Complete Works of Achilles Tatius

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by Achilles Tatius


  15. When the entombment was over, I hurried to my sweetheart, who was in the garden of our house. This garden was a meadow, a very object of beauty to the eyes; round it ran a wall of sufficient height, and each of the four sides of the wall formed a portico standing on pillars, within which was a close plantation of trees. Their branches, which were in full foliage, intertwined with one another; their neighbouring flowers mingled with each other, their leaves overlapped, their fruits joined. Such was the way in which the trees grew together; to some of the larger of them were ivy and smilax attached, the smilax hanging from planes and filling all the interstices between the boughs with its soft foliage, the ivy twisting up the pines and embracing the trunks, so that the tree formed a support for the ivy, and the ivy a garland for the tree. On either side of each tree grew vines, creeping upon reed supports, with luxuriant foliage; these, now in full fruitage, hung from the joints of the reeds, and formed as it were the ringlets of the tree. The leaves higher up were in gentle motion, and the rays of the sun penetrating them as the wind moved them gave the effect of a pale, mottled shadow on the ground. Flowers too of many hues displayed each their own beauty, setting the ground aflame; the narcissus and the rose, with their blossoms — the cup of the flowers — alike in shape but different in colour, the rose being of the colour of blood above and milk below, whereas the narcissus was wholly of the colour of the lower part of the rose; there were violets too, whose cup-shaped blossoms you could not distinguish, but their colour was as that of a shining calm at sea. In the midst of all these flowers bubbled up a spring, the waters of which were confined in a square artificial basin; the water served as a mirror for the flowers, giving the impression of a double grove, one real and the other a reflexion. Birds there were too: some, tame, sought for food in the grove, pampered and domesticated by the rearing of men; others, wild and on the wing, sported around the summits of the trees; some chirping their birds’ songs, others brilliant in their gorgeous plumage.

  The songsters were grasshoppers and swallows: the former sang of Aurora’s marriage-bed, the latter of the banquet of Tereus. The tame birds were peacocks, swans, and parrots; the swans fed round about the sources of the spring, the parrots were hung in cages from the branches of the trees, the peacocks spread their tails among the flowers, and there was a kind of rivalry between the brilliance of the flowers and the hues of the peacocks, whose plumage seemed itself to consist of very flowers.

  16. Desiring to influence the thoughts of the maiden so as to make her amenable to love, I began to address myself to Satyrus, (Satyrus and Clio are rather inartistically introduced without further description. Satyrus was a male slave of the household, Clio Leucippe’s chambermaid: they form another pair of lovers.) taking the birds as my text. Now my sweetheart happened to be walking with Clio and had stopped opposite the peacock, who chanced at that moment to be making a display of all his finery and shewing off his tail to its best advantage. “This bird,” said I, “does not behave thus without intent: he is really an amorous creature; at least he shews off this gorgeous livery when he wishes to attract the object of his passion. Do you not see her (and as I spoke I pointed to the hen) near that plane tree? It is for her that he is shewing his beauties, his train which is a garden in itself — a garden which contains more beautiful flowers than a natural garden, for there is gold in the plumage, with an outer circle of purple running round the whole circle of gold, and on every feather an eye.”

  17. Satyrus, perceiving the trend and object of my discourse; was desirous of assisting me to enlarge further on the subject; and; “Has then Love,” said he, “such mighty power that he is able to inflame even birds?”

  “Not birds only,” I answered; “that would be no marvel; for you too know that he is winged himself, but creeping snakes and plants too, and I believe even stones as well: at least the loadstone (The French call it l’aimant.) loves the iron, and if it may but see it and touch it; it attracts it towards itself as though possessed of the passion of love. May this not be the kiss of the loving stone and the beloved metal? As for plants; the children of wisdom have a tale to tell; one that I should deem a fable were it not that it was borne out by countrymen; and this it is. Plants; they say, fall in love with one another; and the palm is particularly susceptible to the passion: there are both male and female palms; the male falls in love with the female; and if the female be planted at any considerable distance; the loving male begins to wither away. The gardener realises what is the cause of the tree’s grief; goes to some slight eminence in the ground; and observes in which direction it is drooping (for it always inclines towards the object of its passion); and when he has discovered this, he is soon able to heal its disease: for he takes a shoot of the female palm and grafts it into the very heart of the male. This refreshes the tree’s spirit, and the trunk, which seemed on the point of death, revives and gains new vigour in joy at the embrace of the beloved: it is a kind of vegetable marriage.

