Ovid:
Fasti
Book Four
Translated
by A. S. Kline © 2004 All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
Contents
Book IV: April 4
The Megalesian Festival of Cybele
Book IV: April 12:
The Games of Ceres
Book IV: April 15:
The Fordicidia
Book IV: April 19:
The Cerialia
Book IV: April 21:
The Parilia
Book IV: April 23:
The Vinalia
Book IV: April 25:
The Robigalia
Book IV: April 28:
The Floralia
‘Kindly mother of the
twin Cupids, favour me!’ I said.
She glanced back
towards her poet: ‘Why do you
Need me?’ she said.
‘Surely, you sing greater themes.
Have you some old
wound lingering in your heart?’
‘Goddess, ‘ I replied,
‘you know my wound.’ She laughed,
And the sky
immediately cleared in her direction.
‘Hurt or whole have I
ever deserted your cause?
You were always my
intent and my labour.
As was fitting in my
youth, innocently I played,
And now my horses
sweep out a wider field:
From ancient texts I
sing the days and reasons,
And the star-signs
that rise and set, beneath the Earth.
I’ve reached the
fourth month, where you’re most honoured,
And you know, Venus, both month and poet are
yours.’
The goddess, moved,
touching my brow lightly
With Cytherean myrtle, said: ‘Finish what
you’ve begun.’
I was inspired, and
suddenly knew the origins of days:
Sail, my boat, while
you can, while the breezes blow.
If there’s any part of
the calendar that might stir you,
Caesar, in April you’ll find what
should interest you.
This month you inherit
from a mighty lineage,
Yours by adoption into
a noble house.
When Romulus established the length of
the year,
He recognised this,
and commemorated your sires:
And as he granted
first place among months to fierce Mars,
Being the immediate
cause of his own existence,
So he granted the
second month to Venus,
Tracing his descent
from her through many generations:
Searching for the
roots of his race, unwinding the rolls
Of the centuries, he
came at last to his divine kin.
He couldn’t be
ignorant that Electra daughter of Atlas
Bore Dardanus, that Electra had slept
with Jove.
From Dardanus came Ericthonius, and from himTros:
He in turn produced Assaracus, and Assaracus Capys.
Next was Anchises, with whom Venus
Didn’t disdain to
share the name of parent.
From them came Aeneas, whose piety was seen, carrying
Holy things, and a
father as holy, on his shoulders, through the fire.
Now at last we come to
the fortunate name of Iulus,
Through whom the Julian
house claims Teucrian ancestors.
Postumus was his, called Silvius among the Latin
Race, being born in
the depth of the woods.
He was your father, Latinus. Alba followed Latinus:
Epytus was next to take your titles
Alba.
Epytus gave his son Capys a Trojan name,
And the same was your
grandfather Calpetus.
When Tiberinus ruled his father’s
kingdom after him,
It’s said he drowned
in a deep pool of the Tuscan river.
But before that he saw
the birth of a son Agrippa,
And a grandson Remulus, who was struck by lightning.
Aventinus followed them, from whom the
place and the hill
Took their name. After
him the realm passed to Proca.
He was succeeded by Numitor, brother to harsh Amulius.
Ilia and Lausus were then the children of Numitor.
Lausus fell to his
uncle’s sword: Ilia pleased Mars,
And bore you Quirinus, and your brother Remus.
You always claimed
your parents were Mars and Venus,
And deserved to be
believed when you said so:
And you granted
successive months to your race’s gods,
So your descendants
might not be in ignorance of the truth.
But I think the month
of Venus took its title
From the Greek: she
was named after the sea-foam.
Nor is it any wonder
it was called by a Greek name,
Since the land of
Italy was Greater Greece.
Evander had reached here with ships
full of his people:
Alcides had arrived, both Greek by race.
(A club-bearing guest
fed his cattle on Aventine grass,
And one of the great
gods drank from the Albula):
Ulysses, the Neritian leader, also
arrived: witness
The Laestrygones, and the shore that
bears Circe’s name.
Telegonus’s walls were already
standing, and the walls
Of damp Tibur, constructed by Greek hands.
Halaesus had come, spurred by the
fate of the Atrides,
Halaesus from whom the
Faliscan country derives its name.
Add to this, Antenor, who advised the Trojans to make
peace,
And Diomedes, the Oenid, son-in-law to
Apulian Daunus.
