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(Translated
by Rolfe Humphries)
Book
I
My intention is to tell of bodies changed
To different forms; the gods, who made the changes,
Will help me—or I hope so—with a poem
That runs from the world's beginning to our own day.
The
Creation
Before the ocean was, or earth, or heaven,
Nature was all alike, a shapelessness,
Chaos,
so-called, all rude and lumpy matter,
Nothing but bulk, inert, in whose confusion
Discordant atoms warred: there was no sun
To light the universe; there was no moon
With slender silver crescents filling slowly;
No earth hung balanced in surrounding air;
No sea reached far along the fringe of shore.
Land, to be sure, there was, and air, and ocean,
But land on which no man could stand, and water
No man could swim in, air no man could breathe,
Air without light, substance forever changing,
Forever at war: within a single body
Heat
fought with cold, wet fought with dry, the hard
Fought with the soft, things having weight contended
With weightless things.
Till God, or kindlier Nature,
Settled all argument, and separated
Heaven from earth, water from land, our air
From the high stratosphere, a liberation
So things evolved, and out of blind confusion
Found each its place, bound in eternal order.
Leaped up and claimed the highest place in heaven;
Below it, air; and under them the earth
Sank with its grosser portions; and the water,
Lowest of all held up, held in, the land.
Whatever
god it was, who out of chaos
Brought order to the universe, and gave it
Division, subdivision, he molded earth,
In the beginning, into a great globe,
Even on every side, and bade the waters
To spread and rise, under the rushing winds,
Surrounding earth; he added ponds and marshes,
He banked the river-channels, and the waters
Feed earth or run to sea, and that great flood
Washes on shores, not banks. He made the plains
Spread wide, the valleys settle, and the forest
Be dressed in leaves; he made the rocky mountains
Rise to full height, and as the vault of Heaven
Has two zones, left and right, and one between them
Hotter than these, the Lord of all Creation
Marked on the earth the same design and pattern.
The torrid zone too hot for men to live in,
The north and south too cold, but in the middle
Varying climate, temperature and season.
Above all things the air, lighter than earth,
Lighter than water, heavier than fire,
Towers and spreads; there mist and cloud assemble,
And fearful thunder and lightning and cold winds,
But these, by the Creator's order, held
No general dominion; even as it is,
These brothers brawl and quarrel; though each one
Has his own quarter, still, they come near tearing
The universe apart. Eurus is monarch
Of the lands of dawn, the realms of Araby,
The Persian ridges under the rays of morning.
Zephyrus holds the west that glows at sunset,
Boreas, who makes men shiver, holds the north,
Warm Auster governs in the misty southland,
And over them all presides the weightless ether,
Pure without taint of earth.
These boundaries given,
Behold, the stars, long hidden under darkness,
Broke through and shone, all over the spangled heaven,
Their home forever, and the gods lived there,
And shining fish were given the waves for dwelling
And beasts the earth, and birds the moving air.
But something else was needed, a finer being,
More capable of mind, a sage, a ruler,
So Man was born, it may be, in God's image,
Or Earth, perhaps, so newly separated
From the old fire of Heaven, still retained
Some seed of the celestial force which fashioned
Gods out of living clay and running water.
All other animals look downward; Man,
Alone,
erect, can raise his face toward Heaven.
The
Four Ages
The
Golden Age was first, a time that cherished
Of its own will justice and right; no law.
No punishment, was called for; fearfulness
Was quite unknown, and the bronze tablets held
No legal threatening; no suppliant throng
Studied a judge's face; there were no judges,
There did not need to be. Trees had not yet
Been cut and hollowed, to visit other shores.
Men were content at home, and had no towns
With moats and walls around them; and no trumpets
Blared out alarums; things like swords and helmets
Had not been heard of. No one needed soldiers.
People were unaggressive, and unanxious;
The years went by in peace. And Earth, untroubled,
Unharried by hoe or plowshare, brought forth all
That men had need for, and those men were happy,
Gathering berries from the mountain sides,
Cherries, or blackcaps, and the edible acorns.
