Speaker 1: Hi, Hello, this is Let's talk about mits baby, and
Speaker 1: I am your spooky season obsessed host live and welcome
Speaker 1: to the first Friday episode of said spooky season. I
Speaker 1: guess we're celebrating every day of spooky season here, but
Speaker 1: I promise I won't make such a show out of
Speaker 1: it in every episode. Maybe today though. Today I'm featuring
Speaker 1: some selected readings from all the spookiest content that I
Speaker 1: could find from ancient Greek and Roman texts. And as usual,
Speaker 1: when it comes to stories from the ancient world, it
Speaker 1: often ends up a bit more like you know, the
Speaker 1: Saw franchise than it does the Haunting of Hill House.
Speaker 1: But what can you do. Ancient gore is far more
Speaker 1: enjoyable than modern gore, if you ask me, and thus
Speaker 1: a quick trigger warning. I mean, these ancient stories are gross.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of them feature assault, but they
Speaker 1: might because it's Greek and Roman mythology. But they are
Speaker 1: gross and horrific and so enjoyable, so be warned. All
Speaker 1: of that said, we are beginning today's reading with the
Speaker 1: closest thing that the ancient world has to the Haunting
Speaker 1: of Hillhouse, and I cannot wait to read it to
Speaker 1: you all. Like to be honest, I was sure that
Speaker 1: i'd read this last year, but I went looking and
Speaker 1: I don't think I did. I think I just did
Speaker 1: it for like TikTok when I was briefly trying to
Speaker 1: do TikTok. So bonus for us today because there is
Speaker 1: a short, tragically short, but magnificent ghost story, haunted house
Speaker 1: story from the ancient world, and it is one of
Speaker 1: my all time favorites. We're going to be doing a
Speaker 1: couple of reading episodes this month, all of the best
Speaker 1: horror and gore and descends into the underworld the world
Speaker 1: of the dead that I could possibly find. You can
Speaker 1: find a list of the sources and translations that I
Speaker 1: have been reading from in the episode's description, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to introduce each piece to give you an idea
Speaker 1: what is in store. From Pliny's story of Athenodorus and
Speaker 1: his haunted house to the angry ghost of a murderous woman,
Speaker 1: to the varied ways epics describe travels to the underworld,
Speaker 1: to a Roman witch whose context I don't entirely understand,
Speaker 1: but who seems to be pretty fucking scary all the same.
Speaker 1: The ancient world knew how to handle horror, These are
Speaker 1: readings of ancient spooky selections from plenty, avid Eascylus, and Lucan.
Speaker 1: We begin today with my personal favorite, a ghost story
Speaker 1: from ancient Athens, as recorded by Pliny the Younger, aka
Speaker 1: the guy who witnessed Vesuvius popping off and taking out
Speaker 1: Pompeii and Herculaneum, and who wrote down what he saw,
Speaker 1: thus giving us first first hand account of a volcanic eruption.
Speaker 1: But he also wrote about this haunted house, clanking chains
Speaker 1: and mo ghost and all. There was at Athens a
Speaker 1: large and roomy house which had a bad name, so
Speaker 1: that no one could live there. In the dead of
Speaker 1: the night, a noise resembling the clashing of iron was
Speaker 1: frequently heard, which, if you listened more attentively, sounded like
Speaker 1: the rattling of chains, distant at first, but approaching nearer
Speaker 1: by degrees. Immediately afterwards, a specter appeared in the form
Speaker 1: of an old man of extremely emaciated and squalid appearance,
Speaker 1: with a long beard and disheveled hair, rattling the chains
Speaker 1: on his feet and hands. The distressed occupants meanwhile passed
Speaker 1: their wakeful nights under the most dreadful terrors imaginable this,
Speaker 1: as it broke their rest, ruined their health, and brought
Speaker 1: on distempers. Their terror grew upon them and ensued even
Speaker 1: in the daytime. Though the spirit did not appear, yet,
Speaker 1: the impression remained so strong upon their imaginations that it
Speaker 1: still seemed before their eyes and kept them in perpetual alarm. Consequently,
Speaker 1: the house was at length deserted, as being deemed absolutely uninhabitable,
Speaker 1: so that it was now entirely abandoned to the ghost. However,
Speaker 1: in hopes that some tenant might be found who was
Speaker 1: ignorant of this varying alarming circumstance, a bill was put
Speaker 1: up giving notice that it was either to be let
Speaker 1: or sold. It happened that Athenodorus the philosopher came to
Speaker 1: Athens at this time, and, reading the bill, inquired the price.
Speaker 1: The extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion. Nevertheless, when he heard
Speaker 1: the whole story, he was so far from being discouraged
Speaker 1: that he was more strongly inclined to hire it, and
Speaker 1: in short actually did so. When it grew towards evening,
Speaker 1: he ordered a couch to be prepared for him in
Speaker 1: the front part of the house, and after calling for
Speaker 1: a light together with his pencil and tablets, directed all
Speaker 1: his people to retire, but that his mind might not,
Speaker 1: for want of employment, be opened to the vain terrors
Speaker 1: of imaginary noises and spirits. He applied himself to writing
Speaker 1: with the utmost attention. The first part of the night
Speaker 1: passed in entire silence, as usual. At length a clang
Speaker 1: king of iron and rattling of chains was heard. However,
Speaker 1: he neither lifted up his eyes nor laid down his pen, but,
Speaker 1: in order to keep calm and collected, tried to pass
Speaker 1: the sounds off to himself as something else. The noise
Speaker 1: increased and advanced nearer to till it seemed at the door,
Speaker 1: and at last in the chamber, he looked up, saw
Speaker 1: and recognized the ghost exactly as it had been described
Speaker 1: to him. It stood before him, beckoning with a finger,
Speaker 1: like a person who calls another. Athenodorus, in reply, made
Speaker 1: a sign with his hand that it should wait a little,
Speaker 1: and threw his eyes again upon his papers. The ghost
Speaker 1: then rattled its chains over the head of the philosopher,
Speaker 1: who looked up upon this, and, seeing it beckoning as before,
Speaker 1: immediately arose and light in hand followed it. The ghost
Speaker 1: slowly stalked along as if encumbered with its chains, and
Speaker 1: turning into the area of the house, suddenly vanished. Athenodorus,
Speaker 1: being thus deserted, made a mark with some grass and
Speaker 1: leaves on the spot where the spirit left him. The
Speaker 1: next day he gave information to the magistrates and advised
Speaker 1: them to order that spot to be dug up. This
Speaker 1: was accordingly done, and the skeleton of a man in
Speaker 1: chains was found there. For the body, having lain a
Speaker 1: considerable time in the ground, was putrefied and moldered away
Speaker 1: from the fetters. The bones, being collected together, were publicly buried,
Speaker 1: and thus, after the ghost was appeased by the proper ceremonies,
Speaker 1: the house was haunted no more. Next we're reading something
Speaker 1: just haunting. These are lines adapted from Eschylus's play The Agamemnon.
Speaker 1: I've cut it together so that it's mostly just Cassandra speaking,
Speaker 1: cutting out much of the chorus so that I can
Speaker 1: just read her words to you. I don't want to
Speaker 1: spoil the Playthistes that's to come next week, but there
Speaker 1: are a lot of relevant references in Cassandra's speech, and
Speaker 1: I am so here for them. Most of this is
Speaker 1: said in concert with comments from the chorus. But it
Speaker 1: is her lines that I care about today. It's her
Speaker 1: lines that are haunting this woman whose city was destroyed,
Speaker 1: whose family was murdered, and who was then raped on
Speaker 1: the altar to Athena before being made a spoil of war,
Speaker 1: enslaved by Agamemnon and brought home to his wife and
Speaker 1: kingdom as some kind of sick trophy, only to be
Speaker 1: killed alongside him for his crimes.
Speaker 2: Entirely.
