xxx

Contents

Foreword

The Ecclesiazusae (The Assemblywomen)

The Trojan Women

Helen and Andromache

Penelope

Socrates Recounts the tale of Diotima

Sayings of Spartan Women

Poems of Sappho

Dido

The Constitution of the Spartans

Artemesia of Caria

Zenobia of Palmyra

About Classical Wisdom Weekly

Foreword

By Ben Potter

Unlike many of our anthologies, the running order in which this one is read is far from sacrosanct. As our theme for this month is so broad, encompassing as it does half of the human experience, there is no logical step at which to begin, continue or conclude. Thus (not that you need my permission), flip to whichever pages you deem to be of most interest – though obviously we expect you to get round to reading the whole thing eventually!

But before you take this hallowed step, leaving the phenomenal world and entering the sublime, perhaps a little context regarding the authors and their works would be desirable. And, if not… well… you’re going to get it anyway!

Obviously Homer, the first, last and everything of classical literature, dominates not only the evolution of Greco-Roman poetry and story-telling, but also this anthology, having, as he does, two entries.

The passage from the Iliad shows the casus belli for the Trojan War, Helen, at her capricious, beautiful and beguiling best. With her two husbands, Menelaus and Paris, set to slug it out mano a mano, Helen very conveniently remembers how much she loves her (clearly physically superior) first husband – this is after ten, long, bloody years of war and infidelity remember!

Not only this, but she flirts with her father-in-law whilst gushing to him about the Greeks, throws a hissy-fit at the goddess Aphrodite, emasculates her Trojan husband Paris… and then goes to bed with him anyway!

Here we see the woman who launched a thousand ships, and sent countless Greeks and Trojans to early graves, at her absolute worst. This black portrayal of history’s most dastardly femme fatale, with its obvious echoes in Genesis, has been said, if far too simplistically, to set the tone for the widespread and incontrovertible misogyny of the Ancient World.

Homer’s contrast to Helen (in the Iliad) is the loyal and noble Andromache (who, incidentally, Ovid claimed was too tall to make love to her husband ‘as riding a horse’). As a woman whose only concerns are for her husband’s a son’s safety, she is the paradigm of female virtue. Indeed, if there were no Odyssey, one would say she is the Homeric pinnacle of female excellence; bringing us to Penelope.

Our unbroken excerpt from the end of the Odyssey shows the aftermath of the battle which removed any rivals to Odysseus, but stopped short of declaring him lord and master of his native Ithaca. This could only happen after the queen, Penelope, confirmed his identity. This she does in such a cunning and subtle way that she actually outwits her husband… she outwits Wily Odysseus, Master of Stratagems!

The significance of this is so astounding that it sends the patriarchal archetype of Greek civilisation into a tailspin. A wife, a mere mortal woman, outwits her husband! Impossible! It is for this, as well as other tales of female supremacy in the Odyssey that have led such eminent scholars as Samuel Butler to postulate that Homer’s second great work was actually penned by a feminine hand.

Additionally, Telemachus’ brutal behavior towards the slatternly maids reflects almost as badly on the eponymous hero as does being constantly at the mercy of various women.

N.B. The conclusion of this excerpt is the place in the story that many, if not most, scholars think the original text of the Odyssey actually ended.

Our epic poetry triumvirate is, naturally, concluded with Virgil. And in an anthology primarily concerned with x chromosomes, there is only one logical port of call; that port is Carthage, whose magnificent queen, Dido, is the dominant, desirable, dolorous, doting and dramatic force that powers us through book IV; possibly the most tender and pathos-inducing book of this, or any other, epic poem.

Though the Trojan war saga dominates Greek art and literature like no other, we’ve tried to reign in the number of selections preoccupied with it; our final one is possibly the most harrowing account of both the war itself and the slavish, lilliputian status of women in general.

Euripides’ masterpiece, The Trojan Women, shows that when one group of men have finally succeeded in butchering another, all that is left of a once gallant and noble race is a group of broken, dispirited, captive women who, if they are lucky, will be kept as the sex-slaves to important men… men whose massacre of their own husbands, brothers and sons has plunged them into this ignoble fate.

There is perhaps no other tale from the annals of antiquity as heart-wrenching, not to mention as enduringly relevant, as this one of Euripides. Though not for those of delicate sensibilities, it is a truly powerful and important tour de force that, once read, is never forgotten.

Though the women of the Trojan war were either scenery or buxom harbingers of doom, there were, of course famous, fearsome and sometimes ferocious real-life women throughout antiquity who, thrust into the role of queen, enjoyed great power and influence and even played, and sometimes beat, the militant males at their own game.

A few names doubtless spring to mind. The likes of Cleopatra, Nefertiti, Boudicea, Cartimandua, Artemesia I of Caria and Zenobia of Palmyra are all worthy candidates for inclusion in this anthology. However, in order to stop it spinning entirely out of control and overloading your ebook’s memory, we’ve restricted ourselves to the latter two.

Artemesia I of Caria, queen of, ostensibly Greek, Kos and Halicarnassus fought alongside the Persians against the Greek alliance during the famous battles of Artemisium and Salamis (480BC), while Zenobia led a famous and, temporarily very successful, revolt against the Romans in the third century AD.

Returning to prosody, but of a shortened nature, we have included the Greek, lyric poetry of Sappho and the man who picked up her mantel in Latin, Catullus.

Sappho, despite coining the modern adjectives ‘sapphic’ and ‘lesbian’ was far, far more influential in the field of literature than she was in that of sexuality. Her work, though frustratingly fragmentary, is clearly of the highest order and provides an oh-so-rare insight into the world of women from a woman’s point of view.

Ironically, though Sappho’s work can, at its most controversial, be said to be bisexual in its approach to romance, Catullus’ is not only flagrantly, bisexually erotic, but wantonly pederastic!

Though he dealt with a range of themes (he even wrote a poem about how badly he friend’s body odor was), his recurring ones were love poems to, or about, an aristocratic, married women he calls Lesbia (a possible homage to Sappho’s place of birth) and a boy he calls Juventius; though Lesbia remains the focus of the excerpts herein.

Of course, as most of our scribes are men, any compilation about women is going to draw heavily on the romantic or the sexual. This is certainly true with the passage included from Plato’s discussion on love, the Symposium.

Though the story told by the fictionalized Aristophanes is by far the most famous in this amorous little tome, the story presented for your consideration is that of Diotima of Mantinea, a possible pseudonym for Athens’ most prominent ‘First Lady’, Pericles’ wife/mistress/call-girl, Aspasia.

That Doitima is Aspasia is, at best, educated guesswork and the fact that Plato is happy to include and name real-life figures in his work might suggest she is not, regardless, that the connection could be made shows how highly the intellect of Pericles’ girlfriend (for want of a better term) was regarded amongst the discerning citizenry of antiquity.

Incidentally, the aftershocks of Doitima’s story are still with us today, outlining, as they do, the origin of what has come to be known as ‘Platonic love’.

Rather confusingly, the aforementioned character Aristophanes is also included amidst these pages in his real-life incarnation via his wonderful, wise, ribald and wry comedy, The Assemblywomen; a knockabout farce in which the women of Athens seize control of the government.

The context of the play, the aftermath of Athens’ humiliating defeat to the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War, is key. However, the message Aristophanes is seeking to convey divides popular opinion. Whist some think it is distinctly feminist, others note that the idea of women controlling the state might be one so comical that it would make a suitable plot for a comedy. Other explanations state that it’s a cautionary tale about enfranchisement (who next? The slaves!?), whilst the least interesting, but most likely motive is that Aristophanes didn’t particularly have a message to convey at all.

Whilst we’re on the subject of Sparta, only a note is required about our contributing authors regarding the females of that impressive, if elusive, city-state.

Xenophon shows us the unusual, if extremely healthy, manner in which women were by law required to behave in Sparta, while Plutarch provides us with a bevy of bellicose expressions from same said women.

N.B. The translator’s use of Scots in Plutarch (i.e. ‘my son was a gude and honourable mon’) is a rather vulgar and unfair (though quite effective) way to portray the Spartans as a rowdy and violent race who speak the same language as ‘us’ (i.e. educated Greeks) though not quite ‘correctly’.

Finally, and taking a break from fables, mythology, religion, history, art, lyrical and epic poetry, along with other such high-brow pursuits, we turn to Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love).

Though Ovid’s style and skill is about as high-brow as it gets, the title of the Ars Amatoria is a rather tongue-in-cheek one… and not necessarily one’s own tongue or own cheek, being as it is a guide to seduction.

This would have been shocking enough in itself, especially as the new, increasingly autocratic and moralistic emperor, Augustus, had passed a series of modesty and morality laws, but worse still Ovid’s third book of his manual (included herein) was not merely a guide for getting people into bed, it was a guide for women to get men into bed… with additional advice on what to do with a man once she gets him there!

The rumbustious and rollicking piece was too much for the chaste edicts of the power-that-was; Ovid was exiled to the Black Sea, not even permitted to return to Rome after the emperor’s death. However, the fact that the Ars Amatoria survived the generations in tact means it must, understandably, have been a popular piece; though, for caution and propriety’s sake, perhaps discreetly slid inside a dust-jacket of the Aeneid.

-Ben Potter (November, 2016)

The Ecclesiazusae (The Assemblywomen)

Aristophanes

The works of Aristophanes are the only surviving comedic plays that have survived from 5th century Athens. Known as the Father of Comedy, Aristophanes is said to have rendered life in Ancient Athens more accurately than any other author of his time. His plays provided both political and social critiques for his time and many prominent figures in Athens feared his power of ridicule.

Aristophanes wrote the Ecclesiazusae around 391 B.C. In this play a group of women decide they have to convince the Athenian men to give them political control of Athens. To do this they disguise themselves as men, sneak into the assembly and vote for the measure in addition to convincing other men to vote for the measure as well.

When in power the women instate a communist like system, which feeds, houses and takes care of all its citizens. Equality gets taken to extremes, however, with measures such as a law that allows men to sleep with whichever woman they desire so long as they sleep with every woman in the city who is uglier than said woman first. Overall, the play reflects a common view of woman at the time painting them as lazy, excessive creatures who cause men a great deal of trouble.

Dramatis Personae

PRAXAGORA
BLEPYRUS, husband of Praxagora

WOMEN

A MAN

CHREMES

A CITIZEN

HERALD

A GIRL

A YOUNG MAN

THREE OLD WOMEN

A SERVANT MAID to PRAXAGOR

A
CHORUS OF WOMEN

Scene

The Orchestra represents a public square in Athens; in the background are two houses with an alley between them.

PRAXAGORA swinging the lantern, which is to be a signal for the other women; in high tragic style

Oh! Thou shining light of my earthenware lamp, from this high spot shalt thou look abroad. Oh! lamp, I will tell thee thine origin and thy future; ‘tis the rapid whirl of the potter’s wheel that has lent thee thy shape, and thy wick counterfeits the glory of the sun; mayst thou send the agreed signal flashing afar! In thee alone do we confide, and thou art worthy, for thou art near us when we practise the various postures in which Aphrodite delights upon our couches, and none dreams even in the midst of her sports of seeking to avoid thine eye that watches us. Thou alone shinest into the secret recesses of our thighs and dost singe the hair that groweth there, and with thy flame dost light the actions of our loves. If we opensome cellar stored with fruits and wine, thou art our companion, and never dost thou betray or reveal to a neighbour the secrets thou hast learned about us. Therefore thou shalt know likewise the whole of the plot that I have planned with my friends, the women, at the festival of the Scirophoria.

She pauses and looks about her.

I see none of those I was expecting, though dawn approaches; the Assembly is about to gather and we must take our seats in spite of Phyromachus, who forsooth would say, “It is meet the women sit apart and hidden from the eyes of the men.” Why, have they not been able then to procure the false beards that they must wear, or to steal their husbands’ cloaks? Ah! I see a light approaching; let us draw somewhat aside, for fear it should be a man.

She hides in the alley. From the right a woman enters, followed almost immediately by others. All are carrying staffs, men’s sandals, and cloaks over their arms.

FIRST WOMAN

Let us start, it is high time; as we left our dwellings, the cock was crowing for the second time.

PRAXAGORA to herself

And I have spent the whole night waiting for you.

She emerges from the alley.

But come, let us call our neighbour by scratching at her door; and gently too, so that her husband may hear nothing.

SECOND WOMAN coming out of her house; she is dressed like a man, with a staff in her hand

I was putting on my shoes, when I heard you scratching, for I was not asleep, so there! Oh! my dear, my husband (he is a Salaminian) never left me an instant’s peace, but was at me, for ever at me, all night long, so that it was only just now that I was able to filch his cloak.

PRAXAGORA

I see Clinarete coming too, along with Sostrate and their next-door neighbour Philaenete.

To the women that are just arriving; in a loud voice

Hurry yourselves then, for Glyce has sworn that the last comer shall forfeit three measures of wine and a choenix of pease.

SECOND WOMAN

Don’t you see Melistice, the wife of Smicythion, hurrying hither in her big shoes? I think she is the only one of us all who has had no trouble in getting rid of her husband.

FIRST WOMAN

And can’t you see Geusistrate, the tavern-keeper’s wife, with a lamp in her hand?

PRAXAGORA

And the wives of Philodoretus and Chaeretades, and a great many others; all the useful people in the city, in fact.

THIRD WOMAN

Oh! my dear, I have had such trouble in getting away! My husband ate such a surfeit of sprats last evening that he was coughing and choking the whole night long.

PRAXAGORA

Take your seats, and, since you are all gathered here at last, let us see if what we decided on at the feast of the Scirophoria has been duly done.

FIRST WOMAN

Yes. Firstly, as agreed, I have let the hair under my armpits grow thicker than a bush; furthermore, whilst my husband was at the Assembly, I rubbed myself from head to foot with oil and then stood the whole day long in the sun.

SECOND WOMAN

So did I. I began by throwing away my razor, so that I might get quite hairy, and no longer resemble a woman.

PRAXAGORA

Have you the beards that we had all to get ourselves for the Assembly?

FIRST WOMAN

Yea, by Hecate! Is this not a fine one?

SECOND WOMAN

Aye, much finer even than the one Epicrates has.

PRAXAGORA to the other women

And you?

FIRST WOMAN

Yes, yes; look, they all nod assent.

PRAXAGORA

I see that you have got all the rest too, Spartan shoes, staffs and men’s cloaks, as it was arranged.

FIRST WOMAN

I have brought Lamias’ club, which I stole from him while he slept.

PRAXAGORA

What, the club that makes him fart with its weight?

SECOND WOMAN

By Zeus the Deliverer, if he had the skin of Argus, he would know better than any other how to shepherd the popular herd.

PRAXAGORA

But come, let us finish what has yet to be done, while the stars are still shining; the Assembly, at which we mean to be present, will open at dawn.

FIRST WOMAN

Good; you must take up your place at the foot of the platform and facing the Prytanes.

SECOND WOMAN

I have brought this with me to card during the Assembly.

She shows some wool.

PRAXAGORA

During the Assembly, wretched woman?

SECOND WOMAN

Surely, by Artemis! shall I hear any less well if I am doing a bit of carding? My little ones are all but naked.

PRAXAGORA

Think of her wanting to card! whereas we must not let anyone see the smallest part of our bodies. ‘Twould be a fine thing if one of us, in the midst of the discussion, rushed on to the speaker’s platform and, flinging her cloak aside, showed her Phormisius. If, on the other hand, we are the first to take our seats closely muffled in our cloaks, none will know us. Let us fix these beards on our chins, so that they spread all over our bosoms. How can we fail then to be mistaken for men? Agyrrhius has deceived everyone, thanks to the beard of Pronomus; yet he was no better than a woman, and you see how he now holds the first position in the city. Thus, I adjure you by this day that is about to dawn, let us dare to copy him and let us be clever enough to possess ourselves of the management of affairs. Let us save the ship of state, which just at present none seems able either to sail or row.

FIRST WOMAN in a tragic style

But where shall we find orators in an Assembly of women?

PRAXAGORA

Nothing simpler. Is it not said that the cleverest speakers are those who get made love to most often? Well, thanks to the gods, we are that by nature.

FIRST WOMAN

There’s no doubt of that; but the worst of it is our inexperience.

PRAXAGORA

That’s the very reason we are gathered here, in order to prepare the speech we must make in the Assembly. Hasten, therefore, all you who know aught of speaking, to fix on your beards.

SECOND WOMAN

Oh you stupid thing! is there ever a one among us cannot use her tongue?

PRAXAGORA

Come, look sharp, on with your beard and become a man. As for me, I will do the same in case I should have a fancy for getting on to the platform. Here are the chaplets.

They all put on their beards.

SECOND WOMAN

Oh! great gods! my dear Praxagora, do look here! Is it not laughable?

PRAXAGORA

How laughable?

SECOND WOMAN

Our beards look like broiled cuttle-fishes.

PRAXAGORA pretending to be the herald

Priest, bring in the cat. Step forward, please Silence, Ariphrades! Come and take your seat. Now, who wishes to speak?

SECOND WOMAN

I do.

PRAXAGORA

Then put on this chaplet and success be with you.

SECOND WOMAN

There!

PRAXAGORA

Well then I begin.

SECOND WOMAN

Before drinking?

PRAXAGORA

Hah! she wants to drink!

SECOND WOMAN

Why, what else is the meaning of this chaplet?

PRAXAGORA

Get you hence! you would probably have played us this trick also before the people.

SECOND WOMAN

Well! don’t the men drink then in the Assembly?

PRAXAGORA

Now she’s telling us the men drink!

SECOND WOMAN

Yes, by Artemis, and neat wine too. That’s why their decrees breathe of drunkenness and madness. And why libations, why so many ceremonies, if wine plays no part in them? Besides, they abuse each other like drunken men, and you can see the archers dragging more than one uproarious drunkard out of the market-place.

PRAXAGORA

Go back to your seat, you are wandering.

SECOND WOMAN returning to her seat

Ah! I should have done better not to have muffled myself in this beard; my throat’s afire and I feel I shall die of thirst.

PRAXAGORA

Who else wishes to speak?

FIRST WOMAN rising

I do.

PRAXAGORA

Quick then, take the chaplet; the time’s running short. Try to speak worthily, let your language be truly manly, and lean on your staff with dignity.

FIRST WOMAN

I had rather have seen one of your regular orators giving you wise advice; but, as that is not to be, it behoves me to break silence; I cannot, for my part indeed, allow the tavern-keepers to fill up their wine-pits with water. No, by the two goddesses…

PRAXAGORA

What? by the two goddesses! Wretched woman, where are your senses?

FIRST WOMAN

Eh! what?… I have not asked you for a drink.

PRAXAGORA

No, but you want to pass for a man, and you swear by the two goddesses. Otherwise you did very well.

FIRST WOMAN

Well then. By Apollo…

PRAXAGORA

Stop! All these details of language must be adjusted; else it is quite useless to go to the Assembly.

FIRST WOMAN

Give me back the chaplet; I wish to speak again, for I think I have got hold of something good. You women who are listening to me…

PRAXAGORA

Women again; why, you wretched creature, it’s men that you are addressing.

FIRST WOMAN

That’s the fault of Epigonus; I caught sight of him way over there, and I thought I was speaking to women.

PRAXAGORA

Come, withdraw and remain seated in the future. I am going to take this chaplet myself and speak in your name. May the gods grant success to my plans! My country is as dear to me as it is to you, and I groan, I am grieved at all that is happening in it. Scarcely one in ten of those who rule it is honest, and all the others are bad. If you appoint fresh chiefs, they will do still worse. It is hard to correct your peevish humour; you fear those who love you and throw yourselves at the feet of those who betray you. There was a time when we had no assemblies, and then we all thought Agyrrhius a dishonest man; now they are established, he who gets money thinks everything is as it should be, and he who does not, declares all who sell their votes to be worthy of death.

SECOND WOMAN

By Aphrodite, that is well spoken.

PRAXAGORA

Why, wretched woman, you have actually called upon Aphrodite. Oh! what a fine thing it would have been if you had said that in the Assembly!

SECOND WOMAN

But I would not have done it then.

PRAXAGORA

Well, mind you don’t fall into the habit.

Resuming the oratorical manner

When we were discussing the alliance, it seemed as though it were all over with Athens if it fell through. No sooner was it made than we were vexed and angry, and the orator who had caused its adoption was compelled to seek safety in flight. Is there talk of equipping a fleet? The poor man says, yes, but the rich citizen and the countryman say, no. You were angered against the Corinthians and they with you; now they are well disposed towards you, be so towards them. As a rule the Argives are dull, but the Argive Hieronymus is a distinguished chief. Herein lies a spark of hope; but Thrasybulus is far from Athens and you do not recall him.

SECOND WOMAN

Oh! what a brilliant man!

PRAXAGORA to her

That’s better! that’s fitting applause.

Continuing her speech

Citizens, you are the ones who are the cause of all this trouble. You vote yourselves salaries out of the public funds and care only for your own personal interests; hence the state limps along like Aesimus. But if you hearken to me, you will be saved. I assert that the direction of affairs must be handed over to the women, for they are the ones who have charge and look after our households.

ALL THE WOMEN

Very good, very good, that’s perfect! Go on, go on.

PRAXAGORA ignoring this interruption

They are worth more than you are, as I shall prove. First of all they wash all their wool in warm water, according to the ancient practice; you will never see them changing their method. Ah! if Athens only acted thus, if it did not take delight in ceaseless innovations, would not its happiness be assured? Then the women sit down to cook, just as they always did; they carry things on their head just as they always did; they keep the Thesmophoria, just as they always did; they knead their cakes just as they always did; they make their husbands angry just as they always did; they receive their lovers in their houses just as they always did; they buy dainties just as they always did; they love unmixed wine just as they always did; they delight in being loved just as they always did. Let us therefore hand Athens over to them without endless discussions, without bothering ourselves about what they will do; let us simply hand them over the power, remembering that they are mothers and will therefore spare the blood of our soldiers; besides, who will know better than a mother how to forward provisions to the front? Woman is adept at getting money for herself and will not easily let herself be deceived; she understands deceit too well herself. I omit a thousand other advantages. Take my advice and you will live in perfect happiness.

FIRST WOMAN

How beautiful this is, my dearest Praxagora, how clever! But where, pray, did you learn all these pretty things?

PRAXAGORA

When the countryfolk were seeking refuge in the city, I lived on the Pnyx with my husband, and there I learnt to speak through listening to the orators.

FIRST WOMAN

Then, dear, it’s not astonishing that you are so eloquent and clever, henceforward you shall be our leader, so put your great ideas into execution. But if Cephalus belches forth insults against you, what answer will you give him in the Assembly?

PRAXAGORA

I shall say that he is drivelling.

FIRST WOMAN

But all the world knows that.

PRAXAGORA

I shall furthermore say that he is a raving madman.

FIRST WOMAN

There’s nobody who does not know that.

PRAXAGORA

That he, as excellent a statesman as he is, is a clumsy potter.

FIRST WOMAN

And if the blear-eyed Neoclides comes to insult you?

PRAXAGORA

To him I shall say, “Go and look at a dog’s arse.”

FIRST WOMAN

And if they fly at you?

PRAXAGORA

Oh! I shall shake them off as best I can; never fear, I know how to use this too!

FIRST WOMAN

But there is one thing we don’t think of. If the Scythians drag you away, what will you do?

PRAXAGORA

With my arms akimbo like this, I will never, never let myself be taken round the middle.

FIRST WOMAN

If they seize you, we will bid them let you go.

SECOND WOMAN

That’s the best way. But how are we going to remember to lift our arms in the Assembly when it’s our legs we are used to lifting?

PRAXAGORA

It’s difficult; yet it must be done, and the arm shown naked to the shoulder in order to vote. Quick now, put on these tunics and these Laconian shoes, as you see the men do each time they go to the Assembly or for a walk. When this is done, fix on your beards, and when they are arranged in the best way possible, dress yourselves in the cloaks you have stolen from your husbands; finally start off, leaning on your staffs and singing some old man’s song as the villagers do.

FIRST WOMAN

Well spoken; and let us hurry to get to the Pnyx before the women from the country, for they will no doubt not fail to come there.

PRAXAGORA

Quick, quick, for it’s the custom that those who are not at the Pnyx early in the morning return home empty-handed.

PRAXAGORA and the FIRST and SECOND WOMEN depart; those who are left behind form the CHORUS.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Move forward, citizens, move forward; let us not forget to give ourselves this name and may that of woman never slip out of our mouths; woe to us, if it were discovered that we had laid such a plot in the darkness of night.

CHORUS singing

Let us go to the Assembly then, fellow-citizens; for the Thesmothetes have declared that only those who arrive at daybreak with haggard eye and covered with dust, without having snatched time to eat anything but a snack of garlic-pickle, shall alone receive the triobolus. Walk up smartly, Charitimides, Smicythus and Draces, and do not fail in any point of your part; let us first demand our fee and then vote for all that may perchance be useful for our partisans…. Ah! what am I saying? I meant to say, for our fellow-citizens. Let us drive away these men of the city who used to stay at home and chatter round the table in the days when only an obolus was paid, whereas now one is stifled by the crowds at the Pnyx. No! during the archonship of generous Myronides, none would have dared to let himself be paid for the trouble he spent over public business; each one brought his own meal of bread, a couple of onions, three olives and some wine in a little wine-skin. But nowadays we run here to earn the three obols, for the citizen has become as mercenary as the stonemason.

The CHORUS marches away. BLEPYRUS appears in the doorway of his house, wearing PRAXAGORA’s Persian sandals and saffron robe.

BLEPYRUS

What does this mean? My wife has vanished! it is nearly daybreak and she does not return! I had to take a crap! I woke up and hunted in the darkness for my shoes and my cloak; but grope where I would, I couldn’t find them. Meanwhile Mr. O’Shit was already knocking on the door and I had only just time to seize my wife’s little mantle and her Persian slippers. But where shall I find a place where I can take a crap? Bah! One place is as good as another at night-time; no one will see me. Ah! what a damned fool I was to take a wife at my age, and how I could thrash myself for having acted so stupidly! It’s certainty she’s not gone out for any honest purpose. But the thing to do now is to take a crap.

He squats.

A MAN looking out of the window of the house next door

Who’s that? Is that not my neighbour Blepyrus? Why, yes, it’s no other. Tell me, what’s all that yellow about you? Can it be Cinesias who has befouled you so?

BLEPYRUS

No, no, I only slipped on my wife’s tunic to come out in.

MAN

And where is your cloak?

BLEPYRUS

I cannot tell you; I hunted for it vainly on the bed.

MAN

And why did you not ask your wife for it?

BLEPYRUS

Ah! why indeed! because she is not in the house; she has run away, and I greatly fear that she may be doing me an ill turn.

MAN

But, by Posidon, it’s the same with myself. My wife has disappeared with my cloak, and what is still worse, with my shoes as well; I cannot find them anywhere.

BLEPYRUS

Nor can I my Laconian ones; but as I urgently needed to crap, I popped my feet into these slippers, so as not to soil my blanket, which is brand new.

MAN

What does it mean? Can some friend have invited her to a feast?

BLEPYRUS

I expect so, for she does not generally misconduct herself, as far as I know.

MAN

What are you doing, making well-ropes? Are you never going to be done? As for myself, I would like to go to the Assembly, and it is time to start, but I’ve got to find my cloak; I have only one.

BLEPYRUS

I am going to have a look too, when I have finished crapping; but I really think there must be a wild pear obstructing my rectum.

MAN

Is it the one which Thrasybulus spoke about to the Lacedaemonians?

BLEPYRUS

Oh! oh! oh! stopped up I am! Whatever am I to do? It’s not merely for the present that I am frightened; but when I have eaten, where is my crap to find an outlet now? This damned McPear fellow has bolted the door. Call a doctor; but who is the cleverest in this branch of the science? Amynon? Perhaps he would not come. Ah! Antisthenes! Let him be brought to me, cost what it will. To judge by his noisy sighs, that man knows what an arse wants, when it needs to crap. Oh! venerated Ilithyia! I shall burst unless the door gives way. Have pity! pity! Let me not become a thunder-mug for the comic poets.

Enter CHREMES, returning from the Assembly.

CHREMES

Hi! friend, what are you doing there? You’re not crapping, are you?

BLEPYRUS finding relief at last

Oh! there! it is over and I can get up again.

CHREMES

What’s this? You have your wife’s tunic on.

BLEPYRUS

It was the first thing that came to my hand in the darkness. But where are you coming from?

CHREMES

From the Assembly.

BLEPYRUS

Is it already over then?

CHREMES

Certainly.

BLEPYRUS

Why, it is scarcely daylight.

CHREMES

I did laugh, ye gods, at the vermilion rope-marks that were to be seen all about the Assembly.

BLEPYRUS

Did you get the triobolus?

CHREMES

Would it had so pleased the gods! but I arrived just too late, and am quite ashamed of it; I bring back nothing but this empty wallet.

BLEPYRUS

But why is that?

CHREMES

There was a crowd, such as has never been seen at the Pnyx, and the folk looked pale and wan, like so many shoemakers, so white were they in hue; both I and many another had to go without the triobolus.

BLEPYRUS

Then if I went now, I should get nothing.

CHREMES

No, certainly not, nor even had you gone at the second cock-crow.

BLEPYRUS

Oh! what a misfortune! “Oh, Antilochus! no triobolus! Even death would be better! I am undone!” But what can have attracted such a crowd at that early hour?

CHREMES

The Prytanes started the discussion of measures closely concerning the safety of the state; immediately, that blear-eyed fellow, the son of Neoclides, was the first to mount the platform. Then the folk shouted with their loudest voice, “What! he dares to speak, and that, too, when the safety of the state is concerned, and he a man who has not known how tosave even his own eyebrows!” He, however, shouted louder than all of them, and looking at them asked, “Why, what ought I to have done?”

BLEPYRUS

Pound together garlic and laserpitium juice, add to this mixture some Laconian spurge, and rub it well into the eyelids at night. That’s what I should have answered, had I been there.

CHREMES

After him that clever rascal Evaeon began to speak; he was naked, so far as we all could see, but he declared he had a cloak; he propounded the most popular, the most democratic, doctrines. “You see,” he said, “I have the greatest need of sixteen drachmae, the cost of a new cloak, my health demands it; nevertheless I wish first to care for that of my fellow-citizens and of my country. If the fullers were to supply tunics to the indigent at the approach of winter, none would be exposed to pleurisy. Let him who has neither beds nor coverlets go to sleep at the tanners’ after taking a bath; and if they shut the door in winter, let them be condemned to give him three goat-skins.”

BLEPYRUS

By Dionysus, a fine, a very fine notion! Not a soul will vote against his proposal, especially if he adds that the flour-sellers must supply the poor with three measures of corn, or else suffer the severest penalties of the law; this is the only way Nausicydes can be of any use to us.

CHREMES

Then we saw a handsome young man rush into the tribune, be was all pink and white like young Nicias, and he began to say that the direction of matters should be entrusted to the women; this the crowd of shoemakers began applauding with all their might, while the country-folk assailed him with groans.

