And now Thebes was standing; now Cadmus, thou mightst seem happy in thy

exile. Both Mars and Venus[14] had become thy father-in-law and

mother-in-law; add to this, issue by a wife so illustrious, so many

sons[15] and daughters, and grandchildren, dear pledges {of love};

these, too, now of a youthful age. But, forsooth, the last day {of life}

must always be awaited by man, and no one ought to be pronounced happy

before his death,[16] and his last obsequies. Thy grandson, Cadmus, was

the first occasion of sorrow to thee, among so much prosperity, the

horns, too, not his own, placed upon his forehead, and you, O dogs,

glutted with the blood of your master. But, if you diligently inquire

into his {case}, you will find the fault of an accident, and not

criminality in him; for what criminality did mistake embrace?

There was a mountain stained with the blood of various wild beasts; and

now the day had contracted the meridian shadow of things, and the sun

was equally distant from each extremity {of the heavens}; when the

Hyantian youth[17] {thus} addressed the partakers of his toils, as they

wandered along the lonely haunts {of the wild beasts}, with gentle

accent: “Our nets are moistened, my friends, and our spears, too, with

the blood of wild beasts; and the day has yielded sufficient sport; when

the next morn, borne upon her rosy chariot, shall bring back the light,

let us seek again our proposed task. Now Phœbus is at the same distance

from both lands, {the Eastern and the Western}, and is cleaving the

fields with his heat. Cease your present toils, and take away the

knotted nets.” The men execute his orders, and cease their labors. There

was a valley, thick set with pitch-trees and the sharp-pointed cypress;

by name Gargaphie,[18] sacred to the active Diana. In the extreme recess

of this, there was a grotto in a grove, formed by no art; nature, by her

ingenuity, had counterfeited art; for she had formed a natural arch, in

the native pumice and the light sand-stones. A limpid fountain ran

murmuring on the right hand with its little stream, having its spreading

channels edged with a border of grass. Here, {when} wearied with

hunting, the Goddess of the woods was wont to bathe her virgin limbs in

clear water.

After she had entered there, she handed to one of the Nymphs, her

armor-bearer, her javelin, her quiver, and her unstrung bow. Another

Nymph put her arms under her mantle, when taken off: two removed the

sandals from her feet. But Crocale,[19] the daughter of Ismenus, more

skilled than they, gathered her hair, which lay scattered over her neck,

into a knot, although she herself was with {her hair} loose.

Nephele,[20] and Hyale,[21] and Rhanis,[22] fetch water, Psecas[23] and

Phyale[24] {do the same}, and pour it from their large urns. And while

the Titanian {Goddess} was there bathing in the wonted stream, behold!

the grandson of Cadmus, having deferred the remainder of his sport till

{next day}, came into the grove, wandering through the unknown wood,

with uncertain steps; thus did his fate direct him.

Soon as he entered the grotto, dropping with its springs, the Nymphs,

naked as they were, on seeing a man, smote their breasts, and filled all

the woods with sudden shrieks, and gathering round Diana, covered her

with their bodies. Yet the Goddess herself was higher than they, and was

taller than them all by the neck. The color that is wont to be in

clouds, tinted by the rays of the sun {when} opposite, or that of the

ruddy morning, was on the features of Diana, when seen without her

garments. She, although surrounded with the crowd of her attendants,

stood sideways, and turned her face back; and how did she wish that she

had her arrows at hand; {and} so she took up water,[25] which she did

have {at hand}, and threw it over the face of the man, and sprinkling

his hair with the avenging stream, she added these words, the presages

of his future woe: “Now thou mayst tell, if tell thou canst, how that I

was seen by thee without my garments.” Threatening no more, she places

on his sprinkled head the horns of a lively stag; she adds length to his

neck, and sharpens the tops of his ears; and she changes his hands into

feet, and his arms into long legs, and covers his body with a spotted

coat of hair; fear, too is added. The Autonoëian[26] hero took to

flight, and wondered that he was so swift in his speed; but when he

beheld his own horns in the wonted stream, he was about to say, “Ah,

wretched me!” {when} no voice followed. He groaned; that was {all} his

voice, and his tears trickled down a face not his own, {but that of a

stag}. His former understanding alone remained. What should he do?

Should he return home, and to the royal abode? or should he lie hid in

the woods? Fear hinders the one {step}, shame the other. While he was

hesitating, the dogs espied him, and first Melampus,[27] and the

good-nosed Ichnobates gave the signal, in full cry. Ichnobates,[28] was

a Gnossian {dog}; Melampus was of Spartan breed. Then the rest rush on,

swifter than the rapid winds; Pamphagus,[29] and Dorcæus,[30] and

Oribasus,[31] all Arcadian {dogs}; and able Nebrophonus,[32] and with

Lælaps,[33] fierce Theron,[34] and Pterelas,[35] excelling in speed,

Agre[36] in her scent, and Hylæus,[37] lately wounded by a fierce boar,

and Nape,[38] begotten by a wolf, and Pœmenis,[39] that had tended

cattle, and Harpyia,[40] followed by her two whelps, and the Sicyonian

Ladon,[41] having a slender girth; Dromas,[42] too, and Canace,[43]

Sticte,[44] and Tigris, and Alce,[45] and Leucon,[46] with snow-white

hair, and Asbolus,[47] with black, and the able-bodied Lacon,[48] and

Aëllo,[49] good at running, and Thoüs,[50] and swift Lycisca,[51] with

her Cyprian brother, Harpalus,[52] too, having his black face marked

with white down the middle, and Melaneus,[53] and Lachne,[54] with a

wire-haired body, and Labros,[55] and Agriodos,[56] bred of a Dictæan

sire, but of a Laconian dam, and Hylactor,[57] with his shrill note; and

others which it were tedious to recount.

This pack, in eagerness for their prey, are borne over rocks and cliffs,

and crags difficult of approach, where the path is steep, and where

there is no road. He flies along the routes by which he has so often

pursued; alas! he is {now} flying from his own servants. Fain would he

have cried, “I am Actæon, recognize your own master.” Words are wanting

to his wishes; the air resounds with their barking. Melanchætes[58] was

the first to make a wound on his back, Theridamas[59] the next;

Oresitrophus[60] fastened upon his shoulder. These had gone out later,

but their course was shortened by a near cut through the hill. While

they hold their master, the rest of the pack come up, and fasten their

teeth in his body. Now room is wanting for {more} wounds. He groans, and

utters a noise, though not that of a man, {still}, such as a stag cannot

make; and he fills the well-known mountains with dismal moans, and

suppliant on his bended knees, and like one in entreaty, he turns round

his silent looks as though {they were} his arms.

But his companions, in their ignorance, urge on the eager pack with

their usual cries, and seek Actæon with their eyes; and cry out “Actæon”

aloud, as though he were absent. At his name he turns his head, as they

complain that he is not there, and in his indolence, is not enjoying a

sight of the sport afforded them. He wished, indeed, he had been away,

but there he was; and he wished to see, not to feel as well, the cruel

feats of his own dogs. They gather round him on all sides, and burying

their jaws in his body, tear their master in pieces under the form of an

imaginary stag. And the rage of the quiver-bearing Diana is said not to

have been satiated, until his life was ended by many a wound.

[Footnote 14: _Mars and Venus._--Ver. 132. The wife of Cadmus was

Hermione, or Harmonia, who was said to have been the daughter of

Mars and Venus. The Deities honored the nuptials with their

presence, and presented marriage gifts, while the Muses and the

Graces celebrated the festivity with hymns of their own

composition.]

[Footnote 15: _So many sons._--Ver. 134. Apollodorus, Hyginus, and

others, say that Cadmus had but one son, Polydorus. If so, ‘tot,’

‘so many,’ must here refer to the number of his daughters and

grandchildren. His daughters were four in number, Autonoë, Ino,

Semele, and Agave. Ino married Athamas, Autonoë Aristæus, Agave

Echion, while Semele captivated Jupiter. The most famous of the

grandsons of Cadmus were Bacchus, Melicerta, Pentheus, and Actæon.]

[Footnote 16: _Before his death._--Ver. 135. This was the famous

remark of Solon to Crœsus, when he was the master of the opulent

and flourishing kingdom of Lydia, and seemed so firmly settled on

his throne, that there was no probability of any interruption of

his happiness. Falling into the hands of Cyrus the Persian, and

being condemned to be burnt alive, he recollected this wise saying

of Solon, and by that means saved his life, as we are told by

Herodotus, who relates the story at length. Euripides has a

similar passage in his Troades, line 510.]

[Footnote 17: _The Hyantian youth._--Ver. 147. Actæon is thus

called, as being a Bœotian. The Hyantes were the ancient or

aboriginal inhabitants of Bœotia.]

[Footnote 18: _Gargaphie._--Ver. 156. Gargaphie, or Gargaphia, was

a valley situate near Platæa, having a fountain of the same name.]

[Footnote 19: _Crocale._--Ver. 169. So called, perhaps, from

κεκρύφαλος, an ornament for the head, being a coif, band, or

fillet of network for the hair called in Latin ‘reticulum,’ by

which name her office is denoted. The handmaid, whose duty it was

to attend to the hair, held the highest rank in ancient times

among the domestics.]

[Footnote 20: _Nephele._--Ver. 171. From the Greek word νεφέλη,

‘a cloud.’]

[Footnote 21: _Hyale._--Ver. 171. This is from ὕαλος, ‘glass,’ the

name signifying ‘glassy,’ ‘pellucid.’ The very name calls to mind

Milton’s line in his Comus--

‘Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave.’]

[Footnote 22: _Rhanis._--Ver. 171. This name is adapted from the

Greek verb ῥαίνω, ‘to sprinkle.’]

[Footnote 23: _Psecas._--Ver. 172. From the Greek ψεκὰς, ‘a

dew-drop.’]

[Footnote 24: _Phyale._--Ver. 172. This is from the Greek φιαλὴ,

‘an urn.’]

[Footnote 25: _Took up water._--Ver. 189. The ceremonial of

sprinkling previous to the transformation seems not to have been

neglected any more by the offended Goddesses of the classical

Mythology, than by the intriguing enchantresses of the Arabian

Nights’ Entertainments; as the unfortunate Beder, when under the

displeasure of the vicious queen Labè, experienced to his great

inconvenience. The love for the supernatural, combined with an

anxious desire to attribute its operations to material and visible

agencies, forms one of the most singular features of the human

character.]

[Footnote 26: _Autonoëian._--Ver. 198. Autonoë was the daughter of

Cadmus and Hermione, or Harmonia, and the wife of Aristæus, by

whom she was the mother of Actæon. We may here remark, that in one

of his satires, Lucian introduces Juno as saying to Diana, that

she had let loose his dogs on Actæon, for fear lest, having seen

her naked, he should divulge the deformity of her person.]

[Footnote 27: _Melampus._--Ver. 206. These names are all from the

Greek, and are interesting, as showing the epithets by which the

ancients called their dogs. The pack of Actæon is said to have

consisted of fifty dogs. Their names were preserved by several

Greek poets, from whom Apollodorus copied them; but the greater

part of his list has perished, and what remains is in a very

corrupt state. Hyginus has preserved two lists, the first of which

contains thirty-nine names, most of which are similar to those

here given by Ovid, and in almost the same order; while the second

contains thirty-six names, different from those here given.

Æschylus has named but four of them, and Ovid here names

thirty-six. Crete, Arcadia, and Laconia produced the most valuable

hounds. Melampus, ‘Black-foot,’ is from the Greek words μέλας,

‘black,’ and ποῦς, ‘a foot.’]

[Footnote 28: _Ichnobates._--Ver. 207. ‘Tracer.’ From the Greek

ἰχνὸς, ‘a footstep,’ and βαίνω, ‘to go.’]

[Footnote 29: _Pamphagus._--Ver. 210. ‘Glutton.’ From πᾶν, ‘all,’

and φάγω, ‘to eat.’]

[Footnote 30: _Dorcæus._--Ver. 210. ‘Quicksight.’ From δέρκω, ‘to

see.’]

[Footnote 31: _Oribasus._--Ver. 210. ‘Ranger.’ From ὄρος, ‘a

mountain,’ and βαίνω, ‘to go.’]

[Footnote 32: _Nebrophonus._--Ver. 211. ‘Kill-buck.’ From νεβρὸς,

‘a fawn,’ and φονέω, ‘to kill.’]

[Footnote 33: _Lælaps._--Ver. 211. ‘Tempest.’ So called from its

swiftness and power, λαίλαψ, signifying ‘a whirlwind.’]

[Footnote 34: _Theron._--Ver. 211. ‘Hunter.’ From the Greek,

θερεύω, ‘to trace,’ or ‘hunt.’]

[Footnote 35: _Pterelas._--Ver. 212. ‘Wing.’ ‘Swift-footed,’ from

πτερὸν, ‘a wing,’ and ἐλαύνω, ‘to drive onward.’]

[Footnote 36: _Agre._--Ver. 212. ‘Catcher.’ ‘Quick-scented,’ from

ἄγρα, ‘hunting,’ or ‘the chase.’]

[Footnote 37: _Hylæus._--Ver. 213. ‘Woodger,’ or ‘Wood-ranger;’

the Greek ὕλη, signifying ‘a wood.’]

[Footnote 38: _Nape._--Ver. 214. ‘Forester.’ A ‘forest,’ or

‘wood,’ being in Greek, νάπη.]

[Footnote 39: _Pœmenis._--Ver. 215. ‘Shepherdess,’ From the Greek

ποίμενις, ‘a shepherdess.’]

[Footnote 40: _Harpyia._--Ver. 215. ‘Ravener.’ From the Greek word

ἅρπυια, ‘a harpy,’ or ‘ravenous bird.’]

[Footnote 41: _Ladon._--Ver. 216. This dog takes its name from

Ladon, a river of Sicyon, a territory on the shores of the gulf of

Corinth.]

