BOOK VII.

Jason, by the aid of Medea, having conquered the bulls that breathe

forth flames, having sowed the teeth of a serpent, from which armed men

are produced, and having lulled the dragon to sleep, recovers the Golden

Fleece. Medea, accompanying Jason to Greece, restores Æson to youth by

the aid of drugs; and promising the same to Pelias, having first, as a

specimen, changed a ram into a lamb, by stratagem she kills him. Passing

through many places made remarkable by various transformations, and

having slain her children, she marries Ægeus, when Theseus returns home,

and narrowly escapes being poisoned by her magic potions. Minos

interrupts the joy of Ægeus on the return of his son, and wages war

against him; having collected troops from all parts, even from Paros,

where Arne has been changed into a jackdaw. Minos endeavours to gain the

alliance of Æacus, who, however, refuses it, and sends the Myrmidons,

(who have been changed into ants from men after a severe pestilence),

under the command of Cephalus to assist Ægeus. Cephalus relates to

Phocus, the son of Æacus, how, being carried off by Aurora and assuming

another shape, he had induced his wife Procris to prove faithless; and

how he had received from her a dog and a javelin, the former of which,

together with a fox, was changed into stone; while the latter, by

inadvertence, caused the death of his wife.

INTRODUCTION.

[By Edward Brooks, Jr., from McKay edition.]

P. Ovidius Naso--commonly known as Ovid--was born at Sulmo, about,

ninety miles from Rome, in the year 43 B.C. His father belonged to an

old equestrian family, and at an early age brought his son to Rome,

where he was educated under the most distinguished masters. Very little

is known of the poet’s life, except that which is gathered from his own

writings. After finishing his education at home he visited Athens, in

company with the poet Macer, for the purpose of completing his studies,

and before returning visited the magnificent cities of Asia Minor and

spent nearly a year in Sicily.

Although as a young man Ovid showed a natural taste and inclination for

poetical composition, he was by no means encouraged to indulge in this

pursuit. His father thought that the profession of law was much more apt

to lead to distinction and political eminence than the vocation of a

poet. He therefore dissuaded his son from writing poetry and urged him

to devote himself to the legal profession. Compliance with his father’s

wishes led him to spend much time in the forum, and for a while poetry

was abandoned. Upon attaining his majority, he held several minor

offices of state; but neither his health nor his inclinations would

permit him to perform the duties of public life. Poetry was his love,

and in spite of the strong objections of his father, he resolved to

abandon the law courts and devote himself to a more congenial

occupation. He sought the society of the most distinguished poets of the

day, and his admiration for them amounted almost to reverence. He

numbered among his intimate friends the poets Macer, Propertius,

Ponticus and Bassus, while Æmilius Macer, Virgil’s contemporary, used to

read his compositions to him, and even the fastidious Horace, it is

said, occasionally delighted the young man’s ear with the charm of his

verse.

Ovid was married three times. His first wife he married when little more

than a boy, and the union does not seem to have been a happy one, though

it was probably due to no fault of the wife. His second wife seems also

to have been of blameless character, but his love for her was of short

duration. His third wife was a lady of the great Fabian house and a

friend of the Empress Livia. She appears to have been a woman in every

way worthy of the great and lasting love which the poet lavished upon

her to the day of his death.

Up to the age of fifty Ovid had lived a life of prosperity and

happiness. Though not a wealthy man, his means were such as to permit

him to indulge in the luxuries of refined life, and his attainments as a

poet had surrounded him with a circle of most desirable friends and

admirers. He had even obtained the favor and patronage of the royal

family. About the year 8 A.D. he, however, incurred the great

displeasure of Augustus, and was ordered by him to withdraw from Rome

and dwell in the colony of Tomi, on the shore of the Euxine sea. Leaving

behind him a wife to whom he was devotedly attached he obeyed the edict

of his emperor and entered upon an exile from which he was destined

never to return. He died in banishment at Tomi in the year 18 A.D.

The exact reason for Ovid’s banishment has never been clear, though

there have been many conjectures as to the cause. About two years

previous to his exile Ovid had published a composition which had greatly

displeased Augustus, on account of its immoral tendency. Almost

coincident with this publication was the discovery of the scandal

relating to Julia, daughter of the emperor. It is probable that the

proximity of these two events tended to intensify the imperial

displeasure, and when some time later there was made public the intrigue

of the emperor’s granddaughter, the indignation of Augustus gave itself

vent in the banishment of Ovid.

The writings of Ovid consist of the _Amores_ in three books; the _Heroic

Epistles_, twenty-one in number; the _Ars Amatoria_; the _Remedia

Amoris_; the _Metamorphoses_, in fifteen books; the _Fasti_, in six

books; the _Tristia_, in five books; the _Epistles_, in four books, and

a few minor poems. In the following pages will be found a translation of

the _Metamorphoses_.

THE METAMORPHOSES.

BOOK THE FIRST.

THE ARGUMENT. [I.1-4]

My design leads me to speak of forms changed into new bodies.[1] Ye

Gods, (for you it was who changed them,) favor my attempts,[2] and bring

down the lengthened narrative from the very beginning of the world,

{even} to my own times.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Forms changed into new bodies._--Ver. 1. Some

commentators cite these words as an instance of Hypallage as being

used for ‘corpora mutata in novas formas,’ ‘bodies changed into

new forms;’ and they fancy that there is a certain beauty in the

circumstance that the proposition of a subject which treats of the

changes and variations of bodies should be framed with a

transposition of words. This supposition is perhaps based rather

on the exuberance of a fanciful imagination than on solid grounds,

as if it is an instance of Hypallage, it is most probably quite

accidental; while the passage may be explained without any

reference to Hypallage, as the word ‘forma’ is sometimes used to

signify the thing itself; thus the words ‘formæ deorum’ and

‘ferarum’ are used to signify ‘the Gods,’ or ‘the wild beasts’

themselves.]

[Footnote 2: _Favor my attempts._--Ver. 3. This use of the word

‘adspirate’ is a metaphor taken from the winds, which, while they

fill the ship’s sails, were properly said ‘adspirare.’ It has been

remarked, with some justice, that this invocation is not

sufficiently long or elaborate for a work of so grave and

dignified a nature as the Metamorphoses.]

[Footnote 3: _To my own times._--Ver. 4. That is, to the days of

Augustus Cæsar.]

FABLE I. [I.5-31]

God reduces Chaos into order. He separates the four elements, and

disposes the several bodies, of which the universe is formed, into

their proper situations.

At first, the sea, the earth, and the heaven, which covers all things,

were the only face of nature throughout the whole universe, which men

have named Chaos; a rude and undigested mass,[4] and nothing {more} than

an inert weight, and the discordant atoms of things not harmonizing,

heaped together in the same spot. No Sun[5] as yet gave light to the

world; nor did the Moon,[6] by increasing, recover her horns anew. The

Earth did not {as yet} hang in the surrounding air, balanced by its own

weight, nor had Amphitrite[7] stretched out her arms along the

lengthened margin of the coasts. Wherever, too, was the land, there also

was the sea and the air; {and} thus was the earth without firmness, the

sea unnavigable, the air void of light; in no one {of them} did its

{present} form exist. And one was {ever} obstructing the other; because

in the same body the cold was striving with the hot, the moist with the

dry, the soft with the hard, things having weight with {those} devoid of

weight.

To this discord God and bounteous Nature[8] put an end; for he separated

the earth from the heavens, and the waters from the earth, and

distinguished the clear heavens from the gross atmosphere. And after he

had unravelled these {elements}, and released them from {that} confused

heap, he combined them, {thus} disjoined, in harmonious unison, {each}

in {its proper} place. The element of the vaulted heaven,[9] fiery and

without weight, shone forth, and selected a place for itself in the

highest region; next after it, {both} in lightness and in place, was the

air; the Earth was more weighty than these, and drew {with it} the more

ponderous atoms, and was pressed together by its own gravity. The

encircling waters sank to the lowermost place,[10] and surrounded the

solid globe.

[Footnote 4: _A rude and undigested mass._--Ver. 7. This is very

similar to the words of the Scriptures, ‘And the earth was without

form and void,’ Genesis, ch. i. ver. 2.]

[Footnote 5: _No Sun._--Ver. 10. Titan. The Sun is so called, on

account of his supposed father, Hyperion, who was one of the

Titans. Hyperion is thought to have been the first who, by

assiduous observation, discovered the course of the Sun, Moon, and

other luminaries. By them he regulated the time for the seasons,

and imparted this knowledge to others. Being thus, as it were, the

father of astronomy, he has been feigned by the poets to have been

the father of the Sun and the Moon.]

[Footnote 6: _The Moon._--Ver. 11. Phœbe. The Moon is so called

from the Greek φοῖβος, ‘shining,’ and as being the sister of

Phœbus, Apollo, or the Sun.]

[Footnote 7: _Amphitrite._--Ver. 14. She was the daughter of

Oceanus and Doris, and the wife of Neptune, God of the Sea. Being

the Goddess of the Ocean, her name is here used to signify the

ocean itself.]

[Footnote 8: _Nature._--Ver. 21. ‘Natura’ is a word often used by

the Poet without any determinate signification, and to its

operations are ascribed all those phenomena which it is found

difficult or impossible to explain upon known and established

principles. In the present instance it may be considered to mean

the invisible agency of the Deity in reducing Chaos into a form of

order and consistency. ‘Et’ is therefore here, as grammarians term

it, an expositive particle; as if the Poet had said, ‘Deus sive

natura,’ ‘God, or in other words, nature.’]

[Footnote 9: _The element of the vaulted heaven._--Ver. 26. This

is a periphrasis, signifying the regions of the firmament or upper

air, in which the sun and stars move; which was supposed to be of

the purest fire and the source of all flame. The heavens are

called ‘convex,’ from being supposed to assume the same shape as

the terrestrial globe which they surround.]

[Footnote 10: _The lowermost place._--Ver. 31. ‘Ultima’ must not

be here understood in the presence of ‘infima,’ or as signifying

‘last,’ or ‘lowest,’ in a strict philosophical sense, for that

would contradict the account of the formation of the world given

by Hesiod, and which is here closely followed by Ovid; indeed, it

would contradict his own words,--‘Circumfluus humor coercuit

solidum orbem.’ The meaning seems to be, that the waters possess

the lowest place only in respect to the earth whereon we tread,

and not relatively to the terrestrial globe, the supposed centre

of the system, inasmuch as the external surface of the earth in

some places rises considerably, and leaves the water to subside in

channels.]

EXPLANATION.

The ancient philosophers, unable to comprehend how something could be

produced out of nothing, supposed a matter pre-existent to the Earth

in its present shape, which afterwards received form and order from

some powerful cause. According to them, God was not the Creator, but

the Architect of the universe, in ranging and disposing the elements

in situations most suitable to their respective qualities. This is the

Chaos so often sung of by the poets, and which Hesiod was the first to

mention.

It is clear that this system was but a confused and disfigured

tradition of the creation of the world, as mentioned by Moses; and

thus, beneath these fictions, there lies some faint glimmering of

truth. The first two chapters of the book of Genesis will be found to

throw considerable light on the foundation of this Mythological system

of the world’s formation.

Hesiod, the most ancient of the heathen writers who have enlarged upon

this subject, seems to have derived much of his information from the

works of Sanchoniatho, who is supposed to have borrowed his ideas

concerning Chaos from that passage in the second verse of the first

Chapter of Genesis, which mentions the darkness that was spread over

the whole universe--‘and darkness was upon the face of the deep’--for

he expresses himself almost in those words. Sanchoniatho lived before

the Trojan war, and professed to have received his information

respecting the original construction of the world from a priest of

‘Jehovah,’ named Jerombaal. He wrote in the Phœnician language; but we

have only a translation of his works, by Philo Judæus, which is by

many supposed to be spurious. It is, however, very probable, that from

him the Greeks borrowed their notions regarding Chaos, which they

mingled with fables of their own invention.

FABLE II. [I.32-88]

After the separation of matter, God gives form and regularity to the

universe; and all other living creatures being produced, Prometheus

moulds earth tempered with water, into a human form, which is animated

by Minerva.

When thus he, whoever of the Gods he was,[11] had divided the mass {so}

separated, and reduced it, so divided, into {distinct} members; in the

first place, that it might not be unequal on any side, he gathered it up

into the form of a vast globe; then he commanded the sea to be poured

around it, and to grow boisterous with the raging winds, and to surround

the shores of the Earth, encompassed {by it}; he added also springs, and

numerous pools and lakes, and he bounded the rivers as they flowed

downwards, with slanting banks. These, different in {different} places,

are some of them swallowed up[12] by {the Earth} itself; some of them

reach the ocean, and, received in the expanse of waters that take a

freer range, beat against shores instead of banks.

He commanded the plains,[13] too, to be extended, the valleys to sink

down, the woods to be clothed with green leaves, the craggy mountains to

arise; and, as on the right-hand side,[14] two Zones intersect the

heavens, and as many on the left; {and as} there is a fifth hotter than

these, so did the care of the Deity distinguish this enclosed mass {of

the Earth} by the same number, and as many climates are marked out upon

the Earth. Of these, that which is the middle one[15] is not habitable

on account of the heat; deep snow covers two[16] {of them}. Between

either these he placed as many more,[17] and gave them a temperate

climate, heat being mingled with cold.

Over these hangs the air, which is heavier than fire, in the same degree

that the weight of water is lighter than the weight of the earth. Here

he ordered vapors, here too, the clouds to take their station; the

thunder, too, to terrify the minds of mortals, and with the lightnings,

the winds that bring on cold. The Contriver of the World did not allow

these indiscriminately to take possession of the sky. Even now,

(although they each of them govern their own blasts in a distinct tract)

they are with great difficulty prevented from rending the world asunder,

so great is the discord of the brothers.[18] Eurus took his way[19]

towards {the rising of} Aurora and the realms of Nabath[20] and Persia,

and the mountain ridges exposed to the rays of the morning. The Evening

star, and the shores which are warm with the setting sun, are bordering

upon Zephyrus.[21] The terrible Boreas invaded Scythia,[22] and the

regions of the North. The opposite quarter is wet with continual clouds,

and the drizzling South Wind.[23] Over these he placed the firmament,

clear and devoid of gravity, and not containing anything of the dregs of

earth.

Scarcely had he separated all these by fixed limits, when the stars,

which had long lain hid, concealed beneath that mass {of Chaos}, began

to glow through the range of the heavens. And that no region might be

destitute of its own {peculiar} animated beings, the stars and the forms

of the Gods[24] possess the tract of heaven; the waters fell to be

inhabited by the smooth fishes;[25] the Earth received the wild beasts,

{and} the yielding air the birds.

{But} an animated being, more holy than these, more fitted to receive

higher faculties, and which could rule over the rest,[26] was still

wanting. {Then} Man was formed. Whether it was that the Artificer of all

things, the original of the world in its improved state, framed him from

divine elements;[27] or whether, the Earth, being newly made, and but

lately divided from the lofty æther, still retained some atoms of its

kindred heaven, which, tempered with the waters of the stream, the son

of Iapetus fashioned after the image of the Gods, who rule over all

things. And, whereas other animals bend their looks downwards upon the

Earth, to Man he gave a countenance to look on high and to behold the

heavens, and to raise his face erect to the stars. Thus, that which had

been lately rude earth, and without any regular shape, being changed,

assumed the form of Man, {till then} unknown.

[Footnote 11: _Whoever of the Gods he was._--Ver. 32. By this

expression the Poet perhaps may intend to intimate that the God

who created the world was some more mighty Divinity than those who

were commonly accounted Deities.]

[Footnote 12: _Are some of them swallowed up._--Ver. 40. He here

refers to those rivers which, at some distance from their sources,

disappear and continue their course under ground. Such was the

stream of Arethusa, the Lycus in Asia, the Erasinus in Argolis,

the Alpheus in Peloponnesus, the Arcas in Spain, and the Rhone in

France. Most of these, however, after descending into the earth,

appear again and discharge their waters into the sea.]

[Footnote 13: _He commanded the plains._--Ver. 43. The use here of

the word ‘jussit,’ signifying ‘ordered,’ or ‘commanded,’ is

considered as being remarkably sublime and appropriate, and

serving well to express the ease wherewith an infinitely powerful

Being accomplishes the most difficult works. There is the same

beauty here that was long since remarked by Longinus, one of the

most celebrated critics among the ancients, in the words used by

Moses, ‘And God said, Let there be light, and there was light,’

Genesis, ch. i. ver. 3.]

[Footnote 14: _On the right-hand side._--Ver. 45. The “right hand”

here refers to the northern part of the globe, and the “left hand”

to the southern. He here speaks of the zones. Astronomers have

divided the heavens into five parallel circles. First, the

equinoctial, which lies in the middle, between the poles of the

earth, and obtains its name from the equality of days and nights

on the earth while the sun is in its plane. On each side are the

two tropics, at the distance of 23 deg. 30 min., and described by

the sun when in his greatest declination north and south, or at

the summer and winter solstices. That on the north side of the

equinoctial is called the tropic of Cancer, because the sun

describes it when in that sign of the ecliptic; and that on the

south side is, for a similar reason, called the tropic of

Capricorn. Again, at the distance of 23½ degrees from the poles

are two other parallels called the polar circles, either because

they are near to the poles, or because, if we suppose the whole

frame of the heavens to turn round on the plane of the

equinoctial, these circles are marked out by the poles of the

ecliptic. By means of these parallels, astronomers have divided

the heavens into four zones or tracks. The whole space between the

two tropics is the middle or torrid zone, which the equinoctial

divides into two equal parts. On each side of this are the

temperate zones, which extend from the tropics to the two polar

circles. And lastly, the portions enclosed by the polar circles

make up the frigid zones. As the planes of these circles produced

till they reached the earth, would also impress similar parallels

upon it, and divide it in the same manner as they divide the

heavens, astronomers have conceived five zones upon the earth,

corresponding to those in the heavens, and bounded by the same

circles.]

[Footnote 15: _That which is the middle one._--Ver. 49. The

ecliptic in which the sun moves, cuts the equator in two opposite

points, at an angle of 23½ degrees; and runs obliquely from one

tropic to another, and returns again in a corresponding direction.

Hence, the sun, which in the space of a year, performs the

revolution of this circle, must in that time be twice vertical to

every place in the torrid zone, except directly under the tropics,

and his greatest distance from their zenith at noon, cannot exceed

47 degrees. Thus his rays being often perpendicular, or nearly so,

and never very oblique, must strike more forcibly, and cause more

intense heat in that spot. Being little acquainted with the extent

and situation of the earth, the ancients believed it

uninhabitable. Modern discovery has shown that this is not the

case as to a considerable part of the torrid zone, though with

some parts of it our acquaintance is still very limited.]

[Footnote 16: _Deep snow covers two._--Ver. 50. The two polar or

frigid zones. For as the sun never approaches these nearer than

the tropic on that side, and is, during one part of the year,

removed by the additional extent of the whole torrid zone, his

rays must be very oblique and faint, so as to leave these tracts

exposed to almost perpetual cold.]

[Footnote 17: _He placed as many more._--Ver. 51. The temperate

zones, lying between the torrid and the frigid, partake of the

character of each in a modified degree, and are of a middle

temperature between hot and cold. Here, too, the distinction of

the seasons is manifest. For in either temperate zone, when the

sun is in that tropic, which borders upon it, being nearly

vertical, the heat must be considerable, and produce summer; but

when he is removed to the other tropic by a distance of 47

degrees, his rays will strike but faintly, and winter will be the

consequence. The intermediate spaces, while he is moving from one

tropic to the other, make spring and autumn.]

[Footnote 18: _The brothers._--Ver. 60. That is, the winds, who,

according to the Theogony of Hesiod, were the sons of Astreus, the

giant, and Aurora.]

[Footnote 19: _Eurus took his way._--Ver. 61. The Poet, after

remarking that the air is the proper region of the winds, proceeds

to take notice that God, to prevent them from making havoc of the

creation, subjected them to particular laws, and assigned to each

the quarter whence to direct his blasts. Eurus is the east wind,

being so called from its name, because it blows from the east. As

Aurora, or the morning, was always ushered in by the sun, who

rises eastward, she was supposed to have her habitation in the

eastern quarter of the world; and often, in the language of

ancient poetry, her name signifies the east.]

[Footnote 20: _The realms of Nabath._--Ver. 61. From Josephus we

learn that Nabath, the son of Ishmael, with his eleven brothers,

took possession of all the country from the river Euphrates to the

Red Sea, and called it Nabathæa. Pliny the Elder and Strabo speak

of the Nabatæi as situated between Babylon and Arabia Felix, and

call their capital Petra. Tacitus, in his Annals (Book ii.

ch. 57), speaks of them as having a king. Perhaps the term

‘Nabathæa regna’ implies here, generally, the whole of Arabia.]

[Footnote 21: _Are bordering upon Zephyrus._--Ver. 63. The region

where the sun sets, that is to say, the western part of the world,

was assigned by the ancients to the Zephyrs, or west winds, so

called by a Greek derivation because they cherish and enliven

nature.]

[Footnote 22: _Boreas invaded Scythia._--Ver. 34. Under the name

of Scythia, the ancients generally comprehended all the countries

situate in the extreme northern regions. ‘Septem trio,’ meaning

the northern region of the world, is so called from the ‘Triones,’

a constellation of seven stars, near the North Pole, known also as

the Ursa Major, or Greater Bear, and among the country people of

our time by the name of Charles’s Wain. Boreas, one of the names

of ‘Aquilo,’ or the ‘north wind,’ is derived from a Greek word,

signifying ‘an eddy.’ This name was probably given to it from its

causing whirlwinds occasionally by its violence.]

[Footnote 23: _The drizzling South Wind._--Ver. 66. The South Wind

is especially called rainy, because, blowing from the

Mediterranean sea on the coast of France and Italy, it generally

brings with it clouds and rain.]

[Footnote 24: _The forms of the Gods._--Ver. 73. There is some

doubt what the Poet here means by the ‘forms of the Gods.’ Some

think that the stars are meant, as if it were to be understood

that they are forms of the Gods. But it is most probably only a

poetical expression for the Gods themselves, and he here assigns

the heavens as the habitation of the Gods and the stars; these

last, according to the notion of the Platonic philosophers being

either intelligent beings, or guided and actuated by such.]

[Footnote 25: _Inhabited by the smooth fishes._--Ver. 74.

‘Cesserunt nitidis habitandæ piscibus;’ Clarke translates ‘fell

to the neat fishes to inhabit.’]

[Footnote 26: _Could rule over the rest._--Ver. 77. This strongly

brings to mind the words of the Creator, described in the first

chapter of Genesis, ver. 28. ‘And God said unto them--_have

dominion_ over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,

and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’]

[Footnote 27: _Framed him from divine elements._--Ver. 78. We have

here strong grounds for contending that the ancient philosophers,

and after them the poets, in their account of the creation of the

world followed a tradition that had been copied from the Books of

Moses. The formation of man, in Ovid, as well as in the Book of

Genesis, is the last work of the Creator, and was, for the same

purpose, that man might have dominion over the other animated

works of the creation.]

EXPLANATION.

According to Ovid, as in the book of Genesis, man is the last work of

the Creator. The information derived from Holy Writ is here presented

to us, in a disfigured form. Prometheus, who tempers the earth, and

Minerva, who animates his workmanship, is God, who formed man, and

‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.’

Some writers have labored to prove that this Prometheus, of the

heathen Mythology, was a Scriptural character. Bochart believes him to

have been the same with Magog, mentioned in the book of Genesis.

Prometheus was the son of Iapetus, and Magog was the son of Japhet,

who, according to that learned writer, was identical with Iapetus. He

says, that as Magog went to settle in Scythia, so did Prometheus; as

Magog either invented, or improved, the art of founding metals, and

forging iron, so, according to the heathen poets, did Prometheus.

Diodorus Siculus asserts that Prometheus was the first to teach

mankind how to produce fire from the flint and steel.

The fable of Prometheus being devoured by an eagle, according to some,

is founded on the name of Magog, which signifies ‘a man devoured by

sorrow.’ Le Clerc, in his notes on Hesiod, says, that Epimetheus, the

brother of Prometheus, was the same with the Gog of Scripture, the

brother of Magog. Some writers, again, have exerted their ingenuity to

prove that Prometheus is identical with the patriarch Noah.

FABLE III. [I.89-112]

The formation of man is followed by a succession of the four ages of

the world. The first is the Golden Age, during which Innocence and

Justice alone govern the world.

The Golden Age was first founded, which, without any avenger, of its own

accord, without laws, practised both faith and rectitude. Punishment,

and the fear {of it}, did not exist, and threatening decrees were not

read upon the brazen {tables},[28] fixed up {to view}, nor {yet} did the

suppliant multitude dread the countenance of its judge; but {all} were

in safety without any avenger. The pine-tree, cut from its {native}

mountains, had not yet descended to the flowing waves, that it might

visit a foreign region; and mortals were acquainted with no shores

beyond their own. Not as yet did deep ditches surround the towns; no

trumpets of straightened, or clarions of crooked brass,[29] no helmets,

no swords {then} existed. Without occasion for soldiers, the minds {of

men}, free from care, enjoyed an easy tranquillity.

The Earth itself, too, in freedom, untouched by the harrow, and wounded

by no ploughshares, of its own accord produced everything; and men,

contented with the food created under no compulsion, gathered the fruit

of the arbute-tree, and the strawberries of the mountain, and cornels,

and blackberries adhering to the prickly bramble-bushes, and acorns

which had fallen from the wide-spreading tree of Jove. {Then} it was an

eternal spring; and the gentle Zephyrs, with their soothing breezes,

cherished the flowers produced without any seed. Soon, too, the Earth

unploughed yielded crops of grain, and the land, without being renewed,

was whitened with the heavy ears of corn. Then, rivers of milk, then,

rivers of nectar were flowing, and the yellow honey was distilled from

the green holm oak.

[Footnote 28: _Read upon the brazen tables._--Ver. 91. It was the

custom among the Romans to engrave their laws on tables of brass,

and fix them in the Capitol, or some other conspicuous place, that

they might be open to the view of all.]

[Footnote 29: _Clarions of crooked brass._--Ver. 98. ‘Cornu’ seems

to have been a general name for the horn or trumpet; whereas the

“tuba” was a straight trumpet, while the ‘lituus’ was bent into a

spiral shape. Lydus says that the ‘lituus’ was the sacerdotal

trumpet, and that it was employed by Romulus when he proclaimed

the title of his newly-founded city. Acro says that it was

peculiar to the cavalry, while the ‘tuba’ belonged to the

infantry. The notes of the ‘lituus’ are usually described as harsh

and shrill.]

EXPLANATION.

The heathen poets had learned, most probably from tradition, that our

first parents lived for some time in peaceful innocence; that, without

tillage, the garden of Eden furnished them with fruit and food in

abundance; and that the animals were submissive to their commands:

that after the fall the ground became unfruitful, and yielded nothing

without labor; and that nature no longer spontaneously acknowledged

man for its master. The more happy days of our first parents they seem

to have styled the Golden Age, each writer being desirous to make his

own country the scene of those times of innocence. The Latin writers,

for instance, have placed in Italy, and under the reign of Saturn and

Janus, events, which, as they really happened, the Scriptures relate

in the histories of Adam and of Noah.

FABLE IV. [I.113-150]

In the Silver Age, men begin not to be so just, nor, consequently, so

happy, as in the Golden Age. In the Brazen Age, which succeeds, they

become yet less virtuous; but their wickedness does not rise to its

highest pitch until the Iron Age, when it makes its appearance in all

its deformity.

Afterwards (Saturn being driven into the shady realms of Tartarus), the

world was under the sway of Jupiter; {then} the Silver Age succeeded,

inferior to {that of} gold, but more precious than {that of} yellow

brass. Jupiter shortened the duration of the former spring, and divided

the year into four periods by means of winters, and summers, and

unsteady autumns, and short springs. Then, for the first time, did the

parched air glow with sultry heat, and the ice, bound up by the winds,

was pendant. Then, for the first time, did men enter houses; {those}

houses were caverns, and thick shrubs, and twigs fastened together with

bark. Then, for the first time, were the seeds of Ceres buried in long

furrows, and the oxen groaned, pressed by the yoke {of the ploughshare}.

The Age of Brass succeeded, as the third {in order}, after these;

fiercer in disposition, and more prone to horrible warfare, but yet free

from impiety. The last {Age} was of hard iron. Immediately every species

of crime burst forth, in this age of degenerated tendencies;[30]

modesty, truth, and honor took flight; in their place succeeded fraud,

deceit, treachery, violence, and the cursed hankering for acquisition.

The sailor now spread his sails to the winds, and with these, as yet, he

was but little acquainted; and {the trees}, which had long stood on the

lofty mountains, now, {as} ships bounded[31] through the unknown waves.

The ground, too, hitherto common as the light of the sun and the

breezes, the cautious measurer marked out with his lengthened boundary.

And not only was the rich soil required to furnish corn and due

sustenance, but men even descended into the entrails of the Earth; and

riches were dug up, the incentives to vice, which the Earth had hidden,

and had removed to the Stygian shades.[32] Then destructive iron came

forth, and gold, more destructive than iron; then War came forth, that

fights through the means of both,[33] and that brandishes in his

blood-stained hands the clattering arms. Men live by rapine; the guest

is not safe from his entertainer, nor the father-in-law from the

son-in-law; good feeling, too, between brothers is a rarity. The husband

is eager for the death of the wife, she {for that} of her husband.

Horrible stepmothers {then} mingle the ghastly wolfsbane; the son

prematurely makes inquiry[34] into the years of his father. Piety lies

vanquished, and the virgin Astræa[35] is the last of the heavenly

{Deities} to abandon the Earth, {now} drenched in slaughter.

[Footnote 30: _Age of degenerated tendencies._--Ver. 128. ‘Vena’

signifies among other things, a vein or track of metal as it lies

in the mine. Literally, ‘venæ pejoris’ signifies ‘of inferior

metal.’]

[Footnote 31: _Now as ships bounded._--Ver. 134. ‘Insultavere

carinæ.’ This line is translated by Clarke, ‘The keel-pieces

bounced over unknown waves.’]

[Footnote 32: _To the Stygian shades._--Ver. 139. That is, in deep

caverns, and towards the centre of the earth; for Styx was feigned

to be a river of the Infernal Regions, situate in the depths of

the earth.]

[Footnote 33: _Through the means of both._--Ver. 142. Gold forms,

perhaps, more properly the sinews of war than iron. The history of

Philip of Macedon gives a proof of this, as he conquered Greece

more by bribes than the sword, and used to say, that he deemed no

fortress impregnable, where there was a gate large enough to admit

a camel laden with gold.]

[Footnote 34: _Prematurely makes inquiry._--Ver. 148. Namely, by

inquiring of the magicians and astrologers, that by their skill in

casting nativities, they might inform them the time when their

parents were likely to die, and to leave them their property.]

[Footnote 35: _Astræa._--Ver. 150. She was the daughter of Astræus

and Aurora, or of Jupiter and Themis, and was the Goddess of

Justice. On leaving the earth, she was supposed to have taken her

place among the stars as the Constellation of the Virgin.]

EXPLANATION.

The Poet here informs us, that during the Golden Age, a perpetual

spring reigned on the earth, and that the division of the year into

seasons was not known until the Silver Age. This allusion to Eden is

very generally to be found in the works of the heathen poets. The

Silver Age is succeeded by the Brazen, and that is followed by the

Iron Age, which still continues. The meaning is, that man gradually

degenerated from his primeval innocence, and arrived at that state of

wickedness and impiety, of which the history of all ages, ancient and

modern, presents us with so many lamentable examples.

The limited nature of their views, and the fact that their exuberant

fancy was the source from which they derived many of their alleged

events, naturally betrayed the ancient writers into great

inconsistencies. For in the Golden Age of Saturn, we find wars waged,

and crimes committed. Saturn expelled his father, and seized his

throne; Jupiter, his son, treated Saturn as he had done his father

Uranus; and Jupiter, in his turn, had to wage war against the Giants,

in their attempt to dispossess him of the heavens.

FABLE V. [I.151-162]

The Giants having attempted to render themselves masters of heaven,

Jupiter buries them under the mountains which they have heaped

together to facilitate their assault; and the Earth, animating their

blood, forms out of it a cruel and fierce generation of men.

And that the lofty {realms of} æther might not be more safe than the

Earth, they say that the Giants aspired to the sovereignty of Heaven,

and piled the mountains, heaped together, even to the lofty stars. Then

the omnipotent Father, hurling his lightnings, broke through

Olympus,[36] and struck Ossa away from Pelion, that lay beneath it.

While the dreadful carcasses lay overwhelmed beneath their own

structure, they say that the Earth was wet, drenched with the plenteous

blood of her sons, and that she gave life to the warm gore; and that,

lest no memorial of this ruthless race should be surviving, she shaped

them into the form of men. But that generation, too, was a despiser of

the Gods above, and most greedy of ruthless slaughter, and full of

violence: you might see that they derived their origin from blood.

[Footnote 36: _Olympus._--Ver. 154. Olympus was a mountain between

Thessaly and Macedonia. Pelion was a mountain of Thessaly, towards

the Pelasgic gulf; and Ossa was a mountain between Olympus and

Pelion. These the Giants are said to have heaped one on another,

in order to scale heaven.]

EXPLANATION.

The war of the giants, which is here mentioned, is not to be

confounded with that between Jupiter and the Titans, who were

inhabitants of heaven. The fall of the angels, as conveyed by

tradition, probably gave rise to the story of the Titans; while,

perhaps, the building of the tower of Babel may have laid the

foundation of that of the attempt by the giants to reach heaven.

Perhaps, too, the descendants of Cain, who are probably the persons

mentioned in Scripture as the children ‘of men’ and ‘giants,’ were the

race depicted under the form of the Giants, and the generation that

sprung from their blood. See Genesis, ch. vi. ver. 2, 4.

FABLE VI. [I.163-215]

Jupiter, having seen the crimes of this impious race of men, calls a

council of the Gods, and determines to destroy the world.

When the Father {of the Gods}, the son of Saturn, beheld this from his

loftiest height, he groaned aloud; and recalling to memory the polluted

banquet on the table of Lycaon, not yet publicly known, from the crime

being but lately committed, he conceives in his mind vast wrath, and

such as is worthy of Jove, and calls together a council; no delay

detains them, thus summoned.

There is a way on high,[37] easily seen in a clear sky, and which,

remarkable for its very whiteness, receives the name of the Milky {Way}.

Along this is the way for the Gods above to the abode of the great

Thunderer and his royal palace. On the right and on the left side the

courts of the ennobled Deities[38] are thronged, with open gates. The

{Gods of} lower rank[39] inhabit various places; in front {of the Way},

the powerful and illustrious inhabitants of Heaven have established

their residence. This is the place which, if boldness may be allowed to

my expression, I should not hesitate to style the palatial residence of

Heaven. When, therefore, the Gods above had taken their seats in the

marble hall of assembly; he himself, elevated on his seat, and leaning

on his sceptre of ivory, three or four times shook the awful locks[40]

of his head, with which he makes the Earth, the Seas, and the Stars to

tremble. Then, after such manner as this, did he open his indignant

lips:--

“Not {even} at that time was I more concerned for the empire of the

universe, when each of the snake-footed monsters was endeavoring to lay

his hundred arms on the captured skies. For although that was a

dangerous enemy, yet that war was with but one stock, and sprang from a

single origin. Now must the race of mortals be cut off by me, wherever

Nereus[41] roars on all sides of the earth; {this} I swear by the Rivers

of Hell, that glide in the Stygian grove beneath the earth. All methods

have been already tried; but a wound that admits of no cure, must be cut

away with the knife, that the sound parts may not be corrupted. I have

{as subjects}, Demigods, and I have the rustic Deities, the Nymphs,[42]

and the Fauns, and the Satyrs, and the Sylvans, the inhabitants of the

mountains; these, though as yet, we have not thought them worthy of the

honor of Heaven, let us, at least, permit to inhabit the earth which we

have granted them. And do you, ye Gods of Heaven, believe that they will

be in proper safety, when Lycaon remarkable for his cruelty, has formed

a plot against {even} me, who own and hold sway over the thunder and

yourselves?”

All shouted their assent aloud, and with ardent zeal they called for

vengeance on one who dared such {crimes}. Thus, when an impious band[43]

{madly} raged to extinguish the Roman name in the blood of Cæsar, the

human race was astonished with sudden terror at ruin so universal, and

the whole earth shook with horror. Nor was the affectionate regard,

Augustus, of thy subjects less grateful to thee, than that was to

Jupiter. Who, after he had, by means of his voice and his hand,

suppressed their murmurs, all of them kept silence. Soon as the clamor

had ceased, checked by the authority of their ruler, Jupiter again broke

silence in these words:

“He, indeed, (dismiss your cares) has suffered {dire} punishment; but

what was the offence and what the retribution, I will inform you. The

report of the iniquity of the age had reached my ears; wishing to find

this not to be the truth, I descended from the top of Olympus, and,

a God in a human shape, I surveyed the earth. ’Twere an endless task to

enumerate how great an amount of guilt was everywhere discovered; the

report itself was below the truth.”

[Footnote 37: _There is a way on high._--Ver. 168. The Poet here

gives a description of the court of heaven; and supposing the

galaxy, or Milky Way, to be the great road to the palace of

Jupiter, places the habitations of the Gods on each side of it,

and adjoining the palace itself. The mythologists also invented a

story, that the Milky Way was a track left in the heavens by the

milk of Juno flowing from the mouth of Hercules, when suckled by

her. Aristotle, however, suspected what has been since confirmed

by the investigations of modern science, that it was formed by the

light of innumerable stars.]

[Footnote 38: _The ennobled Deities._--Ver. 172. These were the

superior Deities, who formed the privy councillors of Jupiter, and

were called ‘Di majorum gentium,’ or, ‘Di consentes.’ Reckoning

Jupiter as one, they were twelve in number, and are enumerated by

Ennius in two limping hexameter lines:--

‘Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars,

Mercurius, Jovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo.’]

[Footnote 39: _The Gods of lower rank._--Ver. 173. These were the

‘Dii minorum gentium,’ or inferior Deities.]

[Footnote 40: _Shook the awful locks._--Ver. 179. This awful nod

of Jupiter, the sanction by which he confirms his decrees, is an

idea taken from Homer; by whom it is so vividly depicted at the

end of the first book of the Iliad, that Phidias, in his statue of

that God, admired for the awful majesty of its looks, is said to

have derived his conception of the features from that description.

Virgil has the same idea in the Æneid, book x; ‘Annuit, et totum

metu tremefecit Olympum.’]

[Footnote 41: _Nereus._--Ver. 187. He was one of the most ancient

of the Deities of the sea, and was the son of Oceanus and Tethys.]

[Footnote 42: _The Nymphs._--Ver. 192. The terrestrial Nymphs were

the Dryads and Hamadryads, who haunting the woods, and the

duration of their existence depending upon the life of particular

trees, derived their name from the Greek word δρῦς, ‘an oak.’ The

Oreades were nymphs who frequented the mountains, while the Napeæ

lived in the groves and valleys. There were also Nymphs of the sea

and of the rivers; of which, the Nereids were so called from their

father Nereus, and the Oceanitides, from Oceanus. There were also

the Naiads, or nymphs of the fountains, and many others.]

[Footnote 43: _Thus when an impious band._--Ver. 200. It is a

matter of doubt whether he here refers to the conspiracies of

Brutus and Cassius against Julius Cæsar, or whether to that

against Augustus, which is mentioned by Suetonius, in the

nineteenth chapter of his History. As Augustus survived the latter

conspiracy, and the parallel is thereby rendered more complete,

probably this is the circumstance here alluded to.]

EXPLANATION.

It is to be presumed, that Ovid here follows the prevailing tradition

of his time; and it is surprising how closely that tradition adheres

to the words of Scripture, relative to the determination of the

Almighty to punish the earth by a deluge, as disclosed in the sixth

chapter of Genesis. The Poet tells us, that the King of heaven calls

the Gods to a grand council, to deliberate upon the punishment of

mankind, in retribution for their wickedness. The words of Scripture

are, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,

and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil

continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the

earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, ‘I will

destroy man, whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man

and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air: for it

repenteth me that I have made them.’” --Genesis, ch. vi. ver. 5, 6, 7.

Tradition seems to have faithfully carried down the fact, that, amid

this universal corruption, there was still at least one just man, and

here it attributes to Deucalion the merit that belonged to Noah.

FABLE VII. [I.216-243]

Lycaon, king of Arcadia, in order to discover if it is Jupiter himself

who has come to lodge in his palace, orders the body of an hostage,

who had been sent to him, to be dressed and served up at a feast. The

God, as a punishment, changes him into a wolf.

I had {now} passed Mænalus, to be dreaded for its dens of beasts of

prey, and the pine-groves of cold Lycæus, together with Cyllene.[44]

After this, I entered the realms and the inhospitable abode of the

Arcadian tyrant, just as the late twilight was bringing on the night.

I gave a signal that a God had come, and the people commenced to pay

their adorations. In the first place, Lycaon derided their pious

supplications. Afterwards, he said, I will make trial, by a plain proof,

whether this is a God, or whether he is a mortal; nor shall the truth

remain a matter of doubt. He then makes preparations to destroy me, when

sunk in sleep, by an unexpected death; this mode of testing the truth

pleases him. And not content with that, with the sword he cuts the

throat of an hostage that had been sent from the nation of the

Molossians,[45] and then softens part of the quivering limbs, in boiling

water, and part he roasts with fire placed beneath. Soon as he had

placed these on the table, I, with avenging flames, overthrew the house

upon the household Gods,[46] worthy of their master. Alarmed, he himself

takes to flight, and having reached the solitude of the country, he

howls aloud, and in vain attempts to speak; his mouth gathers rage from

himself, and through its {usual} desire for slaughter, it is directed

against the sheep, and even still delights in blood. His garments are

changed into hair, his arms into legs; he becomes a wolf, and he still

retains vestiges of his ancient form. His hoariness is still the same,

the same violence {appears} in his features; his eyes are bright as

before; {he is still} the same image of ferocity.

“Thus fell one house; but one house alone did not deserve to perish;

wherever the earth extends, the savage Erinnys[47] reigns. You would

suppose that men had conspired to be wicked; let all men speedily feel

that vengeance which they deserve to endure, for such is my

determination.”

[Footnote 44: _Together with Cyllene._--Ver. 217. Cyllenus, or

Cyllene, was a mountain of Arcadia, sacred to Mercury, who was

hence called by the poets Cyllenius. Lycæus was also a mountain of

Arcadia, sacred to Pan, and was covered with groves of

pine-trees.]

[Footnote 45: _Of the Molossians._--Ver. 226. The Molossi were a

people of Epirus, on the eastern side of the Ambracian gulf. Ovid

here commits a slight anachronism, as the name was derived from

Molossus, the son of Neoptolemus, long after the time of Lycaon.

Besides, as Burmann observes, who could believe that ‘wars could

be waged at such an early period between nations so distant as the

Molossi and the Arcadians?’ Apollodorus says, that it was a child

of the same country, whose flesh Lycaon set before Jupiter. Other

writers say that it was Nyctimus, the son of Lycaon, or Arcas, his

grandson, that was slain by him.]

[Footnote 46: _Upon the household Gods._--Ver. 231. This

punishment was awarded to the Penates, or household Gods of

Lycaon, for taking such a miscreant under their protection.]

[Footnote 47: _The savage Erinnys._--Ver. 241. Erinnys was a

general name given to the Furies by the Greeks. They were three in

number--Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra. These were so called,

either from the Greek ἔρις νοῦ, ‘the discord of the mind,’ or from

ἐν τῇ ἔρα ναίειν, ‘their inhabiting the earth,’ watching the

actions of men.]

EXPLANATION.

If Ovid is not here committing an anachronism, and making Jupiter,

before the deluge, relate the story of a historical personage, who

existed long after it, the origin of the story of Lycaon must be

sought in the antediluvian narrative. It is just possible that the

guilty Cain may have been the original of Lycaon. The names are not

very dissimilar: they are each mentioned as the first murderer; and

the fact, that Cain murdered Abel at the moment when he was offering

sacrifice to the Almighty, may have given rise to the tradition that

Lycaon had set human flesh before the king of heaven. The Scripture,

too, tells us, that Cain was personally called to account by the

Almighty for his deed of blood.

The punishment here inflicted on Lycaon was not very dissimilar to

that with which Cain was visited. Cain was sentenced to be a fugitive

and a wanderer on the face of the earth; and such is essentially the

character of the wolf, shunned by both men and animals. Of course,

there are many points to which it is not possible to extend the

parallel. Some of the ancient writers tell us, that there were two

Lycaons, the first of whom was the son of Phoroneus, who reigned in

Arcadia about the time of the patriarch Jacob; and the second, who

succeeded him, polluted the festivals of the Gods by the sacrifice of

the human race; for, having erected an altar to Jupiter, at the city

of Lycosura, he slew human victims on it, whence arose the story

related by the Poet. This solution is given by Pausanias, in his

Arcadica. We are also told by that historian, and by Suidas, that

Lycaon was, notwithstanding, a virtuous prince, the benefactor of his

people, and the promoter of improvement.

