THE ARGUMENT. [I.1-4]

My design leads me to speak of forms changed into new bodies.[1] Ye
Gods, (for you it was who changed them,) favor my attempts,[2] and bring
down the lengthened narrative from the very beginning of the world,
{even} to my own times.[3]

    〔note 1 — Forms changed into new bodies.--Ver. 1. Some commentators cite these words as an instance of Hypallage as being used for ‘corpora mutata in novas formas,’ ‘bodies changed into new forms;’ and they fancy that there is a certain beauty in the circumstance that the proposition of a subject which treats of the changes and variations of bodies should be framed with a transposition of words. This supposition is perhaps based rather on the exuberance of a fanciful imagination than on solid grounds, as if it is an instance of Hypallage, it is most probably quite accidental; while the passage may be explained without any reference to Hypallage, as the word ‘forma’ is sometimes used to signify the thing itself; thus the words ‘formæ deorum’ and ‘ferarum’ are used to signify ‘the Gods,’ or ‘the wild beasts’ themselves.〕

    〔note 2 — Favor my attempts.--Ver. 3. This use of the word ‘adspirate’ is a metaphor taken from the winds, which, while they fill the ship’s sails, were properly said ‘adspirare.’ It has been remarked, with some justice, that this invocation is not sufficiently long or elaborate for a work of so grave and dignified a nature as the Metamorphoses.〕

    〔note 3 — To my own times.--Ver. 4. That is, to the days of Augustus Cæsar.〕

FABLE I. [I.5-31]

  God reduces Chaos into order. He separates the four elements, and
  disposes the several bodies, of which the universe is formed, into
  their proper situations.

At first, the sea, the earth, and the heaven, which covers all things,
were the only face of nature throughout the whole universe, which men
have named Chaos; a rude and undigested mass,[4] and nothing {more} than
an inert weight, and the discordant atoms of things not harmonizing,
heaped together in the same spot. No Sun[5] as yet gave light to the
world; nor did the Moon,[6] by increasing, recover her horns anew. The
Earth did not {as yet} hang in the surrounding air, balanced by its own
weight, nor had Amphitrite[7] stretched out her arms along the
lengthened margin of the coasts. Wherever, too, was the land, there also
was the sea and the air; {and} thus was the earth without firmness, the
sea unnavigable, the air void of light; in no one {of them} did its
{present} form exist. And one was {ever} obstructing the other; because
in the same body the cold was striving with the hot, the moist with the
dry, the soft with the hard, things having weight with {those} devoid of
weight.

To this discord God and bounteous Nature[8] put an end; for he separated
the earth from the heavens, and the waters from the earth, and
distinguished the clear heavens from the gross atmosphere. And after he
had unravelled these {elements}, and released them from {that} confused
heap, he combined them, {thus} disjoined, in harmonious unison, {each}
in {its proper} place. The element of the vaulted heaven,[9] fiery and
without weight, shone forth, and selected a place for itself in the
highest region; next after it, {both} in lightness and in place, was the
air; the Earth was more weighty than these, and drew {with it} the more
ponderous atoms, and was pressed together by its own gravity. The
encircling waters sank to the lowermost place,[10] and surrounded the
solid globe.

    〔note 4 — A rude and undigested mass.--Ver. 7. This is very similar to the words of the Scriptures, ‘And the earth was without form and void,’ Genesis, ch. i. ver. 2.〕

    〔note 5 — No Sun.--Ver. 10. Titan. The Sun is so called, on account of his supposed father, Hyperion, who was one of the Titans. Hyperion is thought to have been the first who, by assiduous observation, discovered the course of the Sun, Moon, and other luminaries. By them he regulated the time for the seasons, and imparted this knowledge to others. Being thus, as it were, the father of astronomy, he has been feigned by the poets to have been the father of the Sun and the Moon.〕

    〔note 6 — The Moon.--Ver. 11. Phœbe. The Moon is so called from the Greek φοῖβος, ‘shining,’ and as being the sister of Phœbus, Apollo, or the Sun.〕

    〔note 7 — Amphitrite.--Ver. 14. She was the daughter of Oceanus and Doris, and the wife of Neptune, God of the Sea. Being the Goddess of the Ocean, her name is here used to signify the ocean itself.〕

    〔note 8 — Nature.--Ver. 21. ‘Natura’ is a word often used by the Poet without any determinate signification, and to its operations are ascribed all those phenomena which it is found difficult or impossible to explain upon known and established principles. In the present instance it may be considered to mean the invisible agency of the Deity in reducing Chaos into a form of order and consistency. ‘Et’ is therefore here, as grammarians term it, an expositive particle; as if the Poet had said, ‘Deus sive natura,’ ‘God, or in other words, nature.’〕

    〔note 9 — The element of the vaulted heaven.--Ver. 26. This is a periphrasis, signifying the regions of the firmament or upper air, in which the sun and stars move; which was supposed to be of the purest fire and the source of all flame. The heavens are called ‘convex,’ from being supposed to assume the same shape as the terrestrial globe which they surround.〕

    〔note 10 — The lowermost place.--Ver. 31. ‘Ultima’ must not be here understood in the presence of ‘infima,’ or as signifying ‘last,’ or ‘lowest,’ in a strict philosophical sense, for that would contradict the account of the formation of the world given by Hesiod, and which is here closely followed by Ovid; indeed, it would contradict his own words,--‘Circumfluus humor coercuit solidum orbem.’ The meaning seems to be, that the waters possess the lowest place only in respect to the earth whereon we tread, and not relatively to the terrestrial globe, the supposed centre of the system, inasmuch as the external surface of the earth in some places rises considerably, and leaves the water to subside in channels.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The ancient philosophers, unable to comprehend how something could be
  produced out of nothing, supposed a matter pre-existent to the Earth
  in its present shape, which afterwards received form and order from
  some powerful cause. According to them, God was not the Creator, but
  the Architect of the universe, in ranging and disposing the elements
  in situations most suitable to their respective qualities. This is the
  Chaos so often sung of by the poets, and which Hesiod was the first to
  mention.

  It is clear that this system was but a confused and disfigured
  tradition of the creation of the world, as mentioned by Moses; and
  thus, beneath these fictions, there lies some faint glimmering of
  truth. The first two chapters of the book of Genesis will be found to
  throw considerable light on the foundation of this Mythological system
  of the world’s formation.

  Hesiod, the most ancient of the heathen writers who have enlarged upon
  this subject, seems to have derived much of his information from the
  works of Sanchoniatho, who is supposed to have borrowed his ideas
  concerning Chaos from that passage in the second verse of the first
  Chapter of Genesis, which mentions the darkness that was spread over
  the whole universe--‘and darkness was upon the face of the deep’--for
  he expresses himself almost in those words. Sanchoniatho lived before
  the Trojan war, and professed to have received his information
  respecting the original construction of the world from a priest of
  ‘Jehovah,’ named Jerombaal. He wrote in the Phœnician language; but we
  have only a translation of his works, by Philo Judæus, which is by
  many supposed to be spurious. It is, however, very probable, that from
  him the Greeks borrowed their notions regarding Chaos, which they
  mingled with fables of their own invention.

FABLE II. [I.32-88]

  After the separation of matter, God gives form and regularity to the
  universe; and all other living creatures being produced, Prometheus
  moulds earth tempered with water, into a human form, which is animated
  by Minerva.

