Ibis
Ibis
Headnote
The Ibis is a single poem of some 640 elegiac verses, written from exile at Tomis around ad~11, and it is the strangest thing Ovid ever made: a sustained, learned curse against an unnamed enemy back in Rome who, the poet charges, has used his banishment as a chance to attack his good name, harass his wife, and seize what remained of his property. Ovid will not give the man his real name; he calls him only Ibis, after the Egyptian bird proverbial for filth, and promises that a harsher poem, in true iambics and with the true name, will follow if the enemy does not desist.
The model is openly named. Ovid is imitating a lost poem of the same title by Callimachus, who had cursed an enemy (said to be Apollonius of Rhodes) in deliberately obscure, riddling verse. Ovid takes over both the pseudonym and the method: he wraps his maledictions in historiae caecae, “blind tales,” naming almost no one outright but identifying each figure by a periphrasis — a parentage, a place, a manner of death — so that the poem becomes a glittering, malicious puzzle of mythological and historical learning. It is by far the densest concentration of allusion in the Ovidian corpus, and for that reason it has always been a quarry for scholars and a trial for readers; many of its references remain disputed, and a few are probably unrecoverable.
The architecture is that of a formal devotio, a ritual cursing. After a prologue protesting that the poet’s verse has been “unarmed” for fifty years and that one man alone has forced him to take up weapons, Ovid stages himself as a priest at an altar, summons every god of sky, earth, sea, and underworld, and pronounces the curse: that the enemy lack everything, wander destitute, die slow and unmourned, and be denied burial and rest among the damned. He invents a hideous nativity for him — born under every malign star, on the black day of the Allia, washed and suckled by the Furies. Then comes the great central movement, the catalogue: a relentless stream of couplets each wishing on the enemy the death or torment of some mythic or historical figure — Philoctetes’ wound, Bellerophon’s fall, the blinded seers, the cannibal feasts of Tantalus and Thyestes, the brazen bull of Phalaris, the fates of poets from Archilochus to Lycophron, the night-slaughters of Rhesus and of Nisus and Euryalus — mounting through hundreds of exempla to a final, terrible wish that the enemy live and die where Ovid himself does, among the arrows of the Danube tribes.
The Ibis divides readers: some find it cold, a virtuoso exercise in erudite spite; others hear in its violence the genuine fury of a broken man who has only his learning left to fight with. Both are true at once, which is very Ovidian. This English is translated from the Latin (The Latin Library text), rendering the elegiac couplet line for verse and keeping every figure in the veiled, periphrastic form the poem gives it — the glossary, not an inline note, supplies the identifications, so that the reader may choose to solve the riddle or simply feel the curse roll on.
Up to this hour, ten lustres of my life now run out, every song my Muse made has gone unarmed; and in so many thousand pages there stands not one letter of Naso’s that could be read as drawn in blood. My little books have wounded no one but myself, when their maker’s life was undone by his own Art. One man — and this itself is a great injury — will not let the title of my fair name stand whole. Whoever he is (for I will keep the name silent yet, somehow), he forces hands unpracticed in it to take up arms. Me, banished to the chill risings of the north wind, he will not let lie hidden in my exile; pitiless, he harries the wounds that seek their rest, and tosses my name about the whole Forum; and her, bound to me by the lasting compact of the marriage-bed, he will not suffer to mourn the living death of her living husband. And while I clasp the shattered timbers of my own keel, he fights to carry off the planks of my wreck; and he who should have put out the sudden flames, this robber hunts his plunder from the heart of the fire. He strives that the food of my fugitive old age should fail: ah, how much worthier he is of the woes that are mine! The gods do better — and far the greatest of them, to me, is the one who would not have my roads left destitute. To him, then, for a heart so merciful, I shall always render the thanks he has earned, wherever I may. Let Pontus hear this; perhaps it will do the same, so that a nearer land may stand as my witness.
Tempus ad hoc, lustris bis iam mihi quinque peractis, Omne fuit Musae carmen inerme meae; Nullaque, quae possit, scriptis tot milibus, extat Littera Nasonis sanguinolenta legi: Nec quemquam nostri nisi me laesere libelli, Artificis periit cum caput Arte sua. Unus (et hoc ipsum est iniuria magna) perennem Candoris titulum non sinit esse mei. Quisquis is est (nam nomen adhuc utcumque tacebo), Cogit inassuetas sumere tela manus. Ille relegatum gelidos aquilonis ad ortus Non sinit exilio delituisse meo; Vulneraque inmitis requiem quaerentia vexat, Iactat et in toto nomina nostra foro; Perpetuoque mihi sociatam foedere lecti Non patitur vivi funera flere viri. Cumque ego quassa meae complectar membra carinae, Naufragii tabulas pugnat habere mei: Et qui debuerat subitas extinguere flammas, Hic praedam medio raptor ab igne petit. Nititur, ut profugae desint alimenta senectae: Heu! quanto est nostris dignior ipse malis! Di melius! quorum longe mihi maximus ille est, Qui nostras inopes noluit esse vias. Huic igitur meritas grates, ubicumque licebit, Pro tam mansueto pectore semper agam. Audiat hoc Pontus: faciet quoque forsitan idem, Terra sit ut propior testificanda mihi.
But to you, who trampled me, violent man, as I lay, I will be — as far as a wretch is allowed — your owed enemy. Sooner shall water cease to be the foe of fire, and the light of the sun be joined with the moon’s; sooner shall one quarter of the sky send out both west wind and east, and a warm south wind blow from the frozen pole; sooner shall spring be mixed with autumn, summer with deep winter, and the same region be both sunset and sunrise; sooner shall new concord come to the brothers’ smoke, which an old wrath still parts upon the kindled pyre, than there be goodwill between you and me — our arms laid down, the arms we took up — broken, villain, by your crimes. This shall be the peace between us, as long as life stays with me, the peace that wolves are used to keep with the helpless flock. The first battle I shall join in the verse I have begun, though wars are not used to be waged in this foot; and as the spear of a soldier not yet warmed to the fight first seeks the ground thick with yellow sand, so I do not yet hurl at you with the sharpened iron, nor will my spear go straight for your hated head; and I will name neither your name nor your deeds in this book, and let you, a little while, disguise who you are. Afterward, if you persist, my unbound iambic will hand you shafts dipped in Lycambean blood. Now, in the measure with which the son of Battus cursed his enemy Ibis, in this same measure I curse you and yours. And, like him, I will wrap my songs in dark riddling tales, though I am not used to follow this kind myself. Imitating his evasions, I shall be said, in the Ibis, to have forgotten my own manner and my judgment. And since I do not yet declare, to those who ask, who you are, meanwhile take you too the name of Ibis; and as my verses will have something of night in them, so let the whole course of your life be black. Have these read to you on your birthday, and on the Kalends of Janus, by anyone you please, with a mouth that will not lie.
At tibi, calcasti qui me, violente, iacentem, Qua licet ei misero! debitus hostis ero. Desinet esse prius contrarius ignibus umor, Iunctaque cum luna lumina solis erunt; Parsque eadem caeli zephyros emittet et euros, Et tepidus gelido flabit ab axe notus; Et ver autumno, brumae miscebitur aestas, Atque eadem regio vesper et ortus erit; Et nova fraterno veniet concordia fumo, Quem vetus accensa separat ira pyra: Quam mihi sit tecum positis, quae sumpsimus, armis Gratia, commissis, improbe, rupta tuis. Pax erit haec nobis, donec mihi vita manebit, Cum pecore infirmo quae solet esse lupis. Prima quidem coepto committam proelia versu, Non soleant quamvis hoc pede bella geri: Utque petit primo plenum flaventis harenae Nondum calfacti militis hasta solum, Sic ego te nondum ferro iaculabor acuto, Protinus invisum nec petet hasta caput; Et neque nomen in hoc nec dicam facta libello, Teque brevi, qui sis, dissimulare sinam. Postmodo, si perges, in te mihi liber iambus Tincta Lycambeo sanguine tela dabit. Nunc quo Battiades inimicum devovet Ibin, Hoc ego devoveo teque tuosque modo. Utque ille, historiis involvam carmina caecis: Non soleam quamvis hoc genus ipse sequi. Illius ambages imitatus in Ibide dicar Oblitus moris iudiciique mei. Et quoniam, qui sis, nondum quaerentibus edo, Ibidis interea tu quoque nomen habe; Utque mei versus aliquantum noctis habebunt, Sic vitae series tota sit atra tuae. Haec tibi natali facito, Ianique kalendis Non mentituro quilibet ore legat.
