Metamorphoses VI.619-721
Procne and Philomela enact their terrible revenge on Tereus; the North Wind steals away Orithyia to be his wife
Peragit dum talia Procne,
ad matrem veniebat Itys; quid possit, ab illo 620
admonita est oculisque tuens inmitibus ‘a! quam
es similis patri!’ dixit nec plura locuta
triste parat facinus tacitaque exaestuat ira.
ut tamen accessit natus matrique salutem
attulit et parvis adduxit colla lacertis 625
mixtaque blanditiis puerilibus oscula iunxit,
mota quidem est genetrix, infractaque constitit ira
invitique oculi lacrimis maduere coactis;
sed simul ex nimia mentem1 pietate labare
sensit, ab hoc iterum est ad vultus versa sororis 630
inque vicem spectans ambos ‘cur admovet’ inquit
‘alter blanditias, rapta silet altera lingua?
quam vocat hic matrem, cur non vocat illa sororem?
cui sis nupta, vide, Pandione nata, marito!
degeneras! scelus est pietas in coniuge Tereo.’ 635
nec mora, traxit Ityn, veluti Gangetica cervae
lactentem fetum per silvas tigris opacas,
utque domus altae partem tenuere remotam,
tendentemque manus et iam sua fata videntem
et ‘mater! mater!’ clamantem et colla petentem 640
ense ferit Procne, lateri qua pectus adhaeret,
nec vultum vertit. satis illi ad fata vel unum
vulnus erat: iugulum ferro Philomela resolvit,
vivaque adhuc animaeque aliquid retinentia membra
dilaniant. pars inde cavis exsultat aenis, 645
pars veribus stridunt; manant penetralia tabo.
His adhibet coniunx ignarum Terea mensis
et patrii moris sacrum mentita, quod uni
fas sit adire viro, comites famulosque removit.
ipse sedens solio Tereus sublimis avito 650
vescitur inque suam sua viscera congerit alvum,
tantaque nox animi est, ‘Ityn huc accersite!’ dixit.
dissimulare nequit crudelia gaudia Procne
iamque suae cupiens exsistere nuntia cladis
‘intus habes, quem poscis’ ait: circumspicit ille 655
atque, ubi sit, quaerit; quaerenti iterumque vocanti,
sicut erat sparsis furiali caede capillis,
prosiluit Ityosque caput Philomela cruentum
misit in ora patris nec tempore maluit ullo
posse loqui et meritis testari gaudia dictis. 660
Thracius ingenti mensas clamore repellit
vipereasque ciet Stygia de valle sorores
et modo, si posset, reserato pectore diras
egerere inde dapes semesaque viscera gestit,
flet modo seque vocat bustum miserabile nati, 665
nunc sequitur nudo genitas Pandione ferro.
corpora Cecropidum pennis pendere putares:
pendebant pennis. quarum petit altera silvas,
altera tecta subit, neque adhuc de pectore caedis
excessere notae, signataque sanguine pluma est. 670
ille dolore suo poenaeque cupidine velox
vertitur in volucrem, cui stant in vertice cristae.
prominet inmodicum pro longa cuspide rostrum;
nomen epops volucri, facies armata videtur.
Hic dolor ante diem longaeque extrema senectae 675
tempora Tartareas Pandiona misit ad umbras.
sceptra loci rerumque capit moderamen Erectheus,
iustitia dubium validisne potentior armis.
quattuor ille quidem iuvenes totidemque crearat
femineae sortis, sed erat par forma duarum. 680
e quibus Aeolides Cephalus te coniuge felix,
Procri, fuit; Boreae Tereus Thracesque nocebant,
dilectaque diu caruit deus Orithyia,
dum rogat et precibus mavult quam viribus uti;
ast ubi blanditiis agitur nihil, horridus ira, 685
quae solita est illi nimiumque domestica vento,
‘et merito!’ dixit; ‘quid enim mea tela reliqui,
saevitiam et vires iramque animosque minaces,
admovique preces, quarum me dedecet usus?
apta mihi vis est: vi tristia nubila pello, 690
vi freta concutio nodosaque robora verto
induroque nives et terras grandine pulso;
idem ego, cum fratres caelo sum nactus aperto
(nam mihi campus is est), tanto molimine luctor,
ut medius nostris concursibus insonet aether 695
exsiliantque cavis elisi nubibus ignes;
idem ego, cum subii convexa foramina terrae
supposuique ferox imis mea terga cavernis,
sollicito manes totumque tremoribus orbem.
hac ope debueram thalamos petiisse, socerque 700
non orandus erat mihi sed faciendus Erectheus.’
haec Boreas aut his non inferiora locutus
excussit pennas, quarum iactatibus omnis
adflata est tellus latumque perhorruit aequor,
pulvereamque trahens per summa cacumina pallam 705
verrit humum pavidamque metu caligine tectus
Orithyian amans fulvis amplectitur alis.
dum volat, arserunt agitati fortius ignes,
nec prius aerii cursus suppressit habenas,
quam Ciconum tenuit populos et moenia raptor. 710
illic et gelidi coniunx Actaea tyranni
et genetrix facta est, partus enixa gemellos,
cetera qui matris, pennas genitoris haberent.
non tamen has una memorant cum corpore natas,
barbaque dum rutilis aberat subnixa capillis, 715
inplumes Calaisque puer Zetesque fuerunt;
mox pariter pennae ritu coepere volucrum
cingere utrumque latus, pariter flavescere malae.
ergo ubi concessit tempus puerile iuventae,
vellera cum Minyis nitido radiantia villo 720
per mare non notum prima petiere carina.
