Ovid: Ibis
Translated by A. S. Kline ã2003 All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
(Translator’s note: I have attempted to identify and index all the mythological and historical references in Ibis, but some eluded me, and I may consequently have been guilty of mistranslation through lack of a context. If anyone identifies any of the missing references or disagrees with the translation please let me know by e-mail.)
Contents
Ibis:1-40 Preliminaries at the Altar: The
Enemy
Ibis:41-104
Preliminaries at the Altar: The Invocation
Ibis:105-134 The
Litany of Maledictions: The Denial Of Benefits
Ibis:135-162 The
Litany of Maledictions: Vengeance From The Grave
Ibis:163-208 The
Litany of Maledictions: His Enemy After Death
Ibis:209-250 The
Litany of Maledictions: His Enemy’s Fate
Ibis:251-310 The
Litany of Maledictions: Ancient Torments
Ibis:311-364 The
Litany of Maledictions: Ancient Torments
Ibis:365-412 The
Litany of Maledictions: Ancient Torments
Ibis:413-464 The
Litany of Maledictions: Ancient Torments
Ibis:465-540 The
Litany of Maledictions: Ancient Torments
Ibis:541-596 The
Litany of Maledictions: Ancient Torments
Ibis:597-644 The
Litany of Maledictions: Concluding Words
Until
now, now that I’ve reached my fifties,
all
my Muse’s poetry has been harmless:
and
no letter of Ovid’s exists, of the thousands
written,
that can be interpreted as hostile:
and
my books have hurt no one but myself:
the
author’s own life was ruined by his ‘Art’.
One
person alone (and this itself is a great wrong)
won’t
grant me the title of an honest man.
Whoever
it is (for I’ll be silent still as yet about his name)
he
forces my novice hand to take up weapons.
He
won’t let me, a man banished to the frozen
source
of the north wind, hide myself away in exile:
and
he, inexorably, disturbs the wound of a man
seeking
peace, bandies my name about the forum:
won’t
let the companion of my marriage bed mourn,
the
ruin of her living husband, without troubling her,
and
while I cling to the shattered fragments of my boat,
he
fights for the planks from my shipwreck:
this
robber, who ought to quench the sudden flame,
looks
for plunder here in the middle of the fire.
He
works so there might be no succour for an aged fugitive:
ah,
how much more he himself deserves my misfortune!
The
gods are kinder! And to me He’s by
far the greatest,
who
did not wish my path to be that of poverty.
So
let thanks be expressed for that, whenever possible,
and
may I always deal with so merciful a heart.
Pontus might hear it: perhaps
might see to it too,
that
the earth nearest me acts as my witness.
But
may you who trample on me, violently, in my fall,
be
made wretched for it! I’ll be your dearest enemy.
Moisture
will sooner cease to conflict with fire,
the
sun’s light be merged with that of the moon:
one
part of the sky bring east and west winds too,
warm
south winds blow out of the frozen pole:
spring
with autumn, summer with winter, mix,
dawn
and sunset lie in the same part of the sky:
new
harmony rise with smoke, that an ancient
quarrel
divides, from the brothers’
blazing pyre:
than
you and I lay down, in a friendship that you shattered
by
your crimes, these weapons we’ve assumed, cruel one.
We’ll
enjoy that peace, while life remains to me,
that
lies between the wolves and the defenceless flock.
First
I’ll wage a war in these verses I’ve begun,
though
it’s not the thing to go to battle in this metre:
and
as the spear of a soldier, who’s not fighting mad
as
yet, buries itself deep in the yellow sand,
so
I’ll not hurl my sharpened steel at you as yet,
my
shaft won’t seek your hateful life at once:
I’ll
not speak your name or actions in this work,
but
let you hide whom you are, for a little longer.
Then,
if you persist, unrestrained iambics will hurl
my
missiles at you, stained with Lycambean
blood.
Now,
as Battiades cursed his enemy Ibis,
I’ll
curse you, and yours, in the same way.
