle vast as a city-wall, though Ulysses,
sleepless in counsel and deeds of arms, joins in the quarrel,
yet all the host yearns ardently for the absent Achilles,
lovingly they dwell upon Achilles’ name, Achilles alone is called for
475 against Hector, him and none other do they speak of as the doom of Priam
and of Troy. For who else grew up from infancy crawling on fresh-dug
snow in the Haemonian valleys? Whom else did the Centaur
take in hand and shape his rude beginnings and tender years?
Whose line of ancestry runs nearer heaven?
480 Whom else did a Nereid take by stealth through the Stygian
waters and make his fair limbs impenetrable to steel?
Such talk do the Grecian cohorts repeat and interchange.
The band of chieftains yields before him and gladly owns defeat.
So when the pale denizens of heaven flocked into the Phlegraean
485 camp,47 and already Gradivus was towering to the height of his
Odrysian48 spear and Tritonia raised her Libyan snakes
and the Delian strongly bent his mighty bow,
Nature in breathless terror stood looking to the Thunderer alone—
when would he summon the lightnings and the tempests from
490 the clouds, how many thunderbolts would he ask of fiery Aetna?
There, while the princes, surrounded by the mingled multitudes
of their folk, hold counsel of times for sailing and for war,
Protesilaus amid great tumult rebukes the prophet Calchas
and cries--for to him was given the keenest desire to fight,
495 and the glory even then of suffering death the first:
“O son of Thestor, forgetful of Phoebus and thy own tripods,
when wilt thou open thy god-possessed lips more surely,
or why dost thou hide the secret things of Fate?49
Seest thou how all are amazed at the unknown Aeacides and
500 clamour for him? The Calydonian hero50 seems nought in the people’s
eyes, and so too Ajax born of mighty Telamon and lesser Ajax,
so do we also: but Mars and the capture of Troy will prove the truth.
Slighting their leaders--for shame!--they all love him
as a deity of war. Quickly speak, or why are thy locks
505 enwreathed and held in honour? In what coasts lies he hidden?
In what land must we seek him? For report has it that he is living
neither in Chiron’s cave nor in the halls of Peleus his sire.
Come, break in upon the gods, harry the fates that lie concealed!
Quaff greedily, if ever thou dost, thy draughts of laurelled fire!
510 We have relieved thee of dread arms and cruel swords,
and never shall a helm profane thy unwarlike locks,
yet blest shalt thou be and foremost of our chiefs,
if of thyself thou doest find great Achilles for the Danaans.”51
Long since has the son of Thestor been glancing round about him
515 with excited movements, and by his first pallor betrayed the
incoming of the god; soon he rolls fiery, bloodshot eyes, seeing
neither his comrades nor the camp, but blind and absent from the scene
he now overhears the mighty councils of gods in the upper air,
now accosts the prescient birds, now the stern sisters’
520 threads, now anxiously consults the incense-laden altars,
and quickly scans the shooting flames and feeds upon the sacred
vapours.52 His hair streams out, and the fillet totters on his
stiffened locks, his head rolls and he staggers in his gait.
At last trembling he looses his weary lips from their long bellowings,
525 and his voice has struggled free from the resisting frenzy:
“Whither bearest thou, O Nereid, by thy woman’s guile great Chiron’s
mighty pupil? Send him hither: why dost thou carry him away?
I will not suffer it: mine is he, mine! Thou art a goddess of the deep,
but I too am inspired by Phoebus. In what hiding-places triest thou
530 to conceal the destroyer of Asia? I see her all bewildered among
the Cyclades, in base stealth seeking out the coast.
We are ruined! The accomplice land of Lycomedes finds favour.
Ah! horrid deed! see, flowing garments drape his breast.
Rend them, boy, rend them, and yield not to thy timid mother. Woe, woe!
535 he is rapt away and is gone! Who is that wicked maiden yonder?”
Here tottering he ceased, the madness lost its force, and
with a shudder he collapsed and fell before the altar.
Then the Calydonian hero accosts the hesitating Ithacan:
“‘Tis us53 that task summons; for I could not refuse to bear thee company,
540 should thy thought so lead thee. Though he be sunk in the echoing
caves of Tethys far removed and in the bosom of watery Nereus,
thou wilt find him. Do thou but keep alert the cunning
and foresight of thy watchful mind, and arouse thy fertile craft:
no prophet, methinks, would make bold in perplexity to see the truth
545 before thee.” Ulysses in joy makes answer:
“So may almighty God bring it to pass, and the virgin guardian
of thy sire grant to thee! But fickle hope gives me pause;
a great enterprise is it indeed to bring Achilles and his arms to our camp,
but should the fates say nay, how woeful a disgrace were it to return!
550 Yet will I not leave unventured the fulfilment of the Danaans’ desire.
Ay, verily, either the Pelean hero shall accompany me hither,
or the truth lies deep indeed and Calchas hath not spoken by Apollo.”
The Danai shout applause, and Agamemnon urges on the willing pair;
the gathering breaks up, and the dispersing ranks depart with
555 joyful murmurs, even as at nightfall the birds wing their way homeward
from the pastures, or kindly Hybla sees the swarms
returning laden with fresh honey to their cells.
Without delay the canvas of the Ithacan is already calling for
a favouring breeze, and the merry crew are seated at the oars.
560 But far away Deidamia--and she alone--had learnt in stolen
secrecy the manhood of Aeacides, that lay hid beneath the show
of a feigned sex; conscious of guilt concealed there is nought
she does not fear, and thinks that her sisters know, but hold their peace.
