Prevod
Of her was born that Cinyras who, had he been childless, might have been counted among the fortunate. I sing of horrors: daughters, keep far away, and fathers too! Or, if my songs should charm your minds, let me find no belief in this part of my tale: do not believe it happened; or, if you do believe, believe also in the punishment it brought. Yet if nature allows such a crime to be seen, I congratulate the peoples of Ismarus and our own world; I congratulate this land on being far from those regions that gave birth to such wickedness. Let the land of Panchaia be rich in balsam, let it bear its cinnamon and costus, the frankincense sweated from wood, and all its other flowers,
so long as it bears myrrh as well: no new tree was worth such a price. Cupid himself denies that his arrows harmed you, Myrrha, and clears his torches of all blame for this crime. One of the three sisters breathed upon you with a brand from the Styx and swollen vipers. It is a crime to hate a father: this love is a greater crime than hatred. Chosen nobles desire you on every side, and young men from all the East are here to compete for your hand. From all of them choose one husband, Myrrha—provided that one man is not among them.
She knows this well and struggles against her shameful love, saying to herself, “Where is my mind carrying me? What am I planning? Gods, I pray you, and filial duty, and the sacred rights of parents, prevent this horror and resist my crime— if, indeed, this is a crime. Yet surely, they say, filial duty does not condemn such love, and all other creatures mate without wrongdoing. No one thinks it shameful for a heifer to bear her father on her back; a horse takes his own daughter as his mate; a goat mounts the females he has fathered, and a bird conceives by the very male whose seed conceived her.
Happy creatures, allowed such freedom! Human meddling has made spiteful laws: what nature permits, jealous rules forbid. Yet there are said to be peoples among whom a mother is joined to her son, a daughter to her father, so that family devotion grows through a doubled love. How wretched I am, not to have been born there, wronged by the accident of birthplace!—Why do I return to such thoughts?
Begone, forbidden hopes! He deserves to be loved, but as a father.—Then, if I were not the daughter of great Cinyras, I could lie with Cinyras; but now, because he is already mine, he cannot be mine: our very closeness is my undoing. Were I a stranger, I would have more power. I long to go far away, to leave my native country, if only I may escape this crime. But wicked passion holds me here in love, so that I may see Cinyras face to face, touch him, speak to him, and press my kisses on him, if nothing more is granted.
But can you look for anything more, unnatural girl? Do you realize how many bonds and names you would confound? Will you become your mother’s rival, your father’s illicit lover? Will you be called your son’s sister and your brother’s mother? Will you not fear the sisters whose hair is twined with black snakes, whom guilty hearts see lunging at their eyes and faces with savage torches? Before your body has suffered this outrage, do not conceive it in your mind, nor pollute mighty nature’s covenant with forbidden intercourse.
Suppose you wish it: the thing itself forbids it. He is dutiful, mindful of what is right—and oh, I wish he shared my madness!” So she spoke. But Cinyras, whom the abundance of worthy suitors left uncertain what to do, named them to her and asked whose wife she wished to be. At first she said nothing; her eyes fixed on her father’s face, she burned, and warm tears welled in her eyes.
Cinyras, believing these were signs of maidenly fear, told her not to weep, dried her cheeks, and kissed her. Myrrha took too much delight in those kisses. Asked what sort of husband she wanted, she said, “One like you.” But he praised the words he did not understand and said, “Always be so devoted.” At the mention of devotion, the girl lowered her face, conscious of her guilt.
It was midnight, and sleep had unburdened minds and bodies. But Cinyras’s daughter lay awake, consumed by an ungovernable fire, turning over her frenzied desires. Now she despaired, now she wished to try; she felt shame and longing, and could find no course to take. As a mighty tree, wounded by the axe, with only the final stroke remaining, stands uncertain where to fall, feared on every side, so her mind, shaken by conflicting wounds, swayed this way and that, wavering under either impulse.
She could find no limit or respite for her love except death. Death pleased her. She rose, resolved to put a noose around her throat, and tied her girdle high upon a doorpost. “Dear Cinyras, farewell, and understand the cause of my death!” she said, and fitted the cord around her pale neck. Her murmured words, they say, reached the ears of her faithful nurse, who was keeping watch at her young mistress’s door.
The old woman rose and opened it; seeing the means of the death prepared, in the same instant she cried out, beat herself, tore open her dress, snatched the cord from the girl’s neck and ripped it apart. Only then had she time to weep, to embrace her and ask the reason for the noose. The girl remained mute, staring motionless at the ground, grieving that her attempt at death had been discovered before it was complete.
The old woman persisted, baring her white hair and withered breasts, and begged her, by the cradle and the milk that first sustained her, to confide whatever sorrow troubled her. The girl turned away from her questions and groaned. The nurse was determined to learn the truth, and promised more than secrecy. “Tell me,” she said, “and let me help you; old age has not made me helpless.
