Jason, by the aid of Medea, having conquered the bulls that breathe
forth flames, having sowed the teeth of a serpent, from which armed men
are produced, and having lulled the dragon to sleep, recovers the Golden
Fleece. Medea, accompanying Jason to Greece, restores Æson to youth by
the aid of drugs; and promising the same to Pelias, having first, as a
specimen, changed a ram into a lamb, by stratagem she kills him. Passing
through many places made remarkable by various transformations, and
having slain her children, she marries Ægeus, when Theseus returns home,
and narrowly escapes being poisoned by her magic potions. Minos
interrupts the joy of Ægeus on the return of his son, and wages war
against him; having collected troops from all parts, even from Paros,
where Arne has been changed into a jackdaw. Minos endeavours to gain the
alliance of Æacus, who, however, refuses it, and sends the Myrmidons,
(who have been changed into ants from men after a severe pestilence),
under the command of Cephalus to assist Ægeus. Cephalus relates to
Phocus, the son of Æacus, how, being carried off by Aurora and assuming
another shape, he had induced his wife Procris to prove faithless; and
how he had received from her a dog and a javelin, the former of which,
together with a fox, was changed into stone; while the latter, by
inadvertence, caused the death of his wife.
INTRODUCTION.
[By Edward Brooks, Jr., from McKay edition.]
P. Ovidius Naso--commonly known as Ovid--was born at Sulmo, about,
ninety miles from Rome, in the year 43 B.C. His father belonged to an
old equestrian family, and at an early age brought his son to Rome,
where he was educated under the most distinguished masters. Very little
is known of the poet’s life, except that which is gathered from his own
writings. After finishing his education at home he visited Athens, in
company with the poet Macer, for the purpose of completing his studies,
and before returning visited the magnificent cities of Asia Minor and
spent nearly a year in Sicily.
Although as a young man Ovid showed a natural taste and inclination for
poetical composition, he was by no means encouraged to indulge in this
pursuit. His father thought that the profession of law was much more apt
to lead to distinction and political eminence than the vocation of a
poet. He therefore dissuaded his son from writing poetry and urged him
to devote himself to the legal profession. Compliance with his father’s
wishes led him to spend much time in the forum, and for a while poetry
was abandoned. Upon attaining his majority, he held several minor
offices of state; but neither his health nor his inclinations would
permit him to perform the duties of public life. Poetry was his love,
and in spite of the strong objections of his father, he resolved to
abandon the law courts and devote himself to a more congenial
occupation. He sought the society of the most distinguished poets of the
day, and his admiration for them amounted almost to reverence. He
numbered among his intimate friends the poets Macer, Propertius,
Ponticus and Bassus, while Æmilius Macer, Virgil’s contemporary, used to
read his compositions to him, and even the fastidious Horace, it is
said, occasionally delighted the young man’s ear with the charm of his
verse.
Ovid was married three times. His first wife he married when little more
than a boy, and the union does not seem to have been a happy one, though
it was probably due to no fault of the wife. His second wife seems also
to have been of blameless character, but his love for her was of short
duration. His third wife was a lady of the great Fabian house and a
friend of the Empress Livia. She appears to have been a woman in every
way worthy of the great and lasting love which the poet lavished upon
her to the day of his death.
Up to the age of fifty Ovid had lived a life of prosperity and
happiness. Though not a wealthy man, his means were such as to permit
him to indulge in the luxuries of refined life, and his attainments as a
poet had surrounded him with a circle of most desirable friends and
admirers. He had even obtained the favor and patronage of the royal
family. About the year 8 A.D. he, however, incurred the great
displeasure of Augustus, and was ordered by him to withdraw from Rome
and dwell in the colony of Tomi, on the shore of the Euxine sea. Leaving
behind him a wife to whom he was devotedly attached he obeyed the edict
of his emperor and entered upon an exile from which he was destined
never to return. He died in banishment at Tomi in the year 18 A.D.
The exact reason for Ovid’s banishment has never been clear, though
there have been many conjectures as to the cause. About two years
previous to his exile Ovid had published a composition which had greatly
displeased Augustus, on account of its immoral tendency. Almost
coincident with this publication was the discovery of the scandal
relating to Julia, daughter of the emperor. It is probable that the
proximity of these two events tended to intensify the imperial
displeasure, and when some time later there was made public the intrigue
of the emperor’s granddaughter, the indignation of Augustus gave itself
vent in the banishment of Ovid.
The writings of Ovid consist of the _Amores_ in three books; the _Heroic
Epistles_, twenty-one in number; the _Ars Amatoria_; the _Remedia
Amoris_; the _Metamorphoses_, in fifteen books; the _Fasti_, in six
books; the _Tristia_, in five books; the _Epistles_, in four books, and
a few minor poems. In the following pages will be found a translation of
the _Metamorphoses_.
THE METAMORPHOSES.
BOOK THE FIRST.
THE ARGUMENT. [I.1-4]
My design leads me to speak of forms changed into new bodies.[1] Ye
Gods, (for you it was who changed them,) favor my attempts,[2] and bring
down the lengthened narrative from the very beginning of the world,
{even} to my own times.[3]
[Footnote 1: _Forms changed into new bodies._--Ver. 1. Some
commentators cite these words as an instance of Hypallage as being
used for ‘corpora mutata in novas formas,’ ‘bodies changed into
new forms;’ and they fancy that there is a certain beauty in the
circumstance that the proposition of a subject which treats of the
changes and variations of bodies should be framed with a
transposition of words. This supposition is perhaps based rather
on the exuberance of a fanciful imagination than on solid grounds,
as if it is an instance of Hypallage, it is most probably quite
accidental; while the passage may be explained without any
reference to Hypallage, as the word ‘forma’ is sometimes used to
signify the thing itself; thus the words ‘formæ deorum’ and
‘ferarum’ are used to signify ‘the Gods,’ or ‘the wild beasts’
themselves.]
[Footnote 2: _Favor my attempts._--Ver. 3. This use of the word
‘adspirate’ is a metaphor taken from the winds, which, while they
fill the ship’s sails, were properly said ‘adspirare.’ It has been
remarked, with some justice, that this invocation is not
sufficiently long or elaborate for a work of so grave and
dignified a nature as the Metamorphoses.]
[Footnote 3: _To my own times._--Ver. 4. That is, to the days of
Augustus Cæsar.]
FABLE I. [I.5-31]
God reduces Chaos into order. He separates the four elements, and
disposes the several bodies, of which the universe is formed, into
their proper situations.
At first, the sea, the earth, and the heaven, which covers all things,
were the only face of nature throughout the whole universe, which men
have named Chaos; a rude and undigested mass,[4] and nothing {more} than
an inert weight, and the discordant atoms of things not harmonizing,
heaped together in the same spot. No Sun[5] as yet gave light to the
world; nor did the Moon,[6] by increasing, recover her horns anew. The
Earth did not {as yet} hang in the surrounding air, balanced by its own
weight, nor had Amphitrite[7] stretched out her arms along the
lengthened margin of the coasts. Wherever, too, was the land, there also
was the sea and the air; {and} thus was the earth without firmness, the
sea unnavigable, the air void of light; in no one {of them} did its
{present} form exist. And one was {ever} obstructing the other; because
in the same body the cold was striving with the hot, the moist with the
dry, the soft with the hard, things having weight with {those} devoid of
weight.
To this discord God and bounteous Nature[8] put an end; for he separated
the earth from the heavens, and the waters from the earth, and
distinguished the clear heavens from the gross atmosphere. And after he
had unravelled these {elements}, and released them from {that} confused
heap, he combined them, {thus} disjoined, in harmonious unison, {each}
in {its proper} place. The element of the vaulted heaven,[9] fiery and
without weight, shone forth, and selected a place for itself in the
highest region; next after it, {both} in lightness and in place, was the
air; the Earth was more weighty than these, and drew {with it} the more
ponderous atoms, and was pressed together by its own gravity. The
encircling waters sank to the lowermost place,[10] and surrounded the
solid globe.
[Footnote 4: _A rude and undigested mass._--Ver. 7. This is very
similar to the words of the Scriptures, ‘And the earth was without
form and void,’ Genesis, ch. i. ver. 2.]
[Footnote 5: _No Sun._--Ver. 10. Titan. The Sun is so called, on
account of his supposed father, Hyperion, who was one of the
Titans. Hyperion is thought to have been the first who, by
assiduous observation, discovered the course of the Sun, Moon, and
other luminaries. By them he regulated the time for the seasons,
and imparted this knowledge to others. Being thus, as it were, the
father of astronomy, he has been feigned by the poets to have been
the father of the Sun and the Moon.]
[Footnote 6: _The Moon._--Ver. 11. Phœbe. The Moon is so called
from the Greek φοῖβος, ‘shining,’ and as being the sister of
Phœbus, Apollo, or the Sun.]
[Footnote 7: _Amphitrite._--Ver. 14. She was the daughter of
Oceanus and Doris, and the wife of Neptune, God of the Sea. Being
the Goddess of the Ocean, her name is here used to signify the
ocean itself.]
[Footnote 8: _Nature._--Ver. 21. ‘Natura’ is a word often used by
the Poet without any determinate signification, and to its
operations are ascribed all those phenomena which it is found
difficult or impossible to explain upon known and established
principles. In the present instance it may be considered to mean
the invisible agency of the Deity in reducing Chaos into a form of
order and consistency. ‘Et’ is therefore here, as grammarians term
it, an expositive particle; as if the Poet had said, ‘Deus sive
natura,’ ‘God, or in other words, nature.’]
[Footnote 9: _The element of the vaulted heaven._--Ver. 26. This
is a periphrasis, signifying the regions of the firmament or upper
air, in which the sun and stars move; which was supposed to be of
the purest fire and the source of all flame. The heavens are
called ‘convex,’ from being supposed to assume the same shape as
the terrestrial globe which they surround.]
[Footnote 10: _The lowermost place._--Ver. 31. ‘Ultima’ must not
be here understood in the presence of ‘infima,’ or as signifying
‘last,’ or ‘lowest,’ in a strict philosophical sense, for that
would contradict the account of the formation of the world given
by Hesiod, and which is here closely followed by Ovid; indeed, it
would contradict his own words,--‘Circumfluus humor coercuit
solidum orbem.’ The meaning seems to be, that the waters possess
the lowest place only in respect to the earth whereon we tread,
and not relatively to the terrestrial globe, the supposed centre
of the system, inasmuch as the external surface of the earth in
some places rises considerably, and leaves the water to subside in
channels.]
EXPLANATION.
The ancient philosophers, unable to comprehend how something could be
produced out of nothing, supposed a matter pre-existent to the Earth
in its present shape, which afterwards received form and order from
some powerful cause. According to them, God was not the Creator, but
the Architect of the universe, in ranging and disposing the elements
in situations most suitable to their respective qualities. This is the
Chaos so often sung of by the poets, and which Hesiod was the first to
mention.
It is clear that this system was but a confused and disfigured
tradition of the creation of the world, as mentioned by Moses; and
thus, beneath these fictions, there lies some faint glimmering of
truth. The first two chapters of the book of Genesis will be found to
throw considerable light on the foundation of this Mythological system
of the world’s formation.
Hesiod, the most ancient of the heathen writers who have enlarged upon
this subject, seems to have derived much of his information from the
works of Sanchoniatho, who is supposed to have borrowed his ideas
concerning Chaos from that passage in the second verse of the first
Chapter of Genesis, which mentions the darkness that was spread over
the whole universe--‘and darkness was upon the face of the deep’--for
he expresses himself almost in those words. Sanchoniatho lived before
the Trojan war, and professed to have received his information
respecting the original construction of the world from a priest of
‘Jehovah,’ named Jerombaal. He wrote in the Phœnician language; but we
have only a translation of his works, by Philo Judæus, which is by
many supposed to be spurious. It is, however, very probable, that from
him the Greeks borrowed their notions regarding Chaos, which they
mingled with fables of their own invention.
FABLE II. [I.32-88]
After the separation of matter, God gives form and regularity to the
universe; and all other living creatures being produced, Prometheus
moulds earth tempered with water, into a human form, which is animated
by Minerva.
When thus he, whoever of the Gods he was,[11] had divided the mass {so}
separated, and reduced it, so divided, into {distinct} members; in the
first place, that it might not be unequal on any side, he gathered it up
into the form of a vast globe; then he commanded the sea to be poured
around it, and to grow boisterous with the raging winds, and to surround
the shores of the Earth, encompassed {by it}; he added also springs, and
numerous pools and lakes, and he bounded the rivers as they flowed
downwards, with slanting banks. These, different in {different} places,
are some of them swallowed up[12] by {the Earth} itself; some of them
reach the ocean, and, received in the expanse of waters that take a
freer range, beat against shores instead of banks.