FABLE VIII. [I.244-312]

Jupiter, not thinking the punishment of Lycaon sufficient to strike

terror into the rest of mankind, resolves, on account of the universal

corruption, to extirpate them by a universal deluge.

Some, by their words approve the speech of Jupiter, and give spur to

him, {indignantly} exclaiming; others, by {silent} assent fulfil their

parts. Yet the {entire} destruction of the human race is a cause of

grief to them all, and they inquire what is to be the form of the earth

in future, when destitute of mankind? who is to place frankincense[48]

on the altars? and whether it is his design to give up the nations for a

prey to the wild beasts? The ruler of the Gods forbids them making these

enquiries, to be alarmed (for that the rest should be his care); and he

promises, {that} from a wondrous source {he will raise} a generation

unlike the preceding race.

And now he was about to scatter his thunder over all lands; but he was

afraid lest, perchance, the sacred æther might catch fire, from so many

flames, and the extended sky might become inflamed. He remembers, too,

that it was in the {decrees of} Fate, that a time should come,[49] at

which the sea, the earth, and the palace of heaven, seized {by the

flames}, should be burned, and the laboriously-wrought fabric of the

universe should be in danger of perishing. The weapons forged by the

hands of the Cyclops are laid aside; a different {mode of} punishment

pleases him: to destroy mankind beneath the waves, and to let loose the

rains from the whole tract of Heaven. At once he shuts the North Wind in

the caverns of Æolus, and {all} those blasts which dispel the clouds

drawn over {the Earth}; and {then} he sends forth the South Wind. With

soaking wings the South Wind flies abroad, having his terrible face

covered with pitchy darkness; his beard {is} loaded with showers, the

water streams down from his hoary locks, clouds gather upon his

forehead, his wings and the folds of his robe[50] drip with wet; and, as

with his broad hand he squeezes the hanging clouds, a crash arises, and

thence showers are poured in torrents from the sky. Iris,[51] the

messenger of Juno, clothed in various colors, collects the waters, and

bears a supply {upwards} to the clouds.

The standing corn is beaten down, and the expectations of the

husbandman, {now} lamented by him, are ruined, and the labors of a long

year prematurely perish. Nor is the wrath of Jove satisfied with his own

heaven; but {Neptune}, his azure brother, aids him with his auxiliary

waves. He calls together the rivers, which, soon as they had entered the

abode of their ruler, he says, “I must not now employ a lengthened

exhortation; pour forth {all} your might, so the occasion requires. Open

your abodes, and, {each} obstacle removed, give full rein to your

streams.” {Thus} he commanded; they return, and open the mouths of their

fountains,[52] and roll on into the ocean with unobstructed course. He

himself struck the Earth with his trident, {on which} it shook, and with

a tremor laid open the sources of its waters. The rivers, breaking out,

rush through the open plains, and bear away, together with the standing

corn, the groves, flocks, men, houses, and temples, together with their

sacred {utensils}. If any house remained, and, not thrown down, was able

to resist ruin so vast, yet the waves, {rising} aloft, covered the roof

of that {house}, and the towers tottered, overwhelmed beneath the

stream. And now sea and land had no mark of distinction; everything now

was ocean; and to that ocean shores were wanting. One man takes

possession of a hill, another sits in a curved boat, and plies the oars

there where he had lately ploughed; another sails over the standing

corn, or the roof of his country-house under water; another catches a

fish on the top of an elm-tree. An anchor (if chance so directs) is

fastened in a green meadow, or the curving keels come in contact with

the vineyards, {now} below them; and where of late the slender goats had

cropped the grass, there unsightly sea-calves are now reposing their

bodies.

The Nereids wonder at the groves, the cities, and the houses under

water; dolphins get into the woods, and run against the lofty branches,

and beat against the tossed oaks. The wolf swims[53] among the sheep;

the wave carries along the tawny lions; the wave carries along the

tigers. Neither does the powers of his lightning-shock avail the wild

boar, nor his swift legs the stag, {now} borne away. The wandering bird,

too, having long sought for land, where it may be allowed to light, its

wings failing, falls down into the sea. The boundless range of the sea

had overwhelmed the hills, and the stranger waves beat against the

heights of the mountains. The greatest part is carried off by the water:

those whom the water spares, long fastings overcome, through scantiness

of food.

[Footnote 48: _To place frankincense._--Ver. 249. In those early

ages, corn or wheaten flour, was the customary offering to the

Deities, and not frankincense, which was introduced among the

luxuries of more refined times. Ovid is consequently guilty of an

anachronism here.]

[Footnote 49: _That a time should come._--Ver. 256. Lactantius

informs us that the Sibyls predicted that the world should perish

by fire. Seneca also, in his consolation to Marcia, and in his

Quæstiones Naturales, mentions the same destined termination of

the present state of the universe. It was a doctrine of the Stoic

philosophers, that the stars were nurtured with moisture, and that

on the cessation of this nourishment the conflagration of the

universe would ensue.]

[Footnote 50: _The folds of his robe._--Ver. 267. ‘Rorant pennæ

sinusque,’ is quaintly translated by Clarke, ‘his wings and the

plaits of his coat drop.’]

[Footnote 51: _Iris._--Ver. 271. The mention of Iris, the goddess

of the rainbow, in connection with the flood of Deucalion, cannot

fail to remind us of the ‘bow set in the cloud, for a token of the

covenant between God and the earth,’ on the termination of Noah’s

flood.--Gen. x. 14.]

[Footnote 52: _The mouths of their fountains._--Ver. 281. The

expressions in this line and in line 283, are not unlike the words

of the 11th verse of the 7th chapter of Genesis, ‘The fountains of

the great deep were broken up.’]

[Footnote 53: _The wolf swims._--Ver. 304. One commentator remarks

here, that there was nothing very wonderful in a dead wolf

swimming among the sheep without devouring them. Seneca is,

however, too severe upon our author in saying that he is trifling

here, in troubling himself on so serious an occasion with what

sheep and wolves are doing: for he gravely means to say, that the

beasts of prey are terrified to that degree that they forget their

carnivorous propensities.]

EXPLANATION.

Pausanias makes mention of five deluges. The two most celebrated

happened in the time of Ogyges, and in that of Deucalion. Of the last

Ovid here speaks; and though that deluge was generally said to have

overflowed Thessaly only, he has evidently adopted in his narrative

the tradition of the universal deluge, which all nations seem to have

preserved. He says, that the sea joined its waters to those falling

from heaven. The words of Scripture are (Genesis, vii. 11), ‘All the

fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven

were opened.’ In speaking of the top of Parnassus alone being left

uncovered, the tradition here followed by Ovid probably referred to

Mount Ararat, where Noah’s ark rested. Noah and his family are

represented by Deucalion and Pyrrha. Both Noah and Deucalion were

saved for their virtuous conduct; when Noah went out of the ark, he

offered solemn sacrifices to God; and Pausanias tells us that

Deucalion, when saved, raised an altar to Jupiter the Liberator. The

Poet tells us, that Deucalion’s deluge was to be the last: God

promised the same thing to Noah. Josephus, in his Antiquities, Book

i., tells us, that the history of the universal deluge was written by

Nicolas of Damascus, Berosus, Mnaseas, and other ancient writers, from

whom the Greeks and Romans received it.

FABLE IX. [I.313-366]

Neptune appeases the angry waves; and he commands Triton to sound his

shell, that the sea may retire within its shores, and the rivers

within their banks. Deucalion and Pyrrha are the only persons saved

from the deluge.

Phocis separates the Aonian[54] from the Actæan region; a fruitful land

while it was a land; but at that time {it had become} a part of the sea,

and a wide plain of sudden waters. There a lofty mountain rises towards

the stars, with two tops, by name Parnassus,[55] and advances beyond the

clouds with its summit. When here Deucalion (for the sea had covered all

other places), borne in a little ship, with the partner of his couch,

{first} rested; they adored the Corycian Nymphs,[56] and the Deities of

the mountain, and the prophetic Themis,[57] who at that time used to

give out oracular responses. No man was there more upright than he, nor

a greater lover of justice, nor was any woman more regardful of the

Deities than she.

Soon as Jupiter {beholds} the world overflowed by liquid waters, and

sees that but one man remains out of so many thousands of late, and sees

that but one woman remains out of so many thousands of late, both

guiltless, and both worshippers of the Gods, he disperses the clouds;

and the showers being removed by the North Wind, he both lays open the

earth to the heavens, and the heavens to the earth. The rage, too, of

the sea does not continue; and his three-forked trident {now} laid

aside, the ruler of the deep assuages the waters, and calls upon the

azure Triton standing above the deep, and having his shoulders covered

with the native purple shells;[58] and he bids him blow[59] his

resounding trumpet, and, the signal being given, to call back the waves

and the streams. The hollow-wreathed trumpet[60] is taken up by him,

which grows to a {great} width from its lowest twist; the trumpet,

which, soon as it receives the air in the middle of the sea, fills with

its notes the shores lying under either sun. Then, too, as soon as it

touched the lips of the God dripping with his wet beard, and being

blown, sounded the bidden retreat;[61] it was heard by all the waters

both of earth and sea, and stopped all those waters by which it was

heard. Now the sea[62] {again} has a shore; their channels receive the

full rivers; the rivers subside; the hills are seen to come forth. The

ground rises, places increase {in extent} as the waters decrease; and

after a length of time, the woods show their naked tops, and retain the

mud left upon their branches.

The world was restored; which when Deucalion beheld to be empty, and how

the desolate Earth kept a profound silence, he thus addressed Pyrrha,

with tears bursting forth:--“O sister, O wife, O thou, the only woman

surviving, whom a common origin,[63] and a kindred descent, and

afterwards the marriage tie has united to me, and {whom} now dangers

themselves unite to me; we two are the whole people of the earth,

whatever {both} the East and the West behold; of all the rest, the sea

has taken possession. And even now there is no certain assurance of our

lives; even yet do the clouds terrify my mind. What would now have been

thy feelings, if without me thou hadst been rescued from destruction,

O thou deserving of compassion? In what manner couldst thou have been

able alone to support {this} terror? With whom for a consoler, {to

endure} these sorrows? For I, believe me, my wife, if the sea had only

carried thee off, should have followed thee, and the sea should have

carried me off as well. Oh that I could replace the people {that are

lost} by the arts of my father,[64] and infuse the soul into the moulded

earth! Now the mortal race exists in us two {alone}. Thus it has seemed

good to the Gods, and we remain as {mere} samples of mankind.”

[Footnote 54: _The Aonian._--Ver. 313. Aonia was a mountainous

region of Bœotia; and Actæa was an ancient name of Attica, from

ἄκτη, the sea-shore.]

[Footnote 55: _By name Parnassus._--Ver. 317. Mount Parnassus has

two peaks, of which the one was called ‘Tichoreum,’ and was sacred

to Bacchus; and the other ‘Hypampeum,’ and was devoted to Apollo

and the Muses.]

[Footnote 56: _The Corycian Nymphs._--Ver. 320. The Corycian

Nymphs were so called from inhabiting the Corycian cavern in Mount

Parnassus; they were fabled to be the daughters of Plistus,

a river near Delphi. There was another Corycian cave in Cilicia,

in Asia Minor.]

[Footnote 57: _The prophetic Themis._--Ver. 321. Themis is said to

have preceded Apollo in giving oracular responses at Delphi. She

was the daughter of Cœlus and Terra, and was the first to instruct

men to ask of the Gods that which was lawful and right, whence she

took the name of Themis, which signifies in Greek, ‘that which is

just and right.’]

[Footnote 58: _The native purple shells._--Ver. 332. ‘Murex’ was

the name of the shell-fish from which the Tyrian purple, so much

valued by the ancients, was procured. Some suppose that the

meaning here is, that Triton had his shoulders tinted with the

purple color of the murex. It is, however, more probable that the

Poet means to say that he had his neck and shoulders studded with

the shells of the murex, perhaps as a substitute for scales.]

[Footnote 59: _He bids him blow._--Ver. 333. There were several

Tritons, or minor sea gods. The one mentioned here, the chief

Triton, was fabled to be the son of Neptune and Amphitrite, who

always preceded Neptune in his course, and whose arrival he was

wont to proclaim by the sound of his shell. He was usually

represented as swimming, with the upper part of his body

resembling that of a human being, while his lower parts terminated

with the tail of a fish.]

[Footnote 60: _The hollow-wreathed trumpet._--Ver. 335. The

‘Buccina,’ or, as we call it, ‘the conch shell,’ was a kind of

horn, or trumpet, made out of a shell, called ‘buccinum.’ It was

sometimes artificially curved, and sometimes straight, retaining

the original form of the shell. The twisted form of the shell was

one of the characteristic features of the trumpet, which, in later

times, was made of horn, wood, or metal, so as to imitate the

shell. It was chiefly used among the Romans, to proclaim the

watches of the day and of the night, which watches were thence

called ‘buccina prima,’ ‘secunda,’ etc. It was also blown at

funerals, and at festive entertainments, both before sitting down

to table and after. Macrobius tells us, that Tritons holding

‘buccinæ’ were fixed on the roof of the temple of Saturn.]

[Footnote 61: _The bidden retreat._--Ver. 340. ‘Canere receptus’

was ‘to sound the retreat,’ as the signal for the soldiers to

cease fighting, and to resume their march.]

[Footnote 62: _Now the sea._--Ver. 343. This and the two following

lines are considered as entitled to much praise for their

terseness and brevity, as depicting by their short detached

sentences the instantaneous effect produced by the commands of

Neptune in reducing his dominions to a state of order.]

[Footnote 63: _A common origin._--Ver. 352. Because Prometheus was

the father of Deucalion and Epimetheus of Pyrrha; Prometheus and

Epimetheus being the sons of Iapetus. It is in an extended sense

that he styles her ‘sister,’ she being really his cousin.]

[Footnote 64: _The arts of my father._--Ver. 363. He alludes to

the story of his father, Prometheus, having formed men of clay,

and animated them with fire stolen from heaven.]

EXPLANATION.

Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, were, perhaps, originally three brothers,

kings of three separate kingdoms. Having been deified each retaining

his sovereignty, they were depicted as having the world divided

between them; the empire of the sea falling to the share of Neptune.

Among his occupations, were those of raising and calming the seas; and

Ovid here represents him as being so employed.

FABLE X. [I.367-415]

Deucalion and Pyrrha re-people the earth by casting stones behind

them, in the manner prescribed by the Goddess Themis, whose oracle

they had consulted.

He {thus} spoke, and they wept. They resolved to pray to the Deities of

Heaven, and to seek relief through the sacred oracles. There is no

delay; together they repair to the waters of Cephisus,[65] though not

yet clear, yet now cutting their wonted channel. Then, when they have

sprinkled the waters poured on their clothes[66] and their heads, they

turn their steps to the temple of the sacred Goddess, the roof of which

was defiled with foul moss, and whose altars were standing without

fires. Soon as they reached the steps of the temple, each of them fell

prostrate on the ground, and, trembling, gave kisses to the cold

pavement. And thus they said:

“If the Deities, prevailed upon by just prayers, are to be mollified, if

the wrath of the Gods is to be averted; tell us, O Themis, by what art

the loss of our race is to be repaired, and give thy assistance, O most

gentle {Goddess} to our ruined fortunes.” The Goddess was moved, and

gave this response: “Depart from my temple, and cover your heads,[67]

and loosen the garments girt {around you}, and throw behind your backs

the bones of your great mother.” For a long time they are amazed; and

Pyrrha is the first by her words to break the silence, and {then}

refuses to obey the commands of the Goddess; and begs her, with

trembling lips, to grant her pardon, and dreads to offend the shades of

her mother by casting her bones. In the meantime they reconsider the

words of the response given, {but} involved in dark obscurity, and they

ponder them among themselves. Upon that, the son of Prometheus soothes

the daughter of Epimetheus with {these} gentle words, and says, “Either

is my discernment fallacious, or the oracles are just, and advise no

sacrilege. The earth is the great mother; I suspect that the stones in

the body of the earth are the bones meant; these we are ordered to throw

behind our backs.” Although she, descended from Titan,[68] is moved by

this interpretation of her husband, still her hope is involved in doubt;

so much do they both distrust the advice of heaven; but what harm will

it do to try?

They go down, and they veil their heads, and ungird their garments, and

cast stones, as ordered, behind their footsteps. The stones (who could

have believed it, but that antiquity is a witness {of the thing?}) began

to lay aside their hardness and their stiffness, and by degrees to

become soft; and when softened, to assume a {new} form. Presently after,

when they were grown larger, a milder nature, too, was conferred on

them, so that some shape of man might be seen {in them}, yet though but

imperfect; and as if from the marble commenced {to be wrought}, not

sufficiently distinct, and very like to rough statues. Yet that part of

them which was humid with any moisture, and earthy, was turned into

{portions adapted for} the use of the body. That which is solid, and

cannot be bent, is changed into bones; that which was just now a vein,

still remains under the same name.[69] And in a little time, by the

interposition of the Gods above, the stones thrown by the hands of the

man, took the shape of a man, and the female {race} was renewed by the

throwing of the woman. Thence are we a hardy generation, and able to

endure fatigue, and we give proofs from what original we are sprung.

[Footnote 65: _The waters of Cephisus._--Ver. 369. The river

Cephisus rises on Mount Parnassus, and flows near Delphi.]

[Footnote 66: _Poured on their clothes._--Ver. 371. It was the

custom of the ancients, before entering a temple, either to

sprinkle themselves with water, or to wash the body all over.]

[Footnote 67: _Cover your heads._--Ver. 382. It was a custom among

the ancients to cover their heads in sacrifice and other acts of

worship, either as a mark of humility, or, according to Plutarch,

that nothing of ill omen might meet their sight, and thereby

interrupt the performance of the rites.]

[Footnote 68: _Descended from Titan._--Ver. 395. Pyrrha was of the

race of the Titans; for Iapetus, her grandfather, was the son of

Titan and Terra.]

[Footnote 69: _Under the same name._--Ver. 410. With his usual

propensity for punning, he alludes to the use of the word ‘vena,’

as signifying either ‘a vein’ of the body, or a ‘streak’ or ‘vein’

in stone, according to the context.]

EXPLANATION.

In the reign of Deucalion, king of Thessaly, the course of the river

Peneus was stopped, probably by an earthquake. In the same year so

great a quantity of rain fell, that all Thessaly was overflowed.

Deucalion and some of his subjects fled to Mount Parnassus; where they

remained until the waters abated. The children of those who were

preserved are the stones of which the Poet here speaks. The Fable,

probably, has for its foundation the double meaning of the word

‘Eben,’ or ‘Aben,’ which signifies either ‘a stone,’ or ‘a child.’ The

Scholiast on Pindar tells us, too, that the word λάος, which means

people, formerly also signified ‘a stone.’

The brutal and savage nature of the early races of men may also have

added strength to the tradition that they derived their original from

stones. After the inundation, Deucalion is said to have repaired to

Athens, where he built a temple to Jupiter, and instituted sacrifices

in his honor. Some suppose that Cranaus reigned at Athens when

Deucalion retired thither; though Eusebius informs us it was under the

reign of Cecrops. Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, and his wife

Pyrrha was the daughter of his uncle, Epimetheus. After his death, he

received the honor of a temple, and was worshipped as a Divinity.

FABLE XI. [I.416-451]

The Earth, being warmed by the heat of the sun, produces many

monsters: among others, the serpent Python, which Apollo kills with

his arrows. To establish a memorial of this event, he institutes the

Pythian games, and adopts the surname of Pythius.

The Earth of her own accord brought forth other animals of different

forms; after that the former moisture was thoroughly heated by the rays

of the sun, and the mud and the wet fens fermented with the heat; and

the fruitful seeds of things nourished by the enlivening soil, as in the

womb of a mother, grew, and, in lapse of time, assumed some {regular}

shape. Thus, when the seven-streamed Nile[70] has forsaken the oozy

fields, and has returned its waters to their ancient channel, and the

fresh mud has been heated with the æthereal sun, the laborers, on

turning up the clods, meet with very many animals, and among them, some

just begun at the very moment of their formation, and some they see

{still} imperfect, and {as yet} destitute of {some} of their limbs; and

often, in the same body, is one part animated, the other part is coarse

earth. For when moisture and heat have been subjected to a due mixture,

they conceive; and all things arise from these two.

And although fire is the antagonist of heat, {yet} a moist vapor creates

all things, and this discordant concord is suited for generation; when,

therefore, the Earth, covered with mud by the late deluge, was

thoroughly heated by the æthereal sunshine and a penetrating warmth, it

produced species {of creatures} innumerable; and partly restored the

former shapes, and partly gave birth to new monsters. She, indeed, might

have been unwilling, but then she produced thee as well, thou enormous

Python; and thou, unheard-of serpent, wast a {source of} terror to this

new race of men, so vast a part of a mountain didst thou occupy.

The God that bears the bow, and that had never before used such arms,

but against the deer and the timorous goats, destroyed him, overwhelmed

with a thousand arrows, his quiver being well-nigh exhausted, {as} the

venom oozed forth through the black wounds; and that length of time

might not efface the fame of the deed, he instituted sacred games,[71]

with contests famed {in story}, called “Pythia,” from the name of the

serpent {so} conquered. In these, whosoever of the young men conquered

in boxing, in running, or in chariot-racing, received the honor of a

crown of beechen leaves.[72] As yet the laurel existed not, and Phœbus

used to bind his temples, graceful with long hair, with {garlands from}

any tree.

[Footnote 70: _The seven-streamed Nile._--Ver. 423. The river Nile

discharges itself into the sea by seven mouths. It is remarkable

for its inundations, which happen regularly every year, and

overflow the whole country of Egypt. To this is chiefly owing the

extraordinary fertility of the soil of that country; for when the

waters subside, they leave behind them great quantities of mud,

which, settling upon the land, enrich it, and continually

reinvigorate it.]

[Footnote 71: _Instituted sacred games._--Ver. 446. Yet Pausanias,

in his Corinthiaca, tells us that they were instituted by

Diomedes; others, again, say by Eurylochus the Thessalian; and

others, by Amphictyon, or Adrastus. The Pythian games were

celebrated near Delphi, on the Crissæan plain, which contained a

race-course, a stadium of 1000 feet in length, and a theatre, in

which the musical contests took place. They were once held at

Athens, by the advice of Demetrius Poliorcetes, because the

Ætolians were in possession of the passes round Delphi. They

were most probably originally a religious ceremonial, and were

perhaps only a musical contest, which consisted in singing a hymn

in honor of the Pythian God, accompanied by the music of the

cithara. In later times, gymnastic and equestrian games and

exercises were introduced there. Previously to the 48th Olympiad,

the Pythian games had been celebrated at the end of every eighth

year; after that period they were held at the end of every fourth

year. When they ceased to be solemnized is unknown; but in the

time of the Emperor Julian they still continued to be held.]

[Footnote 72: _Crown of beechen leaves._--Ver. 449. This was the

prize which was originally given to the conquerors in the Pythian

games. In later times, as Ovid tells us, the prize of the victor

was a laurel chaplet, together with the palm branch, symbolical of

his victory.]

EXPLANATION.

The story of the serpent Python, being explained on philosophical

principles, seems to mean, that the heat of the sun, having dissipated

the noxious exhalations emitted by the receding waters, the reptiles,

which had been produced from the slime left by the flood, immediately

disappeared.

If, however, we treat this narrative as based on historical facts, it

is probable that the serpent represented some robber who infested the

neighborhood of Parnassus, and molested those who passed that way for

the purpose of offering sacrifice. A prince, either bearing the name

of Apollo, or being a priest of that God, by his destruction liberated

that region from this annoyance. This event gave rise to the

institution of the Pythian games, which were celebrated near Delphi.

Besides the several contests mentioned by Ovid, singing, dancing, and

instrumental music, formed part of the exercises of these games. The

event which Ovid here places soon after the deluge, must have happened

much later, since in the time of Deucalion, the worship of Apollo was

not known at Delphi. The Goddess Themis then delivered oracles there,

which, previously to her time, had been delivered by the Earth.

FABLE XII. [I.452-567]

Apollo, falling in love with Daphne, the daughter of the river Peneus,

she flies from him. He pursues her; on which, the Nymph, imploring the

aid of her father, is changed into a laurel.

Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, was the first love of Phœbus; whom, not

blind chance, but the vengeful anger of Cupid assigned to him.

The Delian {God},[73] proud of having lately subdued the serpent, had

seen him bending the bow and drawing the string, and had said, “What

hast thou to do, wanton boy, with gallant arms? Such a burden as that

{better} befits my shoulders; I, who am able to give unerring wounds to

the wild beasts, {wounds} to the enemy, who lately slew with arrows

innumerable the swelling Python, that covered so many acres {of land}

with his pestilential belly. Do thou be contented to excite I know not

what flames with thy torch; and do not lay claim to praises {properly}

my own.”

To him the son of Venus replies, “Let thy bow shoot all things, Phœbus;

my bow {shall shoot} thee; and as much as all animals fall short of

thee, so much is thy glory less than mine.” He {thus} said; and cleaving

the air with his beating wings, with activity he stood upon the shady

heights of Parnassus, and drew two weapons out of his arrow-bearing

quiver, of different workmanship; the one repels, the other excites

desire. That which causes {love} is of gold, and is brilliant, with a

sharp point; that which repels it is blunt, and contains lead beneath

the reed. This one the God fixed in the Nymph, the daughter of Peneus,

but with the other he wounded the {very} marrow of Apollo, through his

bones pierced {by the arrow}. Immediately the one is in love; the other

flies from the {very} name of a lover, rejoicing in the recesses of the

woods, and in the spoils of wild beasts taken {in hunting}, and becomes

a rival of the virgin Phœbe. A fillet tied together[74] her hair, put up

without any order. Many a one courted her; she hated all wooers; not

able to endure, and quite unacquainted with man, she traverses the

solitary parts of the woods, and she cares not what Hymen,[75] what

love, {or} what marriage means. Many a time did her father say, “My

daughter, thou owest me a son-in-law;” many a time did her father say,

“My daughter, thou owest me grandchildren.” She, utterly abhorring the

nuptial torch,[76] as though a crime, has her beauteous face covered

with the blush of modesty; and clinging to her father’s neck, with

caressing arms, she says, “Allow me, my dearest father, to enjoy

perpetual virginity; her father, in times, bygone, granted this to

Diana.”

He indeed complied. But that very beauty forbids thee to be what thou

wishest, and the charms of thy person are an impediment to thy desires.

Phœbus falls in love, and he covets an alliance with Daphne, {now} seen

by him, and what he covets he hopes for, and his own oracles deceive

him; and as the light stubble is burned, when the ears of corn are taken

off, and as hedges are set on fire by the torches, which perchance a

traveller has either held too near them, or has left {there}, now about

the break of day, thus did the God burst into a flame; thus did he burn

throughout his breast, and cherish a fruitless passion with his hopes.

He beholds her hair hanging unadorned upon her neck, and he says, “And

what would {it be} if it were arranged?” He sees her eyes, like stars,

sparkling with fire; he sees her lips, which it is not enough to have

{merely} seen; he praises both her fingers and her hands, and her arms

and her shoulders naked, from beyond the middle; whatever is hidden from

view, he thinks to be still more beauteous. Swifter than the light wind

she flies, and she stops not at these words of his, as he calls her

back:

“O Nymph, daughter of Peneus, stay, I entreat thee! I am not an enemy

following thee. In this way the lamb {flies} from the wolf; thus the

deer {flies} from the lion; thus the dove flies from the eagle with

trembling wing; {in this way} each {creature flies from} its enemy: love

is the cause of my following thee. Ah! wretched me! shouldst thou fall

on thy face, or should the brambles tear thy legs, that deserve not to

be injured, and should I prove the cause of pain to thee. The places are

rugged, through which thou art {thus} hastening; run more leisurely,

I entreat thee, and restrain thy flight; I myself will follow more

leisurely. And yet, inquire whom thou dost please; I am not an

inhabitant of the mountains, I am not a shepherd; I am not here, in rude

guise,[77] watching the herds or the flocks. Thou knowest not, rash

girl, thou knowest not from whom thou art flying, and therefore it is

that thou dost fly. The Delphian land, Claros and Tenedos,[78] and the

Pataræan palace pays service to me. Jupiter is my sire; by me, what

shall be, what has been, and what is, is disclosed; through me, songs

harmonize with the strings. My own {arrow}, indeed, is unerring; yet one

there is still more unerring than my own, which has made this wound in

my heart, {before} unscathed. The healing art is my discovery, and

throughout the world I am honored as the bearer of help, and the

properties of simples are[79] subjected to me. Ah, wretched me![80] that

love is not to be cured by any herbs; and that those arts which afford

relief to all, are of no avail for their master.”

The daughter of Peneus flies from him, about to say still more, with

timid step, and together with him she leaves his unfinished address.

Then, too, she appeared lovely; the winds exposed her form to view, and

the gusts meeting her fluttered about her garments, as they came in

contact, and the light breeze spread behind her her careless locks;

and {thus}, by her flight, was her beauty increased. But the youthful

God[81] has not patience any longer to waste his blandishments; and as

love urges him on, he follows her steps with hastening pace. As when the

greyhound[82] has seen the hare in the open field, and the one by {the

speed of} his legs pursues his prey, the other {seeks} her safety; the

one is like as if just about to fasten {on the other}, and now, even

now, hopes to catch her, and with nose outstretched plies upon the

footsteps {of the hare}. The other is in doubt whether she is caught

{already}, and is delivered from his very bite, and leaves behind the

mouth {just} touching her. {And} so is the God, and {so} is the

virgin;[83] he swift with hopes, she with fear.

Yet he that follows, aided by the wings of love, is the swifter, and

denies her {any} rest; and is {now} just at her back as she flies, and

is breathing upon her hair scattered upon her neck. Her strength being

{now} spent, she grows pale, and being quite faint, with the fatigue of

so swift a flight, looking upon the waters of Peneus, she says, “Give

me, my father, thy aid, if you rivers have divine power. Oh Earth,

either yawn {to swallow me}, or by changing it, destroy that form, by

which I have pleased too much, and which causes me to be injured.”

Hardly had she ended her prayer, {when} a heavy torpor seizes her limbs;

{and} her soft breasts are covered with a thin bark. Her hair grows into

green leaves, her arms into branches; her feet, the moment before so

swift, adhere by sluggish roots; a {leafy} canopy overspreads her

features; her elegance alone[84] remains in her. This, too, Phœbus

admires, and placing his right hand upon the stock, he perceives that

the breast still throbs beneath the new bark; and {then}, embracing the

branches as though limbs in his arms, he gives kisses to the wood, {and}

yet the wood shrinks from his kisses. To her the God said: “But since

thou canst not be my wife, at least thou shalt be my tree; my hair, my

lyre,[85] my quiver shall always have thee, oh laurel! Thou shalt be

presented to the Latian chieftains, when the joyous voice of the

soldiers shall sing the song of triumph,[86] and the long procession

shall resort to the Capitol. Thou, the same, shalt stand as a most

faithful guardian at the gate-posts of Augustus before his doors,[87]

and shalt protect the oak placed in the centre; and as my head is {ever}

youthful with unshorn locks, do thou, too, always wear the lasting

honors of thy foliage.”

Pæan had ended {his speech}; the laurel nodded assent with its new-made

boughs, and seemed to shake its top just like a head.

[Footnote 73: _The Delian God._--Ver. 454. Apollo is so called,

from having been born in the Isle of Delos, in the Ægean Sea. The

Peneus was a river of Thessaly.]

[Footnote 74: _A fillet tied together._--Ver. 477. The ‘vitta’ was

a band encircling the head, and served to confine the tresses of

the hair. It was worn by maidens and by married women also; but

the ‘vitta’ assumed on the day of marriage was of a different form

from that used by virgins. It was not worn by women of light

character, or even by the ‘libertinæ,’ or female slaves who had

been liberated; so that it was not only deemed an emblem of

chastity, but of freedom also. It was of various colors: white and

purple are mentioned. In the later ages the ‘vitta’ was sometimes

set with pearls.]

[Footnote 75: _Hymen._--Ver. 480. Hymen, or Hymenæus, was one of

the Gods of Marriage; hence the name ‘Hymen’ was given to the

union of two persons in marriage.]

[Footnote 76: _The nuptial torch._--Ver. 483. Plutarch tells us,

that it was the custom in the bridal procession to carry five

torches before the bride, on her way to the house of her husband.

Among the Romans, the nuptial torch was lighted at the parental

hearth of the bride, and was borne before her by a boy, whose

parents were alive. The torch was also used at funerals, for the

purpose of lighting the pile, and because funerals were often

nocturnal ceremonies. Hence the expression of Propertius,--

‘Vivimus inter utramque facem,’ ‘We are living between the two

torches.’ Originally, the ‘tædæ’ seem to have been slips or

lengths of resinous pine wood: while the ‘fax’ was formed of a

bundle of wooden staves, either bound by a rope drawn round them

in a spiral form, or surrounded by circular bands at equal

distances. They were used by travellers and others, who were

forced to be abroad after sunset; whence the reference in line 493

to the hedge ignited through the carelessness of the traveller,

who has thrown his torch there on the approach of morning.]

[Footnote 77: _Here in rude guise._--Ver. 514. ‘Non hic armenta

gregesve Horridus observo’ is quaintly translated by Clarke, ‘I do

not here in a rude pickle watch herds or flocks.’]

[Footnote 78: _Claros and Tenedos._--Ver. 516. Claros was a city

of Ionia, famed for a temple and oracle of Apollo, and near which

there was a mountain and a grove sacred to him. There was an

island in the Myrtoan Sea of that name, to which some suppose that

reference is here made. Tenedos was an island of the Ægean Sea, in

the neighborhood of Troy. Patara was a city of Lycia, where Apollo

gave oracular responses during six months of the year. It was from

Patara that St. Paul took ship for Phœnicia, Acts, xxi. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 79: _The properties of simples._--Ver. 522. The first

cultivators of the medical art pretended to nothing beyond an

acquaintance with the medicinal qualities of herbs and simples; it

is not improbable that inasmuch as the vegetable world is

nourished and raised to the surface of the earth in a great degree

by the heat of the sun, a ground was thereby afforded for

allegorically saying that Apollo, or the Sun, was the discoverer

of the healing art.]

[Footnote 80: _Ah! wretched me!_--Ver. 523. A similar expression

occurs in the Heroides, v. 149, ‘Me miseram, quod amor non est

medicabilis herbis.’]

[Footnote 81: _The youthful God._--Ver. 531. Apollo was always

represented as a youth, and was supposed never to grow old. The

Scholiast on the Thebais of Statius, b. i., v. 694, says, ‘The

reason is, because Apollo is the Sun; and because the Sun is fire,

which never grows old.’ Perhaps the youthfulness of the Deity is

here mentioned, to account for his ardent pursuit of the flying

damsel.]

[Footnote 82: _As when the greyhound._--Ver. 533. The comparison

here of the flight of Apollo after Daphne, to that of the

greyhound after the hare, is considered to be very beautifully

drawn, and to give an admirable illustration of the eagerness with

which the God pursues on the one hand, and the anxiety with which

the Nymph endeavors to escape on the other. Pope, in his Windsor

Forest, has evidently imitated this passage, where he describes

the Nymph Lodona pursued by Pan, and transformed into a river. His

words are--

‘Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly,

When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky;

Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves,

When through the clouds he drives the trembling doves;

As from the God she flew with furious pace,

Or as the God more furious urged the chase.

Now fainting, sinking, pale, the nymph appears;

Now close behind, his sounding steps she hears;

And now his shadow reach’d her as she run,

His shadow lengthened by the setting sun;

And now his shorter breath, with sultry air,

Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.’

The greyhound was probably called ‘canis Gallicus,’ from having

been originally introduced into Italy from Gaul. ‘Vertagus’ was

their Gallic name, which we find used by Martial, and Gratian in

his Cynegeticon, ver. 203.]

[Footnote 83: _And so is the virgin._--Ver. 539. ‘Sic Deus et

virgo est’ is translated by Clarke, ‘So is the God and the young

lady;’ indeed, he mostly translates ‘virgo,’ ‘young lady.’]

[Footnote 84: _Her elegance alone._--Ver. 552. Clarke translates

‘Remanet nitor unus in illa,’ ‘her neatness alone continues in

her.’]

[Footnote 85: _My lyre._--Ver. 559. The players of the cithara,

the instrument of Apollo, were crowned with laurel, in the scenic

representations of the stage.]

[Footnote 86: _The song of triumph._--Ver. 560. The Poet here pays

a compliment to Augustus and the Roman people. The laurel was the

emblem of victory among the Romans. On such occasions the ‘fasces’

of the general and the spears and javelins of the soldiers were

wreathed with laurel; and after the time of Julius Cæsar, the

Roman general, when triumphing, wore a laurel wreath on his head,

and held a branch of laurel in his hand.]

[Footnote 87: _Before his doors._--Ver. 562. He here alludes to

the civic crown of oak leaves which, by order of the Senate, was

placed before the gate of the Palatium, where Augustus Cæsar

resided, with branches of laurel on either side of it.]

EXPLANATION.

To explain this Fable, it must be laid down as a principle that there

were originally many Jupiters, and Apollos, and Mercuries, whose

intrigues being, in lapse of time, attributed to but one individual,

that fact accounts for the great number of children which claimed

those respective Gods for their fathers.

Some prince probably, for whom his love of learning had acquired the

name of Apollo, falling in love with Daphne, pursued her to the brink

of the river Peneus, into which, being accidentally precipitated, she

perished in her lover’s sight. Some laurels growing near the spot,

perhaps gave rise to the story of her transformation; or possibly the

etymology of the word ‘Daphne,’ which in Greek signifies a laurel, was

the foundation of the Fable. Pausanias, however, in his Arcadia, gives

another version of this story. He says that Leucippus, son of Œnomaus,

king of Pisa, falling in love with Daphne, disguised himself in female

apparel, and devoted himself to her service. He soon procured her

friendship and confidence; but Apollo, who was his rival, having

discovered his fraud, one day redoubled the heat of the sun. Daphne

and her companions going to bathe, obliged Leucippus to follow their

example, on which, having discovered his stratagem, they killed him

with the arrows which they carried for the purposes of hunting.

Diodorus Siculus tells us that Daphne was the same with Manto, the

daughter of Tiresias, who was banished to Delphi, where she delivered

oracles, of the language of which Homer availed himself in the

composition of his poems. The inhabitants of Antioch asserted that the

adventure here narrated happened in the suburbs of their city, which

thence derived its name of Daphne.

FABLE XIII. [I.568-600]

Jupiter, pursuing Io, the daughter of Inachus, covers the earth with

darkness, and ravishes the Nymph.

There is a grove of Hæmonia,[88] which a wood, placed on a craggy rock,

encloses on every side. They call it Tempe;[89] through this the river

Peneus, flowing from the bottom of {mount} Pindus,[90] rolls along with

its foaming waves, and in its mighty fall, gathers clouds that scatter

{a vapor like} thin smoke,[91] and with its spray besprinkles the tops

of the woods, and wearies places, far from near to it, with its noise.

This is the home, this the abode, these are the retreats of the great

river; residing here in a cavern formed by rocks, he gives law to the

waters, and to the Nymphs that inhabit those waters. The rivers of that

country first repair thither, not knowing whether they should

congratulate, or whether console the parent; the poplar-bearing

Spercheus,[92] and the restless Enipeus,[93] the aged Apidanus,[94] the

gentle Amphrysus,[95] and Æas,[96] and, soon after, the other rivers,

which, as their current leads them, carry down into the sea their waves,

wearied by wanderings. Inachus[97] alone is absent, and, hidden in his

deepest cavern, increases his waters with his tears, and in extreme

wretchedness bewails his daughter Io as lost; he knows not whether she

{now} enjoys life, or whether she is among the shades below; but her,

whom he does not find anywhere, he believes to be nowhere, and in his

mind he dreads the worst.

Jupiter had seen Io as she was returning from her father’s stream, and

had said, “O maid, worthy of Jove, and destined to make I know not whom

happy in thy marriage, repair to the shades of this lofty grove (and he

pointed at the shade of the grove) while it is warm, and {while} the Sun

is at his height, in the midst of his course. But if thou art afraid to

enter the lonely abodes of the wild beasts alone, thou shalt enter the

recesses of the groves, safe under the protection of a God, and {that} a

God of no common sort; but {with me}, who hold the sceptre of heaven in

my powerful hand; {me}, who hurl the wandering lightnings--Do not fly

from me;” for {now} she was flying. And now she had left behind the

pastures of Lerna,[98] and the Lircæan plains planted with trees, when

the God covered the earth far and wide with darkness overspreading, and

arrested her flight, and forced her modesty.

[Footnote 88: _A grove of Hæmonia._--Ver. 568. Hæmonia was an

ancient name of Thessaly, so called from its king, Hæmon, a son of

Pelasgus, and father of Thessalus, from which it received its

later name.]

[Footnote 89: _Call it Tempe._--Ver. 569. Tempe was a valley of

Thessaly, proverbial for its pleasantness and the beauty of its

scenery. The river Peneus ran through it, but not with the

violence which Ovid here depicts; for Ælian tells us that it runs

with a gentle sluggish stream, more like oil than water.]

[Footnote 90: _Mount Pindus._--Ver. 570. Pindus was a mountain

situate on the confines of Thessaly.]

[Footnote 91: _Like thin smoke._--Ver. 571. He speaks of the

spray, which in the fineness of its particles resembles smoke.]

[Footnote 92: _Spercheus._--Ver. 579. The Spercheus was a rapid

stream, flowing at the foot of Mount Æta into the Malian Gulf,

and on whose banks many poplars grew.]

[Footnote 93: _Enipeus._--Ver. 579. The Enipeus rises in Mount

Othrys, and runs through Thessaly. Virgil (Georgics, iv. 468)

calls it ‘Altus Enipeus,’ the deep Enipeus.]

[Footnote 94: _Apidanus._--Ver. 580. The Apidanus, receiving the

stream of the Enipeus at Pharsalia, flows into the Peneus. It is

supposed by some commentators to be here called ‘senex,’ aged,

from the slowness of its tide. But where it unites the Enipeus it

flows with violence, so that it is probably called ‘senex,’ as

having been known and celebrated by the poets from of old.]

[Footnote 95: _Amphrysus._--Ver. 580. This river ran through that

part of Thessaly known by the name of Phthiotis.]

[Footnote 96: _Æas._--Ver. 580. Pliny the Elder (Book iii, ch. 23)

calls this river Aous. It was a small limpid stream, running

through Epirus and Thessaly, and discharging itself into the

Ionian sea.]

[Footnote 97: _Inachus._--Ver. 583. This was a river of Argolis,

now known as the Naio. It took its rise either in Lycæus or

Artemisium, mountains of Arcadia. Stephens, however, thinks that

Lycæus was a mountain of Argolis.]

[Footnote 98: _Lerna._--Ver. 597. This was a swampy spot on the

Argive territory, where the poets say that the dragon with seven

heads, called Hydra, which was slain by Hercules, had made his

haunt. It is not improbable that the pestilential vapors of this

spot were got rid of by means of its being drained under the

superintendence of Hercules, on which fact the story was founded.

Some commentators, however, suppose the Lerna to have been a

flowing stream.]

EXPLANATION.

The Greeks frequently embellished their mythology with narratives of

Phœnician or Egyptian origin. The story of Io probably came from

Egypt. Isis was one of the chief divinities of that country, and her

worship naturally passed, with their colonies, into foreign countries.

Greece received it when Inachus went to settle there, and in lapse of

time Isis, under the name of Io, was supposed to have been his

daughter, and the fable was invented which is here narrated by Ovid.

The Greek authors, Apollodorus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and

Pausanias, say that Io was the daughter of Inachus, the first king of

Argos; that Jupiter carried her away to Crete; and that by her he had

a son named Epaphus, who went to reign in Egypt, whither his mother

accompanied him. They also tell us that she married Apis, or Osiris,

who, after his death, was numbered among the Deities of Egypt by the

name of Serapis. From them we also learn that Juno, being actuated by

jealousy, on the discovery of the intrigue, put Io under the care of

her uncle Argus, a man of great vigilance, but that Jupiter having

slain him, placed his mistress on board of a vessel which had the

figure of a cow at its head; from which circumstance arose the story

of the transformation of Io. The Greek writers also state, that the

Bosphorus, a part of the Ægean sea, derived its name from the passage

of Io in the shape of a cow.

