Hercules and the hatred of his step-mother had filled the earth.
{Returning} victorious from Œchalia, he is preparing a sacrifice which
he had vowed to Cenæan Jupiter,[16] when tattling Rumour (who takes
pleasure in adding false things to the truth, and from a very little
{beginning}, swells to a great bulk by her lies) runs before to thy
ears, Deïanira, {to the effect} that the son of Amphitryon is seized
with a passion for Iole. As she loves him, she believes it; and being
alarmed with the report of this new amour, at first she indulges in
tears and in her misery gives vent to her grief in weeping. Soon,
however, she says, “But why do I weep? My rival will be delighted with
these tears; and since she is coming I must make haste, and some
contrivance must be resolved on while it is {still} possible, and while,
as yet, another has not taken possession of my bed. Shall I complain,
or shall I be silent? Shall I return to Calydon, or shall I stay here?
Shall I depart from this abode? or, if nothing more, shall I oppose
{their entrance}? What if, O Meleager, remembering that I am thy sister,
I resolve on a desperate deed, and testify, by murdering my rival, how
much, injury and a woman’s grief can effect?”
Her mind wavers, amid various resolves. Before them all, she prefers to
send the garment dyed in the blood of Nessus, to restore strength to his
declining love. Not knowing herself what she is giving, she delivers
{the cause of} her own sorrows to the unsuspecting Lichas,[17] and bids
him, in gentle words, to deliver this most fatal gift to her husband. In
his ignorance, the hero receives it, and places upon his shoulders the
venom of the Lernæan Echidna. He is placing frankincense on the rising
flames, and {is offering} the words of prayer, and pouring wine from the
bowl upon the marble altars. The virulence of the bane waxes warm, and,
melted by the flames, it runs, widely diffused over the limbs of
Hercules. So long as he is able, he suppresses his groans with his
wonted fortitude. After his endurance is overcome by his anguish, he
pushes down the altars, and fills the woody Œta with his cries. There is
no {further} delay; he attempts to tear off the deadly garment; {but}
where it is torn off, it tears away the skin, and, shocking to relate,
it either sticks to his limbs, being tried in vain to be pulled off,
or it lays bare his mangled limbs, and his huge bones. The blood itself
hisses, just as when a red hot plate {of metal is} dipped in cold water;
and it boils with the burning poison. There is no limit {to his misery};
the devouring flames prey upon his entrails, and a livid perspiration
flows from his whole body; his half-burnt sinews also crack; and his
marrow being {now} dissolved by the subtle poison, lifting his hands
towards the stars {of heaven}, he exclaims, “Daughter of Saturn, satiate
thyself with my anguish; satiate thyself, and look down from on high,
O cruel {Goddess}, at this {my} destruction, and glut thy relentless
heart. Or, if I am to be pitied even by an enemy (for an enemy I am to
thee), take away a life insupportable through these dreadful agonies,
hateful, too, {to myself}, and {only} destined to trouble. Death will be
a gain to me. It becomes a stepmother to grant such a favour.
“And was it for this that I subdued Busiris, who polluted the temples
{of the Gods} with the blood of strangers? And did I {for this},
withdraw from the savage Antæus[18] the support given him by his mother?
Did neither the triple shape of the Iberian shepherd[19], nor thy triple
form, O Cerberus, alarm me? And did you, my hands, seize the horns of
the mighty bull? Does Elis, {too}, possess {the result} of your labours,
and the Stymphalian waters, and the Parthenian[20] grove {as well}? By
your valour was it that the belt, inlaid with the gold of Thermodon[21],
was gained, the apples too, guarded in vain by the wakeful dragon? And
could neither the Centaurs resist me, nor yet the boar, the ravager of
Arcadia? And was it not of no avail to the Hydra to grow through {its
own} loss, and to recover double strength? And what besides? When I
beheld the Thracian steeds fattened with human blood, and the mangers
filled with mangled bodies, did I throw them down when {thus} beheld,
and slay both the master and {the horses} themselves? {And} does the
carcass of the Nemean {lion} lie crushed by these arms? With this neck
did I support the heavens?[22] The unrelenting wife of Jupiter[23] was
weary of commanding, {but} I was {still} unwearied with doing. But {now}
a new calamity is come upon me, to which resistance can be made neither
by valour, nor by weapons, nor by arms. A consuming flame is pervading
the inmost recesses of my lungs, and is preying on all my limbs. But
Eurystheus {still} survives. And are there,” says he, “any who can
believe that the Deities exist?”
And {then}, racked with pain, he ranges along the lofty Œta, no
otherwise than if a tiger should chance to carry the hunting spears
fixed in his body, and the perpetrator of the deed should be taking to
flight. Often might you have beheld him uttering groans, often shrieking
aloud, often striving to tear away the whole of his garments, and
levelling trees, and venting his fury against mountains, or stretching
out his arms towards the heaven of his father. Lo! he espies Lichas,
trembling and lying concealed in a hollow rock, and, as his pain has
summoned together all his fury, he says, “Didst thou, Lichas, bring
{this} fatal present; and shalt thou be the cause of my death?” He
trembles, and {turning} pale, is alarmed, and timorously utters some
words of excuse. As he is speaking, and endeavouring to clasp his knees
with his hands, Alcides seizes hold of him, and whirling him round three
or four times, he hurls him into the Eubœan waves, with greater force
than {if sent} from an engine of war. As he soars aloft in the aerial
breeze he grows hard; and as they say that showers freeze with the cold
winds, {and} that thence snow is formed, and that from the snow,
revolving {in its descent}, the soft body is compressed, and is {then}
made round in many a hailstone,[24] so have former ages declared, that,
hurled through the air by the strong arms {of Hercules}, and bereft of
blood through fear, and having no moisture left in him, he was
transformed into hard stone. Even to this day, in the Eubœan sea,
a small rock projects to a height, and retains the traces of the human
form. This, the sailors are afraid to tread upon, as though it could
feel it; and they call it Lichas.
But thou, the famous offspring of Jupiter, having cut down, trees which
lofty Œta bore, and having raised them for a pile, dost order the son of
Pœas[25] to take the bow and the capacious quiver, and the arrows which
are again to visit[26] the Trojan realms; by whose assistance flames are
put beneath the pile; and while the structure is being seized by the
devouring fires, thou dost cover the summit of the heap of wood with the
skin of the Nemean {lion}, and dost lie down with thy neck resting on
thy club, with no other countenance than if thou art lying as a guest
crowned with garlands, amid the full cups of wine.
And now, the flames, prevailing and spreading on every side, roared,[27]
and reached the limbs {thus} undismayed, and him who despised them. The
Gods were alarmed for {this} protector of the earth;[28] Saturnian
Jupiter (for he perceived it) thus addressed them with joyful voice:
“This fear of yours is my own delight, O ye Gods of heaven, and, with
all my heart, I gladly congratulate myself that I am called the governor
and the father of a grateful people, and that my progeny, too, is secure
in your esteem. For, although this {concern} is given {in return} for
his mighty exploits, {still} I myself am obliged {by} it. But, however,
that your affectionate breasts may not be alarmed with vain fears,
despise these flames of Œta. He who has conquered all things, shall
conquer the fires which you behold; nor shall he be sensible of the
potency of the flame, but in the part {of him} which he derived from his
mother. {That part of him}, which he derived from me, is immortal, and
exempt and secure from death, and to be subdued by no flames. This, too,
when disengaged from earth, I will receive into the celestial regions,
and I trust that this act of mine will be agreeable to all the Deities.
Yet if any one, if any one, {I say}, perchance should grieve at Hercules
being a Divinity, {and} should be unwilling that this honour should be
conferred on him; still he shall know that he deserves it to be bestowed
{on him}, and {even} against his will, shall approve of it.”
{To this} the Gods assented; his royal spouse, too, seemed to bear the
rest {of his remarks} with no discontented {air}, but only the last
words with a countenance of discontent, and to take it amiss that she
was {so plainly} pointed at. In the mean time, whatever was liable to be
destroyed by flame, Mulciber consumed; and the figure of Hercules
remained, not to be recognized; nor did he have anything derived from
the form of his mother, and he only retained the traces of {immortal}
Jupiter. And as when a serpent revived, by throwing off old age with his
slough, is wont to be instinct with fresh life, and to glisten in his
new-made scales; so, when the Tirynthian {hero} has put off his mortal
limbs, he flourishes in his more æthereal part, and begins to appear
more majestic, and to become venerable in his august dignity. Him the
omnipotent Father, taking up among encircling clouds, bears aloft amid
the glittering stars, in his chariot drawn by {its} four steeds.
[Footnote 11: _Nessus._--Ver. 101. He was one of the Centaurs
which were begotten by Ixion the cloud sent by Jupiter, under the
form of Juno.]
[Footnote 12: _Evenus._--Ver. 104. This was a river of Ætolia,
which was also called by the name of ‘Lycormas.’]
[Footnote 13: _Strong of limb._--Ver. 108. ‘Membrisque valens,’ is
rendered by Clarke, ‘being an able-limbed fellow.’]
[Footnote 14: _Wheel of thy father._--Ver. 124. He alludes to the
punishment of Ixion, the father of Nessus, who was fastened to a
revolving wheel in the Infernal Regions, as a punishment for his
attempt on the chastity of Juno.]
[Footnote 15: _Thou dost confide._--Ver. 125. ‘Quamvis ope fidis
equinâ,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘Although thou trustest to the
help of thy horse part.’]
[Footnote 16: _Cenæan Jupiter._--Ver. 136. Jupiter was called
Cenæan, from Cenæum, a promontory of Eubœa, where Hercules, after
having taken the town of Œchalia, built an altar in honour of
Jupiter. Hercules slew Eurytus, the king of Œchalia, and carried
away his daughter Iole.]
[Footnote 17: _Lichas._--Ver. 155. This was the attendant of
Hercules, whom he sent to Deïanira for the garment which he used
to wear while performing sacrifice.]
[Footnote 18: _The savage Antæus._--Ver. 183. He alludes to the
fresh strength which the giant Antæus gained each time he touched
the earth.]
[Footnote 19: _Iberian shepherd._--Ver. 184. Allusion is here made
to Geryon, who had three bodies, and whom Hercules slew, and then
carried away his herds. It has been suggested that the story of
his triple form originated in the fact that he and his two
brothers reigned amicably in conjunction over some portion of
Spain, or the islands adjoining to it.]
[Footnote 20: _Parthenian._--Ver. 188. A part of Arcadia was so
called from Parthenium, a mountain which divided it from Argolis;
there was also, according to Pliny the Elder, a town of the same
name in Arcadia.]
[Footnote 21: _Gold of Thermodon._--Ver. 189. The Thermodon was a
river of Scythia, near which the Amazons were said to dwell.
Eurystheus ordered Hercules to bring to him the belt of Hippolyta,
the queen of the Amazons.]
[Footnote 22: _Support the heavens._--Ver. 198. Atlas, king of
Mauritania, was said to support the heavens on his shoulders, of
which burden Hercules relieved him for a time, when he partook of
his hospitality. It has been suggested that the meaning of this
story is, that Hercules learned the study of astronomy from
Atlas.]
[Footnote 23: _Wife of Jupiter._--Ver. 199. Juno gave her commands
to Hercules through Eurystheus, the son of Sthenelus, king of
Mycenæ, who imposed upon him his various labours.]
[Footnote 24: _Many a hailstone._--Ver. 222. Ovid here seems to
think that snow is an intermediate state between rain and hail,
and that hail is formed by the rapid motion of the snow as it
falls.]
[Footnote 25: _The son of Pœas._--Ver. 233. Philoctetes was the
son of Pœas.]
[Footnote 26: _Again to visit._--Ver. 232. It was decreed by the
destinies that Troy should not be taken, unless the bow and arrows
of Hercules were present; for which reason it was necessary to
send for Philoctetes, who was the possessor of them. Troy had
already seen them, when Hercules punished Laomedon, its king, for
his perfidious conduct.]
[Footnote 27: _Roared._--Ver. 239. ‘Diffusa sonabat--flamma’ is
translated by Clarke, ‘The flame, being diffused on all sides,
rattled.’]
[Footnote 28: _Protector of the earth._--Ver. 241. Hercules
merited this character, for having cleared the earth of monsters,
robbers, and tyrants.]
EXPLANATION.