Speaker 1: Add to that, she sees the future, but no one
Speaker 1: believes a word, she says, And you have got a
Speaker 1: recipe for horror. The man who's brought her there has
Speaker 1: just gone inside the palace Agamemnon, where he is going
Speaker 1: to be killed brutally by Clydemnestra, and Cassandra is left
Speaker 1: on the stage with the chorus just to experience it all. Allowed. Woe, woe, woe, Apollo, Apollo, Apollo,
Speaker 1: God of the way, is my destroyer, For you have
Speaker 1: destroyed me and utterly this second time, Apollo, Apollo, God
Speaker 1: of the ways, my destroyer. Ah, what way is this
Speaker 1: that you have brought me to? What a house? No, no,
Speaker 1: rather to a god hating house, A house that knows
Speaker 1: many a horrible butchery of kin, a slaughter house of men,
Speaker 1: and a floor swimming with blood. Here is the evidence
Speaker 1: in which I put my trust. Behold those babies bewailing
Speaker 1: their own butchery, and their roasted flesh eaten by their father. Alas,
Speaker 1: what can she be planning? What is this fresh woe
Speaker 1: she contrives here? Within? What monstrous, monstrous horror beyond love's enduring,
Speaker 1: beyond all remedy and help stands far away? Ah, damned woman,
Speaker 1: will you do this thing? Your husband, the partner of
Speaker 1: your bed, when you have cheered him with the bath?
Speaker 3: Will you?
Speaker 1: How shall I tell the end? Soon? It will be done?
Speaker 1: Now this hand, now that she stretches forth. Ah ah,
Speaker 1: what apparition is this? Is it a net of death? No,
Speaker 1: it is a snare that shares his bed, that shares
Speaker 1: the guilt of murder. Let the fatal insatiable against the
Speaker 1: race raise a shout of jubilance over a victim accursed.
Speaker 1: Ah ah see there see there keep the bull from
Speaker 1: his mate. She has caught him in the robe and
Speaker 1: gores him with the crafty device of her black horn.
Speaker 1: He falls in a vessel of water. It is doom
Speaker 1: wrought by guile in a murderous bath, that I am
Speaker 1: telling you Alas, alas the sorrow of my ill starred doom.
Speaker 1: For it is my own affliction crowning this cup that
Speaker 1: I bewail. To What end did you bring me here?
Speaker 1: Unhappy as I am, for nothing except to die and
Speaker 1: not alone? What else? Ah fate of the clear voiced nightingale.
Speaker 1: The gods clothed her in a winged form and gave
Speaker 1: to her a sweet life without tears. But for me
Speaker 1: waits destruction by the two edged sword. Ah the marriage,
Speaker 1: the marriage of Paris that destroyed his friends. Ah me scummander,
Speaker 1: my native stree upon your banks, and by gone days,
Speaker 1: unhappy maid was I nurtured with fostering care. But now
Speaker 1: by Cocitus and the banks of Asheron, I think I
Speaker 1: soon must chant my prophecies. Oh, the sufferings, the sufferings
Speaker 1: of my city utterly destroyed. Alas the sacrifices of my
Speaker 1: father offered the many pasturing cattle slain to save its towers.
Speaker 1: Yet they provided no remedy to save the city from suffering,
Speaker 1: even as it has, And I, my soul on fire,
Speaker 1: must soon fall to the ground. And now no more
Speaker 1: shall my prophecy peer forth from beyond a veil like
Speaker 1: a new wedded bride, But it will rush upon me
Speaker 1: clear as a fresh wind, blowing against the sun's uprising,
Speaker 1: so as to dash against its rays like a wave,
Speaker 1: a woe far mightier than no more by riddles, will
Speaker 1: I instruct you and bear me witness, as running close
Speaker 1: behind I sent the track of crimes done long ago.
Speaker 1: For from this roof never departs a choir chanting in unison,
Speaker 1: but singing no harmonious tune, for it tells not of good,
Speaker 1: and so gorged on human blood, so as to be
Speaker 1: the more emboldened. A revel rout of kindred furies haunts
Speaker 1: the house, hard to be driven away. Lodged within its halls,
Speaker 1: they chant their chant the primal sin, and each in
Speaker 1: turn they spurn with loathing a brother's bed, for they
Speaker 1: bitterly spurn the one who defiled it? Have I missed
Speaker 1: the mark? Or like a true archer, do I strike
Speaker 1: my quarry? Or am I profit of lies? A door
Speaker 1: to door babbler, Bear witness upon your oath that I
Speaker 1: know the deeds of sin ancient in story of this house.
Speaker 1: Ah ah oh, Oh, the agony. Once more, the dreadful
Speaker 1: throes of true prophecy whirl and distract me with their
Speaker 1: ill boding onset. Do you see them. They're sitting before
Speaker 1: the house, young creatures, like phantoms of dreams. Children. They
Speaker 1: seem slaughtered by their own kindred, their hands full of
Speaker 1: the meat of their own flesh. They are clear to
Speaker 1: my sight, holding their vitals and their inward parts piteous
Speaker 1: burden which their father tasted. For this cause. I tell
Speaker 1: you that a strengthless lion, wallowing in his bed plots vengeance,
Speaker 1: a watchman waiting ah me for my master's coming home. Yes,
Speaker 1: my master, for I must bear the yoke of slavery,
Speaker 1: the commander of the fleet and the overthrower of ilium.
Speaker 1: Little knows what deeds shall be brought to evil accomplishment
Speaker 1: by the hateful hound, whose tongue licked his hand, who
Speaker 1: stretched forth her ears in gladness like treacherous at such
Speaker 1: boldness has shit? She a woman to slay a man?
Speaker 1: What odious monster shall I fitly call her? An amphisbina
Speaker 1: or rascula tenanting the rocks, a pest to mariners, a
Speaker 1: raging devil's mother breathing relentless war against her husband, and
Speaker 1: how the all daring woman raised a shout of triumph
Speaker 1: as when the battle turns, the while she feigned to
Speaker 1: joy at his safe return. And yet it is all
Speaker 1: one whether or not I am believed. What does it matter?
Speaker 1: What is to come will come, And soon you yourself
Speaker 1: present here, shall with great pity pronounce me all too
Speaker 1: true a prophetess, I say, you shall look upon Agamemnon
Speaker 1: dead over what I tell, No healing God presides, Oh no,
Speaker 1: what fire it comes upon me? Whoa whoa lyciean apollo?
Speaker 1: Ah me, ah me, This two footed lioness, who mates
Speaker 1: with the wolf in the absence of the noble lion,
Speaker 1: will slay me, miserable as I am, brewing as it
Speaker 1: were a drug. She vows that with her wrath she
Speaker 1: will mix acquittal for me too, while she wets her
Speaker 1: sword against her husband to take murderous vengeance for bringing
Speaker 1: me here. Why then, do I bear these mockeries of myself,
Speaker 1: this wand this prophetic chaplet on my neck. You at
Speaker 1: least I will destroy before I die myself to destruction
Speaker 1: with you and fallen there. Thus do I repay you?
Speaker 1: Enrich with doom some other in my place. Look, Apollo
Speaker 1: himself is stripping me of my prophetic garb, he that
Speaker 1: saw me mocked to bitter scorn, even in this bravery
Speaker 1: by friends turned foes with one accord in vain. But
Speaker 1: like some vagrant mountain bank called beggar, wretch, starveling, I
Speaker 1: bore it all. And now the prophet having undone me,
Speaker 1: his prophetess, has brought me to this lethal pass instead
Speaker 1: of my father's alter, a block awaits me where I
Speaker 1: am to be butchered in a hot and bloody sacrifice.
Speaker 1: Yet we shall not die unavenged by the gods, For
Speaker 1: there shall come in turn another our avenger, a scion
Speaker 1: of the race, to slay his mother in exact requital
Speaker 1: for his sire and exile, a wanderer, a stranger from
Speaker 1: this land. He shall return to put the coping stone
Speaker 1: upon these unspeakable iniquities of his house. For the gods
Speaker 1: have sworn a mighty oath that his slain father's outstretched
Speaker 1: corpse shall bring him home. Why then, thus raise my
Speaker 1: voice in pitiful lament. Since first I saw the city
Speaker 1: of Ilium fair, when it has fared while her captors
Speaker 1: by the God's sentence are coming to such an end,
Speaker 1: I will go in and meet my fate. I will
Speaker 1: dare to die. This door I greet as the gates
Speaker 1: of death, and I pray that dealt a mortal stroke
Speaker 1: without a struggle, my life blood ebbing away in easy death,
Speaker 1: I may close these eyes. There is no escape. No,
Speaker 1: my friends, there is none anymore. The day has come.
