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Amica
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Velut Luna
Sibilla Cumana
Amica 67d
Æsclepius Græcus
Imperial Surgeon
Consular Way
at the Herculanean Gate
Pompeii.
Patient:
Amica, Selene Cynthia.
Living, more uxorio (as if his wife), at the home of Fannius Satrianus.
Slave.
Diagnosis:
Syncope, hyperthermia and severe dehydration. Presents amnesia prior to the syncopal episode.
When questioned refers to remembering an encounter with a woman selling flowers at the four-pillared portico on the Lower Decuman Way; this presumably occurred a few hours before the episode reported.
No further memory is apparent after this until she awoke from three days sleep under medication administered by myself while in my care.
Her earlier memories are intact and focused, and the patient now seems lucid and co-operative.
Therapy:
Four drops of the essence dispensed by me dissolved in warm water and taken on an empty stomach each morning on waking.
Prolonged rest in a cool, well-ventilated place.
Avoid direct exposure to sunlight and violent or too strongly-affecting emotions.
Take light food, avoid wine.
Prognosis:
Twenty days.
Periodic inspections to investigate possible pregnancy.
Therapeutic advice:
Postpone the planned wedding until the patient is completely healed.
Æsclepius Græcus.
Æsclepius Græcus
Imperial Surgeon
Consular Way
at the Herculanean Gate
Pompeii.
Patient:
Amica, Selene Cynthia.
Living, more uxorio (as if his wife), at the home of Fannius Satrianus.
Slave.
Diagnosis:
Syncope, hyperthermia and severe dehydration. Presents amnesia prior to the syncopal episode.
When questioned refers to remembering an encounter with a woman selling flowers at the four-pillared portico on the Lower Decuman Way; this presumably occurred a few hours before the episode reported.
No further memory is apparent after this until she awoke from three days sleep under medication administered by myself while in my care.
Her earlier memories are intact and focused, and the patient now seems lucid and co-operative.
Therapy:
Four drops of the essence dispensed by me dissolved in warm water and taken on an empty stomach each morning on waking.
Prolonged rest in a cool, well-ventilated place.
Avoid direct exposure to sunlight and violent or too strongly-affecting emotions.
Take light food, avoid wine.
Prognosis:
Twenty days.
Periodic inspections to investigate possible pregnancy.
Therapeutic advice:
Postpone the planned wedding until the patient is completely healed.
Æsclepius Græcus.
Velut Luna
Sibilla Cumana
Amica 68a
'And above all not too much sex!'
Æsclepius is such a dear, he’s Rectina’s personal physician, who acquired his great experience in the company of the legions. He is celebrated as a surgeon, but he has great knowledge of medicine for all ills, but there’s one thing I'm sorry about, this warning about not having much sex! If Rectina, or I, want a son, we ought to have sex as much as we can, and imposing a limit puts marriages at risk - how can you say to your husband you can’t have sex because the doctor says so? He’ll just go an find another wife!
In these days of enforced idleness, surrounded by all the attention I’m getting from everyone, you’d think I was going to give birth tomorrow, but I don’t even know if I'm pregnant. I’ve started to paint, my favourite subjects are compositions of objects and fruit laid on tables or on windowsills, with wine goblets and fine glassware that’s so magical for the transparency this precious material gives to the compositions, along with pomegranates, figs and grapes, vine-leaves and fig-leaves, and in some I also draw birds close to the subjects, with crumbs or grains of millet.
Caesius, who calls every other day to see how I’m getting on and to chat, is now a friend of Fannius. He’s amazed at what I can do with brushes and colours. Maybe my best painting is the portrait of my black night-elf, who’s posed quietly, curled up on a cushion on the stool covered, just where Caesius is going to sit.
A few days ago I overheard Fannius and Caesius talking about me, Caesius was saying how amazed he was that I’d learned Greek so quickly, almost better than Latin, and Fannius responded:
‘She doesn’t think she’s interesting unless she’s posing as a Greek woman, she wants to look like a thoroughbred Athenian, even if she’s as pale as the moon. Now she has a mania to speak only in Greek, she gets scared in Greek, she gets angry in Greek, she grieves in Greek, she reveals in Greek all the secrets of her heart, she even ... makes love in Greek!'
My dear sweet love, Eulalia told me that you just didn’t like Greek!
Days go by, then at last the unequivocal sign comes - I'm not pregnant! With a mixture of relief and disappointment I welcome the verdict, the situation hasn’t changed. So now we’re getting ready for the wedding, but first, as it is almost compulsory here, we have to consult the Cumaean Sibyl to receive from the oracle, so we may know our future, the prophecy of Biria Onomastica. So we have to go up to Cumae, beyond Cape Misenum – it’s not very far, but going, staying and coming back will take at least three days, even if the Sibyl grants us a hearing immediately, if not, we’ll have to stay away from home longer still.
Fannius has written a letter to Gaius Julius Polybius, the man who got rich rebuilding Pompeii after the earthquake. He has a beautiful villa right at Misenum, near the villa of Pliny. He’s replied that he’ll welcome us there will very willingly. He also has a daughter of marriageable age, Corinna, about whom I’ve already heard and would just like to know - it seems strange, but it’s hard to find young people of my age, they’re either too old or too young, someone said it was the fault of the earthquake, it scared the Pompeians so much that for some years they didn’t have children or, else they went to live elsewhere, like Polybius, who moved his family away.
'And above all not too much sex!'
Æsclepius is such a dear, he’s Rectina’s personal physician, who acquired his great experience in the company of the legions. He is celebrated as a surgeon, but he has great knowledge of medicine for all ills, but there’s one thing I'm sorry about, this warning about not having much sex! If Rectina, or I, want a son, we ought to have sex as much as we can, and imposing a limit puts marriages at risk - how can you say to your husband you can’t have sex because the doctor says so? He’ll just go an find another wife!
