METAMORPHOSES

translated by ROLFE HUMPHRIES

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington

note: This pdf is a scan of a used book I bought somewhere or

other. The highlighter marks came with the book, and you can
safely ignore them.
-Mr. Bigley

Copyright, Ig55, Indiana University Press

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER:

55-6269

Manufactured in the United States of America

CL. ISBN 0-253-33755--0

PA. ISBN o-253-2000I-6

27 28 29 89 88 87

BOOK

note: We're jumping in at the beginning

of Book 10 in a 15-book epic. The last
book ended with a wedding, so Hymen,
the god of marriage showed up. He's the
transition device to a new story here in
Book 10, as he attends the wedding of
Orpheus, the world's best singer. It
doesn't end well.
-Mr. Bigley

The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice

So Hymen left there, clad in saffron robe,
Through the great reach of air, and took his way
To the Ciconian country, where the voice
Of Orpheus called him, all in vain. He came there,
True, but brought with him no auspicious words,
No joyful faces, lucky omens. The torch
Sputtered and filled the eyes with smoke; when swung,
It would not blaze: bad as the omens were,
The end was worse, for as the bride went walking
Across the lawn, attended by her naiads,
A serpent bit her ankle, and she was gone.
Orpheus mourned her to the upper world,
And then, lest he should leave the shades untried,
Dared to descend to Styx, passing the portal
Men call T aenarian. Through the phantom dwellers,
The buried ghosts, he passed, came to the king
Of that sad realm, and to Persephone,
His consort, and he swept the strings, and chanted:
"Gods of the world below the world, to whom
All of us mortals come, if I may speak
Without deceit, the simple truth is this:
I came here, not to see dark Tartarus,
234

lines z 1-5z

0 R PH EU S AND EURYDICE

Nor yet to bind the triple-throated monster

Medusa's offspring, rough with snakes. I came
For my wife's sake, whose_growing years were taken
!!)'.:a snake's venom. I wanted to be able
To bear this; I have tried to. Love has conquered.
T his god is famous in the world above,
But here, I do not know. I think he may be
Or is it all a lie, that ancient story
Of an old ravishment, and how he brought
The two of you together? By these places
All full of fear, by this immense confusion,
By this vast kingdom's silences, I beg you,
Weave over Eurydice's life, run through too soon.
T o you we all, people and things, belong,
Sooner or later, to this single dwelling
All of us come, to our last home; you hold
Longest dominion over humankind.
She will come back again, to be your subject,
After the ripeness of her years; I am asking
A loan and not a gift. If fate denies us
This privilege for my wife, one thing is certain:
I do not want to go back either; triumph
In the death of two."
And with his words, the music
Made the pale phantoms weep: Ixion's wheel
Was still, Tityos' vultures left the liver,
Tantalus tried no more to reach for the water,
And Belus' daughters rested from their urns,
And Sisyphus climbed on his rock to listen.
That was the first time ever in all the world
The Furies wept. Neither the king nor consort
Had harshness to refuse him, and they called her,
Eurydice. She was there, limping a little
From her late wound, with the new shades of Hell.
And Orpheus received her, bjlt one ~rm
Was set: he must not, till he 11assed A vemus,

2 3~

236

BOOK TEN

lines 52-Br

They climbed the upward path, through absolute silence,

Up the steep murk, clouded in pitchy darkness,
They were near the margin, near the upper land,
When he, afraid that she might falter, eager to see her,
Looked back in love, and she was gone, in a moment.
Was it he, or she, reaching out arms and trying
To hold or to be held, and clasping nothing
But empty air? Dying the second time,
She had no reproach to bring against her husband,
What was there to complain of? One thing, only:
He loved her. He could hardly hear her calling
Farewell! when she was gone.
The double death
Stunned Orpheus, like the man who turned to stone
At sight of Cerberus, or the couple of rock,
Olenos and Lethaea, hearts so joined
One shared the other's guilt, and Ida's mountain,
Where rivers run, still holds them, both together.
In vain the prayers of Orpheus and his longing
To cross the river once more; the boatman Charon
Drove him away. Fm seven days he sat there
Beside the bank, in filthy garments, and tasting
No food whatever. Trouble, grief, and tears
Were all his sustenance. At last, complaining
The gods of Hell were cruel, he wandered on
, To Rhodope and Haemus, swept by the north winds,
( Where, for three years, he lived without a woman
Either because marriage had meant misfortune
Or he had made a promise. But many women
Wanted this poet for their own, and many
Grieved over their rejection. His love was given
To young boys only, and he told the Thracians
That was the better way: enjoy that springtime,
Take those first flowers/

lines 86-121

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE

237

There was a hill, and on it

A wide-extending plain, all green, but lacking
The darker green of shade, and when the singer
Came there and ran his fingers over the strings,
The shade came there to listen. The oak-tree came,
And many poplars, and the gentle lindens,
The beech, the virgin laurel, and the hazel
Easily broken, the ash men use for spears,
The shining silver-fir, the ilex bending
Under its acorns, the friendly sycamore,
The changing-colored maple, and the willows
That Jove the river-waters, and the lotus
Favoring pools, and the green boxwood came,
Slim tamarisks, and myrtle, and viburnum
With dark-blue berries, and the pliant ivy,
The tendrilled grape, the elms, all dressed with vines,
The rowan-trees, the pitch-pines, and the arbute
With the red fruit, the palm, the victor's triumph,
The bare-trunked pine with spreading leafy crest,
Dear to the mother of the gods since Attis
Put off his human form, took on that likeness,
And the cone-shaped cypress joined them, now a tree,
But once a hoy, loved by the god Apollo
Master of lyre and bow-string, both together.