Spring was forever, with a west wind blowing
Softly across the flowers no man had planted,
And Earth, unplowed, brought forth rich grain; the field,
Unfallowed, whitened with wheat, and there were rivers
Of milk, and rivers of honey, and golden nectar
Dripped from the dark-green oak-trees.
After Saturn
Was driven to the shadowy land of death,
And the world was under Jove, the Age of Silver
Came in, lower than gold, better than bronze.
Jove made the springtime shorter, added winter,
Summer, and autumn, the seasons as we know them.
That was the first time when the burnt air glowed
White-hot, or icicles hung down in winter.
And men built houses for themselves; the caverns,
The woodland thickets, and the bark-bound shelters
No longer served; and the seeds of grain were planted
In the long furrows, and the oxen struggled
Groaning and laboring under the heavy yoke.
Then
came the Age of Bronze, and dispositions
Took on aggressive instincts, quick to arm,
Yet not entirely evil. And last of all
The
Iron Age succeeded, whose base vein
Let loose all evil: modesty and truth
And righteousness fled earth, and in their place
Came trickery and slyness, plotting, swindling,
Violence and the damned desire of having.
Men spread their sails to winds unknown to sailors,
The pines came down their mountain-sides, to revel
And leap in the deep waters, and the ground,
Free, once, to everyone, like air and sunshine,
Was stepped off by surveyors. The rich earth,
Good giver of all the bounty of the harvest,
Was asked for more; they dug into her vitals,
Pried out the wealth a kinder lord had hidden
In Stygian shadow, all that precious metal,
The root of evil. They found the guilt of iron,
And gold, more guilty still. And War came forth
That uses both to fight with; bloody hands
Brandished the clashing weapons. Men lived on plunder.
Guest was not safe from host, nor brother from brother,
A man would kill his wife, a wife her husband,
Stepmothers, dire and dreadful, stirred their brews
With poisonous aconite, and sons would hustle
Fathers to death, and Piety lay vanquished,
And the maiden Justice, last of all immortals,
Fled from the bloody earth.
Heaven was no safer.
Giants attacked the very throne of Heaven,
Piled Pelion on Ossa, mountain on mountain
Up to the very stars. Jove struck them down
With thunderbolts, and the bulk of those huge bodies
Lay on the earth, and bled, and Mother Earth,
Made pregnant by that blood, brought forth new bodies,
And gave them, to recall her older offspring,
The forms of men. And this new stock was also
Contemptuous of gods, and murder-hungry
And violent. You would know they were sons of blood.
Apollo
and Daphne
Now
the first girl Apollo loved was Daphne,
Whose father was the river-god Peneus,
And this was no blind chance, but Cupid's malice.
Apollo, with pride and glory still upon him
Over the Python slain, saw Cupid bending
His tight-strung little bow. “O silly youngster,”
He said “What are you doing with such weapons?
Those are for grown-ups! The bow is for my shoulders;
I never fail in wounding beast or mortal,
And not so long ago I slew the Python
With countless darts; his bloated body covered
Acre on endless acre, and I slew him!
The torch, my boy, is enough for you to play with,
To get the love-fires burning. Do not meddle
With honors that are mine!” And Cupid answered:
“Your bow shoots everything, Apollo— maybe—
But mine will fix you! You are far above
All creatures living, and by just that distance
Your glory less than mine.” He shook his wings,
Soared high, came down to the shadows of Parnassus,
Drew from his quiver different kinds of arrows,
One causing love, golden and sharp and gleaming,
The other blunt, and tipped with lead, and serving
To drive all love away, and this blunt arrow
He used on Daphne, but he fired the other,
The sharp and golden shaft, piercing Apollo
Through bones, through marrow, and at once he loved
And she at once fled from the name of lover,
Rejoicing in the woodland hiding places
And spoils of beasts which she had taken captive,
A rival of Diana, virgin goddess.
