Metamorphoses X.431-532
Orpheus comes to the end of the story of Myrrha, and sings about her arboreal transformation.
‘Festa piae Cereris celebrabant annua matres
illa, quibus nivea velatae corpora veste
primitias frugum dant spicea serta suarum
perque novem noctes venerem tactusque viriles
in vetitis numerant: turba Cenchreis in illa 435
regis adest coniunx arcanaque sacra frequentat.
ergo legitima vacuus dum coniuge lectus,
nacta gravem vino Cinyran male sedula nutrix,
nomine mentito veros exponit amores
et faciem laudat; quaesitis virginis annis 440
“par” ait “est Myrrhae.” quam postquam adducere iussa est
utque domum rediit, “gaude, mea” dixit “alumna:
vicimus!” infelix non toto pectore sentit
laetitiam virgo, praesagaque pectora maerent,
sed tamen et gaudet: tanta est discordia mentis. 445
‘Tempus erat, quo cuncta silent, interque triones
flexerat obliquo plaustrum temone Bootes:
ad facinus venit illa suum; fugit aurea caelo
luna, tegunt nigrae latitantia sidera nubes;
nox caret igne suo; primus tegis, Icare, vultus, 450
Erigoneque pio sacrata parentis amore.
ter pedis offensi signo est revocata, ter omen
funereus bubo letali carmine fecit:
it tamen, et tenebrae minuunt noxque atra pudorem;
nutricisque manum laeva tenet, altera motu 455
caecum iter explorat. thalami iam limina tangit,
iamque fores aperit, iam ducitur intus: at illi
poplite succiduo genua intremuere, fugitque
et color et sanguis, animusque relinquit euntem.
quoque suo propior sceleri est, magis horret, et ausi 460
paenitet, et vellet non cognita posse reverti.
cunctantem longaeva manu deducit et alto
admotam lecto cum traderet “accipe,” dixit,
“ista tua est, Cinyra” devotaque corpora iunxit.
accipit obsceno genitor sua viscera lecto 465
virgineosque metus levat hortaturque timentem.
forsitan aetatis quoque nomine “filia” dixit,
dixit et illa “pater,” sceleri ne nomina desint.
‘Plena patris thalamis excedit et inpia diro
semina fert utero conceptaque crimina portat. 470
postera nox facinus geminat, nec finis in illa est,
cum tandem Cinyras, avidus cognoscere amantem
post tot concubitus, inlato lumine vidit
et scelus et natam verbisque dolore retentis
pendenti nitidum vagina deripit ensem; 475
Myrrha fugit: tenebrisque et caecae munere noctis
intercepta neci est latosque vagata per agros
palmiferos Arabas Panchaeaque rura relinquit
perque novem erravit redeuntis cornua lunae,
cum tandem terra requievit fessa Sabaea; 480
vixque uteri portabat onus. tum nescia voti
atque inter mortisque metus et taedia vitae
est tales conplexa preces: “o siqua patetis
numina confessis, merui nec triste recuso
supplicium, sed ne violem vivosque superstes 485
mortuaque exstinctos, ambobus pellite regnis
mutataeque mihi vitamque necemque negate!”
numen confessis aliquod patet: ultima certe
vota suos habuere deos. nam crura loquentis
terra supervenit, ruptosque obliqua per ungues 490
porrigitur radix, longi firmamina trunci,
ossaque robur agunt, mediaque manente medulla
sanguis it in sucos, in magnos bracchia ramos,
in parvos digiti, duratur cortice pellis.
iamque gravem crescens uterum perstrinxerat arbor 495
pectoraque obruerat collumque operire parabat:
non tulit illa moram venientique obvia ligno
subsedit mersitque suos in cortice vultus.
quae quamquam amisit veteres cum corpore sensus,
flet tamen, et tepidae manant ex arbore guttae. 500
est honor et lacrimis, stillataque cortice murra
nomen erile tenet nulloque tacebitur aevo.
‘At male conceptus sub robore creverat infans
quaerebatque viam, qua se genetrice relicta
exsereret; media gravidus tumet arbore venter. 505
tendit onus matrem; neque habent sua verba dolores,
nec Lucina potest parientis voce vocari.
nitenti tamen est similis curvataque crebros
dat gemitus arbor lacrimisque cadentibus umet.
constitit ad ramos mitis Lucina dolentes 510
admovitque manus et verba puerpera dixit:
arbor agit rimas et fissa cortice vivum
reddit onus, vagitque puer; quem mollibus herbis
naides inpositum lacrimis unxere parentis.
laudaret faciem Livor quoque; qualia namque 515
corpora nudorum tabula pinguntur Amorum,
talis erat, sed, ne faciat discrimina cultus,
aut huic adde leves, aut illis deme pharetras.
‘Labitur occulte fallitque volatilis aetas,
et nihil est annis velocius: ille sorore 520
natus avoque suo, qui conditus arbore nuper,
nuper erat genitus, modo formosissimus infans,
iam iuvenis, iam vir, iam se formosior ipso est,
iam placet et Veneri matrisque ulciscitur ignes.
namque pharetratus dum dat puer oscula matri, 525
inscius exstanti destrinxit harundine pectus;
laesa manu natum dea reppulit: altius actum
vulnus erat specie primoque fefellerat ipsam.
capta viri forma non iam Cythereia curat
litora, non alto repetit Paphon aequore cinctam 530
piscosamque Cnidon gravidamve Amathunta metallis;
abstinet et caelo: caelo praefertur Adonis.
