Translation copyright © 2000 Diane Arnson Svarlien; all rights reserved.
| I seemed to see you, love, struggling through the cold Ionian | |
| waves, your boat in splinters, weak arms weary; | |
| And as your great damp mass of hair was pulling you down | |
| you confessed to every lie you ever told me. | |
| 5 | I thought of Helle, gulping wine-dark lungfuls, sunk: |
| spilled from the sky, from the back of the golden ewe . . . | |
| You! Fear overcame me: what if sailors should one day | |
| remember your name and weep as they slip through | |
| these waters, calling this sea the “Cynthian”? I prayed | |
| 10 | to every god, made every vow: “Neptune! |
| Leucothoë! Castor! Pollux! Save her!” Only your hands | |
| were visible, but I heard you again and again | |
| calling my name as you died. If Glaucus then, the sea-green | |
| god, had seen your lovely little eyes, | |
| 15 | you would have been the Ionian Sea’s best girl; nymphs |
| (whiter than pearls, or bluer than the skies) | |
| would sulk, and crackle with jealousy as you passed. Instead | |
| I saw a dolphin speeding to your side– | |
| the very one, I think, who saved Arion–who delivered | |
| 20 | lyre and poet to shore. And as I tried |
| to fling myself from the top of the sheer rock scarp, | |
| the whole scene, scatter-shot with fear, had disappeared. | |
| vidi te in somnis fracta, mea vita, carina | |
| Ionio lassas ducere rore manus, | |
| et quaecumque in me fueras mentita fateri, | |
| nec iam umore gravis tollere posse comas, | |
| 5 | qualem purpureis agitatam fluctibus Hellen, |
| aurea quam molli tergore vexit ovis. | |
| quam timui, ne forte tuum mare nomen haberet, | |
| atque tua labens navita fleret aqua! | |
| quae tum ego Neptuno, quae tum cum Castore fratri, | |
| 10 | quaeque tibi excepi, iam dea, Leucothoe! |
| at tu vix primas extollens gurgite palmas | |
| saepe meum nomen iam peritura vocas. | |
| quod si forte tuos vidisset Glaucus ocellos, | |
| esses Ionii facta puella maris, | |
| 15 | et tibi ob invidiam Nereides increpitarent, |
| candida Nesaee, caerula Cymothoe. | |
| sed tibi subsidio delphinum currere vidi, | |
| qui, puto, Arioniam vexerat ante lyram. | |
| iamque ego conabar summo me mittere saxo, | |
| 20 | cum mihi discussit talia visa metus. |
This translation was first published in Arion, Third Series, 1.1 (Winter 1990).
Permission is hereby granted to distribute for classroom use. The author may be contacted at arnsonsvarlien@gmail.com.