Enone

First published in 1813.

Oenone to Paris.

May I hope that you will read this? Or, overawed by your new bride, must you treat it with neglect? Read it over, I entreat you.

It is no threatening letter sent you from Aegina.

I, the nymph Oenone, famous in the Phrygian woods, complain of injuries received from you, whom I am still fond to call mine, if you permit.

What god opposes himself to my wishes? What crime have I committed, that I no longer possess your love? Where we suffer deservedly, we ought to bear it with patience, but unmerited calamities sit heavy upon us.

You were yet in low circumstances when I, a nymph sprung from a mighty river, was contented to receive you for my husband.

Oft in our lowly cottage, secure from hail and freezing winds, have we contentedly reposed on straw or a bed of hay.

Obeying carefully all the instructions of the goddess, who had now become his protectress, Paris left his shepherding and went down to the court of his father, King Priam.

He was so blinded by the vision of his glorious future that he did not think how heartless he was to desert the loving and faithful Oenone, who mourned for him until the hills echoed with the sound of her cries.

To tell the story of Paris's return to his native city, of his voyage to Sparta, and of his abduction of Helen would be to tell the story of the Trojan War and of how dearly Paris and his household paid for the most beautiful woman in the world.

When the sons of Priam were falling one by one beneath the fierce blows of the Greeks, Paris was wounded by a poisoned arrow shot by Philoctetes, who had received these famous weapons from Hercules when he lit that hero's funeral pyre.

As the poison entered Paris's veins and he knew that he had received a mortal wound, he sent at once for Oenone, who had always loved him so dearly that he believed she must have forgiven his treachery and desertion.

He knew how skilled the nymph was in the use of healing herbs, and she had once told him, in the happy days of their love on Mount Ida, that if ever he were wounded, he should send for her and she would heal him.

Paris therefore dispatched a messenger in all haste to bring his wife from her home among the hills.

But Oenone refused to accompany the messenger, for she knew that it was not for love of her that her husband desired her presence.

When Paris grew to manhood, he was so handsome that the wood nymphs, who were his companions, all sighed for love of him.

Among them was the fair and gentle Oenone, whom Paris secretly married, and with whom he lived happily on Mount Ida.

Though his foster father had told him the story of his birth, Paris had no longing for the glitter and grandeur of palaces, for he felt sure that King Priam would wish to kill him if he learned that the son he feared and hated was alive.

Paris had grown so accustomed to the solitude of the mountain that when the wedding party suddenly came upon him, he stood fearful and silent, while Jupiter, showing him the golden apple with its inscription, bade him judge which of the three goddesses should receive it.

Later on, she would arrange that he should be furnished with ships in which to sail to Greece, for to this country he must inevitably go, since Helen, wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, was the most beautiful woman in the world.

Obeying carefully all the instructions of the goddess, who had now become his protectress, Paris left his shepherding and went down to the court of his father, King Priam.

He was so blinded by the vision of his glorious future that he did not think how heartless he was to desert the loving and faithful Oenone, who mourned for him until the hills echoed with the sound of her cries.

To tell the story of Paris's return to his native city, of his voyage to Sparta, and of his abduction of Helen, would be to tell the story of the Trojan War, and of how dearly Paris and his household paid for the most beautiful woman in the world.

Jove.

And she gave birth to Aeacus, prince of Oenone

But what son obtained the house of Aeacus?

Peleus.