Slippage

History, as one betrayal after another

Anna Jackson translates from the Latin. Original by Gaius Valerius Catullus.

History, as one betrayal after another

Translated from Latin by Anna Jackson

It all began when trees first took – or were taken –

to the seas, or, we could say, first crested

the waves of Neptune, coming to rest

exactly where the story of the Argonauts

was to commence, those heroes

ready and waiting to send

across the vast depths of the ocean this

framework of pine woven together

by, we could say, the future.

And so new a thing this was

to plough the ocean that it raised, churned

up, we could say, the sea’s own spirits,

sea-nymphs whose breasts were as new a sight

to the men as the ship was to these sea-spirits.

And inevitably one of those men fell in love,

Peleus, instantly, with one of those sea-spirits, Thetis -

and when Thetis herself did not turn away

from his love, what could a father do,

even were he a god, Nereus, a god of the sea, but allow

a wedding between the two.

For this was the time of heroes, the legendary age when

heroes were born of gods

(and mothers),

And this is what epic poetry is made for, to tell,

as this poem will tell, the story of Peleus,

and his marriage,

blazing with torches

circled round by the whole sea

and lit up by the attention of the gods.

And so, the marriage day came about

and all of Thessaly filled the palace

to overflowing, a whirling crowd

swept up into the celebrations,

everyone dressed up,

everyone carrying gifts,

so that a whole country

was emptied out of its people,

every town deserted,

every farm left behind,

every house closed,

every field untilled,

soft, the necks of the oxen

who would have pulled the ploughs,

uncleared, the vineyard grounds,

unpruned, the trees,

and the tools rusting where they were left to lie.

All the wealth of the world now

could be found in the palace of Peleus,

extending hall to hall

further and further

inwards and inwards,

extension after extension

accommodating the hoards of gold,

the hoards of silver,

ivory thrones shining,

tables set with every glittering thing -

and who wouldn’t take pleasure in all this?

And the true altar at the heart of it all –

the marriage bed, a bed of ivory,

and on the bed, a coverlet,

and on the coverlet, embroidered

scenes from the heroic times

gone by.

Theseus, sailing swiftly away, here

can be seen, watched by Ariadne in a frenzy,

unable to believe she is seeing what she sees

when she sees herself, waking up from

what were her dreams, alone

and abandoned on an empty shore,

as he, Theseus, vanishes

into his future, the promises

he made dissolving like

Words written on water in

the middle of a storm.

And there Ariadne stands

like a marble statue, a marble statue

dropping its headband, hair

flying free, a statue unravelling, drapery

falling open, breasts uncovered, and

the sea at her feet carrying

the fallen garments away

with the tide,

as if she could possibly care

about her clothing when all she has ever, ever

cared about is you!

Love is nothing but pain

and pain is all that loving Theseus

ever could have led to,

Theseus with his mind fixed

on the Minotaur, with his ambitious

dreams to save a people, a people who

surely needed saving whatever the cost to Ariadne

who loved Theseus from the moment

she saw him, her innocence at

that instant lost forever, fire running

fiercely through her body, her ears

resounding with their own sound, eyes

lit up with dazzling darkness,

love’s pleasures stirred up

along with love’s torment, but who

could want to feel this way?

Her heart would almost fail her,

she would grow paler than gold

when Theseus braved death

for glory, in the labyrinth

of the Minotaur, from which

his safe return, the Minotaur having fallen

to Theseus like a forest to a storm,

was possible only because of the thread

of Ariadne, unrolled behind him

as she had told him to unroll it

on his way in, there still

where he had left it, a faithful guide

back to the sunlight outside.

But as if lost in a maze I find myself

taking a turning, all this a digression from

the story I was telling, and there is

more yet to tell, of how a girl, flying

from home, leaving the love of

a father, a sibling, a mother

all for the sweetness

of passion, all to dream

for a time of love, found herself waking

and for Theseus already to have forgotten her

disappearing into nothing but sea-foam in the wind...

And now she can only despair and rail and cry out

into the wind-sore skies, high on a mountain

looking out across the nothing seas

at nothing, or wading out

at low tide through sands and sands

as only the wavering water

lifts itself about a raised knee.

Shivering, she cries, “And so, after I abandon

my father, sibling, mother, make enemies

of my friends, you, faithless, leave me,

all promises forgotten, alone, on

an empty shore, as if you think

the gods of old no longer

rule, as if you think it nothing

to cast away all your promises, as if

to unclasp a hand, to leave a knee

bare where once a hand

rested, was nothing, your implacable

heart incapable of pity.

And yet...how sweet you sounded

when you used to let me hope

you wished only to be married to me

and promised me promises

now blown away in the wind.

