It's even possible that illustrious figures, due to the esteem they will have for<hr>
your works, will have you discourse in languages that have not yet been invented, and that,<hr>
in the radiance of your glory, they think to add something to theirs by publishing them.<hr>
Speak therefore, Theopompe, speak therefore, Isocrates, of the virtues of Mausolus and of the love<hr>
of Artemisia so that all men may speak of them after you. But do not imagine that there is any<hr>
vanity in my request. No, Isocrates, I do not wish for you<hr>
to seek in my person or in my life something to make a splendid eulogy. I do not want<hr>
you to narrate that I was born with the crown of Halicarnassus. I do not want you<hr>
to reveal that, despite being a woman, I knew how to exercise the art of ruling. I do not want<hr>
you to teach posterity the extraordinary esteem that the great Xerxes had for me. I do not<hr>
want you to say that I made the journey to Greece with him. I do not want you to say<hr>
that I held the first place in his council and that my recommendations were always<hr>
followed. I do not want you to speak of the feats I accomplished during this war nor<hr>
the excessive reward that the Athenians would promise to anyone who delivered me<hr>
into their hands. I simply want you to affirm that Artemisia was queen of Caria because<hr>
she had married Mausolus who was king, that Artemisia never had any other passion than<hr>
that of loving her husband perfectly, that after losing him, she lost the desire to live, and<hr>
finally, after this misfortune, Artemisia's only concern was to perpetuate his memory.<hr>
But having said all these things and having praised Mausolus as much as he deserved, after having<hr>
exposed my grief, or rather my despair as intense as it is, do not forget to teach<hr>
posterity that after having built the most sumptuous monument ever seen, I could<hr>
not find an urn worthy of containing his ashes. Crystal, alabaster and all the precious stones<hr>
produced by nature did not seem to express my affection adequately. It<hr>
was not enough to be only magnificent and generous to give him a golden urn<hr>
covered with diamonds, but to offer him my heart as an urn, one had to be Artemisia.<hr>
       Here, Isocrates, I enclose the ashes of my beloved lord; here,<hr>
Theopompe, I deposit these precious relics, impatiently awaiting for his tomb<hr>
to be ready to receive this immortality that I have bestowed upon him. Is truly my heart which<hr>
must serve as an urn for the ashes of my dear Mausolus. I feel like I'm giving them a<hr>
new life by placing them this way, and it also seems that they communicate to me this chilling<hr>
deadliness that I feel. And it is right that Mausolus, having always been in my heart while he<hr>
was alive, is still there after his death. If I had put his ashes in this golden urn entirely<hr>
covered with jewels, perhaps over time, some unjust conqueror would come<hr>
to open his tomb, carry away the urn, disperse the ashes in the wind and separate my<hr>
ashes from those of Mausolus. But the way I proceed, we will be inseparable.<hr>
No tyrant can disturb my peace, for none exist capable of separating me from my<hr>
beloved lord.<hr>
<hr>
<hr>
                                                   10<hr>