Aeneas arrived later, after Antenor,
bringing his gods
To our country, out of
the flames of Ilium.
He had a comrade, Solymus, from Phrygian Ida,
From whom the walls of
Sulmo take their name,
Cool Sulmo, my native place, Germanicus.
Ah me, how far that
place is from Scythia’s soil!
And I, so distant –
but Muse, quell your complaints!
Holy themes set to a
gloomy lyre are not for you.
Where does envy not
reach? Venus, there are some
Who’d grudge you your
month, and snatch it away.
They say Spring was
named from the open (apertum) season,
Because Spring opens (aperit)
everything and the sharp
Frost-bound cold
vanishes, and fertile soil’s revealed,
Though kind Venus sets her hand there and claims
it.
She rules the whole
world too, and truly deserves to:
She owns a realm not
inferior to any god’s,
Commands earth and
heaven, and her native ocean,
And maintains all
beings from her source.
She created the gods
(too numerous to mention):
She gave the crops and
trees their first roots:
She brought the crude
minds of men together,
And taught them each
to associate with a partner.
What but sweet
pleasure creates all the race of birds?
Cattle wouldn’t mate,
if gentle love were absent.
The wild ram butts the
males with his horn,
But won’t hurt the
brow of his beloved ewe.
The bull, that the
woods and pastures fear,
Puts off his
fierceness and follows the heifer.
The same force
preserves whatever lives in the deep,
And fills the waters
with innumerable fish.
That force first
stripped man of his wild apparel:
From it he learned
refinement and elegance.
It’s said a banished
lover first serenaded
His mistress by night,
at her closed door,
And eloquence then was
the winning of a reluctant maid,
And everyone pleaded
his or her own cause.
A thousand arts are
furthered by the goddess: and the wish
To delight has
revealed many things that were hidden.
Who dares to steal her
honour of naming the second month?
Let such madness be
far from my thoughts.
Besides, though she’s
powerful everywhere, her temples
Crowded, doesn’t she
hold most sway in our City?
Venus, Roman, carried weapons to
defend your Troy,
And groaned at the
spear wound in her gentle hand:
And she defeated two
goddesses, by a Trojan judgement,
(Ah! If only they
hadn’t remembered her victory!)
And she was called the
bride of Assaracus’s son,
So that mighty Caesar
would have Julian ancestors.
No season is more fitting
for Venus than Spring:
In spring the earth
gleams: in spring the ground’s soft,
Now the grass pokes
its tips through the broken soil,
Now the vine bursts in
buds through the swollen bark.
And lovely Venus
deserves the lovely season,
And is joined again to
her darling Mars:
In Spring she tells
the curving ships to sail, over
Her native seas, and
fear the winter’s threat no longer.
Perform the rites of
the goddess, Roman brides and mothers,
And you who must not
wear the headbands and long robes.
Remove the golden
necklaces from her marble neck,
Remove her riches: the
goddess must be cleansed, complete.
Return the gold
necklaces to her neck, once it’s dry:
Now she’s given fresh
flowers, and new-sprung roses.
She commands you too
to bathe, under the green myrtle,
And there’s a
particular reason for her command (learn, now!).
Naked, on the shore,
she was drying her dripping hair:
The Satyrs, that wanton crowd, spied the
goddess.
She sensed it, and hid
her body with a screen of myrtle:
Doing so, she was
safe: she commands that you do so too.
Learn now why you
offer incense to Fortuna Virilis,
In that place that
steams with heated water.
All women remove their
clothes on entering,
And every blemish on
their bodies is seen:
Virile Fortune
undertakes to hide those from the men,
And she does this at
the behest of a little incense.
Don’t begrudge her
poppies, crushed in creamy milk
And in flowing honey,
squeezed from the comb:
When Venus was first
led to her eager spouse,
She drank so: and from
that moment was a bride.
Please her with words
of supplication: beauty,
Virtue, and good
repute are in her keeping.
In our forefather’s
time Rome lapsed from chastity:
And the ancients
consulted the old woman of Cumae.
She ordered a temple
built to Venus: when it was done
Venus took the name of Heart-Changer
(Verticordia).
Loveliest One, always
look with a benign gaze
On the sons of Aeneas, and guard their many wives.
As I speak, Scorpio, the tip of whose raised
tail
Strikes fear, plunges
down into the green waves.
