“The Eyes of Argus transform’d into a Peacock’s Train” – Ovid
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Tag: Io / nymph
June 22, 2020
“The Afternoon of a Faun” – Debussy / Nijinsky / Nureyev
“Faun and Nymph“ (1867)
Pál Szinyei Merse
________
to take a break, for a moment, from the
travails of Io, a heifer still, though her
father, Inachus, is aware of the situation,
and Hermes, messenger of the gods, is
out, on the orders of Jove/ Jupiter / Zeus,
to save her, and, at the same time,
inspired by the music Hermes tells Argus,
her many-eyed keeper, Pan, god of the
wilds, has been playing, with reeds he’s
been left with of Syrinx, the nymph he
would’ve loved had she not been
transformed into rushes, as imagined by
Debussy in his evocative Syrinx for solo
flute, as highlighted in my last instalment,
I could not not remember Debussy‘s
other similarly mythological, and intimately
related, work, his Prelude to the Afternoon
of a Faun, as modified itself by Vaslav
Nijinsky, legendary dancer and
choreographer, into an event that verily
shook the early 20th Century
retitled, L’après-midi d’un faune, The
Afternoon of a Faun in English, the
performance captures everything one
would gather from Ovid’s myths of its
primitive, primal, sensibilities
the faun, needless to say, is representative
of Pan, god of the wild, woodlands, a satyr,
part instinct, part man, see above
watch Rudolf Nureyev, then, his equally
celebrated successor, take on the role
Nijinsky made famous, without any
alterations made to the original 1912
production, however improbably,
though entirely successfully, we’re in
Paris, May 29, though transposed,
faithfully and superbly, to New York,
Broadway, 1979
proceed, however, at your own discretion,
The Afternoon of a Faun is steaming, it’s
about what happens when a young buck’s
fancies, implacable and irrepressible, turn
to love, not for the scrupulous, where does
love begin, it asks, and lust retire, or is it
the other way around, where does yin, in
other words, meet, become, yang
these are questions that more and more
begin to come up, you’ll find, in Greek
and Roman, and most other ancient,
for that matter, mythologies, something
that isn’t at all touched upon in the
Abrahamic traditions, Christanity, Islam,
Judaism, monotheistic, though they’re
at least as old, where nature, the place
of animals, vegetation, land, water, our
intimate interconnection with them,
don’t much, for better or for worse,
come up
I miss the wonder of the more
pantheistic, the pagan, perspective
enjoy
R ! chard
June 17, 2020
The Transformation of Syrinx into Reeds
“Pan and Syrinx“ (1617 – 1619)
Peter Paul Rubens
__________
Then Hermes thus:
Hermes, messenger of the gods,
addresses Argus, keeper of Io,
who’s been transformed by Jove,
god of gods, into a heifer, though
she remains daughter, ever, of
Inachus, river god, to tell the
story of his rare, beguiling reeds
A nymph of late there was
Whose heav’nly form her fellows did surpass.
here we go again with nymphs,
beautiful, irresistible, however
ever innocent, prey, due, indeed,
to their very beauty, their very
innocence, to lustful, inordinate
desires, in these instances,
markedly divine
deities, I point out again, make
up their own rules
The pride and joy of fair Arcadia’s plains,
Arcadia, apart from being an
actual area of Greece, is also
the ideal, in our historical
imagination, of an utopia,
much as is the lost island of
Atlantis
Belov’d by deities, ador’d by swains:
Syrinx her name, by Sylvans oft pursu’d,
Sylvans, could only be, though
I’ve been unable to find actual
confirmation of my opinion,
wood spirits, forest entities,
satyrs, goat men, and such
As oft she did the lustful Gods delude:
Syrinx could often, or oft, delude,
or fool, ward off, the lustful Gods
The rural, and the woodland Pow’rs disdain’d;
satyr yourself, Syrinx would’ve
impudently taunted
With Cynthia hunted, and her rites maintain’d:
Like Phoebe clad, even Phoebe’s self she seems,
Cynthia, is Phoebe, both also known
as Diana, goddess of the Hunt, you’ll
remember Phoebe / Diana from her
connection to Daphne, who earlier
here was transformed into a laurel
Syrinx sounds an awful lot, incidentally,
like another version of Daphne
So tall, so streight, such well-proportion’d limbs:
The nicest eye did no distinction know,
But that the goddess bore a golden bow:
the only difference between Syrinx
and Cynthia / Phoebe / Diana was
that Syrinx didn’t have, bear, a
golden bow
Distinguish’d thus, the sight she cheated too.
had she borne a golden bow, Syrinx,
[d]istinguish’d thus, would’ve cheated
the sight, looked identical, to the
beautiful, it is inferred, goddess
Descending from Lycaeus, Pan admires
The matchless nymph, and burns with new desires.
