Perzej in Finej

Besedilo

Perzej in Finej

While the hero, Danaë’s son, was telling these things amid the Ethiopians, a clamorous throng filled the royal halls: no cries were these to celebrate a wedding feast, but to proclaim savage war. You might have likened the banquet, turned to sudden turmoil, to a tranquil sea whose waves are stirred and roughened by the winds’ wild fury. Foremost was Phineus, reckless instigator of the fighting, brandishing an ash spear tipped with bronze.

“Look!” he cried. “Here I stand, avenger of my stolen bride! Neither your wings nor Jupiter, transformed to counterfeit gold, shall snatch you from me.” As he prepared to throw, Cepheus cried out, “What are you doing, brother? What madness drives you to this crime? Is this your thanks for such great service? Is this the dowry you pay for her rescued life? It was not Perseus who took her from you, if you seek the truth, but the Nereids’ dreadful power, but horned Ammon, but the monster that came from the sea to gorge itself upon my flesh and blood. She was lost to you the moment she was doomed to die—unless, in your cruelty, you insist upon her death, and our grief will ease your heart.

Is it not enough that she was chained before your eyes, and you, her uncle and her promised husband, gave no help? Must you also grieve that someone rescued her, and rob him of his reward? If you think that prize so great, you should have sought it on the rocks where she was bound. Now let the man who sought it, who saved my old age from bereavement, take what his deeds have earned and my word has promised.

Understand that he was chosen not over you, but over certain death!” Phineus made no answer. His eyes moved from Cepheus to Perseus, unsure which to attack; then, after a brief pause, with all the strength his anger gave him, he hurled his spear at Perseus, but in vain. When it stuck in the couch, only then did Perseus spring from the cushions. Fiercely he hurled the weapon back, and would have pierced his enemy’s breast had Phineus not slipped behind the altar: shamefully, the altar sheltered a criminal.

Yet the spear did not fly fruitlessly: it lodged in Rhoetus’ forehead. When he had fallen and the iron was torn from the bone, he thrashed his heels and spattered the laden tables with blood. Then indeed the crowd blazed with ungovernable fury, hurling weapons; some declared that Cepheus too must die beside his son-in-law. But Cepheus had crossed the threshold and left the palace, calling justice, good faith, and the gods of hospitality to witness that this violence defied his will.

Warrior Pallas came, shielding her brother with her aegis and giving him courage. There was an Indian, Athis, whom Limnaee, a daughter of the Ganges, was believed to have borne beneath its glassy waters. His beauty was exceptional, enhanced by splendid dress; still untouched, he was only sixteen, and wore a Tyrian cloak bordered with gold. Golden necklaces adorned his neck, and a curved circlet held his myrrh-soaked hair.

He was skilled at striking distant targets with a thrown javelin, but still more skilled with the bow. Even as his hand bent its yielding horns, Perseus seized a log that lay smoking upon the altar and struck him, crushing his face into its shattered bones. When Assyrian Lycabas saw that once-admired face writhing in blood—Lycabas, his closest companion, who made no secret of his true love— he mourned for Athis, breathing out his life through that cruel wound, then seized the bow the boy had bent and said, “Now you must fight with me!

You shall not rejoice long in the boy’s death, which brings you more disgrace than glory.” Before he had finished speaking, the piercing arrow leapt from the string; but Perseus dodged it, and it hung caught in his garment’s folds. The descendant of Acrisius turned on him the curved blade already proven in Medusa’s slaughter, and drove it into his breast. Dying, his eyes swimming beneath black night, Lycabas looked about for Athis, then sank down beside him and carried to the shades the comfort of their united death.

Now Phorbas of Syene, Metion’s son, and Libyan Amphimedon, eager to join the battle, had slipped and fallen in the blood that soaked the warm earth far and wide. As they rose, the sword met them, driven through one man’s ribs and Phorbas’ throat. But against Erytus, Actor’s son, whose weapon was a broad double axe, Perseus did not use his hooked sword. Instead, with both hands he lifted a huge mixing bowl, heavy with solid metal and embossed with figures in high relief, and dashed it against the man. He spewed bright blood and fell backward, his dying head beating the ground.

