Hypsipyle Curses Medea

Ovid, Heroides VI “Hypsipyle Iasoni” lines 151-164

But if Jupiter the just from high heaven Heeds my prayers at all, What Hypsipyle groans over, Let the usurper of my bed mourn too; Let the lady herself feel The terms she’s laid down. And, just as I am abandoned – I, wife, mother of two – Let her, with an equal number Of children, be stripped of her man! Nor let her keep long Her ill-gotten gains, and let her Give them up on worse terms; Let her be banished And seek through all the world A place of flight. As bitter A sister as she was to her brother, As bitter a daughter To her wretched father – So bitter let her be To her children, to her husband! When she’s used up sea and land, Let her try the air; Let her wander without goods, Without hope – bloody With her own slaughter. These things I, Thoas’ daughter, Cheated of my marriage, ask for. Live, bride – live, bridegroom – On a cursed marriage-bed! …quod si quid ab alto iustus adest votis Iuppiter ille meis, quod gemit Hypsipyle, lecti quoque subnuba nostri maereat et leges sentiat ipsa suas. utque ego destituor coniunx materque duorum, cum totidem natis orba sit illa viro! nec male parta diu teneat peiusque relinquat: exulet et toto quaerat in orbe fugam. quam fratri germana fuit miseroque parenti filia tam natis, tam sit acerba viro! cum mare, cum terras consumpserit, aera temptet; erret inops, exspes, caede cruenta sua. haec ego, coniugio fraudata Thoantias, oro. vivite devoto nuptaque virque toro!

Medea, Corrado Giaquinto, 1750-52

Penelope's Plea

Ovid, Heroides I “Penelope Ulixi”, lines 1-12 Your Penelope sends these words To you, delaying Ulysses; It does no good for you To write me back – come yourself! No doubt that Troy – hateful To Greek maidens – now lies prostrate: Scarcely was Priam worth so much - Scarcely was all of Troy. O, how I wish that on that day When the adulterer went in quest Of Sparta with his fleet, he’d Been swallowed by raging waters! Then I wouldn’t lie, chilly, On a deserted bed, Nor, abandoned, would I lament The daylight’s tardy coming; Nor, as I seek to cheat The endless-stretching night, Would the loom-warp, hanging down, Weary my widowed hands. When have I not feared dangers Worse still than the truth? Love is a thing that’s always full Of anxiety and fear. Haec tua Penelope lento tibi mittit, Ulixe; nil mihi rescribas attinet: ipse veni! Troia iacet certe, Danais invisa puellis; vix Priamus tanti totaque Troia fuit. o utinam tum, cum Lacedaemona classe petebat, obrutus insanis esset adulter aquis! non ego deserto iacuissem frigida lecto, nec quererer tardos ire relicta dies; nec mihi quaerenti spatiosam fallere noctem lassaret viduas pendula tela manus. Quando ego non timui graviora pericula veris? res est solliciti plena timoris amor.

Penelope and the Suitors, John William Waterhouse, 1912

A Fair Exchange

for @rembrandtswife

Catullus 13, “ad Fabullum” In a few days (if the gods smile on you) You’ll dine well at my place, my Fabullus – If you bring with you a good and great meal (Not forgetting a girl With ivory skin, and wine, and wit, And laughter of every sort). I say again, my splendid fellow, If you bring these things, Then you’ll dine well – for your Catullus’ Purse is full of cobwebs. But in return, you’ll receive pure love, Or what’s sweeter, more graceful still: For I’ll give you a perfume that the Passions And Lusts gave to my girl, Which when you’ve smelled it, you’ll ask the gods That they make you, Fabullus, all nose.

Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus, si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam cenam, non sine candida puella et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis. haec si, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster, cenabis bene; nam tui Catulli plenus sacculus est aranearum. sed contra accipies meros amores seu quid suavius elegantiusve est: nam unguentum dabo, quod meae puellae donarunt Veneres Cupidinesque, quod tu cum olfacies, deos rogabis, totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.