Gods of the sea and the land, and you who hold better realms than these between the opposing poles, with Jove, hither, I pray, hither turn all your minds, and let there be weight in the things I ask; you, Earth herself, and you, Sea with your waves, and you, highest Aether, receive my prayers; and you, Stars, and you, Image of the sun ringed with rays, and Moon, who never shine in the orb you shone in before, and Night, to be revered in the very look of your darkness; and you who spin the appointed work with three thumbs, and you who glide through the valleys below with a dreadful murmur, river of water no one swears falsely by, and you whom they say sit, hair bound with the twisted snake, before the dark doors of the prison; you too, commons of the gods above — Fauns and Satyrs and Lares, and Rivers and Nymphs and the race of the demigods: and at the last, all you gods, old and new, from ancient Chaos down to our own day, be present, while dire songs are sung over a treacherous head, and wrath and grief play out their parts. Assent, all of you in your order, to the things I ask, and let no part of my vow fall to the ground. Let what I pray for come to pass: that he may think them not my words, but the words of Pasiphaë’s son-in-law. And the penalties I pass over — let him suffer those as well; let the wretch be made more wretched than my wit can frame. And let the vows that execrate a feigned name do no less harm, nor stir the great gods any less: it is him I curse — Ibis, the man my mind intends — who knows that by his deeds he has earned these prayers.
Di maris et terrae, quique his meliora tenetis Inter diversos cum Iove regna polos, Huc, precor, huc vestras omnes advertite mentes, Et sinite optatis pondus inesse meis: Ipsaque tu tellus, ipsum cum fluctibus aequor, Ipse meas aether accipe summe preces; Sideraque et radiis circumdata solis imago, Lunaque, quae numquam quo prius orbe micas, Noxque tenebrarum specie reverenda tuarum; Quaeque ratum triplici pollice netis opus, Quique per infernas horrendo murmure valles Inperiuratae laberis amnis aquae, Quasque ferunt torto vittatis angue capillis Carceris obscuras ante sedere fores; Vos quoque, plebs superum, Fauni Satyrique Laresque Fluminaque et nymphae semideumque genus: Denique ab antiquo divi veteresque novique In nostrum cuncti tempus, adeste, chao, Carmina dum capiti male fido dira canentur Et peragent partes ira dolorque suas. Adnuite optatis omnes ex ordine nostris, Et sit pars voti nulla caduca mei. Quaeque precor, fiant: ut non mea dicta, sed illa Pasiphaes generi verba fuisse putet. Quasque ego transiero poenas, patiatur et illas; Plenius ingenio sit miser ille meo! Neve minus noceant fictum execrantia nomen Vota, minus magnos commoveantve deos: Illum ego devoveo, quem mens intellegit, Ibin, Qui se scit factis has meruisse preces.
There is no delay in me: as priest I will perform the ratified vows. Whoever stands at my rites, keep reverent silence; whoever stands at my rites, speak the words of mourning, and approach Ibis with cheeks wet with weeping; meet him with evil omens and with the left foot, and let black garments cover your bodies! You too — why do you hesitate to take up the funeral fillets? Already, as you yourself see, the altar of your death stands ready. The procession is prepared for you: away with delay in the grim vows — give your throat to my knives, dire victim. May the earth deny you its crops, the river its waters, may wind and breeze deny you their breath. May the sun not be warm for you, nor Phoebe shine for you, may the bright stars forsake your eyes. May neither Vulcan nor the air offer himself to you, may neither land nor sea grant you a road. An exile, destitute, may you wander, and haunt the thresholds of strangers, and beg with trembling mouth for a meager scrap of food. May neither your body be free of querulous pain, nor your sick mind, and may night be heavier than day for you, and day than night. May you be wretched always, yet pitiable to no one: may woman and man rejoice at your adversities. Let hatred be added to your tears, and may you be judged deserving, when you have borne the most evils, to bear still more. And may — a rare thing — the face of your fortune, drained of its old favor, become a thing for others’ grudging eyes. Let the cause for death not fail you, yet let the means of death fail: may your forced life flee the doom it longs for; and may your spirit, long struggling, abandon your tortured limbs only after it has racked them first with a long delay.
Nulla mora est in me: peragam rata vota sacerdos. Quisquis ades sacris, ore favete, meis; Quisquis ades sacris, lugubria dicite verba, Et fletu madidis Ibin adite genis: Ominibusque malis pedibusque occurrite laevis, Et nigrae vestes corpora vestra tegant! Tu quoque, quid dubitas ferales sumere vittas? Iam stat, ut ipse vides, funeris ara tui. Pompa parata tibi est: votis mora tristibus absit: Da iugulum cultris, hostia dira, meis. Terra tibi fruges, amnis tibi deneget undas, Deneget afflatus ventus et aura suos. Nec tibi sol calidus, nec sit tibi lucida Phoebe, Destituant oculos sidera clara tuos. Nec se Vulcanus nec se tibi praebeat aer, Nec tibi det tellus nec tibi pontus iter. Exul, inops erres, alienaque limina lustres, Exiguumque petas ore tremente cibum. Nec corpus querulo nec mens vacet aegra dolore, Noxque die gravior sit tibi, nocte dies. Sisque miser semper, nec sis miserabilis ulli: Gaudeat adversis femina virque tuis. Accedat lacrimis odium, dignusque putere, Qui, mala cum tuleris plurima, plura feras. Sitque, quod est rarum, solito defecta favore Fortunae facies invidiosa tuae. Causaque non desit, desit tibi copia mortis: Optatam fugiat vita coacta necem: Luctatusque diu cruciatos spiritus artus Deserat, et longa torqueat ante mora.
They will come to pass. Phoebus himself has just given me signs of what is to be, and a bird of ill omen flew on the left. Surely I shall believe that what I vow will move the gods above, and I shall always feed, traitor, on the hope of your death. And sooner shall that day carry off this life of mine — the day too often sought by you, the day that comes to me too late — than this grief could ever fade with the passing of time, or time and the hour soften my hatred. While the Thracians fight with the bow, the Iazyges with the spear, while Ganges is warm and Hister cold; while the mountains bear their oaks, the plains their soft fodder, while Tuscan Tiber holds his clear waters, I will wage war with you; nor will death end my angers, but will give cruel weapons to my shade among the dead. Then too, when I have melted away into the empty air, my bloodless ghost will hate your ways; then too I will come, a shade still mindful of your deeds, and my bony form will pursue your face. Whether I — which I would not — am consumed by length of years, or freed by a death dealt by my own hand; whether I am tossed shipwrecked through the measureless waves, and a fish far off devours my flesh; whether foreign birds tear at my limbs; whether wolves stain their jaws with my blood; whether someone deigns to lay me under the earth and give my empty body to a common pyre: whatever I shall be, I will strive to burst out from the Stygian shores, and stretch, an avenger, my cold hands against your face. Waking, you shall see me; in the silent shadows of night I will shake the sleep from you, seeming to stand at your side. In short, whatever you do, I will fly before your mouth and eyes and cry out, and in no place will you have rest. Savage lashes will sound, and the knotted snakes, and the guilty torches will smoke forever at your face. By these Furies you will be driven, alive and dead alike, and your life to come will be the shorter punishment.