For when Achilles, rough as he was, stood amid the maiden company,
565 and the departure of his mother rid him of his artless bashfulness,
straightway although the whole band gathers round him, he chose her
as his comrade and assails with new and winning wiles her
unsuspecting innocence; her he follows, and persistently
besets, toward her he ever and again directs his gaze.
570 Now too zealously he clings to her side, nor does she avoid him,
now he pelts her with light garlands, now with baskets that let their burden fall,
now with the thyrsus that harms her not, or again he shows her
the sweet strings of the lyre he knows so well, and the gentle measures
and songs of Chiron’s teaching, and guides her hand and makes her fingers
575 strike the sounding harp, now as she sings he makes a conquest of her lips,
and binds her in his embrace, and praises her amid a thousand kisses.
With pleasure does she learn of Pelion’s summit and of Aeacides,
and hearing the name and exploits of the youth is spellbound
in constant wonder, and sings of Achilles in his very presence.
580 She in her turn teaches him to move his strong limbs with more
modest grace and to spin out the unwrought wool by rubbing with his
thumb, and repairs the distaff and the skeins that his rough hand has
damaged; she marvels at the deep tones of his voice,
how he shuns all her fellows and pierces her with too-attentive
585 gaze and at all times hangs breathless on her words;
and now he prepares to reveal the fraud, but she like a
fickle girl avoids him, and will not allow him to confess.
Even so beneath his mother Rhea’s rule the young prince
of Olympus gave treacherous kisses to his sister; he was still
590 her brother and she thought no harm, until the reverence for their
common blood gave way, and the sister feared a lover’s passion.54
At length the timorous Nereid’s cunning was laid bare.
There stood a lofty grove, scene of the rites of Agenorean55
Bacchus, a grove that reached to heaven; within its shade
595 the pious matrons were wont to renew the recurrent three-yearly
festival, and to bring torn animals of the herd and uprooted saplings,
and to offer to the god the frenzy wherein he took delight. The law
bade males keep far away; the reverend monarch repeats the command,
and makes proclamation that no man may draw nigh the sacred haunt.
600 Nor is that enough; a venerable priestess stands at the appointed
limit and scans the approaches, lest any defiler come near in
the train of women; Achilles laughed silently to himself.
His comrades wonder at him as he leads the band of virgins
and moves his mighty arms with awkward motion—
605 his own sex and his mother’s counterfeit alike become
him. No more is Deidamia the fairest of her company,
and as she surpasses her own sisters, so does she herself
own defeat compared with proud Aeacides.
But when he let the fawn-skin hang from his shapely neck,
610 and with ivy gathered up its flowing folds, and bound
the purple fillet high upon his flaxen temples,
and with powerful hand made the enwreathed missile56 quiver,
the crowd stood awestruck, and leaving the sacred rites
are fain to throng about him, uplifting their bowed heads to gaze.
615 Even so Euhius, what time he has relaxed at Thebes his martial spirit
and frowning brow, and sated his soul with the luxury of his native land,
takes chaplet and mitre from his locks, and arms the green thyrsus
for the fray, and in more martial guise sets out to meet his Indian foes.57
The Moon in her rosy chariot was climbing to the height of
620 mid-heaven, when drowsy Sleep glided down with full sweep
of his pinions to earth and gathered a silent world to his embrace:
the choirs reposed, the stricken bronze awhile was mute,
when Achilles, parted in solitude from the virgin train, thus spoke
with himself: “How long wilt thou endure the precepts of thy
625 anxious mother, and waste the first flower of thy manhood in this
soft imprisonment? No weapons of war mayst thou brandish,
no beasts mayst thou pursue. Oh! for the plains and valleys
of Haemonia! Lookest thou in vain, Spercheus, for my swimming,
and for my promised tresses? Or hast thou no regard for the foster-child
630 that has deserted thee? Am I already spoken of as borne to the Stygian
shades afar, and does Chiron in solitude bewail my death?
Thou, O Patroclus, now does aim my darts, dost bend
my bow and mount the team that was nourished for me;
but I have learnt to fling wide my arms as I grasp the vine-wands,
635 and to spin the distaff-thread--ah! shame and vexation to confess it!
Nay more, night and day thou dost dissemble the love that holds
thee, and thy passion for the maid of equal years. How long
wilt thou conceal the wound that galls thy heart, nor
even in love--for shame!--prove thy own manhood?”
640 So he speaks; and in the thick darkness of the night, rejoicing
that the unstirring silence gives timely aid to his secret deeds,
he gains by force his desire, and with all his vigour strains her
in a real embrace; the whole choir of stars beheld from
on high, and the horns of the young moon blushed red.
645 She indeed filled the grove and mountain with her cries,
but the train of Bacchus, dispelling slumber’s cloud,
deemed it the signal for the dance; on every side the familiar shout
arises, and Achilles once more brandishes the thyrsus;
yet first with friendly speech he solaces the anxious maid:
650 “I am he – why fearest thou? – whom my cerulean mother bore
well nigh to Jove,58 and sent to find my nurture in the woods and snows
of Thessaly. Nor had I endured this dress and shameful garb,
had I not seen thee on the seashore; ‘twas for thee
I did submit, for thee I carry skeins and bear the womanly timbrel.
655 Why dost thou weep who art made daughter-in-law of mighty ocean?
Why does thou moan who shalt bear valiant grandsons to Olympus?59
But thy father--Scyros shall be destroyed by fire
and sword and these walls shall be in ruins and the sport
of wanton winds, ere thou pay by cruel death
660 for my embraces: not so utterly am I subject to my mother.”