The End of Dinner, Jules-Alexandre Grün, 1913

Before the Beginning

Ovid, Metamorphoses I.5-20 Before there was the sea, the lands, and the sky that covers all, Nature had in all its sphere one countenance, Which they called chaos: a mass crude and undigested – Nothing but a lifeless weight, the seeds of ill- Joined squabbling things, all heaped in the same place. No Titan yet provided light to the world, Nor yet did Phoebe heal her newborn horns by waxing, Nor yet did Earth hang in the air surrounding it, Balanced by its own weight; nor had Amphitrite Extended her arms around the lands’ long shore; And just as there was earth there and sea and air alike, So was the earth unstable, the sea unswimmable, The air deprived of light; nothing kept its own shape, And one thing stood in another’s way, because in one body Cold things did battle with hot, moist with dry, Soft things with hard, and weighty things with weightless. Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia caelum unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, quem dixere chaos: rudis indigestaque moles nec quicquam nisi pondus iners congestaque eodem non bene iunctarum discordia semina rerum. nullus adhuc mundo praebebat lumina Titan, nec nova crescendo reparabat cornua Phoebe, nec circumfuso pendebat in aere tellus ponderibus librata suis, nec bracchia longo margine terrarum porrexerat Amphitrite; utque erat et tellus illic et pontus et aer, sic erat instabilis tellus, innabilis unda, lucis egens aer; nulli sua forma manebat, obstabatque aliis aliud, quia corpore in uno frigida pugnabant calidis, umentia siccis, mollia cum duris, sine pondere, habentia pondus.

Chaos, George Frederic Watts and assistants, 1875

Black Widow, Black Widower

Martial, Epigrams 8.43 Fabius carries his wives to the grave, While Chrestilla carries her husbands; Each one shakes a funeral torch At the marriage bed. Match up the winners, Venus – winners Whom this ending will await: That a single funeral bier Carry them both away.

Effert uxores Fabius, Chrestilla maritos,     funereamque toris quassat uterque facem. Victores committe, Venus: quos iste manebit     exitus, una duos ut Libitina ferat.

The Funeral of Shelley, Louis Édouard Fournier, 1889   

Not Much of a Dinner

Martial, Epigrams 3.12 You gave to your guests yesterday A good unguent – I admit it – But you cut no meat.  How funny – To smell good and yet go hungry. Who dines not and is anointed, Fabullus, that’s the fellow Who seems to me truly dead. Vnguentum, fateor, bonum dedisti conuiuis here, sed nihil scidisti. Res salsa est bene olere et esurire. qui non cenat et unguitur, Fabulle, hic uere mihi mortuus uidetur.   

After Dinner at Ornans, Gustave Courbet, 1849

House-Rich, Home-Poor

Martial, Epigrams 7.73 You have a house on the Esquiline, a house on Diana’s hill; The District of the Patricians has, too, a roof of yours; From here you look on widowed Cybele’s shrine; from there, on Vesta’s; Over here you look on Jove’s new temple, over there upon his old. Say where I should meet you, say in which region I should seek you – Whoever lives in every place, o Maximus, lives in no place.

Esquiliis domus est, domus est tibi colle Dianae,     et tua patricius culmina uicus habet; hinc uiduae Cybeles, illinc sacraria Vestae,     inde nouum, ueterem prospicis inde Iouem. Dic ubi conueniam, dic qua te parte requiram;     quisquis ubique habitat, Maxime, nusquam habitat.

Garden in a Venetian Villa, Benedetto Caliari, 1570s

You Know You’re Shameless When...

Martial, Epigrams 4.6

Note: “the meter of Tibullus”: elegiacs. Stella was an accomplished elegiac poet.

You wish to be thought more chaste than a modest maiden And to seem to be of a tender brow, When you, Malisianus, are more brazen Than someone who in Stella’s house recites Books written in the meter of Tibullus.

