‘Panomphæus,’ from πᾶν, ‘all,’ and ὀμφὴ, ‘the voice,’ either
because he was worshipped by the voices of all, or because he was
the author of all prophecy.]
[Footnote 16: _Build the walls._--Ver. 204. It has been suggested
that the story of Laomedon obtaining the aid of Neptune in
building the walls of Troy, only meant that he built it of bricks
made of clay mixed with water, and dried in the sun.]
[Footnote 17: _His father-in-law._--Ver. 219. Nereus, the father
of Thetis; was a Divinity of the sea, and was gifted with the
power of prophecy.]
EXPLANATION.
Laomedon, being King of Troy, and the city being open and
defenceless, he undertook to enclose it with walls, and succeeded so
well, that the work was attributed to Apollo. The strong banks which
he was obliged to raise to keep out the sea and to prevent
inundations, were regarded as the work of Neptune. In time, these
banks being broken down by tempests, it was reported that the God of
the sea had thus revenged himself on Laomedon, for refusing him the
reward which had been agreed upon between them. This story received
the more ready credit from the circumstance mentioned by Herodotus
and Eustathius, that this king used the treasure belonging to the
temple of Neptune, in raising these embankments, and building the
walls of his city; having promised the priests to restore it when he
should be in a condition to do so; which promise he never performed.
Homer says that Neptune and Apollo tended the flocks while all the
subjects of Laomedon were engaged in building the walls.
When these embankments were laid under water, and a plague began to
rage within the city, the Trojans were told by an oracle that to
appease the God of the sea, they must sacrifice a virgin of the
royal blood. The lot fell upon Hesione, and she was exposed to the
fury of a sea-monster. Hercules offered to deliver her for a reward
of six horses, and having succeeded, was refused his recompense by
Laomedon; whom he slew, and then plundered his city. He then gave
the kingdom to Podarces, the son of Laomedon, and Hesione to his
companion Telamon, who had assisted him. This monster was probably
an allegorical representation of the inundations of the sea; and
Hesione having been made the price of him that could succeed in
devising a remedy, she was said to have been exposed to the fury of
a monster. The six horses promised by Laomedon were perhaps so many
ships, which Hercules demanded for his recompense; and this is the
more likely, as the ancients said that these horses were so light
and swift, that they ran upon the waves, which story seems to point
at the qualities of a galley or ship under sail.
Lycophron gives a more wonderful version of the story. He says that
the monster, to which Hesione was exposed, devoured Hercules, and
that he was three days in its belly, and came out, having lost all
his hair. This is, probably, a way of telling us that Hercules and
his assistants were obliged to work in the water, which incommoded
them very much. Palæphatus gives another explanation: he says that
Hesione was about to be delivered up to a pirate, and that Hercules,
on boarding his ship, was wounded, although afterwards victorious.
FABLES V. AND VI. [XI.221-409]
Proteus foretells that Thetis shall have a son, who shall be more
powerful than his father, and shall exceed him in valour. Jupiter,
who is in love with Thetis, is alarmed at this prediction, and
yields her to Peleus. The Goddess flies from his advances by
assuming various shapes, till, by the advice of Proteus, he holds
her fast, and then having married her, she bears Achilles. Peleus
goes afterwards to Ceyx, king of Trachyn, to expiate the death of
his brother Phocus, whom he has killed. Ceyx is in a profound
melancholy, and tells him how his brother Dædalion, in the
transports of his grief for his daughter Chione, who had been slain
for vying with Diana, has been transformed into a hawk. During this
relation, Peleus is informed that a wolf which Psamathe has sent to
revenge the death of Phocus, is destroying his herds. He endeavours
to avert the wrath of the Goddess, but she is deaf to his
entreaties, till, by the intercession of Thetis, she is appeased,
and she turns the wolf into stone.
For the aged Proteus had said to Thetis, “Goddess of the waves,
conceive; thou shalt be the mother of a youth, who by his gallant
actions shall surpass the deeds of his father, and shall be called
greater than he.” Therefore, lest the world might contain something
greater than Jove, although he had felt no gentle flame in his breast,
Jupiter avoided the embraces of Thetis,[18] {the Goddess} of the sea,
and commanded his grandson, the son of Æacus,[19] to succeed to his own
pretensions, and rush into the embraces of the ocean maid. There is a
bay of Hæmonia, curved into a bending arch; its arms project out; there,
were the water {but} deeper, there would be a harbour, {but} the sea is
{just} covering the surface of the sand. It has a firm shore, which
retains not the impression of the foot, nor delays the step {of the
traveller}, nor is covered with sea-weeds. There is a grove of myrtle at
hand, planted with particoloured berries. In the middle there is a cave,
whether formed by nature or art, it is doubtful; still, by art rather.
To this, Thetis, thou wast wont often to come naked, seated on thy
harnessed dolphin. There Peleus seized upon thee, as thou wast lying
fast bound in sleep; and because, being tried by entreaties, thou didst
resist, he resolved upon violence, clasping thy neck with both his arms.
And, unless thou hadst had recourse to thy wonted arts, by frequently
changing thy shape, he would have succeeded in his attempt. But, at one
moment, thou wast a bird (still, as a bird he held thee fast); at
another time a large tree: to {that} tree did Peleus cling. Thy third
form was that of a spotted tiger; frightened by that, the son of Æacus
loosened his arms from thy body.
Then pouring wine upon its waters,[20] he worshipped the Gods of the
sea, both with the entrails of sheep and with the smoke of frankincense;
until the Carpathian[21] prophet said, from the middle of the waves,
“Son of Æacus, thou shalt gain the alliance desired by thee. Do thou
only, when she shall be resting fast asleep in the cool cave, bind her
unawares with cords and tenacious bonds. And let her not deceive thee,
by imitating a hundred forms; but hold her fast, whatever she shall be,
until she shall reassume the form which she had before.” Proteus said
this, and hid his face in the sea, and received his own waves at his
closing words. Titan was {now} descending, and, with the pole of his
chariot bent downward, was taking possession of the Hesperian main; when
the beautiful Nereid, leaving the deep, entered her wonted place of
repose. Hardly had Peleus well seized the virgin’s limbs, {when} she
changed her shape, until she perceived her limbs to be held fast, and
her arms to be extended different ways. Then, at last, she sighed, and
said, “Not without {the aid of} a Divinity, dost thou overcome me;” and
then she appeared {as} Thetis {again}. The hero embraced her {thus}
revealed, and enjoyed his wish, and by her was the father of great
Achilles.
And happy was Peleus in his son, happy, too, in his wife, and one to
whose lot all {blessings} had fallen, if you except the crime of his
killing Phocus. The Trachinian land[22] received him guilty of his
brother’s blood, and banished from his native home. Here Ceyx, sprung
from Lucifer for his father, and having the comeliness of his sire in
his face, held the sway without violence and without bloodshed, who,
being sad at that time and unlike his {former} self, lamented the loss
of his brother. After the son of Æacus, wearied, both with troubles and
the length of the journey, has arrived there, and has entered the city
with a few attending him, and has left the flocks of sheep and the herds
which he has brought with him, not far from the walls, in a shady
valley; when an opportunity is first afforded him of approaching the
prince, extending the symbols of peace[23] with his suppliant hand,
he tells him who he is, and from whom descended. He only conceals his
crime, and, dissembling as to the {true} reason of his banishment, he
entreats {him} to aid him {by a reception} either in his city or in his
territory. On the other hand, the Trachinian {prince} addresses him with
gentle lips, in words such as these: “Peleus, our bounties are open even
to the lowest ranks, nor do I hold an inhospitable sway. To this my
inclination, thou bringest in addition as powerful inducements, an
illustrious name, and Jupiter as thy grandsire. And do not lose thy time
in entreaty; all that thou askest thou shalt have. Look upon all these
things, whatever thou seest, as in part thy own: would that thou couldst
behold them in better condition!” and {then} he weeps. Pelcus and his
companions enquire what it is that occasions grief so great. To them he
{thus} speaks:--
“Perhaps you may think that this bird, which lives upon prey, and
affrights all the birds, always had wings. It was a man; and as great is
the vigour of its courage, as he {who was} Dædalion by name was active,
and bold in war, and ready for violence; {he was} sprung from him, for
his father, who summons forth[24] Aurora, and withdraws the last from
the heavens. Peace was cherished by me; the care of maintaining peace
and my marriage contract was mine; cruel warfare pleased my brother;
that prowess of his subdued both kings and nations, which, changed, now
chases the Thisbean doves.[25] Chione was his daughter, who, highly
endowed with beauty, was pleasing to a thousand suitors, when
marriageable at the age of twice seven years. By chance Phœbus, and the
son of Maia, returning, the one from his own Delphi, the other from the
heights of Cyllene, beheld her at the same moment, and at the same
moment were inspired with passion. Apollo defers his hope of enjoyment
until the hours of night; the other brooks no delay, and with his wand,
that causes sleep, touches the maiden’s face. At the potent touch she
lies entranced, and suffers violence from the God. Night has {now}
bespangled the heavens with stars; Phœbus personates an old woman, and
takes those delights before enjoyed {in imagination}. When her mature
womb had completed the {destined} time, Autolycus was born, a crafty
offspring of the stock of the God with winged feet, ingenious at every
kind of theft, {and} who used, not degenerating from his father’s
skill,[26] to make white out of black, and black out of white. From
Phœbus was born (for she brought forth twins) Philammon, famous for his
tuneful song, and for his lyre.
“{But} what avails it for her to have brought forth two children, and to
have been pleasing to two Gods, and to have sprung from a valiant
father, and the Thunderer as her ancestor?[27] Is even glory {thus}
prejudicial to many? To her, at least, it was a prejudice; who dared to
prefer herself to Diana, and decried the charms of the Goddess. But
violent wrath was excited in her, and she said, ‘We will please her by
our deeds.’[28] And there was no delay: she bent her bow, and let fly an
arrow from the string, and pierced with the reed the tongue that
deserved it. The tongue was silent; nor did her voice, and the words
which she attempted {to utter, now} follow; and life, with her blood,
left her, as she endeavoured to speak. Oh hapless affection! What pain
did I {then} endure in my heart, as her uncle, and what consolations did
I give to my affectionate brother? These the father received no
otherwise than rocks do the murmurs of the ocean, and he bitterly
lamented his daughter {thus} snatched from him. But when he beheld her
burning, four times had he an impulse to rush into the midst of the
pile; thence repulsed, four times did he commit his swift limbs to
flight, and, like an ox, bearing upon his galled neck the stings of
hornets, he rushed where there was no path. Already did he seem to me to
run faster than a human being, and you would have supposed that his feet
had assumed wings. Therefore he outran all; and, made swift by the
desire for death, he gained the heights of Parnassus.
“Apollo pitying him, when Dædalion would have thrown himself from the
top of the rock, made him into a bird, and supported him, hovering {in
the air} upon {these} sudden wings; and he gave him a curved beak, and
crooked claws on his talons, his former courage, and strength greater
{in proportion} than his body; and, now {become} a hawk, sufficiently
benignant to none, he rages {equally} against all birds; and grieving
{himself}, becomes the cause of grief to others.”
While the son of Lucifer is relating these wonders about his brother,
hastening with panting speed, Phocæan Antenor, the keeper of his herds,
runs up to him. “Alas, Peleus! Peleus!” says he, “I am the messenger to
thee of a great calamity;” and {then} Peleus bids him declare whatever
news it is that he has brought; and the Trachinian hero himself is in
suspense, and trembles through apprehension. The other tells {his
story:} “I had driven the weary bullocks to the winding shore, when the
Sun at his height, in the midst of his course, could look back on as
much of it as he could see to be {now} remaining; and a part of the oxen
had bent their knees on the yellow sands, and, as they lay, viewed the
expanse of the wide waters; some, with slow steps, were wandering here
and there; others were swimming, and appearing with their lofty necks
above the waves. A temple is hard by the sea, adorned neither with
marble nor with gold, but {made} of solid beams, and shaded with an
ancient grove; the Nereids and Nereus possess it. A sailor, while he was
drying his nets upon the shore, told us that these were the Gods of the
temple. Adjacent to this is a marsh, planted thickly with numerous
willows, which the water of the stagnating waves of the sea has made
into a swamp. From that spot, a huge monster, a wolf, roaring with a
loud bellowing, alarms the neighbouring places, and comes forth from the
thicket of the marsh, {both} having his thundering jaws covered with
foam and with clotted blood, {and} his eyes suffused with red flame.
Though he was raging both with fury and with hunger, still was he more
excited by fury; for he did not care to satisfy his hunger by the
slaughter of the oxen, and to satiate his dreadful appetite, but he
mangled the whole herd, and, like a true foe, pulled each {to the
ground}. Some, too, of ourselves, while we were defending them, wounded
with his fatal bite, were killed. The shore and the nearest waves were
red with blood, and the fens were filled with the lowings {of the herd}.