BLEPYRUS

And, indeed, they did well.

CHREMES

But they were outnumbered, and the orator shouted louder than they, saying much good of the women and much ill of you.

BLEPYRUS eagerly

And what did he say?

CHREMES

First he said you were a rogue…

BLEPYRUS

And you?

CHREMES

Wait a minute!…and a thief…

BLEPYRUS

I alone?

CHREMES

And an informer.

BLEPYRUS

I alone?

CHREMES

Why, no, by the gods! this whole crowd here.

He points to the audience.

BLEPYRUS

And who avers the contrary?

CHREMES

He maintained that women were both clever and thrifty, that they never divulged the Mysteries of Demeter, while you and I go about babbling incessantly about whatever happens at the Senate.

BLEPYRUS

By Hermes, he was not lying!

CHREMES

Then he added that the women lend each other clothes, trinkets of gold and silver, drinking-cups, and not before witnesses too, but all by themselves, and that they return everything with exactitude without ever cheating each other; whereas, according to him, we are ever ready to deny the loans we have effected.

BLEPYRUS

Yes, by Posidon, and in spite of witnesses.

CHREMES

Again, he said that women were not informers, nor did they bring lawsuits, nor hatch conspiracies; in short, he praised the women in every possible manner.

BLEPYRUS

And what was decided?

CHREMES

To confide the direction of affairs to them; it’s the one and only innovation that has not yet been tried at Athens.

BLEPYRUS

And it was voted?

CHREMES

Yes.

BLEPYRUS

And everything that used to be the men’s concern has been given over to the women?

CHREMES

You express it exactly.

BLEPYRUS

Thus it will be my wife who will go to the courts now in my stead?

CHREMES

And it will be she who will keep your children in your place.

BLEPYRUS

I shall no longer have to tire myself out with work from daybreak onwards?

CHREMES

No, ‘twill be the women’s business, and you can stay at home and amuse yourself with farting the whole day through.

BLEPYRUS

Well, what I fear for us fellows now is, that, holding the reins of government, they will forcibly compel us…

CHREMES

To do what?

BLEPYRUS

…to lay them.

CHREMES

And if we are not able?

BLEPYRUS

They will give us no dinner.

CHREMES

Well then, do your duty; dinner and love-making form a double enjoyment.

BLEPYRUS

Ah! but I hate compulsion.

CHREMES

But if it is for the public good, let us resign ourselves. It’s an old saying that our absurdest and maddest decrees always somehow turn out for our good. May it be so in this case, oh gods, oh venerable Pallas! But I must be off; so, good-bye to you!

Exit.

BLEPYRUS

Good-bye, Chremes.

He goes back into his house.

CHORUS returning from the Assembly, still dressed like men; singing

March along, go forward. Is there some man following us? Turn round, examine everywhere and keep a good look-out; be on your guard against every trick, for they might spy on us from behind. Let us make as much noise as possible as we tramp. It would be a disgrace for all of us if we allowed ourselves to be caught in this deed by the men. Come, wrap yourselves up well, and search both right and left, so that no mischance may happen to us. Let us hasten our steps; here we are close to the meeting-place whence we started for the Assembly, and here is the house of our leader, the author of this bold scheme, which is now decreed by all the citizens. Let us not lose a moment in taking off our false beards, for we might be recognized and denounced. Let us stand under the shadow of this wall; let us glance round sharply with our eye to beware of surprises, while we quickly resume our ordinary dress. Ah! here is our leader, returning from the Assembly. Hasten to relieve your chins of these flowing manes. Look at your comrades yonder; they have already made themselves women again some while ago.

They remove the beards as PRAXAGORA and the other women enter from the right through the Orchestra.

PRAXAGORA

Friends, success has crowned our plans. But off with these cloaks and these boots quick, before any man sees you; unbuckle the Laconian straps and get rid of your staffs;

to the LEADER

and you help them with their toilet. As for myself, I am going to slip quietly into the house and replace my husband’s cloak and other gear where I took them from, before he can suspect anything.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

There! it’s done according to your bidding. Now tell us how we can be of service to you, so that we may show you our obedience, for we have never seen a cleverer woman than you.

PRAXAGORA

Wait! I only wish to use the power given me in accordance with your wishes; for, in the market-place, in the midst of the shouts and danger, I appreciated your indomitable courage.

Just as she is about to enter the house BLEPYRUS appears in the doorway.

BLEPYRUS

Eh, Praxagora! where are you coming from?

PRAXAGORA

How does that concern you, dear?

BLEPYRUS

Why, greatly! what a silly question!

PRAXAGORA

You don’t think I have come from a lover’s?

BLEPYRUS

No, perhaps not from only one.

PRAXAGORA

You can make yourself sure of that.

BLEPYRUS

And how?

PRAXAGORA

You can see whether my hair smells of perfume.

BLEPYRUS

What? cannot a woman possibly be laid without perfume, eh!

PRAXAGORA

The gods forfend, as far as I am concerned.

BLEPYRUS

Why did you go off at early dawn with my cloak?

PRAXAGORA

Acompanion, a friend who was in labour, had sent to fetch me.

BLEPYRUS

Could you not have told me?

PRAXAGORA

Oh, my dear, would you have me caring nothing for a poor woman in that plight?

BLEPYRUS

A word would have been enough. There’s something behind all this.

PRAXAGORA

No, I call the goddesses to witness! I went running off; the poor woman who summoned me begged me to come, whatever might betide.

BLEPYRUS

And why did you not take your mantle? Instead of that, you carry of mine, you throw your dress upon the bed and you leave me as the dead are left, bar the chaplets and perfumes.

PRAXAGORA

It was cold, and I am frail and delicate; I took your cloak for greater warmth, leaving you thoroughly warm yourself beneath your coverlets.

BLEPYRUS

And my shoes and staff, those too went off with you?

PRAXAGORA

I was afraid they might rob me of the cloak, and so, to look like a man, I put on your shoes and walked with a heavy tread and struck the stones with your staff.

BLEPYRUS

D’you know you have made us lose a sextary of wheat, which I should have bought with the triobolus of the Assembly?

PRAXAGORA

Be comforted, for she had a boy.

BLEPYRUS

Who? the Assembly?

PRAXAGORA

No, no, the woman I helped. But has the Assembly taken place then?

BLEPYRUS

Did I not tell you of it yesterday?

PRAXAGORA

True; I remember now.

BLEPYRUS

And don’t you know the decrees that have been voted?

PRAXAGORA

No indeed.

BLEPYRUS

Go to! you can live on lobster from now on, for they say the government is handed over to you.

PRAXAGORA

To do what-to spin?

BLEPYRUS

No, that you may rule…

PRAXAGORA

What?

BLEPYRUS

…over all public business.

PRAXAGORA as she exclaims this CHREMES reappears

Oh! by Aphrodite how happy Athens will be!

BLEPYRUS

Why so?

PRAXAGORA

For a thousand reasons. None will dare now to do shameless deeds, give false testimony or lay informations.

BLEPYRUS

Stop! in the name of the gods! Do you want me to die of hunger?

CHREMES

Good sir, let your wife speak.

PRAXAGORA

There will be no more thieves, nor envious people, no more rags nor misery, no more abuse and no more prosecutions and law-suits.

CHREMES

By Posidon! that’s grand, if it’s true!

PRAXAGORA

I shall prove it and you shall be my witness and even he

pointing to Blepyrus

will have no objections to raise.

CHORUS singing

You have served your friends, but now it behoves you to apply your ability and your care to the welfare of the people. Devote the fecundity of your mind to the public weal; adorn the citizens’ lives with a thousand enjoyments and teach them to seize every favourable opportunity. Devise some ingenious method to secure the much-needed salvation of Athens; but let neither your acts nor your words recall anything of the past, for ‘tis only innovations that please.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

But do not fail to put your plans into execution immediately; it’s quick action that pleases the audience.

PRAXAGORA

I believe my ideas are good, but what I fear is that the public will cling to the old customs and refuse to accept my reforms.

CHREMES

Have no fear about that. Love of novelty and disdain for traditions, these are the dominating principles among us.

PRAXAGORA to the audience

Let none contradict nor interrupt me until I have explained my plan. I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; no longer shall we see one man harvesting vast tracts of land, while another has not ground enough to be buried in, nor one man surround himself with a whole army of slaves,while another has not a single attendant; I intend that there shan only be one and the same condition of life for all.

BLEPYRUS

But how do you mean for all?

PRAXAGORA impatiently

You’ll eat dung before I do!

BLEPYRUS

Won’t the dung be common too?

PRAXAGORA

No, no, but you interrupted me too soon. This is what I was going to say; I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all. Then we shall live on this common wealth, which we shall take care to administer with wise thrift.

BLEPYRUS

And how about the man who has no land, but only gold and silver coins, that cannot be seen?

PRAXAGORA

He must bring them to the common stock, and if he fails he will be a perjured man.

BLEPYRUS

That won’t worry him much, for has he not gained them by perjury?

PRAXAGORA

But his riches will no longer be of any use to him.

BLEPYRUS

Why?

PRAXAGORA

The poor will no longer be obliged to work; each will have all that he needs, bread, salt fish, cakes, tunics, wine, chaplets and chick-pease; of what advantage will it be to him not to contribute his share to the common wealth? What do you think of it?

BLEPYRUS

But is it not the biggest robbers that have all these things?

CHREMES

Yes, formerly, under the old order of things; but now that all goods are in common, what will he gain by not bringing his wealth into the general stock?

BLEPYRUS

If someone saw a pretty wench and wished to lay her, he would take some of his reserve store to make her a present and stay the night with her; this would not prevent him claiming his share of the common property.

PRAXAGORA

But he can sleep with her for nothing; I intend that women shall belong to all men in common, and each shall beget children by any man that wishes to have her.

BLEPYRUS

But all will go to the prettiest woman and try to lay her.

PRAXAGORA

The ugliest and the most flat-nosed will be side by side with the most charming, and to win the latter’s favours, a man will first have to get into the former.

BLEPYRUS

But what about us oldsters? If we have to lay the old women first, how can we keep our tools from failing before we get into the Promised Land?

PRAXAGORA

They will make no resistance. Never fear; they will make no resistance.

BLEPYRUS

Resistance to what?

PRAXAGORA

To the pleasure of the thing. This is the way that matters will be ordered for you.

BLEPYRUS

It’s very well conceived for you women, for every wench’s hole will be filled; but what about the men? The women will run away from the ugly ones and chase the good-looking.

PRAXAGORA

The ugly will follow the handsomest into the public places after supper and see to it that the law, which forbids the women to sleep with the big, handsome men before having satisfied the ugly shrimps, is complied with.

BLEPYRUS

Thus ugly Lysicrates’ nose will be as proud as the handsomest face?

PRAXAGORA

Yes, by Apollo! this is a truly popular decree, and what a set-back it will be for one of those elegants with their fingers loaded with rings, when a man with heavy shoes says to him, “Give way to me and wait till I have done; you will pass in after me.”

BLEPYRUS

But if we live in this fashion, how will each one know his children?

PRAXAGORA

The youngest will look upon the oldest as their fathers.

BLEPYRUS

Ah! how heartily they will strangle all the old men, since even now, when each one knows his father, they make no bones about strangling him! then, my word! won’t they just scorn and crap upon the old folks!

PRAXAGORA

But those around will prevent it. Hitherto, when anyone saw an old man beaten, he would not meddle, because it did not concern him; buff now each will fear the sufferer may be his own father and such violence will be stopped.

BLEPYRUS

What you say is not so silly after all; but it would be highly unpleasant were Epicurus and Leucolophas to come up and call me father.

CHREMES

But it would be far worse, were…

BLEPYRUS

Were what?

CHREMES

…Aristyllus to embrace you and style you his father.

BLEPYRUS

He’ll regret it if he does!

CHREMES

For you would smell vilely of mint if he kissed you. But he was born before the decree was carried, so that you have not to fear his kiss.

BLEPYRUS

It would be awful. But who will till the soil?

PRAXAGORA

The slaves. Your only cares will be to scent yourself, and to go and dine, when the shadow of the gnomon is ten feet long on the dial.

BLEPYRUS

But how shall we obtain clothing? Tell me that!

PRAXAGORA

You will first wear out those you have, and then we women will weave you others.

BLEPYRUS

Now another point: if the magistrates condemn a citizen to the payment of a fine, how is he going to do it? Out of the public funds? That would not be right surely.

PRAXAGORA

But there will be no more lawsuits.

BLEPYRUS

This rule will ruin you.

CHREMES

I think so too.

PRAXAGORA

Besides, my dear, why should there be lawsuits?

BLEPYRUS

Oh! for a thousand reasons, on my faith! Firstly, because a debtor denies his obligation.

PRAXAGORA

But where will the lender get the money to lend, if all is in common? unless he steals it out of the treasury? and he could not hide that!

CHREMES

Well thought out, by Demeter!

BLEPYRUS

But tell me this: here are some men who are returning from a feast and are drunk and they strike some passer-by; how are they going to pay the fine? Ah! you are puzzled now!

PRAXAGORA

They will have to take it out of their pittance; and being thus punished through their belly, they will not care to begin again.

BLEPYRUS

There will be no more thieves then, eh?

PRAXAGORA

Why steal, if you have a share of everything?

BLEPYRUS

People will not be robbed any more at night?

CHREMES

Not if you sleep at home.

PRAXAGORA

Even if you sleep outdoors there will be no more danger, for all will have the means of living. Besides, if anyone wanted to steal your cloak, you would give it to him yourself. Why not? You will only have to go to the common store and be given a better one.

BLEPYRUS

There will be no more playing at dice?

PRAXAGORA

What object will there be in playing?

BLEPYRUS

But what kind of life is it you propose to set up?

PRAXAGORA

The life in common. Athens will become nothing more than a single house, in which everything will belong to everyone; so that everybody will be able to go from one house to the other at pleasure.

BLEPYRUS

And where will the meals be served?

PRAXAGORA

The law-courts and the porticoes will be turned into dining-halls.

BLEPYRUS

And what will the speaker’s platform be used for?

PRAXAGORA

I shall place the bowls and the ewers there; and young children will sing the glory of the brave from there, also the infamy of cowards, who out of very shame will no longer dare to come to the public meals.

BLEPYRUS

Well thought out, by Apollo! And what will you do with the urns?

PRAXAGORA

I shall have them taken to the market-place, and standing close to the statue of Harmodius, I shall draw a lot for each citizen, which by its letter will show the place where he must go to dine. Thus, those for whom I have drawn an R will go to the royal portico; if it’s a T, they will go to the portico of Theseus; if it’s an F, to that of the flour-market.

BLEPYRUS

To cram himself there like a capon?

PRAXAGORA

No, to dine there.

BLEPYRUS

And the citizen whom the lot has not given a letter showing where he is to dine will be driven off by everyone?

PRAXAGORA with great solemnity

But that will not occur. Each man will have plenty; he will not leave the feast until he is well drunk, and then with a chaplet on his head and a torch in his hand; and then the women running to meet you in the crossroads will say, “This way, come to our house, you will find a beautiful young girl there.”-”And I,” another will call from her balcony, “have one sopretty and as white as milk; but before touching her, you must sleep with me.” And the ugly men, watching closely after the handsome fellows, will say, “Hi! friend, where are you running to? Go in, but you must do nothing; it’s the ugly and the flat-nosed to whom the law gives the right to make love first; amuse yourself on the porch while you wait, in handling your fig-leaves and playing with yourself.” Well, tell me, does that picture suit you?

BLEPYRUS AND CHREMES

Marvellously well.

PRAXAGORA

I must now go to the market-place to receive the property that is going to be placed in common and to choose a woman with a loud voice as my herald. I have all the cares of state on my shoulders, since the power has been entrusted to me. I must likewise go to busy myself about establishing the common meals, and you will attend your first banquet to-day.

BLEPYRUS

Are we going to banquet?

PRAXAGORA

Why, undoubtedly! Furthermore, I propose abolishing the whores.

BLEPYRUS

And what for?

PRAXAGORA

It’s clear enough why; so that, instead of them, we may have the first-fruits of the young men. It is not meet that tricked-out slaves should rob free-born women of their pleasures. Let the courtesans be free to sleep with the slaves.

BLEPYRUS

I will march at your side, so that I may be seen and that everyone may say, “Look at the Dictator’s husband!”

He follows PRAXAGORA into their house.

CHREMES

As for me, I shall arrange my belongings and take inventory of them, in order that I may take them to the market-place.

He departs.

There is an interlude of dancing by the CHORUS, after which CHREMES returns with his belongings and arranges them in a long line.

CHREMES

Come hither, my beautiful sieve, I have nothing more precious than you, come, all clotted with the flour of which I have poured so many sacks through you; you shall act the part of Canephorus in the procession of my chattels. Where is the sunshade carrier? Ah! this stew-pot shall take his place. Great gods, how black it is! it could not be more so if Lysicrates had boiled the drugs in it with which be dyes his hair. Hither, my beautiful mirror. And you, my tripod, bear this urn for me; you shall be the water-bearer; and you, cock, whose morning song has so often roused me in the middle of the night to send me hurrying to the Assembly, you shall be my flute-girl. Scaphephorus, do you take the large basin, place in it the honeycombs and twine the olive-branches over them, bring the tripods and the phial of perfume; as for the humble crowd of little pots, I will just leave them behind.

CITIZEN watching CHREMES from a distance

What folly to carry one’s goods to the common store; I have a little more sense than that. No, no, by Posidon, I want first to ponder and calculate over the thing at leisure. I shall not be fool enough to strip myself of the fruits of my toil and thrift, if it is not for a very good reason; let us see first which way things turn.

He walks over to CHREMES

Hi! friend, what means this display of goods? Are you moving or are you going to pawn your stuff?

CHREMES

Neither.

CITIZEN

Why then are you setting all these things out in line? Is it a procession that you are starting off to Hiero, the public crier?

CHREMES

No, but in accordance with the new law that has been decreed, I am going to carry all these things to the market-place to make a gift of them to the state.

CITIZEN

Oh! bah! you don’t mean that.

CHREMES

Certainly.

CITIZEN

Oh! Zeus the Deliverer! you unfortunate man!

CHREMES

Why?

CITIZEN

Why? It’s as clear as noonday.

CHREMES

Must the laws not be obeyed then?

CITIZEN

What laws, you poor fellow?

CHREMES

Those that have been decreed.

CITIZEN

Decreed! Are you mad, I ask you?

CHREMES

Am I mad?

CITIZEN

Oh! this is the height of folly!

CHREMES

Because I obey the law?

CITIZEN

Is that the duty of a smart man?

CHREMES

Absolutely.

CITIZEN

Say rather of a ninny.

CHREMES

Don’t you propose taking what belongs to you to the common stock?

CITIZEN

I’ll take good care I don’t until I see what the majority are doing.

CHREMES

There’s but one opinion, namely, to contribute every single thing one has.

CITIZEN

I am waiting to see it, before I believe that.

CHREMES

At least, so they say in every street.

CITIZEN sardonically

And they will go on saying so.

CHREMES

Everyone talks of contributing all he has.

CITIZEN in the same tone

And will go on talking of it.

CHREMES

You weary me with your doubts and dubitations.

CITIZEN in the same tone

Everybody else will doubt it.

CHREMES

The pest seize you!

CITIZEN in the same tone

It will take you.

Then seriously

What? give up your goods! Is there a man of sense who will do such a thing? Giving is not one of our customs. Receiving is another matter; it’s the way of the gods themselves. Look at the position of their hands on their statues; when we ask a favour, they present their hands turned palm up so as not to give, but to receive.

CHREMES

Wretch, let me do what is right. Come, I’ll make a bundle of all these things. Where is my strap?

CITIZEN

Are you really going to carry them in?

CHREMES

Undoubtedly, and there are my two tripods strung together already.

CITIZEN

What folly! Not to wait to see what the others do, and then…

CHREMES

Well, and then what?

CITIZEN

…wait and put it off again.

CHREMES

What for?

CITIZEN

That an earthquake may come or an ill-omened flash of lightning, that a black cat may run across the street and no one carry in anything more, you fool!

CHREMES

It would be a fine thing if I were to find no room left for placing all this.

CITIZEN

You are much more likely to lose your stuff. As for placing it, you can be at ease, for there will be room enough as long as a month hence.

CHREMES

Why?

CITIZEN

I know these people; a decree is readily passed, but it is not so easily attended to.

CHREMES

All will contribute their property, my friend.

CITIZEN

But what if they don’t?

CHREMES

But there is no doubt that they will.

CITIZEN insistently

But anyhow, what if they don’t?

CHREMES

Do not worry; they will.

CITIZEN

And what if they oppose it?

CHREMES

We shall compel them to do so.

CITIZEN

And what if they prove the stronger?

CHREMES

I shall leave my goods and go off.

CITIZEN

And what if they sell them for you?

CHREMES

The plague take you!

CITIZEN

And if it does?

CHREMES

It will be a good riddance.

CITIZEN in an incredulous tone

You are really bent on contributing, then?

CHREMES

‘Pon my soul, yes! Look, there are all my neighbours carrying in all they have.

CITIZEN sarcastically

Oh yes, it’s Antisthenes; he’s the type that would contribute! He would just as soon spend the next month sitting on the can.

CHREMES

The pest seize you!

CITIZEN

Will Callimachus, the chorus-master, contribute anything?

CHREMES

Why, more than Callias!

CITIZEN

The man must want to spend all his money!

CHREMES

How you weary me!

CITIZEN

Ah! I weary you? But, wretch, see what comes of decrees of this kind. Don’t you remember the one reducing the price of salt?

CHREMES

Why, certainly I do.

CITIZEN

And do you remember that about the copper coinage?

CHREMES

Ah! that cursed money did me enough harm. I had sold my grapes and had my mouth stuffed with pieces of copper; indeed I was going to the market to buy flour, and was in the act of holding out my bag wide open, when the herald started shouting, “Let none in future accept pieces of copper; those of silver are alone current.”

CITIZEN

And quite lately, were we not all swearing that the impost of one-fortieth, which Euripides had conceived, would bring five hundred talents to the state, and everyone was vaunting Euripides to the skies? But when the thing was looked at closely, it was seen that this fine decree was mere moonshine and would produce nothing, and you would have willinglyburnt this very same Euripides alive.

CHREMES

The cases are quite different, my good fellow. We were the rulers then, but now it’s the women.

CITIZEN

Whom, by Posidon, I will never allow to piss on my nose.

CHREMES

I don’t know what the devil you’re chattering about. Slave, pick up that bundle.

HERALD a woman

Let all citizens come, let them hasten at our leader’s bidding! It is the new law. The lot will teach each citizen where he is to dine; the tables are already laid and loaded with the most exquisite dishes; the couches are covered with the softest of cushions; the wine and water are already being mixed in the ewers; the slaves are standing in a row and waiting to pour scent over the guests; the fish is being grilled, the hares are on the spit and the cakes are being kneaded, chaplets are being plaited and the fritters are frying; the youngest women are watching the pea-soup in the saucepans, and in the midst of them all stands Smoeus, dressed as a knight, washing the crockery. And Geron has come, dressed in a grand tunic and finely shod; he is joking with another young fellow and has already divested himself of his heavy shoes and his cloak. The pantry man is waiting, so come and use your jaws.

Exit

CITIZEN

All right, I’ll go. Why should I delay, since the state commands me?

CHREMES

And where are you going to, since you have not deposited your belongings?

CITIZEN

To the feast.

CHREMES

If the women have any wits, they will first insist on your depositing your goods.

CITIZEN

But I am going to deposit them.

CHREMES

When?

CITIZEN

I am not the man to make delays.

CHREMES

How do you mean?

CITIZEN

There will be many less eager than I.

CHREMES

In the meantime you are going to dine.

CITIZEN

What else should I do? Every sensible man must give his help to the state.

CHREMES

But if admission is forbidden you?

CITIZEN

I shall duck my head and slip in.

CHREMES

And if the women have you beaten?

CITIZEN

I shall summon them.

CHREMES

And if they laugh in your face?

CITIZEN

I shall stand near the door…

CHREMES

And then?

CITIZEN

…and seize upon the dishes as they pass.

CHREMES

Then go there, but after me. Sicon and Parmeno, pick up all this baggage.

CITIZEN

Come, I will help you carry it.

CHREMES pushing him away

No, no, I should be afraid of your pretending to the leader that what I am depositing belonged to you.

Exit with his belongings.

CITIZEN

Let me see! let me think of some good trick by which I can keep my goods and yet take my share of the common feast.

He reflects for a moment.

Ha! that’s a fine idea! Quick! I’ll go and dine, ha! ha!

Exit laughing.

Interlude of dancing by the CHORUS.

The scene shifts to a different section of Athens and the two houses are now to be thought of as those of two prostitutes.

FIRST OLD WOMAN leaning out of the window of one house

How is this? no men are coming? And yet it must be fully time! Then it is for naught that I have painted myself with white lead, dressed myself in my beautiful yellow robe, and that I am here, frolicking and humming between my teeth to attract some passer-by! Oh, Muses, alight upon my lips, inspire me with some soft Ionian love-song!

YOUNG GIRL in the window of the other house

You putrid old thing, you have placed yourself at the window before me. You were expecting to strip my vines during my absence and to trap some man in your snares with your songs. If you sing, I shall follow suit; all this singing will weary the spectators, but is nevertheless very pleasant and very diverting.

FIRST OLD WOMAN thumbing her nose at the YOUNG GIRL

Ha! here is an old man; take him and lead him away.

To the flute-player

As for you, you young flute-player, let us hear some airs that are worthy of you and me.

She sings

Let him who wishes to taste pleasure come to my side. These young things know nothing about it; it’s only the women of ripe age who understand the art of love, and no one could know how to fondle the lover who possessed me so well as myself; the young girls are all flightiness.

YOUNG GIRL singing in her turn

Don’t be jealous of the young girls; voluptuousness resides in the pure outline of their beautiful limbs and blossoms on their rounded breasts; but you, old woman, you who are tricked out and perfumed as if for your own funeral, are an object of love only for grim Death himself.

FIRST OLD WOMAN singing again

May your tongue be stopped; may you be unable to find your couch when you want to be loved. And on your couch, when your lips seek a lover, may you embrace only a viper!

YOUNG GIRL singing again

Alas! alas! what is to become of me? There is no lover! I am left here alone; my mother has gone out.

Interrupting her song

There’s no need to mention the rest.

Then singing again

Oh! my dear nurse, I adjure you to call Orthagoras, and may heaven bless you. Ah! poor child, desire is consuming you like an Ionian woman;

interrupting again

and yet you are no stranger to the wanton arts of the Lesbian women.

Resuming her song

But you shall not rob me of my pleasures; you will not be able to reduce or filch the time that first belongs to me.

FIRST OLD WOMAN

Sing as much as you please, peep out like a cat lying in wait, but none shall pass through your door without first having been to see me.

YOUNG GIRL

If anyone enter your house, it will be to carry out your corpse. And that will be something new for you, you rotten old thing!

FIRST OLD WOMAN

Can anything be new to an old woman? My old age will not harm you.

YOUNG GIRL

Ah! shame on your painted cheeks!

FIRST OLD WOMAN

Why do you speak to me at all?

YOUNG GIRL

And why do you place yourself at the window?

FIRST OLD WOMAN

I am singing to myself about my lover, Epigenes.

YOUNG GIRL

Can you have any other lover than that old fop Geres?

FIRST OLD WOMAN

Epigenes will show you that himself, for he is coming to me. See, here he is.

YOUNG GIRL

He’s not thinking of you in the least.

FIRST OLD WOMAN

Aye, but he is.

YOUNG GIRL

Old starveling! Let’s see what he will do. I will leave my window.

FIRST OLD WOMAN

And I likewise. You will see I am much wiser than you.

A YOUNG MAN sings

Ah! could I but sleep with the young girl without first making love to the old flat-nose! It is intolerable for a free-born man.

FIRST OLD WOMAN singing to the same tune

Willy nilly, you must first gratify my desire. There shall be no nonsense about that, for my authority is the law and the law must be obeyed in a democracy.

Speaking

But come, let me hide, to see what he’s going to do.

She retires.

The Trojan Women

Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great Tragedians of 5th century Athens, the first two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. He made many theatrical innovation in his towards the end of the 5th century, greatly evolving the genre of tragedy. Like Aristophanes, his plays dealt a great deal with political and social commentary.

Euripides wrote the play The Trojan Women, which was produced in 415 B.C. The play deals with the fates of the women of Troy following the sack of the city by the Greeks. The play begins, however, with Athena and Posedion looking for ways to punish the Greeks for allowing the rape of Cassandra, who was dragged away while praying to a statue of Athena by Ajax the Lesser. This is only the beginning of many things the Trojan women suffer. The play depicts the deep grief of the women of Troy and the hardships they have to bear lending them, though women of the enemy, sympathy. The play is believed to be a reaction to the Athenian capture of the island Melos and its subsequent subjecation, which occurred a year earlier. Euripides uses the Trojan women perspective to put the Athenian audience in the shoes of the conquered thus allowing them to feel sympathy for them.

Dramatis Personae

Poseidon

Athena

Hecuba

Chorus of Captive Trojan Women

Talthybius

Cassandra

Andromache

Menelaus

Scene:

Before Agamemnon’s Tent in the Camp near Troy. HECUBA asleep. Enter POSEIDON.

POSEIDON

Lo! From the depths of salt Aegean floods I, Poseidon, come, where choirs of Nereids trip in the mazes of the graceful dance; for since the day that Phoebus and myself with measurement exact set towers of stone about this land of Troy and ringed it round, never from my heart hath passed away a kindly feeling for my Phrygian town, which now is smouldering and o’erthrown, a prey to Argive prowess. For, from his home beneath Parnassus, Phocian Epeus, aided by the craft of Pallas, framed a horse to bear within its womb an armed host, and sent it within the battlements, fraught with death; whence in days to come men shall tell of “the wooden horse,” with its hidden load of warriors. Groves forsaken stand and temples of the gods run down with blood, and at the altar’s very base, before the god who watched his home, lies Priam dead. While to Achaean ships great store of gold andPhrygian spoils are being conveyed, and they who came against this town, those sons Of Hellas, only wait a favouring breeze to follow in their wake, that after ten long years they may with joy behold their wives and children. Vanquished by Hera, Argive goddess, and by Athena, who helped to ruin Phrygia, I am leaving Ilium, that famous town, and the altars that I love; for when drear desolation seizes on a town, the worship of the gods decays and tends to lose respect. Scamander’s banks re-echo long and loud the screams of captive maids, as they by lot receive their masters. Arcadia taketh some, and some the folk of Thessaly; others are assigned to Theseus’ sons, the Athenian chiefs. And such of the Trojan dames as are not portioned out, are in these tents, set apart for the leaders of the host; and with them Spartan Helen, daughter of Tyndarus, justly counted among the captives. And wouldst thou see that queen of misery, Hecuba, thou canst; for there she lies before the gates, weeping many a bitter tear for many a tribulation; for at Achilles’ tomb-though she knows not this-her daughter Polyxena has died most piteously; likewise is Priam dead, and her children too; Cassandra, whom the king Apollo left to be a virgin, frenzied maid, hath Agamemnon, in contempt of the god’s ordinance and of piety, forced to a dishonoured wedlock. Farewell, O city prosperous once! farewell, ye ramparts of hewn stone! had not Pallas, daughter of Zeus, decreed thy ruin, thou wert standing firmly still.