FABLE XIV. [I.601-688]

Jupiter, having changed Io into a cow, to conceal her from the

jealousy of Juno, is obliged to give her to that Goddess, who commits

her to the charge of the watchful Argus. Jupiter sends Mercury with an

injunction to cast Argus into a deep sleep, and to take away his life.

In the meantime Juno looked down upon the midst of the fields, and

wondering that the fleeting clouds had made the appearance of night

under bright day, she perceived that they were not {the vapors} from a

river, nor were they raised from the moist earth, and {then} she looked

around {to see} where her husband was, as being one who by this time was

full well acquainted with the intrigues of a husband {who had been} so

often detected.[99] After she had found him not in heaven, she said,

“I am either deceived, or I am injured;” and having descended from the

height of heaven, she alighted upon the earth, and commanded the mists

to retire. He had foreseen the approach of his wife, and had changed the

features of the daughter of Inachus into a sleek heifer.[100] As a cow,

too, {she} is beautiful. The daughter of Saturn, though unwillingly,

extols the appearance of the cow; and likewise inquires, whose it is,

and whence, or of what herd it is, as though ignorant of the truth.

Jupiter falsely asserts that it was produced out of the earth, that the

owner may cease to be inquired after. The daughter of Saturn begs her of

him as a gift. What can {he} do? It is a cruel thing to deliver up his

{own} mistress, {and} not to give her up is a cause of suspicion. It is

shame which persuades him on the one hand, love dissuades him on the

other. His shame would have been subdued by his love; but if so trifling

a gift as a cow should be refused to the sharer of his descent and his

couch, she might {well} seem not to be a cow.

The rival now being given up {to her}, the Goddess did not immediately

lay aside all apprehension; and she was {still} afraid of Jupiter, and

was fearful of her being stolen, until she gave her to Argus, the son of

Aristor, to be kept {by him}. Argus had his head encircled with a

hundred eyes. Two of them used to take rest in their turns, the rest

watched, and used to keep on duty.[101] In whatever manner he stood, he

looked towards Io; although turned away, he {still} used to have Io

before his eyes. In the daytime he suffers her to feed; but when the sun

is below the deep earth, he shuts her up, and ties a cord round her neck

undeserving {of such treatment}. She feeds upon the leaves of the arbute

tree, and bitter herbs, and instead of a bed the unfortunate {animal}

lies upon the earth, that does not always have grass {on it}, and drinks

of muddy streams. And when, too, she was desirous, as a suppliant, to

stretch out her arms to Argus, she had no arms to stretch out to Argus;

and she uttered lowings from her mouth, {when} endeavoring to complain.

And at {this} sound she was terrified, and was affrighted at her own

voice.

She came, too, to the banks, where she was often wont to sport, the

banks of {her father}, Inachus; and soon as she beheld her new horns in

the water, she was terrified, and, astonished, she recoiled from

herself. The Naiads knew her not, and Inachus himself knew her not, who

she was; but she follows her father, and follows her sisters, and

suffers herself to be touched, and presents herself to them, as they

admire {her}. The aged Inachus held her some grass he had plucked; she

licks his hand, and gives kisses to the palms of her father. Nor does

she restrain her tears; and if only words would follow, she would

implore his aid, and would declare her name and misfortunes. Instead of

words, letters, which her foot traced in the dust, completed the sad

discovery of the transformation of her body. “Ah, wretched me!” exclaims

her father Inachus; and clinging to the horns and the neck of the

snow-white cow, as she wept, he repeats, “Ah, wretched me! and art thou

my daughter, that hast been sought for by me throughout all lands? While

undiscovered, thou wast a lighter grief {to me}, than {now, when} thou

art found. Thou art silent, and no words dost thou return in answer to

mine; thou only heavest sighs from the depth of thy breast, and what

alone thou art able to do, thou answerest in lowings to my words. But I,

in ignorance {of this}, was preparing the bridal chamber, and the

{nuptial} torches for thee; and my chief hope was that of a son-in-law,

my next was that of grandchildren. But now must thou have a mate from

the herd, now, {too}, an offspring of the herd. Nor is it possible for

me to end grief so great by death; but it is a detriment to be a God;

and the gate of death being shut against me, extends my grief to eternal

ages.”

While thus he lamented, the starry Argus removed her away, and carried

the daughter, {thus} taken from her father, to distant pastures. He

himself, at a distance, occupies the lofty top of a mountain, whence, as

he sits, he may look about on all sides.

Nor can the ruler of the Gods above, any longer endure so great miseries

of the granddaughter of Phoroneus;[102] and he calls his son {Mercury},

whom the bright Pleiad, {Maia},[103] brought forth, and orders him to

put Argus to death. There is {but} little delay to take wings upon his

feet, and his soporiferous wand[104] in his hand, and a cap for his

hair.[105] After he had put these things in order, the son of Jupiter

leaps down from his father’s high abode upon the earth, and there he

takes off his cap, and lays aside his wings; his wand alone was

retained. With this, as a shepherd, he drives some she-goats through the

pathless country, taken up as he passed along, and plays upon oaten

straws joined together.

The keeper appointed by Juno, charmed by the sound of this new

contrivance, says, “Whoever thou art, thou mayst be seated with me upon

this stone; for, indeed, in no {other} place is the herbage more

abundant for thy flock; and thou seest, too, that the shade is

convenient for the shepherds.” The son of Atlas sat down, and with much

talking he occupied the passing day with his discourse, and by playing

upon his joined reeds he tried to overpower his watchful eyes. Yet {the

other} strives hard to overcome soft sleep; and although sleep was

received by a part of his eyes, yet with a part he still keeps watch. He

inquires also (for the pipe had been {but} lately invented) by what

method it had been found out.

[Footnote 99: _So often detected._--Ver. 606. Clarke translates

‘deprensi toties mariti’ by the expression, ‘who had been so often

catched in his roguery.’]

[Footnote 100: _Into a sleek heifer._--Ver. 611. Clarke renders

the words, ‘nitentem juvencam,’ a neat heifer.]

[Footnote 101: _To keep on duty._--Ver. 627. ‘In statione

manebant.’ This is a metaphorical expression, taken from military

affairs, as soldiers in turns relieve each other, and take their

station, when they keep watch and ward.]

[Footnote 102: _Phoroneus._--Ver. 668. He was the father of Jasius

and of Inachus, the parent of Io. Some accounts, however, say that

Inachus was the father of Phoroneus, and the son of Oceanus.]

[Footnote 103: _Pleiad Maia._--Ver. 670. Maia was one of the seven

daughters of Atlas, who were styled Pleiädes after they were

received among the constellations.]

[Footnote 104: _Soporiferous wand._--Ver. 671. This was the

‘caduceus,’ or staff, with which Mercury summoned the souls of the

departed from the shades, induced slumber, and did other offices

pertaining to his capacity as the herald and messenger of Jupiter.

It was represented as an olive branch, wreathed with two snakes.

In time of war, heralds and ambassadors, among the Greeks, carried

a ‘caduceus.’ It was not used by the Romans.]

[Footnote 105: _A cap for his hair._--Ver. 672. This was a cap

called ‘Petasus.’ It had broad brims, and was not unlike the

‘causia,’ or Macedonian hat, except that the brims of the latter

were turned up at the sides.]

EXPLANATION.

The story of the Metamorphosis of Io has been already enlarged upon in

the Explanation of the preceding Fable. It may, however, not be

irrelevant to observe, that myths, or mythological stories or fables,

are frequently based upon some true history, corrupted by tradition in

lapse of time. The poets, too, giving loose to their fancy in their

love of the marvellous, have still further disfigured the original

story; so that it is in most instances extremely difficult to trace

back the facts to their primitive simplicity, by a satisfactory

explanation of each circumstance attending them, either upon a

philosophical, or an historical principle of solution.

FABLE XV. [I.689-712]

Pan, falling in love with the Nymph Syrinx, she flies from him; on

which he pursues her. Syrinx, arrested in her flight by the waves of

the river Ladon, invokes the aid of her sisters, the Naiads, who

change her into reeds. Pan unites them into an instrument with seven

pipes, which bears the name of the Nymph.

Then the God says, “In the cold mountains of Arcadia, among the

Hamadryads of Nonacris,[106] there was one Naiad very famous; the Nymphs

called her Syrinx. And not once {alone} had she escaped the Satyrs as

they pursued, and whatever Gods either the shady grove or the fruitful

fields have {in them}. In her pursuits and her virginity itself she used

to devote herself to the Ortygian Goddess;[107] and being clothed after

the fashion of Diana, she might have deceived one, and might have been

supposed to be the daughter of Latona, if she had not had a bow of

cornel wood, the other, {a bow} of gold; and even then did she

{sometimes} deceive {people}. Pan spies her as she is returning from the

hill of Lycæus, and having his head crowned with sharp pine leaves, he

utters such words as these;” it remained {for Mercury} to repeat the

words, and how that the Nymph, slighting his suit, fled through pathless

spots, until she came to the gentle stream of sandy Ladon;[108] and that

here, the waters stopping her course, she prayed to her watery sisters,

that they would change her; and {how} that Pan, when he was thinking

that Syrinx was now caught by him, had seized hold of some reeds of the

marsh, instead of the body of the Nymph; and {how}, while he was sighing

there, the winds moving amid the reeds had made a murmuring noise, and

like one complaining; and {how} that, charmed by this new discovery and

the sweetness of the sound, he had said, “This mode of converse with

thee shall ever remain with me;” and that accordingly, unequal reeds

being stuck together among themselves by a cement of wax, had {since}

retained the name of the damsel.

[Footnote 106: _Nonacris._--Ver. 690. Nonacris was the name of

both a mountain and a city of Arcadia, in the Peloponnesus.]

[Footnote 107: _The Ortygian Goddess._--Ver. 694. Diana is called

“Ortygian,” from the isle of Delos, where she was born, one of

whose names was Ortygia, from the quantity of quails, ὄρτυγες,

there found.]

[Footnote 108: _Ladon._--Ver. 702. This was a beautiful river of

Arcadia, flowing into the Alpheus: its banks were covered with

vast quantities of reeds. Ovid here calls its stream ‘placidum;’

whereas in the fifth book of the Fasti, l. 89, he calls it

‘rapax,’ ‘violent;’ and in the second book of the Fasti, l. 274,

its waters are said to be ‘citæ aquæ,’ swift waters. Some

commentators have endeavored to reconcile these discrepancies; but

the probability is, that Ovid, like many other poets, used his

epithets at random, or rather according to the requirements of the

measure for the occasion.]

EXPLANATION.

This appears to have been an Egyptian fable, imported into the works

of the Grecian poets. Pan was probably a Divinity of the Egyptians,

who worshipped nature under that name, as we are told by Herodotus and

Diodorus Siculus. As, however, according to Nonnus, there were not

less than twelve Pans, it is possible that the adventure here related

may have been supposed to have happened to one of them who was a

native of Greece. He was most probably the inventor of the Syrinx, or

Pandæan pipe, and, perhaps, formed his first instrument from the

produce of the banks of the River Ladon, from which circumstance

Syrinx may have been styled the daughter of that river.

FABLE XVI. [I.713-723]

Mercury, having lulled Argus to sleep, cuts off his head, and Juno

places his eyes in the peacock’s tail.

The Cyllenian God[109] being about to say such things, perceived that

all his eyes were sunk in sleep, and that his sight was wrapped[110] in

slumber. At once he puts an end to his song, and strengthens his

slumbers, stroking his languid eyes with his magic wand. There is no

delay; he wounds him, as he nods, with his crooked sword, where the head

is joined to the neck; and casts him, all blood-stained, from the rock,

and stains the craggy cliff with his gore.

Argus, thou liest low, and the light which thou hadst in so many eyes is

{now} extinguished; and one night takes possession of a {whole} hundred

eyes. The daughter of Saturn takes them, and places them on the feathers

of her own bird, and she fills its tail with starry gems.

[Footnote 109: _The Cyllenian God._--Ver. 713. Mercury is so

called from Cyllene, in Arcadia, where he was born.]

[Footnote 110: _That his sight was wrapped._--Ver. 714. Clarke

translates ‘Adopertaque lumina somno,’ ‘and his peepers covered

with sleep.’]

EXPLANATION.

The ancient writers, Asclepiades and Pherecydes, tell us, that Argus

was the son of Arestor. He is supposed by some to have been the fourth

king of Argos after Inachus, and to have been a person of great wisdom

and penetration, on account of which he was said to have a hundred

eyes. Io most probably was committed to his charge, and he watched

over her with the greatest care.

It is impossible to divine the reason why his eyes were said to have

been set by Juno in the tail of the peacock; though, perhaps, the

circumstance has no other foundation than the resemblance of the human

eye to the spots in the tail of that bird, which was consecrated to

Juno. Besides, if Juno is to be considered the symbol of Air, or

Æther, through which light is transmitted to us, it is not surprising

that the ancients bestowed so many eyes upon the bird which was

consecrated to her.

FABLE XVII. [I.724-779]

Io, terrified and maddened with dreadful visions, runs over many

regions, and stops in Egypt, when Juno, at length, being pacified,

restores her to her former shape, and permits her to be worshipped

there, under the name of Isis.

Immediately, she was inflamed with rage, and deferred not the time of

{expressing} her wrath; and she presented a dreadful Fury before the

eyes and thoughts of the Argive mistress,[111] and buried in her bosom

invisible stings, and drove her, in her fright, a wanderer through the

whole earth. Thou, O Nile, didst remain, as the utmost boundary of her

long wanderings. Soon as she arrived there, she fell upon her knees,

placed on the edge of the bank, and raising herself up, with her neck

thrown back, and casting to Heaven those looks which then alone she

could, by her groans, and her tears, and her mournful lowing, she seemed

to be complaining of Jupiter, and to be begging an end of her sorrows.

He, embracing the neck of his wife with his arms, entreats her, at

length, to put an end to her punishment; and he says, “Lay aside thy

fears for the future; she shall never {more} be the occasion of any

trouble to thee;” and {then} he bids the Stygian waters to hear this

{oath}. As soon as the Goddess is pacified, {Io} receives her former

shape, and she becomes what she was before; the hairs flee from off of

her body, her horns decrease, and the orb of her eye becomes less; the

opening of her jaw is contracted; her shoulders and her hands return,

and her hoof, vanishing, is disposed of into five nails; nothing of the

cow remains to her, but the whiteness of her appearance; and the Nymph,

contented with the service of two feet, is raised erect {on them}; and

{yet} she is afraid to speak, lest she should low like a cow, and

timorously tries again the words {so long} interrupted. Now, as a

Goddess, she is worshipped by the linen-wearing throng[112] {of Egypt}.

To her, at length, Epaphus[113] is believed to have been born from the

seed of great Jove, and throughout the cities he possesses temples

joined to {those of} his parent. Phaëton, sprung from the Sun, was equal

to him in spirit and in years; whom formerly, as he uttered great

boasts, and yielded not {at all} to him, and proud of his father,

Phœbus, the grandson of Inachus could not endure; and said, “Thou,

{like} a madman, believest thy mother in all things, and art puffed up

with the conceit of an imaginary father.”

Phaëton blushed, and in shame repressed his resentment; and he reported

to his mother, Clymene,[114] the reproaches of Epaphus; and said,

“Mother, to grieve thee still more, I, the free, the bold {youth}, was

silent; I am ashamed both that these reproaches can be uttered against

us, and that they cannot be refuted; but do thou, if only I am born of a

divine race, give me some proof of so great a descent, and claim me for

heaven.” {Thus} he spoke, and threw his arms around the neck of his

mother; and besought her, by his own head and by that of Merops,[115]

and by the nuptial torches of his sisters, that she would give him some

token of his real father.

It is a matter of doubt whether Clymene was more moved by the entreaties

of Phaëton, or by resentment at the charge made against her; and she

raised both her arms to heaven, and, looking up to the light of the Sun,

she said, “Son, I swear to thee, by this beam, bright with shining rays,

which both hears and sees us, that thou, that thou, {I say}, wast

begotten by this Sun, which thou beholdest; by this {Sun}, which governs

the world. If I utter an untruth, let him deny himself to be seen by me,

and let this light prove the last for my eyes. Nor will it be any

prolonged trouble for thee to visit thy father’s dwelling; the abode

where he arises is contiguous to our regions.[116] If only thy

inclination disposes thee, go forth, and thou shalt inquire of himself.”

Phaëton immediately springs forth, overjoyed, upon these words of his

mother, and reaches the skies in imagination; and he passes by his own

Æthiopians, and the Indians situate beneath the rays of the Sun,[117]

and briskly wends his way to the rising of his sire.

[Footnote 111: _The Argive mistress._--Ver. 726. Clarke renders

‘Pellicis Argolicæ,’ ‘of the Grecian miss.’]

[Footnote 112: _The linen-wearing throng._--Ver. 747. The priests,

and worshippers of Isis, with whom Io is here said to be

identical, paid their adoration to her clothed in linen vestments.

Probably, Isis was the first to teach the Egyptians the

cultivation of flax.]

[Footnote 113: _Epaphus._--Ver. 748. Herodotus, in his second

book, tells us, that this son of Jupiter, by Io, was the same as

the Egyptian God, Apis. Eusebius, quoting from Apollodorus, says

that Epaphus was the son of Io, by Telegonus, who married her.]

[Footnote 114: _Clymene._--Ver. 756. She was a Nymph of the sea,

the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys.]

[Footnote 115: _Merops._--Ver. 763. He was king of Ethiopia, and

marrying the Nymph Clymene, was either the stepfather of Phaëton,

or, as some writers say, his putative father.]

[Footnote 116: _To our regions._--Ver. 773. Ethiopia, which, in

the time of Ovid, was generally looked upon as one of the regions

of the East.]

[Footnote 117: _The rays of the Sun._--Ver. 778. ‘Ignibus

sidereis,’ means here the ‘heat,’ or ‘fire of the sun,’ the sun

being considered as a ‘sidus,’ or ‘luminous heavenly body.’]

EXPLANATION.

To the elucidation of this narrative, already given, we will only add,

that some of the mythologists inform us, that when Mercury had lulled

Argus to sleep, a youth named Hierax awoke him; on which Mercury

killed Argus with a stone, and turned Hierax into a spar-hawk.

BOOK THE SECOND.

FABLE I. [II.1-303]

Phaëton, insulted by Epaphus, goes to the Palace of Apollo, to beseech

him to give some token that he is his son. Apollo, having sworn, by

the river Styx, to refuse him nothing that he should desire, he

immediately asks to guide his chariot for one day. He is unsuccessful

in the attempt, and, the horses running away, the world is in danger

of being consumed.

The palace of the Sun was raised high, on stately columns, bright with

radiant gold, and carbuncle that rivals the flames; polished ivory

covered its highest top, {and} double folding doors shone with the

brightness of silver. The workmanship {even} exceeded the material; for

there Mulciber had carved the sea circling round the encompassed Earth;

and the orb of the Earth, and the Heavens which hang over that orb.

{There} the waves have {in them} the azure Deities, both Triton,

sounding {with his shell}, and the changing Proteus, and Ægeon,[1]

pressing the huge backs of whales with his arms; Doris,[2] too, and her

daughters, part of whom appear to be swimming, part, sitting on the

bank, to be drying their green hair; some {are seen} borne upon fishes.

The features in all are not the same, nor, however, {remarkably}

different: {they are} such as those of sisters ought to be. The Earth

has {upon it} men and cities, and woods, and wild beasts, and rivers,

and Nymphs, and other Deities of the country. Over these is placed the

figure of the shining Heaven, and there are six Signs {of the Zodiac} on

the right door, and as many on the left.

Soon as the son of Clymene had arrived thither by an ascending path,

and entered the house of his parent, {thus} doubted of; he immediately

turned his steps to the presence of his father, and stood at a distance,

for he could not bear the refulgence nearer. Arrayed in a purple

garment, Phœbus was seated on a throne sparkling with brilliant

emeralds. On his right hand, and on his left, the Days, the Months,

the Years, the Ages, and the Hours were arranged, at corresponding

distances, and the fresh Spring was standing, crowned with a chaplet of

blossoms; Summer was standing naked, and wearing garlands made of ears

of corn; Autumn, too, was standing besmeared with the trodden-out

grapes; and icy Winter, rough with his hoary hair.

Then the Sun, from the midst of this place, with those eyes with which

he beholds all things, sees the young man struck with fear at the

novelty of {these} things, and says, “What is the occasion of thy

journey {hither}? What dost thou seek, Phaëton, in this {my} palace,

a son not to be denied by his parent?”

He answers, “O thou universal Light of the unbounded World, Phœbus, my

father, if thou grantest me the use of that name; and if Clymene is not

concealing an error under a {false} pretext, give me, my parent, some

token, by which I may be believed to be really thy progeny; and remove

this uncertainty from my mind.” Thus he spoke; but his parent took off

the rays shining all around his head, and commanded him to come nearer;

and, having embraced him, he says, “{And} neither art thou deserving to

be denied to be mine, and Clymene has told thee thy true origin; and

that thou mayst have the less doubt, ask any gift thou mayst please,

that thou mayst receive it from me bestowing it. Let the lake, by which

the Gods are wont to swear, and which is unseen, {even} by my eyes, be

as a witness of my promise.”

Hardly had he well finished, when he asks for his father’s chariot, and

for the command and guidance of the wing-footed horses for one day. His

father repented that he had {so} sworn, and shaking his splendid head

three or four times, he said, “By thine have my words been made rash.

I wish I were allowed not to grant what I have promised! I confess, my

son, that this alone I would deny thee. {Still}, I may dissuade thee:

thy desire is not attended with safety. Thou desirest, Phaëton, a gift

{too} great, and {one} which is suited neither to thy strength, nor to

such youthful years. Thy lot is that of a mortal; that which thou

desirest, belongs not to mortals. {Nay}, thou aimest, in thy ignorance,

at even more than it is allowed the Gods above to obtain. Let every one

be self-satisfied, {if he likes}; still, with the exception of myself,

no one is able to take his stand upon the fire-bearing axle-tree. Even

the Ruler of vast Olympus, who hurls the ruthless bolts with his

terrific right hand, cannot guide this chariot; and {yet}, what have we

greater than Jupiter? The first {part of the} road is steep, and such as

the horses, {though} fresh in the morning, can hardly climb. In the

middle of the heavens it is high aloft, from whence it is often a

{source of} fear, {even} to myself, to look {down} upon the sea and the

earth, and my breast trembles with fearful apprehensions. The last stage

is a steep descent, and requires a sure command {of the horses}. Then,

too, Tethys[3] herself, who receives me in her waves, extended below, is

often wont to fear, lest I should be borne headlong {from above}.

Besides, the heavens are carried round[4] with a constant rotation, and

carry {with them} the lofty stars, and whirl them with rapid revolution.

Against this I have to contend; and that force which overcomes {all}

other things, {does} not {overcome} me; and I am carried in a contrary

direction to the rapid world. Suppose the chariot given {to thee}; what

couldst thou do? Couldst thou proceed, opposed to the whirling poles, so

that the rapid heavens should not carry thee away? Perhaps, too, thou

dost fancy in thy mind that there are groves, and cities of the Gods,

and temples enriched with gifts; {whereas}, the way is through dangers,

and the forms of wild beasts;[5] and though thou shouldst keep on thy

road, and be drawn aside by no wanderings, still thou must pass amid the

horns of the threatening Bull, and the Hæmonian[6] bow, and {before} the

visage of the raging Lion, and the Scorpion, bending his cruel claws

with a wide compass, and the Crab, that bends his claws in a different

manner; nor is it easy for thee to govern the steeds spirited by those

fires which they have in their breasts, and which they breathe forth

from their mouths and their nostrils. Hardly are they restrained by me,

when their high-mettled spirit is {once} heated, and their necks

struggle against the reins. But do thou have a care, my son, that I be

not the occasion of a gift fatal to thee, and while the matter {still}

permits, alter thy intentions. Thou askest, forsooth, a sure proof that

thou mayst believe thyself sprung from my blood? I give thee a sure

proof in {thus} being alarmed {for thee}; and by my paternal

apprehensions, I am shown to be thy father. Lo, behold my countenance!

I wish, too, that thou couldst direct thy eyes into my breast, and

discover my fatherly concern within! Finally, look around thee, upon

whatever the rich world contains, and ask for anything out of the

blessings, so many and so great, of heaven, of earth, and of sea; {and}

thou shalt suffer no denial. In this one thing alone I beg to be

excused, which, {called} by its right name, is a penalty, and not an

honor; thou art asking, Phaëton, a punishment instead of a gift. Why, in

thy ignorance, art thou embracing my neck with caressing arms? Doubt

not; whatever thou shalt desire shall be granted thee (by the Stygian

waves I have sworn it); but do thou make thy desire more considerately.”

He had finished his admonitions; and yet {Phaëton} resists his advice,

and presses his point, and burns with eagerness for the chariot.

Wherefore, his parent having delayed as long as he could, leads the

young man to the lofty chariot, the gift of Vulcan. The axle-tree was of

gold, the poles were of gold; the circumference of the exterior of the

wheel was of gold; the range of the spokes was of silver. Chrysolites

and gems placed along the yoke in order, gave a bright light from the

reflected sun. And while the aspiring Phaëton is admiring these things,

and is examining the workmanship, behold! the watchful Aurora opened her

purple doors in the ruddy east, and her halls filled with roses. The

stars disappear, the troops whereof Lucifer gathers, and moves the last

from his station in the heavens. But the father Titan, when he beheld

the earth and the universe growing red, and the horns of the far-distant

Moon, as if about to vanish, orders the swift Hours to yoke the horses.

The Goddesses speedily perform his commands, and lead forth the steeds

from the lofty stalls, snorting forth flames, and filled with the juice

of Ambrosia; and {then} they put on the sounding bits.

Then the father touched the face of his son with a hallowed drug, and

made it able to endure the burning flames, and placed the rays upon his

locks, and fetching from his troubled heart sighs presaging his sorrow,

he said: “If thou canst here at least, my boy, obey the advice of thy

father, be sparing of the whip, and use the bridle with nerve. Of their

own accord they are wont to hasten on; the difficulty is to check them

in their full career. And let not the way attract thee through the five

direct circles.[7] There is a track cut obliquely, with a broad

curvature, and bounded by the extremities of three zones, and {so} it

shuns the South pole, and the Bear united to the North. Let thy way be

here; thou wilt perceive distinct traces of the wheels. And that heaven

and earth may endure equal heat, neither drive too low, nor urge the

chariot along the summit of the sky. Going forth too high, thou wilt set

on fire the signs of the heavens; too low, the earth; in the middle

course thou will go most safely. Neither let the right wheel bear thee

off towards the twisted Serpent, nor let the left lead thee to the low

Altar; hold thy course between them. The rest I leave to Fortune, who,

I pray, may aid thee, and take more care of thee, than thou dost of

thyself. Whilst I am speaking, the moist Night has touched the goals

placed on the Western shores; delay is not allowed me. I am required;

the Morning is shining forth, the darkness being dispersed. Seize the

reins with thy hands; or if thou hast a mind capable of change, make use

of my advice, {and} not my chariot, while thou art {still} able, and art

even yet standing upon solid ground; and while thou art not yet in thy

ignorance filling the chariot that thou didst so unfortunately covet.”

The other leaps into the light chariot with his youthful body, and

stands aloft, and rejoices to take in his hand the reins presented {to

him}, and then gives thanks to his reluctant parent. In the meantime the

swift Pyroeis, and Eoüs and Æthon, the horses of the sun, and Phlegon,

{making} the fourth, fill the air with neighings, sending forth flames,

and beat the barriers with their feet. After Tethys, ignorant of the

destiny of her grandson, had removed these, and the scope of the

boundless universe was given them, they take the road, and moving their

feet through the air, they cleave the resisting clouds, and raised aloft

by their wings, they pass by the East winds that had arisen from the

same parts. But the weight was light; and such as the horses of the sun

could not feel; and the yoke was deficient of its wonted weight. And as

the curving ships, without proper ballast, are tossed about, and

unsteady, through their too great lightness, are borne through the sea,

so does the chariot give bounds[8] in the air, unimpeded by its usual

burden, and is tossed on high, and is just like an empty one.

Soon as the steeds have perceived this, they rush on, and leave the

beaten track, and run not in the order in which {they did} before. He

himself becomes alarmed; and knows not which way to turn the reins

entrusted {to him}, nor does he know where the way is, nor, if he did

know, could he control them. Then, for the first time, did the cold

Triones grow warm with sunbeams, and attempt, in vain, to be dipped in

the sea that was forbidden {to them}. And the Serpent which is situate

next to the icy pole, being before torpid with cold, and formidable to

no one, grew warm, and regained new rage from the heat. They say,

too,[9] that thou, Boötes, being disturbed, took to flight; although

thou wast {but} slow, and thy wain impeded thee. But when, from the

height of the skies, the unhappy Phaëton looked down upon the earth,

lying far, very far beneath, he grew pale, and his knees shook with a

sudden terror; and in a light so great, darkness overspread his eyes.

And now he could wish that he had never touched the horses of his

father; and now he is sorry that he knew his descent, and that he

prevailed in his request; now desiring to be called the son of Merops.

He is borne along, just as a ship driven by the furious Boreas, to which

its pilot has given up the overpowered helm, {and} which he has resigned

to the Gods and {the effect of} his supplications. What can he do? much

of heaven is left behind his back; still more is before his eyes. Either

{space} he measures in his mind; and at one moment he is looking forward

to the West, which it is not allowed him by fate to reach; {and}

sometimes he looks back upon the East. Ignorant what to do, he is

stupefied; and he neither lets go the reins, nor is he able to retain

them; nor does he know the names of the horses. In his fright, too, he

sees strange objects scattered everywhere in various parts of the

heavens, and the forms of huge wild beasts. There is a spot where the

Scorpion bends his arms into two curves, and with his tail and claws

bending on either side, he extends his limbs through the space of two

signs {of the Zodiac}. As soon as the youth beheld him wet with the

sweat of black venom, and threatening wounds with the barbed point {of

his tail}, bereft of sense, he let go the reins, in a chill of horror.

Soon as they, falling down, have touched the top of their backs, the

horses range at large: and no one restraining them, they go through the

air of an unknown region; and where their fury drives them thither,

without check, do they hurry along, and they rush on to the stars fixed

in the sky, and drag the chariot through pathless places. One while they

are mounting aloft, and now they are borne through steep places, and

{along} headlong paths in a tract nearer to the earth.

The Moon, too, wonders that her brother’s horses run lower than her own,

and the scorched clouds send forth smoke. As each region is most

elevated, it is caught by the flames, and cleft, it makes {vast} chasms,

and becomes dry, its moisture being carried away. The grass grows pale;

the trees, with their foliage, are burnt up; and the dry standing corn

affords fuel for its own destruction. {But} I am complaining of trifling

{ills}. Great cities perish, together with their fortifications, and the

flames turn whole nations, with their populations, into ashes; woods,

together with mountains, are on fire. Athos[10] burns, and the Cilician

Taurus,[11] and Tmolus,[12] and Œta,[13] and Ida,[14] now dry, {but}

once most famed for its springs; and Helicon,[15] the resort of the

Virgin {Muses}, and Hæmus,[16] not yet {called} Œagrian. Ætna[17] burns

intensely with redoubled flames, and Parnassus, with its two summits,

and Eryx,[18] and Cynthus,[19] and Othrys, and Rhodope,[20] at length to

be despoiled of its snows, and Mimas,[21] and Dindyma,[22] and

Mycale,[23] and Cithæron,[24] created for {the performance of} sacred

rites. Nor does its cold avail {even} Scythia; Caucasus[25] is on fire,

and Ossa with Pindus, and Olympus, greater than them both, and the lofty

Alps,[26] and the cloud-bearing Apennines.[27]

Then, indeed, Phaëton beholds the world set on fire on all sides, and he

cannot endure heat so great, and he inhales with his mouth scorching

air, as though from a deep furnace, and perceives his own chariot to be

on fire. And neither is he able now to bear the ashes and the emitted

embers; and, on every side, he is involved in heated smoke. Covered with

a pitchy darkness, he knows not whither he is going, nor where he is,

and is hurried away at the pleasure of the winged steeds. They believe

that it was then that the nations of the Æthiopians contracted their

black hue,[28] the blood being attracted into the surface of the body.

Then was Libya[29] made dry by the heat, the moisture being carried off;

then, with dishevelled hair, the Nymphs lamented the springs and the

lakes. Bœotia bewails Dirce,[30] Argos Amymone,[31] and Ephyre[32] the

waters of Pirene. Nor do rivers that have got banks distant in

situation, remain {secure}; Tanais[33] smokes in the midst of its

waters, and the aged Peneus, and Teuthrantian Caïcus,[34] and rapid

Ismenus,[35] with Phocean Erymanthus,[36] and Xanthus[37] again to burn,

and yellow Lycormas,[38] and Mæander,[39] which sports with winding

streams, and the Mygdonian Melas,[40] and the Tænarian Eurotas.[41] The

Babylonian Euphrates, too, was on fire, Orontes[42] was in flames, and

the swift Thermodon[43] and Ganges,[44] and Phasis,[45] and Ister.[46]

Alpheus[47] boils; the banks of Spercheus burn; and the gold which

Tagus[48] carries with its stream, melts in the flames. The river birds

too, which made famous the Mæonian[49] banks {of the river} with their

song, grew hot in the middle of Caÿster. The Nile, affrighted, fled to

the remotest parts of the earth, and concealed his head, which still

lies hid; his seven last mouths are empty, {become} seven {mere}

channels, without any stream. The same fate dries up the Ismarian

{rivers}, Hebrus together with Strymon,[50] and the Hesperian[51]

streams, the Rhine, and the Rhone, and the Po, and the Tiber, to which

was promised the sovereignty of the world.

All the ground bursts asunder; and through the chinks, the light

penetrates into Tartarus, and startles the Infernal King with his

spouse. The Ocean too, is contracted, and that which lately was sea, is

a surface of parched sand; and the mountains which the deep sea had

covered, start up and increase {the number of} the scattered

Cyclades.[52] The fishes sink to the bottom, and the crooked Dolphins do

not care to raise themselves on the surface into the air, as usual. The

bodies of sea calves float lifeless on their backs, on the top of the

water. The story, too, is, that {even} Nereus himself, and Doris and

their daughters, lay hid in the heated caverns. Three times had Neptune

ventured, with a stern countenance, to thrust his arms out of the water;

three times he was unable to endure the scorching heat of the air.

However, the genial Earth, as she was surrounded with sea, amid the

waters of the main, and the springs, dried up on every side, which had

hidden themselves in the bowels of their cavernous parent, burnt-up,

lifted up her all-productive face[53] as far as her neck, and placed her

hands to her forehead, and shaking all things with a vast trembling, she

sank down a little, and retired below the spot where she is wont to be,

and thus she spoke, with a parched voice: “O sovereign of the Gods, if

thou approvest of this, if I have deserved it, why do thy lightnings

linger? Let me, {if} doomed to perish by the force of fire, perish by

thy flames; and alleviate my misfortune, by being the author {of it}.

With difficulty, indeed, do I open my mouth for these very words;” (the

vapor had oppressed her utterance.) “Behold my scorched hair, and such a

quantity of ashes over my eyes, so much {too}, over my features. And

dost thou give this as my recompense? this, as the reward of my

fertility and of my duty, in that I endure wounds from the crooked

plough and harrows, and am harassed all the year through? In that I

supply green leaves for the cattle, and corn, a wholesome food for

mankind, and frankincense for yourselves? But still, suppose that I am

deserving of destruction, why have the waves {deserved this}? Why has

thy brother deserved it? Why do the seas, delivered to him by lot,

decrease, and why do they recede still further from the sky? But if

regard for neither thy brother nor for myself influences thee, still

have consideration for thy own skies; look around, on either side, {how}

each pole is smoking; if the fire shall injure them, thy palace will

fall in ruins. See! Atlas[54] himself is struggling, and hardly can he

bear the glowing heavens on his shoulders. If the sea, if the earth

perishes, if the palace of heaven, we are thrown[55] into the confused

state of ancient chaos. Save it from the flames, if aught still

survives, and provide for the preservation of the universe.”

Thus spoke the Earth; nor, indeed, could she any longer endure the

vapor, nor say more; and she withdrew her face within herself, and the

caverns neighboring to the shades below.

[Footnote 1: _Ægeon._--Ver. 10. Homer makes him to be the same

with Briareus. According to another account, which Ovid here

follows, he was a sea God, the son of Oceanus and Terra.]

[Footnote 2: _Doris._--Ver. 11. She was the daughter of Oceanus,

the wife of Nereus, and the mother of the fifty Nereids.]

[Footnote 3: _Tethys._--Ver. 69. She was the daughter of Cœlus and

Terra, and the wife of Oceanus. Her name is here used to signify

the ocean itself.]

[Footnote 4: _Are carried round._--Ver. 70. Clarke thus renders

this line,--“Add, too, that the heaven was whisked round with a

continual rolling.”]

[Footnote 5: _Wild beasts._--Ver. 78. The signs of the Zodiac.]

[Footnote 6: _Hæmonian._--Ver. 81. Or Thessalian. He here alludes

to the Thessalian Chiron, the Centaur, who, according to Ovid and

other writers, was placed in the Zodiac as the Constellation

Sagittarius: while others say that Crotus, or Croto, the son of

Eupheme, the nurse of the Muses, was thus honored.]

[Footnote 7: _Through the five direct circles._--Ver. 129. There

is some obscurity in this passage, arising from the mode of

expression. Phœbus here counsels Phaëton what track to follow, and

tells him to pursue his way by an oblique path, and not directly

in the plane of the equator. This last is what he calls ‘directos

via quinque per arcus.’ These five arcs, or circles, are the five

parallel circles by which astronomers distinguish the heavens,

namely, the two polar circles, the two tropics, and the

equinoctial. The latter runs exactly in the middle, between the

other two circles, so that the expression must be understood to

mean, ‘pursue not your way directly through that circle which is

the middlemost of the five, but observe the track that cuts it

obliquely.’]

[Footnote 8: _The chariot give bounds._--Ver. 165-6. Clarke thus

renders these lines.--‘Thus does the chariot give jumps into the

air without its usual weight, and is kicked up on high, and is

like one empty.’]

[Footnote 9: _They say, too._--Ver. 176-7. The following is

Clarke’s translation of these two lines,--‘They say, too, that

you, Boötes, scowered off in a mighty bustle, although you were

but slow, and thy cart hindered thee.’]

[Footnote 10: _Athos._--Ver. 217. Athos (now Monte Santo) was a

mountain of Macedonia, so lofty that its shadow was said to extend

even to the Isle of Lemnos, which was eighty-seven miles distant.]

[Footnote 11: _Taurus._--Ver. 217. This was an immense mountain

range which ran through the middle of Cilicia, in Asia Minor.]

[Footnote 12: _Tmolus._--Ver. 217. Tmolus (now Bozdaz) was a

mountain of Lydia, famed for its wines and saffron. Pactolus,

a stream with sands reputed to be golden, took its rise there.]

[Footnote 13: _Œta._--Ver. 217. This was a mountain chain, which

divided Thessaly from Doris and Phocis; famed for the death of

Hercules on one of its ridges.]

[Footnote 14: _Ida._--Ver. 218. There were two mountains of the

name of Ide, or Ida; one in Crete, the other near Troy. The latter

is here referred to, as being famed for its springs.]

[Footnote 15: _Helicon._--Ver. 219. This was a mountain of Bœotia,

sacred to the Virgin Muses.]

[Footnote 16: _Hæmus._--Ver. 219. This, which is now called the

Balkan range, was a lofty chain of mountains running through

Thrace. Orpheus, the son of Œagrus and Calliope, was there torn in

pieces by the Mænades, or Bacchanalian women, whence the mountain

obtained the epithet of ‘Œagrian.’]

[Footnote 17: _Ætna._--Ver. 220. This is the volcanic mountain of

Sicily; the flames caused by the fall of Phaëton, added to its

own, caused them to be redoubled.]

[Footnote 18: _Eryx._--Ver. 221. This was a mountain of Sicily,

now called San Juliano. On it, a magnificent temple was erected,

in honor of Venus.]

[Footnote 19: _Cynthus._--Ver. 221. This was a mountain of Delos,

on which Apollo and Diana were said to have been born.]

[Footnote 20: _Rhodope._--Ver. 222. It was a high mountain, capped

with perpetual snows, in the northern part of Thrace.]

[Footnote 21: _Mimas._--Ver. 222. A mountain of Ionia, near the

Ionian Sea. It was of very great height; whence Homer calls it

ὑψίκρημνος.]

[Footnote 22: _Dindyma._--Ver. 223. This was a mountain of

Phrygia, near Troy, sacred to Cybele, the mother of the Gods.]

[Footnote 23: _Mycale._--Ver. 223. A mountain of Caria, opposite

to the Isle of Samos.]

[Footnote 24: _Cithæron._--Ver. 223. This was a mountain of

Bœotia, famous for the orgies of Bacchus, there celebrated. In its

neighborhood, Pentheus was torn to pieces by the Mænades, for

slighting the worship of Bacchus.]

[Footnote 25: _Caucasus._--Ver. 224. This was a mountain chain in

Asia, between the Euxine and Caspian Seas.]

[Footnote 26: _Alps._--Ver. 226. This mountain range divides

France from Italy.]

[Footnote 27: _Apennines._--Ver. 226. This range of mountains runs

down the centre of Italy.]

[Footnote 28: _Their black hue._--Ver. 235. The notion that the

blackness of the African tribes was produced by the heat of the

sun, is borrowed by the Poet from Hesiod. Hyginus, too, says, ‘the

Indians, because, by the proximity of the fire, their blood was

turned black by the heat thereof, became of black appearance

themselves.’ Notwithstanding the learned and minute investigations

of physiologists on the subject, this question is still involved

in considerable obscurity.]

[Footnote 29: _Libya._--Ver. 237. This was a region between

Mauritania and Cyrene. The Greek writers, however, often use the

word to signify the whole of Africa. Servius gives a trifling

derivation for the name, in saying that Libya was so called,

because λείπει ὁ ὕετος, ‘it is without rain.’]

[Footnote 30: _Dirce._--Ver. 239. Dirce was a celebrated fountain

of Bœotia, into which it was said that Dirce, the wife of Lycus,

king of Thebes, was transformed.]

[Footnote 31: _Amymone._--Ver. 240. It was a fountain of Argos,

near Lerna, into which the Nymph, Amymone, the daughter of Lycus,

king of the Argives, was said to have been transformed.]

[Footnote 32: _Ephyre._--Ver. 240. It was the most ancient name of

Corinth, in the citadel of which, or the Acrocorinthus, was the

spring Pyrene, of extreme brightness and purity and sacred to the

Muses.]

[Footnote 33: _Tanais._--Ver. 242. This river, now the Don, after

a long winding course, discharges itself into the ‘Palus Mæotis,’

now the sea of ‘Azof.’]

[Footnote 34: _Caïcus._--Ver. 243. This is a river of Mysia, here

called ‘Teuthrantian,’ from Mount Teuthras, in its vicinity.]

[Footnote 35: _Ismenus._--Ver. 244. Ismenus was a river of Bœotia,

that flowed past Thebes into the Euripus.]

[Footnote 36: _Erymanthus._--Ver. 245. This was a river of

Arcadia, which, rising in a mountain of that name, fell into the

Alpheus.]

[Footnote 37: _Xanthus._--Ver. 245. This was a river of Troy; here

spoken of as destined to behold flames a second time, in the

conflagration of that city.]

[Footnote 38: _Lycormas._--Ver. 245. This was a rapid river of

Ætolia, which was afterwards known by the name of Evenus.]

[Footnote 39: _Mæander._--Ver. 246. This was a river of Phrygia,

flowing between Lydia and Caria; it was said to have 600 windings

in its course.]

[Footnote 40: _Melas._--Ver. 247. This name was given to many

rivers of Thrace, Thessaly, and Asia, on account of the darkness

of the color of their waters; the name was derived from the Greek

word μέλας, ‘black.’]

[Footnote 41: _Tænarian Eurotas._--Ver. 247. The Eurotas was a

river of Laconia, which flowed under the walls of the city of

Sparta, and discharged itself into the sea near the promontory of

Tænarus, now called Cape Matapan. The Eurotas is now called

‘Basilipotamo,’ or ‘king of streams.’]

[Footnote 42: _Orontes._--Ver. 248. The Orontes was a river of

Asia Minor, which flowed near Antioch.]

[Footnote 43: _Thermodon._--Ver. 249. This was a river of

Cappadocia, near which the Amazons were said to dwell.]

[Footnote 44: _Ganges._--Ver. 249. This is one of the largest

rivers in Asia, and discharges itself into the Persian Gulf; and

not, as Gierig says, in his note on this passage, in the Red Sea.]

[Footnote 45: _Phasis._--Ver. 249. This was a river of Colchis,

falling into the Euxine Sea.]

