by Daisy Dunn
Oeagrian Hebrus, down mid-current rolled,
Rent from the marble neck, his drifting head,
The death-chilled tongue found yet a voice to cry
“Eurydice! ah! poor Eurydice!”
With parting breath he called her, and the banks
From the broad stream caught up “Eurydice!”
NARCISSUS
Metamorphoses, Book III
Ovid
Translated by David Raeburn, 2004
A nymph named Liriope gives birth to a son by a river-god named Cephisus. At the beginning of this story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, she consults the prophet Teiresias as to what the future holds for the young boy, Narcissus. ‘Know thyself’ was a famous Greek adage inscribed at the precinct of Apollo at Delphi. But as Teiresias reveals, Narcissus’ very happiness depends upon him not knowing himself.
Liriope gave birth to a child, already adorable,
called Narcissus. In course of time she consulted the seer;
‘Tell me,’ she asked, ‘will my baby live to a ripe old age?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘so long as he never knows himself’ –
empty words, as they long appeared, but the prophet was proved right.
In the event, Narcissus died of a curious passion.
Sixteen years went by and already the son of Cephisus
was changing each day from beautiful youth to comely manhood.
Legions of lusty men and bevies of girls desired him;
but the heart was so hard and proud in that soft and slender body,
that none of the lusty men or languishing girls could approach him.
One day he was sighted, blithely chasing the scampering roebuck
into the huntsman’s nets, by a nymph whose babbling voice
would always answer a call but never speak first. It was Echo.
Echo still was a body, not a mere voice, but her chattering
tongue could only do what it does today, that is
to parrot the last few words of the many spoken by others.
Juno had done this to her. The goddess would be all ready
to catch her husband Jupiter making love to some nymph
in a mountain dell, when crafty Echo would keep her engaged
in a long conversation, until the nymph could scurry to safety.
When Saturn’s daughter perceived what Echo was doing, she said to her,
‘I’ve been cheated enough by your prattling tongue. From now on
your words will be short and sweet!’ Her curse took effect at once.
Echo could only repeat the words she heard at the end
of a sentence and never reply for herself. So when
she saw Narcissus wandering over the country fields,
she burned with desire and stealthily followed along his tracks.
The closer she followed, the flames of her passion grew nearer and nearer,
as sulphur smeared on the tip of a pine-torch quickly catches
fire when another flame is brought into close proximity.
Oh, how often she longed, poor creature, to say sweet nothings
and beg him softly to stay! But her nature imposed a block
and would not allow her to make a start. She was merely permitted
and ready to wait for the sounds which her voice could return to the speaker.
Narcissus once took a different path from his trusty companions.
‘Is anyone there?’ he said ‘… one there?’ came Echo’s answer.
Startled, he searched with his eyes all round the glade and loudly
shouted, ‘Come here!’ ‘Come here!’ the voice threw back to the caller.
He looks behind him and, once again, when no one emerges,
‘Why are you running away?’ he cries. His words come ringing
back. His body freezes. Deceived by his voice’s reflection,
the youth calls out yet again, ‘This way! We must come together.’
Echo with rapturous joy responds, ‘We must come together!’
To prove her words, she burst in excitement out of the forest,
arms outstretched to fling them around the shoulders she yearned for.
Shrinking in horror, he yelled, ‘Hands off! May I die before
you enjoy my body.’ Her only reply was ‘… enjoy my body,’
Scorned and rejected, with burning cheeks, she fled to the forest
to hide her shame and live thenceforward in lonely caves.
But her love persisted and steadily grew with the pain of rejection.
Wretched and sleepless with anguish, she started to waste away.
Her skin grew dry and shrivelled, the lovely bloom of her flesh
lost all its moisture; nothing remained but voice and bones;
then only voice, for her bones (so they say) were transformed to stone.
Buried away in the forest, seen no more on the mountains,
heard all over the world, she survives in the sound of the echo.
Not only Echo, the other nymphs of the waves and mountains
incurred Narcissus’ mockery; so did his male companions.
Finally one of his scorned admirers lifted his hands
to the heavens: ‘I pray Narcissus may fall in love and never
obtain his desire!’ His prayer was just and Némesis heard it.
Picture a clear, unmuddied pool of silvery, shimmering
water. The shepherds have not been near it; the mountain-goats
and cattle have not come down to drink there; its surface has never
been ruffled by bird or beast or branch from a rotting cypress.
Imagine a ring of grass, well-watered and lush, and a circle
of trees for cooling shade in the burning summer sunshine.
Here Narcissus arrived, all hot and exhausted from hunting,
and sank to the ground. The place looked pleasant, and here was a spring!
Thirsty for water, he started to drink, but soon grew thirsty
for something else. His being was suddenly overwhelmed
by a vision of beauty. He fell in love with an empty hope,
a shadow mistaken for substance. He gazed at himself in amazement,
limbs and expression as still as a statue of Párian marble.