He commanded the plains,[13] too, to be extended, the valleys to sink
down, the woods to be clothed with green leaves, the craggy mountains to
arise; and, as on the right-hand side,[14] two Zones intersect the
heavens, and as many on the left; {and as} there is a fifth hotter than
these, so did the care of the Deity distinguish this enclosed mass {of
the Earth} by the same number, and as many climates are marked out upon
the Earth. Of these, that which is the middle one[15] is not habitable
on account of the heat; deep snow covers two[16] {of them}. Between
either these he placed as many more,[17] and gave them a temperate
climate, heat being mingled with cold.
Over these hangs the air, which is heavier than fire, in the same degree
that the weight of water is lighter than the weight of the earth. Here
he ordered vapors, here too, the clouds to take their station; the
thunder, too, to terrify the minds of mortals, and with the lightnings,
the winds that bring on cold. The Contriver of the World did not allow
these indiscriminately to take possession of the sky. Even now,
(although they each of them govern their own blasts in a distinct tract)
they are with great difficulty prevented from rending the world asunder,
so great is the discord of the brothers.[18] Eurus took his way[19]
towards {the rising of} Aurora and the realms of Nabath[20] and Persia,
and the mountain ridges exposed to the rays of the morning. The Evening
star, and the shores which are warm with the setting sun, are bordering
upon Zephyrus.[21] The terrible Boreas invaded Scythia,[22] and the
regions of the North. The opposite quarter is wet with continual clouds,
and the drizzling South Wind.[23] Over these he placed the firmament,
clear and devoid of gravity, and not containing anything of the dregs of
earth.
Scarcely had he separated all these by fixed limits, when the stars,
which had long lain hid, concealed beneath that mass {of Chaos}, began
to glow through the range of the heavens. And that no region might be
destitute of its own {peculiar} animated beings, the stars and the forms
of the Gods[24] possess the tract of heaven; the waters fell to be
inhabited by the smooth fishes;[25] the Earth received the wild beasts,
{and} the yielding air the birds.
{But} an animated being, more holy than these, more fitted to receive
higher faculties, and which could rule over the rest,[26] was still
wanting. {Then} Man was formed. Whether it was that the Artificer of all
things, the original of the world in its improved state, framed him from
divine elements;[27] or whether, the Earth, being newly made, and but
lately divided from the lofty æther, still retained some atoms of its
kindred heaven, which, tempered with the waters of the stream, the son
of Iapetus fashioned after the image of the Gods, who rule over all
things. And, whereas other animals bend their looks downwards upon the
Earth, to Man he gave a countenance to look on high and to behold the
heavens, and to raise his face erect to the stars. Thus, that which had
been lately rude earth, and without any regular shape, being changed,
assumed the form of Man, {till then} unknown.
[Footnote 11: _Whoever of the Gods he was._--Ver. 32. By this
expression the Poet perhaps may intend to intimate that the God
who created the world was some more mighty Divinity than those who
were commonly accounted Deities.]
[Footnote 12: _Are some of them swallowed up._--Ver. 40. He here
refers to those rivers which, at some distance from their sources,
disappear and continue their course under ground. Such was the
stream of Arethusa, the Lycus in Asia, the Erasinus in Argolis,
the Alpheus in Peloponnesus, the Arcas in Spain, and the Rhone in
France. Most of these, however, after descending into the earth,
appear again and discharge their waters into the sea.]
[Footnote 13: _He commanded the plains._--Ver. 43. The use here of
the word ‘jussit,’ signifying ‘ordered,’ or ‘commanded,’ is
considered as being remarkably sublime and appropriate, and
serving well to express the ease wherewith an infinitely powerful
Being accomplishes the most difficult works. There is the same
beauty here that was long since remarked by Longinus, one of the
most celebrated critics among the ancients, in the words used by
Moses, ‘And God said, Let there be light, and there was light,’
Genesis, ch. i. ver. 3.]
[Footnote 14: _On the right-hand side._--Ver. 45. The “right hand”
here refers to the northern part of the globe, and the “left hand”
to the southern. He here speaks of the zones. Astronomers have
divided the heavens into five parallel circles. First, the
equinoctial, which lies in the middle, between the poles of the
earth, and obtains its name from the equality of days and nights
on the earth while the sun is in its plane. On each side are the
two tropics, at the distance of 23 deg. 30 min., and described by
the sun when in his greatest declination north and south, or at
the summer and winter solstices. That on the north side of the
equinoctial is called the tropic of Cancer, because the sun
describes it when in that sign of the ecliptic; and that on the
south side is, for a similar reason, called the tropic of
Capricorn. Again, at the distance of 23½ degrees from the poles
are two other parallels called the polar circles, either because
they are near to the poles, or because, if we suppose the whole
frame of the heavens to turn round on the plane of the
equinoctial, these circles are marked out by the poles of the
ecliptic. By means of these parallels, astronomers have divided
the heavens into four zones or tracks. The whole space between the
two tropics is the middle or torrid zone, which the equinoctial
divides into two equal parts. On each side of this are the
temperate zones, which extend from the tropics to the two polar
circles. And lastly, the portions enclosed by the polar circles
make up the frigid zones. As the planes of these circles produced
till they reached the earth, would also impress similar parallels
upon it, and divide it in the same manner as they divide the
heavens, astronomers have conceived five zones upon the earth,
corresponding to those in the heavens, and bounded by the same
circles.]
[Footnote 15: _That which is the middle one._--Ver. 49. The
ecliptic in which the sun moves, cuts the equator in two opposite
points, at an angle of 23½ degrees; and runs obliquely from one
tropic to another, and returns again in a corresponding direction.
Hence, the sun, which in the space of a year, performs the
revolution of this circle, must in that time be twice vertical to
every place in the torrid zone, except directly under the tropics,
and his greatest distance from their zenith at noon, cannot exceed
47 degrees. Thus his rays being often perpendicular, or nearly so,
and never very oblique, must strike more forcibly, and cause more
intense heat in that spot. Being little acquainted with the extent
and situation of the earth, the ancients believed it
uninhabitable. Modern discovery has shown that this is not the
case as to a considerable part of the torrid zone, though with
some parts of it our acquaintance is still very limited.]
[Footnote 16: _Deep snow covers two._--Ver. 50. The two polar or
frigid zones. For as the sun never approaches these nearer than
the tropic on that side, and is, during one part of the year,
removed by the additional extent of the whole torrid zone, his
rays must be very oblique and faint, so as to leave these tracts
exposed to almost perpetual cold.]
[Footnote 17: _He placed as many more._--Ver. 51. The temperate
zones, lying between the torrid and the frigid, partake of the
character of each in a modified degree, and are of a middle
temperature between hot and cold. Here, too, the distinction of
the seasons is manifest. For in either temperate zone, when the
sun is in that tropic, which borders upon it, being nearly
vertical, the heat must be considerable, and produce summer; but
when he is removed to the other tropic by a distance of 47
degrees, his rays will strike but faintly, and winter will be the
consequence. The intermediate spaces, while he is moving from one
tropic to the other, make spring and autumn.]
[Footnote 18: _The brothers._--Ver. 60. That is, the winds, who,
according to the Theogony of Hesiod, were the sons of Astreus, the
giant, and Aurora.]
[Footnote 19: _Eurus took his way._--Ver. 61. The Poet, after
remarking that the air is the proper region of the winds, proceeds
to take notice that God, to prevent them from making havoc of the
creation, subjected them to particular laws, and assigned to each
the quarter whence to direct his blasts. Eurus is the east wind,
being so called from its name, because it blows from the east. As
Aurora, or the morning, was always ushered in by the sun, who
rises eastward, she was supposed to have her habitation in the
eastern quarter of the world; and often, in the language of
ancient poetry, her name signifies the east.]
[Footnote 20: _The realms of Nabath._--Ver. 61. From Josephus we
learn that Nabath, the son of Ishmael, with his eleven brothers,
took possession of all the country from the river Euphrates to the
Red Sea, and called it Nabathæa. Pliny the Elder and Strabo speak
of the Nabatæi as situated between Babylon and Arabia Felix, and
call their capital Petra. Tacitus, in his Annals (Book ii.
ch. 57), speaks of them as having a king. Perhaps the term
‘Nabathæa regna’ implies here, generally, the whole of Arabia.]
[Footnote 21: _Are bordering upon Zephyrus._--Ver. 63. The region
where the sun sets, that is to say, the western part of the world,
was assigned by the ancients to the Zephyrs, or west winds, so
called by a Greek derivation because they cherish and enliven
nature.]
[Footnote 22: _Boreas invaded Scythia._--Ver. 34. Under the name
of Scythia, the ancients generally comprehended all the countries
situate in the extreme northern regions. ‘Septem trio,’ meaning
the northern region of the world, is so called from the ‘Triones,’
a constellation of seven stars, near the North Pole, known also as
the Ursa Major, or Greater Bear, and among the country people of
our time by the name of Charles’s Wain. Boreas, one of the names
of ‘Aquilo,’ or the ‘north wind,’ is derived from a Greek word,
signifying ‘an eddy.’ This name was probably given to it from its
causing whirlwinds occasionally by its violence.]
[Footnote 23: _The drizzling South Wind._--Ver. 66. The South Wind
is especially called rainy, because, blowing from the
Mediterranean sea on the coast of France and Italy, it generally
brings with it clouds and rain.]
[Footnote 24: _The forms of the Gods._--Ver. 73. There is some
doubt what the Poet here means by the ‘forms of the Gods.’ Some
think that the stars are meant, as if it were to be understood
that they are forms of the Gods. But it is most probably only a
poetical expression for the Gods themselves, and he here assigns
the heavens as the habitation of the Gods and the stars; these
last, according to the notion of the Platonic philosophers being
either intelligent beings, or guided and actuated by such.]
[Footnote 25: _Inhabited by the smooth fishes._--Ver. 74.
‘Cesserunt nitidis habitandæ piscibus;’ Clarke translates ‘fell
to the neat fishes to inhabit.’]
[Footnote 26: _Could rule over the rest._--Ver. 77. This strongly
brings to mind the words of the Creator, described in the first
chapter of Genesis, ver. 28. ‘And God said unto them--_have
dominion_ over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’]
[Footnote 27: _Framed him from divine elements._--Ver. 78. We have
here strong grounds for contending that the ancient philosophers,
and after them the poets, in their account of the creation of the
world followed a tradition that had been copied from the Books of
Moses. The formation of man, in Ovid, as well as in the Book of
Genesis, is the last work of the Creator, and was, for the same
purpose, that man might have dominion over the other animated
works of the creation.]
EXPLANATION.
According to Ovid, as in the book of Genesis, man is the last work of
the Creator. The information derived from Holy Writ is here presented
to us, in a disfigured form. Prometheus, who tempers the earth, and
Minerva, who animates his workmanship, is God, who formed man, and
‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.’
Some writers have labored to prove that this Prometheus, of the
heathen Mythology, was a Scriptural character. Bochart believes him to
have been the same with Magog, mentioned in the book of Genesis.
Prometheus was the son of Iapetus, and Magog was the son of Japhet,
who, according to that learned writer, was identical with Iapetus. He
says, that as Magog went to settle in Scythia, so did Prometheus; as
Magog either invented, or improved, the art of founding metals, and
forging iron, so, according to the heathen poets, did Prometheus.
Diodorus Siculus asserts that Prometheus was the first to teach
mankind how to produce fire from the flint and steel.
The fable of Prometheus being devoured by an eagle, according to some,
is founded on the name of Magog, which signifies ‘a man devoured by
sorrow.’ Le Clerc, in his notes on Hesiod, says, that Epimetheus, the
brother of Prometheus, was the same with the Gog of Scripture, the
brother of Magog. Some writers, again, have exerted their ingenuity to
prove that Prometheus is identical with the patriarch Noah.
FABLE III. [I.89-112]
The formation of man is followed by a succession of the four ages of
the world. The first is the Golden Age, during which Innocence and
Justice alone govern the world.
The Golden Age was first founded, which, without any avenger, of its own
accord, without laws, practised both faith and rectitude. Punishment,
and the fear {of it}, did not exist, and threatening decrees were not
read upon the brazen {tables},[28] fixed up {to view}, nor {yet} did the
suppliant multitude dread the countenance of its judge; but {all} were
in safety without any avenger. The pine-tree, cut from its {native}
mountains, had not yet descended to the flowing waves, that it might
visit a foreign region; and mortals were acquainted with no shores
beyond their own. Not as yet did deep ditches surround the towns; no
trumpets of straightened, or clarions of crooked brass,[29] no helmets,
no swords {then} existed. Without occasion for soldiers, the minds {of
men}, free from care, enjoyed an easy tranquillity.