[Footnote 46: _Ister._--Ver. 249. The Danube had that name from

its source to the confines of Germany; and thence, in its course

through Scythia to the sea, it was called by the name of ‘Ister.’]

[Footnote 47: _Alpheus._--Ver. 250. It was a river of Arcadia, in

Peloponnesus.]

[Footnote 48: _Tagus._--Ver. 251. This was a river of Spain, which

was said to bring down from the mountains great quantities of

golden sand. The Poet here feigns this to be melted by the heat of

the sun, and in that manner to be carried along by the current of

the river.]

[Footnote 49: _Mæonian._--Ver. 252. Mæonia was so called from the

river Mæon, and was another name of Lydia. The Caÿster, famous for

its swans, flowed through Lydia.]

[Footnote 50: _Strymon._--Ver. 257. The Hebrus and the Strymon

were rivers of Thrace. Ismarus was a mountain of that country,

famous for its vines.]

[Footnote 51: _Hesperian._--Ver. 258. Hesperia, or ‘the western

country,’ was a general name of not only Spain and Gaul, but even

Italy. The Rhine is a river of France and Germany, the Rhone of

France. The Padus, or Po, and the Tiber, are rivers of Italy.]

[Footnote 52: _Cyclades._--Ver. 264. The Cyclades were a cluster

of islands in the Ægean Sea, surrounding Delos as though with a

circle, whence their name.]

[Footnote 53: _Her all-productive face._--Ver. 275. The earth was

similarly called by the Greeks παμμήτωρ, ‘the mother of all

things.’ So Virgil calls it ‘omniparens.’]

[Footnote 54: _Atlas._--Ver. 296. This was a mountain of

Mauritania, which, by reason of its height, was said to support

the heavens.]

[Footnote 55: _We are thrown._--Ver. 299. Clarke translates, ‘In

chaos antiquum confundimur,’ ‘We are then jumbled into the old

chaos again.’]

EXPLANATION.

If we were to regard this fable solely as an allegory intended to

convey a moral, we should at once perceive that the adventure of

Phaëton represents the wilful folly of a rash young man, who consults

his own inclination, rather than the dictates of wisdom and prudence.

Some ancient writers tell us that Phaëton was the son of Phœbus and

Clymene, while others make the nymph Rhoda to have been his mother.

Apollodorus, following Hesiod, says that Herse, the daughter of

Cecrops, king of Athens, was the mother of Cephalus, who was carried

away by Aurora; which probably means that he left Greece for the

purpose of settling in the East. Cephalus had a son named Tithonus,

the father of Phaëton. Thus Phaëton was the fourth in lineal descent

from Cecrops, who reigned at Athens about 1580, B.C. The story is most

probably based upon the fact of some excessive heat that happened in

his time. Aristotle supposes that at that period flames fell from

heaven, which ravaged several countries. Possibly the burning of the

cities of the plain, or the stay of the sun in his course at the

command of Joshua, may have been the foundation of the story. St.

Chrysostom suggests that it is based upon an imperfect version of the

ascent of Elijah in a chariot of fire; that name, or rather ‘Elias,’

the Greek form of it, bearing a strong resemblance to Ἥλιος, the Greek

name of the sun. Vossius suggests that this is an Egyptian history,

and considers the story of the grief of Phœbus for the loss of his son

to be another version of the sorrows of the Egyptians for the death of

Osiris. The tears of the Heliades, or sisters of Phaëton, he conceives

to be identical with the lamentations of the women who wept for the

death of Thammuz. The Poet, when he tells us that Phaëton abandoned

his chariot on seeing The Scorpion, probably intends to show that the

event of which he treats happened in the month in which the sun enters

that sign.

Plutarch and Tzetzes tell us that Phaëton was a king of the

Molossians, who drowned himself in the Po; that he was a student of

astronomy, and foretold an excessive heat which happened in his reign,

and laid waste his kingdom. Lucian, also, in his Discourse on

Astronomy, gives a similar explanation of the story, and says that

this prince dying very young, left his observations imperfect, which

gave rise to the fable that he did not know how to drive the chariot

of the sun to the end of its course.

FABLE II. [II.305-324]

Jupiter, to save the universe from being consumed, hurls his thunder

at Phaëton, on which he falls headlong into the river Eridanus.

But the omnipotent father, having called the Gods above to witness, and

him, too, who had given the chariot {to Phaëton}, that unless he gives

assistance, all things will perish in direful ruin, mounts aloft to the

highest eminence, from which he is wont to spread the clouds over the

spacious earth; from which he moves his thunders, and hurls the

brandished lightnings. But then, he had neither clouds that he could

draw over the earth, nor showers that he could pour down from the sky.

He thundered aloud, and darted the poised lightning from his right ear

against the charioteer, and at the same moment deprived him both of his

life and his seat, and by his ruthless fires restrained the flames. The

horses are affrighted, and, making a bound in an opposite direction,

they shake the yoke from off their necks, and disengage themselves from

the torn harness. In one place lie the reins; in another, the axle-tree

wrenched away from the pole; in another part {are} the spokes of the

broken wheels; and the fragments of the chariot torn in pieces are

scattered far and wide. But Phaëton, the flames consuming his yellow

hair, is hurled headlong, and is borne in a long tract through the air;

as sometimes a star from the serene sky may appear to fall, although it

{really} has not fallen. Him the great Eridanus receives, in a part of

the world far distant from his country, and bathes his foaming face.

FABLE III. [II.325-366]

The sisters of Phaëton are changed into poplars, and their tears

become amber distilling from those trees.

The Hesperian Naiads[56] commit his body, smoking from the three-forked

flames, to the tomb, and inscribe these verses on the stone:--“Here is

Phaëton buried, the driver of his father’s chariot, which if he did not

manage, still he miscarried in a great attempt.” But his wretched father

had hidden his face, overcast with bitter sorrow, and, if only we can

believe it, they say that one day passed without the sun.[57] The flames

afforded light; and {so far}, there was some advantage in that disaster.

But Clymene, after she had said whatever things were to be said amid

misfortunes so great, traversed the whole earth, full of woe, and

distracted, and tearing her bosom. And first seeking his lifeless limbs,

{and} then his bones, she found his bones, however, buried on a foreign

bank. She laid herself down on the spot; and bathed with tears the name

she read on the marble, and warmed it with her open breast. The

daughters of the Sun mourn no less, and give tears, an unavailing gift,

to his death; and beating their breasts with their hands, they call

Phaëton both night and day, who is doomed not to hear their sad

complaints; and they lie scattered about the tomb.

The Moon had four times filled her disk, by joining her horns; they,

according to their custom (for use had made custom), uttered

lamentations; among whom Phaëthusa, the eldest of the sisters, when she

was desirous to lie on the ground, complained that her feet had grown

stiff; to whom the fair Lampetie attempting to come, was detained by a

root suddenly formed. A third, when she is endeavoring to tear her hair

with her hands, tears off leaves; one complains that her legs are held

fast by the trunk of a tree, another that her arms are become long

branches. And while they are wondering at these things, bark closes upon

their loins; and by degrees, it encompasses their stomachs, their

breasts, their shoulders, and their hands; and only their mouths are

left uncovered, calling upon their mother. What is their mother to do?

but run here and there, whither frenzy leads her, and join her lips

{with theirs}, while {yet} she may? That is not enough; she tries to

pull their bodies out of the trunks {of the trees}, and with her hands

to tear away the tender branches; but from thence drops of blood flow as

from a wound. Whichever {of them} is wounded, cries out, “Spare me,

mother, O spare me, I pray; in the tree my body is being torn. And now

farewell.” The bark came over the last words.

Thence tears flow forth; and amber distilling from the new-formed

branches, hardens in the sun; which the clear river receives and sends

to be worn by the Latian matrons.

[Footnote 56: _The Hesperian Naiads._--Ver. 325. These were the

Naiads of Italy. They were by name Phaëthusa, Lampetie, and

Phœbe.]

[Footnote 57: _Passed without the sun._--Ver. 331. There is,

perhaps, in this line some faint reference to a tradition of the

sun having, in the language of Scripture, ‘stood still upon

Gibeon, in his course, by the command of Joshua, when dispensing

the divine vengeance upon the Amorites,’ Joshua, x. 13. Or of the

time when ‘the shadow returned ten degrees backward’, by the

sun-dial of Ahaz, 2 Kings, xx. 11.]

FABLE IV. [II.367-400]

Cycnus, king of Liguria, inconsolable for the death of Phaëton, is

transformed into a swan.

Cycnus, the son of Sthenelus,[58] was present at this strange event;

who, although he was related to thee, Phaëton, on his mother’s side, was

yet more nearly allied in affection. He having left his kingdom (for he

reigned over the people and the great cities of the Ligurians[59]) was

filling the verdant banks and the river Eridanus, and the wood, {now}

augmented by the sisters, with his complaints; when the man’s voice

became shrill, and gray feathers concealed his hair. A long neck, too,

extends from his breast, and a membrane joins his reddening toes;

feathers clothe his sides, {and} his mouth holds a bill without a point.

Cycnus becomes a new bird; but he trusts himself not to the heavens or

the air, as being mindful of the fire unjustly sent from thence. He

frequents the pools and the wide lakes, and abhorring fire, he chooses

the streams, the {very} contrary of flames.

Meanwhile, the father of Phaëton, in squalid garb, and destitute of his

comeliness, just as he is wont to be when he suffers an eclipse of his

disk, abhors both the light, himself, and the day; and gives his mind up

to grief, and adds resentment to his sorrow, and denies his services to

the world. “My lot,” says he, “has been restless enough from the {very}

beginning of time, and I am tired of labors endured by me, without end

and without honor. Let any one else drive the chariot that carries the

light. If there is no one, and all the Gods confess that they cannot do

it, let {Jupiter} himself drive it; that, at least, while he is trying

my reins, he may for a time lay aside the lightnings that bereave

fathers. Then he will know, having made trial of the strength of the

flame-footed steeds, that he who did not successfully guide them, did

not deserve death.”

All the Deities stand around the Sun, as he says such things; and they

entreat him, with suppliant voice, not to determine to bring darkness

over the world. Jupiter, as well, excuses the hurling of his lightnings,

and imperiously adds threats to entreaties. Phœbus calls together his

steeds, maddened and still trembling with terror, and, subduing them,

vents his fury both with whip and lash; for he is furious, and upbraids

them with his son, and charges {his death} upon them.

[Footnote 58: _Sthenelus._--Ver. 367. He was a king of Liguria.

Commentators have justly remarked that it was not very likely that

a king of Liguria should be related to Clymene, a queen of the

Ethiopians, as Ovid, in the next line, says was the case. This

story was probably invented by some writer, who fancied that there

were two persons of the name of Phaëton; one the subject of eastern

tradition, and the other a personage of the Latin mythology.]

[Footnote 59: _The Ligurians._--Ver. 370. These were a people

situate on the eastern side of Etruria, between the rivers Var and

Macra. The Grecian writers were in the habit of styling the whole

of the north of Italy Liguria.]

EXPLANATION.

Plutarch places the tomb of Phaëton on the banks of the river Po; and

it is not improbable that his mother and sisters, grieving at his

fate, ended their lives in the neighborhood of his tomb, being

overcome with grief, which gave rise to the story that they were

changed into the poplars on its banks, which distilled amber. Some

writers say, that they were changed into larch trees, and not poplars.

Hesiod and Pindar also make mention of this tradition. Possibly,

Cycnus, being a friend of Phaëton, may have died from grief at his

loss, on which the poets graced his attachment with the story that he

was changed into a swan. Apollodorus mentions two other persons of the

name of Cycnus. One was the son of Mars, and was killed before Troy;

the other, as Hesiod tells us, was killed by Hercules. Lucian, in his

satirical vein, tells us, that inquiring on the banks of the Po for

the swans, and the poplars distilling amber, he was told that no such

things had ever been seen there; and that even the tradition of

Phaëton and his sisters was utterly unknown to the inhabitants of

those parts.

FABLE V. [II.401-465]

Jupiter, while taking a survey of the world, to extinguish the remains

of the fire, falls in love with Calisto, whom he sees in Arcadia; and,

in order to seduce that Nymph, he assumes the form of Diana. Her

sister Nymphs disclose her misfortune before the Goddess, who drives

her from her company, on account of the violation of her vow of

chastity.

But the omnipotent father surveys the vast walls of heaven, and

carefully searches, that no part, impaired by the violence of the fire,

may fall to ruin. After he has seen them to be secure and in their own

{full} strength, he examines the earth, and the works of man; yet a care

for his own Arcadia is more particularly his object. He restores, too,

the springs and the rivers, that had not yet dared to flow, he gives

grass to the earth: green leaves to the trees; and orders the injured

forests again to be green. While {thus} he often went to and fro, he

stopped short on {seeing} a virgin of Nonacris, and the fires engendered

within his bones received {fresh} heat. It was not her employment to

soften the wool by teasing, nor to vary her tresses in their

arrangement; while a buckle fastened her garment, and a white fillet her

hair, carelessly flowing; and at one time she bore in her hand a light

javelin, at another, a bow. She was a warrior of Phœbe; nor did any

{Nymph} frequent Mænalus, more beloved by Trivia,[60] than she; but no

influence is of long duration. The lofty Sun had {now} obtained a

position beyond the mid course, when she enters a grove which no

generation had {ever} cut. Here she puts her quiver off from her

shoulders, and unbends her pliant bow, and lies down on the ground,

which the grass had covered, and presses her painted quiver, with her

neck laid on it. When Jupiter saw her {thus} weary, and without a

protector, he said, “For certain, my wife will know nothing of this

stolen embrace; or, if she should chance to know, is her scolding, is

it, {I say}, of such great consequence?”

Immediately he puts on the form and dress of Diana, and says, “O Virgin!

one portion of my train, upon what mountains hast thou been hunting?”

The virgin raises herself from the turf, and says, “Hail, Goddess! {that

art}, in my opinion, greater than Jove, even if he himself should hear

it.” He both smiles and he hears it, and is pleased at being preferred

to himself; and he gives her kisses, not very moderate, nor such as

would be given by a virgin. He stops her as she is preparing to tell him

in what wood she has been hunting, by an embrace, and he does not betray

himself without the commission {of violence}. She, indeed, on the other

hand, as far as a woman could do (would that thou hadst seen her,

daughter of Saturn, {then} thou wouldst have been more merciful), she,

indeed, {I say}, resists; but what damsel, or who {besides}, could

prevail against Jupiter? Jove, {now} the conqueror, seeks the heavens

above; the grove and the conscious wood is {now} her aversion. Making

her retreat thence, she is almost forgetting to take away her quiver

with her arrows, and the bow which she had hung up.

Behold, Dictynna,[61] attended by her train, as she goes along the lofty

Mænalus, and exulting in the slaughter of the wild beasts, beholds her,

and calls her, thus seen. Being so called, she drew back, and at first

was afraid lest Jupiter might be under her {shape}; but after she saw

the Nymphs walking along with her, she perceived that there was no

deceit,[62] and she approached their train. Alas! how difficult it is

not to betray a crime by one’s looks! She scarce raises her eyes from

the ground, nor, as she used to do, does she walk by the side of the

Goddess, nor is she the foremost in the whole company; but she is

silent, and by her blushes she gives signs of her injured honor. And

Diana, but {for the fact}, that she is a virgin, might have perceived

her fault by a thousand indications; the Nymphs are said to have

perceived it.

The horns of the Moon were {now} rising again in her ninth course, when

the hunting Goddess, faint from her brother’s flames, lighted on a cool

grove, out of which a stream ran, flowing with its murmuring noise, and

borne along the sand worn fine {by its action}. When she had approved of

the spot, she touched the surface of the water with her foot; and

commending it as well, she says, “All overlookers are far off; let us

bathe our bodies, with the stream poured over them.” She of

Parrhasia[63] blushed; they all put off their clothes; she alone sought

{an excuse for} delay. Her garment was removed as she hesitated, which

being put off, her fault was exposed with her naked body. Cynthia said

to her, in confusion, and endeavoring to conceal her stomach with her

hands, “Begone afar hence! and pollute not the sacred springs;” and she

ordered her to leave her train.

[Footnote 60: _Trivia._--Ver. 416. This was an epithet of Diana,

as presiding over and worshipped in the places where three roads

met, which were called ‘trivia.’ Being known as Diana on earth,

the Moon in the heavens, and Proserpine in the infernal regions,

she was represented at these places with three faces; those of a

horse, a dog, and a female; the latter being in the middle.]

[Footnote 61: _Dictynna._--Ver. 441. Diana was so called from the

Greek word δικτὺς, ‘a net,’ which was used by her for the purposes

of hunting.]

[Footnote 62: _There was no deceit._--Ver. 446. Clarke translates

‘sensit abesse dolos,’ ‘she was convinced there was no roguery in

the case.’]

[Footnote 63: _She of Parrhasia._--Ver. 460. Calisto is so called

from Parrhasia, a region of Arcadia. Parrhasius was the name of a

mountain, a grove, and a city of that country and was derived from

the name of Parrhasus, a son of Lycaon.]

FABLES VI AND VII. [II.466-550]

Juno, being jealous that Calisto has attracted Jupiter, transforms her

into a Bear. Her son, Arcas, not recognizing his mother in that shape,

is about to kill her; but Jupiter removes them both to the skies,

where they form the Constellations of the Great and the Little Bear.

The raven, as a punishment for his garrulity, is changed from white to

black.

The spouse of the great Thunderer had perceived this some time before,

and had put off the severe punishment {designed for her}, to a proper

time. There is {now} no reason for delay; and now the boy Arcas (that,

too, was a grief to Juno) was born of the mistress {of her husband}.

Wherefore, she turned her thoughts, full of resentment, and her eyes

{upon her}, and said, “This thing, forsooth, alone was wanting, thou

adulteress, that thou shouldst be pregnant, and that my injury should

become notorious by thy labors, and that {thereby} the disgraceful

conduct of my {husband}, Jupiter, should be openly declared. Thou shalt

not go unpunished; for I will spoil that shape of thine, on which thou

pridest thyself, and by which thou, mischievous one,[64] dost charm my

husband.”

{Thus} she spoke; and seizing her straight in front by the hair,[65]

threw her on her face to the ground. She suppliantly stretched forth her

arms; those arms began to grow rough with black hair,[66] and her hands

to be bent, and to increase to hooked claws, and to do the duty of feet,

and the mouth, that was once admired by Jupiter, to become deformed with

a wide opening; and lest her prayers, and words not needed, should

influence her feelings, the power of speech is taken from her; an angry

and threatening voice, and full of terror, is uttered from her hoarse

throat. Still, her former understanding remains in her, even thus become

a bear; and expressing her sorrows by her repeated groans, she lifts up

her hands, such as they are, to heaven and to the stars, and she deems

Jove ungrateful, though she cannot call him so. Ah! how often, not

daring to rest in the lonely wood, did she wander about before her own

house, and in the fields once her own. Ah! how often was she driven over

the crags by the cry of the hounds; and, a huntress herself, she fled in

alarm, through fear of the hunters! Often, seeing the wild beasts, did

she lie concealed, forgetting what she was; and, a bear herself, dreaded

the he-bears seen on the mountains, and was alarmed at the wolves,

though her father was among them.

Behold! Arcas, the offspring of the daughter of Lycaon, ignorant of who

is his parent, approaches her, thrice five birthdays being now nearly

past; and while he is following the wild beasts, while he is choosing

the proper woods, and is enclosing the Erymanthian forests[67] with his

platted nets, he meets with his mother. She stood still, upon seeing

Arcas, and was like one recognizing {another}. He drew back, and, in his

ignorance, was alarmed at her keeping her eyes fixed upon him without

ceasing; and, as she was desirous to approach still nearer, he would

have pierced her breast with the wounding spear. Omnipotent {Jove}

averted this, and removed both them and {such} wickedness; and placed

them, carried through vacant space with a rapid wind, in the heavens,

and made them neighboring Constellations.

Juno swelled with rage after the mistress shone amid the stars, and

descended on the sea to the hoary Tethys, and the aged Ocean, a regard

for whom has often influenced the Gods; and said to them, inquiring the

reason of her coming, “Do you inquire why I, the queen of the Gods, am

come hither from the æthereal abodes? Another has possession of heaven

in my stead. May I be deemed untruthful, if, when the night has made the

world dark, you see not in the highest part of heaven stars but lately

{thus} honored to my affliction; there, where the last and most limited

circle surrounds the extreme part of the axis {of the world}. Is there,

then, {any ground} why one should hesitate to affront Juno, and dread my

being offended, who only benefit them by my resentment? See what a great

thing I have done! How vast is my power! I forbade her to be of human

shape; she has been made a Goddess; ’tis thus that I inflict punishment

on offenders; such is my mighty power! Let him obtain {for her} her

former shape, and let him remove this form of a wild beast; as he

formerly did for the Argive Phoronis. Why does he not marry her as well,

divorcing Juno, and place her in my couch, and take Lycaon for his

father-in-law? But if the wrong done to your injured foster-child

affects you, drive the seven Triones away from your azure waters, and

expel the stars received into heaven as the reward of adultery, that a

concubine may not be received into your pure waves.”

The Gods of the sea granted her request. The daughter of Saturn enters

the liquid air in her graceful chariot,[68] with her variegated

peacocks; peacocks just as lately tinted, upon the killing of Argus, as

thou, garrulous raven, hadst been suddenly transformed into {a bird

having} black wings, whereas thou hadst been white before. For this bird

was formerly of a silver hue, with snow-white feathers, so that he

equalled the doves entirely without spot; nor would he give place to the

geese that were to save the Capitol by their watchful voice, nor to the

swan haunting the streams. His tongue was the cause of his disgrace; his

chattering tongue being the cause, that the color which was white is now

the reverse of white.

There was no one more beauteous in all Hæmonia than Larissæan[69]

Coronis. At least, she pleased thee, Delphian {God}, as long as she

continued chaste, or was not the object of remark. But the bird of

Phœbus found out her infidelity;[70] and the inexorable informer winged

his way to his master, that he might disclose the hidden offence. Him

the prattling crow follows, with flapping wings, to make all inquiries

of him. And having heard the occasion of his journey, she says, “Thou

art going on a fruitless errand; do not despise the presages of my

voice.”

[Footnote 64: _Thou, mischievous one._--Ver. 475. Clarke, rather

too familiarly, renders ‘importuna,’ ‘plaguy baggage.’]

[Footnote 65: _In front by the hair._--Ver. 476. ‘Adversâ prensis

a fronte capillis,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘seizing her fore-top.’

Had he been describing the combats of two fish-wives, such a

version would have been, perhaps, more appropriate than in the

present instance.]

[Footnote 66: _With black hair._--Ver. 478. To the explanation

given at the end of the story, we may here add the curious one

offered by Palæphatus. He says that Calisto was a huntress who

entered the den of a bear, by which she was devoured; and that the

bear coming out, and Calisto being no more seen, it was reported

that she had been transformed into a bear.]

[Footnote 67: _Erymanthian forests._--Ver. 499. Erymanthus was a

mountain of Arcadia, which was afterwards famous for the slaughter

there, by Hercules, of the wild boar, which made it his haunt.]

[Footnote 68: _Graceful chariot._--Ver. 531. Clarke translates

‘habili curru,’ ‘her neat chariot.’]

[Footnote 69: _Larissæan._--Ver. 542. Larissa was the chief city

of Thessaly, and was situate on the river Peneus.]

[Footnote 70: _Her infidelity._--Ver. 545. ‘Sed ales sensit

adulterium Phœbeius,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘but the Phœban

bird found out her pranks.’]

EXPLANATION.

Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods, Book iii.) tells us, that Lycaon

had a daughter who delighted in the chase, and that Jupiter, the

second of that name, the king of Arcadia, fell in love with her. This

was the ground on which she was said to have been a favorite of Diana.

The story of Calisto having been received into Heaven, and forming the

Constellation of the Bear, was perhaps grounded on the fact of Lycaon,

her father, having been the first known to take particular notice of

this Constellation. The story of the request of Juno, that Tethys will

not receive this new Constellation into the Ocean, is probably derived

from the circumstance, that the Bear, as well as the other stars

within the Arctic Circle, never sets.

Possibly, Arcas, the son of Calisto, dying at a youthful age, may have

been the origin of the Constellation of the Lesser Bear.

FABLE VIII. [II.551-590]

A virgin, the favorite of Apollo, of the same name with Coronis, is

changed into a crow, for a story which she tells Minerva, concerning

the basket in which Ericthonius was enclosed.

“Consider what I was, and what I am, and inquire into my deserts. Thou

wilt find that my fidelity was my ruin. For once upon a time, Pallas had

enclosed Ericthonius, an offspring born without a mother, in a basket

made of Actæan twigs; and had given it to keep to the three virgins born

of the two-shaped[71] Cecrops, and had given them this injunction, that

they should not inquire into her secrets. I, being hidden among the

light foliage, was watching from a thick elm what they were doing. Two

{of them}, Pandrosos and Herse, observe their charge without {any}

treachery; Aglauros alone calls her sisters cowards, and unties the

knots with her hand; but within they behold a child, and a dragon

extended by him. I told the Goddess what was done; for which such a

return as this is made to me, that I am said to have been banished from

the protection of Minerva, and am placed after the bird of the night. My

punishment may warn birds not to incur dangers, by their chattering. But

I consider {that} she courted me with no inclination of my own, nor

asking for any such {favors}. This thou mayst ask of Pallas thyself;

although she is angry, she will not, with all her anger, deny this. For

Coroneus, one famous in the land of Phocis (I mention what is well

known) begot me: and {so} I was a virgin of royal birth, and was courted

by rich suitors ({so} despise me not). My beauty was the cause of my

misfortune; for while I was passing with slow steps along the sea-shore,

on the surface of the sand, as I was wont {to do}, the God of the Ocean

beheld me, and was inflamed; and when he had consumed his time to no

purpose, in entreating me with soft words, he prepared {to use}

violence, and followed me. I fled, and I left the firm shore, and

wearied myself in vain on the yielding sand. Then I invoked both Gods

and men; but my voice did not reach any mortal. A virgin was moved for a

virgin, and gave me assistance. I was extending my arms toward heaven;

{when those} arms began to grow black with light feathers. I struggled

to throw my garments from off my shoulders, but they were feathers, and

had taken deep root in my skin. I tried to beat my naked breast with my

hands, but I had now neither hands nor naked breast. I ran; and the sand

did not retard my feet as before, and I was lifted up from the surface

of the ground. After that, being lifted up, I was carried through the

air, and was assigned, as a faultless companion, to Minerva. Yet what

does this avail me, if Nyctimene, made a bird for a horrid crime, has

succeeded me in my honor?”

[Footnote 71: _Two-shaped._--Ver. 555. Cecrops is here so called,

and in the Greek, διφυὴς from the fact of his having been born in

Egypt, and having settled in Greece, and was thus to be reckoned

both as an Egyptian, and in the number of the Greeks.]

EXPLANATION.

Ericthonius was fabled to be the son, or foster-child, of Athene, or

Minerva, perhaps because he was the son of the daughter of Cranaus,

who had the name of Athene, by a priest of Vulcan, which Divinity was

said to have been his progenitor. St. Augustine alleges that he was

exposed, and found in a temple dedicated to Minerva and Vulcan. His

name being composed of two words, ἔρις and χθὼν, signifying

‘contention,’ and ‘earth,’ Strabo imagines that he was the son of

Vulcan and the Earth. But it seems that the real ground on which he

was called by that name was, that he disputed the right to the crown

of Athens with Amphictyon, on the death of Cranaus, the second king.

Amphictyon prevailed, but Ericthonius succeeded him. To hide his legs,

which were deformed, he is said to have invented chariots; though that

is not likely, as Egypt, from which Greece had received many colonies,

was acquainted with the use of them from the earliest times. He is

also said to have instituted the festival of the Panathenæa, at

Athens, whence, in process of time, it was adopted by the whole of

Greece.

Hyginus tells us, that after his death he was received into heaven as

the constellation ‘Auriga,’ or ‘the Charioteer;’ and he further

informs us, that the deformity of his legs gave occasion to the

saying, that he was half man and half a serpent. Apollodorus says that

he was born in Attica; that he was the son of Cranaë, the daughter of

Attis; and that he dethroned Amphictyon, and became the fourth king of

Athens.

FABLE IX. [II.591-632]

Nyctimene having entertained a criminal passion for her father,

Nycteus, the Gods, to punish her incest, transform her into an owl.

Apollo pierces the breast of Coronis with an arrow, on the raven

informing him of the infidelity of his mistress.

“Has not the thing, which is very well known throughout the whole of

Lesbos,[72] been heard of by thee, that Nyctimene defiled the bed of her

father? She is a bird indeed; but being conscious of her crime, she

avoids {the human} gaze and the light, and conceals her shame in the

darkness; and by all {the birds} she is expelled entirely from the sky.”

The raven says to him, saying such things, “May this, thy calling of me

back, prove a mischief to thee, I pray; I despise the worthless omen.”

Nor does he drop his intended journey; and he tells his master, that he

has seen Coronis lying down with a youth of Hæmonia. On hearing the

crime of his mistress, his laurel fell down; and at the same moment his

usual looks, his plectrum,[73] and his color, forsook the God. And as

his mind was {now} burning with swelling rage, he took up his wonted

arms, and levelled his bow bent from the extremities, and pierced, with

an unerring shaft, that bosom, that had been so oft pressed to his own

breast. Wounded, she uttered a groan, and, drawing the steel from out of

the wound, she bathed her white limbs with purple blood; and she said,

“I might {justly}, Phœbus, have been punished by thee, but {still I

might} have first brought forth; now we two shall die in one.” Thus far

{she spoke}; and she poured forth her life, together with her blood.

A deadly coldness took possession of her body deprived of life.

The lover, too late, alas! repents of his cruel vengeance, and blames

himself that he listened {to the bird, and} that he was so infuriated.

He hates the bird, through which he was forced to know of the crime and

the cause of his sorrow; he hates, too, the string, the bow, and his

hand; and together with his hand, {those} rash weapons, the arrows. He

cherishes her fallen to the ground, and by late resources endeavors to

conquer her destiny; and in vain he practices his physical arts.

When he found that these attempts were made in vain, and that the

funeral pile was being prepared, and that her limbs were about to be

burnt in the closing flames, then, in truth, he gave utterance to sighs

fetched from the bottom of his heart (for it is not allowed the

celestial features to be bathed with tears). No otherwise than, as when

an axe, poised from the right ear {of the butcher}, dashes to pieces,

with a clean stroke, the hollow temples of the sucking calf, while the

dam looks on. Yet after Phœbus had poured the unavailing perfumes on her

breast, when he had given the {last} embrace and had performed the due

obsequies prematurely hastened, he did not suffer his own offspring to

sink into the same ashes; but he snatched the child from the flames and

from the womb of his mother, and carried him into the cave of the

two-formed Chiron. And he forbade the raven, expecting for himself the

reward of his tongue that told no untruth, to perch any longer among the

white birds.

[Footnote 72: _Lesbos._--Ver. 591. This was an island in the Ægean

sea, lying to the south of Troy.]

[Footnote 73: _Plectrum._--Ver. 601. This was a little rod, or

staff, with which the player used to strike the strings of the

lyre, or cithara, on which he was playing.]

EXPLANATION.

History does not afford us the least insight into the foundation of

the story of Coronis transformed into a crow, for making too faithful

a report, nor that of the raven changed from white to black, for

talking too much. If they are based upon some events which really

happened, we must be content to acknowledge that these Fables refer to

the history of two persons entirely unknown to us, and who, perhaps,

lived as far back as the time of the daughters of Cecrops, to whom the

story seems to bear some relation. Coronis being the name of a crow as

well as of a Nymph, Lucian and other writers have fabled that her son,

Æsculapius, was produced from the egg of that bird, and was born in

the shape of a serpent, under which form he was very generally

worshipped.

FABLE X. [II.633-675]

Ocyrrhoe, the daughter of the Centaur Chiron, attempting to predict

future events, tells her father the fate of the child Æsculapius, on

which the Gods transform her into a mare.

In the meantime the half-beast {Chiron} was proud of a pupil of Divine

origin, and rejoiced in the honor annexed to the responsibility. Behold!

the daughter of the Centaur comes, having her shoulders covered with her

yellow hair; whom once the nymph Chariclo,[74] having borne her on the

banks of a rapid stream, called Ocyrrhoë. She was not contented to learn

her father’s arts {only; but} she sang the secrets of the Fates.

Therefore, when she had conceived in her mind the prophetic transports,

and grew warm with the God, whom she held confined within her breast,

she beheld the infant, and she said, “Grow on, child, the giver of

health to the whole world; the bodies of mortals shall often owe their

{own existence} to thee. To thee will it be allowed to restore life when

taken away; and daring to do that once against the will of the Gods,

thou wilt be hindered by the bolts of thy grandsire from being able any

more to grant that {boon}. And from a God thou shalt become a lifeless

carcase; and a God {again}, who lately wast a carcase; and twice shalt

thou renew thy destiny. Thou likewise, dear father, now immortal, and

produced at thy nativity, on the condition of enduring for ever, wilt

then wish that thou couldst die, when thou shalt be tormented on

receiving the blood of a baneful serpent[75] in thy wounded limbs; and

the Gods shall make thee from an immortal {being}, subject to death, and

the three Goddesses[76] shall cut thy threads.”

Something still remained in addition to what she had said. She heaved a

sigh from the bottom of her breast, and the tears bursting forth,

trickled down her cheeks, and thus she said: “The Fates prevent me, and

I am forbidden to say any more, and the use of my voice is precluded. My

arts, which have brought the wrath of a Divinity upon me, were not of so

much value; I wish that I had not been acquainted with the future. Now

the human shape seems to be withdrawing from me; now grass pleases {me}

for my food; now I have a desire to range over the extended plains; I am

turned into a mare, and into a shape kindred {to that of my father}. But

yet, why entirely? For my father partakes of both forms.”

As she was uttering such words as these, the last part of her complaint

was but little understood; and her words were confused. And presently

neither {were} they words indeed, nor did it appear to be the voice of a

mare, but of one imitating a mare. And in a little time she uttered

perfect neighing, and stretched her arms upon the grass. Then did her

fingers grow together, and a smooth hoof united five nails in one

continued piece of horn. The length of her face and of her neck

increased; the greatest part of her long hair became a tail. And as the

hairs lay scattered about her neck, they were transformed into a mane

{lying} upon the right side; at once both her voice and her shape were

changed. And this wondrous change gave her the {new} name {of Enippe}.

[Footnote 74: _Chariclo._--Ver. 636. She was the daughter of

Apollo, or of Oceanus, but is supposed not to have been the same

person that is mentioned by Apollodorus as the mother of the

prophet Tiresias.]

[Footnote 75: _A baneful serpent._--Ver. 652. This happened when

one of the arrows of Hercules, dipped in the poison of the Lernæan

Hydra, pierced the foot of Chiron while he was examining it.]

[Footnote 76: _The three Goddesses._--Ver. 654. Namely, Clotho,

Lachesis, and Atropos, the ‘Parcæ,’ or ‘Destinies.’]

FABLE XI. [II.676-707]

Mercury, having stolen the oxen of Apollo, and Battus having perceived

the theft, he engages him, by a present, to keep the matter secret.

Mistrusting, however, his fidelity, he assumes another shape, and

tempting him with presents, he succeeds in corrupting him. To punish

his treachery, the God changes him into a touchstone.

The Philyrean[77] hero wept, and in vain, {God} of Delphi, implored thy

assistance; but neither couldst thou reverse the orders of great

Jupiter, nor, if thou couldst have reversed them wast thou then present;

{for then} thou wast dwelling in Elis and the Messenian[78] fields. This

was the time when a shepherd’s skin garment was covering thee, and a

stick cut out of the wood was the burden of thy left hand, {and} of the

other, a pipe unequal with its seven reeds. And while love is thy

concern, while thy pipe is soothing thee, some cows are said to have

strayed unobserved into the plains of Pylos.[79] The son of Maia the

daughter of Atlas, observes them, and with his {usual} skill hides them,

driven off, in the woods. Nobody but an old man, well-known in that

country, had noticed the theft: all the neighborhood called him Battus.

He was keeping the forests and the grassy pastures, and the set of

fine-bred mares of the rich Neleus.[80]

{Mercury} was afraid of him, and took him aside with a gentle hand, and

said to him, “Come, stranger, whoever thou art, if, perchance any one

should ask after these herds, deny that thou hast seen them; and, lest

no requital be paid thee for so doing, take a handsome cow as thy

reward;” and {thereupon} he gave {him one}. On receiving it, the

stranger returned this answer: “Thou mayst go in safety. May that stone

first make mention of thy theft;” and he pointed to a stone. The son of

Jupiter feigned to go away. {But} soon he returned, and changing his

form, together with his voice, he said, “Countryman, if thou hast seen

any cows pass along this way, give me thy help, and break silence about

the theft; a female, coupled together with its bull shall be presented

thee as a reward.” But the old man,[81] after his reward was {thus}

doubled, said, “They will be beneath those hills;” and beneath those

hills they {really} were. The son of Atlas laughed and said, “Dost thou,

treacherous man, betray me to my own self? Dost betray me to myself?”

and {then} he turned his perjured breast into a hard stone, which even

now is called the “Touchstone;”[82] and this old disgrace is {attached}

to the stone that {really} deserves it not.

[Footnote 77: _Philyrean._--Ver. 676. Chiron was the son of

Philyra, by Saturn.]

[Footnote 78: _Messenian._--Ver. 679. Elis and Messenia were

countries of Peloponnesus; the former was on the northwest, and

the latter on the southwest side of it.]

[Footnote 79: _Plains of Pylos._--Ver. 684. There were three

cities named Pylos in Peloponnesus. One was in Elis, another in

Messenia, and the third was situate between the other two. The

latter is supposed to have been the native place of Nestor, though

they all laid claim to that honor.]

[Footnote 80: _Neleus._--Ver. 689. He was the king of Pylos, and

the father of Nestor.]

[Footnote 81: _The old man._--Ver. 702. Clarke quaintly translates

‘at senior,’ ‘but then the old blade.’]

[Footnote 82: _The ‘Touchstone.’_--Ver. 706. It is a matter of

doubt among commentators whether ‘index’ here means a general term

for the touchstone, by which metals are tested; or whether it

means that Battus was changed into one individual stone, which

afterwards was called ‘index.’ Lactantius, by his words, seems to

imply that the latter was the case. He says, ‘He changed him into

a stone, which, from this circumstance, is called “index” about

Pylos.’ ‘Index’ was a name of infamy, corresponding with the Greek

word συκοφάντης, and with our term ‘spy.’]

EXPLANATION.

The Centaurs, fabulous monsters, half men and half horses, were

perhaps the first horsemen in Thessaly and its neighborhood. It is

also probable that Chiron, who was one of these, acquired great fame

by the knowledge he had acquired at a time and in a country where

learning was little cultivated. The ancients regarded him as the first

promulgator of the utility of medicines, in which he was said to have

instructed his pupil Æsculapius. He was also considered to be an

excellent musician and a good astronomer, as we learn from Homer,

Diodorus Siculus, and other authors. Most of the heroes of that age,

and among them Hercules and Jason, studied under him. Very probably,

the only foundation for the story of the transformation of Ocyrrhoë,

was the skill and address which, under her father’s instruction, she

acquired in riding and the management of horses. For if, as it seems

really was the case, the horsemen of that age were taken for monsters,

half men and half horses, it is not surprising to find the story that

the daughter of a Centaur was transformed into a mare.

Chiron is generally supposed to have marked out the Constellations,

for the purpose of directing the Argonauts in their voyage for the

recovery of the Golden Fleece.

FABLE XII. [II.708-764]

Mercury, falling in love with Herse, the daughter of Cecrops,

endeavors to engage Aglauros in his interest, and by her means, to

obtain access to her sister. She refuses to assist him, unless he

promises to present her with a large sum of money.

Hence, the bearer of the caduceus raised himself upon equal wings; and

as he flew, he looked down upon the fields of Munychia,[83] and the land

pleasing to Minerva, and the groves of the well-planted Lycæus. On that

day, by chance, the chaste virgins were, in their purity, carrying the

sacred offerings in baskets crowned with flowers, upon their heads to

the joyful citadel of Pallas. The winged God beholds them returning

thence; and he does not shape his course directly forward, but wheels

round in the {same} circle. As that bird swiftest in speed, the kite, on

espying the entrails, while he is afraid, and the priests stand in

numbers around the sacrifice, wings his flight in circles, and yet

ventures not to go far away, and greedily hovers around {the object of}

his hopes with waving wings, so does the active Cyllenian {God} bend his

course over the Actæan towers, and circles round in the same air. As

much as Lucifer shines more brightly than the other stars, and as much

as the golden Phœbe {shines more brightly} than thee, O Lucifer, so much

superior was Herse, as she went, to all the {other} virgins, and was the

ornament of the solemnity and of her companions. The son of Jupiter was

astonished at her beauty; and as he hung in the air, he burned no

otherwise than as when the Balearic[84] sling throws forth the plummet

of lead; it flies and becomes red hot in its course, and finds beneath

the clouds the fires which it had not {before}.

He alters his course, and, having left heaven, goes a different way; nor

does he disguise himself; so great is his confidence in his beauty.

This, though it is {every way} complete, still he improves by care, and

smooths his hair and {adjusts} his mantle,[85] that it may hang

properly, so that the fringe and all the gold may be seen; {and minds}

that his long smooth wand, with which he induces and drives away sleep,

is in his right hand, and that his wings[86] shine upon his beauteous

feet.

A private part of the house had three bed-chambers, adorned with ivory

and with tortoiseshell, of which thou, Pandrosos, hadst the right-hand

one, Aglauros the left-hand, and Herse had the one in the middle. She

that occupied the left-hand one was the first to remark Mercury

approaching, and she ventured to ask the name of the God, and the

occasion of his coming. To her thus answered the grandson of Atlas and

of Pleione: “I am he who carries the commands of my father through the

air. Jupiter himself is my father. Nor will I invent pretences; do thou

only be willing to be attached to thy sister, and to be called the aunt

of my offspring. Herse is the cause of my coming; I pray thee to favor

one in love.” Aglauros looks upon him with the same eyes with which she

had lately looked upon the hidden mysteries of the yellow-haired

Minerva, and demands for her agency gold of great weight; {and}, in the

meantime, obliges him to go out of the house. The warlike Goddess turned

upon her the orbs of her stern eyes, and drew a sigh from the bottom {of

her heart}, with so great a motion, that she heaved both her breast and

the Ægis placed before her valiant breast. It occurred {to her} that she

had laid open her secrets with a profane hand, at the time when she

beheld progeny created for {the God} who inhabits Lemnos,[87] without a

mother, {and} contrary to the assigned laws; and that she could now be

agreeable both to the God and to the sister {of Aglauros}, and that she

would be enriched by taking the gold, which she, in her avarice, had

demanded. Forthwith she repairs to the abode of Envy, hideous with black

gore. Her abode is concealed in the lowest recesses of a cave, wanting

sun, {and} not pervious to any wind, dismal and filled with benumbing

cold; and which is ever without fire, and ever abounding with darkness.

[Footnote 83: _Munychia._--Ver. 709. Munychia was the name of a

promontory and harbor of Attica, between the Piræus and the

promontory of ‘Sunium.’ The spot was so called from Munychius, who

there built a temple in honor of Diana.]

[Footnote 84: _Balearic._--Ver. 727. The Baleares were the islands

of Majorca, Minorca, and Iviza, in the Mediterranean, near the

coast of Spain. The natives of these islands were famous for their

skill in the use of the sling. That weapon does not appear to have

been used in the earliest times among the Greeks, as Homer does

not mention it; it had, however, been introduced by the time of

the war with Xerxes, though even then the sling was, perhaps,

rarely used as a weapon. The Acarnanians and the Achæans of Agium,

Patræ, and Dymæ were very expert in the use of the sling. That

used by the Achæans was made of three thongs of leather, and not

of one only, like those of other nations. The natives of the

Balearic isles are said to have attained their skill from the

circumstance of their mothers, when they were children, obliging

them to obtain their food by striking it, from a tree, with a

sling. While other slings were made of leather, theirs were made

of rushes. Besides stones, plummets of lead, called ‘glandes,’

(as in the present instance), and μολύβδιδες, of a form between

acorns and almonds, were cast in moulds, to be thrown from slings.

They have been frequently dug up in various parts of Greece, and

particularly on the plains of Marathon. Some have the device of a

thunderbolt; while others are inscribed with δέξαι, ‘take this.’

It was a prevalent idea with the ancients that the stone

discharged from the sling became red hot in its course, from the

swiftness of its motion.]

[Footnote 85: _Adjusts his mantle._--Ver. 733. ‘Chlamydemque ut

pendeat apte, Collocat,’ etc., is translated by Clarke--‘And he

places his coat that it might hang agreeably, that the border and

all its gold might appear.’]

