Epistulae

I saw the walls of Lyrnessus give way to your irresistible attack; nor was I an inconsiderable part of my native country. I saw three fall, brethren in blood as well as fate; who all sprang from the same mother. I saw my husband too stretched upon the bloody plain, and tossing with anguish his breast drenched in gore. Yet all these losses were recompensed in you alone; you were to me instead of a husband, a lord, a brother. You swore to me by the sacred deity of your sea-green mother, that it should be my happiness to have fallen a captive into your hands: for instance; to refuse me though offered to you with a large dowry, and reject the riches which you are urged to accept with me! It is even reported, that when returning Aurora gilds the mountains, you will open your flaxen sails to the cloud-bearing south winds. Soon as this cruel resolve reached my trembling ears, the blood forsook my breast; I was without life or soul. You will then abandon me! O barbarous man, what misery are you preparing for hapless Briseis! What solace can I expect in my forlorn state? Sooner may the gaping earth swallow me up, or the missile bolts of Jove overwhelm me, than I, abandoned, be doomed to behold the sea foaming after your Thessalian oars, and your ships deserting my distracted view. If you are determined to return, and visit again your native fields, I can be no very cumbersome load to your fleet. I submit to follow you as a captive subject to her conqueror, not as a spouse accompanying her husband. My hand will not disdain the meanest office. May the fairest of the Grecian dames become the happy partner of your bed, one worthy of such a father-in-law as the grandson of Jupiter and Ægina, to whom old Nereus will not disdain to be related. I her humble handmaid will diligently ply my task, and the twisted threads shall lessen the loaded distaff. Grant only that your wife, who I fear will regard me as a rival, be not suffered to treat me cruelly. Let her not tear my hair in your presence, while you unconcerned say, This girl was once dear to me. But I will submit to bear even this, rather than be left behind helpless and neglected. The dread of such treatment shakes my wretched frame. What can you wish for more? Agamemnon repents of his anger; and disconsolate Greece falls at your feet. You

who are conqueror every where else, be master also of yourself and your passions. Why is insulting Hector allowed to triumph over the Grecian troops? Take arms, brave grandson of Æacus, after first receiving me to your embraces; and urge their vanquished troops with a victorious spear. Your resentment was first kindled for my sake; let it cease also for my sake: may I be both the cause and measure of your disgust. Nor think it dishonorable to yield to my entreaties. Meleager took up arms at the request of his wife. I have it only by hearsay; but you are acquainted with the whole story. Althæa's brothers being slain by her son, the unhappy parent devoted him with many imprecations. A war ensued: he, disgusted, laid down his arms, retired, and obstinately refused to assist his native country. His wife alone had power to move him: thrice happy she! But my words, alas! have no weight with you. Yet do I not repine; nor, though often called to my lord's bed, did I ever boast that I was your wife.

One of the captives, I remember, called me mistress. You only increase, said I, the weight of my servitude by that name. I swear by the slightly-buried bones of my husband, those remains which must ever appear venerable to me; by the sacred ghosts of my three undaunted brothers, who bravely died for and with their country; by your lips and mine, which we have often joined in love; and by your conquering sword, too well known to my house; that Agamemnon has shared none of the joys of my bed. If I speak falsely, may I be eternally forsaken by you. Where I now to say, Do you too, great hero, swear that you have tasted no joys apart from me, must you not refuse? And yet the Greeks fancy you plunged in grief. You, mean-while, solace yourself with the harp, resigned to the soft embraces of a fond mistress. Should any one ask why you so obstinately refuse to fight, you say, War is become hateful; only night, love, and music, charm. It is safer to be content with domestic pleasures, to cherish a beloved mistress, and exercise the fingers upon a Thracian harp, than to grasp a target and sharp-pointed spear, and load the head with a weighty helmet. Heretofore you preferred the glory of illustrious actions to ease; and the fame acquired in war was all your aim. Could martial deeds then only please till I was made a captive? Is your thirst of praise extinguished in the fall of my country? Heaven forbid! May the Pelian spear, urged by your victorious arm, pierce the loins of Hector. Send me, O ye Greeks, as your ambassador, to solicit my lord: I will enforce your requests with a thousand melting kisses. Trust me, I can do more with him than Phœnix, more than the brother of Teucer, even more than eloquent Ulysses. There is rhetoric in throwing my once familiar arms round his neck, and putting him in mind that it is his Briseis who urges the request. Though you are cruel and more obdurate than the waves of the sea, my silence and tears must prevail.