And
like him I’ve involved my poem with hidden matters:
I’ve
followed him, though I’m unused to this sort of thing.
Its
convolutions are uttered in imitation of those
in
Ibis, forgetful of my own custom and taste.
And
since, when asked, I’m not saying who you are, as yet,
you
too, in the meantime, can take the name of Ibis:
and
as my verse will reflect something of my nights,
so
may the sequence of your days be wholly dark.
Have
this read to you on your birthday, and at new
year,
by anyone whose lips have no need for lies.
Gods
of earth and sea, who maintain the good
between
the disparate poles, where Jupiter rules,
I
beg this of you: bend all your thoughts to this,
and
let my wishes carry their weight with you:
and
you earth itself, and the waves of ocean,
and
the highest sky itself, approve my prayers:
and
the stars, and that form clothed with rays of sunlight,
and
you Moon, that never glittered brighter in your orbit,
and
Night whom we revere for the beauty of your shadows:
and
you who spin your fatal work with
triple thumbs,
and
you the stream of waters, not to
be named in vain,
that
glides with dread murmurs through infernal valleys,
and
you with your hair bound by
writhing snakes,
who
sit before the shadowy doors of the prison:
you
too, the lower powers, Fauns, Satyrs, Lares,
the
rivers, and the nymphs and semi-divine races:
appear,
at the last, in our presence, all you gods,
old
and new, from out the ancient chaos,
while
dread charms are sung by treacherous mouths,
and
anger and grief act out their proper parts.
All,
in order, show your assent to my desires,
and
let there be no part of my prayer that fails.
And
let it be fulfilled, I beg: so it may be thought
not
my word, but a speech of the race of Pasiphae.
And
I’ll have recounted these punishments, and he’ll
endure
them, let his misery be greater for my skill!
And
let the prayers of execration harm his false
name
no less, nor the great gods be less inclined to stir:
I
curse him as Ibis, whom the mind perceives,
who
knows he’s earned these curses by his deeds.
No
delay is mine: I act as priest with sure prayer.
Whoever
is at my rites, show favour to my words:
whoever
is at my rites, speak your words of mourning,
and
with wet cheeks begin your weeping for Ibis:
and
run with every ill, and on stumbling feet,
and
cloak all your bodies with black garments!
You
too, why hesitate to don the fatal bands? Now
your
funeral altar’s ready, as you yourself can see.
Your
cortège is prepared: no delay to the sad prayers:
dread
sacrifice, relinquish your throat to my knives.
Let
earth deny its fruits to you, the rivers their waves,
let
the winds and the breezes deny you their breath.
Let
there be no heat to the sun, for you, no light for you
from
the moon, let all the bright stars forsake your eyes.
Nor
let fire or air offer themselves to you,
nor
earth or ocean grant you a way.
Exiled,
wander helpless, across the alien thresholds,
seek
out scant nourishment with a trembling mouth.
Body
never free of ills, mind of grievous sickness,
night
be worse than day for you, and day than night.
May
you be always pitiable, and yet let no one pity:
let
men and women take delight in your adversity.
Let
hatred for your tears be on you, be so fit to stink,
that
when you might have known the worst of ills,
you’ll
suffer more. And be, what’s rare, devoid
of
common charity, a face offensive to your own fate.
And
let no reason fail, of the many, for your dying:
yet
life be forced to shun the death you long for:
and
your spirit struggle long to leave your tortured
body,
and interminable delay torment it first.
Let
this come to pass. Just now, himself, Apollo
gave me
an
omen of the future, a bird flew from the mournful left.
I’ll
consider the gods influenced by what I vow, and I’ll
always
be nourished, traitor, by expectation of your death.
And
first let that day, that comes too slow for me,
take
away this life, often sought to excess by you,
that
this grief might have the power to vanish in a moment,
and
heal my hateful hours, and these hated days of mine.
