Can I console my soul wi' the helpful love of a helpmate
Who flies me with pliant oars, flies overbounding the sea-depths?
Who flies me with pliant oars, flies overbounding the sea-depths?
Catullus - Carmina
155
What manner Syrt, what ravening Scylla, what vasty Charybdis?
Thou who for sweet life saved such meeds art lief of returning!
If never willed thy breast with me to mate thee in marriage,
Hating the savage law decreed by primitive parent,
Still of your competence 'twas within your household to home me, 160
Where I might serve as slave in gladsome service familiar,
Laving thy snow-white feet in clearest chrystalline waters
Or with its purpling gear thy couch in company strewing.
Yet for what cause should I 'plain in vain to the winds that unknow me,
(I so beside me with grief! ) which ne'er of senses endued 165
Hear not the words sent forth nor aught avail they to answer?
Now be his course well-nigh engaged in midway of ocean,
Nor any mortal shape appears in barrens of seawrack.
Thus at the latest hour with insults over-sufficient
E'en to my plaints fere Fate begrudges ears that would hear me. 170
Jupiter! Lord of All-might, Oh would in days that are bygone
Ne'er had Cecropian poops toucht ground at Gnossian foreshore,
Nor to th' unconquered Bull that tribute direful conveying
Had the false Seaman bound to Cretan island his hawser,
Nor had yon evil wight, 'neath shape the softest hard purpose 175
Hiding, enjoyed repose within our mansion beguested!
Whither can wend I now? What hope lends help to the lost one?
Idomenean mounts shall I scale? Ah, parted by whirlpools
Widest, yon truculent main where yields it power of passage?
Aid of my sire can I crave? Whom I willing abandoned, 180
Treading in tracks of a youth bewrayed with blood of a brother!
Can I console my soul wi' the helpful love of a helpmate
Who flies me with pliant oars, flies overbounding the sea-depths?
Nay, an this Coast I quit, this lone isle lends me no roof-tree,
Nor aught issue allows begirt by billows of Ocean: 185
Nowhere is path for flight: none hope shows: all things are silent:
All be a desolate waste: all makes display of destruction.
Yet never close these eyne in latest languor of dying,
Ne'er from my wearied frame go forth slow-ebbing my senses,
Ere from the Gods just doom implore I, treason-betrayed, 190
And with my breath supreme firm faith of Celestials invoke I.
Therefore, O ye who 'venge man's deed with penalties direful,
Eumenides! aye wont to bind with viperous hair-locks
Foreheads,--Oh, deign outspeak fierce wrath from bosom outbreathing,
Hither, Oh hither, speed, and lend ye all ear to my grievance, 195
Which now sad I (alas! ) outpour from innermost vitals
Maugre my will, sans help, blind, fired with furious madness.
And, as indeed all spring from veriest core of my bosom,
Suffer ye not the cause of grief and woe to evanish;
But wi' the Will wherewith could Theseus leave me in loneness, 200
Goddesses! bid that Will lead him, lead his, to destruction. "
E'en as she thus poured forth these words from anguish of bosom,
And for this cruel deed, distracted, sued she for vengeance,
Nodded the Ruler of Gods Celestial, matchless of All-might,
When at the gest earth-plain and horrid spaces of ocean 205
Trembled, and every sphere rockt stars and planets resplendent.
Meanwhile Theseus himself, obscured in blindness of darkness
As to his mind, dismiss'd from breast oblivious all things
Erewhile enjoined and held hereto in memory constant,
Nor for his saddened sire the gladness-signals uphoisting 210
Heralded safe return within sight of the Erechthean harbour.
For 'twas told of yore, when from walls of the Virginal Deess
AEgeus speeding his son, to the care of breezes committed,
Thus with a last embrace to the youth spake words of commandment:
"Son! far nearer my heart (sole thou) than life of the longest, 215
Son, I perforce dismiss to doubtful, dangerous chances,
Lately restored to me when eld draws nearest his ending,
Sithence such fortune in me, and in thee such boiling of valour
Tear thee away from me so loath, whose eyne in their languor
Never are sated with sight of my son, all-dearest of figures. 220
Nor will I send thee forth with joy that gladdens my bosom,
Nor will I suffer thee show boon signs of favouring Fortune,
But fro' my soul I'll first express an issue of sorrow,
Soiling my hoary hairs with dust and ashes commingled;
Then will I hang stained sails fast-made to the wavering yard-arms, 225
So shall our mourning thought and burning torture of spirit
Show by the dark sombre-dye of Iberian canvas spread.
But, an grant me the grace Who dwells in Sacred Itone,
(And our issue to guard and ward the seats of Erechtheus
Sware She) that be thy right besprent with blood of the Man-Bull, 230
Then do thou so-wise act, and stored in memory's heart-core
Dwell these mandates of me, no time their traces untracing.
Dip, when first shall arise our hills to gladden thy eye-glance,
Down from thine every mast th'ill-omened vestments of mourning,
Then let the twisten ropes upheave the whitest of canvas, 235
Wherewith splendid shall gleam the tallest spars of the top-mast, 235b
These seeing sans delay with joy exalting my spirit
Well shall I wot boon Time sets thee returning before me. "
Such were the mandates which stored at first in memory constant
Faded from Theseus' mind like mists, compelled by the whirlwind,
Fleet from aerial crests of mountains hoary with snow-drifts.