662 Horror-struck was the princess at such dark happenings,
albeit long since she had suspected his good faith, and shuddered
at his presence, and his countenance was changed as he made confession.
665 What is she to do? Shall she bear the tale of her misfortune to her
father, and ruin both herself and her lover, who perchance would suffer
untimely death? And still there abode within her breast
the love so long deceived. Silent is she in her grief, and dissembles
the crime that both now share alike; her nurse alone she resolves
670 to make a partner in deceit, and she, yielding to the prayers of both,
assents. With secret cunning she conceals the rape
and the swelling womb and the burden of the months
of ailing, till Lucina brought round by token the appointed season,
her course now fully run, and gave deliverance of her child.
675 And now the Laertian60 bark was threading the winding ways
of the Aegean, while the breezes changed one for another the countless
Cyclades; already Paros and Olearos are hid, now they skirt lofty
Lemnos and behind them Bacchic Naxos is lost to view,
while Samos grows before them; now Delos darkens the
680 deep, and there from the tall stern they pour cups of libation,
and pray that he oracle be true and Calchas undeceived.
The Wielder of the Bow61 heard them, and from the top of Cynthus sent
a zephyr flying and gave the doubting ones the good omen of a bellying sail.
The ship sails o’er the sea untroubled; for the Thunderer’s high commands
685 suffered not Thetis to overturn the sure decrees of Fate,
faint as he was with tears, and foreboding much
because she could not excite the main and straightway pursue
the hated Ulysses with all her winds and waves.
Already Phoebus, stooping low upon the verge of Olympus,
690 was sending forth broken rays, and promising to his panting steeds
the yielding shore of Ocean, when rocky Scyros rose aloft;
the Laertian chieftain from the stern let out all sail
to make it, and bade his crew resume the deep
and with their oars supply the failing zephyrs.
695 Nearer they draw, and more undoubtedly, more surely
was it Scyros, and Tritonia62 above, the guardian of the tranquil
shore. They disembark, and venerate the power of the friendly
goddess, Aetolian and Ithacan alike. Then the prudent hero,
lest they should frighten the hospitable walls with sudden throng,
700 bids his crew remain upon the ship; he himself with trusty Diomede
ascends the heights. But already Abas, keeper of the coastal tower,
had gone before them and given tidings to the king,
that unknown sails, though Greek, were drawing nigh
to land. Forward they go, like two wolves leagued together
705 on a winter’s night: though their cubs’ hunger and their own
assails them, yet do they utterly dissemble ravening
rage, and go slinking on their way, lest the alertness of dogs
announce a foe and warn the anxious herdsmen to keep vigil.
So with slow pace the heroes move, and with mutual
710 converse tread the open plain that lies between the harbour
and the high citadel; first keen Tydides speaks:
“By what means now are we preparing to search out
the truth? For in perplexity of mind have I long been pondering
why thou didst buy those unwarlike wands and cymbals
715 in the city marts, and didst bring hither Bacchic hides and turbans,
and fawn-skins decked with patterns of gold. Is it with these
thou wilt arm Achilles to be the doom of Priam and the Phrygians?”
To him with a smile and somewhat less stern of look the Ithacan replied:
“These things, I tell thee, if only he be lurking among the maidens
720 in Lycomedes’ palace, shall draw the son of Peleus to the fight,
ay, self-confessed! Remember thou to bring them all quickly from
the ship, when it is time, and to join to these gifts a shield
that is beautiful with carving and rough with work of gold;
this spear will suffice; let the good trumpeter Agyrtes be
725 with thee, and let him bring a hidden bugle for a secret purpose.”
He spoke and spied the king in the very threshold of the gate,
and displaying the olive first announced his peaceful purpose:
“Loud report, I ween, hath long since reached thy ears,
O gentle monarch, of that fierce war which now is shaking
730 both Europe and Asia. If perchance the chieftains’ names
have been borne hither, in whom the avenging son of Atreus trusts,
here beholdest thou him whom great-hearted Tydeus begot,
mightier even than so great a sire, and I am Ulysses the Ithacan chief.
The cause of our voyage--for why should I fear to confess all to thee,
735 who art a Greek and of all men most renowned by sure report?—
is to spy out the approaches to Troy and her hated shores, and what
their schemes may be.” Ere he had finished the other broke in upon him:
“May Fortune assist thee, I pray, and propitious gods prosper
that enterprise! Now honour my roof and pious home by being
740 my guests.” Therewith he leads them within the gate.
Straightway numerous attendants prepare the couches and
the tables. Meanwhile Ulysses scans and searches the palace
with his gaze, if anywhere he can find trace of a
tall maiden or a face suspect for its doubtful features;
745 uncertainly he wanders idly in the galleries and, as though
in wonder, roams the whole house through; just as yon hunter,
having come upon his prey’s undoubted haunts,
scours the fields with his silent Molossian hound, till he behold his foe
stretched out in slumber ‘neath the leaves and his jaws resting on the turf.
750 Long since has a rumour been noised throughout the secret chamber
where the maidens had their safe abode, that Pelasgian chiefs
are come, and a Grecian ship and its mariners have been made welcome.