She had many suitors, but she scorned them all;
Wanting no part of any man, she traveled
The pathless groves, and had no care whatever
For husband, love, or marriage. Her father often
Said, “Daughter, give me a son-in-law!” and “Daughter,
Give me some grandsons!” But the marriage torches
Were something hateful, criminal, to Daphne,
So she would blush, and put her arms around him,
And coax him: “Let me be a virgin always;
Diana’s father said she might. Dear father!
Dear father—please!” He yielded, but her beauty
Kept arguing against her prayer. Apollo
Loves at first sight; he wants to marry Daphne,
He hopes for what he wants—all wishful thinking!—
Is fooled by his own oracles. As stubble
Burns when the grain is harvested, as hedges
Catch fire from torches that a passer-by
Has brought too near, or left behind in the morning,
So the god burned, with all his heart, and burning
Nourished that futile love of his by hoping.
He sees the long hair hanging down her neck
Uncared for, says, “But what if it were combed?”
He gazes at her eyes—they shine like stars!
He gazes at her lips, and knows that gazing
Is not enough. He marvels at her fingers,
Her hands, her wrists, her arms, bare to the shoulder,
And what he does not see he thinks is better.
But still she flees him, swifter than the wind,
And when he calls she does not even listen:
“Don’t run away, dear nymph! Daughter of Peneus,
Don’t run away! I am no enemy,
Only your follower: don’t run away!
The lamb flees from the wolf, the deer the lion,
The dove, on trembling wing, flees from the eagle.
All creatures flee their foes. But I, who follow,
Am not a foe at all. Love makes me follow,
Unhappy fellow that I am, and fearful
You may fall down, perhaps, or have the briars
Make scratches on those lovely legs, unworthy
To be hurt so, and I would be the reason.
The ground is rough here. Run a little slower,
And I will run, I promise, a little slower.
Or wait a minute: be a little curious
Just who it is you charm. I am no shepherd,
No mountain-dweller, I am not a ploughboy,
Uncouth and stinking of cattle. You foolish girl,
You don’t know who it is you run away from,
That must be why you run. I am lord of Delphi
And Tenedos and Claros and Patara.
Jove is my father. I am the revealer
Of present, past and future; through my power
The lyre and song make harmony; my arrow
Is sure in aim—there is only one arrow surer,
The one that wounds my heart. The power of healing
Is my discovery; I am called the Healer
Through all the world: all herbs are subject to me.
Alas for me, love is incurable
With any herb; the arts which cure the others
Do me, their lord, no good!”
He would have said
Much more than this, but Daphne, frightened, left him
With many words unsaid, and she was lovely
Even in flight, her limbs bare in the wind,
Her garments fluttering, and her soft hair streaming,
More beautiful than ever. But Apollo,
Too young a god to waste his time in coaxing,
Came following fast. When a hound starts a rabbit
In an open field, one runs for game, one safety,
He has her, or thinks he has, and she is doubtful
Whether she’s caught or not, so close the margin,
So ran the god and girl, one swift in hope,
The other in terror, but he ran more swiftly,
Borne on the wings of love, gave her no rest,
Shadowed her shoulder, breathed on her streaming hair.
Her strength was gone, worn out by the long effort
Of the long flight; she was deathly pale, and seeing
The river of her father, cried “O help me,
If there is any power in the rivers,
Change and destroy the body which has given
Too much delight!” And hardly had she finished,
When her limbs grew numb and heavy, her soft breasts
Were closed with delicate bark, her hair was leaves,
Her arms were branches, and her speedy feet
Rooted and held, and her head became a tree top,
Everything gone except her grace, her shining.
Apollo loved her still. He placed his hand
Where he had hoped and felt the heart still beating
Under the bark; and he embraced the branches
As if they still were limbs, and kissed the wood,
And the wood shrank from his kisses, and the god
Exclaimed: “Since you can never be my bride,
My tree at least you shall be! Let the laurel
Adorn, henceforth, my hair, my lyre, my quiver:
Let Roman victors, in the long procession,
Wear laurel wreaths for triumph and ovation.
Beside Augustus’ portals let the laurel
Guard and watch over the oak, and as my head
Is always youthful, let the laurel always
Be green and shining!” He said no more. The laurel,
Stirring, seemed to consent, to be saying Yes.
