Читать книгу The Greek Romances of Heliodorus, Longus and Achilles Tatius - Longus - Страница 11
Оглавление"I am vexed, too, as much as he was," said Cnemon, "for my curiosity on these subjects is nearly as great; but, perhaps, it may be satisfied in the progress of your narration." "Possibly it may," replied Calasiris; "but now, if you please, let Charicles proceed with his own story," which he thus continued:—
"'When I arrived at my house, the child came out to meet me. She could not speak to me, knowing nothing of Greek; but she saluted me with her hand, and the sight of her began to console me for my disappointment. I saw, with admiration, that, as a generous race of hounds fawn upon those who notice them; so she seemed to have a strong sense of my kindness for her, and to consider me in the light of a father. I determined to stay no longer at Caladupa, lest some envious deity should deprive me of my second daughter. Embarking, therefore, on the Nile, I reached the sea, got on board a ship, and arrived in Greece. This child is now with me: I have given her my name, and all my cares are centred in her. Her improvements exceed my warmest wishes. She has learned my language with surprising quickness: she has grown up to perfection like a nourishing plant. Her beauty is so transcendent as to attract every eye upon her, both Grecian and foreign.[34] Wherever she appears—in the temple, in the course, or in the market-place—she draws to her the looks and thoughts of all, like the model statue of some goddess. Yet, with all this, she is the cause of great uneasiness to me: she[35] obstinately refuses to marry, determines to lead a life of celibacy, consecrates herself to Diana, and spends most of her leisure hours in the chase, and with her bow. This is a severe disappointment to me, for I wished to give her to my sister's son, an accomplished and graceful young man; but my wishes are frustrated by this preposterous fancy of hers. Neither entreaties, nor promises, nor reasoning, can work upon her; and, what is most vexatious, she wounds me, as they say, with a shaft drawn from my own bow, and employs the eloquence which I have taught her in magnifying the way of life she has chosen. She is inexhaustible in the praises of virginity; places it next the life of the gods—pure, unmixed, uncorrupt. She is equally skilful in depreciating love, and Venus, and marriage. I implore your assistance in this matter; for which reason I was glad to seize the opportunity you gave me, and have troubled you with a long story. Do not desert me on this occasion, my good Calasiris, but employ the wisdom you are master of, or even any charm you may know; persuade her by words, or work upon her by incantations, to leave this unnatural course, and to feel that she is born a woman: you can, I know, do this if you will. She is not averse to the conversation of men; she has been used to their company from her childhood. She lives, too, very near you, here within the precincts of the temple. Condescend, I beseech, to hear me, and grant what I desire. Suffer me not to spend a melancholy and lonely old age, without hopes of having my family continued; I entreat you by Apollo, and your country's gods.'"
"I was moved by his supplications, Cnemon. I could scarcely refrain from tears: his own flowed in great abundance. I promised, in short, to use my utmost skill in attempting what he desired. We were still talking, when a messenger arrived in haste, and told us that the head of the Ænianian embassy was at the door, and extremely impatient for the priest to appear, and begin the sacred rites. When I inquired who the Ænianians were, what was the nature of the embassy which they had sent, and what sacrifice he was going to perform; he told me that the Ænianians were a principal nation of Thessaly, entirely Grecian, being descended from Deucalion—that their country extended along the Malian bay—that they called their metropolis Hypata;[36] as they would insinuate, because it was fit to rule over all the cities of the province; as others pretended, because it was situated under Mount Œta—that the embassy was sent by the Ænianians every fourth year, at the time of the Pythian games—and the sacrifice offered to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, who was here surprised and slain,[37] at the very altar of Apollo, by Orestes the son of Agamemnon. But the embassy of the present year will be yet more magnificent than any of the former ones; for the head of it prides himself in being descended from Achilles.
"I met the young man the other day, and indeed he seems worthy of the family of Peleus: such is the nobleness of his stature and deportment, that you will easily believe him sprung from a goddess.
"When I wondered how it came to pass, that he, being an Ænianian, should pretend that he was of the race of Achilles (for Homer, our great Egyptian poet makes Achilles a Phthiotian), 'the young man,' said Charicles, 'claims him entirely as their own: for Thetis, he says, certainly married Peleus out of the Malian bay; and the country which extended along that bay was anciently called Phthia: but the glory of the hero has induced others to claim him falsely as their countryman. He is, besides, in another way, related to the Æacidæ: Mnestheus is his ancestor, the son of Sperchius and Polydora, the daughter of Peleus, who went with Achilles to the siege of Troy; and, being so nearly connected with him, was among the chief leaders of the Myrmidons.
"'The ambassador abounds in arguments to support the claim of his country to Achilles. He insists much upon this present embassy and sacrifice to Neoptolemus; the honour of performing which, all the Thessalians have, by common consent, yielded up to the Ænianians, whereby they admit that they are most nearly related to him.'