With good reason are the rest affrighted; but Pelides scarce conceals
his sudden joy, and eagerly desires even as he is to see the newly-arrived
755 heroes and their arms. Already the noise of princely trains fills
the palace, and the guests are reclining on gold-embroidered couches,
when at their sire’s command his daughters and their chaste companions
join the banquet; they approach, like unto Amazons on the Maeotid shore,
when, having made plunder of Scythian homesteads and captured
760 strongholds of the Getae, they lay aside their arms and feast.
Then indeed does Ulysses with intent gaze ponder carefully both
forms and features, but night and the lamps that are brought in
deceive him, and their stature is hidden as soon as they recline.
One nevertheless with head erect and wandering gaze,
765 one who preserves no sign of virgin modesty, he marks,
and with sidelong glance points out to his companion.
But if Deidamia, to warn the hasty youth, had not clasped him
to her soft bosom, and ever covered with her own robe his
bare breast and naked arms and shoulders, and many a time
770 forbidden him to start up from the couch and ask for wine,
and replaced the golden hair-band on his brow,
Achilles had even then been revealed to the Argive chieftains.
When hunger was assuaged and the banquet had twice and three times
been renewed, the monarch first addresses the Achaeans, and pledges them
775 with the wine-cup: “Ye famous heroes of the Argolic race, I envy,
I confess, your enterprise; would that I too were of more valiant years,
as when I utterly subdued the Dolopes who attacked the shores
of Scyros, and shattered on the sea those keels that ye beheld
on the forefront of my lofty walls, tokens of my triumph!
780 At least if I had offspring that I would send to war,--
782 but now ye see for yourselves my feeble strength and my dear
children: ah, when will these numerous daughters give me grandsons?”
He spoke, and seizing the moment crafty Ulysses made reply:
785 “Worthy indeed is the object of thy desire; for who would not burn
to see the countless peoples of the world and various chieftains and princes
with their trains? All the might and glory of powerful Europe
hath sworn together willing allegiance to our righteous arms.
Cities and fields alike are empty, we have spoiled the lofty mountains,
790 the whole sea lies hidden beneath the far-spread shadow of our sails;
fathers give weapons, youths snatch them and are gone beyond recall.
Never was offered to the brave such an opportunity for
high renown, never had valour so wide a field of exercise.”
He sees him all attentive and drinking in his words with vigilant ear,
795 though the rest are alarmed and turn aside their downcast eyes,
and he repeats: “Whoever hath pride of race and ancestry,
whoever hath sure javelin and valiant steed, or skill of bow,
all honour there awaits him, there is the strife of mighty
names: scarce do timorous mothers hold back or troops
800 of maids; ah! doomed to barren years and hated of the gods
is he whom this new chance of glory passes by in idle sloth.”
Up from the couches had he sprung, had not Deidamia,
watchfully giving the sign to summon all her sisters,
left the banquet clasping him in her arms; yet still he lingers
805 looking back at the Ithacan, and goes out from the company the last of all.
Ulysses indeed leaves unsaid somewhat of his purposed speech,
yet adds a few words: “But do thou abide in deep and tranquil
peace, and find husbands for thy beloved daughters,
whom fortune has given thee, goddess-like in their starry
810 countenances. What awe touched me anon and holds me silent?
Such charm and beauty joined to manliness of form!”
The sire replies: “What if thou couldst see them performing
the rites of Bacchus, or about the altars of Pallas?
Ay, and thou shalt, if perchance the rising south wind prove a laggard.”
815 They eagerly accept his promise, and hope inspires their silent prayers.
All else in Lycomedes’ palace are at rest in peaceful quiet,
their troubles laid aside, but to the cunning Ithacan the night is long;
he yearns for the day and brooks not slumber.
Scarce had day dawned, and already the son of Tydeus
820 accompanied by Agyrtes was present bringing the appointed gifts.
The maids of Scyros too went forth from their chamber and advanced
to display their dances and promised rites to the honoured
strangers. Brilliant before the rest is the princess with Pelides
her companion: even as beneath the rocks of Aetna in Sicily
825 Diana and bold Pallas and the consort of the Elysian
monarch shine forth among the nymphs of Enna.
Already they begin to move, and the Ismenian63 pipe gives signal
to the dancers; four times they beat the cymbals of Rhea,64 four times
the maddening drums, four times they trace their manifold windings.
830 Then together they raise and lower their wands,
and complicate their steps, now in such fashion as the Curetes
and devout Samothracians use,65 now turning to face each other
in the Amazonian comb,66 now in the ring wherein the Delian sets the Laconian
girls a-dancing, and whirls them shouting her praises into her own Amyclae.
835 Then indeed, then above all is Achilles manifest,
caring neither to keep his turn nor to join arms;
then more than ever does he scorn the delicate step, the womanly attire,
and breaks the dance and mightily disturbs the scene.
Even so did Thebes already sorrowing behold Pentheus
840 spurning the wands and the timbrels that his mother welcomed.67
The troop disperses amid applause, and they seek again their father’s
threshold, where in the central chamber of the palace the son of Tydeus
hid long since set out gifts that should attract maidens’ eyes,
the mark of kindly welcome and the guerdon of their toil;
845 he bids them choose, nor does the peaceful monarch say them nay.
Alas! how simple and untaught, who knew not the cunning
of the gifts nor Grecian fraud nor Ulysses’ many wiles!
Thereupon the others, prompted by nature and their ease-loving sex,
try the shapely wands or the timbrels that answer to the blow,
850 and fasten jewelled band around their temples; the weapons
they behold, but think them a gift to their mighty sire.