Hercules, leaving the court of Calydon with his wife, proceeded on
the road to the city of Trachyn, in Thessaly, to atone for the
accidental death of Eunomus, and to be absolved from it by Ceyx, who
was the king of that territory. Being obliged to cross the river
Evenus, which had overflowed its banks, the adventure happened with
the Centaur Nessus, which the Poet has here related. We learn from
other writers, that after Nessus had expired, he was buried on Mount
Taphiusa; and Strabo informs us, that his tomb (in which, probably,
the ashes of other Centaurs were deposited) sent forth so offensive
a smell, that the Locrians, who were the inhabitants of the adjacent
country, were surnamed the ‘Ozolæ,’ that is, the ‘ill-smelling,’ or
‘stinking,’ Locrians. Although the river Evenus lay in the road
between Calydon and Trachyn, still it did not run through the middle
of the latter city, as some authors have supposed; for in such case
Hercules would have been more likely to have passed it by the aid of
a bridge or of a boat, than to have recourse to the assistance of
the Centaur Nessus, and to have availed himself of his acquaintance
with the fords of the stream.
Hercules, in lapse of time, becoming tired of Deïanira, by whom he
had one son, named Hyllus, fell in love with Iole, the daughter of
Eurytus; and that prince, refusing to give her to him, he made war
upon Œchalia, and, having slain Eurytus, he bore off his daughter.
Upon his return from that expedition, he sent Lychas for the
vestments which he had occasion to use in a sacrifice which it was
his intention to offer. Deïanira, jealous on account of his passion
for Iole, sent him either a philtre or love potion, which
unintentionally caused his death, or else a tunic smeared on the
inside with a certain kind of pitch, found near Babylon, which, when
thoroughly warmed, stuck fast to his skin; and this it is, most
probably, which has been termed by poets and historians, the tunic
of Nessus. It seems, however, pretty clear that Hercules fell into a
languishing distemper, without any hopes of recovery, and, probably,
in a fit of madness, he threw Lychas into the sea, which
circumstance was made by the poets to account for the existence
there of a rock known by that name.
Proceeding afterwards to Trachyn, he caused Deïanira to hang herself
in despair; and, having consulted the oracle concerning his
distemper, he was ordered to go with his friends to Mount Œta, and
there to raise a funeral pile. He understood the fatal answer, and
immediately prepared to execute its commands. When the pile was
ready, Hercules ascended it, and laid himself down with an air of
resignation, on which Philoctetes kindled the fire, which consumed
him. Some, however, of the ancient authors say, with more
probability, that Hercules died at Trachyn, and that his corpse was
burned on Mount Œta. His apotheosis commenced at the ceremonial of
his funeral, and, from the moment of his death, he was worshipped as
a Demigod. Diodorus Siculus says that it was Iolus who first
introduced this worship. It was also said that, as soon as
Philoctetes had applied fire to the pile, it thundered, and the
lightnings descending from heaven immediately consumed Hercules.
A tomb was raised for him on Mount Œta, with an altar, upon which a
bull, a wild boar, and a he-goat were yearly sacrificed in his
honour, at the time of his festival. The Thebans, and, after them,
the other people of Greece, soon followed the example of the
Trachinians, and temples and altars were raised to him in various
places, where he was honoured as a Demigod.
FABLE III. [IX.273-323]
Juno, to be revenged on Alcmena for her amour with Jupiter, desires
Ilithyïa, the Goddess who presides over births, not to assist her on
the occasion of the birth of Hercules. Lucina complies with her
request, and places herself on an altar at the gate of Alcmena’s
abode, where, by a magic spell, she increases her pains and impedes
her delivery. Galanthis, one of her maids, seeing the Goddess at the
door, imagines that she may possibly exercise some bad influence on
her mistress’s labour, and, to make her retire, declares that
Alcmena is already delivered. Upon Ilithyïa withdrawing, Alcmena’s
pains are assuaged, and Hercules is born. The Goddess, to punish
Galanthis for her officiousness, transforms her into a weazel,
a creature which was supposed to bring forth its young through its
mouth.
Atlas was sensible[29] of this burden. Nor, as yet, had Eurystheus, the
son of Sthenelus, laid aside his wrath {against Hercules}; and, in his
fury, he vented his hatred for the father against his offspring. But the
Argive Alcmena, disquieted with prolonged anxieties {for her son} has
Iole, to whom to disclose the complaints of her old age, to whom to
relate the achievements of her son attested by {all} the world, or to
whom {to tell} her own misfortunes. At the command of Hercules, Hyllus
had received her both into his bed and his affections, and had filled
her womb with a noble offspring. To her, thus Alcmena began {her
story}:--
“May the Gods be propitious to thee at least; and may they shorten the
tedious hours, at the hour when, having accomplished thy time, thou
shalt be invoking Ilithyïa,[30] who presides over the trembling
parturient women; her whom the influence of Juno rendered inexorable to
myself. For, when now the natal hour of Hercules, destined for so many
toils, was at hand, and the tenth sign {of the Zodiac} was laden with
the {great} luminary, the heavy weight was extending my womb; and that
which I bore was so great, that you might {easily} pronounce Jupiter to
be the father of the concealed burden. And now I was no longer able to
endure my labours: even now, too, as I am speaking, a cold shudder
seizes my limbs, and a part of my pain is the remembrance of it.
Tormented for seven nights, and during as many days, tired out with
misery, and extending my arms towards heaven, with loud cries I used to
invoke Lucina and the two Nixi.[31] She came, indeed, but corrupted
beforehand, and she had the intention to give my life to the vengeful
Juno. And when she heard my groans, she seated herself upon that altar
before the door, and pressing her left knee with her right knee, her
fingers being joined together in {form of} a comb,[32] she retarded my
delivery; she uttered charms, too, in a low voice; and {those} charms
impeded the birth {now} begun. I struggled hard, and, in my frenzy,
I vainly uttered reproaches against the ungrateful Jupiter, and I
desired to die, and complained in words that would have moved {even} the
hard stones. The Cadmeian matrons attended me, and offered up vows, and
encouraged me in my pains.
“There was present one of my hand-maids of the lower class of people,
Galanthis {by name}, with yellow hair, {and} active in the execution of
my orders; one beloved for her good services. She perceived that
something unusual[33] was being done by the resentful Juno; and, while
she was often going in and out of the door, she saw the Goddess, sitting
upon the altar, and supporting her arms upon her knees, linked by the
fingers; and {then} she said, ‘Whoever thou art, congratulate my
mistress; the Argive Alcmena is delivered, and, having brought forth,
she has gained her wishes.’ The Goddess who presides[34] over pregnancy
leaped up, and, struck with surprise, loosened her joined hands.
I, myself, on the loosening of those bonds, was delivered. The story is,
that Galanthis laughed, upon deceiving the Divinity. The cruel Goddess
dragged her along {thus} laughing and seized by her very hair, and she
hindered her as she attempted to raise her body from the earth, and
changed her arms into fore feet.
“Her former activity {still} remains, and her back has not lost its
colour; {but} her shape is different from her former one. Because she
had assisted me in labour by a lying mouth, she brings forth from the
mouth,[35] and, just as before, she frequents my house.”
[Footnote 29: _Atlas was sensible._--Ver. 273. By reason of his
supporting the heavens, to the inhabitants of which Hercules was
now added.]
[Footnote 30: _Ilithyïa._--Ver. 283. This Goddess is said by some
to have been the daughter of Jupiter and Juno, while other writers
consider her to have been the same either with Diana, or Juno
Lucina.]
[Footnote 31: _The two Nixi._--Ver. 294. Festus says, ‘the three
statues in the Capitol, before the shrine of Minerva, were called
the Gods Nixii.’ Nothing whatever is known of these Gods, who
appear to have been obstetrical Divinities. It has been suggested,
as there were three of them, that the reading should be, not
‘Nixosque pares,’ but ‘Nixosque Lares,’ ‘and the Lares the Nixi.’]
[Footnote 32: _Form of a comb._--Ver. 299. This charm probably was
suggestive of difficult or impeded parturition, the bones of the
pelvis being firmly knit together in manner somewhat resembling
the fingers when inserted one between the other, instead of
yielding for the passage of the infant. Pliny the Elder informs us
how parturition may be impeded by the use of charms.]
[Footnote 33: _Something unusual._--Ver. 309. ‘Nescio quid.’ This
very indefinite phrase is repeatedly used by Ovid; and in such
cases, it expresses either actual doubt or uncertainty, as in the
present instance; or it is used to denote something remarkable or
indescribable, or to show that a thing is insignificant, mean, and
contemptible.]
[Footnote 34: _Goddess who presides._--Ver. 315. This was
Ilithyïa, or Lucina, who was acting as the emissary of Juno.]
[Footnote 35: _From the mouth._--Ver. 323. This notion is supposed
to have been grounded on the fact of the weasel (like many other
animals) carrying her young in her mouth from place to place.]
EXPLANATION.
According to Diodorus Siculus and Apollodorus, Amphitryon was the
son of Alceus, the son of Perseus, and his wife, Alcmena, was the
daughter of Electryon, also the son of Perseus; and thus they were
cousins. When their marriage was about to take place, an unforeseen
accident prevented it. Electryon, who was king of Mycenæ, being
obliged to revenge the death of his children, whom the sons of
Taphius, king of the Teleboans, had killed in combat, returned
victorious, and brought back with him his flocks, which he had
recovered from Taphius. Amphitryon, who went to meet his uncle, to
congratulate him upon the success of his expedition, throwing his
club at a cow, which happened to stray from the herd, unfortunately
killed him. This accidental homicide lost him the kingdom of Mycenæ,
which was to have formed the dower of Alcmena. Sthenelus, the
brother of Electryon, taking advantage of the public indignation,
which was the result of the accident, drove Amphitryon out of the
country of Argos, and made himself master of his brother’s
dominions, which he left, at his death, to his son Eurystheus, the
inveterate persecutor of Hercules.
Amphitryon, obliged to retire to Thebes, was there absolved by
Creon; but when, as he thought, he was about to receive the hand of
Alcmena, who accompanied him to the court of that prince, she
declared that, not being satisfied with the revenge which her father
had taken on the Teleboans, she would consent to be the prize of him
who would undertake to declare war against them. Amphitryon accepted
these conditions, and, forming an alliance with Creon, Cephalus, and
some other princes, made a descent upon the islands which the enemy
possessed, and, making himself master of them, bestowed one of them
on his ally, Cephalus.
It was during this war that Hercules came into the world; and
whether Amphitryon had secretly consummated his marriage before his
departure, or whether he had returned privately to Thebes, or to
Tirynthus, where Hercules was said to have been born, it was
published, that Jupiter, to deceive Alcmena, had taken the form of
her husband, and was the father of the infant Hercules. If this is
not the true explanation of the story, it may have been invented to
conceal some intrigue in which Alcmena was detected; or, in process
of time, to account for the extraordinary strength and valour of
Hercules, it may have been said that Jupiter, and not Amphitryon,
was the father of Hercules. Indeed, we find Seneca, in one of his
Tragedies, putting these words into the mouth of Hercules:--
‘Whether all that has been said upon this subject be held as
undoubted truth, or whether it proves to be but a fable, and that my
father was, after all, in reality, but a mortal; my mother’s fault
is sufficiently effaced by my valour, and I have merit sufficient to
have had Jupiter for my father.’ The more readily, perhaps, to
account for the transcendent strength and prowess of Hercules, the
story was invented, that Jupiter made the night on which he was
received by Alcmena under the form of Amphitryon, as long as three,
or, according to Plautus, Hyginus, and Seneca, nine nights. Some
writers say that Alcmena brought forth twins, one of which,
Iphiclus, was the son of Amphitryon, while Hercules had Jupiter for
his father.
With respect to the metamorphosis of Galanthis, it is but a little
episode here introduced by Ovid, to give greater plausibility to the
other part of the story. It most probably originated in the
resemblance of the names of that slave to that of the weazel, which
the Greeks called γαλῆ. Ælian, indeed, tells us that the Thebans
paid honour to that animal, because it had helped Alcmena in her
labour. The more ancient poets also added, that Juno retarded the
birth of Hercules till the mother of Eurystheus was delivered, which
was the cause of his being the subject of that king; though others
state that this came to pass by the command of the oracle of Delphi.
This king of Mycenæ having ordered him to rid Greece of the numerous
robbers and wild beasts that infested it, it is most probable that,
as we learn from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he performed this
service at the head of the troops of Eurystheus. If this is the
case, the persecutions which the poets have ascribed to the jealousy
of Juno, really originated either in the policy or the jealousy of
the court of Mycenæ.
