Minos commences the war with the siege of Megara. The preservation of the city depends on a lock of the hair of its king, Nisus. His daughter, Scylla, falling in love with Minos, cuts off the fatal lock, and gives it to him. Minos makes himself master of the place; and, abhorring Scylla and the crime she has been guilty of, he takes his departure. In despair, she throws herself into the sea, and follows his fleet. Nisus, being transformed into a sea eagle, attacks her in revenge, and she is changed into a bird called Ciris.
Now, Lucifer unveiling the day and dispelling the season of night, the East wind1 fell, and the moist vapours arose. The favourable South winds gave a passage to the sons of Æacus,2 and Cephalus returning; with which, being prosperously impelled, they made the port they were bound for, before it was expected.
In the meantime Minos is laying waste the Lelegeian coasts,3 and previously tries the strength of his arms against the city Alcathoë, which Nisus had; among whose honoured hoary hairs a lock, distinguished by its purple colour, descended from the middle of his crown, the safeguard of his powerful kingdom. The sixth horns of the rising Phœbe were now growing again, and the fortune of the war was still in suspense, and for a long time did victory hover between them both with uncertain wings. There was a regal tower built with vocal walls, on which the son of Latona4 is reported to have laid his golden harp; and its sound adhered to the stone. The daughter of Nisus was won't often to go up thither, and to strike the resounding stones with a little pebble, when it was a time of peace. She used, likewise, often to view the fight, and the contests of the hardy warfare, from that tower. And now, by the continuance of the hostilities, she had become acquainted with both the names of the chiefs, their arms, their horses, their dresses, and the Cydonean5 quivers.
Before the rest, she had observed the face of the chieftain, the son of Europa; even better than was enough for merely knowing him. In her opinion, Minos, whether it was that he had enclosed his head in a helm crested with feathers, was beauteous in a helmet; or whether he had taken up a shield shining with gold, it became him to assume that shield. Drawing his arm back, did he hurl the slender javelin; the maiden commended his skill, joined with strength. Did he bend the wide bow with the arrow laid upon it; she used to swear that thus Phœbus stood, when assuming his arrows. But when he exposed his face, by taking off the brazen helmet, and, arrayed in purple, pressed the back of a white horse, beauteous with embroidered housings, and guided his foaming mouth; the virgin daughter of Nisus was hardly mistress of herself, hardly able to control a sound mind. She used to call the javelin happy which he touched, and the reins happy which he was pressing with his hand. She had an impulse (were it only possible) to direct her virgin footsteps through the hostile ranks; she had an impulse to cast her body from the top of the towers into the Gnossian camp, or to open the gates, strengthened with brass, to the enemy; or, indeed, anything else, if Minos should wish it. And as she was sitting, looking at the white tents of the Dictæan king, she said, “I am in doubt whether I should rejoice, or whether I should grieve, that this mournful war is carried on. I grieve that Minos is the enemy of the person who loves him; but unless there had been a war, would he have been known to me? yet, taking me for a hostage, he might cease the war, and have me for his companion, me as a pledge of peace. If, most beauteous of beings, she who bore thee, was such as thou art thyself, with reason was the God Jupiter inflamed with love for her. Oh! thrice happy were I, if, moving upon wings through the air, I could light upon the camp of the Gnossian king, and, owning myself and my flame, could ask him with what dowry he could wish to be purchased; provided only, that he did not ask the city of my father. For, perish rather the desired alliance, than that I should prevail by treason; although the clemency of a merciful conqueror has often made it of advantage to many, to be conquered. He certainly carries on a just war for his slain son,6 and is strong both in his cause, and in the arms that defend his cause.
“We shall be conquered, as I suppose. If this fate awaits this city, why should his own arms, and not my love, open the walls to him? It will be better for him to conquer without slaughter and delay, and the expense of his own blood. How much, indeed, do I dread, Minos, lest any one should unknowingly wound thy breast! for who is so hardened as to dare, unless unknowingly, to direct his cruel lance against thee? The design pleases me; and my determination is to deliver up my country as a dowry, together with myself, and so to put an end to the war. But to be willing, is too little; a guard watches the approaches, and my father keeps the keys of the gates. Him alone, in my wretchedness, do I dread; he alone obstructs my desires. Would that the Gods would grant I might be without a father! Every one, indeed, is a God to himself. Fortune is an enemy to idle prayers. Another woman, inflamed with a passion so great, would long since have taken a pleasure in destroying whatever stood in the way of her love. And why should any one be bolder than myself? I could dare to go through flames, and amid swords. But in this case there is no occasion for any flames or any swords; I only want the lock of my father. That purple lock is more precious to me than gold; it will make me happy, and mistress of my own wish.”
