Metamorphoses II.752-875
Upset at Herse's good fortune, Minerva calls on Envy to poison her sister with jealousy; Jupiter transforms into a bull to lure Agenor's daughter out to sea.
Vertit ad hanc torvi dea bellica luminis orbem
et tanto penitus traxit suspiria motu,
ut pariter pectus positamque in pectore forti
aegida concuteret: subit, hanc arcana profana 755
detexisse manu, tum cum sine matre creatam
Lemnicolae stirpem contra data foedera vidit,
et gratamque deo fore iam gratamque sorori
et ditem sumpto, quod avara poposcerat, auro.
protinus Invidiae nigro squalentia tabo 760
tecta petit: domus est imis in vallibus huius
abdita, sole carens, non ulli pervia vento,
tristis et ignavi plenissima frigoris et quae
igne vacet semper, caligine semper abundet.
huc ubi pervenit belli metuenda virago, 765
constitit ante domum (neque enim succedere tectis
fas habet) et postes extrema cuspide pulsat.
concussae patuere fores. videt intus edentem
vipereas carnes, vitiorum alimenta suorum,
Invidiam visaque oculos avertit; at illa 770
surgit humo pigre semesarumque relinquit
corpora serpentum passuque incedit inerti.
utque deam vidit formaque armisque decoram,
ingemuit vultumque una ac suspiria duxit.
pallor in ore sedet, macies in corpore toto. 775
nusquam recta acies, livent robigine dentes,
pectora felle virent, lingua est suffusa veneno;
risus abest, nisi quem visi movere dolores;
nec fruitur somno, vigilantibus excita curis,
sed videt ingratos intabescitque videndo 780
successus hominum carpitque et carpitur una
suppliciumque suum est. quamvis tamen oderat illam,
talibus adfata est breviter Tritonia dictis:
‘infice tabe tua natarum Cecropis unam:
sic opus est. Aglauros ea est.’ haud plura locuta 785
fugit et inpressa tellurem reppulit hasta.
Illa deam obliquo fugientem lumine cernens
murmura parva dedit successurumque Minervae
indoluit baculumque capit, quod spinea totum
vincula cingebant, adopertaque nubibus atris, 790
quacumque ingreditur, florentia proterit arva
exuritque herbas et summa cacumina carpit
adflatuque suo populos urbesque domosque
polluit et tandem Tritonida conspicit arcem
ingeniis opibusque et festa pace virentem 795
vixque tenet lacrimas, quia nil lacrimabile cernit.
sed postquam thalamos intravit Cecrope natae,
iussa facit pectusque manu ferrugine tincta
tangit et hamatis praecordia sentibus inplet
inspiratque nocens virus piceumque per ossa 800
dissipat et medio spargit pulmone venenum,
neve mali causae spatium per latius errent,
germanam ante oculos fortunatumque sororis
coniugium pulchraque deum sub imagine ponit
cunctaque magna facit; quibus inritata dolore 805
Cecropis occulto mordetur et anxia nocte
anxia luce gemit lentaque miserrima tabe
liquitur, et glacies incerto saucia sole,
felicisque bonis non lenius uritur Herses,
quam cum spinosis ignis supponitur herbis, 810
quae neque dant flammas lentoque vapore cremantur.
saepe mori voluit, ne quicquam tale videret,
saepe velut crimen rigido narrare parenti;
denique in adverso venientem limine sedit
exclusura deum. cui blandimenta precesque 815
verbaque iactanti mitissima ‘desine!’ dixit,
‘hinc ego me non sum nisi te motura repulso.’
‘stemus’ ait ‘pacto’ velox Cyllenius ‘isto!’
caelestique fores virga patefecit: at illi
surgere conanti partes, quascumque sedendo 820
flectimur, ignava nequeunt gravitate moveri:
illa quidem pugnat recto se attollere trunco,
sed genuum iunctura riget, frigusque per ungues
labitur, et pallent amisso sanguine venae;
utque malum late solet inmedicabile cancer 825
serpere et inlaesas vitiatis addere partes,
sic letalis hiems paulatim in pectora venit
vitalesque vias et respiramina clausit,
nec conata loqui est nec, si conata fuisset,
vocis habebat iter: saxum iam colla tenebat, 830
oraque duruerant, signumque exsangue sedebat;
nec lapis albus erat: sua mens infecerat illam.