Speaker 1: Flight would profit me but little. Alas for you, my
Speaker 1: father and your noble children, this how stinks of blood
Speaker 1: dripping slaughter. It is like a breath from a charnel house. No,
Speaker 1: I will go to bewail also within the palace my
Speaker 1: own and Agamemnon's fate. Enough of life, Alas, my friends,
Speaker 1: Not with vain terror do I shrink as a bird
Speaker 1: that fears a bush. After I am dead, bear witness
Speaker 1: for me of this, when for me a woman, another
Speaker 1: woman shall be slain, and for an ill wedded man
Speaker 1: another man shall fall. I claim this favor from you,
Speaker 1: now that my hour is come. Yet once more I
Speaker 1: would like to speak, but not a dirge. I pray
Speaker 1: to the sun, in presence of his latest light, that
Speaker 1: my enemies may at the same time pay to my
Speaker 1: avengers a bloody penalty for slaughtering a slave an easy prey,
Speaker 1: alas for human fortune. When prosperous, a mere shadow can
Speaker 1: overturn it. If misfortune strikes, the dash of a wet
Speaker 1: sponge blots out the drawing. And this last I deem
Speaker 1: far more pitiable than that. Next we are returning to
Speaker 1: our good friend of it, and one of my favorite
Speaker 1: horror stories from ancient myth, the man who angered a goddess,
Speaker 1: and thus was cursed to be so indescribably hungry that
Speaker 1: he ate himself Arisicon now Ersachthon's daughter Mestra, had that
Speaker 1: power of proteus. She was called the wife of deft Attilochus.
Speaker 1: Her father spurned the majesty of all the gods, and
Speaker 1: gave no honor to their altars. It is said he
Speaker 1: violated with an impious axe the sacred grove of Carries,
Speaker 1: and he cut her trees with iron. Long standing in
Speaker 1: her grove, there grew an ancient oak tree, spread so
Speaker 1: wide alone it seemed a standing forest, and its trunk
Speaker 1: and branches held memorials as philets, tablets, garlands, witnessing how
Speaker 1: many prayers the goddess carries granted and underneath it, Laughing
Speaker 1: drids loved to whirl in festive dances hand in hand,
Speaker 1: encircling its enormous trunk that thrice five ells might measure,
Speaker 1: and to such a high it towered over all the
Speaker 1: trees around, as they were higher than the grass beneath.
Speaker 1: But Erisichthon, heedless of all things, ordered his slaves to
Speaker 1: fell the sacred oak. And as they hesitated in a rage,
Speaker 1: the wretch snatched from the hand of one an axe
Speaker 1: and said, if this should be the only oak loved
Speaker 1: by the goddess of this very grove, or even were
Speaker 1: the goddess in this tree, I'll level to the ground
Speaker 1: its leafy head, so boasted he, And while he swung
Speaker 1: on high his axe to strike a slanting blow, the
Speaker 1: oak beloved of carries uttered a deep grown and shuddered. Instantly,
Speaker 1: its dark green leaves turned pale, and all its acorns
Speaker 1: lost their green, and even its long branches drooped their arms.
Speaker 1: But when his impious hand had struck the trunk and
Speaker 1: cut its bark, red blood poured from the wound, as
Speaker 1: when a weighty sacrificial bull has fallen at the altar.
Speaker 1: Streaming blood spouts from his stricken neck. All were amazed,
Speaker 1: and one of his attendants boldly tried to stay his
Speaker 1: cruel axe and hindered him. But Ersichthon, fixing his stern
Speaker 1: eyes upon him, said, let this then be the price
Speaker 1: of all your pious worship. So he turned the poised
Speaker 1: axe from the tree and clove his head sheer from
Speaker 1: his body, and again began to chop the hard oak,
Speaker 1: but from the heart of it. These words were uttered
Speaker 1: covered by the bark of this oak tree. I long
Speaker 1: have dwelt a nymph beloved of carries, and before my
Speaker 1: death it has been granted me to prophecy that I
Speaker 1: may die contented punishment for this vile deed stands waiting
Speaker 1: at your side. No warning could avert his wicked arm.
Speaker 1: Much weakened by his countless blows, the tree, pulled down
Speaker 1: by training ropes, gave way at last and leveled with
Speaker 1: its weight uncounted trees that grew around it. Terrified and shocked,
Speaker 1: The sister driads, grieving for the grove and what they lost,
Speaker 1: put on their sable robes and hastened unto Carries, whom
Speaker 1: they prayed might rightly punish Erosichthon's crime. The lovely goddess
Speaker 1: granted their request, and by the gracious movement of her
Speaker 1: head she shook the fruitful cultivated fields, then heavy with
Speaker 1: the harvest. And she planned an unexampled punishment deserved and
Speaker 1: not beyond his miserable crimes, the grisly bane of famine.
Speaker 1: But because it is not in the scope of destiny
Speaker 1: that two such deities should ever meet, as carries and
Speaker 1: gaunt famine. Calling forth from mountain Wild's rustic aureate, the
Speaker 1: goddess carries said to her, there is an ice bound
Speaker 1: wilderness of barren soil, in utmost scythia and bare of
Speaker 1: trees and grain, where torpid frost, white death, and palsy
Speaker 1: and gaunt famine hold their haunts. Go there now and
Speaker 1: command that famine fled from there, And let her gnawing
Speaker 1: essence pierce the entrails of this sacrilegious wretch, and there
Speaker 1: be hidden. Let her vanquish me and overcome the utmost
Speaker 1: power of food, heed not misgivings of the journey's length,
Speaker 1: For you will guide my dragon bridled car through lofty ether.
Speaker 1: And she gave to her the reins, and so the
Speaker 1: swiftly carried nymph arrived in Scythea. There upon the told
Speaker 1: of steepy Caucasus. When she had slipped their tight yoke
Speaker 1: from the dragon's harnessed necks, she searched for famine in
Speaker 1: that granite land, and there she found her clutching it
Speaker 1: scant herbs, with nails and teeth beneath her shaggy hair.
Speaker 1: Her hollow eyes glared in her ghastly face. Her lips
Speaker 1: were filthy, and her throat was rough and blotched. In
Speaker 1: all her entry trails could be seen enclosed in nothing
Speaker 1: but her shriveled skin. Her crooked loins were dry, uncovered bones,
Speaker 1: and where her belly should be there was a void.
Speaker 1: Her flabby breast was flat against her spine. Her lean,
Speaker 1: emaciated body made her joints appear so large, her nobbled
Speaker 1: knees seemed large knots, and her swollen ankle bones protruded.
Speaker 1: When the nymph with keen sight saw the famine monster,
Speaker 1: fearing to draw near, she cried aloud the mandate she
Speaker 1: had brought from fruitful carries. And although the time had
Speaker 1: been but brief, and famine far away, such hunger seized
Speaker 1: the nymph. She had to turn her dragon steeth and
Speaker 1: flee through yielding air and the high clouds. At Thessaly,
Speaker 1: she stopped grim famine hastened to obey the will of Carries,
Speaker 1: though their deeds are opposite, and rapidly through ether heights
Speaker 1: was borne to Arasichthon's home. When she arrived at midnight,
Speaker 1: slumber was upon the wretch, and as she folded him
Speaker 1: in her two wings, she breathed her pestilential poison through
Speaker 1: his mouth and throat and breast, and spread the curse
Speaker 1: of utmost hunger in his aching veins. When all was done,
Speaker 1: as Carries had decreed, she left the fertile world for
Speaker 1: bleak abodes and her accustomed caves. While this was done,
Speaker 1: sweet sleep with charming pinions soothed the mind of Eeryesechthon.
Speaker 1: In a dreamful feast, he worked his jaws in vain
Speaker 1: and ground his teeth and swallowed air as his imagined food.