There is a grove in Thessaly, surrounded
By woodlands with steep slopes; men call it Tempe.
Through this the Peneus River’s foamy waters
Rise below Pindus mountain. The cascades
Drive a fine smoky mist along the tree tops,
Frail clouds, or so it seems, and the roar of the water
Carries beyond the neighborhood. Here dwells
The mighty god himself, his holy of holies
Is under a hanging rock; it is here he gives
Laws to the nymphs, laws to the very water.
And here came first the streams of his own country
Not knowing what to offer, consolation
Or something like rejoicing: crowned with poplars
Sperchios came, and restless Enipeus,
Old Apidanus, Aeas and Amphrysos
The easy-going. And all the other rivers
That take their weary waters into oceans
All over the world, came there, and only one
Was absent, Inachus, hiding in his cavern,
Salting his stream with tears, oh, most unhappy,
Mourning a daughter lost. Her name was Io,
Who might, for all he knew, be dead or living,
But since he can not find her anywhere
He thinks she must be nowhere, and his sorrow
Fears for the worst.
The Story of
Tereus, Procne, and Philomela
The omens, though, were
baleful: neither Juno,
Nor Hymen, nor the Graces, blessed the marriage;
The Furies swung, or, maybe, brandished torches
Snatched from a funeral; the Furies lighted
The bridal bed; and above the bridal chamber
Brooded the evil hoot-owl. With such omens
Tereus and Procne married, with such omens
The bride and bridegroom soon were father and mother,
And Thrace rejoiced, and they rejoiced, and offered
Thanks to the gods, making the day of marriage,
The day of Itys’ birth, both festal days.
People never know, it seems.
Five years went by,
And Procne asked a favor of her husband:
“My lord, if any ways of mine have been
A source of satisfaction to my husband,
Let me go see my sister, or let her come
To visit us, with a promise to her father
Of quick return. The sight of my dear sister
Would be the finest present you could give me.”
So Tereus promptly had the ship made ready,
Sailed off to Athens, landed at Piraeus,
Found Pandion, and they joined hands in greeting
And wished each other well, and Tereus started
To explain the reasons of his coming there,
His wife’s request, and the expected promise
Of a stay not over-long, and, as they chatted,
Here Philomela came, in rich apparel,
In richer grace, as lovely as the naiads,
As lovely as the dryads of the woodlands,
As lovely, rather, as they would be, if only
They had such clothes as hers, and such a bearing.
And Tereus looked at her, and in that moment
Took fire, as ripe grain bums, or dry leaves burn,
Or hay stored in the hay-mow; and this tribute
She well deserved, but there were other reasons.
He was a passionate man, and all the Thracians
Are all too quick at loving; a double fire
Burnt in him, his own passion and his nation’s.
So his first impulse was to bribe her guardians,
Corrupt her faithful
nurse, or by rich presents,
Even if it cost him all his kingdom, win her,
Or take her, and defend what he had taken
By violent war. In that unbridled passion
There was nothing he would not dare, with the flame
bursting
Out of his breast. Delay, delay! He suffered,
Was all too eager, and when he spoke for Procne
Spoke for himself. Love made him eloquent,
If he went too far, he would lay the blame on Procne,
Saying she wished it so, and he added tears,
As if the tears were shed at her instructions!
The hearts of men have such blind darkness in them.
Tereus seems a most devoted husband,
So eager to please Procne, and wins praises,
The secret crime-contriver. Philomela
Is eager to go, wants the same thing, or seems to,
Wheedles her father, and fondles him, and coaxes,
And argues how much good it will do them both,
Her sister and her self (little she knows!)
If she can make the visit. And Tereus, watching,
Sees beyond what he sees: she is in his arms,
That is not her father whom her arms go around,
Not her father she is kissing. Everything
Is fuel to his fire. He would like to be
Her father, at that moment; and if he were
He would be as wicked a father as he is husband.
So Pandion says Yes, and Philomela,
Poor girl is happy, and thanks him; both his daughters,
She thinks, have won; they are losers, both his daughters,
But how was she to know?