[Footnote 42: _Dromas._--Ver. 217. ‘Runner.’ From the Greek

δρόμος, ‘a race.’]

[Footnote 43: _Canace._--Ver. 217. ‘Barker.’ The word καναχὴ,

signifies ‘a noise,’ or ‘din.’]

[Footnote 44: _Sticte._--Ver. 217. ‘Spot.’ So called from the

variety of her colors, as στικτὸς, signifies ‘diversified with

various spots,’ from στίζω, ‘to vary with spots.’ ‘Tigris’ means

‘Tiger.’]

[Footnote 45: _Alce._--Ver. 217. ‘Strong.’ From the Greek ἀλκὴ

‘strength.’]

[Footnote 46: _Leucon._--Ver. 218. ‘White.’ From λευκὸς, ‘white.’]

[Footnote 47: _Asbolus._--Ver. 218. ‘Soot,’ or ‘Smut.’ From the

Greek ἄσβολος, ‘soot.’]

[Footnote 48: _Lacon._--Ver. 219. From his native country,

Laconia.]

[Footnote 49: _Aëllo._--Ver. 219. ‘Storm.’ From ἄελλα, ‘a

tempest.’]

[Footnote 50: _Thoüs._--Ver. 220. ‘Swift.’ From θοὸς, ‘swift.’

Pliny the Elder states, that ‘thos’ was the name of a kind of

wolf, of larger make, and more active in springing than the common

wolf. He says that it is of inoffensive habits towards man; but

that it lives by prey, and is hairy in winter, but without hair in

summer. It is supposed by some that he alludes to the jackal.

Perhaps, from this animal, the dog here mentioned derived his

name.]

[Footnote 51: _Lycisca._--Ver. 220. ‘Wolf.’ From the diminutive of

the Greek word λύκος, ‘a wolf.’ Virgil uses ‘Lycisca’ as the name

of a dog, in his Eclogues.]

[Footnote 52: _Harpalus._--Ver. 222. ‘Snap.’ From ἁρπάζω, ‘to

snatch,’ or ‘plunder.’]

[Footnote 53: _Melaneus._--Ver. 222. ‘Black-coat.’ From the Greek,

μέλας, ‘black.’]

[Footnote 54: _Lachne._--Ver. 222. ‘Stickle.’ From the Greek work

λαχνὴ, signifying ‘thickness of the hair.’]

[Footnote 55: _Labros._--Ver. 224. ‘Worrier.’ From the Greek

λάβρος ‘greedy.’ Dicte was a mountain of Crete; whence the word

‘Dictæan’ is often employed to signify ‘Cretan.’]

[Footnote 56: _Agriodos._--Ver. 224. ‘Wild-tooth.’ From ἄγριος

‘wild,’ and ὀδοῦς, ‘a tooth.’]

[Footnote 57: _Hylactor._--Ver. 224. ‘Babbler.’ From the Greek

word ὑλακτέω, signifying ‘to bark.’]

[Footnote 58: _Melanchætes._--Ver. 232. ‘Black-hair.’ From the

μέλας, ‘black,’ and χαιτὴ, ‘mane.’]

[Footnote 59: _Theridamas._--Ver. 233. ‘Kilham.’ From θὴρ, ‘a wild

beast,’ and δαμάω, ‘to subdue.’]

[Footnote 60: _Oresitrophus._--Ver. 223. ‘Rover.’ From ὄρος ‘a

mountain,’ and τρέφω ‘to nourish.’]

EXPLANATION.

If the maxim of Horace, ‘Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice

nodus,’ had been a little more frequently observed by the ancient

poets, their Deities would not have been so often placed in a

degrading or disgusting light before posterity. There cannot be a

better illustration of the truth of this than the present Fable, where

Ovid represents the chaste and prudent Diana as revenging herself in a

cruel and barbarous manner for the indiscretion, or rather misfortune,

of an innocent young man.

Cicero mentions several Goddesses of the name of Diana. The first was

the daughter of Jupiter and Proserpine; the second of Jupiter and

Latona; and the third of Upis and Glauce. Strabo mentions another

Diana, named Britomartis, the daughter of Eubalus. The worship,

however, of Diana as the Goddess of the Moon, was, most probably,

derived from Egypt, with the Isis of whom she is perhaps identical.

The adventure narrated in this Fable is most probably to be attributed

to Diana Britomartis, as Strabo tells us, that she was particularly

fond of the chase. Pausanias, in his Attica, tells the story in much

the same terms, but he adds, that on seeing Diana bathing, the novelty

of the sight excited Actæon’s curiosity, and prompted him to approach

nearer. To explain this fable, some authors suggest, that Actæon’s

dogs becoming mad, devoured him; while others suppose, that having

ruined himself by the expense of supporting a large pack of hounds,

and a hunting establishment, it was reported that he had been devoured

by his dogs. Diodorus Siculus, and Euripides, tell us, that Actæon

showed contempt to Diana, and was about to eat of the sacrifice that

had been offered to her; and of course, in such a case, punishment at

the hands of the Goddess would be deemed a just retribution.

Apollodorus says, that Actæon was brought up by Chiron, and that he

was put to death on Mount Cithæron, for having seen Diana bathing;

though, according to one ancient authority, he was punished for having

made improper overtures to Semele. Apollodorus also says, that his

dogs died of grief, on the loss of their master, and he has preserved

some of their names.

FABLE IV. [III.253-301]

Juno, incensed against Semele for her intrigue with Jupiter, takes the

form of Beroë, the more easily to ensure her revenge. Having first

infused in Semele suspicions of her lover, she then recommends her to

adopt a certain method of proving his constancy. Semele, thus

deceived, obtains a reluctant promise from Jupiter, to make his next

visit to her in the splendor and majesty in which he usually

approached his wife.

They speak in various ways {of this matter}. To some, the Goddess seems

more severe than is proper; others praise her, and call her deserving

{of her state} of strict virginity: both sides find their reasons. The

wife of Jupiter alone does not so much declare whether she blames or

whether she approves, as she rejoices at the calamity of a family sprung

from Agenor, and transfers the hatred that she has conceived from the

Tyrian mistress to the partners of her race. Lo! a fresh occasion is

{now} added to the former one; and she grieves that Semele is pregnant

from the seed of great Jupiter. She then lets loose her tongue to abuse.

“And what good have I done by railing so often?” said she. “She herself

must be attacked {by me}. If I am properly called the supreme Juno,

I will destroy her; if it becomes me to hold the sparkling sceptre in my

right hand; if I am the queen, and both the sister and wife of Jupiter.

The sister {I am}, no doubt. But I suppose she is content with a stolen

embrace, and the injury to my bed is but trifling. She is {now}

pregnant; that {alone} was wanting; and she bears the evidence of his

crime in her swelling womb, and wishes to be made a mother by Jupiter,

a thing which hardly fell to my lot alone. So great is her confidence in

her beauty. I will take care[61] he shall deceive her; and may I be no

daughter of Saturn, if she does not descend to the Stygian waves, sunk

{there} by her own {dear} Jupiter.”

Upon this she rises from her throne, and, hidden in a cloud of fiery

hue, she approaches the threshold of Semele. Nor did she remove the

clouds before she counterfeited an old woman, and planted gray hair on

her temples; and furrowed her skin with wrinkles, and moved her bending

limbs with palsied step, and made her voice that of an old woman. She

became Beroë[62] herself, the Epidaurian[63] nurse of Semele. When,

therefore, upon engaging in discourse with her, and {after} long

talking, they came to the name of Jupiter, she sighed, and said,

“I {only} wish it may be Jupiter; yet I {am apt to} fear everything.

Many a one under the name of a God has invaded a chaste bed. Nor yet is

it enough that he is Jupiter; let him, if, indeed, he is the real one,

give some pledge of his affection; and beg of him to bestow his caresses

on thee, just in the greatness and form in which he is received by the

stately Juno; and let him first assume his ensigns {of royalty}.” With

such words did Juno tutor the unsuspecting daughter of Cadmus. She

requested of Jupiter a favor, without naming it. To her the God said,

“Make thy choice, thou shalt suffer no denial; and that thou mayst

believe it the more, let the majesty of the Stygian stream bear witness.

He {is} the dread and the God of the Gods.”

Overjoyed at {what was} her misfortune, and too {easily} prevailing, as

now about to perish by the complaisance of her lover, Semele said,

“Present thyself to me, just such as the daughter of Saturn is wont to

embrace thee, when ye honor the ties of Venus.” The God wished to shut

her mouth as she spoke, {but} the hasty words had now escaped into air.

He groaned; for neither was it {now} possible for her not to have

wished, nor for him not to have sworn. Therefore, in extreme sadness, he

mounted the lofty skies, and with his nod drew along the attendant

clouds; to which he added showers and lightnings mingled with winds, and

thunders, and the inevitable thunderbolt.

[Footnote 61: _I will take care._--Ver. 271. ‘Faxo,’ ‘I will

make,’ is sometimes used by the best authors for ‘fecero;’ and

‘faxim’ for ‘faciam,’ or ‘fecerim.’]

[Footnote 62: _Beroë._--Ver. 278. Iris, in the fifth book of the

Æneid (l. 620), assumes the form of another Beroë; and a third

person of that name is mentioned in the fourth book of the

Georgics, l. 34.]

[Footnote 63: _Epidaurian._--Ver. 278. Epidaurus was a famous city

of Argolis, in Peloponnesus, famous for its temple, dedicated to

the worship of Æsculapius, who was the tutelary Divinity of that

city.]

EXPLANATION.

It is most probable, that an intrigue between a female named Semele

and one of the princes called Jupiter having had a tragical end, gave

occasion to this Fable. Pausanias, in his Laconica, tells us, that

Cadmus, exasperated against his daughter Semele, caused her and her

son to be thrown into the sea; and that being thrown ashore at Oreate,

an ancient town of Laconia, Semele was buried there.

Semele, according to Apollodorus, was, after her death, ranked among

the Goddesses by the name of Thyone. He says that her son Bacchus

going down to hell, brought her thence, and carried her up to heaven;

where, according to Nonnus, she conversed with Pallas and Diana, and

ate at the same table with Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and Venus. The

author, known by the name of Orpheus, gives Semele the title of

Goddess, and Πανβασίλεια, or ‘Queen of the Universe.’

FABLE V. [III.302-338]

Semele is visited by Jupiter, according to the promise she had obliged

him to make; but, being unable to support the effulgence of his

lightning, she is burnt to ashes in his presence. Bacchus, with whom

she is pregnant, is preserved; and Tiresias decided the dispute

between Jupiter and Juno, concerning the sexes.

And yet, as much as possible, he tries to mitigate his powers. Nor is he

now armed with those flames with which he had overthrown the

hundred-handed Typhœus; in those, {there is} too much fury. There is

another thunder, less baneful, to which the right hand of the Cyclops

gave less ferocity and flames, {and} less anger. The Gods above call

this second-rate thunder; it he assumes, and he enters the house of

Agenor. Her mortal body could not endure[64] the æthereal shock, and she

was burned amid her nuptial presents. The infant, as yet unformed, is

taken out of the womb of his mother, and prematurely (if we can believe

it) is inserted in the thigh of the father, and completes the time that

he should have spent in the womb. His aunt, Ino, nurses him privately in

his early cradle. After that, the Nyseian Nymphs[65] conceal him,

entrusted {to them}, in their caves, and give him the nourishment of

milk.

And while these things are transacted on earth by the law of destiny,

and the cradle of Bacchus, twice born,[66] is secured; they tell that

Jupiter, by chance, well drenched with nectar, laid aside {all} weighty

cares, and engaged in some free jokes with Juno, in her idle moments,

and said: “Decidedly the pleasure of you, {females}, is greater than

that which falls to the lot of {us} males.” She denied it. It was agreed

{between them}, to ask what was the opinion of the experienced Tiresias.

To him both pleasures were well known. For he had separated with a blow

of his staff two bodies of large serpents, as they were coupling in a

green wood; and (passing strange) become a woman from a man, he had

spent seven autumns. In the eighth, he again saw the same {serpents},

and said, “If the power of a stroke given you is so great as to change

the condition of the giver into the opposite one, I will now strike you

again.” Having struck the same snakes, his former sex returned, and his

original shape came {again}. He, therefore, being chosen as umpire in

this sportive contest, confirmed the words of Jove. The daughter of

Saturn is said to have grieved more than was fit, and not in proportion

to the subject; and she condemned the eyes of the umpire to eternal

darkness.

But the omnipotent father (for it is not allowed any God to cancel the

acts of {another} Deity) gave him the knowledge of things to come, in

recompense for his loss of sight, and alleviated his punishment by this

honor.

[Footnote 64: _Could not endure._--Ver. 308. ‘Corpus mortale

tumultus Non tulit æthereos,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘her mortal

body could not bear this æthereal bustle.’]

[Footnote 65: _The Nyseian Nymphs._--Ver. 314. Nysa was the name

of a city and mountain of Arabia, or India. The tradition was,

that there the Nyseian Nymphs, whose names were Cysseis, Nysa,

Erato, Eryphia, Bromia, and Polyhymnia, brought up Bacchus. The

cave where he was concealed from the fury of Juno, was said to

have had two entrances, from which circumstance Bacchus received

the epithet of Dithyrites. Servius, in his commentary on the sixth

Eclogue of Virgil (l. 15), says that Nysa was the name of the

female that nursed Bacchus. Hyginus also speaks of her as being

the daughter of Oceanus. From the name ‘Nysa,’ Bacchus received,

in part, his Greek name ‘Dionysus.’]

[Footnote 66: _Twice born._--Ver. 318. Clarke thus translates and

explains this line--‘They tell you, that Jupiter well drenched;’

_i.e._ ‘fuddled with nectar,’ etc.]