When thus he, whoever of the Gods he was,[11] had divided the mass {so}
separated, and reduced it, so divided, into {distinct} members; in the
first place, that it might not be unequal on any side, he gathered it up
into the form of a vast globe; then he commanded the sea to be poured
around it, and to grow boisterous with the raging winds, and to surround
the shores of the Earth, encompassed {by it}; he added also springs, and
numerous pools and lakes, and he bounded the rivers as they flowed
downwards, with slanting banks. These, different in {different} places,
are some of them swallowed up[12] by {the Earth} itself; some of them
reach the ocean, and, received in the expanse of waters that take a
freer range, beat against shores instead of banks.

He commanded the plains,[13] too, to be extended, the valleys to sink
down, the woods to be clothed with green leaves, the craggy mountains to
arise; and, as on the right-hand side,[14] two Zones intersect the
heavens, and as many on the left; {and as} there is a fifth hotter than
these, so did the care of the Deity distinguish this enclosed mass {of
the Earth} by the same number, and as many climates are marked out upon
the Earth. Of these, that which is the middle one[15] is not habitable
on account of the heat; deep snow covers two[16] {of them}. Between
either these he placed as many more,[17] and gave them a temperate
climate, heat being mingled with cold.

Over these hangs the air, which is heavier than fire, in the same degree
that the weight of water is lighter than the weight of the earth. Here
he ordered vapors, here too, the clouds to take their station; the
thunder, too, to terrify the minds of mortals, and with the lightnings,
the winds that bring on cold. The Contriver of the World did not allow
these indiscriminately to take possession of the sky. Even now,
(although they each of them govern their own blasts in a distinct tract)
they are with great difficulty prevented from rending the world asunder,
so great is the discord of the brothers.[18] Eurus took his way[19]
towards {the rising of} Aurora and the realms of Nabath[20] and Persia,
and the mountain ridges exposed to the rays of the morning. The Evening
star, and the shores which are warm with the setting sun, are bordering
upon Zephyrus.[21] The terrible Boreas invaded Scythia,[22] and the
regions of the North. The opposite quarter is wet with continual clouds,
and the drizzling South Wind.[23] Over these he placed the firmament,
clear and devoid of gravity, and not containing anything of the dregs of
earth.

Scarcely had he separated all these by fixed limits, when the stars,
which had long lain hid, concealed beneath that mass {of Chaos}, began
to glow through the range of the heavens. And that no region might be
destitute of its own {peculiar} animated beings, the stars and the forms
of the Gods[24] possess the tract of heaven; the waters fell to be
inhabited by the smooth fishes;[25] the Earth received the wild beasts,
{and} the yielding air the birds.

{But} an animated being, more holy than these, more fitted to receive
higher faculties, and which could rule over the rest,[26] was still
wanting. {Then} Man was formed. Whether it was that the Artificer of all
things, the original of the world in its improved state, framed him from
divine elements;[27] or whether, the Earth, being newly made, and but
lately divided from the lofty æther, still retained some atoms of its
kindred heaven, which, tempered with the waters of the stream, the son
of Iapetus fashioned after the image of the Gods, who rule over all
things. And, whereas other animals bend their looks downwards upon the
Earth, to Man he gave a countenance to look on high and to behold the
heavens, and to raise his face erect to the stars. Thus, that which had
been lately rude earth, and without any regular shape, being changed,
assumed the form of Man, {till then} unknown.

    〔note 11 — Whoever of the Gods he was.--Ver. 32. By this expression the Poet perhaps may intend to intimate that the God who created the world was some more mighty Divinity than those who were commonly accounted Deities.〕

    〔note 12 — Are some of them swallowed up.--Ver. 40. He here refers to those rivers which, at some distance from their sources, disappear and continue their course under ground. Such was the stream of Arethusa, the Lycus in Asia, the Erasinus in Argolis, the Alpheus in Peloponnesus, the Arcas in Spain, and the Rhone in France. Most of these, however, after descending into the earth, appear again and discharge their waters into the sea.〕

    〔note 13 — He commanded the plains.--Ver. 43. The use here of the word ‘jussit,’ signifying ‘ordered,’ or ‘commanded,’ is considered as being remarkably sublime and appropriate, and serving well to express the ease wherewith an infinitely powerful Being accomplishes the most difficult works. There is the same beauty here that was long since remarked by Longinus, one of the most celebrated critics among the ancients, in the words used by Moses, ‘And God said, Let there be light, and there was light,’ Genesis, ch. i. ver. 3.〕

    〔note 14 — On the right-hand side.--Ver. 45. The “right hand” here refers to the northern part of the globe, and the “left hand” to the southern. He here speaks of the zones. Astronomers have divided the heavens into five parallel circles. First, the equinoctial, which lies in the middle, between the poles of the earth, and obtains its name from the equality of days and nights on the earth while the sun is in its plane. On each side are the two tropics, at the distance of 23 deg. 30 min., and described by the sun when in his greatest declination north and south, or at the summer and winter solstices. That on the north side of the equinoctial is called the tropic of Cancer, because the sun describes it when in that sign of the ecliptic; and that on the south side is, for a similar reason, called the tropic of Capricorn. Again, at the distance of 23½ degrees from the poles are two other parallels called the polar circles, either because they are near to the poles, or because, if we suppose the whole frame of the heavens to turn round on the plane of the equinoctial, these circles are marked out by the poles of the ecliptic. By means of these parallels, astronomers have divided the heavens into four zones or tracks. The whole space between the two tropics is the middle or torrid zone, which the equinoctial divides into two equal parts. On each side of this are the temperate zones, which extend from the tropics to the two polar circles. And lastly, the portions enclosed by the polar circles make up the frigid zones. As the planes of these circles produced till they reached the earth, would also impress similar parallels upon it, and divide it in the same manner as they divide the heavens, astronomers have conceived five zones upon the earth, corresponding to those in the heavens, and bounded by the same circles.〕

    〔note 15 — That which is the middle one.--Ver. 49. The ecliptic in which the sun moves, cuts the equator in two opposite points, at an angle of 23½ degrees; and runs obliquely from one tropic to another, and returns again in a corresponding direction. Hence, the sun, which in the space of a year, performs the revolution of this circle, must in that time be twice vertical to every place in the torrid zone, except directly under the tropics, and his greatest distance from their zenith at noon, cannot exceed 47 degrees. Thus his rays being often perpendicular, or nearly so, and never very oblique, must strike more forcibly, and cause more intense heat in that spot. Being little acquainted with the extent and situation of the earth, the ancients believed it uninhabitable. Modern discovery has shown that this is not the case as to a considerable part of the torrid zone, though with some parts of it our acquaintance is still very limited.〕

    〔note 16 — Deep snow covers two.--Ver. 50. The two polar or frigid zones. For as the sun never approaches these nearer than the tropic on that side, and is, during one part of the year, removed by the additional extent of the whole torrid zone, his rays must be very oblique and faint, so as to leave these tracts exposed to almost perpetual cold.〕

    〔note 17 — He placed as many more.--Ver. 51. The temperate zones, lying between the torrid and the frigid, partake of the character of each in a modified degree, and are of a middle temperature between hot and cold. Here, too, the distinction of the seasons is manifest. For in either temperate zone, when the sun is in that tropic, which borders upon it, being nearly vertical, the heat must be considerable, and produce summer; but when he is removed to the other tropic by a distance of 47 degrees, his rays will strike but faintly, and winter will be the consequence. The intermediate spaces, while he is moving from one tropic to the other, make spring and autumn.〕