In these days of enforced idleness, surrounded by all the attention I’m getting from everyone, you’d think I was going to give birth tomorrow, but I don’t even know if I'm pregnant. I’ve started to paint, my favourite subjects are compositions of objects and fruit laid on tables or on windowsills, with wine goblets and fine glassware that’s so magical for the transparency this precious material gives to the compositions, along with pomegranates, figs and grapes, vine-leaves and fig-leaves, and in some I also draw birds close to the subjects, with crumbs or grains of millet.
Caesius, who calls every other day to see how I’m getting on and to chat, is now a friend of Fannius. He’s amazed at what I can do with brushes and colours. Maybe my best painting is the portrait of my black night-elf, who’s posed quietly, curled up on a cushion on the stool covered, just where Caesius is going to sit.
A few days ago I overheard Fannius and Caesius talking about me, Caesius was saying how amazed he was that I’d learned Greek so quickly, almost better than Latin, and Fannius responded:
‘She doesn’t think she’s interesting unless she’s posing as a Greek woman, she wants to look like a thoroughbred Athenian, even if she’s as pale as the moon. Now she has a mania to speak only in Greek, she gets scared in Greek, she gets angry in Greek, she grieves in Greek, she reveals in Greek all the secrets of her heart, she even ... makes love in Greek!'
My dear sweet love, Eulalia told me that you just didn’t like Greek!
Days go by, then at last the unequivocal sign comes - I'm not pregnant! With a mixture of relief and disappointment I welcome the verdict, the situation hasn’t changed. So now we’re getting ready for the wedding, but first, as it is almost compulsory here, we have to consult the Cumaean Sibyl to receive from the oracle, so we may know our future, the prophecy of Biria Onomastica. So we have to go up to Cumae, beyond Cape Misenum – it’s not very far, but going, staying and coming back will take at least three days, even if the Sibyl grants us a hearing immediately, if not, we’ll have to stay away from home longer still.
Fannius has written a letter to Gaius Julius Polybius, the man who got rich rebuilding Pompeii after the earthquake. He has a beautiful villa right at Misenum, near the villa of Pliny. He’s replied that he’ll welcome us there will very willingly. He also has a daughter of marriageable age, Corinna, about whom I’ve already heard and would just like to know - it seems strange, but it’s hard to find young people of my age, they’re either too old or too young, someone said it was the fault of the earthquake, it scared the Pompeians so much that for some years they didn’t have children or, else they went to live elsewhere, like Polybius, who moved his family away.
Imagine an earthquake causing people to refrain from having children ... raises all kinds of interesting questions in my mind. Is this a documented fact?
Velut Luna
Sibilla Cumana
This phrase is quoted by an Italian scholar who has recently written a wonderful book about Pompeii, there has been the lack of young people under the age of eighteen among the victims of the eruption, in Pompeii and Herculaneum, this fact can be attributed to a higher birth control after the earthquake of 63. But others attribute the low number of young people among the victims to the fact that they were better able to save himself.
Thanks for that Luna. Reality may have been a little bit of both for those who survived one of the great natural calamities of the ancient world.
Velut Luna
Sibilla Cumana
The number of victims of the eruption of Pompeii was relatively low, it is estimated around one third of the population, then, contrary to what is believed Pompeii was not completely buried, as it was found in the middle of 1700. The burial was due a subsequent eruption of 472. Herculaneum and Oplontis instead were completely buried in 79.
Still ... a third of the population!! Just think of it. Devastating by modern standards.
Last edited:
Velut Luna
Sibilla Cumana
The pyroclastic flow of volcano The Pelee that destroyed the city of Saint-Pierre in Martinique caused 30,000 casualties and only two survivors.
Can't top that. Human-inflicted disasters can be as bad....the fire-bombing of Hamburg in 1943 killed nearly 43,000 people in one night.
Velut Luna
Sibilla Cumana
Amica 68b
At length we reach the shores of Euboean Cumae;
on the Hesperian [Western] shore we go in search
of semina flammae [flame-seeds, flints] hidden in veins of rock.
Soon we reach forests, dense-tangled coverts of the prowling beasts,
where clefts reveal the course of flowing streams;
and now we climb the rocks from where Apollo rules on high,
commanding the dark caverns of dread Sibyl,
her secret place, a giant cave;
here the prophetic Delian deity
breathes prophecy in her great mind and soul,
revealing what is to come.
So now we approach the Woods of Trivia (Diana),
the golden temple-roofs.
The priestess, after two days, calls us in.
There is a massive cleft carved in the Euboean cliffs,
in which a hundred mighty mouths,
a hundred gates, pour out as many voices,
answers of the Sibyl.
We reach the threshold - it is almost night -
enwrapped by clouds of smoke,
Biria speaks with the God,
to whom she sacrifices snakes,
with some foul ceremony,
on a high altar resting on a base
of two fantastic hands of bronze.
And then the virgin cries,
"It’s time, it’s time, to ask the fates,”
she calls, “The God! Behold, the God!"
and, even as she speaks, before the double doors,
her face becomes unearthly, no human look,
wild her dishevelled hair,
with heaving breasts and swelling heart,
she seems to grow gigantic,
speaks in no mortal tones,
her spirit’s superhuman, drawn so close
to the power of the God.
“Have you despaired of your vows and your prayers,
oh man of Pompeii? Have you abandoned them?
Speak! Or the mighty mouths of the spirit-filled cave
will never open for you.”
Thus she commands, then silence falls.
