The Heroides. 18.

  18. Leander to Hero

Hero, accept, from Leander’s hand, while he himself comes,
what he’d have wished to bear through the customary waves.
From one of Abydos, greetings, girl of Sestos, which he’d prefer
to bring to you, if only the waves would abate.
If the fates are good to me, if the gods accompany me with love,
you’ll read these words with indifferent eyes.
But the fates aren’t kind: why now would they delay my pledge,
not allowing me to hurry to you through familiar waters?
You yourself can see the sky blacker than pitch, and the strait
troubled by winds, and ships hardly venturing the deeps.
One boatman, and he’s daring, by whom my letter
is delivered to you, makes his way from harbour.
I’d have embarked with him, except that when he cast off
the lines from the stern, he was in view from all Abydos.
I wouldn’t have been masked from my parents, as before,
and the love we wish to conceal wouldn’t have been hidden.
As soon as I wrote this, I said: ‘Go, happy letter!
now she’ll reach out her lovely hand for you.
Perhaps she’ll even touch you, with her snow-white teeth,
bringing you to her lips, when she wishes to break your seal.’
I spoke these words to myself in a low murmur,
while the rest of the sheet was indicated by my right hand.
But how I’d prefer that this hand, that writes, might swim
and carry me faithfully through familiar waters!
However apt it is as a servant of my feelings,
it’s better in fact at making strokes in the placid sea:
For seven nights, a space of time longer to me than a year,
I’ve been disturbed, as the troubled ocean raged with cruel waves.
If my mind has seen gentle sleep through those nights,
may this delay caused by the raging straits be a long one.
I’m sitting on a rock, sadly gazing at your other shore
and I’m carried in mind to where my body cannot go.
Indeed my keen watchful eye either sees
or thinks it sees the summit to your tower.
Three times I’ve left my clothes on the dry sands:
three times, naked, painfully, I’ve tried to swim the roads:
the swollen sea opposed my youthful undertaking,
and, swimming against the waves, my head was submerged.
But you, wildest of the swift winds, why do you,
with fixed purpose, wage war against me?
If you don’t see it, Boreas, you rage against me not the waves.
What might you do if love was not known to you?
Icy though you may be, cruel one, still, can you deny
that you once glowed with Greek fire?
What joy in plundering would you have known
if the airy approaches had wished to shut you out?
Spare me, I beg you, and release a more gentle breeze!
And let Aeolus not command anything offensive to you!
I beg in vain: he roars in answer to my prayers
and holds in check no part of the waters he’s stirred.
Now I wish Daedalus might give me bold wings!
Though the shores of the Icarian Sea are not far from here.
I’d suffer whatever might be, if only my body, that often hangs
above the uncertain water, might be lifted into the air.
Meanwhile, while winds and waves deny all,
I agitate my mind with the first moments of my secret affair.
Night was falling – indeed I remember the pleasure of it –
when, a lover, I slipped from my father’s door.
Without delay, shedding my clothes, and with them my fear,
I calmly slid my arms into the flowing water.
The moon offered only a trembling light, to my going,
like an obliging companion on the road.
I looked up to her, and said: ‘Favour me, bright goddess,
and let the cliffs of Latmia suggest themselves to your mind.
Endymion would not allow you to be hard-hearted:
I beg you, turn your face to my secret enterprise!
Goddess, you came down from the sky to seek a mortal:
may I speak truth! – She whom I follow is herself a goddess.
Without calling to mind her virtues, worthy of the gods,
her beauty doesn’t appear except among true goddesses.
There’s no greater loveliness than hers, after yours and Venus’s:
if you don’t believe my words, look for yourself!
By as much as all the stars yield to your fires
when you shine out, silver, with clear rays,
so much more beautiful than all the beauties is she:
if you doubt it, Cynthia, your eye is blind.’
I spoke these words or ones not unlike them,
the waters I shouldered parting before me, of themselves.
The waves shone with the image of the reflected moon
and it was bright as day in the silent night.
There was no voice anywhere: nothing came to my ears,
except the murmur of the waters, parted by my body.
Halycons alone appeared, lamenting to me,
sweetly, remembering dear Ceyx.
Then, both my arms growing weary, at the shoulder,
I raised myself strongly, high above the waves.
Seeing a distant light, I said: ‘My fire is in that fire:
that is the shore that holds my light.’
And sudden strength returned to my weary arms,
and the waves seemed calmer to me.
Love aids me, warming my eager heart,
so I will not be chilled by the deep cold.
I am more vigorous and the shore comes nearer,
as the distance grows less, my joy increases.
When I can see you clearly, your watching
gives me strength, and adds to my courage.
Now, to please my lady, I labour to swim,
and lift up my arms to catch your sight.
Your nurse can hardly stop you plunging into the deep.
This I saw too, it was not something I was told of.
Though she held you from going, she could not stop you,
nor prevent your feet being wet by the wave’s edge.
You embrace me, and join in happy kisses –
kisses, great gods, worth seeking over the sea!
Then you surrender to me the shawl from your shoulders,
and dry my hair drenched by the showers of brine.
The rest night knows, and we, and the tower that sees,
and the light that showed me a path through the sea.