As Ovid has here cursorily taken notice of the labours of Hercules,
we may observe, that it is very probable that his history is
embellished with the pretended adventures of many persons who bore
his name, and, perhaps, with those of others besides. Cicero, in his
‘Treatise on the Nature of the Gods,’ mentions six persons who bore
the name of Hercules; and possibly, after a minute examination,
a much greater number might be reckoned, many nations of antiquity
having given the name to such great men of their own as had rendered
themselves famous by their actions. Thus, we find one in Egypt in
the time of Osiris, in Phœnicia, among the Gauls, in Spain, and in
other countries. Confining ourselves to the Grecian Hercules,
surnamed Alcides, we find that his exploits have generally been sung
of by the poets, under the name of the Twelve Labours; but, on
entering into the detail of them, we find them much more numerous.
Killing some serpents in his youth, it was published, not only that
he had done so, but that they had been sent by Juno for the purpose
of destroying him. The forest of Nemea serving as a retreat for a
great number of lions that ravaged the country, Hercules hunted
them, and, killing the most furious of them, always wore his skin.
Several thieves, having made the neighbourhood of Lake Stymphalus,
in Arcadia, their resort, he freed the country of them; the nails
and wings which the poets gave them, in representing them as birds,
being typical of their voracity and activity. The marshes of Lerna,
near Argos, were infested by great numbers of serpents, which, as
fast as they were destroyed, were replaced by new swarms; draining
the marshes, and, probably, setting fire to the adjacent thickets or
jungles, he destroyed these pestilent reptiles, on which it was
fabled that he had destroyed the Hydra of Lerna, with its heads,
which grew as fast as they were cut off. The forest of Erymanthus
was full of wild boars, which laid waste all the neighbouring
country: he destroyed them all, and brought one with him to the
court of Eurystheus, of a size so monstrous, that the king was
alarmed on seeing it, and was obliged to run and hide himself.
The stables of Augeas, king of Elis, were so filled with manure,
by reason of the great quantity of oxen that he kept, that Hercules
being called upon to cleanse them, employed his engineering skill in
bringing the river Alpheus through them. Having pursued a hind for a
whole year, which Eurystheus had commanded him to take, it was
circulated, probably on account of her untiring swiftness, that she
had feet of brass. The river Acheloüs having overflowed the adjacent
country, he raised banks to it, as already mentioned. Theseus was a
prisoner in Epirus, where he had been with Pirithous, to bring away
the daughter of Aidoneus. Hercules delivered him; and that was the
foundation of the Fable which said that he had gone down to Hades,
or Hell. In the cavern of Tænarus there was a monstrous serpent;
this he was ordered to kill, and, probably, this gave rise to the
story of Cerberus being chained by him. Pelias having been killed by
his daughters, his son Acastus pursued them to the court of Admetus,
who, refusing to deliver up Alcestis, of whom he was enamoured, was
taken prisoner in an engagement, and was delivered by that princess,
who herself offered to be his ransom. Hercules being then in
Thessaly, he took her away from Acastus, who was about to put her to
death, and returned her to Admetus. This, probably, was the
foundation of the fable which stated, that he had recovered her from
the Infernal Regions, after having vanquished death, and bound him
in chains.
The Amazons were a nation of great celebrity in the time of
Hercules, and their frequent victories had rendered them very
formidable to their neighbours. Eurystheus ordered him to go and
bring away the girdle of Hippolyta, or, in other words, to make war
upon them, and to pillage their treasures. Embarking on the Euxine
Sea, Hercules arrived on the banks of the Thermodon, and, giving
battle to the female warriors, defeated them; killing some, and
putting the rest to flight. He took Antiope, or Hippolyta, prisoner,
whom he gave to Theseus; but her sister, Menalippa, redeemed herself
by giving up the famous girdle, or, in other words, by paying a
large ransom. It is very probable, that in that expedition, he slew
Diomedes, the barbarous king of Thrace, and brought away his mares,
which were said to have been fed by him on human flesh. In returning
by way of Thessaly, he embarked in the expedition of the Argonauts;
but, leaving them soon afterwards, he went to Troy, and delivered
Hesione from the monster which was to have devoured her; but not
receiving from Laomedon, the king, the recompense which had been
promised him, he killed that prince, sacked the city, and brought
away Hesione, whom he gave to Telamon, who had accompanied him on
the expedition.
This is probably the extent of the labours of Hercules in Greece,
Thrace, and Phrygia. The poets have made him engage in many other
laborious undertakings in distant countries, which most probably
ought not to be attributed to the Grecian Hercules. Among other
stories told of him, it is said, that having set out to fight with
Geryon, the king of Spain, he was so much incommoded by the heat of
the sun, that his wrath was excited against the luminary, and he
fired his arrows at it, on which, the Sun, struck with admiration at
his spirited conduct, made him a present of a golden goblet. After
this, embarking and arriving in Spain, he defeated Geryon, a prince
who was famed for having three heads, which probably either meant
that he reigned over the three Balearic islands of Maiorca, Minorca,
and Iviza, or else that Hercules defeated three princes who were
strictly allied. Having thence passed the straits of Gibraltar to go
over to Africa, he fought with the Giant Antæus, who sought to
oppose his landing. That prince was said to be a son of the Earth,
and was reported to recover fresh strength every time he was thrown
on the ground; consequently, Hercules was obliged to hold him in his
arms, till he had squeezed him to death. The solution of this fable
is most probably that Antæus, always finding succour in a country
where he was known as a powerful monarch, Hercules took measures to
deprive him of aid, by engaging him in a sea fight, and thereby
defeated him, without much trouble, as well as the Pygmies, who were
probably some African tribes of stunted stature, who came to his
assistance.
Hercules, returning from these two expeditions, passed through Gaul
with the herds of Geryon, and went into Italy, where Cacus,
a celebrated robber, who had made the caverns of Mount Aventine his
haunts, having stolen some of his oxen, he, with the assistance,
according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, of Evander and Faunus,
destroyed him, and shared his spoils with his allies. In his journey
from Africa, Hercules delivered Atlas from the enmity of Busiris,
the tyrant of Egypt, whom he killed; and gave such good advice to
the Mauritanian king, that it was said that he supported the heavens
for some time on his own shoulders, to relieve those of Atlas. The
latter, by way of acknowledgment of his services, made him a present
of several fine sheep, or rather, according to Diodorus Siculus, of
some orange and lemon trees, which he carried with him into Greece.
These were represented as the golden apples watched by a dragon in
the garden of the Hesperides. As the ocean there terminated the
scene of his conquests, he was said to have raised two pillars on
those shores, to signify the fact of his having been there, and the
impossibility of proceeding any further.
The deliverance of Prometheus, as already mentioned; the death of
the two brothers, the Cercopes, famous robbers; the defeat of the
Bull of Marathon; the death of Lygis, who disputed the passage of
the Alps with him; that of the giant Alcyaneus, who hurled at him a
stone so vast that it crushed twenty-four men to death; that of
Eryx, king of Sicily, whom he killed with a blow of the cestus, for
refusing to deliver to him the oxen which he had stolen; the combat
with Cycnus, which was terminated by a peal of thunder, which
separated the combatants; another combat against the Giants in Gaul,
during which, as it was said, Jupiter rained down vast quantities of
stones; all these are also attributed to Hercules, besides many more
stories, which, if diligently collected, would swell to a large
volume.
The foregoing remarks on the history of Hercules, give us an insight
into the ideas which, based upon the explanations given by the
authors of antiquity, the Abbè Banier, one of the most accomplished
scholars of his age, entertained on this subject. We will conclude
with some very able and instructive remarks on this mythus, which we
extract from Mr. Keightley’s Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy.
He says--
“Various theories have been formed respecting the mythus of
Hercules. It is evidently one of very remote antiquity, long
perhaps, anterior to the times of Homer. We confess that we cannot
see any very valid reason for supposing no such real personage to
have existed; for it will, perhaps, be found that mythology not
unfrequently prefers to absolute fiction, the assuming of some real
historic character, and making it the object of the marvels devised
by lively and exuberant imagination, in order thereby to obtain more
ready credence for the strange events which it creates. Such, then,
may the real Hercules have been,--a Dorian, a Theban, or an Argive
hero, whose feats of strength lived in the traditions of the people,
and whom national vanity raised to the rank of a son of Zeus
[Jupiter], and poetic fancy, as geographic knowledge extended, sent
on journies throughout the known world, and accumulated in his
person the fabled exploits of similar heroes of other regions.
“We may perceive, by the twelve tasks, that the astronomical theory
was applied to the mythus of the hero, and that he was regarded as a
personification of the Sun, which passes through the twelve signs of
the Zodiac. This, probably, took place during the Alexandrian
period. Some resemblance between his attributes and those of the
Deity, with whom the Egyptian priests were pleased to identify him,
may have given occasion to this notion; and he also bore some
similitude to the God whom the Phœnicians chiefly worshipped, and
who, it is probable, was the Sun. But we must steadily bear in mind,
that Hercules was a hero in the popular legend long before any
intercourse was opened between Greece and Egypt; and that, however
(which is certainly not very likely) a God might be introduced from
Phœnicia, the same could hardly be the case with a popular
hero.--A very ingenious theory on the mythus of Hercules is given by
Buttmann (Mythologus, vol. i., p. 246). Though acknowledging that
Perseus, Theseus, and Hercules may have been real persons, he is
disposed, from an attentive consideration of all the circumstances
in the mythus of the last, to regard him as one of those poetical
persons or personifications, who, as he says, have obtained such
firm footing in the dark periods of antiquity, as to have acquired
the complete air of historic personages.
“In his view of the life of Hercules, it is a mythus of extreme
antiquity and great beauty, setting forth the ideal of human
perfection, consecrated to the weal of mankind, or rather, in its
original form, to that of his own nation. This perfection, according
to the ideas of the heroic age, consists in the greatest bodily
strength, united with the advantages of mind and soul recognised by
that age. Such a hero is, he says, a man; but these noble qualities
in him are of divine origin. He is, therefore, the son of the king
of the Gods by a mortal mother. To render his perfection the more
manifest, the Poet makes him to have a twin brother, the child of a
mortal sire. As virtue is not to be learned, Hercules exhibits his
strength and courage in infancy; he strangles the snakes, which
fills his brother with terror. The character of the hero throughout
life, as that of the avenger of injustice and punisher of evil, must
exhibit itself in the boy as the wild instinct of nature; and the
mythus makes him kill his tutor Linus with a blow of the lyre. When
sent away by Amphitryon, he prepares himself, in the stillness and
solitude of the shepherd’s life, by feats of strength and courage,
for his future task of purifying the earth of violence.
“--The number of tasks may not originally have been twelve, though
most accounts agree in that number, but they were all of a nature
agreeable to the ideas of an heroic age--the destruction of
monsters, and bringing home to his own country the valuable
productions of other regions. These are, however, regarded by
Buttmann as being chiefly allegorical. The Hydra, for instance,
he takes to have been meant to represent the evils of democratic
anarchy, with its numerous heads, against which, though one may not
be able to effect anything, yet the union of even two may suffice to
become dominant over it.
“The toils of the hero conclude with the greatest and most rare of
all in the heroic age--the conquest over death. This is represented
by his descent into the under world, and dragging Cerberus to light
is a proof of his victory. In the old mythus, he was made to engage
with and wound Hades; and the Alcestis of Euripides exhibits him in
conflict with Death. But virtue, to be a useful example, must
occasionally succumb to human weakness in the power of the evil
principle. Hence, Hercules falls into fits of madness, sent on him
by Hera [Juno]; and hence--he becomes the willing slave of Omphale,
the fair queen of Lydia, and changes his club and lion’s skin for
the distaff and the female robe.
“The mythus concludes most nobly with the assumption of the hero
into Olympus. His protecting Deity abandons him to the power of his
persevering enemy; his mortal part is consumed by fire, the fiercest
of elements; his shade (εἴδωλον), like those of other men, descends
to the realms of Hades, while the divine portion himself (αὐτὸς)
mounts from the pyre in a thunder-cloud, and the object of Hera’s
persecution being now accomplished, espouses youth, the daughter of
his reconciled foe.