But the bold son of Aeacus no sooner saw before him the gleaming
shield enchased with battle-scenes--by chance too it shone red
with the fierce stains of war--and leaning against he spear,
855 than he shouted loud and rolled his eyes, and his hair rose up
from his brow; forgotten were his mother’s words,
forgotten his secret love, and Troy fills all his breast.
As a lion, torn from his mother’s dugs, submits to be tamed
and lets his mane be combed, and learns to have awe of man
860 and not to fly into a rage save when bidden,
yet if but once the steel has glittered in his sight,
his fealty is forsworn, and his tamer becomes his foe: against him
he first ravens, and feels shame to have served a timid lord.
But when he came nearer, and the emulous brightness gave back
865 his features and he saw himself mirrored in the reflecting gold,
he thrilled and blushed together. Then quickly went Ulysses
to his side and whispered: “Why dost thou hesitate?
We know thee, thou art the pupil of the half-beast Chiron,
thou art the grandson of the sky and sea; thee the Dorian fleet,
870 thee thy own Greece awaits with standards uplifted for the march,
and the very walls of Pergamum totter and sway for thee to overturn.
Up! delay no more! Let perfidious Ida grow pale,
let they father delight to hear these tidings, and guileful Thetis feel shame
to have so feared for thee.” Already was he stripping his body
875 of the robes, when Agyrtes, so commanded, blew a great blast
upon the trumpet: the gifts are scattered, and they flee and fall
with prayers before their sire and believe that battle is joined.
But from his breast the raiment fell without his touching,
already the shield and puny spear are lost in the grasp of his hand68 --
880 marvellous to believe!--and he seemed to surpass by head and shoulders
the Ithacan and the Aetolian chief: with a sheen so awful does the
sudden blaze of arms and the martial fire dazzle the palace-hall.
Mighty of limb, as though forthwith summoning Hector to the fray,
he stands in the midst of the panic-stricken house: and the daughter of Peleus
885 is sought in vain. But Deidamia in another chamber bewailed
the discovery of the fraud, and as soon as he heard her loud
lament and recognized the voice that he knew so well,
he quailed and his spirit was broken by his hidden passion.
He dropped the shield, and turning to the monarch’s face, while
890 Lycomedes is dazed by the scene and distraught by the strange portent,
just as he was, in naked panoply of arms, he thus bespeaks him:
“‘Twas I, dear father, I whom bounteous Thetis gave thee--
dismiss thy anxious fears!--long since did this high renown await
thee; ‘tis thou who wilt send Achilles, long sought for, to the Greeks,
895 more welcome to me than my might sire--if it is right so to speak--
and than beloved Chiron. But, if thou wilt, give me
thy mind awhile, and of thy favour hear these words:
Peleus and Thetis thy guest make thee the father-in-law
of their son, and recount their kindred deities on either side;
900 they demand one of thy train of virgin daughters:
doest thou give her? or seem we a mean and coward race?
Thou dost not refuse. Join then our hands, and make the treaty,
and pardon thy own kin. Already hath Deidamia been known to me
in stolen secrecy; for how could she have resisted these
905 arms of mine, how once in my embrace repel my might?
Bid me atone that deed: I lay down these weapons and restore them to the
Pelasgians, and I remain here. Why these angry cries? Why is thy aspect
changed? Already art thou my father-in-law”--he placed the child before his feet,
and added: “and already a grandsire! How often shall the pitiless sword be plied!
910 We are a multitude!”69 Then the Greeks too and Ulysses with his
persuasive prayer entreat by the holy rites and the sworn word
of hospitality. He, though moved by the discovery of his dear
daughter’s wrong and the command of Thetis, though seeming
to betray the goddess and so grave a trust, yet fears to oppose
915 so many destinies and delay the Argive war--
even were he fain, Achilles had spurned even his mother then.
Nor is he unwilling to take unto himself so great a son-in-law:
he is won. Deidamia comes shamefast from her dark privacy,
nor in her despair believes at first his pardon,
920 and puts forward Achilles to appease her sire.
A messenger is sent to Haemonia to give Peleus full tidings of
these great events, and to demand ships and comrades for the war.
Moreover, the Scyrian prince launches two vessels for his son-in-law,
and makes excuse to the Achaeans for so poor a show of strength.
925 Then the day was brought to its end with feasting, and at last the bond was
made known to all, and conscious night joined the now fearless lovers.
Before her70 eyes new wars and Xanthus and Ida pass,
and the Argolis fleet, and she imagines the very waves and fears
the coming of the dawn; she flings herself about her new lord’s
930 beloved neck, and at last clasping his limbs gives way to tears:
“Shall I see thee again, and lay myself on this breast of thine,
O son of Aeacus? Wilt thou deign once more to look upon thy offspring?
Or wilt thou proudly bring back spoils of captured Pergamum and
Teucrian homes and wish to forget where thou didst hide thee as a maid?
935 What should I entreat, or alas! what rather fear? How can I in my anxiety
lay a behest on thee, who have scarce time to weep? One single night
has given and grudged thee to me! Is this the season for our espousals?
Is this free wedlock? Ah! those stolen sweets! that cunning fraud!
Ah! how I fear! Achilles is given to me only to be torn away.
940 Go! for I would not dare to stay such mighty preparations;
go, and be cautious, and remember that the fears of Thetis were not vain;
go, and good luck be with thee, and come back mine! Yes too bold is my request:
soon the fair Trojan dames will sigh for thee with tears and beat
their breasts, and pray that they may offer their necks to thy fetters,
945 and weigh thy couch against their homes, or Tyndaris71 herself
will please thee, too much belauded for her incestuous rape.