[Footnote 86: _That his wings._--Ver. 736. Clarke renders ‘ut

tersis niteant talaria plantis,’ ‘that his wings shine upon his

spruce feet.’]

[Footnote 87: _God who inhabits Lemnos._--Ver. 757. Being

precipitated from heaven for his deformity, Vulcan fell upon the

Isle of Lemnos, in the Ægean Sea, where he exercised the craft of

a blacksmith, according to the mythologists. The birth of

Ericthonius, by the aid of Minerva, is here referred to.]

EXPLANATION.

Cicero tells us, that there were several persons in ancient times

named Mercury. The probability is, that one of them fell in love with

Herse, one of the daughters of Cecrops, king of Athens; and that

Aglauros becoming jealous of her, this tradition was built upon facts

of so ordinary a nature.

FABLE XIII. [II.765-832]

Pallas commands Envy to make Aglauros jealous of her sister Herse.

Envy obeys the request of the Goddess; and Aglauros, stung with that

passion, continues obstinate in opposing Mercury’s passage to her

sister’s apartment, for which the God changes her into a statue.

When the female warrior, to be dreaded in battle, came hither, she stood

before the abode (for she did not consider it lawful to go under the

roof), and she struck the door-posts with the end of the spear. The

doors, being shaken, flew open; she sees Envy within, eating the flesh

of vipers, the nutriment of her own bad propensities; and when she sees

her, she turns away her eyes. But the other rises sluggishly from the

ground, and leaves the bodies of the serpents half devoured, and stalks

along with sullen pace. And when she sees the Goddess graced with beauty

and with {splendid} arms, she groans, and fetches a deep sigh at her

appearance. A paleness rests on her face, {and} leanness in all her

body; she never looks direct on you; her teeth are black with rust; her

breast is green with gall; her tongue is dripping with venom. Smiles

there are none, except such as the sight of grief has excited. Nor does

she enjoy sleep, being kept awake with watchful cares; but sees with

sorrow the successes of men, and pines away at seeing them. She both

torments and is tormented at the same moment, and is {ever} her own

punishment. Yet, though Tritonia[88] hated her, she spoke to her briefly

in such words as these: “Infect one of the daughters of Cecrops with thy

poison; there is occasion so {to do}; Aglauros is she.”

Saying no more, she departed, and spurned the ground with her spear

impressed on it. She, beholding the Goddess as she departed, with a look

askance, uttered a few murmurs, and grieved at the success of Minerva;

and took her staff, which wreaths of thorns entirely surrounded; and

veiled in black clouds, wherever she goes she tramples down the blooming

fields, and burns up the grass, and crops the tops {of the flowers}.

With her breath, too, she pollutes both nations and cities, and houses;

and at last she descries the Tritonian[89] citadel, flourishing in arts

and riches, and cheerful peace. Hardly does she restrain her tears,

because she sees nothing to weep at. But after she has entered the

chamber of the daughter of Cecrops, she executes her orders; and touches

her breast with her hand stained with rust, and fills her heart with

jagged thorns. She breathes into her as well the noxious venom, and

spreads the poison black as pitch throughout her bones, and lodges it in

the midst of her lungs.

And that these causes of mischief may not wander through too wide a

space, she places her sister before her eyes, and the fortunate marriage

of {that} sister, and the God under his beauteous appearance, and

aggravates each particular. By this, the daughter of Cecrops being

irritated, is gnawed by a secret grief, and groans, tormented by night,

tormented by day, and wastes away in extreme wretchedness, with a slow

consumption, as ice smitten upon by a sun often clouded. She burns at

the good fortune of the happy Herse, no otherwise than as when fire is

placed beneath thorny reeds, which do not send forth flames, and burn

with a gentle heat. Often does she wish to die, that she may not be a

witness to any such thing; often, to tell the matters, as criminal, to

her severe father. At last, she sat herself down in the front of the

threshold, in order to exclude the God when he came; to whom, as he

proffered blandishments and entreaties, and words of extreme kindness,

she said, “Cease {all this}; I shall not remove myself hence, until thou

art repulsed.” “Let us stand to that agreement,” says the active

Cyllenian {God}; and he opens the carved door with his wand. But in her,

as she endeavors to arise, the parts which we bend in sitting cannot be

moved, through their numbing weight. She, indeed, struggles to raise

herself, with her body, upright; but the joints of her knees are stiff,

and a chill runs through her nails, and her veins are pallid, through

the loss of blood.

And as the disease {of} an incurable cancer is wont to spread in all

directions, and to add the uninjured parts to the tainted; so, by

degrees, did a deadly chill enter her breast, and stop the passages of

life, and her respiration. She did not endeavor to speak; but if she had

endeavored, she had no passage for her voice. Stone had now possession

of her neck; her face was grown hard, and she sat, a bloodless statue.

Nor was the stone white; her mind had stained it.

[Footnote 88: _Tritonia._--Ver. 783. Minerva is said to have been

called Tritonia, either from the Cretan word τριτω, signifying ‘a

head,’ as she sprang from the head of Jupiter; or from Trito, a

lake of Libya, near which she was said to have been born.]

[Footnote 89: _Tritonian._--Ver. 794. Athens, namely, which was

sacred to Pallas, or Minerva, its tutelary divinity.]

EXPLANATION.

Pausanias, in his Attica, somewhat varies this story, and says that

the daughters of Cecrops, running mad, threw themselves from the top

of a tower. It is very probable that on the introduction of the

worship of Pallas, or Minerva, into Attica, these daughters of Cecrops

may have hesitated to encourage the innovation, and the story was

promulgated that the Goddess had in that manner punished their

impiety. This seems the more likely, from the fact mentioned by

Pausanias that Pandrosos, the third daughter of Cecrops, had, after

her death, a temple built in honor of her, near that of Minerva,

because she had continued faithful to that Goddess, and had not

disobeyed her, as her sisters had done. The reputation and good fame

of Herse and Aglauros had, however, been restored by the time of

Herodotus, since he informs us that they both had their temples at

Athens.

FABLE XIV. [II.833-875]

Jupiter assumes the shape of a Bull, and carrying off Europa, swims

with her on his back to the isle of Crete.

When the grandson of Atlas had inflicted this punishment upon her words

and her profane disposition, he left the lands named after Pallas, and

entered the skies with his waving wings. His father calls him on one

side; and, not owning the cause of his love, he says, “My son, the

trusty minister of my commands, banish delay, and swiftly descend with

thy usual speed, and repair to the region which looks towards thy

{Constellation} mother on the left side, (the natives call it

Sidonis[90] by name) and drive towards the sea-shore, the herd belonging

to the king, which thou seest feeding afar upon the grass of the

mountain.”

{Thus} he spoke; and already were the bullocks, driven from the

mountain, making for the shore named, where the daughter of the great

king, attended by Tyrian virgins, was wont to amuse herself. Majesty and

love but ill accord, nor can they continue in the same abode. The father

and the ruler of the Gods, whose right hand is armed with the

three-forked flames, who shakes the world with his nod, laying aside the

dignity of empire, assumes the appearance of a bull; and mixing with the

oxen, he lows, and, in all his beauty, walks about upon the shooting

grass. For his color is that of snow, which neither the soles of hard

feet have trodden upon, nor the watery South wind melted. His neck

swells with muscles; dewlaps hang from {between} his shoulders. His

horns are small indeed, but such as you might maintain were made with

the hand, and more transparent than a bright gem. There is nothing

threatening in his forehead; nor is his eye formidable; his countenance

expresses peace.

The daughter of Agenor is surprised that he is so beautiful, and that he

threatens no attack; but although so gentle, she is at first afraid to

touch him. By and by she approaches him, and holds out flowers to his

white mouth. The lover rejoices, and till his hoped-for pleasure comes,

he gives kisses to her hands; scarcely, oh, scarcely, does he defer the

rest. And now he plays with her, and skips upon the green grass; {and}

now he lays his snow-white side upon the yellow sand. And, her fear

{now} removed by degrees, at one moment he gives his breast to be patted

by the hand of the virgin; at another, his horns to be wreathed with

new-made garlands. The virgin of royal birth even ventured to sit down

upon the back of the bull, not knowing upon whom she was pressing. Then

the God, by degrees {moving} from the land, and from the dry shore,

places the fictitious hoofs of his feet in the waves near the brink.

Then he goes still further, and carries his prize over the expanse of

the midst of the ocean. She is affrighted, and, borne off, looks back on

the shore she has left; and with her right hand she grasps his horn,

{while} the other is placed on his back; her waving garments are ruffled

by the breeze.

[Footnote 90: _Sidonis._--Ver. 840. Sidon, or Sidonis, was a

maritime city of Phœnicia, near Tyre, of whose greatness it was

not an unworthy rival.]

EXPLANATION.

This Fable depicts one of the most famous events in the ancient

Mythology. As we have already remarked, it is supposed that there were

several persons of the name of Zeus, or Jupiter; though there is great

difficulty in assigning to each individual his own peculiar

adventures. Vossius refers the adventure of Niobe, the daughter of

Phoroneus, to Jupiter Apis, the king of Argos, who reigned about B.C.

1770; and that of Danaë to Jupiter Prœtus, who lived about 1350 years

before the Christian era. It was Jupiter Tantalus, according to him,

that carried off Ganymede; and it was Jupiter, the father of Hercules,

that deceived Leda. He says that the subject of the present Fable was

Jupiter Asterius, who reigned about B.C. 1400. Diodorus Siculus tells

us that he was the son of Teutamus, who, having married the daughter

of Creteus, went with some Pelasgians to settle in the island of

Crete, of which he was the first king. We may then conclude, that

Jupiter Asterius, having heard of the beauty of Europa, the daughter

of Agenor, King of Tyre, fitted out a ship, for the purpose of

carrying her off by force. This is the less improbable, as we learn

from Herodotus, that the custom of carrying those away by force, who

could not be obtained by fair means, was very common in these rude

ages.

The ship in which Asterius made his voyage, had, very probably, the

form of a bull for its figure-head; which, in time, occasioned those

who related the adventure, to say, that Jupiter concealed himself

under the shape of that animal, to carry off his mistress. Palæphatus

and Tzetzes suggest, that the story took its rise from the name of

the general of Asterius, who was called Taurus, which is also the

Greek name for a bull. Bochart has an ingenious suggestion, based upon

etymological grounds. He thinks that the twofold meaning of the word

‘Alpha,’ or ‘Ilpha,’ which, in the Phœnician dialect, meant either a

ship or a bull, gave occasion to the fable; and that the Greeks, on

reading the annals of the Phœnicians, by mistake, took the word in the

latter sense.

Europa was honored as a Divinity after her death, and a festival was

instituted in her memory, which Hesychius calls ‘Hellotia,’ from

Ἑλλωτὶς, the name she received after her death.

BOOK THE THIRD.

FABLE I. [III.1-34]

Jupiter, having carried away Europa, her father, Agenor, commands his

son Cadmus to go immediately in search of her, and either to bring

back his sister with him, or never to return to Phœnicia. Cadmus,

wearied with his toils and fruitless inquiries, goes to consult the

oracle at Delphi, which bids him observe the spot where he should see

a cow lie down, and build a city there, and give the name of Bœotia to

the country.

And now the God, having laid aside the shape of the deceiving Bull, had

discovered himself, and reached the Dictæan land; when her father,

ignorant {of her fate}, commands Cadmus to seek her {thus} ravished, and

adds exile as the punishment, if he does not find her; being {both}

affectionate and unnatural in the self-same act. The son of Agenor,

having wandered over the whole world,[1] as an exile flies from his

country and the wrath of his father, for who is there that can discover

the intrigues of Jupiter? A suppliant, he consults the oracle of Phœbus,

and inquires in what land he must dwell. “A heifer,” Phœbus says, “will

meet thee in the lonely fields, one that has never borne the yoke, and

free from the crooked plough. Under her guidance, go on thy way; and

where she shall lie down on the grass, there cause a city to be built,

and call it the Bœotian[2] {city}.”

Scarcely had Cadmus well got down from the Castalian cave,[3] {when} he

saw a heifer, without a keeper, slowly going along, bearing no mark of

servitude upon her neck. He follows, and pursues her steps with

leisurely pace, and silently adores Phœbus, the adviser of his way.

{And} now he had passed the fords of the Cephisus, and the fields of

Panope, {when} the cow stood still and raising her forehead, expansive

with lofty horns, towards heaven, she made the air reverberate with her

lowings. And so, looking back on her companions that followed behind,

she lay down, and reposed her side upon the tender grass. Cadmus

returned thanks, and imprinted kisses upon the stranger land, and

saluted the unknown mountains and fields. He was {now} going to offer

sacrifice to Jupiter, and commanded his servants to go and fetch some

water for the libation from the running springs. An ancient grove was

standing {there, as yet} profaned by no axe. There was a cavern in the

middle {of it}, thick covered with twigs and osiers, forming a low arch

by the junction of the rocks; abounding with plenty of water. Hid in

this cavern, there was a dragon sacred to Mars,[4] adorned with crests

and a golden {color}. His eyes sparkle with fire, {and} all his body is

puffed out with poison; three tongues, {too}, are brandished, and his

teeth stand in a triple row.

[Footnote 1: _Over the whole world._--Ver. 6. Apollodorus tells us

that Cadmus lived in Thrace until the death of his mother,

Telephassa, who accompanied him; and that, after her decease, he

proceeded to Delphi to make inquiries of the oracle.]

[Footnote 2: _Bœotian._--Ver. 13. He implies here that Bœotia

received its name from the Greek word βοῦς, ‘an ox’ or ‘cow.’

Other writers say that it was so called from Bœotus, the son of

Neptune and Arne. Some authors also say that Thebes received its

name from the Syrian word ‘Thebe,’ which signified ‘an ox.’]

[Footnote 3: _Castalian cave._--Ver. 14. Castalius was a fountain

at the foot of Mount Parnassus, and in the vicinity of Delphi. It

was sacred to the Muses.]

[Footnote 4: _Sacred to Mars._--Ver. 32. Euripides says, that the

dragon had been set there by Mars to watch the spot and the

neighboring stream. Other writers say that it was a son of Mars,

Dercyllus by name, and that a Fury, named Tilphosa, was its

mother. Ancient history abounds with stories of enormous serpents.

The army of Regulus is said by Pliny the Elder, to have killed a

serpent of enormous size, which obstructed the passage of the

river Bagrada, in Africa. It was 120 feet in length.]

EXPLANATION.

Reverting to the history of Europa, it may be here remarked, that

Apollodorus has preserved her genealogy. Libya, according to that

author, had two sons by Neptune, Belus and Agenor. The latter married

Telephassa, by whom he had Cadmus, Phœnix, and Cilix, and a daughter

named Europa. Some ancient writers, however, say, that Europa was the

daughter of Phœnix, and the grandchild of Agenor.

Some authors, and Ovid among the rest, have supposed that Europe

received its name from Europa. Bochart has, with considerable

probability, suggested that it was originally so called from the fair

complexion of the people who inhabited it. Europa herself may have

received her name also from the fairness of her complexion: hence, the

poets, as the Scholiast on Theocritus tells us, invented a fable, that

a daughter of Juno stole her mother’s paint, to give it to Europa, who

used it with so much success as to ensure, by its use, an extremely

fair and beautiful complexion.

FABLE II. [III.35-130]

The companions of Cadmus, fetching water from the fountain of Mars,

are devoured by the Dragon that guards it. Cadmus, on discovering

their destruction, slays the monster, and, by the advice of Minerva,

sows the teeth, which immediately produce a crop of armed men. They

forthwith quarrel among themselves, and kill each other, with the

exception of five who assist Cadmus in building the city of Thebes.

After the men who came from the Tyrian nation had touched this grove

with ill-fated steps, and the urn let down into the water made a splash;

the azure dragon stretched forth his head from the deep cave, and

uttered dreadful hissings. The urns dropped from their hands; and the

blood left their bodies, and a sudden trembling seized their astonished

limbs. He wreathes his scaly orbs in rolling spires, and with a spring

becomes twisted into mighty folds; and uprearing himself from below the

middle into the light air, he looks down upon all the grove, and is of

as large a size,[5] as, if you were to look on him entire, {the serpent}

which separates the two Bears.

There is no delay; he seizes the Phœnicians (whether they are resorting

to their arms or to flight, or whether fear itself is preventing either

{step}); some he kills with his sting,[6] some with his long folds, some

breathed upon[7] by the venom of his baneful poison.

The sun, now at its height, had made the shadows {but} small: the son of

Agenor wonders what has detained his companion and goes to seek his men.

His garment was a skin torn from a lion; his weapon was a lance with

shining steel, and a javelin; and a courage superior to any weapon. When

he entered the grove, and beheld the lifeless bodies, and the victorious

enemy of immense size upon them, licking the horrid wounds with

bloodstained tongue, he said, “Either I will be the avenger of your

death, bodies {of my} faithful {companions}, or {I will be} a sharer {in

it}.” {Thus} he said; and with his right hand he raised a huge stone,[8]

and hurled the vast {weight} with a tremendous effort. {And} although

high walls with lofty towers would have been shaken with the shock of

it, {yet} the dragon remained without a wound; and, being defended by

his scales as though with a coat of mail, and the hardness of his black

hide, he repelled the mighty stroke with his skin. But he did not

overcome the javelin as well with the same hardness; which stood fast,

fixed in the middle joint of his yielding spine, and sank with the

entire {point of} steel into his entrails. Fierce with pain, he turned

his head towards his back, and beheld his wounds, and bit the javelin

fixed there. And after he had twisted it on every side with all his

might, with difficulty he wrenched it from his back; yet the steel stuck

fast in his bones. But then, when this newly inflicted wound has

increased his wonted fury, his throat swelled with gorged veins, and

white foam flowed around his pestilential jaws. The Earth, too, scraped

with the scales, sounds again, and the livid steam that issues from his

infernal mouth,[9] infects the tainted air. One while he is enrolled in

spires making enormous rings; sometimes he unfolds himself straighter

than a long beam. Now with a vast impulse, like a torrent swelled with

rain, he is borne along, and bears down the obstructing forests with his

breast. The son of Agenor gives way a little; and by the spoil of the

lion he sustains the shock, and with his lance extended before him,

pushes back his mouth, as it advances. The dragon rages, and vainly

inflicts wounds on the hard steel, and fixes his teeth upon the point.

And now the blood began to flow from his poisonous palate, and had dyed

the green grass with its spray. But the wound was slight; because he

recoiled from the stroke, and drew back his wounded throat, and by

shrinking prevented the blow from sinking deep, and did not suffer it to

go very far. At length, the son of Agenor, still pursuing, pressed the

spear lodged in his throat, until an oak stood in his way as he

retreated, and his neck was pierced, together with the trunk. The tree

was bent with the weight of the serpent, and groaned at having its trunk

lashed with the extremity of its tail.

While the conqueror was surveying the vast size of his vanquished enemy,

a voice was suddenly heard (nor was it easy to understand whence {it

was}, but heard it was). “Why, son of Agenor, art thou {thus}

contemplating the dragon slain {by thee}? Even thou {thyself} shalt be

seen {in the form of} a dragon.”[10] He, for a long time in alarm, lost

his color together with his presence of mind, and his hair stood on end

with a chill of terror. Lo! Pallas, the favorer of the hero, descending

through the upper region of the air, comes to him, and bids him sow the

dragon’s teeth under the earth turned up, as the seeds of a future

people. He obeyed; and when he had opened a furrow with the pressed

plough, he scattered the teeth on the ground as ordered, the seed of a

race of men. Afterwards (’tis beyond belief) the turf began to move, and

first appeared a point of a spear out of the furrows, next the coverings

of heads nodding with painted cones;[11] then the shoulders and the

breast, and the arms laden with weapons start up, and a crop of men

armed with shields grows apace. So, when the curtains[12] are drawn up

in the joyful theaters, figures are wont to rise, and first to show

their countenances; by degrees the rest; and being drawn out in a

gradual continuation, the whole appear, and place their feet on the

lowest edge {of the stage}. Alarmed with this new enemy, Cadmus is

preparing to take arms, when one of the people that the earth had

produced cries out, “Do not take up {arms}, nor engage thyself in civil

war.” And then, engaged hand to hand, he strikes one of his earth-born

brothers with the cruel sword, {while} he himself falls by a dart sent

from a distance. He, also, who had put him to death, lives no longer

than the other, and breathes forth the air which he has so lately

received. In a similar manner, too, the whole troop becomes maddened,

and the brothers {so} newly sprung up, fall in fight with each other, by

mutual wounds. And now the youths that had the space of {so} short an

existence allotted them, beat with throbbing breast their blood-stained

mother, five {only} remaining, of whom Echion[13] was one. He, by the

advice of Tritonia, threw his arms upon the ground, and both asked and

gave the assurance of brotherly concord.

The Sidonian stranger had these as associates in his task, when he built

the city that was ordered by the oracle of Phœbus.

[Footnote 5: _As large a size._--Ver. 44. This description of the

enormous size of the dragon or serpent is inconsistent with what

the Poet says in line 91, where we find Cadmus enabled to pin his

enemy against an oak.]

[Footnote 6: _With his sting._--Ver. 48. He enumerates in this one

instance the various modes by which serpents put their prey to

death, either by means of their sting, or, in the case of the

larger kinds of serpent, by twisting round it, and suffocating it

in their folds.]

[Footnote 7: _Some breathed upon._--Ver. 49. It was a prevalent

notion among the ancients, that some serpents had the power of

killing their prey by their poisonous breath. Though some modern

commentators on this passage may be found to affirm the same thing,

it is extremely doubtful if such is the fact. The notion was,

perhaps, founded on the power which certain serpents have of

fascinating their prey by the agency of the eye, and thus

depriving it of the means of escape.]

[Footnote 8: _A huge stone._--Ver. 59. ‘Molaris’ here means a

stone as large as a mill-stone, and not a mill-stone itself, for

we must remember that this was an uninhabited country, and

consequently a stranger to the industry of man.]

[Footnote 9: _His infernal mouth._--Ver. 76. ‘Stygio’ means

‘pestilential as the exhalations of the marshes of Styx.’]

[Footnote 10: _Form of a dragon._--Ver. 98. This came to pass

when, having been expelled from his dominions by Zethus and

Amphion, he retired to Illyria, and was there transformed into a

serpent, a fate which was shared by his wife Hermione.]

[Footnote 11: _With painted cones._--Ver. 108. The ‘conus’ was the

conical part of the helmet into which the crest of variegated

feathers was inserted.]

[Footnote 12: _When the curtains._--Ver. 111. The ‘Siparium’ was a

piece of tapestry stretched on a frame, and, rising before the

stage, answered the same purpose as the curtain or drop-scene with

us, in concealing the stage till the actors appeared. Instead of

drawing up this curtain to discover the stage and actors,

according to our present practice, it was depressed when the play

began, and fell beneath the level of the stage; whence ‘aulæa

premuntur,’ ‘the curtain is dropped,’ meant that the play had

commenced. When the performance was finished, this was raised

again gradually from the foot of the stage; therefore ‘aulæa

tolluntur,’ ‘the curtain is raised,’ would mean that the play had

finished. From the present passage we learn, that in drawing it up

from the stage, the curtain was gradually displayed, the unfolding

taking place, perhaps, below the boards, so that the heads of the

figures rose first, until the whole form appeared in full with the

feet resting on the stage, when the ‘siparium’ was fully drawn up.

From a passage in Virgil’s Georgics (book iii. l. 25), we learn

that the figures of Britons (whose country had then lately been

the scene of new conquests) were woven on the canvas of the

‘siparium,’ having their arms in the attitude of lifting the

curtain.]

[Footnote 13: _Echion._--Ver. 126. The names of the others were

Udeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelor, according to Apollodorus.

To these some added Creon, as a sixth.]

EXPLANATION.

Agenor, on losing his daughter, commands his sons to go in search of

her, and not to return till they have found her. The young princes,

either unable to learn what was become of her, or, perhaps, being too

weak to recover her out of the hands of the king of Crete, did not

return to their father, but established themselves in different

countries; Cadmus settling in Bœotia, Cilix in Cilicia, to which he

gave his name, and Phœnix, as Hyginus tells us, remaining in Africa.

Photius, quoting from Conon, the historian, informs us, that the hope

of conquering some country in Europe, and establishing a colony there,

was the true ground of the voyage of Cadmus.

Palæphatus, and other writers, say, that the Dragon which was killed

by Cadmus was a king of the country, who was named Draco, and was a

son of Mars: that his teeth were his subjects, who rallied again after

their defeat, and that Cadmus put them all to the sword, except

Chthonius, Udeus, Hyperenor, Pelor, and Echion, who became reconciled

to him. Heraclitus, however, assures us, that Cadmus really did slay a

serpent, which was very annoying to the Bœotian territory. Bochart and

LeClerc are of opinion that the Fable has the following

foundation:--They say, that in the Phœnician language, the same word

signifies either the teeth of a serpent, or short javelins, pointed

with brass; that the word which signifies the number five likewise

means an army; and that probably, from these circumstances, the Fable

may have taken its rise. For the Greeks, in following the annals

written in the Phœnician language, while writing the history of the

founder of Thebes, instead of describing his soldiers as wearing

helmets on their heads, with back and breast-plates, and with darts in

their hands pointed with brass, which equipment was then entirely

novel in Greece, chose rather to follow the more wonderful version,

and to say, that Cadmus had five companions produced from the teeth of

a serpent; as, according to Bochart’s suggestion, the same Phœnician

phrase may either signify a company of men sprung from the teeth of a

serpent, or a company of men armed with brazen darts.

This conjecture is, perhaps, confirmed by a story related by Herodotus

(book ii.), which resembles it very much. He tells us, that

Psammeticus, king of Egypt, being driven to the marshy parts of his

kingdom, sent to consult the oracle of Latona, which answered that he

should be restored by brass men coming from the sea. At the time, this

answer appeared to him entirely frivolous; but certain Ionian

soldiers, being obliged, some years after, to retire to Egypt, and

appearing on the shore with their weapons and armor, all of brass,

those who perceived them ran immediately to inform the king, that men

clad in brass were plundering the country. The prince then fully

comprehended the meaning of the oracle, and making an alliance with

them, recovered his throne by the assistance they gave him. These

brass men come from the sea, and those sprung from the earth were

soldiers who assisted Psammeticus and Cadmus in carrying out their

objects. Bochart’s conjecture is strengthened by the fact, that Cadmus

was either the inventor of the cuirass and javelin, or the first that

brought them into Greece. Without inquiring further into the subject,

we may conclude, that the men sprung from the earth, or the dragon’s

teeth which were sown, were the people of the country, whom Cadmus

found means to bring over to his interest; and that they first helped

him to conquer his enemies, and then to build the citadel of Thebes,

to ensure his future security. Apollodorus says that Cadmus, to

expiate the slaughter of the dragon, was obliged to serve Mars a whole

year; which year, containing eight of our years, it is not improbable

that Cadmus rendered services for a long time to his new allies before

he received any assistance from them.

FABLE III. [III.131-252]

Actæon, the grandson of Cadmus, fatigued with hunting and excessive

heat, inadvertently wanders to the cool valley of Gargaphie, the usual

retreat of Diana, when tired with the same exercise. There, to his

misfortune, he surprises the Goddess and her Nymphs while bathing, for

which she transforms him into a stag, and his own hounds tear him to

pieces.

And now Thebes was standing; now Cadmus, thou mightst seem happy in thy

exile. Both Mars and Venus[14] had become thy father-in-law and

mother-in-law; add to this, issue by a wife so illustrious, so many

sons[15] and daughters, and grandchildren, dear pledges {of love};

these, too, now of a youthful age. But, forsooth, the last day {of life}

must always be awaited by man, and no one ought to be pronounced happy

before his death,[16] and his last obsequies. Thy grandson, Cadmus, was

the first occasion of sorrow to thee, among so much prosperity, the

horns, too, not his own, placed upon his forehead, and you, O dogs,

glutted with the blood of your master. But, if you diligently inquire

into his {case}, you will find the fault of an accident, and not

criminality in him; for what criminality did mistake embrace?

There was a mountain stained with the blood of various wild beasts; and

now the day had contracted the meridian shadow of things, and the sun

was equally distant from each extremity {of the heavens}; when the

Hyantian youth[17] {thus} addressed the partakers of his toils, as they

wandered along the lonely haunts {of the wild beasts}, with gentle

accent: “Our nets are moistened, my friends, and our spears, too, with

the blood of wild beasts; and the day has yielded sufficient sport; when

the next morn, borne upon her rosy chariot, shall bring back the light,

let us seek again our proposed task. Now Phœbus is at the same distance

from both lands, {the Eastern and the Western}, and is cleaving the

fields with his heat. Cease your present toils, and take away the

knotted nets.” The men execute his orders, and cease their labors. There

was a valley, thick set with pitch-trees and the sharp-pointed cypress;

by name Gargaphie,[18] sacred to the active Diana. In the extreme recess

of this, there was a grotto in a grove, formed by no art; nature, by her

ingenuity, had counterfeited art; for she had formed a natural arch, in

the native pumice and the light sand-stones. A limpid fountain ran

murmuring on the right hand with its little stream, having its spreading

channels edged with a border of grass. Here, {when} wearied with

hunting, the Goddess of the woods was wont to bathe her virgin limbs in

clear water.

After she had entered there, she handed to one of the Nymphs, her

armor-bearer, her javelin, her quiver, and her unstrung bow. Another

Nymph put her arms under her mantle, when taken off: two removed the

sandals from her feet. But Crocale,[19] the daughter of Ismenus, more

skilled than they, gathered her hair, which lay scattered over her neck,

into a knot, although she herself was with {her hair} loose.

Nephele,[20] and Hyale,[21] and Rhanis,[22] fetch water, Psecas[23] and

Phyale[24] {do the same}, and pour it from their large urns. And while

the Titanian {Goddess} was there bathing in the wonted stream, behold!

the grandson of Cadmus, having deferred the remainder of his sport till

{next day}, came into the grove, wandering through the unknown wood,

with uncertain steps; thus did his fate direct him.

Soon as he entered the grotto, dropping with its springs, the Nymphs,

naked as they were, on seeing a man, smote their breasts, and filled all

the woods with sudden shrieks, and gathering round Diana, covered her

with their bodies. Yet the Goddess herself was higher than they, and was

taller than them all by the neck. The color that is wont to be in

clouds, tinted by the rays of the sun {when} opposite, or that of the

ruddy morning, was on the features of Diana, when seen without her

garments. She, although surrounded with the crowd of her attendants,

stood sideways, and turned her face back; and how did she wish that she

had her arrows at hand; {and} so she took up water,[25] which she did

have {at hand}, and threw it over the face of the man, and sprinkling

his hair with the avenging stream, she added these words, the presages

of his future woe: “Now thou mayst tell, if tell thou canst, how that I

was seen by thee without my garments.” Threatening no more, she places

on his sprinkled head the horns of a lively stag; she adds length to his

neck, and sharpens the tops of his ears; and she changes his hands into

feet, and his arms into long legs, and covers his body with a spotted

coat of hair; fear, too is added. The Autonoëian[26] hero took to

flight, and wondered that he was so swift in his speed; but when he

beheld his own horns in the wonted stream, he was about to say, “Ah,

wretched me!” {when} no voice followed. He groaned; that was {all} his

voice, and his tears trickled down a face not his own, {but that of a

stag}. His former understanding alone remained. What should he do?

Should he return home, and to the royal abode? or should he lie hid in

the woods? Fear hinders the one {step}, shame the other. While he was

hesitating, the dogs espied him, and first Melampus,[27] and the

good-nosed Ichnobates gave the signal, in full cry. Ichnobates,[28] was

a Gnossian {dog}; Melampus was of Spartan breed. Then the rest rush on,

swifter than the rapid winds; Pamphagus,[29] and Dorcæus,[30] and

Oribasus,[31] all Arcadian {dogs}; and able Nebrophonus,[32] and with

Lælaps,[33] fierce Theron,[34] and Pterelas,[35] excelling in speed,

Agre[36] in her scent, and Hylæus,[37] lately wounded by a fierce boar,

and Nape,[38] begotten by a wolf, and Pœmenis,[39] that had tended

cattle, and Harpyia,[40] followed by her two whelps, and the Sicyonian

Ladon,[41] having a slender girth; Dromas,[42] too, and Canace,[43]

Sticte,[44] and Tigris, and Alce,[45] and Leucon,[46] with snow-white

hair, and Asbolus,[47] with black, and the able-bodied Lacon,[48] and

Aëllo,[49] good at running, and Thoüs,[50] and swift Lycisca,[51] with

her Cyprian brother, Harpalus,[52] too, having his black face marked

with white down the middle, and Melaneus,[53] and Lachne,[54] with a

wire-haired body, and Labros,[55] and Agriodos,[56] bred of a Dictæan

sire, but of a Laconian dam, and Hylactor,[57] with his shrill note; and

others which it were tedious to recount.

This pack, in eagerness for their prey, are borne over rocks and cliffs,

and crags difficult of approach, where the path is steep, and where

there is no road. He flies along the routes by which he has so often

pursued; alas! he is {now} flying from his own servants. Fain would he

have cried, “I am Actæon, recognize your own master.” Words are wanting

to his wishes; the air resounds with their barking. Melanchætes[58] was

the first to make a wound on his back, Theridamas[59] the next;

Oresitrophus[60] fastened upon his shoulder. These had gone out later,

but their course was shortened by a near cut through the hill. While

they hold their master, the rest of the pack come up, and fasten their

teeth in his body. Now room is wanting for {more} wounds. He groans, and

utters a noise, though not that of a man, {still}, such as a stag cannot

make; and he fills the well-known mountains with dismal moans, and

suppliant on his bended knees, and like one in entreaty, he turns round

his silent looks as though {they were} his arms.

But his companions, in their ignorance, urge on the eager pack with

their usual cries, and seek Actæon with their eyes; and cry out “Actæon”

aloud, as though he were absent. At his name he turns his head, as they

complain that he is not there, and in his indolence, is not enjoying a

sight of the sport afforded them. He wished, indeed, he had been away,

but there he was; and he wished to see, not to feel as well, the cruel

feats of his own dogs. They gather round him on all sides, and burying

their jaws in his body, tear their master in pieces under the form of an

imaginary stag. And the rage of the quiver-bearing Diana is said not to

have been satiated, until his life was ended by many a wound.

[Footnote 14: _Mars and Venus._--Ver. 132. The wife of Cadmus was

Hermione, or Harmonia, who was said to have been the daughter of

Mars and Venus. The Deities honored the nuptials with their

presence, and presented marriage gifts, while the Muses and the

Graces celebrated the festivity with hymns of their own

composition.]

[Footnote 15: _So many sons._--Ver. 134. Apollodorus, Hyginus, and

others, say that Cadmus had but one son, Polydorus. If so, ‘tot,’

‘so many,’ must here refer to the number of his daughters and

grandchildren. His daughters were four in number, Autonoë, Ino,

Semele, and Agave. Ino married Athamas, Autonoë Aristæus, Agave

Echion, while Semele captivated Jupiter. The most famous of the

grandsons of Cadmus were Bacchus, Melicerta, Pentheus, and Actæon.]

[Footnote 16: _Before his death._--Ver. 135. This was the famous

remark of Solon to Crœsus, when he was the master of the opulent

and flourishing kingdom of Lydia, and seemed so firmly settled on

his throne, that there was no probability of any interruption of

his happiness. Falling into the hands of Cyrus the Persian, and

being condemned to be burnt alive, he recollected this wise saying

of Solon, and by that means saved his life, as we are told by

Herodotus, who relates the story at length. Euripides has a

similar passage in his Troades, line 510.]

[Footnote 17: _The Hyantian youth._--Ver. 147. Actæon is thus

called, as being a Bœotian. The Hyantes were the ancient or

aboriginal inhabitants of Bœotia.]

[Footnote 18: _Gargaphie._--Ver. 156. Gargaphie, or Gargaphia, was

a valley situate near Platæa, having a fountain of the same name.]

[Footnote 19: _Crocale._--Ver. 169. So called, perhaps, from

κεκρύφαλος, an ornament for the head, being a coif, band, or

fillet of network for the hair called in Latin ‘reticulum,’ by

which name her office is denoted. The handmaid, whose duty it was

to attend to the hair, held the highest rank in ancient times

among the domestics.]

[Footnote 20: _Nephele._--Ver. 171. From the Greek word νεφέλη,

‘a cloud.’]

[Footnote 21: _Hyale._--Ver. 171. This is from ὕαλος, ‘glass,’ the

name signifying ‘glassy,’ ‘pellucid.’ The very name calls to mind

Milton’s line in his Comus--

‘Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave.’]

[Footnote 22: _Rhanis._--Ver. 171. This name is adapted from the

Greek verb ῥαίνω, ‘to sprinkle.’]

[Footnote 23: _Psecas._--Ver. 172. From the Greek ψεκὰς, ‘a

dew-drop.’]

[Footnote 24: _Phyale._--Ver. 172. This is from the Greek φιαλὴ,

‘an urn.’]

[Footnote 25: _Took up water._--Ver. 189. The ceremonial of

sprinkling previous to the transformation seems not to have been

neglected any more by the offended Goddesses of the classical

Mythology, than by the intriguing enchantresses of the Arabian

Nights’ Entertainments; as the unfortunate Beder, when under the

displeasure of the vicious queen Labè, experienced to his great

inconvenience. The love for the supernatural, combined with an

anxious desire to attribute its operations to material and visible

agencies, forms one of the most singular features of the human

character.]

[Footnote 26: _Autonoëian._--Ver. 198. Autonoë was the daughter of

Cadmus and Hermione, or Harmonia, and the wife of Aristæus, by

whom she was the mother of Actæon. We may here remark, that in one

of his satires, Lucian introduces Juno as saying to Diana, that

she had let loose his dogs on Actæon, for fear lest, having seen

her naked, he should divulge the deformity of her person.]

[Footnote 27: _Melampus._--Ver. 206. These names are all from the

Greek, and are interesting, as showing the epithets by which the

ancients called their dogs. The pack of Actæon is said to have

consisted of fifty dogs. Their names were preserved by several

Greek poets, from whom Apollodorus copied them; but the greater

part of his list has perished, and what remains is in a very

corrupt state. Hyginus has preserved two lists, the first of which

contains thirty-nine names, most of which are similar to those

here given by Ovid, and in almost the same order; while the second

contains thirty-six names, different from those here given.

Æschylus has named but four of them, and Ovid here names

thirty-six. Crete, Arcadia, and Laconia produced the most valuable

hounds. Melampus, ‘Black-foot,’ is from the Greek words μέλας,

‘black,’ and ποῦς, ‘a foot.’]

[Footnote 28: _Ichnobates._--Ver. 207. ‘Tracer.’ From the Greek

ἰχνὸς, ‘a footstep,’ and βαίνω, ‘to go.’]

[Footnote 29: _Pamphagus._--Ver. 210. ‘Glutton.’ From πᾶν, ‘all,’

and φάγω, ‘to eat.’]

[Footnote 30: _Dorcæus._--Ver. 210. ‘Quicksight.’ From δέρκω, ‘to

see.’]

[Footnote 31: _Oribasus._--Ver. 210. ‘Ranger.’ From ὄρος, ‘a

mountain,’ and βαίνω, ‘to go.’]

[Footnote 32: _Nebrophonus._--Ver. 211. ‘Kill-buck.’ From νεβρὸς,

‘a fawn,’ and φονέω, ‘to kill.’]

[Footnote 33: _Lælaps._--Ver. 211. ‘Tempest.’ So called from its

swiftness and power, λαίλαψ, signifying ‘a whirlwind.’]

[Footnote 34: _Theron._--Ver. 211. ‘Hunter.’ From the Greek,

θερεύω, ‘to trace,’ or ‘hunt.’]

[Footnote 35: _Pterelas._--Ver. 212. ‘Wing.’ ‘Swift-footed,’ from

πτερὸν, ‘a wing,’ and ἐλαύνω, ‘to drive onward.’]

[Footnote 36: _Agre._--Ver. 212. ‘Catcher.’ ‘Quick-scented,’ from

ἄγρα, ‘hunting,’ or ‘the chase.’]

[Footnote 37: _Hylæus._--Ver. 213. ‘Woodger,’ or ‘Wood-ranger;’

the Greek ὕλη, signifying ‘a wood.’]

[Footnote 38: _Nape._--Ver. 214. ‘Forester.’ A ‘forest,’ or

‘wood,’ being in Greek, νάπη.]

[Footnote 39: _Pœmenis._--Ver. 215. ‘Shepherdess,’ From the Greek

ποίμενις, ‘a shepherdess.’]

[Footnote 40: _Harpyia._--Ver. 215. ‘Ravener.’ From the Greek word

ἅρπυια, ‘a harpy,’ or ‘ravenous bird.’]

[Footnote 41: _Ladon._--Ver. 216. This dog takes its name from

Ladon, a river of Sicyon, a territory on the shores of the gulf of

Corinth.]

[Footnote 42: _Dromas._--Ver. 217. ‘Runner.’ From the Greek

δρόμος, ‘a race.’]

[Footnote 43: _Canace._--Ver. 217. ‘Barker.’ The word καναχὴ,

signifies ‘a noise,’ or ‘din.’]

[Footnote 44: _Sticte._--Ver. 217. ‘Spot.’ So called from the

variety of her colors, as στικτὸς, signifies ‘diversified with

various spots,’ from στίζω, ‘to vary with spots.’ ‘Tigris’ means

‘Tiger.’]

[Footnote 45: _Alce._--Ver. 217. ‘Strong.’ From the Greek ἀλκὴ

‘strength.’]

[Footnote 46: _Leucon._--Ver. 218. ‘White.’ From λευκὸς, ‘white.’]

[Footnote 47: _Asbolus._--Ver. 218. ‘Soot,’ or ‘Smut.’ From the

Greek ἄσβολος, ‘soot.’]

[Footnote 48: _Lacon._--Ver. 219. From his native country,

Laconia.]

[Footnote 49: _Aëllo._--Ver. 219. ‘Storm.’ From ἄελλα, ‘a

tempest.’]

[Footnote 50: _Thoüs._--Ver. 220. ‘Swift.’ From θοὸς, ‘swift.’

Pliny the Elder states, that ‘thos’ was the name of a kind of

wolf, of larger make, and more active in springing than the common

wolf. He says that it is of inoffensive habits towards man; but

that it lives by prey, and is hairy in winter, but without hair in

summer. It is supposed by some that he alludes to the jackal.

Perhaps, from this animal, the dog here mentioned derived his

name.]

[Footnote 51: _Lycisca._--Ver. 220. ‘Wolf.’ From the diminutive of

the Greek word λύκος, ‘a wolf.’ Virgil uses ‘Lycisca’ as the name

of a dog, in his Eclogues.]

[Footnote 52: _Harpalus._--Ver. 222. ‘Snap.’ From ἁρπάζω, ‘to

snatch,’ or ‘plunder.’]

[Footnote 53: _Melaneus._--Ver. 222. ‘Black-coat.’ From the Greek,

μέλας, ‘black.’]

[Footnote 54: _Lachne._--Ver. 222. ‘Stickle.’ From the Greek work

λαχνὴ, signifying ‘thickness of the hair.’]

[Footnote 55: _Labros._--Ver. 224. ‘Worrier.’ From the Greek

λάβρος ‘greedy.’ Dicte was a mountain of Crete; whence the word

‘Dictæan’ is often employed to signify ‘Cretan.’]

[Footnote 56: _Agriodos._--Ver. 224. ‘Wild-tooth.’ From ἄγριος

‘wild,’ and ὀδοῦς, ‘a tooth.’]

[Footnote 57: _Hylactor._--Ver. 224. ‘Babbler.’ From the Greek

word ὑλακτέω, signifying ‘to bark.’]

[Footnote 58: _Melanchætes._--Ver. 232. ‘Black-hair.’ From the

μέλας, ‘black,’ and χαιτὴ, ‘mane.’]

[Footnote 59: _Theridamas._--Ver. 233. ‘Kilham.’ From θὴρ, ‘a wild

beast,’ and δαμάω, ‘to subdue.’]

[Footnote 60: _Oresitrophus._--Ver. 223. ‘Rover.’ From ὄρος ‘a

mountain,’ and τρέφω ‘to nourish.’]

EXPLANATION.

If the maxim of Horace, ‘Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice

nodus,’ had been a little more frequently observed by the ancient

poets, their Deities would not have been so often placed in a

degrading or disgusting light before posterity. There cannot be a

better illustration of the truth of this than the present Fable, where

Ovid represents the chaste and prudent Diana as revenging herself in a

cruel and barbarous manner for the indiscretion, or rather misfortune,

of an innocent young man.