When the night is
past, and the sky is just beginning
To redden, and the
birds, wet with dew, are singing,
And the traveller
who’s been awake all night, puts down
His half-burnt torch,
and the farmer’s off to his usual labours,
The Pleiades will start to lighten
their father’s shoulders,
They who are said to
be seven, but usually are six:
Because it’s true that
six lay in the loving clasp of gods
(Since they say that Asterope slept with Mars:
Alcyone, and you, lovely Celaeno, with Neptune:
Maia, Electra, and Taygete with Jupiter),
While the seventh, Merope, married you, Sisyphus, a mortal,
And repents of it,
and, alone of the sisters, hides from shame:
Or because Electra couldn’t bear to watch Troy’s
destruction,
And so her face now is
covered by her hands.
Let the sky turn three
times on its axis,
Let the Sun three
times yoke and loose his horses,
And the Berecyntian
flute will begin sounding
Its curved horn, it
will be the Idaean Mother’s feast.
Eunuchs will march,
and sound the hollow drums,
And cymbal will clash
with cymbal, in ringing tones:
Seated on the soft
necks of her servants, she’ll be carried
With howling, through
the midst of the City streets.
The stage is set: the
games are calling. Watch, then,
Quirites, and let
those legal wars in the fora cease.
I’d like to ask many
things, but I’m made fearful
By shrill clash of
bronze, and curved flute’s dreadful drone.
‘Lend me someone to
ask, goddess.’ Cybele spying her learned Granddaughters, the Muses, ordered them to take care of me.
‘Nurslings of Helicon,
mindful of her orders, reveal
Why the Great Goddess
delights in continual din.’
So I spoke. And Erato replied (it fell to her to speak
about
Venus’ month, because
her name derives from tender love):
‘Saturn was granted
this prophecy: “Noblest of kings,
You’ll be ousted by
your own son’s sceptre.”
The god, fearful,
devoured his children as soon as
Born, and then
retained them deep in his guts.
Often Rhea (Cybele) complained, at being so
often pregnant,
Yet never a mother,
and grieved at her own fruitfulness.
Then Jupiter was born
(ancient testimony is credited
By most: so please
don’t disturb the accepted belief):
A stone, concealed in
clothing, went down Saturn’s throat,
So the great
progenitor was deceived by the fates.
Now steep Ida echoed
to a jingling music,
So the child might cry
from its infant mouth, in safety.
Some beat shields with
sticks, others empty helmets:
That was the Curetes’ and the Corybantes’ task.
The thing was hidden,
and the ancient deed’s still acted out:
The goddess’s servants
strike the bronze and sounding skins.
They beat cymbals for
helmets, drums instead of shields:
The flute plays, as
long ago, in the Phrygian mode.’
The goddess ceased. I
began: ‘Why do fierce lions
Yield untamed necks to
the curving yoke for her?’
I ceased. The goddess
began: ‘It’s thought their ferocity
Was first tamed by
her: the testament to it’s her chariot.’
‘But why is her head
weighed down by a turreted crown?
Is it because she
granted towers to the first cities?’
She nodded. I said
‘Where did this urge to cut off
Their members come
from?’ As I ended, the Muse spoke:
‘In the woods, a
Phrygian boy, Attis, of handsome face,
Won the tower-bearing
goddess with his chaste passion.
She desired him to
serve her, and protect her temple,
And said: “Wish, you
might be a boy for ever.”
He promised to be
true, and said: “If I’m lying
May the love I fail in
be my last love.”
He did fail, and in
meeting the nymph Sagaritis,
Abandoned what he was:
the goddess, angered, avenged it.
She destroyed the
Naiad, by wounding a tree,
Since the tree
contained the Naiad’s fate.
Attis was maddened,
and thinking his chamber’s roof
Was falling, fled for
the summit of Mount Dindymus.
Now he cried: “Remove
the torches”, now he cried:
“Take the whips away”:
often swearing he saw the Furies.
He tore at his body
too with a sharp stone,
And dragged his long
hair in the filthy dust,
Shouting: “I deserved
this! I pay the due penalty
In blood! Ah! Let the
parts that harmed me, perish!
Let them perish!”
cutting away the burden of his groin,
And suddenly bereft of
every mark of manhood.
His madness set a
precedent, and his unmanly servants
Toss their hair, and
cut off their members as if worthless.’
So the Aonian Muse, eloquently answering the question
I’d asked her,
regarding the causes of their madness.
