by Daisy Dunn
THE PHOENIX
‘Idyll 1’
Claudian
Translated by A. Hawkins, 1817
Claudian (c. AD 370–c. 404) was probably born in Alexandria in Egypt, but travelled to Italy, where he became court poet to the emperor Honorius, who ruled from 393 to 423 and whose reign witnessed the sack of Rome by the Visigoths. Claudian also wrote in praise of Honorius’ regent, a Roman general named Stilicho. This story takes Claudian back to his Egyptian roots.
In Orient realms, beyond where Indus flows,
A wood, with Ocean round, in verdure grows,
The panting coursers of the god of day
First touch the foliage in their rapid way,
When humid gates with dewy chariot quake,—
The whistling whips, the lofty branches, shake,—
The rising ray discloses glances red,—
The glitt’ring wheels, resplendent brightness, spread,—
And NIGHT, far off, turns pale, constrained by light,
Her sable robe draws in, and takes to flight.
THE solar bird, within this happy clime,
Resides, protected by the FLAME SUBLIME,
Possesses tracts, frail animals ne’er trace,
And feels no suff’rings of the human race;
Immortal as the pow’rs, that dwell on high:
Eternal like the stars of azure sky;
The constant waste, which rolling ages view,
Replenished is with limbs that rise anew.
To satiate hunger or his thirst assuage,
No food nor liquids e’er, his sight, engage;
Him nourishment, the SUN’s pure heat procures:
From vapours Tethys, fluids thin, assures.
His eyes are ever darting secret rays:
Encircling beams of flame, his beak displays.
A tuft arises o’er his lofty crown:
Thence lustre shines, that rivals SOL’s renown,
And pierces darkness with impressive force;—
His legs in purple, decked from Tyrian source;—
Wings, swifter than the winds, blue tints, unfold;—
And, o’er his back, the plumes adorned with gold.
To no conception he existence owes,
The father and the son at once he shows,
Alternately resuming youthful breath,
As oft as passing through the scene of death.
For when a thousand years has Summer run,—
As often Winter equal course begun,—
And Spring, the husbandman, brought shady store,
Which Autumn from the spreading branches tore,—
The Phenix then, oppressed by weight of years,
To sink at length beneath the load, appears.
SO, overpow’red by storms, the lofty pine
Inclines his top on Caucasus’ high chine;
A part, to winds’ incessant shock, gives way:
The rest to beating rains and time’s decay.
DIMINISHED now is seen this lustre bright;—
Old age’s languid chill pervades his sight.
Thus Cynthia, when the clouds obscure her face,
No longer shows, of dubious horns, the trace.
His wings, accustomed, ether, to explore,
Above the humid ground can scarcely soar.
Then, conscious that his age is near the end,
He preparation makes new life to lend,
Selects the dryest plants from temp’rate hills,
With fragrant leaves the pile Sabaean, fills,
A tomb composes for himself on earth,
Where, breath resigned, he takes his future birth.
Here sits the bird and, now more feeble grown,
Salutes the beaming Sun in flatt’ring tone,
Prayer mixes with the plaintive song he sings,
Desiring flame, that back, fresh vigour, brings.
When Phoebus sees him, as his chariot rolls,
He stops, and thus, the fav’rite bird, consoles:
“O PHENIX! ready on the pile of death,
“At once to render up thy aged breath,
“And, thus prepared at length to meet thy doom,
“Gain natal changes from fallacious tomb,
“Who, from destruction, art produced again,
“And, through departed life, dost bloom obtain;—
“Resume beginning:—worn out frame, forsake;—
“And, by mutation, form more active, take.”
THIS said, with moving head gold beams he darts,
And, vital splendour to the bird, imparts.
The Phenix willingly receives the fire:
Joy feels to die, and then anew respire;
The heap of perfumes burns with solar rays,
And ancient features perish ’mid the blaze.
Th’ astonished MOON restrains her bullocks’ course;
The HEAV’NS, dull wheels, no longer forward force;
All NATURE in solicitude appears;—
Lest lost th’ eternal bird, disclosing fears;—
Fans faithful flames that freely they may burn;—
Th’ immortal glory of the world, return.