And the Sun’s horses
Swung low to the West, and there was a great banquet,
Feasting, and wine in golden cups, then slumber;
And Tereus went to bed, and did not slumber,
In heat for Philomela, thinking of her,
The way she looked, the way she moved, her gestures,
Her visible charms, and what he has not seen,
Or not yet seen, at least he can imagine,
And does, and feeds his fires, and cannot slumber.
And morning came, and the old king and the younger
Shook hands before the leaving, and the older
Spoke through his tears: “Dear son, in all devotion,
Since both the sisters wish it, and since you
Appear to share their wish, I trust her to you.
I beg you, by your honor and our kinship,
Protect her with a father’s love, and send her
Safe home, as soon as may be, the sweet comfort
Of my declining years. However brief
Her visit, it will seem to me a long one.
And you, my Philomela, if you love me,
Come home to me soon!” And, saying so, he kissed her
With his last plea, and wept, and hands were joined
To bind the agreement, and one thing more, he told them,
Give all my love to Procne and to Itys,
And his voice broke, and underneath his sorrow
Foreboding lay.
And the painted ship went sailing
Over the sea, and Tereus, the savage,
Knew he had won, having, as passenger,
His heart’s desire, exults, can wait no more,
Or almost cannot wait, and looks her over
The way an eagle does, who has brought home
To his high nest, hooked by the cruel talons,
The prey, still warm, still living, the poor captive
Hopeless before the captor’s gloating gaze.
And now the voyage
ended, and the vessel
Was worn from travel and they came stepping down
To their own shores, and Tereus dragged her with him
To the deep woods, to some ramshackle building
Dark in that darkness, and he shut her in there,
Pale, trembling, fearing everything, and asking
Where was her sister? And he told her then
What he was going to do, and straightway did it,
Raped her, a virgin, all alone, and calling
For her father, for her sister, but most often
For the great gods. In vain. She shook and trembled
As a frightened lamb which a gray wolf has mangled
And cast aside, poor creature, to a safety
It cannot quite believe. She is like a dove
With her own blood all over her feathers, fearing
The talons that have pierced and left her. Soon
As sense comes back, she tears her loosened hair,
She beats her breast, wild as a woman in mourning,
Crying: “O wicked deed! O cruel monster,
Barbarian, savage! Were my father’s orders
Nothing to you, his tears, my sister’s love,
My own virginity, the bonds of marriage?
Now it is all confused, mixed up; I am
My sister’s rival a second-class wife, and you,
For better and worse, the husband of two women,
Procne my enemy now, at least she should be.
Why not have been my murderer? That crime
Would have been cleaner, have no treachery in it,
And I an innocent ghost. If those on high
Behold these things, if there are any gods,
If anything is left, not lost as I am,
What punishment you will pay me, late or soon!
Now that I have no shame, I will proclaim it.
Given the chance, I will go where people are,
Tell everybody; if you shut me here,
I will move the very woods and rocks to pity.
The air of Heaven will hear, and any god,
If there is any god in Heaven, will hear me.“
The words had their
effect. The cruel king
Was moved to a fierce anger, to equal fear;
The double drive of fear and anger drove him
To draw the sword, to catch her by the hair,
To pull the head back, tie the arms behind her,
And Philomela, at the sight of the blade,
Was happy, filled with hope, the thought of death
Most welcome: her throat was ready for the stroke.
But Tereus did not kill her; he seized her tongue
With pincers, though it cried against the outrage,
Babbled and made a sound something like Father,
till the sword cut it off. The mangled root
Quivered, the severed tongue along the ground
Lay quivering, making a little murmur,
Jerking and twitching, the way a serpent does
Run over by a wheel, and with its dying movement
Came to its mistress’ feet. And even then-
It seems too much to believe-even then, Tereus
Took her, and took her again, the injured body
Still giving satisfaction to his lust.
