Praise for Tales from Ovid:
‘A breathtaking book…To compare his versions with the Latin is to be awestruck again and again by the range and ingenuity of his poetic intelligence…He rescues the old gods and goddesses from the classical dictionaries and gives them back their terror. There should be a copy of his book in every school’. John Carey Sunday Times
Taken from Tales from Ovid, 24 Passages from the Metamorphoses, published by Faber and Faber Ltd 1997. Copyright Ted Hughes, 1930 -1998
Old Alcmene of Argolis,
Hercules’ mother, had Iole
To hear her incessant grieving rememberance
Of her son’s triumphs – that the world had watched
In amazement. To her, his anxious mother,
Each new task had come as a fresh disaster.
At the end, Hercules had asked Hyllus
To take Iole in, to his hearth and heart.
Iole carried the hero’s unborn child.
‘O Iole’ cried Alcmene, ‘when your time comes
And you call on Lucina to help you,
I pray you may find favour, as I did not.
‘Lucina, she who eases the way for women
When they perform their miracle of labour,
For me did the opposite. Having to listen
‘To Juno’s command, not to my prayers,
She made my time almost fatal to me.
The sun had gone through nine signs, entering the
tenth,
‘And Hercules, created for travail,
Was so enormous in me, it was plain
Only Jove could have sired him.
‘My cramps were soon beyond what can be borne.
Now as I think of it a deathly sweat
Chills me. The old terror snatches at me.
‘Seven days and nights I lay screaming.
I clawed at the sky, begging Lucina
To help me with her attendants – the gods of birth.
‘She came, but she came from Juno –
Already bribed by Juno, and happy,
To toss my life to Juno’s malevolence.
‘She listened to me as if I were her music,
Sitting alone by the altar, at the front door,
Her right leg over and twisted around her left.
‘And her hands knitted together with locked fingers
Blocking my baby’s birth.
As my pushing began, she muttered her magic,
‘Trapping the babe in the birth tunnel
I writhed, I was out of my mind with pain.
I cursed Jupiter for his unconcern.
‘None of it was any good.
My cries would have softened flint.
I begged to be let die.
‘The women of Thebes, who were with me,
Amplified my cries, my prayers, my pleading,
Trying to comfort me. It was all useless.
‘But I had a servant there, a quick witted girl,
Galanthis – the most beautiful hair, red gold –
Low – born, but dear to me for her loyalty.
‘She recognised Juno’s mischief.
And running in and out with cloths and water,
Noticed Lucina, sitting contorted at the altar,
‘And in mid – stride cried: ”Good news.
Whoever you are, now is your lucky chance
To congratulate a fortunate woman.
‘ ”Alcmene of Argolis is thanking the gods!
At last – her beautiful child is beautifully born.’ ”
Lucina leapt to her feet in dismay
‘Freeing her tangled limbs and braided fingers
And as Lucina’s body undid its knot
My child slid out, effortless, into the world.
‘They say Galanthis laughed at Lucina
Openly, to have fooled her so completely.
But as she laughed the angered goddess caught her
By that hair, and dragged her to the ground full length
And held her there, however she fought to get up,
And ther transformed her forearms into short legs,
‘And changed her whole body, and, letting her hair
Keep its colour and cover her, released her
A bounding and spitting weasel. A weasel!
‘And since a lie issuing between her lips
Had helped a woman deliver her baby,
The weasel delivers her offspring through her mouth.
‘But she is brisk and tireless as ever
And as before is here, there, everywhere,
All over my house.’
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