Enter ATHENA.

ATHENA

May I address the mighty god whom Heaven reveres and who to my own sire is very nigh in blood, laying aside our former enmity?

POSEIDON

Thou mayst; for o’er the soul the ties of kin exert no feeble spell, great queen Athena.

ATHENA

For thy forgiving mood my thanks! Somewhat have I to impart affecting both thyself and me, O king.

POSEIDON

Bringst thou fresh tidings from some god, from Zeus, or from some lesser power?

ATHENA

From none of these; but on behalf of Troy, whose soil we tread, am I come to seek thy mighty aid, to make it one with mine.

POSEIDON

What! hast thou laid thy former hate aside to take compassion on the town now that it is burnt to ashes?

ATHENA

First go back to the former point; wilt thou make common cause with me in the scheme I purpose?

POSEIDON

Ay surely; but I would fain learn thy wishes, whether thou art come to help Achaens or Phrygians.

ATHENA

I wish to give my former foes, the Trojans, joy, and on the Achaean host impose a return that they will rue.

POSEIDON

Why leap’st thou thus from mood to mood? Thy love and hate both go too far, on whomsoever centred.

ATHENA

Dost not know the insult done to me and to the shrine I love?

POSEIDON

Surely, in the hour that Aias tore Cassandra thence.

ATHENA

Yea, and the Achaeans did naught, said naught to him.

POSEIDON

And yet ‘twas by thy mighty aid they sacked Ilium.

ATHENA

For which cause I would join with thee to work their bane.

POSEIDON

My powers are ready at thy will. What is thy intent?

ATHENA

A returning fraught with woe will I impose on them.

POSEIDON

While yet they stay on shore, or as they cross the briny deep?

ATHENA

When they have set sail from Ilium for their homes. On them will Zeus also send his rain and fearful hail, and inky tempests from the sky; yea, and he promises to grant me his levin-bolts to hurl on the Achaeans and fire their ships. And do thou, for thy part, make the Aegean strait to roar with mighty billows and whirlpools, and fill Euboea’s hollow bay with corpses, that Achaeans may learn henceforth to reverence my temples and regard all other deities.

POSEIDON

So shall it be, for the boon thou cravest needs but few words. I will vex the broad Aegean sea; and the beach of Myconus and the reefs round Delos, Scyros and Lemnos too, and the cliffs of Caphareus shall be strown with many a corpse. Mount thou to Olympus, and taking from thy father’s hand his lightning bolts, keep careful watch against the hour when Argos’host lets slip its cables. A fool is he who sacks the towns of men, with shrines and tombs, the dead man’s hallowed home, for at the last he makes a desert round himself, and dies. Exeunt.

HECUBA Awakening

Lift thy head, unhappy lady, from the ground; thy neck upraise; this is Troy no more, no longer am I queen in Ilium. Though fortune change, endure thy lot; sail with the stream, and follow fortune’s tack, steer not thy barque of life against the tide, since chance must guide thy course. Ah me! ah me! What else but tears is now my hapless lot, whose country, children, husband, all are lost? Ah! the high-blown pride of ancestors! how cabined now how brought to nothing after all What woe must I suppress, or what declare? What plaintive dirge shall I awake? Ah, woe is me! the anguish I suffer lying here stretched upon this pallet hard! O my head, my temples, my side! Ah! could I but turn over, and he now on this, now on that, to rest my back and spine, while ceaselessly my tearful wail ascends. Fore ‘en this is music to the wretched, to chant their cheerless dirge of sorrow.

Ye swift-prowed ships, rowed to sacred Ilium o’er the deep dark sea, past the fair havens of Hellas, to the flute’s ill-omened music and the dulcet voice of pipes, even to the bays of Troyland (alack the day!), wherein ye tied your hawsers, twisted handiwork from Egypt, in quest of that hateful wife of Menelaus, who brought disgrace on Castor, and on Eurotasfoul reproach; murderess she of Priam, sire of fifty children, the cause why I, the hapless Hecuba, have wrecked my life upon this troublous strand. Oh that I should sit here o’er against the tent of Agamemnon Forth from my home to slavery they hale my aged frame, while from my head in piteous wise the hair is shorn for grief. Ah! hapless wives of those mail-clad sons of Troy! Ah! poor maidens, luckless brides, come weep, for Ilium is now but a ruin; and I, like some mother-bird that o’re her fledglings screams, will begin the strain; how different from that song I sang to the gods in days long past, as I leaned on Priam’s staff, and beat with my foot in Phrygian time to lead the dance!

Enter CHORUS OF CAPTIVE TROJAN WOMEN.

SEMI-CHORUS

O Hecuba why these cries, these piercing shrieks? What mean thy words? For I heard thy piteous wail echo through the building, and a pang terror shoots through each captive Trojan’s breast, as pent within these walls they mourn their slavish lot.

HECUBA

My child, e’en now the hands of Argive rowers are busy at their ships.

SEMI-CHORUS

Ah, woe is me! what is their intent? Will they really bear me hence in sorrow from my country in their fleet?

HECUBA

I know not, though I guess our doom.

SEMI-CHORUS

O misery! woe to us Trojan dames, soon to hear the order given, “Come forth from the house; the Argives are preparing to return.”

HECUBA

Oh! do not bid the wild Cassandra leave her chamber, the frantic prophetess, for Argives to insult, nor to my griefs add yet another. Woe to thee, ill-fated Troy, thy sun is set; and woe to thy unhappy children, quick and dead alike, who are leaving thee behind!

SEMI-CHORUS II

With trembling step, alas! I leave this tent of Agamemnon to learn of thee, my royal mistress, whether the Argives have resolved to take my wretched life, whether the sailors at the prow are making ready to ply their oars.

HECUBA

My child, a fearful dread seized on my wakeful heart and sent me hither.

SEMI-CHORUS II

Hath a herald from the Danai already come? To whom am I, poor captive, given as a slave?

HECUBA

Thou art not far from being allotted now.

SEMI-CHORUS II

Woe worth the day! What Argive or Phthiotian chief will bear me far from Troy, alas! unto his home, or haply to some island fastness?

HECUBA

Ah me! ah me! Whose slave shall I become in my old age? in what far clime? a poor old drone, the wretched copy of a corpse, set to keep the gate or tend their children, I who once held royal rank in Troy.

CHORUS

Woe, woe is thee! What piteous dirge wilt thou devise to mourn the outrage done thee? No more through Ida’s looms shall I-ply the shuttle to and fro. I look my last and latest on my children’s bodies; henceforth shall I endure surpassing misery; it may be as the unwilling bride of some Hellene (perish the night and fortune that brings me to this!); it may be as a wretched slave I from Peirene’s sacred fount shall draw their store of water.

Oh be it ours to come to Theseus’ famous realm, a land of joy! Never, never let me see Eurotas’ swirling tide, hateful home of Helen, there to meet and be the slave of Menelaus, whose hand laid Troyland waste! Yon holy land by Peneus fed, nestling in all its beauty at Olympus’ foot, is said, so have I heard, to be a very granary of wealth and teeming fruitage;next to the sacred soil of Theseus, I could wish to reach that land. They tell me too Hephaestus’ home, beneath the shadow of Aetna, fronting Phoenicia, the mother of Sicilian hills, is famous for the crowns it gives to worth. Or may I find a home on that shore which lieth very nigh Ionia’s sea, a land by Crathis watered, lovely stream, that dyes the hair an auburn tint, feeding with its holy waves and making glad therewith the home of heroes good and true.

But mark! a herald from the host of Danai, with store of fresh proclamations, comes hasting hither. What is his errand? what saith he? List, for we are slaves to Dorian lords henceforth.

Enter TALTHYBIUS.

TALTHYBIUS

Hecuba, thou knowest me from my many journeys to and fro as herald ‘twixt the Achaean host and Troy; no stranger I to thee, lady, even aforetime, I Talthybius, now sent with a fresh message.

HECUBA

Ah, kind friends, ‘tis come! what I so long have dreaded.

TALTHYBIUS

The lot has decided your fates already, if that was what you feared.

HECUBA

Ah me! What city didst thou say, Thessalian, Phthian, or Cadmean?

TALTHYBIUS

Each warrior took his prize in turn; ye were not all at once assigned.

HECUBA

To whom hath the lot assigned us severally? Which of us Trojan dames doth a happy fortune await?

TALTHYBIUS

I know, but ask thy questions separately, not all at once.

HECUBA

Then tell me, whose prize is my daughter, hapless Cassandra?

TALTHYBIUS

King Agamemnon hath chosen her out for himself.

HECUBA

To be the slave-girl of his Spartan wife? Ah me!

TALTHYBIUS

Nay, to share with him his stealthy love.

HECUBA

What! Phoebus’ virgin-priestess, to whom the god with golden locks granted the boon of maidenhood?

TALTHYBIUS

The dart of love hath pierced his heart, love for the frenzied maid.

HECUBA

Daughter, cast from thee the sacred keys, and from thy body tear the holy wreaths that drape thee in their folds.

TALTHYBIUS

Why! is it not an honour high that she should win our monarch’s love?

HECUBA

What have ye done to her whom late ye took from me-my child?

TALTHYBIUS

Dost mean Polyxena, or whom dost thou inquire about?

HECUBA

To whom hath the lot assigned her?

TALTHYBIUS

To minister at Achilles’ tomb hath been appointed her.

HECUBA

Woe is me! I the mother of a dead man’s slave! What custom, what ordinance is this amongst Hellenes, good sir?

TALTHYBIUS

Count thy daughter happy: ‘tis well with her.

HECUBA

What wild words are these? say, is she still alive?

TALTHYBIUS

Her fate is one that sets her free from trouble.

HECUBA

And what of mail-clad Hector’s wife, sad Andromache? declare her fate.

TALTHYBIUS

She too was a chosen prize; Achilles’ son did take her.

HECUBA

As for me whose hair is white with age, who need to hold a staff to be to me a third foot, whose servant am I to be?

TALTHYBIUS

Odysseus, king of Ithaca, hath taken thee to be his slave.

HECUBA

O God! Now smite the close-shorn head! tear your cheeks with your nails. God help me! I have fallen as a slave to a treacherous foe I hate, a monster of lawlessness, one that by his double tongue hath turned against us all that once was friendly in his camp, changing this for that and that for this again. Oh weep for me, ye Trojan dames! Undone! undone and lost! ah woel a victim to a most unhappy lot!

CHORUS

Thy fate, royal mistress, now thou knowest; but for me, what Hellene or Achaean is master of my destiny?

TALTHYBIUS

Ho, servants! haste and bring Cassandra forth to me here, that I may place her our captain’s hands, and then conduct to the rest of the chiefs the captives each hath had assigned. Ha what is the blaze of torches there within? What do these Trojan dames? Are they firing the chambers, because they must leave this land and be carried away to Argos? Are they setting themselves aflame in their longing for death? Of a truth the free bear their troubles in cases like this with a stiff neck. Ho, there! open! lest their deed, which suits them well but finds small favour with the Achaeans, bring blame on me.

HECUBA

‘Tis not that they are setting aught ablaze, but my child Cassandra, frenzied maid, comes rushing wildly hither.

Enter CASSANDRA carrying torches

CASSANDRA

Bring the light, uplift and show its flame! I am doing the god’s service, see! I making his shrine to glow with tapers bright. O Hymen, king of marriage! blest is the bridegroom; blest am I also, the maiden soon to wed a princely lord in Argos. Hail Hymen, king of marriage! Since thou, my mother, art ever busied with tears and lamentations in thy mourning for my father’s death and for our country dear, I at my own nuptials am making this torch to blaze and show its light, in thy honour, O Hymen, king of marriage! Grant thy light too, Hecate, at the maiden’s wedding, as the custom is. Nimbly lift the foot aloft, lead on the dance, with cries of joy, as if to greet my father’s happy fate. To dance I hold a sacred duty; come, Phoebus, lead the way, for ‘tis in thy temple mid thy bay-trees that I minister. Hail Hymen, god of marriage! Hymen, hail! Come, mother mine, and join the dance, link thy steps with me, and circle in the gladsome measure, now here, now there. Salute the bride on her wedding-day with hymns and cries of joy. Come, ye maids of Phrygia in raiment fair, sing my marriage with the husband fate ordains that I should wed.

CHORUS

Hold the frantic maiden, royal mistress mine, lest with nimble foot she rush to the Argive army.

HECUBA

Thou god of fire,’tis thine to light the bridal torch for men, but piteous is the flame thou kindlest here, beyond my blackest bodings. Ah, my child! how little did I ever dream that such would be thy marriage, a captive, and of Argos tool Give up the torch to me; thou dost not bear its blaze aright in thy wild frantic course, nor have thy afflictions left thee in thy sober senses, but still art thou as frantic as before. Take in those torches, Trojan friends, and for her wedding madrigals weep your tears instead.

CASSANDRA

O mother, crown my head with victor’s wreaths; rejoice in my royal match; lead me to my lord; nay, if thou find me loth at all, thrust me there by force; for if Loxias be indeed a prophet, Agamemnon, that famous king of the Achaeans, will find in me a bride more fraught with woe to him than Helen. For I will slay him and lay waste his home to avenge myfather’s and my bretheren’s death. But of the deed itself I will not speak; nor will I tell of that axe which shall sever my neck and the necks of others, or of the conflict ending in a mother’s death, which my marriage shall cause, nor of the overthrow of Atreus’ house; but I, for all my frenzy, will so far rise above my frantic fit, that I will prove this city happier far than those Achaeans, who for the sake of one woman and one man’s love of her have lost a countless host in seeking Helen. Their captain too, whom men call wise, hath lost for what he hated most what most he prized, yielding to his brother for a woman’s sake-and she a willing prize whom no man forced-the joy he had of his own children in his home. For fromthe day that they did land upon Scamander’s strand, their doom began, not for loss of stolen frontier nor yet for fatherland with frowning towers; whomso Ares slew, those never saw their babes again, nor were they shrouded for the tomb by hand of wife, but in a foreign land they lie. At home the case was still the same; wives were dying widows, parents were left childless in their homes, having reared their sons for others, and none is left to make libations of blood upon the ground before their tombs. Truly to such praise as this their host can make an ample claim. Tis better to pass their shame in silence by, nor be mine the Muse to tell that evil tale. But the Trojans were dying, first for their fatherland, fairest fame to win; whomso the sword laid low, all these found friends to bear their bodies home and were laid to rest in the bosom of their native land, their funeral rites all duly paid by duteous hands. And all such Phrygians as escaped the warrior’s death lived ever day by day with wife and children by them-joys the Achaeans had left behind. As for Hector and his griefs, prithee hear how stands the case; he is dead and gone, but still his fame remains as bravest of the brave, and this was a result of the Achaeans’ coming; for had they remained at home, his worth would have gone unnoticed. So too with Paris, he married the daughter of Zeus, whereas, had he never done so, the alliance he made in his family would have been forgotten. Whoso is wise should fly from making war; but if he be brought to this pass, a noble death will crown his city with glory, a coward’s end with shame. Wherefore, mother mine, thou shouldst not pity thy country or my spousal, for this my marriage will destroy those whom thou and I most hate.

CHORUS

How sweetly at thy own sad lot thou smilest, chanting a strain, which, spite of thee, may prove thee wrong!

TALTHYBIUS

Had not Apollo turned thy wits astray, thou shouldst not for nothing have sent my chiefs with such ominous predictions forth on their way. But, after all, these lofty minds, reputed wise, are nothing better than those that are held as naught. For that mighty king of all Hellas, own son of Atreus, has yielded to a passion for this mad maiden of all others; though I am poor enough, yet would I ne’er have chosen such a wife as this. As for thee, since thy senses are not whole, I give thy taunts ‘gainst Argos and thy praise of Troy to the winds to carry away. Follow me now to the ships to grace the wedding of our chief. And thou too follow, whensoe’er the son of Laertes demands thy presence, for thou wilt serve a mistress most discreet, as all declare who came to Ilium.

CASSANDRA

A clever fellow this menial! Why is it heralds hold the name they do? All men unite in hating with one common hate the servants who attend on kings or governments. Thou sayest my mother shall come to the halls of Odysseus; where then be Apollo’s words, so clear to me in their interpretation, which declare that here she shall die? What else remains, I will not taunt her with. Little knows he, the luckless wight, the sufferings that await him; or how these ills I and my Phrygians endure shall one day seem to him precious as gold. For beyond the ten long years spent at Troy he shall drag out other ten and then come to his country all alone, by the route where fell Charybdis lurks in a narrow channel ‘twixt the rocks; past Cyclops the savage shepherd, and Ligurian Circe that turneth men to swine; shipwrecked oft upon the salt sea-wave; fain to eat the lotus, and the sacred cattle of the sun, whose flesh shall utter in the days to come a human voice, fraught with misery to Odysseus. But to briefly end this history, he shall descend alive to Hades, and, though he ‘scape the waters’ flood, yet shall he find a thousand troubles in his home when he arrives. Enough why do I recount the troubles of Odysseus? Lead on, that I forthwith may wed my husband for his home in Hades’ halls. Base thou art, and basely shalt thou be buried, in the dead of night when day is done, thou captain of that host of Danai, who thinkest so proudly of thy fortune! Yea, andmy corpse cast forth in nakedness shall the rocky chasm with its flood of wintry waters give to wild beasts to make their meal upon, hard by my husband’s tomb, me the handmaid of Apollo. Farewell, ye garlands of that god most dear to me! farewell, ye mystic symbols! I here resign your feasts, my joy in days gone by. Go, I tear ye from my body, that, while yet mine honour is intact, I may give them to the rushing winds to waft to thee, my prince of prophecy I Where is yon general’s ship? Whither must I go to take my place thereon? Lose no further time in watching for a favouring breeze to fill thy sails, doomed as thou art to carry from this land one of the three avenging spirits. Fare thee well, mother mine! dry thy tears,O country dear! yet a little while, my brothers sleeping in the tomb and my own father true, and ye shall welcome me; yet shall victory crown my advent ‘mongst the dead, when I have overthrown the home of our destroyers, the house of the sons of Atreus.

Exeunt TALTHYBIUS and CASSANDRA

CHORUS

Ye guardians of the grey-haired Hecuba, see how your mistress is sinking speechless to the ground! Take hold of her! will ye let her fall, ye worthless slaves? lift up again, from where it lies, her silvered head.

HECUBA

Leave me lying where I fell, my maidens unwelcome service grows not welcome ever-my sufferings now, my troubles past, afflictions yet to come, all claim this lowly posture. Gods of heaven! small help I find in calling such allies, yet is there something in the form of invoking heaven, whenso we fall on evil days. First will I descant upon my former blessings; so shall I inspire the greater pity for my present woes. Born to royal estate and wedded to a royal lord, I was the mother of a race of gallant sons; no mere ciphers they, but Phrygia’s chiefest pride, children such as no Trojan or Hellenic or barbarian mother ever had to boast. All these have I seen slain by the spear of Hellas, and at their tombs have I shorn off my hair; with these my eyes I saw their sire, my Priam, butchered on his own hearth, and my city captured, nor did others bring this bitter news to me. The maidens I brought up to see chosen for some marriage high, for strangers have I reared them, and seen them snatched away. Nevermore can I hope to be seen by them, nor shall my eyes behold them ever in thedays to come. And last, to crown my misery, shall I be brought to Hellas, a slave in my old age. And there the tasks that least befit the evening of my life will they impose on me, to watch their gates and keep the keys, me Hector’s mother, or bake their bread, and on the ground instead of my royal bed lay down my shrunken limbs, with tattered rags about my wasted frame. a shameful garb for those who once were prosperous. Ah, woe is me! and this is what I bear and am to bear for one weak woman’s wooing! O my daughter, O Cassandra! whom gods have summoned to their frenzied train, how cruel the lot that ends thy virgin days! And thou, Polyxena! my child of sorrow, where, oh! where art thou? None of all the many sons and daughters have I born comes to aid a wretched mother. Why then raise me up? What hope is left us? Guide me, who erst trod so daintily the streets of Troy,but now am but a slave, to a bed upon the ground, nigh some rocky ridge, that thence I may cast me down and perish, after I have wasted my body with weeping. Of all the prosperous crowd, count none a happy man before he die.

CHORUS

Sing me, Muse, a tale of Troy, a funeral dirge in strains unheard as yet, with tears the while; for now will I uplift for Troy a piteous chant, telling how I met my doom and fell a wretched captive to the Argives by reason of a four-footed beast that moved on wheels, in the hour that Achaea’s sons left at our gates that horse, loud rumbling on its way, with its trappings of gold and its freight of warriors; and our folk cried out as they stood upon the rocky citadel, “Up now ye whose toil is o’er, and drag this sacred image to the shrine of the Zeus-born maiden, goddess of our Ilium!” Forth from his house came every youth and every grey-head too; and with songs of joy they took the fatal snare within. Then hastened allthe race of Phrygia to the gates, to make the goddess a present of an Argive band ambushed in the polished mountain-pine, Dardania’s ruin, a welcome gift to be to her, the virgin queen of deathless steeds; and with nooses of cord they dragged it, as it had been a ship’s dark hull, to the stone-built fane of the goddess Pallas, and set it on that floor so soon to drink our country’s blood. But, as they laboured and made merry, came on the pitchy night; loud the Libyan flute was sounding, and Phrygian songs awoke, while maidens beat the ground with airy foot, uplifting their gladsome song; and in the halls a blaze of torchlight shed its flickering shadows on sleeping eyes. In that hour around the house was I singing as I danced to that maiden of the hills, the child of Zeus; when lo! there rang along the town a cry of death which filled the homes of Troy, and little babes in terror clung about their mothers’ skirts, as forth from their ambush came the warrior-band, the handiwork of maiden Pallas. Anon the altars ran with Phrygian blood, and desolation reigned o’er every bed where young men lay beheaded, a glorious crown for Hellas won, ay, for her, the nurse of youth, but for our Phrygian fatherland a bitter grief. Look, Hecuba! dost see Andromache advancinghither on a foreign car? and with her, clasped to her throbbing breast, is her dear Astyanax, Hector’s child.

Enter ANDROMACHE.

HECUBA

Whither art thou borne, unhappy wife, mounted on that car, side by side with Hector’s brazen arms and Phrygian spoils of war, with which Achilles’ son will deck the shrines of Phthia on his return from Troy?

ANDROMACHE

My Achaean masters drag me hence.

HECUBA

Woe is thee!

ANDROMACHE

Why dost thou in note of woe utter the dirge that is mine?

HECUBA

Ah me!

ANDROMACHE

For these sorrows.

HECUBA

O Zeus!

ANDROMACHE

And for this calamity.

HECUBA

O my children!

ANDROMACHE

Our day is past.

HECUBA

Joy is fled, and Troy o’erthrown.

ANDROMACHE

Woe is me!

HECUBA

Dead too all my gallant sons!

ANDROMACHE

Alack and well-a-day!

HECUBA

Ah me for my-

ANDROMACHE

Misery!

HECUBA

Piteous the fate-

ANDROMACHE

Of our city,

HECUBA

Smouldering in the smoke.

ANDROMACHE

Come, my husband, come to me!

HECUBA

Ah hapless wife! thou callest on my son who lieth in the tomb.

ANDROMACHE

Thy wife’s defender, come!

HECUBA

Do thou, who erst didst make the Achaeans grieve, eldest of the sons I bare to Priam in the days gone by, take me to thy rest in Hades’ halls!

ANDROMACHE

Bitter are these regrets, unhappy mother, bitter these woes to bear; our city ruined, and sorrow evermore to sorrow added, through the will of angry heaven, since the day that son’ of thine escaped his doom, he that for a bride accursed brought destruction on the Trojan citadel. There lie the gory corpses of the slain by the shrine of Pallas for vultures to carry off; and Troy is come to slavery’s yoke.

HECUBA

O my country, O unhappy land, I weep for thee now left behind; now dost thou behold thy piteous end; and thee, my house, I weep, wherein I suffered travail. O my children! reft of her city as your mother is, she now is losing you. Oh, what mourning and what sorrow! oh, what endless streams of tears in our houses! The dead alone forget their griefs and never shed a tear.

CHORUS

What sweet relief to sufferers ‘tis to weep, to mourn, lament, and chant the dirge that tells of grief!

ANDROMACHE

Dost thou see this, mother of that Hector, who once laid low in battle many a son of Argos?

HECUBA

I see that it is heaven’s way to exalt what men accounted naught, and ruin what they most esteemed.

ANDROMACHE

Hence with my child as booty am I borne; the noble are to slavery brought-a bitter, bitter change.

HECUBA

This is necessity’s grim law; it was but now Cassandra was torn with brutal violence from my arms.

ANDROMACHE

Alas, alas! it seems a second Aias hath appeared to wrong thy daughter; but there be other ills for thee.

HECUBA

Ay, beyond all count or measure are my sorrows; evil vies with evil in the struggle to be first.

ANDROMACHE

Thy daughter Polyxena is dead, slain at Achilles’ tomb, an offering to his lifeless corpse.

HECUBA

O woe is me! This is that riddle Talthybius long since told me, a truth obscurely uttered.

ANDROMACHE

I saw her with mine eyes; so I alighted from the chariot, and covered her corpse with a mantle, and smote upon my breast.

HECUBA

Alas! my child, for thy unhallowed sacrifice! and yet again, ah me! for this thy shameful death!

ANDROMACHE

Her death was even as it was, and yet that death of hers was after all a happier fate than this my life.

HECUBA

Death and life are not the same, my child; the one is annihilation, the other keeps a place for hope.

ANDROMACHE

Hear, O mother of children give ear to what I urge so well, that I may cheer my drooping spirit. ‘Tis all one, I say, ne’er to have been born and to be dead, and better far is death than life with misery. For the dead feel no sorrow any more and know no grief; but he who has known prosperity and has fallen on evil days feels his spirit straying from the scene of former joys. Now that child of thine is dead as though she ne’er had seen the light, and little she recks of her calamity; whereas I, who aimed at a fair repute, though I won a higher lot than most, yet missed my lick in life. For all that stamps the wife a woman chaste, I strove to do in Hector’s home. In the first place, whether there is a slur upon a woman, or whether there is not, the very fact of her not staying at home brings in its train an evil name; therefore I gave up any wish to do so, and abode ever within my house, nor would I admit the clever gossip women love, but conscious of a heart that told an honest tale I was content therewith. And ever would I keep a silent tongue and modest eye before my lord; and well I knew where I might rule my lord, and where ‘twas best to yield to him; the fame whereof hath reached the Achaean host, and proved my ruin; for when I was taken captive, Achilles’ son would have me as his wife, and I must serve in the house of murderers. And if I set aside my love for Hector, and ope my heart to this new lord, I shall appear a traitress to the dead, while, if I hate him, I shall incur my master’s displeasure. And yet they say a single night removes a woman’s dislike for her husband; nay, I do hate the woman who, when she hath lost her former lord, transfers her love by marrying another. Not e’en the horse, if from his fellow torn, will cheerfully draw the yoke; and yet the brutes have neither speech nor sense to help them, and are by nature man’s inferiors. O Hector mine! in thee I found a husband amply dowered with wisdom, noble birth and fortune, a brave man and a mighty; whilst thou didst take me from my father’s house a spotless bride, thyself the first to make this maiden wife. But now death hath claimed thee, and I to Hellas am soon to sail, a captive doomed to wear the yoke of slavery. Hath not then the dead Polyxena, for whom thou wailest, less evil to bear than I? I have not so much as hope, the last resource of every human heart, nor do I beguile myself with dreams of future bliss, the very thought whereof is sweet.

CHORUS

Thou art in the self-same plight as I; thy lamentations for thyself remind me of my own sad case.

HECUBA

I never yet have set foot on a ship’s deck, though I have seen such things in pictures and know of them from hearsay. Now sailors, if there come a storm of moderate force, are all eagerness to save themselves by toil; one at the tiller stands, another sets himself to work the sheets, a third meantime is baling out the ship; but if tempestuous waves arise to overwhelm them, they yield to fortune and commit themselves to the driving billows. Even so I, by reason of my countless troubles, am dumb and forbear to say a word; for Heaven with its surge of misery is too strong for me. Cease, Oh cease, my darling child, to speak of Hector’s fate; no tears of thine can save him; honour thy present lord, offering thy sweet nature as the bait to win him. If thou do this, thou wilt cheer thy friends as well as thyself, and thou shalt rear my Hector’s child to lend stout aid to Ilium, that so thy children in the after-time may build her up again, and our city yet be stablished. But lo! our talk must take a different turn; who is this Achaean menial I see coming hither, sent to tell us of some new design?

Enter TALTHYBIUS.

TALTHYBIUS

Oh hate me not, thou that erst wert Hector’s wife, the bravest of the Phrygians! for my tongue would fain not tell that which the Danai and sons of Pelops both command.

ANDROMACHE

What is it? Thy prelude bodeth evil news.

TALTHYBIUS

‘Tis decreed thy son is-how can I tell my news?

ANDROMACHE

Surely not to have a different master from me?

TALTHYBIUS

None of all Achaea’s chiefs shall ever lord it over him.

ANDROMACHE

Is it their will to leave him here, a remnant yet of Phrygia’s race?

TALTHYBIUS

I know no words to break the sorrow lightly to thee.

ANDROMACHE

I thank thee for thy consideration, unless indeed thou hast good news to tell.

TALTHYBIUS

They mean to slay thy son; there is my hateful message to thee.

ANDROMACHE

O God! this is worse tidings than my forced marriage.

TALTHYBIUS

So spake Odysseus to the assembled Hellenes, and his word prevails.

ANDROMACHE

Oh once again ah me there is no measure in the woes I bear.

TALTHYBIUS

He said they should not rear so brave a father’s son.

ANDROMACHE

May such counsels yet prevail about children of his!

TALTHYBIUS

From Troy’s battlements he must be thrown. Let it be even so, and thou wilt show more wisdom; cling not to him, but bear thy sorrows with heroic heart, nor in thy weakness deem that thou art strong. For nowhere hast thou any help; consider this thou must; thy husband and thy city are no more, so thou art in our power, and I alone am match enough for oneweak woman; wherefore I would not see thee bent on strife, or any course to bring thee shame or hate, nor would I hear thee rashly curse the Achaeans. For if thou say aught whereat the host grow wroth, this child will find no burial nor pity either. But if thou hold thy peace and with composure take thy fate, thou wilt not leave his corpse unburied, and thyself wiltfind more favour with the Achaeans.