FABLE VI. [III.339-401]

Echo, having often amused Juno with her stories, to give time to

Jupiter’s mistresses to make their escape, the Goddess, at last,

punishes her for the deception. She is slighted and despised by

Narcissus, with whom she falls in love.

He, much celebrated by fame throughout the cities of Aonia,[67] gave

unerring answers to the people consulting him. The azure Liriope[68] was

the first to make essay and experiment of his infallible voice; whom

once Cephisus encircled in his winding stream, and offered violence to,

{when} enclosed by his waters. The most beauteous Nymph produced an

infant from her teeming womb, which even then might have been beloved,

and she called him Narcissus. Being consulted concerning him, whether he

was destined to see the distant season of mature old age; the prophet,

expounding destiny, said, “If he never recognizes himself.” Long did the

words of the soothsayer appear frivolous; {but} the event, the thing

{itself}, the manner of his death, and the novel nature of his frenzy,

confirmed it.

And now the son of Cephisus had added one to three times five years, and

he might seem to be a boy and a young man as well. Many a youth,[69] and

many a damsel, courted him; but there was so stubborn a pride in his

youthful beauty, {that} no youths, no damsels made any impression on

him. The noisy Nymph, who has neither learned to hold her tongue after

another speaking, nor to speak first herself, resounding Echo, espied

him, as he was driving the timid stags into his nets. Echo was then a

body, not a voice; and yet the babbler had no other use of her speech

than she now has, to be able to repeat the last words out of many. Juno

had done this; because when often she might have been able to detect the

Nymphs in the mountains in the embrace of her {husband}, Jupiter, she

purposely used to detain[70] the Goddess with a long story, until the

Nymphs had escaped. After the daughter of Saturn perceived {this}, she

said, “But small exercise of this tongue, with which I have been

deluded, shall be allowed thee, and a very short use of thy voice.” And

she confirmed her threats by the event. Still, in the end of one’s

speaking she redoubles the voice, and returns the words she hears. When,

therefore, she beheld Narcissus[71] wandering through the pathless

forests, and fell in love with him, she stealthily followed his steps;

and the more she followed him, with the nearer flame did she burn. In no

other manner than as when the native sulphur, spread around[72] the tops

of torches, catches the flame applied {to it}. Ah! how often did she

desire to accost him in soft accents, and to employ soft entreaties!

Nature resists, and suffers her not to begin; but what {Nature} does

permit, that she is ready for; to await his voice, to which to return

her own words.

By chance, the youth, being separated from the trusty company of his

attendants, cries out, “Is there any one here?” and Echo answers “Here!”

He is amazed; and when he has cast his eyes on every side, he cries out

with a loud voice, “Come!” {Whereon} she calls {the youth} who calls. He

looks back; and again, as no one comes, he says, “Why dost thou avoid

me?” and just as many words as he spoke, he receives. He persists; and

being deceived by the imitation of an alternate voice, he says, “Let us

come together here;” and Echo, that could never more willingly answer

any sound whatever, replies, “Let us come together here!” and she

follows up her own words, and rushing from the woods,[73] is going to

throw her arms around the neck she has {so} longed for. He flies; and as

he flies, he exclaims, “Remove thy hands from thus embracing me; I will

die first, before thou shalt have the enjoyment of me.” She answers

nothing but “Have the enjoyment of me.” {Thus} rejected, she lies hid in

the woods, and hides her blushing face with green leaves, and from that

time lives in lonely caves; but yet her love remains, and increases from

the mortification of her refusal. Watchful cares waste away her

miserable body; leanness shrivels her skin, and all the juices of her

body fly off in air. Her voice and her bones alone are left.

Her voice {still} continues, {but} they say that her bones received the

form of stones. Since then, she lies concealed in the woods, and is

never seen on the mountains: {but} is heard in all {of them}. It is her

voice {alone} which remains alive in her.

[Footnote 67: _Aonia._--Ver. 339. Aonia was a mountainous district

of Bœotia, so called from Aon, the son of Neptune, who reigned

there. The name is often used to signify the whole of Bœotia.]

[Footnote 68: _Liriope._--Ver. 342. She was the daughter of

Oceanus and Tethys, and was the mother of the youth Narcissus, by

the river Cephisus. Her name is derived from the Greek λείριον,

‘a lily.’]

[Footnote 69: _Many a youth._--Ver. 353. Clarke translates ‘multi

juvenes,’ ‘many young fellows.’]

[Footnote 70: _Used to detain._--Ver. 364. Clarke translates ‘Illa

Deam longo prudens sermone tenebat Dum fugerent Nymphæ,’ ‘She

designedly detained the Goddess with some long-winded discourse or

other till the Nymphs ran away.’ He translates ‘garrula,’ in line

360, ‘the prattling hussy.’]

[Footnote 71: _Narcissus._--Ver. 370. This name is from the Greek

word ναρκᾷν, ‘to fade away,’ which was characteristic of the

youth’s career, and of the duration of the flower.]

[Footnote 72: _Sulphur spread around._--Ver. 372. These lines

show, that it was the custom of the ancients to place sulphur on

the ends of their torches, to make them ignite the more readily,

in the same manner as the matches of the present day are tipped

with that mineral.]

[Footnote 73: _Rushing from the woods._--Ver. 388. ‘Egressaque

sylvis.’ Clarke renders, ‘and bouncing out of the wood.’]

EXPLANATION.

It appears much more reasonable to attempt the explanation of this

story on the grounds of natural philosophy than of history. The poets,

in their fondness for basing every subject upon fiction, probably

invented the fable, to explain what to them appeared an extraordinary

phenomenon. By way of embellishing their story, they tell us that Echo

was the daughter of the Air and the Tongue, and that the God Pan fell

in love with her; by which, probably, the simple fact is meant, that

some person, represented under the name of that god, endeavored to

trace the cause of this phenomenon.

If, however, we should endeavor to base the story upon purely

historical grounds, we may suppose that it took its rise from some

Nymph, who wandered so far into the woods as to be unable to find her

way out again; and from the fact that those who went to seek her,

hearing nothing but the echo of their own voices, brought back the

strange but unsatisfactory intelligence that the Nymph had been

changed into a voice.

FABLE VII. [III.402-510]

Narcissus falls in love with his own shadow, which he sees in a

fountain; and, pining to death, the Gods change him into a flower,

which still bears his name.

Thus had he deceived her, thus, too, other Nymphs that sprung from the

water or the mountains, thus the throng of youths before {them}.

Some one, therefore, who had been despised {by him}, lifting up his

hands towards heaven, said, “Thus, though he should love, let him not

enjoy what he loves!” Rhamnusia[74] assented to a prayer so reasonable.

There was a clear spring, like silver, with its unsullied waters, which

neither shepherds, nor she-goats feeding on the mountains, nor any other

cattle, had touched; which neither bird nor wild beast had disturbed,

nor bough falling from a tree. There was grass around it, which the

neighboring water nourished, and a wood, that suffered the stream to

become warm with no {rays of the} sun. Here the youth, fatigued both

with the labor of hunting and the heat, lay down, attracted by the

appearance of the spot, and the spring; and, while he was endeavoring to

quench his thirst, another thirst grew {upon him}.

While he is drinking, being attracted with the reflection of his own

form, seen {in the water}, he falls in love with a thing that has no

substance; {and} he thinks that to be a body, which is {but} a shadow.

He is astonished at himself, and remains unmoved with the same

countenance, like a statue formed of Parian marble.[75] Lying on the

ground, he gazes on his eyes {like} two stars, and fingers worthy of

Bacchus, and hair worthy of Apollo, and his youthful cheeks and ivory

neck, and the comeliness of his mouth, and his blushing complexion

mingled with the whiteness of snow; and everything he admires, for which

he himself is worthy to be admired. In his ignorance, he covets himself;

and he that approves, is himself {the thing} approved. While he pursues

he is pursued, and at the same moment he inflames and burns. How often

does he give vain kisses to the deceitful spring; how often does he

thrust his arms, catching at the neck he sees, into the middle of the

water, and yet he does not catch himself in them. He knows not what he

sees, but what he sees, by it is he inflamed; and the same mistake that

deceives his eyes, provokes them. Why, credulous {youth}, dost thou

vainly catch at the flying image? What thou art seeking is nowhere; what

thou art in love with, turn but away {and} thou shalt lose it; what thou

seest, the same is {but} the shadow of a reflected form; it has nothing

of its own. It comes and stays with thee; with thee it will depart, if

thou canst {but} depart thence.

No regard for food,[76] no regard for repose, can draw him away thence;

but, lying along upon the overshadowed grass, he gazes upon the

fallacious image with unsatiated eyes, and by his own sight he himself

is undone. Raising himself a little {while}, extending his arms to the

woods that stand around him, he says, “Was ever, O, ye woods! any one

more fatally in love? For {this} ye know, and have been a convenient

shelter for many a one. And do you remember any one, who {ever} thus

pined away, during so long a time, though so many ages of your life has

been spent? It both pleases me and I see it; but what I see, and what

pleases me, yet I cannot obtain; so great a mistake possesses one in

love; and to make me grieve the more, neither a vast sea separates us,

nor a {long} way, nor mountains, nor a city with its gates closed; we

are kept asunder by a little water. He himself wishes to be embraced;

for as often as I extend my lips to the limpid stream, so often does he

struggle towards me with his face held up; you would think he might be

touched. It is a very little that stands in the way of lovers. Whoever

thou art, come up hither. Why, {dear} boy, the choice one, dost thou

deceive me? or whither dost thou retire, when pursued? Surely, neither

my form nor my age is such as thou shouldst shun; the Nymphs, too, have

courted me. Thou encouragest I know not what hopes in me with that

friendly look, and when I extend my arms to thee, thou willingly

extendest thine; when I smile, thou smilest in return; often, too, have

I observed thy tears, when I was weeping; my signs, too, thou returnest

by thy nods, and, as I guess by the motion of thy beauteous mouth, thou

returnest words that come not to my ears. In thee ’tis I, I {now}

perceive; nor does my form deceive me. I burn with the love of myself,

and both raise the flames and endure them. What shall I do? Should I be

entreated, or should I entreat? What, then, shall I entreat? What I

desire is in my power; plenty has made me poor. Oh! would that I could

depart from my own body! a new wish, {indeed}, in a lover; I could wish

that what I am in love with was away. And now grief is taking away my

strength, and no long period of my life remains; and in my early days am

I cut off; nor is death grievous to me, now about to get rid of my

sorrows by death. I wish that he who is beloved could enjoy a longer

life. Now we two, of one mind, shall die in {the extinction of} one

life.”

{Thus} he said, and, with his mind {but} ill at ease, he returned to the

same reflection, and disturbed the water with his tears; and the form

was rendered defaced by the moving of the stream; when he saw it

{beginning} to disappear, he cried aloud, “Whither dost thou fly? Stay,

I beseech thee! and do not in thy cruelty abandon thy lover; let it be

allowed me to behold that which I may not touch, and to give nourishment

to my wretched frenzy.” And, while he was grieving, he tore his garment

from the upper border, and beat his naked breast with his palms, white

as marble. His breast, when struck, received a little redness, no

otherwise than as apples are wont, which are partly white {and} partly

red; or as a grape, not yet ripe, in the parti-colored clusters, is wont

to assume a purple tint. Soon as he beheld this again in the water, when

clear, he could not endure it any longer; but, as yellow wax with the

fire, or the hoar frost of the morning, is wont to waste away with the

warmth of the sun, so he, consumed by love, pined away, and wasted by

degrees with a hidden flame. And now, no longer was his complexion of

white mixed with red; neither his vigor nor his strength, nor {the

points} which had charmed when seen so lately, nor {even} his body,

which formerly Echo had been in love with, now remained. Yet, when she

saw these things, although angry, and mindful {of his usage of her}, she

was grieved, and, as often as the unhappy youth said, “Alas!” she

repeated, “Alas!” with re-echoing voice; and when he struck his arms

with his hands, she, too, returned the like sound of a blow.

His last accents, as he looked into the water, as usual, were these:

“Ah, youth, beloved in vain!” and the spot returned just as many words;

and after he had said, “Farewell!” Echo, too, said, “Farewell!” He laid

down his wearied head upon the green grass, {when} night closed the eyes

that admired the beauty of their master; and even then, after he had

been received into the infernal abodes, he used to look at himself in

the Stygian waters. His Naiad sisters lamented him, and laid their

hair,[77] cut off, over their brother; the Dryads, too, lamented him,

{and} Echo resounded to their lamentations. And now they were preparing

the funeral pile, and the shaken torches, and the bier. The body was

nowhere {to be found}. Instead of his body, they found a yellow flower,

with white leaves encompassing it in the middle.

[Footnote 74: _Rhamnusia._--Ver. 406. Nemesis, the Goddess of

Retribution, and the avenger of crime, was the daughter of

Jupiter. She had a famous temple at Rhamnus, one of the ‘pagi,’ or

boroughs of Athens. Her statue was there, carved by Phidias out of

the marble which the Persians brought into Greece for the purpose

of making a statue of Victory out of it, and which was thus

appropriately devoted to the Goddess of Retribution. This statue

wore a crown, and had wings, and holding a spear of ash in the

right hand, it was seated on a stag.]

[Footnote 75: _Parian marble._--Ver. 419. Paros was an island in

the Ægean sea, one of the Cyclades; it was famous for the valuable

quality of its marble, which was especially used for the purpose

of making statues of the Gods.]

[Footnote 76: _Regard for food._--Ver. 437. ‘Cereris.’ The name of

the Goddess of corn is here used instead of bread itself.]

[Footnote 77: _Laid their hair._--Ver. 506. It was the custom

among the ancients for females, when lamenting the dead, not only

to cut off their hair, but to lay it on the body, when extended

upon the funeral pile.]

EXPLANATION.

