As the birth pangs increased, and the burden pushed itself into the world,
and a girl was born with an ignorant father, the mother, having been deceitful, ordered it to be raised as a boy. She had all things, and no one except the nurse was aware of the counterfeit story. The father loosened the prayers and imposed the ancestral name: he had been named the grandfather name Iphis. inde incepta pia mendacia fraude latebant. cultus erat pueri; facies, quam sive puellae, sive dares puero, fuerat formosus uterque. Meanwhile thirteen years passed, when your father, Iphis, betrothed to you golden-haired Ianthe, whose dowry was her beauty, the girl most praised amongst the women of Phaestos, the daughter of Telestes of Dicte. Equal in age, equal in made beauty, and they had their first instruction from the same teachers, in the elementary of age. From here, love touched the wild chests of both, and gave wounds equally to each of the two, but there were unequal expectations. Ianthe anticipated her wedding day and the agreed upon marriage, believing he, Iphis, believed to be a man. Iphis loved, whom she despaired of being able to enjoy, and this itself increased her passion, a virgin girl burning for a virgin girl. Hardly restraining her tears, Iphis said ‘What exit remains for me, than held by the pain of a prodigious and new love, than having been known by no one? If the gods wanted to spare me they should have spared me; if not, and they wanted to destroy me, at least they had surrendered on a natural and wicked custom. Lest heifers do not burn with love for heifers, nor mare burn with love for mares: the ram burns for the sheep: the hind follows the stag. And just as birds fit together and among all animals, no female is attacked by lust for a female. I wish I did not exist! Lest that Crete might not fail to bear all monstrosity, Pasiphaë, the daughter of Sol, chose a bull, yet at least a male and female. My love, if truth is professed, is more intense than that. She at least chased after the hope of love, though the bull had her because of her deceit, and in the image of a cow, the one who was deceived was the male adulterer. |