While
Thracians fight with bows, Iazyges with spears,
while
the Ganges runs warm, and Danube cold:
while
mountains produce oaks, and plains soft grass,
while
the Tuscan Tiber flows with its
clear waters,
I’ll
wage war on you: death will not end my anger, rather
among
the shades it will set a cruel weapon in my hands.
Then,
too, when I shall be dissolved in empty air,
my
bloodless ghost will still revile all your ways,
then,
too, my remembering shadow will pursue
remedy
for your deeds, and my bony form your face.
Whether,
as I’d not wish, I’m exhausted by long years,
whether
I’m dissolved in death by my own hand:
whether
I’m lost, shipwrecked by mighty waves,
while
the foreign fishes feed on my entrails:
whether
wandering birds pick at my limbs:
whether
wolves stain their jaws with my blood:
whether
any will deign to place me in the earth,
or
give my corpse in vain to the common pyre:
wherever
I may be, I’ll strive to break from Styx’s
shores,
and,
in vengeance, stretch an icy hand to where you are.
You’ll
see me watching, in the shades of silent nights,
appearing
as a vision, I’ll drive away your sleep.
Whatever
you do, I’ll flit before your lips and eyes,
and
moan so there can be no peace in your house.
Cruel
whips, and twining snakes, will hiss, and funeral
torches,
forever smoke before your guilty face.
Living,
you’ll be haunted by the furies, dead as well,
and
the shorter then will be your punishment in life.
Your
funeral will not affect you or your tears: you’ll forgo
your
life, unlamented: and the mob will all applaud
while
you are dragged away, at the executioners’ hands,
and
their hooks are buried deep in your bones.
Let
the flames that snatch at all men, flee from you:
let
the honest earth reject your hated corpse. May
the
cruel vulture tear your entrails, beak and claw,
and
the greedy dogs rip out your treacherous heart,
and
let there be (though you may be proud to be so
loved)
a quarrel for your body, among the wolves.
May
you be in a place far from Elysian
Fields,
and
be exiled, where the guilty host abide.
Sisyphus is there: he rolls and
retrieves his stone:
and
Ixion, beaten, driven by his
wheel’s swift circling,
and
Tityus, stretched across nine
acres, head to toe,
destined
to offer his entrails evermore to carrion birds.
and
the Belides who always bear
water-jars on their shoulders,
that
savage crowd, the daughters-in-law of exiled Aegyptos.
Tantalus, Pelop’s father, always reaches for
the fruit there,
and
water overflowing forever, forever torments him.
There
let one of the Furies rake your
flanks with her whip,
till
the measure of your sins has been confessed:
another
give your scored body to her hellish snakes:
the
third one scorch your smoking cheeks with fire.
Be
tortured by noxious shades in a thousand ways,
and
Aeacus be gifted in forming your
punishments.
The
torment in the old tales be transferred to you:
let
you be the reason for the ancients to be at peace.
You
take Sisyphus’s place: he’ll grant you his weight to roll:
now
your new limbs will turn Ixion’s swift wheel:
and
here the one who snatches vainly at branch and wave,
here
the one that feeds the birds with his uneaten entrails.
Let
no second death end the torments of this death,
let
there be no final hour to all these ills.
Let
me prophesy as few of them as the leaves one might gather
from
Ida, or drops of flowing water from
the Libyan Sea.
For
there could never be as many flowers in Sicilian Hybla,
or
yellow crocuses, I would say, in Cilician
country,
nor
winter shudder as much from swift Northerlies,
those
that make Mount Athos white with all
their hail:
as
all the torments you should undergo that could be recalled
by
my voice, out of this mouth that adds to them.
Ah,
let as many be yours, you wretch, and such disaster,
that
even I might be counted on to be reduced to tears.
Those
tears will make me endlessly blessed:
those
tears will be sweeter, then, to me than laughter.
You
were born unfortunate (the gods willed it so),
and
no star was kind or beneficent at your birth.
Venus did not shine, nor Jupiter, in that hour,
neither
Moon nor Sun were favourably placed,
nor
did Mercury, whom that bright Maia bore
to
great Jove, offer his fires in
any useful aspect.
