Pyramus and Thisbe
“Pyramus, who was handsomest of men,
and Thisbe, of a loveliness unrivaled
in all the East, lived next to one another
in Babylon, the city that Semiramis
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surrounded with a wall made out of brick.
“Proximity saw to it that this couple
would get acquainted; soon, they fell in love,
and wedding torches would have flared for them
had both their parents not forbidden it,
although they weren’t able to prevent
two captive hearts from burning equally.
“These lovers had no go-between, yet managed
a silent conversation with the signs
and gestures they alone could understand:
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their fire burned more hotly, being hidden.
“In the common wall that ran between their houses,
there was a narrow cleft made by the builders
during construction and unnoticed since.
Love misses nothing! You two first descried it,
and made that little crack the medium
that passed your barely audible endearments.
“Often, when they had taken up positions,
Pyramus on one side, Thisbe on the other,
and each had listened to each other’s panting,
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‘O grudging wall,’ they cried, ‘why must you block us?
Is it too much to ask you to let lovers
embrace without impediment of stone?
Or if it is, won’t you please let us kiss?
It’s not that we’re ungrateful—we admit
all that we both owe you, for allowing
our words to pass into attentive ears!’
“So they (in pointless separation) spoke.
When night came on, each said goodbye and pressed
a kiss—which went no further—on the stone.
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“When next Aurora had put out the stars
and the Sun had burned the hoarfrost from the meadow,
they found themselves at their familiar spot,
and after much whispered lamentation,
agreed that just as soon as it was night,
they’d slip their guardians and leave their houses,
and once outdoors, flee from the city too.
“And so as not to end up wandering
those open spaces by themselves, they chose
the tomb of Ninus as their meeting place:
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nearby, there was a fountain and a tall
mulberry tree, abounding with white berries;
in its dense shadows they would find concealment.
They were delighted by this plan of theirs;
daylight seemed loath to leave, but at long last,
the sun extinguished itself in the sea,
and from its waters came—at last—the night.
“Discretely veiled, Thisbe unlocks her door,
lets herself out and slips into the darkness;
emboldened by love, she finds the tomb and sits
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beneath the tree. But look! A lioness,
whose jaws are dripping from a recent kill,
approaches the fountain to assuage her thirst.
“From far off, Thisbe sees her in the moonlight,
and with trembling steps, runs into a dark cave.
But in her flight, she drops her cloak and leaves it
behind her on the ground. Now, when the savage
lioness has had her fill of water
and heads back to the woods, by chance she finds
that cloak (without the girl) and pauses there
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to mangle it in her ferocious jaws.
“Arriving later, Pyramus discovers
tracks in the dust, as plain as day: he blanches,
and when he finds her bloodstained garment, cries,
‘On this one night, two lovers come to grief!
For she, far more than I, deserved long life!
Mine is the guilt, poor miserable dear,
since it was I most surely who destroyed you,
bidding you come by night to this drear place,
and me not here before you!
“‘Come now, you lions
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inhabiting the caves beneath this rock,
tear me to pieces and consume me quite!
But only cowards merely beg for death.’
“He carries This be’s cloak to the tree of their pact,
and presses tears and kisses on the fabric.
‘Drink my blood now,’ he says, drawing his sword,
and thrusting it at once in his own guts:
a fatal blow; dying, he draws the blade
out of his burning wound, and his lifeblood
follows it, jetting high into the air,
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as he lies on his back upon the ground.
“It was as when a water pipe is ruptured
where the lead has rotted, and it springs a leak:
a column of water goes hissing through the hole and parts the air with its pulsating thrusts;
splashed with his gore, the tree’s pale fruit grow dark;
blood soaks its roots and surges up to dye
the hanging berries purple with its color.
“But look! Where frightened still, but frightened more
that by her absence she might fail her lover,
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Thisbe comes seeking him with eyes and soul,
all eagerness to tell him of the perils
she has escaped. But can this be the place?
That tree has a familiar shape, although
the color of its fruit leaves her uncertain.
“And as she hesitates she notices
a knot of writhing limbs on the bloodstained earth;
in horror, she leaps back, as white as boxwood; a tremor runs right through her, and she shivers
as the sea does when a breeze stirs on its surface.
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“In the next moment, Thisbe recognizes
her lover’s body and begins to beat
her unoffending arms with small, hard fists,
tearing her hair out; she embraces him,
and the tears she sheds there mingle with his blood.