The Earth itself, too, in freedom, untouched by the harrow, and wounded
by no ploughshares, of its own accord produced everything; and men,
contented with the food created under no compulsion, gathered the fruit
of the arbute-tree, and the strawberries of the mountain, and cornels,
and blackberries adhering to the prickly bramble-bushes, and acorns
which had fallen from the wide-spreading tree of Jove. {Then} it was an
eternal spring; and the gentle Zephyrs, with their soothing breezes,
cherished the flowers produced without any seed. Soon, too, the Earth
unploughed yielded crops of grain, and the land, without being renewed,
was whitened with the heavy ears of corn. Then, rivers of milk, then,
rivers of nectar were flowing, and the yellow honey was distilled from
the green holm oak.
[Footnote 28: _Read upon the brazen tables._--Ver. 91. It was the
custom among the Romans to engrave their laws on tables of brass,
and fix them in the Capitol, or some other conspicuous place, that
they might be open to the view of all.]
[Footnote 29: _Clarions of crooked brass._--Ver. 98. ‘Cornu’ seems
to have been a general name for the horn or trumpet; whereas the
“tuba” was a straight trumpet, while the ‘lituus’ was bent into a
spiral shape. Lydus says that the ‘lituus’ was the sacerdotal
trumpet, and that it was employed by Romulus when he proclaimed
the title of his newly-founded city. Acro says that it was
peculiar to the cavalry, while the ‘tuba’ belonged to the
infantry. The notes of the ‘lituus’ are usually described as harsh
and shrill.]
EXPLANATION.
The heathen poets had learned, most probably from tradition, that our
first parents lived for some time in peaceful innocence; that, without
tillage, the garden of Eden furnished them with fruit and food in
abundance; and that the animals were submissive to their commands:
that after the fall the ground became unfruitful, and yielded nothing
without labor; and that nature no longer spontaneously acknowledged
man for its master. The more happy days of our first parents they seem
to have styled the Golden Age, each writer being desirous to make his
own country the scene of those times of innocence. The Latin writers,
for instance, have placed in Italy, and under the reign of Saturn and
Janus, events, which, as they really happened, the Scriptures relate
in the histories of Adam and of Noah.
FABLE IV. [I.113-150]
In the Silver Age, men begin not to be so just, nor, consequently, so
happy, as in the Golden Age. In the Brazen Age, which succeeds, they
become yet less virtuous; but their wickedness does not rise to its
highest pitch until the Iron Age, when it makes its appearance in all
its deformity.
Afterwards (Saturn being driven into the shady realms of Tartarus), the
world was under the sway of Jupiter; {then} the Silver Age succeeded,
inferior to {that of} gold, but more precious than {that of} yellow
brass. Jupiter shortened the duration of the former spring, and divided
the year into four periods by means of winters, and summers, and
unsteady autumns, and short springs. Then, for the first time, did the
parched air glow with sultry heat, and the ice, bound up by the winds,
was pendant. Then, for the first time, did men enter houses; {those}
houses were caverns, and thick shrubs, and twigs fastened together with
bark. Then, for the first time, were the seeds of Ceres buried in long
furrows, and the oxen groaned, pressed by the yoke {of the ploughshare}.
The Age of Brass succeeded, as the third {in order}, after these;
fiercer in disposition, and more prone to horrible warfare, but yet free
from impiety. The last {Age} was of hard iron. Immediately every species
of crime burst forth, in this age of degenerated tendencies;[30]
modesty, truth, and honor took flight; in their place succeeded fraud,
deceit, treachery, violence, and the cursed hankering for acquisition.
The sailor now spread his sails to the winds, and with these, as yet, he
was but little acquainted; and {the trees}, which had long stood on the
lofty mountains, now, {as} ships bounded[31] through the unknown waves.
The ground, too, hitherto common as the light of the sun and the
breezes, the cautious measurer marked out with his lengthened boundary.
And not only was the rich soil required to furnish corn and due
sustenance, but men even descended into the entrails of the Earth; and
riches were dug up, the incentives to vice, which the Earth had hidden,
and had removed to the Stygian shades.[32] Then destructive iron came
forth, and gold, more destructive than iron; then War came forth, that
fights through the means of both,[33] and that brandishes in his
blood-stained hands the clattering arms. Men live by rapine; the guest
is not safe from his entertainer, nor the father-in-law from the
son-in-law; good feeling, too, between brothers is a rarity. The husband
is eager for the death of the wife, she {for that} of her husband.
Horrible stepmothers {then} mingle the ghastly wolfsbane; the son
prematurely makes inquiry[34] into the years of his father. Piety lies
vanquished, and the virgin Astræa[35] is the last of the heavenly
{Deities} to abandon the Earth, {now} drenched in slaughter.
[Footnote 30: _Age of degenerated tendencies._--Ver. 128. ‘Vena’
signifies among other things, a vein or track of metal as it lies
in the mine. Literally, ‘venæ pejoris’ signifies ‘of inferior
metal.’]
[Footnote 31: _Now as ships bounded._--Ver. 134. ‘Insultavere
carinæ.’ This line is translated by Clarke, ‘The keel-pieces
bounced over unknown waves.’]
[Footnote 32: _To the Stygian shades._--Ver. 139. That is, in deep
caverns, and towards the centre of the earth; for Styx was feigned
to be a river of the Infernal Regions, situate in the depths of
the earth.]
[Footnote 33: _Through the means of both._--Ver. 142. Gold forms,
perhaps, more properly the sinews of war than iron. The history of
Philip of Macedon gives a proof of this, as he conquered Greece
more by bribes than the sword, and used to say, that he deemed no
fortress impregnable, where there was a gate large enough to admit
a camel laden with gold.]
[Footnote 34: _Prematurely makes inquiry._--Ver. 148. Namely, by
inquiring of the magicians and astrologers, that by their skill in
casting nativities, they might inform them the time when their
parents were likely to die, and to leave them their property.]
[Footnote 35: _Astræa._--Ver. 150. She was the daughter of Astræus
and Aurora, or of Jupiter and Themis, and was the Goddess of
Justice. On leaving the earth, she was supposed to have taken her
place among the stars as the Constellation of the Virgin.]
EXPLANATION.
The Poet here informs us, that during the Golden Age, a perpetual
spring reigned on the earth, and that the division of the year into
seasons was not known until the Silver Age. This allusion to Eden is
very generally to be found in the works of the heathen poets. The
Silver Age is succeeded by the Brazen, and that is followed by the
Iron Age, which still continues. The meaning is, that man gradually
degenerated from his primeval innocence, and arrived at that state of
wickedness and impiety, of which the history of all ages, ancient and
modern, presents us with so many lamentable examples.
The limited nature of their views, and the fact that their exuberant
fancy was the source from which they derived many of their alleged
events, naturally betrayed the ancient writers into great
inconsistencies. For in the Golden Age of Saturn, we find wars waged,
and crimes committed. Saturn expelled his father, and seized his
throne; Jupiter, his son, treated Saturn as he had done his father
Uranus; and Jupiter, in his turn, had to wage war against the Giants,
in their attempt to dispossess him of the heavens.
FABLE V. [I.151-162]
The Giants having attempted to render themselves masters of heaven,
Jupiter buries them under the mountains which they have heaped
together to facilitate their assault; and the Earth, animating their
blood, forms out of it a cruel and fierce generation of men.
And that the lofty {realms of} æther might not be more safe than the
Earth, they say that the Giants aspired to the sovereignty of Heaven,
and piled the mountains, heaped together, even to the lofty stars. Then
the omnipotent Father, hurling his lightnings, broke through
Olympus,[36] and struck Ossa away from Pelion, that lay beneath it.
While the dreadful carcasses lay overwhelmed beneath their own
structure, they say that the Earth was wet, drenched with the plenteous
blood of her sons, and that she gave life to the warm gore; and that,
lest no memorial of this ruthless race should be surviving, she shaped
them into the form of men. But that generation, too, was a despiser of
the Gods above, and most greedy of ruthless slaughter, and full of
violence: you might see that they derived their origin from blood.
[Footnote 36: _Olympus._--Ver. 154. Olympus was a mountain between
Thessaly and Macedonia. Pelion was a mountain of Thessaly, towards
the Pelasgic gulf; and Ossa was a mountain between Olympus and
Pelion. These the Giants are said to have heaped one on another,
in order to scale heaven.]
EXPLANATION.
The war of the giants, which is here mentioned, is not to be
confounded with that between Jupiter and the Titans, who were
inhabitants of heaven. The fall of the angels, as conveyed by
tradition, probably gave rise to the story of the Titans; while,
perhaps, the building of the tower of Babel may have laid the
foundation of that of the attempt by the giants to reach heaven.
Perhaps, too, the descendants of Cain, who are probably the persons
mentioned in Scripture as the children ‘of men’ and ‘giants,’ were the
race depicted under the form of the Giants, and the generation that
sprung from their blood. See Genesis, ch. vi. ver. 2, 4.
FABLE VI. [I.163-215]
Jupiter, having seen the crimes of this impious race of men, calls a
council of the Gods, and determines to destroy the world.
When the Father {of the Gods}, the son of Saturn, beheld this from his
loftiest height, he groaned aloud; and recalling to memory the polluted
banquet on the table of Lycaon, not yet publicly known, from the crime
being but lately committed, he conceives in his mind vast wrath, and
such as is worthy of Jove, and calls together a council; no delay
detains them, thus summoned.
There is a way on high,[37] easily seen in a clear sky, and which,
remarkable for its very whiteness, receives the name of the Milky {Way}.
Along this is the way for the Gods above to the abode of the great
Thunderer and his royal palace. On the right and on the left side the
courts of the ennobled Deities[38] are thronged, with open gates. The
{Gods of} lower rank[39] inhabit various places; in front {of the Way},
the powerful and illustrious inhabitants of Heaven have established
their residence. This is the place which, if boldness may be allowed to
my expression, I should not hesitate to style the palatial residence of
Heaven. When, therefore, the Gods above had taken their seats in the
marble hall of assembly; he himself, elevated on his seat, and leaning
on his sceptre of ivory, three or four times shook the awful locks[40]
of his head, with which he makes the Earth, the Seas, and the Stars to
tremble. Then, after such manner as this, did he open his indignant
lips:--
“Not {even} at that time was I more concerned for the empire of the
universe, when each of the snake-footed monsters was endeavoring to lay
his hundred arms on the captured skies. For although that was a
dangerous enemy, yet that war was with but one stock, and sprang from a
single origin. Now must the race of mortals be cut off by me, wherever
Nereus[41] roars on all sides of the earth; {this} I swear by the Rivers
of Hell, that glide in the Stygian grove beneath the earth. All methods
have been already tried; but a wound that admits of no cure, must be cut
away with the knife, that the sound parts may not be corrupted. I have
{as subjects}, Demigods, and I have the rustic Deities, the Nymphs,[42]
and the Fauns, and the Satyrs, and the Sylvans, the inhabitants of the
mountains; these, though as yet, we have not thought them worthy of the
honor of Heaven, let us, at least, permit to inhabit the earth which we
have granted them. And do you, ye Gods of Heaven, believe that they will
be in proper safety, when Lycaon remarkable for his cruelty, has formed
a plot against {even} me, who own and hold sway over the thunder and
yourselves?”
All shouted their assent aloud, and with ardent zeal they called for
vengeance on one who dared such {crimes}. Thus, when an impious band[43]
{madly} raged to extinguish the Roman name in the blood of Cæsar, the
human race was astonished with sudden terror at ruin so universal, and
the whole earth shook with horror. Nor was the affectionate regard,
Augustus, of thy subjects less grateful to thee, than that was to
Jupiter. Who, after he had, by means of his voice and his hand,
suppressed their murmurs, all of them kept silence. Soon as the clamor
had ceased, checked by the authority of their ruler, Jupiter again broke
silence in these words:
“He, indeed, (dismiss your cares) has suffered {dire} punishment; but
what was the offence and what the retribution, I will inform you. The
report of the iniquity of the age had reached my ears; wishing to find
this not to be the truth, I descended from the top of Olympus, and,
a God in a human shape, I surveyed the earth. ’Twere an endless task to
enumerate how great an amount of guilt was everywhere discovered; the
report itself was below the truth.”
[Footnote 37: _There is a way on high._--Ver. 168. The Poet here
gives a description of the court of heaven; and supposing the
galaxy, or Milky Way, to be the great road to the palace of
Jupiter, places the habitations of the Gods on each side of it,
and adjoining the palace itself. The mythologists also invented a
story, that the Milky Way was a track left in the heavens by the
milk of Juno flowing from the mouth of Hercules, when suckled by
her. Aristotle, however, suspected what has been since confirmed
by the investigations of modern science, that it was formed by the
light of innumerable stars.]
[Footnote 38: _The ennobled Deities._--Ver. 172. These were the
superior Deities, who formed the privy councillors of Jupiter, and
were called ‘Di majorum gentium,’ or, ‘Di consentes.’ Reckoning
Jupiter as one, they were twelve in number, and are enumerated by
Ennius in two limping hexameter lines:--
‘Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars,
Mercurius, Jovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo.’]