Cruel
Mars that promises no peace, lowered
down,
and
that planet of aged Saturn,
with his scythe.
And
the day of your birth was dark and impure,
overcast
with cloud, so you would only see sadness.
This
is the day to which, in our history, the fatal
Allia gives it name: Ibis’s day brought
ruin to our people.
As
soon as he’d fallen from his mother’s foul
womb,
his vile body lay on Cinyphian
soil,
a
night-owl sat over against him on the heights,
and
uttered dire sounds in a funereal voice,.
At
once the Furies washed him in
marsh water,
where
a water channel ran from the Stygian
stream,
and
smeared venom from a snake of Erebus
on his breast,
and
clapped their bloodstained hands together thrice.
They
moistened the child’s throat with bitches’ milk:
that
was the first nourishment in the boy’s mouth:
from
it the fosterling drank it’s nurse’s fury,
and
howled with a dog’s cry over all the city.
They
bound his limbs with dark-coloured bands,
snatched
from an accursed abandoned pyre:
and,
lest it lie unsupported on the naked earth,
they
propped his tender head on a hard
stone.
Then
to make his eyelids retract they brought brands
made
of green twigs close to his eyes, close to the lids.
The
child wept when he was touched by bitter smoke,
while
one of the three sisters spoke, as follows:
‘We
have set these tears flowing for all time, in you,
and
they’ll always have sufficient reason to fall.’
She
spoke: but ordered Clotho to empower
the future,
and
she spun the dark fateful thread with her hand:
and
so as not to speak a lengthy prophecy with her lips,
she
said: ‘There’ll be a poet who will sing your fate.’
I
am that poet: from me you’ll learn your torments,
let
the gods grant you strength according only to my words:
and
let weighty matters follow from my verses,
that
you’ll experience with certain grief.
May
you not be tortured without ancient precedent,
nor
your troubles be less than those of the Trojans,
and
may you suffer pain as great as Philoctetes,
heir
to Club-bearing Hercules, from
venom’s torment.
Nor
let your grief be less than Telephus’,
who drank from
the
doe’s teat, and armed received a wound, unarmed help:
or
he who fell headlong from his horse in the Aleian
field,
Philopoimen, whose character
was nearly his own ruin.
May
you know what Phoenix knew,
and, robbed of sight,
find
your perilous way with the help of a stick.
Nor
see more than Oedipus whom his daughter guided,
both
her parents being acknowledged sinners:
be
blind as Tiresias, the old
man famous for Apollo’s art,
after
he’d acted as judge of the gods’ playful quarrel:
and
as that man, Phineus, by whose
command a dove of Pallas
was
sent out to lead the way, and be a guide to the Argo:
and
Polymestor, lacking eyes,
that had viewed gold sinfully,
the
father giving them as funeral gifts to his murdered child:
and
like Polyphemus, Etna’s shepherd, whose blinding,
Telemus, son of Eurymus,
prophesied before the event:
like
the two sons of Phineus, from
whom he took the same
light
he gave: as the faces of Thamyris
and Demodocus.
May
someone sever your genitals, as Saturn,
when
he was born, severed those of Uranus.
Nor
let Neptune in the swelling waves
be kinder to you
than
to him whose brother and wife were turned into birds,
or
to Ulysses, that cunning man,
whom Ino, Semele’s sister,
pitied
as he clung to the shattered timbers of his raft.
Or,
lest your flesh shall have known only this one manner
of
punishment, let it be split and dragged apart by horses:
or
you yourself suffer what the man, who thought to be free
by
disgracing Rome, endured from the Carthaginian
leader.
Nor
let divine power be prompt to your relief, just as
the
altars of Jupiter brought Hercules
no profit.
And
as Thessalus leapt from the
heights of Ossa,
you
too will throw yourself from the stony cliff.
Or
like Cychreus, who snatched Eurylochus’ crown,
let
your body be food for ravenous serpents.
