An old man, as he watched that pair of birds
fly over broad expanses of the sea,
was praising Ceyx and Alcyone,
who loved each other so enduringly.
And one who stood nearby—or it may be
the same old man himself—then told this story:
“And that bird, too, the one whom you can see
skimming the sea—the one whose legs are slender”
(he pointed to a long-necked, swift merganser,
a fervent diver) “is of royal birth.
His forebears, if you want to hear in full
his line from its beginning down to him,
were Ilus and Assaracus and he
whom Jove stole, Ganymede; and then came old
Laomedeon and Priam, king who ruled
in Troy’s last days. And Aesacus himself
was Hector’s brother: if he had not suffered
so strange a fate while he was still quite young,
he might have won as much renown as Hector—
though Hector was the son of Dymas’ daughter,
while Aesacus was born—so it is said—
of Alexiroe, who had as father
Granicus, the horned river-god; and she
gave birth to Aesacus most secretly,
at wooded Ida’s base. He hated towns
and kept away from regal banquet halls;
he lived on solitary mountain slopes
and in the simple countryside; he went
to visit Troy but rarely—an assembly
from time to time was quite enough for him.
And yet his Trojan heart was hardly crude—
nor steeled against soft love: he would pursue
Hesperie, whose father Cebren was
a river-god. For Aesacus had seen
that nymph along her father’s banks as she
Latin [749–69]
was drying her long hair beneath the sun.
When she saw him, she fled, just as the hind
will flee the tawny wolf, or a wild duck,
too far from her own customary marsh,
will flee if she is startled by a hawk.
The Trojan races after her, as swift
with love as she with fear. But now the nymph
is bitten by a serpent who had hid
within the grass; just as Hesperie passed,
he struck her foot with his hooked fangs and left
his venom in her veins. And when her life
was spent, so was her flight. In his despair,
her lover clasped her lifeless form and mourned:
‘I should not have pursued you: I repent.
But I could not imagine this. To win
our race, I’d not have paid this price. Poor girl,
it’s two of us who killed you: yes, the wound
came from the snake, but I had caused the race.
I am more guilty than he is—and I,
to make amends for your death, offer mine.’
“That said, down from a seaside cliff whose base
the waves had worn away, the Trojan leaped
into the sea. But Thetis, taking pity,
received him gently, softening his fall;
and as he floated on the waters, she
clothed him with feathers: she did not concede
to him the death he’d sought so eagerly.
The lover now is furious: he sees
that he, against his will, is forced to live
and that his soul, so eager to desert
its wretched site, is not allowed to leave.
So with the newfound wings upon his shoulders,
he lifts himself and then again falls back;
his fall is softened by his feathers. Frenzied,
he dives headlong, dives deep; it’s death he needs;
he seeks, reseeks a fatal path. His love
had made him lean; between his joints, his legs
Latin [770–93]
are slender still, as is his neck; his head
is distant from his body. And indeed
he loves the water still, and since he dives
beneath it, he is called the diving bird—
merganser—always wanting to submerge.”
Latin [794–95]