ANDROMACHE

My child! my own sweet babe and priceless treasure! thy death the foe demands, and thou must leave thy wretched mother. That which saves the lives of others, proves thy destruction, even thy sire’s nobility; to thee thy father’s valiancy has proved no boon. O the woeful wedding rites, that brought me erst to Hector’s home, hoping to be the mother of a son that should rule o’er Asia’s fruitful fields instead of serving as a victim to the sons of Danaus! Dost weep, my babe? dost know thy hapless fate? Why clutch me with thy hands and to my garment cling, nestling like a tender chick beneath my wing? Hector will not rise again and come gripping his famous spear to bring thee salvation; no kinsman of thy sire appears, nor might of Phrygian hosts; one awful headlong leap from the dizzy height and thou wilt dash out thy life with none to pity thee Oh to clasp thy tender limbs, a mother’s fondest joy! Oh to breathe thy fragrant breath! In vain it seems these breasts did suckle thee, wrapped in thy swaddling-clothes; all for naught I used to toil and wore myself away! Kiss thy mother now for the last time, nestle to her that bare thee, twine thy arms about my neck and join thy lips to mine! O ye Hellenes, cunning to devise new forms of cruelty, why slay this child who never wronged any? Thou daughter of Tyndarus, thou art no child of Zeus, but sprung, I trow, of many a sire, first of some evil demon, next of Envy, then of Murder and of Death, and every horror that the earth begets. That Zeus was never sire of thine I boldly do assert, bane as thou hast been to many a Hellene and barbarian too. Destruction catch thee! Those fair eyes of thine have brought a shameful ruin on the fields of glorious Troy. Take the babe and bear him hence, hurl him down if so ye list, then feast upon his flesh! ‘Tis heaven’s high will we perish, and I cannot ward the deadly stroke from my child. Hide me and my misery; cast me into the ship’s hold; for ‘tis to a fair wedding I am going, now that I have lost my child!

CHORUS

Unhappy Troy! thy thousands thou hast lost for one woman’s sake and her accursed wooing.

TALTHYBIUS

Come, child, leave fond embracing of thy woful mother, and mount the high coronal of thy ancestral towers, there to draw thy parting breath, as is ordained. Take him hence. His should the duty be to do such herald’s work, whose heart knows no pity and who loveth ruthlessness more than my soul doth.

Exeunt ANDROMACHE and TALTHYBIUS with ASTYANAX.

HECUBA

O child, son of my hapless boy, an unjust fate robs me and thy mother of thy life. How is it with me? What can I do for thee, my luckless babe? for thee I smite upon my head and beat my breast, my only gift; for that alone is in my power. Woe for my city! woe for thee! Is not our cup full? What is wanting now to our utter and immediate ruin?

CHORUS

O Telamon, King of Salamis, the feeding ground of bees, who hast thy home in a sea-girt isle that lieth nigh the holy hills where first Athena made the grey olive-branch to appear, a crown for heavenly heads and a glory unto happy Athens, thou didst come in knightly brotherhood with that great archer, Alcemena’s son, to sack our city Ilium, in days gone by, on thy advent from Hellas, what time he led the chosen flower of Hellas, vexed for the steeds denied him, and at the fair stream of Simois he stayed his sea-borne ship and fastened cables to the stern, and forth therefrom he took the bow his hand could deftly shoot, to be the doom of Laomedon; and with the ruddy breath of fire he wasted the masonry squared by Phoebus’ line and chisel, and sacked the land of Troy; so twice in two attacks hath the bloodstained spear destroyed Dardania’s walls.

In vain, it seems, thou Phrygian boy, pacing with dainty step amid thy golden chalices, dost thou fill high the cup of Zeus, a service passing fair; seeing that the land of thy birth is being consumed by fire. The shore re-echoes to our cries; and, as a bird bewails its young, so we bewail our husbands or our children, or our grey-haired mothers. The dew-fed springswhere thou didst bathe, the course where thou didst train, are now no more; but thou beside the throne of Zeus art sitting with a calm, sweet smile upon thy fair young face, while the spear of Hellas lays the land of Priam waste. Ah! Love, Love, who once didst seek these Dardan halls, deep-seated in the hearts of heavenly gods, how high didst thou make Troy to tower in those days, allying her with deities! But I will cease to urge reproaches against Zeus; for white-winged dawn, whose light to man is dear, turned a baleful eye upon our land and watched the ruin of our citadel, though she had within her bridal bower a husband from this land, whom on a day a car of gold and spangled stars caught up and carried thither, great source of hope to his native country; but all the love the gods once had for Troy is passed away.

Enter MENELAUS.

MENELAUS

Hail! thou radiant orb by whose fair light I now shall capture her that was my wife, e’en Helen; for I am that Menelaus, who hath toiled so hard, I and Achaea’s host. To Troy I came, not so much as men suppose to take this woman, but to punish him who from my house stole my wife, traitor to my hospitality. But he, by heaven’s will, hath paid the penalty, ruined, and his country too, by the spear of Hellas. And I am come to bear that Spartan woman hence-wife I have no mind to call her, though she once was mine; for now she is but one among the other Trojan dames who share these tents as captives. For they-the very men who toiled to take her with the spear-have granted her to me to slay, or, if I will, to spare and carry back with me to Argos. Now my purpose is not to put her to death in Troy, but to carry her to Hellas in my seaborne ship, and then surrender her to death, a recompense to all whose friends were slain in Ilium. Ho! my trusty men, enter the tent, and drag her out to me by her hair with many a murder foul; and when a favouring breeze shall blow, to Hellas will we convey her.

HECUBA

O thou that dost support the earth and restest thereupon, whosoe’er thou art, a riddle past our ken! be thou Zeus, or natural necessity, or man’s intellect, to thee I pray; for, though thou treadest o’er a noiseless path, all thy dealings with mankind are by justice guided.

MENELAUS

How now? Strange the prayer thou offerest unto heaven!

HECUBA

I thank thee, Menelaus, if thou wilt slay that wife of thine. Yet shun the sight of her, lest she smite thee with regret. For she ensnares the eyes of men, o’erthrows their towns, and burns their houses, so potent are her witcheries! Well I know her; so dost thou and those her victims too.

Enter HELEN.

HELEN

Menelaus! this prelude well may fill me with alarm; for I am haled with violence by thy servants’ hands and brought before these tents. Still, though I am well-nigh sure thou hatest me, yet would I fain inquire what thou and Hellas have decided about my life.

MENELAUS

To judge thy case required no great exactness; the host with one consent-that host whom thou didst wrong-handed thee over to me to die.

HELEN

May I answer this decision, proving that my death, if to die I am, will be unjust?

MENELAUS

I came not to argue, but to slay thee.

HECUBA

Hear her, Menelaus; let her not die for want of that, and let me answer her again, for thou knowest naught of her villainies in Troy; and the whole case, if thus summed up, will insure her death against all chance of an escape.

MENELAUS

This boon needs leisure; still, if she wishes to speak, the leave is given. Yet will I grant her this because of thy words, that she may hear them, and not for her own sake.

HELEN

Perhaps thou wilt not answer me, from counting me a foe, whether my words seem good or ill. Yet will I put my charges and thine over against each other, and then reply to the accusations I suppose thou wilt advance against me. First, then, she was the author of these troubles by giving birth to Paris; next, old Priam ruined Troy and me, because he did notslay his babe Alexander, baleful semblance of a fire-brand, long ago. Hear what followed. This Paris was to judge the claims of three rival goddesses; so Pallas offered him command of all the Phrygians, and the destruction of Hellas; Hera promised he should spread his dominion over Asia, and the utmost bounds of Europe, if he would decide for her; but Cypris spoke in rapture of my loveliness, and promised him this boon, if she should have the preference o’er those twain for beauty; now mark the inference I deduce from this; Cypris won the day o’er them, and thus far hath my marriage proved of benefit to Hellas, that ye are not subject to barbarian rule, neither vanquished in the strife, nor yet by tyrants crushed. What Hellas gained, was ruin to me, a victim for my beauty sold, and now am I reproached for that which should have set a crown upon my head. But thou wilt say I am silent on the real matter at issue, how it was I started forth and left thy house by stealth. With no mean goddess at his side he came, my evil genius, call him Alexander or Paris, as thou wilt; and him didst thou, thrice guilty wretch, leave behind thee in thy house, and sail away from Sparta to the land of Crete. Enough of this! For all that followed I must question my own heart, not thee; what frantic thought led me to follow the stranger from thy house, traitress to my country and my home? Punish the goddess, show thyself more mighty e’en than Zeus, who, though he lords it o’er the other gods, is yet her slave; wherefore I may well be pardoned. Still, from hence thou mightest draw a specious argument against me; when Paris died, and Earth concealed his corpse, I should have left his house and sought the Argive fleet, since my marriage was no longer in the hands of gods. That was what I fain had done; yea, and the warders on the towers and watchmen on the walls can bear me witness, for oft they found me seeking to let myself down stealthily by cords from the battlements; but there was that new husband, Deiphobus, that carried me off by force to be his wife against the will of Troy. How then, my lord, could I be justly put to death by thee, with any show of right, seeing that he wedded me against my will, and those my other natural gifts have served a bitter slavery, instead of leading on to triumph? If ‘tis thy will indeed to master gods, that very wish displays thy folly.

CHORUS

O my royal mistress, defend thy children’s and thy country.’s cause, bringing to naught her persuasive arguments, for she pleads well in spite of all her villainy; ‘tis monstrous this!

HECUBA

First will I take up the cause of those goddesses, and prove how she perverts the truth. For I can ne’er believe that Hera or the maiden Pallas would have been guilty of such folly, as to sell, the one, her Argos to barbarians, or that Pallas e’er would make her Athens subject to the Phrygians, coming as they did in mere wanton sport to Ida to contest the palm of beauty. For why should goddess Hera set her heart so much on such a prize? Was it to win a nobler lord than Zeus? or was Athena bent on finding ‘mongst the gods a husband, she who in her dislike of marriage won from her sire the boon of remaining unwed? Seek not to impute folly to the goddesses, in the attempt to gloze o’er thy own sin; never wilt thou persuade thewise. Next thou hast said-what well may make men jeer-that Cypris came with my son to the house of Menelaus. Could she not have stayed quietly in heaven and brought thee and Amyclae to boot to Ilium? Nay! my son was passing fair, and when thou sawest him thy fancy straight became thy Cypris; for every sensual act that men commit, they lay upon this goddess, and rightly does her name of Aphrodite begin the word for “senselessness”; so when thou didst catch sight of him in gorgeous foreign garb, ablaze with gold, thy senses utterly forsook thee. Yea, for in Argos thou hadst moved in simple state, but, once free of Sparta, ‘twas thy fond hope to deluge by thy lavish outlay Phrygia’s town, that flowed with gold; nor was the palace of Menelaus rich enough for thy luxury to riot in. Ha! my son carried thee off by force, so thou savest; what Spartan saw this? what cry for help didst thou ever raise, though Castor was still alive, a vigorous youth, and his brother also, not yet amid the stars? Then when thou wert come to Troy, and the Argives were on thy track, and the mortal combat was begun, whenever tidings came to thee of Menelaus’ prowess, him wouldst thou praise, to grieve my son, because he had so powerful a rival in his love; but if so the Trojans prospered, Menelaus was nothing to thee. Thy eye was fixed on Fortune, and by such practice wert thou careful to follow in her steps, careless of virtue’s cause. And then, in spite of all, thou dost assert that thou didst try to let thyself down from the towers by stealth with twisted cords, as if loth to stay? Pray then, wert thou ever found fastening the noose about thy neck, or whetting the knife, as noble wife would have done in regret for her former husband? And yet full oft I advised thee saying, “Get thee gone, daughter, and let my sons take other brides; I will help thee to steal away, and convey thee to the Achaean fleet; oh end the strife ‘twixt us and Hellas!” But this was bitter in thy ears. For thou wert wantoning in Alexander’s house, fain to have obeisance done thee by barbarians. Yes, ‘twas a proud time for thee; and now after all this thou hast bedizened thyself, and come forth and hast dared to appear under the same sky as thy husband, revolting wretchl Better hadst thou come in tattered raiment, cowering humbly in terror, with hair shorn short, if for thy past sins thy feeling were one of shame rather than effrontery. O Menelaus, hear the conclusion of my argument; crown Hellas by slaying her as she deserves, and establish this law for all others of her sex, e’en death to every traitress to her husband.

CHORUS

Avenge thee, Menelaus, on thy wife, as is worthy of thy home and ancestors, clear thyself from the reproach of effeminacy at the lips of Hellas, and let thy foes see thy spirit.

MENELAUS

Thy thoughts with mine do coincide, that she, without constraint, left my palace, and sought a stranger’s love, and now Cypris is introduced for mere bluster. Away to those who shall stone thee, and by thy speedy death requite the weary toils of the Achaeans, that thou mayst learn not to bring shame on me!

HELEN

Oh, by thy knees, I implore thee, impute not that heaven-sent affliction to me, nor slay me; pardon, I entreat!

HECUBA

Be not false to thy allies, whose death this woman caused; on their behalf, and for my children’s sake, I sue to thee.

MENELAUS

Peace, reverend dame; to her I pay no heed. Lo! I bid my servants take her hence, aboard the ship, wherein she is to sail.

HECUBA

Oh never let her set foot within the same ship as thee.

MENELAUS

How now? is she heavier than of yore?

HECUBA

Who loveth once, must love alway.

MENELAUS

Why, that depends how those we love are minded. But thy wish shall be granted; she shall not set foot upon the same ship with me; for thy advice is surely sound; and when she comes to Argos she shall die a shameful death as is her due, and impress the need of chastity on all her sex; no easy task; yet shall her fate strike their foolish hearts with terror, e’en though they be more lost to shame than she.

Exit MENELAUS, dragging HELEN with him.

CHORUS

So then thou hast delivered into Achaea’s hand, O Zeus, thy shrine in Ilium and thy fragrant altar, the offerings of burnt sacrifice with smoke of myrrh to heaven uprising, and holy Pergamos, and glens of Ida tangled with ivy’s growth, where rills of melting snow pour down their flood, a holy sunlit land that bounds the world and takes the god’s first rays! Gone are thy sacrifices! gone the dancer’s cheerful shout! gone the vigils of the gods as night closed in! Thy images of carven gold are now no more; and Phrygia’s holy festivals, twelve times a year, at each full moon, are ended now. ‘Tis this that filleth me with anxious thought whether thou, O king, seated on the sky, thy heavenly throne, carest at all that my city is destroyed, a prey to the furious fiery blast. Ah! my husband, fondly loved, thou art a wandering spectre; unwashed, unburied lies thy corpse, while o’er the sea the ship sped by wings will carry me to Argos, land of steeds, where stand Cyclopian walls of stone upreared to heaven. There in the gate the children gather, hanging round their mothers’ necks, and weep their piteous lamentation, “O mother, woe is me! torn from thy sight Achaeans bear me away from thee to their dark ship to row me o’er the deep to sacred Salamis or to the hill’ on the Isthmus, that o’erlooks two seas, the key to the gates of Pelops.” Oh may the blazing thunderbolt, hurled in might from its holy home, smite the barque of Menelaus full amidshipsas it is crossing the Aegean main, since he is carrying me away in bitter sorrow from the shores of Ilium to be a slave in Hellas, while the daughter of Zeus still keeps her golden mirrors, delight-of maidens’ hearts. Never may he reach his home in Laconia or his father’s hearth and home, nor come to the town of Pitane or the temple of the goddess’ with the gates of bronze, having taken as his captive her whose marriage brought disgrace on Hellas through its length and breadth and woful anguish on the streams of Simois! Ah me! ah me! new troubles on my country fall, to take the place of those that still are fresh! Behold, ye hapless wives of Troy, the corpse of Astyanax! whom the Danai have cruelly slain by hurling him from the battlements.

Enter TALTHYBIUS and attendants, bearing the corpse of ASTYANAX on HECTOR’s shield.

TALTHYBIUS

Hecuba, one ship alone delays its plashing oars, and it is soon to sail to the shores of Phthia freighted with the remnant of the spoils of Achilles’ son; for Neoptolemus is already out at sea, having heard that new calamities have befallen Peleus, for Acastus, son of Pelias, hath banished him the realm. Wherefore he is gone, too quick to indulge in any delay, and with him goes Andromache, who drew many a tear from me what time she started hence, wailing her country and crying her farewell to Hector’s tomb. And she craved her master leave to bury this poor dead child of Hector who breathed his last when from the turrets hurled, entreating too that he would not carry this shield, the terror of the Achaeans-this shield with plates of brass wherewith his father would gird himself-to the home of Peleus or to the same bridal bower whither she, herself the mother of this corpse, would be led, a bitter sight to her, but let her bury the child therein instead of in a coffin of cedar or a tomb of stone, and to thy hands commit the corpse that thou mayst deck it with robes and garlands as best thou canst with thy present means; for she is far away and her master’s haste prevented her from burying the child herself. So we, when thou the corpse hast decked, will heap the earth above and set thereon a spear; but do thou with thy best speed perform thy allotted task; one toil however have I already spared thee, for I crossed Scamander’s stream and bathed the corpse and cleansed its wounds. But now will I go to dig a grave for him, that our united efforts shortening our task may speed our ship towards home.

Exit TALTHYBIUS.

HECUBA

Place the shield upon the ground, Hector’s shield so deftly rounded, a piteous sight, a bitter grief for me to see. O ye Achaeans, more reason have ye to boast of your prowess than your wisdom I Why have ye in terror of this child been guilty of murder never matched before? Did ye fear that some day he would rear again the fallen walls of Troy? it seems then ye were nothing after all, when, though Hector’s fortunes in the war were prosperous and he had ten thousand other arms to back him, we still were daily overmatched; and yet, now that our city is taken and every Phrygian slain, ye fear a tender babe like this! Out upon his fear! say I, who fears, but never yet hath reasoned out the cause. Ah! my beloved, thine is a piteous death indeed! Hadst thou died for thy city, when thou hadst tasted of the sweets of manhood, of marriage, and of godlike power o’er others, then wert thou blest, if aught herein is blest. But now after one glimpse, one dream thereof thou knowest them no more, my child, and hast no joy of them, though heir to all. Ah, poor babe! how sadly have thy own father’s walls, those towers that Loxias reared, shorn from thy head the locks thy mother fondled, and so oft caressed, from which through fractured bones the face of murder grins-briefly to dismiss my shocking theme. O hands, how sweet the likeness ye retain of his father, and yet ye lie limp in your sockets before me! Dear mouth, so often full of words of pride, death hath closed thee, and thou hast not kept the promise thou didst make, when nestling in my robe, “Ah, mother mine, many a lock of my hair will I cut off for thee, and to thy tomb will lead my troops of friends, taking a fond farewell of thee.” But now ‘tis not thy hand that buries me, but I, on whom is come old age with loss of home and children, am burying thee, a tender child untimely slain. Ah me! those kisses numberless, the nurture that I gave to thee, those sleepless nights-they all are lost! What shall the bard inscribe-upon thy tomb about thee? “Argives once for fear of him slew this child!” Foul shame should that inscription be to Hellas. O child, though thou hast no part in all thy father’s wealth, yetshalt thou have his brazen shield wherein to find a tomb. Ah! shield that didst keep safe the comely arm of Hector, now hast thou lost thy valiant keeper! How fair upon thy handle lies his imprint, and on the rim, that circles round the targe, are marks of sweat, that trickled oft from Hector’s brow as he pressed it ‘gainst his beard in battle’s stress. Come, bring forth, from such store as we have, adornment for the hapless dead, for fortune gives no chance now for offerings fair; yet of such as I possess, shalt thou receive these gifts. Foolish mortal he! who thinks his luck secure and so rejoices; for fortune, like a madman in her moods, springs towards this man, then towards that; and none ever experiences the same unchanging luck.

CHORUS

Lo! all is ready and they are bringing at thy bidding from the spoils of Troy garniture to put upon the dead.

HECUBA

Ah! my child, ‘tis not as victor o’er thy comrades with horse or bow-customs Troy esteems, without pursuing them to excess-that Hector’s mother decks thee now with ornaments from the store that once was thine, though now hath Helen, whom the gods abhor, reft thee of thine own, yea, and robbed thee of thy life and caused thy house to perish root and branch.

CHORUS

Woe! thrice woe! my heart is touched, and thou the cause, my mighty prince in days now passed!

HECUBA

About thy body now I swathe this Phrygian robe of honour, which should have clad thee on thy marriage-day, wedded to the noblest of Asia’s daughters. Thou too, dear shield of Hector, victorious parent of countless triumphs past, accept thy crown, for though thou share the dead child’s tomb, death cannot touch thee; for thou dost merit honours far beyond those arms’ that the crafty knave Odysseus won.

CHORUS

Alas! ah me! thee, O child, shall earth take to her breast, a cause for bitter weeping. Mourn, thou mother!

HECUBA

Ah me!

CHORUS

Wail for the dead.

HECUBA

Woe is me!

CHORUS

Alas! for thy unending sorrow!

HECUBA

Thy wounds in part will I bind up with bandages, a wretched leech in name alone, without reality; but for the rest, thy sire must look to that amongst the dead.

CHORUS

Smite, oh smite upon thy head with frequent blow of hand. Woe is me!

HECUBA

My kind, good friends!

CHORUS

Speak out, good the word that was on thy lips.

HECUBA

It seems the only things that heaven concerns itself about are my troubles and Troy hateful in their eyes above all other cities. In vain did we sacrifice to them. Had not the god caught us in his grip and plunged us headlong ‘neath the earth, we should have been unheard of, nor ever sung in Muses’ songs, furnishing to bards of after-days a subject for their minstrelsy. Go, bury now in his poor tomb the dead, wreathed all duly as befits a corpse. And yet I deem it makes but little difference to the dead, although they get a gorgeous funeral; for this is but a cause of idle pride to the living.

The corpse is carried off to burial

CHORUS

Alas! for thy unhappy mother, who o’er thy corpse hath closed the high hopes of her life! Born of a noble stock, counted most happy in thy lot, ah! what a tragic death is thine! Ha! who are those I see on yonder pinnacles darting to and fro with flaming torches in their hands? Some new calamity will soon on Troy alight.

Enter TALTHYBIUS above. Soldiers are seen on the battlements of Troy, torch in hand.

TALTHYBIUS

Ye captains, whose allotted task it is to fire this town of Priam, to you I speak. No longer keep the firebrand idle in your hands, but launch the flame, that when we have destroyed the city of Ilium we may set forth in gladness on our homeward voyage from Troy. And you, ye sons of Troy-to let my orders take at once a double form-start for the Achaean ships for your departure hence, soon as ever the leaders of the host blow loud and clear upon the trumpet. And thou, unhappy grey haired dame, follow; for yonder come servants from Odysseus to fetch thee, for to him thou art assigned by lot to be a slave far from thy country.

HECUBA

Ah, woe is me! This surely is the last, the utmost limit this, of all my sorrows; forth from my land I go; my city is ablaze with flame. Yet, thou aged foot, make one painful struggle to hasten, that I may say a farewell to this wretched town. O Troy, that erst hadst such a grand career amongst barbarian towns, soon wilt thou be reft of that splendid name. Lo! they are burning thee, and leading us e’en now from our land to slavery. Great gods! Yet why call on the gods? They did not hearken e’en aforetime to our call. Come, let us rush into the flames, for to die with my country in its blazing ruin were a noble death for me.

TALTHYBIUS

Thy sorrows drive thee frantic, poor lady. Go, lead her hence, make no delay, for ye must deliver her into the hand of Odysseus, conveying to him his prize.

HECUBA

O son of Cronos, prince of Phrygia, father of our race, dost thou behold our sufferings now, unworthy of the stock of Dardanus?

CHORUS

He sees them, but our mighty city is a city no more, and Troy’s day is done.

HECUBA

Woe! thrice woe upon me! Ilium is ablaze; the homes of Pergamos and its towering walls are now one sheet of flame.

CHORUS

As the smoke soars on wings to heaven, so sinks our city to the ‘ground before the spear. With furious haste both fire and foeman’s spear devour each house.

HECUBA

Hearken, my children, hear your mother’s voice.

CHORUS

Thou art calling on the dead with voice of lamentation.

HECUBA

Yea, as I stretch my aged limbs upon the ground, and beat upon the earth with both my hands.

CHORUS

I follow thee and kneel, invoking from the nether world my hapless husband.

HECUBA

I am being dragged and hurried away.

CHORUS

O the sorrow of that cry!

HECUBA

From my own dear country, to dwell beneath a master’s roof. Woe is me! O Priam, Priam, unburied, left without a friend, naught dost thou know of my cruel fate.

CHORUS

No, for o’er his eyes black death hath drawn his pall-a holy man by sinners slain!

HECUBA

Woe for the temples of the gods! Woe for our dear city!

CHORUS

Woe!

HECUBA

Murderous flame and foeman’s spear are now your lot.

CHORUS

Soon will ye tumble to your own loved soil, and be forgotten.

HECUBA

And the dust, mounting to heaven on wings like smoke, will rob me of the sight of my home.

CHORUS

The name of my country will pass into obscurity; all is scattered far and wide, and hapless Troy has ceased to be.

HECUBA

Did ye hear that and know its purport?

CHORUS

Aye, ‘twas the crash of the citadel.

HECUBA

The shock will whelm our city utterly. O woe is me! trembling, quaking limbs, support my footsteps! away! to face the day that begins thy slavery.

CHORUS

Woe for our unhappy town! And yet to the Achaean fleet advance.

HECUBA

Woe for thee, O land that nursed my little babes!

CHORUS

Ah! woe!

Exeunt OMNES.

THE END

Helen and Andromache

Homer

The Iliad, Book III and Book IV

Translated by A.S. Kline

The epic poem the Iliad, written in the 8th Century B.C., is an account of a portion of the Trojan War, which was famously ignited by the kidnapping of the woman Helen. While it is a story revolving mainly around the glory of men, there are also prominent female characters such as Helen herself and Hector’s wife, Andromache.

Book III is where Helen makes her first appearance in the epic. Much is revealed about the characters of Paris, Menelaus’ and Helen herself. In this book the Trojans meet the Greeks outside the walls of Troy. Paris challenges any one of the Greeks to a duel, and shrinks away when Menelaus is the one who accepts the challenge. Meanwhile, Hector asks Helen about the Greek warriors who are present. Her descriptions of the men show a great amount of admiration, which contrasts with her self-admonition and shame at having run away with Paris.

After battle, in Book IV, Hector is eager to find his wife Andromache. Having found her, Hector has to depart once again prompting an emotional goodbye between the husband and wife. Andromache reveals her complete devotion and admiration of her husband saying that he is her only source of joy and her whole family. Even if Hector fails and Troy is captured, Andromache will still have pride in and love for her husband.

Iliad Book III

Marshalled together under their leaders, the Trojans advanced with cries and clamour, a clamour like birds, cranes in the sky, flying from winter’s storm and unending rain, flowing towards the streams of Ocean, bringing the clamour of death and destruction to Pygmy tribes, bringing evil and strife at the break of day. The Achaeans, however, breathing fury, firm in resolve to aid each other, came on in silence.

As when a Southerly veils the mountain-tops in mist, a mist the shepherds hate, where a man can see less than a stone’s throw ahead, but thieves hold it dearer than darkness, so thick clouds of dust rose under their feet as they sped over the plain.

And as they approached in their advance, godlike Paris stepped out from the Trojan ranks as their champion, a panther’s skin on his back, a sword and a bow slung over his shoulders; flourishing twin bronze-tipped spears he challenged the best of the Greeks to meet him, face to face, in single combat.

When Menelaus, beloved of Ares, saw him stride out from the host, he felt as the hungry lion does that finds the whole carcase of a wild goat, or an antlered stag, and tears it greedily, though nimble hounds and powerful huntsmen plague him: such was his pleasure when he saw godlike Paris, and primed for revenge on one who had wronged him he leapt down from his chariot in full armour.

But Paris was sick at heart when he saw who had met the challenge, and shying from death shrank back into the ranks. As a man in a steep ravine starts when he sees a snake; trembles in every limb, and retreats with pallid face, so godlike Paris, fearing Atreides, hid among the throng of Trojan warriors.

There Hector met him, and showered reproach on him: ‘Sinful Paris beautiful to look on, seducer and deceiver of women, I wish you had never been born, or had died before you wed. Such is my wish indeed, far better than disgrace us all, an object of men’s contempt. The long-haired Greeks must laugh out loud, and cry that our champion was chosen only for beauty, devoid of strength and courage. Was it not you who with your close comrades sailed the deep in your sea-going ships, mixed with foreigners and brought back a fair woman from a far-off land, the daughter of fierce spearmen, a source of woe to your father, city, nation; pleasing your enemies, shaming yourself? And dare you not face Menelaus, beloved of Ares, now? You would find what kind of man it is whose fair wife you stole. Your lyre will not help you, nor will those gifts of Aphrodite, your looks and your flowing locks, when he lays you in the dust. But the Trojans lack spirit or you would have sunk beneath a shower of stones by now, given all your sinful ways.’

Godlike Paris replied: ‘Hector you only say what is right in rebuking me: as always your heart is true, like an axe that splits a beam in the hands of a shipwright working his skill more powerfully shaping the timber; your heart is just as unswerving, but do not blame me for the sweet gifts of golden Aphrodite. Great gifts of the gods are not to be despised: no man of his own free will chooses what they give. Well, if you want me to fight this duel, let the Trojans and Achaeans take their seats, and I will meet Menelaus, beloved of Ares, before both armies, and fight for Helen and her riches. Whichever wins and shows himself the better man let him take both wealth and woman to his house. And the rest of you can sign a treaty under oath to live on Troy’s rich soil, while our enemies sail for Argos, the horse-pasture, and Achaea, the land of lovely women.’

Hector was delighted at his words, and grasping his spear by the middle pushed the men back, and forced them to be seated. But the long-haired Greeks fired arrows towards him, and pelted him with stones, till Lord Agamemnon shouted: ‘Argives, hold: enough you Greeks, enough, Hector of the gleaming helm desires to speak.’

At once, they ceased their attack and fell silent, while Hector spoke to both the armies: ‘Listen, you Trojans, and you bronze-greaved Greeks, these are the words of Paris, source of all this strife. He asks that both sides ground their sharp weapons while he and Menelaus, beloved of Ares, fight in single combat between the armies, for Helen and all her treasure. Whichever wins and shows himself the better man let him take both wealth and woman to his house, while the rest of us sign a treaty under oath.’

When he finished, silence reigned, till Menelaus of the loud war-cry spoke: ‘Hear me, now. Mine is the heart that suffered most: I propose that Greeks and Trojans part in peace, for you have borne much pain through this quarrel of mine with Paris, though he began it. Whichever of us is fated to die: let him fall; the rest of you shall leave swiftly in peace. Bring two sheep, white ram and black ewe, to sacrifice to Earth and Sun, and we will bring another for Zeus, and let great Priam swear the oath himself, since his sons are reckless and break trust, lest some presumptuous action violate the oaths of Zeus. Fickle are the hearts of the young: but old men have regard to the future and the past, so the outcome of their actions may fall out best for both sides.’

