Book 6
“Oh, this dark punishment was not my due!
504
Come, finish with my murder your black deed,
so nothing wicked may remain undone.
But oh, if you had only slaughtered me
before your criminal embrace befouled
my purity, I should have had a shade
entirely pure, and free from any stain!
Oh, if there is a Majesty in Heaven,
and if my ruin has not wrecked the world,
then, you shall suffer for this grievous wrong
and time shall hasten to avenge my wreck.
“I shall declare your sin before the world,
and publish my own shame to punish you!
And if I'm prisoned in the solitudes,
my voice will wake the echoes in the wood
and move the conscious rocks. Hear me, O Heaven!
And let my imprecations rouse the Gods—
ah-h-h, if there can be a god in Heaven!”
Her cries aroused the dastard tyrant's wrath,
and frightened him, lest ever his foul deed
might shock his kingdom: and, roused at once
by rage and guilty fear; he seized her hair,
forced her weak arms against her back, and bound
them fast with brazen chains, then drew his sword.
When she first saw his sword above her head.
Flashing and sharp, she wished only for death,
and offered her bare throat: but while she screamed,
and, struggling, called upon her father's name,
he caught her tongue with pincers, pitiless,
And cut it with his sword.—The mangled root
still quivered, but the bleeding tongue itself,
fell murmuring on the blood-stained floor. As the tail
of a slain snake still writhes upon the ground,
so did the throbbing tongue; and, while it died,
moved up to her, as if to seek her feet.—
And, it is said that after this foul crime,
the monster violated her again.
And after these vile deeds, that wicked king
returned to Procne, who, when she first met
her brutal husband, anxiously inquired