Pan, god of the wild, woodlands
Lycaeus, Latin spelling of Lykaion,
is a mountain in Arcadia
A crown of pine upon his head he wore;
And thus began her pity to implore.
But e’er he thus began, she took her flight
So swift, she was already out of sight.
Nor stay’d to hear the courtship of the God;
But bent her course to Ladon’s gentle flood:
Ladon, a river in Arcadia
flood, rushing, though gentl[y],
water, rhymes in the preceding
verse, you’ll note, with God
There by the river stopt, and tir’d before;
Relief from water nymphs her pray’rs implore.
Syrinx, once by the river stopt, seeks
the help of, assistance, [r]elief from,
the nearby water nymphs, her
consorts
Now while the lustful God, with speedy pace,
Just thought to strain her in a strict embrace,
Pan, like Phoebus / Apollo, or
Jove / Jupiter / Zeus before him,
is, as well, and characteristically,
a lustful God
He fill’d his arms with reeds, new rising on the place.
And while he sighs, his ill success to find,
his ill success, his thwarted,
ineffective, enterprise
The tender canes were shaken by the wind;
And breath’d a mournful air, unheard before;
the reeds that Pan gathered in his arms,
shaken by the wind, create a mournful
air, a melancholy music
That much surprizing Pan, yet pleas’d him more.
though Pan might’ve been much
surpriz[ed] by the sorrowful sounds
he heard, he was more pleas’d by
them than startled
Admiring this new musick, Thou, he said,
Who canst not be the partner of my bed,
At least shall be the confort of my mind:
Thou, Syrinx
And often, often to my lips be joyn’d.
in a kiss of consolation
He form’d the reeds, proportion’d as they are,
Unequal in their length, and wax’d with care,
They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair.
the instrument Pan devised from
the tender canes he fashioned
from the unaccommodating reeds,
what we now name the Pan flute,
was called in Ancient Greece a
syrinx, in honour of the
recalcitrant nymph
listen, coincidentally, to Debussy
tell the story, for solo flute,
however, which is to say, on a
modern instrument, for our having
long ago abandoned at a
professional level the original pipe,
though it remains, apparently, as a
folk instrument in more agrarian,
communities around the world, for
shepherds, one would imagine, to
while away the hours while tending
to their, however wayward, sheep
R ! chard
June 14, 2020
“The Transformation of Io into a Heyfer” (V) – Ovid
Statue of Hermes (Vatican Museums)
___________________
though Io might still have been “not
out of the woods”, when last we saw
her, there remained nevertheless
her original suitor, Jove, god of gods
Now Jove no longer cou’d her suff’rings bear;
But call’d in haste his airy messenger,
The son of Maia, with severe decree
To kill the keeper, and to set her free.
The son of Maia, Hermes, messenger
of the gods
Maia, one of the Pleiades, playmates
of Artemis, goddess of the Hunt,
daughters, also, of Atlas, famously
condemned, he, to hold up the
heavens for eternity
With all his harness soon the God was sped,
Hermes, no sooner equipped,
[w]ith all his harness, livery,
attire, was sped, got under
way
His flying hat was fastned on his head,
Wings on his heels were hung, and in his hand
He holds the vertue of the snaky wand.
vertue, virtue, but having retained,
still in 1717, its root, vertu, French
for virtue, benefit
Hermes is usually shown wearing
[h]is flying hat, [w]ings on his heels,
a snaky wand, identifying accessories
snaky wand, his caduceus
see above
The liquid air his moving pinions wound,
pinions, the feathers of a bird’s wing
wound, to injure, but also to wrap
around, according to its two
differing pronunciations
And, in the moment, shoot him on the ground.
to rhyme with wound, note
Hermes has landed, but apparently
uncomfortably
Before he came in sight, the crafty God
His wings dismiss’d, but still retain’d his rod:
dismiss’d, put aside, made invisible,
[h]is wings
That sleep-procuring wand wise Hermes took,
But made it seem to sight a sherpherd’s hook.
though Hermes kept his rod, he made
it look, seem to sight, like a shepherd’s
staff, hook
With this, he did a herd of goats controul;
controul, control
Which by the way he met, and slily stole.