But delay is dangerous, and the case does not allow us to hesitate:
while anything is {still} left, let us all unite, and let us take up
arms, arms, {I say}, and in a body let us bear weapons.”
{Thus} speaks the countryman. And the loss does not affect Peleus; but,
remembering his crime, he considers that the bereaved Nereid has sent
these misfortunes of his, as an offering to the departed Phocus. The
Œtæan king[29] commands his men to put on their armour, and to take up
stout weapons; together with whom, he himself is preparing to go. But
Halcyone, his wife, alarmed at the tumult, runs out, and not yet having
arranged all her hair, even that which is {arranged} she throws in
disorder; and clinging to the neck of her husband, she entreats him,
both with words and tears, to send assistance without himself, and {so}
to save two lives in one. The son of Æacus says to her, “O queen, lay
aside thy commendable and affectionate fears; the kindness of thy
proposal is {too} great {for me}. It does not please me, that arms
should be employed against this new monster. The Divinity of the sea
must be adored.” There is a lofty tower; a fire {is} upon the extreme
summit,[30] a place grateful to wearied ships. They go up there, and
with sighs they behold the bulls lying scattered upon the sea shore, and
the cruel ravager with blood-stained mouth, having his long hair stained
with gore. Peleus, thence extending his hands towards the open sea,
entreats the azure Psamathe to lay aside her wrath, and to give him her
aid. But she is not moved by the words of the son of Æacus, thus
entreating. Thetis, interceding on behalf of her husband, obtains that
favour {for him}.
But still the wolf persists, not recalled from the furious slaughter,
{and} keenly urged by the sweetness of the blood; until she changes him
into marble, as he is fastening on the neck of a mangled heifer. His
body preserves every thing except its colour. The colour of the stone
shows that he is not now a wolf, and ought not now to be feared. Still,
the Fates do not permit the banished Peleus to settle in this land: the
wandering exile goes to the Magnetes,[31] and there receives from the
Hæmonian Acastus[32] an expiation of the murder.
[Footnote 18: _Embraces of Thetis._--Ver. 226. Fulgentius
suggests, that the meaning of this is, that Jupiter, or fire, will
not unite with Thetis, who represents water.]
[Footnote 19: _Son of Æacus._--Ver. 227. Peleus was the son of
Æacus, who was the son of Jupiter, by Ægina, the daughter of
Æsopus.]
[Footnote 20: _Upon its waters._--Ver. 247. While libations were
made to the other Divinities, either on their altars, or on the
ground, the marine Deities were so honoured by pouring wine on the
waves of the sea.]
[Footnote 21: _Carpathian._--Ver. 249. The Carpathian sea was so
called from the Isle of Carpathus, which lay between the island of
Rhodes and the Egyptian coast.]
[Footnote 22: _Trachinian land._--Ver. 269. Apollodorus says, that
Peleus, when exiled, repaired to Phthia, and not to the city of
Trachyn.]
[Footnote 23: _Symbols of peace._--Ver. 276. The ‘velamenta’ were
branches of olive, surrounded with bandages of wool, which were
held in the hands of those who begged for mercy or pardon. The
wool covering the hand was emblematical of peace, the hand being
thereby rendered powerless to effect mischief.]
[Footnote 24: _Who summons forth._--Ver. 296. This is a
periphrasis for Lucifer, or the Morning Star, which precedes, and
appears to summon the dawn.]
[Footnote 25: _Thisbean doves._--Ver. 300. Thisbe was a town of
Bœotia, so called from Thisbe, the daughter of Æsopus. It was
famous for the number of doves which it produced.]
[Footnote 26: _Father’s skill._--Ver. 314. Being the son of
Mercury, who was noted for his thieving propensities.]
[Footnote 27: _Her ancestor._--Ver. 319. Jupiter was the
great-grandfather of Chione, being the father of Lucifer, and the
grandfather of Dædalion.]
[Footnote 28: _By our deeds._--Ver. 323. This is said
sarcastically, as much as to say, ‘If I do not please her by my
looks, at least I will by my actions.’]
[Footnote 29: _The Œtæan king._--Ver. 383. Namely, Ceyx, the king
of Trachyn, which city Hercules had founded, at the foot of Mount
Œta.]
[Footnote 30: _The extreme summit._--Ver. 393. The upper stories
of the ancient light-houses had windows looking towards the sea;
and torches, or fires (probably in cressets, or fire-pans, at the
end of poles), were kept burning on them by night, to guide
vessels. ‘Pharos,’ or ‘Pharus,’ the name given to light-houses,
is derived from the celebrated one built on the island of Pharos,
at the entrance of the port of Alexandria. It was erected by
Sostratus, of Cnidos, at the expense of one of the Ptolemies, and
cost 800 talents. It was of huge dimensions, square, and
constructed of white stone. It contained many stories, and
diminished in width from below upwards. There were ‘phari,’ or
‘light-houses,’ at Ostia, Ravenna, Capreæ, and Brundisium.]
[Footnote 31: _The Magnetes._--Ver. 408. The Magnetes were the
people of Magnesia, a district of Thessaly. They were famed for
their skill in horsemanship.]
[Footnote 32: _Hæmonian Acastus._--Ver. 409. Acastus was the son
of Pelias. His wife Hippolyta, being enamoured of Peleus, and he
not encouraging her advances, she accused him of having made an
attempt on her virtue. On this, Acastus determined upon his death;
and having taken him to Mount Pelion, on the pretext of hunting,
he took away his arms, and left him there, to be torn to pieces by
the wild beasts. Mercury, or, according to some, Chiron, came to
his assistance, and gave him a sword made by Vulcan, with which he
slew Acastus and his wife.]
EXPLANATION.
Thetis being a woman of extraordinary beauty, it is not improbable,
that in the Epithalamia that were composed on her marriage, it was
asserted, that the Gods had contended for her hand, and had been
forced to give way, in obedience to the superior power of destiny.
Hyginus says that Prometheus was the only person that was acquainted
with the oracle; and that he imparted it to Jupiter, on condition
that he would deliver him from the eagle that tormented him:
whereupon the God sent Hercules to Mount Caucasus, to perform his
promise. It was on the occasion of this marriage that the Goddess
Discord presented the golden apple, the dispute for which occasioned
the Trojan war. The part of the story which relates how she assumed
various forms, to avoid the advances of Peleus, is perhaps an
ingenious method of stating, that having several suitors, she was
originally disinclined to Peleus, and used every pretext to avoid
him, until, by the advice of a wise friend, he found means to remove
all the difficulties which opposed his alliance with her.
Some writers state that Thetis was the daughter of Chiron; but
Euripides, in a fragment of his Iphigenia, tells us that Achilles,
who was the son of this marriage, took a pride in carrying the
figure of a Nereid on his shield. The three sons of Æacus were
Peleus, Telamon, and Phocus; while they were playing at quoits, the
latter accidentally received a blow from Peleus, which killed him.
Ovid, however, seems here to imply that Peleus killed his brother
purposely.
The story of Chione most probably took its rise from the difference
between the inclinations of the two children that she bore.
Autolycus, being cunning, and addicted to theft, he was styled the
son of Mercury; while Philammon being a lover of music, Apollo was
said to be his father. According to Pausanias, Autolycus was the son
of Dædalion, and not of Chione. The story of the wolf, the minister
of the vengeance of Psamathe, for the death of Phocus, is probably
built on historical grounds. Æacus had two wives, Ægina and
Psamathe, the sister of Thetis; by the first he had Peleus and
Telamon; by the second, Phocus. Lycomedes, the king of Scyros, the
brother of Psamathe, resolved to revenge the death of his nephew,
whom Peleus had killed: and declared war against Ceyx, for receiving
him into his dominions. The troops of Lycomedes ravaged the country,
and carried away the flocks of Peleus: on which prayers and
entreaties were resorted to, with the view of pacifying him; which
object having been effected, he withdrew his troops. On this, it was
rumoured that he was changed into a rock, after having ravaged the
country like a wild beast, which comparison was perhaps suggested by
the fact of his name being partly compounded of the word λυκὸς,
‘a wolf.’
FABLE VII. [XI.410-748]
Ceyx, going to Claros, to consult the oracle about his brother’s
fate, is shipwrecked on the voyage. Juno sends Iris to the God of
Sleep, who, at her request, dispatches Morpheus to Halcyone, in a
dream, to inform her of the death of her husband. She awakes in the
morning, full of solicitude, and goes to the shore where she finds
the body of Ceyx thrown up by the waves. She is about to cast
herself into the sea in despair, when the Gods transform them both
into king-fishers.
In the mean time, Ceyx being disturbed in mind, both on account of the
strange fate of his brother, and {the wonders} that had succeeded his
brother, prepares to go to the Clarian God, that he may consult the
sacred oracle, the consolation of mortals: for the profane Phorbas,[33]
with his Phlegyans, renders the {oracle} of Delphi inaccessible. Yet he
first makes thee acquainted with his design, most faithful Halcyone,
whose bones receive a chill, and a paleness, much resembling boxwood,
comes over her face, and her cheeks are wet with tears gushing forth.
Three times attempting to speak, three times she moistens her face with
tears, and, sobs interrupting her affectionate complaints, she says:--
“What fault of mine, my dearest, has changed thy mind? Where is that
care of me, which once used to exist? Canst thou now be absent without
anxiety, thy Halcyone being left behind? Now, is a long journey pleasing
to thee? Now, am I dearer to thee when at a distance? But I suppose thy
journey is by land, and I shall only grieve, and shall not fear as well,
and my anxiety will be free from apprehension. The seas and the aspect
of the stormy ocean affright me. And lately I beheld broken planks on
the sea shore; and often have I read the names upon tombs,[34] without
bodies {there buried}. And let not any deceitful assurance influence thy
mind, that the grandson of Hippotas[35] is thy father-in-law; who
confines the strong winds in prison, and assuages the seas when he
pleases. When, once let loose, the winds have taken possession of the
deep, nothing is forbidden to them; every land and every sea is
disregarded by them. Even the clouds of heaven do they insult, and by
their bold onsets strike forth the brilliant fires.[36] The more I know
them, (for I do know them, and, when little, have often seen them in my
father’s abode,) the more I think they are to be dreaded. But if thy
resolution, my dear husband, cannot be altered by my entreaties, and if
thou art {but} too determined to go; take me, too, as well. At least, we
shall be tossed together; nor shall I fear anything, but what I shall be
{then} suffering; and together we shall endure whatever shall happen;
together we shall be carried over the wide seas.”
By such words and the tears of the daughter of Æolus, is her husband,
son of the {Morning} Star, {much} affected; for the flame {of love}
exists no less in him. But he neither wishes to abandon his proposed
voyage, nor to admit Halcyone to a share in the danger; and he says,
in answer, many things to console her timorous breast. And yet she does
not, on that account, approve of his reasons. To them he adds this
alleviation, with which alone he influences his affectionate {wife}:
“All delay will, indeed, be tedious to me; but I swear to thee by the
fire of my sire, (if only the fates allow me to return,) that I will
come back before the moon has twice completed her orb.” When, by these
promises, a hope has been given her of his {speedy} return, he forthwith
orders a ship, drawn out of the dock, to be launched in the sea, and to
be supplied with its {proper} equipments. On seeing this, Halcyone again
shuddered, as though presaging the future, and shed her flowing tears,
and gave him embraces; and at last, in extreme misery, she said, with a
sad voice, “Farewell!” and then she sank with all her body {to the
ground}.
But the youths, while Ceyx is {still} seeking pretexts for delay, in
double rows,[37] draw the oars towards their hardy breasts, and cleave
the main with equal strokes. She raises her weeping eyes, and sees her
husband standing on the crooked stern, and by waving his hand making the
first signs to her; and she returns the signals. When the land has
receded further, and her eyes are unable to distinguish his countenance:
{still}, while she can, she follows the retreating ship with her sight.
When this too, borne onward, cannot be distinguished from the distance;
still she looks at the sails waving from the top of the mast. When she
no {longer} sees the sails; she anxiously seeks her deserted bed, and
lays herself on the couch. The bed, and the spot, renew the tears of
Halcyone, and remind her what part {of herself} is wanting.
They have {now} gone out of harbour, and the breeze shakes the rigging;
the sailor urges the pendent oars towards their sides;[38] and fixes the
sailyards[39] on the top of the mast, and spreads the canvass full from
the mast, and catches the coming breezes. Either the smaller part, or,
at least, not more than half her course, had {now} been cut by the ship,
and both lands were at a great distance, when, towards night, the sea
began to grow white with swelling waves, and the boisterous East wind to
blow with greater violence. Presently the master cries, “At once, lower
the top sails, and furl the whole of the sail to the yards!” He orders,
{but} the adverse storm impedes the execution; and the roaring of the
sea does not allow any voice to be heard.