Now then (so may your father Peleus measure out his full term of years, and Pyrrhus enter upon war with your propitious fortune), brave Achilles, have respect to your Briseis, oppressed with a load of anxiety; nor kill her with your cruel delays. Or, if your former love is turned to disdain, rather hasten my fate, than force me thus to live without you. And even as it is, you hasten it; my beauty and bloom have fled; and the remaining faint hope of your love alone supports life: if this also should fail, my hard destiny will soon join me to the shades of my brothers and husband; nor will it add to your fame, to have occasioned the death of one who loved you. But why thus torment me by a lingering death? Plunge into my breast your naked poignard; I have still blood enough left to stream from the gaping wound. Let your sword, which (had not Minerva interposed) would have reached the heart of Atrides, find its way to mine. Ah rather preserve a life that is your own gift: I ask no more from my lover than what he formerly granted me when an enemy. The walls of Troy, built by Neptune, will afford more ample matter for your resentment. Hunt ruin in the hostile field. Let me only request, whatever be your design, whether to remain here, or navigate your fleet home, that, in right of master, you command me to attend you.

Phædra of Crete wishes to Hippolytus, born of an Amazon, that health. which, if he will not give it, she herself must want. Read this at least; how can the reading of a letter hurt you? Perhaps, too, you may meet with some things in it that will be agreeable. In this manner secrets are conveyed over land and sea. Even enemies look at the letters sent from each other. Thrice I essayed to speak with you; thrice my tongue failed; thrice the words forsook me at my tongue's end. Modesty is to be joined with love, as far as is possible and convenient. Love commands me to write what I was ashamed to speak. It is not safe to slight the commands of Love; he reigns uncontrolled, and has power even over the sovereign gods. He first commanded me, when full of doubts and fears, to write; Write, said he; though hard as steel, he will yield his captive hands. Be present, Love; and, as you nourish in my bones a wasting fire, fix also in his breast a dart that may soften it towards me. Yet will I not by any crime stain my connubial vows. My fame (search into it) you will find fair and spotless. Love, the later it seizes us, rages the more. I burn inwardly; I burn, and my breast feels the hidden wound. As the tender bull is at first impatient of the yoke, and the young courser is with difficulty rendered obedient to the rein: so my unconquered heart resists the first attacks of love, and this unusual burthen sits heavy on my unpractised mind. When love is habitual from our cradle, we may learn by art to manage it; but, in our riper years, it assaults us with violence. You will taste the first offerings of my

spotless fame, and the guilt will be the same in both. There is a pleasure in plucking the ripe apples from loaded branches, and gathering with an industrious hand the earliest roses. If yet my chastity, hitherto unstained, must be blotted by an unusual crime, it has happily fallen out that I burn with a noble flame. A worthless partner of my crime, something still worse than the crime itself, cannot in my case by objected. If Juno should resign her brother and husband in my favour, even Jupiter would probably be disregarded in competition with Hippolytus. And now (what you will scarcely believe) my inclinations carry me after new and unaccustomed delights. I long to assault with you the savage breed; already the Delian goddess, distinguished by the crooked bow, presides in my thoughts; your judgement in this determines also mine. I am impatient to range the woods, to pursue the stage into the toils, and cheer the nimble hounds along the rocky cliffs; or lance the trembling dart with a

vigorous arm, and stretch my wearied limbs on a grassy bank. Oft I am pleased to drive the nimble chariot involved in dust, and guide the panting steeds with steady rein. Now wild, I rave as a Bacchanal when full of the inspiring god, or like those who on the Idean hill urge with redoubled strokes the sounding brass; yea more wild than those whom the Dryads half divine, and horned Satyrs, strike with terror and amazement.