But I shall be a story to thy henchmen, the tale of
a lad’s first fault, or I shall be disowned and forgotten.
Nay, come, take me as thy comrade; why should I not carry the standards
950 of Mars with thee? Thou dist carry with me the wands
and holy things of Bacchus, though ill-fated Troy believe it not.
Yet this babe, whom thou dost leave as my sad solace--
keep him at least within thy heart, and grant this one request,
that no foreign wife bear thee a child, that no
955 captive woman give unworthy grandsons to Thetis.”
As thus she speaks, Achilles, moved to compassion himself,
comforts her, and gives her his sworn oath, and pledges it
with tears, and promises her on his return tall handmaidens
and spoils of Ilium and gifts of Phrygian treasure.
960 The fickle breezes swept his words unfulfilled away.
Statius, Achilleid Book 2
Day arising from Ocean set free the world from dank
enfolding shades, and the father of the flashing light upraised
his torch still dimmed by the neighbouring gloom
and moist with sea-water not yet shaken off.
5 And now all behold Aeacides, his shoulders stripped
of the scarlet robe, and glorious in those very arms he first
had seized--for the wind is calling and his kindred seas
are urging him--and quake before the youthful chieftain,
not daring to remember aught; so wholly changed to the sight
10 hath he come back, as though he had ne’er experiences
the shores of Scyros, but were embarking from the Pelian cave.
Then duly--for so Ulysses counseled--he does sacrifice
to the gods and the waters and south winds, and venerates
with a bull the cerulean king below the waves and Nereus
15 his grandsire: his mother is appeased with garlanded heifer.
Thereupon casting the swollen entrails on the salt foam he addresses her:
“Mother, I have obeyed thee, though thy commands were hard to bear;
too obedient have I been: now they demand me, and I go to the Trojan war
and the Argolic fleet.” So speaking he leapt into the bark,
20 and was swept away far from the neighbourhood of land by
the whistling south wind; already lofty Scyros beings to gather mist
about her, and to fade from sight over the long expanse of sea.
Far away on the summit of a tower with weeping sisters round her
his wife leaned forth, holding her precious charge,
25 who bore the name of Pyrrhus, and with her eyes fixed on the canvas
sailed herself upon the sea, and all alone still saw the vessel.
He too turned his gaze aside to the walls he held dear, he thinks upon
the widowed home and the sobs of her he had left:
the hidden passion glows again within his heart,
30 and martial ire gives place. The Laertian hero perceives him
sorrowing, and draws nigh to influence him with gentle words:
“Was it thou, O destined destroyer of great Troy,
whom Danaan fleets and divine oracles are demanding,
and War aroused is awaiting with unbarred portals--
35 was it thou whom a crafty mother profaned with feminine robes,
and trusted yonder hiding-place with so great a secret, and hoped
the trust was sure? O too anxious, O too true a mother!
Could such valour lie inert and hidden, that scarce hearing
the trumpet-blast fled from Thetis and companions
40 and the heart’s unspoken passion? Nor is it due to us
that thou comest to the war, and compliest with our prayers;
thou wouldst have come--” He spoke, and thus the Aeacian hero
takes up the word: “’Twere long to set forth the causes of my tarrying
and my mother’s crime; this sword shall make excuse for Scyros
45 and my dishonourable garb, the reproach of destiny.
Do thou rather, while the sea is peaceful and the sails
enjoy the zephyr, tell how the Danaans began so great a war:
I would fain draw straightway from thy words a righteous anger.”
Then the Ithacan, tracing far back the beginning of the tale:
50 “A shepherd, they say--if we believe such things--was chosen
in Hector’s domain of Ida to end a strife of beauty, and while he kept
the goddesses anxious doubt looked not with friendly eye
upon Minerva’s frowning countenance nor on the consort
of the heavenly ruler, but gazed overmuch on Dione alone.
55 And verily that quarrel arose in thy own glades,
at a gathering of the gods, when pleasant Pelion made marriage-feast
for Peleus, and thou even then wert promised to our armament.
Wrath thrills the vanquished ones: the judge demands his fateful
reward, and compliant Amyclae is shown to the ravisher.
60 He cuts down the Phrygian groves, the secret haunts of the
turret-crowned mother, and flings down pines that fear to fall
to earth, and borne o’er the sea to Achaean lands he plunders
the marriage-chamber of his host the son of Atreus--ah! shame and pity
on proud Europe!--and exulting in Helen puts to sea
65 and brings home to Pergamum the spoils of Argos.
Then, as the rumours spread far and wide through the cities,
of our own will, none urging us, we gather, who could endure
the unlawful, crafty breaking of the marriage-bond,
or a consort carried off in unresisted rape,
70 as though a beast of the flock or herd, would shake even
a valiant heart. Masterful Agenor endured not
the treachery of the gods, but went in quest of sacred lowings
and Europa riding on a mighty god, and scorned the Thunderer
as a son-in-law; Aeëtes endured not the rape of his
75 daughter72 from the Scythian shore, but with ships
and steel pursued the princes and the vessel fated to join
the stars: shall we endure a Phrygian eunuch hovering
about the coasts and harbours of Argos with his incestuous
bark? Are our horses and men so utterly vanished?
80 Are the seas so impassable to Greeks?
What if someone now were to carry of Deidamia
from her native shores, and tear her from her lonely chamber
in dire dismay and crying on the name of great Achilles?”
His hand flew to the sword-hilt, and a dark flush
85 surged over his face: Ulysses was silent and content.
