Content note: this text contains accounts of sexual assault

Reading this, are you? Or has your latest wife banned it? Read it all⁠—it isn’t

Some scrawl from the Greek you cuckolded.

It’s Oenone. The nymph. Quite the celebrity in Phrygian forests.

I, the injured party, bring a complaint against you, my own—if you’ll permit me.

What god opposed their power to our vows?

What charge blocks me from being yours forever?

Put up with it quietly, if you’ve done something to deserve it;

A wrongful penalty should be protested.

You weren’t so big then, when I was satisfied with you as a husband⁠—

Me! A nymph born of a great river!

You’re a son of Priam now, but—don’t let’s tiptoe round the truth⁠— 

You used to be enslaved. I, practically a goddess, could bear to wed someone not even free!

Often we rested among your flocks in the shade of a tree;

Grass jumbled with leaves served for our bed.

Often we’d lie on heaps of straw or hay,

A little shack our defence against the frost’s white hair.

Who was it showed you the glades good for hunting,

And the crags where wild beasts hid their young?

I guided you. Many times it was me that stretched out the coarse hunting nets; 

Me who drove the dogs fast across the long ridges.

Carved by you, beeches keep my name alive,

And I am read, OENONE, scratched in by your penknife.

[There’s a poplar, I remember, growing in a rainwater stream.

The note inscribed on it is mindful of me.]

The bigger the trunks grow, the bigger my name.

Arise, grow up into my titles!

Live on, poplar, please, planted on the stream bank

With this verse in your wrinkly bark:

When Oenone’s abandoned and Paris still breathes,

The waters of Xanthus shall retreat to their source.

Xanthus, back you go! Waters, turn round, run back!

He can bear it, Paris, to have deserted Oenone.

That was the day that sentenced me to be miserable. That’s when

It began, a terrible winter of altered love,

When Venus came, Juno came, and her, better-looking with her kit on,

Minerva, naked, came for you to arbitrate. You!

Thunderstruck, my curves shook, and cold quaking

Ran through my tough bones as you told me.

I consulted elders—couldn’t control my terror—both women

And men. Confirmed: ill-omened.

Fir felled, timbers cut, fleet prepared,

The deep blue swell took the waxed hulls.

You wept as you left. Spare me your denials, of this at least.

[That other love is more to be embarrassed about. This one came first.

You wept, you saw my eyes streaming;]

Our tears mingled, both mourning;

Tighter than vines binding an elm,

Your arms were twined round my neck.

Ha! You kept complaining the wind was holding you up.

Your comrades laughed; it wasn’t.

You’d kissed me as you left me. You kept coming back for more.

Your tongue could hardly bear to say goodbye.

A light breeze breathes into the sails, slack on the unbending mast,

And the water froths with the churning oars.

Luckless, I follow the receding sails with my eyes,

As far as I can. The sand’s soaked with my tears.

I beg the sprightly green sea-spirits for you to come quickly⁠—

For you to hasten to destroy me. Obvious now.

You were supposed to return by my prayers. Have you returned for someone else?

What a fool. I fawned for a doom-bringing whore!

There’s a natural mound overlooking the immense deep⁠—

A cliff, in fact; it stands firm against the waters of the sea.

From there I knew your ship from my first glimpse of the sails.

An urge took me to rush through the surge.

While I wavered, there was a flash of purple on the prow.

I froze; those weren’t your clothes.

It came nearer. A swift breeze touched the ship to shore.

My heart quavered. I saw a woman’s face.

That wasn’t enough—why did I stay? I must have been mad⁠—

Your girlfriend was entwined in your lap. She’s a disgrace!

Then I ripped my clothes, took fists to my chest,

And scratched my stiff nails down wet cheeks.

I filled holy Ida with moaning and wailing.

That’s where I took my tears—to my own rocks.

I hope Helen grieves like that. When her husband deserts her, I hope she howls.

I hope she suffers everything she inflicted on me first.

These days they suit you, women who follow you over the open waters

And desert their lawful husbands.

But when you had nothing, were nothing but a cowherd driving cattle,

Only Oenone was that poor man’s wife.