AT length the scattered frame new vigour shows;
Through ev’ry vein, the blood repassing flows;
The ashes of themselves begin to move;
And, full of plumes, the shapeless embers prove.
Just what the father was, forth comes the son,
And now, of life, a fresh career’s begun.
Fire interposed, with momentary space,
Divides the line where doubly life we trace.
AN anxious wish at once his breast pervades,
To consecrate, on Nile, paternal shades,
And bear to regions of Egyptian earth,
The heap of ashes whence derived new birth;
To foreign clime he flies on rapid wing,
Intent, remains in grassy tomb, to bring.
Innumerable birds, his flight, attend:
Battalions thick, through air, their pinions bend,
The feathered cohorts, closed on ev’ry side,
His varying course along the welkin hide.
Nor one among the multitude around,
To cross the path audaciously is found;
But, to the fragrant monarch, all give way,
And highest adoration freely pay.
The hawk and THUND’RER’s bird, fierce war, neglect;—
Pacifick compact, springing from respect.
THE Parthian king thus leads BARBARIAN ranks,
From undulating Tigris’ yellow banks;
Proud of rich dress and gems around him spread,
He, royal garlands, places on his head;—
Reins formed of gold, his noble courser, guide:—
Robe, from Assyrian needle, purple dyed;
’Mid troops that servilely, commands, obey,
Himself he shows elated with his sway.
IN Egypt’s clime a famous city1 lies,
Which, sacrifices, for the SUN, supplies;
The Phenix thither, to the temple goes:
The dome, a hundred Theban columns, shows;
There he deposits relicks of his sire;—
Adores the god;—his burden, gives the fire;
And, of himself, the germ and last remains,
He consecrates where holy fervour reigns.
From myrrh, through all the limits, lustre flies.
And fumes divine upon the altars rise;
The Indian odours reach Pelusium’s2 fen,
The nostrils, titillate:—yield health to men;
And vapours, by the richest perfumes, fed,
O’er Nile I sev’n mouths, more sweet than Nectar, spread.
O HAPPY bird! that from thyself canst spring;
Death’s blows, to all besides, destruction bring;
And while to others lengthened life’s denied,
With strength and vigour new art thou supplied.
On thee through ashes is fresh birth conferred:
Age dies,—but thou immortal art averred.
Whatever was has passed before thy sight:
The witness of revolving periods’ flight;—
O’er lofty rocks the swelling waters hurled;—
The year that Phaeton inflamed the world.
No slaughters ever thee deprive of breath;—
Escaped:—EARTH vanquished vainly asks thy death;
Thy thread of life the Parcae ne’er divide:
No pow’rs of hurting thee, with them reside.
1 Heliopolis.
2 At the farthest part of the Nile.
THE TWICE-BORN GOD
Dionysiaca, Book VII
Nonnos
Translated by W. H. D. Rouse, 1940
Zeus or ‘Cronion’ (‘Son of Cronos’) once abducted Europa by disguising himself as a bull (see Story 38). In this story, Eros (Cupid) fills him with passion for Semele, daughter of Cadmus, the founder-king of Thebes. The episode comes from the longest surviving poem in Greek. Little is known of its author, Nonnos, other than that he came from Panopolis in Egypt and worked in the fifth century AD. This story was as such a late response to an early myth. Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry, was embraced as a life force. Semele’s dream presaged what was to come. The myth of Semele had also appeared in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, some four centuries before.
While Eros was fluttering along to the house of Zeus, Semele also was out with the rosy morning, shaking the cracks of her silver whip while she drove her mules through the city; and the light straight track of her cartwheels only scratched the very top of the dust. She had brushed away from her eyes the oblivious wing of sleep, and sent her mind wandering after the image of a dream with riddling oracles. She thought she saw in a garden a tree with fair green leaves, laden with newgrown clusters of swelling fruit yet unripe, and drenched in the fostering dews of Zeus. Suddenly a flame fell through the air from heaven, and laid the whole tree flat, but did not touch its fruit; then a bird flying with outspread wings caught up the fruit half-grown, and carried it yet lacking full maturity to Cronion. The Father received it in his kindly bosom, and sewed it up in his thigh; then instead of the fruit, a bull-shaped horned figure of a man came forth complete over his loins. Semele was the tree!
