Metamorphoses

Ovid

Ovid. Metamorphoses. More, Brookes, translator. Boston: Cornhill Publishing Co., 1922.

  1. Throughout the land of Thebes miraculous
  2. the power of Bacchus waxed; and far and wide
  3. Ino, his aunt, reported the great deeds
  4. by this divinity performed. Of all
  5. her sisters only she escaped unharmed,
  6. when Fate destroyed them, and she knew not grief—
  7. only for sorrow of her sisters' woes.—
  8. While Ino vaunted of her mother-joys,
  9. and of her kingly husband, Athamas,
  10. and of the mighty God, her foster-child;
  11. Juno, disdaining her in secret, said;
  12. “How shall the offspring of a concubine
  13. transform Maeonian mariners, overwhelm
  14. them in the ocean, sacrifice a son
  15. to his deluded mother, who insane,
  16. tears out his entrails; how shall he invent
  17. wings for three daughters of King Minyas,
  18. while Juno unavenged, bewails despite?—
  19. Is it the end? the utmost of my power?
  20. His deeds instruct the way; true wisdom heeds
  21. an enemy's device; by the strange death
  22. of Pentheus, all that madness could perform
  23. was well revealed to all; what then denies
  24. a frenzy may unravel Ino's course
  25. to such a fate as wrought her sisters' woe?”
  26. A shelving path in shadows of sad yew
  27. through utter silence to the deep descends,
  28. infernal, where the languid Styx exhales
  29. vapours; and there the shadows of the dead,
  30. descend, after they leave their sacred urns,
  31. and ghostly forms invade: and far and wide,
  32. those dreary regions Horror and bleak Cold
  33. obtain.
  34. The ghosts, arrived, not know the way,—
  35. which leadeth to the Stygian city-gates,—
  36. not know the melancholy palace where
  37. the swarthy Pluto stays, though streets and ways
  38. a thousand to that city lead, and gates
  39. out-swing from every side: and as the sea
  40. with never-seen increase engulfs the streams
  41. unnumbered of the world, that realm enfolds
  42. the souls of men, nor ever is it filled.
  43. Around the shadowy spirits go; bloodless
  44. boneless and bodiless; they throng the place
  45. of judgment, or they haunt the mansion where
  46. abides the Utmost Tyrant, or they tend
  47. to various callings, as their whilom way; —
  48. appropriate punishment confines to pain
  49. the multitude condemned.
  50. To this abode,
  51. impelled by rage and hate, from habitation
  52. celestial, Juno, of Saturn born, descends,
  53. submissive to its dreadful element.
  54. No sooner had she entered the sad gates,
  55. than groans were uttered by the threshold, pressed
  56. by her immortal form, and Cerberus
  57. upraising his three-visaged mouths gave vent
  58. to triple-barking howls.—She called to her
  59. the sisters, Night-begot, implacable,
  60. terrific Furies. They did sit before
  61. the prison portals, adamant confined,
  62. combing black vipers from their horrid hair.
  63. When her amid the night-surrounding shades
  64. they recognized, those Deities uprose.
  65. O dread confines! dark seat of wretched vice!
  66. Where stretched athwart nine acres, Tityus,
  67. must thou endure thine entrails to be torn!
  68. O Tantalus, thou canst not touch the wave,
  69. and from thy clutch the hanging branches rise!
  70. O Sisyphus, thou canst not stay the stone,
  71. catching or pushing, it must fall again!
  72. O thou Ixion! whirled around, around,
  73. thyself must follow to escape thyself!
  74. And, O Belides, (plotter of sad death
  75. upon thy cousins) thou art always doomed
  76. to dip forever ever-spilling waves!
  77. When that the daughter of Saturnus fixed
  78. a stern look on those wretches, first her glance
  79. arrested on Ixion; but the next
  80. on Sisyphus; and thus the goddess spoke;—
  81. “For why should he alone of all his kin
  82. suffer eternal doom, while Athamas,
  83. luxurious in a sumptuous palace reigns;
  84. and, haughty with his wife, despises me.”
  85. So grieved she, and expressed the rage of hate
  86. that such descent inspired, beseeching thus,
  87. no longer should the House of Cadmus stand,
  88. so that the sister Furies plunge in crime
  89. overweening Athamas.—Entreating them,
  90. she mingled promises with her commands.—
  91. When Juno ended speech, Tisiphone,
  92. whose locks entangled are not ever smooth,
  93. tossed them around, that backward from her face
  94. such crawling snakes were thrown;—then answered she:
  95. “Since what thy will decrees may well be done,
  96. why need we to consult with many words?
  97. Leave thou this hateful region and convey
  98. thyself, contented, to a better realm.”
  99. Rejoicing Juno hastens to the clouds—
  100. before she enters her celestial home,
  101. Iris, the child of Thaumas, purifies
  102. her limbs in sprinkled water.