Yet, of their own accord, some hasten to draw in the oars, some to
secure the sides, some to withdraw the sails from the winds. This one
pumps up the waves, and pours back the sea into the sea; another takes
off the yards. While these things are being done without any order, the
raging storm is increasing, and the fierce winds wage war on every side,
and stir up the furious main. The master of the ship is himself alarmed,
and himself confesses that he does not know what is their {present}
condition, nor what to order or forbid; so great is the amount of their
misfortunes, and more powerful than all his skill. For the men are
making a noise with their shouts, the cordage with its rattling, the
heavy waves with the dashing of {other} waves, the skies with the
thunder. The sea is upturned with billows, and appears to reach the
heavens, and to sprinkle the surrounding clouds with its foam. And one
while, when it turns up the yellow sands from the bottom, it is of the
same colour with them; at another time {it is} blacker than the Stygian
waves. Sometimes it is level, and is white with resounding foam. The
Trachinian ship too, is influenced by these vicissitudes; and now aloft,
as though from the summit of a mountain, it seems to look down upon the
vallies and the depths of Acheron; at another moment, when the
engulphing sea has surrounded it, sunk below, it seems to be looking at
heaven above from the infernal waters. Struck on its side by the waves,
it often sends forth a low crashing sound, and beaten against, it sounds
with no less noise, than on an occasion when the iron battering ram, or
the balista, is shaking the shattered towers. And as fierce lions are
wont, gaining strength in their career, to rush with their breasts upon
the weapons, and arms extended {against them}; so the water, when upon
the rising of the winds it had rushed onwards, advanced against the
rigging of the ship, and was much higher than it.
And now the bolts shrink, and despoiled of their covering of wax,[40]
the seams open wide, and afford a passage to the fatal waves. Behold!
vast showers fall from the dissolving clouds, and you would believe that
the whole of the heavens is descending into the deep, and that the
swelling sea is ascending to the tracts of heaven. The sails are wet
with the rain, and the waves of the ocean are mingled with the waters of
the skies. The firmament is without its fires; {and} the gloomy night is
oppressed both with its own darkness and that of the storm. Yet the
lightnings disperse these, and give light as they flash; the waters are
on fire with the flames of the thunder-bolts. And now, too, the waves
make an inroad into the hollow texture of the ship; and as a soldier,
superior to all the rest of the number, after he has often sprung
forward against the fortifications of a defended city, at length gains
his desires; and, inflamed with the desire of glory, {though but} one
among a thousand more, he still mounts the wall, so, when the violent
waves have beaten against the lofty sides, the fury of the tenth
wave,[41] rising more impetuously {than the rest}, rushes onward; and it
ceases not to attack the wearied ship, before it descends within the
walls, as it were, of the captured bark. Part, then, of the sea is still
attempting to get into the ship, part is within it. All are now in
alarm, with no less intensity than a city is wont to be alarmed, while
some are undermining the walls without, and others within have
possession of the walls. {All} art fails them, and their courage sinks;
and as many {shapes of} death seem to rush and to break in {upon them},
as the waves that approach. One does not refrain from tears; another is
stupefied; another calls those happy[42] whom funeral rites await;
another, in his prayers, addresses the Gods, and lifting up his hands in
vain to that heaven which he sees not, implores their aid. His brothers
and his parent recur to the mind of another; to another, his home, with
his pledges {of affection}, and {so} what has been left behind by each.
{The remembrance of} Halcyone affects Ceyx; on the lips of Ceyx there is
nothing but Halcyone; and though her alone he regrets, still he rejoices
that she is absent. {Gladly}, too, would he look back to the shore of
his native land, and turn his last glance towards his home; but he knows
not where it is. The sea is raging in a hurricane[43] so vast, and all
the sky is concealed beneath the shade brought on by the clouds of
pitchy darkness, and the face of the night is redoubled {in gloom}. The
mast is broken by the violence of the drenching tempest; the helm, too,
is broken; and the undaunted wave, standing over its spoil, looks down
like a conqueror, upon the waves as they encircle {below}. Nor, when
precipitated, does it rush down less violently, than if any {God} were
to hurl Athos or Pindus, torn up from its foundations, into the open
sea; and with its weight and its violence together, it sinks the ship to
the bottom. With her, a great part of the crew overwhelmed in the deep
water, and not rising again to the air, meet their fate. Some seize hold
of portions and broken pieces of the ship. Ceyx himself seizes a
fragment of the wreck, with that hand with which he was wont {to wield}
the sceptre, and in vain, alas! he invokes his father, and his
father-in-law. But chiefly on his lips, as he swims, is his wife
Halcyone. Her he thinks of, and {her name} he repeats: he prays the
waves to impel his body before her eyes; and that when dead he may be
entombed by the hands of his friends. While he {still} swims, he calls
upon Halcyone far away, as often as the billows allow[44] him to open
his mouth, and in the very waves he murmurs {her name}. {When}, lo!
a darkening arch[45] of waters breaks over the middle of the waves, and
buries his head sinking beneath the bursting billow. Lucifer was
obscured that night, and such that you could not have recognized him;
and since he was not allowed to depart from the heavens,[46] he
concealed his face beneath thick clouds.
In the meantime, the daughter of Æolus, ignorant of so great
misfortunes, reckons the nights; and now she hastens {to prepare} the
garments[47] for him to put on, and now, those which, when he comes, she
herself may wear, and vainly promises herself his return. She, indeed,
piously offers frankincense to all the Gods above; but, before all, she
pays her adorations at the temple of Juno, and comes to the altars on
behalf of her husband, who is not in existence. And she prays that her
husband may be safe, and that he may return, and may prefer no woman
before her. But this {last} alone can be her lot, out of so many of her
wishes. But the Goddess endures not any longer to be supplicated on
behalf of one who is dead; and, that she may repel her polluted
hands[48] from the altars,--she says, “Iris, most faithful messenger of
my words, hasten quickly to the soporiferous court of Sleep, and command
him, under the form of Ceyx who is dead, to send a vision to Halcyone,
to relate her real misfortune.” {Thus} she says. Iris assumes garment of
a thousand colours, and, marking the heavens with her curving arch, she
repairs to the abode of the king, {Sleep}, as bidden, concealed beneath
a rock.
There is near the Cimmerians[49] a cave with a long recess, a hollowed
mountain, the home and the habitation of slothful Sleep, into which the
Sun, {whether} rising, or in his mid course, or setting, can never come.
Fogs mingled with darkness are exhaled from the ground, and {it is} a
twilight with a dubious light. No wakeful bird, with the notes of his
crested features, there calls forth the morn; nor do the watchful dogs,
or the geese more sagacious[50] than the dogs, break the silence with
their voices. No wild beasts, no cattle, no boughs waving with the
breeze, no {loud} outbursts of the human voice, {there} make any sound;
mute Rest has there her abode. But from the bottom of the rock runs a
stream, the waters of Lethe,[51] through which the rivulet, trickling
with a murmuring noise amid the sounding pebbles, invites sleep. Before
the doors of the cavern, poppies bloom in abundance, and innumerable
herbs, from the juice of which the humid night gathers sleep, and
spreads it over the darkened Earth. There is no door in the whole
dwelling, to make a noise by the turning of the hinges; no porter at the
entrance. But in the middle is a couch, raised high upon black ebony,
stuffed with feathers, of a dark colour, concealed by a dark coverlet;
on which the God himself lies, his limbs dissolved in sloth. Around him
lie, in every direction, imitating divers shapes, unsubstantial dreams
as many as the harvest bears ears of corn, the wood green leaves, the
shore the sands thrown up. Into this, soon as the maiden had entered,
and had put aside with her hands the visions that were in her way, the
sacred house shone with the splendour of her garment, and the God, with
difficulty lifting up his eyes sunk in languid sloth, again and again
relapsing, and striking the upper part of his breast with his nodding
chin, at last aroused himself from his {dozing}; and, raised on his
elbow, he inquired why she had come; for he knew {who she was}.
But she {replied}, “Sleep, thou repose of all things; Sleep, thou
gentlest of the Deities; thou peace of the mind, from which care flies,
who dost soothe the hearts {of men}, wearied with the toils of the day,
and refittest them for labour, command a vision, that resembles in
similitude the real shape, to go to Halcyone, in Herculean Trachyn, in
the form of the king, and to assume the form of one that has suffered
shipwreck. Juno commands this.” After Iris had executed her commission,
she departed; for she could no longer endure the effects of the vapour;
and, as soon as she perceived sleep creeping over her limbs, she took to
flight,[52] and departed along the bow by which she had come just
before.
But Father {Sleep}, out of the multitude of his thousand sons, raises
Morpheus,[53] a {skilful} artist, and an imitator of {any human} shape.
No one more dexterously than he mimics the gait, and the countenance,
and the mode of speaking; he adds the dress, too, and the words most
commonly used by any one. But he imitates men only; for another one
becomes a wild beast, becomes a bird, {or} becomes a serpent, with its
lengthened body: this one, the Gods above call Icelos; the tribe of
mortals, Phobetor. There is likewise a third, {master} of a different
art, {called} Phantasos: he cleverly changes {himself} into earth, and
stone, and water, and a tree, and all those things which are destitute
of life. These are wont, by night, to show their features to kings and
to generals, {while} others wander amid the people and the commonalty.
These, Sleep, the aged {God}, passes by, and selects Morpheus alone from
all his brothers, to execute the commands of the daughter of Thaumas;
and again he both drops his head, sunk in languid drowsiness, and
shrinks back within the lofty couch.
{Morpheus} flies through the dark with wings that make no noise, and in
a short space of intervening time arrives at the Hæmonian city; and,
laying aside his wings from off his body, he assumes the form of Ceyx;
and in that form, wan, and like one without blood, without garments,
he stands before the bed of his wretched wife. The beard of the hero
appears to be dripping, and the water to be falling thickly from his
soaking hair. Then leaning on the bed, with tears running down his face,
he says these words: “My most wretched wife, dost thou recognise {thy}
Ceyx, or are my looks {so} changed with death? Observe me; thou wilt
{surely} know me: and, instead of thy husband, thou wilt find the ghost
of thy husband. Thy prayers, Halcyone, have availed me nothing; I have
perished. Do not promise thyself, {thus} deceived, my {return}. The
cloudy South wind caught my ship in the Ægean Sea,[54] and dashed it to
pieces, tossed by the mighty blasts; and the waves choked my utterance,
in vain calling upon thy name. It is no untruthful messenger that tells
thee this: thou dost not hear these things through vague rumours.
I, myself, shipwrecked, in person, am telling thee my fate. Come, arise
then, shed tears, and put on mourning; and do not send me unlamented to
the phantom {realms of} Tartarus.”
To these words Morpheus adds a voice, which she may believe to be that
of her husband. He seems, too, to be shedding real tears, and his hands
have the gesture of Ceyx. As she weeps, Halcyone groans aloud, and moves
her arms in her sleep, and catching at his body, grasps the air; and she
cries aloud, “Stay, whither dost thou hurry? We will go together.”
Disturbed by her own voice, and by the appearance of her husband, she
shakes off sleep; and first she looks about there, to see if he, who has
been so lately seen, is there; for the servants, roused by her voice,
have brought in lights. After she has found him nowhere, she smites her
face with her hands, and tears her garments from off her breast, and
beats her breast itself. Nor cares she to loosen her hair; she tears it,
and says to her nurse, as she inquires what is the occasion of her
sorrow: “Halcyone is no more! no more! with her own Ceyx is she dead.
Away with words of comfort. He has perished by shipwreck. I have seen
him, and I knew him; and as he departed, desirous to detain him,
I extended my hands towards him. The ghost fled: but, yet it was the
undoubted and the real ghost of my husband. It had not, indeed, if thou
askest me {that}, his wonted features; nor was he looking cheerful with
his former countenance. Hapless, I beheld him, pale, and naked, and with
his hair still dripping. Lo! ill-fated {man}, he stood on this very
spot;” and she seeks the prints of his footsteps, if any are left. “This
it was, this is what I dreaded in my ill-boding mind, and I entreated
that thou wouldst not, deserting me, follow the winds. But, I could have
wished, since thou didst depart to perish, that, at least, thou hadst
taken me as well. To have gone with thee, {yes}, with thee, would have
been an advantage to me; for then neither should I have spent any part
of my life otherwise than together with thee, nor would my death have
been divided {from thee}. Now, absent {from thee}, I perish; now,
absent, I am tossed on the waves; and the sea has thee without me.
“My heart were more cruel than the sea itself, were I to strive to
protract my life any further; and, were I to struggle to survive so
great a misfortune. But I will not struggle, nor, hapless one, will I
abandon thee; and, at least, I will {now} come to be thy companion. And,
in the tomb, if the urn {does} not, yet the inscription[55] shall unite
us: if {I touch} not thy bones with my bones, still will I unite thy
name with my name.” Grief forbids her saying more, and wailings come
between each word, and groans are heaved from her sorrow-stricken
breast.