    〔note 18 — The brothers.--Ver. 60. That is, the winds, who, according to the Theogony of Hesiod, were the sons of Astreus, the giant, and Aurora.〕

    〔note 19 — Eurus took his way.--Ver. 61. The Poet, after remarking that the air is the proper region of the winds, proceeds to take notice that God, to prevent them from making havoc of the creation, subjected them to particular laws, and assigned to each the quarter whence to direct his blasts. Eurus is the east wind, being so called from its name, because it blows from the east. As Aurora, or the morning, was always ushered in by the sun, who rises eastward, she was supposed to have her habitation in the eastern quarter of the world; and often, in the language of ancient poetry, her name signifies the east.〕

    〔note 20 — The realms of Nabath.--Ver. 61. From Josephus we learn that Nabath, the son of Ishmael, with his eleven brothers, took possession of all the country from the river Euphrates to the Red Sea, and called it Nabathæa. Pliny the Elder and Strabo speak of the Nabatæi as situated between Babylon and Arabia Felix, and call their capital Petra. Tacitus, in his Annals (Book ii. ch. 57), speaks of them as having a king. Perhaps the term ‘Nabathæa regna’ implies here, generally, the whole of Arabia.〕

    〔note 21 — Are bordering upon Zephyrus.--Ver. 63. The region where the sun sets, that is to say, the western part of the world, was assigned by the ancients to the Zephyrs, or west winds, so called by a Greek derivation because they cherish and enliven nature.〕

    〔note 22 — Boreas invaded Scythia.--Ver. 34. Under the name of Scythia, the ancients generally comprehended all the countries situate in the extreme northern regions. ‘Septem trio,’ meaning the northern region of the world, is so called from the ‘Triones,’ a constellation of seven stars, near the North Pole, known also as the Ursa Major, or Greater Bear, and among the country people of our time by the name of Charles’s Wain. Boreas, one of the names of ‘Aquilo,’ or the ‘north wind,’ is derived from a Greek word, signifying ‘an eddy.’ This name was probably given to it from its causing whirlwinds occasionally by its violence.〕

    〔note 23 — The drizzling South Wind.--Ver. 66. The South Wind is especially called rainy, because, blowing from the Mediterranean sea on the coast of France and Italy, it generally brings with it clouds and rain.〕

    〔note 24 — The forms of the Gods.--Ver. 73. There is some doubt what the Poet here means by the ‘forms of the Gods.’ Some think that the stars are meant, as if it were to be understood that they are forms of the Gods. But it is most probably only a poetical expression for the Gods themselves, and he here assigns the heavens as the habitation of the Gods and the stars; these last, according to the notion of the Platonic philosophers being either intelligent beings, or guided and actuated by such.〕

    〔note 25 — Inhabited by the smooth fishes.--Ver. 74. ‘Cesserunt nitidis habitandæ piscibus;’ Clarke translates ‘fell to the neat fishes to inhabit.’〕

    〔note 26 — Could rule over the rest.--Ver. 77. This strongly brings to mind the words of the Creator, described in the first chapter of Genesis, ver. 28. ‘And God said unto them--have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’〕

    〔note 27 — Framed him from divine elements.--Ver. 78. We have here strong grounds for contending that the ancient philosophers, and after them the poets, in their account of the creation of the world followed a tradition that had been copied from the Books of Moses. The formation of man, in Ovid, as well as in the Book of Genesis, is the last work of the Creator, and was, for the same purpose, that man might have dominion over the other animated works of the creation.〕

EXPLANATION.

  According to Ovid, as in the book of Genesis, man is the last work of
  the Creator. The information derived from Holy Writ is here presented
  to us, in a disfigured form. Prometheus, who tempers the earth, and
  Minerva, who animates his workmanship, is God, who formed man, and
  ‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.’

  Some writers have labored to prove that this Prometheus, of the
  heathen Mythology, was a Scriptural character. Bochart believes him to
  have been the same with Magog, mentioned in the book of Genesis.
  Prometheus was the son of Iapetus, and Magog was the son of Japhet,
  who, according to that learned writer, was identical with Iapetus. He
  says, that as Magog went to settle in Scythia, so did Prometheus; as
  Magog either invented, or improved, the art of founding metals, and
  forging iron, so, according to the heathen poets, did Prometheus.
  Diodorus Siculus asserts that Prometheus was the first to teach
  mankind how to produce fire from the flint and steel.

  The fable of Prometheus being devoured by an eagle, according to some,
  is founded on the name of Magog, which signifies ‘a man devoured by
  sorrow.’ Le Clerc, in his notes on Hesiod, says, that Epimetheus, the
  brother of Prometheus, was the same with the Gog of Scripture, the
  brother of Magog. Some writers, again, have exerted their ingenuity to
  prove that Prometheus is identical with the patriarch Noah.

FABLE III. [I.89-112]

  The formation of man is followed by a succession of the four ages of
  the world. The first is the Golden Age, during which Innocence and
  Justice alone govern the world.

The Golden Age was first founded, which, without any avenger, of its own
accord, without laws, practised both faith and rectitude. Punishment,
and the fear {of it}, did not exist, and threatening decrees were not
read upon the brazen {tables},[28] fixed up {to view}, nor {yet} did the
suppliant multitude dread the countenance of its judge; but {all} were
in safety without any avenger. The pine-tree, cut from its {native}
mountains, had not yet descended to the flowing waves, that it might
visit a foreign region; and mortals were acquainted with no shores
beyond their own. Not as yet did deep ditches surround the towns; no
trumpets of straightened, or clarions of crooked brass,[29] no helmets,
no swords {then} existed. Without occasion for soldiers, the minds {of
men}, free from care, enjoyed an easy tranquillity.

The Earth itself, too, in freedom, untouched by the harrow, and wounded
by no ploughshares, of its own accord produced everything; and men,
contented with the food created under no compulsion, gathered the fruit
of the arbute-tree, and the strawberries of the mountain, and cornels,
and blackberries adhering to the prickly bramble-bushes, and acorns
which had fallen from the wide-spreading tree of Jove. {Then} it was an
eternal spring; and the gentle Zephyrs, with their soothing breezes,
cherished the flowers produced without any seed. Soon, too, the Earth
unploughed yielded crops of grain, and the land, without being renewed,
was whitened with the heavy ears of corn. Then, rivers of milk, then,
rivers of nectar were flowing, and the yellow honey was distilled from
the green holm oak.

    〔note 28 — Read upon the brazen tables.--Ver. 91. It was the custom among the Romans to engrave their laws on tables of brass, and fix them in the Capitol, or some other conspicuous place, that they might be open to the view of all.〕

    〔note 29 — Clarions of crooked brass.--Ver. 98. ‘Cornu’ seems to have been a general name for the horn or trumpet; whereas the “tuba” was a straight trumpet, while the ‘lituus’ was bent into a spiral shape. Lydus says that the ‘lituus’ was the sacerdotal trumpet, and that it was employed by Romulus when he proclaimed the title of his newly-founded city. Acro says that it was peculiar to the cavalry, while the ‘tuba’ belonged to the infantry. The notes of the ‘lituus’ are usually described as harsh and shrill.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The heathen poets had learned, most probably from tradition, that our
  first parents lived for some time in peaceful innocence; that, without
  tillage, the garden of Eden furnished them with fruit and food in
  abundance; and that the animals were submissive to their commands:
  that after the fall the ground became unfruitful, and yielded nothing
  without labor; and that nature no longer spontaneously acknowledged
  man for its master. The more happy days of our first parents they seem
  to have styled the Golden Age, each writer being desirous to make his
  own country the scene of those times of innocence. The Latin writers,
  for instance, have placed in Italy, and under the reign of Saturn and
  Janus, events, which, as they really happened, the Scriptures relate
  in the histories of Adam and of Noah.