Cicero mentions several Goddesses of the name of Diana. The first was

the daughter of Jupiter and Proserpine; the second of Jupiter and

Latona; and the third of Upis and Glauce. Strabo mentions another

Diana, named Britomartis, the daughter of Eubalus. The worship,

however, of Diana as the Goddess of the Moon, was, most probably,

derived from Egypt, with the Isis of whom she is perhaps identical.

The adventure narrated in this Fable is most probably to be attributed

to Diana Britomartis, as Strabo tells us, that she was particularly

fond of the chase. Pausanias, in his Attica, tells the story in much

the same terms, but he adds, that on seeing Diana bathing, the novelty

of the sight excited Actæon’s curiosity, and prompted him to approach

nearer. To explain this fable, some authors suggest, that Actæon’s

dogs becoming mad, devoured him; while others suppose, that having

ruined himself by the expense of supporting a large pack of hounds,

and a hunting establishment, it was reported that he had been devoured

by his dogs. Diodorus Siculus, and Euripides, tell us, that Actæon

showed contempt to Diana, and was about to eat of the sacrifice that

had been offered to her; and of course, in such a case, punishment at

the hands of the Goddess would be deemed a just retribution.

Apollodorus says, that Actæon was brought up by Chiron, and that he

was put to death on Mount Cithæron, for having seen Diana bathing;

though, according to one ancient authority, he was punished for having

made improper overtures to Semele. Apollodorus also says, that his

dogs died of grief, on the loss of their master, and he has preserved

some of their names.

FABLE IV. [III.253-301]

Juno, incensed against Semele for her intrigue with Jupiter, takes the

form of Beroë, the more easily to ensure her revenge. Having first

infused in Semele suspicions of her lover, she then recommends her to

adopt a certain method of proving his constancy. Semele, thus

deceived, obtains a reluctant promise from Jupiter, to make his next

visit to her in the splendor and majesty in which he usually

approached his wife.

They speak in various ways {of this matter}. To some, the Goddess seems

more severe than is proper; others praise her, and call her deserving

{of her state} of strict virginity: both sides find their reasons. The

wife of Jupiter alone does not so much declare whether she blames or

whether she approves, as she rejoices at the calamity of a family sprung

from Agenor, and transfers the hatred that she has conceived from the

Tyrian mistress to the partners of her race. Lo! a fresh occasion is

{now} added to the former one; and she grieves that Semele is pregnant

from the seed of great Jupiter. She then lets loose her tongue to abuse.

“And what good have I done by railing so often?” said she. “She herself

must be attacked {by me}. If I am properly called the supreme Juno,

I will destroy her; if it becomes me to hold the sparkling sceptre in my

right hand; if I am the queen, and both the sister and wife of Jupiter.

The sister {I am}, no doubt. But I suppose she is content with a stolen

embrace, and the injury to my bed is but trifling. She is {now}

pregnant; that {alone} was wanting; and she bears the evidence of his

crime in her swelling womb, and wishes to be made a mother by Jupiter,

a thing which hardly fell to my lot alone. So great is her confidence in

her beauty. I will take care[61] he shall deceive her; and may I be no

daughter of Saturn, if she does not descend to the Stygian waves, sunk

{there} by her own {dear} Jupiter.”

Upon this she rises from her throne, and, hidden in a cloud of fiery

hue, she approaches the threshold of Semele. Nor did she remove the

clouds before she counterfeited an old woman, and planted gray hair on

her temples; and furrowed her skin with wrinkles, and moved her bending

limbs with palsied step, and made her voice that of an old woman. She

became Beroë[62] herself, the Epidaurian[63] nurse of Semele. When,

therefore, upon engaging in discourse with her, and {after} long

talking, they came to the name of Jupiter, she sighed, and said,

“I {only} wish it may be Jupiter; yet I {am apt to} fear everything.

Many a one under the name of a God has invaded a chaste bed. Nor yet is

it enough that he is Jupiter; let him, if, indeed, he is the real one,

give some pledge of his affection; and beg of him to bestow his caresses

on thee, just in the greatness and form in which he is received by the

stately Juno; and let him first assume his ensigns {of royalty}.” With

such words did Juno tutor the unsuspecting daughter of Cadmus. She

requested of Jupiter a favor, without naming it. To her the God said,

“Make thy choice, thou shalt suffer no denial; and that thou mayst

believe it the more, let the majesty of the Stygian stream bear witness.

He {is} the dread and the God of the Gods.”

Overjoyed at {what was} her misfortune, and too {easily} prevailing, as

now about to perish by the complaisance of her lover, Semele said,

“Present thyself to me, just such as the daughter of Saturn is wont to

embrace thee, when ye honor the ties of Venus.” The God wished to shut

her mouth as she spoke, {but} the hasty words had now escaped into air.

He groaned; for neither was it {now} possible for her not to have

wished, nor for him not to have sworn. Therefore, in extreme sadness, he

mounted the lofty skies, and with his nod drew along the attendant

clouds; to which he added showers and lightnings mingled with winds, and

thunders, and the inevitable thunderbolt.

[Footnote 61: _I will take care._--Ver. 271. ‘Faxo,’ ‘I will

make,’ is sometimes used by the best authors for ‘fecero;’ and

‘faxim’ for ‘faciam,’ or ‘fecerim.’]

[Footnote 62: _Beroë._--Ver. 278. Iris, in the fifth book of the

Æneid (l. 620), assumes the form of another Beroë; and a third

person of that name is mentioned in the fourth book of the

Georgics, l. 34.]

[Footnote 63: _Epidaurian._--Ver. 278. Epidaurus was a famous city

of Argolis, in Peloponnesus, famous for its temple, dedicated to

the worship of Æsculapius, who was the tutelary Divinity of that

city.]

EXPLANATION.

It is most probable, that an intrigue between a female named Semele

and one of the princes called Jupiter having had a tragical end, gave

occasion to this Fable. Pausanias, in his Laconica, tells us, that

Cadmus, exasperated against his daughter Semele, caused her and her

son to be thrown into the sea; and that being thrown ashore at Oreate,

an ancient town of Laconia, Semele was buried there.

Semele, according to Apollodorus, was, after her death, ranked among

the Goddesses by the name of Thyone. He says that her son Bacchus

going down to hell, brought her thence, and carried her up to heaven;

where, according to Nonnus, she conversed with Pallas and Diana, and

ate at the same table with Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and Venus. The

author, known by the name of Orpheus, gives Semele the title of

Goddess, and Πανβασίλεια, or ‘Queen of the Universe.’

FABLE V. [III.302-338]

Semele is visited by Jupiter, according to the promise she had obliged

him to make; but, being unable to support the effulgence of his

lightning, she is burnt to ashes in his presence. Bacchus, with whom

she is pregnant, is preserved; and Tiresias decided the dispute

between Jupiter and Juno, concerning the sexes.

And yet, as much as possible, he tries to mitigate his powers. Nor is he

now armed with those flames with which he had overthrown the

hundred-handed Typhœus; in those, {there is} too much fury. There is

another thunder, less baneful, to which the right hand of the Cyclops

gave less ferocity and flames, {and} less anger. The Gods above call

this second-rate thunder; it he assumes, and he enters the house of

Agenor. Her mortal body could not endure[64] the æthereal shock, and she

was burned amid her nuptial presents. The infant, as yet unformed, is

taken out of the womb of his mother, and prematurely (if we can believe

it) is inserted in the thigh of the father, and completes the time that

he should have spent in the womb. His aunt, Ino, nurses him privately in

his early cradle. After that, the Nyseian Nymphs[65] conceal him,

entrusted {to them}, in their caves, and give him the nourishment of

milk.

And while these things are transacted on earth by the law of destiny,

and the cradle of Bacchus, twice born,[66] is secured; they tell that

Jupiter, by chance, well drenched with nectar, laid aside {all} weighty

cares, and engaged in some free jokes with Juno, in her idle moments,

and said: “Decidedly the pleasure of you, {females}, is greater than

that which falls to the lot of {us} males.” She denied it. It was agreed

{between them}, to ask what was the opinion of the experienced Tiresias.

To him both pleasures were well known. For he had separated with a blow

of his staff two bodies of large serpents, as they were coupling in a

green wood; and (passing strange) become a woman from a man, he had

spent seven autumns. In the eighth, he again saw the same {serpents},

and said, “If the power of a stroke given you is so great as to change

the condition of the giver into the opposite one, I will now strike you

again.” Having struck the same snakes, his former sex returned, and his

original shape came {again}. He, therefore, being chosen as umpire in

this sportive contest, confirmed the words of Jove. The daughter of

Saturn is said to have grieved more than was fit, and not in proportion

to the subject; and she condemned the eyes of the umpire to eternal

darkness.

But the omnipotent father (for it is not allowed any God to cancel the

acts of {another} Deity) gave him the knowledge of things to come, in

recompense for his loss of sight, and alleviated his punishment by this

honor.

[Footnote 64: _Could not endure._--Ver. 308. ‘Corpus mortale

tumultus Non tulit æthereos,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘her mortal

body could not bear this æthereal bustle.’]

[Footnote 65: _The Nyseian Nymphs._--Ver. 314. Nysa was the name

of a city and mountain of Arabia, or India. The tradition was,

that there the Nyseian Nymphs, whose names were Cysseis, Nysa,

Erato, Eryphia, Bromia, and Polyhymnia, brought up Bacchus. The

cave where he was concealed from the fury of Juno, was said to

have had two entrances, from which circumstance Bacchus received

the epithet of Dithyrites. Servius, in his commentary on the sixth

Eclogue of Virgil (l. 15), says that Nysa was the name of the

female that nursed Bacchus. Hyginus also speaks of her as being

the daughter of Oceanus. From the name ‘Nysa,’ Bacchus received,

in part, his Greek name ‘Dionysus.’]

[Footnote 66: _Twice born._--Ver. 318. Clarke thus translates and

explains this line--‘They tell you, that Jupiter well drenched;’

_i.e._ ‘fuddled with nectar,’ etc.]

FABLE VI. [III.339-401]

Echo, having often amused Juno with her stories, to give time to

Jupiter’s mistresses to make their escape, the Goddess, at last,

punishes her for the deception. She is slighted and despised by

Narcissus, with whom she falls in love.

He, much celebrated by fame throughout the cities of Aonia,[67] gave

unerring answers to the people consulting him. The azure Liriope[68] was

the first to make essay and experiment of his infallible voice; whom

once Cephisus encircled in his winding stream, and offered violence to,

{when} enclosed by his waters. The most beauteous Nymph produced an

infant from her teeming womb, which even then might have been beloved,

and she called him Narcissus. Being consulted concerning him, whether he

was destined to see the distant season of mature old age; the prophet,

expounding destiny, said, “If he never recognizes himself.” Long did the

words of the soothsayer appear frivolous; {but} the event, the thing

{itself}, the manner of his death, and the novel nature of his frenzy,

confirmed it.

And now the son of Cephisus had added one to three times five years, and

he might seem to be a boy and a young man as well. Many a youth,[69] and

many a damsel, courted him; but there was so stubborn a pride in his

youthful beauty, {that} no youths, no damsels made any impression on

him. The noisy Nymph, who has neither learned to hold her tongue after

another speaking, nor to speak first herself, resounding Echo, espied

him, as he was driving the timid stags into his nets. Echo was then a

body, not a voice; and yet the babbler had no other use of her speech

than she now has, to be able to repeat the last words out of many. Juno

had done this; because when often she might have been able to detect the

Nymphs in the mountains in the embrace of her {husband}, Jupiter, she

purposely used to detain[70] the Goddess with a long story, until the

Nymphs had escaped. After the daughter of Saturn perceived {this}, she

said, “But small exercise of this tongue, with which I have been

deluded, shall be allowed thee, and a very short use of thy voice.” And

she confirmed her threats by the event. Still, in the end of one’s

speaking she redoubles the voice, and returns the words she hears. When,

therefore, she beheld Narcissus[71] wandering through the pathless

forests, and fell in love with him, she stealthily followed his steps;

and the more she followed him, with the nearer flame did she burn. In no

other manner than as when the native sulphur, spread around[72] the tops

of torches, catches the flame applied {to it}. Ah! how often did she

desire to accost him in soft accents, and to employ soft entreaties!

Nature resists, and suffers her not to begin; but what {Nature} does

permit, that she is ready for; to await his voice, to which to return

her own words.

By chance, the youth, being separated from the trusty company of his

attendants, cries out, “Is there any one here?” and Echo answers “Here!”

He is amazed; and when he has cast his eyes on every side, he cries out

with a loud voice, “Come!” {Whereon} she calls {the youth} who calls. He

looks back; and again, as no one comes, he says, “Why dost thou avoid

me?” and just as many words as he spoke, he receives. He persists; and

being deceived by the imitation of an alternate voice, he says, “Let us

come together here;” and Echo, that could never more willingly answer

any sound whatever, replies, “Let us come together here!” and she

follows up her own words, and rushing from the woods,[73] is going to

throw her arms around the neck she has {so} longed for. He flies; and as

he flies, he exclaims, “Remove thy hands from thus embracing me; I will

die first, before thou shalt have the enjoyment of me.” She answers

nothing but “Have the enjoyment of me.” {Thus} rejected, she lies hid in

the woods, and hides her blushing face with green leaves, and from that

time lives in lonely caves; but yet her love remains, and increases from

the mortification of her refusal. Watchful cares waste away her

miserable body; leanness shrivels her skin, and all the juices of her

body fly off in air. Her voice and her bones alone are left.

Her voice {still} continues, {but} they say that her bones received the

form of stones. Since then, she lies concealed in the woods, and is

never seen on the mountains: {but} is heard in all {of them}. It is her

voice {alone} which remains alive in her.

[Footnote 67: _Aonia._--Ver. 339. Aonia was a mountainous district

of Bœotia, so called from Aon, the son of Neptune, who reigned

there. The name is often used to signify the whole of Bœotia.]

[Footnote 68: _Liriope._--Ver. 342. She was the daughter of

Oceanus and Tethys, and was the mother of the youth Narcissus, by

the river Cephisus. Her name is derived from the Greek λείριον,

‘a lily.’]

[Footnote 69: _Many a youth._--Ver. 353. Clarke translates ‘multi

juvenes,’ ‘many young fellows.’]

[Footnote 70: _Used to detain._--Ver. 364. Clarke translates ‘Illa

Deam longo prudens sermone tenebat Dum fugerent Nymphæ,’ ‘She

designedly detained the Goddess with some long-winded discourse or

other till the Nymphs ran away.’ He translates ‘garrula,’ in line

360, ‘the prattling hussy.’]

[Footnote 71: _Narcissus._--Ver. 370. This name is from the Greek

word ναρκᾷν, ‘to fade away,’ which was characteristic of the

youth’s career, and of the duration of the flower.]

[Footnote 72: _Sulphur spread around._--Ver. 372. These lines

show, that it was the custom of the ancients to place sulphur on

the ends of their torches, to make them ignite the more readily,

in the same manner as the matches of the present day are tipped

with that mineral.]

[Footnote 73: _Rushing from the woods._--Ver. 388. ‘Egressaque

sylvis.’ Clarke renders, ‘and bouncing out of the wood.’]

EXPLANATION.

It appears much more reasonable to attempt the explanation of this

story on the grounds of natural philosophy than of history. The poets,

in their fondness for basing every subject upon fiction, probably

invented the fable, to explain what to them appeared an extraordinary

phenomenon. By way of embellishing their story, they tell us that Echo

was the daughter of the Air and the Tongue, and that the God Pan fell

in love with her; by which, probably, the simple fact is meant, that

some person, represented under the name of that god, endeavored to

trace the cause of this phenomenon.

If, however, we should endeavor to base the story upon purely

historical grounds, we may suppose that it took its rise from some

Nymph, who wandered so far into the woods as to be unable to find her

way out again; and from the fact that those who went to seek her,

hearing nothing but the echo of their own voices, brought back the

strange but unsatisfactory intelligence that the Nymph had been

changed into a voice.

FABLE VII. [III.402-510]

Narcissus falls in love with his own shadow, which he sees in a

fountain; and, pining to death, the Gods change him into a flower,

which still bears his name.

Thus had he deceived her, thus, too, other Nymphs that sprung from the

water or the mountains, thus the throng of youths before {them}.

Some one, therefore, who had been despised {by him}, lifting up his

hands towards heaven, said, “Thus, though he should love, let him not

enjoy what he loves!” Rhamnusia[74] assented to a prayer so reasonable.

There was a clear spring, like silver, with its unsullied waters, which

neither shepherds, nor she-goats feeding on the mountains, nor any other

cattle, had touched; which neither bird nor wild beast had disturbed,

nor bough falling from a tree. There was grass around it, which the

neighboring water nourished, and a wood, that suffered the stream to

become warm with no {rays of the} sun. Here the youth, fatigued both

with the labor of hunting and the heat, lay down, attracted by the

appearance of the spot, and the spring; and, while he was endeavoring to

quench his thirst, another thirst grew {upon him}.

While he is drinking, being attracted with the reflection of his own

form, seen {in the water}, he falls in love with a thing that has no

substance; {and} he thinks that to be a body, which is {but} a shadow.

He is astonished at himself, and remains unmoved with the same

countenance, like a statue formed of Parian marble.[75] Lying on the

ground, he gazes on his eyes {like} two stars, and fingers worthy of

Bacchus, and hair worthy of Apollo, and his youthful cheeks and ivory

neck, and the comeliness of his mouth, and his blushing complexion

mingled with the whiteness of snow; and everything he admires, for which

he himself is worthy to be admired. In his ignorance, he covets himself;

and he that approves, is himself {the thing} approved. While he pursues

he is pursued, and at the same moment he inflames and burns. How often

does he give vain kisses to the deceitful spring; how often does he

thrust his arms, catching at the neck he sees, into the middle of the

water, and yet he does not catch himself in them. He knows not what he

sees, but what he sees, by it is he inflamed; and the same mistake that

deceives his eyes, provokes them. Why, credulous {youth}, dost thou

vainly catch at the flying image? What thou art seeking is nowhere; what

thou art in love with, turn but away {and} thou shalt lose it; what thou

seest, the same is {but} the shadow of a reflected form; it has nothing

of its own. It comes and stays with thee; with thee it will depart, if

thou canst {but} depart thence.

No regard for food,[76] no regard for repose, can draw him away thence;

but, lying along upon the overshadowed grass, he gazes upon the

fallacious image with unsatiated eyes, and by his own sight he himself

is undone. Raising himself a little {while}, extending his arms to the

woods that stand around him, he says, “Was ever, O, ye woods! any one

more fatally in love? For {this} ye know, and have been a convenient

shelter for many a one. And do you remember any one, who {ever} thus

pined away, during so long a time, though so many ages of your life has

been spent? It both pleases me and I see it; but what I see, and what

pleases me, yet I cannot obtain; so great a mistake possesses one in

love; and to make me grieve the more, neither a vast sea separates us,

nor a {long} way, nor mountains, nor a city with its gates closed; we

are kept asunder by a little water. He himself wishes to be embraced;

for as often as I extend my lips to the limpid stream, so often does he

struggle towards me with his face held up; you would think he might be

touched. It is a very little that stands in the way of lovers. Whoever

thou art, come up hither. Why, {dear} boy, the choice one, dost thou

deceive me? or whither dost thou retire, when pursued? Surely, neither

my form nor my age is such as thou shouldst shun; the Nymphs, too, have

courted me. Thou encouragest I know not what hopes in me with that

friendly look, and when I extend my arms to thee, thou willingly

extendest thine; when I smile, thou smilest in return; often, too, have

I observed thy tears, when I was weeping; my signs, too, thou returnest

by thy nods, and, as I guess by the motion of thy beauteous mouth, thou

returnest words that come not to my ears. In thee ’tis I, I {now}

perceive; nor does my form deceive me. I burn with the love of myself,

and both raise the flames and endure them. What shall I do? Should I be

entreated, or should I entreat? What, then, shall I entreat? What I

desire is in my power; plenty has made me poor. Oh! would that I could

depart from my own body! a new wish, {indeed}, in a lover; I could wish

that what I am in love with was away. And now grief is taking away my

strength, and no long period of my life remains; and in my early days am

I cut off; nor is death grievous to me, now about to get rid of my

sorrows by death. I wish that he who is beloved could enjoy a longer

life. Now we two, of one mind, shall die in {the extinction of} one

life.”

{Thus} he said, and, with his mind {but} ill at ease, he returned to the

same reflection, and disturbed the water with his tears; and the form

was rendered defaced by the moving of the stream; when he saw it

{beginning} to disappear, he cried aloud, “Whither dost thou fly? Stay,

I beseech thee! and do not in thy cruelty abandon thy lover; let it be

allowed me to behold that which I may not touch, and to give nourishment

to my wretched frenzy.” And, while he was grieving, he tore his garment

from the upper border, and beat his naked breast with his palms, white

as marble. His breast, when struck, received a little redness, no

otherwise than as apples are wont, which are partly white {and} partly

red; or as a grape, not yet ripe, in the parti-colored clusters, is wont

to assume a purple tint. Soon as he beheld this again in the water, when

clear, he could not endure it any longer; but, as yellow wax with the

fire, or the hoar frost of the morning, is wont to waste away with the

warmth of the sun, so he, consumed by love, pined away, and wasted by

degrees with a hidden flame. And now, no longer was his complexion of

white mixed with red; neither his vigor nor his strength, nor {the

points} which had charmed when seen so lately, nor {even} his body,

which formerly Echo had been in love with, now remained. Yet, when she

saw these things, although angry, and mindful {of his usage of her}, she

was grieved, and, as often as the unhappy youth said, “Alas!” she

repeated, “Alas!” with re-echoing voice; and when he struck his arms

with his hands, she, too, returned the like sound of a blow.

His last accents, as he looked into the water, as usual, were these:

“Ah, youth, beloved in vain!” and the spot returned just as many words;

and after he had said, “Farewell!” Echo, too, said, “Farewell!” He laid

down his wearied head upon the green grass, {when} night closed the eyes

that admired the beauty of their master; and even then, after he had

been received into the infernal abodes, he used to look at himself in

the Stygian waters. His Naiad sisters lamented him, and laid their

hair,[77] cut off, over their brother; the Dryads, too, lamented him,

{and} Echo resounded to their lamentations. And now they were preparing

the funeral pile, and the shaken torches, and the bier. The body was

nowhere {to be found}. Instead of his body, they found a yellow flower,

with white leaves encompassing it in the middle.

[Footnote 74: _Rhamnusia._--Ver. 406. Nemesis, the Goddess of

Retribution, and the avenger of crime, was the daughter of

Jupiter. She had a famous temple at Rhamnus, one of the ‘pagi,’ or

boroughs of Athens. Her statue was there, carved by Phidias out of

the marble which the Persians brought into Greece for the purpose

of making a statue of Victory out of it, and which was thus

appropriately devoted to the Goddess of Retribution. This statue

wore a crown, and had wings, and holding a spear of ash in the

right hand, it was seated on a stag.]

[Footnote 75: _Parian marble._--Ver. 419. Paros was an island in

the Ægean sea, one of the Cyclades; it was famous for the valuable

quality of its marble, which was especially used for the purpose

of making statues of the Gods.]

[Footnote 76: _Regard for food._--Ver. 437. ‘Cereris.’ The name of

the Goddess of corn is here used instead of bread itself.]

[Footnote 77: _Laid their hair._--Ver. 506. It was the custom

among the ancients for females, when lamenting the dead, not only

to cut off their hair, but to lay it on the body, when extended

upon the funeral pile.]

EXPLANATION.

If this story is based upon any historical facts, they are entirely

lost to us; as all we learn from history concerning Narcissus, is the

fact that he was a Thespian by birth. The Fable seems rather to be

intended as a useful moral lesson, disclosing the fatal effects of

self-love. His pursuit, too, of his own image, ever retiring from his

embrace, strongly resembles the little reality that exists in many of

those pleasures which mankind so eagerly pursue.

Pausanias, in his Bœotica, somewhat varies the story. He tells us that

Narcissus having lost his sister, whom he tenderly loved, and who

resembled him very much, and was his constant companion in the chase,

thought, on seeing himself one day in a fountain, that it was the

shade of his lost sister, and, thereupon, pined away and died of

grief. According to him, the fountain was near a village called

Donacon, in the country of the Thespians. Pausanias regards the

account of his change into the flower which bears his name as a mere

fiction, since Pamphus says that Proserpina, when carried away, long

before the time of Narcissus, gathered that flower in the fields of

Enna; and that the same flower was sacred to her. Persons sacrificing

to the Furies, or Eumenides, used to wear chaplets made of the

Narcissus, because that flower commonly grew about graves and

sepulchres.

Tiresias, who predicted the untoward fate of Narcissus, was, as we are

informed by Apollodorus, the son of Evenus and Chariclo, and was the

most renowned soothsayer of his time. He lost his life by drinking of

the fountain of Telphusa when he was overheated; or, as some suppose,

through the unwholesome quality of the water. As he lived to a great

age, and became blind towards the end of his life, the story, which

Ovid mentions, was invented respecting him. Another version of it was,

that he lost his sight, by reason of his having seen Minerva while

bathing. This story was very probably based either upon the fact that

he had composed a Treatise upon the Animal Functions of the Sexes, or

that he had promulgated the doctrine that the stars had not only souls

(a common opinion in those times), but also that they were of

different sexes. He is supposed to have lived about 1200 years before

the Christian era.

FABLE VIII. [III.511-733]

Pentheus ridicules the predictions of Tiresias; and not only forbids

his people to worship Bacchus, who had just entered Greece in triumph,

but even commands them to capture him, and to bring him into his

presence. Under the form of Acœtes, one of his companions, Bacchus

suffers that indignity, and relates to Pentheus the wonders which the

God had wrought. The recital enrages Pentheus still more, who

thereupon goes to Mount Cithæron, to disturb the orgies then

celebrating there; on which his own mother and the other Bacchantes

tear him to pieces.

This thing, when known, brought deserved fame to the prophet through the

cities of Achaia;[78] and great was the reputation of the soothsayer.

Yet Pentheus,[79] the son of Echion, a contemner of the Gods above,

alone, of all men, despises him, and derides the predicting words of the

old man, and upbraids him with his darkened state, and the misfortune of

{having lost} his sight. He, shaking his temples, white with hoary hair,

says: “How fortunate wouldst thou be, if thou as well couldst become

deprived of this light, that thou mightst not behold the rites of

Bacchus. For soon the day will come, and even now I predict that it is

not far off, when the new {God} Liber, the son of Semele, shall come

hither. Unless thou shalt vouchsafe him the honor of a temple, thou

shalt be scattered, torn in pieces, in a thousand places, and with thy

blood thou shalt pollute both the woods, and thy mother and the sisters

of thy mother. {These things} will come to pass; for thou wilt not

vouchsafe honor to the Divinity; and thou wilt complain that under this

darkness I have seen too much.”

The son of Echion drives him away as he says such things as these.

Confirmation follows his words, and the predictions of the prophet are

fulfilled. Liber comes, and the fields resound with festive howlings.

The crowd runs out; both matrons and new-married women mixed with the

men, both high and low, are borne along to the {celebration of} rites

{till then} unknown. “What madness,” says Pentheus, “has confounded your

minds, O ye warlike men,[80] descendants of the Dragon? Can brass

knocked against brass prevail so much with you? And the pipe with the

bending horn, and these magical delusions? And shall the yells of women,

and madness produced by wine, and troops of effeminate {wretches}, and

empty tambourines[81] prevail over you, whom neither the warrior’s sword

nor the trumpet could affright, nor troops with weapons prepared {for

fight}? Am I to wonder at you, old men, who, carried over distant seas,

have fixed in these abodes a {new} Tyre, and your banished household

Gods, {but who} now allow them to be taken without a struggle? Or you,

of more vigorous age and nearer to my own, ye youths; whom it was

befitting to be brandishing arms, and not the thyrsus,[82] and to be

covered with helmets, not green leaves? Do be mindful, I entreat you, of

what race you are sprung, and assume the courage of that dragon, who

{though but} one, destroyed many. He died for his springs and his

stream; but do you conquer for your own fame. He put the valiant to

death; do you expel the feeble {foe}, and regain your country’s honor.

If the fates forbid Thebes to stand long, I wish that engines of war[83]

and men should demolish the walls, and that fire and sword should

resound. {Then} should we be wretched without {any} fault {of our own},

and our fate were to be lamented, {but} not concealed, and our tears

would be free from shame. But now Thebes will be taken by an unarmed

boy, whom neither wars delight, nor weapons, nor the employment of

horses, but hair wet with myrrh, and effeminate chaplets, and purple,

and gold interwoven with embroidered garments; whom I, indeed, (do you

only stand aside) will presently compel to own that his father is

assumed, and that his sacred rites are fictitious. Has Acrisius[84]

courage enough to despise the vain Deity, and to shut the gates of Argos

against his approach; and shall this stranger affright Pentheus with all

Thebes? Go quickly, (this order he gives to his servants), go, and bring

hither in chains the ringleader. Let there be no slothful delay in

{executing} my commands.”

His grandfather,[85] {Cadmus}, Athamas, and the rest of the company of

his friends rebuke him with expostulations, and in vain try to restrain

him. By their admonition he becomes more violent, and by being curbed

his fury is irritated, and is on the increase, and the very restraint

did him injury. So have I beheld a torrent, where nothing obstructed it

in its course, run gently and with moderate noise; but wherever beams

and stones in its way withheld it, it ran foaming and raging, and more

violent from its obstruction. Behold! {the servants} return, all stained

with blood; and when their master inquires where Bacchus is, they deny

that they have seen Bacchus. “But this one,” say they, “we have taken,

who was his attendant and minister in his sacred rites.” And {then} they

deliver one, who, from the Etrurian nation, had followed the sacred

rites of the Deity, with his hands bound behind his back.

Pentheus looks at him with eyes that anger has made terrible, and

although he can scarcely defer the time of his punishment, he says,

“O {wretch}, doomed to destruction, and about, by thy death, to set an

example to others, tell me thy name, and the name of thy parents, and

thy country, and why thou dost attend the sacred rites of a new

fashion.” He, void of fear, says, “My name is Acœtes; Mæonia[86] is my

country; my parents were of humble station. My father left me no fields

for the hardy oxen to till, no wool-bearing flocks, nor any herds. He

himself was {but} poor, and he was wont with line, and hooks, to deceive

the leaping fishes, and to take them with the rod. His trade was his

{only} possession. When he gave that calling over {to me}, he said,

‘Receive, as the successor and heir of my employment, those riches which

I possess;’ and at his death he left me nothing but the streams. This

one thing alone can I call my patrimony. {But} soon, that I might not

always be confined to the same rocks, I learned with a steadying right

hand to guide the helm of the ship, and I made observations with my eyes

of the showery Constellation of the Olenian she-goat,[87] and

Taygete,[88] and the Hyades,[89] and the Bear, and the quarters of the

winds, and the harbors fit for ships. By chance, as I was making for

Delos, I touched at the coast of the land of Dia,[90] and came up to the

shore by {plying} the oars on the right side; and I gave a nimble leap,

and lighted upon the wet sand. When the night was past, and the dawn

first began to grow red, I arose and ordered {my men} to take in fresh

water, and I pointed out the way which led to the stream. I myself, from

a lofty eminence, looked around {to see} what the breeze promised me;

and {then} I called my companions, and returned to the vessel. ‘Lo! we

are here,’ says Opheltes, my chief mate; and having found, as he

thought, a prize in the lonely fields, he was leading along the shore,

a boy with {all} the beauty of a girl. He, heavy with wine and sleep,

seemed to stagger, and to follow with difficulty. I examined his dress,

his looks, and his gait, {and} I saw nothing there which could be taken

to be mortal. I both was sensible of it, and I said to my companions, ‘I

am in doubt what Deity is in that body; but in that body a Deity there

is. Whoever thou art, O be propitious and assist our toils; and pardon

these as well.’ ‘Cease praying for us,’ said Dictys, than whom there was

not another more nimble at climbing to the main-top-yards, and at

sliding down by catching hold of a rope. This Libys, this the

yellow-haired Melanthus, the guardian of the prow, and this Alcimedon

approved of; and Epopeus[91] as well, the cheerer of their spirits, who

by his voice gave both rest and time to the oars; {and} so did all the

rest; so blind is the greed for booty. ‘However,’ I said, ‘I will not

allow this ship to be damaged by this sacred freight. Here I have the

greatest share of right.’ and I opposed them at the entrance.

“Lycabas, the boldest of all the number, was enraged, who, expelled from

a city of Etruria, was suffering exile as the punishment for a dreadful

murder.[92] He, while I was resisting, seized hold of my throat with his

youthful fist, and shaking me, had thrown me overboard into the sea, if

I had not, although stunned, held fast by grasping a rope. The impious

crew approved of the deed. Then at last Bacchus (for Bacchus it was), as

though his sleep had been broken by the noise, and his sense was

returning into his breast after {much} wine, said: ‘What are you doing?

What is this noise? Tell me, sailors, by what means have I come hither?

Whither do you intend to carry me?’ ‘Lay aside thy fears,’ said Proreus,

‘and tell us what port thou wouldst wish to reach. Thou shalt stop at

the land that thou desirest.’ ‘Direct your course then to Naxos,’[93]

says Liber, ‘that is my home; it shall prove a hospitable land for you.’

“In their deceit they swore by the ocean and by all the Deities, that so

it should be; and bade me give sail to the painted ship. Naxos was to

our right; {and} as I was {accordingly} setting sail for the right hand,

every one said for himself, ‘What art thou about, madman? What insanity

possesses thee, Acœtes? Stand away to the left.’ The greater part

signified {their meaning} to me by signs; some whispered in my ear what

they wanted. I was at a loss, and I said, ‘Let some one else take the

helm;’ and I withdrew myself from the execution both of their

wickedness, and of my own calling. I was reviled by them all, and the

whole crew muttered {reproaches} against me. Æthalion, among them, says,

‘As if, forsooth, all our safety is centred in thee,’ and he himself

comes up, and takes my duty; and leaving Naxos, he steers a different

course. Then the God, mocking them as if he had at last but that moment

discovered their knavery, looks down upon the sea from the crooked

stern; and, like one weeping, he says: ‘These are not the shores,

sailors, that you have promised me; this is not the land desired by me.

By what act have I deserved this treatment? What honor is it to you, if

you {that are} young men, deceive a {mere} boy? if you {that are} many,

deceive me, {who am but} one?’ I had been weeping for some time. The

impious gang laughed at my tears, and beat the sea with hastening oars.

Now by himself do I swear to thee (and no God is there more powerful

than he), that I am relating things to thee as true, as they are beyond

all belief. The ship stood still upon the ocean, no otherwise than if it

was occupying a dry dock. They, wondering at it, persisted in the plying

of their oars; they unfurled their sails, and endeavored to speed onward

with this twofold aid. Ivy impeded the oars,[94] and twined {around

them} in encircling wreaths; and clung to the sails with heavy clusters

of berries. He himself, having his head encircled with bunches of

grapes, brandished a lance covered with vine leaves. Around him, tigers

and visionary forms of lynxes, and savage bodies of spotted panthers,

were extended.

“The men leaped overboard, whether it was madness or fear that caused

this; and first {of all}, Medon began to grow black with fins, with a

flattened body, and to bend in the curvature of the back-bone. To him

Lycabas said, ‘Into what prodigy art thou changing?’ and, as he spoke,

the opening of his mouth was wide, his nose became crooked, and his

hardened skin received scales upon it. But Libys, while he was

attempting to urge on the resisting oars, saw his hands shrink into a

small compass, and now to be hands no longer, {and} that now, {in fact},

they may be pronounced fins. Another, desirous to extend his arms to the

twisting ropes, had no arms, and becoming crooked, with a body deprived

of limbs, he leaped into the waves; the end of his tail was hooked, just

as the horns of the half-moon are curved. They flounce about on every

side, and bedew {the ship} with plenteous spray, and again they emerge,

and once more they return beneath the waves. They sport with {all} the

appearance of a dance, and toss their sportive bodies, and blow forth

the sea, received within their wide nostrils. Of twenty the moment

before (for so many did that ship carry), I was the only one remaining.

The God encouraged me, frightened and chilled with my body all

trembling, and scarcely myself, saying, ‘Shake off thy fear, and make

for Dia.’ Arriving there, I attended upon the sacred rites of Bacchus,

at the kindled altars.”

“We have lent ear to a long story,”[95] says Pentheus, “that our anger

might consume its strength in its tediousness. Servants! drag him

headlong, and send to Stygian night his body, racked with dreadful

tortures.” At once the Etrurian Acœtes, dragged away, is shut up in a

strong prison; and while the cruel instruments of the death that is

ordered, and the iron and the fire are being made ready, the report is

that the doors opened of their own accord, and that the chains, of their

own accord, slipped from off his arms, no one loosening them.

The son of Echion persists: and now he does not command others to go,

but goes himself to where Cithæron,[96] chosen for the celebration of

these sacred rites, was resounding with singing, and the shrill voices

of the votaries of Bacchus. Just as the high-mettled steed neighs, when

the warlike trumpeter gives the alarm with the sounding brass, and

conceives a desire for battle, so did the sky, struck with the

long-drawn howlings, excite Pentheus, and his wrath was rekindled on

hearing the clamor. There was, about the middle of the mountain, the

woods skirting its extremity, a plain free from trees, {and} visible on

every side. Here his mother was the first to see him looking on the

sacred rites with profane eyes; she first was moved by a frantic

impulse, {and} she first wounded her {son}, Pentheus, by hurling her

thyrsus, {and} cried out, “Ho! come, my two sisters;[97] that boar

which, of enormous size, is roaming amid our fields, that boar I must

strike.” All the raging multitude rushes upon him alone; all collect

together, and all follow him, now trembling, now uttering words less

atrocious {than before}, now blaming himself, now confessing that he has

offended.

However, on being wounded, he says, “Give me thy aid, Autonoë, my aunt;

let the ghost of Actæon[98] influence thy feelings.” She knows not what

Actæon {means}, and tears away his right hand as he is praying; the

other is dragged off by the violence of Ino. The wretched {man} has

{now} no arms to extend to his mother; but showing his maimed body, with

the limbs torn off, he says, “Look at this, my mother!” At the sight

Agave howls aloud, and tosses her neck, and shakes her locks in the air;

and seizing his head, torn off, with her blood-stained fingers, she

cries out, “Ho! my companions, this victory is our work!”

The wind does not more speedily bear off, from a lofty tree, the leaves

nipped by the cold of autumn, and now adhering with difficulty, than

were the limbs of the man, torn asunder by their accursed hands.

Admonished by such examples, the Ismenian matrons frequent the new

worship, and offer frankincense, and reverence the sacred altars.

[Footnote 78: _Cities of Achaia._--Ver. 511. Achaia was properly

the name of a part of Peloponnesus, on the gulf of Corinth; but

the name is very frequently applied to the whole of Greece.]

[Footnote 79: _Pentheus._--Ver. 513. He was the son of Echion and

Agave, the daughter of Cadmus.]

[Footnote 80: _Warlike men._--Ver. 531. ‘Mavortia.’ Mavors was a

name of Mars, frequently used by the poets. The Thebans were

‘proles Mavortia,’ as being sprung from the teeth of the dragon,

who was said to be a son of Mars.]

[Footnote 81: _Tambourines._--Ver. 537. ‘Tympana.’ These

instruments, among the ancients, were of various kinds. Some

resembled the modern tambourine; while others presented a flat

circular disk on the upper surface, and swelled out beneath, like

the kettle-drum of the present day. They were covered with the

hides of oxen, or of asses, and were beaten either with a stick or

the hand. They were especially used in the rites of Bacchus, and

of Cybele.]

[Footnote 82: _The thyrsus._--Ver. 542. The thyrsus was a long

staff, carried by Bacchus, and by the Satyrs and Bacchanalians

engaged in the worship of the God of the grape. It was sometimes

terminated by the apple of the pine, or fir-cone, the fir-tree

being esteemed sacred to Bacchus, from the turpentine flowing

therefrom and its apples being used in making wine. It is,

however, frequently represented as terminating in a knot of ivy,

or vine leaves, with grapes or berries arranged in a conical form.

Sometimes, also, a white fillet was tied to the pole just below

the head. We learn from Diodorus Siculus, and Macrobius, that

Bacchus converted the thyrsi carried by himself and his followers

into weapons, by concealing an iron point in the head of leaves.

A wound with its point was supposed to produce madness.]

[Footnote 83: _Engines of war._--Ver. 549. ‘Tormenta.’ These were

the larger engines of destruction used in ancient warfare. They

were so called from the verb ‘torqueo,’ ‘to twist,’ from their

being formed by the twisting of hair, fibre, or strips of leather.

The different sorts were called ‘balistæ’ and ‘catapultæ.’ The

former were used to impel stones; the latter, darts and arrows. In

sieges, the ‘Aries,’ or ‘battering ram,’ which received its name

from having an iron head resembling that of a ram, was employed in

destroying the lower part of the wall, while the ‘balista’ was

overthrowing the battlements, and the ‘catapulta’ was employed to

shoot any of the besieged who appeared between them. The ‘balistæ’

and ‘catapultæ’ were divided into the ‘greater’ and the ‘less.’

When New Carthage, the arsenal of the Carthaginians, was taken,

according to Livy (b. xxvi. c. 47), there were found in it 120

large and 281 small catapultæ, and twenty-three large and fifty-two

small balistæ. The various kinds of ‘tormenta’ are said to have

been introduced about the time of Alexander the Great. If so,

Ovid must here be committing an anachronism, in making Pentheus

speak of ‘tormenta,’ who lived so many ages before that time. To

commit anachronisms with impunity seems, however, to be the poet’s

privilege, from Ovid downwards to our Shakspere, where he makes

Falstaff talk familiarly of the West Indies. We find the

dictionaries giving ‘tormentum’ as the Latin word for ‘cannon;’ so

that in this case we may say not that ‘necessity is the mother of

invention,’ but rather that she is ‘the parent of anachronism.’]

[Footnote 84: _Acrisius._--Ver. 559. He was a king of Argos, the

son of Abas, and the father of Danaë. He refused, and probably

with justice, to admit Bacchus or his rites within the gates of

his city.]

[Footnote 85: _His grandfather._--Ver. 563. Athamas was the son of

Æolus, and being the husband of Ino, was the son-in-law of Cadmus;

who being the father of Agave, the mother of Pentheus, is the

grandfather mentioned in the present line.]

[Footnote 86: _Mæonia._--Ver. 583. Colonists were said to have

proceeded from Lydia, or Mæonia, to the coasts of Etruria. Bacchus

assumes the name of Acœtes, as corresponding to the Greek epithet

ἀκοίτης, ‘watchful,’ or ‘sleepless;’ which ought to be the

characteristic of the careful ‘pilot,’ or ‘helmsman.’]

[Footnote 87: _Olenian she-goat._--Ver. 594. Amalthea, the goat

that suckled Jupiter, is called Olenian, either because she was

reared in Olenus, a city of Bœotia, or because she was placed as a

Constellation between the arms, ὠλέναι, of the Constellation

Auriga, or the Charioteer. The rising and setting of this

Constellation were supposed to produce showers.]

[Footnote 88: _Taygete._--Ver. 594. She was one of the Pleiades,

the daughters of Atlas, who were placed among the Constellations.]

[Footnote 89: _Hyades._--Ver. 594. These were the Dodonides, or

nurses of Bacchus, whom Jupiter, as a mark of his favor, placed in

the number of the Constellations. Their name is derived from ὕειν,

‘to rain.’]

[Footnote 90: _Dia._--Ver. 596. This was another name of the Isle

of Naxos. Gierig thinks that the reading here is neither ‘Diæ’ nor

‘Chiæ,’ which are the two common readings; as the situation of

neither the Isle of Naxos nor that of Chios, would suit the course

of the ship, as stated in the text. He thinks that the Isle of

Ceos, or Cea, is meant, which Ptolemy calls Κια, and which he

thinks ought here to be written ‘Ciæ.’]

[Footnote 91: _Epopeus._--Ver. 619. He was the κελεύστης,

‘pausarius,’ or keeper of time for the rowers.]

[Footnote 92: _A dreadful murder._--Ver. 626. They seem to have

been composed of much the same kind of lawless materials that

formed the daring crews of the buccanier Morgan and Captain Kydd

in more recent times.]

[Footnote 93: _Naxos._--Ver. 636. This was the most famous island

of the group of the Cyclades.]

[Footnote 94: _Ivy impeded the oars._--Ver. 664. Hyginus tells us,

that Bacchus changed the oars into thyrsi, the sails into clusters

of grapes, and the rigging into ivy branches. In the Homeric hymn

on this subject we find the ship flowing with wine, vines growing

on the sails, ivy twining round the mast, and the benches wreathed

with chaplets.]

[Footnote 95: _To a long story._--Ver. 692. Clarke renders this

line, ‘We have lent our ears to a long tale of a tub.’]

