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January was not a good month. No catastrophes or serious disasters, but rather a lot of vexation, stress and hassle. (February has been better, though I have been struggling to catch up with Stuff.)
Anyway, throughout January poetry about Wishing to Be Somewhere Else kept floating into the back of my head, and notably the following Chorus from Euripides’ Hippolytus. Which I have always wanted to translate properly, so this weekend I indulged myself.
The Chorus of Women of Troezen see that catastrophe threatens:
I wish I were up in the high cliffs
hidden inside some secret hole:
that God would turn me to a feathered bird
among the flying flocks;
and I would soar above the sea-swell
of the Adriatic coasts
and the delta of the Po,
where, grieving for Phaethon,
the Sun’s unhappy daughters drop amber-gleaming tears
into the purple wave.
And if I could I’d make my way
to the coast of the singing Hesperides
where the apples grow;
beyond that point
the lord of the purple sea gives sailors no further passage,
but I’d press on and come
to the awe-compelling boundary of the sky,
held up by giant Atlas;
springs of ambrosia
flow past the couches in the house of Zeus,
and there the hallowed earth, giver of life,
bestows increase of blessings on the gods.
Euripides (c. 485–c. 406 BCE)
from Hippolytus (428 BCE)
trans. Gillian Spraggs
© Gillian Spraggs, 2007
By most people’s standards I am not well travelled; but long ago I saw the Aegean in the evening light, and at that time of day it is indeed purple, or so it seemed to me.
tags: otherworld journey | Hesperides
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