A shiver of cold runs through my bones
at this tremendous ritual,
I pray from the depths of my heart.
'O thou, revered prophet,
knower of what is to come,
I only beg you not
to entrust to leaves your verses,
to fly about as toys
for the greedy winds –
I pray you, chant your prophecy.'
So Fannius dares to ask.
Now speaks, the old Biria,
her two bronze hands inscribed with magic runes,
the cage of snakes,
eyes milky white, that may not see a human face
yet gaze into the future,
and now at last the hundred massive doors
of the holy house swing wide,
and sweep through the air
the answers of the seer,
"I see wars, horrible wars,
and a river foaming with much blood.
And, again, a female stranger in your house,
a foreign wedding too.
You shall not fall to evil,
but with more confident advances,
wherever your fate allows."
With these words from the cave
Cumaean Sibyl prophesies,
and echoes fill the den,
wrapping in mysteries the truth.
Soon as her fury’s ceased,
her frenzied lips fall dumb,
with a hero’s voice,
my brave bridegroom begins,
'O virgin prophetess,
no form of tribulation or fatigue
springs new to me or unexpected,
I've endured everything,
and I’m prepared in soul,
and in anticipation.
Only one thing I ask -
as here, they say,
the door of King Avernus opens,
and the murky swamp of Acheron floods forth,
allow me to go forward into the shades,
teach me the way, open the sacred doors.
Divine one, please, you can do everything,
and not without cause did Hecate
make you the Mistress of the Woods of Avernus!'
And so the prophetess chants her reply,
"Born of the blood of Gods, Satrianus -
the gates of Dis stand open night and day,
smooth the descent, and easy is the way,
but to return, and from the darkness rise,
therein’s the task, the weary enterprise!
To few does Jupiter impart this grace,
men loved by him, or of heroic race.
Forests surround the way,
and Cocytus slides, with dark embracing coils,
but if there’s such mad courage in your heart
that you desire to cross and recross the Stygian Lake,
twice to behold the black of Tartarus,
hear first what tasks you must perform.
A branch is hidden on a shady tree,
gold are the leaves, so is the supple stem,
sacred to Juno of the infernal world.
The whole wood guards it,
swathed in gloom, dark shadows hide it
deep in a lightless dale.
Yet no-one may descend to see the depths of Earth
till they have plucked
the gold-haired produce of the tree,
for lovely Proserpine has ordered that it must
be brought to her in homage.
Each time the bough is ripped out of its place,
another springs, it never fails,
with gold leaves, golden stemmed.
So lift your eyes, seek out this golden bough,
find it, as is required,
and pull it boldly –
if it is you the Fates approve,
it will come easily,
if not, no force nor iron
will win it. So you shall see
the Stygian Forest,
lands which are pathless
to all living feet.”
She speaks, then seals her lips,
and silence falls.
With solemn faces, downcast eyes,
we leave the cave
reflecting on these dark events.
'Oh if that golden bough would show itself
somewhere to me in this great forest,
because in truth, the priestess told it all!'
Two blacks crows swoop from heaven before our eyes,
and perch before us on the grassy ground.
'Be guides for us, if there is any way,
direct us, flying through the air,
show us the forest road
to that glade where the blessed bough
shades the rich earth.'
He speaks, then checks his steps,
watching to see where our black guides will go.
They fly ahead, far as our eyes can track,
who follow them.
They reach the gateway-gorge of Avernus
pungent with its corrosive mists,
across which no winged bird can safely fly.
Here, from this foetid breath,
exhaling from black mouths,
they soar to the heavens, swiftly seeking air,
then rest on a forked plant
from which the iridescent gold
shines through dun branches.
Just like the mistletoe,
green with young leaves in deepest winter cold,
embracing the round trunks with saffron buds,
so seemed the leafy gold in the dark holm-oak tree,
and, as the tissue tinkled in a light wind,
at once he seized and plucked it,
carried it waving, back beneath the roof
of the prophetic Sibyl.
The priestess first takes four snakes,
black-skinned their backs,
and pours a wine-libation,
then, from my forehead-ringlets
clips a lock, and lays it on the sacred fire,
as the first offering,
calling on Hecate with powerful voice
that echoes to the sky, and down to Erebus.
She sinks the knives in,
and collects cold blood,
then readies for the Stygian king’s nocturnal rite
altars, whereon she places in the flames
whole guts of snakes, shedding their fatty oil,
while the offerings burn.
Here, now, before the first gleam of the sun,
dawn’s threshold,
Earth beneath our feet bull-bellows,
slopes of the forest-fringed mountains start to move,
and ghostly apparitions, hounds, howl in the shades –
the Goddess, she approaches!
"Flee, flee far away, profane ones!”
cries out the prophetess,
“Be gone from this grove!
But you, Fannius,
draw from its sheath your sword,
take courage now, a hero’s heart
for this you’ll surely need –
go on your way,
set forth!"
'O Gods who wield dominion over souls,
shadows of silence, Chaos, hot Phlegethon,
and places that lie silent in the night,
may I be free to speak the things I hear,
and, with your mighty help, reveal the truths
sunk deep in the Earth and the Shades.'
We step uncertainly into the night
with shadows round,
night’s loneliness above,
through lifeless homes and kingdoms of the dead,
like people walking through a wood
beneath a fitful moon’s malignant light,
when Jupiter with shadows hides the sky
and dark night steals the colour from all things.
Before the entrance hall,
in the jaws of Hades,
Mourning and Grief have dens;
there dwell the pale Diseases, sad Old Age,
Fear, Hunger provoking evil,
wretched Poverty,
spectres all dreadful to behold,
and Death, and Pain,
then Sleep, Death’s cousin,
cruel Glee, and War,
Death’s harbinger;
before the threshold
cages of the Eumenides [The Furies],
with maddened Strife,
knotting with bandages
her blood-soaked hair.
