she sealed the wicked missive with her signet,
dampened—her mouth was dry—by flowing tears.
Shamefaced, she called a servant to her side
and gave him orders in a shaky voice:
“Take these, most faithful one, to our—”
and after a long pause, she got out,
“—brother.”
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She dropped the tablets she was giving him,
but sent them anyway—despite that omen.
And when he thought it was appropriate,
the servant gave the message to her brother,
who read it halfway through, then threw it down,
astonished and enraged by what he’d read,
and scarcely able to restrain himself
from tearing out the frightened servant’s throat:
“Flee while you can,” Maeander’s grandson said,
“you agent of my sister’s filthy lust—
840
if your death were not linked to our dishonor,
then surely you would die, you vicious rogue!”
He fled in terror, bringing to his mistress
her brother’s fierce response. When she heard the news
of his rejection, Byblis lost all color
and shivered uncontrollably from chills.
As soon as she became herself again,
her passion for her brother came back too,
and barely audible, she gave it voice:
“Deserved, indeed! Why have I been so foolish
850
as to reveal my very soul to him!
So swiftly to set down upon the page
what should have been concealed! I should have tried
to understand his feelings for me first,
with speech that hinted but did not commit.
“I should have checked which way the wind was blowing
before I set my sails out, to be safe;
I set them out too soon; a wind came up
and now I have been driven on the rocks;
the whole force of the ocean overwhelms me,
860
and I have no way to regain my course.
“By unambiguous omens I was warned
not to give in to my desires, when,
while ordering my servant to deliver
the letter, it—and all my hopes—both fell.
Should I have changed the day—or my whole purpose?
“Better to change the day! Almighty Jove
admonished me in no uncertain terms,
which I would not have missed, had I been sane.
I should have spoken to him, and confessed
870
the feelings that I have for him in person,
and not put them in writing in the wax.
He would have seen his tearful lover’s face;
I could have said much more than any letter.
“With no encouragement, I could have thrown
my arms around his neck, and if he spurned me,
I would have made it seem like I was dying,
and clinging to his knees, begged for my life.
“I should have left nothing unattempted:
though any of my stratagems could fail,
the lot of them together might prevail
against the hardness of my brother’s heart.
The fault—it may be—of my messenger,
ineptly showing up at the wrong time,
seeking him out when he was not at leisure,
I’m sure of it.
“All this has injured me.
But after all, he is no tiger’s son
with heart of iron or of adamant,
nor was he suckled by a lioness.
He will be overcome! I will pursue him
once more, and not give up while I have breath!
“If I could just undo what I have done,
that would have been best: not to have begun;
the second best is now for me to do
all that it takes to see this journey through.
“For if I now should alter my intent
he could not think of me as innocent,
and if I give him up now, I must seem
a light thing, undeserving of esteem,
or else a temptress trying every way
900
she knows to lead the virtuous astray.
He will not think I have within my breast
that god whose urgent flames give me no rest,
but rather that I am provoked by lust.
“Nothing I do now will regain his trust,
since he has read the letters that I traced;
desire revealed may never be erased.
Though I do nothing more, I must appear
guilty to him; with hope, and without fear,
I may still win my bliss and end my pain,
910
and nothing to lose means only much to gain.”
She spoke, and her confusion was so great
that while she wept for what she had attempted,
she wanted to attempt it yet again;
at every approach, rejection came.
Her brother fled his homeland, and his sister’s
abominations; when her grim pursuit
seemed endless to him, he went off and founded
a city of his own on foreign soil.
And then, they say, she truly lost her mind,
920
and ripped apart the garments on her breast
and beat her arms and shoulders in her fury;
her madness unconcealed now, she confesses
the hope of her forbidden love, and flees
her homeland and its now-detested hearth,
and sets out after her self-exiled brother.
It is as when your devotees, O Bacchus,
the frenzied women of Ismaria,
all come together at your triennial rites;
not otherwise the women of Bibassus
930
saw Byblis raving all across the fields.
And afterward, she roamed through Caria,
and among the Leleges and Lycians.
Now she has passed Cragus and Limyre,
and the river Xanthus, and that mountain range
the fire-breathing Chimaera inhabits,
who boasts a lion’s head and serpent’s tail.
The woods grew sparse. Worn out by your pursuit,
you tumble to the ground, and lie there, Byblis,
your unbound hair on the unyielding earth,
940
and your mouth pressed against the fallen leaves.