Or,
as in Ariadne’s fate, may raging
liquid rush
over
your head, covered by the waters.
And
like Prometheus, pinned
there, without mercy,
and
exposed, feed the birds of the air with your blood.
Or
be thrown like stricken Eumolpus,
scion of Erectheus,
three
times defeated by mighty Hercules,
into the vast sea.
Or
like Phoenix, child of Amyntor, the loved will be hated
through
shameful
desire, and the son wounded by the cruel sword.
Let
no more cups be mixed for you that are safe to drink,
than
for him who was born of horned
Jupiter.
Or
die suspended like the captive Acheus who hung
a
wretched witness to the gold-bearing waters.
Or
like Achilles’ scion, known by a
famous name,
struck
down by a tile hurled from an enemy hand.
Nor
let your bones lie more happily than Pyrrhus’,
that
were scattered over the roads of Ambracia.
Die
driven through by javelins like one born
of
Pyrrhus: nor may that rite of Ceres
hide you.
And
like that king’s scion spoken of just now in my verse,
drink
the aphrodisiac juice given you by your parent.
Or
be said to have been killed by a sacred adultress,
as
Leucon fell to an avenger said to
be holy.
May
you send those dearest to you to the pyre,
an
ending to his life that Sardanapalus
knew.
Like
those about to violate the temple
of Libyan Jove,
may
the sand driven by south winds bury your face.
Like
those killed by the later Darius’s
deceit,
may
the ash as it subsides consume your visage.
Or
like he who once set out from olive-rich Sicyon,
may
hunger and cold be the causes of your death.
Or
like the Atarnean may you be
brought, basely,
to
your lord as a prize, sewn inside a bull’s-hide.
May
your throat be cut in your room, like him
of
Pherae, whose own wife killed
him with a sword.
Like
Aleuas of Larissa, by your wound,
may you find
those
faithless whom you thought were faithful to you.
Like
Milo, under whose tyranny Pisa suffered,
may
you be hurled alive into shrouded waters.
And
may the weapons sent by Jove against Adimantus,
who
ruled the Phyllesian kingdom, find you too.
Or
like Lenaeus once from Amastris’s shores,
may
you be left naked on Achillean
soil.
And
as Eurydamas was drawn three times round
the
tomb of Thrasyllus by hostile Larissean
wheels,
as
Hector who often rendered the
walls safe, circled
them
with his body, they not long surviving him,
as
the adulterer was dragged over Athenian
soil
while
Hippomenes’ daughter
suffered strange punishment,
so,
when that hated life has departed your limbs,
may
avenging horses drag your vile body.
May
some rock pierce your entrails, as once
the
Greeks were pierced in the Euboean
Bay:
and
as the fierce ravager died by lightning and the waves,
so
may the waters that drown you be helped by fire.
May
your crazed mind too be driven by frenzies,
like
a man who’s whole body is a single wound:
as
Dryas’s son who held the kingdom
of Rhodope,
he
who was disparately shod on his two feet,
or
as Oetean Hercules was once, Athamas the serpent’s son-in-law,
Orestes Tisamenus’s father, and Alcmaeon Callirhoe’s husband.
May
your mother be no more chaste than her whom Tydeus
would
have blushed to have as a daughter-in-law:
or
the Locrian who, disguised as her murdered
servant,
joined in love with her brother-in-law.
And
may the gods grant you have such joy in your wife’s
loyalty
as Talaus, or Agamemnon, Tyndareus’s son-in-law.
or
such a wife as the daughters of Belus,
who dared to plan
their
cousins’ deaths, whose necks bow, carrying water.
May
your sister burn with fire as Byblis
and Canace
did,
and not prove true except in their sinning.
If
you’ve a daughter, may she be what Pelopea was
to
Thyestes, Myrrha to her father, Nyctimene to hers.
Nor
let her be more pious and careful of her father’s life
than
yours was Pterelaus, or
yours Nisus, towards you:
or
she who made a place infamous with her crime’s name,
trampling
and crushing her father’s limbs under the wheels.