[Footnote 96: _Cithæron._--Ver. 702. This was a mountain of

Bœotia, famous for the orgies of Bacchus there celebrated.]

[Footnote 97: _My two sisters._--Ver. 713. These were Ino and

Autonoë.]

[Footnote 98: _Ghost of Actæon._--Ver. 720. He appeals to Autonoë,

the mother of Actæon, to remember the sad fate of her own son, and

to show him some mercy; but in vain: for, as one commentator on

the passage says, ‘Drunkenness had taken away both her reason and

her memory.’]

EXPLANATION.

Cicero mentions two Deities of the name of Bacchus; while other

authors speak of several of that name. The first was the son of

Jupiter and Proserpina; the second was the son of the Nile, and the

founder of the city of Nysa, in Arabia; Caprius was the father of the

third. The fourth was the son of the Moon and Jupiter, in honor of

whom the Orphic ceremonies were performed. The fifth was the son of

Nisus and Thione, and the instituter of the Trieterica. Diodorus

Siculus mentions but three of the name of Bacchus; namely, the Indian,

surnamed the bearded Bacchus, who conquered India; the son of Jupiter

and Ceres, who was represented with horns; and the son of Jupiter and

Semele, who was called the Theban Bacchus.

The most reasonable opinion seems to be that of Herodotus and

Plutarch, who inform us, that the true Bacchus, and the most ancient

of them all, was born in Egypt, and was originally called Osiris. The

worship of that Divinity passed from Egypt to Greece, where it

received great alterations; and, according to Diodorus Siculus, it was

Orpheus who introduced it, and made those innovations. In gratitude to

the family of Cadmus, from which he had received many favors, he

dedicated to Bacchus, the grandson of Cadmus, those mysteries which

had been instituted in honor of Osiris, whose worship was then but

little known in Greece. Diodorus Siculus says, that as Semele was

delivered of Bacchus in the seventh month, it was reported that

Jupiter shut him up in his thigh, to carry him there the remaining

time of gestation. This Fable was probably founded on the meaning of

an equivocal word. The Greek word μηρὸς signifies either ‘a thigh,’ or

‘the hollow of a mountain.’ Thus the Greeks, instead of saying that

Bacchus had been nursed on Mount Nysa, in Arabia, according to the

Egyptian version of the story, published that he had been carried in

the thigh of Jupiter.

As Bacchus applied himself to the cultivation of the vine, and taught

his subjects several profitable and necessary arts, he was honored as

a Divinity; and having won the esteem of many neighboring countries,

his worship soon spread. Among his several festivals there was one

called the Trieterica, which was celebrated every three years. In that

feast the Bacchantes carried the figure of the God in a chariot drawn

by two tigers, or panthers; and, crowned with vine leaves, and holding

thyrsi in their hands, they ran in a frantic manner around the

chariot, filling the air with the noise of tambourines and brazen

instruments, shouting ‘Evoë. Bacche!’ and calling the God by his

several names of Bromius, Lyæus, Evan, Lenæus, and Sabazius. To this

ceremonial, received from the Egyptians, the Greeks added other

ceremonies replete with abominable licentiousness, and repulsive to

common decency. These were often suppressed by public enactment, but

were as often re-established by the votaries of lewdness and

immodesty, and such as found in these festivals a pretext and

opportunity for the commission of the most horrible offences.

The story of the unfortunate fate of Pentheus is supposed by the

ancient writers to have been strictly true. Pentheus, the son of

Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, having succeeded his

grandfather in his kingdom, is supposed, like him, to have opposed

those abuses that had crept into the mysteries of Bacchus, and went to

Mount Cithæron for the purpose of chastising the Bacchantes, who were

celebrating his festival; whereupon, in their frantic madness, the

worshippers, among whom were his mother and his aunt, tore him in

pieces. Pausanias, however, says that Pentheus really was a wicked

prince; and he somewhat varies his story, as he tells us that having

got into a tree to overlook the secret ceremonies of the orgies,

Pentheus was discovered by the Bacchantes, who punished his curiosity

by putting him to death. The story of the transformation of the

mariners is supposed by Bochart to have been founded on the adventure

of certain merchants from the coast of Etruria, whose vessel had the

figure of a dolphin at the prow, or rather of the fish called

‘tursio,’ probably the porpoise, or sea-hog. They were probably

shipwrecked near the Isle of Naxos, which was sacred to Bacchus, whose

mysteries they had perhaps neglected, or even despised. On this

slender ground, perhaps, the report spread, that the God himself had

destroyed them, as a punishment for their impiety.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

FABLE I. [IV.1-166]

The daughters of Minyas, instead of celebrating the festival of

Bacchus, apply themselves to other pursuits during the ceremonies; and

among several narratives which they relate to pass away the time, they

divert themselves with the story of the adventures of Pyramus and

Thisbe. These lovers having made an appointment to meet without the

walls of Babylon, Thisbe arrives first; but at the sight of a lioness,

she runs to hide herself in a cave, and in her alarm, drops her veil.

Pyramus, arriving soon after, finds the veil of his mistress stained

with blood; and believing her to be dead, kills himself with his own

sword. Thisbe returns from the cave; and finding Pyramus weltering in

his blood, she plunges the same fatal weapon into her own breast.

But Alcithoë, the daughter of Minyas,[1] does not think that the

rites[2] of the God ought to be received; but still, in her rashness,

denies that Bacchus is the progeny of Jupiter; and she has her

sisters[3] as partners in her impiety.

The priest had ordered both mistresses and maids, laying aside their

employments, to have their breasts covered with skins, and to loosen the

fillets of their hair, and {to put} garlands on their locks, and to take

the verdant thyrsi in their hands; and had prophesied that severe would

be the resentment of the Deity, {if} affronted. Both matrons and

new-married women obey, and lay aside their webs and work-baskets,[4]

and their tasks unfinished; and offer frankincense, and invoke both

Bacchus and Bromius,[5] and Lyæus,[6] and the son of the Flames, and the

Twice-Born, and the only one that had two mothers.[7] To these is added

{the name of} Nyseus, and the unshorn Thyoneus,[8] and with Lenæus,[9]

the planter of the genial grape, and Nyctelius,[10] and father Eleleus,

and Iacchus,[11] and Evan,[12] and a great many other names, which thou,

Liber, hast besides, throughout the nations of Greece. For thine is

youth everlasting; thou art a boy to all time, thou art beheld {as} the

most beauteous {of all} in high heaven; thou hast the features of a

virgin, when thou standest without thy horns. By thee the East was

conquered, as far as where swarthy India is bounded by the remote

Ganges. Thou {God}, worthy of our veneration, didst smite Pentheus, and

the axe-bearing Lycurgus,[13] sacrilegious {mortals}; thou didst hurl

the bodies of the Etrurians into the sea. Thou controllest the neck of

the lynxes yoked to thy chariot, graced with the painted reins. The

Bacchanals and the Satyrs follow {thee}; the drunken old man, too,

{Silenus}, who supports his reeling limbs with a staff, and sticks by no

means very fast to his bending ass. And wherever thou goest, the shouts

of youths, and together the voices of women, and tambourines beaten with

the hands, and hollow cymbals resound, and the box-wood {pipe}, with its

long bore. The Ismenian matrons ask thee to show thyself mild and

propitious, and celebrate thy sacred rites as prescribed.

The daughters of Minyas alone, within doors, interrupting the festival

with unseasonable labor,[14] are either carding wool, or twirling the

threads with their fingers, or are plying at the web, and keeping the

handmaids to their work. One of them, {as she is} drawing the thread

with her smooth thumb, says, “While others are idling, and thronging to

{these} fanciful rites, let us, whom Pallas, a better Deity, occupies,

alleviate the useful toil of our hands with varying discourse; and let

us relate by turns to our disengaged ears, for the general {amusement},

something each in our turn, that will not permit the time to seem long.”

They approve of what she says, and her sisters bid her to be the first

to tell her story.

She considers which of many she shall tell (for she knows many a one),

and she is in doubt whether she shall tell of thee, Babylonian

Dercetis,[15] whom the people of Palestine[16] believe to inhabit the

pools, with thy changed form, scales covering thy limbs; or rather how

her daughter, taking wings, passed her latter years in whitened turrets;

or how a Naiad,[17] by charms and too potent herbs, changed the bodies

of the young men into silent fishes, until she suffered the same

herself. Or how the tree which bore white fruit {formerly}, now bears it

of purple hue, from the contact of blood. This {story} pleases her;

this, because it was no common tale, she began in manner such as this,

while the wool followed the thread:--

“Pyramus and Thisbe, the one the most beauteous of youths,[18] the other

preferred before {all} the damsels that the East contained, lived in

adjoining houses; where Semiramis is said to have surrounded her lofty

city[19] with walls of brick.[20] The nearness caused their first

acquaintance, and their first advances {in love}; with time their

affection increased. They would have united themselves, too, by the tie

of marriage, but their fathers forbade it. A thing which they could not

forbid, they were both inflamed, with minds equally captivated. There is

no one acquainted with it; by nods and signs, they hold converse. And

the more the fire is smothered, the more, when {so} smothered, does it

burn. The party-wall, common to the two houses, was cleft by a small

chink, which it had got formerly, when it was built. This defect,

remarked by no one for so many ages, you lovers (what does not love

perceive?) first found one, and you made it a passage for your voices,

and the accents of love used to pass through it in safety, with the

gentlest murmur. Oftentimes, after they had taken their stations, Thisbe

on one side, {and} Pyramus on the other, and the breath of their mouths

had been {mutually} caught by turns, they used to say, ‘Envious wall,

why dost thou stand in the way of lovers? what great matter were it, for

thee to suffer us to be joined with our entire bodies? Or if that is too

much, that, at least, thou shouldst open, for the exchange of kisses.

Nor are we ungrateful; we confess that we are indebted to thee, that a

passage has been given for our words to our loving ears.’ Having said

this much, in vain, on their respective sides, about night they said,

‘Farewell’; and gave those kisses each on their own side, which did not

reach the other side.

“The following morning had removed the fires of the night, and the Sun,

with its rays, had dried the grass wet with rime, {when} they met

together at the wonted spot. Then, first complaining much in low

murmurs, they determine, in the silent night, to try to deceive their

keepers, and to steal out of doors; and when they have left the house,

to quit the buildings of the city as well: but that they may not have to

wander, roaming in the open fields, to meet at the tomb of Ninus,[21]

and to conceal themselves beneath the shade of a tree. There was there a

lofty mulberry tree, very full of snow-white fruit, quite close to a

cold spring. The arrangement suits them; and the light, seeming to

depart {but} slowly, is buried in the waters, and from the same waters

the night arises. The clever Thisbe, turning the hinge, gets out in the

dark, and deceives her {attendants}, and, having covered her face,

arrives at the tomb, and sits down under the tree agreed upon; love made

her bold. Lo! a lioness approaches, having her foaming jaws besmeared

with the recent slaughter of oxen, about to quench her thirst with the

water of the neighboring spring. The Babylonian Thisbe sees her at a

distance, by the rays of the moon, and with a trembling foot she flies

to a dark cave; and, while she flies, her veil falling from her back,

she leaves it behind. When the savage lioness has quenched her thirst

with plenteous water, as she is returning into the woods, she tears the

thin covering, found by chance without Thisbe herself, with her

blood-stained mouth.

“Pyramus, going out later {than Thisbe}, saw the evident footmarks of a

wild beast, in the deep dust, and grew pale all over his face. But, as

soon as he found her veil, as well, dyed with blood, he said: ‘One night

will be the ruin of two lovers, of whom she was the most deserving of a

long life. My soul is guilty; ’tis I that have destroyed thee, much to

be lamented; who bade thee to come by night to places full of terror,

and came not hither first. O, whatever lions are lurking beneath this

rock, tear my body in pieces, and devour my accursed entrails with

ruthless jaws. But it is the part of a coward to wish for death.’ He

takes up the veil of Thisbe, and he takes it with himself to the shade

of the tree agreed on, and, after he has bestowed tears on the

well-known garment, he gives kisses {to the same}, and he says,

‘Receive, now, a draught of my blood as well!’ and then plunges the

sword, with which he is girt, into his bowels; and without delay, as he

is dying, he draws it out of the warm wound. As he falls on his back

upon the ground, the blood spurts forth on high, not otherwise than as

when a pipe is burst on the lead decaying,[22] and shoots out afar the

liquid water from the hissing flaw, and cleaves the air with its jet.

The fruit of the tree, by the sprinkling of the blood, are changed to a

dark tint, and the root, soaked with the gore, tints the hanging

mulberries with a purple hue. Behold! not yet having banished her fear,

{Thisbe} returns, that she may not disappoint her lover, and seeks for

the youth both with her eyes and her affection, and longs to tell him

how great dangers she has escaped. And when she observes the spot, and

the altered appearance of the tree, she doubts if it is the same, so

uncertain does the color of the fruit make her. While she is in doubt,

she sees palpitating limbs throbbing upon the bloody ground; she draws

back her foot, and having her face paler than box-wood,[23] she shudders

like the sea, which trembles[24] when its surface is skimmed by a gentle

breeze. But, after pausing a time, she had recognized her own lover, she

smote her arms, undeserving {of such usage}, and tearing her hair, and

embracing the much-loved body, she filled the gashes with her tears, and

mingled her {tokens of} sorrow with his blood; and imprinting kisses on

his cold features, she exclaimed, ‘Pyramus! what disaster has taken thee

away from me? Pyramus! answer me; ’tis thy own Thisbe, dearest, that

calls thee; hear me, and raise thy prostrate features.’

“At the name of Thisbe, Pyramus raised his eyes, now heavy with death,

and, after he had seen her, he closed them again. After she had

perceived her own garment, and beheld, too, the ivory {sheath}[25]

without its sword, she said, ‘’Tis thy own hand, and love, that has

destroyed thee, ill-fated {youth}! I, too, have a hand bold {enough} for

this one purpose; I have love as well; this shall give me strength for

the wound. I will follow thee in thy death, and I shall be called the

most unhappy cause and companion of thy fate, and thou who, alas!

couldst be torn from me by death alone, shalt not be able, even by

death, to be torn from me. And you, O most wretched parents of mine and

his, be but prevailed upon, in this one thing, by the entreaties of us

both, that you will not deny those whom their constant love {and} whom

their last moments have joined, to be buried in the same tomb. But thou,

O tree, which now with thy boughs dost overshadow the luckless body of

{but} one, art fated soon to cover {those} of two. Retain a token of

{this our} fate, and ever bear fruit black and suited for mourning, as a

memorial of the blood of us two.’ {Thus} she said; and having fixed the

point under the lower part of her breast, she fell upon the sword, which

still was reeking with his blood.

“Her prayers, however, moved the Gods, {and} moved their parents. For

the color of the fruit, when it has fully ripened, is black;[26] and

what was left of them, from the funeral pile, reposed in the same urn.”

[Footnote 1: _Minyas._--Ver. 1. Alcithoë was the daughter of

Minyas, who, according to some, was the son of Orchomenus,

according to others, his father. Pausanias says that the Bœotians,

over whom he reigned, were called ‘Minyæ’ from him; but he makes

no allusion to the females who are here mentioned by Ovid.]

[Footnote 2: _Rites._--Ver. 1. ‘Orgia:’ this was the original name

of the Dionysia, or festival of Bacchus; but in time the word came

to be applied to any occasion of festivity.]

[Footnote 3: _Her sisters._--Ver. 3. The names of the sisters of

Alcithoë, according to Plutarch, were Aristippe and Leucippe. The

names of the three, according to Ælian, were Alcathoë, Leucippe,

and Aristippe, who is sometimes called Arsinoë. The latter author

says, that the truth of the case was, that they were decent women,

fond of their husbands and families, who preferred staying at

home, and attending to their domestic concerns, to running after

the new rites; on which it was said, by their enemies, that

Bacchus had punished them.]

[Footnote 4: _Work-baskets._--Ver. 10. The ‘calathus,’ which was

called by the Greeks κάλαθος, καλαθίσκος, and τάλαρος, generally

signifies the basket in which women placed their work, and

especially the materials used for spinning. They were generally

made of osiers and reeds, but sometimes of more valuable

materials, such as silver, perhaps in filagree work. ‘Calathi’

were also used for carrying fruits and flowers. Virgil (Ecl. v. l.

71) speaks of cups for holding wine, under the name of ‘Calathi.’]

[Footnote 5: _Bromius._--Ver. 11. Bacchus was called Bromius, from

βρέμω, ‘to cry out,’ or ‘shout,’ from the yells and noise made by

his worshippers, whose peculiar cries were, Εὐοῖ Βάκχε, ὦ Ἰακχε,

Ιώ Βάκχε, Εὐοῖ σαβοῖ. ‘Evoë, Bacche! O, Iacche! Io, Bacche! Evoë

sabæ!’]

[Footnote 6: _Lyæus._--Ver. 11. Bacchus was called Lyæus, from the

Greek word, λύειν, ‘to loosen,’ or ‘relax,’ because wine dispels

care.]

[Footnote 7: _That had two mothers._--Ver. 12. The word ‘bimater’

seems to have been fancied by Ovid as an appropriate epithet for

Bacchus, Jupiter having undertaken the duties of a mother for him,

in the latter months of gestation.]

[Footnote 8: _Thyoneus._--Ver. 13. Bacchus was called Thyoneus,

either from Semele, his mother, one of whose names was Thyone, or

from the Greek, θύειν, ‘to be frantic,’ from which origin the

Bacchanals also received their name of Thyades.]

[Footnote 9: _Lenæus._--Ver. 14. From the Greek word λῆνος, ‘a

wine-press.’]

[Footnote 10: _Nyctelius._--Ver. 15. From the Greek word νὺξ,

‘night,’ because his orgies were celebrated by night. Eleleus is

from the shout, or ‘huzza’ of the Greeks, which was ελελεῦ.]

[Footnote 11: _Iacchus._--Ver. 15. From the Greek ἰαχὴ, ‘clamor,’

or ‘noise.’]

[Footnote 12: _Evan._--Ver. 15. From the exclamation, Εὐοῖ, or

‘Evoë’ which the Bacchanals used in performing his orgies.]

[Footnote 13: _Lycurgus._--Ver. 22. He was a king of Thrace, who

having slighted the worship of Bacchus, was afflicted with

madness, and hewed off his own legs with a hatchet, and, according

to Apollodorus, mistaking his own son Dryas for a vine, destroyed

him with the same weapon.]

[Footnote 14: _Unseasonable labor._--Ver. 32. ‘Minerva;’ the name

of the Goddess Minerva is here used for the exercise of the art of

spinning, of which she was the patroness. The term ‘intempestiva’

is appropriately applied, as the arts of industry and frugality,

which were first invented by Minerva, but ill accorded with the

idle and vicious mode of celebrating the festival of Bacchus.]

[Footnote 15: _Dercetis._--Ver. 45. Lucian, speaking of Dercetis,

or Derceto, says, ‘I have seen in Phœnicia a statue of this

goddess, of a very singular kind. From the middle upwards, it

represents a woman, but below it terminates in a fish. The statue

of her, which is shown at Hieropolis, represents her wholly as a

woman.’ He further says, that the temple of this last city was

thought by some to have been built by Semiramis, who consecrated

it not to Juno, as is generally believed, but to her own mother,

Derceto. Atergatis was another name of this Goddess. She was said,

by an illicit amour, to have been the mother of Semiramis, and in

despair, to have thrown herself into a lake near Ascalon, on which

she was changed into a fish.]

[Footnote 16: _Palestine._--Ver. 46. Palæstina, or Philistia,

in which Ascalon was situate, was a part of Syria, lying in its

south-western extremity.]

[Footnote 17: _How a Naiad._--Ver. 49. The Naiad here mentioned is

supposed to have been a Nymph of the Island of the Sun, called

also Nosola, between Taprobana (the modern Ceylon) and the coast

of Carmania (perhaps Coromandel), who was in the habit of changing

such youths as fell into her hands into fishes. As a reward for

her cruelty, she herself was changed into a fish by the Sun.]

[Footnote 18: _Most beauteous of youths._--Ver. 55. Clarke

translates ‘juvenum pulcherrimus alter,’ ‘one of the most handsome

of all the young fellows.’]

[Footnote 19: _Her lofty city._--Ver. 57. The magnificence of

ancient Babylon has been remarked by many ancient writers, from

Herodotus downwards. Its walls are said to have been 60 miles in

compass, 87 feet in thickness, and 350 feet in height.]

[Footnote 20: _Walls of brick._--Ver. 58. The walls were built by

Semiramis of bricks dried in the sun, cemented together with

layers of bitumen.]

[Footnote 21: _The tomb of Ninus._--Ver. 88. According to Diodorus

Siculus, the sepulchre of Ninus, the first king of Babylon, was

ten stadia in length, and nine in depth; it had the appearance of

a vast citadel, and was at a considerable distance from the city

of Babylon. Commentators have expressed some surprise that Ovid

here uses the word ‘busta,’ for ‘tomb,’ as the place of meeting

for these chaste lovers, as the prostitutes of Rome used to haunt

the ‘busta,’ or ‘tombs;’ whence they obtained the epithet of

‘bustuariæ.’]

[Footnote 22: _The lead decaying._--Ver. 122. ‘Fistula’ here means

‘a water-pipe.’ Vitruvius speaks of three methods of conveying

water; by channels of masonry, earthen pipes, and leaden pipes.

The latter were smaller, and more generally used; to them

reference is here made. They were formed by bending plates of lead

into a form, not cylindrical, but the section of which was oblong,

and tapering towards the top like a pear. The description here

given, though somewhat homely, is extremely natural, and, as

frequent experience shows us, depicts the results when the

soldering of a water-pipe has become decayed.]

[Footnote 23: _Paler than box-wood._--Ver. 134. From the light

color of boxwood, the words ‘buxo pallidiora,’ ‘paler than

boxwood,’ became a proverbial expression among the Romans.]

[Footnote 24: _The sea which trembles._--Ver. 136. The ripple, or

shudder, which runs along the surface of the sea, when a breath of

wind is stirring in a calm, is very beautifully described here,

and is worthy of notice.]

[Footnote 25: _The ivory sheath._--Ver. 148. The ‘vagina,’ or

‘sheath’ of the sword, was often highly decorated; and we learn

from Homer and Virgil, as well as Ovid, that ivory was much used

for that purpose. The sheath was worn by the Greeks and Romans on

the left side of the body, so as to enable them to draw the sword

from it, by passing the right hand in front of the body, to take

hold of the hilt, with the thumb next to the blade.]

[Footnote 26: _Is black._--Ver. 165. He thus accounts for the deep

purple hue of the mulberry which, before the event mentioned here,

he says was white.]

EXPLANATION.

It is pretty clear, as we have already seen, that the establishment of

the worship of Bacchus in Greece met with great opposition, and that

his priests and devotees published several miracles and prodigies, the

more easily to influence the minds of their fellow-men. Thus, the

daughters of Minyas are said to have been changed into bats, solely

because they neglected to join in the orgies of that God; when,

probably, the fact was, that they were either secretly despatched, or

were forced to fly for their lives; and their absence was accounted

for to the ignorant and credulous, by the invention of this Fable. The

story of Dercetis, as related by Diodorus Siculus, Pliny, and

Herodotus, is, that having offended Venus, that Goddess caused her to

fall in love with a young man, by whom she had a daughter. In despair

at her misfortune, she killed her lover, and exposed her child, and

afterwards drowned herself. The Syrians, lamenting her fate, built a

temple near where she was drowned, and honored her as a Goddess. They

stated that she was turned into a fish, and they there represented her

under the figure of a woman down to the waist, and of a fish thence

downwards. They also abstained from eating fish; though they offered

them to her in sacrifice, and suspended gilded ones in her temple.

Selden, in his Treatise on the Syrian Gods, suggests that the story of

Dercetis, or Atergatis, was founded on the figure and worship of

Dagon, the God of the Philistines, who was represented under the

figure of a fish; and that the name of Atergatis is a corruption of

‘Adir Dagon,’ ‘a great fish,’ which is not at all improbable. The same

author supposes that Dercetis was originally the same Deity with

Venus, Astarte, Minerva, Juno, Isis, and the Moon; and that she was

worshipped under the name of Mylitta by the Assyrians, and as Alilac

by the Arabians. Lucian tells us, that Dercetis was reported to have

been the mother of Semiramis.

Ovid and Hyginus are the only authors that make mention of the story

of Pyramus and Thisbe, and both agree in making Babylon the scene of

it. It seems to be rather intended as a moral tale, than to have been

built upon any actual circumstance. It affords a lesson to youth not

to enter rashly into engagements: and to parents not to pursue, too

rigorously, the gratification of their own resentment, but rather to

consult the inclination of their children, when not likely to be

productive of unhappiness at a future period.

The reader cannot fail to call to mind the admirable travesty of this

story by Shakspere, in the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

FABLE II. [IV.167-233]

The Sun discovers to Vulcan the intrigue between Mars and Venus, and

then, himself, falls in love with Leucothoë. Venus, in revenge for the

discovery, resolves to make his amours unfortunate.

Here she ended; and there was {but} a short time betwixt, and {then}

Leuconoë began[27] to speak. Her sisters held their peace. “Love has

captivated even this Sun, who rules all things by his æthereal light.

I will relate the loves of the Sun. This God is supposed to have been

the first to see the adultery of Venus with Mars; this God is the first

to see everything. He was grieved at what was done, and showed to the

husband, the son of Juno,[28] the wrong done to his bed, and the place

of the intrigue. Both his senses, and the work which his skilful right

hand was {then} holding, quitted him {on the instant}. Immediately, he

files out some slender chains of brass, and nets, and meshes, which can

escape the eye. The finest threads cannot surpass that work, nor yet the

cobweb that hangs from the top of the beam. He makes it so, too, as to

yield to a slight touch, and a gentle movement, and skilfully arranges

it drawn around the bed. When the wife and the gallant come into the

same bed, being both caught through the artifice of the husband, and

chains prepared by this new contrivance, they are held fast in the

{very} midst of their embraces.

“The Lemnian {God} immediately threw open the folding doors[29] of

ivory, and admitted the Deities. {There} they lay disgracefully bound.

And yet many a one of the Gods, not the serious ones, could fain wish

thus to become disgraced. The Gods of heaven laughed, and for a long

time was this the most noted story in all heaven. The Cytherean[30]

goddess exacts satisfaction of the Sun, in remembrance of this betrayal;

and, in her turn, disturbs him with the like passion, who had disturbed

her secret amours. What now, son of Hyperion,[31] does thy beauty, thy

heat, and thy radiant light avail thee? For thou, who dost burn all

lands with thy flames, art {now} burnt with a new flame; and thou, who

oughtst to be looking at everything, art gazing on Leucothoë, and on one

maiden art fixing those eyes which thou oughtst {to be fixing} on the

universe. At one time thou art rising earlier in the Eastern sky; at

another thou art setting late in the waves; and in taking time to gaze

{on her}, thou art lengthening the hours of mid-winter. Sometimes thou

art eclipsed, and the trouble of thy mind affects thy light, and,

darkened, thou fillest with terror the breasts of mortals. Nor art thou

pale, because the form of the moon, nearer to the earth, stands in thy

way. It is that passion which occasions this complexion. Thou lovest her

alone, neither does Clymene, nor Rhodos,[32] nor the most beauteous

mother[33] of the Ææan Circe engage thee, nor {yet} Clytie, who, though

despised, was longing for thy embraces; at that very time thou wast

suffering these grievous pangs. Leucothoë occasioned the forgetting of

many a damsel; she, whom Eurynome, the most beauteous of the

perfume-bearing[34] nation produced.[35] But after her daughter grew up,

as much as the mother excelled all {other Nymphs}, so much did the

daughter {excel} the mother. Her father, Orchamus, ruled over the

Achæmenian[36] cities, and he is reckoned the seventh in descent from

the ancient Belus.[37]

“The pastures of the horses of the Sun are under the Western sky;

instead of grass, they have ambrosia.[38] That nourishes their limbs

wearied with their daily service, and refits them for labor. And while

the coursers are there eating their heavenly food, and night is taking

her turn; the God enters the beloved chamber, changed into the shape of

her mother Eurynome, and beholds Leucothoë among twice six handmaids,

near the threshold, drawing out the smooth threads with her twirling

spindle. When, therefore, as though her mother, he has given kisses to

her dear daughter, he says, “There is a secret matter, {which I have to

mention}; maids, withdraw, and take not from a mother the privilege of

speaking in private {with her daughter}.” They obey; and the God being

left in the chamber without any witness, he says, ‘I am he, who measures

out the long year, who beholds all things, {and} through whom the earth

sees all things; the eye, {in fact}, of the universe. Believe me, thou

art pleasing to me.’ She is affrighted; and in her alarm, both her

distaff and her spindle fall from her relaxed fingers. Her very fear

becomes her; and, he, no longer delaying, returns to his true shape, and

his wonted beauty. But the maiden, although startled at the unexpected

sight, overcome by the beauty of the God,[39] {and} dismissing {all}

complaints, submits to his embrace.

[Footnote 27: _Leuconoë began._--Ver. 168. It is worthy of remark,

how strongly the affecting tale of Pyramus and Thisbe contrasts

with the loose story of the loves of Mars and Venus.]

[Footnote 28: _The son of Juno._--Ver. 173. Vulcan is called

‘Junonigena,’ because, according to some, he was the son of Juno

alone. Other writers, however, say that he was the only son of

Jupiter and Juno.]

[Footnote 29: _The folding doors._--Ver. 185. The plural word

‘valvæ’ is often used to signify a door, or entrance, because

among the ancients each doorway generally contained two doors

folding together. The internal doors even of private houses were

bivalve; hence, as in the present case, we often read of the

folding doors of a bed-chamber. Each of these doors or valves was

usually wide enough to permit persons to pass each other in egress

and ingress without opening the other door as well. Sometimes each

valve was double, folding like our window-shutters.]

[Footnote 30: _Cytherean._--Ver. 190. Cythera was an island on the

southern coast of Laconia; where Venus was supposed to have

landed, after she had risen from the sea. It was dedicated to her

worship.]

[Footnote 31: _Hyperion._--Ver. 192. He was the son of Cœlus, or

Uranus, and the father of the Sun. The name of Hyperion is,

however, often given by the poets to the Sun himself.]

[Footnote 32: _Rhodos._--Ver. 204. She was a damsel of the Isle of

Rhodes, the daughter of Neptune, and, according to some, of Venus.

She was greatly beloved by Apollo, to whom she bore seven

children.]

[Footnote 33: _Beauteous mother._--Ver. 205. This was Persa, the

daughter of Oceanus, and the mother of the enchantress Circe, who

is here called ‘Ææa,’ from Ææa, a city and peninsula of Colchis.

Circe is referred to more at length in the 14th Book of the

Metamorphoses.]

[Footnote 34: _Perfume-bearing._--Ver. 209. Being born in Arabia,

the producer of all kinds of spices and perfumes, which were much

in request among the ancients, for the purposes of sacrifice.]

[Footnote 35: _Produced._--Ver. 210. Eurynome was the wife of

Orchamus, and was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys.]

[Footnote 36: _Achæmenian._--Ver. 212. Persia is called

Achæmenian, from Achæmenes, one of its former kings.]

[Footnote 37: _Ancient Belus._--Ver. 213. The order of descent is

thus reckoned from Belus; Abas, Acrisius, Danaë, Perseus, Bachæmon,

Achæmenes, and Orchamus.]

[Footnote 38: _Ambrosia._--Ver. 215. Ambrosia was said to be the

food of the Deities, and nectar their drink.]

[Footnote 39: _Beauty of the God._--Ver. 233. Clarke translates,

‘Virgo victa nitore Dei.’ ‘The young lady--charmed with the

spruceness of the God.’]

EXPLANATION.

Plutarch, in his Treatise ‘How to read the Poets,’ suggests a curious

explanation of the discovery by the Sun of the intrigue of Mars and

Venus. He says that such persons as are born under the conjunction of

the planets Mars and Venus, are naturally of an amorous temperament;

but that if the Sun does not happen then to be at a distance, their

indiscretions will be very soon discovered.

Palæphatus gives a historical solution to the story. He says that

Helius, the son of Vulcan, king of Egypt, resolving to cause his

father’s laws against adultery to be strictly observed, and having

been informed that a lady of the court had an intrigue with one of the

courtiers, entered her apartment in the night, and obtaining ocular

proof of the courtier’s guilt, caused him to be severely punished. He

also tells us that the similarity of the name gave birth to the Fable

which Homer was the first to relate, with a small variation, and which

is here copied by Ovid. Libanius, deploring the burning of the Temple

of Apollo near Antioch, complains of the ingratitude of Vulcan to that

God, who had formerly discovered to him the infidelity of his wife;

a subject upon which St. Chrysostom seems to think that the

rhetorician would have done better to have been silent.

FABLE III. [IV.234-270]

Clytie, in a fit of revenge, discovers the adventure of Leucothoë to

her father, who orders her to be buried alive. The Sun, grieved at her

misfortune, changed her into the frankincense tree; he also despises

the informer, who pines away for love of him, and is at last changed

into the sunflower.

Clytie envied her, (for the love of the Sun[40] for her had not been

moderate), and, urged on by resentment at a rival, she published the

intrigue, and, when spread abroad, brought it to the notice of her

father. He, fierce and unrelenting, cruelly buried her alive deep in the

ground, as she entreated and stretched out her hands towards the light

of the Sun, and cried, “’Twas he that offered violence to me against my

will;” and upon her he placed a heap of heavy sand. The son of Hyperion

scattered it with his rays, and gave a passage to thee, by which thou

mightst be able to put forth thy buried features.

But thou, Nymph, couldst not now raise thy head smothered with the

weight of the earth; and {there} thou didst lie, a lifeless body. The

governor of the winged steeds is said to have beheld nothing more

afflicting than that, since the lightnings that caused the death of

Phaëton. He, indeed, endeavors, if he can, to recall her cold limbs to

an enlivening heat, by the strength of his rays. But, since fate opposes

attempts so great, he sprinkles both her body and the place with

odoriferous nectar, and having first uttered many a complaint he says,

“Still shalt thou reach the skies.”[41] Immediately, the body, steeped

in the heavenly nectar, dissolves, and moistens the earth with its

odoriferous juices; and a shoot of frankincense having taken root by

degrees through the clods, rises up and bursts the hillock with its top.

But the author of light came no more to Clytie (although love might have

excused her grief, and her grief the betrayal); and he put an end to his

intercourse with her. From that time she, who had made so mad a use of

her passion, pined away, loathing the {other} Nymphs; and in the open

air, night and day, she sat on the bare ground, with her hair

dishevelled and unadorned. And for nine days, without water or food, she

subsisted in her fast, merely on dew and her own tears; and she did not

raise herself from the ground. She only used to look towards the face of

the God as he moved along, and to turn her own features towards him.

They say that her limbs became rooted fast in the ground; and a livid

paleness turned part of her color into {that of} a bloodless plant.

There is a redness in some part; and a flower, very like a violet,[42]

conceals her face. Though she is held fast by a root, she turns towards

the Sun, and {though} changed, she {still} retains her passion.

[Footnote 40: _For the love of the Sun._--Ver. 234. This remark is

added, to show that the God had not been sufficiently cautious in

his courtship of her sister to conceal it from the observation of

Clytie.]

[Footnote 41: _Reach the skies._--Ver. 251. That is to say, ‘You

shall arise from the earth as a tree bearing frankincense: the

gums of which, burnt in sacrifice to the Gods, shall reach the

heavens with their sweet odors.’ Persia and Arabia have been

celebrated by the poets, ancient and modern, for their great

fertility in frankincense and other aromatic plants.]

[Footnote 42: _Like a violet._--Ver. 268. This cannot mean the

large yellow plant which is called the sunflower. The small

aromatic flower which we call heliotrope, with its violet hue and

delightful perfume, more nearly answers the description. The

larger flower probably derived its name from the resemblance which

it bears to the sun, surrounded with rays, as depicted by the

ancient painters.]

EXPLANATION.

No ascertained historical fact can be found as the basis of the story

of Leucothoë being buried alive by her father Orchamus, or of her

rival Clytie being metamorphosed into a sunflower. The story seems to

have been most probably simply founded on principles of natural

philosophy. Leucothoë, it is not unreasonable to suppose, may have

been styled the daughter of Orchamus, king of Persia, for no other

reason but because that Prince was the first to introduce the

frankincense tree, which was called Leucothoë, into his kingdom; and

it was added that she fell in love with Apollo, because the tree

produces an aromatic drug much used in physic, of which that God was

fabled to have been the inventor. The jealousy of Clytie was, perhaps,

founded upon a fact, stated by some naturalists, that the sunflower is

a plant which kills the frankincense tree, when growing near it.

Pliny, however, who ascribes several properties to the sunflower, does

not mention this among them.

Orchamus is nowhere mentioned by the ancient writers, except in the

present instance.

FABLE IV. [IV.271-284]

Daphnis is turned into a stone. Scython is changed from a man into a

woman. Celmus is changed into adamant. Crocus and Smilax are made into

flowers. The Curetes are produced from a shower.

{Thus} she spoke; and the wondrous deed charms their ears. Some deny

that it was possible to be done, some say that real Gods can do all

things; but Bacchus is not one of them. When her sisters have become

silent, Alcithoë is called upon; who running with her shuttle through

the warp of the hanging web, says, “I keep silence upon the well-known

amours of Daphnis, the shepherd of Ida,[43] whom the resentment of the

Nymph, his paramour, turned into a stone. Such mighty grief inflames

those who are in love. Nor do I relate how once Scython, the law of

nature being altered, was of both sexes first a man, then a woman. Thee

too, I pass by, O Celmus, now adamant, formerly most attached to Jupiter

{when} little; and the Curetes,[44] sprung from a plenteous shower of

rain; Crocus, too, changed, together with Smilax,[45] into little

flowers; and I will entertain your minds with a pleasing novelty.”

[Footnote 43: _Shepherd of Ida._--Ver. 277. This may mean either

Daphnis of Crete, or of Phrygia; for in both those countries there

was a mountain named Ida.]

[Footnote 44: _The Curetes._--Ver. 282. According to Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, the Curetes were the ancient inhabitants of Crete.

We may here remark, that the story of their springing from the

earth after a shower of rain, seems to have no other foundation

than the fact of their having been of the race of the Titans; that

is, they were descended from Uranus, or Cœlus and Tita, by which

names were meant the heaven and the earth.]

[Footnote 45: _Smilax._--Ver. 283. The dictionary meanings given

for this word are--1. Withwind, a kind of herb. 2. The yew tree.

3. A kind of oak. The Nymph was probably supposed to have been

changed into the first.]

EXPLANATION.

Most probably, the story of the shepherd Daphnis being turned into a

stone, was no other than an allegorical method of expressing the

insensibility of an individual. Thalia was the name of the Nymph who

was thus affronted by Daphnis.

The story of Scython changing his sex, is perhaps based upon the fact,

that the country of Thrace, which took the name of Thracia from a

famous sorceress, was before called Scython; and that as it lost a

name of the masculine gender for one of the feminine, in after times

it became reported that Scython had changed sexes.

Pliny tells us that Celmus was a young man of remarkable wisdom and

moderation, and that the passions making no impression on him, he was

changed into adamant. Some, however, assert that he was foster-father

to Jupiter, by whom he was enclosed in an impenetrable tower, for

revealing the immortality of the Gods.

According to one account, Crocus and Smilax were a constant and happy

married couple, who for their chaste and innocent life were said to

have been changed into flowers; but another story is, that Crocus was

a youth beloved by Smilax, and that on his rejecting the Nymph’s

advances, they were both turned into flowers.

The story of the Curetes being sprung from rain, is possibly founded

on the report that they were descended from Uranus and Tita, the

Heaven and the Earth. Some suppose them to have been the original

inhabitants of the isle of Crete; and they are said to have watched

over the infancy of Jupiter, by whom they were afterwards slain, for

having concealed Epaphus from his wrath.

FABLE V. [IV.285-388]

The Naiad Salmacis falls in love with the youth Hermaphroditus, who

rejects her advances. While he is bathing, she leaps into the water,

and seizing the youth in her arms, they become one body, retaining

their different sexes.

Learn how Salmacis became infamous, {and} why it enervates, with its

enfeebling waters, and softens the limbs bathed {in it}. The cause is

unknown; {but} the properties of the fountain are very well known. The

Naiads nursed a boy, born to Mercury of the Cytherean Goddess in the

caves of Ida; whose face was such that therein both mother and father

could be discerned; he likewise took his name from them. As soon as he

had completed thrice five years, he forsook his native mountains, and

leaving Ida, the place of his nursing, he loved to wander over unknown

spots, {and} to see unknown rivers, his curiosity lessening the fatigue.

He went, too, to the Lycian[46] cities, and the Carians, that border

upon Lycia. Here he sees a pool of water, clear to the {very} ground at

the bottom; here there are no fenny reeds, no barren sedge, no rushes

with their sharp points. The water is translucent; but the edges of the

pool are enclosed with green turf, and with grass ever verdant. A Nymph

dwells {there}; but one neither skilled in hunting, nor accustomed to

bend the bow, nor to contend in speed; the only one, too, of {all} the

Naiads not known to the swift Diana. The report is, that her sisters

often said to her, “Salmacis, do take either the javelin, or the painted

quiver, and unite thy leisure with the toils of the chase.” She takes

neither the javelin, nor the painted quiver, nor does she unite her

leisure with the toils of the chase. But sometimes she is bathing her

beauteous limbs in her own spring; {and} often is she straitening her

hair with a comb of Citorian boxwood,[47] and consulting the waters,

into which she looks, what is befitting her. At other times, covering

her body with a transparent garment, she reposes either on the soft

leaves or on the soft grass. Ofttimes is she gathering flowers. And

then, too, by chance was she gathering them when she beheld the youth,

and wished to possess him, {thus} seen.

But though she hastened to approach {the youth}, still she did not

approach him before she had put herself in order, and before she had

surveyed her garments, and put on her {best} looks, and deserved to be

thought beautiful. Then thus did she begin to speak: “O youth, most

worthy to be thought to be a God! if thou art a God, thou mayst {well}

be Cupid; but, if thou art a mortal, happy are they who begot thee, and

blessed is thy brother, and fortunate indeed thy sister, if thou hast

one, and the nurse {as well} who gave thee the breast. But far, far more

fortunate than all these {is she}; if thou hast any wife, if thou

shouldst vouchsafe any one {the honor of} marriage. And if any one is

thy {wife, then} let my pleasure be stolen; but, if thou hast none, let

me be {thy wife}, and let us unite in one tie.” After these things

{said}, the Naiad is silent; a blush tinges the face of the youth: he

knows not what love is, but even to blush becomes him. Such is the color

of apples, hanging on a tree exposed to the sun, or of painted ivory, or

of the moon blushing beneath her brightness when the aiding

{cymbals}[48] {of} brass are resounding in vain. Upon the Nymph

desiring, without ceasing, such kisses at least as he might give to his

sister, and now laying her hands upon his neck, white as ivory, he says,

“Wilt thou desist, or am I to fly, and to leave this place, together

with thee?”

Salmacis is affrighted, and says, “I freely give up this spot to thee,

stranger,” and, with a retiring step, she pretends to go away. But then

looking back, and hid in a covert of shrubs, she lies concealed, and

puts her bended knees down to the ground. But he, just like a boy, and

as though unobserved on the retired sward, goes here and there, and in

the sportive waves dips the soles of his feet, and {then} his feet as

far as his ankles. Nor is there any delay; being charmed with the

temperature of the pleasant waters, he throws off his soft garments from

his tender body. Then, indeed, Salmacis is astonished, and burns with

desire for his naked beauty. The eyes, too, of the Nymph are on fire, no

otherwise than as when the Sun,[49] most brilliant with his clear orb,

is reflected from the opposite image of a mirror. With difficulty does

she endure delay; hardly does she now defer her joy. Now she longs to

embrace him; and now, distracted, she can hardly contain herself. He,

clapping his body with his hollow palms, swiftly leaps into the stream,

and throwing out his arms alternately, shines in the limpid water, as if

any one were to cover statues of ivory, or white lilies, with clear

glass.

“I have gained my point,” says the Naiad; “see, he is mine!” and, all

her garments thrown aside, she plunges in the midst of the waters, and

seizes him resisting her, and snatches reluctant kisses, and thrusts

down her hands, and touches his breast against his will, and clings

about the youth, now one way, and now another. Finally, as he is

struggling against her, and desiring to escape, she entwines herself

about him, like a serpent which the royal bird takes up and is bearing

aloft; and as it hangs, it holds fast his head and feet, and enfolds his

spreading wings with its tail. Or, as the ivy is wont to wind itself

along the tall trunks {of trees}; and as the polypus[50] holds fast its

enemy, caught beneath the waves, by letting down his suckers on all

sides; {so} does the descendant of Atlas[51] {still} persist, and deny

the Nymph the hoped-for joy. She presses him hard; and clinging to him

with every limb, as she holds fast, she says, “Struggle as thou mayst,

perverse one, still thou shalt not escape. So ordain it, ye Gods, and

let no time separate him from me, nor me from him.” Her prayers find

propitious Deities, for the mingled bodies of the two are united,[52]

and one human shape is put upon them; just as if any one should see

branches beneath a common bark join in growing, and spring up together.