Then spoke Oenides: “Nay, O thou worthiest progeny of
heaven, tell us, thy admiring friends, of the ways in which
thy spirit first was trained, and as the vigour of thy youth
increased what stirring themes of glory Chiron was wont
90 to recount to thee, and how thy valour grew, by what arts
he made strong thy limbs or fired thy courage;
let it be worthy while to have sought Scyros over long leagues
of sea, and to have first shown weapons to those arms of thine.”
Who would find it hard to tell of his own deeds? Yet he begins
95 modestly, somewhat uncertain and more like one compelled:
“Even in my years of crawling infancy, when the
Thessalian sage received me on his stark mountain-side,
I am said to have devoured no wonted food, nor to have sated
my hunger at the nourishing breast, but to have gnawed
100 the tough entrails of lions and the bowels of a half-slain she-wolf.
That was my first bread, that the bounty of joyous Bacchus,
in such wise did that father of mine73 feed me. Then he taught me to go
with him through pathless deserts, dragging me on with mighty stride,
and to laugh at sight of the wild beasts, nor tremble at the shattering rocks
105 by rushing torrents or at the silence of the lonely forest.
Already at that time weapons were in my hand and quivers
on my shoulders, the love of steel grew apace within me, and my skin
was hardened by much sun and frost; nor were my limbs weakened by
soft couches, but I shared the hard rock with my master’s mighty frame.
110 Scarce had my raw youth turned the wheel of twice
six years, when already he made me outpace swift hinds
and Lapith steeds and running overtake the flung dart;
often Chiron himself, while yet he was swift of foot, chased me
at full gallop74 with headlong speed o’er all the plains,
115 and when I was exhausted by roaming over the meads
he praised my joyously and hoisted me upon his back.
Often too in the first freezing of the streams he would bid me
go upon them with light step nor break the ice.
These were my boyhood glories. Why now should I tell thee of the
120 woodland battles and of the glades that know my fierce shout no more?
Never would he suffer me to follow unwarlike does through
the pathless glens of Ossa, or lay low timid lynxes with my spear,
but only to drive angry bears from their resting-places, and boars
with lightning thrust; or if anywhere a mighty tiger lurked or a
125 lioness with her cubs in some secret lair upon the mountain-side,
he himself, seated in his vast cave, awaited my exploits,
if perchance I should return bespattered with dark blood;
nor did he admit me to his embrace before he had scanned my weapons.
And already I was being prepared for the armed tumults of the neighbouring
130 folk, and no fashion of savage warfare passed me by.
I learnt how the Paeonians whirl and fling their darts
and the Macetae their javelins, with how fierce a rush
the Sarmatian plies his pike and the Getan his falchion,
how the Gelonian draws his bow, and how the Balearic wielder
135 of the pliant thong keeps the missile swinging round with balanced
motion, and as he swings it marks out a circle in the air.75
Scarce could I recount all my doings, successful though they were;
now he instructs me to span huge dykes by leaping,
now to climb and grasp the airy mountain-peak,
140 with what stride to run upon the level, how to catch
flung stones in mimic battle on my shielded arm,
to pass through burning houses, and to check flying four-horse
teams on foot. “Spercheus, I remember was flowing
with rapid current, fed full with constant rains and
145 melted snows and carrying on its flood boulders and living trees,
when he sent me in, there were the waves rolled fiercest, and bade me
stand against them and hurl back the swelling billows that he himself
could scarce have borne, though he stood to face them with so many a limb.76
I strove to stand, but the violence of the stream and the dizzy panic
150 of the broad spate forced me to give ground; he loomed o’er me
from above and fiercely threatened, and flung taunts to shame me.
Nor did I depart till he gave me word, so far did the lofty love of fame
constrain me, and my toils were not too hard with such a witness.
For to fling the Oebalian77 quoit far out of sight into the clouds,
155 or to practise the holds of the sleek wrestling-bout, and to scatter blows
with the boxing-gloves were sport and rest to me: nor laboured I more
therein that when I struck with my quill the sounding strings,
or told the wondrous fame of heroes of old.
Also did he teach me of juices and the grasses that succour
160 disease, what remedy will staunch too fast a flow of blood,
what will lull to sleep, what will close gaping wounds;
what plague should be checked by the knife, what will yield to herbs;
and he implanted deep within my heart the precepts of divine
justice, whereby he was wont to give revered laws to the tribes
165 that dwelt on Pelion, and tame his own twy-formed folk.
So much do I remember, friends, of the training of my earliest years,
and sweet is their remembrance; the rest my mother knows.”
Notes
1 Zeus would have married Thetis, had it not been declared that their son would be mightier than Zeus himself.
2 i.e. , the Iliad of Homer.
3 i.e. , of Ulysses (see line 873), Dulichium was part of his kingdom.
4 Of the Muses.
5 A fountain at Thebes.
6 “altera,” that of poetry; Domitian fancied himself both as a poet and a general, but would be better flattered by being called more brilliant in the latter capacity.
7 Part of the usual prologue to an epic, cf. Theb. i. 17.
8 i.e. , of Laconia.
9 Hecuba, before she bore Paris, dreamed that she was bearing a burning torch which set fire to Troy.
10 The Hellespont was so called after Helle, who was drowned there while fleeing with her brother Phrixus upon the ram with fleece of gold.
11 Because his fleet was built of wood of Mt. Ida. So “Rhoeteae” (line 44) from the promontory near Troy.
12 Chiron’s.
13 i.e. , Neptune.