And also many monstrous, bastard beasts,
the Centaurs have their stables by the gates,
half-human Scyllas, Briareus the hundred-formed,
the beast of Lerna, hissing horribly,
and Chimaera, armed with flames,
next, Gorgons, Harpies, and the shadowy shape
of the three-bodied one [Geryon, the giant from whom labouring Hercules had to steal cattle].
Here, struck with terror, Fannius grabs his sword,
and points the drawn blade at those who advance,
but she who knows better warns him -
these are unbodied, immaterial ghosts
that flit in empty figments without form,
he’d lunge in vain to hack mere shadows with his steel.
Here starts the way that leads to the filthy waves
of Tartarean Acheron,
here murky, bubbling mud seethes in a whirlpool,
vomiting all its sludge into Cocytus.
'Tell me, priestess, what do they want,
this mob by the river?
What do they ask, these souls?'
"Son, surely of divine descent,
here you behold the black bogs of Cocytus
and the Stygian marsh,
that even the Gods swear by,
and fear its name."
At once we hear loud voices,
a huge wail of weeping souls,
massed on the threshold,
some black day’s snatched from them
their short, sweet lives and,
captured by night’s black cloud,
has covered them with bitter death.
Above them a black rock
is teetering to collapse –
I see here on the left
beneath broad bastions of stone,
encircled by three ring-walls,
Tartarus’ River Phlegethon,
with incandescent flames
and boulders that roll and roar.
"Whoever you are,
who strides in arms towards our shores,
say what’s your purpose?
Where have you come from?
Halt here! This is the place of shadows,
sleep and the drowsy night."
'The orders of the Gods compel me here,
with all their powers,
and they now lead me on
to pass among these shades,
through ghastly places, squalor, and deep night,
for I must ask my questions of the fates.'
An ancient, white-haired man observes the souls
gathered together, destined
for the light of life,
admiring the crowd with love.
"Now turn your eyes:
observe the people of your race –
here's all your seed,
who’ll live beneath the axis of the sky,
here are the heroes,
those who from ancient times were promised you,
scions of the Gods.
Lands once ruled by Saturn,
they will reign over,
an empire that extends beyond the stars,
outside the paths of constellations,
years and the sun,
where Atlas, bearer of the sky,
holds on his shoulders heaven
adorned with shining stars.
Learn justice, do not despise the Gods.
Cease hoping that the Fates will bend
if you pray, be mindful in response,
or grant relief from cruel destiny."
The reverend priestess of Phoebus urges us,
"Come on, take up the road,
and give your offering -
make haste!"
So we observe the rites,
and dedicate our gift to the goddess,
and, at last, come to a place of laughter,
a pleasant green, a blessed plot
in the Woods of Fortuna –
here the air’s purer
and a crimson robe
lights all the plains,
we see the sun and the stars.
We return to the house of Julius Polybius, Corinna questions me with curiosity,
'Have you consulted the Sibyl? What did he say?
'She sacrificed some snakes, then skinned them to read the auspices. I was present from start to finish. I remember the flames on the altar, the smoke, her sparkling hands, the incense, the tremulous voice of the Sibyl, shrill, almost inhuman, the ceremony that terrified me. Biria saw a city, our city, through many, many years. A thousand years, perhaps even more than that, she saw a city famous throughout the world. Our temples, our streets, our amphitheatre, teeming with people of every language. This was all seen in the bowels of the snakes, Pompeii shall endure long after the Caesars have turned to dust and the empire is gone.'
At length we reach the shores of Euboean Cumae;
on the Hesperian [Western] shore we go in search
of semina flammae [flame-seeds, flints] hidden in veins of rock.
Soon we reach forests, dense-tangled coverts of the prowling beasts,
where clefts reveal the course of flowing streams;
and now we climb the rocks from where Apollo rules on high,
commanding the dark caverns of dread Sibyl,
her secret place, a giant cave;
here the prophetic Delian deity
breathes prophecy in her great mind and soul,
revealing what is to come.
So now we approach the Woods of Trivia (Diana),
the golden temple-roofs.
The priestess, after two days, calls us in.
There is a massive cleft carved in the Euboean cliffs,
in which a hundred mighty mouths,
a hundred gates, pour out as many voices,
answers of the Sibyl.
We reach the threshold - it is almost night -
enwrapped by clouds of smoke,
Biria speaks with the God,
to whom she sacrifices snakes,
with some foul ceremony,
on a high altar resting on a base
of two fantastic hands of bronze.
And then the virgin cries,
"It’s time, it’s time, to ask the fates,”
she calls, “The God! Behold, the God!"
and, even as she speaks, before the double doors,
her face becomes unearthly, no human look,
wild her dishevelled hair,
with heaving breasts and swelling heart,
she seems to grow gigantic,
speaks in no mortal tones,
her spirit’s superhuman, drawn so close
to the power of the God.
“Have you despaired of your vows and your prayers,
oh man of Pompeii? Have you abandoned them?
Speak! Or the mighty mouths of the spirit-filled cave
will never open for you.”
Thus she commands, then silence falls.
A shiver of cold runs through my bones
at this tremendous ritual,
I pray from the depths of my heart.
'O thou, revered prophet,
knower of what is to come,
I only beg you not
to entrust to leaves your verses,
to fly about as toys
for the greedy winds –
I pray you, chant your prophecy.'
So Fannius dares to ask.
Now speaks, the old Biria,
her two bronze hands inscribed with magic runes,
the cage of snakes,
eyes milky white, that may not see a human face
yet gaze into the future,
and now at last the hundred massive doors
of the holy house swing wide,
and sweep through the air
the answers of the seer,
"I see wars, horrible wars,
and a river foaming with much blood.