Evenient. dedit ipse mihi modo signa futuri Phoebus, et a laeva maesta volavit avis. Certe ego, quae voveo, superos motura putabo, Speque tuae mortis, perfide, semper alar. Et prius hanc animam, nimium tibi saepe petitam, Auferet illa dies, quae mihi sera venit, Quam dolor hic umquam spatio evanescere possit, Leniat aut odium tempus et hora meum. Pugnabunt arcu dum Thraces, Iazyges hasta, Dum tepidus Ganges, frigidus Hister erit; Robora dum montes, dum mollia pabula campi, Dum Tiberis liquidas Tuscus habebit aquas, Tecum bella geram; nec mors mihi finiet iras, Saeva sed in manes manibus arma dabit. Tum quoque, cum fuero vacuas dilapsus in auras, Exsanguis mores oderit umbra tuos, Tum quoque factorum veniam memor umbra tuorum, Insequar et vultus ossea forma tuos. Sive ego, quod nolim, longis consumptus ab annis, Sive manu facta morte solutus ero: Sive per inmensas iactabor naufragus undas, Nostraque longinquus viscera piscis edet: Sive peregrinae carpent mea membra volucres: Sive meo tinguent sanguine rostra lupi: Sive aliquis dignatus erit subponere terrae Et dare plebeio corpus inane rogo: Quidquid ero, Stygiis erumpere nitar ab oris, Et tendam gelidas ultor in ora manus. Me vigilans cernes, tacitis ego noctis in umbris Excutiam somnos visus adesse tuos. Denique quidquid ages, ante os oculosque volabo Et querar, et nulla sede quietus eris. Verbera saeva dabunt sonitum nexaeque colubrae, Conscia fumabunt semper ad ora faces. His vivus furiis agitabere, mortuus isdem, Et brevior poena vita futura tua est.
Nor will a funeral fall to you, nor the tears of your own; your head will be flung out unwept; by the hangman’s hand, while the crowd applauds, you will be dragged, and the hook will be fixed in your bones. Even the flames, which consume all things, will flee you; the just earth will spit out your hated corpse. With talon and beak the raw vulture will drag your entrails, and greedy dogs will tear your treacherous heart, and over your body — though you take pride in this honor — there will be a brawl among insatiable wolves. You will be driven to places far from the Elysian fields, and dwell in the seats the guilty throng holds. There Sisyphus is, both rolling his stone and chasing it, and he who is driven, bound to the wheel’s swift round; and he who at his highest stands nine acres from his lowest, and offers his liver, owed, to the unwearying bird; and the Belides, who carry on their shoulders water doomed to spill, the daughters of exiled Aegyptus, a bloodstained throng; the father of Pelops reaches for the fruit before him, and that same man forever wants the flowing waters, forever has them in plenty. Here one of the Furies will tear your side with the scourge, that you may confess the full tally of your crime; a second will give your limbs, cut, to Tartarean snakes; a third will bake your smoking cheeks with fire. The guilty shade will be mangled a thousand ways, and Aeacus will be ingenious for your punishment. Onto you he will transcribe the torments of the old accused: you will be the cause of rest for the ancient guilty. Sisyphus, you shall have someone to hand the ever-returning weight to; the swift wheels will now turn new limbs; there will be one here to clutch in vain at branches and at water; one to feed the birds with a liver never consumed. Nor will a second death end the penalties of this man’s death, and to such great woes there will be no final hour.
Nec tibi continget funus lacrimaeque tuorum; Indeploratum proiciere caput; Carnificisque manu, populo plaudente, traheris, Infixusque tuis ossibus uncus erit. Ipsae te fugient, quae carpunt omnia, flammae; Respuet invisum iusta cadaver humus. Unguibus et rostro crudus trahet ilia vultur Et scindent avidi perfida corda canes, Deque tuo fiet — licet hac sis laude superbus — Insatiabilibus corpore rixa lupis. In loca ab Elysiis diversa fugabere campis, Quasque tenet sedes noxia turba, coles. Sisyphus est illic saxum volvensque petensque, Quique agitur rapidae vinctus ab orbe rotae, Iugeribusque novem summus qui distat ab imo, Visceraque assiduae debita praebet avi. Quaeque gerunt umeris perituras Belides undas, Exulis Aegypti, turba cruenta, nurus. Poma pater Pelopis praesentia quaerit, et idem Semper eget liquidis, semper abundat aquis. Hic tibi de Furiis scindet latus una flagello, Ut sceleris numeros confiteare tui: Altera Tartareis sectos dabit anguibus artus: Tertia fumantes incoquet igne genas. Noxia mille modis lacerabitur umbra, tuasque Aeacus in poenas ingeniosus erit. In te transcribet veterum tormenta reorum: Sontibus antiquis causa quietis eris. Sisyphe, cui tradas revolubile pondus, habebis: Versabunt celeres nunc nova membra rotae: Hic et erit, ramos frustra qui captet et undas: Hic inconsumpto viscere pascet aves. Nec mortis poenas mors altera finiet huius, Horaque erit tantis ultima nulla malis.
From there I will sing a few — as one might pluck leaves from Ida, or skim the topmost water from the Libyan sea. For I could not tell how many flowers grow on Sicilian Hybla, nor how many crocuses the Cilician land bears, nor, when grim winter has bristled with the wings of Aquilo, with how much hail white Athos turns hoary; nor can all your evils be recounted by my voice, though you should grant me many mouths multiplied. So many — woe to you, wretch! — and such ruins will come to you, that I think even I could be driven to tears. Those tears will make me blessed without end: that weeping will then be sweeter to me than laughter. You were born unlucky — so the gods willed it — and no favorable or kindly star shone at your birth. Venus did not shine forth, nor Jupiter in that hour, and the Moon and the Sun were not in a fitting place, nor did he whom bright Maia bore to great Jove set out his fires usefully enough for you; the stars of Mars, that promise nothing peaceful, and of the scythe-bearing old man bore down upon you, savage. Your birthday’s light too, that you might see nothing but the grim, was foul and black with clouds drawn over it. This is the day to which grave Allia gives its name in the calendar, the day that brought forth Ibis — a public loss. As soon as he, slipped from his mother’s impure womb, pressed the Cinyphian ground with his foul body, a night-owl settled on the roof across the way, and uttered heavy sounds from its funereal mouth. At once the Eumenides washed him in marsh-water, where a hollow wave had flowed from the Stygian shallows, and anointed his breast with the gall of an Erebean snake, and clashed their bloodied hands three times. They steeped his infant throat with the milk of a dog: this was the first food that came to the child’s mouth; from it the nursling drank in his nurse’s madness, and he barks dog-words throughout the whole Forum. They bound his limbs in rags dyed rust-dark, which they had snatched from a half-abandoned pyre; and, that he might not lie unpillowed on the bare ground, they laid his soft head upon flints. And, about to depart, they brought right up beneath his face torches made from a green branch. He was weeping, as an infant touched by the bitter smoke, when one of the three sisters spoke thus: "For a measureless span we have stirred these tears in you, which will always fall with cause enough." She had spoken; but Clotho bade the promises hold good, and spun the dark threads with a hostile hand; and, that she might not utter the long foretellings with her own mouth, "There will be a bard," she said, "who will sing your fate." I am that bard: from me you will learn your wounds, if only the gods grant their strength to my words; and to my songs the weight of facts will be added, which you will prove, fulfilled, through your own griefs.
