Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DIONYSIACA: CHALCOMEDE PRAYS TO BE SAVED FROM LOVE, by NONNUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DIONYSIACA: CHALCOMEDE PRAYS TO BE SAVED FROM LOVE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: So vainly through the night prayed morreus, sick for love
Last Line: She spoke, and her mind was whirling by the neighbouring sea.
Alternate Author Name(s): Nonnos; Nonnus Of Panopolis
Subject(s): Love - Complaints


SO vainly through the night prayed Morreus, sick for love.
Nor did the sweet wing of Sleep, who driveth cares away,
Lull wakeful, wandering Chalcomede. She longed
For death in her fear of mad Morreus, lest he seize
And, heated with love, force her to a violent bed
Far from the succour of Bacchus. To the Red Sea
She turned her steps through the night and cried to the deaf wave:
'Melis, I call you happy. Once, not knowing love,
You cast yourself down spinning into the sea below,
And fled Damnameneus, your lover woman-mad.
I bless the passionate purity of your doom; against you
Aphrodite, the sea's daughter, aroused a mad lover:
The sea saved you, though she was the Paphian's mother,
And you died in the combing surges a maiden. May the sea
Cover Chalcomede, who comes of her own free will
Virginal from the embrace of Morreus' lecherous arms.
Call her a new Britomartis fleeing from wedlock:
-- Her once the waves welcomed and gave back to the land:
She pitied not Minos' love sent by the Cyprian. --
The Earth-Shaker's loving madness flutters me not
Like innocent Asterie, whom in the sea
He followed as she ran doubling off, until Apollo,
The while she drove her way unstopping with changing winds,
Rooted her fast and unshakably fixt in the waves.
Take me, take me, O sea, in thy hospitable bosom,
Take Chalcomede after Melis, O take her too,
A younger Britomartis who refuses wedlock,
That I may flee from Morreus and your Aphrodite:
Pity Chalcomede, O succourer of maidens!'
She spoke, and her mind was whirling by the neighbouring sea.





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