If this story is based upon any historical facts, they are entirely

lost to us; as all we learn from history concerning Narcissus, is the

fact that he was a Thespian by birth. The Fable seems rather to be

intended as a useful moral lesson, disclosing the fatal effects of

self-love. His pursuit, too, of his own image, ever retiring from his

embrace, strongly resembles the little reality that exists in many of

those pleasures which mankind so eagerly pursue.

Pausanias, in his Bœotica, somewhat varies the story. He tells us that

Narcissus having lost his sister, whom he tenderly loved, and who

resembled him very much, and was his constant companion in the chase,

thought, on seeing himself one day in a fountain, that it was the

shade of his lost sister, and, thereupon, pined away and died of

grief. According to him, the fountain was near a village called

Donacon, in the country of the Thespians. Pausanias regards the

account of his change into the flower which bears his name as a mere

fiction, since Pamphus says that Proserpina, when carried away, long

before the time of Narcissus, gathered that flower in the fields of

Enna; and that the same flower was sacred to her. Persons sacrificing

to the Furies, or Eumenides, used to wear chaplets made of the

Narcissus, because that flower commonly grew about graves and

sepulchres.

Tiresias, who predicted the untoward fate of Narcissus, was, as we are

informed by Apollodorus, the son of Evenus and Chariclo, and was the

most renowned soothsayer of his time. He lost his life by drinking of

the fountain of Telphusa when he was overheated; or, as some suppose,

through the unwholesome quality of the water. As he lived to a great

age, and became blind towards the end of his life, the story, which

Ovid mentions, was invented respecting him. Another version of it was,

that he lost his sight, by reason of his having seen Minerva while

bathing. This story was very probably based either upon the fact that

he had composed a Treatise upon the Animal Functions of the Sexes, or

that he had promulgated the doctrine that the stars had not only souls

(a common opinion in those times), but also that they were of

different sexes. He is supposed to have lived about 1200 years before

the Christian era.

FABLE VIII. [III.511-733]

Pentheus ridicules the predictions of Tiresias; and not only forbids

his people to worship Bacchus, who had just entered Greece in triumph,

but even commands them to capture him, and to bring him into his

presence. Under the form of Acœtes, one of his companions, Bacchus

suffers that indignity, and relates to Pentheus the wonders which the

God had wrought. The recital enrages Pentheus still more, who

thereupon goes to Mount Cithæron, to disturb the orgies then

celebrating there; on which his own mother and the other Bacchantes

tear him to pieces.

This thing, when known, brought deserved fame to the prophet through the

cities of Achaia;[78] and great was the reputation of the soothsayer.

Yet Pentheus,[79] the son of Echion, a contemner of the Gods above,

alone, of all men, despises him, and derides the predicting words of the

old man, and upbraids him with his darkened state, and the misfortune of

{having lost} his sight. He, shaking his temples, white with hoary hair,

says: “How fortunate wouldst thou be, if thou as well couldst become

deprived of this light, that thou mightst not behold the rites of

Bacchus. For soon the day will come, and even now I predict that it is

not far off, when the new {God} Liber, the son of Semele, shall come

hither. Unless thou shalt vouchsafe him the honor of a temple, thou

shalt be scattered, torn in pieces, in a thousand places, and with thy

blood thou shalt pollute both the woods, and thy mother and the sisters

of thy mother. {These things} will come to pass; for thou wilt not

vouchsafe honor to the Divinity; and thou wilt complain that under this

darkness I have seen too much.”

The son of Echion drives him away as he says such things as these.

Confirmation follows his words, and the predictions of the prophet are

fulfilled. Liber comes, and the fields resound with festive howlings.

The crowd runs out; both matrons and new-married women mixed with the

men, both high and low, are borne along to the {celebration of} rites

{till then} unknown. “What madness,” says Pentheus, “has confounded your

minds, O ye warlike men,[80] descendants of the Dragon? Can brass

knocked against brass prevail so much with you? And the pipe with the

bending horn, and these magical delusions? And shall the yells of women,

and madness produced by wine, and troops of effeminate {wretches}, and

empty tambourines[81] prevail over you, whom neither the warrior’s sword

nor the trumpet could affright, nor troops with weapons prepared {for

fight}? Am I to wonder at you, old men, who, carried over distant seas,

have fixed in these abodes a {new} Tyre, and your banished household

Gods, {but who} now allow them to be taken without a struggle? Or you,

of more vigorous age and nearer to my own, ye youths; whom it was

befitting to be brandishing arms, and not the thyrsus,[82] and to be

covered with helmets, not green leaves? Do be mindful, I entreat you, of

what race you are sprung, and assume the courage of that dragon, who

{though but} one, destroyed many. He died for his springs and his

stream; but do you conquer for your own fame. He put the valiant to

death; do you expel the feeble {foe}, and regain your country’s honor.

If the fates forbid Thebes to stand long, I wish that engines of war[83]

and men should demolish the walls, and that fire and sword should

resound. {Then} should we be wretched without {any} fault {of our own},

and our fate were to be lamented, {but} not concealed, and our tears

would be free from shame. But now Thebes will be taken by an unarmed

boy, whom neither wars delight, nor weapons, nor the employment of

horses, but hair wet with myrrh, and effeminate chaplets, and purple,

and gold interwoven with embroidered garments; whom I, indeed, (do you

only stand aside) will presently compel to own that his father is

assumed, and that his sacred rites are fictitious. Has Acrisius[84]

courage enough to despise the vain Deity, and to shut the gates of Argos

against his approach; and shall this stranger affright Pentheus with all

Thebes? Go quickly, (this order he gives to his servants), go, and bring

hither in chains the ringleader. Let there be no slothful delay in

{executing} my commands.”

His grandfather,[85] {Cadmus}, Athamas, and the rest of the company of

his friends rebuke him with expostulations, and in vain try to restrain

him. By their admonition he becomes more violent, and by being curbed

his fury is irritated, and is on the increase, and the very restraint

did him injury. So have I beheld a torrent, where nothing obstructed it

in its course, run gently and with moderate noise; but wherever beams

and stones in its way withheld it, it ran foaming and raging, and more

violent from its obstruction. Behold! {the servants} return, all stained

with blood; and when their master inquires where Bacchus is, they deny

that they have seen Bacchus. “But this one,” say they, “we have taken,

who was his attendant and minister in his sacred rites.” And {then} they

deliver one, who, from the Etrurian nation, had followed the sacred

rites of the Deity, with his hands bound behind his back.

Pentheus looks at him with eyes that anger has made terrible, and

although he can scarcely defer the time of his punishment, he says,

“O {wretch}, doomed to destruction, and about, by thy death, to set an

example to others, tell me thy name, and the name of thy parents, and

thy country, and why thou dost attend the sacred rites of a new

fashion.” He, void of fear, says, “My name is Acœtes; Mæonia[86] is my

country; my parents were of humble station. My father left me no fields

for the hardy oxen to till, no wool-bearing flocks, nor any herds. He

himself was {but} poor, and he was wont with line, and hooks, to deceive

the leaping fishes, and to take them with the rod. His trade was his

{only} possession. When he gave that calling over {to me}, he said,

‘Receive, as the successor and heir of my employment, those riches which

I possess;’ and at his death he left me nothing but the streams. This

one thing alone can I call my patrimony. {But} soon, that I might not

always be confined to the same rocks, I learned with a steadying right

hand to guide the helm of the ship, and I made observations with my eyes

of the showery Constellation of the Olenian she-goat,[87] and

Taygete,[88] and the Hyades,[89] and the Bear, and the quarters of the

winds, and the harbors fit for ships. By chance, as I was making for

Delos, I touched at the coast of the land of Dia,[90] and came up to the

shore by {plying} the oars on the right side; and I gave a nimble leap,

and lighted upon the wet sand. When the night was past, and the dawn

first began to grow red, I arose and ordered {my men} to take in fresh

water, and I pointed out the way which led to the stream. I myself, from

a lofty eminence, looked around {to see} what the breeze promised me;

and {then} I called my companions, and returned to the vessel. ‘Lo! we

are here,’ says Opheltes, my chief mate; and having found, as he

thought, a prize in the lonely fields, he was leading along the shore,

a boy with {all} the beauty of a girl. He, heavy with wine and sleep,

seemed to stagger, and to follow with difficulty. I examined his dress,

his looks, and his gait, {and} I saw nothing there which could be taken

to be mortal. I both was sensible of it, and I said to my companions, ‘I

am in doubt what Deity is in that body; but in that body a Deity there

is. Whoever thou art, O be propitious and assist our toils; and pardon

these as well.’ ‘Cease praying for us,’ said Dictys, than whom there was

not another more nimble at climbing to the main-top-yards, and at

sliding down by catching hold of a rope. This Libys, this the

yellow-haired Melanthus, the guardian of the prow, and this Alcimedon

approved of; and Epopeus[91] as well, the cheerer of their spirits, who

by his voice gave both rest and time to the oars; {and} so did all the

rest; so blind is the greed for booty. ‘However,’ I said, ‘I will not

allow this ship to be damaged by this sacred freight. Here I have the

greatest share of right.’ and I opposed them at the entrance.

“Lycabas, the boldest of all the number, was enraged, who, expelled from

a city of Etruria, was suffering exile as the punishment for a dreadful

murder.[92] He, while I was resisting, seized hold of my throat with his

youthful fist, and shaking me, had thrown me overboard into the sea, if

I had not, although stunned, held fast by grasping a rope. The impious

crew approved of the deed. Then at last Bacchus (for Bacchus it was), as

though his sleep had been broken by the noise, and his sense was

returning into his breast after {much} wine, said: ‘What are you doing?

What is this noise? Tell me, sailors, by what means have I come hither?

Whither do you intend to carry me?’ ‘Lay aside thy fears,’ said Proreus,

‘and tell us what port thou wouldst wish to reach. Thou shalt stop at

the land that thou desirest.’ ‘Direct your course then to Naxos,’[93]

says Liber, ‘that is my home; it shall prove a hospitable land for you.’

“In their deceit they swore by the ocean and by all the Deities, that so

it should be; and bade me give sail to the painted ship. Naxos was to

our right; {and} as I was {accordingly} setting sail for the right hand,

every one said for himself, ‘What art thou about, madman? What insanity

possesses thee, Acœtes? Stand away to the left.’ The greater part

signified {their meaning} to me by signs; some whispered in my ear what

they wanted. I was at a loss, and I said, ‘Let some one else take the

helm;’ and I withdrew myself from the execution both of their

wickedness, and of my own calling. I was reviled by them all, and the

whole crew muttered {reproaches} against me. Æthalion, among them, says,

‘As if, forsooth, all our safety is centred in thee,’ and he himself

comes up, and takes my duty; and leaving Naxos, he steers a different

course. Then the God, mocking them as if he had at last but that moment

discovered their knavery, looks down upon the sea from the crooked

stern; and, like one weeping, he says: ‘These are not the shores,

sailors, that you have promised me; this is not the land desired by me.

By what act have I deserved this treatment? What honor is it to you, if

you {that are} young men, deceive a {mere} boy? if you {that are} many,

deceive me, {who am but} one?’ I had been weeping for some time. The

impious gang laughed at my tears, and beat the sea with hastening oars.

Now by himself do I swear to thee (and no God is there more powerful

than he), that I am relating things to thee as true, as they are beyond

all belief. The ship stood still upon the ocean, no otherwise than if it

was occupying a dry dock. They, wondering at it, persisted in the plying

of their oars; they unfurled their sails, and endeavored to speed onward

with this twofold aid. Ivy impeded the oars,[94] and twined {around

them} in encircling wreaths; and clung to the sails with heavy clusters

of berries. He himself, having his head encircled with bunches of

grapes, brandished a lance covered with vine leaves. Around him, tigers

and visionary forms of lynxes, and savage bodies of spotted panthers,

were extended.

“The men leaped overboard, whether it was madness or fear that caused

this; and first {of all}, Medon began to grow black with fins, with a

flattened body, and to bend in the curvature of the back-bone. To him

Lycabas said, ‘Into what prodigy art thou changing?’ and, as he spoke,

the opening of his mouth was wide, his nose became crooked, and his

hardened skin received scales upon it. But Libys, while he was

attempting to urge on the resisting oars, saw his hands shrink into a

small compass, and now to be hands no longer, {and} that now, {in fact},

they may be pronounced fins. Another, desirous to extend his arms to the

twisting ropes, had no arms, and becoming crooked, with a body deprived

of limbs, he leaped into the waves; the end of his tail was hooked, just

as the horns of the half-moon are curved. They flounce about on every

side, and bedew {the ship} with plenteous spray, and again they emerge,

and once more they return beneath the waves. They sport with {all} the

appearance of a dance, and toss their sportive bodies, and blow forth

the sea, received within their wide nostrils. Of twenty the moment

before (for so many did that ship carry), I was the only one remaining.

The God encouraged me, frightened and chilled with my body all

trembling, and scarcely myself, saying, ‘Shake off thy fear, and make

for Dia.’ Arriving there, I attended upon the sacred rites of Bacchus,

at the kindled altars.”

“We have lent ear to a long story,”[95] says Pentheus, “that our anger

might consume its strength in its tediousness. Servants! drag him

headlong, and send to Stygian night his body, racked with dreadful

tortures.” At once the Etrurian Acœtes, dragged away, is shut up in a

strong prison; and while the cruel instruments of the death that is

ordered, and the iron and the fire are being made ready, the report is

that the doors opened of their own accord, and that the chains, of their

own accord, slipped from off his arms, no one loosening them.