And, again, a female stranger in your house,
a foreign wedding too.
You shall not fall to evil,
but with more confident advances,
wherever your fate allows."
With these words from the cave
Cumaean Sibyl prophesies,
and echoes fill the den,
wrapping in mysteries the truth.
Soon as her fury’s ceased,
her frenzied lips fall dumb,
with a hero’s voice,
my brave bridegroom begins,
'O virgin prophetess,
no form of tribulation or fatigue
springs new to me or unexpected,
I've endured everything,
and I’m prepared in soul,
and in anticipation.
Only one thing I ask -
as here, they say,
the door of King Avernus opens,
and the murky swamp of Acheron floods forth,
allow me to go forward into the shades,
teach me the way, open the sacred doors.
Divine one, please, you can do everything,
and not without cause did Hecate
make you the Mistress of the Woods of Avernus!'
And so the prophetess chants her reply,
"Born of the blood of Gods, Satrianus -
the gates of Dis stand open night and day,
smooth the descent, and easy is the way,
but to return, and from the darkness rise,
therein’s the task, the weary enterprise!
To few does Jupiter impart this grace,
men loved by him, or of heroic race.
Forests surround the way,
and Cocytus slides, with dark embracing coils,
but if there’s such mad courage in your heart
that you desire to cross and recross the Stygian Lake,
twice to behold the black of Tartarus,
hear first what tasks you must perform.
A branch is hidden on a shady tree,
gold are the leaves, so is the supple stem,
sacred to Juno of the infernal world.
The whole wood guards it,
swathed in gloom, dark shadows hide it
deep in a lightless dale.
Yet no-one may descend to see the depths of Earth
till they have plucked
the gold-haired produce of the tree,
for lovely Proserpine has ordered that it must
be brought to her in homage.
Each time the bough is ripped out of its place,
another springs, it never fails,
with gold leaves, golden stemmed.
So lift your eyes, seek out this golden bough,
find it, as is required,
and pull it boldly –
if it is you the Fates approve,
it will come easily,
if not, no force nor iron
will win it. So you shall see
the Stygian Forest,
lands which are pathless
to all living feet.”
She speaks, then seals her lips,
and silence falls.
With solemn faces, downcast eyes,
we leave the cave
reflecting on these dark events.
'Oh if that golden bough would show itself
somewhere to me in this great forest,
because in truth, the priestess told it all!'
Two blacks crows swoop from heaven before our eyes,
and perch before us on the grassy ground.
'Be guides for us, if there is any way,
direct us, flying through the air,
show us the forest road
to that glade where the blessed bough
shades the rich earth.'
He speaks, then checks his steps,
watching to see where our black guides will go.
They fly ahead, far as our eyes can track,
who follow them.
They reach the gateway-gorge of Avernus
pungent with its corrosive mists,
across which no winged bird can safely fly.
Here, from this foetid breath,
exhaling from black mouths,
they soar to the heavens, swiftly seeking air,
then rest on a forked plant
from which the iridescent gold
shines through dun branches.
Just like the mistletoe,
green with young leaves in deepest winter cold,
embracing the round trunks with saffron buds,
so seemed the leafy gold in the dark holm-oak tree,
and, as the tissue tinkled in a light wind,
at once he seized and plucked it,
carried it waving, back beneath the roof
of the prophetic Sibyl.
The priestess first takes four snakes,
black-skinned their backs,
and pours a wine-libation,
then, from my forehead-ringlets
clips a lock, and lays it on the sacred fire,
as the first offering,
calling on Hecate with powerful voice
that echoes to the sky, and down to Erebus.
She sinks the knives in,
and collects cold blood,
then readies for the Stygian king’s nocturnal rite
altars, whereon she places in the flames
whole guts of snakes, shedding their fatty oil,
while the offerings burn.
Here, now, before the first gleam of the sun,
dawn’s threshold,
Earth beneath our feet bull-bellows,
slopes of the forest-fringed mountains start to move,
and ghostly apparitions, hounds, howl in the shades –
the Goddess, she approaches!
"Flee, flee far away, profane ones!”
cries out the prophetess,
“Be gone from this grove!
But you, Fannius,
draw from its sheath your sword,
take courage now, a hero’s heart
for this you’ll surely need –
go on your way,
set forth!"
'O Gods who wield dominion over souls,
shadows of silence, Chaos, hot Phlegethon,
and places that lie silent in the night,
may I be free to speak the things I hear,
and, with your mighty help, reveal the truths
sunk deep in the Earth and the Shades.'
We step uncertainly into the night
with shadows round,
night’s loneliness above,
through lifeless homes and kingdoms of the dead,
like people walking through a wood
beneath a fitful moon’s malignant light,
when Jupiter with shadows hides the sky
and dark night steals the colour from all things.
Before the entrance hall,
in the jaws of Hades,
Mourning and Grief have dens;
there dwell the pale Diseases, sad Old Age,
Fear, Hunger provoking evil,
wretched Poverty,
spectres all dreadful to behold,
and Death, and Pain,
then Sleep, Death’s cousin,
cruel Glee, and War,
Death’s harbinger;
before the threshold
cages of the Eumenides [The Furies],
with maddened Strife,
knotting with bandages
her blood-soaked hair.
And also many monstrous, bastard beasts,
the Centaurs have their stables by the gates,
half-human Scyllas, Briareus the hundred-formed,
the beast of Lerna, hissing horribly,
and Chimaera, armed with flames,
next, Gorgons, Harpies, and the shadowy shape
of the three-bodied one [Geryon, the giant from whom labouring Hercules had to steal cattle].