Inde ego pauca canam, frondes ut siquis ab Ida Aut summam Libyco de mare carpat aquam. Nam neque, quot flores Sicula nascantur in Hybla, Quotve ferat, dicam, terra Cilissa crocos, Nec cum tristis hiems Aquilonis inhorruit alis, Quam multa fiat grandine canus Athos; Nec mala voce mea poterunt tua cuncta referri, Ora licet tribuas multiplicata mihi. Tot tibi vae! misero venient talesque ruinae, Ut cogi in lacrimas me quoque posse putem. Illae me lacrimae facient sine fine beatum: Dulcior hic risu tunc mihi fletus erit. Natus es infelix, — ita di voluere — nec ulla Commoda nascenti stella levisve fuit. Non Venus affulsit, non illa Iuppiter hora, Lunaque non apto solque fuere loco, Nec satis utiliter positos tibi praebuit ignes Quem peperit magno lucida Maia Iovi. Te fera nec quicquam placidum spondentia Martis Sidera presserunt falciferique senis. Lux quoque natalis, ne quid nisi triste videres, Turpis et inductis nubibus atra fuit. Haec est, in fastis cui dat gravis Allia nomen, Quaeque dies Ibin, publica damna tulit. Qui simul impura matris prolapsus ab alvo Cinyphiam foedo corpore pressit humum, Sedit in adverso nocturnus culmine bubo, Funereoque graves edidit ore sonos. Protinus Eumenides lavere palustribus undis, Qua cava de Stygiis fluxerat unda vadis, Pectoraque unxerunt Erebeae felle colubrae, Terque cruentatas increpuere manus. Gutturaque imbuerunt infantia lacte canino: Hic primus pueri venit in ora cibus: Perbibit inde suae rabiem nutricis alumnus, Latrat et in toto verba canina foro. Membraque vinxerunt tinctis ferrugine pannis, A male deserto quos rapuere rogo: Et, ne non fultum nuda tellure iaceret, Molle super silices inposuere caput. Iamque recessurae viridi de stipite factas Admorunt oculos usque sub ora faces. Flebat, ut est fumis infans contactus amaris, De tribus est cum sic una locuta soror: ’Tempus in inmensum lacrimas tibi movimus istas, Quae semper causa sufficiente cadent.’ Dixerat; at Clotho iussit promissa valere, Nevit et infesta stamina pulla manu; Et, ne longa suo praesagia diceret ore, ’Fata canet vates qui tua,’ dixit, ’erit.’ Ille ego sum vates: ex me tua vulnera disces, Dent modo di vires in mea verba suas; Carminibusque meis accedent pondera rerum, Quae rata per luctus experiere tuos.
And lest you be tortured without examples from an earlier age, let your evils be no lighter than the Trojans’ were, and as great as the wounds the heir of club-bearing Hercules, the son of Poeas, bore in his poisoned leg, may you bear yours. May you grieve no more lightly than he who sucked a hind’s udders, and took a wound from the armed man and aid from the unarmed; and than he who fell headlong from his horse into the Aleian fields, to whom his own face was nearly his ruin. May you see what the son of Amyntor saw, and, robbed of light, grope your trembling way with a servant’s staff to guide it. May you see no more than he whom his own daughter led, whose crime each of his two parents came to know; like the old man, famed in Apollo’s art, after he was taken as judge in the playful quarrel; and like the man at whose direction the dove was sent to go before and guide the Pallas-built ship; and like him who lost the eyes through which, to his cost, he had looked on gold, the eyes his bereaved mother gave as offerings to her son; like the Aetnean shepherd, to whom Telemus, son of Eurymus, had prophesied the mishaps to come; like the two sons of Phineus, from whom the same man took the light that he had given; like the heads of Thamyras and Demodocus. So may someone cut your limbs, as Saturn lopped away those parts from which he himself had been made. May Neptune be no kinder to you in the swelling waves than to him whose brother and wife became birds in a moment; and to the cunning man whom Semele’s sister pitied as he clutched the broken timbers of his shattered raft. Or — that one man may not be the only one to know this kind of penalty — may your entrails be torn, split apart by horses driven opposite ways; or may you bear what that man bore at a Punic leader’s hand, who thought it shameful to be ransomed by Rome. May no present god come to your aid, as none came to him whom the altar of Hercean Jove availed nothing.
Neve sine exemplis aevi cruciere prioris, Sint tua Troianis non leviora malis, Quantaque clavigeri Poeantius Herculis heres, Tanta venenato vulnera crure geras. Nec levius doleas, quam qui bibit ubera cervae, Armatique tulit vulnus, inermis opem; Quique ab equo praeceps in Aleia decidit arva, Exitio facies cui sua paene fuit. Id quod Amyntorides videas, trepidumque ministro Praetemptes baculo luminis orbus iter. Nec plus aspicias quam quem sua filia rexit, Expertus scelus est cuius uterque parens: Qualis erat, postquam est iudex de lite iocosa Sumptus, Apollinea clarus in arte senex: Qualis et ille fuit, quo praecipiente columba Est data Palladiae praevia duxque rati: Quique oculis caruit, per quos male viderat aurum, Inferias nato quos dedit orba parens: Pastor ut Aetnaeus, cui casus ante futuros Telemus Eurymides vaticinatus erat: Ut duo Phinidae, quibus idem lumen ademit, Qui dedit: ut Thamyrae Demodocique caput Sic aliquis tua membra secet, Saturnus ut illas Subsecuit partes, unde creatus erat. Nec tibi sit melior tumidis Neptunus in undis, Quam cui sunt subitae frater et uxor aves; Sollertique viro, lacerae quem fracta tenentem Membra ratis Semeles est miserata soror. Vel tua, ne poenae genus hoc cognoverit unus, Viscera diversis scissa ferantur equis: Vel quae, qui redimi Romano turpe putavit, A duce Puniceo pertulit, ipse feras. Nec tibi subsidio praesens sit numen, ut illi, Cui nihil Hercei profuit ara Iovis.
And as the Thessalian leapt from the height of Ossa, so may you be hurled headlong from a rocky ridge. Or, like Eurylochus, who seized the scepter from him, may your limbs be food for greedy snakes. Or may the scalding water poured over your head ripen your fate, as it ripened the fate of Minos. [And, like Prometheus, too little gentle but not unpunished, may you, pinned fast, feed the birds of the air with your blood;] or, like the son of Erechtheus, three times beaten by great Hercules, may you be cut down and flung into the measureless sea. Or, like Amyntor’s son, may the boy you loved with a foul love hate you, and wound you with a cruel sword. May no cup more faithful be mixed for you than for him who was born of horned Jove. Or may you perish hung up, in the manner of captured Achaeus, who, wretched, hung above the gold-bearing water that witnessed it. Or, like the descendant of Achilles, famous by a kindred name, may a tile flung by an enemy hand crush you. May your bones rest no more happily than Pyrrhus’, which lay scattered along the roads of Ambracia. And may you die, like the daughter of Aeacus’ son, by javelins driven home; this rite Ceres is not permitted to disguise. And, like the grandson of the king just named in my song, may you drink the juice of the cantharis-beetle, your own parent serving it. Or may you be called a dutiful adulteress, when slain, just as she was called dutiful by whose avenging hand Leucon fell. And may you fling your dearest into the pyre along with yourself — the end of life that Sardanapallus had. And, like those who set out to defile the temple of Libyan Jove, may the sand driven by the south wind bury your face. And, like those killed by the treachery of the second Darius, may the settling ash devour your mouth.
Utque dedit saltus a summa Thessalus Ossa, Tu quoque saxoso praecipitere iugo. Aut velut Eurylochi, qui sceptrum cepit ab illo, Sint artus avidis anguibus esca tui. Vel tua maturet, sicut Minoia fata, Per caput infusae fervidus umor aquae. Utque parum mitis, sed non impune, Prometheus, Aerias volucres sanguine fixus alas. Aut ut Erecthides, magno ter ab Hercule victus, Caesus in inmensum proiciare fretum. Aut ut Amyntiaden, turpi dilectus amore Oderit, et saevo vulneret ense puer. Nec tibi fida magis misceri pocula possint, Quam qui cornigero de Iove natus erat. More vel intereas capti suspensus Achaei, Qui miser aurifera teste pependit aqua. Aut ut Achilliden, cognato nomine clarum, Opprimat hostili tegula iacta manu. Nec tua quam Pyrrhi felicius ossa quiescant, Sparsa per Ambracias quae iacuere vias. Nataque ut Aeacidae iaculis moriaris adactis; Non licet hoc Cereri dissimulare sacrum. Utque nepos dicti nostro modo carmine regis, Cantharidum sucos dante parente bibas. Aut pia te caeso dicatur adultera, sicut Qua cecidit Leucon vindice, dicta pia est. Inque pyram tecum carissima corpora mittas, Quem finem vitae Sardanapallus habet. Utque Iovis Libyci templum violare parantes, Acta noto vultus condat harena tuos. Utque necatorum Darei fraude secundi, Sic tua subsidens devoret ora cinis.