‘Guide of my work, I
beg you, teach me also, where She
Was brought from. Was
she always resident in our City?
‘The Mother Goddess
always loved Dindymus, Cybele,
And Ida, with its
pleasant streams, and the Trojan realm:
And when Aeneas
brought Troy to Italian fields, the goddess
Almost followed those
ships that carried the sacred relics.
But she felt that fate
didn’t require her powers in Latium,
So she stayed behind
in her long-accustomed place.
Later, when Rome was
more than five centuries old,
And had lifted its
head above the conquered world,
The priest consulted
the fateful words of Euboean
prophecy:
They say that what he
found there was as follows:
‘The Mother’s absent:
Roman, I command you: seek the Mother.
When she arrives, she
must be received in chaste hands.’
The dark oracle’s
ambiguity set the senators puzzling
As to who that parent
might be, and where to seek her.
Apollo was consulted, and replied:
‘Fetch the Mother
Of all the Gods, who
you’ll find there on Mount Ida.’
Noblemen were sent. Attalus at that time held
The Phrygian sceptre:
he refused the Italian lords.
Marvellous to tell,
the earth shook with long murmurs,
And the goddess, from
her shrine, spoke as follows:
‘I myself wished them
to seek me: don’t delay: send me,
Willingly. Rome is a
worthy place for all divinities.’
Quaking with fear at
her words, Attalus, said: ‘Go,
You’ll still be ours:
Rome claims Phrygian ancestry.’
Immediately countless
axes felled the pine-trees
Those trees pious Aeneas employed for his flight:
A thousand hands work,
and the heavenly Mother
Soon has a hollow
ship, painted in fiery colours.
She’s carried in
perfect safety over her son’s waves,
And reaches the long
strait named for Phrixus’ sister,
Passes fierce Rhoetum and the Sigean shore,
And Tenedos and Eetion’s ancient kingdom.
Leaving Lesbos behind she then steered for the Cyclades,
And the waves that
break on Euboea’s Carystian shoals.
She passed the Icarian
Sea, as well, where Icarus shed
His melting wings,
giving his name to a vast tract of water.
Then leaving Crete to
larboard, and the Pelopian waves
To starboard, she
headed for Cythera, sacred to Venus.
From there to the Sicilian Sea, where Brontes, Steropes
And Aemonides forge their red-hot iron,
Then, skirting African
waters, she saw the Sardinian
Realm behind to
larboard, and reached our Italy.
She’d arrived at the mouth
(ostia) where the Tiber
divides
To meet the deep, and
flows with a wider sweep:
All the Knights, grave
Senators, and commoners,
Came to meet her at
the mouth of the Tuscan river.
With them walked mothers,
daughters, and brides,
And all those virgins
who tend the sacred fires.
The men wearied their
arms hauling hard on the ropes:
The foreign vessel
barely made way against the stream.
For a long time
there’d been a drought: the grass was dry
And scorched: the boat
stuck fast in the muddy shallows.
Every man, hauling,
laboured beyond his strength,
And encouraged their
toiling hands with his cries.
Yet the ship lodged
there, like an island fixed in mid-ocean:
And astonished at the
portent, men stood and quaked.
Claudia Quinta traced her descent
from noble Clausus,
And her beauty was in
no way unequal to her nobility:
She was chaste, but
not believed so: hostile rumour
Had wounded her, false
charges were levelled at her:
Her elegance,
promenading around in various hairstyles,
And her ready tongue,
with stiff old men, counted against her.
Conscious of virtue,
she laughed at the rumoured lies,
But we’re always ready
to credit others with faults.
Now, when she’d
stepped from the line of chaste women,
Taking pure river
water in her hands, she wetted her head
Three times, three
times lifted her palms to the sky,
(Everyone watching her
thought she’d lost her mind)
Then, kneeling, fixed
her eyes on the goddess’s statue,
And, with loosened
hair, uttered these words:
“ Kind and fruitful
Mother of the Gods, accept
A suppliant’s prayers,
on this one condition:
They deny I’m chaste:
let me be guilty if you condemn me:
Convicted by a goddess
I’ll pay for it with my life.
But if I’m free of
guilt, grant a pledge of my innocence
By your action: and,
chaste, give way to my chaste hands.”
She spoke: then gave a
slight pull at the rope,
(A wonder, but the
sacred drama attests what I say):
The goddess stirred,
followed, and, following, approved her:
Witness the sound of
jubilation carried to the stars.
