Prevod

From there the bearer of the caduceus rose on level wings, and, flying over the fields of Munychia, looked down on the land dear to Minerva and the groves of the cultivated Lyceum. That day, as it happened, chaste maidens, following custom, were bearing to Pallas’s citadel, where a festival was held, pure offerings in garlanded baskets balanced on their heads. The winged god saw them returning from there and bent his course into a circle instead of flying straight ahead.

As a swift kite, catching sight of sacrificial entrails, but afraid while priests crowd round the offering, wheels in a circle, not daring to stray too far, and beats its wings in hungry circles round its hoped-for prey, so the nimble Cyllenian, above the citadel of Athens, banked in his flight and circled through the same stretch of air. As much as Lucifer outshines the other stars, and golden Phoebe outshines Lucifer, so far did Herse surpass all the other maidens as she walked, the glory of the procession and her companions.

The son of Jupiter was stunned by her beauty, and, poised in the sky, caught fire just as a leaden bullet does when a Balearic sling launches it: it flies and grows hot in its flight, finding beneath the clouds a fire it did not have before. He changed his course, leaving the sky to seek the earth, and made no attempt at disguise, so sure was he of his beauty. Yet, just though that confidence was, he took care to enhance it: he smoothed his hair and arranged his cloak to hang becomingly, with its border and all its gold on display; he made sure the polished wand with which he brings and banishes sleep was in his right hand, and that his winged sandals shone on his clean feet. In a secluded part of the house

were three chambers adorned with ivory and tortoiseshell: you, Pandrosos, had the right, Aglauros the left, and Herse the middle. She who occupied the left was the first to notice Mercury approaching, and dared to ask the god his name and why he had come. The grandson of Atlas and Pleione answered her: “I am he who carries my father’s messages through the air: Jupiter himself is my father.

Nor will I invent a reason for coming. Only consent to be faithful to your sister and be called my children’s aunt. Herse has brought me here. I beg you, help a lover.” Aglauros looked at him with the same eyes with which she had lately seen fair-haired Minerva’s hidden secrets, and demanded a great weight of gold for her services, meanwhile compelling him to leave the house.

The warlike goddess turned her fierce gaze upon her and drew a sigh from so deep within her that it shook both her breast and the aegis resting upon that mighty breast. She remembered how this girl’s impious hand had uncovered her secrets, when, breaking her pledged word, she saw the motherless child of the god of Lemnos; and now she would win the god’s gratitude and her sister’s too, and grow rich on the gold her greed had demanded.

At once she sought the home of Envy, foul with black corruption. Her house lies hidden in the depths of a valley, without sunlight, inaccessible to any wind, gloomy and full of numbing cold, a place forever without fire, forever thick with darkness. When the fearsome warrior goddess reached this place, she halted before the house, for she deemed it wrong to enter, and struck the doorposts with her spear’s tip.

The doors shook open. Within she saw Envy eating vipers’ flesh, the nourishment of her own vices, and turned her eyes away at the sight. But Envy rose sluggishly from the ground, leaving the bodies of half-eaten snakes, and advanced with a listless step. When she saw the goddess, resplendent in beauty and armour, she groaned, and her face contracted as she sighed deeply.

Pallor sits upon her face, and her whole body is wasted; her eyes never look straight, her teeth are stained with rust, her breast is green with gall, her tongue steeped in venom. She never laughs unless the sight of suffering moves her. Nor does she enjoy sleep, kept awake by restless cares; instead she sees the unwelcome prosperity of others and wastes away at the sight, tormenting and tormented alike, her own punishment. Yet, though she hated her, Tritonia addressed her briefly in these words: “Infect one of Cecrops’s daughters with your poison.

It must be done. Her name is Aglauros.” Saying no more, she thrust her spear into the earth and sprang away. Envy watched the goddess depart with a sidelong glance and muttered softly, grieving that Minerva’s wish would be fulfilled. She took her staff, bound all about with coils of thorns, and, shrouded in black clouds, wherever she passed she trampled flowering fields, scorched the grasses and blighted the treetops, and with her breath polluted peoples, cities, and homes. At last she saw Tritonia’s citadel, flourishing in talent, wealth, and joyful peace, and could scarcely hold back tears, finding nothing to weep over.

But once she entered the chamber of Cecrops’s daughter, she obeyed her orders, touching the girl’s breast with a hand stained with rust, and filling her heart with hooked thorns. She breathed a deadly venom into her, spreading pitch-black poison through her bones and deep within her lungs. And lest the causes of her suffering stray too far afield, she set before her eyes her sister, her sister’s fortunate marriage, and the god in all his beauty, magnifying everything. Goaded by these visions, Cecrops’s daughter was gnawed by secret anguish, groaning in misery by night, in misery by day, and wasting away, wretched, in slow decay, like ice wounded by a fitful sun.

She burned at fortunate Herse’s blessings no less fiercely than when fire is set beneath thorny weeds, which give no flame but smoulder in a gentle heat. Often she wished to die, rather than see such things; often to tell her stern father of them as though they were a crime. At last she sat down across the threshold, intending to bar the god when he came. As he lavished endearments, prayers, and the gentlest words upon her, she said, “Stop.

I shall not move from here until I have driven you away.” “Let us stand by that agreement,” said the swift Cyllenian, and opened the doors with his divine wand. But when she tried to rise, the parts we bend in sitting could not be moved, held fast by a sluggish weight. She struggled to straighten her body and stand, but her knee joints were stiff, and cold was stealing through her groin; her veins hardened as the blood drained away.

And as an incurable cancer will spread far, drawing healthy parts into the diseased, so a deadly chill crept slowly into her breast, closing the channels of life and breath. She did not try to speak; nor, had she tried, would her voice have found a passage: stone already gripped her neck, her face had hardened, and she sat, a bloodless statue. Nor was the stone white: her own mind had stained it.