by the way, as he walked along
slily stole, deities make up their
own rules
Clad like a country swain, he pip’d, and sung;
And playing, drove his jolly troop along.
swain, young man
With pleasure, Argus the musician heeds;
Argus heeds the musician, again
an inverted sentence, in order to
rhyme with
But wonders much at those new vocal reeds.
vocal reeds suggests Pan pipes
here, a wind instrument consisting
of several tubes of increasing length
placed side by side, where the piper
creates the melody by moving his
lips, her lips, from embouchure to
embouchure, the openings through
which to blow
And whosoe’er thou art, my friend, said he,
Up hither drive thy goats, and play by me:
Argus asks Hermes to stay, drive thy
goats away, [u]p hither, he directs,
and play thy instrument, keep him
company
This hill has browz for them, and shade for thee.
browz, browse, matter, twigs, shoots,
upon which goats might graze
The God, who was with ease induc’d to climb,
to climb, [u]p hither, in order to drive
the goats
Began discourse to pass away the time;
And still betwixt, his tuneful pipe he plies;
betwixt, meanwhile
plies, continues
And watch’d his hour, to close the keeper’s eyes.
his hour, his opportune moment
the keeper, Argus, over Io
With much ado, he partly kept awake;
the calming effect of the Pan pipes
was making it hard, much ado, for
Argus to stay awake
Not suff’ring all his eyes repose to take:
never allowing, suff’ring, all his eyes
to close, repose to take, at the same
time
And ask’d the stranger, who did reeds invent,
And whence began so rare an instrument?
how do you do that, Argus asks,
which leads to an interpolated story,
wherein Hermes, before we learn
much more about Io, answers the
questions
stay tuned
R ! chard
June 11, 2020
“The Transformation of Io into a Heyfer” (IV) – Ovid
“Io Wearing Bovine Horns Watched over by Argos on Hera’s Orders“
(1st century AD)
______________
before moving forward with the trials
of Io in Ovid’s poem, let me interject
a few extracurricular opinions
a great work of art, be it poetry, prose,
a painting, a piece of music, is indicated
by what you can read between the lines
this very Ovid is such an example,
interrupted, as it is, by my
commentaries
but a better example, a more personal
one, I would think, would be that of
listening to music, and finding oneself
wandering, often often, in all kinds of
apparently unrelated areas of
introspection, before being drawn
back into the piece, the present, often
unexpectedly, when it recaptures, with
artful ingenuity, an arresting mixture of
substance and style according to the
poet’s artistry, one’s errant attention,
helping one find one’s way back home
to rekindle again and again your
attention, therein lies the art
the journey, the reverie, has been the
point of the music, where it is that the
enchantment, and I use that word
advisedly here, has taken you, that
jaunt has been your part of the
communication, which has turned it
into, indeed, a conversation
all art tries to do that
here are a few of my own reveries
around Ovid’s poem, that it must be
read as a cooperation in this instance
between Ovid and John Dryden, who
translated it, along with the help, here
and there throughout the work, of a
few other noteworthies, who must be
acknowledged
it would be impossible to translate
alliteration, onomatopeia, other
literary devices from one language
to another, these exist only, and
specifically, in the individual
vernacular, like fingerprints, the
personal and particular impression
of teeth, in people, for example
of a more technical nature is the
fact that though Dryden‘s verse
is in iambic pentameter,
Shakespeare‘s shtick, a notably
conversational metre, Ovid‘s
dactylic hexameter is of a heroic
cadence, orotund and imperious,
like ceremonial music is
unmistakably different from more
lilting popular ditties
the point is that this translation of
Metamorphoses must be read, in
my opinion, as a collaboration
between Ovid for his substance,
which is to say, the essential
story, and John Dryden for his
style
for better or for worse
otherwise we must learn Latin
an interesting element of the style,
meanwhile, I’ve uncovered, upon
reading this text, is that the
apostrophe that is often removed
from verbs we see today with the
e typically installed before the d,
in the first line below, cry’d, for
instance, reply’d in the next,
would’ve been that the poet was
indicating, in his 1717, by the
insistent elision, that the letter
not be pronounced, where
custom had earlier had it that it
often was
for a more vivid impression, compare
bless’d with blessed, both pronunciations
still in use today, where the second
spelling, the one with the e, is a
throwback to a time when most of these
participles would’ve been voiced in that
manner
1717, we learn, however incidentally,
was a year when the English language
was evolving, their is not was turning
into their isn’t
but back now to Ovid
Ah wretched me! her mournful father cry’d;
She, with a sigh, to wretched me reply’d:
how, between two profoundly
different oratories, Inachus, Io‘s
father, wonders, to translate
see my exegesis above
About her milk-white neck, his arms he threw;
And wept, and then these tender words ensue.
