§2.73Hoc tua post illos titulo signetur imago: §2.74Hic est, cuius amans hospita capta dolo est. §2.75De tanta rerum turba factisque parentis §2.76Sedit in ingenio Cressa relicta tuo.
After those, let your image be marked with this inscription: 'This is he, whose loving hostess was captured by his guile.' Out of so great a crowd of deeds and acts of your father, only the abandoned Cretan girl has settled in your mind.
What alone he excuses, that alone you admire in him; faithless man, you act as the heir to your father's fraud.
§2.79Illa — nec invideo — fruitur meliore marito §2.80Inque capistratis tigribus alta sedet; §2.81At mea despecti fugiunt conubia Thraces, §2.82Quod ferar externum praeposuisse meis.
She — nor do I envy her — enjoys a better husband and sits high on harnessed tigers; But the despised Thracians flee marriage with me, because I am said to have preferred a foreigner to my own people.
§2.83Atque aliquis 'iam nunc doctas eat,' inquit, 'Athenas; §2.84Armiferam Thracen qui regat, alter erit.
And someone says, 'Let her go now to learned Athens; there will be another to rule weapon-bearing Thrace.
The result proves the deeds.' May he lack success, I pray, whoever thinks that deeds should be judged by the outcome!
§2.87At si nostra tuo spumescant aequora remo, §2.88Iam mihi, iam dicar consuluisse meis — §2.89Sed neque consului, nec te mea regia tanget §2.90Fessaque Bistonia membra lavabis aqua!
But if our seas should foam with your oar, at once I should be said to have consulted my own interests and my people's — But neither have I consulted them, nor will my palace touch you, nor will you wash your weary limbs in Bistonian water!
That sight of you departing clings to my eyes, when the fleet about to depart pressed upon my harbors.
§2.93Ausus es amplecti colloque infusus amantis §2.94Oscula per longas iungere pressa moras §2.95Cumque tuis lacrimis lacrimas confundere nostras, §2.96Quodque foret velis aura secunda, queri §2.97Et mihi discedens suprema dicere voce: §2.98'Phylli, fac expectes Demophoonta tuum!' §2.99Expectem, qui me numquam visurus abisti?
You dared to embrace me and, poured over your lover's neck, to join pressed kisses through long delays, and to mingle our tears with yours, and to complain that the breeze was favorable for your sails, and as you departed, to say to me with your final voice: 'Phyllis, see to it that you expect your Demophoon!' Should I expect you, who departed never to see me again?
§2.100Expectem pelago vela negata meo?
Should I expect sails denied to my sea?
And yet I do expect — only return late to your lover, so that your faith may have failed only in respect of time!
§2.103Quid precor infelix? te iam tenet altera coniunx
What do I pray for, unhappy as I am?
§2.104Forsitan et, nobis qui male favit, amor; §2.105Iamque tibi excidimus, nullam, puto, Phyllida nosti.
Already another wife holds you, and perhaps that love which favored us so ill; and now we have slipped from your mind, and you know no Phyllis, I think.
§2.106Ei mihi! si, quae sim Phyllis et unde, rogas —
Ah, woe is me!
§2.107Quae tibi, Demophoon, longis erroribus acto §2.108Threicios portus hospitiumque dedi, §2.109Cuius opes auxere meae, cui dives egenti §2.110Munera multa dedi, multa datura fui; §2.111Quae tibi subieci latissima regna Lycurgi, §2.112Nomine femineo vix satis apta regi, §2.113Qua patet umbrosum Rhodope glacialis ad Haemum, §2.114Et sacer admissas exigit Hebrus aquas, §2.115Cui mea virginitas avibus libata sinistris §2.116Castaque fallaci zona recincta manu!
If you ask who I, Phyllis, am and from where — I am she who gave to you, Demophoon, driven by long wanderings, Thracian harbors and hospitality, whose resources increased yours, to whom, needy, I rich gave many gifts, and was about to give many more; I who subjected to you the very wide realms of Lycurgus, scarcely fit to be ruled under a woman's name, where icy Rhodope extends to shady Haemus, and sacred Hebrus drives his swift waters, I, whose virginity was offered to you under ill-omened birds, and whose chaste girdle was unbound by a deceitful hand!
§2.117Pronuba Tisiphone thalamis ululavit in illis, §2.118Et cecinit maestum devia carmen avis; §2.119Adfuit Allecto brevibus torquata colubris, §2.120Suntque sepulcrali lumina mota face!
Tisiphone, presiding over the wedding, howled in those bridal chambers, and the straying bird sang a mournful song; Allecto was present, collared with short snakes, and the lights were shaken by a sepulchral torch!
Yet, mournful, I tread the rocks and shrubby shores, and whatever wide shores lie open to my eyes.
§2.123Sive die laxatur humus, seu frigida lucent §2.124Sidera, prospicio, quis freta ventus agat; §2.125Et quaecumque procul venientia lintea vidi, §2.126Protinus illa meos auguror esse deos.
Whether the earth is loosened by day, or the cold stars shine, I watch to see what wind drives the seas; and whatever sails I saw coming far off, straightway I augur that those are my gods.
I run forward into the seas, with the waves scarcely holding me back, where the moving water stretches out its foremost waves.
The more they approach, the less and less able I stand; I faint, and fall to be caught by my handmaids.
There is a bay, gently curved into drawn bows; its outermost horns stand stiff with steep crags.
§2.133Hinc mihi suppositas inmittere corpus in undas §2.134Mens fuit; et, quoniam fallere pergis, erit.
From here, to cast my body into the underlying waves was my intent; and, since you continue to deceive, so it will be.
May the waves carry me, cast away, to your shores, and may I meet your eyes unburied!
§2.137Duritia ferrum ut superes adamantaque teque, §2.138'Non tibi sic,' dices, 'Phylli, sequendus eram!' §2.139Saepe venenorum sitis est mihi; saepe cruenta §2.140Traiectam gladio morte perire iuvat.
Though you surpass iron and adamant and yourself in hardness, 'Not thus, Phyllis,' you will say, 'should I have been followed by you!' Often I have a thirst for poisons; often with a bloody death, pierced by a sword, it pleases me to perish.
My neck also, because it offered itself to be bound by faithless arms, it pleases me to entangle in nooses.
§2.143Stat nece matura tenerum pensare pudorem.
It is my resolved purpose to pay for my tender shame by an early death.
§2.144In necis electu parva futura mora est.
In the choice of death there will be little delay.
You will be inscribed on my tomb as the hated cause.