Let no woman ever listen ever

to the promises a man makes

in the heat of passion,

when anything will be promised,

any oath sworn, and every

promise forgotten like steam

evaporating into nothing.

And I, I would abandon a brother

to be with you when you swore

you would die without me,

for which I should be given up

to wild birds and animals

to tear me apart and leave what’s left

strewn about unmourned, no

funeral rites for me, not

a handful of dirt over my remains

if any remains there may be.

What lioness gave birth to you on

a mountain, what sea spat you forth,

what metal-hearted Scylla, that

you could respond to love,

like this?

Marriage! I’d have settled for

slavery, washing your white

feet, or wasting my life

away embroidering

you some intricate coverlet

for your bed...

But why am I lamenting wildly like this

into the winds which will never

hear me or reply,

when he is tossing and turning

somewhere in the middle of the ocean

and all that seaweed at my feet

is empty of all humanity.

It seems to be my fate

to call out to those who cannot

hear me or respond –

but nothing that happened should

ever have happened! Better

for that journey from the provinces

never to have been made, father

never left, story of the

Minotaur never told,

and no lies listened to

from a faithless lover.

Because where can I escape to,

wherever I should go?

Roiling seas divide me from

the mountains of my homeland,

my father will never receive me after

I abandoned my brother for

a lover, drenched

in my brother’s blood, and

I have no marriage to take refuge

in, when he, the one I loved,

disappears like the wind,

rowing against the current in

full flight.

There is nothing for me

on these empty shores, this empty

island is no home, and yet

there is nowhere to go

and no way out, surrounded

by sea on all sides,

on all sides trapped, with

no escape and no hope

of escape, every thing

I see speaks of nothing but death.

But before death closes down the last

of my vision and takes away all of

my will, ruined as I am, I will

demand at least to be heard

by the gods if not by anyone else

and secure for myself a promise

that my words will be remembered,

that it is Theseus who will suffer from

the anguish I suffer from now, and the

forgetfulness with which he abandoned me

will shadow everything he tries to do

from now and for forever.

And when she spoke the whole world

juddered into a new alignment, the surf-topped

seas trembling and the stars shaking in the skies above.

And Theseus let slip from his mind, as

the storm clouded over it, the last promises

he had held fast until then, and so gave no sign

of his safety to his sorrowing father

as he sailed, mind adrift, into port, the story

being that his father, when Theseus

was to set sail, would not send him away

with his blessing but in full grieving

with ash rubbed through his hair, and the ship

fitted out with a dirty sail stained red with

rusted iron. But if Theseus should miraculously

succeed and his life be spared, then he was to

remember these commands of his father,

stored in his memory, locked

in his heart, and held safe against the erosure

of time, that as soon as the ship

should be in sight of shore, the rust red sails

must be taken down, and in their place, the white sail

be raised that will signal preparations

should begin for a lifetime of celebration.

This promise Theseus had remembered steadily

until it blew out of his mind the way

clouds will drift off in the wind, so that

his father, gazing out to sea already

exhausted with grief, on seeing

the rust red sails, threw himself from his high

look-out to his death on the rocks below.

And Theseus returned to a home wracked with grief

to feel himself torn apart with the same agonies

of guilt and anguish that he himself

had delivered to Ariadne and which she felt

still as she stood, gazing into the empty

sea, at his always disappearing ship,

while on another part of the coverlet Bacchus

can be seen, seeking Ariadne, aflame

with love, and over here are all the followers

of Bacchus, ranting and wailing and tossing

their heads, beating their tambourines,

singing in galliambic rhythms, blowing

raucous blasts from their horns, a terrible

cacophony, though not worse than

the piping flute...

...And this is what was embroidered

on the coverlet, gazed at by all the Thessalian youth

on their way to the drinks table and onwards

each to their own delicious oblivion,

as the palace emptied out and was filled

by the presence of the gods.

Down they came, Chiron from Mt Pelion

with all the flowers of the levelled valleys,

Peneus came from the valleys of Tempe

bringing bay trees, plane trees and poplar,

Prometheus the prophet with fading scars,

and, finally, the father of all the gods

with all his sons, except for those

gods who chose not to honour such

a wedding. Except for those gods, all

were present and shining and at ease

in the splendour of the palace.

And then arrived the Fates, with shaking bodies

but prophetic words and their hands

never at rest but working always

at their weaving, the left hand holding

the distaff of wool, the right hand

drawing the wool out, and their teeth

breaking off threads to make the work even.

With little bits of wool caught

between their teeth, and drifts of wool

at their feet, they sang:

Hear now this prophesy, given to you on this day of all days:

Strong as your leadership is, in time it shall be not you but

such a son that his name will resound through the far halls of time -

so the weaving runs on,