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Passage 2. Philomela

A. Melville (class text--1986)

He locked her, and revealed his own black heart
And ravished her, a virgin, all alone,
Calling and calling her father, calling to
Her sister, calling even more to heaven above.
She shivered like a little frightened lamb,
Mauled by a grizzled wolf and cast aside,
And still unable to believe it's safe;
Or as a dove, with feathers dripping blood,
Still shudders in its fear, still dreads the claws,
The eager claws that clutched it.
(137)

B. Golding (1567)

...he shut her up, and therewithal bewrayed
His wicked lust; and so by force, because she was a maid
And all alone, he vanquished her. It booted nought at all
That she on sister, or on sire or on the gods did call.
She quakesth like the wounded lamb which, from the wolf's hoar teeth
New shaken, thinks herself not safe; or as the dove that see'th
Her feathers with her own blood stained who, shuddering still doth fear
The greedy hawk that did her late with griping talons tear.
(6.666-73, 193-4)

C. Croxall (1717)

When the fase Tyrant siez'd the Princely Maid,
And to a Lodge in distant Woods convey'd;
Pale, sinking, and distress'd with jealous Fears,
And asking for her sister all in Tears.
The Letcher, for Enjoyment fully bent,
No longer now conceal'd his base Intent;
But with rude Haste the bloomy Girl deflowr'd,
Tender, defenceless, and with Ease o'erpower'd.
Her piercing Accents to her Sire complain,
And to her absent Sister, but in vain:
In vain she importunes, with doleful Cries,
Each attentive Godhead of the Skies.
She pants, and trembles, like the bleating Prey,
From some close-hunted Wolf just snatch'd away;
That still, with fearful Horror, looks around,
And on its Flank regards the bleeding Wound.
Or, as the tim'rous Dove, the Danger o'er,
Beholds her shining Plumes besmear'd with Gore,
And, tho' deliver'd from the Faulcon's Claw,
Yet shivers, and retains a secret Awe.
(200)

D. Mandelbaum (1993)

and there he locks her up--she shakes with fear;
and pale, in tears, she asks to see her sister.
And he confesses his foul passion
and rapes her--she's a girl, and all alone;
again, again, she calls upon her father,
her sister, and--above all--the great gods.
She trembles like a lamb that's terrified,
that, wounded, cast off from a gray wolf's jaw,
cannot feel safe; or like a shuddering dove
whose feathers now are drenched in its own blood,
that still recalls the avid, clutching claws
that caught it.
(198)

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