The son of Echion persists: and now he does not command others to go,

but goes himself to where Cithæron,[96] chosen for the celebration of

these sacred rites, was resounding with singing, and the shrill voices

of the votaries of Bacchus. Just as the high-mettled steed neighs, when

the warlike trumpeter gives the alarm with the sounding brass, and

conceives a desire for battle, so did the sky, struck with the

long-drawn howlings, excite Pentheus, and his wrath was rekindled on

hearing the clamor. There was, about the middle of the mountain, the

woods skirting its extremity, a plain free from trees, {and} visible on

every side. Here his mother was the first to see him looking on the

sacred rites with profane eyes; she first was moved by a frantic

impulse, {and} she first wounded her {son}, Pentheus, by hurling her

thyrsus, {and} cried out, “Ho! come, my two sisters;[97] that boar

which, of enormous size, is roaming amid our fields, that boar I must

strike.” All the raging multitude rushes upon him alone; all collect

together, and all follow him, now trembling, now uttering words less

atrocious {than before}, now blaming himself, now confessing that he has

offended.

However, on being wounded, he says, “Give me thy aid, Autonoë, my aunt;

let the ghost of Actæon[98] influence thy feelings.” She knows not what

Actæon {means}, and tears away his right hand as he is praying; the

other is dragged off by the violence of Ino. The wretched {man} has

{now} no arms to extend to his mother; but showing his maimed body, with

the limbs torn off, he says, “Look at this, my mother!” At the sight

Agave howls aloud, and tosses her neck, and shakes her locks in the air;

and seizing his head, torn off, with her blood-stained fingers, she

cries out, “Ho! my companions, this victory is our work!”

The wind does not more speedily bear off, from a lofty tree, the leaves

nipped by the cold of autumn, and now adhering with difficulty, than

were the limbs of the man, torn asunder by their accursed hands.

Admonished by such examples, the Ismenian matrons frequent the new

worship, and offer frankincense, and reverence the sacred altars.

[Footnote 78: _Cities of Achaia._--Ver. 511. Achaia was properly

the name of a part of Peloponnesus, on the gulf of Corinth; but

the name is very frequently applied to the whole of Greece.]

[Footnote 79: _Pentheus._--Ver. 513. He was the son of Echion and

Agave, the daughter of Cadmus.]

[Footnote 80: _Warlike men._--Ver. 531. ‘Mavortia.’ Mavors was a

name of Mars, frequently used by the poets. The Thebans were

‘proles Mavortia,’ as being sprung from the teeth of the dragon,

who was said to be a son of Mars.]

[Footnote 81: _Tambourines._--Ver. 537. ‘Tympana.’ These

instruments, among the ancients, were of various kinds. Some

resembled the modern tambourine; while others presented a flat

circular disk on the upper surface, and swelled out beneath, like

the kettle-drum of the present day. They were covered with the

hides of oxen, or of asses, and were beaten either with a stick or

the hand. They were especially used in the rites of Bacchus, and

of Cybele.]

[Footnote 82: _The thyrsus._--Ver. 542. The thyrsus was a long

staff, carried by Bacchus, and by the Satyrs and Bacchanalians

engaged in the worship of the God of the grape. It was sometimes

terminated by the apple of the pine, or fir-cone, the fir-tree

being esteemed sacred to Bacchus, from the turpentine flowing

therefrom and its apples being used in making wine. It is,

however, frequently represented as terminating in a knot of ivy,

or vine leaves, with grapes or berries arranged in a conical form.

Sometimes, also, a white fillet was tied to the pole just below

the head. We learn from Diodorus Siculus, and Macrobius, that

Bacchus converted the thyrsi carried by himself and his followers

into weapons, by concealing an iron point in the head of leaves.

A wound with its point was supposed to produce madness.]

[Footnote 83: _Engines of war._--Ver. 549. ‘Tormenta.’ These were

the larger engines of destruction used in ancient warfare. They

were so called from the verb ‘torqueo,’ ‘to twist,’ from their

being formed by the twisting of hair, fibre, or strips of leather.

The different sorts were called ‘balistæ’ and ‘catapultæ.’ The

former were used to impel stones; the latter, darts and arrows. In

sieges, the ‘Aries,’ or ‘battering ram,’ which received its name

from having an iron head resembling that of a ram, was employed in

destroying the lower part of the wall, while the ‘balista’ was

overthrowing the battlements, and the ‘catapulta’ was employed to

shoot any of the besieged who appeared between them. The ‘balistæ’

and ‘catapultæ’ were divided into the ‘greater’ and the ‘less.’

When New Carthage, the arsenal of the Carthaginians, was taken,

according to Livy (b. xxvi. c. 47), there were found in it 120

large and 281 small catapultæ, and twenty-three large and fifty-two

small balistæ. The various kinds of ‘tormenta’ are said to have

been introduced about the time of Alexander the Great. If so,

Ovid must here be committing an anachronism, in making Pentheus

speak of ‘tormenta,’ who lived so many ages before that time. To

commit anachronisms with impunity seems, however, to be the poet’s

privilege, from Ovid downwards to our Shakspere, where he makes

Falstaff talk familiarly of the West Indies. We find the

dictionaries giving ‘tormentum’ as the Latin word for ‘cannon;’ so

that in this case we may say not that ‘necessity is the mother of

invention,’ but rather that she is ‘the parent of anachronism.’]

[Footnote 84: _Acrisius._--Ver. 559. He was a king of Argos, the

son of Abas, and the father of Danaë. He refused, and probably

with justice, to admit Bacchus or his rites within the gates of

his city.]

[Footnote 85: _His grandfather._--Ver. 563. Athamas was the son of

Æolus, and being the husband of Ino, was the son-in-law of Cadmus;

who being the father of Agave, the mother of Pentheus, is the

grandfather mentioned in the present line.]

[Footnote 86: _Mæonia._--Ver. 583. Colonists were said to have

proceeded from Lydia, or Mæonia, to the coasts of Etruria. Bacchus

assumes the name of Acœtes, as corresponding to the Greek epithet

ἀκοίτης, ‘watchful,’ or ‘sleepless;’ which ought to be the

characteristic of the careful ‘pilot,’ or ‘helmsman.’]

[Footnote 87: _Olenian she-goat._--Ver. 594. Amalthea, the goat

that suckled Jupiter, is called Olenian, either because she was

reared in Olenus, a city of Bœotia, or because she was placed as a

Constellation between the arms, ὠλέναι, of the Constellation

Auriga, or the Charioteer. The rising and setting of this

Constellation were supposed to produce showers.]

[Footnote 88: _Taygete._--Ver. 594. She was one of the Pleiades,

the daughters of Atlas, who were placed among the Constellations.]

[Footnote 89: _Hyades._--Ver. 594. These were the Dodonides, or

nurses of Bacchus, whom Jupiter, as a mark of his favor, placed in

the number of the Constellations. Their name is derived from ὕειν,

‘to rain.’]

[Footnote 90: _Dia._--Ver. 596. This was another name of the Isle

of Naxos. Gierig thinks that the reading here is neither ‘Diæ’ nor

‘Chiæ,’ which are the two common readings; as the situation of

neither the Isle of Naxos nor that of Chios, would suit the course

of the ship, as stated in the text. He thinks that the Isle of

Ceos, or Cea, is meant, which Ptolemy calls Κια, and which he

thinks ought here to be written ‘Ciæ.’]

[Footnote 91: _Epopeus._--Ver. 619. He was the κελεύστης,

‘pausarius,’ or keeper of time for the rowers.]

[Footnote 92: _A dreadful murder._--Ver. 626. They seem to have

been composed of much the same kind of lawless materials that

formed the daring crews of the buccanier Morgan and Captain Kydd

in more recent times.]

[Footnote 93: _Naxos._--Ver. 636. This was the most famous island

of the group of the Cyclades.]

[Footnote 94: _Ivy impeded the oars._--Ver. 664. Hyginus tells us,

that Bacchus changed the oars into thyrsi, the sails into clusters

of grapes, and the rigging into ivy branches. In the Homeric hymn

on this subject we find the ship flowing with wine, vines growing

on the sails, ivy twining round the mast, and the benches wreathed

with chaplets.]

[Footnote 95: _To a long story._--Ver. 692. Clarke renders this

line, ‘We have lent our ears to a long tale of a tub.’]

[Footnote 96: _Cithæron._--Ver. 702. This was a mountain of

Bœotia, famous for the orgies of Bacchus there celebrated.]

[Footnote 97: _My two sisters._--Ver. 713. These were Ino and

Autonoë.]

[Footnote 98: _Ghost of Actæon._--Ver. 720. He appeals to Autonoë,

the mother of Actæon, to remember the sad fate of her own son, and

to show him some mercy; but in vain: for, as one commentator on

the passage says, ‘Drunkenness had taken away both her reason and

her memory.’]

EXPLANATION.

Cicero mentions two Deities of the name of Bacchus; while other

authors speak of several of that name. The first was the son of

Jupiter and Proserpina; the second was the son of the Nile, and the

founder of the city of Nysa, in Arabia; Caprius was the father of the

third. The fourth was the son of the Moon and Jupiter, in honor of

whom the Orphic ceremonies were performed. The fifth was the son of

Nisus and Thione, and the instituter of the Trieterica. Diodorus

Siculus mentions but three of the name of Bacchus; namely, the Indian,

surnamed the bearded Bacchus, who conquered India; the son of Jupiter

and Ceres, who was represented with horns; and the son of Jupiter and

Semele, who was called the Theban Bacchus.

The most reasonable opinion seems to be that of Herodotus and

Plutarch, who inform us, that the true Bacchus, and the most ancient

of them all, was born in Egypt, and was originally called Osiris. The

worship of that Divinity passed from Egypt to Greece, where it

received great alterations; and, according to Diodorus Siculus, it was

Orpheus who introduced it, and made those innovations. In gratitude to

the family of Cadmus, from which he had received many favors, he

dedicated to Bacchus, the grandson of Cadmus, those mysteries which

had been instituted in honor of Osiris, whose worship was then but

little known in Greece. Diodorus Siculus says, that as Semele was

delivered of Bacchus in the seventh month, it was reported that

Jupiter shut him up in his thigh, to carry him there the remaining

time of gestation. This Fable was probably founded on the meaning of

an equivocal word. The Greek word μηρὸς signifies either ‘a thigh,’ or

‘the hollow of a mountain.’ Thus the Greeks, instead of saying that

Bacchus had been nursed on Mount Nysa, in Arabia, according to the

Egyptian version of the story, published that he had been carried in

the thigh of Jupiter.

As Bacchus applied himself to the cultivation of the vine, and taught

his subjects several profitable and necessary arts, he was honored as

a Divinity; and having won the esteem of many neighboring countries,

his worship soon spread. Among his several festivals there was one

called the Trieterica, which was celebrated every three years. In that

feast the Bacchantes carried the figure of the God in a chariot drawn

by two tigers, or panthers; and, crowned with vine leaves, and holding

thyrsi in their hands, they ran in a frantic manner around the

chariot, filling the air with the noise of tambourines and brazen

instruments, shouting ‘Evoë. Bacche!’ and calling the God by his

several names of Bromius, Lyæus, Evan, Lenæus, and Sabazius. To this

ceremonial, received from the Egyptians, the Greeks added other

ceremonies replete with abominable licentiousness, and repulsive to

common decency. These were often suppressed by public enactment, but

were as often re-established by the votaries of lewdness and

immodesty, and such as found in these festivals a pretext and

opportunity for the commission of the most horrible offences.

The story of the unfortunate fate of Pentheus is supposed by the

ancient writers to have been strictly true. Pentheus, the son of

Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, having succeeded his

grandfather in his kingdom, is supposed, like him, to have opposed

those abuses that had crept into the mysteries of Bacchus, and went to

Mount Cithæron for the purpose of chastising the Bacchantes, who were

celebrating his festival; whereupon, in their frantic madness, the

worshippers, among whom were his mother and his aunt, tore him in

pieces. Pausanias, however, says that Pentheus really was a wicked

prince; and he somewhat varies his story, as he tells us that having

got into a tree to overlook the secret ceremonies of the orgies,

Pentheus was discovered by the Bacchantes, who punished his curiosity

by putting him to death. The story of the transformation of the

mariners is supposed by Bochart to have been founded on the adventure

of certain merchants from the coast of Etruria, whose vessel had the

figure of a dolphin at the prow, or rather of the fish called

‘tursio,’ probably the porpoise, or sea-hog. They were probably

shipwrecked near the Isle of Naxos, which was sacred to Bacchus, whose

mysteries they had perhaps neglected, or even despised. On this

slender ground, perhaps, the report spread, that the God himself had

destroyed them, as a punishment for their impiety.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

FABLE I. [IV.1-166]

The daughters of Minyas, instead of celebrating the festival of

Bacchus, apply themselves to other pursuits during the ceremonies; and

among several narratives which they relate to pass away the time, they

divert themselves with the story of the adventures of Pyramus and

Thisbe. These lovers having made an appointment to meet without the

walls of Babylon, Thisbe arrives first; but at the sight of a lioness,

she runs to hide herself in a cave, and in her alarm, drops her veil.

Pyramus, arriving soon after, finds the veil of his mistress stained

with blood; and believing her to be dead, kills himself with his own

sword. Thisbe returns from the cave; and finding Pyramus weltering in

his blood, she plunges the same fatal weapon into her own breast.

But Alcithoë, the daughter of Minyas,[1] does not think that the

rites[2] of the God ought to be received; but still, in her rashness,

denies that Bacchus is the progeny of Jupiter; and she has her

sisters[3] as partners in her impiety.