Often the Lelegeian nymphs attempted
to lift her up in their sympathetic arms,
and urged upon the unresponsive girl
the remedies they had for lovesickness;
Byblis just lies there silently and clutches
the grasses in her fingers, as she waters
the vegetation with her flowing tears.
The naiads, it is said, replaced that font
with one incapable of running dry:
950
what greater gift could naiads have to give?
As pitch drops drip from gashes in pine bark,
as gummy asphalt oozes from dense soil,
as frozen water, touched by the soft breath
of the west wind, now melts beneath the sun,
so Byblis, quite consumed by her own tears,
is changed at once into a flowing spring
which, in these parts, still bears its mistress’ name,
and has its source beneath a shrub-oak tree.
Iphis and Isis
Rumor might very well have spread the news
960
of this unprecedented transformation
throughout the hundred towns of Crete, if they
had not just had a wonder of their own
to talk about—the change that came to Iphis.
>
For, once upon a time, there lived in Phaestus,
not far from the royal capital at Cnossus,
a freeborn plebeian named Ligdus, who
was otherwise unknown and undistinguished,
with no more property than fame or status,
and yet devout, and blameless in his life.
970
His wife was pregnant. When her time had come,
he gave her his instructions with these words:
“There are two things I pray to heaven for
on your account: an easy birth and a son.
The other fate is much too burdensome,
for daughters need what Fortune has denied us:
a dowry.
“Therefore—and may God prevent
this happening, but if, by chance, it does
and you should be delivered of a girl,
unwillingly I order this, and beg
980
pardon for my impiety—But let it die!”
He spoke, and tears profusely bathed the cheeks
of the instructor and instructed both.
Telethusa continued to implore
her husband, praying him not to confine
their hopes so narrowly—to no avail,
for he would not be moved from his decision.
Now scarcely able to endure the weight
of her womb’s burden, as she lay in bed
at midnight, a dream-vision came to her:
990
the goddess Io stood (or seemed to stand)
before her troubled bed, accompanied
with solemn pomp by all her mysteries.
She wore her crescent horns upon her brow
and a garland made of gleaming sheaves of wheat,
and a queenly diadem; behind her stood
the dog-faced god Anubis, and divine
Bubastis (who defends the lives of cats),
and Apis as a bull clothed in a hide
of varied colors, with Harpocrates,
1000
the god whose fingers, pressed against his lips,
command our silence; and one often sought
by his devoted worshipers—Osiris;
and the asp, so rich in sleep-inducing drops.
She seemed to wake, and saw them all quite clearly.
These were the words the goddess spoke to her:
“O Telethusa, faithful devotee,
put off your heavy cares! Disobey your spouse,
and do not hesitate, when Lucina
has lightened the burden of your labor,
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to raise this child, whatever it will be.
I am that goddess who, when asked, delivers,
and you will have no reason to complain
that honors you have paid me were in vain.”
After instructing her, the goddess left.
The Cretan woman rose up joyfully,
lifted her hands up to the stars, and prayed
that her dream-vision would be ratified.
Then going into labor, she brought forth
a daughter—though her husband did not know it.
1020
The mother (with intention to deceive)
told them to feed the boy. Deception prospered,
since no one knew the truth except the nurse.
The father thanked the gods and named the child
for its grandfather, Iphis; since this name
was given men and women both, his mother
was pleased, for she could use it honestly.
So from her pious lie, deception grew.
She dressed it as a boy—its face was such
that whether boy or girl, it was a beauty.
1030
Meanwhile, the years went by, thirteen of them:
your father, Iphis, has arranged for you
a marriage to the golden-haired Ianthe,
the daughter of a Cretan named Telestes,
the maid most praised in Phaestus for her beauty.
The two were similar in age and looks,
and had been taught together from the first.
First love came unexpected to both hearts
and wounded them both equally—and yet
their expectations were quite different:
1040
Ianthe can look forward to a time
of wedding torches and of wedding vows,
and trusts that one whom she believes a man
will be her man. Iphis, however, loves
with hopeless desperation, which increases
in strict proportion to its hopelessness,
and burns—a maiden—for another maid!
And scarcely holding back her tears, she cries,
“Oh, what will be the end reserved for Iphis,
gripped by a strange and monstrous passion known
1050
to no one else? If the gods had wished to spare me,
they should have; if they wanted to destroy me,
they should have given me a natural affliction.