Next he struck down Polydegmon, of Semiramis’ blood, and Abaris of the Caucasus, Lycetus, son of Sperchion, long-haired Helices, Phlegyas, and Clytus, and trod upon the heaped bodies of the dying. Not daring to face his enemy at close quarters, Phineus hurled a javelin. It strayed and struck Idas, who had kept clear of battle and taken neither side, in vain. Glaring fiercely at merciless Phineus, he said, “Since I am dragged into this quarrel, Phineus, face the enemy you have made, and pay wound for wound!”

He had already drawn the weapon from his flesh to throw it back when his limbs failed him, drained of blood, and he collapsed. Here too Hodites, foremost among the Ethiopians after their king, fell by Clymenus’ sword; Hypseus struck down Prothoenor, and Lynceus’ descendant struck down Hypseus. Among them was aged Emathion, a lover of justice, reverent toward the gods.

Since his years forbade him to fight, he battled with words, denouncing and cursing their impious weapons. As he clasped the altar with trembling hands, Chromis struck off his head. It fell straight upon the altar, and there its half-living tongue still uttered curses, and breathed its life out in the midst of the flames. Then the twin brothers Broteas and Ammon, unbeaten with boxing gloves—if gloves could overcome swords— fell by Phineus’ hand, as did Ampycus, priest of Ceres, whose temples were bound with a white fillet.

You too, Lampetus’ son, were summoned for no such service, but to join your voice to the lyre in the work of peace, and celebrate the feast and festival with song. Seeing him standing apart, holding his harmless plectrum, Pettalus mocked him: “Sing the rest to the shades of Styx!” And he drove his blade through his left temple. He fell, and with dying fingers touched once more the lyre’s strings: chance made a mournful song.

Fierce Lycormas would not let his death go unavenged. He tore the stout crossbar from the right-hand doorpost and smashed it into the bones at the nape of Pettalus’ neck. The man pitched forward like a slaughtered bullock. Pelates of the Cinyps tried to tear away the timbers of the left-hand doorpost too; but as he tried, Corythus of Marmarica pinned his right hand to the wood with a spear.

As he hung there, Abas pierced his side. He did not fall: his hand held fast, he hung dying from the post. Menelaus, who had joined Perseus’ side, was also slain, and Dorylas, richest in the lands of the Nasamonians— Dorylas, rich in estates: no other owned wider lands or gathered so many heaps of frankincense. A weapon struck him slantwise in the groin, a deadly place. When the man who dealt the wound, Halcyoneus of Bactria, saw him gasp out his life and roll his eyes, he said, “Of all your lands, keep this, the earth you lie upon,” and left the bloodless corpse.

The descendant of Abas avenged him, tearing the spear from the warm wound and hurling it at his killer. It entered the middle of his nose and passed through his neck, jutting out on either side. While Fortune favored his hand, he struck down Clytius and Clanis, sons of one mother, with different wounds: for the heavy ash spear, hurled by his arm, pierced both Clytius’ thighs, while Clanis bit upon a javelin.

Celadon of Mendes died; Astraeus died, born of a Palestinian mother and an uncertain father; and Aethion, once skilled at foreseeing the future (but now deceived by a false omen from a bird), and Thoactes, the king’s armor-bearer, and Agyrtes, infamous for killing his father. Yet more remained to do than had been done: all were determined to overwhelm one man, and on every side their allied ranks fought for a cause that attacked both merit and good faith.

In vain his loyal father-in-law, his new bride, and her mother took his part, filling the halls with cries. The clash of weapons and the groans of the fallen drowned them out, and Bellona drenched the household, once defiled, in floods of blood, stirring fresh fighting. Phineus and the thousand men who followed him surrounded one lone man. Missiles flew thicker than winter hail past both his sides, past his eyes and ears.