The Greeks and Trojans thrilled to his words, seeing an end to the pain of war. The chariots were reined in along the lines, and the charioteers descended, and shed their battle gear in tightly-spaced piles on the ground. Meanwhile Hector sent two runners to the city to summon Priam and bring the sacrifice. Likewise King Agamemnon sent Talthybius to the hollow ships, telling him to return with a lamb. He straight obeyed.

Meanwhile Iris, disguised as Helen’s sister-in-law, Laodice, loveliest of Priam’s daughters and wife of Antenor’s son, Helicaon, brought news to white-armed Helen. She found her in the palace, weaving a great double-width purple cloth, showing the many battles on her behalf between the horse-taming Trojans and the bronze-greaved Achaeans. Swift-footed Iris nearing her, said: ‘Dear sister, come see how strangely Greeks and Trojans act. From threatening each other on the plain, hearts fixed on deadly warfare, they descend to sitting in silence, leaning on their shields, spears grounded, and no sign of conflict. But Paris it seems andMenelaus, beloved of Ares, plan to fight for you with their long spears, and the winner will claim you as his wife.’

Her words filled Helen’s heart with tender longing for her former husband, her parents and her homeland. She veiled herself in white linen, and, weeping large tears, she left her room accompanied by her handmaids, Aethra daughter of Pittheus, and ox-eyed Clymene. Swiftly they reached the Scaean Gate.

There Priam sat with the city Elders, Panthous, Thymoetes, Lampus, Clytius, Hicetaon, scion of Ares, and the wise men Antenor and Ucalegon. Too old to fight, they were nevertheless fine speakers, perched on the wall like cicadas on a tree that pour out sound. Seeing Helen ascend the ramparts, they spoke soft winged words to each other: ‘Small wonder that Trojans and bronze-greaved Greeks have suffered for such a woman, she is so like an immortal goddess. Yet lovely as she is, let her sail home, not stay to be a bane to us and our children.’

But Priam called Helen to his side: ‘Come, dear child, and sit with me. See there, your former husband, your kin and your dear friends. You are not guilty in my eyes. Surely the gods must be to blame, who brought these fateful Greeks against me. Tell me who that great warrior is, that tall and powerful Achaean. There are others taller, true, but I have never seen so handsome or so regal a man, every inch a king.’

‘I respect and reverence you, dear father-in-law,’ the lovely Helen replied: ‘I wish I had chosen death rather than following your son, leaving behind my bridal chamber, my beloved daughter, my dear childhood friends and my kin. But I did not, and I pine away in sorrow. But let me answer what you ask. That is imperialAgamemnon, Atreus’ son, a great king and mighty spearman. He was brother-in-law to this shameless creature here, unless it was all a dream.’

The old man viewed Agamemnon with wonder: ‘Ah, happy son of Atreus, fortune’s child, blessed by the gods! All these Achaeans, then, are your subjects. I journeyed to vine-rich Phrygia once, and saw the host of warriors, masters of gleaming horses, men of Otreus’ army and godlike Mygdon’s too, camped by the banks of the River Sangarius. Their ally, I was with them when the Amazon women attacked and fought like men. But that force would be outnumbered by these bright-eyed Achaeans.’

Then he saw Odysseus and asked: ‘Who is he, dear child? Tell me of that man shorter than Agamemnon, but broader in the chest and shoulders. He heaps his armour on the ground and ranges the ranks like the leader of the flock, the fleecy ram that roams among white ewes.’

‘That’, replied Helen, daughter of Zeus, ‘is wily Odysseus, Laertes’ son, reared in Ithaca that rocky isle, master of tricks and clever devices.’

‘True, indeed, lady’ added wise Antenor. ‘He has been here before with Menelaus, beloved of Ares, on an embassy regarding you. They were guests in my house, and I know their looks and stature and all their guile. When they stood among our assembled Trojans, Menelaus was the taller, but, seated, broad-shouldered Odysseus was more regal. And when they began to weave their web of cunning speech, Menelaus, it is true, spoke fluently and clearly, but briefly, since though the younger he was a man of few and concise words. But when wily Odysseus rose to speak, he stood with his gaze fixed on the ground, his staff gripped tight and motionless, as if he were a man of little experience. Yet when that great voice issued from his chest, with words like flakes of winter snow, no mortal man could rival him; and we were no longer fooled by his appearance.’

Ajax was the third warrior the old king noticed: ‘Who is that other tall and mighty Greek, head and shoulders above the rest?’

‘That is great Ajax, shield of the Achaeans,’ answered the lovely long-robed Helen, ‘and godlike Idomeneus stands among his Cretans on the other side, with his generals gathered round. Whenever he came from Crete, Menelaus, beloved of Ares, would entertain him in our house. Though I see all the rest of the bright-eyed Greeks whom I know and could name, I see no sign of my two brothers, Castor the horse-tamer, and the boxer Polydeuces. Either they failed to join the fleet when it left fair Lacedaemon, or having reached here in their sea-going craft they choose not to mingle with these warriors for fear of the scorn and insults poured on me.’

She spoke, not knowing the rich soil already covered them, in Lacedaemon, their sweet native land.

The heralds, meanwhile, were bringing the sacrificial offerings from the city, two lambs, and a goatskin bottle full of heart-refreshing wine, the fruit of the earth. Idaeus was one of them, and he carried a gleaming bowl and golden cups; he came to the old king’s side and stirred him to action, saying: ‘Up, son of Laomedon, for the leaders of the Trojans, the horse-tamers, and of the Greeks, the bronze-clad Achaeans, summon you to the plain to swear a truce. Paris and Menelaus, beloved of Ares, will fight with long spears for the woman; and whichever shall win shall have her and her wealth, and the rest of us sign a treaty under oath to live on Troy’s rich soil, while our enemies sail for Argos, the horse-pasture, and Achaea, the land of lovely women.’

Hearing his words, the old man shuddered, but told his men to harness the horses, which they did and quickly. Then Priam mounted his fine chariot and took the reins, and with Antenor at his side drove his swift horses through the Scaean Gate into the plain.

When they reached the opposing armies, they stepped down from the chariots onto the rich dust and entered the space between them. Then Agamemnon, king of men, and wily Odysseus stood forth, and the noble heralds brought the sacrificial offerings, mixed wine in the bowl, and laved the royal hands. And Atreides drew the knife that ever hung next the great scabbard of his sword, and cut wool from the heads of the lambs, which the heralds shared among the Greek and Trojan leaders. Now Agamemnon raised his arms and prayed aloud: ‘Father Zeus, great and glorious, you who reign on Ida, and you all-seeing and all-knowing Sun, and you rivers, and you earth, and you beneath that take vengeance on the dead for their oath-breaking: be witness to what we solemnly swear. If Paris kills Menelaus, Helenand all her treasure are his to keep; and we depart in our sea-going ships. But if red-haired Menelaus kills Paris, the Trojans must yield Helen and her riches, and pay the Greeks proper recompense, on a scale men shall remember. And if Priam and his sons choose not to pay though Paris falls, then we fight on to win our claim, however long it takes to make an end to war.’

So saying, he slit the lambs’ throats with the merciless bronze, and loosed them to the earth as they gasped for breath, the knife robbing them of their powers. Then wine from the bowl was poured into the cups, and oaths sworn to the immortal gods. This was the Greek and Trojan plea: ‘Great and glorious Zeus, and all you deathless gods, may the brains of whatever race first wreaks harm in defiance of this treaty be poured out, like this wine, on the ground, theirs and their children’s too; and their wives be taken in servitude.’

That was their prayer, but Zeus would yet thwart their hopes. Dardanian Priam spoke then, saying: ‘Hear me, Greeks and Trojans. I will return now to windy Ilium, since I cannot bear to watch my beloved son fight Menelaus, beloved of Ares. I think Zeus and the immortal gods already know which of them is fated to die.’

With these words the godlike king set the lambs in his fine chariot and took the reins, and with Antenor by his side drove back to Troy. Meanwhile Hector, Priam’s son, and noble Odysseus marked out the ground, and then cast lots in a bronze helmet to decide who should first let fly his spear. The warriors of both armies raised their arms in prayer, and this was the Greek and Trojan plea: ‘Father Zeus, great and glorious, who reigns on Ida, whichever man brought these sorrows on both nations, let him die and descend to Hades, but let solemn oaths bring friendship between us.’

They prayed, while Hector of the gleaming helm cast lots, head turned away; and instantly out leapt that of Paris. Then the warriors seated themselves in rows, by their high-stepping horses and their piles of inlaid gear. Now, noble Paris, blonde Helen’s husband, donned his fine armour. First he clasped the greaves about his legs, splendid ones with silver clips; next fitted his brother Lycaon’s cuirass over his chest, adjusting it himself; from his shoulder he slung his bronze sword with silver studs, then his thick and sturdy shield; on his firm head he set a well-made helm with horse-hair crest, grimly the plume nodded from its crown, and grasped a brave spear tailored to his grip. Likewise warlike Menelaus donned his battle gear.

When they had armed themselves on either side, they strode to the space between the hosts, glaring so terribly the watching throng were spellbound, both the horse-tamers of Troy and the bronze-clad Achaeans. They met on the ground marked out, brandishing their spears at each other in anger. First Paris hurled his long-shadowed spear, striking Menelaus’ firm round shield; the bronze point failing to pierce its thickness. Then Atreides ran forward with his weapon in turn, raising a prayer to Father Zeus: ‘Lord, let me gain revenge on noble Paris who wronged me, let my hand strike him down, so that future generations shall shudder at harming a host who shows them friendship.’

So saying, he lifted his long-shadowed spear, and hurled it, striking the son of Priam’s firm round shield. Right through the gleaming shield the mighty weapon flew, forcing its way on through the rich cuirass, ripping the tunic along his flank, yet Paris swerved aside and dodged dark death. Now Atreides drew his silver-studded sword, and brought it down on his enemy’s helm, shattering the blade in four, which flew from his hand. Then Menelaus glanced to the wide sky with a bitter groan: ‘No god is harsher than you, Father Zeus. Surely I thought to take revenge on Priam’s son, for all the evil he has done, yet now my sword breaks in my hand, my spear, launched from my hand in vain, fails to strike him.’

With this he threw himself on Paris, seizing him by his helm’s thick horsehair crest, whirled him round and dragged him towards the Achaean lines. Paris was choked by the richly inlaid strap of his helm, drawn tight beneath his chin, pressing on his soft throat. And Menelaus would have hauled him off and won endless glory, had not Zeus’ daughter Aphrodite, swift to see it, broken the ox-hide strap, so the empty helm was left in Menelaus’ strong grip. He tossed it away into the Greek ranks, where his comrades gathered it, then sprang again to the attack, his bronze spear eager for the kill. But Aphrodite cloaked Paris in mist and, with a goddess’s power, whisked him away, and set him down in his own high sweet-scented room, while she sped off to summon Helen.

She found her on the rampart, with a throng of Trojan women round her. So the goddess stretched out her hand to pluck at Helen’s perfumed robes, and spoke to her, disguised as an old and dearly loved wool-carder, who combed the fine wool for Helen when she lived in Lacedaemon. ‘Come,’ cried the goddess, ‘Paris calls for you. He lies on his inlaid bed in his room, radiant with beauty in his fine garments. You would never guess he had come from a fight: rather that he was off to the dance or resting after dancing.’

Helen was roused by her words then struck with wonder, as the goddess revealed her lovely neck and shoulders, and her bright eyes. She addressed her, saying: ‘Goddess, why choose to deceive me so? Now Menelaus has beaten noble Paris, and wants to drag his shameful wife home, would you have me follow you to some great city in Phrygia or sweet Maeonia, destined for some other man dear to you? Is that why you come here full of guile? Go yourself, and sit beside him, forget your deity, abandon Olympus, fret over him and pamper him, be his wife then, or at least his slave. I shall not run, for shame, to share his bed again; the Trojan women would scorn me if I did, and anyway my heart is full of sorrow.’

Fair Aphrodite turned on her, in anger: ‘Obstinate woman, provoke me to fury and I’ll desert you, and hate you as deeply as I still love you yet, and bring on you the fierce enmity of Trojan and Greek alike; then indeed would your fate be evil.’

Zeus-begotten Helen was gripped by fear, as she spoke, and wrapping herself in her bright shining mantle, followed the goddess without a word, escaping the notice of the Trojan women.

When they reached Paris’ fine house, her handmaids returned swiftly to their tasks, but the fair lady went to her high-roofed chamber. There laughter-loving Aphrodite placed a chair for her, facing Paris, and Helen, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus, sat with averted gaze berating her lover, saying: ‘So you have left the field: I wish you had died there, at the hands of that great soldier who was once my husband. You used to boast you were a better man than Menelaus, beloved of Ares, a finer spearman, and with a stronger arm. Go back, then, and challenge him, man to man. But my advice would be to stay here, not fight hand to hand with red-haired Menelaus, nor taunt him rashly, lest his spear conquers you.’

‘Lady, restrain your harsh abusive words of reproach. Athene helped Menelaus win this time, but I will conquer him the next; there are gods to aid us too. Come to bed, and know the joy of love, for I have never desired you more than now, for love and sweet desire seize me, not even when I first took you from Lacedaemonaboard my sea-going ship, and slept with you on Cranae’s isle.’ So saying, he drew his wife to the bed, and they lay down together.

Meanwhile Atreides ranged like a wild beast through the ranks, trying to catch a glimpse of Paris. But none of the Trojans or their allies could point him out to Menelaus, beloved of Ares, though they hated Paris like death, and nothing would have tempted them to hide him. It was left to Agamemnon to speak out: ‘Hear me, Trojans, Dardanians, and your allies. Victory clearly rests with Menelaus; yield Argive Helen and her riches now, and pay us proper recompense, on a scale men shall remember.’

So the son of Atreus spoke, and all the Greeks shouted their assent.

Iliad Book IV:369-529

With this, Hector of the gleaming helm departed for his fine house, but failed to find white-armed Andromache at home. She had gone with her son and a fair companion, to the battlements, where she stood in tears and sorrow. Failing to find his peerless wife, Hector stood at the threshold and spoke to her servants: ‘Tell me, you maids, where is white-armed Andromache? Is she visiting one of my sisters, or my noble brothers’ fair wives, or has she gone to Athene’s shrine, where the rest of Troy’s noble women seek to influence the dread goddess?’

‘Hector,’ a busy housemaid replied, ‘if you wish to know the truth, she has done none of those things, but hearing our men were hard pressed, and the Greeks had won a great victory, she rushed to the battlements, in great distress, and the nurse followed carrying your son.’

At this, Hector sped from the house and retraced his path through the broad streets. When, after crossing the city, he reached the Scaean Gate by which he intended to leave, his wife came running to meet him. Richly-dowered, Andromache was the daughter of brave Eëtion, who lived in Thebe below wooded Placus, and ruled the Cilicians. Now she ran to her bronze-clad husband, and the nurse was with her, holding a little boy in her arms, a baby son, Hector’s bright star. Hector called him Scamandrius, but the rest Astyanax, since, to them, Hector alone protected Ilium. Hector smiled, and gazed at his son in silence, but Andromache crept weeping to his side, and clasped his hand, saying: ‘Husband, this courage of yours dooms you. You show no pity for your little son or your wretched wife, whom you’ll soon make a widow. The Achaeans must soon join arms against you, and destroy you. If I lose you I were better dead, for should you meet your fate, there will be no more joy for me only sorrow. I have no royal father or mother. Achilles killed my noble father when he sacked Cicilian Thebe, that many-peopled city with its high gates. But he shrank from despoiling Eëtion though he slew him, sending him to the pyre in his ornate armour, and heaping a mound above him, round which the mountain-nymphs, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, planted elm trees. And seven brothers of mine, swift-footed mighty Achilles sent to Hades, all on a day, killing them there among their shambling-gaited cattle and white fleecy sheep. My mother, queen below wooded Placus, he dragged here with the rest of his spoils, but freed her for a princely ransom, only for Artemis of the bow to slay her in her father’s house. Hector you are parent, brother, husband to me. Take pity on me now, and stay here on the battlements, don’t make your son an orphan your wife a widow. Station your men above the fig-tree there, where the wall’s most easily scaled, and the city lies then wide open. Thrice their best men led by the two Aiantes, great Idomeneus, the Atreidae, and brave Diomedes, have tested the wall there. Someone skilled in divining has told them, or maybe their own experience urges them to try.’

‘Lady,’ said Hector of the gleaming helm, ‘I too am concerned, but if I hid from the fighting like a coward, I would be shamed before all the Trojans and their wives in their trailing robes. Nor is it my instinct, since I have striven ever to excel always in the vanguard of the battle, seeking to win great glory for my father and myself. And deep in my heart I know the day is coming when sacred Ilium will fall, Priam, and his people of the ashen spear. But the thought of the sad fate to come, not even Hecabe’s or Priam’s, nor my many noble brothers’ who will bite the dust at the hands of their foes, not even that sorrow moves me as does the thought of your grief when some bronze-clad Greek drags you away weeping, robbing you of your freedom. Perhaps in Argos you’ll toil at the loom at some other woman’s whim, or bear water all unwillingly from some spring, Messeïs or Hypereia, bowed down by the yoke of necessity. Seeing your tears, they will say: ‘There goes the wife of Hector, foremost of all the horse-taming Trojans, when the battle raged at Troy.’ And you will sorrow afresh at those words, lacking a man like me to save you from bondage. May I be dead, and the earth piled above me, before I hear your cries as they drag you away.’

With this, glorious Hector held out his arms to take his son, but the child, alarmed at sight of his father, shrank back with a cry on his fair nurse’s breast, fearing the helmet’s bronze and the horsehair crest nodding darkly at him. His father and mother smiled, and glorious Hector doffed the shining helmet at once and laid it on the ground. Then he kissed his beloved son, dandled him in his arms, and prayed aloud: ‘Zeus, and all you gods, grant that this boy like me may be foremost among the Trojans, as mighty in strength, and a powerful leader of Ilium. And some day may they say of him, as he returns from war, “He’s a better man than his father”, and may he bear home the blood-stained armour of those he has slain, so his mother’s heart may rejoice.’

With this he placed the child in his dear wife’s arms, and she took him to her fragrant breast, smiling through her tears. Her husband was touched with pity at this, and stroked her with his hand, saying: ‘Andromache, dear wife, don’t grieve for me too deeply yet. None will send me to Hades before my time: though no man, noble or humble, once born can escape his fate. Go home, and attend to your tasks, the loom and spindle, and see the maids work hard. War is a man’s concern, the business of every man in Ilium, and mine above all.’

So saying, glorious Hector took up his helmet with its horse-hair crest, while his wife returned home, weeping profusely with many a backward glance. She soon came to man-killing Hector’s fine palace, gathered her crowd of women, and roused them to lamentation. Thus they mourned for Hector while he still lived, believing he could not escape an Achaean attack in strength, and return alive from the battlefield.

Paris meanwhile did not linger long in his high house, but donned his fine armour with bronze trappings, and fleet of foot sped surely through the city. Like a stable-fed stallion, who has had his fill, and breaks the halter and gallops over the fields in triumph, to bathe in the lovely river as is his wont, tossing his head while his mane streams over his shoulders, glorying in his power as his strong legs carry him to the pastures, the haunts of mares; so Paris, son of Priam, strode swiftly down from Pergamus, glittering in his armour like the shining sun, and filled with joy.

He soon overtook his brother, noble Hector, about to leave the place where he’d talked with his wife. Godlike Paris was first to speak: ‘Brother, I fear my long delay has kept you waiting: I failed to arrive as you requested.’

Hector of the gleaming helm answered him: ‘Perverse man, no one with reason would decry your martial efforts, since you have courage; but you malinger when it suits, and shun the fight. It grieves me when I hear reproaches against you on Trojan lips, you who caused them all this trouble. Go on, we will be reconciled later, if Zeus grants that we drive the bronze-greaved Greeks from the soil of Troy, and we make a free libation in the palace, to the heavenly gods who live forever.’

Penelope

Homer

The Odyssey Book XXIII

Translated By Samuel Butler

Penelope is the wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. She is portrayed by Homer as being exceedingly loyal, compassionate, and, like her husband, wily. She keeps the advances of the suitors at bay by claiming that she cannot marry one of them until she has finished her sewing. She sews all day, but undoes here work at night so as to make no real progress.

She even manages to trick Odysseus into confirming his real identity after he makes his long-awaited return. The fact that a woman would be able to trick a man, no less her husband, might have flipped the ancient patriarchy on its head. For this reason, Penelope remains a beloved character within the canon of classical literature.

Euryclea now went upstairs laughing to tell her mistress that her dear husband had come home. Her aged knees became young again and her feet were nimble for joy as she went up to her mistress and bent over her head to speak to her. “Wake up Penelope, my dear child,” she exclaimed, “and see with your own eyes something that you have been wanting this long time past. Ulysses has at last indeed come home again, and has killed the suitors who were giving so much trouble in his house, eating up his estate and ill-treating his son.”

“My good nurse,” answered Penelope, “you must be mad. The gods sometimes send some very sensible people out of their minds, and make foolish people become sensible. This is what they must have been doing to you; for you always used to be a reasonable person. Why should you thus mock me when I have trouble enough already- talking such nonsense, and waking me up out of a sweet sleep that had taken possession of my eyes and closed them? I have never slept so soundly from the day my poor husband went to that city with the ill-omened name. Go back again into the women’s room; if it had been any one else, who had woke me up to bring me such absurd news I should have sent her away with a severe scolding. As it is, your age shall protect you.”

“My dear child,” answered Euryclea, “I am not mocking you. It is quite true as I tell you that Ulysses is come home again. He was the stranger whom they all kept on treating so badly in the cloister. Telemachus knew all the time that he was come back, but kept his father’s secret that he might have his revenge on all these wicked people.

Then Penelope sprang up from her couch, threw her arms round Euryclea, and wept for joy. “But my dear nurse,” said she, “explain this to me; if he has really come home as you say, how did he manage to overcome the wicked suitors single handed, seeing what a number of them there always were?”

“I was not there,” answered Euryclea, “and do not know; I only heard them groaning while they were being killed. We sat crouching and huddled up in a corner of the women’s room with the doors closed, till your son came to fetch me because his father sent him. Then I found Ulysses standing over the corpses that were lying on the ground all round him, one on top of the other. You would have enjoyed it if you could have seen him standing there all bespattered with blood and filth, and looking just like a lion. But the corpses are now all piled up in the gatehouse that is in the outer court, and Ulysses has lit a great fire to purify the house with sulphur. He has sent me to call you, so come with me that you may both be happy together after all; for now at last the desire of your heart has been fulfilled; your husband is come home to find both wife and son alive and well, and to take his revenge in his own house on the suitors who behaved so badly to him.”

“’My dear nurse,” said Penelope, “do not exult too confidently over all this. You know how delighted every one would be to see Ulysses come home- more particularly myself, and the son who has been born to both of us; but what you tell me cannot be really true. It is some god who is angry with the suitors for their great wickedness, and has made an end of them; for they respected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came near them, who came near them, and they have come to a bad end in consequence of their iniquity. Ulysses is dead far away from the Achaean land; he will never return home again.”

Then nurse Euryclea said, “My child, what are you talking about? but you were all hard of belief and have made up your mind that your husband is never coming, although he is in the house and by his own fire side at this very moment. Besides I can give you another proof; when I was washing him I perceived the scar which the wild boar gave him, and I wanted to tell you about it, but in his wisdom he would not let me, and clapped his hands over my mouth; so come with me and I will make this bargain with you- if I am deceiving you, you may have me killed by the most cruel death you can think of.”

“My dear nurse,” said Penelope, “however wise you may be you can hardly fathom the counsels of the gods. Nevertheless, we will go in search of my son, that I may see the corpses of the suitors, and the man who has killed them.”

On this she came down from her upper room, and while doing so she considered whether she should keep at a distance from her husband and question him, or whether she should at once go up to him and embrace him. When, however, she had crossed the stone floor of the cloister, she sat down opposite Ulysses by the fire, against the wall at right angles [to that by which she had entered], while Ulysses sat near one of the bearing-posts, looking upon the ground, and waiting to see what his wife would say to him when she saw him. For a long time she sat silent and as one lost in amazement. At one moment she looked him full in the face, but then again directly, she was misled by his shabby clothes and failed to recognize him, till Telemachus began to reproach her and said:

“Mother- but you are so hard that I cannot call you by such a name- why do you keep away from my father in this way? Why do you not sit by his side and begin talking to him and asking him questions? No other woman could bear to keep away from her husband when he had come back to her after twenty years of absence, and after having gone through so much; but your heart always was as hard as a stone.”

Penelope answered, “My son, I am so lost in astonishment that I can find no words in which either to ask questions or to answer them. I cannot even look him straight in the face. Still, if he really is Ulysses come back to his own home again, we shall get to understand one another better by and by, for there are tokens with which we two are alone acquainted, and which are hidden from all others.”

Ulysses smiled at this, and said to Telemachus, “Let your mother put me to any proof she likes; she will make up her mind about it presently. She rejects me for the moment and believes me to be somebody else, because I am covered with dirt and have such bad clothes on; let us, however, consider what we had better do next. When one man has killed another, even though he was not one who would leave many friends to take up his quarrel, the man who has killed him must still say good bye to his friends and fly the country; whereas we have been killing the stay of a whole town, and all the picked youth of Ithaca. I would have you consider this matter.”

“Look to it yourself, father,” answered Telemachus, “for they say you are the wisest counsellor in the world, and that there is no other mortal man who can compare with you. We will follow you with right good will, nor shall you find us fail you in so far as our strength holds out.”

“I will say what I think will be best,” answered Ulysses. “First wash and put your shirts on; tell the maids also to go to their own room and dress; Phemius shall then strike up a dance tune on his lyre, so that if people outside hear, or any of the neighbours, or some one going along the street happens to notice it, they may think there is a wedding in the house, and no rumours about the death of the suitors will get about in the town, before we can escape to the woods upon my own land. Once there, we will settle which of the courses heaven vouchsafes us shall seem wisest.”

Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. First they washed and put their shirts on, while the women got ready. Then Phemius took his lyre and set them all longing for sweet song and stately dance. The house re-echoed with the sound of men and women dancing, and the people outside said, “I suppose the queen has been getting married at last. She ought to be ashamed of herself for not continuing to protect her husband’s property until he comes home.”

This was what they said, but they did not know what it was that had been happening. The upper servant Eurynome washed and anointed Ulysses in his own house and gave him a shirt and cloak, while Minerva made him look taller and stronger than before; she also made the hair grow thick on the top of his head, and flow down in curls like hyacinth blossoms; she glorified him about the head and shoulders just as a skilful workman who has studied art of all kinds under Vulcan or Minerva- and his work is full of beauty- enriches a piece of silver plate by gilding it. He came from the bath looking like one of the immortals, and sat down opposite his wife on the seat he had left. “My dear,” said he, “heaven has endowed you with a heart more unyielding than woman ever yet had. No other woman could bear to keep away from her husband when he had come back to her after twenty years of absence, and after having gone through so much. But come, nurse, get a bed ready for me; I will sleep alone, for this woman has a heart as hard as iron.”

“My dear,” answered Penelope, “I have no wish to set myself up, nor to depreciate you; but I am not struck by your appearance, for I very well remember what kind of a man you were when you set sail from Ithaca. Nevertheless, Euryclea, take his bed outside the bed chamber that he himself built. Bring the bed outside this room, and put bedding upon it with fleeces, good coverlets, and blankets.”

She said this to try him, but Ulysses was very angry and said, “Wife, I am much displeased at what you have just been saying. Who has been taking my bed from the place in which I left it? He must have found it a hard task, no matter how skilled a workman he was, unless some god came and helped him to shift it. There is no man living, however strong and in his prime, who could move it from its place, for it is a marvellous curiosity which I made with my very own hands. There was a young olive growing within the precincts of the house, in full vigour, and about as thick as a bearing-post. I built my room round this with strong walls of stone and a roof to cover them, and I made the doors strong and well-fitting. Then I cut off the top boughs of the olive tree and left the stump standing. This I dressed roughly from the root upwards and then worked with carpenter’s tools well and skilfully, straightening my work by drawing a line on the wood, and making it into a bed-prop. I then bored a hole down the middle, and made it the centre-post of my bed, at which I worked till I had finished it, inlaying it with gold and silver; after this I stretched a hide of crimson leather from one side of it to the other. So you see I know all about it, and I desire to learn whether it is still there, or whether any one has been removing it by cutting down the olive tree at its roots.”

When she heard the sure proofs Ulysses now gave her, she fairly broke down. She flew weeping to his side, flung her arms about his neck, and kissed him. “Do not be angry with me Ulysses,” she cried, “you, who are the wisest of mankind. We have suffered, both of us. Heaven has denied us the happiness of spending our youth, and of growing old, together; do not then be aggrieved or take it amiss that I did not embrace you thus as soon as I saw you. I have been shuddering all the time through fear that someone might come here and deceive me with a lying story; for there are many very wicked people going about. Jove’s daughter Helen would never have yielded herself to a man from a foreign country, if she had known that the sons of Achaeans would come after her and bring her back. Heaven put it in her heart to do wrong, and she gave no thought to that sin, which has been the source of all our sorrows. Now, however, that you have convinced me by showing that you know all about our bed (which no human being has ever seen but you and I and a single maid servant, the daughter of Actor, who was given me by my father on my marriage, and who keeps the doors of our room) hard of belief though I have been I can mistrust no longer.”

Then Ulysses in his turn melted, and wept as he clasped his dear and faithful wife to his bosom. As the sight of land is welcome to men who are swimming towards the shore, when Neptune has wrecked their ship with the fury of his winds and waves- a few alone reach the land, and these, covered with brine, are thankful when they find themselves on firm ground and out of danger- even so was her husband welcome to her as she looked upon him, and she could not tear her two fair arms from about his neck. Indeed they would have gone on indulging their sorrow till rosy-fingered morn appeared, had not Minerva determined otherwise, and held night back in the far west, while she would not suffer Dawn to leave Oceanus, nor to yoke the two steeds Lampus and Phaethon that bear her onward to break the day upon mankind.

At last, however, Ulysses said, “Wife, we have not yet reached the end of our troubles. I have an unknown amount of toil still to undergo. It is long and difficult, but I must go through with it, for thus the shade of Teiresias prophesied concerning me, on the day when I went down into Hades to ask about my return and that of my companions. But now let us go to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of sleep.”

“You shall go to bed as soon as you please,” replied Penelope, “now that the gods have sent you home to your own good house and to your country. But as heaven has put it in your mind to speak of it, tell me about the task that lies before you. I shall have to hear about it later, so it is better that I should be told at once.”