As she is saying such things, the night draws on, the greatest nurse of cares, and with the darkness her boldness increases. The first slumbers are now come, in which sleep takes possession of the breast wearied with the cares of the day. She silently enters the chamber of her father, and (O abominable crime!) the daughter despoils the father of his fatal lock, and having got the prize of crime, carries with her the spoil of her impiety; and issuing forth by the gate, she goes through the midst of the enemy, (so great is her confidence in her deserts) to the king, whom, in astonishment, she thus addresses: “’Twas love that urged the deed. I am Scylla, the royal issue of Nisus; to thee do I deliver the fortunes of my country and my own, as well; I ask for no reward, but thyself. Take this purple lock, as a pledge of my love; and do not consider that I am delivering to thee a lock of hair, but the life of my father.” And then, in her right hand, she holds forth the infamous present. Minos refuses it, thus held out; and shocked at the thought of so unheard of a crime, he says, “May the Gods, O thou reproach of our age, banish thee from their universe; and may both earth and sea be denied to thee. At least, I will not allow so great a monster to come into Crete, the birth-place of Jupiter, which is my realm.” He thus spoke;7 and when, like a most just lawgiver, he had imposed conditions on the vanquished, he ordered the halsers of the fleet to be loosened, and the brazen beaked ships to be impelled with the oars. Scylla, when she beheld the launched ships sailing on the main, and saw that the prince did not give her the expected reward of her wickedness, having spent all her entreaties, fell into a violent rage, and holding up her hands, with her hair dishevelled, in her frenzy she exclaimed,
“Whither dost thou fly, the origin of thy achievements thus left behind, O thou preferred before my country, preferred before my father? Whither dost thou fly, barbarous man? whose victory is both my crime and my merit. Has neither the gift presented to thee, nor yet my passion, moved thee? nor yet the fact that all my hopes were centred in thee alone? For whither shall I return, forsaken by thee? To my country? Subdued, it is ruined. But suppose it were still safe; by my treachery, it is shut against me. To the face of my father, that I have placed in thy power. My fellow-citizens . hate me deservedly; the neighbours dread my example. I have closed the whole world against me, that Crete alone might be open to me. And dost thou thus forbid me that as well? Is it thus, ungrateful one, that thou dost desert me? Europa was not thy mother, but the inhospitable Syrtis,8 or Armenian9 tigresses, or Charybdis disturbed by the South wind. Nor wast thou the son of Jupiter; nor was thy mother beguiled by the assumed form of a bull. That story of thy birth is false. He was both a fierce bull, and one charmed with the love of no heifer, that begot thee. Nisus, my father, take vengeance upon me. Thou city so lately betrayed, rejoice at my misfortunes; for I have deserved them, I confess, and I am worthy to perish. Yet let some one of those, whom I have impiously ruined, destroy me. Why dost thou, who hast conquered by means of my crime, chastise that crime? This, which was treason to my country and to my father, was an act of kindness to thee. She is truly worthy10 of thee for a husband, who, adulterously enclosed in wood, deceived the fierce-looking bull, and bore in her womb an offspring of shape dissimilar to herself. And do my complaints reach thy ears? Or do the same winds bear away my fruitless words, and thy ships, ungrateful man? Now, ah! now, it is not to be wondered at that Pasiphaë preferred the bull to thee; thou didst have the more savage nature of the two. Wretch that I am! He joys in speeding onward, and the waves resound, cleaved by his oars. Together with myself, alas! my native land recedes from him. Nothing dost thou avail; oh thou! forgetful to no purpose of my deserts. In spite of thee, will I follow thee, and grasping thy crooked stern, I will be dragged through the long seas.”
Scarce has she said this, when she leaps into the waves, and follows the ships, Cupid giving her strength, and she hangs, an unwelcome companion, to the Gnossian ship. When her father beholds her, (for now he is hovering in the air, and he has lately been made a sea eagle, with tawny wings), he is going to tear her in pieces with his crooked beak. Through fear she quits the stern; but the light air seems to support her as she is falling, that she may not touch the sea. It is feathers that support her. With feathers, being changed into a bird, she is called Ciris;11 and this name does she obtain from cutting off the lock.
Footnotes:
1. The East wind.]—Ver. 2. Eurus, or the East wind, while blowing, would prevent the return of Cephalus from the island of Ægina to Athens.
2. The sons of Æacus.]—Ver. 4. ‘Æacidis’ may mean either the forces sent by Æacus, or his sons Telamon and Peleus, in command of those troops. It has been well observed, that ‘redeuntibus,’ ‘returning,’ is here somewhat improperly applied to the troops of Æacus, for they were not, strictly speaking, returning to Athens although Cephalus was.
3. Lelegeian coasts.]—Ver. 6. Of Megara, which is also called Alcathoë, from Alcathoüs, its restorer.
4. Of Latona.]—Ver. 15. The story was, that when Alcathoüs was rebuilding the walls of Megara, Apollo assisted him, and laying down his lyre among the stones, its tones were communicated to them.
5. Cydonean.]—Ver 22. From Cydon, a city of Crete.
6. His slain son.]—Ver. 58. Namely, his son Androgeus, who had been put to death, as already mentioned.
7. He thus spoke.]—Ver. 101. The poet omits the continuation of the siege by Minos, and how he took Megara by storm, as not pertaining to the developement of his story.
8. Inhospitable Syrtis.]—Ver. 120. There were two famous quicksands, or ‘Syrtes,’ in the Mediterranean Sea, near the coast of Africa; the former near Cyrene, and the latter near Byzacium, which were known by the name of ‘Syrtis Major’ and ‘Syrtis Minor.’ The inhabitants of the neighbouring coasts were savage and inhospitable, and subsisted by plundering the shipwrecked vessels.
9. Armenian.]—Ver. 121. Armenia was a country of Asia, lying between Mount Taurus and the Caucasian chain, and extending from Cappadocia to the Caspian Sea. It was divided into the greater and the less Armenia, the one to the East, the other to the West. Its tigers were noted for their extreme fierceness.
10. She is truly worthy.]—Ver. 131. Pasiphaë, who was the mother of the Minotaur.