The priest had ordered both mistresses and maids, laying aside their

employments, to have their breasts covered with skins, and to loosen the

fillets of their hair, and {to put} garlands on their locks, and to take

the verdant thyrsi in their hands; and had prophesied that severe would

be the resentment of the Deity, {if} affronted. Both matrons and

new-married women obey, and lay aside their webs and work-baskets,[4]

and their tasks unfinished; and offer frankincense, and invoke both

Bacchus and Bromius,[5] and Lyæus,[6] and the son of the Flames, and the

Twice-Born, and the only one that had two mothers.[7] To these is added

{the name of} Nyseus, and the unshorn Thyoneus,[8] and with Lenæus,[9]

the planter of the genial grape, and Nyctelius,[10] and father Eleleus,

and Iacchus,[11] and Evan,[12] and a great many other names, which thou,

Liber, hast besides, throughout the nations of Greece. For thine is

youth everlasting; thou art a boy to all time, thou art beheld {as} the

most beauteous {of all} in high heaven; thou hast the features of a

virgin, when thou standest without thy horns. By thee the East was

conquered, as far as where swarthy India is bounded by the remote

Ganges. Thou {God}, worthy of our veneration, didst smite Pentheus, and

the axe-bearing Lycurgus,[13] sacrilegious {mortals}; thou didst hurl

the bodies of the Etrurians into the sea. Thou controllest the neck of

the lynxes yoked to thy chariot, graced with the painted reins. The

Bacchanals and the Satyrs follow {thee}; the drunken old man, too,

{Silenus}, who supports his reeling limbs with a staff, and sticks by no

means very fast to his bending ass. And wherever thou goest, the shouts

of youths, and together the voices of women, and tambourines beaten with

the hands, and hollow cymbals resound, and the box-wood {pipe}, with its

long bore. The Ismenian matrons ask thee to show thyself mild and

propitious, and celebrate thy sacred rites as prescribed.

The daughters of Minyas alone, within doors, interrupting the festival

with unseasonable labor,[14] are either carding wool, or twirling the

threads with their fingers, or are plying at the web, and keeping the

handmaids to their work. One of them, {as she is} drawing the thread

with her smooth thumb, says, “While others are idling, and thronging to

{these} fanciful rites, let us, whom Pallas, a better Deity, occupies,

alleviate the useful toil of our hands with varying discourse; and let

us relate by turns to our disengaged ears, for the general {amusement},

something each in our turn, that will not permit the time to seem long.”

They approve of what she says, and her sisters bid her to be the first

to tell her story.

She considers which of many she shall tell (for she knows many a one),

and she is in doubt whether she shall tell of thee, Babylonian

Dercetis,[15] whom the people of Palestine[16] believe to inhabit the

pools, with thy changed form, scales covering thy limbs; or rather how

her daughter, taking wings, passed her latter years in whitened turrets;

or how a Naiad,[17] by charms and too potent herbs, changed the bodies

of the young men into silent fishes, until she suffered the same

herself. Or how the tree which bore white fruit {formerly}, now bears it

of purple hue, from the contact of blood. This {story} pleases her;

this, because it was no common tale, she began in manner such as this,

while the wool followed the thread:--

“Pyramus and Thisbe, the one the most beauteous of youths,[18] the other

preferred before {all} the damsels that the East contained, lived in

adjoining houses; where Semiramis is said to have surrounded her lofty

city[19] with walls of brick.[20] The nearness caused their first

acquaintance, and their first advances {in love}; with time their

affection increased. They would have united themselves, too, by the tie

of marriage, but their fathers forbade it. A thing which they could not

forbid, they were both inflamed, with minds equally captivated. There is

no one acquainted with it; by nods and signs, they hold converse. And

the more the fire is smothered, the more, when {so} smothered, does it

burn. The party-wall, common to the two houses, was cleft by a small

chink, which it had got formerly, when it was built. This defect,

remarked by no one for so many ages, you lovers (what does not love

perceive?) first found one, and you made it a passage for your voices,

and the accents of love used to pass through it in safety, with the

gentlest murmur. Oftentimes, after they had taken their stations, Thisbe

on one side, {and} Pyramus on the other, and the breath of their mouths

had been {mutually} caught by turns, they used to say, ‘Envious wall,

why dost thou stand in the way of lovers? what great matter were it, for

thee to suffer us to be joined with our entire bodies? Or if that is too

much, that, at least, thou shouldst open, for the exchange of kisses.

Nor are we ungrateful; we confess that we are indebted to thee, that a

passage has been given for our words to our loving ears.’ Having said

this much, in vain, on their respective sides, about night they said,

‘Farewell’; and gave those kisses each on their own side, which did not

reach the other side.

“The following morning had removed the fires of the night, and the Sun,

with its rays, had dried the grass wet with rime, {when} they met

together at the wonted spot. Then, first complaining much in low

murmurs, they determine, in the silent night, to try to deceive their

keepers, and to steal out of doors; and when they have left the house,

to quit the buildings of the city as well: but that they may not have to

wander, roaming in the open fields, to meet at the tomb of Ninus,[21]

and to conceal themselves beneath the shade of a tree. There was there a

lofty mulberry tree, very full of snow-white fruit, quite close to a

cold spring. The arrangement suits them; and the light, seeming to

depart {but} slowly, is buried in the waters, and from the same waters

the night arises. The clever Thisbe, turning the hinge, gets out in the

dark, and deceives her {attendants}, and, having covered her face,

arrives at the tomb, and sits down under the tree agreed upon; love made

her bold. Lo! a lioness approaches, having her foaming jaws besmeared

with the recent slaughter of oxen, about to quench her thirst with the

water of the neighboring spring. The Babylonian Thisbe sees her at a

distance, by the rays of the moon, and with a trembling foot she flies

to a dark cave; and, while she flies, her veil falling from her back,

she leaves it behind. When the savage lioness has quenched her thirst

with plenteous water, as she is returning into the woods, she tears the

thin covering, found by chance without Thisbe herself, with her

blood-stained mouth.

“Pyramus, going out later {than Thisbe}, saw the evident footmarks of a

wild beast, in the deep dust, and grew pale all over his face. But, as

soon as he found her veil, as well, dyed with blood, he said: ‘One night

will be the ruin of two lovers, of whom she was the most deserving of a

long life. My soul is guilty; ’tis I that have destroyed thee, much to

be lamented; who bade thee to come by night to places full of terror,

and came not hither first. O, whatever lions are lurking beneath this

rock, tear my body in pieces, and devour my accursed entrails with

ruthless jaws. But it is the part of a coward to wish for death.’ He

takes up the veil of Thisbe, and he takes it with himself to the shade

of the tree agreed on, and, after he has bestowed tears on the

well-known garment, he gives kisses {to the same}, and he says,

‘Receive, now, a draught of my blood as well!’ and then plunges the

sword, with which he is girt, into his bowels; and without delay, as he

is dying, he draws it out of the warm wound. As he falls on his back

upon the ground, the blood spurts forth on high, not otherwise than as

when a pipe is burst on the lead decaying,[22] and shoots out afar the

liquid water from the hissing flaw, and cleaves the air with its jet.

The fruit of the tree, by the sprinkling of the blood, are changed to a

dark tint, and the root, soaked with the gore, tints the hanging

mulberries with a purple hue. Behold! not yet having banished her fear,

{Thisbe} returns, that she may not disappoint her lover, and seeks for

the youth both with her eyes and her affection, and longs to tell him

how great dangers she has escaped. And when she observes the spot, and

the altered appearance of the tree, she doubts if it is the same, so

uncertain does the color of the fruit make her. While she is in doubt,

she sees palpitating limbs throbbing upon the bloody ground; she draws

back her foot, and having her face paler than box-wood,[23] she shudders

like the sea, which trembles[24] when its surface is skimmed by a gentle

breeze. But, after pausing a time, she had recognized her own lover, she

smote her arms, undeserving {of such usage}, and tearing her hair, and

embracing the much-loved body, she filled the gashes with her tears, and

mingled her {tokens of} sorrow with his blood; and imprinting kisses on

his cold features, she exclaimed, ‘Pyramus! what disaster has taken thee

away from me? Pyramus! answer me; ’tis thy own Thisbe, dearest, that

calls thee; hear me, and raise thy prostrate features.’

“At the name of Thisbe, Pyramus raised his eyes, now heavy with death,

and, after he had seen her, he closed them again. After she had

perceived her own garment, and beheld, too, the ivory {sheath}[25]

without its sword, she said, ‘’Tis thy own hand, and love, that has

destroyed thee, ill-fated {youth}! I, too, have a hand bold {enough} for

this one purpose; I have love as well; this shall give me strength for

the wound. I will follow thee in thy death, and I shall be called the

most unhappy cause and companion of thy fate, and thou who, alas!

couldst be torn from me by death alone, shalt not be able, even by

death, to be torn from me. And you, O most wretched parents of mine and

his, be but prevailed upon, in this one thing, by the entreaties of us

both, that you will not deny those whom their constant love {and} whom

their last moments have joined, to be buried in the same tomb. But thou,

O tree, which now with thy boughs dost overshadow the luckless body of

{but} one, art fated soon to cover {those} of two. Retain a token of

{this our} fate, and ever bear fruit black and suited for mourning, as a

memorial of the blood of us two.’ {Thus} she said; and having fixed the

point under the lower part of her breast, she fell upon the sword, which

still was reeking with his blood.

“Her prayers, however, moved the Gods, {and} moved their parents. For

the color of the fruit, when it has fully ripened, is black;[26] and

what was left of them, from the funeral pile, reposed in the same urn.”

[Footnote 1: _Minyas._--Ver. 1. Alcithoë was the daughter of

Minyas, who, according to some, was the son of Orchomenus,

according to others, his father. Pausanias says that the Bœotians,

over whom he reigned, were called ‘Minyæ’ from him; but he makes

no allusion to the females who are here mentioned by Ovid.]

[Footnote 2: _Rites._--Ver. 1. ‘Orgia:’ this was the original name

of the Dionysia, or festival of Bacchus; but in time the word came

to be applied to any occasion of festivity.]

[Footnote 3: _Her sisters._--Ver. 3. The names of the sisters of

Alcithoë, according to Plutarch, were Aristippe and Leucippe. The

names of the three, according to Ælian, were Alcathoë, Leucippe,

and Aristippe, who is sometimes called Arsinoë. The latter author

says, that the truth of the case was, that they were decent women,

fond of their husbands and families, who preferred staying at

home, and attending to their domestic concerns, to running after

the new rites; on which it was said, by their enemies, that

Bacchus had punished them.]

[Footnote 4: _Work-baskets._--Ver. 10. The ‘calathus,’ which was

called by the Greeks κάλαθος, καλαθίσκος, and τάλαρος, generally

signifies the basket in which women placed their work, and

especially the materials used for spinning. They were generally

made of osiers and reeds, but sometimes of more valuable

materials, such as silver, perhaps in filagree work. ‘Calathi’

were also used for carrying fruits and flowers. Virgil (Ecl. v. l.

71) speaks of cups for holding wine, under the name of ‘Calathi.’]

[Footnote 5: _Bromius._--Ver. 11. Bacchus was called Bromius, from

βρέμω, ‘to cry out,’ or ‘shout,’ from the yells and noise made by

his worshippers, whose peculiar cries were, Εὐοῖ Βάκχε, ὦ Ἰακχε,

Ιώ Βάκχε, Εὐοῖ σαβοῖ. ‘Evoë, Bacche! O, Iacche! Io, Bacche! Evoë

sabæ!’]

[Footnote 6: _Lyæus._--Ver. 11. Bacchus was called Lyæus, from the

Greek word, λύειν, ‘to loosen,’ or ‘relax,’ because wine dispels

care.]

[Footnote 7: _That had two mothers._--Ver. 12. The word ‘bimater’

seems to have been fancied by Ovid as an appropriate epithet for

Bacchus, Jupiter having undertaken the duties of a mother for him,

in the latter months of gestation.]

[Footnote 8: _Thyoneus._--Ver. 13. Bacchus was called Thyoneus,

either from Semele, his mother, one of whose names was Thyone, or

from the Greek, θύειν, ‘to be frantic,’ from which origin the

Bacchanals also received their name of Thyades.]

[Footnote 9: _Lenæus._--Ver. 14. From the Greek word λῆνος, ‘a

wine-press.’]

[Footnote 10: _Nyctelius._--Ver. 15. From the Greek word νὺξ,

‘night,’ because his orgies were celebrated by night. Eleleus is

from the shout, or ‘huzza’ of the Greeks, which was ελελεῦ.]

[Footnote 11: _Iacchus._--Ver. 15. From the Greek ἰαχὴ, ‘clamor,’

or ‘noise.’]

[Footnote 12: _Evan._--Ver. 15. From the exclamation, Εὐοῖ, or

‘Evoë’ which the Bacchanals used in performing his orgies.]

[Footnote 13: _Lycurgus._--Ver. 22. He was a king of Thrace, who

having slighted the worship of Bacchus, was afflicted with

madness, and hewed off his own legs with a hatchet, and, according

to Apollodorus, mistaking his own son Dryas for a vine, destroyed

him with the same weapon.]

[Footnote 14: _Unseasonable labor._--Ver. 32. ‘Minerva;’ the name

of the Goddess Minerva is here used for the exercise of the art of

spinning, of which she was the patroness. The term ‘intempestiva’

is appropriately applied, as the arts of industry and frugality,

which were first invented by Minerva, but ill accorded with the

idle and vicious mode of celebrating the festival of Bacchus.]

[Footnote 15: _Dercetis._--Ver. 45. Lucian, speaking of Dercetis,

or Derceto, says, ‘I have seen in Phœnicia a statue of this

goddess, of a very singular kind. From the middle upwards, it

represents a woman, but below it terminates in a fish. The statue

of her, which is shown at Hieropolis, represents her wholly as a

woman.’ He further says, that the temple of this last city was

thought by some to have been built by Semiramis, who consecrated

it not to Juno, as is generally believed, but to her own mother,

Derceto. Atergatis was another name of this Goddess. She was said,

by an illicit amour, to have been the mother of Semiramis, and in

despair, to have thrown herself into a lake near Ascalon, on which

she was changed into a fish.]

[Footnote 16: _Palestine._--Ver. 46. Palæstina, or Philistia,

in which Ascalon was situate, was a part of Syria, lying in its

south-western extremity.]

[Footnote 17: _How a Naiad._--Ver. 49. The Naiad here mentioned is

supposed to have been a Nymph of the Island of the Sun, called

also Nosola, between Taprobana (the modern Ceylon) and the coast

of Carmania (perhaps Coromandel), who was in the habit of changing

such youths as fell into her hands into fishes. As a reward for

her cruelty, she herself was changed into a fish by the Sun.]