“My dear,” answered Ulysses, “why should you press me to tell you? Still, I will not conceal it from you, though you will not like it. I do not like it myself, for Teiresias bade me travel far and wide, carrying an oar, till I came to a country where the people have never heard of the sea, and do not even mix salt with their food. They know nothing about ships, nor oars that are as the wings of a ship. He gave me this certain token which I will not hide from you. He said that a wayfarer should meet me and ask me whether it was a winnowing shovel that I had on my shoulder. On this, I was to fix my oar in the ground and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune; after which I was to go home and offer hecatombs to all the gods in heaven, one after the other. As for myself, he said that death should come to me from the sea, and that my life should ebb away very gently when I was full of years and peace of mind, and my people should bless me. All this, he said, should surely come to pass.”

And Penelope said, “If the gods are going to vouchsafe you a happier time in your old age, you may hope then to have some respite from misfortune.”

Thus did they converse. Meanwhile Eurynome and the nurse took torches and made the bed ready with soft coverlets; as soon as they had laid them, the nurse went back into the house to go to her rest, leaving the bed chamber woman Eurynome to show Ulysses and Penelope to bed by torch light. When she had conducted them to their room she went back, and they then came joyfully to the rites of their own old bed. Telemachus, Philoetius, and the swineherd now left off dancing, and made the women leave off also. They then laid themselves down to sleep in the cloisters.

When Ulysses and Penelope had had their fill of love they fell talking with one another. She told him how much she had had to bear in seeing the house filled with a crowd of wicked suitors who had killed so many sheep and oxen on her account, and had drunk so many casks of wine. Ulysses in his turn told her what he had suffered, and how much trouble he had himself given to other people. He told her everything, and she was so delighted to listen that she never went to sleep till he had ended his whole story.

He began with his victory over the Cicons, and how he thence reached the fertile land of the Lotus-eaters. He told her all about the Cyclops and how he had punished him for having so ruthlessly eaten his brave comrades; how he then went on to Aeolus, who received him hospitably and furthered him on his way, but even so he was not to reach home, for to his great grief a hurricane carried him out to sea again; how he went on to the Laestrygonian city Telepylos, where the people destroyed all his ships with their crews, save himself and his own ship only. Then he told of cunning Circe and her craft, and how he sailed to the chill house of Hades, to consult the ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias, and how he saw his old comrades in arms, and his mother who bore him and brought him up when he was a child; how he then heard the wondrous singing of the Sirens, and went on to the wandering rocks and terrible Charybdis and to Scylla, whom no man had ever yet passed in safety; how his men then ate the cattle of the sun-god, and how Jove therefore struck the ship with his thunderbolts, so that all his men perished together, himself alone being left alive; how at last he reached the Ogygian island and the nymph Calypso, who kept him there in a cave, and fed him, and wanted him to marry her, in which case she intended making him immortal so that he should never grow old, but she could not persuade him to let her do so; and how after much suffering he had found his way to the Phaeacians, who had treated him as though he had been a god, and sent him back in a ship to his own country after having given him gold, bronze, and raiment in great abundance. This was the last thing about which he told her, for here a deep sleep took hold upon him and eased the burden of his sorrows.

Then Minerva bethought her of another matter. When she deemed that Ulysses had had both of his wife and of repose, she bade gold-enthroned Dawn rise out of Oceanus that she might shed light upon mankind. On this, Ulysses rose from his comfortable bed and said to Penelope, “Wife, we have both of us had our full share of troubles, you, here, in lamenting my absence, and I in being prevented from getting home though I was longing all the time to do so. Now, however, that we have at last come together, take care of the property that is in the house. As for the sheep and goats which the wicked suitors have eaten, I will take many myself by force from other people, and will compel the Achaeans to make good the rest till they shall have filled all my yards. I am now going to the wooded lands out in the country to see my father who has so long been grieved on my account, and to yourself I will give these instructions, though you have little need of them. At sunrise it will at once get abroad that I have been killing the suitors; go upstairs, therefore, and stay there with your women. See nobody and ask no questions.”

As he spoke he girded on his armour. Then he roused Telemachus, Philoetius, and Eumaeus, and told them all to put on their armour also. This they did, and armed themselves. When they had done so, they opened the gates and sallied forth, Ulysses leading the way. It was now daylight, but Minerva nevertheless concealed them in darkness and led them quickly out of the town.

Socrates Recounts the tale of Diotima

Plato

The Symposium

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

The philosopher Plato wrote most of his works at the beginning of the 4th century B.C.. These work were made up of philosophical dialogues between his teacher, Socrates, and his contemporaries.

In the Symposium, Socrates is not conversing with one of his contemporaries, but is holding a discussion with many of them. The topic of conversation is Love; it is suggested that each one of the guests at the symposium go around and make their finest speech in praise of Love. After a man named Agathon gives his speech in praise of Love as a mighty god, Socrates begins to question him on what he said. When Agathon no longer wishes to continue the conversation, Socrates launches in to a story about a conversation he had with a woman named Diotima.

In this story Socrates also believed that Love was a mighty god, but Diotima proves this idea is wrong. Instead she argues that Love is a spirit who is an interpreter between the gods and men. In this conversation, then, Diotima teaches Socrates what Socrates will teach Agathon.

And now, taking my leave of you, I would rehearse a tale of love which I heard from Diotima of Mantineia, a woman wise in this and in many other kinds of knowledge, who in the days of old, when the Athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague, delayed the disease ten years. She was my instructress in the art of love, and I shall repeat to you what she said to me, beginning with the admissions made by Agathon, which are nearly if not quite the same which I made to the wise woman when she questioned me-I think that this will be the easiest way, and I shall take both parts myself as well as I can. As you, Agathon, suggested, I must speak first of the being and nature of Love, and then of his works. First I said to her in nearly the same words which he used to me, that Love was a mighty god, and likewise fair and she proved to me as I proved to him that, by my own showing, Love was neither fair nor good. “What do you mean, Diotima,” I said, “is love then evil and foul?” “Hush,” she cried; “must that be foul which is not fair?” “Certainly,” I said. “And is that which is not wise, ignorant? do you not see that there is a mean between wisdom and ignorance?” “And what may that be?” I said. “Right opinion,” she replied; “which, as you know, being incapable of giving a reason, is not knowledge (for how can knowledge be devoid of reason? nor again, ignorance, for neither can ignorance attain the truth), but is clearly something which is a mean between ignorance and wisdom.” “Quite true,” I replied. “Do not then insist,” she said, “that what is not fair is of necessity foul, or what is not good evil; or infer that because love is not fair and good he is therefore foul and evil; for he is in a mean between them.” “Well,” I said, “Love is surely admitted by all to be a great god.” “By those who know or by those who do not know?” “By all.” “And how, Socrates,” she said with a smile, “canLove be acknowledged to be a great god by those who say that he is not a god at all?” “And who are they?” I said. “You and I are two of them,” she replied. “How can that be?” I said. “It is quite intelligible,” she replied; “for you yourself would acknowledge that the gods are happy and fair of course you would-would to say that any god was not?” “Certainly not,” I replied. “And you mean by the happy, those who are the possessors of things good or fair?” “Yes.” “And you admitted that Love, because he was in want, desires those good and fair things of which he is in want?””Yes, I did.” “But how can he be a god who has no portion in what is either good or fair?” “Impossible.” “Then you see that you also deny the divinity of Love.”

“What then is Love?” I asked; “Is he mortal?” “No.” “What then?” “As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two.” “What is he, Diotima?” “He is a great spirit (daimon), and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal.” “And what,” I said, “is his power?” “He interprets,” she replied, “between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all, prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through Love. all the intercourse, and converse of god with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which understands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as that of arts and handicrafts, is mean and vulgar. Now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love. “And who,” I said, “was his father, and who his mother?” “The tale,” she said, “will take time; nevertheless I will tell you. On the birthday of Aphrodite there was a feast of the gods, at which the god Poros or Plenty, who is the son of Metis or Discretion, was one of the guests. When the feast was over, Penia or Poverty, as the manner is on such occasions, came about the doors to beg. Now Plenty who was the worse for nectar (there was no wine in those days), went into the garden of Zeus and fell into a heavy sleep, and Poverty considering her own straitened circumstances, plotted to have a child by him, and accordingly she lay down at his side and conceived love, who partly because he is naturally a lover of the beautiful, and because Aphrodite is herself beautiful, and also because he was born on her birthday, is her follower and attendant. And as his parentage is, so also are his fortunes. In the first place he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in-the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother he is always in distress. Like hisfather too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist. He is by nature neither mortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when he is in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his father’s nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth; and, further, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge. The truth of the matter is this: No god is a philosopher. or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already; nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the ignorant seek after Wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has no desire for that of which he feels no want.” “But-who then, Diotima,” I said, “are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the foolish?” “A child may answer that question,” she replied; “they are those who are in a mean between the two; Love is one of them. For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful; and therefore Love is also a philosopher: or lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant. And of this too his birth is the cause; for his father is wealthy and wise, and his mother poor and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of the spirit Love. The error in your conception of him was very natural, and as I imagine from what you say, has arisen out of a confusion of love and the beloved, which made you think that love was all beautiful. For the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate, and perfect, and blessed; but the principle of love is of another nature, and is such as I have described.”

I said, “O thou stranger woman, thou sayest well; but, assuming Love to be such as you say, what is the use of him to men?” “That, Socrates,” she replied, “I will attempt to unfold: of his nature and birth I have already spoken; and you acknowledge that love is of the beautiful. But some one will say: Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and Diotima?-or rather let me put the question more dearly, and ask: When a man loves the beautiful, what does he desire?” I answered her “That the beautiful may be his.” “Still,” she said, “the answer suggests a further question: What is given by the possession of beauty?” “To what you have asked,” I replied, “I have no answer ready.” “Then,” she said, “Let me put the word ‘good’ in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the question once more: If he who loves good, what is it then that he loves? “The possession of the good,” I said. “And what does he gain who possesses the good?” “Happiness,” I replied; “there is less difficulty in answering that question.” “Yes,” she said, “the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things. Nor is there any need to ask why a man desires happiness; the answer is already final.” “You are right.” I said. “And is this wish and this desire common to all? and do all men always desire their own good, or only some men?-what say you?” “All men,” I replied; “the desire is common to all.” “Why, then,” she rejoined, “are not all men, Socrates, said to love, but only some them? whereas you say that all men are always loving the same things.” “I myself wonder,” I said,-why this is.” “There is nothing to wonder at,” she replied; “the reason is that one part of love is separated off and receives the name of the whole, but the other parts have other names.” “Give an illustration,” I said. She answered me as follows: “There is poetry, which, as you know, is complex; and manifold. All creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making, and the processes of all art are creative; and the masters of arts are all poets or makers.” “Very true.” “Still,” she said, “you know that they are not called poets, but have other names; only that portion of the art which is separated off from the rest, and is concerned with music and metre, is termed poetry, and they who possess poetry in this sense of the word are called poets.” “Very true,” I said. “And the same holds of love. For you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is only the great and subtle power of love; but they who are drawn towards him by any other path, whether the path of money-making or gymnastics or philosophy, are not called lovers -the name of the whole is appropriated to those whose affection takes one form only-they alone are said to love, or to be lovers.” “I dare say,” I replied, “that you are right.” “Yes,” she added, “and you hear people say that lovers are seeking for their other half; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half of themselves, nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole be also a good. And they will cut off their own hands and feet and cast them away, if they are evil; for they love not what is their own, unless perchance there be some one who calls what belongs to him the good, and what belongs to another the evil. For there is nothing which men love but the good. Is there anything?” “Certainly, I should say, that there is nothing.” “Then,” she said, “the simple truth is, that men love the good.” “Yes,” I said. “To which must be added that they love the possession of the good? “Yes, that must be added.” “And not only the possession, but the everlasting possession of the good?” “That must be added too.” “Then love,” she said, “may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?” “That is most true.”

“Then if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further,” she said, “what is the manner of the pursuit? what are they doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love? and what is the object which they have in view? Answer me.” “Nay, Diotima,” I replied, “if I had known, I should not have wondered at your wisdom, neither should I have come to learn from you about this very matter.” “Well,” she said, “I will teach you:-The object which they have in view is birth in beauty, whether of body or, soul.” “I do not understand you,” I said; “the oracle requires an explanation.” “I will make my meaning dearer,” she replied. “I mean to say, that all men are bringing to the birth in their bodies and in their souls. There is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation-procreation which must be in beauty and not in deformity; and this procreation is the union of man and woman, and is a divine thing; for conception and generation are an immortal principle in the mortal creature, and in the inharmonious they can never be. But the deformed is always inharmonious with the divine, and the beautiful harmonious. Beauty, then, is the destiny or goddess of parturition who presides at birth, and therefore, when approaching beauty, the conceiving power is propitious, and diffusive, and benign, and begets and bears fruit: at the sight of ugliness she frowns and contracts and has a sense of pain, and turns away, and shrivels up, and not without a pang refrains from conception. And this is the reason why, when the hour of conception arrives, and the teeming nature is full, there is such a flutter and ecstasy about beauty whose approach is the alleviation of the pain of travail. For love, Socrates, is not, as you imagine, the love of the beautiful only.” “What then?” “The love of generation and of birth in beauty.” “Yes,” I said. “Yes, indeed,” she replied. “But why of generation?” “Because to the mortal creature, generation is a sort of eternity and immortality,” she replied; “and if, as has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession of the good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good: Wherefore love is of immortality.”

All this she taught me at various times when she spoke of love. And I remember her once saying to me, “What is the cause, Socrates, of love, and the attendant desire? See you not how all animals, birds, as well as beasts, in their desire of procreation, are in agony when they take the infection of love, which begins with the desire of union; whereto is added the care of offspring, on whose behalf the weakest are ready to battle against the strongest even to the uttermost, and to die for them, and will, let themselves be tormented with hunger or suffer anything in order to maintain their young. Man may be supposed to act thus from reason; but why should animals have these passionate feelings? Can you tell me why?” Again I replied that I did not know. She said to me: “And do you expect ever to become a master in the art of love, if you do not know this?” “But I have told you already, Diotima, that my ignorance is the reason why I come to you; for I am conscious that I want a teacher; tell me then the cause of this and of the other mysteries of love.” “Marvel not,” she said, “if you believe that love is of the immortal, as we have several times acknowledged; for here again, and on the same principle too, the mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be everlasting and immortal: and this is only to be attained by generation, because generation always leaves behind a new existence in the place of the old. Nay even in the life, of the same individual there is succession and not absolute unity: a man is called the same, and yet in the short interval which elapses between youth and age, and in which every animal is said to have life and identity, he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and reparation-hair, flesh, bones, blood, and the whole body are always changing. Which is true not only of the body, but also of the soul, whose habits, tempers, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears, never remain the same in any one of us, but are always coming and going; and equally true of knowledge, and what is still more surprising to us mortals, not only do the sciences in general spring up and decay, so that in respect of them we are never the same; but each of them individually experiences a like change. For what is implied in the word ‘recollection,’ but the departure of knowledge, which is ever being forgotten, and is renewed and preserved by recollection, and appears to be the same although in reality new, according to that law of succession by which all mortal things are preserved, not absolutely the same, but by substitution, the old worn-out mortality leaving another new and similar existence behind unlike the divine, which is always the same and not another? And in this way, Socrates, the mortal body, or mortal anything, partakes of immortality; but the immortal in another way. Marvel not then at the love which all men have of their offspring; for that universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality.”

I was astonished at her words, and said: “Is this really true, O thou wise Diotima?” And she answered with all the authority of an accomplished sophist: “Of that, Socrates, you may be assured;-think only of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame. They are ready to run all risks greater far than they would have for their children, and to spend money and undergo any sort of toil, and even to die, for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be eternal. Do you imagine that Alcestis would have died to save Admetus, or Achilles to avenge Patroclus, or your own Codrus in order to preserve the kingdom for his sons, if they had not imagined that the memory of their virtues, which still survives among us, would be immortal? Nay,” she said, “I am persuaded that all men do all things, and the better they are the more they do them, in hope of the glorious fame of immortal virtue; for they desire the immortal.

“Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women and beget children-this is the character of their love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But souls which are pregnant-for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions?-wisdom and virtue in general. And such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor. But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families, and which is called temperance and justice. And he who in youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired, when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate. He wanders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring-for in deformity he will beget nothing-and naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed body; above all when he finds fair and noble and well-nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such an one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man; and he tries to educate him; and at the touch of the beautiful which is ever present to his memory, even when absent, he brings forth that which he had conceived long before, and in company with him tends that which he brings forth; and they are married by a far nearer tie and have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal children, for the children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal. Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets, would not rather have their children than ordinary human ones? Who would not emulate them in the creation of children such as theirs, which have preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory? Or who would not have such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours, not only of Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say? There is Solon, too, who is the revered father of Athenian laws; and many others there are in many other places, both among hellenes and barbarians, who have given to the world many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind; and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of children such as theirs; which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of his mortal children.

“These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only-out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed; please to give me your very best attention:

“He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)-a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and-foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear Socrates,” said the stranger of Mantineia, “is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible-you only want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty-the divine beauty, I mean, pure and dear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life-thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?”

Such, Phaedrus-and I speak not only to you, but to all of you-were the words of Diotima; and I am persuaded of their truth. And being persuaded of them, I try to persuade others, that in the attainment of this end human nature will not easily find a helper better than love: And therefore, also, I say that every man ought to honour him as I myself honour him, and walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the same, and praise the power and spirit of love according to the measure of my ability now and ever.

The words which I have spoken, you, Phaedrus, may call an encomium of love, or anything else which you please.

When Socrates had done speaking, the company applauded, and Aristophanes was beginning to say something in answer to the allusion which Socrates had made to his own speech, when suddenly there was a great knocking at the door of the house, as of revellers, and the sound of a flute-girl was heard.

Sayings of Spartan Women

Plutarch

Plutarch was a Greek biographer living during the 1st century A.D., when Greece was part of the Roman Empire. Although he was not born a Roman citizen he became one later in life. His most well known works are Moralia and Parallel Lives.

His work Moralia, loosely translated to Morals, is a collection of 78 essays and transcribed speeches. The essays give valuable information of everyday Greek and Roman life, but often make observations on humanity that transcend time. In Book 18 of Moralia, Plutarch recounts famous sayings of Spartan women, both known and unknown. In addition to providing insight into the morals of the Spartan women, he speeches chosen reveal the these women to have honor and wisdom reflecting a certain amount of respect on the side of Plutarch.

ARGILEONIS

Argileonis, the mother of Brasidas, when her son had met his death and some of the citizens of Amphipolis arrived at Sparta and came to her, asked if her son had met his death honourably and in a manner worthy of Sparta. And when they proceeded to tell of his greatness, and declared that he was the best of all the Spartans in such enterprises, she said, “Sirs, my son was a gude and honourable mon, but Sparta has mony a mon Dbetter than him.”

GORGO

1 Gorgo, daughter of king Cleomenes, when Aristagoras of Miletus was urging her father to enter upon the war against the Persian king in behalf of the Ionians, promising a vast sum of money, and, in answer to Cleomenes’ objections, making the amount larger and larger, said, “Father, the miserable foreigner will be your ruin if you don’t get him out of the house pretty soon!”

2 Once when her father told her to give some grain to a man by way of remuneration, and added, “It is because he showed me how to make the wine taste good,” she said, E”Then, father, there will be more wine drunk, and the drinkers will become more intemperate and depraved.”

3 When she had watched Aristagoras having his shoes put on and laced by one of the servants, she said, “Father, the foreigner hasn’t any hands!”

4 When a foreigner made advances in a mild and leisurely way, she pushed him aside, saying, “Get away from here, you who cannot play a woman’s part either!”

5 Being asked by a woman from Attica, “Why is it that you Spartan women are the only women that lord it over your men,” she said, “Because we are the only women that are mothers of men.”

6 As she was encouraging her husband Leonidas, when he was about to set out for Thermopylae, to show himself worthy of Sparta, she asked what she should do; and he said, “Marry a good man, and bear good children.”

GYRTIAS

1 Gyrtias, when on a time Acrotatus, her grandson, in a fight with other boys received many blows, and was brought home for dead, and the family and friends were all wailing, said, “Will you not stop your noise? He has shown from what blood he was sprung.” And she said that people who were good for anything should not scream, but should try to find some remedy.

2 When a messenger came from Crete bringing the news of the death of Acrotatus, she said, “When he had come to the enemy, was he not bound either to be slain by them or to slay them? It is more pleasing to hear that he died in a manner worthy of myself, his country, and his ancestors than if he had lived for all time a coward.”

DAMATRIA

Damatria heard that her son had been a coward and unworthy of her, and when he arrived, she made away with him. This is the epigram referring to her:

Sinner against our laws, Damatrius, slain by his mother,

Was of the Spartan youth; she was of Sparta too.

OTHER SPARTAN WOMEN TO FAME UNKNOWN

1 Another Spartan woman made away with her son, who had deserted his post, on the ground that he was unworthy of his country, saying, “Not mine the scion.” This is the epigram referring to her:

Off to your fate through the darkness, vile scion, who makes such a hatred,

So the Eurotas flow not e’en for the timorous deer.

Worthless whelp that you are, vile remnant, be off now to Hades;

Off! for never I bore Sparta’s unworthy son.

2 Another, hearing that her son had fallen on the field of battle, said:

“Let the poor cowards be mourned, but, with never a tear do I bury

You, my son, who are mine, yea, and are Sparta’s as well.”

3 Another, hearing that her son had been saved and had run away from the enemy, wrote to him, “Ill report is spread about ye; aither clear yersel’ of this or stop yer living.”

4 Another, when her sons had run away from battle and come to her, said, “Where have you come now in your cowardly flight, vile varlets? Do you intend to slink in here whence you came forth?” And with these words she pulled up her garment and showed them.

5 One woman, observing her son coming towards her, inquired, “How fares our country?” And when he said, “All have perished,” she took up a tile and, hurling it at him, killed him, saying, “And so they sent you to bear the bad news to us!”

6 As a man was narrating to his mother the noble death of his brother, she said, “Isn’t it a shame, then, to have missed his company on such a journey?”

7 One woman sent forth her sons, five in number, to war, and, standing in the outskirts of the city, she awaited anxiously the outcome of the battle. And when someone arrived and, in answer to her inquiry, reported that all her sons had met death, she said, “I did not inquire about that, you vile varlet, but how fares our country?” And when he declared that it was victorious, “Then,” she said, “I accept gladly also the death of my sons.”

8 Another was burying her son, when a commonplace old woman came up to her and said, “Ah the bad luck of it, you puir woman.” “No, by Heaven,” said she, “but good luck; for I bore him that he might die for Sparta, Dand this is the very thing that has come to pass for me.”

9 When a woman from Ionia showed vast pride in a bit of her own weaving, which was very valuable, a Spartan woman pointed to her four sons, who were most well-behaved, and said, “Such should be the employments of the good and honourable woman, and it is over these that she should be elated and boastful.”

10 Another, hearing about her son that he was conducting himself badly in a foreign land, wrote to him, “Ill report is spread about ye; pit this from ye or else stop yer living.”

11 Of somewhat similar character is this: Chian exiles came to Sparta, and accused Paedaretus of many misdeeds; whereupon his mother Teleutia sent for them and, after listening to their complaints, feeling that her son was in the wrong, sent him this letter: “Mither to Paedaretus. Aither dae better, or stay where ye are, and gie up hope o’ gaen back safe to Sparta.”

12 Another, when her son was being tried for some offence, said to him, “My child, either rid yourself of the charges, or rid yourself of life.”

13 Another, as she accompanied a lame son on his way to the field of battle, said, “At every step, my child, remember your valour.”

14 Another, when her son came back to her from field of battle wounded in the foot, and in great pain, said, F”If you remember your valour, my child, you will feel no pain, and be quite cheerful.”

15  A Spartan, wounded in battle and unable to walk, was crawling on all fours. He was mortified at being so ridiculous; but his mother said to him, “How much better to be joyful over your bravery than to be mortified at silly laughter.”

16 Another, as she handed her son his shield, exhorted him, saying, “Either this or upon this.”

17 Another, as her son was going forth to war, said, as she gave the shield into his hands, “This shield your father kept always safe for you; do you, therefore, keep it safe, or cease to live.”

18 Another, in answer to her son who said that the sword which he carried was short, said, “Add a step to it.”

19 Another, hearing that her son had been slain fighting bravely in the line of battle, said, “Yes, he was mine.” But learning in regard to her other son that he had played the coward and saved his life, she said, “No, he was not mine.”

20 Another, hearing that her son had been killed in battle on the spot where he had been placed, said, “Lay him away, and let his brother take his place.”

21 Another, engaged in conducting a solemn public procession, heard that her son was victorious on the field of battle, but that he was dying from the many wounds he had received. She did not remove the garland from her head, but with a proud air said to the women near her, “How much more noble, my friends,  to be victorious on the field of battle and meet death, than to win at the Olympic games and live!”

22 As a man was relating to his sister the noble death of her son, she said, “As glad as I am for him, I am sorry for you that you were left behind when you might have gone in such brave company.”

23 A man sent to a Spartan woman to ask if she were inclined to look with favour upon seduction; she replied, “When I was a child I learned to obey my father, and made that my practice. Then when I became a married woman, my husband took that place. So if the man’s proposal is honourable, let him lay the matter before my husband first.”

24  A poor girl, being asked what dowry she brought to the man who married her, said, “The family virtue.”

25 A Spartan woman, being asked if she had made advances to her husband, said, “No, but my husband has made them to me.”

26 A girl had secret relations with a man, and, after bringing on an abortion, she bore up so bravely, not uttering a single sound, that her delivery took place without the knowledge of her father and others who were near. For the confronting of her indecorum with decorum gained the victory over the poignant distress of her pains.

27 A Spartan woman who was being sold as a slave, when asked what she knew how to do, said, “To be faithful.”

28 Another, taken captive, and asked a similar question, said, “To manage a house well.”

29 Another, asked by a man if she would be good if he bought her, said, “Yes, and if you do not buy me.”

30 Another who was being sold as a slave, when the crier inquired of her what she knew how to do, said, “To be free.” And when the purchaser ordered her to do something not fitting for a free woman, she said, “You will be sorry that your meanness has cost you such a possession,” and committed suicide.”

Poems of Sappho

Translated by Julia Dubnoff

Sappho was a female Greek lyric poet living on the island of Lesbos in the 6th century B.C. Though she was a woman, her poetry was greatly admired throughout Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. However, little is known about her life and her poetry only survives in fragmentary form. Of the estimated 10,000 lines of poetry Sappho is believed to have produced, only 650 survive.

In the lines that remain Sappho discusses love through vivid imagery and simple thoughts. Her poems deal with the excitement of new love, the tragedy of love lost, and the agony of unrequited love. Many of these love poems are addressed to other women leading many to believe Sappho was a lesbian. Her rendering of the feelings of love, however, transgresses both sexuality and gender making them relevant to anyone who has ever been a lover.

POEMS OF SAPPHO

≈1≈

Immortal Aphrodite, on your intricately brocaded throne,

1
child of Zeus, weaver of wiles, this I pray:

Dear Lady, don’t crush my heart

with pains and sorrows.

But come here, if ever before,

when you heard my far-off cry,

you listened. And you came,

leaving your father’s house,

yoking your chariot of gold.

Then beautiful swift sparrows led you over the black earth

from the sky through the middle air,

whirling their wings into a blur.

Rapidly they came. And you, O Blessed Goddess,

a smile on your immortal face,

asked what had happened this time,

why did I call again,

and what did I especially desire

for myself in my frenzied heart:

Who this time am I to persuade

to your love? Sappho, who is doing you wrong?

For even if she flees, soon she shall pursue.

And if she refuses gifts, soon she shall give them.

If she doesn’t love you, soon she shall love

even if she’s unwilling.”

Come to me now once again and release me

from grueling anxiety.

All that my heart longs for,

fulfill. And be yourself my ally in love’s battle.

≈16≈

Some say an army of horsemen,

some of footsoldiers, some of ships,

is the fairest thing on the black earth,

but I say it is what one loves.

It’s very easy to make this clear

to everyone, for Helen,

by far surpassing mortals in beauty,

left the best of all husbands

and sailed to Troy,

mindful of neither her child

nor her dear parents, but

with one glimpse she was seduced by

Aphrodite. For easily bent…

and nimbly…[missing text]…

has reminded me now

of Anactoria who is not here;

I would much prefer to see the lovely

way she walks and the radiant glance of her face

than the war-chariots of the Lydians or

their footsoldiers in arms.

≈31≈

That man to me seems equal to the gods,

the man who sits opposite you

and close by listens

to your sweet voice

your enticing laughter—

that indeed has stirred up the heart in my breast.

For whenever I look at you even briefly

I can no longer say a single thing,

but my tongue is frozen in silence;

instantly a delicate flame runs beneath my skin;

with my eyes I see nothing;

my ears make a whirring noise.

A cold sweat covers me,

trembling seizes my body,

and I am greener than grass.

Lacking but little of death do I seem.

Sapphic Fragments

~1~

Come now, luxuriant Graces, and beautiful-haired Muses.

~2~

I tell you

someone will remember us

in the future.

~3~

Now, I shall sing these songs

Beautifully

for my companions.

~4~

The moon shone full

And when the maidens stood around the altar…

~5~

“He is dying, Aphrodite;

luxuriant Adonis is dying.

What should we do?”

“Beat your breasts, young maidens.

And tear your garments

in grief.”

~6~

O, weep for Adonis!

~7~

But come, dear companions,

For day is near.

~8~

The moon is set. And the Pleiades.

It›s the middle of the night.

Time [hôrâ] passes.

But I sleep alone.

~9~

I love the sensual.

For me this

and love for the sun

has a share in brilliance and beauty

~10~

I desire

And I crave.

~11~

You set me on fire.

~12~

A servant

of wile-weaving

Aphrodite…

~13~

Eros

Giver of pain…

~14~

Eros

Coming from heaven

throwing off

his purple cloak.

~15~

Again love, the limb-loosener, rattles me

bittersweet,

irresistible,

a crawling beast.

~16~

As a wind in the mountains

assaults an oak,

Love shook my breast.

~17~

I loved you, Atthis, long ago

even when you seemed to me

a small graceless child.

~18~

But you hate the very thought of me, Atthis,

And you flutter after Andromeda.

~19~

Honestly, I wish I were dead.

Weeping many tears, she left me and said,

“Alas, how terribly we suffer, Sappho.

I really leave you against my will.”

And I answered: “Farewell, go and remember me.

You know how we cared for you.

If not, I would remind you

… of our wonderful times.

For by my side you put on

many wreaths of roses

and garlands of flowers

around your soft neck.

And with precious and royal perfume

you anointed yourself.

On soft beds you satisfied your passion.

And there was no dance,

no holy place

from which we were absent.”

~20~

They say that Leda once found

an egg—

like a hyacinth.

~21~

“Virginity, virginity

Where will you go when you’ve left me?”

“I’ll never come back to you , bride,

I’ll never come back to you.”

~22~

Sweet mother, I can’t do my weaving—

Aphrodite has crushed me with desire

for a tender youth.

~23~

Like a sweet-apple

turning red

high

on the tip

of the topmost branch.