It is {now} morning: she goes forth from her abode to the sea-shore,
and, wretched, repairs to that place from which she had seen him go, and
says, “While he lingered, and while he was loosening the cables, at his
departure, he gave me kisses upon this sea-shore;” and while she calls
to recollection the incidents which she had observed with her eyes, and
looks out upon the sea, she observes on the flowing wave, I know not
what {object}, like a body, within a distant space: and at first she is
doubtful what it is. After the water has brought it a little nearer,
and, although it is {still} distant, it is plain that it is a corpse.
Ignorant who it may be, because it is ship-wrecked, she is moved at the
omen, and, though unknown, would fain give it a tear. “Alas! thou
wretched one!” she says, “whoever thou art; and if thou hast any wife!”
Driven by the waves, the body approaches nearer. The more she looks at
it, the less and the less is she mistress of her senses. And now she
sees it brought close to the land, that now she can well distinguish it:
it is her husband. “’Tis he!” she exclaims, and, on the instant, she
tears her face, her hair, {and} her garments; and, extending her
trembling hands towards Ceyx, she says, “And is it thus, Oh dearest
husband! is it thus, Oh ill-fated one! that thou dost return to me?”
A mole, made by the hand of man, adjoins the waves, which breaks the
first fury of the ocean, and weakens the first shock of its waters. Upon
that she leaped, and ’tis wondrous that she could. She flew, and beating
the light air with her wings newly formed, she, a wretched bird, skimmed
the surface of the water. And, while she flew, her croaking mouth, with
its slender bill, uttered a sound like that of one in sadness, and full
of complaining. But when she touched the body, dumb, and without blood,
embracing the beloved limbs with her new-made wings, in vain she gave
him cold kisses with her hardened bill. The people were in doubt whether
Ceyx was sensible of this, or whether, by the motion of the wave, he
seemed to raise his countenance; but {really} he was sensible of it;
and, at length, through the pity of the Gods above, both were changed
into birds. Meeting with the same fate, even then their love remained.
Nor, when {now} birds, is the conjugal tie dissolved: they couple, and
they become parents; and for seven calm days,[56] in the winter-time,
does Halcyone brood upon her nest floating on the sea.[57] Then the
passage of the deep is safe; Æolus keeps the winds in, and restrains
them from sallying forth, and secures a {smooth} sea for his
descendants.
[Footnote 33: _The profane Phorbas._--Ver. 414. The temple at
Delphi was much nearer and more convenient for Ceyx to resort to;
but at that period it was in the hands of the Phlegyans, a people
of Thessaly, of predatory and lawless habits, who had plundered
the Delphic shrine. They were destroyed by thunderbolts and
pestilence, or, according to some authors, by Neptune, who swept
them away in a flood. Phorbas, here mentioned, was one of the
Lapithæ, a savage robber, who forced strangers to box with him,
and then slew them. Having the presumption to challenge the Gods,
he was slain by Apollo.]
[Footnote 34: _Names upon tombs._--Ver. 429. Cenotaphs, or
honorary tombs, were erected in honour of those, who having been
drowned, their bodies could not be found. One great reason for
erecting these memorials was the notion, that the souls of those
who had received no funeral honours, wandered in agony on the
banks of the Styx for the space of one hundred years.]
[Footnote 35: _Hippotas._--Ver. 431. Æolus was the grandson of
Hippotas, through his daughter Sergesta, who bore Æolus to
Jupiter. Ovid says that he was the father of Halcyone; but,
according to Lucian, she was the daughter of Æolus the Hellenian,
the grandson of Deucalion.]
[Footnote 36: _Brilliant fires._--Ver. 436. Ovid probably here had
in view the description given by Lucretius, commencing Book i.
line 272.]
[Footnote 37: _In double rows._--Ver. 462. By this it is implied
that the ship of Ceyx was a ‘biremis,’ or one with two ranks of
rowers; one rank being placed above the other. Pliny the Elder
attributes the invention of the ‘biremis’ to the Erythræans. Those
with three ranks of rowers were introduced by the Corinthians;
while Dionysius, the first king of Sicily, was the inventor of the
Quadriremis, or ship with four ranks of rowers. Quinqueremes, or
those with five ranks, are said to have been the invention of the
Salaminians. The first use of those with six ranks has been
ascribed to the Syracusans. Ships were sometimes built with
twelve, twenty, and even forty ranks of rowers, but they appear to
have been intended rather for curiosity than for use. As, of
course, the labour of each ascending rank increased, through the
necessity of the higher ranks using longer oars, the pay of the
lowest rank was the lowest, their work being the easiest. Where
there were twenty ranks or more, the upper oars required more than
one man to manage them. Ptolemy Philopater had a vessel built as a
curiosity, which had no less than four thousand rowers.]
[Footnote 38: _Towards their sides._--Ver. 475. ‘Obvertere lateri
remos’ most probably means ‘To feather the oars,’ which it is
especially necessary to do in a gale, to avoid the retarding power
of the wind against the surface of the blade of the oar.]
[Footnote 39: _Fixes the sail-yards._--Ver. 476. ‘Cornua’ means,
literally, ‘The ends or points of the sail-yards,’ or ‘Antennæ:’
but here the word is used to signify the sail-yards themselves.]
[Footnote 40: _Covering of wax._--Ver. 514. The ‘Cera’ with which
the seams of the ships were stopped, was most probably a
composition of wax and pitch, or other bituminous and resinous
substances.]
[Footnote 41: _The tenth wave._--Ver. 530. This is said in
allusion to the belief that every tenth wave exceeded the others
in violence.]
[Footnote 42: _Calls those happy._--Ver. 540. Those who died on
shore would obtain funeral rites; while those who perished by
shipwreck might become food for the fishes, a fate which was
regarded by the ancients with peculiar horror. Another reason for
thus regarding death by shipwreck, was the general belief among
the ancients, that the soul was an emanation from æther, or fire,
and that it was contrary to the laws of nature for it to be
extinguished by water. Ovid says in his Tristia, or Lament (Book
I. El. 2, l. 51-57), ‘I fear not death: ’tis the dreadful kind of
death; Take away the shipwreck: then death will be a gain to me.
’Tis something for one, either dying a natural death, or by the
sword, to lay his breathless corpse in the firm ground, and to
impart his wishes to his kindred, and to hope for a sepulchre, and
not to be food for the fishes of the sea.’]
[Footnote 43: _A hurricane._--Ver. 548-9. ‘Tanta vertigine pontus
Fervet’ is transcribed by Clarke, ‘The sea is confounded with so
great a vertigo.’]
[Footnote 44: _The billows allow._--Ver. 566. ‘Quoties sinit
hiscere fluctus’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘As oft as the waves
suffer him to gape.’]
[Footnote 45: _A darkening arch._--Ver. 568. Possibly ‘niger
arcus’ means a sweeping wave, black with the sand which it has
swept from the depths of the ocean; or else with the reflection of
the dark clouds.]
[Footnote 46: _From the heavens._--Ver. 571. The word Olympus is
frequently used by the poets to signify ‘the heavens;’ as the
mountain of that name in Thessaly, from its extreme height, was
supposed to be the abode of the Gods.]
[Footnote 47: _Prepare the garments._--Ver. 575. Horace tells us
that their clients wove garments for the Roman patricians; and the
females of noble family did the same for their husbands, children,
and brothers. Ovid, in the Fasti, describes Lucretia as making a
‘lacerna,’ or cloak, for her husband Collatinus. She says to her
hand-maidens, ‘With all speed there must be sent to your master a
cloak made with our hands.’ (Book ii. l. 746.) Suetonius tells us
that Augustus would wear no clothes but those made by his wife,
sister, or daughter.]
[Footnote 48: _Polluted hands._--Ver. 584. All persons who had
been engaged in the burial of the dead were considered to be
polluted, and were not allowed to enter the temples of the Gods
till they had been purified. Among the Greeks, persons who had
been supposed to have died in foreign countries, and whose funeral
rites had been performed in an honorary manner by their own
relatives, if it turned out that they were not dead, and they
returned to their own country, were considered impure, and were
only purified by being dressed in swaddling clothes, and treated
like new-born infants. We shall, then, be hardly surprised at Juno
considering Halcyone to be polluted by the death of her husband
Ceyx, although at a distance, and as yet unknown to her.]
[Footnote 49: _The Cimmerians._--Ver. 592. Ovid appropriately
places the abode of the drowsy God in the cold, damp, and foggy
regions of the Cimmerians, who are supposed, by some authors, to
have been a people of Sarmatia, or Scythia, near the Palus Mæotis,
or sea of Azof. Other writers suppose that a fabulous race of
people, said to live near Baiæ in Italy, and to inhabit dark caves
throughout the day, while they sallied forth to plunder at night,
are here referred to. This description of the abode of Sleep, and
of his appearance and attendants, is supposed to have been
borrowed by Ovid from one of the Greek poets.]
[Footnote 50: _Geese more sagacious._--Ver. 599. This is said in
compliment to the geese, for the service they rendered, in giving
the alarm, and saving the Capitol, when in danger of being taken
by the Gauls.]
[Footnote 51: _Waters of Lethe._--Ver. 603. After the dead had
tasted the waters of Lethe, one of the rivers of Hell, it was
supposed that they lost all recollection of the events of their
former life.]
[Footnote 52: _Took to flight._--Ver. 632. Clarke translates this
line, ‘Away she scours, and returns through the bow through which
she had come.’]
[Footnote 53: _Morpheus._--Ver. 635. Morpheus was so called from
the Greek μορφὴ, ‘shape,’ or ‘figure,’ because he assumed various
shapes. Icelos has his name from the Greek ἴκελος, ‘like,’ for a
similar reason. Phobetor is from the Greek φοβὸς, ‘fear,’ because
it was his office to terrify mortals. Lucian appears to mean the
same Deity, under the name of Taraxion. Phantasos is from the
Greek φάντασις, ‘fancy.’]
[Footnote 54: _In the Ægean Sea._--Ver. 663. The Ægean Sea lay
between the city of Trachyn and the coast of Ionia, whither Ceyx
had gone.]
[Footnote 55: _The inscription._--Ver. 706. The epitaphs on the
tombs of the ancients usually contained the name of the person,
his age, and (with the Greeks) some account of the principal
events of his life. Halcyone, in her affectionate grief, promises
her husband, at least, an honorary funeral, and a share in her own
epitaph.]
[Footnote 56: _Seven calm days._--Ver. 745. Simonides mentions
eleven as being the number of the days; Philochorus, nine; but
Demagoras says seven, the number here adopted by Ovid.]
[Footnote 57: _Floating on the sea._--Ver. 746. The male of the
kingfisher was said by the ancients to be so constant to his mate,
that on her death he refused to couple with any other, for which
reason the poets considered that bird as the emblem of conjugal
affection. The sea was supposed to be always calm when the female
was sitting; from which time of serenity, our proverb, which
speaks of ‘Halcyon days,’ takes its rise.]
EXPLANATION.
According to the testimony of several of the ancient writers, Ceyx
was the king of Trachyn, and was a prince of great knowledge and
experience; and many had recourse to him to atone for the murders
which they had committed, whether through imprudence or otherwise.
Pausanias says that Eurystheus having summoned Ceyx to deliver up to
him the children of Hercules, that prince, who was not able to
maintain a war against so powerful a king, sent the youths to
Theseus, who took them into his protection.
To recover from the melancholy consequent upon the death of his
brother Dædalion and his niece Chione, he went to Claros to consult
the oracle of Apollo, and was shipwrecked on his return; on which,
his wife, Halcyone, was so afflicted, that she died of grief, or
else threw herself into the sea, as Hyginus informs us. It was said
that they were changed into the birds which we call kingfishers,
a story which, probably, has no other foundation than the name of
Halcyone, which signifies that bird; which by the ancients was
considered to be the symbol of conjugal affection.
Apollodorus, however, does not give us so favourable an idea of the
virtue of these persons as Ovid has done. According to him, it was
their pride which proved the cause of their destruction. Jupiter
enraged at Ceyx, because he had assumed his name as Halcyone had
done that of Juno, changed them both into birds, he becoming a
cormorant, and she a kingfisher. This story is remarkable for the
beautiful and affecting manner in which it is told.
FABLE VIII. [XI.749-795]
The Nymph Hesperia flying from Æsacus, who is enamoured of her,
is bitten by a serpent, and instantly dies from the effects of the
wound. He is so afflicted at her death, that he throws himself into
the sea, and is transformed into a didapper.
Some old man[58] observes them as they fly over the widely extended
seas, and commends their love, preserved to the end {of their
existence}. One, close by, or the same, if chance so orders it, says,
“This one, too, which you see, as it cuts through the sea, and having
its legs drawn up,” pointing at a didapper, with its wide throat, “was
the son of a king. And, if you want to come down to him in one
lengthened series, his ancestors are Ilus, and Assaracus, and
Ganymede,[59] snatched away by Jupiter, and the aged Laomedon, and
Priam, to whom were allotted the last days of Troy. He himself was the
brother of Hector, and had he not experienced a strange fate in his
early youth, perhaps he would have had a name not inferior to {that} of
Hector; although the daughter of Dymas bore this {last}. Alexirhoë, the
daughter of the two-horned Granicus,[60] is said secretly to have
brought forth Æsacus, under shady Ida.