The Story of Cyparissus

There was a deer, whom the Carthean nymphs
Held sacred, a great stag, whose spreading antlers
Were his own shade-tree. Golden shone those horns,
And round his glossy neck a string of jewels
Fell to his shoulders, and a silver bubble,
Fastened with little straps, gleamed on his forehead,
Withnote:
earrings,
made
of bronze,
at either
At this
point,
Orpheus
has temple.
begun singing, and the
He had no fear at all, would enter houses,
rest of Book 10 is stories that he tells in his song. We'll
Let even unfamiliar people pet him,
skipof
those
to Cyparissus,
Book 11, where his own story
But most
all heand
wasmove
fond of

picks up again.

BOOK

XI

The Death of Orpheus

So with his singing Orpheus drew the trees,
The beasts, the stones, to follow, when, behold!
The mad Ciconian women, fleeces flung
Across their maddened breasts, caught sight of him
From a near hill-top, as he joined his song
To the lyre's music. One of them, her tresses
Streaming in the light air, cried out: "Look there!
There is our despiser! "and she flung a spear
Straight at the singing mouth, but the leafy wand
Made only a mark and did no harm. A nother
L et fly a stone, which, even as it flew,
Was conquered by the sweet harmonious music,
Fell at his feet, as if to ask for pardon.
But still the warfare raged, there was no limit,
Mad fury reigned, and even so, all weapons
Would have been softened by the singer's music,
But there was other orchestration: flutes
Shrilling, and trumpets braying loud, and drums,
Beating of breasts, and howling, so the lyre
Was overcome, and then at last the stones
Reddened with blood, the blood of the singer, heard
No more through all that outcry. All the birds
259

26o

B0 0 K

EL E VEN

lines 21-50

Innumerable, fled, and the charmed snakes,

The train of beasts, Orpheus' glory, followed.
The Maenads stole the show. Their bloody hands
Were turned against the poet; they came thronging
Like birds who see an owl, wandering in daylight;
They bayed him down, as in the early morning,
Hounds circle the doomed stag beside the game-pits.
They rushed him, threw the wands, wreathed with green
leaves,
Not meant for such a purpose; some threw clods,
Some branches torn from the tree, and some threw stones,
And they found fitter weapons for their madness.
Not far away there was a team of oxen
Plowing the field, and near them farmers, digging
Reluctant earth, and sweating over their labor,
Who fled before the onrush of this army
Leaving behind them hoe and rake and mattock
And these the women grabbed, and slew the oxen
Who lowered horns at them in brief defiance
And were torn limb from limb, and then the women
Rushed back to murder Orpheus, who stretched out
His hands in supplication, and whose voice,
For the first time, moved no one. They struck him down,
And through those lips to which the rocks had listened,
To which the hearts of savage beasts responded,
His spirit found its way to winds and air.
The birds wept for him, and the throng of beasts,
The flinty rocks, the trees which came so often
To hear his song, all mourned. The trees, it seemed,
'Shook down their leaves, as if they might be women
Tearing their hair, and rivers, with their tears,
Were swollen, and their naiads and their dryads
Mourned in black robes. The poet's limbs lay scattered
Where they were flung in cruelty or madness,
But Hebrus River took the head and lyre

lines 51- 86

DEA TH OF ORPHEUS

261

And as they floated down the gentle current

The lyre maae mournful sounds, and the tongue murmured
In mournful harmony, and the banks echoed
The strains of mourning. On the sea, beyond
Their native stream, they came at last to Lesbos
And grounded near the city of Methymna.
And here a serpent struck at the head, still dripping
With sea-spray, but Apollo came and stopped it,
Freezing the open jaws to stone, still gaping.
And Orpheus' ghost fled under the earth, and knew
The places he had known before, and, haunting
T he fields of the blessed, found Eurydice
And took her in his arms, and now together
And side by side they wander, or Orpheus follows
Or goes ahead, and may, with perfect safety,
Look back for his Eurydice.
But Bacchus
Demanded punishment for so much evil.
Mourning his singer's loss, he bound those women,
All those who saw the murder, in a forest,
Twisted their feet to roots, and thrust them deep
Into unyielding earth. As a bird struggles
Caught in a fowler's snare, and flaps and fl.utters
And draws its bonds the tighter by its struggling,
Even so the Thracian women, gripped by the soil,
Fastened in desperate terror, writhed and struggled,
But the roots held. They looked to see their fingers,
Their toes, their nails, and saw the bark come creeping
Up the smooth legs; they tried to smite their thighs
With grieving hands, and struck on oak; their breasts
Were oak, and oak their shoulders, and their arms
You well might call long branches and be truthful.

The Story of Midas

And even this was not enough for Bacchus.
He left those fields, and with a worthier band

note: That's the end of Orpheus, but the linked stories keep on
going. If you want to know what Bacchus has to do with
Midas, I'll lend you the book. -Mr. Bigley