Out of Athens came a youthful rover
Into Corinth, where he was unknown:
Hoping, for an ally, to win over
One of two fathers, friends, and one his own:
They had pledged to join
Daughter to the son
To be bride and bridegroom when they’d grown.
Will he, though, be welcomed in this bargain?
Can he buy the father’s favor dear?
After all, his kin and he are pagan:
These are baptized Christians most sincere.
Where a new creed grows,
Often loves and vows
Like a noxious weed are torn out here.
But already the whole house is sleeping;
Only mother’s up, and with a light
Entertains the guest with warm housekeeping,
Leads him to the room most grand and right.
Plied with food and wine,
He is called to dine;
Graciously she wishes him goodnight.
But before the meal so well assembled,
He is too tired for an appetite;
Into bed, full-clothed, he soon has tumbled,
Food and drink he cannot but forget;
Almost deep in rest,
Enters through a door left open yet.
For he sees, by his lamp’s gentle glimmer,
Shyly step a maiden veiled and gowned
All in white, into the silent chamber,
Round her head, a black and golden band.
Him she now espies,
Frightened with surprise,
And she raises up a quick white hand.
“Am I in this house so much a stranger,
Not to be alerted to this guest?
Kept here in a cell as if a danger—
Ah, I am with shame quite overpressed!
Rest here, if you please,
On your couch at ease;
I shall leave now quickly, as is best.”
“Lovely maiden, stay!” the boy beseeches,
Springs up swiftly from his place of rest:
“Ceres, see, and Bacchus give these riches:
You, dear girl, bring Amor to the feast!
You are pale with fear!
Dear one, let us here
See how glad the gods are at our tryst!”
“Keep away, young man, you are mistaken:
Pleasures have no property in me.”
But the last step has, alas, been taken.
In the mother’s sick delusion she,
Convalescent, swore
Subject since to Heaven’s sole decree.
And the old gods’ gaily colored rabble
Void that house, left silent by the loss:
Heaven holds but One, invisible,
And a savior, worshipped on the cross;
Prey is slaughtered here,
Neither lamb nor steer,
But a ghastly human sacrifice.
And he asks, and weighs well each word of it,
So that not one fails to speak his soul:
“Can it be?—my bride, my one beloved,
Stands before me in this silent hall?
Mine may she be now!
For our fathers’ vow
Begged a heavenly blessing on us all!”
“You, good soul, can never now possess me,
They for you my sister do decree;
While in that still cell my griefs oppress me,
In her arms, oh pray you, think of me,
Who thinks but of you,
Lovesick for you, who
In the earth full soon will buried be.”
“No! In this flame let the pledge be given,
Hymen blazes here, shows us the way:
You’ll lose neither joy nor me, by heaven,
Come, love, to my father’s house away.
Darling, do not flee,
This unlooked-for feast and wedding day!”
Now they change love-tokens with each other,
Golden is the chain she gives him there,
And a silver chalice he will offer,
Peerless in its artistry, and fair.
“That is not for me,
But I make a plea
That you grant me one lock of your hair.”
Dull the witching hour’s reverberated,
And it seems that she is well and fine,
See, she gulps with pale lips and unsated,
One great draught of dark and blood-red wine:
But of wheaten bread,
Friendly offerèd,
She took not the smallest speck or sign.
To the youth she hands the cup of wine;
Quick, like her, he drinks it lustily,
Urging her love while quietly they dine;
Ah, how lovesick that poor heart must be!
But she still resists,
Pleading, he insists,
Till, in tears, upon the bed falls he.
Casts herself beside him now, that lady,
“Ah, I hate to see you tortured so!
But, alas, you’d quake to touch my body,
Feeling what I hid, nor let you know.
For your love of choice
Though as white and lovely as the snow.”
With strong arms he seizes her in passion,
Lovers’ youthful strength has him full-manned.
“I would warm you, as my dearest mission,
Were you from the grave, from the cold ground!”
Breath and kiss, and so,
Loving overflow!
“Do you burn now, do you feel me burned?”
Love now faster locks them both together,
Tears are mixed with lust in their wild quest;
Each is conscious only in the other,
Greedy she sucks the flame-breath from his breast.
Love, in him run mad,
Warms her gelid blood,
But no heart is beating in her chest!
Meanwhile in the passage slinks the mother,
Busy late with domesticity;
Listens through the door where they’re together,
Listens long, for what can these sounds be?
Plaint, delirium,
Bride and her bridegroom,
And the stammer of love’s ecstasy.
At the door she stays awhile, unmoving,
For she would convince herself of this;
And she hears the high vows, fierce and loving,
Words of passion and dear emphasis.
“Hush! The rooster’s crow!
Will you come tomorrow?”—kiss on kiss.
Now the mother’s wrath no more can suffer,
She unlatches the familiar door:
“Is this house a place for whores who offer
Flesh to sate a stranger’s hot desire?”
In that moment she
Can by lamplight see—
God!—it’s her own child she glimpses there.
And the young man in a shocked reaction,
With the girl’s own veil, with tapestry,
Seeks to shroud his sweetheart from detection,
But she twists away and struggles free;
As with spirit-might
Rises slow and white
Her long form from veil and drapery.
“Mother! Mother!”—empty words, mere traces;
“You’d begrudge me but one night so fair!
You drove me away from all warm places,
Have I only woken to despair?
Were you not content
That I, shrouded, went
To an early grave at your desire?
“But from that piled burden of confinement
My own right now drives me to be free.
Neither may your chanting priests’ atonement
Nor can your blessing have weight with me;
Salt and water may
Nor the cold earth quench love’s victory.
“This young man to me was dedicated
When yet Venus’ joyous temple stood.
But you, Mother, broke the word you plighted,
For a false, an alien vow of good!
But no god will hear
If a mother swear
To deny her daughter’s hand and blood.
“From the grave I will be exiled ever,
Seeking out the good that should be mine,
Still to love the man now lost forever,
And to suck his hot heart’s bloody wine.
He has had his turn,
Others now I’ll burn,
And the young folk to this rage consign.
“Lovely youth! Your life is over, broken;
Now you’ll perish from this world of air;
Keep the chain, my gift and my love-token,
But—I take that brown lock of your hair.
Look well, what I say:
Next dawn be it gray,
Only brown in that far place we’ll share.
“Listen, Mother, to my last petition:
Build for me a fitting funeral pyre;
Open up that abject hut, my prison,
Lay to rest the lovers in the fire;
Ashes glowing red,
Where the old gods are, we’ll hasten there.”
1797