“Muller (Dorians, vol. i. part ii. ch. 11, 12) is also disposed to
view in Hercules a personification of the highest powers of man in
the heroic age. He regards him as having been the national hero of
the Dorian race, and appropriates to him all the exploits of the
hero in Thessaly, Ætolia, and Epirus, which last place he supposes
to have been the original scene of the Geryoneia, which was
afterwards transformed to the western stream of the ocean. He
thinks, however, that the Argives had an ancient hero of perhaps the
same name, to whom the Peloponnesus adventures belong, and whom the
Dorians combined with their own hero. The servitude to Eurystheus,
and the enmity of Hera, he looks on as inventions of the Dorians to
justify their own invasion of the Peloponnesus. This critic also
proves that the Theban Hercules had nothing to do with the Gods and
traditions of the Cadmeians; and he thinks that it was the Dorian
Heracleides who introduced the knowledge of him into Thebes, or that
he came from Delphi with the worship of Apollo, a Deity with whom,
as the tutelar God of the Dorians, he supposes their national hero
to have been closely connected.”
FABLE IV. [IX.324-425]
The Nymph Lotis, pursued by Priapus, in her flight, is changed into
a tree. Dryope, going to sacrifice to the Naiads at the same spot,
and ignorant of the circumstance, breaks a branch off the tree for
her child, which she is carrying with her, and is subjected to a
similar transformation. While Iole is relating these circumstances
to Alcmena, she is surprised to see her brother Iolaüs restored to
youth. The Poet here introduces the prediction of Themis concerning
the children of Calirrhoë.
Thus she said; and, moved by the remembrance of her old servant, she
heaved a deep sigh. Her daughter-in-law[36] addressed her, thus
grieving. “Even her form being taken away from one that was an alien to
thy blood, affects thee, O mother. What if I were to relate to thee the
wondrous fate of my own sister? although tears and sorrow hinder me, and
forbid me to speak. Dryope, the most remarkable for her beauty of the
Œchalian maids, was the only daughter of her mother ({for} my father had
me by another {wife}). Deprived of her virginity, and having suffered
violence from the God that owns Delphi and Delos, Andræmon married her,
and he was esteemed fortunate in his wife.
“There is a lake that gives the appearance of a sloping shore, by its
shelving border; groves of myrtle crown the upper part. Hither did
Dryope come, unsuspecting of her fate; and, that thou mayst be the more
indignant {at her lot}, she was about to offer garlands to the Nymphs.
In her bosom, too, she was bearing her son, who had not yet completed
his first year, a pleasing burden; and she was nursing him, with the
help of {her} warm milk. Not far from the lake was blooming a watery
lotus that vied with the Tyrian tints, in hope of {future} berries.
Dryope had plucked thence some flowers, which she might give as
playthings to her child; and I, too, was just on the point of doing the
same; for I was present. I saw bloody drops fall from the flower, and
the boughs shake with a tremulous quivering; for, as the swains say,
now, at length, too late {in their information}, the Nymph Lotis, flying
from the lust of Priapus,[37] had transferred her changed form into this
{plant}, her name being {still} preserved.
“Of this my sister was ignorant. When, in her alarm, she is endeavouring
to retire and to depart, having adored the Nymphs, her feet are held
fast by a root. She strives hard to tear them up, but she moves nothing
except her upper parts. From below, a bark slowly grows up, and, by
degrees, it envelopes the whole of her groin. When she sees this,
endeavouring to tear her hair with her hands, she fills her hand with
leaves, {for} leaves are covering all her head. But the boy Amphissos
(for his grandfather Eurytus gave him this name) feels his mother’s
breast growing hard; nor does the milky stream follow upon his sucking.
I was a spectator of thy cruel destiny, and I could give thee no help,
my sister; and {yet}, as long as I could, I delayed the growing trunk
and branches by embracing them; and, I confess it, I was desirous to be
hidden beneath the same bark. Behold! her husband Andræmon and her most
wretched father[38] appear, and inquire for Dryope: on their inquiring
for Dryope, I show them the lotus. They give kisses to the wood {still}
warm {with life}, and, extended {on the ground}, they cling to the roots
of their own tree. {And} now, dear sister, thou hadst nothing except thy
face, that was not tree. Tears drop upon the leaves made out of thy
changed body; and, while she can, and {while} her mouth gives passage to
her voice, she pours forth such complaints {as these} into the air:--
“‘If any credit {is to be given} to the wretched, I swear by the Deities
that I merited not this cruel usage. I suffer punishment without a
crime. I lived in innocence; if I am speaking false, withered away, may
I lose the leaves which I bear, and, cut down with axes, may I be burnt.
Yet take this infant away from the branches of his mother, and give him
to his nurse; and often, beneath my tree, make him drink milk, and
beneath my tree let him play; and, when he shall be able to speak, make
him salute his mother, and let him in sadness say, ‘Beneath this trunk
is my mother concealed.’ Yet let him dread the ponds, and let him not
pluck flowers from the trees; and let him think that all shrubs are the
bodies of Goddesses. Farewell, dear husband; and thou, sister; and,
{thou} my father; in whom, if there is any affection {towards me},
protect my branches from the wounds of the sharp pruning-knife, {and}
from the bite of the cattle. And since it is not allowed me to bend down
towards you, stretch your limbs up hither, and come near for my kisses,
while they can {still} be reached, and lift up my little son. More I
cannot say. For the soft bark is now creeping along my white neck, and I
am being enveloped at the top of my head. Remove your hands from my
eyes;[39] {and}, without your help, let the bark, closing over them,
cover my dying eyes.’ Her mouth ceased at once to speak, at once to
exist; and long after her body was changed, were her newly formed
branches {still} warm.”
And {now}, while Iole was relating the wretched fate of her sister, and
while Alcmena was drying away the tears of the daughter of Eurytus, with
her fingers applied {to her face}, and still she herself was weeping,
a novel event hushed all their sorrow; for Iolaüs[40] stood at the lofty
threshold, almost a boy {again}, and covering his cheeks with a down
almost imperceptible, having his visage changed to {that of} the first
years {of manhood}. Hebe, the daughter of Juno had granted him this
favour, overcome by the solicitations of her husband. When she was about
to swear that she would hereafter grant such favours to no one, Themis
did not allow her. “For now,” said she, “Thebes is commencing civil
warfare,[41] and Capaneus will not be able to be overcome, except by
Jupiter, and the two brothers will engage in bloody combat, and the
earth dividing, the prophet {Amphiaraüs} will see his {destined} shades,
while he still lives;[42] and the son avenging one parent, by {the death
of} the {other} parent, will be dutiful and wicked in the same action;
and confounded by his misfortunes, deprived both of his reason and of
his home, he will be persecuted both by the features of the Eumenides,
and by the ghost of his mother; until his wife shall call upon him for
the fatal gold, and the Phegeïan sword shall stab the side of their
kinsman. Then, at last, shall Calirrhoë, the daughter of Acheloüs,
suppliantly ask of mighty Jupiter these years {of youth} for her infant
sons. Jupiter, concerned {for them}, will prescribe for them the
{peculiar} gift of her who is {both} his step-daughter and his
daughter-in-law,[43] and will make them men in their years of
childhood.”
When Themis, foreseeing the future, had said these words with prophetic
voice, the Gods above murmured in varying discourse; and the complaint
was,[44] why it might not be allowed others to grant the same gifts.
{Aurora}, the daughter of Pallas, complained of the aged years of her
husband; the gentle Ceres complained that Iäsion[45] was growing grey;
Mulciber demanded for Ericthonius a life to live over again; a concern
for the future influenced Venus, too, and she made an offer to renew the
years of Anchises.
[Footnote 36: _Her daughter-in-law._--Ver. 325. Iole was the wife
of Hyllus, the son of Deïanira, by Hercules.]
[Footnote 37: _Lust of Priapus._--Ver. 347. ‘Fugiens obscœna
Priapi,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Flying from the nasty attempts of
Priapus upon her.’]
[Footnote 38: _Most wretched father._--Ver. 363. Eurytus was the
father of Dryope.]
[Footnote 39: _From my eyes._--Ver. 390. This alludes to the
custom among the ancients of closing the eyes of the dying, which
duty was performed by the nearest relations, who, closing the eyes
and mouth, called upon the dying person by name, and exclaimed
‘Vale,’ ‘farewell.’]
[Footnote 40: _Iolaüs._--Ver. 399. He was the son of Iphiclus, the
brother of Hercules. See the Explanation in the next page.]
[Footnote 41: _Civil warfare._--Ver. 404. This alludes to the
Theban war, carried on between Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of
Œdipus and Jocasta. Agreeing to reign in alternate years, Eteocles
refused to give place to his brother when his year had terminated,
on which Polynices fled to the court of Adrastus, king of Argos,
and raised troops against his brother.]
[Footnote 42: _While he still lives._--Ver. 407. This was
Amphiaraüs, the son of Œcleus, and Hypermnestra, who was betrayed
by his wife Eriphyle.]
[Footnote 43: _Daughter-in-law._--Ver. 415. Hebe, the Goddess of
Youth, was the daughter of Juno alone, without the participation
of Jupiter; and from this circumstance she is styled the
step-daughter of Jupiter. She was also his daughter-in-law on
becoming the wife of Hercules.]
[Footnote 44: _The complaint was._--Ver. 420. ‘Murmur erat,’ is
rendered by Clarke, ‘The grumbling was, why, &c.’]
[Footnote 45: _Iäsion._--Ver. 422. Iäsius, or Iäsion, was the son
of Jupiter and Electra, and was the father of Plutus, the God of
Riches, by the Goddess Cybele.]
EXPLANATION.
The adventure of Dryope is one of those narratives which have no
connexion with the main story which the Poet is relating, and, if
really founded on fact, it would almost baffle any attempt to guess
at its origin. It is, most probably, built entirely upon the name of
the damsel who was said to have met with the untimely and unnatural
fate so well depicted by the Poet.
The name of Dryope comes, very probably, from the Greek word Δρῦς,
‘an oak,’ which tree has a considerable resemblance to the lotus
tree. If we seek for an historical solution, perhaps Dryope was
punished for attempting to profane a tree consecrated to the Gods,
a crime of which Erisicthon was guilty, and for which he was so
signally punished. All the particulars that we know of Dryope are,
that she was the daughter of Eurytus, and the sister of Iole; and
that she was the wife of Andræmon.
Ovid says, that while Iole was relating this adventure to Alcmena,
Iolaüs, who, according to some, was the son of Hercules, by Hebe,
after his apotheosis, and, according to others, was the son of
Iphiclus, the brother of Hercules, became young, at the intercession
of that Goddess, who had appeased Juno. This was, probably, no other
than a method of accounting for the great age to which and
individual of the name of Iolaüs had lived.
Ovid then passes on to the surprising change in the children of
Calirrhoë, the outline of which the story may be thus
explained:--Amphiaraüs, foreseeing, (by the aid of the prophetic
art, as we learn from Homer, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny and Statius),
that the civil wars of Thebes, his native country, would prove fatal
to him, retired from the court of Adrastus, King of Argos, whose
sister he had married, to conceal himself in some place of safety.
The Argives, to whom the oracle had declared, that Thebes could not
be taken unless they had Amphiaraüs with their troops, searched for
him in every direction; but their labour would have been in vain, if
Eriphyle, his wife, gained by a necklace of great value, which her
brother Adrastus gave her, had not discovered where he was.
Discovered in his retreat, Amphiaraüs accompanied the Argives, and
while, according to the rules of the soothsaying art, he was
observing a flight of birds, in order to derive an augury from it,
his horses fell down a precipice, and he lost his life. Statius and
other writers, to describe this event in a poetical manner, say that
the earth opened and swallowed up him and his chariot.
Amphiaraüs had engaged his son Alcmæon, in case he lost his life in
the war, to kill Eriphyle; which injunction he performed as soon as
he heard of the death of his father. Alcmæon, going to the court of
Phegeus, to receive expiation for his crime, and to deliver himself
from the persecution of the Furies, or, in other words, by the
ceremonial of expiation, to tranquillize his troubled conscience,
that prince received him with kindness, and gave him his daughter
Alphesibæa in marriage. Alcmæon made her a present of his mother
Eriphyle’s necklace; but, having afterwards repudiated her to marry
Calirrhoë, or Arsinoë, the daughter of Acheloüs, he went to demand
the necklace from his brothers-in-law, who assassinated him.
Amphiterus and Acarnanus, who were his sons by Calirrhoë, revenged
the death of their father when they were very young; and this it is,
possibly, which is meant by the Poet when he says that the Goddess
Hebe augmented the number of their years, the purpose being, to put
them speedily in a position to enable them to avenge the death of
their father.