The girl leapt from her couch trembling, and told her father the terrifying tale of leafy dreams and fiery blast. King Cadmos was shaken when he heard of Semele’s fireburnt tree, and that same morning he summoned the divine seer Teiresias son of Chariclo, and told him his daughter’s fiery dreams. As soon as he heard the seer’s inspired interpretation, the father sent his daughter to their familiar temple of Athena, and bade her sacrifice to thunderhurling Zeus a bull, the image of likehorned Lyaios, and a boar, vine-ravaging enemy of the vintage to come.
Now the maiden went forth from the city to kindle the altar of Zeus Lord of Lightning. She stood by the victims and sprinkled her bosom with the blood; her body was drenched with blood, plentiful streams of blood soaked her hair, her clothes were crimsoned with drops from the bull. Then with robes discoloured she made her way along the meadow deep in rushes, beside Asopos the river of her birthplace, and plunged in his waters to wash clean the garments which had been drenched and marked by the showers of blood.
Erinys the Avenger flying by in the air saw Semele bathing in the waters of Asopos, and laughed as she thought how Zeus was to strike both with his fiery thunderbolt in one common fate.
There the maiden cleansed her body, and naked with her attendants moved through the water with paddling hands; she kept her head stretched well above the stream unwetted, by the art she knew so well, under water to the hair and no farther, breasting the current and treading the water back with alternate feet.
There she received a new dress, and mounting upon the neighbouring river-bank, by the eastern strand which belonged to Dionysos the Guardian Spirit, she shook off into the winds and waters all the terror of her dreams. Not without God she plunged into the water, but she was led to that river’s flow by the prophetic Seasons.
Nor did the allseeing eye of Zeus fail to see her: from the heights he turned the infinite circle of his vision upon the girl. At this moment Eros stood before the father, who watched her, and the inexorable archer drew in the air that bow which fosters life. The bowstring sparkled over the flower-decked shaft, and as the bow was drawn stretched back the poet-missile sounded the Bacchic strain. Zeus was the butt—for all his greatness he bowed his neck to Eros the nobody! And like a shooting star the shaft of love flew spinning into the heart of Zeus, with a bridal whistle, but swerving with a calculated twist it had just scratched his rounded thigh with its grooves—a foretaste of the birth to come. Then Cronion quickly turned the eye which was the channel of desire, and the love-charm flogged him into passion for the girl. At the sight of Semele, he leapt up, in wonder if it were Europa whom he saw on that bank a second time, his heart was troubled as if he felt again his Phoinician passion; for she had the same radiant shape, and on her face gleamed as born in her the brightness of her father’s sister.
Father Zeus now deceitfully changed his form, and in his love, before the due season, he flew above River Asopos, the father of a daughter, as an eagle with eye sharp-shining like the bird, as he were now presaging the winged bridal of Aigina. He left the sky, and approaching the bank of the near-flowing river he scanned the naked body of the girl with her lovely hair. For he was not content to see from afar; he wished to come near and examine all the pure white body of the maiden, though he could send that eye so great—such an eye! ranging to infinity all round about, surveying all the universe, yet he thought it not enough to look at one unwedded girl.