[Footnote 18: _Most beauteous of youths._--Ver. 55. Clarke

translates ‘juvenum pulcherrimus alter,’ ‘one of the most handsome

of all the young fellows.’]

[Footnote 19: _Her lofty city._--Ver. 57. The magnificence of

ancient Babylon has been remarked by many ancient writers, from

Herodotus downwards. Its walls are said to have been 60 miles in

compass, 87 feet in thickness, and 350 feet in height.]

[Footnote 20: _Walls of brick._--Ver. 58. The walls were built by

Semiramis of bricks dried in the sun, cemented together with

layers of bitumen.]

[Footnote 21: _The tomb of Ninus._--Ver. 88. According to Diodorus

Siculus, the sepulchre of Ninus, the first king of Babylon, was

ten stadia in length, and nine in depth; it had the appearance of

a vast citadel, and was at a considerable distance from the city

of Babylon. Commentators have expressed some surprise that Ovid

here uses the word ‘busta,’ for ‘tomb,’ as the place of meeting

for these chaste lovers, as the prostitutes of Rome used to haunt

the ‘busta,’ or ‘tombs;’ whence they obtained the epithet of

‘bustuariæ.’]

[Footnote 22: _The lead decaying._--Ver. 122. ‘Fistula’ here means

‘a water-pipe.’ Vitruvius speaks of three methods of conveying

water; by channels of masonry, earthen pipes, and leaden pipes.

The latter were smaller, and more generally used; to them

reference is here made. They were formed by bending plates of lead

into a form, not cylindrical, but the section of which was oblong,

and tapering towards the top like a pear. The description here

given, though somewhat homely, is extremely natural, and, as

frequent experience shows us, depicts the results when the

soldering of a water-pipe has become decayed.]

[Footnote 23: _Paler than box-wood._--Ver. 134. From the light

color of boxwood, the words ‘buxo pallidiora,’ ‘paler than

boxwood,’ became a proverbial expression among the Romans.]

[Footnote 24: _The sea which trembles._--Ver. 136. The ripple, or

shudder, which runs along the surface of the sea, when a breath of

wind is stirring in a calm, is very beautifully described here,

and is worthy of notice.]

[Footnote 25: _The ivory sheath._--Ver. 148. The ‘vagina,’ or

‘sheath’ of the sword, was often highly decorated; and we learn

from Homer and Virgil, as well as Ovid, that ivory was much used

for that purpose. The sheath was worn by the Greeks and Romans on

the left side of the body, so as to enable them to draw the sword

from it, by passing the right hand in front of the body, to take

hold of the hilt, with the thumb next to the blade.]

[Footnote 26: _Is black._--Ver. 165. He thus accounts for the deep

purple hue of the mulberry which, before the event mentioned here,

he says was white.]

EXPLANATION.

It is pretty clear, as we have already seen, that the establishment of

the worship of Bacchus in Greece met with great opposition, and that

his priests and devotees published several miracles and prodigies, the

more easily to influence the minds of their fellow-men. Thus, the

daughters of Minyas are said to have been changed into bats, solely

because they neglected to join in the orgies of that God; when,

probably, the fact was, that they were either secretly despatched, or

were forced to fly for their lives; and their absence was accounted

for to the ignorant and credulous, by the invention of this Fable. The

story of Dercetis, as related by Diodorus Siculus, Pliny, and

Herodotus, is, that having offended Venus, that Goddess caused her to

fall in love with a young man, by whom she had a daughter. In despair

at her misfortune, she killed her lover, and exposed her child, and

afterwards drowned herself. The Syrians, lamenting her fate, built a

temple near where she was drowned, and honored her as a Goddess. They

stated that she was turned into a fish, and they there represented her

under the figure of a woman down to the waist, and of a fish thence

downwards. They also abstained from eating fish; though they offered

them to her in sacrifice, and suspended gilded ones in her temple.

Selden, in his Treatise on the Syrian Gods, suggests that the story of

Dercetis, or Atergatis, was founded on the figure and worship of

Dagon, the God of the Philistines, who was represented under the

figure of a fish; and that the name of Atergatis is a corruption of

‘Adir Dagon,’ ‘a great fish,’ which is not at all improbable. The same

author supposes that Dercetis was originally the same Deity with

Venus, Astarte, Minerva, Juno, Isis, and the Moon; and that she was

worshipped under the name of Mylitta by the Assyrians, and as Alilac

by the Arabians. Lucian tells us, that Dercetis was reported to have

been the mother of Semiramis.

Ovid and Hyginus are the only authors that make mention of the story

of Pyramus and Thisbe, and both agree in making Babylon the scene of

it. It seems to be rather intended as a moral tale, than to have been

built upon any actual circumstance. It affords a lesson to youth not

to enter rashly into engagements: and to parents not to pursue, too

rigorously, the gratification of their own resentment, but rather to

consult the inclination of their children, when not likely to be

productive of unhappiness at a future period.

The reader cannot fail to call to mind the admirable travesty of this

story by Shakspere, in the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

FABLE II. [IV.167-233]

The Sun discovers to Vulcan the intrigue between Mars and Venus, and

then, himself, falls in love with Leucothoë. Venus, in revenge for the

discovery, resolves to make his amours unfortunate.

Here she ended; and there was {but} a short time betwixt, and {then}

Leuconoë began[27] to speak. Her sisters held their peace. “Love has

captivated even this Sun, who rules all things by his æthereal light.

I will relate the loves of the Sun. This God is supposed to have been

the first to see the adultery of Venus with Mars; this God is the first

to see everything. He was grieved at what was done, and showed to the

husband, the son of Juno,[28] the wrong done to his bed, and the place

of the intrigue. Both his senses, and the work which his skilful right

hand was {then} holding, quitted him {on the instant}. Immediately, he

files out some slender chains of brass, and nets, and meshes, which can

escape the eye. The finest threads cannot surpass that work, nor yet the

cobweb that hangs from the top of the beam. He makes it so, too, as to

yield to a slight touch, and a gentle movement, and skilfully arranges

it drawn around the bed. When the wife and the gallant come into the

same bed, being both caught through the artifice of the husband, and

chains prepared by this new contrivance, they are held fast in the

{very} midst of their embraces.

“The Lemnian {God} immediately threw open the folding doors[29] of

ivory, and admitted the Deities. {There} they lay disgracefully bound.

And yet many a one of the Gods, not the serious ones, could fain wish

thus to become disgraced. The Gods of heaven laughed, and for a long

time was this the most noted story in all heaven. The Cytherean[30]

goddess exacts satisfaction of the Sun, in remembrance of this betrayal;

and, in her turn, disturbs him with the like passion, who had disturbed

her secret amours. What now, son of Hyperion,[31] does thy beauty, thy

heat, and thy radiant light avail thee? For thou, who dost burn all

lands with thy flames, art {now} burnt with a new flame; and thou, who

oughtst to be looking at everything, art gazing on Leucothoë, and on one

maiden art fixing those eyes which thou oughtst {to be fixing} on the

universe. At one time thou art rising earlier in the Eastern sky; at

another thou art setting late in the waves; and in taking time to gaze

{on her}, thou art lengthening the hours of mid-winter. Sometimes thou

art eclipsed, and the trouble of thy mind affects thy light, and,

darkened, thou fillest with terror the breasts of mortals. Nor art thou

pale, because the form of the moon, nearer to the earth, stands in thy

way. It is that passion which occasions this complexion. Thou lovest her

alone, neither does Clymene, nor Rhodos,[32] nor the most beauteous

mother[33] of the Ææan Circe engage thee, nor {yet} Clytie, who, though

despised, was longing for thy embraces; at that very time thou wast

suffering these grievous pangs. Leucothoë occasioned the forgetting of

many a damsel; she, whom Eurynome, the most beauteous of the

perfume-bearing[34] nation produced.[35] But after her daughter grew up,

as much as the mother excelled all {other Nymphs}, so much did the

daughter {excel} the mother. Her father, Orchamus, ruled over the

Achæmenian[36] cities, and he is reckoned the seventh in descent from

the ancient Belus.[37]

“The pastures of the horses of the Sun are under the Western sky;

instead of grass, they have ambrosia.[38] That nourishes their limbs

wearied with their daily service, and refits them for labor. And while

the coursers are there eating their heavenly food, and night is taking

her turn; the God enters the beloved chamber, changed into the shape of

her mother Eurynome, and beholds Leucothoë among twice six handmaids,

near the threshold, drawing out the smooth threads with her twirling

spindle. When, therefore, as though her mother, he has given kisses to

her dear daughter, he says, “There is a secret matter, {which I have to

mention}; maids, withdraw, and take not from a mother the privilege of

speaking in private {with her daughter}.” They obey; and the God being

left in the chamber without any witness, he says, ‘I am he, who measures

out the long year, who beholds all things, {and} through whom the earth

sees all things; the eye, {in fact}, of the universe. Believe me, thou

art pleasing to me.’ She is affrighted; and in her alarm, both her

distaff and her spindle fall from her relaxed fingers. Her very fear

becomes her; and, he, no longer delaying, returns to his true shape, and

his wonted beauty. But the maiden, although startled at the unexpected

sight, overcome by the beauty of the God,[39] {and} dismissing {all}

complaints, submits to his embrace.

[Footnote 27: _Leuconoë began._--Ver. 168. It is worthy of remark,

how strongly the affecting tale of Pyramus and Thisbe contrasts

with the loose story of the loves of Mars and Venus.]

[Footnote 28: _The son of Juno._--Ver. 173. Vulcan is called

‘Junonigena,’ because, according to some, he was the son of Juno

alone. Other writers, however, say that he was the only son of

Jupiter and Juno.]

[Footnote 29: _The folding doors._--Ver. 185. The plural word

‘valvæ’ is often used to signify a door, or entrance, because

among the ancients each doorway generally contained two doors

folding together. The internal doors even of private houses were

bivalve; hence, as in the present case, we often read of the

folding doors of a bed-chamber. Each of these doors or valves was

usually wide enough to permit persons to pass each other in egress

and ingress without opening the other door as well. Sometimes each

valve was double, folding like our window-shutters.]

[Footnote 30: _Cytherean._--Ver. 190. Cythera was an island on the

southern coast of Laconia; where Venus was supposed to have

landed, after she had risen from the sea. It was dedicated to her

worship.]

[Footnote 31: _Hyperion._--Ver. 192. He was the son of Cœlus, or

Uranus, and the father of the Sun. The name of Hyperion is,

however, often given by the poets to the Sun himself.]

[Footnote 32: _Rhodos._--Ver. 204. She was a damsel of the Isle of

Rhodes, the daughter of Neptune, and, according to some, of Venus.

She was greatly beloved by Apollo, to whom she bore seven

children.]

[Footnote 33: _Beauteous mother._--Ver. 205. This was Persa, the

daughter of Oceanus, and the mother of the enchantress Circe, who

is here called ‘Ææa,’ from Ææa, a city and peninsula of Colchis.

Circe is referred to more at length in the 14th Book of the

Metamorphoses.]

[Footnote 34: _Perfume-bearing._--Ver. 209. Being born in Arabia,

the producer of all kinds of spices and perfumes, which were much

in request among the ancients, for the purposes of sacrifice.]

[Footnote 35: _Produced._--Ver. 210. Eurynome was the wife of

Orchamus, and was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys.]

[Footnote 36: _Achæmenian._--Ver. 212. Persia is called

Achæmenian, from Achæmenes, one of its former kings.]

[Footnote 37: _Ancient Belus._--Ver. 213. The order of descent is

thus reckoned from Belus; Abas, Acrisius, Danaë, Perseus, Bachæmon,

Achæmenes, and Orchamus.]

[Footnote 38: _Ambrosia._--Ver. 215. Ambrosia was said to be the

food of the Deities, and nectar their drink.]

[Footnote 39: _Beauty of the God._--Ver. 233. Clarke translates,

‘Virgo victa nitore Dei.’ ‘The young lady--charmed with the

spruceness of the God.’]

EXPLANATION.

Plutarch, in his Treatise ‘How to read the Poets,’ suggests a curious

explanation of the discovery by the Sun of the intrigue of Mars and

Venus. He says that such persons as are born under the conjunction of

the planets Mars and Venus, are naturally of an amorous temperament;

but that if the Sun does not happen then to be at a distance, their

indiscretions will be very soon discovered.

Palæphatus gives a historical solution to the story. He says that

Helius, the son of Vulcan, king of Egypt, resolving to cause his

father’s laws against adultery to be strictly observed, and having

been informed that a lady of the court had an intrigue with one of the

courtiers, entered her apartment in the night, and obtaining ocular

proof of the courtier’s guilt, caused him to be severely punished. He

also tells us that the similarity of the name gave birth to the Fable

which Homer was the first to relate, with a small variation, and which

is here copied by Ovid. Libanius, deploring the burning of the Temple

of Apollo near Antioch, complains of the ingratitude of Vulcan to that

God, who had formerly discovered to him the infidelity of his wife;

a subject upon which St. Chrysostom seems to think that the

rhetorician would have done better to have been silent.

FABLE III. [IV.234-270]

Clytie, in a fit of revenge, discovers the adventure of Leucothoë to

her father, who orders her to be buried alive. The Sun, grieved at her

misfortune, changed her into the frankincense tree; he also despises

the informer, who pines away for love of him, and is at last changed

into the sunflower.

Clytie envied her, (for the love of the Sun[40] for her had not been

moderate), and, urged on by resentment at a rival, she published the

intrigue, and, when spread abroad, brought it to the notice of her

father. He, fierce and unrelenting, cruelly buried her alive deep in the

ground, as she entreated and stretched out her hands towards the light

of the Sun, and cried, “’Twas he that offered violence to me against my

will;” and upon her he placed a heap of heavy sand. The son of Hyperion

scattered it with his rays, and gave a passage to thee, by which thou

mightst be able to put forth thy buried features.