[Footnote 39: _The Gods of lower rank._--Ver. 173. These were the
‘Dii minorum gentium,’ or inferior Deities.]
[Footnote 40: _Shook the awful locks._--Ver. 179. This awful nod
of Jupiter, the sanction by which he confirms his decrees, is an
idea taken from Homer; by whom it is so vividly depicted at the
end of the first book of the Iliad, that Phidias, in his statue of
that God, admired for the awful majesty of its looks, is said to
have derived his conception of the features from that description.
Virgil has the same idea in the Æneid, book x; ‘Annuit, et totum
metu tremefecit Olympum.’]
[Footnote 41: _Nereus._--Ver. 187. He was one of the most ancient
of the Deities of the sea, and was the son of Oceanus and Tethys.]
[Footnote 42: _The Nymphs._--Ver. 192. The terrestrial Nymphs were
the Dryads and Hamadryads, who haunting the woods, and the
duration of their existence depending upon the life of particular
trees, derived their name from the Greek word δρῦς, ‘an oak.’ The
Oreades were nymphs who frequented the mountains, while the Napeæ
lived in the groves and valleys. There were also Nymphs of the sea
and of the rivers; of which, the Nereids were so called from their
father Nereus, and the Oceanitides, from Oceanus. There were also
the Naiads, or nymphs of the fountains, and many others.]
[Footnote 43: _Thus when an impious band._--Ver. 200. It is a
matter of doubt whether he here refers to the conspiracies of
Brutus and Cassius against Julius Cæsar, or whether to that
against Augustus, which is mentioned by Suetonius, in the
nineteenth chapter of his History. As Augustus survived the latter
conspiracy, and the parallel is thereby rendered more complete,
probably this is the circumstance here alluded to.]
EXPLANATION.
It is to be presumed, that Ovid here follows the prevailing tradition
of his time; and it is surprising how closely that tradition adheres
to the words of Scripture, relative to the determination of the
Almighty to punish the earth by a deluge, as disclosed in the sixth
chapter of Genesis. The Poet tells us, that the King of heaven calls
the Gods to a grand council, to deliberate upon the punishment of
mankind, in retribution for their wickedness. The words of Scripture
are, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the
earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, ‘I will
destroy man, whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man
and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air: for it
repenteth me that I have made them.’” --Genesis, ch. vi. ver. 5, 6, 7.
Tradition seems to have faithfully carried down the fact, that, amid
this universal corruption, there was still at least one just man, and
here it attributes to Deucalion the merit that belonged to Noah.
FABLE VII. [I.216-243]
Lycaon, king of Arcadia, in order to discover if it is Jupiter himself
who has come to lodge in his palace, orders the body of an hostage,
who had been sent to him, to be dressed and served up at a feast. The
God, as a punishment, changes him into a wolf.
I had {now} passed Mænalus, to be dreaded for its dens of beasts of
prey, and the pine-groves of cold Lycæus, together with Cyllene.[44]
After this, I entered the realms and the inhospitable abode of the
Arcadian tyrant, just as the late twilight was bringing on the night.
I gave a signal that a God had come, and the people commenced to pay
their adorations. In the first place, Lycaon derided their pious
supplications. Afterwards, he said, I will make trial, by a plain proof,
whether this is a God, or whether he is a mortal; nor shall the truth
remain a matter of doubt. He then makes preparations to destroy me, when
sunk in sleep, by an unexpected death; this mode of testing the truth
pleases him. And not content with that, with the sword he cuts the
throat of an hostage that had been sent from the nation of the
Molossians,[45] and then softens part of the quivering limbs, in boiling
water, and part he roasts with fire placed beneath. Soon as he had
placed these on the table, I, with avenging flames, overthrew the house
upon the household Gods,[46] worthy of their master. Alarmed, he himself
takes to flight, and having reached the solitude of the country, he
howls aloud, and in vain attempts to speak; his mouth gathers rage from
himself, and through its {usual} desire for slaughter, it is directed
against the sheep, and even still delights in blood. His garments are
changed into hair, his arms into legs; he becomes a wolf, and he still
retains vestiges of his ancient form. His hoariness is still the same,
the same violence {appears} in his features; his eyes are bright as
before; {he is still} the same image of ferocity.
“Thus fell one house; but one house alone did not deserve to perish;
wherever the earth extends, the savage Erinnys[47] reigns. You would
suppose that men had conspired to be wicked; let all men speedily feel
that vengeance which they deserve to endure, for such is my
determination.”
[Footnote 44: _Together with Cyllene._--Ver. 217. Cyllenus, or
Cyllene, was a mountain of Arcadia, sacred to Mercury, who was
hence called by the poets Cyllenius. Lycæus was also a mountain of
Arcadia, sacred to Pan, and was covered with groves of
pine-trees.]
[Footnote 45: _Of the Molossians._--Ver. 226. The Molossi were a
people of Epirus, on the eastern side of the Ambracian gulf. Ovid
here commits a slight anachronism, as the name was derived from
Molossus, the son of Neoptolemus, long after the time of Lycaon.
Besides, as Burmann observes, who could believe that ‘wars could
be waged at such an early period between nations so distant as the
Molossi and the Arcadians?’ Apollodorus says, that it was a child
of the same country, whose flesh Lycaon set before Jupiter. Other
writers say that it was Nyctimus, the son of Lycaon, or Arcas, his
grandson, that was slain by him.]
[Footnote 46: _Upon the household Gods._--Ver. 231. This
punishment was awarded to the Penates, or household Gods of
Lycaon, for taking such a miscreant under their protection.]
[Footnote 47: _The savage Erinnys._--Ver. 241. Erinnys was a
general name given to the Furies by the Greeks. They were three in
number--Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra. These were so called,
either from the Greek ἔρις νοῦ, ‘the discord of the mind,’ or from
ἐν τῇ ἔρα ναίειν, ‘their inhabiting the earth,’ watching the
actions of men.]
EXPLANATION.
If Ovid is not here committing an anachronism, and making Jupiter,
before the deluge, relate the story of a historical personage, who
existed long after it, the origin of the story of Lycaon must be
sought in the antediluvian narrative. It is just possible that the
guilty Cain may have been the original of Lycaon. The names are not
very dissimilar: they are each mentioned as the first murderer; and
the fact, that Cain murdered Abel at the moment when he was offering
sacrifice to the Almighty, may have given rise to the tradition that
Lycaon had set human flesh before the king of heaven. The Scripture,
too, tells us, that Cain was personally called to account by the
Almighty for his deed of blood.
The punishment here inflicted on Lycaon was not very dissimilar to
that with which Cain was visited. Cain was sentenced to be a fugitive
and a wanderer on the face of the earth; and such is essentially the
character of the wolf, shunned by both men and animals. Of course,
there are many points to which it is not possible to extend the
parallel. Some of the ancient writers tell us, that there were two
Lycaons, the first of whom was the son of Phoroneus, who reigned in
Arcadia about the time of the patriarch Jacob; and the second, who
succeeded him, polluted the festivals of the Gods by the sacrifice of
the human race; for, having erected an altar to Jupiter, at the city
of Lycosura, he slew human victims on it, whence arose the story
related by the Poet. This solution is given by Pausanias, in his
Arcadica. We are also told by that historian, and by Suidas, that
Lycaon was, notwithstanding, a virtuous prince, the benefactor of his
people, and the promoter of improvement.
FABLE VIII. [I.244-312]
Jupiter, not thinking the punishment of Lycaon sufficient to strike
terror into the rest of mankind, resolves, on account of the universal
corruption, to extirpate them by a universal deluge.
Some, by their words approve the speech of Jupiter, and give spur to
him, {indignantly} exclaiming; others, by {silent} assent fulfil their
parts. Yet the {entire} destruction of the human race is a cause of
grief to them all, and they inquire what is to be the form of the earth
in future, when destitute of mankind? who is to place frankincense[48]
on the altars? and whether it is his design to give up the nations for a
prey to the wild beasts? The ruler of the Gods forbids them making these
enquiries, to be alarmed (for that the rest should be his care); and he
promises, {that} from a wondrous source {he will raise} a generation
unlike the preceding race.
And now he was about to scatter his thunder over all lands; but he was
afraid lest, perchance, the sacred æther might catch fire, from so many
flames, and the extended sky might become inflamed. He remembers, too,
that it was in the {decrees of} Fate, that a time should come,[49] at
which the sea, the earth, and the palace of heaven, seized {by the
flames}, should be burned, and the laboriously-wrought fabric of the
universe should be in danger of perishing. The weapons forged by the
hands of the Cyclops are laid aside; a different {mode of} punishment
pleases him: to destroy mankind beneath the waves, and to let loose the
rains from the whole tract of Heaven. At once he shuts the North Wind in
the caverns of Æolus, and {all} those blasts which dispel the clouds
drawn over {the Earth}; and {then} he sends forth the South Wind. With
soaking wings the South Wind flies abroad, having his terrible face
covered with pitchy darkness; his beard {is} loaded with showers, the
water streams down from his hoary locks, clouds gather upon his
forehead, his wings and the folds of his robe[50] drip with wet; and, as
with his broad hand he squeezes the hanging clouds, a crash arises, and
thence showers are poured in torrents from the sky. Iris,[51] the
messenger of Juno, clothed in various colors, collects the waters, and
bears a supply {upwards} to the clouds.
The standing corn is beaten down, and the expectations of the
husbandman, {now} lamented by him, are ruined, and the labors of a long
year prematurely perish. Nor is the wrath of Jove satisfied with his own
heaven; but {Neptune}, his azure brother, aids him with his auxiliary
waves. He calls together the rivers, which, soon as they had entered the
abode of their ruler, he says, “I must not now employ a lengthened
exhortation; pour forth {all} your might, so the occasion requires. Open
your abodes, and, {each} obstacle removed, give full rein to your
streams.” {Thus} he commanded; they return, and open the mouths of their
fountains,[52] and roll on into the ocean with unobstructed course. He
himself struck the Earth with his trident, {on which} it shook, and with
a tremor laid open the sources of its waters. The rivers, breaking out,
rush through the open plains, and bear away, together with the standing
corn, the groves, flocks, men, houses, and temples, together with their
sacred {utensils}. If any house remained, and, not thrown down, was able
to resist ruin so vast, yet the waves, {rising} aloft, covered the roof
of that {house}, and the towers tottered, overwhelmed beneath the
stream. And now sea and land had no mark of distinction; everything now
was ocean; and to that ocean shores were wanting. One man takes
possession of a hill, another sits in a curved boat, and plies the oars
there where he had lately ploughed; another sails over the standing
corn, or the roof of his country-house under water; another catches a
fish on the top of an elm-tree. An anchor (if chance so directs) is
fastened in a green meadow, or the curving keels come in contact with
the vineyards, {now} below them; and where of late the slender goats had
cropped the grass, there unsightly sea-calves are now reposing their
bodies.
The Nereids wonder at the groves, the cities, and the houses under
water; dolphins get into the woods, and run against the lofty branches,
and beat against the tossed oaks. The wolf swims[53] among the sheep;
the wave carries along the tawny lions; the wave carries along the
tigers. Neither does the powers of his lightning-shock avail the wild
boar, nor his swift legs the stag, {now} borne away. The wandering bird,
too, having long sought for land, where it may be allowed to light, its
wings failing, falls down into the sea. The boundless range of the sea
had overwhelmed the hills, and the stranger waves beat against the
heights of the mountains. The greatest part is carried off by the water:
those whom the water spares, long fastings overcome, through scantiness
of food.
[Footnote 48: _To place frankincense._--Ver. 249. In those early
ages, corn or wheaten flour, was the customary offering to the
Deities, and not frankincense, which was introduced among the
luxuries of more refined times. Ovid is consequently guilty of an
anachronism here.]
[Footnote 49: _That a time should come._--Ver. 256. Lactantius
informs us that the Sibyls predicted that the world should perish
by fire. Seneca also, in his consolation to Marcia, and in his
Quæstiones Naturales, mentions the same destined termination of
the present state of the universe. It was a doctrine of the Stoic
philosophers, that the stars were nurtured with moisture, and that
on the cessation of this nourishment the conflagration of the
universe would ensue.]
[Footnote 50: _The folds of his robe._--Ver. 267. ‘Rorant pennæ
sinusque,’ is quaintly translated by Clarke, ‘his wings and the
plaits of his coat drop.’]
[Footnote 51: _Iris._--Ver. 271. The mention of Iris, the goddess
of the rainbow, in connection with the flood of Deucalion, cannot
fail to remind us of the ‘bow set in the cloud, for a token of the
covenant between God and the earth,’ on the termination of Noah’s
flood.--Gen. x. 14.]
[Footnote 52: _The mouths of their fountains._--Ver. 281. The
expressions in this line and in line 283, are not unlike the words
of the 11th verse of the 7th chapter of Genesis, ‘The fountains of
the great deep were broken up.’]
