| I seemed to see you, love, struggling through the cold Ionian | |
| waves, your boat in splinters, weak arms weary; | |
| And as your great damp mass of hair was pulling you down | |
| you confessed to every lie you ever told me. | |
| 5 | I thought of Helle, gulping wine-dark lungfuls, sunk: |
| spilled from the sky, from the back of the golden ewe . . . | |
| You! Fear overcame me: what if sailors should one day | |
| remember your name and weep as they slip through | |
| these waters, calling this sea the "Cynthian"? I prayed | |
| 10 | to every god, made every vow: "Neptune! |
| Leucothoë! Castor! Pollux! Save her!" Only your hands | |
| were visible, but I heard you again and again | |
| calling my name as you died. If Glaucus then, the sea-green | |
| god, had seen your lovely little eyes, | |
| 15 | you would have been the Ionian Sea's best girl; nymphs |
| (whiter than pearls, or bluer than the skies) | |
| would sulk, and crackle with jealousy as you passed. Instead | |
| I saw a dolphin speeding to your side-- | |
| the very one, I think, who saved Arion--who delivered | |
| 20 | lyre and poet to shore. And as I tried |
| to fling myself from the top of the sheer rock scarp, | |
| the whole scene, scatter-shot with fear, had disappeared. | |
| vidi te in somnis fracta, mea vita, carina | |
| Ionio lassas ducere rore manus, | |
| et quaecumque in me fueras mentita fateri, | |
| nec iam umore gravis tollere posse comas, | |
| 5 | qualem purpureis agitatam fluctibus Hellen, |
| aurea quam molli tergore vexit ovis. | |
| quam timui, ne forte tuum mare nomen haberet, | |
| atque tua labens navita fleret aqua! | |
| quae tum ego Neptuno, quae tum cum Castore fratri, | |
| 10 | quaeque tibi excepi, iam dea, Leucothoe! |
| at tu vix primas extollens gurgite palmas | |
| saepe meum nomen iam peritura vocas. | |
| quod si forte tuos vidisset Glaucus ocellos, | |
| esses Ionii facta puella maris, | |
| 15 | et tibi ob invidiam Nereides increpitarent, |
| candida Nesaee, caerula Cymothoe. | |
| sed tibi subsidio delphinum currere vidi, | |
| qui, puto, Arioniam vexerat ante lyram. | |
| iamque ego conabar summo me mittere saxo, | |
| 20 | cum mihi discussit talia visa metus. |
This translation was first published in Arion, Third Series, 1.1 (Winter 1990).
Permission is hereby granted to distribute for classroom use, provided that both Diane Arnson Svarlien and Diotima are identified in any such use. Other uses not authorized in writing by the translator or in accord with fair use policy are expressly prohibited.
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