FABLE IV. [I.113-150]

  In the Silver Age, men begin not to be so just, nor, consequently, so
  happy, as in the Golden Age. In the Brazen Age, which succeeds, they
  become yet less virtuous; but their wickedness does not rise to its
  highest pitch until the Iron Age, when it makes its appearance in all
  its deformity.

Afterwards (Saturn being driven into the shady realms of Tartarus), the
world was under the sway of Jupiter; {then} the Silver Age succeeded,
inferior to {that of} gold, but more precious than {that of} yellow
brass. Jupiter shortened the duration of the former spring, and divided
the year into four periods by means of winters, and summers, and
unsteady autumns, and short springs. Then, for the first time, did the
parched air glow with sultry heat, and the ice, bound up by the winds,
was pendant. Then, for the first time, did men enter houses; {those}
houses were caverns, and thick shrubs, and twigs fastened together with
bark. Then, for the first time, were the seeds of Ceres buried in long
furrows, and the oxen groaned, pressed by the yoke {of the ploughshare}.

The Age of Brass succeeded, as the third {in order}, after these;
fiercer in disposition, and more prone to horrible warfare, but yet free
from impiety. The last {Age} was of hard iron. Immediately every species
of crime burst forth, in this age of degenerated tendencies;[30]
modesty, truth, and honor took flight; in their place succeeded fraud,
deceit, treachery, violence, and the cursed hankering for acquisition.
The sailor now spread his sails to the winds, and with these, as yet, he
was but little acquainted; and {the trees}, which had long stood on the
lofty mountains, now, {as} ships bounded[31] through the unknown waves.
The ground, too, hitherto common as the light of the sun and the
breezes, the cautious measurer marked out with his lengthened boundary.

And not only was the rich soil required to furnish corn and due
sustenance, but men even descended into the entrails of the Earth; and
riches were dug up, the incentives to vice, which the Earth had hidden,
and had removed to the Stygian shades.[32] Then destructive iron came
forth, and gold, more destructive than iron; then War came forth, that
fights through the means of both,[33] and that brandishes in his
blood-stained hands the clattering arms. Men live by rapine; the guest
is not safe from his entertainer, nor the father-in-law from the
son-in-law; good feeling, too, between brothers is a rarity. The husband
is eager for the death of the wife, she {for that} of her husband.
Horrible stepmothers {then} mingle the ghastly wolfsbane; the son
prematurely makes inquiry[34] into the years of his father. Piety lies
vanquished, and the virgin Astræa[35] is the last of the heavenly
{Deities} to abandon the Earth, {now} drenched in slaughter.

    〔note 30 — Age of degenerated tendencies.--Ver. 128. ‘Vena’ signifies among other things, a vein or track of metal as it lies in the mine. Literally, ‘venæ pejoris’ signifies ‘of inferior metal.’〕

    〔note 31 — Now as ships bounded.--Ver. 134. ‘Insultavere carinæ.’ This line is translated by Clarke, ‘The keel-pieces bounced over unknown waves.’〕

    〔note 32 — To the Stygian shades.--Ver. 139. That is, in deep caverns, and towards the centre of the earth; for Styx was feigned to be a river of the Infernal Regions, situate in the depths of the earth.〕

    〔note 33 — Through the means of both.--Ver. 142. Gold forms, perhaps, more properly the sinews of war than iron. The history of Philip of Macedon gives a proof of this, as he conquered Greece more by bribes than the sword, and used to say, that he deemed no fortress impregnable, where there was a gate large enough to admit a camel laden with gold.〕

    〔note 34 — Prematurely makes inquiry.--Ver. 148. Namely, by inquiring of the magicians and astrologers, that by their skill in casting nativities, they might inform them the time when their parents were likely to die, and to leave them their property.〕

    〔note 35 — Astræa.--Ver. 150. She was the daughter of Astræus and Aurora, or of Jupiter and Themis, and was the Goddess of Justice. On leaving the earth, she was supposed to have taken her place among the stars as the Constellation of the Virgin.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The Poet here informs us, that during the Golden Age, a perpetual
  spring reigned on the earth, and that the division of the year into
  seasons was not known until the Silver Age. This allusion to Eden is
  very generally to be found in the works of the heathen poets. The
  Silver Age is succeeded by the Brazen, and that is followed by the
  Iron Age, which still continues. The meaning is, that man gradually
  degenerated from his primeval innocence, and arrived at that state of
  wickedness and impiety, of which the history of all ages, ancient and
  modern, presents us with so many lamentable examples.

  The limited nature of their views, and the fact that their exuberant
  fancy was the source from which they derived many of their alleged
  events, naturally betrayed the ancient writers into great
  inconsistencies. For in the Golden Age of Saturn, we find wars waged,
  and crimes committed. Saturn expelled his father, and seized his
  throne; Jupiter, his son, treated Saturn as he had done his father
  Uranus; and Jupiter, in his turn, had to wage war against the Giants,
  in their attempt to dispossess him of the heavens.

FABLE V. [I.151-162]

  The Giants having attempted to render themselves masters of heaven,
  Jupiter buries them under the mountains which they have heaped
  together to facilitate their assault; and the Earth, animating their
  blood, forms out of it a cruel and fierce generation of men.

And that the lofty {realms of} æther might not be more safe than the
Earth, they say that the Giants aspired to the sovereignty of Heaven,
and piled the mountains, heaped together, even to the lofty stars. Then
the omnipotent Father, hurling his lightnings, broke through
Olympus,[36] and struck Ossa away from Pelion, that lay beneath it.
While the dreadful carcasses lay overwhelmed beneath their own
structure, they say that the Earth was wet, drenched with the plenteous
blood of her sons, and that she gave life to the warm gore; and that,
lest no memorial of this ruthless race should be surviving, she shaped
them into the form of men. But that generation, too, was a despiser of
the Gods above, and most greedy of ruthless slaughter, and full of
violence: you might see that they derived their origin from blood.

    〔note 36 — Olympus.--Ver. 154. Olympus was a mountain between Thessaly and Macedonia. Pelion was a mountain of Thessaly, towards the Pelasgic gulf; and Ossa was a mountain between Olympus and Pelion. These the Giants are said to have heaped one on another, in order to scale heaven.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The war of the giants, which is here mentioned, is not to be
  confounded with that between Jupiter and the Titans, who were
  inhabitants of heaven. The fall of the angels, as conveyed by
  tradition, probably gave rise to the story of the Titans; while,
  perhaps, the building of the tower of Babel may have laid the
  foundation of that of the attempt by the giants to reach heaven.
  Perhaps, too, the descendants of Cain, who are probably the persons
  mentioned in Scripture as the children ‘of men’ and ‘giants,’ were the
  race depicted under the form of the Giants, and the generation that
  sprung from their blood. See Genesis, ch. vi. ver. 2, 4.

FABLE VI. [I.163-215]

  Jupiter, having seen the crimes of this impious race of men, calls a
  council of the Gods, and determines to destroy the world.