"'Whether this be truth or vain assumption,' said I, 'be so good now, if you please, as to call in the ambassador, for I am extremely desirous to see him.'
"Charicles immediately sent to him, and the young man entered with an air and aspect truly worthy of Achilles. His neck straight and erect, his hair thrown back off his forehead; his nose and open nostrils giving signs of an impetuous temper; his eyes of a deep blue, inclining to black, imparting an animated but amiable look to his countenance, like the sea smoothing itself from a storm into a calm.
"After he had received and returned our salutations, he said it was time to proceed to the sacrifice, that there might be sufficient space for the ceremonies which were to be performed to the Manes of the hero, and for the procession which was to follow them.—'I am ready,' replied Charicles, and rising, said to me, 'If you have not yet seen Chariclea, you will see her to-day; for, as a priestess of Diana, she will be present at these rites and the procession.'
"But I, Cnemon, had often seen the young woman before; I had sacrificed and conversed with her upon sacred subjects. However, I said nothing of it; and, waiting for what might happen, we went together to the temple. The Thessalians had prepared everything ready for the sacrifice. We approached the altar; the youth began the sacred rites; the priest having uttered a prayer, and from her shrine the Pythoness pronounced this oracle:[38]
Delphians, regard with reverential care,
Both him the goddess-born, and her the fair;
"Grace" is the sound which ushers in her name, The syllable wherewith it ends, is "Fame." They both my fane shall leave, and oceans past, In regions torrid shall arrive at last; There shall the gods reward their pious vows, And snowy chaplets bind their dusky brows.[39]
"When they who surrounded the shrine heard this oracle, they were perplexed, and doubted what it should signify. Each interpreted it differently, as his inclinations and understanding led him: none, however, laid hold of its true meaning. Oracles indeed, and dreams, are generally to be explained only by the event. And beside, the Delphians, struck with the preparations which were making for the procession, hastened to behold it, neglecting or deferring any farther scrutiny into the oracular response."
"Te....
... cohibent
Pulveris exigui....
Munera...."—Hor. I. Od. i. 28.
"May one kind grave unite each hapless name,
And graft my love immortal on thy fame."—Pope.
.... "O my soul's joy!
.... If I were now to die,
'Twere now to be most happy; for I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute,
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate."—Othello.
[4] This motion is supposed to be a sign of jealousy and anger. Thus Apuleius, lib. vi., Quam ubi primum inductam oblatamque sibi conspexit Venus, latissimum cachinnum extollit; et qualem solent furenter irati, caputque quatiens, et adscalpens aurem dextram.
[5] Καθάπερ ἐκ μηχανῆς.
[6] On the αὐλητρίς and ὀρχηστρίς who exhibited their talents at private parties among the Greeks, see a Note at p. 114 of Mitchell's Translation of Aristophanes; and another on line 481 of his edition of The Frogs.
.... πολύπους
Καὶ πολύχειο, ἁ δεινοϊς
Κρυπτομένα λόχοις,
Χαλκόπους Ἐρινύς.—Soph. El. 490.
[8] Literally, persons who make request for valuable gifts, such as swords and tripods, rather than mendicants who beg for broken victuals. Cnemon must mean to say that nature had written "gentleman and gentlewoman" too plainly upon their faces for them to pass current as genuine vagrants. The line quoted is in the Odyssey, B. xvii. l. 222.
... "he seeks
Not sword nor tripod, but the scoundrel meed
Of mammocks, such as others cast away."—Cowper.
[9] Χάλκέον τινα καὶ πύμα πύματον ὕπνον.—Homer, Il. xi. 241.
"Like one, who on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turn'd round, walks on
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."—Coleridge.
[11] The Italian bravoes used to encourage the growth of a lock of hair, which might be thrown over the face as a disguise, and which they shaved off when giving up their evil ways. "Il ciuffo era quasi una parte dell' armatura, et un distintivo de' bravacci e degli scapestrati, i quai poi da ciò vennero comunemente chiamati ciuffi."—Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi, vol. i., p. 62.
[12] Xαίρειν ἐκέλευε.
[13] Ίλιόθεν με ψέρεις.
"Infandum ... jubes renovare dolorem."—Virgil.
[14] Alluding to the barber of King Midas, who, being a bad keeper of secrets, revealed to the reeds the fact of his lord and master having ass's ears.
"Creber arundinibus tremulis ibi surgere lucus
Cœpit; et ut primum pleno maturuit anno,
Prodidit agricolam; leni nam motus ab Austro
Obruta verba refert; dominique coarguit aures."
Ovid. Met. xi. 190.
[15] Θενίου Διὸς
.... "Who far and wide
A wand'rer....