Thus we see, that Iolaüs was, like Æson, who also renewed his youth,
a person who, in his old age, gave marks of unusual vigour; while in
Amphiterus and Arcananus, to whom Hebe added years, are depicted two
young men, who, by a deed of blood, exacted retribution for the
death of their father, at a time when they were in general only
looked upon as mere children.
FABLE V. [IX.426-665]
Byblis falls in love with her brother Caunus, and her passion is
inflamed to such a degree, that he is obliged to leave his native
country, to avoid any encouragement of her incestuous flame. On
this, she follows him; and, in her way through Caria, she is changed
into a fountain.
Every God has[46] some one to favour; and their jarring discord is
increasing by their {various} interests, until Jupiter opens his mouth,
and says, “O, if you have any regard for me, to what rash steps are you
proceeding? Does any one {of you} seem to himself so powerful as to
overcome even the Fates? By the Fates has Iolaüs returned to those years
which he has spent; by the Fates ought the sons of Calirrhoë to become
young men, {and} not by ambition or by dint of arms. And do you, too,
endure this as well with more contented mind, {for} even me do the Fates
govern; could I but change them, declining years should not be making my
{son} Æacus to bend {beneath them}; and Rhadamanthus should have the
everlasting flower of age, together with my {son}, Minos, who is {now}
looked down upon on account of the grievous weight of old age, and does
not reign with the dignity with which once {he did}.”
The words of Jupiter influenced the Divinities; and no one continued to
complain when they saw Rhadamanthus and Æacus, and Minos, weary with
years; {Minos}, who, when he was in the prime of life, had alarmed great
nations with his very name. Then, {however}, he was enfeebled by age,
and was alarmed by Miletus, the son of Deione,[47] exulting in the
strength of youth, and in Phœbus as his sire; and {though} believing
that he was aiming at his kingdom, still he did not dare to drive him
away from his native home. Of thy own accord, Miletus, thou didst fly,
and in the swift ship thou didst pass over the Ægean waters, and in the
land of Asia didst build a city, bearing the name of its founder. Here
Cyane, the daughter of {the river} Mæander, that so often returns to the
same place, while she was following the windings of her father’s bank,
of a body excelling in beauty, being known by thee, brought forth a
double offspring, Byblis, with Caunus, {her brother}.
Byblis is an example that damsels {only} ought to love what it is
allowed them {to love}; Byblis, seized with a passion for her brother,
the descendant of Apollo, loved him not as a sister {loves} a brother,
nor in such manner as she ought. At first, indeed, she understands
nothing of the flame, and she does not think[48] that she is doing wrong
in so often giving him kisses, {and} in throwing her arms round the neck
of her brother; and for a long time she {herself} is deceived, by this
resemblance of natural affection. By degrees this affection degenerates,
and decked out, she comes to see her brother, and is too anxious to
appear beautiful; and if there is any woman there more beautiful, she
envies her. But, as yet she is not fully discovered to herself, and
under that flame conceives no wishes; but still, inwardly she is
agitated. At one moment she calls him sweetheart,[49] at another, she
hates the mention of his relationship; and now she prefers that he
should call her Byblis, rather than sister. Still, while awake, she does
not dare admit any criminal hopes into her mind; {but} when dissolved in
soft sleep, she often sees the {object} which she is in love with. She
seems to be even embracing her brother, and she blushes, though she is
lying buried in sleep. Slumber departs; for a long time she is silent,
and she recalls to {memory} the appearance of her dream, and thus she
speaks with wavering mind:
“Ah, wretched me! What means this vision of the silent night? How far am
I from wishing it real. Why have I seen this dream? He is, indeed,
beautiful, even to envious eyes. He pleases me, too; and were he not my
brother, I could love him, and he would be worthy of me. But it is my
misfortune that I am his sister. So long as I strive, while awake,
to commit no such {attempt}, let sleep often return with the like
appearance. No witness is there in sleep; and yet there is the
resemblance of the delight. O Venus and winged Cupid, together with thy
voluptuous mother, how great the joys I experienced! how substantial the
transport which affected me! How I lay dissolved {in delight} throughout
my whole marrow! How pleasing to remember it; although short-lived was
that pleasure, and the night sped onward rapidly, and was envious of my
attempts {at bliss}. Oh, could I only be united {to thee}, by changing
my name, how happily, Caunus, could I become the daughter-in-law of thy
father! how happily, Caunus, couldst thou become the son-in-law of my
father! O, that the Gods would grant that all things were in common with
us, except our ancestors. Would that thou wast more nobly born than
myself. For this reason then, most beauteous one, thou wilt make some
stranger, whom I know not, a mother; but to me, who have unhappily got
the same parents as thyself, thou wilt be nothing {more} than a brother.
That {tie} alone we shall have, which bars all else. What, then, do my
visions avail me? And what weight have dreams? And do dreams have any
weight? The Gods {fare} better; for the Gods have their own sisters {in
marriage}. Thus Saturn married Ops,[50] related to him by blood; Ocean
Tethys, the ruler of Olympus Juno. The Gods above have their privileges.
Why do I attempt to reduce human customs to the rule of divine
ordinances, and those so different? Either this forbidden flame shall be
expelled from my heart, or if I cannot effect that, I pray that I may
first perish, and that when dead I may be laid out on my bed, and that
my brother may give me kisses as I lie. And besides, this matter
requires the inclination of us both; suppose it pleases me; to him it
will seem to be a crime. But the sons of Æolus[51] did not shun the
embraces of their sisters. But whence have I known of these? Why have I
furnished myself with these precedents? Whither am I hurried onward? Far
hence begone, ye lawless flames! and let not my brother be loved by me,
but as it is lawful for a sister {to love him}. But yet, if he had been
first seized with a passion for me, perhaps I might have indulged his
desires. Am I then, myself, to court him, whom I would not have
rejected, had he courted me? And canst thou speak out? And canst thou
confess it? Love will compel me. I can. Or if shame shall restrain my
lips, a private letter shall confess the latent flame.”
This thought pleases her, this determines her wavering mind. She raises
herself on her side, and leaning on her left elbow, she says, “He shall
see it; let me confess my frantic passion. Ah, wretched me! How am I
degrading myself! What flame is my mind {now} kindling!” And {then},
with trembling hand, she puts together the words well weighed. Her right
hand holds the iron {pen}, the other, clean wax tablets.[52] She begins,
and {then} she hesitates; she writes, and {then} corrects what is
written; she marks, and {then} scratches out; she alters, and condemns,
and approves; and one while she throws them down when taken up, and at
another time, she takes them up again, when thrown aside. What she would
have, she knows not. Whatever she seems on the point of doing, is not to
her taste. In her features are assurance mingled with shame. {The word}
‘sister’ is written; it seems {as well} to efface {the word} ‘sister,’
and {then} to write such words as these upon the smoothed wax: “Thy
lover wishes thee that health which she, herself, is not to enjoy,
unless thou shalt grant it. I am ashamed! Oh, I am ashamed to disclose
my name! and shouldst thou inquire what it is I wish; without my
name[53] could I wish my cause to be pleaded, and that I might not be
known as Byblis, until the hopes of {enjoying} my desires were realized.
There might have been as a proof to thee of my wounded heart, my {pale}
complexion, my falling away, my {downcast} looks, and my eyes often wet
with tears, sighs, too, fetched without any seeming cause; frequent
embraces too, and kisses, which, if perchance thou didst observe, could
not be deemed to be those of a sister. Still I, myself, though I had a
grievous wound in my soul, {and} although there was a raging fire
within, have done everything, as the Gods are my witnesses, that at last
I might be cured; and long, in my wretchedness, have I struggled to
escape the ruthless weapon of Cupid; and I have endured more hardships
than thou wouldst believe that a maiden could endure.
“Vanquished {at length}, I am forced to own {my passion}; and with
timorous prayers, to entreat thy aid. Thou alone canst save, thou
destroy, one who loves thee. Choose which thou wilt do. She is not thy
enemy who begs this; but one who, though most nearly connected with
thee, desires to be still more closely connected, and to be united to
thee in a nearer tie. Let aged men be acquainted with ordinances, and
make inquiry what is lawful, and what is wicked, and what is proper; and
let them employ themselves in considering the laws. A passion that dares
all consequences is suited to our years. As yet, we know not what is
lawful, and we believe that all things are lawful, and {so} follow the
example of the great Gods. Neither a severe father, nor regard for
character, nor fear, shall restrain us, {if} only the cause for fearing
is removed. Under a brother’s name will we conceal our stolen joys {so}
sweet. I have the liberty of conversing with thee in private; and {even}
before others do we give embraces, and exchange kisses. How little is it
that is wanting! do have pity on the love of her who confesses it, and
who would not confess it, did not extreme passion compel her; and merit
not to be inscribed on my tomb as the cause {of my death}.”
The filled tablets fall short for her hand, as it vainly inscribes such
words as these, and the last line is placed in the margin.[54] At once
she seals up her own condemnation, with the impress of a signet, which
she wets with her tears, {for} the moisture has deserted her tongue.
Filled with shame, she {then} calls one of her male domestics, and
gently addressing him in timorous tones, she said, “Carry these, most
trusty one, to my,” and, after a long pause, she added, “brother.” While
she was delivering them, the tablets, slipping from her hands, fell
down. She was shocked by this omen, but still she sent them. The
servant, having got a fit opportunity, goes {to her brother} and
delivers the secret writing. The Mæandrian youth,[55] seized with sudden
anger, throws away the tablets {so} received, when he has read a part;
and, with difficulty withholding his hands from the face of the
trembling servant, he says, “Fly hence, O thou accursed pander to
forbidden lust, who shouldst have given me satisfaction by thy death,
if {it was} not {that} thy destruction would bring disgrace on my
character.” Frightened, he hastens away, and reports to his mistress the
threatening expressions of Caunus. Thou, Byblis, on hearing of his
refusal, turnest pale, and thy breast, beset with an icy chill, is
struck with alarm; yet when thy senses return, so, too, does thy frantic
passion return, and thy tongue with difficulty utters such words as
these, the air being struck {by thy accents}:
“And deservedly {am I thus treated}; for why, in my rashness, did I make
the discovery of this wound? why have I so speedily committed words to a
hasty letter, which ought {rather} to have been concealed? The feelings
of his mind ought first to have been tried beforehand by me, with
ambiguous expressions. Lest he should not follow me in my course,
I ought, with some part of my sail[56] {only}, to have observed what
kind of a breeze it was, and to have scudded over the sea in safety;
{whereas}, now, I have filled my canvass with winds {before} untried.
I am driven upon rocks in consequence; and sunk, I am buried beneath the
whole ocean, and my sails have {now} no retreat. And besides, was I not
forbidden, by unerring omens, to indulge my passion, at the time when
the waxen {tablets} fell, as I ordered him to deliver them, and made my
hopes sink to the ground? and ought not either the day to have been
changed, or else my whole intentions; but rather, {of the two},[57] the
day? {Some} God himself warned me, and gave me unerring signs, if I had
not been deranged; and yet I ought to have spoken out myself, and not to
have committed myself to writing, and personally {I ought} to have
discovered my passion; {then} he would have seen my tears, {then} he
would have seen the features of her who loved him; I might have given
utterance to more than what the letter contained. I might have thrown my
arms around his reluctant neck, and have embraced his feet, and lying
{on the ground}, I might have begged for life; and if I had been
repelled, I might have seemed on the point of death. All this, {I say},
I might {then} have done; if each of these things could not {singly}
have softened his obdurate feelings, {yet} all of them might.
“Perhaps, too, there may be some fault in the servant that was sent.
He did not wait on him at a convenient moment; he did not choose,
I suppose, a fitting time; nor did he request both the hour and his
attention to be disengaged. ’Tis this that has undone me; for he was not
born of a tigress, nor does he carry in his breast hard flints, or solid
iron, or adamant; nor yet did he suck the milk of a lioness. He will
{yet} be won. Again must he be attacked.[58] And no weariness will I
admit of in {the accomplishment of} my design, so long as this breath
{of mine} shall remain. For the best thing (if I could {only} recall
what has been destined) would have been, not to have made the attempt;
the next best thing is, to urge the accomplishment of what is begun; for
he cannot (suppose I were to relinquish my design) ever be unmindful of
this my attempt; and because I have desisted, I shall appear to have
desired for but an instant, or even to have been trying him, and to have
solicited him with the intention to betray; or, at least, I shall be
thought not to have been overcome by this God, who with such intensity
{now} burns, and has burnt my breast, but rather by lust. In fine,
I cannot now be guiltless of a wicked deed; I have both written {to
him}, and I have solicited {him}; my inclination has been defiled.
