Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DIONYSIACA: CHALCOMEDE WARDS OFF HER LOVER, by NONNUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DIONYSIACA: CHALCOMEDE WARDS OFF HER LOVER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A story of passion's conflict that the laughter-lover told
Last Line: Cowering to see the protector of a maid's virginity.
Alternate Author Name(s): Nonnos; Nonnus Of Panopolis
Subject(s): Love


A STORY of passion's conflict that the laughter-lover told, --
The smiling Aphrodite, with a jest at the marriage-rite
And at its sponsor Ares, -- a tale of Morreus' love.
By the sea-shore stood Morreus, and he bathed in his nakedness
With his clothes put aside untended, and the dear distress of love
Was warm and sweet within him, and washed in cold sea he shone,
While the Paphian's small sharp arrow fired him and fanned the flames.
As he stood in the eddying shallows, he prayed as a suppliant
To the goddess Aphrodite, the Queen of the Indian Sea,
Waiting for her to give answer as the daughter of the waves.
But he kept his outward seeming as Nature gave it him;
For he rose again from his bathing with his blackness still unchanged,
And the spray from that Sea called Red could not alter his colouring.
But in vain he bathed; vain hope was his longing to appear
Snow-white and awaking desire in the heart of the virgin-maid.
Then he clad his form in a mantle of linen, shining white
As the linen within the breastplate that warriors always wear.
But silent upon the sea-shore stood the wise Chalcomede.
And she spoke no word but she turned from Morreus' nakedness,
While she took her virgin glance from his unclothed limbs in shame
And in fear that a maid behold a man's body bathed in the sea.
But seeing the shore deserted as though for his passion's will,
He stretched out his shameless hand on the maiden's shrinking form,
And would have torn her mantle that none yet had loosed.
Then in truth he would have seized her, and held her in his embrace
In a hold of might, and have burnt with his fire the Bacchic maid.
But sudden at that a serpent sprang forth from her virgin breast,
The protector of that chaste maiden. On the scarf that was round her waist
With the guardian coils of its body it encircled her all about,
And it hissed forth shrill and sharp and its maws never ceased the sound,
So that all the rocks re-echoed; and in fear did Morreus start
When he heard as from some trumpet this noise of a serpent's throat,
Cowering to see the protector of a maid's virginity.





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