They came to a bend in
the river (called of old
The Halls of Tiber): there the stream turns left,
ascending.
Night fell: they tied
the rope to an oak stump,
And, having eaten,
settled to a tranquil sleep.
Dawn rose: they loosed
the rope from the oak stump,
After first laying a
fire and offering incense,
And crowned the stern,
and sacrificed a heifer
Free of blemish, that
had never known yoke or bull.
There’s a place where
smooth-flowing Almo joins the Tiber,
And the lesser flow
loses its name in the greater:
There, a white-headed
priest in purple robes
Washed the Lady, and
sacred relics, in Almo’s water.
The attendants howled,
and the mad flutes blew,
And soft hands beat at
the bull’s-hide drums.
Claudia walked in
front with a joyful face,
Her chastity proven by
the goddess’s testimony:
The goddess herself,
sitting in a cart, entered the Capene Gate:
Fresh flowers were
scattered over the yoked oxen.
Nasica received her. The name of her
temple’s founder is lost:
Augustus has re-dedicated it, and,
before him, Metellus.’
Here Erato ceased.
There was a pause for me to ask more:
I said: ‘Why does the
goddess collect money in small coins?’
She said: ‘The people
gave coppers, with which Metellus
Built her shrine, so
now there’s a tradition of giving them.’
I asked why people
entertain each other at feasts,
And invite others to
banquets, more than at other times.
She said: ‘It’s because
the Berecynthian goddess by good luck
Changed her house, and
they try for the same luck, by their visits.’
I was about to ask why
the Megalesia are the first games
Of the City’s year,
when the goddess (anticipating) said:
‘She gave birth to the
gods. They yielded to their mother,
And she was given the
honour of precedence.’
Why then do we call
those who castrate themselves, Galli,
When the Gallic country’s
so far from Phrygia?’
‘Between green Cybele
and high Celaenae,’ she said,
‘Runs a river of
maddening water, called the Gallus.
Whoever drinks of it,
is crazed: keep far away, all you
Who desire a sound
mind: who drinks of it is crazed.’
‘They consider it no
shame to set a dish of salad
On the Lady’s table.
What’s the reason?’ I asked.
She replied: ‘It’s
said the ancients lived on milk,
And on herbs that the
earth produced of itself.
Now they mix cream
cheese with pounded herbs,
So the ancient goddess
might know the ancient food.’
When the stars have
vanished, and the Moon unyokes
Her snowy horses, and
the next dawn shines in the sky,
He’ll speak true who
says: ‘On this day long ago
The temple of Public Fortune was dedicated
on the Quirinal.’
It was the third day
of the games (I recall), and a certain
Elderly man, who was
sitting next to me at the show, said:
‘This was the day when
Julius Caesar crushed proud
Juba’s treacherous army, on the shores
of Libya.
Caesar was my leader,
under whom I’m proud
To have been a
tribune: he ordered me so to serve.
I won this seat in
war, and you in peace
Because of your role
among the Decemvirs.’
We were about to speak
again when a sudden shower
Parted us: Libra balanced there shed heavenly waters.
But before the last
day completes the spectacle,
Orion with his sword will have sunk in the
sea.
When the next dawn
gazes on victorious Rome,
And the fleeing stars
have given way to the Sun,
The Circus will be
thronged with a procession of many gods,
And horses swift as
the wind will compete for the winner’s prize.
Next, the Games of Ceres, there’s no need to say why:
Obvious: the bounteous
promise and gifts of the goddess.
The bread of primitive
humans was made of plants,
That the earth
produced without being asked:
They sometimes plucked
wild grasses from the turf,
Sometimes tender
leaves from the treetops made a meal.
Later the acorn was
known: its discovery was fine,
Since the sturdy oak
offered a rich horde.
Ceres was first to
summon men to a better diet,
Replacing their acorns
with more nourishing food.
She forced bulls to
bow their necks to the yoke:
So the deep-ploughed
soil first saw the light.
Copper was prized
then, iron was still hidden:
Ah! If only it could
have been hidden forever.
Ceres delights in
peace: pray, you farmers,
Pray for endless peace
and a peace-loving leader.
Honour the goddess
with wheat, and dancing salt grains,
And grains of incense
offered on the ancient hearths,
And if there’s no
incense, burn your resinous torches:
Ceres is pleased with
little, if it’s pure in kind.