Or, like the man who once set out from olive-bearing Sicyon, may cold and hunger be the cause of your death. Or, like the man of Atarneus, sewn into an ox’s hide, may you be carried, shameful plunder, to your master. And in your own bedchamber may you be cut down, in the manner of the man of Pherae, who was given to death by his own wife’s sword. And those you think faithful — like Larisaean Aleuas — may you find faithless, by your own wound. And, like Milo, the tyrant under whom Pisa was tormented, may you be flung alive into hidden waters. And the weapons that came from Jove against Adimantus, holding the realm of Phyllos — may they seek you too. Or, like Lenaeus once, from the shores of Amastris, may you be left stripped on Achillean ground. And as Eurydamas was dragged three times around Thrasyllus’ tomb by Larisaean wheels at his enemy’s hand, or as the man who measured with his own body the walls he had often guarded — and measured them not for long — and as the adulterer who suffered a new kind of penalty, the punishment of Hippomenes’ daughter, is dragged over Attic ground: so, when hated life has left your limbs, may avenging horses drag off your foul corpse. So may some crag pierce your entrails, as once the Greek ships were pierced beneath the Euboean bay; and as the fierce ravisher perished both by lightning and by sea, so may fire help the waters that will drown you. And may your mind be driven, witless with Furies, like his who carries a single wound across his whole body; and like the lord of the Rhodopean realm, the son of Dryas, whose dress upon his two feet was left unmatched,
Aut ut olivifera quondam Sicyone profecto, Sit frigus mortis causa famesque tuae. Aut ut Atarnites, insutus pelle iuvenci Turpiter ad dominum praeda ferare tuum. Inque tuo thalamo ritu iugulere Pheraei, Qui datus est leto coniugis ense suae, Quosque putas fidos, ut Larisaeus Aleuas Vulnere non fidos experiare tuo. Utque Milo, sub quo cruciata est Pisa tyranno, Vivus in occultas praecipiteris aquas. Quaeque in Adimantum Phyllesia regna tenentem A Iove venerunt, te quoque tela petant. Aut ut Amastriacis quondam Lenaeus ab oris, Nudus Achillea destituaris humo. Utque vel Eurydamas ter circum busta Thrasylli Est Larisaeis raptus ab hoste rotis, Vel qui, quae fuerat tutatus moenia saepe, Corpore lustravit non diuturna suo, Utque novum passa genus Hippomeneide poenae Tractus in Actaea fertur adulter humo, Sic, ubi vita tuos invisa reliquerit artus, Ultores rapiant turpe cadaver equi. Viscera sic aliquis scopulus tua figat, ut olim Fixa sub Euboico Graia fuere sinu; Utque ferox periit et fulmine et aequore raptor, Sic te mersuras adiuvet ignis aquas. Mens quoque sic furiis vecors agitetur, ut illi, Unum qui toto corpore vulnus habet; Utque Dryantiadae Rhodopeia regna tenenti, In gemino dispar cui pede cultus erat,
like the man of Oeta once, and the son-in-law of the dragons, and the father of Tisamenus, and the husband of Callirhoë. May no wife fall to you more chaste than she at whom Tydeus could blush, his own son’s bride; nor than she who joined her husband’s brother in love, hidden in Locris by the murder of a slave-girl. So too — may the gods grant it — may you delight in a faithful wife, as the son-in-law of Talaus did, and of Tyndareus; and like the Belides, who dared to prepare death for their cousins and now are pressed at the neck by the unending water. May your sister burn for you with the fire of Byblis and of Canace, as she does, and be true to you only through crime. If you have a daughter, may she be what Pelopea was to Thyestes, what Myrrha was to her own father, and Nyctimene to hers. And may she be no more loyal and dear to a parent’s life than his was to Pterelas, or yours, Nisus, to you; or than she who made a place infamous by the name of crime, and crushed her father’s limbs beneath the wheels she drove across them. May you die like the young men whose faces and limbs the gables of the Pisaean gate held aloft; like the man who himself dyed, with his own blood and better dyed, the ground so often drenched with the blood of his wretched suitors; like the charioteer who perished betraying his savage tyrant, and gave a new name to the Myrtoan water; like those who sought the swift girl in vain, while she was made slower by three apples; like those who entered the house that hid the shape of the new monster, the blind dwelling none could return from; like those whose bodies — six others, and six in turn — violent Aeacides sent up onto the pyre; like those whom, beaten by the riddles of an obscure mouth, we read the Sphinx gave over to unspeakable death;
Ut fuit Oetaeo quondam generoque draconum Tisamenique patri Calliroesque viro. Nec tibi contingat matrona pudicior illa, Qua potuit Tydeus erubuisse nuru: Quaeque sui Venerem iunxit cum fratre mariti, Locris in ancillae dissimulata nece. Tam quoque, di faciant, possis gaudere fideli Coniuge, quam Talai Tyndareique gener: Quaeque parare suis letum patruelibus ausae Belides assidua colla premuntur aqua. Byblidos et Canaces, sicut facit, ardeat igne, Nec nisi per crimen sit tibi fida soror. Filia si fuerit, sit quod Pelopea Thyestae, Myrrha suo patri, Nyctimeneque suo. Neve magis pia sit capitique parentis amica, Quam sua vel Pterelae, vel tibi, Nise, fuit: Infamemque locum sceleris quae nomine fecit, Pressit et inductis membra paterna rotis. Ut iuvenes pereas, quorum fastigia vultus Membraque Pisaeae sustinuere foris: Ut qui perfusam miserorum saepe procorum Ipse suo melius sanguine tinxit humum: Proditor ut saevi periit auriga tyranni, Qui nova Myrtoae nomina fecit aquae: Ut qui velocem frustra petiere puellam, Dum facta est pomis tardior illa tribus: Ut qui tecta novi formam celantia monstri Intrarunt caecae non redeunda domus: Ut quorum Aeacides misit violentus in altum Corpora cum senis altera sena rogum: Ut quos, obscuri victos ambagibus oris, Legimus infandae Sphinga dedisse neci:
like those who fell in the temple of Bistonian Minerva, for whose sake even now the goddess’s eyes are veiled; like those who once made the stalls of the Thracian king run bloody with their own banqueting; like those whom the lions of Therodamas felt, and those of the Tauric rites of Thoas’ goddess; like those whom greedy Scylla, and Charybdis facing Scylla, snatched, trembling, from the Dulichian ship; like those whom Polyphemus sent down into his vast belly; like those who fell into the Laestrygonian hands; like those whom the Punic leader plunged into well-water and made the waters white with the dust he threw; like the twice-six handmaids of Icarius’ daughter who perished, and the suitors, and the one who handed arms to the suitors against his master; as the wrestler lies, laid low by his Aonian guest, who — a marvel — was the victor when he had fallen; like those whom the strong arms of Antaeus crushed; and those whom the Lemnian throng gave to a savage death; like the man who, after a long drought — the deviser of an unjust rite — was slain as a victim and drew the rains out of the sky; as the brother of Antaeus dyed his altars with the blood he owed, and fell himself by his own precedents; like the impious man who fed his terrible horses on human flesh in place of grass; like the two cut down by different wounds under the same avenger, Nessus and the son-in-law of Dexamenus; like your great-grandson, Saturn, whom the son of Coronis saw given back his life out of his own city; like Sinis and Sciron and the son of Polypemon; and he who was man in one part of himself, in the other a bullock; and he who used to bend timbers down to the ground and fling them into the air, looking out on the waters of this sea and of that:
Ut qui Bistoniae templo cecidere Minervae, Propter quos acies nunc quoque tecta deae est: Ut qui Threicii quondam praesepia regis Fecerunt dapibus sanguinolenta suis: Therodamanteos ut qui sensere leones, Quique Thoanteae Taurica sacra deae: Ut quos Scylla vorax Scyllaeque adversa Charybdis Dulichiae pavidos eripuere rati: Ut quos demisit vastam Polyphemus in alvum: Ut Laestrygonias qui subiere manus: Ut quos dux Poenus mersit putealibus undis Et iacto canas pulvere fecit aquas: Sex bis ut Icaridos famulae periere procique, Inque caput domini qui dabat arma procis: Ut iacet Aonio luctator ab hospite fusus, Qui, mirum, victor, cum cecidisset, erat: Ut quos Antaei fortes pressere lacerti: Quosque ferae morti Lemnia turba dedit: Ut qui post longum, sacri monstrator iniqui, Elicuit pluvias victima caesus aquas: Frater ut Antaei, quo sanguine debuit, aras Tinxit, et exemplis occidit ipse suis: Ut qui terribiles pro gramen habentibus herbis Impius humano viscere pavit equos: Ut duo diversis sub eodem vindice caesi Vulneribus, Nessus Dexamenique gener: Ut pronepos, Saturne, tuus, quem reddere vitam Urbe Coronides vidit ab ipse sua: Ut Sinis et Sciron et cum Polypemone natus: Quique homo parte sui, parte iuvencus erat: Quique trabes pressas ab humo mittebat in auras, Aequoris aspiciens huius et huius aquas:
and the bodies that Ceres watched perishing, with a glad face, by Theseus’ hand — the bodies undone by Cercyon. These things will come to you — you whom my anger curses with deserved prayers — or evils no lighter than these. Whatever the lot of Achaemenides was, deserted on Sicilian Etna when he saw the Trojan sails come on, and whatever the fortune of two-named Irus was, and of the men who keep the bridge — your hope shall be greater than theirs. May the son of Ceres be loved by you forever in vain, and, ever sought, forever forsake your means; and as, with the wave gliding back in alternate retreats, the soft sand is drawn from beneath the pressing foot, so may your fortune always melt away, I know not how, and, slipping, keep flowing out through the midst of your hands. And, like the father of her who was wont to change her shapes, may you be worn down, full, by an unquenched hunger; nor let there be in you any loathing of human banquets, and in whatever part you can, you will be the Tydeus of this age. And you will do something to make the panicked horses be driven backward again, from the Sun’s setting to his rising; you will seek again the foul banquets of the Lycaonian table, and try to deceive Jove with the trick of the food; and I pray that someone may test the power of your godhead, laid aside: may you be the son of Tantalus, the son of Teleus. And so may your limbs be scattered across the wide fields, like the limbs that once held back a father on his road. In Perillus’ bronze may you imitate real bullocks, with a sound that fits the shape of the bull; and, like fierce Phalaris, your tongue first cut out by the sword, may you groan, shut in the Paphian’s bronze, after the manner of an ox. And while you wish to return to the years of a better age, may you be cheated like Admetus’ aged father-in-law.
Quaeque Ceres laeto vidit pereuntia vultu Corpora Thesea Cercyonea manu. Haec tibi, quem meritis precibus mea devovet ira, Evenient, aut his non leviora malis. Qualis Achaemenidis, Sicula desertus in Aetna Troica cum vidit vela venire, fuit, Qualis erat nec non fortuna binominis Iri, Quique tenent pontem, spe tibi maior erit. Filius et Cereris frustra tibi semper ametur, Destituatque tuas usque petitus opes: Utque per alternos unda labente recursus Subtrahitur presso mollis harena pedi, Sic tua nescio qua semper fortuna liquescat, Lapsaque per medias effluat usque manus. Utque pater solitae varias mutare figuras, Plenus inextincta conficiare fame; Nec dapis humanae tibi sint fastidia; quaque Parte potes, Tydeus temporis huius eris. Atque aliquid facies, a vespere Solis ad ortus Cur externati rursus agantur equi; Foeda Lycaoniae repetes convivia mensae, Temptabisque cibi fallere fraude Iovem; Teque aliquis posito temptet vim numinis opto, Tantalides tu sis, tu Teleique puer. Et tua sic latos spargantur membra per agros, Tamquam quae patrias detinuere vias. Aere Perilleo veros imitere iuvencos, Ad formam tauri conveniente sono. Utque ferox Phalaris, lingua prius ense resecta More bovis Paphio clausus in aere gemas. Dumque redire voles aevi melioris in annos, Ut vetus Admeti decipiare socer.
Or may you, a rider, be plunged into a whirlpool of deep mire, provided no name attaches to your death. And would that you might perish like the Greeks sprung from the teeth sown across the fields by a Sidonian hand. And what the son of Pittheus prayed against the brother of Medusa, let those sinister vows fall upon your head; and the curses by which a bird was doomed in a slender book — the bird that cleanses its own cast-off body with water. May you bear as many wounds as he is said to have borne from whose funeral rites the knife is wont not to be absent. And, struck out of your wits, may you cut, like those whom the Cybelean mother goads, your worthless limbs to Phrygian measures; and out of a man become neither woman nor man, like Attis, and beat the hoarse drums with a soft hand. And may you suddenly be turned into a beast of the Great Mother, as the victor and the vanquished were turned, swift of foot; and lest Limone alone should have felt that penalty, may a horse tear your entrails too with its savage teeth. Or, like the man of Cassandrea, no gentler than that master, may you, wounded, be entombed under earth heaped over you. Or, like the son of Abas, or like the Cycnean hero, may you be flung shut into the waters of the sea. Or be slaughtered, a victim at Phoebus’ sacred altars — the death that Theudotus suffered from a savage foe. Or may Abdera curse you on its appointed days, and stones in their hail seek out the accursed man. Or be struck by the three-forked bolt of a hostile Jove, like the son of Hipponoüs, and the father of Dexithea, like the sister of Autonoë, like him whose aunt was Maia, like him who rashly drove the horses he had wrongly begged for;
Aut eques in medii mergare voragine caeni, Dummodo sint fati nomina nulla tui. Atque utinam pereas, veluti de dentibus orti Sidonia iactis Graia per arva manu. Et quae Pitthides fecit de fratre Medusae, Eveniant capiti vota sinistra tuo: Et quibus exiguo volucris devota libello est, Corpora proiecta quae sua purgat aqua. Vulnera totque feras quot dicitur ille tulisse, Cuius ab inferiis culter abesse solet. Attonitusque seces, ut quos Cybeleia mater Incitat, ad Phrygios vilia membra modos; Deque viro fias nec femina nec vir, ut Attis, Et quatias molli tympana rauca manu. Inque pecus subito Magnae vertare Parentis, Victor ut est celeri victaque versa pede. Solaque Limone poenam ne senserit illam, Et tua dente fero viscera carpat equus. Aut, ut Cassandreus domino non mitior illo, Saucius ingesta contumuleris humo. Aut ut Abantiades, aut ut Cycneius heros, Clausus in aequoreas praecipiteris aquas. Victima vel Phoebo sacras macteris ad aras, Quam tulit a saevo Theudotus hoste necem. Aut te devoveat certis Abdera diebus, Saxaque devotum grandine plura petant. Aut Iovis infesti telo feriare trisulco, Ut satus Hipponoo, Dexitheaeque pater, Ut soror Autonoes, ut cui matertera Maia, Ut temere optatos qui male rexit equos;
like the fierce son of Aeolus, like him born of the same blood as she from whom the Bear was made, the Bear that has no share of the flowing waters, as Macelo was struck, together with her husband, by the swift flames, so, I pray, may you fall by the fire of the heavenly avenger. And may you be prey to those for whom Latona’s Delos was not to be approached before the day Thasos was carried off; and to those who tore apart the man who spied on chaste Diana’s lips, and the son of Crotopus, Linus. And may you be struck by the venomous snake no more lightly than the daughter-in-law of old Oeagrus and Calliope; than the son of Hypsipyle; than the man who first pierced the hollow oak of the suspect horse with his sharp spear-point. And may you climb the high steps no more carefully than Elpenor, and bear the force of wine in the way that he bore it. And may you fall, mastered, like the Dryops who helped inhuman Theiodamas as he called men to arms; like fierce Cacus himself, slaughtered in his own cave, betrayed by the lowing of a cow shut up within; like the man who took the gifts dipped in Nessus’ poison, and dyed the Euboean waters with his own blood. Or may you come down to Tartarus from a sheer rock, like the man who read the Socratic work on death; like the man who saw the deceiving sails of Theseus’ ship, like the boy sent down from the Trojan citadel, like the nurse — and aunt as well — of the tender Bacchus, like him whose cause of death was the saw he had invented; as the bruise-dark girl threw herself from the high crags, who had spoken evil words against the unconquered god. May a pregnant lioness meet you, a fellow-countrywoman, in your native field, and be the cause of your death, as one was of Phalaecus’; and may the boar that killed the son of Lycurgus, and the tree-born child, and bold Idmon, burst you open too. And, though lifeless, may it deal you a wound, as it dealt one to him who fell upon the tusks of the beast he had pinned. Or may you be the same — the Phrygian and the hunter, son of Berecyntus, whom a pine destroyed by a like death. If your ship reaches the Minoan sands, may the Cretan throng take you for a Corcyrean.