Credi uirgine castior pudica et frontis tenerae cupis uideri, cum sis inprobior, Malisiane, quam qui compositos metro Tibulli in Stellae recitat domo libellos. 

Shame, Max Klinger, between 1880 and 1903

On Fabius Maximus Cunctator

Ennius, Annales XII, ll. 360-62 Warmington (=Cicero, de Officiis I.24.84) One person saved the public weal by delaying. He did not put idle talk ahead of safety, And thanks to this the glory of the man Shines even now, and greater than before. Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem. Noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem; ergo postque magisque viri nunc gloria claret.

Quintus Fabius Maximus, Jan Lievens, 1656

Carpe Diem, Memento Mori

Martial, Epigrams 4.54

Note: The addressee is a winner in the Capitoline poetry contest founded by the emperor Domitian. O you to whom the right befell to touch Tarpeian oak-leaves And to ring your deserving locks with the finest foliage, If you are wise, Collinus, use all your days to their fullest, And think at every moment that your last day is at hand. No man has ever managed to win his freedom pleading Before the three wool-spinning maids – they keep the day they’ve set. Granted that you have more wealth than Crispus, more constancy Than Thrasea himself, that you’re more dapper than shining Melior: Lachesis adds nothing to the yarn.  No, she unwinds Her sisters’ spindles; of the three, there’s always one who cuts. O cui Tarpeias licuit contingere quercus     et meritas prima cingere fronde comas, si sapis, utaris totis, Colline, diebus     extremumque tibi semper adesse putes. Lanificas nulli tres exorare puellas     contigit: obseruant quem statuere diem. Diuitior Crispo, Thrasea constantior ipso,     lautior et nitido sis Meliore licet: nil adicit penso Lachesis, fusosque sororum     explicat et semper de tribus una secat.      

The Three Fates, Paul Thumann (1834-1908)

Vengeance on the Vainglorious

Ausonius, Epigrammata de diversis rebus 42 “Ex Graeco traductum de statua Nemesis” Once the Persians brought me As a stone, to make me A trophy for their war; Now I am Nemesis. And just as I stand a trophy For the Greeks who conquered, So I punish the Persians Vain of boast – I, Nemesis. Me lapidem quondam Persae advexere, tropaeum     ut fierem bello; nunc ego sum Nemesis. ac sicut Graecis victoribus adsto tropaeum,     punio sic Persas vaniloquos Nemesis.

Marble statue of the goddess Nemesis dedicated by one Ptollanubis.  Artist unknown; 2nd cent. CE.  From Egypt; now in the Louvre.  Photo credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons.

The Fall of Lausus

Vergil, Aeneid 10.821-832 But when Anchises’ son saw the countenance And face of him dying, a face that paled in ways Wondrous, he groaned, pitying him greatly, And held out his right hand, and to his mind Recurred the image of Lausus’ love for his father. “What shall pious Aeneas give you now, O wretched boy, in return for those praiseworthy deeds; What shall he give worthy of your character That is so great?  Keep the arms you rejoiced in; And I release you to the shades and ashes Of your ancestors, if that care means anything. Nonetheless, by this you’ll be consoled For your wretched death: it’s by the hand Of great Aeneas that you fall.”  What’s more, He rebukes his delaying friends and lifts from the earth The boy himself, who’s fouling with his blood The locks of hair so carefully arranged. At vero ut vultum vidit morientis et ora, ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris, ingemuit miserans graviter dextramque tetendit, et mentem patriae subiit pietatis imago. 'quid tibi nunc, miserande puer, pro laudibus istis, quid pius Aeneas tanta dabit indole dignum? arma, quibus laetatus, habe tua; teque parentum manibus et cineri, si qua est ea cura, remitto. hoc tamen infelix miseram solabere mortem: Aeneae magni dextra cadis.' increpat ultro cunctantis socios et terra sublevat ipsum sanguine turpantem comptos de more capillos.