Stretched on the grass, he saw twin stars, his own two eyes,
rippling curls like the locks of a god, Apollo or Bacchus,
cheeks as smooth as silk, an ivory neck and a glorious
face with a mixture of blushing red and a creamy whiteness.
All that his lovers adored he worshipped in self-adoration.
Blindly rapt with desire for himself, he was votary and idol,
suitor and sweetheart, taper and fire – at one and the same time.
Those beautiful lips would implore a kiss, but as he bent forward
the pool would always betray him. He plunges his arms in the water
to clasp that ivory neck and finds himself clutching at no one.
He knows not what he is seeing; the sight still fires him with passion.
His eyes are deceived, but the strange illusion excites his senses.
Trusting fool, how futile to woo a fleeting phantom!
You’ll never grasp it. Turn away and your love will have vanished.
The shape now haunting your sight is only a wraith, a reflection
consisting of nothing; there with you when you arrived, here now,
and there with you when you decide to go – if ever you can go!
Nothing could drag him away from the place, not hunger for food
nor need for sleep. As he lay stretched out in the grassy shade,
he never could gaze his fill on that fraudulent image of beauty;
and gazing proved his demise. He raised his body a little,
then stretching his arms in grief to the witnessing trees all round him,
‘Wise old trees,’ he exclaimed, ‘has anyone loved more cr
uelly?
Lovers have often kissed in secret under your branches.
Here you have stood for hundreds of years. In all that time
has anyone suffered for love like me? Whom can you remember?
I’ve looked and have longed. But looking and longing is far from enough.
I still have to find!’ (His lover’s delusion was overpowering.)
‘My pain is the more since we’re not divided by stretches of ocean,
unending roads, by mountains or walls with impassable gates.
All that keeps us apart is a thin, thin line of water.
He wants to be held in my arms. Whenever I move to kiss
the clear bright surface, his upturned face strains closer to mine.
We all but touch! The paltriest barrier thwarts our pleasure.
Come out to me here, whoever you are! Why keep eluding me,
peerless boy? When I seek you, where do you steal away?
It can’t be my looks or my age which makes you want to avoid me;
even the nymphs have longed to possess me!… Your looks of affection
offer a grain of hope. When my arms reach out to embrace you,
you reach out too. I smile at you, and you smile at me back.
I weep and your tears flow fast. You nod when I show my approval.
When I read those exquisite lips, I can watch them gently repeating
my words – but I never can hear you repeat them!…..
I know you now and I know myself. Yes, I am the cause
of the fire inside me, the fuel that burns and the flame that lights it.
What can I do? Must I woo or be wooed? What else can I plead for?
All I desire I have. My wealth has left me a pauper.
Oh, how I wish that I and my body could now be parted,
I wish my love were not here! — a curious prayer for a lover.
Now my sorrow is sapping my strength. My life is almost
over. Its candle is guttering out in the prime of my manhood.
Death will be easy to bear, since dying will cure my heartache.
Better indeed if the one I love could have lived for longer,
but now, two soulmates in one, we shall face our ending together.’
With that he turned distractedly back to his own reflection;
his tears were troubling the limpid waters and blurring the picture
that showed in the ruffled pool. When he saw it fast disappearing,
‘Don’t hurry away, please stay! You cannot desert me so cruelly.
I love you!’ he shouted. ‘Please, if I’m not able to touch you,
I must be allowed to see you, to feed my unhappy passion!’
In wild distress he ripped the top of his tunic aside
and bared his breast to the blows he rained with his milk-white hand.
His fist brought up a crimson weal on his naked torso,
like apples tinted both white and red, or a multi-coloured
cluster of grapes just ripening into a blushing purple.
Once the water had cleared again and he saw what his hand
had done, the boy could bear it no longer. As yellow wax
melts in a gentle flame, or the frost on a winter morning
thaws in the rays of the sunshine, so Narcissus faded
away and melted, slowly consumed by the fire inside him.
His face had lost that wonderful blend of red and whiteness,
gone was the physical vigour and all he had looked at and longed for,
broken the godlike frame which once poor Echo had worshipped.
Echo had watched his decline, still filled with angry resentment
but moved to pity. Whenever the poor unhappy youth
uttered a pitiful sigh, her own voice uttered a pitiful
sigh in return. When he beat with his hand on his shoulders, she also
mimicked the sound of the blows. His final words, as he gazed
once more in the pool, rang back from the rocks: ‘Oh marvellous boy,
I loved you in vain!’ Then he said, ‘Farewell.’ ‘Farewell,’ said Echo.
He rested his weary head in the fresh green grass, till Death’s hand
gently closed his eyes still rapt with their master’s beauty.
Even then, as he crossed the Styx to ghostly Hades,
he gazed at himself in the river. At once his sister naiads
beat their breasts and cut their tresses in mourning tribute;
the dryads wailed their lament; and Echo re-echoed their wailing.