While Procne was thus speaking Itys came into his mother’s presence. His coming suggested what she could do, and regarding him with pitiless eyes, she said: “Ah, how like your father you are!” Saying no more, she began to plan a terrible deed and boiled with inward rage. But when the boy came up to her and greeted his mother, put his little arms around her neck and kissed her in his winsome, boyish way, her mother-heart was touched, her wrath fell away, and her eyes, though all unwilling, were wet with tears that flowed in spite of her. But when she perceived that her purpose was wavering through excess of mother-love, she turned again from her son to her sister; and gazing at both in turn, she said: “Why is one able to make soft, pretty speeches, while her ravished tongue dooms the other to silence? Since he calls me mother, why does she not call me sister? Remember whose wife you are, daughter of Pandion! Will you be faithless to your husband? But faithfulness to such a husband as Tereus is a crime.” Without more words she dragged Itys away, as a tigress drags a suckling fawn through the dark woods on Ganges’ banks. And when they reached a remote part of the great house, while the boy stretched out pleading hands as he saw his fate, and screamed, “Mother! mother!” and sought to throw his arms around her neck, Procne smote him with a knife between breast and side—and with no change of face. This one stroke sufficed to slay the lad; but Philomela cut the throat also, and they cut up the body still warm and quivering with life. Part bubbles in brazen kettles, part sputters on spits; while the whole room drips with gore.
This is the feast to which the wife invites Tereus, little knowing what it is. She pretends that it is a sacred feast after their ancestral fashion, of which only a husband may partake, and removes all attendants and slaves. So Tereus, sitting alone in his high ancestral banquet-chair, begins the feast and gorges himself with flesh of his own flesh. And in the utter blindness of his understanding he cries: “Go, call me Itys hither!” Procne cannot hide her cruel joy, and eager to be the messenger of her bloody news, she says: “You have, within, him whom you want.” He looks about and asks where the boy is. And the, as he asks and calls again for his son, just as she was, with streaming hair, and all stained with her mad deed of blood, Philomela springs forward and hurls the gory head of Itys straight into his father’s face; nor was there ever any time when she longed more to be able to speak, and to express her joy in fitting words. Then the Thracian king overturns the table with a great cry and invokes the snaky sisters from the Stygian pit. Now, if he could, he would gladly lay open his breast and take thence the horrid feast and vomit forth the flesh of his son; now he weeps bitterly and calls himself his son’s most wretched tomb; then with drawn sword he pursues the two daughters of Pandion. As they fly from him you would think that the bodies of the two Athenians were poised on wings: they were poised on wings! One flies to the woods, the other rises to the roof. And even now their breasts have not lost the marks of their murderous deed, their feathers are stained with blood. Tereus, swift in pursuit because of his grief and eager desire for vengeance, is himself changed into a bird. Upon his head a stiff crest appears, and a huge beak stands forth instead of his long sword. He is the, hoopoe, with the look of one armed for war.
This woe shortened the days of old Pandion and sent him down to the shades of Tartarus before old age came to its full term. His sceptre and the state’s control fell to Erechtheus, equally famed for justice and for prowess in arms. Four sons were born to him and four daughters also. Of these daughters two were of equal beauty, of whom thou, Procris, didst make happy in wedlock Cephalus, the grandson of Aeolus. Boreas was not favoured because of Tereus and the Thracians2; and so the god was long kept from his beloved Orithyia, while he wooed and preferred to use prayers rather than force. But when he could accomplish nothing by soothing words, rough with anger, which was the north-wind’s usual and more natural mood, he said: “I have deserved it! For why have I given up my own weapons, fierceness and force, rage and threatening moods, and had recourse to prayers, which do not at all become me? Force is my fit instrument. By force I drive on the gloomy clouds, by force I shake the sea, I overturn gnarled oaks, pack hard the snow, and pelt the earth with hail. So also when I meet my brothers in the open sky—for that is my battleground—I struggle with them so fiercely that the mid-heavens thunder with our meeting and fires leap bursting: out of the hollow clouds. So also when I have entered the vaulted hollows of the earth, and have set my strong back beneath her lowest caverns, I fright the ghosts and the whole world, too, by my heavings. By this means I should have sought my wife. I should not have begged Erechtheus to be my father-in-law, but made him to be so.” With these words or others no less boisterous, Boreas shook his wings, whose mighty flutterings sent a blast over all the earth, and ruffled the broad ocean. And trailing along his dusty mantle over the mountaintops, he swept the land; and wrapped in darkness, the lover embraced with his tawny wings his Orithyia, who was trembling sore with fear. As he flew his own flames were fanned and burned stronger. Nor did the robber check his airy flight until he came to the people and the city of the Cicones. There did the Athenian girl become the bride of the cold monarch, and mother, when she brought forth twin sons, who had all else of their mother, but their father’s wings. Yet these wings, they say, were not born with their bodies; while the beard was not yet to be seen beneath their yellow locks, both Calais and Zetes were wingless, but soon and at the same time wings began to spring out on either side after the fashion of birds, and the cheeks began to grow tawny. So these two youths, when boyhood was passed and they had grown to man’s estate, went with the Minyans over an unknown sea in that first ship to seek the bright gleaming fleece of gold.
mentem cod. Ciofani: matrem N. Heinsius.
Since the home of Boreas was in the north, he was included in the hatred felt at Athens for Tereus and the Thracians.