[Footnote 53: _The wolf swims._--Ver. 304. One commentator remarks
here, that there was nothing very wonderful in a dead wolf
swimming among the sheep without devouring them. Seneca is,
however, too severe upon our author in saying that he is trifling
here, in troubling himself on so serious an occasion with what
sheep and wolves are doing: for he gravely means to say, that the
beasts of prey are terrified to that degree that they forget their
carnivorous propensities.]
EXPLANATION.
Pausanias makes mention of five deluges. The two most celebrated
happened in the time of Ogyges, and in that of Deucalion. Of the last
Ovid here speaks; and though that deluge was generally said to have
overflowed Thessaly only, he has evidently adopted in his narrative
the tradition of the universal deluge, which all nations seem to have
preserved. He says, that the sea joined its waters to those falling
from heaven. The words of Scripture are (Genesis, vii. 11), ‘All the
fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven
were opened.’ In speaking of the top of Parnassus alone being left
uncovered, the tradition here followed by Ovid probably referred to
Mount Ararat, where Noah’s ark rested. Noah and his family are
represented by Deucalion and Pyrrha. Both Noah and Deucalion were
saved for their virtuous conduct; when Noah went out of the ark, he
offered solemn sacrifices to God; and Pausanias tells us that
Deucalion, when saved, raised an altar to Jupiter the Liberator. The
Poet tells us, that Deucalion’s deluge was to be the last: God
promised the same thing to Noah. Josephus, in his Antiquities, Book
i., tells us, that the history of the universal deluge was written by
Nicolas of Damascus, Berosus, Mnaseas, and other ancient writers, from
whom the Greeks and Romans received it.
FABLE IX. [I.313-366]
Neptune appeases the angry waves; and he commands Triton to sound his
shell, that the sea may retire within its shores, and the rivers
within their banks. Deucalion and Pyrrha are the only persons saved
from the deluge.
Phocis separates the Aonian[54] from the Actæan region; a fruitful land
while it was a land; but at that time {it had become} a part of the sea,
and a wide plain of sudden waters. There a lofty mountain rises towards
the stars, with two tops, by name Parnassus,[55] and advances beyond the
clouds with its summit. When here Deucalion (for the sea had covered all
other places), borne in a little ship, with the partner of his couch,
{first} rested; they adored the Corycian Nymphs,[56] and the Deities of
the mountain, and the prophetic Themis,[57] who at that time used to
give out oracular responses. No man was there more upright than he, nor
a greater lover of justice, nor was any woman more regardful of the
Deities than she.
Soon as Jupiter {beholds} the world overflowed by liquid waters, and
sees that but one man remains out of so many thousands of late, and sees
that but one woman remains out of so many thousands of late, both
guiltless, and both worshippers of the Gods, he disperses the clouds;
and the showers being removed by the North Wind, he both lays open the
earth to the heavens, and the heavens to the earth. The rage, too, of
the sea does not continue; and his three-forked trident {now} laid
aside, the ruler of the deep assuages the waters, and calls upon the
azure Triton standing above the deep, and having his shoulders covered
with the native purple shells;[58] and he bids him blow[59] his
resounding trumpet, and, the signal being given, to call back the waves
and the streams. The hollow-wreathed trumpet[60] is taken up by him,
which grows to a {great} width from its lowest twist; the trumpet,
which, soon as it receives the air in the middle of the sea, fills with
its notes the shores lying under either sun. Then, too, as soon as it
touched the lips of the God dripping with his wet beard, and being
blown, sounded the bidden retreat;[61] it was heard by all the waters
both of earth and sea, and stopped all those waters by which it was
heard. Now the sea[62] {again} has a shore; their channels receive the
full rivers; the rivers subside; the hills are seen to come forth. The
ground rises, places increase {in extent} as the waters decrease; and
after a length of time, the woods show their naked tops, and retain the
mud left upon their branches.
The world was restored; which when Deucalion beheld to be empty, and how
the desolate Earth kept a profound silence, he thus addressed Pyrrha,
with tears bursting forth:--“O sister, O wife, O thou, the only woman
surviving, whom a common origin,[63] and a kindred descent, and
afterwards the marriage tie has united to me, and {whom} now dangers
themselves unite to me; we two are the whole people of the earth,
whatever {both} the East and the West behold; of all the rest, the sea
has taken possession. And even now there is no certain assurance of our
lives; even yet do the clouds terrify my mind. What would now have been
thy feelings, if without me thou hadst been rescued from destruction,
O thou deserving of compassion? In what manner couldst thou have been
able alone to support {this} terror? With whom for a consoler, {to
endure} these sorrows? For I, believe me, my wife, if the sea had only
carried thee off, should have followed thee, and the sea should have
carried me off as well. Oh that I could replace the people {that are
lost} by the arts of my father,[64] and infuse the soul into the moulded
earth! Now the mortal race exists in us two {alone}. Thus it has seemed
good to the Gods, and we remain as {mere} samples of mankind.”
[Footnote 54: _The Aonian._--Ver. 313. Aonia was a mountainous
region of Bœotia; and Actæa was an ancient name of Attica, from
ἄκτη, the sea-shore.]
[Footnote 55: _By name Parnassus._--Ver. 317. Mount Parnassus has
two peaks, of which the one was called ‘Tichoreum,’ and was sacred
to Bacchus; and the other ‘Hypampeum,’ and was devoted to Apollo
and the Muses.]
[Footnote 56: _The Corycian Nymphs._--Ver. 320. The Corycian
Nymphs were so called from inhabiting the Corycian cavern in Mount
Parnassus; they were fabled to be the daughters of Plistus,
a river near Delphi. There was another Corycian cave in Cilicia,
in Asia Minor.]
[Footnote 57: _The prophetic Themis._--Ver. 321. Themis is said to
have preceded Apollo in giving oracular responses at Delphi. She
was the daughter of Cœlus and Terra, and was the first to instruct
men to ask of the Gods that which was lawful and right, whence she
took the name of Themis, which signifies in Greek, ‘that which is
just and right.’]
[Footnote 58: _The native purple shells._--Ver. 332. ‘Murex’ was
the name of the shell-fish from which the Tyrian purple, so much
valued by the ancients, was procured. Some suppose that the
meaning here is, that Triton had his shoulders tinted with the
purple color of the murex. It is, however, more probable that the
Poet means to say that he had his neck and shoulders studded with
the shells of the murex, perhaps as a substitute for scales.]
[Footnote 59: _He bids him blow._--Ver. 333. There were several
Tritons, or minor sea gods. The one mentioned here, the chief
Triton, was fabled to be the son of Neptune and Amphitrite, who
always preceded Neptune in his course, and whose arrival he was
wont to proclaim by the sound of his shell. He was usually
represented as swimming, with the upper part of his body
resembling that of a human being, while his lower parts terminated
with the tail of a fish.]
[Footnote 60: _The hollow-wreathed trumpet._--Ver. 335. The
‘Buccina,’ or, as we call it, ‘the conch shell,’ was a kind of
horn, or trumpet, made out of a shell, called ‘buccinum.’ It was
sometimes artificially curved, and sometimes straight, retaining
the original form of the shell. The twisted form of the shell was
one of the characteristic features of the trumpet, which, in later
times, was made of horn, wood, or metal, so as to imitate the
shell. It was chiefly used among the Romans, to proclaim the
watches of the day and of the night, which watches were thence
called ‘buccina prima,’ ‘secunda,’ etc. It was also blown at
funerals, and at festive entertainments, both before sitting down
to table and after. Macrobius tells us, that Tritons holding
‘buccinæ’ were fixed on the roof of the temple of Saturn.]
[Footnote 61: _The bidden retreat._--Ver. 340. ‘Canere receptus’
was ‘to sound the retreat,’ as the signal for the soldiers to
cease fighting, and to resume their march.]
[Footnote 62: _Now the sea._--Ver. 343. This and the two following
lines are considered as entitled to much praise for their
terseness and brevity, as depicting by their short detached
sentences the instantaneous effect produced by the commands of
Neptune in reducing his dominions to a state of order.]
[Footnote 63: _A common origin._--Ver. 352. Because Prometheus was
the father of Deucalion and Epimetheus of Pyrrha; Prometheus and
Epimetheus being the sons of Iapetus. It is in an extended sense
that he styles her ‘sister,’ she being really his cousin.]
[Footnote 64: _The arts of my father._--Ver. 363. He alludes to
the story of his father, Prometheus, having formed men of clay,
and animated them with fire stolen from heaven.]
EXPLANATION.
Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, were, perhaps, originally three brothers,
kings of three separate kingdoms. Having been deified each retaining
his sovereignty, they were depicted as having the world divided
between them; the empire of the sea falling to the share of Neptune.
Among his occupations, were those of raising and calming the seas; and
Ovid here represents him as being so employed.
FABLE X. [I.367-415]
Deucalion and Pyrrha re-people the earth by casting stones behind
them, in the manner prescribed by the Goddess Themis, whose oracle
they had consulted.
He {thus} spoke, and they wept. They resolved to pray to the Deities of
Heaven, and to seek relief through the sacred oracles. There is no
delay; together they repair to the waters of Cephisus,[65] though not
yet clear, yet now cutting their wonted channel. Then, when they have
sprinkled the waters poured on their clothes[66] and their heads, they
turn their steps to the temple of the sacred Goddess, the roof of which
was defiled with foul moss, and whose altars were standing without
fires. Soon as they reached the steps of the temple, each of them fell
prostrate on the ground, and, trembling, gave kisses to the cold
pavement. And thus they said:
“If the Deities, prevailed upon by just prayers, are to be mollified, if
the wrath of the Gods is to be averted; tell us, O Themis, by what art
the loss of our race is to be repaired, and give thy assistance, O most
gentle {Goddess} to our ruined fortunes.” The Goddess was moved, and
gave this response: “Depart from my temple, and cover your heads,[67]
and loosen the garments girt {around you}, and throw behind your backs
the bones of your great mother.” For a long time they are amazed; and
Pyrrha is the first by her words to break the silence, and {then}
refuses to obey the commands of the Goddess; and begs her, with
trembling lips, to grant her pardon, and dreads to offend the shades of
her mother by casting her bones. In the meantime they reconsider the
words of the response given, {but} involved in dark obscurity, and they
ponder them among themselves. Upon that, the son of Prometheus soothes
the daughter of Epimetheus with {these} gentle words, and says, “Either
is my discernment fallacious, or the oracles are just, and advise no
sacrilege. The earth is the great mother; I suspect that the stones in
the body of the earth are the bones meant; these we are ordered to throw
behind our backs.” Although she, descended from Titan,[68] is moved by
this interpretation of her husband, still her hope is involved in doubt;
so much do they both distrust the advice of heaven; but what harm will
it do to try?
They go down, and they veil their heads, and ungird their garments, and
cast stones, as ordered, behind their footsteps. The stones (who could
have believed it, but that antiquity is a witness {of the thing?}) began
to lay aside their hardness and their stiffness, and by degrees to
become soft; and when softened, to assume a {new} form. Presently after,
when they were grown larger, a milder nature, too, was conferred on
them, so that some shape of man might be seen {in them}, yet though but
imperfect; and as if from the marble commenced {to be wrought}, not
sufficiently distinct, and very like to rough statues. Yet that part of
them which was humid with any moisture, and earthy, was turned into
{portions adapted for} the use of the body. That which is solid, and
cannot be bent, is changed into bones; that which was just now a vein,
still remains under the same name.[69] And in a little time, by the
interposition of the Gods above, the stones thrown by the hands of the
man, took the shape of a man, and the female {race} was renewed by the
throwing of the woman. Thence are we a hardy generation, and able to
endure fatigue, and we give proofs from what original we are sprung.
[Footnote 65: _The waters of Cephisus._--Ver. 369. The river
Cephisus rises on Mount Parnassus, and flows near Delphi.]
[Footnote 66: _Poured on their clothes._--Ver. 371. It was the
custom of the ancients, before entering a temple, either to
sprinkle themselves with water, or to wash the body all over.]
[Footnote 67: _Cover your heads._--Ver. 382. It was a custom among
the ancients to cover their heads in sacrifice and other acts of
worship, either as a mark of humility, or, according to Plutarch,
that nothing of ill omen might meet their sight, and thereby
interrupt the performance of the rites.]
[Footnote 68: _Descended from Titan._--Ver. 395. Pyrrha was of the
race of the Titans; for Iapetus, her grandfather, was the son of
Titan and Terra.]
[Footnote 69: _Under the same name._--Ver. 410. With his usual
propensity for punning, he alludes to the use of the word ‘vena,’
as signifying either ‘a vein’ of the body, or a ‘streak’ or ‘vein’
in stone, according to the context.]
EXPLANATION.
In the reign of Deucalion, king of Thessaly, the course of the river
Peneus was stopped, probably by an earthquake. In the same year so
great a quantity of rain fell, that all Thessaly was overflowed.