When the Father {of the Gods}, the son of Saturn, beheld this from his
loftiest height, he groaned aloud; and recalling to memory the polluted
banquet on the table of Lycaon, not yet publicly known, from the crime
being but lately committed, he conceives in his mind vast wrath, and
such as is worthy of Jove, and calls together a council; no delay
detains them, thus summoned.

There is a way on high,[37] easily seen in a clear sky, and which,
remarkable for its very whiteness, receives the name of the Milky {Way}.
Along this is the way for the Gods above to the abode of the great
Thunderer and his royal palace. On the right and on the left side the
courts of the ennobled Deities[38] are thronged, with open gates. The
{Gods of} lower rank[39] inhabit various places; in front {of the Way},
the powerful and illustrious inhabitants of Heaven have established
their residence. This is the place which, if boldness may be allowed to
my expression, I should not hesitate to style the palatial residence of
Heaven. When, therefore, the Gods above had taken their seats in the
marble hall of assembly; he himself, elevated on his seat, and leaning
on his sceptre of ivory, three or four times shook the awful locks[40]
of his head, with which he makes the Earth, the Seas, and the Stars to
tremble. Then, after such manner as this, did he open his indignant
lips:--

“Not {even} at that time was I more concerned for the empire of the
universe, when each of the snake-footed monsters was endeavoring to lay
his hundred arms on the captured skies. For although that was a
dangerous enemy, yet that war was with but one stock, and sprang from a
single origin. Now must the race of mortals be cut off by me, wherever
Nereus[41] roars on all sides of the earth; {this} I swear by the Rivers
of Hell, that glide in the Stygian grove beneath the earth. All methods
have been already tried; but a wound that admits of no cure, must be cut
away with the knife, that the sound parts may not be corrupted. I have
{as subjects}, Demigods, and I have the rustic Deities, the Nymphs,[42]
and the Fauns, and the Satyrs, and the Sylvans, the inhabitants of the
mountains; these, though as yet, we have not thought them worthy of the
honor of Heaven, let us, at least, permit to inhabit the earth which we
have granted them. And do you, ye Gods of Heaven, believe that they will
be in proper safety, when Lycaon remarkable for his cruelty, has formed
a plot against {even} me, who own and hold sway over the thunder and
yourselves?”

All shouted their assent aloud, and with ardent zeal they called for
vengeance on one who dared such {crimes}. Thus, when an impious band[43]
{madly} raged to extinguish the Roman name in the blood of Cæsar, the
human race was astonished with sudden terror at ruin so universal, and
the whole earth shook with horror. Nor was the affectionate regard,
Augustus, of thy subjects less grateful to thee, than that was to
Jupiter. Who, after he had, by means of his voice and his hand,
suppressed their murmurs, all of them kept silence. Soon as the clamor
had ceased, checked by the authority of their ruler, Jupiter again broke
silence in these words:

“He, indeed, (dismiss your cares) has suffered {dire} punishment; but
what was the offence and what the retribution, I will inform you. The
report of the iniquity of the age had reached my ears; wishing to find
this not to be the truth, I descended from the top of Olympus, and,
a God in a human shape, I surveyed the earth. ’Twere an endless task to
enumerate how great an amount of guilt was everywhere discovered; the
report itself was below the truth.”

    〔note 37 — There is a way on high.--Ver. 168. The Poet here gives a description of the court of heaven; and supposing the galaxy, or Milky Way, to be the great road to the palace of Jupiter, places the habitations of the Gods on each side of it, and adjoining the palace itself. The mythologists also invented a story, that the Milky Way was a track left in the heavens by the milk of Juno flowing from the mouth of Hercules, when suckled by her. Aristotle, however, suspected what has been since confirmed by the investigations of modern science, that it was formed by the light of innumerable stars.〕

    〔note 38 — The ennobled Deities.--Ver. 172. These were the superior Deities, who formed the privy councillors of Jupiter, and were called ‘Di majorum gentium,’ or, ‘Di consentes.’ Reckoning Jupiter as one, they were twelve in number, and are enumerated by Ennius in two limping hexameter lines:-- ‘Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars, Mercurius, Jovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo.’〕

    〔note 39 — The Gods of lower rank.--Ver. 173. These were the ‘Dii minorum gentium,’ or inferior Deities.〕

    〔note 40 — Shook the awful locks.--Ver. 179. This awful nod of Jupiter, the sanction by which he confirms his decrees, is an idea taken from Homer; by whom it is so vividly depicted at the end of the first book of the Iliad, that Phidias, in his statue of that God, admired for the awful majesty of its looks, is said to have derived his conception of the features from that description. Virgil has the same idea in the Æneid, book x; ‘Annuit, et totum metu tremefecit Olympum.’〕

    〔note 41 — Nereus.--Ver. 187. He was one of the most ancient of the Deities of the sea, and was the son of Oceanus and Tethys.〕

    〔note 42 — The Nymphs.--Ver. 192. The terrestrial Nymphs were the Dryads and Hamadryads, who haunting the woods, and the duration of their existence depending upon the life of particular trees, derived their name from the Greek word δρῦς, ‘an oak.’ The Oreades were nymphs who frequented the mountains, while the Napeæ lived in the groves and valleys. There were also Nymphs of the sea and of the rivers; of which, the Nereids were so called from their father Nereus, and the Oceanitides, from Oceanus. There were also the Naiads, or nymphs of the fountains, and many others.〕

    〔note 43 — Thus when an impious band.--Ver. 200. It is a matter of doubt whether he here refers to the conspiracies of Brutus and Cassius against Julius Cæsar, or whether to that against Augustus, which is mentioned by Suetonius, in the nineteenth chapter of his History. As Augustus survived the latter conspiracy, and the parallel is thereby rendered more complete, probably this is the circumstance here alluded to.〕

EXPLANATION.

  It is to be presumed, that Ovid here follows the prevailing tradition
  of his time; and it is surprising how closely that tradition adheres
  to the words of Scripture, relative to the determination of the
  Almighty to punish the earth by a deluge, as disclosed in the sixth
  chapter of Genesis. The Poet tells us, that the King of heaven calls
  the Gods to a grand council, to deliberate upon the punishment of
  mankind, in retribution for their wickedness. The words of Scripture
  are, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
  and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
  continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the
  earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, ‘I will
  destroy man, whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man
  and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air: for it
  repenteth me that I have made them.’” --Genesis, ch. vi. ver. 5, 6, 7.

  Tradition seems to have faithfully carried down the fact, that, amid
  this universal corruption, there was still at least one just man, and
  here it attributes to Deucalion the merit that belonged to Noah.

FABLE VII. [I.216-243]

  Lycaon, king of Arcadia, in order to discover if it is Jupiter himself
  who has come to lodge in his palace, orders the body of an hostage,
  who had been sent to him, to be dressed and served up at a feast. The
  God, as a punishment, changes him into a wolf.