Speaker 1: Till wearied with the effort, he awoke to hunger, scorching
Speaker 1: as a fire, which burned his entrails and compelled his
Speaker 1: raging jaws. So he, demanding all the foods of sea
Speaker 1: and earth and air, raged of his hunger, while the
Speaker 1: tables groaned with heaps before him spread, he banked, sought
Speaker 1: banquets for more food, and as he gorged, he always
Speaker 1: wanted more. The food of cities and a nation failed
Speaker 1: to satisfy the cravings of one man. The more his
Speaker 1: stomach gets, the more it needs. Even as the ocean
Speaker 1: takes the streams of earth, although it swallows up great
Speaker 1: rivers drawn from lands remote, it never can be filled
Speaker 1: nor satisfied, And as devouring fire its fuel refuses never
Speaker 1: but consumes unnumbered beams of wood, and burns for more
Speaker 1: the more it's fed, and from abundance gains increasing famine.
Speaker 1: So the raving jaws of wretched Aroosichthon ever craved all
Speaker 1: food in him was only cause of food, and what
Speaker 1: he ate made only room for more. And after famine,
Speaker 1: through his gluttony at last had wasted his ancestral wealth,
Speaker 1: his raging hunger suffered no decline, and his insation gluttony increased.
Speaker 1: When all his wealth at last was eaten up, his daughter,
Speaker 1: worthy of a fate more kind, alone was left to him,
Speaker 1: and her he sold, descendant of a noble race, The girl,
Speaker 1: refusing to be purchased as a slave, then hastened to
Speaker 1: the near shore of the sea, and as she stretched
Speaker 1: her arms above the wave's implored kind Neptune with her tears, Oh,
Speaker 1: you who have deprived me of virginity, deliver me from
Speaker 1: such a master's power. Although the master seeking her had
Speaker 1: seen her only at that moment, Neptune changed her quickly
Speaker 1: from a woman to a man, by giving her the
Speaker 1: features of a man and garments proper to a fisherman.
Speaker 1: And there she stood. He even looked at her and
Speaker 1: cried out, hey, there, expert of the rod, while you
Speaker 1: are casting forth the bit of brass concealed so deftly
Speaker 1: in its tiny bait God's willing. Let the sea be
Speaker 1: smooth for you, and let the foolish fishes swimming up,
Speaker 1: never no danger till they snapped the hook. Now tell
Speaker 1: me where is she, who, only now in in tattered
Speaker 1: garment and wind twisted hair, was standing on this shore?
Speaker 1: For I am sure I saw her standing on this shore,
Speaker 1: although no footsteps show her flight. By this assured the
Speaker 1: favor of the God protected her. Delighted to be questioned
Speaker 1: of herself, she said, no matter who you are, excuse me,
Speaker 1: so busy have I been at catching fish? I have
Speaker 1: not had the time to move my eyes from this pool,
Speaker 1: and that you may be assured. I only tell the truth.
Speaker 1: May Neptune, God of ocean, witness it. I have not
Speaker 1: seen a man where I am standing on this shore,
Speaker 1: myself accepted. Not a woman has stood here. Her master
Speaker 1: could not doubt it, and deceived retraced his footsteps from
Speaker 1: the sandy shore. As soon as he had disappeared. Her form, unchanged,
Speaker 1: was given back to her. But when her father knew
Speaker 1: his daughter could transform her body and escape, he often
Speaker 1: sold her first to one and then another, all of
Speaker 1: whom she cheated as a mare bird, a cow, or
Speaker 1: a stag. She got away, and so brought food dishonorest
Speaker 1: to ease his greed. And so he lived until the
Speaker 1: growing strength of famine, gnawing at his vitals, had consumed
Speaker 1: all he could get by selling her. His anguish burned
Speaker 1: him with increasing heat. He gnawed his own flesh, and
Speaker 1: he tore his limbs and fed his body all he
Speaker 1: took from it. Now I will return to Eschylus's horror
Speaker 1: show of a trilogy, the Oristaya. We heard from Cassandra,
Speaker 1: that Trojan woman whose life was cursed right from the
Speaker 1: very beginning, who seems to have never had a chance
Speaker 1: at happiness, and now the other woman in that story
Speaker 1: who was doomed to tragedy, Clytemnestra. These lines are from
Speaker 1: Eschylus's Amenities, the last play of the trilogy, after Arrestes
Speaker 1: has killed his mother Clytemnestra for killing his father Agamemnon,
Speaker 1: the Humenities. This play is about what happens next, the
Speaker 1: furies that haunt Arrestees for his crimes, and even better,
Speaker 1: the ghost of Clytemnestra alongside those furies. These are the
Speaker 1: words of her ghost. Like with Cassandra's lines, I've adapted
Speaker 1: them from the play so they're more enjoyable for just
Speaker 1: my voice to read. In this case, though, we need
Speaker 1: some of the chorus's lines because well, this is a
Speaker 1: chorus of fucking furies, so instead I've adapted it to
Speaker 1: clarify when we've got, you know, furies on stage speaking
Speaker 1: alongside the ghost. There's a rumor too, that the audience
Speaker 1: witnessing this play for the first time was so terrified
Speaker 1: at seeing furies the renaways depicted on stage that they
Speaker 1: nearly lost their minds, even had spontaneous bodily reactions, the
Speaker 1: details of which I won't go into because I don't
Speaker 1: believe them for a second and they're inexplicably misogynistic. So instead,
Speaker 1: here is the ghost of Clytemnestra, accompanied by this chorus
Speaker 1: of furies, who sleep fitfully on the stage, sleep on Aha.
Speaker 1: Yet what need is there of sleepers? It is due
Speaker 1: to you that I am thus dishonored among the dead,
Speaker 1: because of those I killed. The dead never ceased to
Speaker 1: reproach me, and I wander in disgrace. I tell you
Speaker 1: that I am most greatly accused by them. And yet
Speaker 1: although I have suffered cruelly in this way from my
Speaker 1: nearest kin, no divine power is angry on my behalf,
Speaker 1: slaughtered as I have been by the hands of a mattreside.
Speaker 1: See these gashes in my mind, my heart, and from
Speaker 1: where they came. For the sleeping mind has clear vision,
Speaker 1: but in the daytime the fate of mortals is unforseeable. Truly,
Speaker 1: you have lapped up many of my offerings, wineless libations,
Speaker 1: a sober appeasement, and I have sacrificed banquets in the
Speaker 1: solemn night upon a hearth of fire, at an hour
Speaker 1: unshared by any god. I see all this trampled underfoot.
Speaker 1: But he has escaped and is gone, like a fawn
Speaker 1: lightly indeed, from the middle of snares. He has rushed away,
Speaker 1: mocking at you. Hear me, since I plead for my life.
Speaker 1: Awake to consciousness, Goddesses of the underworld, for in a
Speaker 1: dream I Clytemnestra, now invoke you. The chorus of Furies,
Speaker 1: still seemingly asleep, begin to to whine, to keen on
Speaker 1: the stage in unison, a haunting and ominous sound. Wine
Speaker 1: if you will. But the man is gone, a fled
Speaker 1: far away, for he has friends that are not like mine.
Speaker 1: You are too drowsy, and do not pity my suffering,
Speaker 1: arrestes the murderer of me. His mother is gone. The
Speaker 1: whining of the Chorus of Furies transforms into a low
Speaker 1: and horrible moaning. You moan, you drowse? Will you not
Speaker 1: get up at once? Is it your destiny to do
Speaker 1: anything other than cause harm? Sleep and toil? Effective conspirators
Speaker 1: have destroyed the force of the dreadful dragoness. The chorus
Speaker 1: of Furies begin to speak in their sleep, while still
Speaker 1: whining and moaning. A symphony of horror. But now they
Speaker 1: begin to chant in their sleep. Catch him, catch him,
Speaker 1: catch him, catch him. Look sharp in a dream. You
Speaker 1: are hunting your prey and are barking like a dog
Speaker 1: that never leaves off its keenness for the work. What
Speaker 1: are you doing? Get up? Do not let fatigue overpower you,
Speaker 1: and do not ignore my misery because you have been
Speaker 1: softened by sleep. Sting your heart with merited reproaches. For
Speaker 1: reproach becomes a spur to the right minded. Send after
Speaker 1: him a gust of bloody breath. Shrivel him with the
Speaker 1: vapor the fire from your guts, follow him, wither him
Speaker 1: with fresh pursuit, just in time for the chorus to wake.