Has ubi verborum poenas mentisque profanae
cepit Atlantiades, dictas a Pallade terras
linquit et ingreditur iactatis aethera pennis. 835
sevocat hunc genitor nec causam fassus amoris
‘fide minister’ ait ‘iussorum, nate, meorum,
pelle moram solitoque celer delabere cursu,
quaeque tuam matrem tellus a parte sinistra
suspicit (indigenae Sidonida nomine dicunt), 840
hanc pete, quodque procul montano gramine pasci
armentum regale vides, ad litora verte!’
dixit, et expulsi iamdudum monte iuvenci
litora iussa petunt, ubi magni filia regis
ludere virginibus Tyriis comitata solebat. 845
non bene conveniunt nec in una sede morantur
maiestas et amor; sceptri gravitate relicta
ille pater rectorque deum, cui dextra trisulcis
ignibus armata est, qui nutu concutit orbem,
induitur faciem tauri mixtusque iuvencis 850
mugit et in teneris formosus obambulat herbis.
quippe color nivis est, quam nec vestigia duri
calcavere pedis nec solvit aquaticus auster.
colla toris exstant, armis palearia pendent,
cornua vara quidem, sed quae contendere possis 855
facta manu, puraque magis perlucida gemma.
nullae in fronte minae, nec formidabile lumen:
pacem vultus habet. miratur Agenore nata,
quod tam formosus, quod proelia nulla minetur;
sed quamvis mitem metuit contingere primo, 860
mox adit et flores ad candida porrigit ora.
gaudet amans et, dum veniat sperata voluptas,
oscula dat manibus; vix iam, vix cetera differt;
et nunc adludit viridique exsultat in herba,
nunc latus in fulvis niveum deponit harenis; 865
paulatimque metu dempto modo pectora praebet
virginea plaudenda1 manu, modo cornua sertis
inpedienda novis; ausa est quoque regia virgo
nescia, quem premeret, tergo considere tauri,
cum deus a terra siccoque a litore sensim 870
falsa pedum primis vestigia ponit in undis;
inde abit ulterius mediique per aequora ponti
fert praedam: pavet haec litusque ablata relictum
respicit et dextra cornum tenet, altera dorso
inposita est; tremulae sinuantur flamine vestes. 875
The warrior goddess now turned her angry eyes upon her, and breathed sighs so deep and perturbed that her breast and the aegis that lay upon her breast shook with her emotion. She remembered that this was the girl who had with profaning hands uncovered the secret at the time when, contrary to her command, she looked upon the son of the Lemnian, without mother born. And now she would be in favour with the god and with her sister, and rich, besides, with the gold which in her greed she had demanded. Straightway Minerva sought out the cave of Envy, filthy with black gore. Her home was hidden away in a deep valley, where no sun shines and no breeze blows; a gruesome place and full of a numbing chill. No cheerful fire burns there, and the place is wrapped in thick, black log. When the warlike maiden goddess came to the cave, she stood without, for she might not enter that foul abode, and beat upon the door with end of spear. The battered doors flew open; and there, sitting within, was Envy, eating snakes’ flesh, the proper food of her venom. At the horrid sight the goddess turned away her eyes. But that other rose heavily from the ground, leaving the snakes’ carcasses half consumed, and came forward with sluggish step. When she saw the goddess, glorious in form and armour, she groaned aloud and shaped her countenance to match the goddess’ sigh. Pallor o’erspreads her face and her whole body seems to shrivel up. Her eyes are all awry, her teeth are foul with mould; green, poisonous gall o’erflows her breast, and venom drips down from her tongue. She never smiles, save at the sight of another’s troubles; she never sleeps, disturbed with wakeful cares; unwelcome to her is the sight of men’s success, and with the sight she pines away; she gnaws and is gnawed, herself her own punishment. Although she detested the loathsome thing, yet in curt speech Tritonia spoke to her: “Infect with your venom one of Cecrops’ daughters. Such the task I set. I mean Aglauros.” Without more words she fled the creature’s presence and, pushing her spear against the ground, sprang lightly back to heaven.