I’m not dazzled by wealth. Your kingdom means nothing to me.

Nor would being called Priam’s son’s wife, one out of so many.

Not that Priam would refuse a nymph for an in-law, mind you.

Hecuba wouldn’t have to disown me.

I’m worthy to be the respectable wife of a man of means.

I have the hands that sceptres are made for.

Just because I lay with you on beech sprays, don’t

Turn up your nose at me. I’d be better in a royal purple bed.

Lastly, my love isn’t dangerous. Wars aren’t raised for it.

Avenging ships don’t come in with the tide.

Runaway Helen is demanded back with threatening weapons.

That’s the wedding gift she brings to your bed. What arrogance!

Should she be returned to the Greeks? Ask Hector, your brother!

Ask Deiphobus or Polydamas!

Or serious Antenor? What would Priam himself suggest?

Ask them! Long life has taught them!

Putting a woman you grabbed before your country? Disgusting way to start.

Your cause is an embarrassment. Her husband’s right to take up arms.

If you’ve got any sense, don’t bet on her being faithful,

When your handsiness turned her head so quickly.

Look at Menelaus, shouting about the pledges of a bed defiled,

Nursing the wounds of a foreign fling.

You’ll cry too. There’s no way to fix it,

Propriety outraged. It dies all at once.

She’s on fire with love for you? That’s what she told Menelaus.

Now he’s languishing in bed like a widower. More fool him.

Andromache was happy. She did well marrying Hector, a steady husband.

You could have held me, as your wife, to your brother’s example.

You, you’re lighter than leaves, dry ones, flying on changing winds

With no sap for balance. 

There’s less in you than a wheat husk,

Hollowed out, bone-stiff, torched by the sun.

I remember it now. Your sister once used to sing of this.

She predicted it to me, her hair streaming loose:

‘What are you doing, Oenone? Why bother sowing seeds in sand?

Your bulls are ploughing a beach. Nothing will grow.

There’s a Greek cow coming, nubile and young. You, country, home,

She’s to destroy them all! Oh, don’t let her! The Greek cow is coming!

It’s obscene! Sink the hull in the sea while there’s still time!

Ah, she brings so much blood for your people!’

Her voice was on the run. Her attendants seized her as she raved.

But my fair hair stood on end.

Cassandra, you were a prophet too true for me.

Look. That cow has my turf.

Let her be ever such a famous face, she’s still a cheater.

She abandoned her marriage gods, caught up with her guest.

Theseus—if I’ve got the name right⁠—

Some lad named Theseus stole her from her fatherland before.

And do we think he gave her back unused, randy teen that he was?

Where do I know such things from, you ask? I love.

Call it force, cover the blame with the name,

But someone dragged off so often must have let herself be taken.

But Oenone keeps unspoiled for a cheating husband⁠⁠—

And you could have been cheated in your own way!

Quick Satyrs—while I was on my guard, hidden in the woods⁠—

Tried to find me on tearing feet, rabid rabble,

So did Pan, horny head wreathed in pine needles,

On the vast ridges where the mountain swells.

Apollo, builder of Troy, famously devoted, was the one who took me.

[He stripped me of my virginity.

And not without a fight—I tore hair, used nails,

Scored cheeks raw with my fingers.

And I didn’t demand gems and gold, a price tag for rape.

Disgraceful, for presents to buy my body. I’m not a slave.

He decided I was worth giving his healing arts,]

Granted my hands his gifts.

Any plant with power, any root that helps heal,

Growing anywhere in the world—it’s mine.

Pity I can’t treat love with herbs.

I know my art, but art isn’t enough.

[Didn’t Apollo herd cattle in Pherae? Him, the actual inventor of that healing art.

And all because he was smitten by the same flame as me.]

Earth rich for growing plants can’t help me.

A god can’t help me. You can.

You can, and I deserve it. Your girl deserves it! Have mercy!

I don’t come with Greeks and their bloody weapons.

I’m yours. I was with you when you were still a boy.

Let me be yours again for what time you have left. Please.