I had {now} passed Mænalus, to be dreaded for its dens of beasts of
prey, and the pine-groves of cold Lycæus, together with Cyllene.[44]
After this, I entered the realms and the inhospitable abode of the
Arcadian tyrant, just as the late twilight was bringing on the night.
I gave a signal that a God had come, and the people commenced to pay
their adorations. In the first place, Lycaon derided their pious
supplications. Afterwards, he said, I will make trial, by a plain proof,
whether this is a God, or whether he is a mortal; nor shall the truth
remain a matter of doubt. He then makes preparations to destroy me, when
sunk in sleep, by an unexpected death; this mode of testing the truth
pleases him. And not content with that, with the sword he cuts the
throat of an hostage that had been sent from the nation of the
Molossians,[45] and then softens part of the quivering limbs, in boiling
water, and part he roasts with fire placed beneath. Soon as he had
placed these on the table, I, with avenging flames, overthrew the house
upon the household Gods,[46] worthy of their master. Alarmed, he himself
takes to flight, and having reached the solitude of the country, he
howls aloud, and in vain attempts to speak; his mouth gathers rage from
himself, and through its {usual} desire for slaughter, it is directed
against the sheep, and even still delights in blood. His garments are
changed into hair, his arms into legs; he becomes a wolf, and he still
retains vestiges of his ancient form. His hoariness is still the same,
the same violence {appears} in his features; his eyes are bright as
before; {he is still} the same image of ferocity.

“Thus fell one house; but one house alone did not deserve to perish;
wherever the earth extends, the savage Erinnys[47] reigns. You would
suppose that men had conspired to be wicked; let all men speedily feel
that vengeance which they deserve to endure, for such is my
determination.”

    〔note 44 — Together with Cyllene.--Ver. 217. Cyllenus, or Cyllene, was a mountain of Arcadia, sacred to Mercury, who was hence called by the poets Cyllenius. Lycæus was also a mountain of Arcadia, sacred to Pan, and was covered with groves of pine-trees.〕

    〔note 45 — Of the Molossians.--Ver. 226. The Molossi were a people of Epirus, on the eastern side of the Ambracian gulf. Ovid here commits a slight anachronism, as the name was derived from Molossus, the son of Neoptolemus, long after the time of Lycaon. Besides, as Burmann observes, who could believe that ‘wars could be waged at such an early period between nations so distant as the Molossi and the Arcadians?’ Apollodorus says, that it was a child of the same country, whose flesh Lycaon set before Jupiter. Other writers say that it was Nyctimus, the son of Lycaon, or Arcas, his grandson, that was slain by him.〕

    〔note 46 — Upon the household Gods.--Ver. 231. This punishment was awarded to the Penates, or household Gods of Lycaon, for taking such a miscreant under their protection.〕

    〔note 47 — The savage Erinnys.--Ver. 241. Erinnys was a general name given to the Furies by the Greeks. They were three in number--Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra. These were so called, either from the Greek ἔρις νοῦ, ‘the discord of the mind,’ or from ἐν τῇ ἔρα ναίειν, ‘their inhabiting the earth,’ watching the actions of men.〕

EXPLANATION.

  If Ovid is not here committing an anachronism, and making Jupiter,
  before the deluge, relate the story of a historical personage, who
  existed long after it, the origin of the story of Lycaon must be
  sought in the antediluvian narrative. It is just possible that the
  guilty Cain may have been the original of Lycaon. The names are not
  very dissimilar: they are each mentioned as the first murderer; and
  the fact, that Cain murdered Abel at the moment when he was offering
  sacrifice to the Almighty, may have given rise to the tradition that
  Lycaon had set human flesh before the king of heaven. The Scripture,
  too, tells us, that Cain was personally called to account by the
  Almighty for his deed of blood.

  The punishment here inflicted on Lycaon was not very dissimilar to
  that with which Cain was visited. Cain was sentenced to be a fugitive
  and a wanderer on the face of the earth; and such is essentially the
  character of the wolf, shunned by both men and animals. Of course,
  there are many points to which it is not possible to extend the
  parallel. Some of the ancient writers tell us, that there were two
  Lycaons, the first of whom was the son of Phoroneus, who reigned in
  Arcadia about the time of the patriarch Jacob; and the second, who
  succeeded him, polluted the festivals of the Gods by the sacrifice of
  the human race; for, having erected an altar to Jupiter, at the city
  of Lycosura, he slew human victims on it, whence arose the story
  related by the Poet. This solution is given by Pausanias, in his
  Arcadica. We are also told by that historian, and by Suidas, that
  Lycaon was, notwithstanding, a virtuous prince, the benefactor of his
  people, and the promoter of improvement.

FABLE VIII. [I.244-312]

  Jupiter, not thinking the punishment of Lycaon sufficient to strike
  terror into the rest of mankind, resolves, on account of the universal
  corruption, to extirpate them by a universal deluge.

Some, by their words approve the speech of Jupiter, and give spur to
him, {indignantly} exclaiming; others, by {silent} assent fulfil their
parts. Yet the {entire} destruction of the human race is a cause of
grief to them all, and they inquire what is to be the form of the earth
in future, when destitute of mankind? who is to place frankincense[48]
on the altars? and whether it is his design to give up the nations for a
prey to the wild beasts? The ruler of the Gods forbids them making these
enquiries, to be alarmed (for that the rest should be his care); and he
promises, {that} from a wondrous source {he will raise} a generation
unlike the preceding race.

And now he was about to scatter his thunder over all lands; but he was
afraid lest, perchance, the sacred æther might catch fire, from so many
flames, and the extended sky might become inflamed. He remembers, too,
that it was in the {decrees of} Fate, that a time should come,[49] at
which the sea, the earth, and the palace of heaven, seized {by the
flames}, should be burned, and the laboriously-wrought fabric of the
universe should be in danger of perishing. The weapons forged by the
hands of the Cyclops are laid aside; a different {mode of} punishment
pleases him: to destroy mankind beneath the waves, and to let loose the
rains from the whole tract of Heaven. At once he shuts the North Wind in
the caverns of Æolus, and {all} those blasts which dispel the clouds
drawn over {the Earth}; and {then} he sends forth the South Wind. With
soaking wings the South Wind flies abroad, having his terrible face
covered with pitchy darkness; his beard {is} loaded with showers, the
water streams down from his hoary locks, clouds gather upon his
forehead, his wings and the folds of his robe[50] drip with wet; and, as
with his broad hand he squeezes the hanging clouds, a crash arises, and
thence showers are poured in torrents from the sky. Iris,[51] the
messenger of Juno, clothed in various colors, collects the waters, and
bears a supply {upwards} to the clouds.

The standing corn is beaten down, and the expectations of the
husbandman, {now} lamented by him, are ruined, and the labors of a long
year prematurely perish. Nor is the wrath of Jove satisfied with his own
heaven; but {Neptune}, his azure brother, aids him with his auxiliary
waves. He calls together the rivers, which, soon as they had entered the
abode of their ruler, he says, “I must not now employ a lengthened
exhortation; pour forth {all} your might, so the occasion requires. Open
your abodes, and, {each} obstacle removed, give full rein to your
streams.” {Thus} he commanded; they return, and open the mouths of their
fountains,[52] and roll on into the ocean with unobstructed course. He
himself struck the Earth with his trident, {on which} it shook, and with
a tremor laid open the sources of its waters. The rivers, breaking out,
rush through the open plains, and bear away, together with the standing
corn, the groves, flocks, men, houses, and temples, together with their
sacred {utensils}. If any house remained, and, not thrown down, was able
to resist ruin so vast, yet the waves, {rising} aloft, covered the roof
of that {house}, and the towers tottered, overwhelmed beneath the
stream. And now sea and land had no mark of distinction; everything now
was ocean; and to that ocean shores were wanting. One man takes
possession of a hill, another sits in a curved boat, and plies the oars
there where he had lately ploughed; another sails over the standing
corn, or the roof of his country-house under water; another catches a
fish on the top of an elm-tree. An anchor (if chance so directs) is
fastened in a green meadow, or the curving keels come in contact with
the vineyards, {now} below them; and where of late the slender goats had
cropped the grass, there unsightly sea-calves are now reposing their
bodies.