Speaker 1: The ghost of Clytemnestra just disappears. And now the chorus
Speaker 1: is awake, And this is their chanting ode. It's signaling
Speaker 1: the entrance of a god, Apollo, who will be Arreste's
Speaker 1: advocate in the trial for his mattress side. Awake, wake
Speaker 1: her up, as I wake you still asleep, Get up,
Speaker 1: Shake off sleep. Let us see if any part of
Speaker 1: this beginning is in vain. Oh oh alas we have suffered, friends,
Speaker 1: indeed I have suffered much, and all in vain. We
Speaker 1: have suffered, very painfully, Oh, an unbearable evil. The beast
Speaker 1: has escaped our nets and is gone overcome by sleep.
Speaker 1: I have lost my prey, Oh child of Zeus, you
Speaker 1: have become a thief. You a youth, have ridden down
Speaker 1: old divinities by showing respect to your suppliant, a godless man,
Speaker 1: and cruel to a parent. Although you are a god,
Speaker 1: you have stolen away a man that killed his mother.
Speaker 1: What is there here that anyone shall call just reproach?
Speaker 1: Coming to me in a dream struck me like a charioteer,
Speaker 1: with gold held tight under my heart, under my vitals,
Speaker 1: I can feel the cruel, the very cruel chill of
Speaker 1: the executioner's destroying scourge. They do such things, the younger
Speaker 1: gods who rule wholly beyond justice. A throne dripping blood
Speaker 1: about its foot, about its head. I can see the
Speaker 1: center stone of the earth defiled with a terrible pollution
Speaker 1: of blood. Although he is a prophet, he has stained
Speaker 1: his sanctuary with pollution at its hearth, at his own urging,
Speaker 1: at his own bidding against the law of the gods.
Speaker 1: He has honored mortal things and caused the ancient allotments
Speaker 1: to decay, and he brings distress to me too. But
Speaker 1: he shall not win his release. Even if he escapes
Speaker 1: beneath the earth, he is never set free a suppliant.
Speaker 1: He will acquire another avenger from his family. Oh this
Speaker 1: is so fun. Finally, now we are We're going. We're
Speaker 1: going to dip our toes into the bloody waters of Rome.
Speaker 1: I've talked a lot on the show about the way
Speaker 1: Romans wrote about witches in comparison to the Greek. In
Speaker 1: Greek myth our witches are women like Circe and Medea,
Speaker 1: or the goddess of witches herself, Hecate. They are powerful
Speaker 1: and terrifying, but they are also respected and great. Rome meanwhile,
Speaker 1: imagines a different type of horror, a woman who is
Speaker 1: a casp old and decrepit. Roman witches are hags. They
Speaker 1: are ugly and disturbing. They are male fragility. They are
Speaker 1: a representation of the Roman fear of powerful women who
Speaker 1: existed beyond the confines imposed by men. And the most
Speaker 1: famous of them, one could argue, I don't know Rome
Speaker 1: well enough, but I think so is a witch named Richtho.
Speaker 1: Erchtho appears most prominently in an epic written by the
Speaker 1: Roman author Lucan in the first century CE, about one
Speaker 1: hundred years after the death of Julius Caesar and the
Speaker 1: civil war that preceded it. The epic is ostensibly about
Speaker 1: this civil war, and frankly, I have done minimal research
Speaker 1: into the epic itself, because I'm really only interested in
Speaker 1: this Witch, not an epic about a Roman civil war.
Speaker 1: Like many, if not most, Witch is from Greek and
Speaker 1: Roman sources. She is in Thessaly in northern Greece, which
Speaker 1: was at that time controlled by Rome. But it's also
Speaker 1: where we get this whole massive idea of Thessalian witches.
Speaker 1: It was there that Caesar fought the Battle of Farsalis
Speaker 1: against Pompey, but before this definitive battle comes Eric. Though
Speaker 1: this is how Wikipedia describes this book. Six of the Farsalia,
Speaker 1: Pompey's troops forced Caesar's armies to fall back to Thessaly.
Speaker 1: Lucan describes the wild Pasalian terign as the army's wait
Speaker 1: for battle the next day. The remainder of the book
Speaker 1: follows Pompy's son Sextus, who wishes to know the future.
Speaker 1: He finds the most powerful witch in Thessaly Erchtho, and
Speaker 1: she reanimates the corpse of a dead soldier in a
Speaker 1: terrifying ceremony. The soldier predicts Pompey's defeat and Caesar's eventual assassination.
Speaker 1: This is just the bit of that book about Erchthough,
Speaker 1: when in this faded land the chiefs had placed their
Speaker 1: several camps, foreboding of the end now fast approaching, all
Speaker 1: men's thoughts were turned upon the final issue of the war,
Speaker 1: And as the hour drew near, the cowered mines, trembling
Speaker 1: beneath the shadow of the fate now hanging over them,
Speaker 1: deemed disaster near, while some took heart yet doubted what
Speaker 1: might fall in hope and fear. Alternate mid the throng Sextus,
Speaker 1: unworthy son of worthy sire, who, soon upon the wave
Speaker 1: that Scilla guards Sicilian pirate exile from his home, stain'd
Speaker 1: by his deeds of shame the fights he won, could
Speaker 1: bear delay no more. His feeble soul, sick of uncertain
Speaker 1: fate by fear, compelled fore cast the future, yet consulted
Speaker 1: not the shrines of Dilus, nor the Pythian caves, nor
Speaker 1: was he satisfied to learn the sound of Jove's brass cauldron,
Speaker 1: amid Dodona's oaks, by her primeval fruits, the nurse of men,
Speaker 1: nor sought he sages who, by flight of birds or
Speaker 1: watching with assyrian care the stars and fires of heaven,
Speaker 1: nor by victims slain, may know the fates to come,
Speaker 1: nor any source lawful though secret. For to him was
Speaker 1: known that which excites the hate of gods, above magician's lore,
Speaker 1: the savage creed of diss and all the shades and
Speaker 1: sad with gloomy rights, mysterious altars. For his frenzied soul,
Speaker 1: Heaven knew too little, and the spot itself kindled his
Speaker 1: madness for hard. By there dwelt the brood of Himon,
Speaker 1: whom no storied witch of fiction ever transcended all their art.
Speaker 1: In things most strange and most incredible, there were Thessalian rocks,
Speaker 1: with deadly herbs, thick planted, sensible to magic chants, funereal
Speaker 1: secret and the land was full of violence to the gods.
Speaker 1: The queenly guest from Colchis gathered here the fatal roots
Speaker 1: that were not in her store, hence vain to heaven rise,
Speaker 1: impious incantations, all unheard for death. The ears divine, save
Speaker 1: for one voice, which penetrates the furthest depths of airs,
Speaker 1: compelling even the unwilling deities to hearken to its accents.
Speaker 1: Not the care of the revolving sky or starry pole
Speaker 1: can call them from it. Ever, once the sound of
Speaker 1: those dread tones unspeakable has reached the constellations, then nor Babylon,
Speaker 1: nor Secret Memphis, though they open wide the shrines of
Speaker 1: ancient magic and intreat the gods could draw from them
Speaker 1: the fires that smoke upon the altars of far Thessaly
Speaker 1: to hearts of flint. Those incantations bring love strange, unnatural.
Speaker 1: The old man's breast burns with illicit fire, Nor lies
Speaker 1: the power in harmful cup, nor in the juicy pledge
Speaker 1: of love maternal from the forehead, drawn charmed forth by
Speaker 1: spells alone, the mind decays by poisoninous drugs, unharmed with
Speaker 1: woven threads crossed in mysterious fashion. Do they bind those
Speaker 1: whom no passion born of beauteous form or loving couch unites.
Speaker 1: All things on earth change at their bidding. Night usurps
Speaker 1: the day the heavens disobey their wonted laws, and that
Speaker 1: dread him. The universe stands still and jove while urging
Speaker 1: the revolving wheels wonders they move not. Torrents are outpoured
Speaker 1: beneath the burning sun, and thunder roars uncaused by Jupiter.
Speaker 1: From their flowing locks. Vapors immense shall issue at their call,
Speaker 1: wind falls, the tempest seas shall rise and foam moved
Speaker 1: by their spell, though powerless, the breeze to raise. The
Speaker 1: billows ships against the wind with bellying seats move onward
Speaker 1: from the rock hangs motionless. The torrent rivers run uphill.
