The Heroides. 11.

11. Canace to Macareus
 
An Aeolid, who has no health herself, sends it to an Aeolid,
and, armed, these words are written by her hand.
If the script is full of errors, with its dark blots,
the letter will have been stained by a woman’s blood.
My right hand holds a pen, my left a naked sword
and the paper’s lying loosely in my lap.
This is the image of Aeolus’s daughter writing to her brother:
it seems in this way I can appease our harsh father.
I could only wish that he were here to see my death
and the eyes of its author contemplate the act
though he’s uncivilised, and more ferocious than his east wind,
he would gaze at my wounds with dry cheeks.
How can anything good come of living with savage winds,
that nature of his matches his subjects.
He governs south, and west winds, and Thracian northerlies,
and your wings, violent easterlies.
Alas he governs the winds! He cannot govern his swollen anger,
and his kingdom is smaller than his faults.
What’s the use of my bandying my ancestor’s names about the sky,
that Jupiter can be mentioned among my relatives?
Is this blade, my funeral gift, any less dangerous
because I hold it, not yarn, in my woman’s hand?
O I wish, Macareus, the hour that made us one
had come later than the hour of my death!
Brother, why did you love me more than a brother should,
and why was I not merely what a sister should be, to you?
I also burnt with it, in a way I used to hear about,
I don’t know what god I felt in my loving heart.
The colour fled from my face, my slender body grew thin,
I took the least food, forced it into my mouth:
I couldn’t sleep easily, and the night was a year to me,
and, wounded by no pains, I gave out groans.
Nor could I give a reason for why I acted so,
nor knew what a lover was, but I was one.
My nurse was the first to sense it, with an old woman’s acuteness:
my nurse first said: ‘Canace, you’re in love!’
I blushed, and shame sent my eyes down to my lap:
that was enough of a confession, that silent signal.
Then the burden swelled in my sinful belly,
and the secret load weighed on my weak limbs.
What herbs, what remedies did my nurse not bring
and she applied them with her rash hand,
in order – I hid this one thing from you – to expel
the growing burden from my womb!
Ah! The child, too much alive, resisted the arts she tried,
and was safe from its secret enemy.
Now Phoebus’s most beautiful sister had risen nine times,
and the new Moon drove her light-bringing horses:
I didn’t know what caused my sudden pains,
and I was a new soldier, raw to the part.
I couldn’t lessen my cries. ‘Why betray your sin?’
my knowing nurse said covering my wailing mouth.
What can I do, in my misery? Pain forces me to groan,
but fear and my nurse and shame forbid it.
I contain my cries, take back the words that escape me,
and force myself to swallow the tears I’ve shed.
Death was before my eyes, and Lucina denied her help
and, if I died pregnant, death too would be a crime:
when bending over me, tearing open my tunic, parting my hair,
and pressing my breast to yours, you revived me,
and you said to me: ‘Live, sister, o dearest sister,
live so that two aren’t lost in one body. Let a fine hope
give you strength: now you’ll be your brother’s bride.
he through whom you’ll be a mother and a wife.
Though I was dead, believe me, I still revived at your words
and my burden was laid down, the crime of my womb.
Why do you give thanks? Aeolus sits mid-palace:
our crimes must be hidden from our father’s eyes.
My diligent nurse hides the child among fruits,
and grey olive branches, and light sacred ribbons,
and pretends she’s making a sacrifice, says words of prayer:
the people give worship, the father himself steps aside.
Now she was nearly at the door. A cry reached our father’s ears
and that betrayed signs of the child.
Aeolus snatched up my baby and revealed the false sacrifice.
The palace echoed to his furious voice.
As the sea trembles, when touched by a mild breeze,
as the ash twig shakes in a warm south wind,
so you might have seen my pale limbs quiver:
the bed was shaken by the body lying on it.
He forced his way in, and broadcast my shame by his shouts,
and scarcely kept his hands from my poor face.
I could do nothing but modestly pour out tears.
My tongue was frozen, numbed by icy fear.
And then he ordered that his little grand-child should be given
to the dogs and birds, abandoned in a lonely place.
The child began to scream with misery – could he have understood –
as though he could beseech his grandfather with his voice.
What do you think my feelings were, then, my brother,
(now you can collect your feelings yourself)
when my child was carried off by my enemy into the deep woods,
to be eaten by wolves from the mountains?
He left my room, then at last I beat my breasts
and proceeded to run my fingers through my hair.
Meanwhile one of father’s attendants came, with a mournful face,
and his mouth uttered shameful words:
‘Aeolus sends you this sword’– he delivered the sword –
‘and orders you to know his wish from its purpose.’
I know, and will use the violent weapon bravely:
I will sheathe father’s gift in my breast.
Do you give me this gift for my marriage, father?
Father, will your daughter be rich in this dowry?
Hymen, betrayed, take your marriage torches far from here,
and flee this impious house with troubled feet!
Furies bear the black torches you bear, to me,
and from those fires light my funeral pyre!
My happy sisters wedded to a better fate:
be lost to me but still remember me!
What did the child commit, in so few hours of life?
Scarcely born, by what act could he harm his grandfather?
If he can have merited death, he merited consideration:
ah, poor thing, punished for what I committed!
Child, your mother’s grief, a prey to devouring beasts,
ah me, your day of birth tears you apart,
child, sad pledge of my less than auspicious love,
this is your first day, this has been your last.
I could not let my rightful tears drench you,
nor cut a wisp of your hair to bear to the tomb:
I could not bend over you, and snatch an icy kiss:
ravenous wild beasts tear apart my baby.
I too, wounded, will follow the shade of my child:
I will not be called ‘mother’or ‘bereaved’for long.
Yet you, vain hope of your unhappy sister,
gather I beg you the scattered limbs of your son,
and bring them to their mother, place us in a shared tomb,
and let the narrow urn have whatever there is of us both!
Live on, remember us, and weep tears over my wound:
lover, do not shun the body of your lover.
You, I beg, obey the requests of the sister you loved too well!
I myself will obey our father’s order.