You girded attendants
lift those knives from the ox:
Let the ox plough,
while you sacrifice the lazy sow,
It’s not fitting for
an axe to strike a neck that’s yoked:
Let the ox live, and
toil through the stubborn soil.
Now, this part
requires me to tell of a virgin’s rape:
You’ll recognise much
you know, but part is new.
The Trinacrian land took its name
from its shape:
It runs out in three
rocky capes to the vast ocean.
It’s a place dear to
Ceres. She owns, there, many cities,
Among them fertile Enna, with its well-ploughed soul.
Cool Arethusa gathered together the mothers
of the gods:
And the yellow-haired
goddess came to the sacred feast.
Her daughter, Persephone, attended by girls,
as ever,
Wandered barefoot
through Enna’s meadows.
In a shadow-filled
valley there’s a place,
Wet by the copious
spray from a high fall.
All the colours of nature
were displayed there,
And the earth was
bright with hues of various flowers.
On seeing it she
cried: ‘Come here to me, my friends,
And each carry back,
with me, a lapful of flowers.’
The foolish prize
enticed their girlish spirits,
And they were too busy
to feel weary.
One filled baskets
woven from supple willow,
Another her lap, the
next loose folds of her robe:
One picked marigolds:
another loved violets,
And one nipped the
poppy-heads with her nails:
Some you tempt,
hyacinth: others, amaranth, you delay:
Others desire thyme,
cornflowers or clover.
Many a rose was taken,
and flowers without name:
Proserpine herself
plucked fragile crocuses and white lilies.
Intent on gathering
them, she gradually strayed,
And none of her
friends chanced to follow their lady.
Dis, her uncle saw her, and swiftly
carried her off,
And bore her on
shadowy horses to his realm.
She called out: ‘Oh,
dearest Mother, I’m being
Carried away!’ and
tore at the breast of her robe:
Meanwhile a path
opened for Dis, since his horses
Can scarcely endure
the unaccustomed daylight.
When her crowd of
friends had gathered their flowers,
They shouted:
‘Persephone, come for your gifts!’
But silence met their
call: they filled the hills with their cries,
And sadly beat their
naked breasts with their hands.
Ceres was startled by
their grief (she’d just now come from Enna),
And cried instantly
‘Ah me! Daughter, where are you?’
She rushed about,
distracted, as we’ve heard
The Thracian Maenads run with flowing hair.
As a cow bellows, when
her calf’s torn from her udder,
And goes searching for
her child, through the woods,
So the goddess groaned
freely, and ran quickly,
As she made her way,
Enna, from your plains.
There she found marks
of the girlish feet, and saw
Where her familiar
form had printed the ground:
Perhaps her wandering
would have ended that day,
If wild pigs hadn’t
muddied the trail she found.
She’d already passed Leontini, the river Amenanas,
And your grassy banks,
Acis, on her way:
She’d passed Cyane, the founts of slow Anapus,
And you, Gelas, with whirlpools to be shunned.
She’d left Ortygia, Megara and the Pantagias,
And the place where
the sea receives Symaethus’
waves,
And the caves of Cyclopes, scorched by their forges,
And the place who’s
name’s derived from a curving sickle,
And Himera, Didyme, Acragas and Tauromenium,
And the Mylae, that rich pasture for sacred
cattle.
Next she reached Camerina, Thapsus, and Helorus’ Tempe,
And where Eryx stands, ever open to the Western
winds.
She’d crossed Pelorias, Lilybaeum and Pachynum,
Those three projecting
horns of her land.
Wherever she set foot,
she filled the place with sad cries,
Like the bird mourning for her lost Itys.
Alternately she cried:
‘Persephone!’ and ‘My daughter’,
Calling and shouting
both the names in turn,
But Persephone heard
not Ceres, nor the daughter
Her mother, and both
names by turns died away:
If she spied a
shepherd or farmer at work,
Her cry was: ‘Has a
girl passed this way?’
Now the colours faded,
and the darkness hid
Everything. Now the
wakeful dogs fell silent.
High Etna stands above vast Typhoeus’ mouth,
Who scorches the earth
with his fiery breath:
There the goddess lit
twin pine branches as torches:
And since then there
are torches handed out at her rites.
There’s a cave, its
interior carved from sharp pumice,
A place not to be
approached by man or beast:
Reaching it she yoked
serpents to her chariot,
And roamed the ocean
waves above the spray.