May
you die like the young men of Pisa,
whose face
and
limbs the mountain slopes outside received:
as
Oenomaus who stained that soil
more deeply, himself,
that
was often drenched by the blood of wretched princes,
as
that cruel tyrant’s traitorous charioteer, Myrtilus,
died,
who gave a new name to Myrtoan waters:
as
those who sought in vain the speeding girl,
Atalanta, she who was slowed by
the three apples:
those
in the hidden cave changed to new monstrous shapes,
never
to return from the house of the dark one:
like
those whose bodies violent Aeacides
sent
to
the high pyre, aged men, and then women:
like
those we read of, whom the vile Sphinx
killed,
those
defeated by the tortuous questions she uttered:
like
those sacrificed in Bistonian Minerva’s temple,
for
whom the goddess’s glance is even now hidden:
like
those who once were made into a banquet
in
the blood-stained stables of Diomede of Thrace:
like
those who encountered the lions of Therodamas,
or
suffered the Tauric rites of Thoantean Diana:
like
the terrified men that ravening Scylla, and
opposing
Charybdis, snatched from the Ithacan ship:
like
those consumed in Polyphemus’s
vast gut,
like
those who fell into Laestrygonian
hands:
like
those the Punic leader drowned in the waters
of
the well, making the depths white with their ashes:
as
Penelope’s twelve handmaids
died, and the suitors,
and
the chief of the tyrants who armed the suitors:
as
the wrestler died, thrown by the Boetian
stranger,
his
conqueror astonished that he had died:
or
the strong men crushed in that Antaeus’s
arms,
or
those killed by the savage crowd of Lemnian
women:
or
the one, denounced for wicked rites, on whom
a
stricken victim, at last, brought down vast rains:
like
Antaeus’s brother, Busiris, bound
by that blood,
who
stained the field, and died by his example:
like
the impious man who having poor grass
for
fodder, fed his horses on human entrails:
like
those two Centaurs, Nessus, and Eurytion, son-in-law
of
Dexamenus, killed, with
separate wounds, by the same avenger:
like
one from his city that your great-grandson,
Saturn, Asclepius, himself saw restored to
life:
like
Sinis and Sciron and his father Procrustes:
and
the Minotaur, half man and half
bull:
Sinis,
who sent bent pine-trees from earth to air,
to
gaze at the Isthmus’ seas on both sides:
and
Cercyon, whom Ceres saw with delighted
gaze,
dying at the hands of Theseus.
Let
these ills, and none lighter than these, fall on you,
you
whom my anger rightly heaps with curses.
Such
as Achaemenides knew,
abandoned on Sicilian
Etna, who saw Aeneas’ Trojan sails approaching:
such
a fate as Irus, too, that beggar
with two names, and those
who
haunt the bridge: let it be more than you dare hope for.
May
you love Plutus, god of wealth, Ceres’ son, in vain,
and
riches fail however you search for them:
and
as the ebbing wave retreats in its turn,
and
the soft sand washes from under your feet,
so
may your fortune always vanish, who knows how,
slipping
away, endlessly, flowing through your hands.
And
like Erysichthon, the
father of Mestra who changed her
form
repeatedly,
may you be wasted by endless hunger though full-fed:
and
may you not be averse to human flesh: but in whatever
way
you can, may you be the Tydeus
of this age.
And
may you commit an act to make
the frantic horses
of
the Sun hurtle back from west to east:
may
you repeat the vile banquet at a Lycaonian
table,
trying
to mislead Jupiter with a deceptive food:
and
I beg someone to test the power of the god,
serve
you as Tantalus’s son, or the
son of Tereus.
And
scatter your limbs through the open fields
like
the ones that delayed a father’s
pursuit.
May
you imitate real bulls in Perillus’s
bronze,
with
cries that match the contours of the beast:
like
cruel Phalaris, your tongue
first slit with a sword,
may
you bellow like an ox in that Paphian metal.