Speaker 1: The summer's heat no longer swells the nile in its course.
Speaker 1: Meander's stream is straight slow. Roane is quickened by the
Speaker 1: rush of Sione. Hills dip their heads and topple to
Speaker 1: the plane. Olympus sees his clouds drift overhead and sunless.
Speaker 1: Scithea's sempaternal snows melt in midwinter. The inflowing tides, driven
Speaker 1: onward by the Moon at that dread chant ebb from
Speaker 1: their Earth's axes else unmoved, have trembled, and the force
Speaker 1: centripetal has tottered, and the Earth's compacted frame struck by
Speaker 1: their voice, has gaped till through the void men saw
Speaker 1: the moving sky. All beasts, most fear and savage, fear them,
Speaker 1: yet with deadly aid furnish the witch's arts. Tigers athirst
Speaker 1: for blood, and noble lions on them fawn with bland caresses.
Speaker 1: Serpents at their word uncoil their circles, and extended glide
Speaker 1: along the surface of the frosty field. The viper's severed
Speaker 1: body joins anew and dyes the snake by human venom slain.
Speaker 1: Whence comes this labor on the gods, compelled to hearken
Speaker 1: to the magic chant and spells, nor daring to despise them,
Speaker 1: does some bond control the deities? Is their pleasure?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: Or must they listen and have silent threats prevailed, or
Speaker 1: piety unseen received? So great a garden against all the
Speaker 1: gods is their influence? Or on one alone, who, to
Speaker 1: his will constrains the universe himself constrained. Stars most in
Speaker 1: yonder climb shoot headlong from the zenith, and the moon,
Speaker 1: gliding serene upon her nightly course, is shorn of luster
Speaker 1: by their poisonous chant, dimmed by dark earthly fires, As
Speaker 1: though our orbs shadowed her brother's radiance, and barred the
Speaker 1: light bestowed by heaven, nor freshly shines, Until descending nearer
Speaker 1: the earth, she sheds her baneful drops upon the mead.
Speaker 1: These sinful rights, and these her sister's songs abhorred, rich
Speaker 1: though fiercest of the race, spurned for their piety, And
Speaker 1: yet viler Art practiced in novel form to her no
Speaker 1: home beneath the sheltering roof her tireful head. Thus to
Speaker 1: lay downward crime deserted tombs her dwelling place, from which
Speaker 1: the harling of hell she dragged the dead, nor life
Speaker 1: nor God's forbade, but that she knew the secret homes
Speaker 1: of Styx, and learned to hear the whispered voice of
Speaker 1: ghosts at dread mysterious meetings. Never sun shed his pure
Speaker 1: light upon the haggard cheek, pale with the pallor of
Speaker 1: the shades, nor looked upon those locks unkempt that crowned
Speaker 1: her brow. In starless nights of tempest, crept the hag
Speaker 1: out from her tomb to seize the levin bolt. Treading
Speaker 1: the harvest with the cursed foot, she burned the fruitful growth,
Speaker 1: and with her breath poisoned the pure air. No prayer
Speaker 1: she breathed, nor supplication to the gods for help, nor
Speaker 1: knew the pulse of entrails, as do men who worship pires.
Speaker 1: She loves to light, and snatched the incense from the
Speaker 1: flaming tomb. The gods, at her first utterance, grant her
Speaker 1: prayers for things unlawful, lest they hear again its fearful accents.
Speaker 1: Men whose limbs were quick with vital power she thrust
Speaker 1: within the grave, despite the fates who owed them years
Speaker 1: to come. The funeral reversed, brought from the tomb those
Speaker 1: who were dead no longer, and the pyre yields to
Speaker 1: her shameless clutch. Still smoking dust and bones enkindled, and
Speaker 1: the torch which held some grieving sire, but now with
Speaker 1: fragments mixed in sable smoke and ceremonial cloths, singed with
Speaker 1: the redolent fires that burned the dead. But those who
Speaker 1: lie within a stony cell, untouched by fire, whose dried
Speaker 1: and mummied frames no longer, no corruption, limb by limb,
Speaker 1: venting her rage, she tears the bloodless eyes, drags from
Speaker 1: their cavities, and mauls the nail upon the withered hand.
Speaker 1: She gnaws the noose by which some wretch has died,
Speaker 1: and from the tree drags down a pendant corpse, its
Speaker 1: members torn asunder to the winds. Forth from the palms,
Speaker 1: wrenches the iron, and from the unbending bond hangs by
Speaker 1: her teeth, and with her hands collects the slimy gore,
Speaker 1: which drips upon the limbs where lay a corpse, upon
Speaker 1: the naked earth, on ravening birds and beasts of prey.
Speaker 1: The hag kept watched, nor marred by knife or hand
Speaker 1: her spoil till on his victim seized some nightly wolf,
Speaker 1: then dragged the morsel from his thirsty fangs. Nor fears
Speaker 1: she murder if her rights demand blood from the living,
Speaker 1: or some banquet fell requires the panting entrail pregnant wounds,
Speaker 1: yields her knife, the infant to be placed on flaming altars,
Speaker 1: And whenever she needs some fierce, undaunted ghost. He fails
Speaker 1: not her, who has all deaths in use. Her hand
Speaker 1: has chased from smiling cheeks the rosy bloom of life,
Speaker 1: and with sinister hand from dying youth, has shorn the
Speaker 1: fatal lock, and holding often foul embraces, some departed friend
Speaker 1: severed the head, and through the ghastly lips held by
Speaker 1: her own apart, some impious tale, dark with mysterious horror,
Speaker 1: has conveyed down to the Stygian shades. When rumor brought
Speaker 1: her name to Sextus in the depth of night, when
Speaker 1: Titan's chariot beneath our earth wheeled on his middle course,
Speaker 1: he took his way through fields deserted, while a faithful
Speaker 1: band his wonted ministers in deeds of guilt. Seeking the
Speaker 1: hag mid broken sepulchers beheld her seated on the crags Afar,
Speaker 1: where high Meus falls towards Pharsalia's plain.
Speaker 3: There was she proving for her gods and priests, words
Speaker 3: still unknown, and framing numbered chants of dire and novel purpose.
Speaker 1: For she feared lest Mars might stray into another world
Speaker 1: and spare the Salian soil. The blood ere long to
Speaker 1: flow in torrents, and she thus forbade Philippi's fields, polluted
Speaker 1: with her song, thick with her poisonous distillments, sown to
Speaker 1: let the war pass by such deaths she hopes soon
Speaker 1: shall be hers, The blood of all the world shed
Speaker 1: for her use to her. It shall be given to
Speaker 1: sever from their trunks the heads of king's plunder, the
Speaker 1: ashes of the noble dead, Italy's bravest, and in triumph,
Speaker 1: add the mightiest warriors to her host of shades. And
Speaker 1: now what spoils from Magnus's tombless corpse her hand may snatch,
Speaker 1: on which of Caesar's limbs she soon may pounce. She
Speaker 1: makes her foul forecast and eager gloats to her. The
Speaker 1: son of Pompey said, thus, you, greatest ornament of Hyman's.
Speaker 2: Daughters, in whose power it lies, or to reveal the fates,
Speaker 2: or from its course to turn the future, be it
Speaker 2: mine to know, by your sure utterance to what final
Speaker 2: end fortune now guides the issue.
Speaker 1: Not the least of all the Roman host on yonder
Speaker 1: plane am I, but Pompey's most illustrious son, Lord of
Speaker 1: the world, or heir to death and doom. The unknown
Speaker 1: affrights me. I can firmly face the certain terror, bid
Speaker 1: my destiny, yield to your power the dark and hidden end,
Speaker 1: and let me fall, for knowing from the gods, extort
Speaker 1: the truth, or if you spare the gods, force it
Speaker 1: from Hell itself. Fling back the gates that bar the
Speaker 1: Elysian field. Let death confess whom from our ranks he seeks.
