Ariadne, a poem by Catullus, translated from the Latin
They say Mount Pelion’s topmost pines
once swam the great sea’s fluent waves
when the chosen, toughest young men of Greece,
hoping they could steal the golden fleece,
dared go the ocean in a quick ship,
raking the dark blue water plains with fir-tree oars.
For them the goddess who holds the Acropolis
hill-topping high Athens
herself invented that water chariot
zooming on the lightest breeze. She assembled
the piney woodwork of the curving keel.
The speed of that first ship was
education to Amphitrite — then still a naive
young brine-goddess.
Pallas built that yacht whose beakish prow
ploughed up the plains of windy sea —
the waters wrenched by oarage foamed white and spit glitter.
Suddenly nymphs of the waves raised their faces
clear of the twinkling flood,
surprised by this sea-monster.
Then and only then did mortals see by daylight
the daughters of Nereus all naked,
standing up to their breasts in the whirling silver.
Then, they say, Peleus ignited
with love for Thetis, who, for her part,
didn’t scorn a mortal marriage. Even her father
judged they should join.
Heroes, born in that most desirable time of all the ages,
my chants will summon up all of you
often, and especially you, uniquely greatened
by the blaze of your wedding torches, all-fortunate Peleus.
Jupiter’d wanted Thetis for himself, but the father of the gods
yielded her to you, defender of Thessaly.
Thetis accepted you, Tethys and Oceanus,
who include the whole disk of earth in a fluid embrace,
let you lead their granddaughter away.
The wanted time came, all Thessaly crowded
the house, the palace was choked with partying
glad-faced people holding out gifts. The town of Cierum
was derelict, they evacuated the vale of Tempe,
the homes of Crannon, Larissa’s walls:
everyone came to pack Pharsalus.
No farming got done, no curved rakes lopped
the ground clear of low-trailing vines, no bull
pulled gouging plough downfield,
tearing up the soil in clods.
No pruning hook thinned tree-shade,
ploughshares left lying roughened with rust.
But the glorious chambers of Peleus’ residence
silver-flashed and gold-glared. Every door opened
on a vista of room after rich room receding
into magnificent distance. Throney chairs
glittered white ivory, goblets splashed reflected light
across altarly tables. Glistening
with royal treasure, the whole house joyed. Amid the seats was the sacred marriage-couch of the goddess,
shaped and smoothed from Indian tusk,
draped with fabric saturate in richest red
then tapestried over with joltingly skillful
images of heroes.
You could see Ariadne on the shore of Naxos,
in the tideline’s watery noise,
staring out after Theseus, who falls away
into a vanish, ferried out of sight
by no slow boat. She stands there, madness
building up inside her, not believing
she’s really seeing this — she’s just then waking
from her cheating sleep, and starting
to comprehend she’s been ditched, left sorrow-sick
on the blank unpeopled sand.
The young man of memory conveniently weak
fled, his oars beating back the waves, his meaningless promises blown in the storm, words in the wind.
The daughter of royal Minos, standing in the seaweed,
looks out after him with sad sweet eyes,
staring, rigid, looking like that famous
statue of the Bacchante stunned by the god.
The sea-breeze doffs her gauzy turban,
her dress falls delicate down from shoulder,
frees her firm little breasts,
then everything slips from her body, and the waves roll up to touch.
Poor girl, Venus made you crazy with nonstop tortures of love
ever since Theseus left the sweep of his home shores
and came to a harsh king’s Crete.
A godsent plague had made Athens agree
to pay for having killed a Cretan prince.
They sent a yearly gift of boys and girls
to be Minotaur’s dinner. Athens’ walls narrowed
on the people so sadly harassed.
Then Theseus chanced his own adventurous body
so his friends wouldn’t have a monster’s belch
for a funeral oration. He pushed off in a light boat
on a gentle wind, came to tyrant Minos’s castle.
Fourteen-years-old, perfumey and warm
from her mother’s lap, the royal daughter saw him
and her eye-beams lit. Before she could look down
or turn away, Love seared into her
like a branding iron. The damned, the holy
Thief of Hearts, who mingles our anxieties
with joy, made her moan under her breath
and shiver for the yellow-haired stranger.
And she paled like the gleam on gold
when she learned he’d come courting glory or death
from her brother the monster.
Silent prayers and promises rose from her lips to the gods like incense
— sweet and useless. Nothing could stop
the hero’s and the Minotaur’s collision.
And the Minotaur fell, like a wide-branching oak
or a pitch-sweating pine atop Mount Taurus,
twisted back and ripped out in the whoosh
of a storm wind spinning insane;
all its wooden roots yanked from the ground,
it crashes headlong, busting up forest
and snapping off boughs far around. Thus Theseus
decked that bullbrowed psychopath, beat
that huge brutal body down, goring
only air with its horns. The hero turned back,
big with glory, through the Labyrinth’s
mixed-up paths unerrored on the trail of thread he’d left.
Then Ariadne shipped with him to Naxos’
wave-sprayed shore, but he did a quick dissolve as soon as sleep put out her lights.
Many times in heart’s madness she emptied her chest
in clear loud calls and cries. She climbed
the steep rough mountains to plunge her gaze
over the open sea’s flowing tremendous desert,
then she ran down and right out into it,
holding up her fine soft skirts. The slapping waves softly burst brine against her knees. Wetfaced with tears,
gasping out cold sobs, she told it,
“You took me away from my father, my house,
the altars of my gods, just so you could lose me
on the first empty shore? I believed your fawning voice,
I doomed my brother by helping you.
Did a lioness in labor drop you in the desert?
Did the sea spit you out? Did you swim up into existence
from a pool of quicksand? This is how you pay back
the rescue of your life?
At least you could have let me trail after you!
I’d have been a happy slave to wash your feet,
only to make up your purple-quilted bed.
Now you’re out in mid-ocean, I’m on the beachhead of nowhere.
I wish you’d never come to Crete, bringing the bull
terrible tribute. I’m oceaned off from everyone.
If I could leave now, would I go home —
to be the guest of honor at my brother’s funeral?
Maybe follow my lover, now bending his ship’s tough oars
against the ocean to get away from me?
Furies, snake-haired punishers of men, bring my pain to him!”
She said. Jove heard. The universe nodded assent,
disheveling sea, lurching earth, flickering all the stars.
Then Theseus forgot the glad flag he promised his father.
Before yielding Theseus to negotiate winds
on the god-built ship, his royal father said,
“My son, whom I meet for the first time only now when I’m already old,
do I have to risk never seeing you again, do you have to try this adventure?
My luck and your courage have joined to rob me of you
— my eyes are still hungry for the sight of your face.
I cannot gladly let you go, I’ll rub dirt and dust in my hair for a mourning
and hang black sails on the boat that takes you from me.
Athena help you butcher the bull! Remember when you see the home hills,
show you’re safe. Raise white sails.”
But Theseus’s promise left him like a blown cloud quits a mountain-top.
His father looked, saw dark sails, jumped the cliff of despair.
Brave Theseus was home for the funeral, the daughter of Minos avenged.
But even then Bacchus was coming with Silenus and the pack of satyrs,
Bacchus came for you, Ariadne, in love with you!
Running insane, the bacchantes turned heads and howled,
waved wands and bloody limbs of cows torn up alive.
Some held in baskets the cult’s secret emblems — which the uninitiate would love to hear about —
they thumped their drums, blew hoarse buzzing trumpets,
raised a delicate jingle of brassy chimes,
while barbarian flutes shrilled sweet horrible tunes . . .
This translation has since been published in the book Devil Girls of Ancient Rome