The joys of that night can no more be counted
than the seaweeds in the waters of Hellespont:
how brief the time granted us for that secret passion,
how great the care that it was not wasted.
Soon Aurora, Tithonus’s bride, would chase away the night:
Lucifer paving the way, was in the sky:
we shower hasty kisses, quickly, without thought,
and complain how little the night lingers.
And so, delaying until the nurse’s cross warning,
leaving the tower, I seek the cold shore.
We part weeping, and I re-enter virgin Helle’s waters,
looking back at my lady, when I can, all the way.
If truth be known, coming to you from here I was a swimmer,
when I returned, I seemed to myself like a drowning man.
This too, if you would believe it: to you the way seemed smooth:
from you returning, a hill of inert water.
I return, unwillingly, to my country: who would believe it?
Now truly I linger in my city unwillingly.
Ah me! Why are our hearts that joined severed by the waves,
two of one mind but not of one country?
Your Sestos should take me, or my Abydos you:
your land pleases me, as much as mine pleases you.
Why am I troubled, when the sea is troubled?
How can a slight cause, the wind, oppose me?
Now the curved dolphins know of our affairs,
nor do I think I’m unknown to all the fish.
Now my worn path through the solitary waves is familiar,
no different to a road traversed by many wheels.
Before, I complained that this was the only way for me:
but now I also complain that I fail because of the wind.
Helle’s waters whiten with unruly waves,
and scarcely a boat remains safe at its moorings.
I think this sea was found like this, when first
it took its name from the drowned virgin.
This place is infamous enough from Helle’s loss,
and though it spares me, it has an evil name.
I envy Phrixus, carried safely over stormy seas,
on the golden ram, with its woolly fleece:
nevertheless I don’t need the services of a ram, or a boat,
provided these waters are given me, that my body parts.
Nothing’s done by artifice: only by the means to swim,
riding the waves, I’m both sailor and ship,
I don’t follow, Helice, the Great Bear, or Arctos, the Little Bear
that men of Tyre use: my love needs no visible stars.
Some other can gaze at Andromeda, or bright Corona Borealis,
or Callisto’s Bear shining at the frozen pole:
But it does not please me for the loves of Perseus,
Bacchus, or Jove, to be the judges of my dangerous path.
Another light’s more certain for me: my love,
that guides me, doesn’t wander in the darkness.
While I gaze on it, I might swim to Colchis, furthest Pontus,
and where the Thessalian ship, the Argo made its way,
and I might outdo young Palaemon, and Glaucus
whom a bite of grass made suddenly a god.
Exhausted, I can scarcely drag myself through the vast waters,
and often my arms are wearied by the endless motion.
When I tell them: ‘The reward for your labours will not be small,
soon it will be granted you to embrace your lady’s neck,’
they gain strength right away, and strain for the prize,
like swift horses of Elis, released from the starting gate.
So I serve my passions, with which I’m burnt,
and follow you the more, girl worthy of the heavens.
True you are worthy of the heavens, but linger still on earth,
or tell me which is indeed the way to the gods!
You are here, and have only a wretchedly small part of your lover,
and when the sea is stirred, my mind is stirred.
What good is it to me that no great width of sea divides us?
Does so narrow a stretch of water obstruct me less?
I wonder if I’d prefer to be a whole world distant,
when the hope I have of my lady is also far away.
Now, because we are nearer, I burn with a nearer flame,
and the hope, but not the thing itself, is always near me.
I almost touch what I love with my hand: it is so near:
but often, alas, that ‘almost’ moves me to tears!
How is it different, I say, to snatching at intangible fruit,
or chasing the hope of vanishing water with one’s mouth?
In that way, am I never to hold you, unless the waves wish it,
and is the storm never to see me happy,
and, when nothing’s less permanent than wind or wave,
are my hopes always to be with wind and water?
It is still summer. What when the Pleiades, and Bootës,
and Capella’s Kids wound me and the waters?
Either I haven’t learnt how rash I might be,
or, then too, incautious Love will send me into the sea:
If you think I vow it only because the time is not yet ripe,
I’ll give you an assurance of my promise without delay.
Let the tides be still as high as now for a few nights more,
and I’ll try to cross the uninviting waters.
Either I’ll reach happiness, through courage, in safety,
or death will make an end of anxious love.
I wish nevertheless to be thrown on that shore
and my drowned body reach your harbour.
For you’ll weep, and think my body worthy to be touched
and you’ll say: ‘I was the cause of this man’s death!’
No doubt you might be grieved by an omen of my death,
and this part of my letter might be hateful to you.
Enough: refrain from complaint. But let your prayer
agree with mine, I beg, that the sea indeed ends its wrath.
A brief lull is needed for me to cross to you:
when I touch your shore let the storm rage on!
There is the right harbour for my keel,
and no better waters exist for my vessel.
There let the North Wind shut me in, where delay is sweet:
There I’ll be reluctant to swim, there I’ll be cautious,
I’ll not cry out against the unheeding waves,
nor complain the sea is harsh for swimming.
Let both the winds and your tender arms hold me equally,
and I’ll be hindered by both causes.
When I’ve suffered the storm, I’ll use my arms as oars:
only always keep your light in sight.
Meanwhile let this stay with you, all night, instead of me,
this letter, that I pray, myself, to follow, with the least delay.