Deucalion and some of his subjects fled to Mount Parnassus; where they
remained until the waters abated. The children of those who were
preserved are the stones of which the Poet here speaks. The Fable,
probably, has for its foundation the double meaning of the word
‘Eben,’ or ‘Aben,’ which signifies either ‘a stone,’ or ‘a child.’ The
Scholiast on Pindar tells us, too, that the word λάος, which means
people, formerly also signified ‘a stone.’
The brutal and savage nature of the early races of men may also have
added strength to the tradition that they derived their original from
stones. After the inundation, Deucalion is said to have repaired to
Athens, where he built a temple to Jupiter, and instituted sacrifices
in his honor. Some suppose that Cranaus reigned at Athens when
Deucalion retired thither; though Eusebius informs us it was under the
reign of Cecrops. Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, and his wife
Pyrrha was the daughter of his uncle, Epimetheus. After his death, he
received the honor of a temple, and was worshipped as a Divinity.
FABLE XI. [I.416-451]
The Earth, being warmed by the heat of the sun, produces many
monsters: among others, the serpent Python, which Apollo kills with
his arrows. To establish a memorial of this event, he institutes the
Pythian games, and adopts the surname of Pythius.
The Earth of her own accord brought forth other animals of different
forms; after that the former moisture was thoroughly heated by the rays
of the sun, and the mud and the wet fens fermented with the heat; and
the fruitful seeds of things nourished by the enlivening soil, as in the
womb of a mother, grew, and, in lapse of time, assumed some {regular}
shape. Thus, when the seven-streamed Nile[70] has forsaken the oozy
fields, and has returned its waters to their ancient channel, and the
fresh mud has been heated with the æthereal sun, the laborers, on
turning up the clods, meet with very many animals, and among them, some
just begun at the very moment of their formation, and some they see
{still} imperfect, and {as yet} destitute of {some} of their limbs; and
often, in the same body, is one part animated, the other part is coarse
earth. For when moisture and heat have been subjected to a due mixture,
they conceive; and all things arise from these two.
And although fire is the antagonist of heat, {yet} a moist vapor creates
all things, and this discordant concord is suited for generation; when,
therefore, the Earth, covered with mud by the late deluge, was
thoroughly heated by the æthereal sunshine and a penetrating warmth, it
produced species {of creatures} innumerable; and partly restored the
former shapes, and partly gave birth to new monsters. She, indeed, might
have been unwilling, but then she produced thee as well, thou enormous
Python; and thou, unheard-of serpent, wast a {source of} terror to this
new race of men, so vast a part of a mountain didst thou occupy.
The God that bears the bow, and that had never before used such arms,
but against the deer and the timorous goats, destroyed him, overwhelmed
with a thousand arrows, his quiver being well-nigh exhausted, {as} the
venom oozed forth through the black wounds; and that length of time
might not efface the fame of the deed, he instituted sacred games,[71]
with contests famed {in story}, called “Pythia,” from the name of the
serpent {so} conquered. In these, whosoever of the young men conquered
in boxing, in running, or in chariot-racing, received the honor of a
crown of beechen leaves.[72] As yet the laurel existed not, and Phœbus
used to bind his temples, graceful with long hair, with {garlands from}
any tree.
[Footnote 70: _The seven-streamed Nile._--Ver. 423. The river Nile
discharges itself into the sea by seven mouths. It is remarkable
for its inundations, which happen regularly every year, and
overflow the whole country of Egypt. To this is chiefly owing the
extraordinary fertility of the soil of that country; for when the
waters subside, they leave behind them great quantities of mud,
which, settling upon the land, enrich it, and continually
reinvigorate it.]
[Footnote 71: _Instituted sacred games._--Ver. 446. Yet Pausanias,
in his Corinthiaca, tells us that they were instituted by
Diomedes; others, again, say by Eurylochus the Thessalian; and
others, by Amphictyon, or Adrastus. The Pythian games were
celebrated near Delphi, on the Crissæan plain, which contained a
race-course, a stadium of 1000 feet in length, and a theatre, in
which the musical contests took place. They were once held at
Athens, by the advice of Demetrius Poliorcetes, because the
Ætolians were in possession of the passes round Delphi. They
were most probably originally a religious ceremonial, and were
perhaps only a musical contest, which consisted in singing a hymn
in honor of the Pythian God, accompanied by the music of the
cithara. In later times, gymnastic and equestrian games and
exercises were introduced there. Previously to the 48th Olympiad,
the Pythian games had been celebrated at the end of every eighth
year; after that period they were held at the end of every fourth
year. When they ceased to be solemnized is unknown; but in the
time of the Emperor Julian they still continued to be held.]
[Footnote 72: _Crown of beechen leaves._--Ver. 449. This was the
prize which was originally given to the conquerors in the Pythian
games. In later times, as Ovid tells us, the prize of the victor
was a laurel chaplet, together with the palm branch, symbolical of
his victory.]
EXPLANATION.
The story of the serpent Python, being explained on philosophical
principles, seems to mean, that the heat of the sun, having dissipated
the noxious exhalations emitted by the receding waters, the reptiles,
which had been produced from the slime left by the flood, immediately
disappeared.
If, however, we treat this narrative as based on historical facts, it
is probable that the serpent represented some robber who infested the
neighborhood of Parnassus, and molested those who passed that way for
the purpose of offering sacrifice. A prince, either bearing the name
of Apollo, or being a priest of that God, by his destruction liberated
that region from this annoyance. This event gave rise to the
institution of the Pythian games, which were celebrated near Delphi.
Besides the several contests mentioned by Ovid, singing, dancing, and
instrumental music, formed part of the exercises of these games. The
event which Ovid here places soon after the deluge, must have happened
much later, since in the time of Deucalion, the worship of Apollo was
not known at Delphi. The Goddess Themis then delivered oracles there,
which, previously to her time, had been delivered by the Earth.
FABLE XII. [I.452-567]
Apollo, falling in love with Daphne, the daughter of the river Peneus,
she flies from him. He pursues her; on which, the Nymph, imploring the
aid of her father, is changed into a laurel.
Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, was the first love of Phœbus; whom, not
blind chance, but the vengeful anger of Cupid assigned to him.
The Delian {God},[73] proud of having lately subdued the serpent, had
seen him bending the bow and drawing the string, and had said, “What
hast thou to do, wanton boy, with gallant arms? Such a burden as that
{better} befits my shoulders; I, who am able to give unerring wounds to
the wild beasts, {wounds} to the enemy, who lately slew with arrows
innumerable the swelling Python, that covered so many acres {of land}
with his pestilential belly. Do thou be contented to excite I know not
what flames with thy torch; and do not lay claim to praises {properly}
my own.”
To him the son of Venus replies, “Let thy bow shoot all things, Phœbus;
my bow {shall shoot} thee; and as much as all animals fall short of
thee, so much is thy glory less than mine.” He {thus} said; and cleaving
the air with his beating wings, with activity he stood upon the shady
heights of Parnassus, and drew two weapons out of his arrow-bearing
quiver, of different workmanship; the one repels, the other excites
desire. That which causes {love} is of gold, and is brilliant, with a
sharp point; that which repels it is blunt, and contains lead beneath
the reed. This one the God fixed in the Nymph, the daughter of Peneus,
but with the other he wounded the {very} marrow of Apollo, through his
bones pierced {by the arrow}. Immediately the one is in love; the other
flies from the {very} name of a lover, rejoicing in the recesses of the
woods, and in the spoils of wild beasts taken {in hunting}, and becomes
a rival of the virgin Phœbe. A fillet tied together[74] her hair, put up
without any order. Many a one courted her; she hated all wooers; not
able to endure, and quite unacquainted with man, she traverses the
solitary parts of the woods, and she cares not what Hymen,[75] what
love, {or} what marriage means. Many a time did her father say, “My
daughter, thou owest me a son-in-law;” many a time did her father say,
“My daughter, thou owest me grandchildren.” She, utterly abhorring the
nuptial torch,[76] as though a crime, has her beauteous face covered
with the blush of modesty; and clinging to her father’s neck, with
caressing arms, she says, “Allow me, my dearest father, to enjoy
perpetual virginity; her father, in times, bygone, granted this to
Diana.”
He indeed complied. But that very beauty forbids thee to be what thou
wishest, and the charms of thy person are an impediment to thy desires.
Phœbus falls in love, and he covets an alliance with Daphne, {now} seen
by him, and what he covets he hopes for, and his own oracles deceive
him; and as the light stubble is burned, when the ears of corn are taken
off, and as hedges are set on fire by the torches, which perchance a
traveller has either held too near them, or has left {there}, now about
the break of day, thus did the God burst into a flame; thus did he burn
throughout his breast, and cherish a fruitless passion with his hopes.
He beholds her hair hanging unadorned upon her neck, and he says, “And
what would {it be} if it were arranged?” He sees her eyes, like stars,
sparkling with fire; he sees her lips, which it is not enough to have
{merely} seen; he praises both her fingers and her hands, and her arms
and her shoulders naked, from beyond the middle; whatever is hidden from
view, he thinks to be still more beauteous. Swifter than the light wind
she flies, and she stops not at these words of his, as he calls her
back:
“O Nymph, daughter of Peneus, stay, I entreat thee! I am not an enemy
following thee. In this way the lamb {flies} from the wolf; thus the
deer {flies} from the lion; thus the dove flies from the eagle with
trembling wing; {in this way} each {creature flies from} its enemy: love
is the cause of my following thee. Ah! wretched me! shouldst thou fall
on thy face, or should the brambles tear thy legs, that deserve not to
be injured, and should I prove the cause of pain to thee. The places are
rugged, through which thou art {thus} hastening; run more leisurely,
I entreat thee, and restrain thy flight; I myself will follow more
leisurely. And yet, inquire whom thou dost please; I am not an
inhabitant of the mountains, I am not a shepherd; I am not here, in rude
guise,[77] watching the herds or the flocks. Thou knowest not, rash
girl, thou knowest not from whom thou art flying, and therefore it is
that thou dost fly. The Delphian land, Claros and Tenedos,[78] and the
Pataræan palace pays service to me. Jupiter is my sire; by me, what
shall be, what has been, and what is, is disclosed; through me, songs
harmonize with the strings. My own {arrow}, indeed, is unerring; yet one
there is still more unerring than my own, which has made this wound in
my heart, {before} unscathed. The healing art is my discovery, and
throughout the world I am honored as the bearer of help, and the
properties of simples are[79] subjected to me. Ah, wretched me![80] that
love is not to be cured by any herbs; and that those arts which afford
relief to all, are of no avail for their master.”
The daughter of Peneus flies from him, about to say still more, with
timid step, and together with him she leaves his unfinished address.
Then, too, she appeared lovely; the winds exposed her form to view, and
the gusts meeting her fluttered about her garments, as they came in
contact, and the light breeze spread behind her her careless locks;
and {thus}, by her flight, was her beauty increased. But the youthful
God[81] has not patience any longer to waste his blandishments; and as
love urges him on, he follows her steps with hastening pace. As when the
greyhound[82] has seen the hare in the open field, and the one by {the
speed of} his legs pursues his prey, the other {seeks} her safety; the
one is like as if just about to fasten {on the other}, and now, even
now, hopes to catch her, and with nose outstretched plies upon the
footsteps {of the hare}. The other is in doubt whether she is caught
{already}, and is delivered from his very bite, and leaves behind the
mouth {just} touching her. {And} so is the God, and {so} is the
virgin;[83] he swift with hopes, she with fear.
Yet he that follows, aided by the wings of love, is the swifter, and
denies her {any} rest; and is {now} just at her back as she flies, and
is breathing upon her hair scattered upon her neck. Her strength being
{now} spent, she grows pale, and being quite faint, with the fatigue of
so swift a flight, looking upon the waters of Peneus, she says, “Give
me, my father, thy aid, if you rivers have divine power. Oh Earth,
either yawn {to swallow me}, or by changing it, destroy that form, by
which I have pleased too much, and which causes me to be injured.”
Hardly had she ended her prayer, {when} a heavy torpor seizes her limbs;
{and} her soft breasts are covered with a thin bark. Her hair grows into
green leaves, her arms into branches; her feet, the moment before so
swift, adhere by sluggish roots; a {leafy} canopy overspreads her
features; her elegance alone[84] remains in her. This, too, Phœbus
admires, and placing his right hand upon the stock, he perceives that
the breast still throbs beneath the new bark; and {then}, embracing the
branches as though limbs in his arms, he gives kisses to the wood, {and}
yet the wood shrinks from his kisses. To her the God said: “But since
thou canst not be my wife, at least thou shalt be my tree; my hair, my
lyre,[85] my quiver shall always have thee, oh laurel! Thou shalt be
presented to the Latian chieftains, when the joyous voice of the
soldiers shall sing the song of triumph,[86] and the long procession
shall resort to the Capitol. Thou, the same, shalt stand as a most
faithful guardian at the gate-posts of Augustus before his doors,[87]
and shalt protect the oak placed in the centre; and as my head is {ever}
youthful with unshorn locks, do thou, too, always wear the lasting
honors of thy foliage.”