Aeneas’ Fight with Mezentius and Lausus, Wenceslas Hollar (1607-1677)

Beware the Close Talker

Martial, Epigrams 1.89 You’re always chattering into everyone’s ear, Cinna, Even that which you could chatter with a crowd as witness. You laugh into someone’s ear, complain, accuse and make lament; Into someone’s ear you sing, pass judgment, are silent, shout; And so deeply has this sickness taken root in you, That often into someone’s ear, Cinna, you praise Caesar.

Garris in aurem semper omnibus, Cinna, garrire et illud teste quod licet turba. Rides in aurem, quereris, arguis, ploras, cantas in aurem, iudicas, taces, clamas, adeoque penitus sedit hic tibi morbus, ut saepe in aurem, Cinna, Caesarem laudes.

Conversation, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1878

In the Forge of Vulcan

Vergil, Aeneid 8.424-432 In a vast cave, the Cyclopes worked at iron – Brontes, Steropes, and Pyracmon bare of limb. They had a thunderbolt, shaped by their own hands, Which in great number out of all of heaven The father hurls to earth – part already polished, While part remained unfinished.  They had added Three rays of twisted rain, of watery cloud Three rays more, with three of ruddy fire And the winged South Wind.  Now they were mixing With the work terror-inducing flashes, Sound and fear, and wrath, with chasing flames. ferrum exercebant vasto Cyclopes in antro, Brontesque Steropesque et nudus membra Pyracmon. his informatum manibus iam parte polita fulmen erat, toto genitor quae plurima caelo deicit in terras, pars imperfecta manebat. tris imbris torti radios, tris nubis aquosae addiderant, rutuli tris ignis et alitis Austri. fulgores nunc terrificos sonitumque metumque miscebant operi flammisque sequacibus iras.

Vulcan’s Forge, Tintoretto, 1576-77

A Tight-Lipped Lawyer

Martial, Epigrams 8.7

Note: “Four water-clocks”: the water-clock was used to measure a speaker’s allotted time; hence, Cinna is asking for more time.

Is this to plead a case, Cinna, is this To speak in learned fashion, when you say Nine words all told within ten hours’ time? But just now in a loud voice you demanded Four water-clocks.  What power, Cinna, you have for silence! Hoc agere est causas, hoc dicere, Cinna, diserte,     horis, Cinna, decem dicere uerba nouem? Sed modo clepsydras ingenti uoce petisti     quattuor. O quantum, Cinna, tacere potes!

A Meeting of Lawyers, Honoré Daumier, 1858-62

Condemnation of a Dead Emperor

Martial, Liber de Spectaculis 33

Note: “third heir”: Domitian (r. 81-96 CE), who succeeded his father Vespasian (r. 69-79) and brother Titus (r. 79-81).

O Flavian race, how much Your third heir stole from you! It would almost have been worth it Not to have had the first two. Flauia gens, quantum tibi tertius abstulit heres!      paene fuit tanti, non habuisse duos.

Marble bust of the emperor Domitian.  Now in the Altes Museum, Berlin.  Photo credit: Anagoria/Wikimedia Commons.

The Men of Early Days

Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 5.925-932 And that race of men was in the fields Far hardier, as was to be expected, since A hard earth had made them – built with bigger bones, More solid ones too, within, and fitted throughout Their guts with powerful sinews; not the sort Of race that could easily be overcome By cold or heat, nor by some novelty Of diet or any defect of the body. And as the sun turned many times through heaven, They lived their lives in the wandering way of beasts. Et genus humanum multo fuit illud in arvis durius, ut decuit, tellus quod dura creasset, et maioribus et solidis magis ossibus intus fundatum, validis aptum per viscera nervis, nec facile ex aestu nec frigore quod caperetur nec novitate cibi nec labi corporis ulla. multaque per caelum solis volventia lustra volgivago vitam tractabant more ferarum.

The Golden Age, Joachim Wtewael, 1605