Speaker 1: No humble task I bring, but worthy of Eric Though's
Speaker 1: skill of such a struggle, fought for such a prize
Speaker 1: to search and tell the issue. Then the witch, pleased
Speaker 1: that her impious fame was noised abroad, thus made her answer,
Speaker 1: if some lesser fates you wish had been to change
Speaker 1: against their wish, it had been easy to compel the
Speaker 1: gods to its accomplishment. My art has power when one
Speaker 1: man the constellation's press the speedy death to compass the
Speaker 1: delay and mine It is though every star decree is
Speaker 1: a ripe old age by mystic herbs to shear the
Speaker 1: life midway. But should some purpose set from the beginning
Speaker 1: of the universe, and all the laboring fortunes of mankind
Speaker 1: be brought in question, then the salient art bows to
Speaker 1: this power supreme. But if you are content to know
Speaker 1: the issue preordained, it shall be swiftly yours, for earth
Speaker 1: and air, and sea in space and rhodopian crags shall
Speaker 1: speak the truth. Yet it seems easiest where death in
Speaker 1: these the salient fields abounds to raise a single corpse,
Speaker 1: from dead men's lips, scarce, cold, in fuller accents, falls
Speaker 1: the voice, not from some mummied flame in accents, shrill,
Speaker 1: uncertain to the ear. Thus spoke the hag, and through
Speaker 1: redoubled night, a squalid veil, swathing her pallid features, stole
Speaker 1: among unburied carcasses, fast fled the wolves. The carrion birds,
Speaker 1: with maw unsatisfied, relaxed their talons, as with creeping step
Speaker 1: she sought her profit. Firm must be the flesh as
Speaker 1: yet though cold in death, and firm the lungs untouched
Speaker 1: by wound. Now in the balance, hung the fates of
Speaker 1: slain unnumbered, had she striven armies to raise an order
Speaker 1: back to life, whole ranks of warriors, the laws had
Speaker 1: failed of erebus, and summoned up from the sticks, its
Speaker 1: ghostly tenants had obeyed her call, and rising fought once more.
Speaker 1: At length, the witch picks out her victim with pierced throat,
Speaker 1: agape fit for her purpose. Gripped by pitiless hook over rocks,
Speaker 1: she drags him to the mountain cave, accursed by her
Speaker 1: fell rights that shall restore the dead man's life, close
Speaker 1: to the hidden brink the land that girds the precipice
Speaker 1: of hell sinks towards the depths with ever falling leaves,
Speaker 1: a wood overshadows, and a spreading yue casts shade. Impenetrable
Speaker 1: fal decay fills all the space, and in the deep
Speaker 1: recess darkness, unbroken save by chanted spells, rains ever not
Speaker 1: whear gape the misty jaws of caverned tenaris, the gloomy
Speaker 1: bound of either world, through which the nether kings permit
Speaker 1: the passage of the dead to Earth. So poisonous mephitic
Speaker 1: hangs in the air. Nay, though the witch had power
Speaker 1: to call the shades forth from the depths, it was
Speaker 1: doubtful if the cave were not a part of Hell.
Speaker 1: Discordant hues flamed on her garb, as by a fury
Speaker 1: worn bear was her visit, and upon her brow dread
Speaker 1: viper's hissed beneath her, streaming locks in sable coils entwined.
Speaker 1: But when she saw the youth's companions trembling, and himself
Speaker 1: with eyes cast down, with visage as of death, thus
Speaker 1: spoke the Witch, forbid your craven souls these fears to cherish,
Speaker 1: soon returning life. This frame shall quicken, and in tones
Speaker 1: which reach even the timorous ear, shall speak the man
Speaker 1: if I have power the Stygian lakes to show, the
Speaker 1: bank that sounds with a fire, the fury band and
Speaker 1: old giant's lettered and the hound that shakes, bristling with
Speaker 1: heads of snakes his triple head. What fear is this
Speaker 1: that cringes at the sight of timid shivering shades. Then
Speaker 1: to her prayer, First through his gaping bosom blood she pours,
Speaker 1: still fervent washing from his wounds the gore, then copious
Speaker 1: poisons from the moon distills, mixed with all monstrous things
Speaker 1: which nature's pangs bring to untimely birth. The froth from
Speaker 1: dogs stricken with madness, foaming at the stream a links
Speaker 1: his entrails, and the knot that grows upon the fell hyena,
Speaker 1: flesh of stags fed upon serpents, and the sucking fish
Speaker 1: which holds the vessel back through eastern winds make bend
Speaker 1: the canvas dragon's eyes and stones that sound beneath the
Speaker 1: brooding eagle's wings, Nor Arabi's viper, nor the ocean snake,
Speaker 1: who in the red sea waters guards the shell are wanting,
Speaker 1: nor the slough on libyan sands, by horned reptile cast
Speaker 1: nor ashes fail snatched from the altar where the phoenix died,
Speaker 1: and viler poisons, many which herself has made. She adds
Speaker 1: where to no name is given, pestiferous leaves pregnant with
Speaker 1: magic chants, and blades of grass, which in their primal
Speaker 1: growth her cursed mouth had slimed. Last came her voice,
Speaker 1: more potent than all herbs, to charm the gods who
Speaker 1: rule in Lethe dissonant murmurs first, and sounds discordant from
Speaker 1: the tongues of men, She utters scarce articulate. The bay
Speaker 1: of wolves and barking as of dogs were mixed with
Speaker 1: that fell chant. The screech of nightly owl raising her
Speaker 1: horse complaint, the howl of a beast, and sibilant hiss
Speaker 1: of snake. All these were there, and more, the waft
Speaker 1: of waters on the rock, the sound of forests, and
Speaker 1: the thunder peel. Such was her voice. But soon, in
Speaker 1: clearer tones, reaching to Tartarus, she raised her song, You
Speaker 1: awful Goddesses, avenging power of hell upon the damned, and
Speaker 1: chaos huge who strives to mixed innumeral worlds and Pluto,
Speaker 1: King of Earth, whose weary soul grieves at his godhead,
Speaker 1: sticks and planes of bliss, we may not enter, hen
Speaker 1: you proser pine, hating your mother in the skies above
Speaker 1: my patron goddess, last and lowest form of Hecatae, through
Speaker 1: whom the shades and I hold silent converse worder of
Speaker 1: the gait who casts human awful to the you sisters,
Speaker 1: who shall spin the threads again, And you, o boatmen
Speaker 1: of the burning wave, now wearied of the shades from Hell,
Speaker 1: to me, returning hear me, if with voice I cry abhorred, polluted,
Speaker 1: if the flesh of man has never been absent from
Speaker 1: my proffered song, flesh washed with brains still quivering, If
Speaker 1: the child whose severed head I placed upon the dish
Speaker 1: but for his hand, had lived a listening ear land
Speaker 1: to my supplication from the caves hid in the innermost
Speaker 1: recess of Hell. I claim no soul, long vanished from
Speaker 1: the light from one, but now departed, lingering still upon
Speaker 1: the brink of Orcus. Is my prayer grant for you,
Speaker 1: may that, listening to the spell once more, he seeks
Speaker 1: his dust. And let the shade of this our soldier perished.
Speaker 1: If the war will let your hands has merited, proclaim
Speaker 1: the destiny of Pompey to his son such prayers. She then,
Speaker 1: her foaming lips and head uplifting presents, saw the ghost hardby.
Speaker 1: He stood beside the hated corpse, his ancient prison, and
Speaker 1: loathed to enter in. There was the yawning chestwear fell
Speaker 1: the blow that was his death, and yet the gift
Speaker 1: supreme of death, his right hah wretch was reft away,
Speaker 1: angered at death the witch, and at the pause conceded
Speaker 1: by the fates, with living snake scourge as the moveless
Speaker 1: corpse and on the dead. She barks through fishers, gaping
Speaker 1: to her song, breaking the silence of their gloomy home.
Speaker 1: To Siffany Maghera, heed you not flies, not this wretched
Speaker 1: soul before your whips the void of Erebus. By your
Speaker 1: very names, she dogs of hell. I'll call you to
Speaker 1: the day, not to return through sepulchers and death, your gawler,
Speaker 1: from funereal urns and tombs. I'll chase you forth, and
Speaker 1: you too, hecate, who to the gods, in comely shape
Speaker 1: and mean not that of Arabis, appears henceforth wasted and
Speaker 1: palace as you are in hell at my command shall come.