Though I were to add nothing more, I cannot be pronounced innocent: as
to what remains, {’twill add} much to {the gratifying of} my wishes,
{but} little to my criminality.”
{Thus} she says; and (so great is the unsteadiness of her wavering mind)
though she is loath to try him, she has a wish to try him, and she
exceeds {all} bounds, and, to her misery, exposes herself to be often
repulsed. At length, when there is {now} no end {to this}, he flies from
his country and {the commission of} this crime, and founds a new
city[59] in a foreign land. But then, they say that the daughter of
Miletus, in her sadness, was bereft of all understanding. Then did she
tear her garments away from her breast, and in her frenzy beat her arms.
And now she is openly raving, and she proclaims the unlawful hopes of
{unnatural} lust. Deprived of these {hopes}, she deserts her native
land, and her hated home, and follows the steps of her flying brother.
And as the Ismarian[60] Bacchanals, son of Semele, aroused by thy
thyrsus, celebrate thy triennial festivals, as they return, no otherwise
did the Bubasian matrons[61] see Byblis howling over the wide fields;
leaving which, she wandered through {the country of} the Carians, and
the warlike Leleges,[62] and Lycia.
And now she has left behind Cragos,[63] and Lymira,[64] and the waves of
Xanthus, and the mountain in which the Chimæra had fire in its middle
parts, the breast and the face of a lioness, and the tail of a serpent.
The woods {at length} fail thee; when thou, Byblis, wearied with
following him, dost fall down, and laying thy tresses upon the hard
ground, art silent, and dost press the fallen leaves with thy face.
Often, too, do the Lelegeïan Nymphs endeavour to raise her in their
tender arms; often do they advise her to curb her passion, and they
apply consolation to a mind insensible {to their advice}. Silent does
Byblis lie, and she tears the green herbs with her nails, and waters the
grass with the stream of her tears. They say that the Naiads placed
beneath these {tears} a channel which could never become dry; and what
greater gift had they to bestow? Immediately, as drops from the cut bark
of the pitch tree, or as the viscid bitumen distils from the impregnated
earth, or as water which has frozen with the cold, at the approach of
Favonius, gently blowing, melts away in the sun, so is Byblis, the
descendant of Phœbus, dissolving in her tears, changed into a fountain,
which even now, in those vallies, bears the name of its mistress, and
flows beneath a gloomy oak.
[Footnote 46: _Every God has._--Ver. 425-6. ‘Cui studeat, Deus
omnis habet crescitque favore Turbida seditio.’ Clarke thus
renders these words, ‘Every God has somebody to stickle for, and a
turbulent sedition arises by their favours for their darlings.’]
[Footnote 47: _Son of Deione._--Ver. 442. According to some
writers, Miletus was the son of Apollo and Deione, though others
say that Thia was the name of his mother. He was the founder of
the celebrated city of Miletus, in Caria, a country of Asia
Minor.]
[Footnote 48: _Does not think._--Ver. 457. Clarke translates this
line, ‘Nor does she think she does amiss that she so often tips
him a kiss.’ Antoninus Liberalis says, that Eidothea, the daughter
of the king of Paria, and not Cyane, was the mother of Byblis and
Caunus.]
[Footnote 49: _Sweetheart._--Ver. 465. The word ‘dominus’ was
often used as a term of endearment between lovers.]
[Footnote 50: _Married Ops._--Ver. 497. Ops, the daughter of Cœlus
or Uranus, who was also called Cybele, Rhea, and ‘the great
Mother,’ was fabled to have been the wife of her brother Saturn;
while Oceanus, the son of Cœlus and Vesta, married his sister
Tethys.]
[Footnote 51: _Sons of Æolus._--Ver. 506. Æolus had six sons, to
whom he was said to have given their sisters for wives. In the
case, however, of his daughter Canace, who was pregnant by her
brother Macareus, Æolus was more severe, as he sent her a sword,
with which to put herself to death.]
[Footnote 52: _Clean wax tablets._--Ver. 521. Before the tablet
was written upon, the wax was ‘vacua,’ empty; or, as we say of
writing-paper, ‘clean.’ There was a blunt end to the upper part of
the ‘stylus,’ or iron pen, with which the wax was smoothed down
when any writing was erased.]
[Footnote 53: _Without my name._--Ver. 531-2. ‘Sine nomine vellem
Posset agi mea causa meo,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘I could wish my
business might be transacted without my name.’]
[Footnote 54: _In the margin._--Ver. 564. Clarke translates,
‘Summusque in margine versus adhæsit,’ ‘And the last line was
clapped into the margin.’]
[Footnote 55: _Meandrian youth._--Ver. 573. Caunus was the
grandson of the river Mæander.]
[Footnote 56: _Part of my sail._--Ver. 589. She borrows this
metaphor from sailors, who, before setting out, sometimes unfurl a
little portion of the sail, to see how the wind blows.]
[Footnote 57: _Rather of the two._--Ver. 598. Willing to believe
anything in the wrong rather than herself; she is sure that the
day was an unlucky one.]
[Footnote 58: _Be attacked._--Ver. 615. ‘Repeteudas erit,’ Clarke
translates, ‘I must at him again.’]
[Footnote 59: _Founds a new city._--Ver. 633. This was Caunus,
a city of Caria.]
[Footnote 60: _Ismarian._--Ver. 641. Ismarus was a mountain of
Thrace. The festival here alluded to was the ‘trieterica,’ or
triennial feast of Bacchus.]
[Footnote 61: _Bubasian matrons._--Ver. 643. We learn from Pliny
the Elder that Bubasus was a region of Caria.]
[Footnote 62: _Leleges._--Ver. 644. The Leleges were a warlike
people of Caria, in Asia Minor, who were supposed to have sprung
from Grecian emigrants, who first inhabited the adjacent island,
and afterwards the continent. They were said to have their name
from the Greek word λελεγμένοι ‘gathered,’ because they were
collected from various places.]
[Footnote 63: _Cragos._--Ver. 645. Cragos was a mountain of
Lycia.]
[Footnote 64: _Lymira._--Ver. 645. This was a city of Lycia, near
Cragos.]
EXPLANATION.
This shocking story has been also recounted by Antoninus Liberalis
and both he and Ovid have embellished it with circumstances, which
are the fruit of a lively imagination. They make Byblis travel over
several countries in search of her brother, who flies from her
extravagant passion, and they both agree in tracing her to Caria.
There, according to Antoninus Liberalis, she was transformed into a
Hamadryad, just as she was on the point of throwing herself from the
summit of a mountain. Ovid, on the other hand, says that she was
changed into a fountain, which afterwards bore her name.
It is, however, most probable, that if the story is founded on
truth, the whole of the circumstances happened in Caria; since we
learn, both from Apollodorus and Pausanias, that Miletus, her
father, went from the island of Crete to lead a colony into Caria,
when he conquered a city, to which he gave his own name. Pausanias
says, that all the men of the city being killed during the siege,
the conquerors married their wives and daughters. Cyanea, the
daughter of Mæander, fell to the share of Miletus, and Caunus and
Byblis were the offspring of that marriage. Byblis, having conceived
a criminal passion for her brother, he was obliged to leave his
father’s court, that he might avoid her importunities; upon which
she died of grief. As she often went to weep by a fountain, which
was outside of the town, those who related the adventure, magnified
it, by stating that she was changed into the fountain, which, after
her death, bore her name. We are informed by Photius, on the
authority of the historian Conon, that it was Caunus who fell in
love with Byblis, and that she hanged herself upon a walnut tree.
Ovid also, in his ‘Art of Love,’ follows the tradition that she
hanged herself. ‘Arsit et est laqueo fortiter ulta nefas.’ Miletus
lived in the time of the first Minos, and, according to some
writers, married his daughter Acallis; but, having disagreed with
his father-in-law, he was obliged to leave Crete, and retired to
Caria.
The Persians had certain state ordinances, by which their monarchs
were enjoined to marry their own sisters; and, as Asia Minor was
overrun by them at the time when Crœsus was conquered by Cyrus, it
is possible that the story of Byblis and Caunus may have originated
in the disgust which the natives felt for their conquerors, and as a
covert reproach to them for sanctioning alliances of so incestuous a
nature. While Ovid enters into details in the story, which trench on
the rules of modesty and decorum, the moral of the tale, aided by
some of his precepts, is not uninstructive as a warning to youth to
learn betimes how to regulate the passions.
FABLE VI. [IX.666-797]
Ligdus commands his wife Telethusa, who is pregnant, to destroy the
infant, should it prove to be a girl; on which, the Goddess Isis
appears to her in a dream, and, forbidding her to obey, promises her
her protection. Telethusa is delivered of a daughter, who is called
Iphis, and passes for a son. Iphis is afterwards married to Ianthe,
on which, Isis, to reward her mother’s piety, transforms her into a
man.
The fame of this new prodigy would, perhaps, have filled the hundred
cities of Crete, if Crete had not lately produced a nearer wonder {of
her own}, in the change of Iphis.
For once on a time the Phæstian land[65] adjoining to the Gnossian
kingdom produced one Ligdus, of obscure name, a man of the freeborn
class of common people. Nor were his means any greater than his rank,
but his life and his honour were untainted. He startled the ears of his
wife in her pregnancy, with these words, when her lying-in was near at
hand: “Two things there are which I wish for; that thou mayst be
delivered with very little pain, and that thou mayst bring forth a male
child. The other alternative is a cause of greater trouble, and
providence has denied us means {for bringing up a female}. The thing I
abominate; but if a female should, by chance, be brought forth at thy
delivery, (I command it with reluctance, forgive me, natural affection)
let it be put to death.” {Thus} he said, and they bathed their faces
with tears streaming down; both he who commanded, and she to whom the
commands were given. But yet Telethusa incessantly urged her husband,
with fruitless entreaties, not to confine his hopes within a compass so
limited. {But} Ligdus’s resolution was fixed.
And now was she hardly {able} to bear her womb big with the burden ripe
for birth; when in the middle of the night, under the form of a vision,
the daughter of Inachus, attended by a train of her votaries, either
stood, or seemed to stand, before her bed. The horns of the moon were
upon her forehead, with ears of corn with their bright golden colour,
and the royal ornament {of the diadem}; with her was the barking
Anubis,[66] and the holy Bubastis,[67] and the particoloured Apis;[68]
he, too, who suppresses[69] his voice, and with his finger enjoins
silence. There were the sistra too, and Osiris,[70] never enough sought
for; and the foreign serpent,[71] filled with soporiferous poison. When
thus the Goddess addressed her, as though roused from her sleep, and
seeing {all} distinctly: “O Telethusa, one of my votaries, lay aside thy
grievous cares, and evade the commands of thy husband; and do not
hesitate, when Lucina shall have given thee ease by delivery, to bring
up {the child}, whatever it shall be. I am a befriending Goddess,[72]
and, when invoked, I give assistance; and thou shalt not complain that
thou hast worshipped an ungrateful Divinity.”
{Thus} she advises her, and {then} retires from her chamber. The Cretan
matron arises joyful from her bed; and suppliantly raising her pure
hands towards the stars {of heaven}, prays that her vision may be
fulfilled. When her pains increased, and her burden forced itself into
the light, and a girl was born to the father unaware of it, the mother
ordered it to be brought up, pretending it was a boy; and the thing
gained belief, nor was any one but the nurse acquainted with the fact.
The father performed his vows, and gave {the child} the name of its
grandfather. The grandfather had been called Iphis. The mother rejoiced
in that name because it was common {to both sexes}, nor would she be
deceiving[73] any one by it. Her deception lay unperceived under this
fraud, the result of natural affection. The {child’s} dress was that of
a boy; the face such, that, whether you gave it to a girl or to a boy,
either would be beautiful. In the meantime the third year had {now}
succeeded the tenth, when her father, O Iphis, promised to thee, in
marriage, the yellow-haired Iänthe, who was a virgin the most commended
among all the women of Phæstus, for the endowments of her beauty; the
daughter of the Dictæan Telestes. Equal was their age, their beauty
equal; and they received their first instruction, the elements {suited}
to their age, from the same preceptor.