Kissing his cold lips, she cries, ‘Pyramus,
what grave mischance has taken you from me?
Answer me, Pyramus, your darling Thisbe
is calling: hear me, raise your fallen head!’
“And he, responding to his darling’s name,
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opens his eyes, so heavy with his death,
to close them on the image of her face.
“And now she recognizes her own cloak
and sees his sword and its sheath of ebony:
‘O poor unfortunate! You’ve lost your life
by your own hand and by your love for me!
In my hand too, there’s strength to do the same,
and love that will give power to my stroke!
“‘I’ll follow you until the very end;
it will be said of me I was the cause
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as well as the companion of your ruin.
Death once had strength to keep us separate;
it cannot keep me now from joining you!
“‘And may our wretched parents, mine and yours,
be moved by this petition to allow us,
joined in the same last hour by unwavering love,
to lie together in a single tomb.
“‘And you, O mulberry, whose limbs now shade
one wretched corpse and soon will shelter two,
display the markings of our deaths forever
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in the crimson of your fruit, the likeliest
memorial for two who perished here.’
&nb
sp; “She holds the sword tip underneath her breast
and then falls forward on the still-warm blade.
Her parents and the gods yield to her prayers; for now the mulberry’s ripe fruit is dark
and their blent ashes share a single urn.”
Mars and Venus
And so it ended. A brief pause ensued,
and then Leuconoë began to weave
another story for her silent sisters:
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“Even the Sun, who with his own light governs
all other stars, has felt love’s agitation:
I will relate the passions of the Sun.
“Since this god sees whatever happens first,
the Sun is reckoned to have first uncovered
the extramarital affair of Mars
and Venus. Scandalized, the Sun informed
the husband of the goddess, shedding light
on the very couch where two had sinned together!
“Vulcan at once dropped what he was doing:
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immediately he devised a brilliant
trap for the guilty pair, a net of bronze links
so finely woven that it fooled the eye.
No thread of mortal weaving was as slender
as this one was: finer than the spider’s,
and more responsive to the slightest touch.
“He spread it craftily across the bed,
and when his wife and her gallant had come
together on the couch, by her husband’s art
and by the chains he’d cleverly devised,
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the two of them were caught in the very act,
clinging together in mutual embrace.
“Vulcan at once threw wide the folding doors
of ivory, and sent the other gods
inside to see the lovers where they lay
trapped in each other’s arms most shamefully!
“And one of the immortals who was present
was heard by all the others there to wish—
not at all sadly—that he too might be
embarrassed so. The others howled with laughter,
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and for a long time that was the one story
any of them told in all of heaven.
The Sun and Leucothoë
“But Venus knew who her betrayer was,
and soon devised appropriate revenge:
the spoiler of her naughty little secret
would find himself no less destroyed by love.
—O son of Hyperion, what use to you
your beauty, your brightness, your radiant beams?
You who scorch earth with fire of your own
are burned now by an unaccustomed flame!
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You who should gaze on all, impartially,
have eyes but for the virgin Leucothoë!
“And now you rise too early in the morning
and drop into the sea too late at night;
your lingering glance prolongs brief winter days,
and now and then you even fail completely,
as the unshakable obsession in your mind
passes through your eyes, and its obscureness
is terrifying to all mortal hearts!
“It’s not as though the moon had interposed
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its own pallor between the earth and you:
love is the force that leaves you colorless!
You’ve chosen this one, and no longer care
for Clymene, for Rhodos, or for Circe’s
most attractive mother; you neglect
poor Clytie, who, although you scorn her,
is very eager to make love to you,
and even now is languishing, heartbroken.
“For Leucothoë has chased them from your mind,
the daughter of Eurynome, the fairest
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in the land of spices; just as her mother’s beauty
surpassed that of all other women, she,
when she grew up, surpassed her mother’s beauty.
Her father Orchamus was king of Persia,
the seventh in descent from ancient Belus,
the kingdom’s founder.
“Under western skies
are meadows where the horses of the Sun
are pastured, feeding on divine ambrosia
instead of ordinary grass; and here,
exhausted by their efforts of the day,
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this nourishment sustains them and renews
their vigor for the labors of the morrow.