He set his shoulders against the stone of a great column, and with his back protected, facing the enemy ranks, held off their assault. On his left pressed Molpeus of Chaonia, on his right Echemmon the Nabataean. As a tiger, goaded by hunger, hears two herds lowing in separate valleys and cannot choose which to attack, eager to rush at both, so Perseus hesitated whether to strike right or left, then drove Molpeus off with a wound through the leg, content to let him flee: Echemmon gave him no time, but raged and, leaping to wound him in the neck, swung his sword with reckless force

and broke it against the edge of the column. The blade shattered, and a fragment lodged in its master’s throat. Yet that wound was not enough to kill him. As he trembled, vainly stretching out his defenseless arms, Perseus stabbed him with Mercury’s curved blade. But when he saw his courage overwhelmed by numbers, “Since you yourselves compel me,” Perseus said, “I shall seek help from an enemy. Turn away your faces, any friends who are here!” And he raised the Gorgon’s head.

“Find someone else to frighten with your marvels,” said Thescelus; and as his hand prepared to throw a deadly javelin, he froze in that pose, a marble statue. Beside him Ampyx thrust his sword at the valiant breast of Lynceus’ descendant; but in the very act his right hand stiffened and moved neither forward nor back. Then Nileus, who falsely claimed descent from the seven-mouthed Nile, and had engraved those seven streams upon his shield, some in silver, some in gold, said, “Look, Perseus, upon the source of my lineage!

You shall carry to the silent shades this great consolation for your death: that you fell to so great a man.” The last words were checked halfway through their utterance; you might think his open mouth still wished to speak, but it offered words no passage. Eryx rebuked them: “It is your cowardice, not the Gorgon’s power, that freezes you! Charge with me, and strike down this youth who wields enchanted weapons!”

He was about to charge: the earth held his feet fast, and he remained motionless flint, an armed statue. These men, however, suffered as they deserved. But there was one, Aconteus, a soldier of Perseus, who, while fighting for him, saw the Gorgon and hardened into stone. Thinking him still alive, Astyages struck him with his long sword; the blade rang with a piercing clang.

As Astyages stood astonished, he took on the same nature, and his look of wonder still remains upon his marble face. It would take too long to name the common soldiers: two hundred bodies still remained in the battle; two hundred bodies stiffened at the sight of the Gorgon. Only then did Phineus regret his unjust war. But what could he do? He saw statues in varied poses, recognized his men, called each by name and begged for help. Scarcely trusting his eyes, he touched the bodies nearest him: they were marble. He turned away, and, stretching out his hands in surrender, his arms held sideways, he pleaded, “You have won, Perseus. Remove your monster;

take away the stone-making face of your Medusa, whatever she may be—take it away, I beg you! Neither hatred nor hunger for a kingdom drove us to war: we took up arms for a bride. Your claim was better in merit, mine in being earlier. I do not begrudge my defeat. Bravest of men, grant me nothing but my life: let all the rest be yours.” As he spoke, not daring to look at the man he begged, Perseus answered, “Most cowardly Phineus, I shall grant what I can grant, a great gift to a craven— put aside your fear: no steel shall harm you.

Indeed, I shall give you a memorial that will endure forever, and you shall always be on view in my father-in-law’s house, so that my wife may console herself with the likeness of her betrothed.” He spoke, and moved Phorcys’ daughter toward the side to which Phineus had turned his frightened face. Even as he tried to turn his eyes away, his neck grew rigid, and the moisture in his eyes hardened to stone.

Yet in the marble his frightened expression remained, his pleading face, his lowered hands, his abject look. Victorious, the descendant of Abas entered his ancestral city with his wife, and, champion and avenger of his wronged grandfather, attacked Proetus: for Proetus had driven his brother away by force and seized Acrisius’ stronghold. But neither strength of arms nor the fortress he had wrongfully taken could save him from the grim eyes of the snake-haired monster.

Yet you, Polydectes, ruler of little Seriphos, were softened neither by the young man’s courage, proven through so many trials, nor by his sufferings. Harshly you persisted in implacable hatred, and your unjust anger knew no end. You even disparaged his glory, claiming that Medusa’s death was an invention. “We shall give you proof of the truth. Protect your eyes!” said Perseus, and with Medusa’s face he turned the king’s face to bloodless stone.