“He loathed the cities, and distant from the splendid court, frequented
the lonely mountains, and the unambitious fields; nor went but rarely
among the throngs of Ilium. Yet, not having a breast either churlish, or
impregnable to love, he espies Hesperie, the daughter of Cebrenus,[61]
on the banks of her sire, who has been often sought by him throughout
all the woods, drying her locks, thrown over her shoulders, in the sun.
The Nymph, {thus} seen, takes to flight, just as the frightened hind
from the tawny wolf; and {as} the water-duck, surprised at a distance,
having left her {wonted} stream, from the hawk. Her the Trojan hero
pursues, and, swift with love, closely follows her, made swift by fear.
Behold! a snake, lurking in the grass, with its barbed sting, wounds her
foot as she flies, and leaves its venom in her body. With her flight is
her life cut short. Frantic, he embraces her breathless, and cries
aloud,-- “I grieve, I grieve that {ever} I pursued {thee}. But I did not
apprehend this; nor was it of so much value to me to conquer. We two
have proved the destruction of wretched thee. The wound was given by the
serpent; by me was the occasion given. I should be more guilty than he,
did I not give the consolation for thy fate by my own death.” {Thus} he
said; and from a rock which the hoarse waves had undermined, he hurled
himself into the sea. Tethys, pitying him as he fell, received him
softly, and covered him with feathers as he swam through the sea; and
the power of obtaining the death he sought was not granted to him. The
lover is vexed that, against his will, he is obliged to live on, and
that opposition is made to his spirit, desirous to depart from its
wretched abode. And, as he has assumed newformed wings on his shoulders,
he flies aloft, and again he throws his body in the waves: his feathers
break the fall. Æsacus is enraged; and headlong he plunges into the
deep,[62] and incessantly tries the way of destruction. Love caused his
leanness; the spaces between the joints of his legs are long; his neck
remains long, {and} his head is far away from his body. He loves the
sea, and has his name because he plunges[63] in it.
[Footnote 58: _Some old man._--Ver. 749-50. ‘Hos aliquis
senior--spectat;’ these words are translated by Clarke, ‘Some old
blade spies them.’]
[Footnote 59: _Ganymede._--Ver. 756. Ovid need not have inserted
Assaracus and Ganymede, as they were only the brothers of Ilus,
and the three were the sons of Tros. Ilus was the father of
Laomedon, whose son was Priam, the father of Æsacus.]
[Footnote 60: _Granicus._--Ver. 763. The Granicus was a river of
Mysia, near which Alexander the Great defeated Darius with immense
slaughter.]
[Footnote 61: _Cebrenus._--Ver. 769. The Cebrenus was a little
stream of Phrygia, not far from Troy.]
[Footnote 62: _Plunges into the deep._--Ver. 791-2. ‘Inque
profundum Pronus abit,’ Clarke renders, ‘Goes plumb down into the
deep.’ Certainly this is nearer to its French origin, ‘a plomb,’
than the present form, ‘plump down;’ but, like many other
instances in his translation, it decidedly does not help us, as he
professes to do, to ‘the attainment of the elegancy of this great
Poet.’]
[Footnote 63: _Because he plunges._--Ver. 795. He accounts for the
Latin name of the diver, or didapper, ‘mergus,’ by saying that it
was so called, ‘a mergendo,’ from its diving, which doubtless was
the origin of the name, though not taking its rise in the fiction
here related by the Poet.]
EXPLANATION.
Ovid and Apollodorus agree that Æsacus was the son of Priam, and
that he was changed into a didapper, or diver, but they differ in
the other circumstances of his life. Instead of being the son of
Alexirhoë, Apollodorus says that he was the son of Priam and Arisbe
the daughter of Merope, his first wife; that his father made him
marry Sterope, who dying very young, he was so afflicted at her
death, that he threw himself into the sea. He also says that Priam
having repudiated Arisbe to marry Hecuba, the daughter of Cisseus,
Æsacus seeing his mother-in-law pregnant of her second son, foretold
his father that her progeny would be the cause of a bloody war,
which would end in the destruction of the kingdom of Troy; and that
upon this prediction, the infant, when born, was exposed on Mount
Ida.
Tzetzes adds, that Æsacus told his father that it was absolutely
necessary to put to death both the mother and the infant which was
born on that same day; on which Priam being informed that Cilla, the
wife of Thymætes, being delivered on that day of a son, he ordered
them both to be killed; thinking thereby to escape the realization
of the prediction. Servius, on the authority of Euphorion, relates
the story in much the same manner; but a poet quoted by Cicero in
his first book on Divination, says that it was the oracle of Zelia,
a little town at the foot of Mount Ida, which gave that answer as an
interpretation of the dream of Hecuba. Pausanias says it was the
sibyl Herophila who interpreted the dream, while other ancient
writers state that it was Cassandra. Apollodorus says that Æsacus
learned from his grandfather Merops the art of foretelling things to
come.
BOOK THE TWELFTH.
FABLES I. AND II. [XII.1-145]
The Greeks assemble their troops at Aulis, to proceed against the
city of Troy, and revenge the rape of Helen; but the fleet is
detained in port by contrary winds. Calchas, the priest, after a
prediction concerning the success of the expedition, declares that
the weather will never be favourable till Agamemnon shall have
sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia. She is immediately led to the
altar for that purpose; but Diana, appeased by this act of
obedience, carries away the maiden, and substitutes a hind in her
place, on which a fair wind arises. Upon the Greeks landing at Troy,
a battle is fought, in which Protesilaüs is killed by Hector, and
Achilles kills Cygnus, a Trojan, on which his father Neptune
transforms him into a swan.
His father Priam mourned him, not knowing that Æsacus, having assumed
wings, was {still} living; Hector, too, with his brothers, made
unavailing offerings[1] at a tomb, that bore his name {on it}. The
presence of Paris was wanting, at this mournful office: who, soon after,
brought into his country a lengthened war, together with a ravished
wife;[2] and a thousand ships[3] uniting together, followed him, and,
together {with them}, the whole body[4] of the Pelasgian nation. Nor
would vengeance have been delayed, had not the raging winds made the
seas impassable, and the Bœotian land detained in fishy Aulis the ships
ready to depart. Here, when they had prepared a sacrifice to Jupiter,
after the manner of their country, as the ancient altar was heated with
kindled fires, the Greeks beheld an azure-coloured serpent creep into a
plane tree, which was standing near the sacrifice they had begun. There
was on the top of the tree a nest of twice four birds, which the serpent
seized[5] together, and the dam as she fluttered around {the scene of}
her loss, and he buried them in his greedy maw. All stood amazed. But
{Calchas}, the son of Thestor, a soothsayer, foreseeing the truth, says,
“Rejoice, Pelasgians, we shall conquer. Troy will fall, but the
continuance of our toil will be long;” and he allots the nine birds to
the years of the war. {The serpent}, just as he is, coiling around the
green branches in the tree, becomes a stone, and, under the form of a
serpent, retains that stone {form}.
Nereus continued boisterous in the Ionian waves, and did not impel the
sails onwards; and there are some who think that Neptune favoured Troy,
because he made the walls of the city. But not {so} the son of Thestor.
For neither was he ignorant, nor did he conceal, that the wrath of the
virgin Goddess must be appeased by the blood of a virgin. After the
public good had prevailed over affection, and the king over the father,
and Iphigenia, ready to offer her chaste blood, stood before the altar,
while the priests were weeping; the Goddess was appeased, and cast a
mist before their eyes, and, amid the service and the hurry of the
rites, and the voices of the suppliants, is said to have changed
Iphigenia, the Mycenian maiden, for a substituted hind. Wherefore, when
the Goddess was appeased by a death which was {more} fitting, and at the
same moment the wrath of Phœbe, and of the sea was past, the thousand
ships received the winds astern, and having suffered much, they gained
the Phrygian shore.
There is a spot in the middle of the world, between the land and the
sea, and the regions of heaven, the confines of the threefold universe,
whence is beheld whatever anywhere exists, although it may be in far
{distant} regions, and every sound pierces the hollow ears. {Of this
place} Fame is possessed, and chooses for herself a habitation on the
top[6] of a tower, and has added innumerable avenues, and a thousand
openings to her house, and has closed the entrances with no gates. Night
and day are they open. It is all of sounding brass; it is all
resounding, and it reechoes the voice, and repeats what it hears. Within
there is no rest, and silence in no part. Nor yet is there a clamour,
but the murmur of a low voice, such as is wont to arise from the waves
of the sea, if one listens at a distance, or like the sound which the
end of the thundering {makes} when Jupiter has clashed the black clouds
together. A crowd occupies the hall; the fickle vulgar come and go; and
a thousand rumours, false mixed with true, wander up and down, and
circulate confused words. Of these, some fill the empty ears with
conversation; some are carrying elsewhere what is told them; the measure
of the fiction is ever on the increase, and each fresh narrator adds
something to what he has heard. There, is Credulity, there, rash
Mistake, and empty Joy, and alarmed Fears, and sudden Sedition, and
Whispers of doubtful origin. She sees what things are done in heaven and
on the sea, and on the earth; and she pries into the whole universe.
She has made it known that Grecian ships are on their way, with valiant
troops: nor does the enemy appear in arms unlooked for. The Trojans
oppose their landing, and defend the shore, and thou, Protesilaüs,[7]
art, by the decrees of fate, the first to fall by the spear of
Hector;[8] and the battles {now} commenced, and the courageous spirits
of {the Trojans}, and Hector, {till then} unknown, cost the Greeks dear.
Nor do the Phrygians experience at small expense of blood what the
Grecian right hand can do. And now the Sigæan shores are red {with
blood}: now Cygnus, the son of Neptune, has slain a thousand men. Now is
Achilles pressing on in his chariot, and levelling the Trojan ranks,
with the blow of his Peleian spear; and seeking through the lines either
Cygnus or Hector, he engages with Cygnus: Hector is reserved for the
tenth year. Then animating the horses, having their white necks pressed
with the yoke, he directed his chariot against the enemy, and
brandishing his quivering spear with his arm, he said, “O youth, whoever
thou art, take this consolation in thy death, that thou art slain by the
Hæmonian Achilles.”
Thus far the grandson of Æacus. His heavy lance followed his words. But,
although there was no missing in the unerring lance, yet it availed
nothing, by the sharpness of its point, {thus} discharged; and as it
only bruised his breast with a blunt stroke, {the other} said, “Thou son
of a Goddess, (for by report have we known of thee beforehand) why art
thou surprised that wounds are warded off from me? (for {Achilles} was
surprised); not this helmet that thou seest tawny with the horse’s mane,
nor the hollowed shield, the burden of my left arm, are assistant to me;
from them ornament {alone} is sought; for this cause, too, Mars is wont
to take up arms. All the assistance of defensive armour shall be
removed, {and} yet I shall come off unhurt. It is something to be born,
not of a Nereid,[9] but {of one} who rules both Nereus and his daughter,
and the whole ocean.”
{Thus} he spoke; and he hurled against the descendant of Æacus his dart,
destined to stick in the rim of his shield; it broke through both the
brass and the next nine folds of bull’s hide; but stopping in the tenth
circle {of the hide}, the hero wrenched it out, and again hurled the
quivering weapon with a strong hand; again his body was without a wound,
and unharmed, nor was a third spear able {even} to graze Cygnus,
unprotected, and exposing himself. Achilles raged no otherwise than as a
bull,[10] in the open Circus,[11] when with his dreadful horns he butts
against the purple-coloured garments, used as the means of provoking
him, and perceives that his wounds are evaded. Still, he examines
whether the point has chanced to fall from off the spear. It is {still}
adhering to the shaft. “My hand then is weak,” says he, “and it has
spent {all} the strength it had before, upon one man. For decidedly it
was strong enough, both when at first I overthrew the walls of
Lyrnessus, or when I filled both Tenedos and Eëtionian[12] Thebes with
their own blood. Or when Caÿcus[13] flowed empurpled with the slaughter
of its people: and Telephus[14] was twice sensible of the virtue of my
spear. Here, too, where so many have been slain, heaps of whom I both
have made along this shore, and I {now} behold, my right hand has proved
mighty, and is mighty.”
{Thus} he spoke; and as if he distrusted what he had done before, he
hurled his spear against Menœtes, one of the Lycian multitude,[15] who
{was} standing opposite, and he tore asunder both his coat of mail, and
his breast beneath it. He beating the solid earth with his dying head,
he drew the same weapon from out of the reeking wound, and said, “This
is the hand, this the lance, with which I conquered but now. The same
will I use against him; in his {case}, I pray that the event may prove
the same.” Thus he said, and he hurled it at Cygnus, nor did the ashen
lance miss him; and, not escaped {by him}, it resounded on his left
shoulder: thence it was repelled, as though by a wall, or a solid rock.