The Nereids wonder at the groves, the cities, and the houses under
water; dolphins get into the woods, and run against the lofty branches,
and beat against the tossed oaks. The wolf swims[53] among the sheep;
the wave carries along the tawny lions; the wave carries along the
tigers. Neither does the powers of his lightning-shock avail the wild
boar, nor his swift legs the stag, {now} borne away. The wandering bird,
too, having long sought for land, where it may be allowed to light, its
wings failing, falls down into the sea. The boundless range of the sea
had overwhelmed the hills, and the stranger waves beat against the
heights of the mountains. The greatest part is carried off by the water:
those whom the water spares, long fastings overcome, through scantiness
of food.

    〔note 48 — To place frankincense.--Ver. 249. In those early ages, corn or wheaten flour, was the customary offering to the Deities, and not frankincense, which was introduced among the luxuries of more refined times. Ovid is consequently guilty of an anachronism here.〕

    〔note 49 — That a time should come.--Ver. 256. Lactantius informs us that the Sibyls predicted that the world should perish by fire. Seneca also, in his consolation to Marcia, and in his Quæstiones Naturales, mentions the same destined termination of the present state of the universe. It was a doctrine of the Stoic philosophers, that the stars were nurtured with moisture, and that on the cessation of this nourishment the conflagration of the universe would ensue.〕

    〔note 50 — The folds of his robe.--Ver. 267. ‘Rorant pennæ sinusque,’ is quaintly translated by Clarke, ‘his wings and the plaits of his coat drop.’〕

    〔note 51 — Iris.--Ver. 271. The mention of Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, in connection with the flood of Deucalion, cannot fail to remind us of the ‘bow set in the cloud, for a token of the covenant between God and the earth,’ on the termination of Noah’s flood.--Gen. x. 14.〕

    〔note 52 — The mouths of their fountains.--Ver. 281. The expressions in this line and in line 283, are not unlike the words of the 11th verse of the 7th chapter of Genesis, ‘The fountains of the great deep were broken up.’〕

    〔note 53 — The wolf swims.--Ver. 304. One commentator remarks here, that there was nothing very wonderful in a dead wolf swimming among the sheep without devouring them. Seneca is, however, too severe upon our author in saying that he is trifling here, in troubling himself on so serious an occasion with what sheep and wolves are doing: for he gravely means to say, that the beasts of prey are terrified to that degree that they forget their carnivorous propensities.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Pausanias makes mention of five deluges. The two most celebrated
  happened in the time of Ogyges, and in that of Deucalion. Of the last
  Ovid here speaks; and though that deluge was generally said to have
  overflowed Thessaly only, he has evidently adopted in his narrative
  the tradition of the universal deluge, which all nations seem to have
  preserved. He says, that the sea joined its waters to those falling
  from heaven. The words of Scripture are (Genesis, vii. 11), ‘All the
  fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven
  were opened.’ In speaking of the top of Parnassus alone being left
  uncovered, the tradition here followed by Ovid probably referred to
  Mount Ararat, where Noah’s ark rested. Noah and his family are
  represented by Deucalion and Pyrrha. Both Noah and Deucalion were
  saved for their virtuous conduct; when Noah went out of the ark, he
  offered solemn sacrifices to God; and Pausanias tells us that
  Deucalion, when saved, raised an altar to Jupiter the Liberator. The
  Poet tells us, that Deucalion’s deluge was to be the last: God
  promised the same thing to Noah. Josephus, in his Antiquities, Book
  i., tells us, that the history of the universal deluge was written by
  Nicolas of Damascus, Berosus, Mnaseas, and other ancient writers, from
  whom the Greeks and Romans received it.

FABLE IX. [I.313-366]

  Neptune appeases the angry waves; and he commands Triton to sound his
  shell, that the sea may retire within its shores, and the rivers
  within their banks. Deucalion and Pyrrha are the only persons saved
  from the deluge.

Phocis separates the Aonian[54] from the Actæan region; a fruitful land
while it was a land; but at that time {it had become} a part of the sea,
and a wide plain of sudden waters. There a lofty mountain rises towards
the stars, with two tops, by name Parnassus,[55] and advances beyond the
clouds with its summit. When here Deucalion (for the sea had covered all
other places), borne in a little ship, with the partner of his couch,
{first} rested; they adored the Corycian Nymphs,[56] and the Deities of
the mountain, and the prophetic Themis,[57] who at that time used to
give out oracular responses. No man was there more upright than he, nor
a greater lover of justice, nor was any woman more regardful of the
Deities than she.

Soon as Jupiter {beholds} the world overflowed by liquid waters, and
sees that but one man remains out of so many thousands of late, and sees
that but one woman remains out of so many thousands of late, both
guiltless, and both worshippers of the Gods, he disperses the clouds;
and the showers being removed by the North Wind, he both lays open the
earth to the heavens, and the heavens to the earth. The rage, too, of
the sea does not continue; and his three-forked trident {now} laid
aside, the ruler of the deep assuages the waters, and calls upon the
azure Triton standing above the deep, and having his shoulders covered
with the native purple shells;[58] and he bids him blow[59] his
resounding trumpet, and, the signal being given, to call back the waves
and the streams. The hollow-wreathed trumpet[60] is taken up by him,
which grows to a {great} width from its lowest twist; the trumpet,
which, soon as it receives the air in the middle of the sea, fills with
its notes the shores lying under either sun. Then, too, as soon as it
touched the lips of the God dripping with his wet beard, and being
blown, sounded the bidden retreat;[61] it was heard by all the waters
both of earth and sea, and stopped all those waters by which it was
heard. Now the sea[62] {again} has a shore; their channels receive the
full rivers; the rivers subside; the hills are seen to come forth. The
ground rises, places increase {in extent} as the waters decrease; and
after a length of time, the woods show their naked tops, and retain the
mud left upon their branches.

The world was restored; which when Deucalion beheld to be empty, and how
the desolate Earth kept a profound silence, he thus addressed Pyrrha,
with tears bursting forth:--“O sister, O wife, O thou, the only woman
surviving, whom a common origin,[63] and a kindred descent, and
afterwards the marriage tie has united to me, and {whom} now dangers
themselves unite to me; we two are the whole people of the earth,
whatever {both} the East and the West behold; of all the rest, the sea
has taken possession. And even now there is no certain assurance of our
lives; even yet do the clouds terrify my mind. What would now have been
thy feelings, if without me thou hadst been rescued from destruction,
O thou deserving of compassion? In what manner couldst thou have been
able alone to support {this} terror? With whom for a consoler, {to
endure} these sorrows? For I, believe me, my wife, if the sea had only
carried thee off, should have followed thee, and the sea should have
carried me off as well. Oh that I could replace the people {that are
lost} by the arts of my father,[64] and infuse the soul into the moulded
earth! Now the mortal race exists in us two {alone}. Thus it has seemed
good to the Gods, and we remain as {mere} samples of mankind.”