Inachus speaks
And art thou she, whom I have sought around
The world, and have at length so sadly found?
So found, is worse than lost: with mutual words
Thou answer’st not, no voice thy tongue affords:
mutual words,a shared language
But sighs are deeply drawn from out thy breast;
And speech deny’d, by lowing is express’d.
lowing, the sound a cow makes
Unknowing, I prepar’d thy bridal bed;
With empty hopes of happy issue fed.
happy issue, children
But now the husband of a herd must be
Thy mate, and bell’wing sons thy progeny.
bell’wing, bellowing
Inachus fears Io will be mothering
calves
Oh, were I mortal, death might bring relief:
But now my God-head but extends my grief:
Prolongs my woes, of which no end I see,
And makes me curse my immortality!
note that even the gods in this
mythology suffer
More had he said, but fearful of her stay,
The starry guardian drove his charge away,
The starry guardian, Argus
see above
To some fresh pasture; on a hilly height
He sate himself, and kept her still in sight.
to sate, to refresh, satisfy
Io is still not out of the woods
R ! chard
June 9, 2020
“The Transformation of Io into a Heyfer” (III) – Ovid
“Io Recognised by Her Father“
Victor Honoré Janssens
______________
The head of Argus (as with stars the skies)
Was compass’d round, and wore an hundred eyes.
not only did [t]he head of Argus have
an hundred eyes, but they circled,
compass’d, round his head, as with
stars the skies, as with stars the
geocentric firmament
note the passive form of the verb to
compass in the two lines above
standing in for the inverted sentences
I earlier made mention of as literary
devices Ovid, or Dryden, uses
throughout the poem
the standard sentence, the active
sentence, should read, an hundred
eyes compass’d [t]he head of Argus
compass’d, encircled
But two by turns their lids in slumber steep;
The rest on duty still their station keep;
Nor cou’d the total constellation sleep.
never could all the eyes, the total
constellation, sleep, or in slumber
steep, since only two of them would
turn[ ] their lids, close, at a time,
while the others continued diligently
to keep watch
steep, incidentally, is a verb here,
as in to put the kettle on, not an
adjective, as in dauntingly
pitched, threateningly angled
Thus, ever present, to his eyes, and mind,
His charge was still before him, tho’ behind.
even when she was standing behind
him, Argus could still see Io, [h]is
charge, with the eyes he had in the
back of his head
In fields he suffer’d her to feed by Day,
But when the setting sun to night gave way,
The captive cow he summon’d with a call;
And drove her back, and ty’d her to the stall.
On leaves of trees, and bitter herbs she fed,
Heav’n was her canopy, bare earth her bed:
So hardly lodg’d, and to digest her food,
She drank from troubled streams, defil’d with mud.
hardly lodg’d, given difficult living
conditions
Her woeful story fain she wou’d have told,
With hands upheld, but had no hands to hold.
fain, gladly
Her head to her ungentle keeper bow’d,
She strove to speak, she spoke not, but she low’d:
to low is to make the sound that
cows do, to moo
Affrighted with the noise, she look’d around,
And seem’d t’ inquire the author of the sound.
the sound that she herself was making
not only [a]ffrighted her, frightened her,
but had her wondering where could
it possibly be coming from
Once on the banks where often she had play’d
(Her father’s banks), she came,
Her father, Inachus, god of rivers
and there survey’d
Her alter’d visage, and her branching head;
And starting, from her self she wou’d have fled.
much as the sound of her altered
voice had [a]ffrighted Io, now her
reflection in the water chastened
her as well, enough to make her
start, be startled, and want to run
away from her self
Her fellow nymphs, familiar to her eyes,
Beheld, but knew her not in this disguise.