When
you wish to return to years of youth, may you
be
deceived like Pelias, Admetus’s old father-in-law.
Or
may you be drowned, as you ride, sucked down
by
the mud, so long as your name wins no renown.
I
want you to die like those born from the serpent’s teeth
that
Cadmus, the Sidonian, scattered on Theban fields.
Or
as Pittheus’s scion’s did to Medusa’s cousin,
may
ominous imprecations descend on your head:
like
one cursed by the birds without warning,
who
purifies his body in a shower of water
And
may you suffer as many wounds as they say
they
suffered, whom a knife used to cut at from beneath.
And,
inspired, slash your private parts to Phrygian music,
like
those whom Cybele, the Mother,
maddens:
and
like Attis, once a man, become not
man or woman,
and
strike the harsh cymbals with effeminate hand,
and
at a stroke become one of the Great
Mother’s cattle,
turned,
in one swift step, from winner to sacrifice.
And
lest Limon should suffer his punishment alone,
may
a horse with cruel teeth feed on your entrails.
Or
like Cassandreus, no gentler
than his master,
be
wounded and buried under a pile of earth.
Or
like the infant Perseus, or
the Cycnean hero,
may
you fall, confined, into the ocean waves.
Or
be struck down, a sacrifice to Apollo
at the holy altars,
as
Theudotus suffered death from a savage enemy.
Or
may Abdera set you apart for certain
days,
and
many stones hail down on you, accursed.
Or
may you suffer the three-pronged bolts of angry Jove,
like
Hipponous’s son, Capaneus, or Dexithea’s father,
or
Autonoe’s sister, Semele, or Maia’s aunt,
like
Phaethon who guided the
terrified horses he chose:
like
the cruel scion of Aeolus, and
his son of that blood,
of
whom Arctos was begot, that never
knows the water,
or
as Macelo and her husband,
struck down by swift flames,
so,
I pray, may you die by the fire of the divine avenger.
And
may you be their prize to whom is Diana’s
Delos,
not
before the day Thasos needed to be wasted:
and
those who tore apart Actaeon
catching shy
Artemis bathing, and Linus, scion of Crotopus.
Nor
may you suffer less from a poisonous snake
than
Orpheus, son of Calliope and old Oeagrus:
than
Hypsipyle’s ward, Opheltes: than he, of famous horses,
who
first fastened a sharp point into hollowed wood.
May
you approach high places no more safely than Elpenor,
and
suffer the effects of wine in the same way he did.
And
die as tamely, as whoever delighted in calling
savage
Dryops to his Theiodamantine
weapons:
or
as cruel Cacus died, crushed, in his
cave,
given
away by the bellowing of oxen inside:
or
Lichas who brought Nessus’ gift steeped in venom,
and
stained the Euboean waters with
his blood.
Or
like Prometheus may you
hang in Tartarus
from
a high rock, or, as books tell, die Socrates’ death:
as
Aegeus who saw the deceptive sail of
Theseus’s ship,
as
the child, Polydorus, sent
from the Trojan citadel,
as
Ino, the nurse, also aunt, of
infant Bacchus,
as
him who found a saw the cause of his death:
as
the envious girl who threw herself from high cliffs,
who
had spoken evil words to the unconquered god.
May
a brooding lioness of your country, attack you
in
your native fields, and be the cause of a death like Phalaecus’.
May
the wild boar that killed Lycurgus’s
son, and Adonis
born
of a tree, and brave Idmon,
destroy you too.
And
may it even wound you as it dies, like him
on
whom the mouth, he had transfixed, closed.
Or
may you be like the Phrygian, the Berecyntian hunter,
whom
a pine tree killed in the same way.
If
your ship touches the Minoan sands,
may
the Cretan crowd think you’re from Corfu.
May
you be buried in a falling house, like the offspring
of
Aleus, when Jove’s star befriended a
scion of Leoprepeus.
Or
may you give your name to the flowing waters,