Ariadne to Theseus


The whole tribe of creatures contrive to be gentler than you:
not one have I had less confidence in than you.
Theseus, what you read has been sent to you from this land,
from which your sails carried your ship without me,
in which my sleep, and you, evilly betrayed me,
conceiving your plans against me while I slept.
It was the time when the earth’s first sprinkled with glassy frost,
and the hidden birds lament in the leaves:
waking uncertainly, and stirring languidly in sleep,
half-turning, my hand reached out for Theseus:
there was no one there. I drew back, and tried again,
and moved my arm across the bed: no one there.
Fear broke through my drowsiness: terrified, I rose
and hurled my body from the empty bed.
Straight away my hands drummed on my breast, and tore at my hair,
just as it was, on waking, from my confused sleep.
There was a moon: I looked and saw nothing but the shore:
wherever my eyes could see, there was nothing but sand.
I ran here and there without any sense of purpose,
the deep sand slowing a girl’s feet.
Meanwhile I called: ‘Theseus!’ over the whole beach
your name echoing from the hollow cliffs
and as often as I called you, the place itself called too:
the place itself wished to give aid to my misery.
There was a hill: a few bushes were visible on its summit:
a crag hangs there hollowed out by the harsh waves.
I climbed it: courage gave me strength: and I scanned
the wide waters from that height with my gaze.
Then I saw – now the cruel winds were also felt –
your ship driven before a fierce southerly gale.
Either with what I saw, or what I may have thought I’d seen:
I was frozen like ice and half-alive.
But grief allowed no time for languor. I was roused by it,
and roused, I called to Theseus at the top of my voice.
‘Where are you going?’ I shouted ‘turn back, wicked Theseus!
Work your ship! You’re without one of your number!’
So I called. When my voice failed I beat my breast instead:
my blows were interspaced with my words.
If you could not hear at least you might still see:
I made wide signals with my outstretched hands.
I hung a white cloth on a tall branch,
hoping those who’d forgotten would remember me.
Now you were lost to sight. Then finally I wept:
till then my cheeks were numb with grief.
What could my eyes do but weep at myself,
once they had ceased to see your sails?
Either I wandered alone, with dishevelled hair,
like a Maenad shaken by the Theban god:
or I sat on the cold rock gazing at the sea,
and I was as much a stone as the stones I sat on.
Often I seek again the bed that accepted us both,
but it shows no sign of that acceptance,
and I touch what I can of the traces of you, instead of you,
and the sheets your body warmed.
I lie there and, wetting the bed with my flowing tears,
I cry out: ‘We two burdened you, restore the two!
We came here together: why shouldn’t we go together?
Faithless bed, where’s the better part of me now?
What am I to do? Why endure alone? The island’s unploughed:
I see no human beings: I can’t imagine there’s an ox.
The land’s encircled by the sea on every side: no sailors,
no ship to set sail on its uncertain way.
Suppose I was given companions, winds and ship,
where would I make for? My country denies me access.
If my boat slid gently through peaceful waters,
calmed by Aeolian winds, I’d be an exile still.
I could not gaze at you, Crete, split in a hundred cities,
a land that was known to the infant Jove.
But my father and that land justly ruled by my father,
those dear names, were both betrayed by me.
while you, the victor who retraced your steps, would have died
in the winding labyrinth, unless guided by the thread I gave you,
Then, you said to me: ‘I swear by the dangers overcome,
that you’ll be mine while we both shall live.’
We live, and I’m not yours, Theseus, if you still live,
I’m a woman buried by the fraud of a lying man.
Club that killed my brother, the Minotaur, condemn me too!
The promise that you gave should be dissolved by death.
Now I see not only what I must endure,
but what any castaway would suffer.
A thousand images of dying fill my mind,
and I fear death less than delay in that penalty of death.
At every moment I dream it, coming from here or there,
as if wolves tore my entrails with eager teeth.
Perhaps this land breeds tawny lions?
Who knows if this island harbours savage tigers?
And they say that the ocean throws up huge sea-lions:
and who could prevent some sword piercing my side?
If only I might not be a captive, bound with harsh chains,
nor draw out endless threads with a slave’s hand,
I whose father is Minos, whose mother is the Sun’s daughter,
because of that I remember the more, that I was bound to you!
If I see the ocean, the land and the wide shore,
I fear many things on land, many on the waves.
The sky remains: I fear visions from the gods:
I’m forsaken, a prey and food for swift beasts.
If men live here and cultivate this place, I distrust them:
I’ve thoroughly learned to fear wounds from strangers.
I wish my brother Androgeos lived and you Athens, land of Cecrops,
hadn’t paid with your children’s deaths for his impious murder:
and that you, Theseus hadn’t killed the Minotaur, half man, half bull,
wielding a knotted club in your strong hand:
and that I hadn’t given you the thread that marked your way back,
the thread so often received back into the hand that drew it.
I’m not surprised that victory was yours, and the monster,
prone, lay groaning on the Cretan earth.
His horns could not pierce your iron heart:
though you might fail to shield it, your breast would be safe.
There you revealed flints and adamants,
there you’ve a Theseus harder than flint.
Cruel sleep, why did you hold me there, senseless?
Rather I should have been buried forever in eternal night.
You too cruel winds, you gales, all too ready
and officious in bringing tears to me:
cruel right hand that causes my death, and my brother’s,
and offered the promise I asked, an empty name:
Sleep, the breeze, the promise conspired against me:
one girl, I’m betrayed by three causes.
So it seems I’ll die without seeing my mother’s tears,
and there’ll be no one to close my eyes.
My unhappy spirit will vanish on a foreign breeze,
no friendly hand will anoint my laid-out body.
The seabirds will hover over my unburied bones:
these are the ceremonies fit for my tomb.
You’ll be carried to Athens, and be received by your homeland,
where you’ll stand in the high fortress of your city,
and speak cleverly of the death of man and bull,
and the labyrinth’s winding paths cut from the rock:
speak of me also, abandoned in a lonely land:
I’m not to be dropped, secretly, from your list!
Your father’s not Aegeus: Aethra, daughter of Pittheus,
is not your mother: your creators were stone and sea.
May the gods have ordained that you saw me from the high stern,
that my mournful figure altered your expression.
Now see me not with your eyes, but as you can, with your mind,
clinging to a rock the fickle sea beats against:
see my dishevelled hair like one who is in mourning
and my clothes heavy with tears like rain!
My body trembles like ears of wheat struck by a north wind
and the letters I write waver in my unsteady fingers.
I don’t entreat you by my kindness, since that has ended badly:
let no gratitude be owed for my deeds.
But no punishment either. If I’m not the cause of your health,
that’s still no reason why you should cause me harm.
These hands weary of beating my sad breast for you,
unhappily I stretch them out over the wide waters:
I mournfully display to you what remains of my hair:
I beg you by these tears your actions have caused:
turn your ship, Theseus, fall back against the wind:
if I die first, you can still bear my bones.