But thou, Nymph, couldst not now raise thy head smothered with the

weight of the earth; and {there} thou didst lie, a lifeless body. The

governor of the winged steeds is said to have beheld nothing more

afflicting than that, since the lightnings that caused the death of

Phaëton. He, indeed, endeavors, if he can, to recall her cold limbs to

an enlivening heat, by the strength of his rays. But, since fate opposes

attempts so great, he sprinkles both her body and the place with

odoriferous nectar, and having first uttered many a complaint he says,

“Still shalt thou reach the skies.”[41] Immediately, the body, steeped

in the heavenly nectar, dissolves, and moistens the earth with its

odoriferous juices; and a shoot of frankincense having taken root by

degrees through the clods, rises up and bursts the hillock with its top.

But the author of light came no more to Clytie (although love might have

excused her grief, and her grief the betrayal); and he put an end to his

intercourse with her. From that time she, who had made so mad a use of

her passion, pined away, loathing the {other} Nymphs; and in the open

air, night and day, she sat on the bare ground, with her hair

dishevelled and unadorned. And for nine days, without water or food, she

subsisted in her fast, merely on dew and her own tears; and she did not

raise herself from the ground. She only used to look towards the face of

the God as he moved along, and to turn her own features towards him.

They say that her limbs became rooted fast in the ground; and a livid

paleness turned part of her color into {that of} a bloodless plant.

There is a redness in some part; and a flower, very like a violet,[42]

conceals her face. Though she is held fast by a root, she turns towards

the Sun, and {though} changed, she {still} retains her passion.

[Footnote 40: _For the love of the Sun._--Ver. 234. This remark is

added, to show that the God had not been sufficiently cautious in

his courtship of her sister to conceal it from the observation of

Clytie.]

[Footnote 41: _Reach the skies._--Ver. 251. That is to say, ‘You

shall arise from the earth as a tree bearing frankincense: the

gums of which, burnt in sacrifice to the Gods, shall reach the

heavens with their sweet odors.’ Persia and Arabia have been

celebrated by the poets, ancient and modern, for their great

fertility in frankincense and other aromatic plants.]

[Footnote 42: _Like a violet._--Ver. 268. This cannot mean the

large yellow plant which is called the sunflower. The small

aromatic flower which we call heliotrope, with its violet hue and

delightful perfume, more nearly answers the description. The

larger flower probably derived its name from the resemblance which

it bears to the sun, surrounded with rays, as depicted by the

ancient painters.]

EXPLANATION.

No ascertained historical fact can be found as the basis of the story

of Leucothoë being buried alive by her father Orchamus, or of her

rival Clytie being metamorphosed into a sunflower. The story seems to

have been most probably simply founded on principles of natural

philosophy. Leucothoë, it is not unreasonable to suppose, may have

been styled the daughter of Orchamus, king of Persia, for no other

reason but because that Prince was the first to introduce the

frankincense tree, which was called Leucothoë, into his kingdom; and

it was added that she fell in love with Apollo, because the tree

produces an aromatic drug much used in physic, of which that God was

fabled to have been the inventor. The jealousy of Clytie was, perhaps,

founded upon a fact, stated by some naturalists, that the sunflower is

a plant which kills the frankincense tree, when growing near it.

Pliny, however, who ascribes several properties to the sunflower, does

not mention this among them.

Orchamus is nowhere mentioned by the ancient writers, except in the

present instance.

FABLE IV. [IV.271-284]

Daphnis is turned into a stone. Scython is changed from a man into a

woman. Celmus is changed into adamant. Crocus and Smilax are made into

flowers. The Curetes are produced from a shower.

{Thus} she spoke; and the wondrous deed charms their ears. Some deny

that it was possible to be done, some say that real Gods can do all

things; but Bacchus is not one of them. When her sisters have become

silent, Alcithoë is called upon; who running with her shuttle through

the warp of the hanging web, says, “I keep silence upon the well-known

amours of Daphnis, the shepherd of Ida,[43] whom the resentment of the

Nymph, his paramour, turned into a stone. Such mighty grief inflames

those who are in love. Nor do I relate how once Scython, the law of

nature being altered, was of both sexes first a man, then a woman. Thee

too, I pass by, O Celmus, now adamant, formerly most attached to Jupiter

{when} little; and the Curetes,[44] sprung from a plenteous shower of

rain; Crocus, too, changed, together with Smilax,[45] into little

flowers; and I will entertain your minds with a pleasing novelty.”

[Footnote 43: _Shepherd of Ida._--Ver. 277. This may mean either

Daphnis of Crete, or of Phrygia; for in both those countries there

was a mountain named Ida.]

[Footnote 44: _The Curetes._--Ver. 282. According to Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, the Curetes were the ancient inhabitants of Crete.

We may here remark, that the story of their springing from the

earth after a shower of rain, seems to have no other foundation

than the fact of their having been of the race of the Titans; that

is, they were descended from Uranus, or Cœlus and Tita, by which

names were meant the heaven and the earth.]

[Footnote 45: _Smilax._--Ver. 283. The dictionary meanings given

for this word are--1. Withwind, a kind of herb. 2. The yew tree.

3. A kind of oak. The Nymph was probably supposed to have been

changed into the first.]

EXPLANATION.

Most probably, the story of the shepherd Daphnis being turned into a

stone, was no other than an allegorical method of expressing the

insensibility of an individual. Thalia was the name of the Nymph who

was thus affronted by Daphnis.

The story of Scython changing his sex, is perhaps based upon the fact,

that the country of Thrace, which took the name of Thracia from a

famous sorceress, was before called Scython; and that as it lost a

name of the masculine gender for one of the feminine, in after times

it became reported that Scython had changed sexes.

Pliny tells us that Celmus was a young man of remarkable wisdom and

moderation, and that the passions making no impression on him, he was

changed into adamant. Some, however, assert that he was foster-father

to Jupiter, by whom he was enclosed in an impenetrable tower, for

revealing the immortality of the Gods.

According to one account, Crocus and Smilax were a constant and happy

married couple, who for their chaste and innocent life were said to

have been changed into flowers; but another story is, that Crocus was

a youth beloved by Smilax, and that on his rejecting the Nymph’s

advances, they were both turned into flowers.

The story of the Curetes being sprung from rain, is possibly founded

on the report that they were descended from Uranus and Tita, the

Heaven and the Earth. Some suppose them to have been the original

inhabitants of the isle of Crete; and they are said to have watched

over the infancy of Jupiter, by whom they were afterwards slain, for

having concealed Epaphus from his wrath.

FABLE V. [IV.285-388]

The Naiad Salmacis falls in love with the youth Hermaphroditus, who

rejects her advances. While he is bathing, she leaps into the water,

and seizing the youth in her arms, they become one body, retaining

their different sexes.

Learn how Salmacis became infamous, {and} why it enervates, with its

enfeebling waters, and softens the limbs bathed {in it}. The cause is

unknown; {but} the properties of the fountain are very well known. The

Naiads nursed a boy, born to Mercury of the Cytherean Goddess in the

caves of Ida; whose face was such that therein both mother and father

could be discerned; he likewise took his name from them. As soon as he

had completed thrice five years, he forsook his native mountains, and

leaving Ida, the place of his nursing, he loved to wander over unknown

spots, {and} to see unknown rivers, his curiosity lessening the fatigue.

He went, too, to the Lycian[46] cities, and the Carians, that border

upon Lycia. Here he sees a pool of water, clear to the {very} ground at

the bottom; here there are no fenny reeds, no barren sedge, no rushes

with their sharp points. The water is translucent; but the edges of the

pool are enclosed with green turf, and with grass ever verdant. A Nymph

dwells {there}; but one neither skilled in hunting, nor accustomed to

bend the bow, nor to contend in speed; the only one, too, of {all} the

Naiads not known to the swift Diana. The report is, that her sisters

often said to her, “Salmacis, do take either the javelin, or the painted

quiver, and unite thy leisure with the toils of the chase.” She takes

neither the javelin, nor the painted quiver, nor does she unite her

leisure with the toils of the chase. But sometimes she is bathing her

beauteous limbs in her own spring; {and} often is she straitening her

hair with a comb of Citorian boxwood,[47] and consulting the waters,

into which she looks, what is befitting her. At other times, covering

her body with a transparent garment, she reposes either on the soft

leaves or on the soft grass. Ofttimes is she gathering flowers. And

then, too, by chance was she gathering them when she beheld the youth,

and wished to possess him, {thus} seen.

But though she hastened to approach {the youth}, still she did not

approach him before she had put herself in order, and before she had

surveyed her garments, and put on her {best} looks, and deserved to be

thought beautiful. Then thus did she begin to speak: “O youth, most

worthy to be thought to be a God! if thou art a God, thou mayst {well}

be Cupid; but, if thou art a mortal, happy are they who begot thee, and

blessed is thy brother, and fortunate indeed thy sister, if thou hast

one, and the nurse {as well} who gave thee the breast. But far, far more

fortunate than all these {is she}; if thou hast any wife, if thou

shouldst vouchsafe any one {the honor of} marriage. And if any one is

thy {wife, then} let my pleasure be stolen; but, if thou hast none, let

me be {thy wife}, and let us unite in one tie.” After these things

{said}, the Naiad is silent; a blush tinges the face of the youth: he

knows not what love is, but even to blush becomes him. Such is the color

of apples, hanging on a tree exposed to the sun, or of painted ivory, or

of the moon blushing beneath her brightness when the aiding

{cymbals}[48] {of} brass are resounding in vain. Upon the Nymph

desiring, without ceasing, such kisses at least as he might give to his

sister, and now laying her hands upon his neck, white as ivory, he says,

“Wilt thou desist, or am I to fly, and to leave this place, together

with thee?”

Salmacis is affrighted, and says, “I freely give up this spot to thee,

stranger,” and, with a retiring step, she pretends to go away. But then

looking back, and hid in a covert of shrubs, she lies concealed, and

puts her bended knees down to the ground. But he, just like a boy, and

as though unobserved on the retired sward, goes here and there, and in

the sportive waves dips the soles of his feet, and {then} his feet as

far as his ankles. Nor is there any delay; being charmed with the

temperature of the pleasant waters, he throws off his soft garments from

his tender body. Then, indeed, Salmacis is astonished, and burns with

desire for his naked beauty. The eyes, too, of the Nymph are on fire, no

otherwise than as when the Sun,[49] most brilliant with his clear orb,

is reflected from the opposite image of a mirror. With difficulty does

she endure delay; hardly does she now defer her joy. Now she longs to

embrace him; and now, distracted, she can hardly contain herself. He,

clapping his body with his hollow palms, swiftly leaps into the stream,

and throwing out his arms alternately, shines in the limpid water, as if

any one were to cover statues of ivory, or white lilies, with clear

glass.

“I have gained my point,” says the Naiad; “see, he is mine!” and, all

her garments thrown aside, she plunges in the midst of the waters, and

seizes him resisting her, and snatches reluctant kisses, and thrusts

down her hands, and touches his breast against his will, and clings

about the youth, now one way, and now another. Finally, as he is

struggling against her, and desiring to escape, she entwines herself

about him, like a serpent which the royal bird takes up and is bearing

aloft; and as it hangs, it holds fast his head and feet, and enfolds his

spreading wings with its tail. Or, as the ivy is wont to wind itself

along the tall trunks {of trees}; and as the polypus[50] holds fast its

enemy, caught beneath the waves, by letting down his suckers on all

sides; {so} does the descendant of Atlas[51] {still} persist, and deny

the Nymph the hoped-for joy. She presses him hard; and clinging to him

with every limb, as she holds fast, she says, “Struggle as thou mayst,

perverse one, still thou shalt not escape. So ordain it, ye Gods, and

let no time separate him from me, nor me from him.” Her prayers find

propitious Deities, for the mingled bodies of the two are united,[52]

and one human shape is put upon them; just as if any one should see

branches beneath a common bark join in growing, and spring up together.

So, when their bodies meet together in the firm embrace, they are no

more two, and their form is twofold, so that they can neither be styled

woman nor boy; they seem {to be} neither and both.

Therefore, when Hermaphroditus sees that the limpid waters, into which

he had descended as a man, have made him but half a male, and that his

limbs are softened in them, holding up his hands, he says, but now no

longer with the voice of a male, “O, both father and mother, grant this

favor to your son, who has the name of you both, that whoever enters

these streams a man, may go out thence {but} half a man, and that he may

suddenly become effeminate in the waters when touched.” Both parents,

moved, give their assent to the words of their two-shaped son, and taint

the fountain with drugs of ambiguous quality.

[Footnote 46: _Lycian._--Ver. 296. Lycia was a province of Asia

Minor, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Caria was another

province, adjoining to Lycia.]

[Footnote 47: _Citorian boxwood._--Ver. 311. Citorus, or Cythorus,

was a mountain of Paphlagonia, famous for the excellence of the

wood of the box trees that grow there. The Greeks and Romans made

their combs of it. The Egyptians used them made of ivory and wood,

and toothed on one side only; those of the Greeks had teeth on

both sides. Great care was usually taken of the hair; to go with

it uncombed was a sign of affliction.]

[Footnote 48: _The aiding cymbals._--Ver. 333. The witches and

magicians, in ancient times, and especially those of Thessaly,

professed to be able, with their charms and incantations, to bring

the moon down from heaven. The truth of these assertions being

commonly believed, at the period of an eclipse it was supposed by

the multitude that the moon was being subjected to the spells of

these magicians, and that she was struggling (laborabat) against

them, on which the sound of drums, trumpets, and cymbals was

resorted to, to distract the attention of the moon, and to drown

the charms repeated by the enchanters, for which reason, the

instruments employed for the purpose were styled ‘auxiliares.’]