For, when this fury abates, I am informed of all; and silent feel that conscious love rages in my breast. Perhaps, I am urged to this love by the fate of my blood, and Venus exacts this tribute of all our race. Jupiter loved Europa (hence the first rise of our family) disguising the god under the form of a bull. Pasiphae my mother, enjoyed by a deluded bull, was in time delivered of her guilty load. Perfidious Theseus, guided by the faithful thread, escaped by my sister's help the deluding labyrinth. Lo, I too, that I might not belie the race of Minos, yield the last to the powerful laws of my blood. Surely it was our destiny; one house gained the inclinations of both. I am charmed with your shape and appearance; my sister yielded to the attractions of your father. Theseus and his son have triumphed over two sister nymphs. Raise trophies of your victory over our race. Oh how I wish that I had been wandering in the fields of Crete, when first I saw you enter Eleusis, the city of Ceres! It was then chiefly (yet even before that time you had charmed me), that the penetrating flame of love raged in my bones. White was your robe; your hair was adorned

with a garland; a modest blush had overspread your comely face. That countenance which appears, to others, stern and fierce, was in Phædra's eyes noble and full of manly courage. I hate youths fond of dress and a female nicety: a manly form requires little fashioning. That sternness, those careless locks, and noble face stained with dust, are becoming. Whether you bend in the fiery steed's reluctant neck, I am delighted to see him wheeling in the narrow ring; or if with vigorous arm you dart the heavy spear, still my eyes watch the manly throw. Or do you brandish the hunting-spear of broad-pointed steel? In fine, every thing you do gives me delight. Leave your cruelty to the woods and mountains; nor let me, undeserving of such a fate, perish for your sake. What pleasure can it give to be wholly taken up in the exercises of Diana, and deny Venus the vows and engagements due to her? What admits no interval of rest cannot subsist long. Rest renews our strength, and refreshes our wearied limbs. The bow (and surely the arms of your favorite goddess may furnish an example for your imitation), if always bent, will lose its force. Cephalus was famed in the woods; by his hand were many wild beasts slain; yet he was no enemy to the delights of love. Aurora wisely forsook old age for him. Oft, under a spreading oak, were Venus and Adonis seated on the yielding grass. Meleager too burned for Areadian Atalanta: she, as a pledge of his love, enjoyed the spoils of the Calydonian boar. Let us also be now first joined to this glorious crowd. If you banish love, the forest will be turned into a desert.

I will be the partner of your toils: neither the rocks hideous with dens and caves, nor the fierce aspect of the threatening boar, shall terrify me. There is an isthmus seated between two seas; the rising billows beat against either shore. Here will I meet thee at Trœzen, once the kingdom of Pittheus: already it is dearer far than my native country. The hero of Neptune's race is happily absent, and will be so long: he is now in the country of his dear Pirithous. Theseus (unless we dispute what is manifest) prefers Pirithous, both to his Phædra and to thee: nor is this the only injury he has offered us; for we have both been wronged in matters of great importance. The bones of my brother, broken with a knotted club, he scattered on the bloody ground: my sister was left a prey to wild beasts. You boast of a mother worthy of the bravery of her son, of distinguished valor among the Amazonian maids. If you enquire after her, Theseus inhumanly stabbed her; nor could so great a pledge protect the unhappy mother. Nor was she wedded, nor received with the nuptial torch. Why all this, but to exclude you from your father's throne? He has added, moreover, brothers to you by me, who have been bred up by his command rather than

mine. I could wish, loveliest of men, that the child who may stand in competition with you, had died in the birth. What reverence, after all this, can be due to your father's bed, which he even shuns himself, and has deserted? Nor let vain fears alarm you, that the commerce, between a son and mother-in-law, is infamous. This old-fashioned piety, which could not subsist long, suited only the rustic age of Saturn. Jupiter has made pleasure the test of piety, and has given us an example in espousing his own sister. That tie of blood is firmest, which is strengthened by the bonds of Venus. It will be an easy matter to conceal it: the name of relative will justify our freedoms. Whoever sees our mutual embraces will praise us; I shall be thought a stepmother, tender of my husband's son.