Ev’n Inachus himself was ignorant;
And in his daughter, did his daughter want.
no one recognized Io, not even
her father, who, in his daughter,
the one who stood before him,
the altered Io, could not make
her out
did his daughter want, as in to
be found wanting, in the cow,
to not even be suggested in
the, however conspicuous,
heifer, not at all part of the
picture
Io is there but, simultaneously,
disconcertingly, not there
She follow’d where her fellows went, as she
Were still a partner of the company:
it should be remembered that
Io was a beautiful heifer, even
Juno had been impressed, so
that her fellows, her companions,
only other maidens, I’ll point out,
fellows taking on its sexually
indiscriminate meaning here,
not at all restricted to males,
would have easily let her follow
note the symmetry, incidentally,
between follow’d and fellows,
the nearly hidden alliteration,
a delightful literary effect,
though if you blinked you’d
miss it
They stroak her neck; the gentle heyfer stands,
And her neck offers to their stroaking hands.
Her father gave her grass; the grass she took;
And lick’d his palms, and cast a piteous look;
And in the language of her eyes, she spoke.
her lowing would’ve had no effect,
would’ve let no one in on the fact
that beneath the animal exterior
there might be an Io
She wou’d have told her name, and ask’d relief,
But wanting words, in tears she tells her grief.
Which,
and here we get the punchline,
the plot twist, which turns this
story into, relatively speaking,
a total enchantment, as though
Ovid were giving us, prefiguring
in fact, Walt Disney, our own
20th Century mythologist
with her foot she makes him understand;
And prints the name of Io in the sand.
see above
R ! chard
June 3, 2020
“The Transformation of Io into a Heyfer” – Ovid
“River gods consoling Peneus for the Loss of his Daughter, Daphne“ (1530–60)
Master of the Die
__________
the transformation of Daphne into
a lawrel, though a story on its own,
has repercussions, which flow into
the introduction of Ovid‘s following
instalment, “The Transformation of
Io into a Heyfer“, however
essentially unrelated
An ancient forest in Thessalia grows;
Thessalia, or Thessaly, a region of
Ancient Greece
Which Tempe’s pleasing valley does inclose:
Tempe, a valley, or vale, in Greece,
the Vale of Tempe, with a rich
mythological history
Through this the rapid Peneus take his course;
Peneus, river god, Daphne‘s father
you’ll note that Peneus is given
a plural conjugation here, take
instead of takes in the singular,
unless this is a typo, otherwise
we have a metonym at work, a
part signifying the whole, the
whole in this instance meaning
the collection of rivers of which
Peneus was the god
From Pindus rolling with impetuous force;
Pindus, a mountain range in
northern Greece named after
its highest peak
Mists from the river’s mighty fall arise:
the river, one of Peneus‘ mighty
torrents, cascading down the
mountain, the Pindus, creating,
along the way, [m]ists
And deadly damps inclose the cloudy skies:
Perpetual fogs are hanging o’er the wood;
And sounds of waters deaf the neighbourhood.
deaf, used as a verb here, means
to deafen, to prevent sounds from
being heard
Deep, in a rocky cave, he makes abode
he, Peneus, the river god
(A mansion proper for a mourning God).
mourning God, Peneus, who’s just
lost Daphne, his daughter
Here he gives audience; issuing out decrees
To rivers, his dependant deities.
On this occasion hither they resort;
To pay their homage, and to make their court.
to make their court, [t]o pay … homage,
to attend to, their sovereign, Peneus
All doubtful, whether to congratulate
His daughter’s honour, or lament her fate.
His daughter’s honour, Daphne has
been deemed the symbolic mistress
of champions, to compensate for her
irreversible, and lament[able],
transformation
Sperchaeus, crown’d with poplar, first appears;
Then old Apidanus came crown’d with years:
Enipeus turbulent, Amphrysos tame;
And Aeas last with lagging waters came.
Sperchaeus, or Spercheios, Apidanus,
Enipeus, Amphrysos, or Amphrysus,
and Aeas, are all river gods, if not all
actual rivers
Then, of his kindred brooks, a num’rous throng
Condole his loss; and bring their urns along.
kindred brooks, smaller tributaries,
of Peneus
Not one was wanting of the wat’ry train,
That fill’d his flood, or mingled with the main:
all the waterways, the wat’ry flows,
train, were in attendance
But Inachus, who in his cave, alone,
Inachus, a personification of the
Greek river, Inachos
Wept not another’s losses, but his own,
For his dear Io, whether stray’d, or dead,
Io, nymph, a nature spirit, daughter
of Inachus
To him uncertain, doubtful tears he shed.