What manner Syrt, what ravening Scylla, what vasty Charybdis?
Thou who for sweet life saved such meeds art lief of returning!
If never willed thy breast with me to mate thee in marriage,
Hating the savage law decreed by primitive parent,
Still of your competence 'twas within your household to home me, 160
Where I might serve as slave in gladsome service familiar,
Laving thy snow-white feet in clearest chrystalline waters
Or with its purpling gear thy couch in company strewing.
Yet for what cause should I 'plain in vain to the winds that unknow me,
(I so beside me with grief! ) which ne'er of senses endued 165
Hear not the words sent forth nor aught avail they to answer?
Now be his course well-nigh engaged in midway of ocean,
Nor any mortal shape appears in barrens of seawrack.
Thus at the latest hour with insults over-sufficient
E'en to my plaints fere Fate begrudges ears that would hear me. 170
Jupiter! Lord of All-might, Oh would in days that are bygone
Ne'er had Cecropian poops toucht ground at Gnossian foreshore,
Nor to th' unconquered Bull that tribute direful conveying
Had the false Seaman bound to Cretan island his hawser,
Nor had yon evil wight, 'neath shape the softest hard purpose 175
Hiding, enjoyed repose within our mansion beguested!
Whither can wend I now? What hope lends help to the lost one?
Idomenean mounts shall I scale? Ah, parted by whirlpools
Widest, yon truculent main where yields it power of passage?
Aid of my sire can I crave? Whom I willing abandoned, 180
Treading in tracks of a youth bewrayed with blood of a brother!
Can I console my soul wi' the helpful love of a helpmate
Who flies me with pliant oars, flies overbounding the sea-depths?
Nay, an this Coast I quit, this lone isle lends me no roof-tree,
Nor aught issue allows begirt by billows of Ocean: 185
Nowhere is path for flight: none hope shows: all things are silent:
All be a desolate waste: all makes display of destruction.
Yet never close these eyne in latest languor of dying,
Ne'er from my wearied frame go forth slow-ebbing my senses,
Ere from the Gods just doom implore I, treason-betrayed, 190
And with my breath supreme firm faith of Celestials invoke I.
Therefore, O ye who 'venge man's deed with penalties direful,
Eumenides! aye wont to bind with viperous hair-locks
Foreheads,--Oh, deign outspeak fierce wrath from bosom outbreathing,
Hither, Oh hither, speed, and lend ye all ear to my grievance, 195
Which now sad I (alas! ) outpour from innermost vitals
Maugre my will, sans help, blind, fired with furious madness.
And, as indeed all spring from veriest core of my bosom,
Suffer ye not the cause of grief and woe to evanish;
But wi' the Will wherewith could Theseus leave me in loneness, 200
Goddesses! bid that Will lead him, lead his, to destruction. "
E'en as she thus poured forth these words from anguish of bosom,
And for this cruel deed, distracted, sued she for vengeance,
Nodded the Ruler of Gods Celestial, matchless of All-might,
When at the gest earth-plain and horrid spaces of ocean 205
Trembled, and every sphere rockt stars and planets resplendent.
Meanwhile Theseus himself, obscured in blindness of darkness
As to his mind, dismiss'd from breast oblivious all things
Erewhile enjoined and held hereto in memory constant,
Nor for his saddened sire the gladness-signals uphoisting 210
Heralded safe return within sight of the Erechthean harbour.
For 'twas told of yore, when from walls of the Virginal Deess
AEgeus speeding his son, to the care of breezes committed,
Thus with a last embrace to the youth spake words of commandment:
"Son! far nearer my heart (sole thou) than life of the longest, 215
Son, I perforce dismiss to doubtful, dangerous chances,
Lately restored to me when eld draws nearest his ending,
Sithence such fortune in me, and in thee such boiling of valour
Tear thee away from me so loath, whose eyne in their languor
Never are sated with sight of my son, all-dearest of figures. 220
Nor will I send thee forth with joy that gladdens my bosom,
Nor will I suffer thee show boon signs of favouring Fortune,
But fro' my soul I'll first express an issue of sorrow,
Soiling my hoary hairs with dust and ashes commingled;
Then will I hang stained sails fast-made to the wavering yard-arms, 225
So shall our mourning thought and burning torture of spirit
Show by the dark sombre-dye of Iberian canvas spread.
But, an grant me the grace Who dwells in Sacred Itone,
(And our issue to guard and ward the seats of Erechtheus
Sware She) that be thy right besprent with blood of the Man-Bull, 230
Then do thou so-wise act, and stored in memory's heart-core
Dwell these mandates of me, no time their traces untracing.
Dip, when first shall arise our hills to gladden thy eye-glance,
Down from thine every mast th'ill-omened vestments of mourning,
Then let the twisten ropes upheave the whitest of canvas, 235
Wherewith splendid shall gleam the tallest spars of the top-mast, 235b
These seeing sans delay with joy exalting my spirit
Well shall I wot boon Time sets thee returning before me. "
Such were the mandates which stored at first in memory constant
Faded from Theseus' mind like mists, compelled by the whirlwind,
Fleet from aerial crests of mountains hoary with snow-drifts.