Discover'd various cities, and the mind
And manners learn'd of men in lands remote."—Od. i. 1. Cowper.
A dreadful serpent....
... glided to the tree.
Eight youngling sparrows with the parent bird
Sat screen'd with foliage on the topmost bough.
The screaming little ones with ease he gorg'd,
And while the mother, circling o'er his head,
With shrillest agony bewail'd her loss,
He seiz'd her by the wing, first drew her down
Within his spiry folds, and then devoured."—Il. ii. 308. Cowper.
.... "Hunger hath a cry which never man
Might silence. Many an evil he endures
For hunger's sake. It is a craving gulf."—Od. xvii. 287. Cowper.
Έπεισόδιον τοῦτo, ὀυδὲν πρὸς τὸν Διόνυσον
Έπεισκυκλήσας.
[20] Virg. G. iv. 387.
[21] Έκώμαζε. Did Heliodorus take his idea of Rhodope from the celebrated personage of that name mentioned by Herod. ii. 135, and equally famed for her beauty and her profligacy?
[22] "The well-favoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts."—Nahum, iii. 4.
[23] Ίερομνήμονα.—The sacred secretary or recorder sent by each Amphictyonic state to their Council, along with the πυλαγόρας, the actual deputy or minister.
[24] Κινεῖσθαι.
Ἵχνος άειράμενος άπ' ίϋστάχυος παρά Νίιλου,
Φεύγεις μοιράων νήματ' ἐρισθενέων.
Τέτλαθι, σοὶ yὰp ἐγὢ κυαναύλακος Αἰγύπτοιο
Άἷψα πέδον δώσω· νῦν δ'εμὸς ἕσσο φίλος.
[26] The address of the Pythia to Lycurgus was as follows:—
Thou com'st, Lycurgus, to this honour'd shrine
Favour'd by Jove, and ev'ry power divine,
Or God or mortal! how shall I decide?
Doubtless to heav'n most dear and most allied.
Herod. i. 65.—Beloe's Tr.
[27] Μουσεῖον ὐπὸ μουτηγέτῃ θεῷ φoιβαζομένη.
[28] Σύριγγες. Ammianus Marcellinus, Β. xxii, thus describes the Σύριγγει or subterraneous burying places of the Egyptian kings. "Sunt et syringes subterranei quidam et flexuosi secessus, quos (ut fertur) periti rituum vetusterum adventare diluvium præscii, metuentesque ne ceremoniarum obliteraretur memoria, penitus operosis digestos fodinis, per loca diversa struxerunt; et excisis parietibus, volucrum ferarumque genera multa sculpserunt, et animalium species innumeras multas, quas hieroglyphicas literas appellarunt, Latinis ignorabiles."
[29] See Herod. ii. 19-25; and a note in Blakesley's edit. on ii. 17.
[30] The reader will keep in mind that it is Charicles who speaks now to Calasiris; otherwise, between the double narration going on at the same time, of Calasiris to Cnemon, and of Charicles to Calasiris, he may be a little confused.
[31] Κατάδουποι—the cataracts of the Nile, also the parts in Ethiopia in which they are.—Herod. ii. 17. Cicero calls them Catadupa.
[32] Οἴνοπα πόντον.—Il. i. 350.
[33] See Anthon's Lemprière's Classical Dict.
"Where, perhaps, some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes."—Milton.
"Solâ contenta Dianâ,
Æternum telorum et virginitatis amorem
Intemerata colit."—Virg. Æn. xi. 583.
[36] Ύπάτας—either from 'υπάτος, eminent, or υποτάσσω, to be subjected.
"Ast illum, ereptæ magno inflammatus amore
Conjugis, et scelerum Furiis agitatus, Orestes
Excipit incautum, patriasque obtruncat ad aras."—Virg. Æn. iii. 330.
'Τὴν χάριν ἐν πρωτοις, ἀυτὰρ κλέος ὒστατ' ἓχουσαν
Φράζεσθ' ὧ Δελφοὶ, τόν τε θεᾶς γενέτην.
Οἱ νηὸν προλιπόντες ἐμον, καὶ κῦμα τεμόντες,
Ἡξοντ' ἠελίου πρὸς χθόνα κυανἐην,
Tῆπερ ἀριστοβίων μἐγ' 'ἀέθλιον ἐξάψονται,
Λευκὸν ἐπἰ κροτἀφων στέμμα μελαινομἐνων.
[39] Why sable brows?—μελαινομἐνων?—I am not obliged to explain oracles. Such is the remark of a former translator. I venture to suggest that the young lovers were rather sun-burnt with travelling, upon their arrival in Ethiopia; and Lisle is of my opinion, for he translates—"their tanned temples." The first line seems intended to be a play upon the name of Chariclea, χάρις κλέος. I have accordingly endeavoured to convey this in the translation.