Ut ferus Aeolides, ut sanguine natus eodem, Quo genita est liquidis quae caret Arctos aquis, Ut Macelo rapidis icta est cum coniuge flammis, Sic, precor, aetherii vindicis igne cadas. Praedaque sis illis, quibus est Latonia Delos Ante diem rapto non adeunda Thaso: Quique verecundae speculantem labra Dianae, Quique Crotopiaden diripuere Linum. Neve venenato levius feriaris ab angue, Quam senis Oeagri Calliopesque nurus: Quam puer Hypsipyles, quam qui cava primus acuta Cuspide suspecti robora fixit equi. Neve gradus adeas Elpenore cautius altos, Vimque feras vini quo tulit ille modo. Tamque cadas domitus, quam quisquis ad arma vocantem Iuvit inhumanum Thiodamanta Dryops: Quam ferus ipse suo periit mactatus in antro Proditus inclusae Cacus ab ore bovis: Quam qui dona tulit Nesseo tincta veneno, Euboicasque suo sanguine tinxit aquas. Vel de praecipiti venias in Tartara saxo, Ut qui Socraticum de nece legit opus; Ut qui Theseae fallacia vela carinae Vidit, ut Iliaca missus ab arce puer, Ut teneri nutrix, eadem matertera, Bacchi, Ut cui causa necis serra reperta fuit; Livida se scopulis ut virgo misit ab altis, Dixerat invicto quae mala verba deo. Feta tibi occurrat patrio popularis in arvo, Sitque Phalaeceae causa leaena necis. Quique Lycurgiden letavit, et arbore natum, Idmonaque audacem, te quoque rumpat aper. Isque vel exanimis faciat tibi vulnus, ut illi, Ora super fixi quem cecidere suis. Sive idem, simili pinus quem morte peremit, Phryx ac venator sis Berecyntiades. Si tua contigerit Minoas puppis harenas, Te Corcyraeum Cressia turba putet.
And may you go beneath a house about to fall, as the blood of Aleuas did, when the star of Leoprepes’ son stood even with Jove’s. And, like Evenus, sunk in a torrential river, may you give your name to a rushing water — or, like Tiberinus. And, in the manner of the son of Astacus, his trunk lopped from the corpse, may your head, fit for wild beasts, be a man’s food; and what they say Broteas did from a longing for death, may you give your limbs to be burned on a kindled pyre. And, shut in a cage, may you suffer death, like that man, the author of a history that would do no good. And as the inventor of the combative iambic was harmed by it, so let your insolent tongue be your destruction. And like the man who wounded Athenis with too unsteady a verse, may you perish, hated, with your food failing. And as the bard of the stern lyre is said to have perished, let a wounded right hand be the cause of your destruction. And as the snake gave a wound to Agamemnon’s Orestes, may you too fall from a bite that holds its venom. May the first night of your marriage be the last of your life: thus Eupolis perished, and his new bride. And as they tell that buskined Lycophron perished, may an arrow stick fixed in your flesh. Or may you be scattered, torn in the wood by the hands of your own, as the man with a snake for an ancestor was scattered at Thebes. And through wild mountains may you be dragged by a tugging bull, as the imperious wife of Lycus was dragged. And what the unwilling rival of her own sister suffered, may your tongue, cut off, fall before your feet. Like the founder of slow Myrrha, wounded by a surname, may you be found in the city’s countless places. And in your eyes may the bee plant its hurtful stings, the thing it did to the Achaean bard.
Lapsuramque domum subeas, ut sanguis Aleuae, Stella Leoprepidae cum fuit aequa Iovis. Utque vel Evenus, torrenti flumine mersus Nomina des rapidae, vel Tiberinus, aquae. Astacidaeque modo decisa cadavere trunco, Digna feris, hominis sit caput esca tuum, Quodque ferunt Brotean fecisse cupidine mortis, Des tua succensae membra cremanda pyrae. Inclususque necem cavea patiaris, ut ille Non profecturae conditor historiae. Utque repertori nocuit pugnacis iambi, Sic sit in exitium lingua proterva tuum. Utque parum stabili qui carmine laesit Athenin, Invisus pereas deficiente cibo. Utque lyrae vates fertur periisse severae, Causa sit exitii dextera laesa tui. Utque Agamemnonio vulnus dedit anguis Orestae, Tu quoque de morsu virus habente cadas. Sit tibi coniugii nox prima novissima vitae: Eupolis hoc periit et nova nupta modo. Utque coturnatum periisse Lycophrona narrant, Haereat in fibris fixa sagitta tuis. Aut lacer in silva manibus spargare tuorum, Sparsus ut est Thebis angue creatus avo. Perque feros montes tauro rapiente traharis, Ut tracta est coniunx imperiosa Lyci. Quodque suae passa est paelex invita sororis, Excidat ante pedes lingua resecta tuos. Conditor ut tardae, laesus cognomine, Myrrhae, Urbis in innumeris inveniare locis. Inque tuis opifex, vati quod fecit Achaeo, Noxia luminibus spicula condat apis.
And, pinned upon hard rocks, may your entrails be torn, like his whose own daughter was the daughter of his brother. Like the boy, son of Harpagus, may you repeat the example of Thyestes, and pass, slaughtered, into the entrails of your own father. May you bear stumps, your parts mutilated by a savage sword, such as they say the limbs of Mamertas were. Or, like the Syracusan poet, your throat first throttled, so may the road of your breath be closed by a noose. Or, the skin stripped off, may your entrails lie bare, like his whose name a Phrygian river bears. Unlucky, may you look on the face of stone-making Medusa, who alone gave many of the Cephenes to death. May you undergo the bite of the Potnian mares, like Glaucus, and leap into the waters of the sea, like the other Glaucus. And, like the man who bore one and the same name said twice, may Cnossian honey choke the passage of your breath. And may you drink in anguish what once the most learned defendant prosecuted by Anytus drank with an untroubled mouth. And may nothing you love turn out for you more happily than for Haemon: as Macareus had his own, so may you have yours. Or may you see what, when the flames already held everything, the Hectorean boy saw from his father’s citadel. May you wash out your shame in blood, like him begotten by his own grandfather as father, for whom his sister was made, by a crime, his mother. And in your bones may that kind of weapon stick by which the son-in-law of Icarius is handed down to have fallen. And as the chattering throat was crushed in the maple horse, so may the road of your voice be shut off by a thumb. Or, like Anaxarchus, may you be pounded small in a deep mortar, and may your bones, struck, ring out in place of the accustomed grain. And, like the father of Psamathe, may Phoebus sink you into the deepest Tartarus — the very thing that man had done to his own daughter.