Forgotten by pickers.

Not forgotten—

they couldn’t reach it.

~24~

Like a hyacinth

in the mountains

that shepherds crush underfoot.

Even on the ground

a purple flower.

~25~

To what shall I compare you, dear bridegroom?

To a slender shoot, I most liken you.

~26~

[Sappho compared the girl to an apple….she compared the bridegroom to Achilles, and likened the young man’s deeds to the hero’s.]
Himerius, (4th cent. A.D.), Or. 1.16

~27~

Raise high the roofbeams, carpenters!

Hymenaon, Sing the wedding song!

Up with them!

Hymenaon, Sing the wedding song!

A bridegroom taller than Ares!

Hymenaon, Sing the wedding song!

Taller than a tall man!

Hymenaon, Sing the wedding song!

Superior as the singer of Lesbos—

Hymenaon, Sing the wedding song!

—to poets of other lands.

Hymenaon!

~28~

The Marriage of Hektor and Andromakhe

…Cyprus…

…The herald Idaios came…a swift messenger

…and the rest of Asia…unwilting glory (kleos aphthiton).

Hektor and his companions led the dark-eyed

luxuriant Andromakhe from holy Thebes and…Plakia

in ships upon the salty sea. Many golden bracelets and purple

robes…, intricately-worked ornaments,

countless silver cups and ivory.

Thus he spoke. And his dear father quickly leapt up.

And the story went to his friends through the broad city.

And the Trojans joined mules to smooth-running carriages.

And the whole band of women and…maidens got on.

Separately, the daughters of Priam…

And the unmarried men led horses beneath the chariots

and greatly…charioteers…

…like gods

…holy

set forth into Troy…

And the sweet song of the flute mixed…

And the sound of the cymbals, and then the maidens

sang in clear tones a sacred song

and a divinely-sweet echo reached the sky…

And everywhere through the streets…

Mixing bowls and cups…

And myrrh and cassia and frankincense were mingled.

And the older women wailed aloud.

And all the men gave forth a high-pitched song,

calling on Apollo, the far-shooter, skilled in the lyre.

And they sang of Hektor and Andromakhe like to the gods.

~29~

Blessed bridegroom,

The marriage is accomplished as you prayed.

You have the maiden you prayed for.

~30~

I don’t know what to do: I am of two minds.

~31~

For gold is Zeus’ child.

~32~

I have a beautiful daughter

Like a golden flower

My beloved Kleis.

I would not trade her for all Lydia nor lovely…

~33~

When you lie dead, no one will remember you

For you have no share in the Muses’ roses.

No, flitting aimlessly about,

You will wildly roam,

a shade amidst the shadowy dead.

~34~

Death is an evil.

That’s what the gods think.

Or they would die.

~35~

Because you are dear to me

Marry a younger woman.

I don’t dare live with a young man—

I’m older.

Dido

Virgil

The Aeneid Book IV

Translated by A. S. Kline

The epic poet Virgil was active in the 1st century B.C. During his life he experienced civil war and the rise of Augustus. Considered one of the greatest Ancient Roman poets, Virgil was inspired by the epic poems of Homer to make his own epic, which told the story of the founding of Rome. From this the Aeneid was produced and became the national epic of ancient Rome.

In the epic, the hero Aeneas washes up on the shores of Carthage ruled by the queen, Dido, who, after her husband died, swore she would never fall in love again. Aeneas tells her the story of the Sack of Troy and his subsequent wanderings. Cupid has ignited a flame of love for Aeneas in Dido, which grows while he is telling her his stories. Book IV tells the one sided love story of Aeneas and Dido, which leads to Dido’s tragic end. Even though the story of Dido’s love is brief, she has become the model of the tragic lover. Although Aeneas’ departure of Dido is necessary for his founding of Rome, the epic still gives a great amount of sympathy to Dido and her suffering.

But the queen, wounded long since by intense love,

feeds the hurt with her life-blood, weakened by hidden fire.

The hero’s courage often returns to mind, and the nobility

of his race: his features and his words cling fixedly to her heart,

and love will not grant restful calm to her body.

The new day’s Dawn was lighting the earth with Phoebus’s

brightness, and dispelling the dew-wet shadows from the sky,

when she spoke ecstatically to her sister, her kindred spirit:

“Anna, sister, how my dreams terrify me with anxieties!

Who is this strange guest who has entered our house,

with what boldness he speaks, how resolute in mind and warfare!

Truly I think – and it’s no idle saying – that he’s born of a goddess.

Fear reveals the ignoble spirit. Alas! What misfortunes test him!

What battles he spoke of, that he has undergone!

If my mind was not set, fixedly and immovably,

never to join myself with any man in the bonds of marriage,

because first-love betrayed me, cheated me through dying:

if I were not wearied by marriage and bridal-beds,

perhaps I might succumb to this one temptation.

Anna, yes I confess, since my poor husband Sychaeus’s death

when the altars were blood-stained by my murderous brother,

he’s the only man who’s stirred my senses, troubled my

wavering mind. I know the traces of the ancient flame.

But I pray rather that earth might gape wide for me, to its depths,

or the all-powerful father hurl me with his lightning-bolt

down to the shadows, to the pale ghosts, and deepest night

of Erebus, before I violate you, Honour, or break your laws.

He who first took me to himself has stolen my love:

let him keep it with him, and guard it in his grave.”

So saying her breast swelled with her rising tears.

Anna replied: “O you, who are more beloved to your sister

than the light, will you wear your whole youth away

in loneliness and grief, and not know Venus’s sweet gifts

or her children? Do you think that ashes or sepulchral spirits care?

Granted that in Libya or Tyre before it, no suitor ever

dissuaded you from sorrowing: and Iarbas and the other lords

whom the African soil, rich in fame, bears, were scorned:

will you still struggle against a love that pleases?

Do you not recall to mind in whose fields you settled?

Here Gaetulian cities, a people unsurpassed in battle,

unbridled Numidians, and inhospitable Syrtis, surround you:

there, a region of dry desert, with Barcaeans raging around.

And what of your brother’s threats, and war with Tyre imminent?

The Trojan ships made their way here with the wind,

with gods indeed helping them I think, and with Juno’s favour.

What a city you’ll see here, sister, what a kingdom rise,

with such a husband! With a Trojan army marching with us,

with what great actions Punic glory will soar!

Only ask the gods for their help, and, propitiating them

with sacrifice, indulge your guest, spin reasons for delay,

while winter, and stormy Orion, rage at sea,

while the ships are damaged, and the skies are hostile.”

By saying this she inflames the queen’s burning heart with love

and raises hopes in her anxious mind, and weakens her sense

of shame. First they visit the shrines and ask for grace at the altars:

they sacrifice chosen animals according to the rites,

to Ceres, the law-maker, and Phoebus, and father Lycaeus,

and to Juno above all, in whose care are the marriage ties:

Dido herself, supremely lovely, holding the cup in her hand,

pours the libation between the horns of a white heifer

or walks to the rich altars, before the face of the gods,

celebrates the day with gifts, and gazes into the opened

chests of victims, and reads the living entrails.

Ah, the unknowing minds of seers! What use are prayers

or shrines to the impassioned? Meanwhile her tender marrow

is aflame, and a silent wound is alive in her breast.

Wretched Dido burns, and wanders frenzied through the city,

like an unwary deer struck by an arrow, that a shepherd hunting

with his bow has fired at from a distance, in the Cretan woods,

leaving the winged steel in her, without knowing.

She runs through the woods and glades of Dicte:

the lethal shaft hangs in her side.

Now she leads Aeneas with her round the walls

showing her Sidonian wealth and the city she’s built:

she begins to speak, and stops in mid-flow:

now she longs for the banquet again as day wanes,

yearning madly to hear about the Trojan adventures once more

and hangs once more on the speaker’s lips.

Then when they have departed, and the moon in turn

has quenched her light and the setting constellations urge sleep,

she grieves, alone in the empty hall, and lies on the couch

he left. Absent she hears him absent, sees him,

or hugs Ascanius on her lap, taken with this image

of his father, so as to deceive her silent passion.

The towers she started no longer rise, the young men no longer

carry out their drill, or work on the harbour and the battlements

for defence in war: the interrupted work is left hanging,

the huge threatening walls, the sky-reaching cranes.

As soon as Juno, Jupiter’s beloved wife, saw clearly that Dido

was gripped by such heart-sickness, and her reputation

no obstacle to love, she spoke to Venus in these words:

“You and that son of yours, certainly take the prize, and plenty

of spoils: a great and memorable show of divine power,

whereby one woman’s trapped by the tricks of two gods.

But the truth’s not escaped me, you’ve always held the halls

of high Carthage under suspicion, afraid of my city’s defences.

But where can that end? Why such rivalry, now?

Why don’t we work on eternal peace instead, and a wedding pact?

You’ve achieved all that your mind was set on:

Dido’s burning with passion, and she’s drawn the madness

into her very bones. Let’s rule these people together

with equal sway: let her be slave to a Trojan husband,

and entrust her Tyrians to your hand, as the dowry.”

Venus began the reply to her like this (since she knew

she’d spoken with deceit in her mind to divert the empire

from Italy’s shores to Libya’s): “Who’d be mad enough

to refuse such an offer or choose to make war on you,

so long as fate follows up what you say with action?

But fortune makes me uncertain, as to whether Jupiter wants

a single city for Tyrians and Trojan exiles, and approves

the mixing of races and their joining in league together.

You’re his wife: you can test his intent by asking.

Do it: I’ll follow.” Then royal Juno replied like this:

“That task’s mine. Now listen and I’ll tell you briefly

how the purpose at hand can be achieved.

Aeneas and poor Dido plan to go hunting together

in the woods, when the sun first shows tomorrow’s

dawn, and reveals the world in his rays.

While the lines are beating, and closing the thickets with nets,

I’ll pour down dark rain mixed with hail from the sky,

and rouse the whole heavens with my thunder.

They’ll scatter, and be lost in the dark of night:

Dido and the Trojan leader will reach the same cave.

I’ll be there, and if I’m assured of your good will,

I’ll join them firmly in marriage, and speak for her as his own:

this will be their wedding-night.” Not opposed to what she wanted,

Venus agreed, and smiled to herself at the deceit she’d found.

Meanwhile Dawn surges up and leaves the ocean.

Once she has risen, the chosen men pour from the gates:

Massylian horsemen ride out, with wide-meshed nets,

snares, broad-headed hunting spears, and a pack

of keen-scented hounds. The queen lingers in her rooms,

while Punic princes wait at the threshold: her horse stands there,

bright in purple and gold, and champs fiercely at the foaming bit.

At last she appears, with a great crowd around her,

dressed in a Sidonian robe with an embroidered hem.

Her quiver’s of gold, her hair knotted with gold,

a golden brooch fastens her purple tunic.

Her Trojan friends and joyful Iulus are with her:

Aeneas himself, the most handsome of them all,

moves forward and joins his friendly troop with hers.

Like Apollo, leaving behind the Lycian winter,

and the streams of Xanthus, and visiting his mother’s Delos,

to renew the dancing, Cretans and Dryopes and painted

Agathyrsians, mingling around his altars, shouting:

he himself striding over the ridges of Cynthus,

his hair dressed with tender leaves, and clasped with gold,

the weapons rattling on his shoulder: so Aeneas walks,

as lightly, beauty like the god’s shining from his noble face.

When they reach the mountain heights and pathless haunts,

see the wild goats, disturbed on their stony summits,

course down the slopes: in another place deer speed

over the open field, massing together in a fleeing herd

among clouds of dust, leaving the hillsides behind.

But the young Ascanius among the valleys, delights

in his fiery horse, passing this rider and that at a gallop, hoping

that amongst these harmless creatures a boar, with foaming mouth,

might answer his prayers, or a tawny lion, down from the mountain.

Meanwhile the sky becomes filled with a great rumbling:

rain mixed with hail follows, and the Tyrian company

and the Trojan men, with Venus’s Dardan grandson,

scatter here and there through the fields, in their fear,

seeking shelter: torrents stream down from the hills.

Dido and the Trojan leader reach the very same cave.

Primeval Earth and Juno of the Nuptials give their signal:

lightning flashes, the heavens are party to their union,

and the Nymphs howl on the mountain heights.

That first day is the source of misfortune and death.

Dido’s no longer troubled by appearances or reputation,

she no longer thinks of a secret affair: she calls it marriage:

and with that name disguises her sin.

Rumour raced at once through Libya’s great cities,

Rumour, compared with whom no other is as swift.

She flourishes by speed, and gains strength as she goes:

first limited by fear, she soon reaches into the sky,

walks on the ground, and hides her head in the clouds.

Earth, incited to anger against the gods, so they say,

bore her last, a monster, vast and terrible, fleet-winged

and swift-footed, sister to Coeus and Enceladus,

who for every feather on her body has as many

watchful eyes below (marvellous to tell), as many

tongues speaking, as many listening ears.

She flies, screeching, by night through the shadows

between earth and sky, never closing her eyelids

in sweet sleep: by day she sits on guard on tall roof-tops

or high towers, and scares great cities, as tenacious

of lies and evil, as she is messenger of truth.

Now in delight she filled the ears of the nations

with endless gossip, singing fact and fiction alike:

Aeneas has come, born of Trojan blood, a man whom

lovely Dido deigns to unite with: now they’re spending

the whole winter together in indulgence, forgetting

their royalty, trapped by shameless passion.

The vile goddess spread this here and there on men’s lips.

Immediately she slanted her course towards King Iarbas

and inflamed his mind with words and fuelled his anger.

He, a son of Jupiter Ammon, by a raped Garamantian Nymph,

had set up a hundred great temples, a hundred altars, to the god,

in his broad kingdom, and sanctified ever-living fires, the gods’

eternal guardians: the floors were soaked with sacrificial blood,

and the thresholds flowery with mingled garlands.

They say he often begged Jove humbly with upraised hands,

in front of the altars, among the divine powers,

maddened in spirit and set on fire by bitter rumour:

“All-powerful Jupiter, to whom the Moors, on their embroidered

divans, banqueting, now pour a Bacchic offering,

do you see this? Do we shudder in vain when you hurl

your lightning bolts, father, and are those idle fires in the clouds

that terrify our minds, and flash among the empty rumblings?

A woman, wandering within my borders, who paid to found

a little town, and to whom we granted coastal lands

to plough, to hold in tenure, scorns marriage with me,

and takes Aeneas into her country as its lord.

And now like some Paris, with his pack of eunuchs,

a Phrygian cap, tied under his chin, on his greasy hair,

he’s master of what he’s snatched: while I bring gifts indeed

to temples, said to be yours, and cherish your empty reputation.

As he gripped the altar, and prayed in this way,

the All-powerful one listened, and turned his gaze towards

the royal city, and the lovers forgetful of their true reputation.

Then he spoke to Mercury and commanded him so:

“Off you go, my son, call the winds and glide on your wings,

and talk to the Trojan leader who malingers in Tyrian Carthage

now, and gives no thought to the cities the fates will grant him,

and carry my words there on the quick breeze.

This is not what his loveliest of mothers suggested to me,

nor why she rescued him twice from Greek armies:

he was to be one who’d rule Italy, pregnant with empire,

and crying out for war, he’d produce a people of Teucer’s

high blood, and bring the whole world under the rule of law.

If the glory of such things doesn’t inflame him,

and he doesn’t exert himself for his own honour,

does he begrudge the citadels of Rome to Ascanius?

What does he plan? With what hopes does he stay

among alien people, forgetting Ausonia and the Lavinian fields?

Let him sail: that’s it in total, let that be my message.”

He finished speaking. The god prepared to obey his great

father’s order, and first fastened the golden sandals to his feet

that carry him high on the wing over land and sea, like the storm.

Then he took up his wand: he calls pale ghosts from Orcus

with it, sending others down to grim Tartarus,

gives and takes away sleep, and opens the eyes of the dead.

Relying on it, he drove the winds, and flew through

the stormy clouds. Now in his flight he saw the steep flanks

and the summit of strong Atlas, who holds the heavens

on his head, Atlas, whose pine-covered crown is always wreathed

in dark clouds and lashed by the wind and rain:

fallen snow clothes his shoulders: while rivers fall

from his ancient chin, and his rough beard bristles with ice.

There Cyllenian Mercury first halted, balanced on level wings:

from there, he threw his whole body headlong

towards the waves, like a bird that flies low close

to the sea, round the coasts and the rocks rich in fish.

So the Cyllenian-born flew between heaven and earth

to Libya’s sandy shore, cutting the winds, coming

from Atlas, his mother Maia’s father.

As soon as he reached the builders’ huts, on his winged feet,

he saw Aeneas establishing towers and altering roofs.

His sword was starred with tawny jasper,

and the cloak that hung from his shoulder blazed

with Tyrian purple, a gift that rich Dido had made,

weaving the cloth with golden thread.

Mercury challenged him at once: “For love of a wife

are you now building the foundations of high Carthage

and a pleasing city? Alas, forgetful of your kingdom and fate!

The king of the gods himself, who bends heaven and earth

to his will, has sent me down to you from bright Olympus:

he commanded me himself to carry these words through

the swift breezes. What do you plan? With what hopes

do you waste idle hours in Libya’s lands? If you’re not stirred

by the glory of destiny, and won’t exert yourself for your own

fame, think of your growing Ascanius, and the expectations

of him, as Iulus your heir, to whom will be owed the kingdom

of Italy, and the Roman lands.” So Mercury spoke,

and, while speaking, vanished from mortal eyes,

and melted into thin air far from their sight.

Aeneas, stupefied at the vision, was struck dumb,

and his hair rose in terror, and his voice stuck in his throat.

He was eager to be gone, in flight, and leave that sweet land,

shocked by the warning and the divine command.

Alas! What to do? With what speech dare he tackle

the love-sick queen? What opening words should he choose?

And he cast his mind back and forth swiftly,

considered the issue from every aspect, and turned it every way.

This seemed the best decision, given the alternatives:

he called Mnestheus, Sergestus and brave Serestus,

telling them to fit out the fleet in silence, gather the men

on the shore, ready the ships’ tackle, and hide the reason

for these changes of plan. He in the meantime, since

the excellent Dido knew nothing, and would not expect

the breaking off of such a love, would seek an approach,

the tenderest moment to speak, and a favourable means.

They all gladly obeyed his command at once, and did his bidding.

But the queen sensed his tricks (who can deceive a lover?)

and was first to anticipate future events, fearful even of safety.

That same impious Rumour brought her madness:

they are fitting out the fleet, and planning a journey.

Her mind weakened, she raves, and, on fire, runs wild

through the city: like a Maenad, thrilled by the shaken emblems

of the god, when the biennial festival rouses her, and, hearing the Bacchic cry,

Mount Cithaeron summons her by night with its noise.

Of her own accord she finally reproaches Aeneas in these words:

“Faithless one, did you really think you could hide

such wickedness, and vanish from my land in silence?

Will my love not hold you, nor the pledge I once gave you,

nor the promise that Dido will die a cruel death?

Even in winter do you labour over your ships, cruel one,

so as to sail the high seas at the height of the northern gales?

Why? If you were not seeking foreign lands and unknown

settlements, but ancient Troy still stood, would Troy

be sought out by your ships in wave-torn seas?

Is it me you run from? I beg you, by these tears, by your own

right hand (since I’ve left myself no other recourse in my misery),

by our union, by the marriage we have begun,

if ever I deserved well of you, or anything of me

was sweet to you, pity this ruined house, and if

there is any room left for prayer, change your mind.

The Libyan peoples and Numidian rulers hate me because of you:

my Tyrians are hostile: because of you all shame too is lost,

the reputation I had, by which alone I might reach the stars.

My guest, since that’s all that is left me from the name of husband,

to whom do you relinquish me, a dying woman?

Why do I stay? Until Pygmalion, my brother, destroys

the city, or Iarbas the Gaetulian takes me captive?

If I’d at least conceived a child of yours

before you fled, if a little Aeneas were playing

about my halls, whose face might still recall yours,

I’d not feel myself so utterly deceived and forsaken.”

She had spoken. He set his gaze firmly on Jupiter’s

warnings, and hid his pain steadfastly in his heart.

He replied briefly at last: “O queen, I will never deny

that you deserve the most that can be spelt out in speech,

nor will I regret my thoughts of you, Elissa,

while memory itself is mine, and breath controls these limbs.

I’ll speak about the reality a little. I did not expect to conceal

my departure by stealth (don’t think that), nor have I ever

held the marriage torch, or entered into that pact.

If the fates had allowed me to live my life under my own

auspices, and attend to my own concerns as I wished,

I should first have cared for the city of Troy and the sweet relics

of my family, Priam’s high roofs would remain, and I’d have

recreated Pergama, with my own hands, for the defeated.

But now it is Italy that Apollo of Grynium,

Italy, that the Lycian oracles, order me to take:

that is my desire, that is my country. If the turrets of Carthage

and the sight of your Libyan city occupy you, a Phoenician,

why then begrudge the Trojans their settling of Ausonia’s lands?

It is right for us too to search out a foreign kingdom.

As often as night cloaks the earth with dew-wet shadows,

as often as the burning constellations rise, the troubled image

of my father Anchises warns and terrifies me in dream:

about my son Ascanius and the wrong to so dear a person,

whom I cheat of a Hesperian kingdom, and pre-destined fields.

Now even the messenger of the gods, sent by Jupiter himself,

(I swear it on both our heads), has brought the command

on the swift breeze: I saw the god himself in broad daylight

enter the city and these very ears drank of his words.

Stop rousing yourself and me with your complaints.

I do not take course for Italy of my own free will.”

As he was speaking she gazed at him with hostility,

casting her eyes here and there, considering the whole man

with a silent stare, and then, incensed, she spoke:

“Deceiver, your mother was no goddess, nor was Dardanus

the father of your race: harsh Caucasus engendered you

on the rough crags, and Hyrcanian tigers nursed you.

Why pretend now, or restrain myself waiting for something worse?

Did he groan at my weeping? Did he look at me?

Did he shed tears in defeat, or pity his lover?

What is there to say after this? Now neither greatest Juno, indeed,

nor Jupiter, son of Saturn, are gazing at this with friendly eyes.

Nowhere is truth safe. I welcomed him as a castaway on the shore,

a beggar, and foolishly gave away a part of my kingdom:

I saved his lost fleet, and his friends from death.

Ah! Driven by the Furies, I burn: now prophetic Apollo,

now the Lycian oracles, now even a divine messenger sent

by Jove himself carries his orders through the air.

This is the work of the gods indeed, this is a concern to trouble

their calm. I do not hold you back, or refute your words:

go, seek Italy on the winds, find your kingdom over the waves.

Yet if the virtuous gods have power, I hope that you

will drain the cup of suffering among the reefs, and call out Dido’s

name again and again. Absent, I’ll follow you with dark fires,

and when icy death has divided my soul and body, my ghost

will be present everywhere. Cruel one, you’ll be punished.

I’ll hear of it: that news will reach me in the depths of Hades.”

Saying this, she broke off her speech mid-flight, and fled

the light in pain, turning from his eyes, and going,

leaving him fearful and hesitant, ready to say more.

Her servants received her and carried her failing body

to her marble chamber, and laid her on her bed.

But dutiful Aeneas, though he desired to ease her sadness

by comforting her and to turn aside pain with words, still,

with much sighing, and a heart shaken by the strength of her love,

followed the divine command, and returned to the fleet.

Then the Trojans truly set to work and launched the tall ships

all along the shore. They floated the resinous keels,

and ready for flight, they brought leafy branches

and untrimmed trunks, from the woods, as oars.

You could see them hurrying and moving from every part

of the city. Like ants that plunder a vast heap of grain,

and store it in their nest, mindful of winter: a dark column

goes through the fields, and they carry their spoils

along a narrow track through the grass: some heave

with their shoulders against a large seed, and push, others tighten

the ranks and punish delay, the whole path’s alive with work.

What were your feelings Dido at such sights, what sighs

did you give, watching the shore from the heights

of the citadel, everywhere alive, and seeing the whole

sea, before your eyes, confused with such cries!

Cruel Love, to what do you not drive the human heart:

to burst into tears once more, to see once more if he can

be compelled by prayers, to humbly submit to love,

lest she leave anything untried, dying in vain.

“Anna, you see them scurrying all round the shore:

they’ve come from everywhere: the canvas already invites

the breeze, and the sailors, delighted, have set garlands

on the sterns. If I was able to foresee this great grief,

sister, then I’ll be able to endure it too. Yet still do one thing

for me in my misery, Anna: since the deceiver cultivated

only you, even trusting you with his private thoughts:

and only you know the time to approach the man easily.

Go, sister, and speak humbly to my proud enemy.

I never took the oath, with the Greeks at Aulis,

to destroy the Trojan race, or sent a fleet to Pergama,

or disturbed the ashes and ghost of his father Anchises:

why does he pitilessly deny my words access to his hearing?

Where does he run to? Let him give his poor lover this last gift:

let him wait for an easy voyage and favourable winds.

I don’t beg now for our former tie, that he has betrayed,

nor that he give up his beautiful Latium, and abandon

his kingdom: I ask for insubstantial time: peace and space

for my passion, while fate teaches my beaten spirit to grieve.

I beg for this last favour (pity your sister):

when he has granted it me, I’ll repay all by dying.”

Such are the prayers she made, and such are those

her unhappy sister carried and re-carried. But he was not

moved by tears, and listened to no words receptively:

Fate barred the way, and a god sealed the hero’s gentle hearing.

As when northerly blasts from the Alps blowing here and there

vie together to uproot an oak tree, tough with the strength of years:

there’s a creak, and the trunk quivers and the topmost leaves

strew the ground: but it clings to the rocks, and its roots

stretch as far down to Tartarus as its crown does towards

the heavens: so the hero was buffeted by endless pleas

from this side and that, and felt the pain in his noble heart.

His purpose remained fixed: tears fell uselessly.

Then the unhappy Dido, truly appalled by her fate,

prayed for death: she was weary of gazing at the vault of heaven.

And that she might complete her purpose, and relinquish the light

more readily, when she placed her offerings on the altar alight

with incense, she saw (terrible to speak of!) the holy water blacken,

and the wine she had poured change to vile blood.

She spoke of this vision to no one, not even her sister.

There was a marble shrine to her former husband in the palace,

that she’d decked out, also, with marvellous beauty,

with snow-white fleeces, and festive greenery:

from it she seemed to hear voices and her husband’s words

calling her, when dark night gripped the earth:

and the lonely owl on the roofs often grieved

with ill-omened cries, drawing out its long call in a lament:

and many a prophecy of the ancient seers terrified her

with its dreadful warning. Harsh Aeneas himself persecuted

her, in her crazed sleep: always she was forsaken, alone with

herself, always she seemed to be travelling companionless on some

long journey, seeking her Tyrian people in a deserted landscape:

like Pentheus, deranged, seeing the Furies file past,

and twin suns and a twin Thebes revealed to view,

or like Agamemnon’s son Orestes driven across the stage when he

flees his mother’s ghost armed with firebrands and black snakes,

while the avenging Furies crouch on the threshold.

So that when, overcome by anguish, she harboured the madness,

and determined on death, she debated with herself over the time

and the method, and going to her sorrowful sister with a face

that concealed her intent, calm, with hope on her brow, said:

“Sister, I’ve found a way (rejoice with your sister)

that will return him to me, or free me from loving him.

Near the ends of the Ocean and where the sun sets

Ethiopia lies, the furthest of lands, where Atlas,

mightiest of all, turns the sky set with shining stars:

I’ve been told of a priestess, of Massylian race, there,

a keeper of the temple of the Hesperides, who gave

the dragon its food, and guarded the holy branches of the tree,

scattering the honeydew and sleep-inducing poppies.

With her incantations she promises to set free

what hearts she wishes, but bring cruel pain to others:

to stop the rivers flowing, and turn back the stars:

she wakes nocturnal Spirits: you’ll see earth yawn

under your feet, and the ash trees march from the hills.

You, and the gods, and your sweet life, are witness,

dear sister, that I arm myself with magic arts unwillingly.

Build a pyre, secretly, in an inner courtyard, open to the sky,

and place the weapons on it which that impious man left

hanging in my room, and the clothes, and the bridal bed

that undid me: I want to destroy all memories

of that wicked man, and the priestess commends it.”

Saying this she fell silent: at the same time a pallor spread

over her face. Anna did not yet realise that her sister

was disguising her own funeral with these strange rites,

her mind could not conceive of such intensity,

and she feared nothing more serious than when

Sychaeus died. So she prepared what was demanded.

But when the pyre of cut pine and oak was raised high,

in an innermost court open to the sky, the queen

hung the place with garlands, and wreathed it

with funereal foliage: she laid his sword and clothes

and picture on the bed, not unmindful of the ending.

Altars stand round about, and the priestess, with loosened hair,

intoned the names of three hundred gods, of Erebus, Chaos,

and the triple Hecate, the three faces of virgin Diana.

And she sprinkled water signifying the founts of Avernus:

there were herbs too acquired by moonlight, cut

with a bronze sickle, moist with the milk of dark venom:

and a caul acquired by tearing it from a newborn colt’s brow,

forestalling the mother’s love. She herself, near the altars,

with sacred grain in purified hands, one foot free of constraint,

her clothing loosened, called on the gods to witness

her coming death, and on the stars conscious of fate:

then she prayed to whatever just and attentive power

there might be, that cares for unrequited lovers.

It was night, and everywhere weary creatures were enjoying

peaceful sleep, the woods and the savage waves were resting,

while stars wheeled midway in their gliding orbit,

while all the fields were still, and beasts and colourful birds,

those that live on wide scattered lakes, and those that live

in rough country among the thorn-bushes, were sunk in sleep

in the silent night. But not the Phoenician, unhappy in spirit,

she did not relax in sleep, or receive the darkness into her eyes

and breast: her cares redoubled, and passion, alive once more,

raged, and she swelled with a great tide of anger.

So she began in this way turning it over alone in her heart:

“See, what can I do? Be mocked trying my former suitors,

seeking marriage humbly with Numidians whom I

have already disdained so many times as husbands?

Shall I follow the Trojan fleet then and that Teucrian’s

every whim? Because they might delight in having been

helped by my previous aid, or because gratitude

for past deeds might remain truly fixed in their memories?

Indeed who, given I wanted to, would let me, or would take

one they hate on board their proud ships? Ah, lost girl,

do you not know or feel yet the treachery of Laomedon’s race?

What then? Shall I go alone, accompanying triumphant sailors?

Or with all my band of Tyrians clustered round me?

Shall I again drive my men to sea in pursuit, those

whom I could barely tear away from their Sidonian city,

and order them to spread their sails to the wind?

Rather die, as you deserve, and turn away sorrow with steel.

You, my sister, conquered by my tears, in my madness, you

first burdened me with these ills, and exposed me to my enemy.

I was not allowed to pass my life without blame, free of marriage,

in the manner of some wild creature, never knowing such pain:

I have not kept the vow I made to Sychaeus’s ashes.”

Such was the lament that burst from her heart.