Love, in consequence, touches the inexperienced breasts of them both,
and inflicts on each an equal wound; but {how} different are their
hopes! Iänthe awaits the time of their union, and of the ceremonial
agreed upon, and believes that she, whom she thinks to be a man, will be
{her husband}. Iphis is in love with her whom she despairs to be able to
enjoy, and this very thing increases her flame; and, {herself} a maid,
she burns with passion for a maid. And, with difficulty, suppressing her
tears, she says, “What issue {of my love} awaits me, whom the anxieties
unknown to any {before}, and {so} unnatural, of an unheard-of passion,
have seized upon? if the Gods would spare me, (they ought to have
destroyed me, and if they would not have destroyed me), at least they
should have inflicted some natural evil, and {one} common {to the human
race}. Passion for a cow does not inflame a cow, nor does that for mares
{inflame} the mares. The ram inflames the ewes; its own female follows
the buck. And so do birds couple; and among all animals, no female is
seized with passion for a female. Would that I did not exist.
“Yet, lest Crete might not be the producer of {all kinds of} prodigies,
the daughter of the Sun loved a bull; that is to say, a female {loved} a
male. My passion, if I confess the truth, is more extravagant than that.
Still she pursued the hopes of enjoyment; still, by a subtle
contrivance, and under the form of a cow, did she couple with the bull,
and her paramour was one that might be deceived. But though the
ingenuity of the whole world were to centre here, though Dædalus himself
were to fly back again with his waxen wings, what could he do? Could he,
by his skilful arts, make me from a maiden into a youth? or could he
transform thee, Iänthe? But why dost thou not fortify thy mind, and
recover thyself, Iphis? And why not shake off this passion, void of
{all} reason, and senseless {as it is}? Consider what it was thou wast
born (unless thou art deceiving thyself as well), and pursue that which
is allowable, and love that which, as a woman, thou oughtst {to love}.
Hope it is that produces, Hope it is that nourishes love. This, the
{very} case {itself} deprives thee of. No guard is keeping thee away
from her dear embrace; no care of a watchful husband, no father’s
severity; does not she herself deny thy solicitations. And yet she
cannot be enjoyed by thee; nor, were everything possible done, couldst
thou be blessed; {not}, though Gods and men were to do their utmost. And
now, too, no portion of my desires is baffled, and the compliant Deities
have granted me whatever they were able, and what I {desire}, my father
wishes, she herself wishes, and {so does} my destined father-in-law; but
nature, more powerful than all these, wills it not; she alone is an
obstacle to me. Lo, the longed-for time approaches, and the wedding-day
is at hand, when Iänthe should be mine; and {yet} she will not fall to
my lot. In the midst of water, I shall be athirst. Why, Juno, guardian
of the marriage rites, and why, Hymenæus, do you come to this
ceremonial, where there is not the person who should marry {the wife},
{and} where both {of us females}, we are coupled in wedlock?”
After {saying} these words, she closes her lips. And no less does the
other maid burn, and she prays thee, Hymenæus, to come quickly.
Telethusa, dreading the same thing that she desires, at one time puts
off the time {of the wedding}, and then raises delays, by feigning
illness. Often, by way of excuse, she pretends omens and visions. But
now she has exhausted all the resources of fiction; and the time for the
marriage {so long} delayed is {now} at hand, and {only} one day remains;
whereon she takes off the fillets for the hair from her own head and
from that of her daughter,[74] and embracing the altar with dishevelled
locks, she says, “O Isis, thou who dost inhabit Parætonium,[75] and the
Mareotic fields,[76] and Pharos,[77] and the Nile divided into its seven
horns, give aid, I beseech thee, and ease me of my fears. Thee, Goddess,
thee, I once beheld, and these thy symbols; and all {of them} I
recognized; both thy attendants, and thy torches, and the sound of the
sistra, and I noted thy commands with mindful care. That this {girl}[78]
{now} sees the light, that I, myself, am not punished, is {the result
of} thy counsel, and thy admonition; pity us both, and aid us with thy
assistance.”
Tears followed her words. The Goddess seemed to move, (and she {really}
did move) her altars; and the doors of her temple shook. Her horns,
too,[79] shone, resembling {those of} the moon, and the tinkling sistrum
sounded. The mother departs from the temple, not free from concern
indeed, still pleased with this auspicious omen. Iphis follows her, her
companion as she goes, with longer strides than she had been wont; her
fairness does not continue on her face; both her strength is increased,
and her features are more stern; and shorter is the length of her
scattered locks. There is more vigour, also, than she had {as} a female.
{And} now thou art a male, who so lately wast a female. Bring offerings
to the temple, and rejoice with no hesitating confidence. They do bring
their offerings to the temple. They add, too, an inscription; the
inscription contains {one} short line: “Iphis, a male, offers the
presents, which, as a female, he had vowed.”
The following morn has disclosed the wide world with the rays {of the
Sun}; when Venus, and Juno, and Hymenæus, repair to the social
fires[80]; and Iphis, {now} a youth, gains his {dear} Iänthe.
[Footnote 65: _Phæstian land._--Ver. 668. Phæstus was a city of
Crete, built by Minos.]
[Footnote 66: _Anubis._--Ver. 689. This was an Egyptian Deity,
which had the body of a man, and the head of a dog. Some writers
say that it was Mercury who was so represented, and that this form
was given him in remembrance of the fact of Isis having used dogs
in her search for Osiris, when he was slain by his brother Typhon.
Other authors say, that Anubis was the son of Osiris, and that he
distinguished himself with an helmet, bearing the figure of a dog,
when he followed his father to battle.]
[Footnote 67: _Bubastis._--Ver. 690. Though she is here an
attendant of Isis, Diodorus Siculus represents her to have been
the same divinity as Isis. Herodotus, however, says that Diana was
worshipped by the Egyptians under that name. There was a city of
Lower Egypt, called Bubastis, in which Isis was greatly venerated.]
[Footnote 68: _Apis._--Ver. 690. This is supposed to have been
another name for Osiris, whose body, having been burned on the
funeral pile, the Egyptians believed that he re-appeared under the
form of a bull; the name for which animal was ‘apis.’]
[Footnote 69: _Who suppresses._--Ver. 691. This was the Egyptian
divinity Harpocrates, the God of Secresy and Silence, who was
represented with his finger laid on his lips.]
[Footnote 70: _Osiris._--Ver. 692. When slain by his brother
Typhon, Isis long sought him in vain, till, finding his scattered
limbs by the aid of dogs, she entombed them. As the Egyptians had
a yearly festival, at which they bewailed the loss of Osiris, and
feigned that they were seeking him, Ovid calls that God, ‘Nunquam
satis quæsitus,’ ‘Never enough sought for.’]
[Footnote 71: _Foreign serpent._--Ver. 693. This is, most
probably, the asp, a small serpent of Egypt, which is frequently
found represented on the statues of Isis. Its bite was said to
produce a lethargic sleep, ending in death. Cleopatra ended her
life by the bite of one, which she ordered to be conveyed to her
in a basket of fruit. Some commentators have supposed that the
crocodile is here alluded to; but, as others have justly observed,
the crocodile has no poisonous sting, but rather a capacity for
devouring.]
[Footnote 72: _A befriending Goddess._--Ver. 698. Diodorus Siculus
says, that Isis was the discoverer of numerous remedies for
disease, and that she greatly improved the healing art.]
[Footnote 73: _Be deceiving._--Ver. 709. The name ‘Iphis’ being
equally well for a male or a female.]
[Footnote 74: _Of her daughter._--Ver. 770. We must suppose that
Iphis wore the ‘vitta,’ which was an article of female dress, in
private only, and in presence of her mother. Of course, in public,
such an ornament would not have suited her, when appearing in the
character of a man.]
[Footnote 75: _Parætonium._--Ver. 772. Strabo says, that
Parætonium was a city of Libya, with a capacious harbour.]
[Footnote 76: _Mareotic fields._--Ver. 772. The Mareotic Lake was
in the neighbourhood of the city of Alexandria.]
[Footnote 77: _Pharos._--Ver. 772. This was an island opposite to
Alexandria, famed for its light-house, which was erected to warn
sailors from off the dangerous quicksands in the neighbourhood.]
[Footnote 78: _This girl._--Ver. 778. Pointing at Iphis, who had
attended her, Antoninus Liberalis says, that Telethusa prayed that
Iphis might be transformed into a man, and cited a number of
precedents for such a change.]
[Footnote 79: _Her horns too._--Ver. 783. Isis was sometimes
worshipped under the form of a cow, to the horns of which
reference is here made.]
[Footnote 80: _The social fires._--Ver. 795. On the occasion of
marriages, offerings were made on the altars of Hymenæus and the
other Deities, who were the guardians of conjugal rites.]
EXPLANATION.
The story of Iphis being changed from a young woman into a man,
of which Ovid lays the scene in the isle of Crete, is one of those
facts upon which ancient history is entirely silent. Perhaps, the
origin of the story was a disguise of a damsel in male dress,
carried on, for family reasons, even to the very point of marriage;
or it may have been based upon an account of some remarkable
instance of androgynous formation.
Ovid may possibly have invented the story himself, merely as a
vehicle for showing how the Deities recompense piety and strict
obedience to their injunctions.
BOOK THE TENTH.
FABLE I. [X.1-85]
Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, while sporting in the fields, with
other Nymphs, is bitten by a serpent, which causes her death. After
having mourned for her, Orpheus resolves to go down to the Infernal
Regions in quest of her. Pluto and the Fates consent to her return,
on condition that Orpheus shall not look on her till he is out of
their dominions. His curiosity prevailing, he neglects this
injunction, on which she is immediately snatched away from him,
beyond the possibility of recovery. Upon this occasion, the Poet
relates the story of a shepherd, who was turned into a rock by a
look of Cerberus; and that of Olenus and Lethæa, who were
transformed into stones.
Thence Hymenæus, clad in a saffron-coloured[1] robe, passed through the
unmeasured tract of air, and directed his course to the regions of the
Ciconians[2], and, in vain, was invoked by the voice of Orpheus. He
presented himself indeed, but he brought with him neither auspicious
words, nor joyful looks, nor {yet} a happy omen. The torch, too, which
he held, was hissing with a smoke that brought tears to the eyes, and as
it was, it found no flames amid its waving. The issue was more
disastrous than the omens; for the newmade bride, while she was
strolling along the grass, attended by a train of Naiads, was killed,
having received the sting of a serpent on her ancle.
After the Rhodopeïan bard had sufficiently bewailed her in the upper
{realms of} air, that he might try the shades below as well, he dared to
descend to Styx by the Tænarian gate, and amid the phantom inhabitants
and ghosts that had enjoyed the tomb, he went to Persephone, and him
that held these unpleasing realms, the Ruler of the shades; and touching
his strings in concert with his words, he thus said, “O ye Deities of
the world that lies beneath the earth, to which we {all} come {at last},
each that is born to mortality; if I may be allowed, and you suffer me
to speak the truth, laying aside[3] the artful expressions of a
deceitful tongue; I have not descended hither {from curiosity} to see
dark Tartarus, nor to bind the threefold throat of the Medusæan monster,
bristling with serpents. {But} my wife was the cause of my coming; into
whom a serpent, trodden upon {by her}, diffused its poison, and cut
short her growing years. I was wishful to be able to endure {this}, and
I will not deny that I have endeavoured {to do so}. Love has proved the
stronger. That God is well known in the regions above. Whether he be so
here, too, I am uncertain; but yet I imagine that even here he is; and
if the story of the rape of former days is not untrue, ’twas love that
united you {two} together. By these places filled with horrors, by this
vast Chaos, and by the silence of these boundless realms, I entreat you,
weave over again the quick-spun thread {of the life} of Eurydice.
“To you we all belong; and having staid but a little while {above},
sooner or later we {all} hasten to one abode. Hither are we all
hastening. This is our last home; and you possess the most lasting
dominion over the human race. She, too, when, in due season she shall
have completed her allotted {number of} years, will be under your sway.
The enjoyment {of her} I beg as a favour. But if the Fates deny me this
privilege in behalf of my wife, I have determined that I will not
return. Triumph in the death of us both.”
As he said such things, and touched the strings to his words, the
bloodless spirits wept. Tantalus did not catch at the retreating water,
and the wheel of Ixion stood still, {as though} in amazement; the birds
did not tear the liver {of Tityus}; and the granddaughters of Belus
paused at their urns; thou, too, Sisyphus, didst seat thyself on thy
stone. The story is, that then, for the first time, the cheeks of the
Eumenides, overcome by his music, were wet with tears; nor could the
royal consort, nor he who rules the infernal regions, endure to deny him
his request; and they called for Eurydice. She was among the shades
newly arrived, and she advanced with a slow pace, by reason of her
wound.