Her rosy limbs made the dark water glow red; the stream became a lovely meadow gleaming with such graces. An unveiled naiad espying the nymph in wonder, cried out these words:
“Can it be that Cronos, after the first Cypris, again cut his father’s loins with unmanning sickle, until the foam got a mind and made the water shape itself into a selfperfected birth, delivered of a younger Aphrodite from the sea? Can it be that the river has rivalled the deep with a childbirth, and rolled a torrent of self-pregnant waves to bring forth another Cypris, not to be outdone by the sea? Can it be that one of the Muses has dived from neighbouring Helicon into my native water, and left another to take the honeydripping water of Pegasos the horse, or the stream of Olmeios! I spy a silverfooted maiden stretched under the streams of my river! I believe Selene bathes in the Aonian waves on her way to Endymion’s bed on Latmos, the bed of a sleepless shepherd; but if she has prinked herself out for her sweet shepherd, what’s the use of Asopos after the Ocean stream? And if she has a body white as the snows of heaven, what mark of the Moon has she? A team of mules unbridled and a mule-cart with silver wheels are there on the beach, but Selene knows not how to put mules to her yokestrap—she drives a team of bulls! Or if it is a goddess come down from heaven—I see a maiden’s bright eyes sparkling under the quiet eyelids, and it must be Athena Brighteyes bathing, when she threw the skin back at him after the old victory over Teiresias. This girl looks like a divine being with her rosy arms; but if she was the glorious burden of a mortal womb, she is worthy of the heavenly bed of Cronion.”
So spoke the voice from under the swirling waters. But Zeus shaken by the firebarbed sting of desire watched the rosy fingers of the swimming girl. Unrestingly he moved his wandering glance, now gazing at the sparkling rosy face, now bright eyes as full as a cow’s under the eyelids, now the hair floating on the breeze, and as the hair blew away he scanned the free neck of the unclad maid; but the bosom most of all and the naked breasts seemed to be armed against Cronides, volleying shafts of love. All her flesh he surveyed, only passed by the secrets of her lap unseen by his modest eyes. The mind of Zeus left the skies and crept down to swim beside swimming Semele. Enchanted he received the sweet maddening spark in a heart which knew it well. Allfather was worsted by a child: l
ittle Eros with his feeble shot set afire this Archer of Thunderbolts. Not the deluge of the flood, not the fiery lightning could help its possessor: that huge heavenly flame itself was vanquished by the small fire of unwarlike Paphia; little Eros faced the shaggy skin, his magical girdle faced the aegis; the heavy-booming din of the thunderclap was the slave of his lovebreeding quiver. The god was shaken by the heartbewitching sting of desire for Semele, in amazement: for love is near neighbour to admiration.
Zeus could hardly get back to his imperial heaven, thinking over his plans, having now resumed his divine shape once more. He resolved to mount Semele’s nightly couch, and turned his eye to the west, to see when sweet Hesperos would come. He blamed Phaethon that he should make the afternoon season so long, and uttered an impatient appeal with passionate lips:
“Tell me, laggard Night, when is envious Eos to set? It is time now for you to lift your torch and lead Zeus to his love—come now, foreshow the illumination of night-ranging Lyaios! Phaëthon is jealous, he constrains me! Is he in love with Semele himself and grudges my desire? Helios, you plague me, though you know the madness of love. Why do you spare the whip when you touch up your slow team? I know another nightfall that came very quickly! If I like, I will hide you and the daughter of the mists together in my clouds, and when you are covered Night will appear in the daytime, to speed the marriage of Zeus in haste; the stars will shine at midday, and I will make rising Hesperos, instead of setting Hesperos, the regular usher of the loves. Come now, draw your own forerunner Phosphoros to his setting, and do grace to your desire and mine; enjoy your Clymene all night long, and let me go quick to Semele. Yoke your own car, I pray, bright Moon, send forth your rays which make the trees and plants to grow, because this marriage foretells the birth of plant-cherishing Dionysos; rise over the lovely roof of Semele, give light to my desire with the star of the Cyprian, make long the sweet darkness for the wooing of Zeus!”
Such was the speech of Zeus, even such commands as desire knows. But when in answer to his eagerness, a huge cone of darkness sprang up from the earth and ran stretching into the heights, bringing a shadow of darkness opposite to setting Eos, Zeus passed along the starry dome of the sky to Semele’s bridal. Without leaving a trace of his footsteps, he traversed at his first bound the whole path of the air. With a second, like a wing or a thought, he reached Thebes; the bars of the palace door opened of themselves to let him through, and Semele was held fast in the loving bond of his arms.