He sought her through the world; but sought in vain;
And no where finding, rather fear’d her slain.
a tragedy in the making
to be continued
R ! chard
March 4, 2016
“Syrinx” – Claude Debussy
“Syrinx“ (1892)
__________
though Debussy would’ve called his
“Syrinx“ “Flûte de Pan”, “Pan Flute”,
alas, the name had already been
taken, he therefore came up with the
much more inspired “Syrinx“
Syrinx, with the help of other nymphs,
who’d come at her cry for help as she
fled the god Pan, a pursuer, had been
turned into a bush of reeds, its canes
producing a song so sweet as to
confound and disarm him, impelling
him to create of them that sublime
instrument
Hermes had been telling Argus, Argus
Panoptes, the giant with the hundred
eyes, the story about the pipes he
was playing, an implement received
from Jove, apparently, god of all the
gods, who wanted him to kill Argus,
for confining Io, who’d been turned
into a heifer by Juno, Jove’s wife,
who’d caught him chasing her, Io’s
plaintive lows had been getting to
Juno as Io fretted unfettered through
the fields too close to Olympus
when Hermes’ music finally closed the
giant’s last two eyes, he beheaded him,
but Juno, in merciful recognition of his
service, however ultimately ineffectual,
set them into the variegated tail of the
peacock
are you kidding me, I always think when
I read Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”, and am
ever nevertheless entirely enchanted
a flute solo had not been composed in
over 150 years when Debussy composed
at all unimpressive “Sonata in A Minor“
of 1747, it duly set off a new life for the
long overlooked flute, a reed which
Mozart famously didn’t like
note the tonal, rhythmic, and repetition
shifts from the rigid Classical model,
where these are much more strict,
Impressionism was not only breaking
down pictures, the pictorial arts, but its
sound world as well, it was an utterly
new era, new sensibility, new zeitgeist,
and you can feel it, though you might
not be quite able to immediately
verbalize it, the arts were again, as
they ever ‘ve been, the canary in the
gold mine
Richard
psst:
The Transformation of Syrinx into Reeds
Then Hermes thus: A nymph of late there was
Whose heav’nly form her fellows did surpass.
The pride and joy of fair Arcadia’s plains,
Belov’d by deities, ador’d by swains:
Syrinx her name, by Sylvans oft pursu’d,
As oft she did the lustful Gods delude:
The rural, and the woodland Pow’rs disdain’d;
With Cynthia hunted, and her rites maintain’d:
Like Phoebe clad, even Phoebe’s self she seems,
So tall, so streight, such well-proportion’d limbs:
The nicest eye did no distinction know,
But that the goddess bore a golden bow:
Distinguish’d thus, the sight she cheated too.
Descending from Lycaeus, Pan admires
The matchless nymph, and burns with new desires.
A crown of pine upon his head he wore;
And thus began her pity to implore.
Whose heav’nly form her fellows did surpass.
The pride and joy of fair Arcadia’s plains,
Belov’d by deities, ador’d by swains:
Syrinx her name, by Sylvans oft pursu’d,
As oft she did the lustful Gods delude:
The rural, and the woodland Pow’rs disdain’d;
With Cynthia hunted, and her rites maintain’d:
Like Phoebe clad, even Phoebe’s self she seems,
So tall, so streight, such well-proportion’d limbs:
The nicest eye did no distinction know,
But that the goddess bore a golden bow:
Distinguish’d thus, the sight she cheated too.
Descending from Lycaeus, Pan admires
The matchless nymph, and burns with new desires.
A crown of pine upon his head he wore;
And thus began her pity to implore.
Now while the lustful God, with speedy pace,
Just thought to strain her in a strict embrace,
He fill’d his arms with reeds, new rising on the place.
And while he sighs, his ill success to find,
The tender canes were shaken by the wind;
And breath’d a mournful air, unheard before;
That much surprizing Pan, yet pleas’d him more.
Admiring this new musick, Thou, he said,
Who canst not be the partner of my bed,
At least shall be the confort of my mind:
And often, often to my lips be joyn’d.
He form’d the reeds, proportion’d as they are,
Unequal in their length, and wax’d with care,
They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair.
Just thought to strain her in a strict embrace,
He fill’d his arms with reeds, new rising on the place.
And while he sighs, his ill success to find,
The tender canes were shaken by the wind;
And breath’d a mournful air, unheard before;
That much surprizing Pan, yet pleas’d him more.
Admiring this new musick, Thou, he said,
Who canst not be the partner of my bed,
At least shall be the confort of my mind:
And often, often to my lips be joyn’d.
He form’d the reeds, proportion’d as they are,
Unequal in their length, and wax’d with care,
They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair.
Ovid
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