The Rhodopeïan hero receives her, and, at the same time, {this}
condition, that he turn not back his eyes until he has passed the
Avernian vallies, or else that the grant will be revoked. The ascending
path is mounted in deep silence, steep, dark, and enveloped in deepening
gloom. And {now} they were not far from the verge of the upper earth.
He, enamoured, fearing lest she should flag, and impatient to behold
her, turned his eyes; and immediately she sank back again. She, hapless
one! both stretching out her arms, and struggling to be grasped, and to
grasp him, caught nothing but the fleeting air. And now, dying a second
time, she did not at all complain of her husband; for why should she
complain of being beloved? And now she pronounced the last farewell,
which scarcely did he catch with his ears; and again was she hurried
back to the same place.
No otherwise was Orpheus amazed at this twofold death of his wife, than
he who, trembling, beheld the three necks[4] of the dog, the middle one
supporting chains; whom fear did not forsake, before his former nature
{deserted him}, as stone gathered over his body: and {than} Olenus,[5]
who took on himself the crime {of another}, and was willing to appear
guilty; and {than} thou, unhappy Lethæa, confiding in thy beauty;
breasts, once most united, now rocks, which the watery Ida supports. The
ferryman drove him away entreating, and, in vain, desiring again to
cross {the stream}. Still, for seven days, in squalid guise[6] did he
sit on the banks without the gifts of Ceres. Vexation, and sorrow of
mind, and tears were his sustenance. Complaining that the Deities of
Erebus[7] were cruel, he betook himself to lofty Rhodope, and Hæmus,[8]
buffeted by the North winds. The third Titan had {now} ended the year
bounded by the Fishes of the ocean;[9] and Orpheus had avoided all
intercourse with woman, either because it had ended in misfortune to
him, or because he had given a promise {to that effect}. Yet a passion
possessed many a female to unite herself to the bard, {and} many a one
grieved when repulsed. He also was the {first} adviser of the people of
Thrace to transfer their affections to tender youths; and, on this side
of manhood, to enjoy the short spring of life, and its early flowers.
[Footnote 1: _Saffron-coloured._--Ver. 1. This was in order to be
dressed in a colour similar to that of the ‘flammeum,’ which was a
veil of a bright yellow colour, worn by the bride. This custom
prevailed among the Romans, among whom the shoes worn by the bride
were of the same colour with the veil.]
[Footnote 2: _Ciconians._--Ver. 2. These were a people of Thrace,
near the river Hebrus and the Bistonian Lake.]
[Footnote 3: _Laying aside._--Ver. 19. ‘Falsi positis ambagibus
oris,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Laying aside all the long-winded
fetches of a false tongue.’]
[Footnote 4: _The three necks._--Ver. 65. There was a story among
the ancients, that when Cerberus was dragged by Hercules from the
Infernal Regions, a certain man, through fear of Hercules, hid
himself in a cave; and that on peeping out, and beholding
Cerberus, he was changed into a stone by his fright. Suidas says,
that in his time the stone was still to be seen, and that the
story gave rise to a proverb.]
[Footnote 5: _Olenus._--Ver. 69. Olenus, who was supposed to be
the son of Vulcan, had a beautiful wife, whose name was Lethæa.
When about to be punished for comparing her own beauty to that of
the Goddesses, Olenus offered to submit to the penalty in her
stead, on which they were both changed into stones.]
[Footnote 6: _In squalid guise._--Ver. 74. ‘Squallidus in
ripa--sedit,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘He sat in a sorry pickle on
the bank.’]
[Footnote 7: _Erebus._--Ver. 76. Erebus was the son of Chaos and
Darkness; but his name is often used to signify the Infernal
Regions.]
[Footnote 8: _Hæmus._--Ver. 77. This was a mountain of Thrace,
which was much exposed to the North winds.]
[Footnote 9: _Fishes of the ocean._--Ver. 78. ‘Pisces,’ ‘the
Fishes,’ being the last sign of the Zodiac, when the sun has
passed through it, the year is completed.]
EXPLANATION.
Though Ovid has separated the adventures of Orpheus, whose death he
does not relate till the beginning of the eleventh Book, we will
here shortly enter upon an examination of some of the more important
points of his history.
As, in his time, Poetry and Music were in a very low state of
perfection, and as he excelled in both of those arts, it was said
that he was the son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope; and it was
added, that he charmed lions and tigers, and made even the trees
sensible of the melodious tones of his lyre. These were mere
hyperbolical expressions, which signified the wondrous charms of his
eloquence and of his music combined, which he employed in
cultivating the genius of a savage and uncouth people. Some
conjecture that this personage originally came from Asia into
Thrace, and suppose that he, together with Linus and Eumolpus,
brought poetry and music into Greece, the use of which, till then,
was unknown in that country; and that they introduced, at the same
time, the worship of Ceres, Mars, and the orgies of Bacchus, which,
from him who instituted them, received their name of ‘Orphica.’
Orpheus, too, is supposed to have united the office of high priest
with that of king. Horace styles him the interpreter of the Gods;
and he was said to have interposed with the Deities for the
deliverance of the Argonauts from a dangerous tempest. It is thought
that he passed some part of his life in Egypt, and became acquainted
with many particulars of the ancient religion of the Egyptians,
which he introduced into the theology of Greece. Some modern writers
even go so far as to suggest that he learned from the Hebrews, who
were then sojourning in Egypt, the knowledge of the true God.
His wife, Eurydice, dying very young, he was inconsolable for her
loss. To alleviate his grief, he went to Thesprotia, in Epirus, the
natives of which region were said to possess incantations, for the
purpose of raising the ghosts of the departed. Here, according to
some accounts, being deceived by a phantom, which was made to appear
before him, he died of sorrow; but, according to other writers,
he renounced the society of mankind for ever and retired to the
mountains of Thrace. His journey to that distant country gave
occasion to say, that he descended to the Infernal Regions. This is
the more likely, as he is supposed to have there promulgated his
notions of the infernal world, which, according to Diodorus Siculus,
he had learned among the Egyptians.
Tzetzes, however, assures us that this part of his history is
founded on the circumstance, that Orpheus cured his wife of the bite
of a serpent, which had till then been considered to be mortal; and
that the poets gave an hyperbolical version of the story, in saying
that he had rescued her from Hell. He says, too, that he had learned
in Egypt the art of magic, which was much cultivated there, and
especially the method of charming serpents.
After the loss of his wife, he retired to mount Rhodope, to assuage
the violence of his grief. There, according to Ovid and other poets,
the Mænades, or Bacchanals, to be revenged for his contempt of them
and their rites, tore him in pieces; which story is somewhat
diversified by the writers who relate that Venus, exasperated
against Calliope, the mother of Orpheus, for having adjudged to
Proserpine the possession of Adonis, caused the women of Thrace to
become enamoured of her son, and to tear him in pieces while
disputing the possession of him. An ancient author, quoted by
Hyginus, says that Orpheus was killed by the stroke of a
thunderbolt, while he was accompanying the Argonauts; and
Apollodorus says the same. Diodorus Siculus calls him one of the
kings of Thrace; while other writers, among whom are Cicero and
Aristotle, assert that there never was such a person as Orpheus. The
learned Vossius says, that the Phœnician word ‘ariph,’ which
signifies ‘learned,’ gave rise to the story of Orpheus. Le Clerc
thinks that in consequence of the same Greek word signifying ‘an
enchanter,’ and also meaning ‘a singer,’ he acquired the reputation
of having been a most skilful magician.
We may, perhaps, safely conclude, that Orpheus really did introduce
the worship of many Gods into Greece; and that, possibly, while he
promulgated the necessity of expiating crimes, he introduced
exorcism, and brought magic into fashion in Greece. Lucian affirms
that he was also the first to teach the elements of astronomy.
Several works were attributed to him, which are now no longer in
existence; among which were a Poem on the Expedition of the
Argonauts, one on the War of the Giants, another on the Rape of
Proserpine, and a fourth upon the Labours of Hercules. The Poem on
the Argonautic Expedition, which now exists, and is attributed to
him, is supposed to have been really written by a poet named
Onomacritus, who lived in the sixth century B.C., in the time of
Pisistratus.
After his death, Orpheus was reckoned in the number of Heroes or
Demigods; and we are informed by Philostratus that his head was
preserved at Lesbos, where it gave oracular responses. Orpheus is
not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod. The learned scholar Lobeck, in his
Aglaophamus, has entered very deeply into an investigation of the
real nature of the discoveries and institutions ascribed to him.
FABLE II. [X.86-105]
Orpheus, retiring to Mount Rhodope, by the charms of his music,
attracts to himself all kinds of creatures, rocks, and trees; among
the latter is the pine tree, only known since the transformation of
Attis.
There was a hill, and upon the hill a most level space of a plain, which
the blades of grass made green: {all} shade was wanting in the spot.
After the bard, sprung from the Gods, had seated himself in this place,
and touched his tuneful strings, a shade came over the spot. The tree of
Chaonia[10] was not absent, nor the grove of the Heliades,[11] nor the
mast-tree with its lofty branches, nor the tender lime-trees, nor yet
the beech, and the virgin laurel,[12] and the brittle hazels, and the
oak, adapted for making spears, and the fir without knots, and the holm
bending beneath its acorns, and the genial plane-tree,[13] and the
parti-coloured maple,[14] and, together with them, the willows growing
by the rivers, and the watery lotus, and the evergreen box, and the
slender tamarisks, and the two-coloured myrtle, and the tine-tree,[15]
with its azure berries.
You, too, the ivy-trees, with your creeping tendrils, came, and
together, the branching vines, and the elms clothed with vines; the
ashes, too, and the pitch-trees, and the arbute, laden with its blushing
fruit, and the bending palm,[16] the reward of the conqueror; the pine,
too, with its tufted foliage,[17] and bristling at the top, pleasing to
the Mother of the Gods; since for this the Cybeleïan Attis put off the
human form, and hardened into that trunk.
[Footnote 10: _Tree of Chaonia._--Ver. 90. This was the oak, for
the growth of which Chaonia, a province of Epirus, was famous.]
[Footnote 11: _Grove of the Heliades._--Ver. 91. He alludes to the
poplars, into which tree, as we have already seen, the Heliades,
or daughters of the sun, were changed after the death of Phaëton.]
[Footnote 12: _Virgin laurel._--Ver. 92. The laurel is so styled
from the Virgin Daphne, who refused to listen to the solicitations
of Apollo.]
[Footnote 13: _Genial plane-tree._--Ver. 95. The plane tree was
much valued by the ancients, as affording, by its extending
branches, a pleasant shade to festive parties. Virgil says, in the
Fourth Book of the Georgics, line 146, ‘Atque ministrantem
platanum potantibus umbram,’ ‘And the plane-tree that gives its
shade for those that carouse.’]
[Footnote 14: _Parti-coloured maple._--Ver. 95. The grain of the
maple being of a varying colour, it was much valued by the
ancients, for the purpose of making articles of furniture.]
[Footnote 15: _The tine tree._--Ver. 98. The ‘tinus,’ or ‘tine
tree,’ according to Pliny the Elder, was a wild laurel, with green
berries.]
[Footnote 16: _The bending palm._--Ver. 102. The branches of the
palm were remarkable for their flexibility, while no
superincumbent weight could break them. On this account they were
considered as emblematical of victory.]
[Footnote 17: _Tufted foliage._--Ver. 103. The pine is called
‘succincta,’ because it sends forth its branches from the top, and
not from the sides.]
EXPLANATION.
The story of Attis, or Athis, here briefly referred to, is related
by the ancient writers in many different ways; so much so, that it
is not possible to reconcile the discrepancy that exists between
them. From Diodorus Siculus we learn that Cybele, the daughter of
Mæon, King of Phrygia, falling in love with a young shepherd named
Attis, her father ordered him to be put to death. In despair, at the
loss of her lover, Cybele left her father’s abode, and, accompanied
by Marsyas, crossed the mountains of Phrygia. Apollo, (or, as
Vossius supposes, some priest of that God,) touched with the
misfortunes of the damsel, took her to the country of the
Hyperboreans in Scythia, where she died. Some time after, the plague
ravaging Phrygia, and the oracle being consulted, an answer was
returned, that, to ensure the ceasing of the contagion, they must
look for the body of Attis, and give it funeral rites, and render to
Cybele the same honour which they were wont to pay to the Gods: all
which was done with such scrupulous care, that in time she became
one of the most esteemed Divinities.