  18. “There is even an example of wedlock between waters, which takes place across the sea. In this case the lover is a river of Elis, the beloved a fountain in Sicily; the river traverses the sea as though it were a plain, and the sea, far from overwhelming the lover’s fresh waters with its salt billows, makes an opening for the river’s flow and thus becomes a sort of watercourse for it; so that it may fairly be said to be the match-maker between the spring Arethusa and the river Alpheus: thus when the Olympic games are in progress, it is the custom for many of those present at the Festival to throw various objects into the waters of the river, and these are borne directly by the river to the beloved, serving as wedding presents.

  Among reptiles, there is an even more extraordinary mystery of love, because it is not merely the affection of two individuals of the same race towards one another, but that of a member of one species for a member of another. The viper, which is a land snake, has a burning passion for the lamprey, a snake of the sea, which has the outward appearance indeed of a snake, but is essentially a fish; so when these wish to join together in matrimony, the viper goes down to the shore and hisses seaward, as a signal to the lamprey, who recognizes it as the agreed sign, and comes out of the water. However, she does not go straight to the bridegroom, knowing that he carries a deathly poison in his fangs, but climbs a rock and waits until he has been able to purify his mouth, and so they stay looking at one another, the lover of the land and the beloved of the sea. After the lover has been able to vomit forth that which has so greatly frightened his bride, and she has seen the death spat out on the ground, she comes down from the rock to the mainland and embraces her lover, and is no longer in terror of his kisses.”

  19. While recounting all these stories, I kept at the same time glancing at the maiden, to see how she felt while hearing all this talk of love; and there were some indications that she was not listening without pleasure. The gleaming beauty of the peacock seemed to me nothing in comparison with Leucippe’s lovely face; indeed, her beauty was rival of the flowers of the meadow. Her skin was bright with the hue of the narcissus, roses sprang from her cheeks, the dark gleam of her eyes shone like the violet, the ringlets of her hair curled more tightly than the ivy — Leucippe’s whole appearance was that of a flowery meadow. She soon turned and left the garden, as the time for her harp-playing claimed her: but she seemed to me to be still present, as even when she had gone she was able to fix the image of her form in my eyes. So Satyrus and I were then equally well satisfied with ourselves — I for the learned subjects I had been able to discuss, and he because he had given me my starting-cue.

  BOOK II

  1. THUS congratulating one another we repaired to the maiden’s chamber to hear her play on the harp, for I could not bear, even for a short time, to let her out of my sight: First of all she performed Homer’s fight (Iliad, xvi. 823.) between the boar and the lion, then she changed to a tenderer strain, her song celebrating the praises of the rose. Neglecting the modulations of the music, one might describe thus the bare theme of the
composition: “If Zeus had wished to give the flowers a king, that king would have been the rose; for it is the ornament of the world, the glory of the plants, the eye of all flowers, the meadows’ blush, beauty itself glowing; it has the breath of Love, it is the go-between of Aphrodite; its foliage is of sweet-smelling leaves, it glories in its rustling petals which seem to smile at the approach of the Zephyr.” Thus she sang; but to me it seemed as if I saw that rose upon her lips, as it were a flower converted into the shape of her sweet mouth.