Yet Achilles saw Cygnus marked with blood, where he had been struck, and
he rejoiced, {but in} vain. There was no wound; that was the blood of
Menœtes.
Then indeed, raging, he leaps headlong from his lofty chariot, and hand
to hand, with his gleaming sword striking at his fearless foe, he
perceives that the shield and the helmet are pierced with his sword, and
that his weapon, too, is blunted upon his hard body. He endures it no
longer; and drawing back his shield, he three or four times strikes the
face of the hero, and his hollow temples, with the hilt of the sword;
and following, he presses onward as the other gives ground, and
confounds him, and drives him on, and gives him no respite in his
confusion. Horror seizes on him, and darkness swims before his eyes; and
as he moves backwards his retreating steps, a stone in the middle of the
field stands in his way. Impelled over this, with his breast upwards,
Achilles throws Cygnus with great violence, and dashes him[16] to the
earth. Then, pressing down his breast with his shield and his hard
knees, he draws tight the straps of his helmet; which, fastened beneath
his pressed chin, squeeze close his throat, and take away his
respiration and the passage of his breath.
He is preparing to strip his vanquished {foe}; he sees {nothing but} his
armour, left behind. The God of the Ocean changed his body into a white
bird, of which he {so} lately bore the name.
[Footnote 1: _Unavailing offerings._--Ver. 3. ‘Inferias inanes’ is
a poetical expression, signifying the offering sacrifices of
honey, milk, wine, blood, flowers, frankincense, and other things,
at a tomb, which was empty or honorary. The Greeks called these
kind of sacrifices by the name of χοαὶ.]
[Footnote 2: _A ravished wife._--Ver. 5. This was Helen, the wife
of Menelaüs, whose abduction by Paris was the cause of the Trojan
war.]
[Footnote 3: _A thousand ships._--Ver. 7. That is, a thousand in
round numbers. For Homer makes them, 1186; Dictys Cretensis, 1225;
and Dares, 1140.]
[Footnote 4: _The whole body._--Ver. 7. The adjective ‘commune’ is
here used substantively, and signifies ‘the whole body.’]
[Footnote 5: _Serpent seized._--Ver. 16-17. Clarke translates this
line, ‘Which the snake whipt up, as also the dam flying about her
loss, and buried them in his greedy paunch.’]
[Footnote 6: _On the top._--Ver. 43. ‘Summaque domum sibi legit in
arce,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘And chooses there a house for
herself, on the very tip-top of it.’]
[Footnote 7: _Protesilaüs._--Ver. 68. He was the husband of
Laodamia, the daughter of Acastus. His father was Iphiclus, who
was noted for his extreme swiftness.]
[Footnote 8: _Spear of Hector._--Ver. 67. Some writers say that he
fell by the hand of Æneas.]
[Footnote 9: _Of a Nereid._--Ver. 93. Cygnus says this
sarcastically, in allusion to Achilles being born of Thetis,
a daughter of Nereus.]
[Footnote 10: _As a bull._--Ver. 103-4. Clarke translates these
lines in this comical strain: ‘Achilles was as mad as a bull in
the open Circus, when he pushes at the red coat, stuffed, used on
purpose to provoke him.’]
[Footnote 11: _The open Circus._--Ver. 104. We learn from Seneca,
that it was the custom in the ‘venationes’ of the Circus to
irritate the bull against his antagonist, by thrusting in his path
figures stuffed with straw or hay, and covered with red cloth.
Similar means are used to provoke the bull in the Spanish
bull-fights of the present day.]
[Footnote 12: _Eëtionian._--Ver. 110. Eëtion, the father of
Andromache, the wife of Hector, was the king of Thebes in Cilicia,
which place was ravaged by the Greeks for having sent assistance
to the Trojans.]
[Footnote 13: _Caÿcus._--Ver. 111. The Caÿcus was a river of
Mysia, in Asia Minor, which country had incurred the resentment of
the Greeks, for having assisted the Trojans.]
[Footnote 14: _Telephus._--Ver. 112. Telephus, the son of Hercules
and the Nymph Auge, was wounded in combat by Achilles. By the
direction of the oracle, he applied to Achilles for his cure,
which was effected by means of the rust of the weapon with which
the wound was made.]
[Footnote 15: _Lycian multitude._--Ver. 116. The Lycians, whose
territory was in Asia Minor, between Caria and Pamphylia, were
allies of the Trojans.]
[Footnote 16: _And dashes him._--Ver. 139. Clarke renders this
line, ‘He overset him, and thwacked him against the ground.’]
EXPLANATION.
It is not improbable that the prediction of Calchas, at Aulis, that
the war against Troy would endure nine years, had no other
foundation than his desire to check an enterprise which must be
attended with much bloodshed, and difficulties of the most
formidable nature. It is not unlikely, too, that this interpretation
of the story of the serpent devouring the birds may have been
planned by some of the Grecian generals, who did not dare openly to
refuse their assistance to Agamemnon. The story of Iphigenia was,
perhaps, founded on a similar policy. The ancient poets and
historians are by no means agreed as to the fate of Iphigenia, as
some say that she really was sacrificed, while others state that she
was transformed into a she-bear, others into an old woman, and
Nicander affirms that she was changed into a heifer.
There is no story more celebrated among the ancients than that of
the intended immolation of Iphigenia. Euripides wrote two tragedies
on the subject. Homer, however, makes no allusion to the story of
Iphigenia; but he mentions Iphianassa, the daughter of Agamemnon,
who was sent for, to be a hostage on his reconciliation with
Achilles; she is probably the same person that is meant by the later
poets, under the name of Iphigenia.
It has been suggested by some modern commentators, that the story of
Iphigenia was founded on the sacrifice of his own daughter, by
Jeptha, the judge of Israel, which circumstance happened much about
the same time. The story of the substitution of the hind for the
damsel, when about to be slain, was possibly founded on the
substituted offering for Isaac when about to be offered by his
father; for it is not probable that the people of Greece were
entirely ignorant of the existence of the books of Moses, and that
wonderful narrative would be not unlikely to make an impression on
minds ever ready to be attracted by the marvellous. Some writers
have taken pains to show that Agamemnon did not sacrifice, or
contemplate sacrificing, his own daughter, by asserting that the
Iphigenia here mentioned was the daughter of Helen, who was educated
by Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, and the sister of Helen.
Pausanias also adopts this view, and gives for his authorities
Euphorion of Chalcis, Alexander, Stesichorus, and the people of
Argos, who preserved a tradition to the same effect.
Lucretius, Virgil, and Diodorus Siculus are in the number of those
who assert that Iphigenia actually was immolated. According to
Dictys the Cretan, and several of the ancient scholiasts, Ulysses
having left the Grecian camp without the knowledge of Agamemnon,
went to Argos, and returned with Iphigenia, under the pretext that
her father intended to marry her to Achilles. Some writers state
that Achilles was in love with Iphigenia; and that he was greatly
enraged at Ulysses for bringing her to the camp, and opposed her
sacrifice to the utmost of his power.
Ovid then proceeds to recount the adventures of the Greeks, after
their arrival at Troy. An oracle had warned the Greeks, that he who
should be the first to land on the Trojan shores, would inevitably
be slain. Protesilaüs seeing that this prediction damped the courage
of his companions, led the way, and sacrificed his life for the
safety of his friends, being slain by Hector immediately on his
landing. Cygnus, signalizing himself by his bravery, attracted the
attention of Achilles, who singled him out as a worthy antagonist.
It was said that this hero was the son of Neptune; perhaps because
he was powerful by sea, and the prince of some island in the
Archipelago. He was said to be invulnerable, most probably because
his shield was arrow-proof. The story of his transformation into a
swan, has evidently no other foundation than the resemblance between
his name and that of that bird.
FABLES III. AND IV. [XII.146-535]
A truce ensuing, the Grecian chiefs having assembled at a feast,
express their surprise at the fact of Cygnus being invulnerable.
Nestor, by way of showing a still more surprising instance, relates
how the Nymph Cænis, the daughter of Elatus, having yielded to the
caresses of Neptune, was transformed by him into a man, and made
invulnerable. Cæneus being present at the wedding feast of
Pirithoüs, the son of Ixion, where Eurytus was a guest, the latter,
being elevated with wine, made an attempt upon Hippodamia, the
bride; on which a quarrel arose between the Centaurs and the
Lapithæ. After many on both sides had been slain, Cæneus still
remained unhurt; on which, the Centaurs having heaped up trunks of
trees upon him, he was pressed to death; Neptune then changed his
body into a bird.
This toil[17] {and} this combat brought on a cessation for many days;
and both sides rested, laying aside their arms. And while a watchful
guard was keeping the Phrygian walls, and a watchful guard was keeping
the Argive trenches, a festive day had arrived, on which Achilles, the
conqueror of Cygnus, appeased Pallas with the blood of a heifer, adorned
with fillets. As soon as he had placed its entrails[18] upon the glowing
altars, and the smell, acceptable to the Deities, mounted up to the
skies, the sacred rites had their share, the other part was served up at
the table. The chiefs reclined on couches, and sated their bodies with
roasted flesh,[19] and banished both their cares and their thirst with
wine. No harps, no melody of voices,[20] no long pipe of boxwood pierced
with many a hole, delights them; but in discourse they pass the night,
and valour is the subject-matter of their conversation. They relate the
combats of the enemy and their own; and often do they delight to
recount, in turn, both the dangers that they have encountered and that
they have surmounted. For of what {else} should Achilles speak? or of
what, in preference, should they speak before the great Achilles? {But}
especially the recent victory over the conquered Cygnus was the subject
of discourse. It seemed wonderful to them all, that the body of the
youth was penetrable by no weapon, and was susceptible of no wounds, and
that it blunted the steel itself. This same thing, the grandson of
Æacus, this, the Greeks wondered at.
When thus Nestor says {to them}: “Cygnus has been the only despiser of
weapons in your time, and penetrable by no blows. But I myself formerly
saw the Perrhæbean[21] Cæneus bear a thousand blows with his body
unhurt; Cæneus the Perrhæbean, {I say}, who, famous for his
achievements, inhabited Othrys. And that this, too, might be the more
wondrous in him, he was born a woman.” They are surprised, whoever are
present, at the singular nature of this prodigy, and they beg him to
tell the story. Among them, Achilles says, “Pray tell us, (for we all
have the same desire to hear it,) O eloquent old man,[22] the wisdom of
our age; who was {this} Cæneus, {and} why changed to the opposite sex?
in what war, and in the engagements of what contest was he known to
thee? by whom was he conquered, if he was conquered by any one?”
Then the aged man {replied}: “Although tardy old age is a disadvantage
to me, and many things which I saw in my early years escape me {now},
yet I remember most {of them}; and there is nothing, amid so many
transactions of war and peace, that is more firmly fixed in my mind than
that circumstance. And if extended age could make any one a witness of
many deeds, I have lived two hundred[23] years, {and} now my third
century is being passed {by me}. Cænis, the daughter of Elatus, was
remarkable for her charms; the most beauteous virgin among the
Thessalian maids, and one sighed for in vain by the wishes of many
wooers through the neighbouring {cities}, and through thy cities,
Achilles, for she was thy countrywoman. Perhaps, too, Peleus would have
attempted that alliance; but at that time the marriage of thy mother had
either befallen him, or had been promised him. Cænis did not enter into
any nuptial ties; and as she was walking along the lonely shore, she
suffered violence from the God of the ocean. ’Twas thus that report
stated; and when Neptune had experienced the pleasures of this new
amour, he said, ‘Be thy wishes secure from all repulse; choose whatever
thou mayst desire.’ The same report has related this too; Cænis replied,
‘This mishap makes my desire extreme, that I may not be in a condition
to suffer any such thing {in future}. Grant that I be no {longer} a
woman, {and} thou wilt have granted me all.’ She spoke these last words
with a hoarser tone, and the voice might seem to be that of a man, as
{indeed} it was.
“For now the God of the deep ocean had consented to her wish; and had
granted moreover that he should not be able to be pierced by any wounds,
or to fall by {any} steel. Exulting in his privilege, the Atracian[24]
departed; and {now} spent his time in manly exercises, and roamed over
the Peneïan plains. {Pirithoüs}, the son of the bold Ixion, had married
Hippodame,[25] and had bidden the cloud-born monsters to sit down at the
tables ranged in order, in a cave shaded with trees. The Hæmonian nobles
were there; I, too, was there, and the festive palace resounded with the
confused rout. Lo! they sing the marriage song, and the halls smoke with
the fires;[26] the maiden, too, is there, remarkable for her beauty,
surrounded by a crowd of matrons and newly married women. We {all}
pronounce Pirithoüs fortunate in her for a wife; an omen which we had
well nigh falsified. For thy breast, Eurytus, most savage of the savage
Centaurs, is inflamed as much with wine as with seeing the maiden; and
drunkenness, redoubled by lust, holds sway {over thee}. On the sudden
the tables being overset, disturb the feast, and the bride is violently
dragged away by her seized hair. Eurytus snatches up Hippodame, {and}
the others such as each one fancies, or is able {to seize}; and there is
{all} the appearance of a captured city. The house rings with the cries
of women. Quickly we all rise; and first, Theseus says, ‘What madness,
Eurytus, is impelling thee, who, while I {still} live, dost provoke
Pirithoüs, and, in thy ignorance, in one dost injure two?’ And that the
valiant hero may not say these things in vain, he pushes them off as
they are pressing on, and takes her whom they have seized away from them
as they grow furious.