Here, struck with terror, Fannius grabs his sword,
and points the drawn blade at those who advance,
but she who knows better warns him -
these are unbodied, immaterial ghosts
that flit in empty figments without form,
he’d lunge in vain to hack mere shadows with his steel.
Here starts the way that leads to the filthy waves
of Tartarean Acheron,
here murky, bubbling mud seethes in a whirlpool,
vomiting all its sludge into Cocytus.
'Tell me, priestess, what do they want,
this mob by the river?
What do they ask, these souls?'
"Son, surely of divine descent,
here you behold the black bogs of Cocytus
and the Stygian marsh,
that even the Gods swear by,
and fear its name."
At once we hear loud voices,
a huge wail of weeping souls,
massed on the threshold,
some black day’s snatched from them
their short, sweet lives and,
captured by night’s black cloud,
has covered them with bitter death.
Above them a black rock
is teetering to collapse –
I see here on the left
beneath broad bastions of stone,
encircled by three ring-walls,
Tartarus’ River Phlegethon,
with incandescent flames
and boulders that roll and roar.
"Whoever you are,
who strides in arms towards our shores,
say what’s your purpose?
Where have you come from?
Halt here! This is the place of shadows,
sleep and the drowsy night."
'The orders of the Gods compel me here,
with all their powers,
and they now lead me on
to pass among these shades,
through ghastly places, squalor, and deep night,
for I must ask my questions of the fates.'
An ancient, white-haired man observes the souls
gathered together, destined
for the light of life,
admiring the crowd with love.
"Now turn your eyes:
observe the people of your race –
here's all your seed,
who’ll live beneath the axis of the sky,
here are the heroes,
those who from ancient times were promised you,
scions of the Gods.
Lands once ruled by Saturn,
they will reign over,
an empire that extends beyond the stars,
outside the paths of constellations,
years and the sun,
where Atlas, bearer of the sky,
holds on his shoulders heaven
adorned with shining stars.
Learn justice, do not despise the Gods.
Cease hoping that the Fates will bend
if you pray, be mindful in response,
or grant relief from cruel destiny."
The reverend priestess of Phoebus urges us,
"Come on, take up the road,
and give your offering -
make haste!"
So we observe the rites,
and dedicate our gift to the goddess,
and, at last, come to a place of laughter,
a pleasant green, a blessed plot
in the Woods of Fortuna –
here the air’s purer
and a crimson robe
lights all the plains,
we see the sun and the stars.
We return to the house of Julius Polybius, Corinna questions me with curiosity,
'Have you consulted the Sibyl? What did he say?
'She sacrificed some snakes, then skinned them to read the auspices. I was present from start to finish. I remember the flames on the altar, the smoke, her sparkling hands, the incense, the tremulous voice of the Sibyl, shrill, almost inhuman, the ceremony that terrified me. Biria saw a city, our city, through many, many years. A thousand years, perhaps even more than that, she saw a city famous throughout the world. Our temples, our streets, our amphitheatre, teeming with people of every language. This was all seen in the bowels of the snakes, Pompeii shall endure long after the Caesars have turned to dust and the empire is gone.'
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Now why is this Amica episode a bit different?
Well, as many of you will have recognised, Luna (who in a previous life must have been Virgil's muse)
has brilliantly adapted passages from Book VI of the Aeneid.
I felt as I worked on the translation that something a bit more poetic was needed, rather than just prose,
so I settled for a kind of rhythmic English free verse, and an 'elevated' register,
I hope it echoes - if faintly - the wonderful surging waves of Virgil's Latin, and his rich vocabulary,
not to mention Luna's delightful Italian!
Well, as many of you will have recognised, Luna (who in a previous life must have been Virgil's muse)
has brilliantly adapted passages from Book VI of the Aeneid.
I felt as I worked on the translation that something a bit more poetic was needed, rather than just prose,
so I settled for a kind of rhythmic English free verse, and an 'elevated' register,
I hope it echoes - if faintly - the wonderful surging waves of Virgil's Latin, and his rich vocabulary,
not to mention Luna's delightful Italian!
Last edited:
Velut Luna
Sibilla Cumana
cxslave
Chain Slave
I feel like I should pay for reading your posts Luna!
Without Eul I never would have guessed that was based on the Aenid! (which I vaguely remember from a literature class during my first year of college) That must have been a lot of work but we are all so grateful that you have decided to share your talent with us!
The last part really was extremely profound and powerful. And it makes me want to visit Pompei so very badly!
Without Eul I never would have guessed that was based on the Aenid! (which I vaguely remember from a literature class during my first year of college) That must have been a lot of work but we are all so grateful that you have decided to share your talent with us! The last part really was extremely profound and powerful. And it makes me want to visit Pompei so very badly!
Velut Luna
Sibilla Cumana
Amica 69
I didn’t want tell to Corinna about our descent into Hades because I considered it too traumatizing. Fannius wanted to know the future of his race, and Biria doesn’t often agree to this request.
One thing was puzzling me: the Sibyl, and even the Shades, have mentioned nothing about me, about my future as a wife, about my children – that’s strange, as the descendants of Fannius will be many, and very successful. Do even the Fates consider us women, and me in particular as I’m still only a slavegirl, as 'minus quam' (less than nothing)? Do they see the males as the only players in history? Why are offspring attributed only to them, though it’s in our wombs their unborn children grow? Are we really considered as inferior beings? If so, how can an inferior being, like I am, give birth to a higher being? And how can a superior being accept being born of an inferior one? Perhaps the fault is ours, of our emotions, that we place above eveything else, so we settle for the role to which we are relegated, to live in their shadows, only illuminated by their light, remaining content with the crumbs that fall from their table, only for love.