  2. Hardly had she ended when the time of dinner was again at hand. It happened at that season to be the festival of Dionysus Lord of the Vintage; for the Tyrians claim him as their own proper deity, singing on the subject Cadmus’ (Cadmus, the mythical founder of Thebes and introducer into Greece of the art of writing, was himself a Tyrian.) myth, which they relate as the origin of the festival; and this is it. In early days men had no wine; neither the dark, fragrant kind, nor that from the Biblian vine, not Maron’s (Ulysses’ wine which proved so fatal to the Cyclops was a present to him from Maron, priest of Apollo (Od ix. 197).) Thracian sort, not the white Chian (The excellence of Chian wine is a commonplace in Latin poets: particularly in Horace, by whom it is often mentioned as on a par with Falernian, the most highly prized wine of Italy.) kind, not the island wine of Icarus, (Icarus, who was a friend of Bacchus, was given a cutting of the vine by him. Cultivating this, and manufacturing wine from the grapes, he wished to impart the new gift to men: but unfortunately he began by administering it to some ignorant shepherds, who at first drank greedily of it, but when they began to feel its effects they thought that they were poisoned, and killed their unlucky benefactor.) but all these, they said, were derived from Tyrian vines, the original mother of all wines being a plant of their country. There was a certain shepherd noted for his hospitality, just as the Athenians describe Icarus, from whom this Tyrian story derives its origin, so that it almost seems an Attic tale. Dionysus once paid a visit to this herdsman, who set before him the produce of the earth and the result of the strength of his oxen: but their drink was the same as that of the oxen, since vines did not yet exist. Dionysus thanked the herdsman for his kindly cheer, and pledged him in a friendly cup; but his drink was wine. The herdsman, drinking of it, danced for joy, and said to the god: “Where did you get this purple water, my friend? Wherever did you find blood so sweet? For it is not that water which flows on the ground — that, as it descends into the midriff, affords but a faint pleasure, while this delights the sense of smell before ever it reaches the mouth; when you touch it, it is cold, but it leaps down into the belly and there, far down, lights up the fires of delight.”

  “This,” said Dionysus, “is harvest (Or, perhaps, “the water of fruit.”) water, the blood of the grape”: then the god led the herdsman to the vine, and took hold of the clusters and squeezed them; and then, pointing to the vine, “Here is your water,” said he, “this is its source.” That is the way in which wine came to men, as the Tyrian story goes, (3) and they keep that day as Dionysus’ festival.

  My father, wishing to celebrate it with splendour, had set out all that was necessary for the dinner in a rich and costly fashion; but especially a precious cup to be used for libations to the god, one only second to the famous goblet (Presumably that mentioned in Herodotus, i. 25. Glaucus was a contemporary of Gyges.) of Glaucus of Chios. The material of it was wrought rock-crystal; vines crowned its rim, seeming to grow from the cup itself, their clusters drooped down in every direction: when the cup was empty, each grape seemed green and unripe, but when wine was poured into it, then little by little the clusters became red and dark, the green crop turning into the ripe fruit; Dionysus too was represented hard by the clusters, to be the husbandman of the vine and the vintner. As we drank deeper, I began to look more boldly and with less shame at my sweetheart: Cupid and Dionysus are two of the most violent of the gods, they can grasp the soul and drive it so far towards madness that it loses all restraint; Cupid fires it with the flames which are his attribute, while Dionysus supplies wine which is as fuel to the fire: for wine is the very sustenance of love. She too became more hardy, and scrutinized me more curiously. In this state of affairs ten days passed, but we made no other progress nor ventured further than this duel of eyes.

  4. I imparted the whole story to Satyrus and asked for his assistance: he replied that he had perceived how things were before I had told him, but had shrunk from questioning me and had preferred to seem to remain ignorant; for the secret lover, when questioned, often contracts a hatred of the questioner as if he were offering him some insult. “However,” said he, “things have already of their own accord fallen out to our advantage; for Clio, the serving-maid entrusted with the care of your sweetheart’s chamber, confides in me and regards me as her lover. I hope little by little to be able to wheedle her and make her so favourably disposed to us that she will lend her assistance to the final effort. But as for you, you must not be content with making advances to her with glances of your eyes alone; you must use a direct and outright form of speech. Then bring forward your second line, touch her hand, squeeze a finger, and sigh as you squeeze; if she allows you to do this and seems to approve, your next step is to call her your princess and to kiss her on the neck.”