And after that, Tereus
went on to Procne,
And Procne asked, of course, about her sister
Asked where she was. And Tereus, with a groan,
Lamented, wept, and told some kind of story,
Saying that she was dead, oh, most convincing
With all his show of sorrow. Therefore Procne
Tore from her shoulders the robe with golden border,
Put on plain black, and built a tomb to honor
The spirit of her sister, and brought gifts
As funeral offerings to the fictive ghost,
Mourning a fate that should have been resented
Rather than mourned for.
And a year went by,
And what of Philomela? Guarded against flight,
Stone blocks around her cottage, no power of speech
To help her tell her wrongs, her grief has taught her
Sharpness of wit, and
cunning comes in trouble.
She had a loom to work with, and with purple
On a white background, wove her story in,
Her story in and out, and when it was finished,
Gave it to one old woman, with signs and gestures
To take it to the queen, so it was taken,
Unrolled and understood. Procne said nothing—
What could she say?—grief choked her utterance,
Passion her sense of outrage. There was no room
For tears, but for confusion only, and vengeance,
But something must be done, and in a hurry.
It was the time when
all the Thracian mothers
Held festival for Bacchus, and the night
Shared in their secrets; Rhodope by night
Resounded as the brazen cymbals clashed,
And so by night the queen went from her palace,
Armed for the rites of Bacchus, in all the dress
Of frenzy, trailing vines for head-dress, deer-skin
Down the left side, and a spear over the shoulder.
So, swiftly through the forest with attendants,
Comrades and worshippers in throngs, and driven
By madness, terrible in rage and anger,
Went Procne, went the Bacchanal and came
At last to the hidden cottage, came there shrieking,
“Hail Bacchus!” broke the doors in, found her sister,
Dressed her like all the others, hid her face
With ivy-leaves, and dragged her on, and brought her
Home to the palace.
And when Philomela
Saw where she was, she trembled and grew pale,
As pale as death, and Procne found her a place,
Took off the Bacchic trappings, and uncovered
Her sister’s features, white with shame, and took her
Into her arms, but Philomela could not
So much as lift her eyes to face her sister,
Her sister, whom she knew she had wronged. She kept
Her gaze on the ground, longing with all her heart
To have the power to call the gods to witness
It was not her fault, but something forced upon her.
She tried to say so with her hand. And Procne,
Burning, could not restrain her wrath; she scolded
Her sister’s weeping. “This is no time,” she told her,
“For tears, but for the sword, for something stronger
Than sword, if you have any such weapon on you.
I am prepared for any crime, my sister,
To burn the palace, and into the flaming ruin
Hurt Tereus, the author of our evils.
I would cut out his tongue, his eyes, cut off
The parts which brought you shame, inflict a thousand
Wounds on his guilty soul. I am prepared
For some great act of boldness, but what it is
I do not know, I wish I did.”
The answer
Came to her as her son came in, young Itys.
She looked at him with pitiless eyes; she thought
How like his father he is!
That was enough,
She knew, now, what she had to do, all burning
With rage inside her, but when the little fellow
Came close and put both arms around his mother,
And kissed her in appealing boyish fashion,
She was moved to tenderness; against her will,
Her eyes filled up with tears, her purpose wavered.
She knew it, and she looked at Philomela,
No more at Itys, then from one to the other,
Saying: “And why should one make pretty speeches,
The other be dumb, and ravished tongue unable
To tell of ravish? Since he calls me mother,
Why does she not say Sister? Whose wife are you,
Daughter of Pandion? Will you disgrace him,
Your husband, Tereus? But devotion to him
Is a worse crime.”
Without more words, a tigress
With a young fawn, she dragged the youngster with her
To a dark corner somewhere in the palace,
And Itys, who seemed to see his doom approaching,
Screamed, and held out his hands, with Mother, Mother!
And tried to put his little arms around her
But she, with never a change in her expression,
Drove the knife home
through breast, through side, one
wound,
Enough to kill him, but she made another,
Cutting the throat, and they cut up the body
Still living, still keeping something of the spirit,
And part of the flesh leaped in the boiling kettles,
Part hissed on turning skewers, and the room
Dripped blood.