'Do you love me, Fannius?'
'What’s that question for? Of course I love you, otherwise why would I have taken you with me to the Sybil? '
'But why didn’t you ask anything about my future?'
'What are you talking about? Do you doubt me? '
'Don’t ever leave me, my love, do not throw me aside me like a rag doll after you finished playing with me.'
'Are all you women the same?!'
'There you are! See, as soon as we make a comparison, we’re immediately doubted, we immediately risk being thrown into a corner, replaced ... '
'Now shut up! That’s an order!'
Behold, they command, we bow our heads.
On top of the great stone pharos (lighthouse), hidden over the ridge on the south side of the cape, the slaves are preparing to greet the dawn, extinguishing the fires. Misenum is considered a sacred place. According to Virgil it was right there that the herald of the Trojans was killed by the sea-god Triton, and was buried with his oars and his trumpet.
I watch the red glow vanish beyond the trees that crown the crest of the headland to the east, while the contours of the ships in port are beginning to take shape against the background of the pearl-grey sky. We walk along the quay to where we board the ferry, crossing the gangway to jump on the deck. A row of sailors is ready to cast off the liburna (lightweight galley) from the pier. From his platform on the starboard quarter [‘quarter’ is the nautical term for the side of the boat towards the stern], next to the gubernator (helmsman), the captain shouts,
'Are you ready?'
The mooring ropes are hauled in, boathooks are thrust out and pushed against the pier. I feel the deck vibrate underfoot as the oars cut through the water and the Poseidon starts moving and leaves the harbour, pitching on the wave, the bow turning towards its course, while two dozen oars sprout on each side of the narrow hull. Below deck you hear a drum as the blades of the oars dive, then at a second drumbeat they splash from the surface, two men to oar. The ship moves forward, imperceptibly at first but gaining speed as they beat of the drum becomes more rapid. The pilot, leaning forward from the poop-deck and looking straight ahead, points to starboard, the captain gives an order and the helmsman moves the heavy oar that acts as a rudder, steering the liburna between two triremes at anchor. The cool morning breeze caresses my face.
In the distance, behind Vesuvius, the sun begins to rise.
The Poseidon passes between the two great jetties that protect the entry to the harbour, and starts crossing the Bay. On the water the light reflects the gold colour of early morning, over the groups of poles bordering oyster-beds on which the gulls swoop with shrill cries that remind me of the wailing of mourners at a funeral, in the distance you can see the Villa of Polybius.
'I heard that he paid ten million gold pieces,'
says a passenger.
'He’s got houses everywhere, that one.'
responds another.
The liburna continues at a constant speed while the mantle of the hot morning spreads acrosss the Bay. The rowers maintain the same relentless rhythm to the beat of the drum. From the terraces of the medicinal baths of Baia rise curls of steam and smoke from the thermal springs. On the mountains above Puteoli (Pozzuoli) the fumes from the sulphur-caves have a pale green tint. Along the coast which slips past us to port, the landscape in this part of the Bay is strange, the rust-red soil around Puteoli has a magical property, when mixed with lime and thrown into water it turns into rock.
This material called puteolana (pozzolan), explains Fannius, was the discovery that transformed Rome, because thanks to this soil you could put up overnight what previously, using stone and brick, would entail a long-term project. Agrippa had stabilized the large underwater piers of Misenum and irrigated the empire with aqueducts, the Augustan Aqueduct that runs through the whole region, the Julian and the Virgin in Rome, the Nemausan in southern Gaul. The world had been remade.
But it’s in the very land where it was found that this hydraulic material has found its most comprehensive application. Docks and walkways, terraces and embankments, breakwaters and fish farms have transformed the Gulf of Naples.
Now we are in sight of the villas, that seem to be rising from the water and floating. What once was the realm of those as wealthy as Caesar, Crassus and Pompey has been invaded by a new class of rich men, guys like Polybius.
The more you go to the east, the more Vesuvius dominates the Bay. The lower foothills of the mountain are a mosaic of cultivated fields and villas, but from the middle the volcano is covered with dark green virgin forest. Some curls of clouds still hang above its top. I recognize Herculaneum, even though the coast is a continuous ribbon of new buildings with ochre walls and red roofs, interrupted occasionally by spearheads of dark green cypress – it’s not clear where one municipality ends and the next begins. Herculaneum is majestic, as if proud of herself, at the foot of the mountain with its lush vegetation, with windows overlooking the sea. In the shallows swing the small boats of the fishermen who are already back from the night-fishing, they are brightly coloured, some in the shape of sea creatures. On the beaches you see sunshades, from the docks kids are casting lines for fishing. Carried by the wind across the calm water we hear the singing and squeals of children playing ball.
'That is the biggest villa in the Gulf,'
says the captain, indicating a huge building with columns and terraces overlooking the sea.
'I’ve been in that villa with Rectina, there’s a grand library. See that small group of people trying to read in the shade by the pool? They are philosophers.'
A yellow flag indicates the mooring-quay below the villa of Rectina, where we pull in.
I didn’t want tell to Corinna about our descent into Hades because I considered it too traumatizing. Fannius wanted to know the future of his race, and Biria doesn’t often agree to this request.
One thing was puzzling me: the Sibyl, and even the Shades, have mentioned nothing about me, about my future as a wife, about my children – that’s strange, as the descendants of Fannius will be many, and very successful. Do even the Fates consider us women, and me in particular as I’m still only a slavegirl, as 'minus quam' (less than nothing)? Do they see the males as the only players in history? Why are offspring attributed only to them, though it’s in our wombs their unborn children grow? Are we really considered as inferior beings? If so, how can an inferior being, like I am, give birth to a higher being? And how can a superior being accept being born of an inferior one? Perhaps the fault is ours, of our emotions, that we place above eveything else, so we settle for the role to which we are relegated, to live in their shadows, only illuminated by their light, remaining content with the crumbs that fall from their table, only for love.