“It was the time when married women were celebrating that annual festival of Ceres at which with snowy bodies closely robed they bring garlands of wheaten ears as the first offerings of their fruits, and for nine nights they count love and the touch of man among things forbidden. In that throng was Cenchreis, wife of the king, in constant attendance on the secret rites. And so since the king’s bed was deprived of his lawful wife, the over-officious nurse, finding Cinyras drunk with wine, told him of one who loved him truly, giving a false name, and praised her beauty. When he asked the maiden’s age, she said: ‘The same as Myrrha’s.’ Bidden to fetch her, when she had reached home she cried: ‘Rejoice, my child, we win!’ The unhappy girl felt no joy in all her heart, and her mind was filled with sad forebodings; but still she did also rejoice; so inconsistent were her feelings.
“It was the time when all things are at rest, and between the Bears Boötes had turned his wain with down-pointing pole.1 She came to her guilty deed. The golden moon fled from the sky; the stars hid themselves behind black clouds; night was without her usual fires. You were the first, Icarus, to cover your face, and you, Erigone, deified for your pious love of your father. Thrice was Myrrha stopped by the omen of the stumbling foot; thrice did the funereal screech-owl warn her by his uncanny cry: still on she went, her shame lessened by the black shadows of the night. With her left hand she holds fast to her nurse, and with the other she gropes her way through the dark. Now she reaches the threshold of the chamber, now she opens the door, now is led within. But her knees tremble and sink beneath her; colour and blood flee from her face, and her senses desert her as she goes. The nearer she is to her crime, the more she shudders at it, repents her of her boldness, would gladly turn back unrecognized. As she holds back, the aged crone leads her by the hand to the side of the high bed and, delivering her over, says: ‘Take her, Cinyras, she is yours’; and leaves the doomed pair together. The father receives his own flesh in his incestuous bed, strives to calm her girlish fears, and speaks encouragingly to the shrinking girl. It chanced, by a name appropriate to her age, he called her ‘daughter,’ and she called him ‘father,’ that names might not be lacking to their guilt.
“Forth from the chamber she went, full of her father, with crime conceived within her womb. The next night repeated their guilt, nor was that the end. At length Cinyras, eager to recognize his mistress after so many meetings, brought in a light and beheld his crime and his daughter. Speechless with woe, he snatched his bright sword from the sheath which hung near by. Myrrha fled and escaped death by grace of the shades of the dark night. Groping her way through the broad fields, she left palm-bearing Arabia and the Panchaean country; then, after nine months of wandering, in utter weariness she rested at last in the Sabaean land. And now she could scarce bear the burden of her womb. Not knowing what to pray for, and in a strait betwixt fear of death and weariness of life, she summed up her wishes in this prayer: ‘O gods, if any there be who will listen to my prayer, I do not refuse the dire punishment I have deserved; but lest, surviving, I offend the living, and, dying, I offend the dead, drive me from both realms; change me and refuse me both life and death!’ Some god did listen to her prayer; her last petition had its answering gods. For even as she spoke the earth closed over her legs; roots burst forth from her toes and stretched out on either side the supports of the high trunk; her bones gained strength, and, while the central pith remained the same, her blood changed to sap, her arms to long branches, her fingers to twigs, her skin to hard bark. And now the growing tree had closely bound her heavy womb, had buried her breast and was just covering her neck; but she could not endure the delay and, meeting the rising wood, she sank down and plunged her face in the bark. Though she has lost her old-time feelings with her body, still she weeps, and the warm drops trickle down from the tree. Even her tears have honour: and the myrrh which distils from the bark preserves the name of its mistress and will be remembered through all the ages.
“But the misbegotten child had grown within the wood, and was now seeking a way by which it might leave its mother and come forth. The pregnant tree swells in mid-trunk, the weight within straining on its mother. The birth-pangs cannot voice themselves, nor can Lucina be called upon in the words of one in travail. Still, like a woman in agony, the tree bends itself, groans oft, and is wet with falling tears. Pitying Lucina stood near the groaning branches, laid her hands on them, and uttered charms to aid the birth. Then the tree cracked open, the bark was rent asunder, and it gave forth its living burden, a wailing baby-boy. The naiads laid him on soft leaves and anointed him with his mother’s tears. Even Envy would praise his beauty, for he looked like one of the naked loves portrayed on canvas. But, that dress may make no distinction, you should either give him a light quiver or take it away from them.
“Time glides by imperceptibly and cheats us in its flight, and nothing is swifter than the years. That son of his sister and his grandfather, who was but lately concealed within his parent tree, but lately born, then a most lovely baby-boy, is now a youth, now man, now more beautiful than his former self; now he excites even Venus’ love, and avenges his mother’s passion. For while the goddess’ son, with quiver on shoulder, was kissing his mother, he chanced unwittingly to graze her breast with a projecting arrow. The wounded goddess pushed her son away; but the scratch had gone deeper than she thought, and she herself was at first deceived. Now, smitten with the beauty of a mortal, she cares no more for the borders of Cythera, nor does she seek Paphos, girt by the deep sea, nor fish-haunted Cnidos, nor Amathus, rich in precious ores. She stays away even from the skies; Adonis is preferred to heaven.
At midnight these constellations attain their highest point in the heavens, and thereafter begin their downward course.