Richibi’s Weblog

   “Heliades“ (1920s) 

 

           Rupert Bunny

 

                      ______

 

 

                     The Latian nymphs came round him, 

 

Latian, of Latium, a region still of Italy,

which comprised, and still comprises,

Rome, the Latians, or Latins, were its

original inhabitants, whose language,

Latin, is the root of many of our 

European languages today, it is, 

notably, the language of Ovid

 

                                                                                                 and, amaz’d, 
                     On the dead youth, transfix’d with thunder, gaz’d; 

 

the dead youth, Phaeton

                     And, whilst yet smoaking from the bolt he lay, 
                     His shatter’d body to a tomb convey, 
                     And o’er the tomb an epitaph devise: 
                     “Here he, who drove the sun’s bright chariot, lies; 
                     His father’s fiery steeds he cou’d not guide, 
                     But in the glorious enterprize he dy’d.” 

 

though Ovid’s text, as translated by

John Dryden, among others, has

its difficulties, a good portion of it 

is easy to understand, the secret,

mostly, is in paying attention to the

punctuation, which on occasion can

be tricky

                     Apollo hid his face, and pin’d for grief, 

 

Apollo, Phaeton’s father

                     And, if the story may deserve belief, 
                     The space of one whole day is said to run, 
                     From morn to wonted ev’n, without a sun: 

 

ev’n, evening

                     The burning ruins, with a fainter ray, 
                     Supply the sun, and counterfeit a day, 

                     A day, that still did Nature’s face disclose: 
                     This comfort from the mighty mischief rose. 

though the sun did not shine that

fateful day, the glow from the 

burning debris shed a light that 

allowed one to nevertheless 

make out, disclose, Nature’s face, 

a wry comfort midst the carnage,

midst the mighty mischief

                     But Clymene, enrag’d with grief, laments, 

 

Clymene, Phaeton’s mother

                     And as her grief inspires, her passion vents: 
                     Wild for her son, and frantick in her woes, 
                     With hair dishevel’d round the world she goes, 
                     To seek where-e’er his body might be cast; 
                     ‘Till, on the borders of the Po, at last 
                     The name inscrib’d on the new tomb appears. 

 

the Po, a river in Italy

 

the new tomb, where the Latian 

nymphs lay to rest Phaeton’s 

remains 

 

                     The dear dear name she bathes in flowing tears, 
                     Hangs o’er the tomb, unable to depart, 
                     And hugs the marble to her throbbing heart. 

                     Her daughters too lament, and sigh, and mourn 
                     (A fruitless tribute to their brother’s urn), 
                     And beat their naked bosoms, and complain, 
                     And call aloud for Phaeton in vain: 
                     All the long night their mournful watch they keep, 
                     And all the day stand round the tomb, and weep. 

 

Her daughters, the Heliades, along

with Phaeton, were the children of

Clymene and Helios / Phoebus / 

Apollo, god of the Sun

 

                     Four times, revolving, the full moon return’d; 
                     So long the mother and the daughters mourn’d: 

 

the equivalent of, more or less, 

four months

                     When now the eldest, Phaethusa, strove 
                     To rest her weary limbs, but could not move; 
                     Lampetia wou’d have help’d her, but she found 
                     Her self with-held, and rooted to the ground: 

 

Phaethusa and Lampetia, both daughters 

of Helios / Phoebus / Apollo, but with 

Neaera, and not, as Ovid indeed writes 

in his Latin text, with Clymene, were 

therefore not strictly speaking Heliades, 

but stepsisters only of Phaeton

 

furthermore, Ovid has them find their

purported brother in the Eridanos, a

river only later identified as the Po, 

so that Dryden cannot be faulted for

this not inaccurate anachronism

 

in either case, I suspect either’s metre

might’ve played a poetically pertinent 

part in these divergences

 

                     A third in wild affliction, as she grieves, 
                     Wou’d rend her hair, but fills her hands with leaves; 
                     One sees her thighs transform’d, another views 
                     Her arms shot out, and branching into boughs. 

 

in one version, Helios / Phoebus / 

Apollo and Clymene had three 

daughters, Aegiale, Aegle, and 

Aetheria, in another they had five, 

Helia, Merope, Phoebe, Aetheria 

and Dioxippe, you’ll note that 

Phaethusa and Lampetia are not 

among then

                     And now their legs, and breasts, and bodies stood  
                     Crusted with bark, and hard’ning into wood; 
                     But still above were female heads display’d, 

                     And mouths, that call’d the mother to their aid. 

 

there’s a pattern here, a friend said 

when I spoke to her about what 

was coming up

 

you mean these nymphs turning 

into trees, I asked

 

yes, she replied

 

look at it the other way around, I said, 

not that the girls are turning into trees, 

but that the trees are becoming human, 

becoming our kin, we are acknowledging 

their humanity, anthropomorphically, which 

is why some of us actually hug them, the 

world in Ovid’s earlier myths is still being 

created, not just the generic tree, but 

poplars, maples, laurel, out of the share 

of the common soul we impart to them, 

not only metaphorically, as in these myths, 

but even organically, we are, after all,  

all, fundamentally, stardust

 

                     What cou’d, alas! the weeping mother do? 
                     From this to that with eager haste she flew, 
                     And kiss’d her sprouting daughters as they grew. 
                     She tears the bark that to each body cleaves, 
                     And from their verdant fingers strips the leaves: 
                     The blood came trickling, where she tore away 
                     The leaves and bark: 

 

the process is not unlike watching, 

helplessly, a daughter leave home, 

age, take on life’s tribulations

 

                                                 the maids were heard to say, 
                     “Forbear, mistaken parent, oh! forbear; 
                     A wounded daughter in each tree you tear; 
                     Farewell for ever.” Here the bark encreas’d, 
                     Clos’d on their faces, and their words suppress’d. 

 

let go, let go, the daughters cry,

holding on to us only hurts 

                     The new-made trees in tears of amber run, 
                     Which, harden’d into value by the sun, 
                     Distill for ever on the streams below: 

 

the river Eridanos was supposed to be a

river rich in amber, the resin, apparently,  

of poplar trees there having drifted to the 

nearby stream, hardened

 

I’m reminded of the sap of our own

indigenous maple trees becoming

a prized delicacy

                     The limpid streams their radiant treasure show, 
                     Mixt in the sand; whence the rich drops convey’d 
                     Shine in the dress of the bright Latian maid. 

 

Latian, or Latin, maids have been 

weaving amber into their apparel

ever since

 

 

R ! chard