If it is madness, I know a woman who can cure it with spells and herbs; if someone has bewitched you, a magic rite will cleanse you; if it is the gods’ anger, sacrifices can appease it. What else am I to think? Surely your fortune and your household are safe and prospering; your mother and your father live.” At the mention of her father, Myrrha drew a sigh from deep within her breast. Still the nurse suspected no wickedness, though she sensed some love was involved; holding fast to her purpose, she begged the girl to tell her, whatever it was, and lifted her weeping into her aged lap.
Then, clasping her body in her feeble arms, she said, “I understand: you are in love! Here too—put aside your fear— my care can serve you, and your father will never know.” The girl sprang wildly from her lap, pressed her face into the bed, and said, “Leave me, I beg you; spare my wretched shame!” When the nurse persisted, she said, “Leave me, or stop asking what pains me: what you are struggling to learn is a crime.”
The old woman shuddered and stretched out hands trembling with age and fear; she fell pleading at her young mistress’s feet, now coaxing her, now threatening her if she would not share her secret. She threatened to reveal the noose and her attempted suicide, and promised her help if the girl confided her love. She raised her head, and a flood of tears drenched the nurse’s breast. Again and again she tried to confess, but again and again checked her voice; hiding her face in her clothes for shame, she said, “Oh, Mother, happy in your husband!”
That was all, and she groaned. An icy shudder pierced the nurse’s limbs and bones—for now she understood—and the white hair all over her head bristled stiffly. She added many pleas, hoping, if she could, to drive out that dreadful passion. The girl knew the warnings were true, but was determined to die unless she gained her love. “Live,” the nurse said, “and you shall have your—” Not daring to say “father,” she fell silent, and called the gods to witness her promise.
The married women were celebrating the annual festival of holy Ceres, when, clothed in snowy white, they offer garlands of corn, the firstfruits of their harvest, and for nine nights count lovemaking and the touch of men among forbidden things. In that gathering was Cenchreis, the king’s wife, attending the secret rites. So, while the marriage bed stood empty of its lawful wife, the nurse, diligent in evil, found Cinyras heavy with wine and told him of a real passion under a false name, praising the girl’s beauty. Asked her age, she said, “The same as Myrrha’s.” Once ordered to bring her, she returned home and said, “Rejoice, my child:
we have won.” The unhappy girl could not feel joy with all her heart; her breast grieved with foreboding. Yet she rejoiced as well: such was the discord in her mind. It was the hour when all is silent, and among the stars of the Bear Boötes had turned his Wagon, its pole slanting: she came to commit her crime. The golden moon fled the sky; black clouds covered the stars, which hid themselves; night lost its fires. You were the first to veil your face, Icarius, and you, Erigone, made holy by your faithful love for your father.
Three times a stumbling foot warned her to turn back; three times the funereal owl gave its omen with a deadly cry. Still she went on: darkness and black night lessened her shame. She held the nurse’s hand in her left, while with the other she groped along the unseen way. Now she reached the bedchamber’s threshold, now opened the door, now was led inside; but her knees trembled and buckled beneath her; colour and blood fled her face, and her courage deserted her as she walked.
The closer she came to her crime, the more she shuddered, regretting her daring and longing to turn back unrecognized. As she hesitated, the old woman led her by the hand, brought her to the high bed, and, delivering her, said, “Take her, Cinyras: she is yours,” and joined their accursed bodies. The father received his own flesh and blood into that shameful bed, soothing her maidenly fears and encouraging her in her terror.
Perhaps, because of her age, he even called her “daughter,” and she called him “father,” so that their crime lacked none of its names. She left her father’s chamber full of him, bearing impious seed in her dreadful womb, carrying the guilt she had conceived. The next night repeated the crime, and it did not end there. At last Cinyras, eager to know his lover after so many nights together, brought in a light and saw both his crime and his daughter. Grief choked his words, and he tore his gleaming sword from its hanging sheath.
Myrrha fled, and darkness, the gift of sightless night, rescued her from death. Wandering over the broad fields, she left palm-bearing Arabia and the countryside of Panchaia behind. Through nine returns of the crescent moon she wandered, until at last, exhausted, she rested in the land of Saba; she could scarcely bear the burden of her womb. Then, not knowing what to pray for, caught between fear of death and weariness of life, she framed this prayer: “If any divine power is open to those who confess, I have deserved my punishment and do not refuse its bitterness. But lest, living, I defile the living, and, dead, the dead, drive me from both realms: change me, and deny me both life and death.”
Some divine power is open to those who confess: at least her final prayer found gods to hear it. For while she was still speaking, earth rose over her legs, and roots spread slantwise through her split toenails, anchoring a tall trunk. Her bones turned to wood; her marrow remained within, her blood became sap, her arms great branches, her fingers little twigs; her skin hardened into bark.
Already the growing tree had enclosed her swollen womb, buried her breast, and was preparing to cover her neck; she could not bear the delay, and bent to meet the rising wood, sinking her face into the bark. Though with her body she lost her former senses, still she weeps, and warm drops trickle from the tree. Even her tears are prized: the myrrh that drips from the wood keeps its mistress’s name, and no age will let it be forgotten.
