Collected Works

To join kisses pressed through long delays.
And to mingle our tears with your tears:
And to complain that the breeze was favorable for your sails.
And as you left, to say with your final voice:
"Phyllis, see that you wait for your Demophoon."
Wait for you: who left, never to see me again?
Wait for sails denied to my sea?
And yet I wait, if only you would return late to your lover:
So that your faith might have been lapsed only in time.
What am I praying for, wretch that I am? Perhaps another bride
Now holds you: and that love which has fared ill for us.
And since you have forgotten me, I suppose you do not know which Phyllis I am?
Woe is me if you ask which Phyllis I am, and whence.
I am she who, when you were driven by long wanderings, Demophoon,
Gave you Thracian harbors and hospitality.
I am she whose resources increased yours: to whom, though you were needy,
I gave many gifts: and was to give many more.
I, who subjected to you the vast kingdoms of Lycurgus,
Hardly fit to be ruled by a woman's name:
Where icy Rhodope lies open to shady Haemus:
And sacred Hebrus drives on the admitted waters.
I, to whom my virginity was offered under ill-omened birds:
And whose chaste belt was unloosed by a deceitful hand.
Tisiphone acted as bridesmaid in those bridal chambers:
And a stray bird sang a mournful song.
Alecto was present, wreathed with short serpents:
And the lights were moved by a sepulchral torch.
Yet I, sad, tread the rocks and the leafy shores:
Wherever the wide shores are visible to my eyes.
Whether the earth relaxes by day, or the cold stars shine:
I watch which wind drives the straits:
And whatever sails I see coming from afar:
I immediately augur that they are my gods.
I run into the straits, with the waves barely holding me back:
Where the moving sea stretches out its first waters.
The closer they come, the less useful I stand:
I faint: and fall, to be caught by my handmaidens.
There is a bay, curved into a moderate arc:
The furthest horns are stiff with broken rock:
It was my intention to throw my body from here into the waters below:
And since you persist in deceiving, it shall be done.
May the waves carry me, thrown onto your shores:
And may I meet your eyes, unburied.