“He says nothing in answer, nor, indeed, can he defend such actions by
words; but he attacks the face of her protector with insolent hands, and
strikes his generous breast. By chance, there is near at hand an ancient
bowl, rough with projecting figures, which, huge as it is, the son of
Ægeus, himself huger {still}, takes up and hurls full in his face. He,
vomiting both from his wounds and his mouth clots of blood,[27] and
brains and wine together, lying on his back, kicks on the soaking sand.
{The} double-limbed[28] {Centaurs} are inflamed at the death of their
brother; and all vying, with one voice exclaim, ‘To arms! to arms!’ Wine
gives them courage, and, in the first onset, cups hurled are flying
about, and shattered casks[29] and hollow cauldrons; things before
adapted for a banquet, now for war and slaughter. First, the son of
Ophion, Amycus, did not hesitate to spoil the interior of the house of
its ornaments; and first, from the shrine he tore up a chandelier,[30]
thick set with blazing lamps; and lifting it on high, like him who
attempts to break the white neck of the bull with sacrificial axe, he
dashed it against the forehead of Celadon the Lapithean, and left his
skull mashed into his face, no {longer} to be recognized. His eyes
started out, and the bones of his face being dashed to pieces, his nose
was driven back, and was fixed in the middle of his palate. Him, Belates
the Pellæan, having torn away the foot of a maple table, laid flat on
the ground, with his chin sunk upon his breast, and vomiting forth his
teeth mixed with blood; and sent him, by a twofold wound, to the shades
of Tartarus.
“As Gryneus stood next, looking at the smoking altar with a grim look,
he said, ‘{And} why do we not make use of this?’ and {then} he raised an
immense altar, together with its fire; and hurled it into the midst of
the throng of the Lapithæ, and struck down two {of them}, Broteus and
Orius. The mother of Orius was Mycale, who was known by her incantations
to have often drawn down the horns of the struggling moon. {On this}
Exadius says, ‘Thou shalt not go unpunished, if only the opportunity of
getting a weapon is given me;’ and, as his weapon, he wields the antlers
of a votive stag,[31] which were upon a lofty pine-tree. With the double
branches of these, Gryneus is pierced through the eyes, and has those
eyes scooped out. A part of them adheres to the antlers, a part runs
down his beard, and hangs down clotted with gore. Lo! Rhœtus snatches up
an immense flaming brand, from the middle of the altar, and on the right
side breaks through the temples of Charaxus, covered with yellow hair.
His locks, seized by the violent flames, burn like dry corn, and the
blood seared in the wound emits a terrific noise in its hissing, such as
the iron glowing in the flames is often wont to emit, which, when the
smith has drawn it out with the crooked pincers, he plunges into the
trough; whereon it whizzes, and, sinking in the bubbling water, hisses.
Wounded, he shakes the devouring fire from his locks, and takes upon his
shoulders the threshold, torn up out of the ground, a {whole}
waggon-load, which its very weight hinders him from throwing full
against the foe. The stony mass, too, bears down Cometes, a friend, who
is standing at a short distance; nor does Rhœtus {then} restrain his
joy, {and} he says, ‘In such manner do I pray that the rest of the
throng of thy party may be brave;’ and {then} he increases the wound,
redoubled with the half-burnt stake, and three or four times he breaks
the sutures of his head with heavy blows, and its bones sink within the
oozing brains.
“Victorious, he passes on to Evagrus, and Corythus, and Dryas; of which
{number}, when Corythus, having his cheeks covered[32] with their first
down, has fallen, Evagrus says, ‘What glory has been acquired by thee,
in killing a boy?’ Rhœtus permits him to say no more, and fiercely
thrusts the glowing flames into the open mouth of the hero, as he is
speaking, and through the mouth into the breast. Thee, too, cruel Dryas,
he pursues, whirling the fire around his head, but the same issue does
not await thee as well. Thou piercest him with a stake burnt at the end,
while triumphing in the success of an uninterrupted slaughter, in the
spot where the neck is united to the shoulder. Rhœtus groans aloud, and
with difficulty wrenches the stake out of the hard bone, and, drenched
in his own blood, he flies. Orneus flies, too, and Lycabas, and Medon,
wounded in his right shoulder-blade, and Thaumas with Pisenor; Mermerus,
too, who lately excelled all in speed of foot, {but} now goes more
slowly from the wound he has received; Pholus, too, and Melaneus, and
Abas a hunter of boars, and Astylos the augur, who has in vain dissuaded
his own party from this warfare. He also says to Nessus,[33] as he
dreads the wounds, ‘Fly not! {for} thou shalt be reserved for the bow of
Hercules.’ But Eurynomus and Lycidas, and Areos, and Imbreus did not
escape death, all of whom the right hand of Dryas pierced right through.
Thou, too, Crenæus, didst receive a wound in front,[34] although thou
didst turn thy back in flight; for looking back, thou didst receive the
fatal steel between thy two eyes, where the nose is joined to the lower
part of the forehead. In the midst of so much noise, Aphidas was lying
fast asleep from the wine which he had drunk incessantly, and was not
aroused, and in his languid hand was grasping the mixed bowl, stretched
at full length upon the shaggy skin of a bear of Ossa. Soon as Phorbas
beheld him from afar, wielding no arms, he inserted his fingers in the
strap of his lance,[35] and said, ‘Drink thy wine mingled with {the
water of} Styx;’ and, delaying no longer, he hurled his javelin against
the youth, and the ash pointed with steel was driven into his neck, as,
by chance, he lay {there} on his back. His death happened without his
being sensible of it; and the blood flowed from his full throat, both
upon the couch and into the bowl itself.
“I saw Petræus endeavouring to tear up an acorn-bearing oak from the
earth; {and}, as he was grasping it in his embrace, and was shaking it
on this side and that, and was moving about the loosened tree, the lance
of Pirithoüs hurled at the ribs of Petræus, transfixed his struggling
breast together with the tough oak. They said, {too}, that Lycus fell by
the valour of Pirithoüs, {and} that Chromis fell {by the hand} of
Pirithoüs. But each of them {gave} less glory to the conqueror, than
Dictys and Helops gave. Helops was transfixed by the javelin, which
passed right through his temples, and, hurled from the right side,
penetrated to his left ear. Dictys, slipping from the steep point of a
rock, while, in his fear, he is flying from the pursuing son of Ixion,
falls down headlong, and, by the weight of his body, breaks a huge ash
tree, and spits his own entrails upon it, {thus} broken. Aphareus
advances {as} his avenger, and endeavours to hurl a stone torn away from
the mountain. As he is endeavouring {to do so}, the son of Ægeus attacks
him with an oaken club, and breaks the huge bones of his arm, and has
neither leisure, nor, {indeed}, does he care to put his useless body to
death; and he leaps upon the back of the tall Bianor, not used to
bear[36] any other than himself; and he fixes his knees in his ribs, and
holding his long hair, seized with his left hand, shatters his face, and
his threatening features, and his very hard temples, with the knotty
oak. With his oak, {too}, he levels Nedymnus, and Lycotas the darter,
and Hippasus having his breast covered with his flowing beard, and
Ripheus, who towered above the topmost woods, and Tereus, who used to
carry home the bears, caught in the Hæmonian mountains, alive and
raging.
“Demoleon could not any longer endure Theseus enjoying this success in
the combat, and he tried with vast efforts to tear up from the thick-set
wood an aged pine; because he could not effect this, he hurled it,
broken short, against his foe. But Theseus withdrew afar from the
approaching missile, through the warning of Pallas; so {at least} he
himself wished it to be thought. Yet the tree did not fall without
effect: for it struck off from the throat of the tall Crantor, both his
breast and his left shoulder. He, Achilles, had been the armour-bearer
of thy father: him Amyntor, king of the Dolopians,[37] when conquered in
war, had given to the son of Æacus, as a pledge and confirmation of
peace. When Peleus saw him at a distance, mangled with a foul wound, he
said, ‘Accept however, Crantor, most beloved of youths, this sacrifice;’
and, with a strong arm, and energy of intention, he hurled his ashen
lance against Demoleon, which broke through the enclosures of his ribs,
and quivered, sticking amid the bones. He draws out with his hand the
shaft without the point; even that follows, with much difficulty; the
point is retained within his lungs. The very pain gives vigour to his
resolution; {though} wounded, he rears against the enemy, and tramples
upon the hero with his horse’s feet. The other receives the re-echoing
strokes upon his helmet and his shield, and defends his shoulders, and
holds his arms extended before him, and through the shoulder-blades he
pierces two breasts[38] at one stroke. But first, from afar, he had
consigned to death Phlegræus, and Hyles; in closer combat, Hiphinoüs and
Clanis. To these is added Dorylas, who had his temples covered with a
wolf’s skin, and the real horns of oxen reddened with much blood, that
performed the duty of a cruel weapon.
“To him I said, for courage gave me strength, ‘Behold, how much thy
horns are inferior to my steel;’ and {then} I threw my javelin. When he
could not avoid this, he held up his right hand before his forehead,
about to receive the blow; {and} to his forehead his hand was pinned.
A shout arose; but Peleus struck him delaying, and overpowered by the
painful wound, (for he was standing next to him) with his sword beneath
the middle of his belly. He leaped forth, and fiercely dragged his own
bowels on the ground, and trod on them {thus} dragged, and burst them
{thus} trodden; and he entangled his legs, as well in them, and fell
down, with his belly emptied {of its inner parts}. Nor did thy beauty,
Cyllarus,[39] save thee while fighting, if only we allow beauty to that
{monstrous} nature {of thine}. His beard was beginning {to grow}; the
colour of his beard was that of gold; and golden-coloured hair was
hanging from his shoulders to the middle of his shoulder-blades. In his
face there was a pleasing briskness; his neck, and his shoulders, and
his hands, and his breast {were} resembling the applauded statues of the
artists, and {so} in those parts in which he was a man; nor was the
shape of the horse beneath that {shape}, faulty and inferior to {that
of} the man. Give him {but} the neck and the head {of a horse, and} he
would be worthy of Castor. So fit is his back to be sat upon, so stands
his breast erect with muscle; {he is} all over blacker than black pitch;
yet his tail is white; the colour, too, of his legs is white. Many a
female of his own kind longed for him; but Hylonome alone gained him,
than whom no female more handsome lived in the lofty woods, among the
half beasts. She alone attaches Cyllarus, both by her blandishments, and
by loving, and by confessing that she loves him. Her care, too, of her
person is as great as can be in those limbs: so that her hair is
smoothed with a comb; so that she now decks herself with rosemary, now
with violets or roses, {and} sometimes she wears white lilies; and twice
a day she washes her face with streams that fall from the height of the
Pagasæan wood; {and} twice she dips her body in the stream: and she
throws over her shoulder or her left side no skins but what are
becoming, and are those of choice beasts.
“Their love was equal: together they wandered upon the mountains;
together they entered the caves; and then, too, together had they
entered the Lapithæan house; together were they waging the fierce
warfare. The author {of the deed} is unknown: {but} a javelin came from
the left side, and pierced thee, Cyllarus, below {the spot} where the
breast is joined to the neck. The heart, being pierced with a small
wound, grew cold, together with the whole body, after the weapon was
drawn out. Immediately, Hylonome receives his dying limbs, and cherishes
the wound, by laying her hand on it, and places her mouth on his, and
strives to stop the fleeting life. When she sees him dead, having
uttered what the clamour hinders from reaching my ears, she falls upon
the weapon that has pierced him, and as she dies, embraces her husband.
He, too, {now} stands before my eyes, Phæocomes, {namely}, who had bound
six lions’ skins together with connecting knots; covered all over, both
horse and man. He, having discharged the trunk of a tree, which two
yokes of oxen joined together could hardly have moved, battered the son
of Phonolenus on the top of his head. The very broad round form of his
skull was broken; and through his mouth, and through his hollow
nostrils, and his eyes, and his ears, his softened brains poured down;
just as curdled milk is wont through the oaken twigs, or as {any} liquor
flows under the weight of a well-pierced sieve, and is squeezed out
thick through the numerous holes. But I, while he was preparing to strip
him of his arms as he lay, (this thy sire knows,) plunged my sword into
the lower part of his belly, as he was spoiling him. Chthonius, too, and
Teleboas, lay {pierced} by my sword. The former was bearing a two-forked
bough {as his weapon}, the latter a javelin; with his javelin he gave me
a wound. You see the marks; look! the old scar is still visible.