“Cows do not burn for cows, nor mares for mares;
the ram will have his sheep, the stag his does,
and birds will do the same when they assemble;
there are no animals whose females lust
for other females! I wish that I were dead!
“That Crete might bring forth monsters of all kinds,
Queen Pasiphaë was taken by a bull,
1060
yet even that was male-and-female passion!
My love is much less rational than hers,
to tell the truth. At least she had the hope
of satisfaction, taking in the bull
through guile, and in the image of a cow,
thereby deceiving the adulterer!
“If every form of ingenuity
were gathered here from all around the world,
if Daedalus flew back on waxen wings,
what could he do? Could all his learnèd arts
1070
transform me from a girl into a boy?
Or could you change into a boy, Ianthe?
“But really, Iphis, pull yourself together,
be firm, cast off this stultifying passion:
accept your birth—unless you would deceive
yourself as well as others—look for love
where it is proper to, as a woman should!
Hope both creates and nourishes such love;
reality deprives you of all hope.
“No watchman keeps you from her dear embrace,
1080
no husband’s ever-vigilant concern,
no father’s fierceness; nor does she herself
deny the gifts that you would have from her.
And yet you are denied all happiness,
nor could it have been otherwise if all
the gods and men had labored in your cause.
“But the gods have not denied me anything;
agreeably, they’ve given what they could;
my father wishes for me what I wish,
she and her father both would have it be;
1090
but Nature, much more powerful than they are,
wishes it not—sole source of all my woe!
“But look—the sun has risen and the day
of our longed-for nuptials dawns at last!
Ianthe will be mine—and yet not mine:
we die of thirst here at the fountainside.
“Why do you, Juno, guardian of brides,
and you, O Hymen, god of marriage, come
to these rites, which cannot be rites at all,
for no one takes the bride, and both are veiled?”
1100
She said no more. Nor did her chosen burn
less fiercely as she prayed you swiftly come,
O god of marriage.
Fearing what you sought,
Telethusa postponed the marriage day
wi
th one concocted pretext and another,
a fictive illness or an evil omen.
But now she had no more excuses left,
and the wedding day was only one day off.
She tears the hair bands from her daughter’s head
and from her own, and thus unbound, she prayed
1110
while desperately clinging to the altar:
“O holy Isis, who art pleased to dwell
and be worshiped at Paraetonium,
at Pharos, in the Mareotic fields,
and where the Nile splits into seven branches;
deliver us, I pray you, from our fear!
“For I once saw thee and thy sacred emblems,
O goddess, and I recognized them all
and listened to the sound of brazen rattles
and kept your orders in my memory.
1120
“And that my daughter still looks on the light,
and that I have not suffered punishment,
why, this is all your counsel and your gift;
now spare us both and offer us your aid.”
Warm tears were in attendance on her words.
The altar of the goddess seemed to move—
it did move, and the temple doors were shaken,
and the horns (her lunar emblem) glowed with light,
and the bronze rattles sounded.
Not yet secure,
but nonetheless delighted by this omen,
1130
the mother left with Iphis following,
as was her wont, but now with longer strides,
darker complexion, and with greater force,
a keener countenance, and with her hair
shorter than usual and unadorned,
and with more vigor than a woman has.
And you who were so recently a girl
are now a boy! Bring gifts to the goddess!
Now boldly celebrate your faith in her!
They bring the goddess gifts and add to them
1140
a votive tablet with these lines inscribed:
GIFTS IPHIS PROMISED WHEN SHE WAS A MAID
TRANSFORMED INTO A BOY HE GLADLY PAID
The next day’s sun revealed the great wide world
with Venus, Juno, and Hymen all together
gathered beneath the smoking nuptial torches,
and Iphis in possession of Ianthe.
BOOK X
THE SONGS OF ORPHEUS
Orpheus and Eurydice The catalogue of trees Cyparissus The songs of Orpheus Proem Ganymede Hyacinthus The Propoetides and the Cerastae Pygmalion Myrrha Venus and Adonis (1) Atalanta and Hippomenes Venus and Adonis (2)
Orpheus and Eurydice
From there, dressed in his saffron mantle, Hymen
went on his way, traversed the boundless heavens
until he came to Thrace, where he’d been summoned
by the voice of Orpheus—to no avail,
for though the god appeared, he did not bring