Pæan had ended {his speech}; the laurel nodded assent with its new-made
boughs, and seemed to shake its top just like a head.
[Footnote 73: _The Delian God._--Ver. 454. Apollo is so called,
from having been born in the Isle of Delos, in the Ægean Sea. The
Peneus was a river of Thessaly.]
[Footnote 74: _A fillet tied together._--Ver. 477. The ‘vitta’ was
a band encircling the head, and served to confine the tresses of
the hair. It was worn by maidens and by married women also; but
the ‘vitta’ assumed on the day of marriage was of a different form
from that used by virgins. It was not worn by women of light
character, or even by the ‘libertinæ,’ or female slaves who had
been liberated; so that it was not only deemed an emblem of
chastity, but of freedom also. It was of various colors: white and
purple are mentioned. In the later ages the ‘vitta’ was sometimes
set with pearls.]
[Footnote 75: _Hymen._--Ver. 480. Hymen, or Hymenæus, was one of
the Gods of Marriage; hence the name ‘Hymen’ was given to the
union of two persons in marriage.]
[Footnote 76: _The nuptial torch._--Ver. 483. Plutarch tells us,
that it was the custom in the bridal procession to carry five
torches before the bride, on her way to the house of her husband.
Among the Romans, the nuptial torch was lighted at the parental
hearth of the bride, and was borne before her by a boy, whose
parents were alive. The torch was also used at funerals, for the
purpose of lighting the pile, and because funerals were often
nocturnal ceremonies. Hence the expression of Propertius,--
‘Vivimus inter utramque facem,’ ‘We are living between the two
torches.’ Originally, the ‘tædæ’ seem to have been slips or
lengths of resinous pine wood: while the ‘fax’ was formed of a
bundle of wooden staves, either bound by a rope drawn round them
in a spiral form, or surrounded by circular bands at equal
distances. They were used by travellers and others, who were
forced to be abroad after sunset; whence the reference in line 493
to the hedge ignited through the carelessness of the traveller,
who has thrown his torch there on the approach of morning.]
[Footnote 77: _Here in rude guise._--Ver. 514. ‘Non hic armenta
gregesve Horridus observo’ is quaintly translated by Clarke, ‘I do
not here in a rude pickle watch herds or flocks.’]
[Footnote 78: _Claros and Tenedos._--Ver. 516. Claros was a city
of Ionia, famed for a temple and oracle of Apollo, and near which
there was a mountain and a grove sacred to him. There was an
island in the Myrtoan Sea of that name, to which some suppose that
reference is here made. Tenedos was an island of the Ægean Sea, in
the neighborhood of Troy. Patara was a city of Lycia, where Apollo
gave oracular responses during six months of the year. It was from
Patara that St. Paul took ship for Phœnicia, Acts, xxi. 1, 2.]
[Footnote 79: _The properties of simples._--Ver. 522. The first
cultivators of the medical art pretended to nothing beyond an
acquaintance with the medicinal qualities of herbs and simples; it
is not improbable that inasmuch as the vegetable world is
nourished and raised to the surface of the earth in a great degree
by the heat of the sun, a ground was thereby afforded for
allegorically saying that Apollo, or the Sun, was the discoverer
of the healing art.]
[Footnote 80: _Ah! wretched me!_--Ver. 523. A similar expression
occurs in the Heroides, v. 149, ‘Me miseram, quod amor non est
medicabilis herbis.’]
[Footnote 81: _The youthful God._--Ver. 531. Apollo was always
represented as a youth, and was supposed never to grow old. The
Scholiast on the Thebais of Statius, b. i., v. 694, says, ‘The
reason is, because Apollo is the Sun; and because the Sun is fire,
which never grows old.’ Perhaps the youthfulness of the Deity is
here mentioned, to account for his ardent pursuit of the flying
damsel.]
[Footnote 82: _As when the greyhound._--Ver. 533. The comparison
here of the flight of Apollo after Daphne, to that of the
greyhound after the hare, is considered to be very beautifully
drawn, and to give an admirable illustration of the eagerness with
which the God pursues on the one hand, and the anxiety with which
the Nymph endeavors to escape on the other. Pope, in his Windsor
Forest, has evidently imitated this passage, where he describes
the Nymph Lodona pursued by Pan, and transformed into a river. His
words are--
‘Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly,
When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky;
Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves,
When through the clouds he drives the trembling doves;
As from the God she flew with furious pace,
Or as the God more furious urged the chase.
Now fainting, sinking, pale, the nymph appears;
Now close behind, his sounding steps she hears;
And now his shadow reach’d her as she run,
His shadow lengthened by the setting sun;
And now his shorter breath, with sultry air,
Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.’
The greyhound was probably called ‘canis Gallicus,’ from having
been originally introduced into Italy from Gaul. ‘Vertagus’ was
their Gallic name, which we find used by Martial, and Gratian in
his Cynegeticon, ver. 203.]
[Footnote 83: _And so is the virgin._--Ver. 539. ‘Sic Deus et
virgo est’ is translated by Clarke, ‘So is the God and the young
lady;’ indeed, he mostly translates ‘virgo,’ ‘young lady.’]
[Footnote 84: _Her elegance alone._--Ver. 552. Clarke translates
‘Remanet nitor unus in illa,’ ‘her neatness alone continues in
her.’]
[Footnote 85: _My lyre._--Ver. 559. The players of the cithara,
the instrument of Apollo, were crowned with laurel, in the scenic
representations of the stage.]
[Footnote 86: _The song of triumph._--Ver. 560. The Poet here pays
a compliment to Augustus and the Roman people. The laurel was the
emblem of victory among the Romans. On such occasions the ‘fasces’
of the general and the spears and javelins of the soldiers were
wreathed with laurel; and after the time of Julius Cæsar, the
Roman general, when triumphing, wore a laurel wreath on his head,
and held a branch of laurel in his hand.]
[Footnote 87: _Before his doors._--Ver. 562. He here alludes to
the civic crown of oak leaves which, by order of the Senate, was
placed before the gate of the Palatium, where Augustus Cæsar
resided, with branches of laurel on either side of it.]
EXPLANATION.
To explain this Fable, it must be laid down as a principle that there
were originally many Jupiters, and Apollos, and Mercuries, whose
intrigues being, in lapse of time, attributed to but one individual,
that fact accounts for the great number of children which claimed
those respective Gods for their fathers.
Some prince probably, for whom his love of learning had acquired the
name of Apollo, falling in love with Daphne, pursued her to the brink
of the river Peneus, into which, being accidentally precipitated, she
perished in her lover’s sight. Some laurels growing near the spot,
perhaps gave rise to the story of her transformation; or possibly the
etymology of the word ‘Daphne,’ which in Greek signifies a laurel, was
the foundation of the Fable. Pausanias, however, in his Arcadia, gives
another version of this story. He says that Leucippus, son of Œnomaus,
king of Pisa, falling in love with Daphne, disguised himself in female
apparel, and devoted himself to her service. He soon procured her
friendship and confidence; but Apollo, who was his rival, having
discovered his fraud, one day redoubled the heat of the sun. Daphne
and her companions going to bathe, obliged Leucippus to follow their
example, on which, having discovered his stratagem, they killed him
with the arrows which they carried for the purposes of hunting.
Diodorus Siculus tells us that Daphne was the same with Manto, the
daughter of Tiresias, who was banished to Delphi, where she delivered
oracles, of the language of which Homer availed himself in the
composition of his poems. The inhabitants of Antioch asserted that the
adventure here narrated happened in the suburbs of their city, which
thence derived its name of Daphne.
FABLE XIII. [I.568-600]
Jupiter, pursuing Io, the daughter of Inachus, covers the earth with
darkness, and ravishes the Nymph.
There is a grove of Hæmonia,[88] which a wood, placed on a craggy rock,
encloses on every side. They call it Tempe;[89] through this the river
Peneus, flowing from the bottom of {mount} Pindus,[90] rolls along with
its foaming waves, and in its mighty fall, gathers clouds that scatter
{a vapor like} thin smoke,[91] and with its spray besprinkles the tops
of the woods, and wearies places, far from near to it, with its noise.
This is the home, this the abode, these are the retreats of the great
river; residing here in a cavern formed by rocks, he gives law to the
waters, and to the Nymphs that inhabit those waters. The rivers of that
country first repair thither, not knowing whether they should
congratulate, or whether console the parent; the poplar-bearing
Spercheus,[92] and the restless Enipeus,[93] the aged Apidanus,[94] the
gentle Amphrysus,[95] and Æas,[96] and, soon after, the other rivers,
which, as their current leads them, carry down into the sea their waves,
wearied by wanderings. Inachus[97] alone is absent, and, hidden in his
deepest cavern, increases his waters with his tears, and in extreme
wretchedness bewails his daughter Io as lost; he knows not whether she
{now} enjoys life, or whether she is among the shades below; but her,
whom he does not find anywhere, he believes to be nowhere, and in his
mind he dreads the worst.
Jupiter had seen Io as she was returning from her father’s stream, and
had said, “O maid, worthy of Jove, and destined to make I know not whom
happy in thy marriage, repair to the shades of this lofty grove (and he
pointed at the shade of the grove) while it is warm, and {while} the Sun
is at his height, in the midst of his course. But if thou art afraid to
enter the lonely abodes of the wild beasts alone, thou shalt enter the
recesses of the groves, safe under the protection of a God, and {that} a
God of no common sort; but {with me}, who hold the sceptre of heaven in
my powerful hand; {me}, who hurl the wandering lightnings--Do not fly
from me;” for {now} she was flying. And now she had left behind the
pastures of Lerna,[98] and the Lircæan plains planted with trees, when
the God covered the earth far and wide with darkness overspreading, and
arrested her flight, and forced her modesty.
[Footnote 88: _A grove of Hæmonia._--Ver. 568. Hæmonia was an
ancient name of Thessaly, so called from its king, Hæmon, a son of
Pelasgus, and father of Thessalus, from which it received its
later name.]
[Footnote 89: _Call it Tempe._--Ver. 569. Tempe was a valley of
Thessaly, proverbial for its pleasantness and the beauty of its
scenery. The river Peneus ran through it, but not with the
violence which Ovid here depicts; for Ælian tells us that it runs
with a gentle sluggish stream, more like oil than water.]
[Footnote 90: _Mount Pindus._--Ver. 570. Pindus was a mountain
situate on the confines of Thessaly.]
[Footnote 91: _Like thin smoke._--Ver. 571. He speaks of the
spray, which in the fineness of its particles resembles smoke.]
[Footnote 92: _Spercheus._--Ver. 579. The Spercheus was a rapid
stream, flowing at the foot of Mount Æta into the Malian Gulf,
and on whose banks many poplars grew.]
[Footnote 93: _Enipeus._--Ver. 579. The Enipeus rises in Mount
Othrys, and runs through Thessaly. Virgil (Georgics, iv. 468)
calls it ‘Altus Enipeus,’ the deep Enipeus.]
[Footnote 94: _Apidanus._--Ver. 580. The Apidanus, receiving the
stream of the Enipeus at Pharsalia, flows into the Peneus. It is
supposed by some commentators to be here called ‘senex,’ aged,
from the slowness of its tide. But where it unites the Enipeus it
flows with violence, so that it is probably called ‘senex,’ as
having been known and celebrated by the poets from of old.]
[Footnote 95: _Amphrysus._--Ver. 580. This river ran through that
part of Thessaly known by the name of Phthiotis.]
[Footnote 96: _Æas._--Ver. 580. Pliny the Elder (Book iii, ch. 23)
calls this river Aous. It was a small limpid stream, running
through Epirus and Thessaly, and discharging itself into the
Ionian sea.]
[Footnote 97: _Inachus._--Ver. 583. This was a river of Argolis,
now known as the Naio. It took its rise either in Lycæus or
Artemisium, mountains of Arcadia. Stephens, however, thinks that
Lycæus was a mountain of Argolis.]
[Footnote 98: _Lerna._--Ver. 597. This was a swampy spot on the
Argive territory, where the poets say that the dragon with seven
heads, called Hydra, which was slain by Hercules, had made his
haunt. It is not improbable that the pestilential vapors of this
spot were got rid of by means of its being drained under the
superintendence of Hercules, on which fact the story was founded.
Some commentators, however, suppose the Lerna to have been a
flowing stream.]
EXPLANATION.
The Greeks frequently embellished their mythology with narratives of
Phœnician or Egyptian origin. The story of Io probably came from
Egypt. Isis was one of the chief divinities of that country, and her
worship naturally passed, with their colonies, into foreign countries.