“Then ought I[40] to have been sent to the taking of Troy; then I might,
if not have overcome, {still} have stayed the arms of the mighty Hector.
But at that time Hector was not existing, or {but} a boy; {and} now my
age is failing. Why tell thee of Periphas, the conqueror of the
two-formed Pyretus? Why of Ampyx, who fixed his cornel-wood spear,
without a point, full in the face of the four-footed Oëclus? Macareus,
struck down the Pelethronian[41] Erigdupus,[42] by driving a crowbar
into his breast. I remember, too, that a hunting spear, hurled by the
hand of Nessus, was buried in the groin of Cymelus. And do not believe
that Mopsus,[43] the son of Ampycus, only foretold things to come;
a two-formed {monster} was slain by Mopsus, darting {at him}, and Odites
in vain attempted to speak, his tongue being nailed to his chin, and his
chin to his throat. Cæneus had put five to death, Stiphelus, and Bromus,
and Antimachus, and Helimus, and Pyracmos, wielding the axe. I do not
remember {their respective} wounds, {but} I marked their numbers, and
their names. Latreus, most huge both in his limbs and his body, sallied
forth, armed with the spoils of Emathian[44] Halesus, whom he had
consigned to death. His age was between that of a youth, and an old man;
his vigour that of a youth; grey hairs variegated his temples.
Conspicuous by his buckler, and his helmet, and his Macedonian pike;[45]
and turning his face towards both sides, he brandished his arms, and
rode in one same round, and vaunting, poured forth thus many words into
the yielding air:--
“‘And shall I put up with thee, too, Cænis? for to me thou shalt ever be
a woman, to me always Cænis. Does not thy natal origin lower thy
{spirit}? And does it not occur to thy mind for what {foul} deed thou
didst get thy reward, and at what price the false resemblance to a man?
Consider both what thou wast born, as well as what thou hast submitted
to: go, and take up a distaff together with thy baskets, and twist the
threads[46] with thy thumb; leave warfare to men.’ As he is vaunting in
such terms, Cæneus pierces his side, stretched in running, with a lance
hurled at him, just where the man is joined to the horse. He raves with
pain, and strikes at the exposed face of the Phylleian [47] youth with
his pike. It bounds back no otherwise than hail from the roof of a
house; or than if any one were to beat a hollow drum with a little
pebble. Hand to hand he encounters him, and strives to plunge his sword
into his tough side; {but} the parts are impervious to his sword. ‘Yet,’
says he, ‘thou shalt not escape me; with the middle of the sword shalt
thou be slain, since the point is blunt;’ and {then} he slants the sword
against his side, and grasps his stomach with his long right arm. The
blow produces an echo, as on a body of marble when struck; and the
shivered blade flies different ways, upon striking his neck.
“After Cæneus had enough exposed his unhurt limbs to him in his
amazement, ‘Come now,’ said he, ‘let us try thy body with my steel;’ and
up to the hilt he plunged his fatal sword into his shoulder-blade, and
extended his hand unseen into his entrails, and worked it about, and in
the wound made a {fresh} wound. Lo! the double-limbed {monsters,}
enraged, rush on in an impetuous manner, and all of them hurl and thrust
their weapons at him alone. Their weapons fall blunted. Unstabbed and
bloodless the Elateïan Cæneus remains from each blow. This strange thing
makes them astonished. ‘Oh great disgrace!’ cries Monychus; ‘a {whole}
people, we are overcome by one, and that hardly a man; although,
{indeed}, he is a man; and we by our dastardly actions, are what he
{once} was. What signify our huge limbs? What our twofold strength? What
that our twofold nature has united in us the stoutest animals in
existence? I neither believe that we are born of a Goddess for our
mother, nor of Ixion, who was so great a person, that he conceived hopes
of {even} the supreme Juno. By a half male foe are we baffled. Heap upon
him stones and beams, and entire mountains, and dash out his long-lived
breath, by throwing {whole} woods {upon him}. Let a {whole} wood press
on his jaws; and weight shall be in the place of wounds.’
“{Thus} he said; and by chance having got a tree, thrown down by the
power of the boisterous South wind, he threw it against the powerful
foe: and he was an example {to the rest}; and in a short time, Othrys,
thou wast bare of trees, and Pelion had no shades. Overwhelmed by this
huge heap, Cæneus swelters beneath the weight of the trees, and bears on
his brawny shoulders the piled-up oaks. But after the load has increased
upon his face and his head, and his breath has no air to draw; at one
moment he faints, at another he endeavours, in vain, to raise himself
into the {open} air, and to throw off the wood cast {upon him}: and
sometimes he moves it. Just as lo! we see, if lofty Ida is convulsed
with earthquakes. The event is doubtful. Some gave out that his body was
hurled to roomy Tartarus by the weight of the wood. The son of Ampycus
denied this, and saw go forth into the liquid air, from amid the pile,
a bird with tawny wings; which then was beheld by me for the first time,
then, {too}, for the last. When Mopsus saw it with gentle flight
surveying his camp, and making a noise around it with a vast clamour,
following him both with his eyes and his feelings, he said, ‘Hail! thou
glory of the Lapithæan race, once the greatest of men, but now the only
bird {of thy kind}, Cæneus.’ This thing was credited from its assertor.
Grief added resentment, and we bore it with disgust, that one was
overpowered by foes so many. Nor did we cease to exercise our weapons,
in {shedding their} blood, before a part of them was put to death, and
flight and the night dispersed the rest.”
[Footnote 17: _This toil._--Ver. 146. Clarke translates ‘Hic
labor,’ ‘This laborious bout.’]
[Footnote 18: _Its entrails._--Ver. 152. The ‘prosecta,’ or
‘prosiciæ,’ or ‘ablegamina,’ were portions of the animal which
were the first cut off, for the purpose of becoming as a sacrifice
to the Deities. The ‘prosecta,’ in general, consisted of a portion
of the entrails.]
[Footnote 19: _Roasted flesh._--Ver. 155. We are informed by
Servius, that boiled meat was not eaten in the heroic ages.]
[Footnote 20: _Melody of voices._--Ver. 157. Plutarch remarks,
that that entertainment is the most pleasant where no musician is
introduced; conversation, in his opinion, being preferable.]
[Footnote 21: _Perrhæbean._--Ver. 172. The Perrhæbeans were a
people of Thessaly, who, having been conquered by the Lapithæ,
betook themselves to the mountain fortresses of Pindus.]
[Footnote 22: _Eloquent old man._--Ver. 176-181. Clarke renders
these lines, ‘Come, tell us, O eloquent old gentleman, the wisdom
of our age, who was that Cæneus, and why he was turned into the
other sex? in which war, or what engagement, he was known to you?
by whom he was conquered, if he was conquered by any one?’ Upon
that, the old blade replied.’]
[Footnote 23: _Two hundred._--Ver. 188. Ovid does not here follow
the more probable version, that the age of Nestor was three
generations of thirty years each.]
[Footnote 24: _The Atracian._--Ver. 209. ‘Atracides’ is an
epithet, meaning ‘Thessalian,’ as Atrax, or Atracia, was a town of
Thessaly, situated near the banks of the river Peneus.]
[Footnote 25: _Hippodame._--Ver. 210. She is called Ischomache by
Propertius, and Deidamia by Plutarch.]
[Footnote 26: _With the fires._--Ver. 215. These fires would be
those of the nuptial torches, and of the altars for sacrifice to
Hymenæus and the other tutelary divinities of marriage.]
[Footnote 27: _Clots of blood._--Ver. 238. Clarke renders
‘Sanguinis globos,’ ‘goblets of blood.’]
[Footnote 28: _Double-limbed._--Ver. 240. Clarke translates,
‘Ardescunt bimembres,’ ‘The double-limbed fellows are in a
flame.’]
[Footnote 29: _Shattered cask._--Ver. 243. ‘Cadi’ were not only
earthenware vessels, in which wine was kept, but also the vessels
used for drawing water.]
[Footnote 30: _A chandelier._--Ver. 247. ‘Funale’ ordinarily
means, ‘a link,’ or ‘torch,’ made of fibrous substances twisted
together, and smeared with pitch or wax. In this instance the word
seems to mean a chandelier with several branches.]
[Footnote 31: _A votive stag._--Ver. 267. It appears that the
horns of a stag were frequently offered as a votive gift to the
Deities, especially to Diana, the patroness of the chase. Thus in
the seventh Eclogue of Virgil, Mycon vows to present to Diana,
‘Vivacis cornua cervi,’ ‘The horns of a long-lived stag.’]
[Footnote 32: _Cheeks covered._--Ver. 291. ‘Prima tectus lanugine
malas,’ is not very elegantly rendered by Clarke, ‘Having his
chaps covered with down, then first putting out.’]
[Footnote 33: _Nessus._--Ver. 309. We have already seen how Nessus
the Centaur met his death from the arrow of Hercules, when about
to offer violence to Deïanira.]
[Footnote 34: _A wound in front._--Ver. 312. It has been suggested
that, perhaps Ovid here had in his mind the story of one
Pomponius, of whom Quintilian relates, that, having received a
wound in his face, he was showing it to Cæsar, on which he was
advised by the latter never to look behind him when he was running
away.]
[Footnote 35: _Strap of his lance._--Ver. 321. The ‘amentum’ was
the thong, or strap of leather, with which the lance, or javelin,
was fastened, in order to draw it back when thrown.]
[Footnote 36: _Not used to bear._--Ver. 346. He alludes to the
twofold nature, or ‘horse-part’ of the Centaur, as Clarke calls
it.]
[Footnote 37: _The Dolopians._--Ver. 364. They were a people of
Phthiotis and Thessaly.]
[Footnote 38: _Pierces two breasts._--Ver. 377. He says this by
poetical license, in allusion to the two-fold form of the
Centaurs.]
[Footnote 39: _Cyllarus._--Ver. 393. This was also the name of the
horse which Castor tamed, to which Ovid alludes in the 401st
line.]
[Footnote 40: _Then ought I._--Ver. 445. Nestor here shows a
little of the propensity for boasting, which distinguishes him in
the Iliad.]
[Footnote 41: _Pelethronian._--Ver. 452. Pelethronia was a region
of Thessaly, which contained a town and a mountain of that name.]
[Footnote 42: _Erigdupus._--Ver. 453. The signification of this
name is ‘The noise of strife.’]
[Footnote 43: _Mopsus._--Ver. 456. He was a prophet, and one of
the Lapithæ. There are two other persons mentioned in ancient
history of the same name.]
[Footnote 44: _Emathian._--Ver. 462. Properly, Emathia was a name
of Macedonia; but it is here applied to Thessaly, which adjoined
to that country.]
[Footnote 45: _Macedonian pike._--Ver. 466. The ‘sarissa’ is
supposed to have been a kind of pike with which the soldiers of
the Macedonia phalanx were armed. Its ordinary length was
twenty-one feet; but those used by the phalanx were twenty-four
feet long.]
[Footnote 46: _Twist the threads._--Ver. 475. The woof was called
‘subtegmen,’ ‘subtemen,’ or ‘trama,’ while the warp was called
‘stamen,’ from ‘stare,’ ‘to stand,’ on account of its erect
position in the loom.]
[Footnote 47: _Phylleian._--Ver. 479. Phyllus was a city of
Phthiotis, in Thessaly.]
EXPLANATION.
We learn from Diodorus Siculus, and other ancient authors, that the
people of Thessaly, and those especially who lived near Mount
Pelion, were the first who trained horses for riding, and used them
as a substitute for chariots. Pliny the Elder says that they
excelled all the other people of Greece in horsemanship, and that
they carried it to such perfection, that the name of ἱππεὺς,
‘a horseman,’ and that of ‘Thessalian,’ became synonymous. Again,
the Thessalians, from their dexterity in killing the wild bulls that
infested the neighbouring mountains, sometimes with darts or spears,
and at other times in close engagement, acquired the name of
Hippocentaurs, that is, ‘horsemen that hunted bulls,’ or simply
κένταυροι, ‘Centaurs.’
It is not improbable that, because the Thessalians began to practise
riding in the reign of Ixion, the poets made the Centaurs his sons;
and they were said to have a cloud for their mother, which Jupiter
put in the place of Juno, to baulk the attempt of Ixion on her
virtue, because, according to Palæphatus, many of them lived in a
city called Nephele, which, in Greek, signifies a cloud. As another
method of accounting for their alleged descent from a cloud, it has
been suggested that the Centaurs were a rapacious race of men, who
ravaged the neighbouring country: that those who wrote the first
accounts of them, in the ancient dialect of Greece, gave them the
name of Nephelim, (the epithet of the giants of Scripture,) many
Phœnician words having been imported in the early language of that
country; and that in later times, finding them called by this name,
the Greek word Nephelè, signifying ‘a cloud,’ persons readily
adopted the fable that they were born of one.