The hag, eyeing her askance as she flees, mutters awhile, grieving to think on the goddess’ joy of triumph. Then she takes her staff, thick-set with thorns, and, wrapped in a mantle of dark cloud, sets forth. Wherever she goes, she tramples down the flowers, causes the grass to wither, blasts the high waving trees, and taints with the foul pollution of her breath whole peoples, cities, homes. At last she spies Tritonia’s city, splendid with art and wealth and peaceful joy; and she can scarce restrain her tears at the sight, because she sees no cause for others’ tears. But, having entered the chamber of Cecrops’ daughter, she performed the goddess’ bidding, touched the girl’s breast with her festering hand and filled her heart with pricking thorns. Then she breathed pestilential, poisonous breath into her nostrils and spread black venom through her very heart and bones. And, to fix a cause for her grief, Envy pictured to her imagination her sister, her sister’s blest marriage and the god in all his beauty, magnifying the excellence of everything. Maddened by this, Aglauros eats her heart out in secret misery; careworn by day, careworn by night, she groans and wastes away most wretchedly with slow decay, like ice touched by the fitful sunshine. She is consumed by envy of Herse’s happiness; just as when a fire is set under a pile of weeds, which give out no flames and waste away with slow consumption. She often longed to die that she might not behold such happiness; often to tell it, as ‘twere a crime, to her stern father. At last she sat down at her sister’s threshold, to prevent the god’s entrance when he should come. And when he coaxed and prayed with his most honeyed words, “Have done,” she said, “for I shall never stir from here till I have foiled your purpose.”
“We’ll stand by that bargain,” Mercury quickly replied, and with a touch of his heavenly wand he opened the door. At this the girl struggled to get up, but found the limbs she bends in sitting made motionless with dull heaviness; she strove to stand erect, but her knees had stiffened; a numbing chill stole through her limbs, and her flesh was pale and bloodless. And, as an incurable cancer spreads its evil roots ever more widely and involves sound with infected parts, so did a deadly chill little by little creep to her breast, stopping all vital functions and choking off her breath. She no longer tried to speak, and, if she had tried, her voice would have found no way of utterance. Her neck was changed to stone, her features had hardened—there she sat, a lifeless statue. Nor was the stone white in colour; her soul had stained it black.
When Mercury had inflicted this punishment on the girl for her impious words and spirit, he left the land of Pallas behind him, and flew to heaven on out-flung pinions. Here his father calls him aside; and not revealing his love affair as the real reason, he says: “My son, always faithful to perform my bidding, delay not, but swiftly in accustomed flight glide down to earth and seek out the land that looks up at your mother’s star from the left. The natives call it the land of Sidon. There you are to drive down to the sea-shore the herd of the king’s cattle which you will see grazing at some distance on the mountain-side.” He spoke, and quickly the cattle were driven from the mountain and headed for the shore, as Jove had directed, to a spot where the great king’s daughter was accustomed to play in company with her Tyrian maidens. Majesty and love do not go well together, nor tarry long in the same dwelling-place. And so the father and ruler of the gods, who wields in his right hand the three-forked lightning, whose nod shakes the world, laid aside his royal majesty along with his sceptre, and took upon him the form of a bull. In this form he mingled with the cattle, lowed like the rest, and wandered around, beautiful to behold, on the young grass. His colour was white as the untrodden snow, which has not yet been melted by the rainy south-wind. The muscles stood rounded upon his neck, a long dewlap hung down in front; his horns were small, but perfect in shape as if carved by an artist’s hand, cleaner and more clear than pearls. His brow and eyes would inspire no fear, and his whole expression was peaceful. Agenor’s daughter looked at him in wondering admiration, because he was so beautiful and friendly. But, although he seemed so gentle, she was afraid at first to touch him. Presently she drew near, and held out flowers to his snow-white lips. The disguised lover rejoiced and, as a foretaste of future joy, kissed her hands. Even so he could scarce restrain his passion. And now he jumps sportively about on the grass, now lays his snowy body down on the yellow sands; and, when her fear has little by little been allayed, he yields his breast for her maiden hands to pat and his horns to entwine with garlands of fresh flowers. The princess even dares to sit upon his back, little knowing upon whom she rests. The god little by little edges away from the dry land, and sets his borrowed hoofs in the shallow water; then he goes further out and soon is in full flight with his prize on the open ocean. She trembles with fear and looks back at the receding shore, holding fast a horn with one hand and resting the other on the creature’s back. And her fluttering garments stream behind her in the wind.
Some MSS. read palpanda.