And this was the feast they served to Tereus,
Who did not know, for the queen made up some story
About a ritual meal for husbands only,
Which even servants might not watch. High in the chair
Sat Tereus, proud, and feasting, almost greedy
On the flesh of his own flesh, and in his darkness
Of mind, he calls: “Bring Itys here!” and Procne
Cannot conceal her cruel joy; she is eager
To be the herald of her bloody murder.
“He has come in,” she answers, and he looks
Around, asks where the boy is, asks again,
Keeps calling, and Philomela, with hair all bloody,
Springs at him, and hurls the bloody head of Itys
Full in his father’s face. There was no time, ever,
When she would rather have had the use of her tongue,
The power to speak, to express her full rejoicing.
With a great cry he turns the table over,
Summons the snaky Furies from their valley
Deep in the pit of Styx. Now, if he could,
If he only could, he would open up his belly,
Eject the terrible feast: all he can do
Is weep, call himself the pitiful resting-place
Of his dear son. He draws the sword, pursues them,
Both Pandion’s daughters. They went flying from him
As if they were on wings. They were on wings!
One flew to the woods, the other to the roof-top,
And even so the red marks of the murder
Stayed on their breasts; the feathers were blood-colored.
Tereus, swift in grief and lust for vengeance,
Himself becomes a bird: a stiff crest rises
Upon his head, and a huge beak juts forward,
Not too unlike a sword. He is the hoopoe,
The bird who looks like war.
The
Story of Arachne
Minerva heard the
story, and praised the song
And praised the righteous anger, but was thinking:
“It is very well this praise, but I myself
Deserve some praise; I too should show resentment
Toward those who flout my power.” She was thinking
About Arachne, a Maeonian girl
Who, she had heard, was boasting of her talent,
Calling it better even than Minerva’s,
In spinning and weaving wool. The girl was no one
In birth, nor where she came from; her father, Idmon,
Was a dyer, steeping thirsty wool with crimson.
Her mother was dead, a common sort of person,
With the same sort of husband, but the daughter
Was famous for her skill and it had traveled
Through all the Lydian towns, though she herself
Lived in the little village of Hypaepa.
The nymphs themselves would often watch in wonder,
Leaving their vineyards or the river waters,
To see her finished work, or watch her working
With such deft gracefulness. It did not matter
Whether she wound the
yarn in balls, or shaped it
With skillful fingers, reaching to the distaff
For more material, all soft and cloudy,
Transfigured to long threads, or whether she twisted
The spindle with quick thumb, or plied the needle.
You would know, most surely, that Minerva taught her
Yet she would not admit it, seemed offended
At the suggestion of so great a teacher:
“I challenge her, and if I lose, there’s nothing
I would refuse to pay!“
Disguised, Minerva
Came, an old woman with gray hair, half crippled,
Hobbling along with a cane to help her footsteps,
Telling Arachne: “Old age, let me tell you,
Has some things we should never run away from:
Experience comes with time; hear my advice:
Confine your reputation as a weaver
To human beings, but defer to a goddess,
Be humble in her presence, ask her pardon,
You reckless creature, for your arrogance.
She will be gracious, if you only ask it.”
But no: Arachne glowered, stared her down,
Let fall her threads to free her hands for striking,
Controlled herself a little, but spoke in anger:
“You silly old fool to come to me! Your trouble
Is having lived too long. Your daughters, maybe,
Or your sons’ wives, perhaps, might listen to you.
I can look after myself; you are getting nowhere,
You cannot change my mind with all that nonsense.
As for your wonderful goddess, why, where is she?
Why does she dodge the challenge I have offered?”
“She is here,” Minerva answered. She was there,
No longer an old woman, but a presence
Whom the nymphs worshipped and the native women.
Arachne was not awed, though she was startled,
Blushing and paling, as the sky at morning
Shows crimson first, then whitens. Still Arachne
Maintains defiance, with a stupid passion
Rushing to doom. Minerva takes the challenge,
Abandons admonition. The looms are set,
The fine warp stretched, the web is bound to the beam,
Reeds keep the threads apart, the shuttle threads
Shrill through the woof, the busy fingers plying.