She shunned the Syrtes and Zanclaean Charybdis,
And you, hounds of Scylla, wrecking monsters,
Shunned the wide
Adriatic, and Corinth between two seas:
And so came to your
harbour, country of Attica.
Here she sat for the
first time, mournfully, on cold stone:
That stone the Athenians named the Sorrowful.
She lingered many days
under the open sky,
Enduring both the
moonlight and the rain.
Every place has its
destiny: What’s now called
Ceres’ Eleusis was then old Celeus’ farm.
He was bringing acorns
home, and berries he’d picked
From the briars, and
dry wood for the blazing hearth.
His little daughter
was driving two she-goats from the hill,
While confined in his
cradle was a sickly son.
‘Mother!’ the girl
said (the goddess was moved
By that word mother)
‘Why are you alone in the wilderness?’
The old man stopped
too, despite his heavy load,
And begged her to
shelter under his insignificant roof.
She refused. She was
disguised as an old woman, her hair
Covered with a cap.
When he urged her she replied:
‘Be happy, and always
a father! My daughter’s been
Stolen from me. Ah,
how much better your fate than mine!’
She spoke, and a
crystal drop (though goddesses cannot weep),
Like a tear, fell on
her warm breast. Those tender hearts,
The old man and the
virgin girl, wept with her:
And these were the
righteous old man’s words:
‘Rise, and don’t scorn
the shelter of my humble hut,
And may the lost
daughter you mourn be safe and sound.’
The goddess said:
‘Lead on! You’ve found what could persuade me’
And she rose from the
stone and followed the old man.
Leading, he told his
follower, how his son was sick
Lying there sleepless,
kept awake by his illness.
About to enter the
humble house, she plucked
A tender,
sleep-inducing, poppy from the bare ground:
And as she picked it,
they say, unthinkingly, she tasted it,
And so, unwittingly,
eased her long starvation.
And because she first
broke her fast at nightfall,
Her priests of the
Mysteries eat once the stars appear.
When she crossed the
threshold, she saw all were grieving:
Since they’d lost hope
of the child’s recovery.
Greeting the mother
(who was called Metanira)
The goddess deigned to
join her lips to the child’s.
His pallor fled, his
body suddenly seemed healthier:
Such power flowed out
of the goddess’ mouth.
There was joy in the
house, in the father, mother
And daughter: those
three were the whole house.
They soon set out a
meal, curds in whey,
Apples, and golden
honey on the comb.
Kind Ceres abstained,
and gave to the boy
Poppy seeds in warm
milk to make him sleep.
It was midnight:
silent in peaceful slumber,
The goddess took Triptolemus on her lap,
Caressed him with her
hand three times, and spoke
Three spells, not to
be sounded by mortal tongue,
And she covered the
boy’s body with live embers
On the hearth, so the
fire would purge his mortal burden.
His good, fond,
foolish mother, waking from sleep,
Crying: ‘What are you
doing?’ snatched him from the coals,
To her the goddess
said: ‘Though sinless, you’ve sinned:
My gift’s been
thwarted by a mother’s fear.
He will still be
mortal, but first to plough,
And sow, and reap a
harvest from the soil.’
Ceres spoke, and left
the house, trailing mist, and crossed
To her dragons, and
was carried away in her winged chariot.
She left Sunium’s
exposed cape behind, and Piraeus’ safe harbour,
And all that coast
that lies towards the west.
From there she crossed
the Aegean, saw all the Cyclades,
Skimmed the wild
Ionian, and the Icarian Sea,
And, passing through
Asia’s cities, sought the long Hellespont,
And wandered her
course, on high, among diverse regions.
Now she gazed at
incense-gathering Arabs, now Ethiopians,
Beneath her Libya now,
now Meroe and the desert lands:
Then she saw the
western rivers, Rhine, Rhone, Po,
And you, Tiber, parent
of a stream full of future power.
Where, now? Too long
to tell of the lands she wandered:
No place on earth
remained unvisited by Ceres.
She wandered the sky
too, and spoke to the constellations
Those near the chilly
pole, free of the ocean waves:
‘You Arcadian stars
(since you can see all things,
Never plunging beneath
the watery wastes)
Show this wretched
mother, her daughter, Proserpine!’
She spoke, and Helice answered her in this way:
‘Night’s free of
blame: Ask the Light about your