  “You are a plausible trainer, I vow,” said I, “for the difficult accomplishment; but I fear that I shall prove a backward and cowardly performer.”

  “Love,” he answered, “tolerates no cowardice at all: look how warlike is his appearance — bow, quiver, arrows, and fire — all of them the furniture of courage, and rich with venturous enterprise. With such a god as that within you, can you be backward and fearful? Be careful not to give him the lie. However, I will give you an opening: I will distract Clio directly I see the most favourable time for you to be alone and by yourself to have a private conversation with the maiden.”

  5. This said, he left the room: when I was by myself, stimulated by Satyrus’ words, I began to screw up my courage for the coming attack. “How long,” said I, “do you mean to keep silent, you coward? Why are you so fearful a soldier of so brave a god? Do you expect the maiden to make the first advances toward you?” Then I went on:

  But why cannot you control yourself, fool? Why not love where duty bids you? You have another in the house — a virgin, and fair: love her, look at her, marriage with her is in your power.” I thought that I had persuaded myself, but deep down love answered, as though speaking from my heart: “Ha, insolent, do you dare to take arms and set yourself up to do battle with me? I can fly, I can shoot, I can burn, how can you avoid me? If you escape my bow, you cannot escape my fire; and if you can quench my fire by your self-control, I shall yet catch you with my wings.”

  6. While I was thus arguing with myself, I unexpectedly found that I was standing in the maiden’s presence, and at the sudden sight of her I turned pale and then blushed red: she was all alone, not even Clio with her. However, I could say nothing in my agitation, but did my best with “Greetings, my princess.” She smiled very sweetly, showing through her smile that she understood why I greeted her as my princess, and said: “I your princess? Do not call me by such a name.”

  “Say not so,” said I: “one of the gods has sold me into captivity to you, as he did Hercules (Hercules had committed some crime; opinions differ as to whether he had killed somebody or stolen a tripod from Apollo’s shrine. To expiate this he was ordered by Zeus, using Hermes as messenger, to be a slave for a time of Omphale, Queen of Lydia.) to Omphale.”

  “Is it Hermes you mean,” said she, “whom Zeus sent to effect the sale?” and burst out laughing. “Hermes, indeed!” I answered. “How can you talk such nonsense, when you know well enough what I mean?” One such repartee led to another, and my good luck helped me.

  7. Now it had happened on the day before that while the maiden was playing on her harp, Clio was sitting by her and I was walking about the room: and suddenly a bee flew in from somewhere and stung Clio on the hand, who gave a loud
scream. Leucippe jumped up, laid down her harp, examined the wound, and did her best to comfort her, telling her not to complain; for she could ease her of the pain by saying over it a couple of charms which she had learned of a gipsy against the stings of wasps and bees: and she pronounced them, and almost immediately Clio said that she was much better. Well, on this second occasion there happened to be some wasp or bee buzzing about and flying round my face, so I adopted the idea, and putting my hand to my face, pretended that I had been stung and was in pain. The maiden came over to me, drew my hand away, and asked me where the sting was: “On the lip,” said I: “will you not repeat the charm, my dearest?” She came close to me and put her mouth close to mine, so as to work the charm, and murmured something while she touched the tip of my lips; and I gently kissed her, avoiding all the noise of an ordinary salute, until, in the successive opening and shutting of her lips as she murmured it, she converted the charm into a series of kisses: then at last I actually threw my arms round her and kissed her fully without further pretence. At this she started back, crying: “What are you doing? Are you saying a charm too?”

  “No,” said I, “I am kissing the charmer who has cured me of my pain.” As she did not misunderstand my words, and smiled, I plucked up my courage and went on:— “Ah, my dearest, I am stung again, and worse: this time the wound has reached my heart and needs your charm to heal it. I think you must have a bee on your lips, so full of honey are you, and your kisses sting. I implore you to repeat your charm once more, and do not hurry over it and make the wound worse again.” So speaking, I put my arm more boldly round her and kissed her with more freedom than before: and she let me do it, while pretending to resist.

 

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