So, when their bodies meet together in the firm embrace, they are no

more two, and their form is twofold, so that they can neither be styled

woman nor boy; they seem {to be} neither and both.

Therefore, when Hermaphroditus sees that the limpid waters, into which

he had descended as a man, have made him but half a male, and that his

limbs are softened in them, holding up his hands, he says, but now no

longer with the voice of a male, “O, both father and mother, grant this

favor to your son, who has the name of you both, that whoever enters

these streams a man, may go out thence {but} half a man, and that he may

suddenly become effeminate in the waters when touched.” Both parents,

moved, give their assent to the words of their two-shaped son, and taint

the fountain with drugs of ambiguous quality.

[Footnote 46: _Lycian._--Ver. 296. Lycia was a province of Asia

Minor, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Caria was another

province, adjoining to Lycia.]

[Footnote 47: _Citorian boxwood._--Ver. 311. Citorus, or Cythorus,

was a mountain of Paphlagonia, famous for the excellence of the

wood of the box trees that grow there. The Greeks and Romans made

their combs of it. The Egyptians used them made of ivory and wood,

and toothed on one side only; those of the Greeks had teeth on

both sides. Great care was usually taken of the hair; to go with

it uncombed was a sign of affliction.]

[Footnote 48: _The aiding cymbals._--Ver. 333. The witches and

magicians, in ancient times, and especially those of Thessaly,

professed to be able, with their charms and incantations, to bring

the moon down from heaven. The truth of these assertions being

commonly believed, at the period of an eclipse it was supposed by

the multitude that the moon was being subjected to the spells of

these magicians, and that she was struggling (laborabat) against

them, on which the sound of drums, trumpets, and cymbals was

resorted to, to distract the attention of the moon, and to drown

the charms repeated by the enchanters, for which reason, the

instruments employed for the purpose were styled ‘auxiliares.’]

[Footnote 49: _As when the Sun._--Ver. 349. Bailey gives this

explanation of the passage,-- ‘The eyes of the Nymph seemed to

sparkle and shine, just as the rays of the sun in a clear sky when

a looking-glass is placed against them, for then they seem most

splendid, and contract the fire.’ From the mention of the eyes of

the Nymph burning ‘flagrant,’ we might be almost justified in

concluding that ‘speculum’ means here not a mirror, but a

burning-glass. The ‘specula,’ or looking-glasses, of the ancients

were usually made of metal, either a composition of tin and

copper, or silver; but in later times, alloy was mixed with the

silver. Pliny mentions the obsidian stone, or, as it is now

called, the Icelandic agate, as being used for this purpose. Nero

is said to have used emeralds for mirrors. Pliny the Elder says

that mirrors were made in the glass-houses of Sidon, which

consisted of glass plates, with leaves of metal at the back; they

were probably of an inferior character. Those of copper and tin

were made chiefly at Brundisium. The white metal formed from this

mixture soon becoming dim, a sponge with powdered pumice stone was

usually fastened to the mirrors made of that composition. They

were generally small, of a round or oval shape, and having a

handle; and female slaves usually held them, while their

mistresses were performing the duties of the toilet. Sometimes

they were fastened to the walls, and they were occasionally of the

length of a person’s body. Venus was supposed often to use the

mirror; but Minerva repudiated the use of it.]

[Footnote 50: _Polypus._--Ver. 366. This is a fish which entangles

its prey, mostly consisting of shell fish, in its great number of

feet or feelers. Ovid here calls them ‘flagella;’ but in the

Halieuticon he styles them ‘brachia’ and ‘crines.’ Pliny the Elder

calls them ‘crines’ and ‘cirri.’]

[Footnote 51: _Descendant of Atlas._--Ver. 368. Hermaphroditus was

the great-grandson of Atlas; as the latter was the father of Maia,

the mother of Mercury, who begot Hermaphroditus.]

[Footnote 52: _The two are united._--Ver. 374. Clarke translates,

‘nam mixta duorum corpora junguntur,’ ‘for the bodies of both,

being jumbled together, are united.’]

EXPLANATION.

The only probable solution of this story seems to have been the fact

that there was in Caria, near the town of Halicarnassus, as we read in

Vitruvius, a fountain which was instrumental in civilizing certain

barbarians who had been driven from that neighborhood by the Argive

colony established there. These men being obliged to repair to the

fountain for water, and meeting the Greek colonists there, their

intercourse not only polished them, but in course of time corrupted

them, by the introduction of the luxurious manners of Greece. Hence

the fountain had the reputation of changing men into women.

Possibly the water of that fountain, by some peculiar chemical

quality, made those who drank of it become soft and effeminate, as

waters are to be occasionally found with extraordinary qualities.

Lylius Gyraldus suggests, that several disgraceful adventures happened

near this fountain (which was enclosed by walls), which in time gave

it a bad name.

FABLE VI. [IV.389-415]

Bacchus, to punish the daughters of Minyas for their contempt of his

worship, changes them into bats, and their work into ivy and vine

leaves.

There was {now} an end of their stories; and still do the daughters of

Minyas go on with their work, and despise the God, and desecrate his

festival; when, on a sudden, tambourines unseen resound with their

jarring noise; the pipe, too, with the crooked horn, and the tinkling

brass, re-echo; myrrh and saffron shed their fragrant odors; and,

a thing past all belief, their webs begin to grow green, and the cloth

hanging {in the loom} to put forth foliage like ivy. Part changes into

vines, and what were threads before, are {now} turned into vine shoots.

Vine branches spring from the warp, and the purple lends its splendor to

the tinted grapes.

And now the day was past, and the time came on, which you could neither

call darkness nor light, but yet the {very} commencement of the dubious

night along with the light. The house seemed suddenly to shake, and

unctuous torches to burn, and the building to shine with glowing fires,

and the fictitious phantoms of savage wild beasts to howl. Presently,

the sisters are hiding themselves throughout the smoking house, and in

different places are avoiding the fires and the light. While they are

seeking a hiding-place, a membrane is stretched over their small limbs,

and covers their arms with light wings; nor does the darkness suffer

them to know by what means they have lost their former shape. No

feathers bear them up; yet they support themselves on pellucid wings;

and, endeavoring to speak, they utter a voice very diminutive {even} in

proportion to their bodies, and express their low complaints with a

squeaking sound. They frequent houses, not woods; and, abhorring the

light, they fly {abroad} by night. And from the late evening do they

derive their name.[53]

[Footnote 53: _Derive their name._--Ver. 415. In Greek they

are called νυκτερίδες, from νυξ, ‘night;’ and in Latin,

‘vespertiliones,’ from ‘vesper,’ ‘evening,’ on account of their

habits.]

FABLE VII. [IV.416-562]

Tisiphone, being sent by Juno to the Palace of Athamas, causes him to

become mad; on which he dashes his son Learchus to pieces against a

wall. He then pursues his wife Ino, who throws herself headlong from

the top of a rock into the sea, with her other son Melicerta in her

arms: when Neptune, at the intercession of Venus, changes them into

Sea Deities. The attendants of Ino, who have followed her in her

flight, are changed, some into stone, and others into birds, as they

are about to throw themselves into the sea after their mistress.

But then the Divine power of Bacchus is famed throughout all Thebes; and

his aunt is everywhere telling of the great might of the new Divinity;

she alone,[54] out of so many sisters, is free from sorrow, except that

which her sisters have occasioned. Juno beholds her, having her soul

elevated with her {children}, and her alliance with Athamas, and the God

her foster-child. She cannot brook this, and says to herself, “Was the

child of a concubine able to transform the Mæonian sailors, and to

overwhelm them in the sea, and to give the entrails of the son to be

torn to pieces by his mother, and to cover the three daughters of Minyas

with newly formed wings? Shall Juno be able to do nothing but lament

these griefs unrevenged? And is that sufficient for me? Is this my only

power? He himself instructs me what to do. It is right to be taught even

by an enemy. And what madness can do, he shows enough, and more than

enough, by the slaughter of Pentheus. Why should not Ino, {too}, be

goaded by madness, and submit to an example kindred to those of her

sisters?”

There is a shelving path, shaded with dismal yew, which leads through

profound silence to the infernal abodes. {Here} languid Styx exhales

vapors; and the new-made ghosts descend this way, and phantoms when they

have enjoyed[55] funeral rites. Horror and winter possess these dreary

regions far and wide, and the ghosts newly arrived know not where the

way is that leads to the Stygian city, {or} where is the dismal palace

of the black Pluto. The wide city has a thousand passages, and gates

open on every side. And as the sea {receives} the rivers for the whole

earth, so does that spot[56] receive all the souls; nor is it {too}

little for any {amount of} people, nor does it perceive the crowd to

increase. The shades wander about, bloodless, without body and bones;

and some throng the place of judgment; some the abode of the infernal

prince. Some pursue various callings, in imitation of their former life;

their own punishment confines others.

Juno, the daughter of Saturn, leaving her celestial habitation, submits

to go thither, so much does she give way to hatred and to anger. Soon as

she has entered there, and the threshold groans, pressed by her sacred

body, Cerberus raises his threefold mouth, and utters triple barkings at

the same moment. She summons the Sisters,[57] begotten of Night,

terrible and implacable Goddesses. They are sitting before the doors of

the prison shut close with adamant, and are combing black vipers from

their hair. Soon as they recognize her amid the shades of darkness,

{these} Deities arise. This place is called “the accursed.” Tityus[58]

is giving his entrails to be mangled, and is stretched over nine acres.

By thee, Tantalus,[59] no waters are reached, and the tree which

overhangs thee, starts away. Sisyphus,[60] thou art either catching or

thou art pushing on the stone destined to fall again. Ixion[61] is

whirled round, and both follows and flies from himself. The

granddaughters, too, of Belus, who dared to plot the destruction of

their cousins, are everlastingly taking up the water which they lose.

After the daughter of Saturn has beheld all these with a stern look, and

Ixion before all; again, after him, looking upon Sisyphus, she says,

“Why does he alone, of {all} the brothers, suffer eternal punishment?

and why does a rich palace contain the proud Athamas, who, with his

wife, has ever despised me?” And {then} she explains the cause of her

hatred and of her coming, and what it is she desires. What she desires

is, that the palace of Cadmus shall not stand, and that the Sister

{Furies} shall involve Athamas in crime. She mingles together promises,

commands, and entreaties, and solicits the Goddesses. When Juno has thus

spoken, Tisiphone, with her locks dishevelled as they are, shakes them,

and throws back from her face the snakes crawling over it; and thus she

says: “There is no need of a long preamble; whatever thou commandest,

consider it as done: leave these hateful realms, and betake thyself to

the air of a better heaven.”

Juno returns, overjoyed; and, preparing to enter heaven, Iris,[62] the

daughter of Thaumas, purifies her by sprinkling water. Nor is there any

delay; the persecuting Tisiphone[63] takes a torch reeking with gore,

and puts on a cloak red with fluid blood, and is girt with twisted

snakes, and {then} goes forth from her abode. Mourning attends her as

she goes, and Fright, and Terror, and Madness with quivering features.

She {now} reaches the threshold; the Æolian door-posts are said to have

shaken, and paleness tints the maple door; the Sun, too, flies from the

place. His wife is terrified at these prodigies; Athamas, {too}, is

alarmed, and they are {both} preparing to leave the house. The baneful

Erinnys stands in the way, and blocks up the passage; and extending her

arms twisted round with folds of vipers, she shakes her locks; the

snakes {thus} moved, emit a sound. Some lying about her shoulders, some

gliding around her temples, send forth hissings and vomit forth

corruption, and dart forth their tongues. Then she tears away two snakes

from the middle of her hair, which, with pestilential hand, she throws

against them. But these creep along the breasts of Ino and Athamas, and

inspire them with direful intent. Nor do they inflict any wounds upon

their limbs; it is the mind that feels the direful stroke. She had

brought, too, with her a monstrous composition of liquid poison, the

foam of the mouth of Cerberus, and the venom of Echidna;[64] and

purposeless aberrations, and the forgetfulness of a darkened

understanding, and crime, and tears, and rage, and the love of murder.

All these were blended together; and, mingled with fresh blood she had

boiled them in a hollow vessel of brass, stirred about with {a stalk of}

green hemlock. And while they are trembling, she throws the maddening

poison into the breasts of them both, and moves their inmost vitals.

Then repeatedly waving her torch in the same circle, she swiftly follows

up the flames {thus} excited with {fresh} flames. Thus triumphant, and

having executed her commands, she returns to the empty realms of the

great Pluto; and she ungirds the snakes which she had put on.

Immediately the son of Æolus, filled with rage, cries out, in the midst

of his palace, “Ho! companions, spread your nets in this wood; for here

a lioness was just now beheld by me with two young ones.” And, in his

madness, he follows the footsteps of his wife, as though of a wild

beast; and he snatches Learchus, smiling and stretching forth his little

arms from the bosom of his mother, and three or four times he whirls him

round in the air like a sling, and, frenzied, he dashes in pieces[65]

the bones of the infant against the hard stones. Then, at last, the

mother being roused (whether it was grief that caused it, or whether the

power of the poison spread {over her}), yells aloud, and runs away

distracted, with dishevelled hair; and carrying thee, Melicerta,

a little {child}, in her bare arms, she cries aloud “Evoë, Bacche.” At

the name of Bacchus, Juno smiles, and says, “May thy foster-child[66] do

thee this service.”

There is a rock[67] that hangs over the sea; the lowest part is worn

hollow by the waves, and defends the waters covered {thereby} from the

rain. The summit is rugged, and stretches out its brow over the open

sea. This Ino climbs (madness gives her strength), and, restrained by no

fear, she casts herself and her burden[68] into the deep; the water,

struck {by her fall}, is white with foam. But Venus, pitying the

misfortunes of her guiltless granddaughter,[69] in soothing words thus

addresses her uncle: “O Neptune, thou God of the waters, to whom fell a

power next after the {empire of} heaven, great things indeed do I

request; but do thou take compassion on my kindred, whom thou seest

being tossed upon the boundless Ionian sea;[70] and add them to thy

Deities. I have {surely} some interest with the sea, if, indeed, I once

was foam formed in the hollowed deep, and my Grecian name is derived[71]

from that.” Neptune yields to her request; and takes away from them

{all} that is mortal, and gives them a venerable majesty; and alters

both their name and their shape, and calls Palæmon a Divinity,[72]

together with his mother Leucothoë.

Her Sidonian attendants,[73] so far as they could, tracing the prints of

their feet, saw the last of them on the edge of the rock; and thinking

that there was no doubt of their death, they lamented the house of

Cadmus, with their hands tearing their hair and their garments; and they

threw the odium on the Goddess, as being unjust and too severe against

the concubine. Juno could not endure their reproaches, and said, “I will

make you yourselves tremendous memorials of my displeasure.”

Confirmation followed her words. For the one who had been especially

attached, said, “I will follow the queen into the sea;” and about to

give the leap, she could not be moved any way, and adhering to the rock,

{there} she stuck fast. Another, while she was attempting to beat her

breast with the accustomed blows, perceived in the attempt that her arms

had become stiff. One, as by chance she had extended her hands over the

waters of the sea, becoming a rock, held out her hands in those same

waters. You might see the fingers of another suddenly hardened in her

hair, as she was tearing her locks seized on the top of her head. In

whatever posture each was found {at the beginning of the change}, in the

same she remained. Some became birds; which, sprung from Ismenus, skim

along the surface of the waves in those seas, with the wings which they

have assumed.

[Footnote 54: _She alone._--Ver. 419. This was Ino, whose only

sorrows hitherto had been caused by the calamities which befell

her sisters and their offspring: Semele having died a shocking

death, Autonoë having seen her son Actæon changed into a stag, and

then devoured by his dogs, and Agave having assisted in tearing to

pieces her own son Pentheus.]

[Footnote 55: _When they have enjoyed._--Ver. 435. The spirits

whose bodies had not received the rites of burial, we learn from

Homer and Virgil, were not allowed to pass the river Styx, but

wandered on its banks for a hundred years.]

[Footnote 56: _So does that spot._--Ver. 441. That is to say,

whatever number of ghosts arrives there, it receives them all with

ease, and is not sensible of the increase of number; either

because the place itself is of such immense extent, or because the

souls of the dead do not occupy space.]

[Footnote 57: _The Sisters._--Ver. 450. These were the Furies,

fabled to be the daughters of Night and Acheron. They were three

in number, Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megæra, and were supposed to be

the avengers of crime and wickedness.]

[Footnote 58: _Tityus._--Ver. 456. Tityus was the son of Jupiter

and Elara. On account of his enormous size, the poets sometimes

style him a son of the earth. Attempting to commit violence upon

Latona, he was slain by the arrows of Apollo, and precipitated to

the infernal regions, where he was condemned to have his liver

constantly devoured by a vulture, and then renewed, to perpetuate

his torments.]

[Footnote 59: _Tantalus._--Ver. 457. He was the son of Jupiter, by

the Nymph Plote. The crime for which he was punished is

differently related by the poets. Some say, that he divulged the

secrets of the Gods, that had been entrusted to him; while others

relate, that at an entertainment which he gave to the Deities, he

caused his own son, Pelops, to be served up, on which Ceres

inadvertently ate his shoulder. He was doomed to suffer intense

hunger and thirst, amid provisions of all kinds within his reach,

which perpetually receded from him.]

[Footnote 60: _Sisyphus._--Ver. 459. Sisyphus, the son of Æolus,

was a daring robber, who infested Attica. He was slain by Theseus;

and being sent to the infernal regions, was condemned to the

punishment of rolling a great stone to the top of a mountain,

which it had no sooner reached than it fell down again, and

renewed his labor.]

[Footnote 61: _Ixion._--Ver. 461. Being advanced by Jupiter to

heaven, he presumed to make an attempt on Juno. Jupiter, to

deceive him, formed a cloud in her shape, on which Ixion begot the

Centaurs. He was cast into Tartarus, and was there fastened to a

wheel, which turned round incessantly.]

[Footnote 62: _Iris._--Ver. 480. Iris was the daughter of Thaumas

and Electra, and the messenger of Juno. She was the Goddess of the

Rainbow.]

[Footnote 63: _Tisiphone._--Ver. 481. Clarke translates ‘Tisiphone

importuna,’ ‘the plaguy Tisiphone.’]

[Footnote 64: _Echidna._--Ver. 501. This word properly means,

‘a female viper;’ but it here refers to the Hydra, or dragon of

the marsh of Lerna, which Hercules slew. It was fabled to be

partly a woman, and partly a serpent, and to have been begotten by

Typhon. According to some accounts, this monster had seven heads.]

[Footnote 65: _Dashes in pieces._--Ver. 519. Euripides and Hyginus

relate, that Athamas slew his son while hunting; and Apollodorus

says, that he mistook him for a stag.]

[Footnote 66: _Thy foster-child._--Ver. 524. Bacchus was the

foster-child of Ino, who was the sister of his mother Semele. The

remaining portion of the story of Ino and Melicerta is again

related by Ovid in the sixth book of the Fasti.]

[Footnote 67: _There is a rock._--Ver. 525. Pausanias calls this

the Molarian rock, and says, that it was one of the Scironian

rocks, near Megara, in Attica. It was a branch of the Geranian

mountain.]

[Footnote 68: _And her burden._--Ver. 530. This was her son

Melicerta, who, according to Pausanias, was received by dolphins,

and was landed by them on the isthmus of Corinth.]

[Footnote 69: _Guiltless granddaughter._--Ver. 531. Venus was the

grandmother of Ino, inasmuch as Hermione, or Harmonia, the wife of

Cadmus, was the daughter of Mars and Venus.]

[Footnote 70: _Boundless Ionian sea._--Ver. 535. The Ionian sea

must be merely mentioned here as a general name for the broad

expanse of waters, of which the Saronic gulf, into which the

Molarian rock projected, formed part. Ovid may, however, mean to

say that Ino threw herself from some rock in the Ionian sea, and

not from the Molarian rock; following, probably, the account of

some other writer, whose works are lost.]

[Footnote 71: _Grecian name is derived._--Ver. 538. Venus was

called Aphrodite, by the Greeks, from ἄφρος, ‘the foam of the

sea,’ from which she was said to have sprung.]

[Footnote 72: _A Divinity._--Ver. 542. Ino and Melicerta were

worshipped as Divinities both in Greece and at Rome.]

[Footnote 73: _Sidonian attendants._--Ver. 543. The Theban matrons

are meant, who had married the companions of Cadmus that

accompanied him from Phœnices.]

EXPLANATION.

The story of Ino, Athamas, and Melicerta appears to have been based

upon historical facts, as we are informed by Herodotus, Diodorus

Siculus, and Pausanias.

Athamas, the son of Æolus, and great-grandson of Deucalion, having, on

the death of Themisto, his first wife, married Ino, the daughter of

Cadmus, divorced her soon afterwards, to marry Nephele, by whom he had

Helle and Phryxus. She having been divorced in her turn, he took Ino

back again, and by her had Learchus and Melicerta. Ino, not being able

to endure the presence of the children of Nephele, endeavored to

destroy them. The city of Thebes being at that time afflicted with

famine, which was said to have been caused by Ino, who ordered the

seed to be parched before it was sown, Athamas ordered the oracle of

Delphi to be consulted. The priests, either having been bribed, or the

messengers having been corrupted, word was brought, that, to remove

this affliction, the children of Nephele must be sacrificed.

Phryxus being warned of the designs of his stepmother, embarked in a

ship, with his sister Helle, and sailed for Colchis, where he met with

a kind reception from his kinsman Æetes. The young princess, however,

either becoming sea-sick, and leaning over the bulwarks of the vessel,

fell overboard and was drowned, or died a natural death in the passage

of the Hellespont, to which she gave its name from that circumstance.

Athamas, having discovered the deceitful conduct of Ino, in his rage

killed her son Learchus, and sought her, for the purpose of

sacrificing her to his vengeance. To avoid his fury, she fled with her

son Melicerta, and, being pursued, threw herself from a rock into the

sea. To console her relatives, the story was probably invented, that

the Gods had changed Ino and Melicerta into Sea Deities, under the

names of Leucothoë and Palæmon. Melicerta was afterwards worshipped in

the Isle of Tenedos, where children were offered to him in sacrifice.

In his honor, Glaucus established the Isthmian games, which were

celebrated for many ages at Corinth; and, being interrupted for a

time, were revived by Theseus, in honor of Neptune. Leucothoë was also

worshipped at Rome, and the Roman women used to offer up their vows to

her for their brothers’ children, not daring to supplicate the Goddess

for their own, because she had been unfortunate in hers. This Ovid

tells us in the Sixth Book of the Fasti. The Romans gave the name of

Matuta to Ino, and Melicerta, or Palæmon, was called Portunus.

The circumstance mentioned by Ovid, that some of Ino’s attendants were

changed into birds, and others into rocks, is, perhaps, only a

poetical method of saying that some of her attendants escaped, while

others perished with her.

FABLE VIII. [IV.563-603]

The misfortunes of his family oblige Cadmus to leave Thebes, and to

retire with his wife Hermione to Illyria, where they are changed into

serpents.

The son of Agenor knows not that his daughter and his little grandson

are {now} Deities of the sea. Forced by sorrow, and a succession of

calamities, and the prodigies which, many in number, he had beheld, the

founder flies from his city, as though the {ill}-luck of the spot, and

not his own, pressed {hard} upon him, and driven, in a long series of

wandering, he reaches the coast of Illyria, with his exiled wife. And

now, loaded with woes and with years, while they are reflecting on the

first disasters of their house, and in their discourse are recounting

their misfortunes, Cadmus says, “Was that dragon a sacred one, that was

pierced by my spear, at the time when, setting out from Sidon, I sowed

the teeth of the dragon in the ground, a seed {till then} unknown? If

the care of the Gods avenges this with resentment so unerring, I pray

that I myself, as a serpent, may be lengthened out into an extended

belly.” {Thus} he says; and, as a serpent, he is lengthened out into an

extended belly, and perceives scales growing on his hardened skin, and

his black body become speckled with azure spots; and he falls flat on

his breast, and his legs, joined into one, taper out by degrees into a

thin round point. His arms are still remaining; those arms which remain

he stretches out; and, as the tears are flowing down his face, still

that of a man, he says, “Come hither, wife, come hither, most unhappy

one, and, while something of me yet remains, touch me; and take my hand,

while it is {still} a hand, {and} while I am not a serpent all over.”

He, indeed, desires to say more, but, on a sudden, his tongue is divided

into two parts. Nor are words in his power when he offers {to speak};

and as often as he attempts to utter any complaints, he makes a hissing:

this is the voice that Nature leaves him. His wife, smiting her naked

breast with her hand, cries aloud, “Stay, Cadmus! and deliver thyself,

unhappy one, from this monstrous form. Cadmus, what means this? Where

are thy feet? where are both thy shoulders and thy hands? where is thy

color and thy form, and, while I speak, {where} all else {besides}? Why

do ye not, celestial Gods, turn me as well into a similar serpent?”

{Thus} she spoke; he licked the face of his wife, and crept into her

dear bosom, as though he recognized her; and gave her embraces, and

reached her well-known neck.

Whoever is by, (some attendants are present), is alarmed; but the

crested snakes soothe them with their slippery necks, and suddenly they

are two {serpents}, and in joined folds they creep along, until they

enter the covert of an adjacent grove. Now, too, do they neither shun

mankind, nor hurt them with wounds, and the gentle serpents keep in mind

what once they were.

EXPLANATION.

After Cadmus had reigned at Thebes many years, a conspiracy was formed

against him. Being driven from the throne, and his grandson Pentheus

assuming the crown, he and his wife Hermione retired into Illyria,

where, as Apollodorus says, he commanded the Illyrian army, and at

length was chosen king: on his death, the story here related by Ovid

was invented. It is possible that it may have been based on the

following grounds:--

The Phœnicians were anciently called ‘Achivi,’ which name they still

retained after their establishment in Greece. ‘Chiva’ being also the

Hebrew, and perhaps Phœnician word for ‘a serpent,’ the Greeks,

probably in reference to the Phœnician origin of Cadmus, reported

after his death, that he and his wife were serpents; and in time, that

transformation may have been stated to have happened at the end of his

life. According to Aulus Gellius, the ancient inhabitants of Illyria

had two eyelids to each eye, and with their looks, when angered, they

were able to kill those whom they beheld stedfastly. The Greeks hence

called them serpents and basilisks; and, it is not unlikely, that when

Cadmus retired among them, they said that he had become one of the

Illyrians, otherwise a dragon, or a serpent. All the ancient writers

who mention his history agree that Cadmus really did retire into

Illyria, where he first assisted the Enchelians in their war against

the Illyrians. The latter were defeated, and, to obtain a peace from

the Enchelians, they gave the crown to Cadmus; to which, on his death,

his son Illyrus succeeded. The historian Christodorus, quoted by

Pausanias, says that he built the city of Nygnis, in the country of

the Enchelians.

Some writers have supposed, upon the authority of Euhemerus as quoted

by Eusebius that Cadmus was not the son of Agenor, but was one of his

officers, who eloped thence with Hermione, a singing girl. Others

suppose that Cadmus is not really a proper name, but that it signifies

a ‘leader,’ or ‘conductor;’ and that he received the name from leading

a colony into Greece. Bochart says that he was called Cadmus, because

he came from the eastern part of Phœnicia, which is called in

Scripture ‘Cadmonia,’ or ‘oriental;’ and that Hermione probably

received her name from Mount Hermon.

FABLE IX. [IV.604-662]

Perseus, the son of Jupiter and Danaë, having killed Medusa, carries

her head into Africa, where the blood that runs from it produces

serpents. Atlas, king of that country, terrified at the remembrance of

an oracle, which had foretold that his golden fruit should be taken by

one of the sons of Jupiter, not only orders him to depart, but even

resorts to violence to drive him away, on which Perseus shows him the

Gorgon’s head, and changes him into a mountain.

But yet their grandson, {Bacchus} gave them both a great consolation,

under this change of form; whom India, subdued {by him}, worshipped {as

a} God, {and} whom Achaia honored with erected temples. Acrisius the son

of Abas,[74] descended of the same race,[75] alone remained, to drive

him from the walls of the Argive city, and to bear arms against the God,

and to believe him not to be the offspring of Jove. Neither did he think

Perseus to be the offspring of Jupiter, whom Danaë had conceived in a

shower of gold; but soon (so great is the power of truth) Acrisius was

sorry, both that he had insulted the God, and that he had not

acknowledged his grandson. The one was now placed in heaven, while the

other, bearing the memorable spoil of the viperous monster, cut the

yielding air with hissing wings; and while the conqueror was hovering

over the Libyan sands, bloody drops, from the Gorgon’s head, fell down,

upon receiving {which, the} ground quickened them into various serpents.

For this cause, that region is filled and infested with snakes.

Carried thence, by the fitful winds, through boundless space, he is

borne now here, now there, just like a watery cloud, and, from the lofty

sky, looks down upon the earth, removed afar; and he flies over the

whole world. Three times he saw the cold Bears, thrice did he see the

claws of the Crab; ofttimes he was borne to the West, many a time to the

East. And now, the day declining, afraid to trust himself to the night,

he stopped in the Western part of the world, in the kingdom of Atlas;

and {there} he sought a little rest, until Lucifer should usher forth

the fires of Aurora, Aurora, the chariot of the day. Here was Atlas, the

son of Iapetus, surpassing all men in the vastness of his body. Under

this king was the extremity of the earth, and the sea which holds its

waters under the panting horses of the Sun, and receives the wearied

chariot. For him, a thousand flocks, and as many herds, wandered over

the pastures, and no neighboring places disturbed the land. Leaves of

the trees, shining with radiant gold, covered branches of gold, {and}

apples of gold. “My friend,” said Perseus to him, “if the glory of a

noble race influences thee, Jupiter is the author of my descent; or if

thou art an admirer of exploits, thou wilt admire mine. I beg of thee

hospitality, and a resting place.” The other was mindful of an ancient

oracle. The Parnassian Themis had given this response: “A time will

come, Atlas, when thy tree shall be stripped of its gold, and a son of

Jove shall have the honor of the prize.” Dreading this, Atlas had

enclosed his orchard with solid walls, and had given it to be kept by a

huge dragon;[76] and expelled all strangers from his territories. {To

Perseus}, too, he says, “Far hence begone, lest the glory of the

exploits, to which thou falsely pretendest, and Jupiter as well, be far

from protecting thee.” He adds violence as well to his threats, and

tries to drive him from his doors, as he hesitates and mingles resolute

words with persuasive ones. Inferior in strength (for who could be a

match for Atlas in strength?), he says “Since my friendship is of so

little value to thee, accept {this} present;” and then, turning his face

away, he exposes on the left side the horrible features of Medusa.

Atlas, great as he is, becomes a mountain. Now his beard and his hair

are changed into woods; his shoulders and his hands become mountain

ridges, and what was formerly his head, is the summit on the top of the

mountain. His bones become stones; then, enlarged on every side, he

grows to an immense height (so you willed it, ye Gods), and the whole

heaven, with so many stars, rests upon him.

[Footnote 74: _Son of Abas._--Ver. 608. Acrisius was the son of

Abas, king of Argos. He was the father of Danaë, by whom Jupiter

was the father of Perseus.]

[Footnote 75: _Of the same race._--Ver. 607. Some suppose that by

this it is meant that as Belus, the father of Abas, and

grandfather of Acrisius, was the son of Jupiter, who was also the

father of Bacchus, the latter and Acrisius were consequently

related.]

[Footnote 76: _A huge dragon._--Ver. 647. The name of the dragon

was Ladon.]

EXPLANATION.

The story of the seduction of Danaë, the mother of Perseus, by

Jupiter, in the form of a shower of gold, has been thus explained by

some of the ancient writers. Acrisius, hearing of a prediction that

Danaë, his daughter, should bring forth a child that would kill him,

caused her to be shut in a tower with brazen gates, or, according to

some, in a subterraneous chamber, covered with plates of that metal;

which place, according to Pausanias, remained till the time of

Perilaus, the king of Argos, by whom it was destroyed. The precautions

of Acrisius were, however, made unavailing by his brother Prœtus; who,

falling in love with his niece, corrupted the guards with gold, and

gained admission into the tower. Danaë, being delivered of Perseus,

her father caused them to be exposed in a boat to the mercy of the

waves. Being cast on shore near Seriphus, the king, Polydectes, gave

them a hospitable reception, and took care of the education of

Perseus.

Diodorus Siculus says that the Gorgons were female warriors, who

inhabited the neighborhood of Lake Tritonis, in Libya. Pausanias

explains the story of Medusa, by saying that she ruled the people in

that neighborhood, and laid waste the lands of the nations in her

vicinity. Perseus, having fled, with some companions, from

Peloponnesus, surprised her by night, and killed her, together with

her escort. The next morning, the beauty of her face appeared so

remarkable that he cut it off, and afterwards took it with him to

Greece, to show it to the people, who could not look on it without

being struck with astonishment. On this explanation we may remark,

that if it is true, Perseus must have had more skill than the surgeons

of our day, in being able to preserve the beauty of the features so

long after death.

Again, many of the ancient historians, with Pliny, Athenæus, and

Solinus, think that the Gorgons were wild women of a savage nature,

living in caves and forests, who, falling on wayfarers, committed

dreadful atrocities. Palæphatus and Fulgentius think that the Gorgons

really were three young women, possessed of great wealth, which they

employed in a very careful manner; Phorcus, their father, having left

them three islands, and a golden statue of Minerva, which they placed

in their common treasury. They had one minister in common for the

management of their affairs, who used to go for that purpose from one

island to another, whence arose the story that they had but one eye,

and that they lent it to one another alternately. Perseus, a fugitive

from Argos, hearing of the golden statue, determined to obtain it; and

with that view, seized their minister, or, in the allegorical language

of the poets, took their eye away from them. He then sent them word,

that if they would give him the statue, he would deliver up his

captive, and threatened, in case of refusal, to put him to death.

Stheno and Euryale consented to this; but Medusa resisting, she was

killed by Perseus. Upon his obtaining the statue, which was called the

Gorgon, or Gorgonian, he broke it in pieces, and placed the head on

the prow of his ship. As the sight of this, and the fame of the

exploits of Perseus, spread terror everywhere, and caused passive

submission to him, the fable originated, that with Medusa’s head he

turned his enemies into stone. Landing in the Isle of Seriphus, the

king fled, with all his subjects; and, on entering the chief city,

finding nothing but the bare stones there, he caused the report to be

spread, that he had petrified the inhabitants.

Servius, in his Commentary on the Æneid, quotes an opinion of Ammonius

Serenus, that the Gorgons were young women of such beauty as to make a

great impression on all that saw them; for which reason they were said

to turn them into statues. Le Clerc thinks that the story bears

reference to a voyage which the Phœnicians had made in ancient times

to the coast of Africa, whence they brought a great number of horses;

and that the name ‘Perseus’ comes from the Phœnician word ‘pharscha,’

‘a horseman;’ while the horse Pegasus was so called from the Phœnician

‘pagsous,’ ‘a bridled horse,’ according to the conjecture of Bochart.

Alexander of Myndus, a historian quoted by Athenæus, says that Libya

had an animal which the natives called ‘gorgon;’ that it resembled a

sheep, and with its breath killed all those who approached it; that a

tuft of hair fell over its eyes, which was so heavy as to be removed

with difficulty, for the purpose of seeing the objects around it; but

that when it was removed, by its looks it struck dead any person whom

it gazed upon. He says, that in the war with Jugurtha, some of the

soldiers of Marius were thus slain by it, and that it was at last

killed by means of arrows discharged from a great distance.

The Gorgons are said to have inhabited the Gorgades, islands in the

Æthiopian Sea, the chief of which was called Cerna, according to

Diodorus and Palæphatus. It is not improbable that the Cape Verde

Islands were called by this name. The fable of the transformation of

Atlas into the mountain of that name may possibly have been based upon

the simple fact, that Perseus killed him in the neighborhood of that

range, from which circumstance it derived the name which it has borne

ever since. The golden apples, which Atlas guarded with so much care,

were probably either gold mines, which Atlas had discovered in the

mountains of his country, and had secured with armed men and watchful

dogs; or sheep, whose fleeces were extremely valuable for their

fineness; or else oranges and lemons, and other fruits peculiar to

very hot climates, for the production of which the poets especially

remarked the country of Tingitana (the modern Tangier), as being very

celebrated.

FABLE X. [IV.663-803]

Perseus, after his victory over Atlas, and his change into a mountain,

arrives in Æthiopia, at the time when Andromeda is exposed to be

devoured by a monster. He kills it, and hides the Gorgon’s head under

the sand, covered with sea-weed and plants; which are immediately

turned into coral. He then renders thanks to the Gods for his victory,

and marries Andromeda. At the marriage feast he relates the manner in

which he had killed Medusa; and the reason why Minerva had changed her

hair into serpents.

The grandson of Hippotas[77] had shut up the winds in their eternal

prison; and Lucifer, who reminds {men} of their work, was risen in the

lofty sky, in all his splendor. Resuming his wings, {Perseus} binds his

feet with them on either side, and is girt with his crooked weapon, and

cleaves the liquid air with his winged ankles. Nations innumerable being

left behind, around and below, he beholds the people of the Æthiopians

and the lands of Cepheus. There the unjust Ammon[78] had ordered the

innocent Andromeda to suffer punishment for her mother’s tongue.[79]

Soon as the descendant of Abas beheld her, with her arms bound to the

hard rock, but that the light breeze was moving her hair, and her eyes

were running with warm[80] tears, he would have thought her to be a work

of marble. Unconsciously he takes fire, and is astonished; captivated

with the appearance of her beauty, {thus} beheld, he almost forgets to

wave his wings in the air. When he has lighted {on the ground}, he says,

“O thou, undeserving of these chains, but {rather} of those by which

anxious lovers are mutually united, disclose to me, inquiring both the

name of this land and of thyself, and why thou wearest {these} chains.”

At first she is silent, and, a virgin, she does not dare address[81] a

man; and with her hands she would have concealed her blushing features,

if she had not been bound; her eyes, ’twas {all} she could do, she

filled with gushing tears. Upon his often urging her, lest she should

seem unwilling to confess her offence, she told the name both of her

country and herself, and how great had been the confidence of her mother

in her beauty. All not yet being told, the waves roared, and a monster

approaching,[82] appeared with its head raised out of the boundless

ocean, and covered the wide expanse with its breast. The virgin shrieks

aloud; her mournful father, and her distracted mother, are there, both

wretched, but the latter more justly so. Nor do they bring her any help

with them, but tears suitable to the occasion, and lamentations, and

they cling round her body, bound {to the rock}.

Then thus the stranger says: “Plenty of time will be left for your tears

{hereafter}, the season for giving aid is {but} short. If I were to

demand her {in marriage}, I, Perseus, the son of Jove, and of her whom,

in prison, Jove embraced in the impregnating {shower of} gold, Perseus,

the conqueror of the Gorgon with her serpent locks, and who has dared,

on waving wings, to move through the ætherial air, I should surely be

preferred before all as your son-in-law. To so many recommendations I

endeavor to add merit (if only the Deities favor me). I {only} stipulate

that she may be mine, {if} preserved by my valor.” Her parents embrace

the condition, (for who could hesitate?) and they entreat {his aid}, and

promise as well, the kingdom as a dowry. Behold! as a ship onward

speeding, with the beak fixed {in its prow}, plows the waters, impelled

by the perspiring arms[83] of youths; so the monster, moving the waves

by the impulse of its breast, was as far distant from the rocks, as

{that distance} in the mid space of air, which a Balearic string can

pass with the whirled plummet of lead; when suddenly the youth, spurning

the earth with his feet, rose on high into the clouds. As the shadow of

the hero was seen on the surface of the sea, the monster vented its fury

on the shadow {so} beheld. And as the bird of Jupiter,[84] when he has

espied on the silent plain a serpent exposing its livid back to the

sun, seizes it behind; and lest it should turn upon him its raging

mouth, fixes his greedy talons in its scaly neck; so did the winged

{hero}, in his rapid flight through the yielding {air}, press the back

of the monster, and the descendant of Inachus thrust his sword up to the

very hilt in its right shoulder, as it roared aloud.

Tortured by the grievous wound, it sometimes raises itself aloft in the

air, sometimes it plunges beneath the waves, sometimes it wheels about,

just like a savage boar, which a pack of hounds in full cry around him

affrights. With swift wings he avoids the eager bites[85] {of the

monster}, and, with his crooked sword, one while wounds its back covered

with hollow shells, where it is exposed, at another time the ribs of its

sides, and now, where its tapering tail terminates in {that of} a fish.

The monster vomits forth from its mouth streams mingled with red blood;

its wings, {made} heavy {by it}, are wet with the spray. Perseus, not

daring any longer to trust himself on his dripping pinions,[86] beholds

a rock, which with its highest top projects from the waters {when}

becalmed, {but is now} covered by the troubled sea. Resting on that, and

clinging to the upper ridge[87] of the rock with his left hand, three or

four times he thrusts his sword through its entrails aimed at {by him}.

A shout, with applause, fills the shores and the lofty abodes of the

Gods. Cassiope and Cepheus, the father, rejoice, and salute him as their

son-in-law, and confess that he is the support and the preserver of

their house.

Released from her chains, the virgin walks along, both the reward and

the cause of his labors. He himself washes his victorious hands in water

taken {from the sea}; and that it may not injure the snake-bearing head

with the bare sand, he softens the ground with leaves; and strews some

weeds produced beneath the sea, and lays upon them the face of Medusa,

the daughter of Phorcys. The fresh weeds, being still alive, imbibed the

poison of the monster in their spongy pith, and hardened by its touch;

and felt an unwonted stiffness in their branches and their leaves. But

the Nymphs of the sea attempt the wondrous feat on many {other} weeds,

and are pleased at the same result; and raise seed again from them

scattered on the waves. Even now the same nature remains in the coral,

that it receives hardness from contact with the air; and what was a

plant in the sea, out of the sea becomes stone.

To three Deities he erects as many altars of turf; the left one to

Mercury; the right to thee, warlike Virgin; the altar of Jove is in the

middle. A cow is sacrificed to Minerva; a calf to the wing-footed {God,

and} a bull to thee, greatest of the Deities. Forthwith he takes

Andromeda, and the reward of an achievement so great, without any dowry.

Hymenæus and Cupid wave their torches before them; the fires are heaped

with abundant perfumes. Garlands, too, are hanging from the houses:

flageolets and lyres, and pipes, and songs resound, the happy tokens of

a joyous mind. The folding-doors thrown open, the entire gilded halls

are displayed, and the nobles of king Cepheus sit down at a feast

furnished with splendid preparations. After they have done the feast,

and have cheered their minds with the gifts of the generous Bacchus, the

grandson of Abas inquires the customs and habits of the country.

Immediately one {of them}, Lyncides, tells him, on his inquiring, the

manners and habits of the inhabitants. Soon as he had told him these

things, he said, “Now, most valiant Perseus, tell us, I beseech thee,

with how great valor and by what arts thou didst cut off the head all

hairy with serpents.” The descendant of Abas tells them that there is a

spot situate beneath cold Atlas, safe in its bulwark of a solid mass;

that, in the entrance of this, dwelt the two sisters, the daughters of

Phorcys, who shared the use of a single eye; that he stealthily, by sly

craft, while it was being handed over,[88] obtained possession of this

by putting his hand in the way; and that through rocks far remote, and

pathless, and bristling with woods on their craggy sides, he had arrived

at the abodes of the Gorgons, and saw everywhere, along the fields and

the roads, statues of men and wild beasts turned into stone, from their

{natural form}, at the sight of Medusa; yet that he himself, from the

reflection on the brass of the shield[89] which his left hand bore,

beheld the visage of the horrible Medusa; and that, while a sound sleep

held her and her serpents {entranced}, he took the head from off the

neck; and that Pegasus and his brother,[90] fleet with wings, were

produced from the blood of {her}, their mother. He added, too, the

dangers of his lengthened journey, {themselves} no fiction;[91] what

seas, what lands he had seen beneath him from on high, and what stars he

had reached with his waving wings.

Yet, before it was expected,[92] he was silent; {whereupon} one of the

nobles rejoined, inquiring why she alone, of the sisters, wore snakes

mingled alternately with her hair. “Stranger,” said he, “since thou

inquirest on a matter worthy to be related, hear the cause of the thing

thou inquirest after. She was the most famed for her beauty, and the

coveted hope of many wooers; nor, in the whole of her person, was any