Epistulae

I READ over your letter in silent fear, nor suffered so much as a murmur to escape me, lest my tongue might rashly swear by some of the gods. I even think you would have ensnared me again, but that, as you own yourself, you knew it was enough I was once promised to you. Nor would I have read it over, but from a fear that my obstinacy might have encreased the anger of the too cruel goddess. Although I forget nothing to appease her, and adore her with the smoke of pious incense, yet the partial Goddess still remains your friend; and, according to your own wish, leaves no room to doubt, that the injury with which you are threatened is the cause of her resentment. Scarcely was she so favorable to her own Hippolytus.

It is surely more proper for a virgin, not to shorten a virgin's years: I am afraid she has only allotted a few to fulfil my fate. For the wasting illness remains; the cause lies hidden; and I languish without hope of relief from the physician. You can scarcely conceive how thin and feeble I am, when I write you this, or with what difficulty I support my wasted limbs in the bed. I am also full of apprehensions, that some beside my faithful nurse may know of our thus conversing with each other. She always sits by the door, and, that I may write to you with the greater security, tells every one who enquires after me, that I am asleep. But when sleep, the best pretence in the world for long privacy, ceases to be a plausible excuse for the tedious retirement, and when she observes persons coming, to whom she can hardly with a good countenance deny admittance, she coughs, and warns me of the danger by some known sign.

Intent as I am, I leave the half-written words, and slip the well-dissembled epistle into my beating bosom. I take it out thence when alone; and it again fatigues my moving fingers. Judge only yourself what pain and anxiety it costs me. And yet (to be honest) let me die if you deserve it; but I am kind beyond what is due, or even what you could in reason expect. Have I then, on your account, so often hazarded my life? Have I suffered, and do I still suffer the punishment of your too successful artifice? Is this the fruit I reap from a beauty that made you an admirer? And must I pay so dearly for appearing agreeable to you? Had it been my good fortune to seam ugly, how happily might I have escaped this train of disasters! Now, because I am admired, I groan in anguish; now I am undone by your rival contentious, and perish by the wounds I receive from my own beauty. For while you refuse to yield, and he imagines himself in no respect your inferior, each stands an invincible obstacle to the other's desires. I, in the mean time, am tossed like an uncertain ship, driven by a strong North-wind to the open sea, but forcibly kept back by the tide and waves. When now the nuptial day, so earnestly wished by my dear parents, is at hand, a burning fever spreads over all my joints; and, at the very time

appointed for the threatening solemnity, stern Proserpine knocks hideous at the palace gate. I blush; and, though conscious of no crime, dread that I may be thought to have in some respect merited the wrath of Heaven.

Some imagine that my illness is merely from chance; others pretend that the present nuptials are not favored by the Gods. Nor think that you have wholly escaped censure on this occasion; for many believe it brought on by your dark contrivances. The cause is unknown: my sufferings appear to all. You, banishing peace, are engaged in restless opposition: I bear the punishment of all. It is now indeed my desire that you continue to deceive me in the manner usual to you: for what will you do in your hatred, if, where you love, you create so much mischief? If you thus bring misery upon every thing you love, it will be wise in you to love your enemy. Pray make it your wish that I may be

undone; for this only, I find, can save me. Either you have lost all regard for the girl you so much loved and coveted, in thus cruelly suffering her to perish by an undeserved fate: or, if you in vain supplicate the unrelenting Goddess in my behalf, why do you boast of her concern for you? It is evident that you have no farther power with her. Choose which you will. If you are not inclined to mitigate the Goddess, this is being forgetful of me; if you cannot, she has then abandoned you. Oh! I could wish that Delos, surrounded by the Ægean sea, had remained ever unknown to me, or at least had not been visited by me at that time. The ship that carried me, sailed through an inauspicious sea; and in an unhappy hour I entered upon the intended voyage. With what foot did I first set out? With what step did I leave the gate of my father's house, or touch the painted texture of the nimble bark? Twice our sails drove

us back, swelled by adverse winds. Adverse did I say? far from it: that indeed was the favorable gale. That, I say, was the favorable gale, which retarded my unhappy steps, and struggled to prevent an ill fated voyage. How I wish that it had continued obstinately to oppose the spreading sails! But it is ridiculous to complain of the inconstancy of the wind. Attracted by the fame of the place, I was eager to come within sight of Delos, and seemed to traverse the deep with languid pace. How often did I chide the oars, as slow in bearing us along? How often complain that our sails were not stretched by the stinted blasts? And now I had passed Mycone, Tenos, and Andros, and bright Delos was within view; which I no sooner saw, that I cried out, Why does the island seem to fly me? Do you, as in time past, fluctuate in the vast ocean? Nor reached I land till towards the close of day, when Phœbus was preparing to unharness his purple horses. When these had been recalled to their accustomed way, my mother gave orders to dress my flowing locks. She

adorned my fingers with gems, and my tresses with braids of gold, and threw over my shoulders the embroidered robe. We then walked towards the temple, and offered frankincense and wine to the guardian deities of the island. While my mother was engaged in sprinkling the altars with votive blood, and throwing the sacred entrails upon the smoking fuel, my officious nurse led me through the several courts of the temple, and we traversed the sacred place with wandering steps. Sometimes I walked under magnificent porticoes, sometimes admired the rich gifts of kings, and the finished statues that adorned every part. I admired too the famous altar made of innumerable horns wonderfully derfully joined together, and the tree that supported the pregnant Goddess; with whatever other curiosities (for I cannot now recollect them, nor am I inclined to mention all I then saw) Delos boasts.

While I was thus busy in viewing every thing, you, Acontius, by chance espied me; and my simplicity made me seem fit to be ensnared. I returned to the temple of Diana, placed high on rising steps. What place should yield a surer defence from harm than this?

The apple, with the insidious lines, is thrown at my feet. Ah me! I had almost sworn to you a second time. My nurse first took it up; and wondering what it might be, desired me to read it. I read, too successful poet, your ensnaring words. At the name of wedlock, overwhelmed with shame, I felt a blush spread over all my face: my eyes remained fixed upon my bosom, those eyes which had been so subservient to your deceitful aims. Traitor, why do you triumph? What glory will this add to your name? Or where can be the praise, to have deluded an unsuspecting maid? I did not stand fenced with a buckler, and armed with an Amazonian axe, like Penthesilea when she traversed the Ilian plains. No girdle adorned with studs of gold, as that gained from Hippolyte, remains the prize of your victory. What cause of boasting that I was deceived by your well-framed words, or that an unthinking imprudent girl should fall into the cunning snare? Cydippe was deceived by an apple; it was an apple that deceived also Atalanta. You are now be-