Greece received it when Inachus went to settle there, and in lapse of
time Isis, under the name of Io, was supposed to have been his
daughter, and the fable was invented which is here narrated by Ovid.
The Greek authors, Apollodorus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and
Pausanias, say that Io was the daughter of Inachus, the first king of
Argos; that Jupiter carried her away to Crete; and that by her he had
a son named Epaphus, who went to reign in Egypt, whither his mother
accompanied him. They also tell us that she married Apis, or Osiris,
who, after his death, was numbered among the Deities of Egypt by the
name of Serapis. From them we also learn that Juno, being actuated by
jealousy, on the discovery of the intrigue, put Io under the care of
her uncle Argus, a man of great vigilance, but that Jupiter having
slain him, placed his mistress on board of a vessel which had the
figure of a cow at its head; from which circumstance arose the story
of the transformation of Io. The Greek writers also state, that the
Bosphorus, a part of the Ægean sea, derived its name from the passage
of Io in the shape of a cow.
FABLE XIV. [I.601-688]
Jupiter, having changed Io into a cow, to conceal her from the
jealousy of Juno, is obliged to give her to that Goddess, who commits
her to the charge of the watchful Argus. Jupiter sends Mercury with an
injunction to cast Argus into a deep sleep, and to take away his life.
In the meantime Juno looked down upon the midst of the fields, and
wondering that the fleeting clouds had made the appearance of night
under bright day, she perceived that they were not {the vapors} from a
river, nor were they raised from the moist earth, and {then} she looked
around {to see} where her husband was, as being one who by this time was
full well acquainted with the intrigues of a husband {who had been} so
often detected.[99] After she had found him not in heaven, she said,
“I am either deceived, or I am injured;” and having descended from the
height of heaven, she alighted upon the earth, and commanded the mists
to retire. He had foreseen the approach of his wife, and had changed the
features of the daughter of Inachus into a sleek heifer.[100] As a cow,
too, {she} is beautiful. The daughter of Saturn, though unwillingly,
extols the appearance of the cow; and likewise inquires, whose it is,
and whence, or of what herd it is, as though ignorant of the truth.
Jupiter falsely asserts that it was produced out of the earth, that the
owner may cease to be inquired after. The daughter of Saturn begs her of
him as a gift. What can {he} do? It is a cruel thing to deliver up his
{own} mistress, {and} not to give her up is a cause of suspicion. It is
shame which persuades him on the one hand, love dissuades him on the
other. His shame would have been subdued by his love; but if so trifling
a gift as a cow should be refused to the sharer of his descent and his
couch, she might {well} seem not to be a cow.
The rival now being given up {to her}, the Goddess did not immediately
lay aside all apprehension; and she was {still} afraid of Jupiter, and
was fearful of her being stolen, until she gave her to Argus, the son of
Aristor, to be kept {by him}. Argus had his head encircled with a
hundred eyes. Two of them used to take rest in their turns, the rest
watched, and used to keep on duty.[101] In whatever manner he stood, he
looked towards Io; although turned away, he {still} used to have Io
before his eyes. In the daytime he suffers her to feed; but when the sun
is below the deep earth, he shuts her up, and ties a cord round her neck
undeserving {of such treatment}. She feeds upon the leaves of the arbute
tree, and bitter herbs, and instead of a bed the unfortunate {animal}
lies upon the earth, that does not always have grass {on it}, and drinks
of muddy streams. And when, too, she was desirous, as a suppliant, to
stretch out her arms to Argus, she had no arms to stretch out to Argus;
and she uttered lowings from her mouth, {when} endeavoring to complain.
And at {this} sound she was terrified, and was affrighted at her own
voice.
She came, too, to the banks, where she was often wont to sport, the
banks of {her father}, Inachus; and soon as she beheld her new horns in
the water, she was terrified, and, astonished, she recoiled from
herself. The Naiads knew her not, and Inachus himself knew her not, who
she was; but she follows her father, and follows her sisters, and
suffers herself to be touched, and presents herself to them, as they
admire {her}. The aged Inachus held her some grass he had plucked; she
licks his hand, and gives kisses to the palms of her father. Nor does
she restrain her tears; and if only words would follow, she would
implore his aid, and would declare her name and misfortunes. Instead of
words, letters, which her foot traced in the dust, completed the sad
discovery of the transformation of her body. “Ah, wretched me!” exclaims
her father Inachus; and clinging to the horns and the neck of the
snow-white cow, as she wept, he repeats, “Ah, wretched me! and art thou
my daughter, that hast been sought for by me throughout all lands? While
undiscovered, thou wast a lighter grief {to me}, than {now, when} thou
art found. Thou art silent, and no words dost thou return in answer to
mine; thou only heavest sighs from the depth of thy breast, and what
alone thou art able to do, thou answerest in lowings to my words. But I,
in ignorance {of this}, was preparing the bridal chamber, and the
{nuptial} torches for thee; and my chief hope was that of a son-in-law,
my next was that of grandchildren. But now must thou have a mate from
the herd, now, {too}, an offspring of the herd. Nor is it possible for
me to end grief so great by death; but it is a detriment to be a God;
and the gate of death being shut against me, extends my grief to eternal
ages.”
While thus he lamented, the starry Argus removed her away, and carried
the daughter, {thus} taken from her father, to distant pastures. He
himself, at a distance, occupies the lofty top of a mountain, whence, as
he sits, he may look about on all sides.
Nor can the ruler of the Gods above, any longer endure so great miseries
of the granddaughter of Phoroneus;[102] and he calls his son {Mercury},
whom the bright Pleiad, {Maia},[103] brought forth, and orders him to
put Argus to death. There is {but} little delay to take wings upon his
feet, and his soporiferous wand[104] in his hand, and a cap for his
hair.[105] After he had put these things in order, the son of Jupiter
leaps down from his father’s high abode upon the earth, and there he
takes off his cap, and lays aside his wings; his wand alone was
retained. With this, as a shepherd, he drives some she-goats through the
pathless country, taken up as he passed along, and plays upon oaten
straws joined together.
The keeper appointed by Juno, charmed by the sound of this new
contrivance, says, “Whoever thou art, thou mayst be seated with me upon
this stone; for, indeed, in no {other} place is the herbage more
abundant for thy flock; and thou seest, too, that the shade is
convenient for the shepherds.” The son of Atlas sat down, and with much
talking he occupied the passing day with his discourse, and by playing
upon his joined reeds he tried to overpower his watchful eyes. Yet {the
other} strives hard to overcome soft sleep; and although sleep was
received by a part of his eyes, yet with a part he still keeps watch. He
inquires also (for the pipe had been {but} lately invented) by what
method it had been found out.
[Footnote 99: _So often detected._--Ver. 606. Clarke translates
‘deprensi toties mariti’ by the expression, ‘who had been so often
catched in his roguery.’]
[Footnote 100: _Into a sleek heifer._--Ver. 611. Clarke renders
the words, ‘nitentem juvencam,’ a neat heifer.]
[Footnote 101: _To keep on duty._--Ver. 627. ‘In statione
manebant.’ This is a metaphorical expression, taken from military
affairs, as soldiers in turns relieve each other, and take their
station, when they keep watch and ward.]
[Footnote 102: _Phoroneus._--Ver. 668. He was the father of Jasius
and of Inachus, the parent of Io. Some accounts, however, say that
Inachus was the father of Phoroneus, and the son of Oceanus.]
[Footnote 103: _Pleiad Maia._--Ver. 670. Maia was one of the seven
daughters of Atlas, who were styled Pleiädes after they were
received among the constellations.]
[Footnote 104: _Soporiferous wand._--Ver. 671. This was the
‘caduceus,’ or staff, with which Mercury summoned the souls of the
departed from the shades, induced slumber, and did other offices
pertaining to his capacity as the herald and messenger of Jupiter.
It was represented as an olive branch, wreathed with two snakes.
In time of war, heralds and ambassadors, among the Greeks, carried
a ‘caduceus.’ It was not used by the Romans.]
[Footnote 105: _A cap for his hair._--Ver. 672. This was a cap
called ‘Petasus.’ It had broad brims, and was not unlike the
‘causia,’ or Macedonian hat, except that the brims of the latter
were turned up at the sides.]
EXPLANATION.
The story of the Metamorphosis of Io has been already enlarged upon in
the Explanation of the preceding Fable. It may, however, not be
irrelevant to observe, that myths, or mythological stories or fables,
are frequently based upon some true history, corrupted by tradition in
lapse of time. The poets, too, giving loose to their fancy in their
love of the marvellous, have still further disfigured the original
story; so that it is in most instances extremely difficult to trace
back the facts to their primitive simplicity, by a satisfactory
explanation of each circumstance attending them, either upon a
philosophical, or an historical principle of solution.
FABLE XV. [I.689-712]
Pan, falling in love with the Nymph Syrinx, she flies from him; on
which he pursues her. Syrinx, arrested in her flight by the waves of
the river Ladon, invokes the aid of her sisters, the Naiads, who
change her into reeds. Pan unites them into an instrument with seven
pipes, which bears the name of the Nymph.
Then the God says, “In the cold mountains of Arcadia, among the
Hamadryads of Nonacris,[106] there was one Naiad very famous; the Nymphs
called her Syrinx. And not once {alone} had she escaped the Satyrs as
they pursued, and whatever Gods either the shady grove or the fruitful
fields have {in them}. In her pursuits and her virginity itself she used
to devote herself to the Ortygian Goddess;[107] and being clothed after
the fashion of Diana, she might have deceived one, and might have been
supposed to be the daughter of Latona, if she had not had a bow of
cornel wood, the other, {a bow} of gold; and even then did she
{sometimes} deceive {people}. Pan spies her as she is returning from the
hill of Lycæus, and having his head crowned with sharp pine leaves, he
utters such words as these;” it remained {for Mercury} to repeat the
words, and how that the Nymph, slighting his suit, fled through pathless
spots, until she came to the gentle stream of sandy Ladon;[108] and that
here, the waters stopping her course, she prayed to her watery sisters,
that they would change her; and {how} that Pan, when he was thinking
that Syrinx was now caught by him, had seized hold of some reeds of the
marsh, instead of the body of the Nymph; and {how}, while he was sighing
there, the winds moving amid the reeds had made a murmuring noise, and
like one complaining; and {how} that, charmed by this new discovery and
the sweetness of the sound, he had said, “This mode of converse with
thee shall ever remain with me;” and that accordingly, unequal reeds
being stuck together among themselves by a cement of wax, had {since}
retained the name of the damsel.
[Footnote 106: _Nonacris._--Ver. 690. Nonacris was the name of
both a mountain and a city of Arcadia, in the Peloponnesus.]
[Footnote 107: _The Ortygian Goddess._--Ver. 694. Diana is called
“Ortygian,” from the isle of Delos, where she was born, one of
whose names was Ortygia, from the quantity of quails, ὄρτυγες,
there found.]
[Footnote 108: _Ladon._--Ver. 702. This was a beautiful river of
Arcadia, flowing into the Alpheus: its banks were covered with
vast quantities of reeds. Ovid here calls its stream ‘placidum;’
whereas in the fifth book of the Fasti, l. 89, he calls it
‘rapax,’ ‘violent;’ and in the second book of the Fasti, l. 274,
its waters are said to be ‘citæ aquæ,’ swift waters. Some
commentators have endeavored to reconcile these discrepancies; but
the probability is, that Ovid, like many other poets, used his
epithets at random, or rather according to the requirements of the
measure for the occasion.]
EXPLANATION.
This appears to have been an Egyptian fable, imported into the works
of the Grecian poets. Pan was probably a Divinity of the Egyptians,
who worshipped nature under that name, as we are told by Herodotus and
Diodorus Siculus. As, however, according to Nonnus, there were not
less than twelve Pans, it is possible that the adventure here related
may have been supposed to have happened to one of them who was a
native of Greece. He was most probably the inventor of the Syrinx, or
Pandæan pipe, and, perhaps, formed his first instrument from the
produce of the banks of the River Ladon, from which circumstance
Syrinx may have been styled the daughter of that river.
FABLE XVI. [I.713-723]
Mercury, having lulled Argus to sleep, cuts off his head, and Juno
places his eyes in the peacock’s tail.
The Cyllenian God[109] being about to say such things, perceived that
all his eyes were sunk in sleep, and that his sight was wrapped[110] in
slumber. At once he puts an end to his song, and strengthens his
slumbers, stroking his languid eyes with his magic wand. There is no
delay; he wounds him, as he nods, with his crooked sword, where the head
is joined to the neck; and casts him, all blood-stained, from the rock,
and stains the craggy cliff with his gore.
Argus, thou liest low, and the light which thou hadst in so many eyes is
{now} extinguished; and one night takes possession of a {whole} hundred
eyes. The daughter of Saturn takes them, and places them on the feathers
of her own bird, and she fills its tail with starry gems.