“And while his horses browse on their immortal
pasturage, and Night goes to work, the Sun
takes on the form of Leucothoë’s mother,
Eurynome, and slips into her bedroom;
lamplight reveals his darling with her servants,
winding fine strands of wool upon her spindle.
Then kissing her as her fond mother would,
he says, ‘A secret matter, servants: leave!
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Respect a mother’s right to privacy!’
“Once witnesses are gone, the god emerges:
‘I am that one who measures the long year,
who sees all things, and by whom all may see;
I am the world’s eye and believe me, you
are something really special, quite a sight!’
“She trembles uncontrollably with fear;
distaff and spindle slip from her slack grip.
Her fear arouses him: at once he resumes
his former shape and his accustomed splendor.
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“This unexpected apparition frightens
the virgin, but its radiance overwhelms her,
and she gives in to him without complaint.
“Now Clytie, whose own love for the Sun
was boundless, raged with envy of her rival:
she spread around the story of her fall,
and brought her ruined state to the attention
of the girl’s father.
“Like a savage beast
he mercilessly scorns his daughter’s pleas,
her hands uplifted to the Sun in prayer,
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and her own explanation of events:
‘He plundered me! I did not pleasure him!’
an enormous mound of sand upon her grave.
The Sun’s rays melt it down, so that you might
lift your head proudly in the world once more;
but worn out by the weight of earth you bear,
you cannot raise yourself, poor nymph, and lie
with all the life crushed out of you.
“They said
that not since the fiery death of Phaëthon
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had the governor of swiftly flying horses
seen anything as sad as he attempted
to revive those icy limbs with his warm rays
and call the living warmth back to her body.
“And although Fate prevents him from succeeding,
he sprinkles her body and the site around it
with fragrant nectar; and after he had mourned her,
he cries out loudly in his lamentation,
‘In spite of Fate, you will reach up to heaven!’
“Her body, steeped in those divine aromas,
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dissolved at once in earth-delighting odors.
A slip (not of a girl now, but of fragrant incense)
broke through the apex of that hillock, while
its roots drove down and deeply gripped the soil.
“Though Clytie might well have made the case
that love brought her to grief, and grief to tattle,
because the Lord of Light no longer wanted
to sleep with her as he had used to do,
her passion turned into consuming madness.
“
Unable to endure the other nymphs,
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naked she sat on the uncovered earth
by day and night, beneath the open sky,
her hair a straggly mess, and for nine days
subsisting on no more than dew and teardrops,
in motion only when she turned her face
to keep it always fixed upon her god.
“Her limbs (they say) attached themselves to earth,
her pallor turned in part to bloodless plant,
and where her face had been, a trace of color
yielded a little violet-like flower.
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Rooted in earth, she turns now toward the Sun,
and, although changed, preserves her changeless love.”
The fountain of Salmacis
She ended, and the marvels she related
held every ear: some sisters would deny
that anything like that could ever happen,
while some declare that any real gods may
do anything at all that they’ve a mind to,
though Bacchus surely isn’t one of these.
Now when the sisters have composed themselves once more, Alcithoë is called upon,
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and as she swiftly and expertly draws
the shuttle through the warp, she thinks aloud:
“I will not mention here the too-familiar
loves of the Idaean shepherd Daphnis,
turned into stone for a nymph’s rage at a rival:
how thwarted lovers burn! Nor will I speak
of how a law of nature was repealed
when Sithon changed at will from man to woman;
nor of you, Celmis, now adamant, but once
the most faithful guardian of baby Jove;
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nor how the Curetes emerged from a downpour;
nor will I speak of Crocus and his Smilax,
turned into tiny flowers—these I pass by,
choosing to keep your attentions with a tale
commended by the charm of novelty:
“I will explain the way in which the fountain
of Salmacis, whose enervating waters
effeminate the limbs of any man
who bathes in it, came by its reputation,
for though the fountain’s ill effects are famous,
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their cause has never been revealed before.
“Venus of Cythera and Mercury
together made a boy raised by the naiads
in caves upon Mount Ida. His face and name
made evident their offspring’s origins.
“At fifteen he took off for parts unknown,
leaving maternal Ida and the mountains
of his fatherland, and wandered, pleased to see
strange lands and rivers likewise new to him,
his keenness making molehills out of mountains.
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“He traveled to the cities of Lycia
and to the Carians, who dwell nearby.