14 i.e. , of the Tyrrhenian sea.
15 Is this the way we are paying for the victory of Venus on Ida? “alumnae,” i.e. Helen.
16 They are no Argonauts, nor Theseus, who, according to one legend, was the son of Neptune.
17 i.e. , haunt a rocky shore by the tomb of my son Achilles.
18 Neptune had helped Apollo to build the walls of Troy.
19 A promontory at the southern end of Euboea, on which many Greek ships were wrecked when returning from Troy, because Nauplius, king of Euboea, showed false lights.
20 He offended Poseidon, who sought to destroy him; see Odyssey , xiii. 125 sq.
21 i.e. , at the marriage-feast of Peleus and Thetis.
22 Proteus, from his abode in the Carpathian sea. “axe peracto,” the bound or limit of the sky, i.e. , beneath the horizon, not necessarily western, though that is the meaning here (l. 138).
23 Here obviously = Oceanus, not the Euxine. [Or rather the sea in general, Pontus was grandfather of Thetis.]
24 See ll. 326 sq.
25 “purpureus,” as in Virgil’s “lumenque inventae purpureum” (Aen. i. 590), also cf. Hor. C. iii. 3. 12.
26 The Athenians.
27 See the story of Hypsipyle, Theb. v. 48 sq.
28 King of Scyros.
29 Also named Briareus, one of the sons of Uranus, put in chains by Cronos, and set free by Zeus; Thetis went in search of him to bring aid to Zeus when threatened by the other Olympians (see Hesiod, Theog. 502; Homer, Il. i. 398 sqq. ). “centum,” because he had a hundred arms.
30 Iris, i.e. , the rainbow, that seems to draw moisture from the sea, cf. Ovid, Met. i. 271 “concipit Iris aquas alimentaque nubidus adfert.” Iris was the daughter of Thaumas.
31 “rotat” would presumably mean “gallops quickly back,” which would have no point here.
32 Both mountains of Thessaly.
33 Hercules spun wool for Omphale in Lydia.
34 Jupiter disguised himself as Diana to gain possession of Callisto (Ovid, Met. ii. 425).
35 First a girl, Caenis, then a man, then a woman again (Ovid, Met. xii. 189; Virg. Aen. vi. 448).
36 Thetis plunged the infant Achilles in the waters of Styx, and thereby made his body immune from harm – all except the left heel by which she held him.
37 Another name for Diana.
38 i.e. , of Paris.
39 Doves, as sacred to Venus, who had a shrine at Idalium.
40 When she gave birth to Zeus.
41 Delos floated till made fast by Apollo.
42 Because daughter of Zeus by Leda.
43 See note on Silv. i. 1. 42.
44 Cf. Virgil Georg. i. 57 “Eliadum palmas Epiros equarum.”
45 Cf. note on l. 93.
46 i.e. , the seven bullocks whose hides went to make his shield.
47 Scene of the battle of gods and giants, part of Macedonia, also called Pallene.
48 i.e. , Thracian.
49 I have adopted Garrod’s reading here, giving “recludo” the meaning of “conceal”; “quaenam recludes” would mean “What mysteries wilt thou reveal?”
50 Diomede.
51 Garrod rightly remarks that there is no question here of which is to serve in the campaign (implied by “pro te dependis”); see ll. 510, 511. The question is “Where is Achilles?”
52 This was a kapnomanteia , or divination by the smoke of the altar-fire, as in Theb. x. 598. The altar of Apollo would be crowned with laurel (cf. 509).
53 i.e. , himself and Ulysses; “cura” seems to recognize Ulysses’ hesitation.
54 The courting of Juno by the youthful Jupiter is also mentioned Theb. x. 61 sq.
55 From Agenor, king of Tyre, from whom Semele, his mother, was descended.
56 i.e. , the thyrsus.
57 There is a sort of inverted comparison here: the warlike Achilles putting on Bacchic garb is compared to effeminate Bacchus making ready for war.
58 Thetis nearly became the wife of Jove, so that Achilles was “nearly” his son. An oracle warned Jove that the son thus born would destroy him. Wilamowitz’s conjecture “Paeoniis” is attractive.
59 Peleus was descended from Zeus; cf. 869, 899.
60 Because Ulysses was son of Laertes.
61 Apollo.
62 Cf. l. 285.
63 i.e. Theban (from the river Ismenos), i.e. Bacchic.
64 Here = Cybele, worshipped by the Corybantes with very noisy rites.
65 The Curetes were priests of Jupiter (Zeus) in Crete; the Samothracians celebrated mysteries in honour of the Cabiri.
66 “pectin” was the name of a dance in which, one may gather, two opposing lines met and passed through each other.
67 Pentheus, king of Thebes, tried to put down the Bacchus-worship of which his mother Agave was a votary. “tristes,” as though with apprehension of his fate (he was torn in pieces by his own mother in her frenzy).
68 “consumitur,” a vivid use of the word; “is consumed, or used up by “his hand, which is too mighty for it.
69 i.e. , there was not only Achilles for Lycomedes to slay, but his daughter and his grandson also.
70 i.e. , Deidamia’s.
71 Helen, daughter of Tyndareus.
72 Medea. The Argo was set in heaven as a constellation by Pallas.
73 i.e. , Chiron.
74 “admissus,” cf. The common phrase "admisso equo."
75 cf. Theb. iv. 67.
76 i.e. , he had four legs to withstand the torrent.
77 See note on Silv. v. 3. 53; but it may simply mean Spartan, as being a sport much practised in Sparta.