A pyre was raised, the bier made ready, the funeral torches
brandished on high. The body, however, was not to be found –
only a flower with a trumpet of gold and pale white petals.
DIANA & ACTAEON
Metamorphoses, Book III
Ovid
Translated by David Raeburn, 2004
Actaeon, a grandson of King Cadmus of Thebes, has enjoyed a day’s hunting when he stumbles upon an unexpected sight. What happens to him next, Ovid assures us, is not his fault: ‘…you’ll find that chance/ was the culprit./ No crime was committed. Why punish a man for a pure/ mistake?’ The artist Titian transformed Ovid’s story into a pair of exquisite narrative paintings for King Philip II of Spain in the mid-sixteenth century.
Picture a mountain stained with the carnage of hounded beasts.
It was now midday, the hour when the shadows draw to their shortest;
the sun god’s chariot was halfway over from east to west.
A band of huntsmen was strolling along through the pathless glades,
when their leader, the young Actaeon, calmly made an announcement:
‘Comrades, our nets are soaked, our spears are drenched in our quarry’s
blood. Our luck is enough for today. When the goddess Aurora
appears tomorrow and shows the gleam of her rosy wheels,
let us all return to the chase. Now Phoebus is halfway over
from east to west and cutting the fields with his burning rays.
Leave off what you’re doing and stow your knotted nets for the moment.’
The men did just as he told them and took a break from their hunting.
Now picture a valley, dense with pine and tapering cypress,
called Gargáphië, sacred haunt of the huntress Diana;
there, in a secret corner, a cave surrounded by woodland,
owing nothing to human artifice. Nature had used
her talent to imitate art: she had moulded the living rock
of porous tufa to form the shape of a rugged arch.
To the right, a babbling spring with a thin translucent rivulet
widening into a pool ringed round by a grassy clearing.
Here the goddess who guards the woods, when weary with hunting,
would come to bathe her virginal limbs in the clear, clean water.
On this occasion she made her entrance and handed her javelin,
quiver and slackened bow to the chosen nymph who carried
her weapons. Another put out her arms to receive her dress
as she stripped it off. Two more were removing her boots, while Crócale,
more of an expert, gathered the locks that were billowing over
her mistress’ neck in a knot, though her own stayed floating and free.
Néphele, Hýale, Rhamis, Psecas and Phíale charged
their capacious urns with water and stood all ready to pour it.
And while the virgin goddess was taking her bath in her usual
pool, as fate would have it, Actaeon, Cadmus’ grandson,
wandered into the glade. His hunting could wait, he thought,
as he sauntered aimlessly through the unfamiliar woodland.
Imagine the scene as he entered: the grotto, the splashing fountains,
the group of nymphs in the nude. At once, at the sight of a man,
they struck their bosoms in horror, their sudd
en screams re-echoing
through the encircling woods. They clustered around Diana
to form a screen with their bodies, but sadly the goddess was taller;
her neck and shoulders were visible over the heads of her maidens.
Think of the crimson glow on the clouds when struck by the rays
of the setting sun; or think of the rosy-fingered dawn;
such was the blush on the face of Diana observed quite naked.
Although her companion nymphs had formed a barrier round her,
she stood with her front turned sideways and looked at the rash intruder
over her shoulder. She wished that her arrows were ready to hand,
but used what she could, caught up some water and threw it into
the face of the man. As she splashed his hair with revengeful drops,
she spoke the spine-chilling words which warned of impending disaster:
‘Now you may tell the story of seeing Diana naked –
If story-telling is in your power!’ No more was needed.
The head she had sprinkled sprouted the horns of a lusty stag;
the neck expanded, the ears were narrowed to pointed tips;
she changed his hands into hooves and his arms into long and slender
forelegs; she covered his frame in a pelt of dappled buckskin;
last, she injected panic. The son of Autónoë bolted,
surprising himself with his speed as he bounded away from the clearing.
But when he came to a pool and set eyes on his head and antlers,
‘Oh, dear god!’ he was going to say; but no words followed.
All the sound he produced was a moan, as the tears streamed over
his strange new face. It was only his feelings that stayed unchanged.
What could he do? Make tracks for his home in the royal palace?
Or hide in the woodlands? Each was precluded by shame or fear.
He wavered in fearful doubt. And then his dogs caught sight of him.
First to sound on the trail were Blackfoot and sharp-nosed Tracker –
Tracker of Cretan breed and Blackfoot a Spartan pointer.
Others came bounding behind them, fast as the gusts of the storm wind:
Ravenous, Mountain-Ranger, Gazelle, his Arcadian deerhounds;
powerful Fawnkiller, Hunter the fierce, and violent Hurricane;
Wingdog, fleetest of foot, and Chaser, the keenest-scented;
savage Sylvan, lately gashed by the tusks of a wild boar;