'Do you love me, Fannius?'
'What’s that question for? Of course I love you, otherwise why would I have taken you with me to the Sybil? '
'But why didn’t you ask anything about my future?'
'What are you talking about? Do you doubt me? '
'Don’t ever leave me, my love, do not throw me aside me like a rag doll after you finished playing with me.'
'Are all you women the same?!'
'There you are! See, as soon as we make a comparison, we’re immediately doubted, we immediately risk being thrown into a corner, replaced ... '
'Now shut up! That’s an order!'
Behold, they command, we bow our heads.
On top of the great stone pharos (lighthouse), hidden over the ridge on the south side of the cape, the slaves are preparing to greet the dawn, extinguishing the fires. Misenum is considered a sacred place. According to Virgil it was right there that the herald of the Trojans was killed by the sea-god Triton, and was buried with his oars and his trumpet.
I watch the red glow vanish beyond the trees that crown the crest of the headland to the east, while the contours of the ships in port are beginning to take shape against the background of the pearl-grey sky. We walk along the quay to where we board the ferry, crossing the gangway to jump on the deck. A row of sailors is ready to cast off the liburna (lightweight galley) from the pier. From his platform on the starboard quarter [‘quarter’ is the nautical term for the side of the boat towards the stern], next to the gubernator (helmsman), the captain shouts,
'Are you ready?'
The mooring ropes are hauled in, boathooks are thrust out and pushed against the pier. I feel the deck vibrate underfoot as the oars cut through the water and the Poseidon starts moving and leaves the harbour, pitching on the wave, the bow turning towards its course, while two dozen oars sprout on each side of the narrow hull. Below deck you hear a drum as the blades of the oars dive, then at a second drumbeat they splash from the surface, two men to oar. The ship moves forward, imperceptibly at first but gaining speed as they beat of the drum becomes more rapid. The pilot, leaning forward from the poop-deck and looking straight ahead, points to starboard, the captain gives an order and the helmsman moves the heavy oar that acts as a rudder, steering the liburna between two triremes at anchor. The cool morning breeze caresses my face.
In the distance, behind Vesuvius, the sun begins to rise.
The Poseidon passes between the two great jetties that protect the entry to the harbour, and starts crossing the Bay. On the water the light reflects the gold colour of early morning, over the groups of poles bordering oyster-beds on which the gulls swoop with shrill cries that remind me of the wailing of mourners at a funeral, in the distance you can see the Villa of Polybius.
'I heard that he paid ten million gold pieces,'
says a passenger.
'He’s got houses everywhere, that one.'
responds another.
The liburna continues at a constant speed while the mantle of the hot morning spreads acrosss the Bay. The rowers maintain the same relentless rhythm to the beat of the drum. From the terraces of the medicinal baths of Baia rise curls of steam and smoke from the thermal springs. On the mountains above Puteoli (Pozzuoli) the fumes from the sulphur-caves have a pale green tint. Along the coast which slips past us to port, the landscape in this part of the Bay is strange, the rust-red soil around Puteoli has a magical property, when mixed with lime and thrown into water it turns into rock.
This material called puteolana (pozzolan), explains Fannius, was the discovery that transformed Rome, because thanks to this soil you could put up overnight what previously, using stone and brick, would entail a long-term project. Agrippa had stabilized the large underwater piers of Misenum and irrigated the empire with aqueducts, the Augustan Aqueduct that runs through the whole region, the Julian and the Virgin in Rome, the Nemausan in southern Gaul. The world had been remade.
But it’s in the very land where it was found that this hydraulic material has found its most comprehensive application. Docks and walkways, terraces and embankments, breakwaters and fish farms have transformed the Gulf of Naples.
Now we are in sight of the villas, that seem to be rising from the water and floating. What once was the realm of those as wealthy as Caesar, Crassus and Pompey has been invaded by a new class of rich men, guys like Polybius.
The more you go to the east, the more Vesuvius dominates the Bay. The lower foothills of the mountain are a mosaic of cultivated fields and villas, but from the middle the volcano is covered with dark green virgin forest. Some curls of clouds still hang above its top. I recognize Herculaneum, even though the coast is a continuous ribbon of new buildings with ochre walls and red roofs, interrupted occasionally by spearheads of dark green cypress – it’s not clear where one municipality ends and the next begins. Herculaneum is majestic, as if proud of herself, at the foot of the mountain with its lush vegetation, with windows overlooking the sea. In the shallows swing the small boats of the fishermen who are already back from the night-fishing, they are brightly coloured, some in the shape of sea creatures. On the beaches you see sunshades, from the docks kids are casting lines for fishing. Carried by the wind across the calm water we hear the singing and squeals of children playing ball.
'That is the biggest villa in the Gulf,'
says the captain, indicating a huge building with columns and terraces overlooking the sea.
'I’ve been in that villa with Rectina, there’s a grand library. See that small group of people trying to read in the shade by the pool? They are philosophers.'
A yellow flag indicates the mooring-quay below the villa of Rectina, where we pull in.
Rectina and its famous library, here we come!!!
.... great writing Luna...I am drawn in as always.
Thud!
That was the sound of Wragg fainting, completely overcome by the power of this writing of Velut Luna's. Inspired, Genius, amazing!
Thank you, Luna
I feel like I should pay for reading your posts Luna!
Cxslave is right, Luna. You could publish this. People would pay good money for it. Probably win some literary prize. It is just so good.