Then Mercury, who bears the magic wand,
flew off on level wings. And from on high,
in flight, he saw the land Minerva loves:
Athenian fields and the Lyceum’s grove.
That chanced to be the very day on which
chaste virgins celebrate Minerva’s feast:
upon their hands, in baskets flower-ringed,
they bear their pure and holy offerings
up to Minerva’s hill, her sanctuary.
And even as the winged god saw below
the young Athenian girls returning home,
he did not fly ahead but circled them.
Just as the swift kite-hawk, on catching sight
of innards when a bull is sacrificed,
will wait and hover just as long as, round
the altar, he can see the faithful crowd;
not daring to swoop low, he yet stays close
on high: he tips his wings and wheels above
his prey—he’s greedy; he is full of hope:
just so the swift god of Cyllene wheeled
in steady rings around the sacred hill.
And just as Lucifer is brighter than
the other stars, and as the golden moon
in turn is far more bright than Lucifer,
so did fair Herse, gem of the procession,
outshine the other girls, all her companions.
Latin [703–25]
Her beauty had amazed the son of Jove;
as Mercury hung in the sky, fierce love
swept through him with a force that matched the heat
of lead shot from a Balearic sling:
a missile flying through the air that grows
more incandescent as it soars below
the clouds and finds a fire it had not known.
He changes course; he leaves the sky and falls
to earth; nor does the god disguise himself:
he is quite sure his form will win the girl.
He has good reason to be confident,
yet he attends to these refined details:
he smooths his hair; and he adjusts his cloak
so that its folds fall gracefully and show
its golden border; and he takes much care
to see that, in his hand, he holds the wand
that can enchant with sleep or drive it off;
on his sleek feet his winged sandals glow.
King Cecrop’s palace had three inmost rooms,
adorned with ivory and tortoiseshells.
O Pandrosos, the right-hand room was yours;
the left was where Aglauros slept; between
the two stood Herse’s room. The first to see
the god approaching was Aglauros: she
dared ask him who he was, what brought him there.
And this was Mercury’s reply: “I’m he
who flies across the air as emissary
of Jove; he is the god who fathered me.
I won’t invent some lie; I only hope
you won’t betray your sister—even as
I trust you will be pleased to be the aunt
of one whom I shall father. What I want
is Herse. Help me, I am sick with love.”
Aglauros looked at him as avidly
as—only recently—her eyes had peeped
into the basket that contained the secret
Latin [726–49]
of golden-haired Minerva; and the girl
asked Mercury, as payment for her help,
for heaps of gold. Meantime, she made him leave.
Aglauros earned Minerva’s cruel gaze,
and the deep sigh the warrior-goddess gave
was violent; her breast and her breastplate—
her aegis—quaked. And after all, this same
young girl (Minerva now recalled) profaned
the casket that contained Minerva’s secret.
Despite the orders of the goddess, she
had seen the child born without mother, one
engendered by the god of Lemnos, Vulcan,
out of the earth. And now that same girl planned
to win the gratitude of Mercury
and of her sister, and—most greedily—
to gain great heaps of gold—a tidy fee.
Minerva hurried to the house of Envy:
a squalid den that dripped with gore, a filthy,
secluded cavern in a deep-set valley:
it knows no sun, no breath of wind—a grim
and frozen place forever gripped by sloth;
within that space, there is no kindly hearth.
And it is always full of dense, dark fog.
The virgin warrior-goddess reached that cave;
she stood before the door (for she was not
indeed allowed to enter such a place)
and struck it with her pointed javelin.
At last the door flew open.
There within,
she saw that Envy was intent upon
a meal of viper flesh, the meat that fed
her vice. Minerva turned aside her eyes.
But Envy sluggishly rose from the ground,
leaving the half-chewed dregs of serpents’ flesh
Latin [749–72]
and coming forward with her faltering steps.
And when she saw the splendid goddess dressed
in gleaming armor, Envy moaned: her face
contracted as she sighed. That face is wan,
that body shriveled; and her gaze is not
direct; her teeth are filled with filth and rot;
her breast is green with gall, and poison coats
her tongue. She never smiles except when some
sad sight brings her delight; she is denied
sweet sleep, for she is too preoccupied,
forever vigilant; when men succeed,
she is displeased—success means her defeat.
She gnaws at others and at her own self—
her never-ending, self-inflicted hell.
Despite Minerva’s hatred and disgust,
she speaks brief words to Envy: “Now you must
infect with venom one of Cecrops’ daughters:
I mean Aglauros.” She adds nothing else.
Then, with her lance as lever to add thrust,
the goddess leaves the ground behind, flies off.
When Envy’s grim eyes see the goddess leave,
she mutters, sad that now she has to please
Minerva. Then she grips her staff, wrapped round
with thorny boughs, and, cloaked in a dark cloud,
goes off: she tramples any field she crosses;
she scorches grass and blights the green treetops;
her breath infects all people, houses, towns.
At last she reaches Athens: she can see
its citadel, the height above a city
of intellect and wealth and festive peace;
and it is hard for Envy not to weep,
since there is nothing there that calls for tears.
But, entering the room of Cecrops’ daughter,
she does Minerva’s bidding: Envy touches
Aglauros’ breast with her rust-colored hand;
Latin [772–98]
she breathes a horrid poison—much like pitch—
into the girl; it penetrates her bones
and lungs. And that the venom may be strong—
and never falter—Envy sets before
Aglauros’ eyes the image of her sister
wed joyfully to such a handsome god.
So Envy heightened Herse’s happy lot.
Incited by these images, Aglauros
begins to feel the bite of secret grief;
by night, by day, she longs, she moans; she’s worn
away, a slow decay, like ice that’s pierced
by fitful sunrays. She is now undone
by Herse’s happiness, a course that mimes
a fire beneath a heap of thorny weeds:
they don’t go up in flames; they are consumed
by faint but never-ending heat. At times
she wants to die—never to see the sight
of Herse’s joy; at times she wants to speak
to Cecrops, her stern father—to defeat
the sin of Herse and her Mercury.
But then the girl decides on this: she sits
at Herse’s threshold—she will not admit
the god when he returns. Mercury begs
for entry—all his words are sweet and soft;
he tries to calm her. But she cries: “Be off!
I will not leave until you’ve left this house!”
“Agreed!” was his quick answer. Then he struck
the figured door with his compelling wand;
the door flew open. And Aglauros tried
to rise; but now the limbs that bend when we
would sit, are gripped by sluggish heaviness:
she cannot budge; she cannot stand: her knees
are stiff; a chill climbs to her fingertips;
her veins have lost their blood—they pale; and as
a cancer, which cannot be cured, attacks
the healthy parts, advancing from the sick,
Latin [799–826]
so does that fatal chill move limb
by limb; it makes its way into her breast; it blocks
her vital pathways, and her breath is choked.
She does not even try to speak; but had
she tried, her voice would not have found a path:
by now her neck has turned to stone; her mouth
has hardened, too. She is a seated statue,
bloodless—and yet that statue is not white:
Aglauros’ soul gives it a black, black hue.
Now that he’s taken his revenge upon
Aglauros’ impious words and thoughts, the son
of Maia leaves the town that takes its name
from great Athena. Once again, he makes
his way to heaven on his outspread wings.