Speaker 1: I'll noise abroad the banquet that beneath the solid earth
Speaker 1: holds you. You made of Enna, by what bond you
Speaker 1: loved knights, King, by what mysterious stain infected, so that
Speaker 1: carries fears from Hell to call her totter? And for
Speaker 1: you base king, Titan shall pierce your caverns and his rays,
Speaker 1: and sudden day shall smite you. Do you hear, or
Speaker 1: shall I summon to my aid that God at whose
Speaker 1: dread name earth trembles, who can look unflinching on the
Speaker 1: Gorgon's head and drive the furies with his skirch, who
Speaker 1: holds the depths you cannot fathom, and above whose haunts
Speaker 1: you dwelve supernal, who by waves of sticks forswears himself unpunished.
Speaker 1: Then the blood grew warm, warm, and liquid, and with
Speaker 1: softening touch cherished the stiffened wounds, and filled the veins
Speaker 1: till throbbed once more the slow returning pulse, and every
Speaker 1: fiber trembled, as with death, life was co mingled. Then,
Speaker 1: not limb by limb, with toil and strain, but rising
Speaker 1: at a bound, leaped from the earth, erect the living
Speaker 1: man fierce glared, his eyes uncovered, and the life was dim,
Speaker 1: and still upon his face remained the pallid hues of
Speaker 1: hardly parted death. Amazement seized upon him, to the earth
Speaker 1: brought back again, but from his lips, tight drawn, no
Speaker 1: murmur issued. He had power alone. When questioned to reply, speak,
Speaker 1: said the hag, And I shall bid you. Great shall
Speaker 1: be your gain if you but answer truly, freed for
Speaker 1: me from all harmony and art, such burial place shall
Speaker 1: now be yours, And on your funeral pyre, such fatal
Speaker 1: woods shall burn, such chance shall sound, that to your
Speaker 1: ghost no more or magic song or spell shall reach,
Speaker 1: and your lifty and sleep shall never more be broken
Speaker 1: in a death from me received anew for such reward.
Speaker 1: Think not this second life, enforced in vain obscure. Maybe
Speaker 1: the answers of the gods by priest, as spoken at
Speaker 1: the holy shrine, by who braves the oracles of death
Speaker 1: in search of truth, should gain a sure response. Then speak,
Speaker 1: I pray you let the hidden fates tell through your
Speaker 1: voice the mysteries to come. Thus she spoke, and her
Speaker 1: words by mystic force gave him his answer, but with gloomy,
Speaker 1: mean and tears swift flowing. Thus he may reply called
Speaker 1: from the margin of the silent stream. I saw no
Speaker 1: faithful sisters spin the threads, yet know eye this that
Speaker 1: amid the Roman shades reign's fiercest discord, and this impious
Speaker 1: war destroys the peace that ruled the fields of Earth,
Speaker 1: Elysian meads and deeps of Tartarus. In paths diverse, the
Speaker 1: Roman chieftains leave and thus disclose the fates. The blissful
Speaker 1: ghost spare visages of sorrow Sire and son, the Decyi,
Speaker 1: who gave themselves to death in expiation of their country's doom.
Speaker 1: And Great Camillus wept, and Sullah's shade complained of fortune.
Speaker 1: Scipio bewailed the scion of his race about to fall
Speaker 1: in the sands of Libya. Cato, greatest foe to Carthage,
Speaker 1: grieves for that indignant soul which shall disdain to serve
Speaker 1: Brutus alone in all the happy ranks, I smiling saw
Speaker 1: first console when the kings were thrust from Rome, the
Speaker 1: chains were fallen from boastful Cataline him too, I saw rejoicing,
Speaker 1: and the pair of merry eye and Kethagus's naked arm.
Speaker 1: The Drusie heroes of the people, joyed in law's immoderate
Speaker 1: and the famous pair of greatly daring brothers, guilty bands
Speaker 1: by bars eternal shut within the doors that close the
Speaker 1: prison of hell, applaud the fates, claiming the plain's elysian,
Speaker 1: and the king throws wide his pallid halls, makes hard
Speaker 1: the points of craggy rocks, and forges iron chains the
Speaker 1: victor's punishment. But take with you this comfort, youth, that
Speaker 1: there is a calm abode and peaceful waits your father
Speaker 1: and his house. Nor let the glory of a little
Speaker 1: span disturb your boding heart. The hour shall come when
Speaker 1: all the chiefs shall meet, shrink not from death, but
Speaker 1: glowing in the greatness of your souls, even from your
Speaker 1: humble sepulchers, descend and tread beneath your feet in pride
Speaker 1: of place, the wandering phantoms of the gods of Rome,
Speaker 1: Which of the chiefs by Tiber's yellow stream, and which
Speaker 1: by Nihil shall rest the leader's fate. This fight decides
Speaker 1: no more, Nor seek to know from me your fortunes,
Speaker 1: for the fates in time shall give you all your
Speaker 1: do and your great sire. A surer prophet in Sicilian fields,
Speaker 1: shall speak your future, doubting even he what regions of
Speaker 1: the world you should avoid? And what should you see?
Speaker 1: O miserable race. Europe and Asia and Libya's plains, which
Speaker 1: saw your conquests now shall hold alike your burial place.
Speaker 1: Nor has the earth for you a happier land than this.
Speaker 1: His task performed, he stands in mournful guise, with silent look,
Speaker 1: asking for death again, yet could not die till mystic
Speaker 1: herb and magic chant prevailed, For nature's law, once used,
Speaker 1: had power no more to slay the corpse and set
Speaker 1: the spirit free. With plenteous wood, she builds the funeral pyre,
Speaker 1: to which the dead man comes. Then, as the flames
Speaker 1: seized on his form, outstretched, the youth and witch together
Speaker 1: sought the camp, And as the dawn now streaked the
Speaker 1: heavens by the hag command, the day was stayed tail
Speaker 1: Sextus reached his tent and missed, and darkness veiled his
Speaker 1: safe return. Oh, nerds, nerds, nerds, that fucking witch like.
Speaker 1: I know that translation was definitely not ideal. It's all
Speaker 1: I had, But I really, I mean, she's cool. I
Speaker 1: might have to try to cover her in a full
Speaker 1: episode just casually reanimating a dead corpse in order to
Speaker 1: see the future of you know, basically like the fate
Speaker 1: of the Roman Republic as one does. Totally normal and well,
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of obsessed with her despite her being
Speaker 1: frustratingly Roman. Well that reading. All of those readings were
Speaker 1: seriously fun. I hope you agree. Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: fucking love doing that. I do. I just appreciate Spooky
Speaker 1: Season for even just like giving me a reason to
Speaker 1: go searching for scary, gory, generally horrifying stories and lines
Speaker 1: from the ancient world. I did source some of those
Speaker 1: ideas from Twitter, so if you contributed, thank you. It's
Speaker 1: fun and we just get such a wealth of different
Speaker 1: sources this way. But we are not done with any
Speaker 1: of this yet. There are still more spooky selections of
Speaker 1: readings to come, So keep listening to this month's Spooky
Speaker 1: Season episodes, because not only am I going to tell
Speaker 1: you all the dirty, disgusting details of Seneca's play The Thyestes,
Speaker 1: which again you know a lot of references in that
Speaker 1: Cassandra's speech at the beginning, and which features more in
Speaker 1: fantaside and cannibalism than you ever thought you needed. We
Speaker 1: are also going to hear about how the ancient Greeks
Speaker 1: handled gladiatorial games. Just a little hint. It was really
Speaker 1: mythological and very distinctly Greek even for a very Roman custom,
Speaker 1: while all being you know, still satisfyingly discussed. And we're
Speaker 1: also we're going to have more readings from ancient epic
Speaker 1: including varied excursions into the world of the dead, and
Speaker 1: of course more conversations to come. And oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm just I fucking love October. Stay Spooky Pals, Let's
Speaker 1: talk go A. Myth's Baby is written and produced by
Speaker 1: Me Live Albert NIKAELA. Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians,
Speaker 1: my assistant producer. The podcast is hosted and monetized by iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Help
Speaker 1: me continue bringing you the world of Greek mythology and
Speaker 1: the ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron, where you'll get
Speaker 1: bonus episodes into more. Visit patreon dot com slash myths Baby,
Speaker 1: or click the link in this episode's description. I am
Speaker 1: live and I love the ship, but like I truly
Speaker 1: love Spooky Season. Best of all,