The Heroides. 14.

 14. Hypermestra to Lynceus

Hypermestra sends this letter to her one cousin of many,
the rest lie dead because of their brides’crime.
I’m held prisoner in this house, confined by heavy chains:
that’s my punishment because I was virtuous.
Because my hand was afraid to plunge a blade into a throat,
I’m guilty: I would be praised if I’d dared to be wicked.
Better to be guilty, than to have pleased a parent so:
I don’t regret my hands are free of blood.
Father might burn me, with the fire I didn’t violate,
and hold in my face the torches, that were present at my rites.
or cut my throat, with the sword he wrongly gave me,
so that I might die the death my husband did not –
he still won’t make my dying mouth say: ‘I repent!’
It’s not possible to regret being virtuous!
Wicked Danaus, my father, and my savage sisters should repent:
that’s the customary thing that follows wicked deeds.
My heart trembles, remembering the blood of that shameful night,
and a sudden tremor binds together the bones of my right hand.
The woman, you might think had the power to perform the murder
of her husband, is afraid to write of deeds of murder not her own!
But I’ll still try. Twilight had just begun on earth,
it was the last of light, and the first of night.
We, scions of Inachus, are led beneath Pelasgus’s noble roof,
and there the father-in-law welcomes the armed daughters.
Everywhere lamps, encircled by gold, are shining:
and incense is impiously offered to unwilling flames.
The crowd of men shout: ‘Hymen, Hymenaee!’He flees their shouts:
Juno herself abandons her city of Argos.
See how, fuddled with wine, to the cries of many friends,
their drenched hair crowned with flowers,
they’re carried to the joyful bedrooms – rooms to be their graves –
and weigh down the beds, worthy to be their biers.
So they lay there, heavy with food, and wine, and sleep,
and there was deep peace throughout carefree Argos.
I seemed to hear around me the groans of dying men
and I did indeed hear, and what I feared was true.
My colour went, and mind, and body, lost their warmth,
and I lay there, chilled, in my new marriage bed.
As slender stalks of wheat quiver in a mild west wind,
as cold breezes stir the poplar leaves,
I trembled so, and more. You yourself lay there,
and were drowsy, as the wine had made you.
My cruel father’s order drove away my fear:
I rose, and grasped the weapon with shaking hand.
I won’t tell a lie. Three times I lifted the sharp blade,
three times my hand lowered the sword it wickedly raised.
I confess the truth to you despite myself: I pointed it
at your throat: still overcome by cruel terror of my father,
I pointed my father’s sword at your throat:
but fear and piety hindered the cruel act,
and my chaste hand fled the work demanded.
Tearing my purple robes, tearing at my hair
in a whisper I spoke these words:
‘You father’s cruel towards you, Hypermestra: act out
his order: let your husband join his brothers!
I’m female and a young girl, gentle by age and nature:
fierce weapons are no use in tender hands.
Why not act while he lies there, imitate your brave sisters:
it’s possible all the husbands have been killed?
If this hand had any power to commit murder,
it would be bloodied by the death of its mistress.
They deserved to die for taking their uncle’s kingdom:
but suppose our husbands deserved to die, we who
were given to strangers: what have we ourselves done?
What crime have I committed that I’m not allowed to be virtuous?
What have I to do with swords? Or a girl with warlike weapons?
My hands are more suited to the distaff and wool.’
So I whispered. While I lamented, tears chased my words,
and fell from my eyes onto your body.
While you seek my embrace, and, still asleep, stir your arms,
your hand is almost wounded by my weapon.
And now I feared my father, his servants, and the light.
These words of mine dispelled your sleep:
‘Rise and go, scion of Belus, sole one of many cousins!
This night will be yours eternally, unless you hurry!’
You rose in terror, shaking off all the weight of sleep,
you saw the sharp sword in my timid hand.
You ask why: I say: ‘Flee, while the night allows!’
While night’s darkness itself allows, you flee, I remain.
It was dawn, and Danaus counted his sons-in-law lying dead,
One’s missing from the tally of crime.
He takes it badly, downcast by one among these dead relations,
and complains that the acts of blood are unfinished.
I’m dragged by my hair, from my father’s, feet to prison –
is this the reward I deserve for my virtue?
No doubt Juno’s anger lasted from the time when Io was changed
from girl to heifer, till a goddess was made of that heifer –
but Jove’s punishment was enough, that a tender girl bellowed,
her beauty in no way able to please him.
The new heifer stood on the banks of her father’s stream
and saw horns not hers, in her father’s waves,
and, lowing, tried to lament with her mouth,
and was frightened by her form, and by her voice.
Why are you maddened, unhappy one? Why gaze at yourself
in the water? Why count the feet formed from your new limbs?
A rival, feared by that sister of mighty Jupiter,
you ease your great hunger with leaves and grass:
you drink from springs, and, stunned, see your shape,
and fear lest the weapons you bear might kill you.
You were once rich enough to be fit to be seen even by Jove,
naked you lie on the naked earth.
You wander by the sea, and the lands, and their rivers:
the sea, the streams, the land grant you a way.
What’s the reason for your flight? Oh, Io! Why wander vast straits?
You can’t escape from your own features.
Daughter of Inachus, where do you hasten to? The same form
flees and follows: you’re guide to a follower, follower to a guide.
The Nile flowing to the sea through seven gates
drove out the maddened heifer from the girl’s face.
Why recall these earliest things, sung to me by ancient authors?
Behold, my own life gives me things to lament.
My father and my uncle wage war: we’re expelled from home
and from our kingdom: driven to inhabit furthest places.
That warlike one, alone, is master of solitude and power:
while we wander a helpless crowd, with a helpless old man.
Of the horde of cousins the least part remains:
I weep for those given death, and those who gave it.
For as many cousins as I lost, I lost as many sisters:
let both groups of them receive my tears.
But I, because you live, am kept for punishment’s torment:
what becomes of guilt, when I’m tormented for things men praise?
Unhappy, I may die with only one cousin left, I once
a hundredth of a crowded family.
But you, Lynceus, if you care for your virtuous cousin
and are worthy of the gift I gave you,
bring me help or bring me death: and add my body,
when life is gone, to the secret fires,
and bury my bones, drenched with your loyal tears,
and let these brief lines be carved on my tomb:
‘Hypermestra, an exile, bore the unjust price of virtue,
she who averted death from her cousin.’
I’d like to write more to you, but my hand’s dragged down
by the weight of chains, and fear itself drains my strength.