Now that everything was ready, and he was resolved on going,

Aeneas was snatching some sleep, on the ship’s high stern.

That vision appeared again in dream admonishing him,

similar to Mercury in every way, voice and colouring,

golden hair, and youth’s graceful limbs:

“Son of the Goddess, can you consider sleep in this disaster,

can’t you see the danger of it that surrounds you, madman

or hear the favourable west winds blowing?

Determined to die, she broods on mortal deceit and sin,

and is tossed about on anger’s volatile flood.

Won’t you flee from here, in haste, while you can hasten?

Soon you’ll see the water crowded with ships,

cruel firebrands burning, soon the shore will rage with flame,

if the Dawn finds you lingering in these lands. Come, now,

end your delay! Woman is ever fickle and changeable.”

So he spoke, and blended with night’s darkness.

Then Aeneas, terrified indeed by the sudden apparition,

roused his body from sleep, and called to his friends:

“ Quick, men, awake, and man the rowing-benches: run

and loosen the sails. Know that a god, sent from the heavens,

urges us again to speed our flight, and cut the twisted hawsers.

We follow you, whoever you may be, sacred among the gods,

and gladly obey your commands once more. Oh, be with us,

calm one, help us, and show stars favourable to us in the sky.”

He spoke, and snatched his shining sword from its sheath,

and struck the cable with the naked blade. All were possessed

at once with the same ardour: They snatched up their goods,

and ran: abandoning the shore: the water was clothed with ships:

setting to, they churned the foam and swept the blue waves.

And now, at dawn, Aurora, leaving Tithonus’s saffron bed,

was scattering fresh daylight over the earth.

As soon as the queen saw the day whiten, from her tower,

and the fleet sailing off under full canvas, and realised

the shore and harbour were empty of oarsmen, she

struck her lovely breast three or four times with her hand,

and tearing at her golden hair, said: “Ah, Jupiter, is he to leave,

is a foreigner to pour scorn on our kingdom? Shall my Tyrians

ready their armour, and follow them out of the city, and others drag

our ships from their docks? Go, bring fire quickly, hand out the

weapons, drive the oars! What am I saying? Where am I?

What madness twists my thoughts? Wretched Dido, is it now

that your impious actions hurt you? The right time was then,

when you gave him the crown. So this is the word and loyalty

of the man whom they say bears his father’s gods around,

of the man who carried his age-worn father on his shoulders?

Couldn’t I have seized hold of him, torn his body apart,

and scattered him on the waves? And put his friends to the sword,

and Ascanius even, to feast on, as a course at his father’s table?

True the fortunes of war are uncertain. Let them be so:

as one about to die, whom had I to fear? I should have set fire

to his camp, filled the decks with flames, and extinguishing

father and son, and their whole race, given up my own life as well.

O Sun, you who illuminate all the works of this world,

and you Juno, interpreter and knower of all my pain,

and Hecate howled to, in cities, at midnight crossroads,

you, avenging Furies, and you, gods of dying Elissa,

acknowledge this, direct your righteous will to my troubles,

and hear my prayer. If it must be that the accursed one

should reach the harbour, and sail to the shore:

if Jove’s destiny for him requires it, there his goal:

still, troubled in war by the armies of a proud race,

exiled from his territories, torn from Iulus’s embrace,

let him beg help, and watch the shameful death of his people:

then, when he has surrendered, to a peace without justice,

may he not enjoy his kingdom or the days he longed for,

but let him die before his time, and lie unburied on the sand.

This I pray, these last words I pour out with my blood.

Then, O Tyrians, pursue my hatred against his whole line

and the race to come, and offer it as a tribute to my ashes.

Let there be no love or treaties between our peoples.

Rise, some unknown avenger, from my dust, who will pursue

the Trojan colonists with fire and sword, now, or in time

to come, whenever the strength is granted him.

I pray that shore be opposed to shore, water to wave,

weapon to weapon: let them fight, them and their descendants.”

She spoke, and turned her thoughts this way and that,

considering how to destroy her hateful life.

Then she spoke briefly to Barce, Sychaeus’s nurse,

since dark ashes concealed her own, in her former country:

“Dear nurse, bring my sister Anna here: tell her

to hurry, and sprinkle herself with water from the river,

and bring the sacrificial victims and noble offerings.

Let her come, and you yourself veil your brow with sacred ribbons.

My purpose is to complete the rites of Stygian Jupiter,

that I commanded, and have duly begun, and put an end

to sorrow, and entrust the pyre of that Trojan leader to the flames.”

So she said. The old woman zealously hastened her steps.

But Dido restless, wild with desperate purpose,

rolling her bloodshot eyes, her trembling cheeks

stained with red flushes, yet pallid at approaching death,

rushed into the house through its inner threshold, furiously

climbed the tall funeral pyre, and unsheathed

a Trojan sword, a gift that was never acquired to this end.

Then as she saw the Ilian clothing and the familiar couch,

she lingered a while, in tears and thought, then

cast herself on the bed, and spoke her last words:

“Reminders, sweet while fate and the god allowed it,

accept this soul, and loose me from my sorrows.

I have lived, and I have completed the course that Fortune granted,

and now my noble spirit will pass beneath the earth.

I have built a bright city: I have seen its battlements,

avenging a husband I have exacted punishment

on a hostile brother, happy, ah, happy indeed

if Trojan keels had never touched my shores!”

She spoke, and buried her face in the couch.

“I shall die un-avenged, but let me die,” she cried.

“So, so I joy in travelling into the shadows.

Let the cruel Trojan’s eyes drink in this fire, on the deep,

and bear with him the evil omen of my death.”

She had spoken, and in the midst of these words,

her servants saw she had fallen on the blade,

the sword frothed with blood, and her hands were stained.

A cry rose to the high ceiling: Rumour, run riot, struck the city.

The houses sounded with weeping and sighs and women’s cries,

the sky echoed with a mighty lamentation,

as if all Carthage or ancient Tyre were falling

to the invading enemy, and raging flames were rolling

over the roofs of men and gods.

Her sister, terrified, heard it, and rushed through the crowd,

tearing her cheeks with her nails, and beating her breast,

and called out to the dying woman in accusation:

“So this was the meaning of it, sister? Did you aim to cheat me?

This pyre of yours, this fire and altar were prepared for my sake?

What shall I grieve for first in my abandonment? Did you scorn

your sister’s company in dying? You should have summoned me

to the same fate: the same hour the same sword’s hurt should have

taken us both. I even built your pyre with these hands,

and was I calling aloud on our father’s gods,

so that I would be absent, cruel one, as you lay here?

You have extinguished yourself and me, sister: your people,

your Sidonian ancestors, and your city. I should bathe

your wounds with water and catch with my lips

whatever dying breath still hovers.” So saying she climbed

the high levels, and clasped her dying sister to her breast,

sighing, and stemming the dark blood with her dress.

Dido tried to lift her heavy eyelids again, but failed:

and the deep wound hissed in her breast.

Lifting herself three times, she struggled to rise on her elbow:

three times she fell back onto the bed, searching for light in

the depths of heaven, with wandering eyes, and, finding it, sighed.

Then all-powerful Juno, pitying the long suffering

of her difficult death, sent Iris from Olympus, to release

the struggling spirit, and captive body. For since

she had not died through fate, or by a well-earned death,

but wretchedly, before her time, inflamed with sudden madness,

Proserpine had not yet taken a lock of golden hair

from her head, or condemned her soul to Stygian Orcus.

So dew-wet Iris flew down through the sky, on saffron wings,

trailing a thousand shifting colours across the sun,

and hovered over her head. “ I take this offering, sacred to Dis,

as commanded, and release you from the body that was yours.”

So she spoke, and cut the lock of hair with her right hand.

All the warmth ebbed at once, and life vanished on the breeze.

The Constitution of the Spartans

Xenophon

Translated by E. C. Marchant and G. W. Bowersock

Xenophon was a historian, philosopher and soldier living from the end of the 5th century to the beginning of the 4th century B.C.. Although born in Athens, Xenophon was closely associated with Sparta giving him varying points of view when writing his histories. His works range from Socratic dialogues to histories of his contemporary time to a history of the final seven years of the Peloponnesian war and its aftermath.

The Spartans did not write about themselves, or, if they did, none of their works have survived. As a result much of the information regarding the Spartans comes from outside sources like Xenophon. In his Constitution on the Spartans, Xenophon reveals an affinity towards the Spartans and oligarchy. In this work he thoroughly describes the aspects of Spartan life and culture, giving us one of the most comprehensive looks at Ancient Sparta. At the beginning of this work Xenophon gives an account of how the Spartans became the most powerful city in Greece. According to him this lies in the begetting of children, which reveals both the family structure of Sparta and their treatment of women.

It occurred to me one day that Sparta, though among the most thinly populated of states, was evidently the most powerful and most celebrated city in Greece; and I fell to wondering how this could have happened. But when I considered the institutions of the Spartans, I wondered no longer. [2]

Lycurgus, who gave them the laws that they obey, and to which they owe their prosperity, I do regard with wonder; and I think that he reached the utmost limit of wisdom. For it was not by imitating other states, but by devising a system utterly different from that of most others, that he made his country pre-eminently prosperous. [3]

First, to begin at the beginning, I will take the begetting of children.1 In other states the girls who are destined to become mothers and are brought up in the approved fashion, live on the very plainest fare, with a most meagre allowance of delicacies. Wine is either witheld altogether, or, if allowed them, is diluted with water. The rest of the Greeks expect their girls to imitate the sedentary life that is typical of handicraftsmen — to keep quiet and do wool-work. How, then, is it to be expected that women so brought up will bear fine children? [4]

But Lycurgus thought the labour of slave women sufficient to supply clothing. He believed motherhood to be the most important function of freeborn woman. Therefore, in the first place, he insisted on physical training for the female no less than for the male sex: moreover, he instituted races and trials of strength for women competitors as for men, believing that if both parents are strong they produce more vigorous offspring. [5]

He noticed, too, that, during the time immediately succeeding marriage, it was usual elsewhere for the husband to have unlimited intercourse with his wife. The rule that he adopted was the opposite of this: for he laid it down that the husband should be ashamed to be seen entering his wife’s room or leaving it. With this restriction on intercourse the desire of the one for the other must necessarily be increased, and their offspring was bound to be more vigorous than if they were surfeited with one another. [6] In addition to this, he withdrew from men the right to take a wife whenever they chose, and insisted on their marrying in the prime of their manhood, believing that this too promoted the production of fine children. [7] It might happen, however, that an old man had a young wife; and he observed that old men keep a very jealous watch over their young wives. To meet these cases he instituted an entirely different system by requiring the elderly husband to introduce into his house some man whose physical and moral qualities he admired, in order to beget children. [8] On the other hand, in case a man did not want to cohabit with his wife and nevertheless desired children of whom he could be proud, he made it lawful for him to choose a woman who was the mother of a fine family and of high birth, and if he obtained her husband’s consent, to make her the mother of his children. [9]

He gave his sanction to many similar arrangements. For the wives2 want to take charge of two households, and the husbands want to get brothers for their sons, brothers who are members of the family and share in its influence, but claim no part of the money. [10]

Thus his regulations with regard to the begetting of children were in sharp contrast with those of other states. Whether he succeeded in populating Spartawith a race of men remarkable for their size and strength anyone who chooses may judge for himself.

Artemesia of Caria

Herodotus’ Histories, Book VII and VIII

Translated by George Rawlinson

Artemisia of Caria was an ally and strategic advisor to King Xerxes of Persia during the Greco-Persian Wars of the early 5th century BC. Having been hoisted to rule by the death of her husband, she proved herself as a worth commander and trusted tactician to the Persian King.

The Greek historian Herodotus describes her in glowing terms, and notes that she was the only of Xerxes’ generals to advise against engaging the outnumbered Athenians in the strait of Salamis. The Battle of Salamis, as the skirmish would be called, would prove a decisive victory for the Greeks and turn the tide of the war against the Persian armies.

There is no reason for me to mention any of the other commanders, except for Artemisia. I consider her to be a particular object of admiration because she was a woman who played a part in the war against Greece. She took power on the death of her husband, as she had a son who was still a youth. Because of her courage and spirit she went to war although she had no need to do so. Her name was Artemisia; she was the daughter of Lygdamis, and was of Halicarnassian stock on her father’s side and Cretan on her mother’s. She led the forces of Halicarnassos, Cos, Nisyros and Calyndos, and supplied five ships. The ships she brought had the best reputation in the whole fleet, next to the ones from Sidon, and of all the allies she gave the king the best advice. I have listed the cities that she led; I have evidence that they all belong to the Dorian group, as the people of Halicarnassos come from Troizen, and the rest from Epidauros.

Artemesia advises against battle

All these forces then came to Athens, except for the Parians, who stayed behind in Cythnos waiting to see how the war turned out. The rest proceeded to Phaleron where Xerxes visited the fleet in person. He wanted to meet with the naval commanders and to find out their opinions. He arrived and sat before them, and the rulers of the peoples and the commanders of the fleet, who had been summoned to his presence, sat down according to the rank the king had assigned them. The first was the king of Sidon, the second the king of Tyre, and the rest after them. When they were sitting in proper order, Xerxes sent Mardonius to approach each one and ask whether he should fight a sea battle.

Mardonius went around and put the question, beginning with the king of Sidon. The others offered the same advice and encouraged him to fight at sea, but Artemisia spoke as follows: “Tell the king from me, Mardonius, that this is his reply from one who showed herself neither the most cowardly nor the weakest in the naval encounters at Euboea. Master, it is right for me to tell you my opinion, as I am considering what is to your best advantage. This is my advice to you: spare your ships and do not fight a battle at sea. For their men are as superior to yours at sea as men are to women. Why need you run the risk of naval actions at all? Do you not hold Athens, the particular objective of your campaign, and do you not control the rest of Greece? No one stands in your way. Those who resisted you have ended as they deserve. I shall explain how I think the enemy will fare. If you do not rush into an engagement at sea, but hold the fleet here waiting on shore, or if you attack the Peloponnese, master, you will attain your objectives without trouble. For the Greeks cannot put up resistance against you for long, but they will scatter their forces and run away, city by city. They have no supplies on this island, according to my information, nor do they consider it their home. If you send your army against the Peloponnese, it is not likely that any Peloponnesians in the Greek forces will be prepared to stay quiet or fight a naval battle in defence of Athens. If you bring on a naval battle right now, I am afraid that the fleet will be destroyed and involve the army as well in defeat. Reflect on this too, my king. Good men usually have bad slaves and bad men good ones. You, as the best of all men, have bad slaves. None of these Egyptians, Cypriotes, Cilicians and Pamphilians, who are called your allies, is of any use.”

This was her speech to Mardonius. All those who were well disposed to Artemisia thought her words disastrous because she was advising the king to act wrongly in not allowing them to fight at sea. Others, who regarded her with envy because of her reputation among all the allied leaders, were delighted at the idea that she was engineering her own downfall. When their opinions were reported to Xerxes, he was especially pleased at the advice of Artemisia. He had considered her worth listening to before but from this point he approved of her even more. Nonetheless, his orders were to follow the opinion of the majority. He suspected that the fleet had deliberately made little effort at Euboea because he was not there. This time he prepared in person to watch them fight at sea.

Artemesia during the Battle of Salamis

In fact, as to the rest I cannot say exactly how each of them, barbarian or Greek, played his part in the battle. This is what happened in the case of Artemisia, and, as a result of it, she stood even higher in the king’s estimation. The king’s forces were disordered, and at this critical point Artemisia’s ship was being chased by an Athenian vessel. She had no way of escape, for in front of her were other ships on the Persian side, and she was very close to the enemy. This is what she decided to do, and it turned out well for her. Pursued by the Athenian vessel she made for a friendly ship and rammed it. The ship was manned by Calyndians and was commanded by their king, Damasithymos. Whether she had some ongoing quarrel with him from the time they were in the Hellespont, whether she planned the action, or whether the Calyndian ship chanced to sail in her way, I cannot say. She rammed it and sank it, and created from the opportunity a double benefit for herself. For when the captain on the Athenian ship saw her attacking an enemy vessel, he supposed Artemisia’s ship was either Greek or was a deserter from the enemy cause who was fighting for the Greeks. He changed course and made for the rest of the enemy ships.

Such an outcome benefited Artemisia in that she escaped without harm, and at the same time as she weakened the Persian cause, she increased her standing enormously with Xerxes. For, according to the story, the king was watching and saw that it was her ship that made the attack. What is more, one of the people with him said, “ Master, do you see how well Artemisia is fighting? She has sunk an enemy ship.” When the king asked whether it was really Artemisia who had done so, they confirmed it was because they recognised her vessel’s flag clearly and assumed that she had sunk an enemy ship. As far as the rest of the story goes, the incident turned out to her advantage because no one from the Calyndian ship survived to bring a charge against her. Xerxes is said to have replied to the news, “My men have become women and my women, men.” This, they say, was the king’s response.

Artemesia advises Xerxes to return home

Xerxes was delighted and happy to hear this instead of bad news. He said that he would make a decision and tell Mardonius which of the two courses he wished to adopt. While he was consulting the Persians whom he had summoned, he decided to summon Artemisia, too, to come to the conference, because on the previous occasion she seemed to be the only one who had known what should be done. When Artemisia arrived, Xerxes dismissed the other commanders, his Persian advisers and his bodyguards, and made the following observations, “Mardonius is advising me to stay and attack the Peloponnese. He claims that the Persians and their army are not to blame for our misfortune but are ready to prove themselves in action. So he is proposing that either I take this course, or that he be allowed to select 300,000 men from the army and bring about the reduction of Greece for me, while I lead the rest of the troops away to my own territory. As you did for me before, when you gave me good advice not to risk the sea battle I fought, tell me now which of these two courses of action I would be wise to adopt.”

These were the points he made. Artemisia responded, “Majesty, it is hard to advise what is best. Nonetheless, under the present circumstances, I believe that you should take the army back with you and leave Mardonius behind here with the troops he wants, if he wishes to do so and has made you that promise. If he achieves what he says are his aims, and if his intentions go according to plan, the deed, master, is to your credit. For your slaves accomplished it. But if things turn out contrary to Mardonius’ plan, it will be no great loss, because you and the affairs of your house will survive. If you and your line remain safe, the Greeks will find themselves running many a race for their existence. Should Mardonius suffer some disaster, it will be of no account. The Greeks will win no real victory if they destroy only your slave. You, on the other hand, will be returning after burning Athens, the objective of your campaign.”

Xerxes was certainly pleased with her advice, as her words reflected his own thoughts exactly. For even if all his advisers, male and female, counselled him to stay, I do not think he would have done; so thoroughly frightened had he become. He commended Artemisia and sent her to Ephesus with his children, as he had taken some of his illegitimate sons on campaign with him.

Zenobia of Palmyra

Zosimus, Historia Nova

Zenobia was queen of the city of Palmyra, in modern-day Syria, during the 3rd century AD. It is claimed that she descended from the line of Cleopatra, though this has often been contested.

Her city existed as a semi-autonomous city-state under the control of the Roman Empire. The city of Palmyra existed for centuries as an ally and occasional army for the Roman Eastern front.

However, during the crisis of the 3rd century, Rome was thrown into political turmoil. Sensing that Rome would be unable to rebuke her, Zenobia started consolidating power over the region and even when so far as to invade and conquer Egypt. Zenobia would become queen of an, admittedly short-lived, Palmyrene Empire.

Much of our knowledge of Zenobia comes from the historian Zosimus who lived in Constantinople during the 5th century AD.

Zenobia Conquers Egypt

The Scythians being thus dispersed, with the loss of great part of their troops, Zenobia began to think of extending her dominion, and therefore sent Zabdas into Egypt, because Timagenes an Egyptian attempted to place Egypt under the government of the Palmyrenians. He had for this purpose raised an army of Palmyrenians, Syrians, and Barbarians, to the number of seventy thousand, which was opposed by fifty thousand Egyptians. A sharp engagement ensued between them, in which the Palmyrenians had greatly the advantage. He then departed, leaving them a garrison of five thousand men.

During these transactions, Probus, who had been appointed by the emperor to clear the sea of pirates, having heard of the subjugation of Egypt by the Palmyrenians, marched against them with his own forces, and with as many of the Egyptians as were averse to the Palmyrenians, and drove out their garrison. The Palmyrenians rallying with fresh forces, Probus, having levied a body of Egyptians and Africans, gained another victory, and drove tha Palmyrenians out of Egypt. But as Probus was encamped on a mountain near Babylon, thereby cutting off the passage of the enemy into Syria, Timagenes, who was well acquainted with the country, seized on the summit of the mountain with two thousand men, and attacked the Egyptians by surprize. Probus being taken with the rest killed himself.

Egypt being thus reduecd by the Palmyrenians, the Barbarians, who survived the battle of Naissus between Claudius and the Scythians, defending themselves with their carriages which went before them, marched towards Macedon, but were so distressed by the want of necessaries, that many of them and of their beasts perished with hunger. They were met likewise by the Roman cavalry, who having killed many of them, drove the rest towards Mount Haemus; where being surrounded by the Roman army, they lost a vast number of men. But a quarrel ensuing between the Roman horse and foot soldiers, the emperor wishing the foot to engage the Barbarians, the Romans, after a smart engagement, were defeated with considerable loss, but the cavalry, coming up immediately, redeemed in some degree the miscarriage of the infantry. After this battle, the Barbarians proceeded on their march, and were pursued by the Romans. The pirates who cruized about Crete and Rhodes retired without doing any thing worthy of mention; and being attacked by the plague on their way home, some of them died in Thrace and some in Macedon. All that survived were either admitted into the Roman legions, or had lands assigned for them to cultivate and so become husbandmen. Nor was the plague confined to the Barbarians alone, but began to infest the Romans, many of whom died, and amongst the rest Claudius, a person adorned with every virtue. His death was a severe loss to his subjeets, and was consequently much regretted by them.

Quintillus, the brother of Claudius, was then declared emperor. He had reigned but a few months, and had performed nothing worthy of notice, before Aurelianus was raised to the imperial throne. Some writers inform us, that Quintillus was advised by his friends, as soon as they heard of Aurelianus being made emperor, to die by his own hand, and give place voluntarily to a man of so much greater merit. They report, that he complied by opening a vein and bleeding to death. Aurelianus, having regulated the empire, went from Rome to Aquileia, and from thence into Pannonia, which he was informed the Scythians were preparing to invade. For this reason he sent orders to the inhabitants of that country to carry into the towns all their corn and cattle, and every thing that could be of use to the enemy, in order to distress them with famine, with which they were already afflicted. The Barbarians having crossed the river into Pannonia had an engagement, the result of which was nearly equal. But the same night, the Barbarians recrossed the river, and as soon as day appeared, sent ambassadors to treat for peace.

The Emperor, hearing that the Alemanni and the neighbouring nations intended to over-run Italy, was with just reason more concerned for Rome and the adjacent places, than for the more remote. Having therefore ordered a sufficient force to remain for the defence of Pannonia, he marched towards Italy, and on his route, on the borders of that country, near the Ister, slew many thousands of the Barbarians in one battle. Several members of the senate being at this time accused of conspiring against the emperor were put to death ; and Rome, which before had no walls, was now surrounded with them. This work was begun in the reign of Aurelianus, and was finished by Probus. At the same time Epitimius, Urbanus, and Domitianus, were likewise suspected as innovators, and were immediately apprehended and punished. During these occurrences in Italy and Pannonia, the emperor prepared to march against the Palmyrenians, who had subdued all Egypt, and the east, as far as Ancyra in Galatia, and would have acquired Bithynia even as far as Chalcedon, if the inhabitants of that country had not learned that Aurelianus was made emperor, and so shook off the Palmyrenian yoke. As soon as the emperor was on his march thither,

Ancyra submitted to the Romans, and afterwards Tuana, and all the cities between that and Antioch. There finding Zenobia with a large army ready to engage, as he himself also was, he met and engaged her as honour obliged him. But observing that the Palmyrene cavalry placed great confidence in their armour, which was very strong and secure, and that they were much better horsemen than his soldiers, he planted his infantry by themselves on the other side the Orontes. He charged his cavalry not to engage immediately with the vigourous cavalry of the Palmyrenians, but to wait for their attack, and then, pretending to fly, to continue so doing until they had wearied both the men and their horses through excess of heat and the weight of their armour; so that they could pursue them nolonger. This project succeeded, and as soon as the cavalry of the emperor saw their enemy tired, and that their horses were scarcely able to stand under them, or themselves to move, they drew up the reins of their horses, and, wheeling round, charged them, and trod them under foot as they fell from their horses. By which means the slaugther was promiscuous, some falling by the sword, and others by their own and the enemies’ horses.

After this defeat, the remains of the enemy fled into Antioch, Labdas, the general of Zenobia, fearing that the Antiochians on hearing of it should mutiny, chose a man resembling the emperor, and clothing him in a dress such as Aurelianus was accustomed to wear, led him through the city as if he had taken the emperor prisoner. By this contrivance he imposed on the Antiochians, stole out of the city by night, and took with him Zenobia with the remainder of the army to Emisa. In the meantime, the emperor was intent on his affairs, and as soon as it was day called the foot soldiers around him, intending to attack the defeated enemy on botli sides; but, hearing of the escape of Zenobia, he entered Antioch, where he was joyfully received by the citizens. Finding that many had left the city, under apprehensions that they should suffer for having espoused the party of Zenobia; he published edicts in every place to recal them, and told them, that such events had happened more through necessity than of his own inclination. When this was known to the fugitives, they returned in crowds, and were kindly received by the emperor; who having arranged affairs in that city proceeded to Emisa. Finding that a party of the Palmyrenians had got possession of a hill above the suburbs of Daphne, thinking that its steepness would enable them to obstruct the enemy’s passage, he commanded his soldiers to march with their bucklers so near to each other, and in so compact a form, as too keep off any darts and stones that might be thrown at them. This being observed, as soon as they ascended the hill, being in all points equal to their adversaries, they put them to flight in such disorder, that some of them were dashed in pieces from the precipices, and others slaughtered in the pursuit by those that were on the hill, and those that were mounting it. Having gained the victory, they marched on with great satisfaction at the success of the emperor, who was liberally entertained at Apamea, Larissa, and Arethusa. Finding the Palmyrene army drawn up before Emisa, amounting to seventy thousand men, consisting of Palmyrenes and their allies, he opposed to them the Dalmatian cavalry, the Moesians and Pannonians, and the Celtic legions of Noricum and Rhaetia, and besides these the choicest of the imperial regiment selected man by man, the Mauritanian horse, the Tyaneans, the Mesopotamians, the Syrians, the Phoenicians, and the Palestinians, all men of acknowledged valour; the Palestinians besides other arms wielding clubs and staves. At the commencement of the engagement, the Roman cavalry receded, lest the Palmyrenes, who exceeded them in number, and were better horsemen, should by some stratagem surround the Roman army. But the Palmyrene cavalry pursued them so fiercely, though their ranks were broken, that the event was quite contrary to the expectation of the Roman cavalry. For they were pursued by an enemy much their superior in strength, and therefore most of them fell. The foot had to bear the brunt of the action. Observing that the Palmyrenes had broken their ranks when the horse commenced their pursuit, they wheeled about, and attacked them while they were scattered and out of order. Upon which many were killed, because the one side fought with the usual weapons, while those of Palestine brought clubs and staves against coats of mail made of iron and brass. The Palmyrenes therefore ran away with the utmost precipitation, and in their flight trod each other to pieces, as if the enemy did not make sufficient slaughter; the field was filled with dead men and horses, whilst the few that could escape took refuge in the city.

Zenobia returns to Palmyra and is captured

Zenobia was not a little disturbed by this defeat, and therefore consulted on what measures to adopt. It was the opinion of all her friends that it would be prudent to relinquish all pretensions to Emisa, because the Emisenes were disaffected towards her and friendly to the Romans. They advised her to remain within Palmyra, and when they were in security in that strong city, they would deliberate at leisure on their important affairs. This was no sooner proposed than done, with the concurrence of the whole assembly. Aurelianus, upon hearing of the flight of Zenobia, entered Emisa, where he was cordially welcomed by the citizens, and found a treasure which Zenobia could not carry along with her. He then marched immediately to Palmyra, which he invested on every side, while his troops were supplied with provisions of every kind by the neighbouring country. Meantime the Palmyrenes only derided the Romans, as if they thought it impossible for them to take the city; and one man in particular spoke in very indecent terms of the emperor’s own person. Upon this, a Persian who stood by the emperor said, “If you will allow me, sir, you shall see me kill that insolent soldier:” to which the emperor consented, and the Persian, placing himself behind some other men that he might not be seen, shot at the man while in the act of looking over the battlements, and hit him whilst still uttering his insulting language, so that he fell down from the wall before the soldiers and the emperor. The besieged however still held out, in hopes that the enemy would withdraw for want of provisions, and persisted in their resolution, until they were themselves without necessaries. They then called a council, in which it was determined to fly to the Euphrates, and request aid of the Persians against the Romans. Having thus determined, they set Zenobia on a female camel, which is the swiftest of that kind of animals, and much more swift than horses, and conveyed her out of the city.

Aurelianus was much displeased at the escape of Zenobia; and therefore exerted all his industry to send out horsemen in pursuit of her. They succeeded in taking her, as she was crossing the Euphrates in a boat, and brought her to Aurelianus. Though much pleased at this sight, yet being of an ambitious disposition, he became uneasy at the reflection that in future ages it would not redound to his honour to have conquered a woman. Meantime some of the Palmyrenes, that were shut up in the town, resolved to expose themselves courageously, and to hazard their beingmade captives in defence of their city. While others on the contrary employed humble and submissive gestures from the walls, and intreated pardon for what was past. The emperor accepting these tokens, and commanding them to fear nothing, they poured out of the town with presents and sacrifices in their hands. Aurelianus paid due respect to the holy things, received their gifts, and sent them away without injury.

But having made himself master of this city, with all the treasure it contained, he returned to Emisa, where he brought Zenobia and her accomplices to a judiciary trial. Zenobia coming into court pleaded strongly in excuse of herself, and produced many persons, who had seduced her as a simple woman, and among the rest Longinus, whose writings are highly beneficial to all lovers of learning. Being found guilty of the crimes laid to his charge, he received from the emperor sentence of death, which he bore with so much courage,, as to console to his friends who were much concerned at his misfortunes. Several besides Longinus suffered upon the accusation of Zenobia.

About Classical Wisdom Weekly

Classical Wisdom Weekly is a publishing house that looks to bring ancient wisdom to modern minds. We believe that an understanding and appreciation of the classics can lead to a more fulfilled, intellectually satisfying life.

We love the classics and we hope to encourage that enthusiasm for the ancient books in others. We strive to take these beautiful ideas outside of the classroom, beyond academia and straight to people’s homes.

Classical Wisdom Weekly is presented by Les Belles Lettres English, a partner of Les Belles Lettres, a prestigious French publishing house located in Paris.

Learn more by going to www.classicalwisdom.com