Fixus et in duris carparis viscera saxis, Ut cui Pyrrha sui filia fratris erat. Ut puer Harpagides referas exempla Thyestae, Inque tui caesus viscera patris eas. Trunca geras saevo mutilatis partibus ense, Qualia Mamertae membra fuisse ferunt. Utve Syracosio praestricta fauce poetae, Sic animae laqueo sit via clausa tuae. Nudave derepta pateant tua viscera pelle, Ut Phrygium cuius nomina flumen habet. Saxificae videas infelix ora Medusae, Cephenum multos quae dedit una neci. Potniadum morsus subeas, ut Glaucus, equarum, Inque maris salias, Glaucus ut alter, aquas. Utque duobus idem dictis modo nomen habenti, Praefocent animae Cnosia mella viam. Sollicitoque bibas, Anyti doctissimus olim Imperturbato quod bibit ore reus. Nec tibi, siquid amas, felicius Haemone cedat: Utque sua Macareus, sic potiare tua. Vel videas quod, iam cum flammae cuncta tenerent, Hectoreus patria vidit ab arce puer. Sanguine probra luas, ut avo genitore creatus, Per facinus soror est cui sua facta parens. Ossibus inque tuis teli genus haereat illud, Traditur Icarii quo cecidisse gener. Utque loquax in equo est elisum guttur acerno, Sic tibi claudatur pollice vocis iter. Aut ut Anaxarchus pila minuaris in alta, Ictaque pro solitis frugibus ossa sonent. Utque patrem Psamathes, condat te Phoebus in ima Tartara, quod natae fecerat ille suae.
And may that plague come upon yours which the right hand of Coroebus overcame, and brought aid to the wretched Argives. And, like the grandson of Aethra, doomed to die through Venus’ anger, an exile, may you be flung from panicked horses. As a host once destroyed his ward for the sake of great wealth, may your own host destroy you for the sake of a little. And as they say the six brothers were slain together with Damasichthon, so may your whole line perish along with you. As the lyre-player added his own death to his wretched sons, so may there be a just weariness of your life. Or, like the sister of Pelops, may you be hardened by a rock that springs up, as Battus was, harmed by his own tongue. If you hurl the empty air with a flung discus, may you fall, like the Oebalian boy, struck by the disk. If any wave is beaten by your alternating arms, may every water be worse for you than the Abydene. As the comic poet perished while he swam in the clear waters, so may the Stygian flood strangle your mouth. Or, when shipwrecked you have come through the windy sea, may you perish, like Palinurus, on the land you touch at.
Inque tuos ea pestis eat, quam dextra Coroebi Vicit, opem miseris Argolisinque tulit. Utque nepos Aethrae, Veneris moriturus ob iram, Exul ab attonitis excutiaris equis. Propter opes magnas ut perdidit hospes alumnum, Perdat ob exiguas te tuus hospes opes. Utque ferunt caesos sex cum Damasicthone fratres, Intereat tecum sic genus omne tuum. Addidit ut fidicen miseris sua funera natis, Sic tibi sint vitae taedia iusta tuae. Utve soror Pelopis, saxo dureris oborto, Ut laesus lingua Battus ab ipse sua. Aera si misso vacuum iaculabere disco, Quo puer Oebalides, ictus ab orbe cadas. Siqua per alternos pulsabitur unda lacertos, Omnis Abydena sit tibi peior aqua. Comicus ut liquidis periit, dum nabat, in undis, Et tua sic Stygius strangulet ora liquor. Aut ubi ventosum superaris naufragus aequor, Contacta pereas, ut Palinurus, humo.
And, like the buskined bard under Diana’s protection, may a pack of watchdogs tear you apart as well. Or, like a Trinacrian, may you leap upon the giant’s face, where Sicanian Etna spews out the most flames. And may the Strymonian mothers rend your limbs with frenzied nails, thinking you to be Orpheus. As the son of Althaea burned with the flames far off, so may your pyre catch fire from the burning of a brand. As the new bride was caught in the Phasian crown, and the bride’s father, and, with the father, the house; as the gore spread and soaked into Hercules’ limbs: so may a pestilent venom eat your body. With the wound by which his offspring avenged Lycurgus, son of Pentheus, may that blow of a new weapon await you too. And, like Milo, may you try to pull apart the cleft oak, and not be able to draw your caught hands back out of it. And may you be harmed by your own gifts, like Icarus, against whom a drunken throng laid armed hands. And the thing a dutiful daughter did from grief at her father’s death, make the bonds of a noose go round your throat. And may you suffer hunger with the threshold of the house barred, like her to whom her own parent gave the law of her punishment. By the example of him who turned his light course from the harbor of Aulis, may you defile the images of Minerva; or, in the manner of Nauplius’ son, may you pay the penalty for a false charge with death — and may it not console you that you did not deserve it. As an Isindian host stripped Aethalus of his life, the host whom, mindful, Ion even now drives from the rites; as his own parent betrayed Melanthus, hiding in the dark after the slaughter, by the service of her light: so may your entrails be pierced by hurled weapons, so, I pray, may you be hampered by your own helpers.
Utque coturnatum vatem tutela Dianae, Dilaniet vigilum te quoque turba canum. Aut ut Trinacrius salias super ora gigantis, Plurima qua flammas Sicanis Aetna vomit. Diripiantque tuos insanis unguibus artus Strymoniae matres, Orpheos esse ratae. Natus ut Althaeae flammis absentibus arsit, Sic tuus ardescat stipitis igne rogus. Ut nova Phasiaca comprensa est nupta corona, Utque pater nuptae, cumque parente domus; Ut cruor Herculeos abiit diffusus in artus; Corpora pestiferum sic tua virus edat. Qua sua Penteliden proles est ulta Lycurgum, Haec maneat teli te quoque plaga novi. Utque Milo robur diducere fissile temptes, Nec possis captas inde referre manus. Muneribusque tuis laedaris, ut Icarus, in quem Intulit armatas ebria turba manus. Quodque dolore necis patriae pia filia fecit, Vincula per laquei fac tibi guttur eat. Obstructoque famem patiaris limine tecti, Ut legem poenae cui dedit ipsa parens. Illius exemplo violes simulacra Minervae, Aulidis a portu qui leve vertit iter. Naupliadaeve modo poenas pro crimine falso Morte luas, nec te non meruisse iuvet. Aethalon ut vita spoliavit Isindius hospes, Quem memor a sacris nunc quoque pellit Ion: Utque Melanthea tenebris a caede latentem Prodidit officio luminis ipsa parens: Sic tua coniectis fodiantur viscera telis, Sic precor auxiliis impediare tuis.
Such a night as the one when the horses brave Achilles drove were carried off, by the dealing of a fearful Phrygian — may such a night go for you. And may you rest in no better sleep than Rhesus, than the companions of Rhesus, killed then, on the road before; than those whom, with the Rutulian Ramnes, they gave to death, the tireless son of Hyrtacus and his comrade. Or, like the son of Clinias, ringed about with black fires, may you carry your limbs, half-burned, to a Stygian death. And as for Remus, who dared to cross the new-built walls, may a countryman’s weapons be deadly to your head. In short, among the Sarmatian and the Getic arrows, in these places, I pray, may you live and die. Let these, for now, be sent to you in a hasty book, lest you complain that I am forgetful of you. Few, I confess; but may the gods grant more than I have asked, and multiply my vows with their favor. Later you will read more, and verses that hold a true name, and in the foot in which bitter wars ought to be waged.
Qualis equos pacto, quos fortis agebat Achilles, Acta Phrygi timido, nox tibi talis eat. Nec tu quam Rhesus somno meliore quiescas, Quam comites Rhesi tum necis, ante viae; Quam quos cum Rutulo morti Ramnete dederunt Impiger Hyrtacides Hyrtacidaeque comes. Cliniadaeve modo circumdatus ignibus atris Membra feras Stygiae semicremata neci. Utque Remo muros auso transire recentes, Noxia sint capiti rustica tela tuo. Denique Sarmaticas inter Geticasque sagittas His precor ut vivas et moriare locis. Haec tibi tantisper subito sint missa libello, Inmemores ne nos esse querare tui. Pauca quidem, fateor: sed di dent plura rogatis, Multiplicentque suo vota favore mea. Postmodo plura leges et nomen habentia verum, Et pede quo debent acria bella geri.