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Publilius Statius - Achilleid Book I
Achilles refuses to agree to his mother's plan to conceal him amongst the daughters of Lycomedes on the island of Scyros, until he sees the beautiful Deidamia.
After a while, the strain of dissembling becomes too much as he remembers his manly days with Chiron, and nature takes its course:
"Thou, O Patroclus, now dost aim my darts, dost bend my bow and mount the team that was nourished for me; but I have learnt to fling wide my arms as I grasp the vine-wands, and to spin the distaff-thread - ah! shame and vexation to confess it!
Nay more, night and day thou dost dissemble the love that holds thee, and thy passion for the maid of equal years. How long wilt thou conceal the wound that galls thy heart, nor even in love - for shame! - prove thy own manhood?"
So he speaks; and in the thick darkness of the night, rejoicing that the unstirring silence gives timely aid to his secret deeds, he gains by force his desire, and with all his vigour strains her in a real embrace; the whole choir of stars beheld from on high, and the horns of the young moon blushed red.
She indeed filled grove and mountain with her cries, but the train of Bacchus, dispelling slumber's cloud, deemed it the signal for the dance; on every side the familiar shout arises, and Achilles once more brandishes the thyrsus; yet first with friendly speech he solaces the anxious maid:
"I am he - why fearest thou? - whom my cerulean mother bore wellnigh to Jove, and sent to find my nurture in the woods and snows of Thessaly. Nor had I endured this dress and shameful garb, had I not seen thee on the seashore; 'twas for thee I did submit, for thee I carry skeins and bear the womanly timbrel.
Why dost thou weep who art made the daughter-in-law of mighty Ocean?
Why dost thou moan who shalt bear valiant grandsons to Olympus?
But thy father! - Scyros shall be destroyed by fire and sword and these walls shall be in ruins and the sport of wanton winds, ere thou pay by cruel death for my embraces; not so utterly am I subject to my mother."
Horror-struck was the princess at such dark happenings, albeit long since she had suspected his good faith, and shuddered at his presence, and his countence was changed as he made confession.
What is she to do? Shall she bear the tale of her misfortune to the father, and ruin both herself and her lover, who perchance would suffer untimely death? And still there abode within her breast the love so long deceived.
Silent is she in her grief, and dissembles the crime that both now share alike; her nurse alone she resolves to make a partner in deceit, and she, yielding to the prayers of both, assents. With secret cunning she conceals the rape and the swelling womb and the burden of the months of ailing, till Lucina brought round by token the appointed season, her course now fully run, and gave deliverance of her child. |