With robes tucked up they speed the work, their hands,
Deft at the task, fly back and forth, the labor
Made less by eagerness. From the dark purple
The threads shade off to lighter pastel colors,
Like rainbow after storm, a thousand colors
Shining and blending, so the eye could never
Detect the boundary line, and yet the arcs
Are altogether different. Threads of gold
Were woven in, and each loom told a story.
Minerva showed the hill
of Mars in Athens
And that old conflict over the name of the land.
There sat the twelve great gods of the high Heaven,
On lofty thrones in majesty, and Jove
Presiding, royal, above the well-known faces.
And there stood Neptune, smiting with his trident
The cliff of rock, and the gush of the sea-water
Proving his title to the rule of the city.
To herself Minerva gave the spear, the helmet,
The aegis for her breastplate, and the earth,
Under her spear, produced the gray-green olive,
Hung thick with fruit, and the gods looked on.
The work has Victory’s ultimatum in it,
But that her challenger may have full warning
What her reward will be for her daring rashness,
In the four corners the goddess weaves four pictures,
Bright in their color, each one saying Danger!
In miniature design. One corner shows
Haemus and Rhodope, cold mountains now,
Who once, audacious
mortals, had assumed
The names of gods most high; a second corner
Portrays the fate of the Pygmy queen, whom Juno
Turned into a crane, made to attack the people
She once ruled over. And she showed, beside,
Antigone, who dared compete with Juno,
Whom Juno made a stork, white-winged, and clashing
Her clacking bill; much good it did her
That she was born in Troy, or that her father
Was king Laomedon. In the fourth corner
Cinyras tried to embrace the temple-steps
That once had been his daughters; he lies on stone,
He seems to weep. All this the goddess ended
With a border of peaceful olive-wreath around it,
Her very signature.
Arachne also
Worked in the gods, and their deceitful business
With mortal girls. There was Europa, cheated
By the bull’s guise; you would think him real, the
creature,
Real as the waves he breasted, and the girl
Seems to be looking back to the lands of home,
Calling her comrades, lifting her feet a little
To keep them above the lift and surge of the water.
There was Asterie, held by the eagle,
And Leda, Iying under the wings of the swan,
Antiope, pregnant with twins, whose father
Was a satyr, so she thought, but it was really
Jove in disguise again; he took Alcmena
In the semblance of Amphitryon; he came
To Danae in a shower of gold; he was
A flame to Aegina, to Mnemosyne
A shepherd, a mottled snake to Deo’ s daughter.
Neptune, Jove’s brother, was another cheater,
A bull to one Aeolian girl a river
To another, or a ram; a stallion to Ceres,
The fair-haired gentle mother of the grain;
The snake-haired mother of the winged horse
Received him as a winged bird; Melantho
Took him as dolphin. To them all Arachne
Gave their own features and a proper background.
Apollo, too, was there, a country boy
At times, or a shepherd, deluding Isse so,
At times a hawk, at times a tawny lion.
And she worked Bacchus in, whose bunch of grapes
Deceived Erigone, and there was Saturn,
As horse, to father Chiron. Flowers and ivy
Ran round the border as the work was ended.
Neither Minerva, no,
nor even Envy
Could find a flaw in the work; the fair-haired goddess
Was angry now, indeed, and tore the web
That showed the crimes of the gods, and with her shuttle
Struck at Arachne’s head, and kept on striking,
Until the daughter of Idmon could not bear it,
Noosed her own neck, and hung herself. Minerva
At last was moved to pity, and raised her, saying:
“Live, wicked girl; live on, but hang forever,
And, just to keep you thoughtful for the future,
This punishment shall be enforced for always
On all your generations.” As she turned,
She sprinkled her with hell-bane, and her hair
Fell off, and nose and ears fell off, and head
Was shrunken, and the body very tiny,
Nothing but belly, with little fingers clinging
Along the side as legs, but from the belly
She still kept spinning; the spider has not forgotten
The arts she used to practice.
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