    〔note 54 — The Aonian.--Ver. 313. Aonia was a mountainous region of Bœotia; and Actæa was an ancient name of Attica, from ἄκτη, the sea-shore.〕

    〔note 55 — By name Parnassus.--Ver. 317. Mount Parnassus has two peaks, of which the one was called ‘Tichoreum,’ and was sacred to Bacchus; and the other ‘Hypampeum,’ and was devoted to Apollo and the Muses.〕

    〔note 56 — The Corycian Nymphs.--Ver. 320. The Corycian Nymphs were so called from inhabiting the Corycian cavern in Mount Parnassus; they were fabled to be the daughters of Plistus, a river near Delphi. There was another Corycian cave in Cilicia, in Asia Minor.〕

    〔note 57 — The prophetic Themis.--Ver. 321. Themis is said to have preceded Apollo in giving oracular responses at Delphi. She was the daughter of Cœlus and Terra, and was the first to instruct men to ask of the Gods that which was lawful and right, whence she took the name of Themis, which signifies in Greek, ‘that which is just and right.’〕

    〔note 58 — The native purple shells.--Ver. 332. ‘Murex’ was the name of the shell-fish from which the Tyrian purple, so much valued by the ancients, was procured. Some suppose that the meaning here is, that Triton had his shoulders tinted with the purple color of the murex. It is, however, more probable that the Poet means to say that he had his neck and shoulders studded with the shells of the murex, perhaps as a substitute for scales.〕

    〔note 59 — He bids him blow.--Ver. 333. There were several Tritons, or minor sea gods. The one mentioned here, the chief Triton, was fabled to be the son of Neptune and Amphitrite, who always preceded Neptune in his course, and whose arrival he was wont to proclaim by the sound of his shell. He was usually represented as swimming, with the upper part of his body resembling that of a human being, while his lower parts terminated with the tail of a fish.〕

    〔note 60 — The hollow-wreathed trumpet.--Ver. 335. The ‘Buccina,’ or, as we call it, ‘the conch shell,’ was a kind of horn, or trumpet, made out of a shell, called ‘buccinum.’ It was sometimes artificially curved, and sometimes straight, retaining the original form of the shell. The twisted form of the shell was one of the characteristic features of the trumpet, which, in later times, was made of horn, wood, or metal, so as to imitate the shell. It was chiefly used among the Romans, to proclaim the watches of the day and of the night, which watches were thence called ‘buccina prima,’ ‘secunda,’ etc. It was also blown at funerals, and at festive entertainments, both before sitting down to table and after. Macrobius tells us, that Tritons holding ‘buccinæ’ were fixed on the roof of the temple of Saturn.〕

    〔note 61 — The bidden retreat.--Ver. 340. ‘Canere receptus’ was ‘to sound the retreat,’ as the signal for the soldiers to cease fighting, and to resume their march.〕

    〔note 62 — Now the sea.--Ver. 343. This and the two following lines are considered as entitled to much praise for their terseness and brevity, as depicting by their short detached sentences the instantaneous effect produced by the commands of Neptune in reducing his dominions to a state of order.〕

    〔note 63 — A common origin.--Ver. 352. Because Prometheus was the father of Deucalion and Epimetheus of Pyrrha; Prometheus and Epimetheus being the sons of Iapetus. It is in an extended sense that he styles her ‘sister,’ she being really his cousin.〕

    〔note 64 — The arts of my father.--Ver. 363. He alludes to the story of his father, Prometheus, having formed men of clay, and animated them with fire stolen from heaven.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, were, perhaps, originally three brothers,
  kings of three separate kingdoms. Having been deified each retaining
  his sovereignty, they were depicted as having the world divided
  between them; the empire of the sea falling to the share of Neptune.
  Among his occupations, were those of raising and calming the seas; and
  Ovid here represents him as being so employed.

FABLE X. [I.367-415]

  Deucalion and Pyrrha re-people the earth by casting stones behind
  them, in the manner prescribed by the Goddess Themis, whose oracle
  they had consulted.

He {thus} spoke, and they wept. They resolved to pray to the Deities of
Heaven, and to seek relief through the sacred oracles. There is no
delay; together they repair to the waters of Cephisus,[65] though not
yet clear, yet now cutting their wonted channel. Then, when they have
sprinkled the waters poured on their clothes[66] and their heads, they
turn their steps to the temple of the sacred Goddess, the roof of which
was defiled with foul moss, and whose altars were standing without
fires. Soon as they reached the steps of the temple, each of them fell
prostrate on the ground, and, trembling, gave kisses to the cold
pavement. And thus they said:

“If the Deities, prevailed upon by just prayers, are to be mollified, if
the wrath of the Gods is to be averted; tell us, O Themis, by what art
the loss of our race is to be repaired, and give thy assistance, O most
gentle {Goddess} to our ruined fortunes.” The Goddess was moved, and
gave this response: “Depart from my temple, and cover your heads,[67]
and loosen the garments girt {around you}, and throw behind your backs
the bones of your great mother.” For a long time they are amazed; and
Pyrrha is the first by her words to break the silence, and {then}
refuses to obey the commands of the Goddess; and begs her, with
trembling lips, to grant her pardon, and dreads to offend the shades of
her mother by casting her bones. In the meantime they reconsider the
words of the response given, {but} involved in dark obscurity, and they
ponder them among themselves. Upon that, the son of Prometheus soothes
the daughter of Epimetheus with {these} gentle words, and says, “Either
is my discernment fallacious, or the oracles are just, and advise no
sacrilege. The earth is the great mother; I suspect that the stones in
the body of the earth are the bones meant; these we are ordered to throw
behind our backs.” Although she, descended from Titan,[68] is moved by
this interpretation of her husband, still her hope is involved in doubt;
so much do they both distrust the advice of heaven; but what harm will
it do to try?

They go down, and they veil their heads, and ungird their garments, and
cast stones, as ordered, behind their footsteps. The stones (who could
have believed it, but that antiquity is a witness {of the thing?}) began
to lay aside their hardness and their stiffness, and by degrees to
become soft; and when softened, to assume a {new} form. Presently after,
when they were grown larger, a milder nature, too, was conferred on
them, so that some shape of man might be seen {in them}, yet though but
imperfect; and as if from the marble commenced {to be wrought}, not
sufficiently distinct, and very like to rough statues. Yet that part of
them which was humid with any moisture, and earthy, was turned into
{portions adapted for} the use of the body. That which is solid, and
cannot be bent, is changed into bones; that which was just now a vein,
still remains under the same name.[69] And in a little time, by the
interposition of the Gods above, the stones thrown by the hands of the
man, took the shape of a man, and the female {race} was renewed by the
throwing of the woman. Thence are we a hardy generation, and able to
endure fatigue, and we give proofs from what original we are sprung.

    〔note 65 — The waters of Cephisus.--Ver. 369. The river Cephisus rises on Mount Parnassus, and flows near Delphi.〕

    〔note 66 — Poured on their clothes.--Ver. 371. It was the custom of the ancients, before entering a temple, either to sprinkle themselves with water, or to wash the body all over.〕

    〔note 67 — Cover your heads.--Ver. 382. It was a custom among the ancients to cover their heads in sacrifice and other acts of worship, either as a mark of humility, or, according to Plutarch, that nothing of ill omen might meet their sight, and thereby interrupt the performance of the rites.〕

    〔note 68 — Descended from Titan.--Ver. 395. Pyrrha was of the race of the Titans; for Iapetus, her grandfather, was the son of Titan and Terra.〕

    〔note 69 — Under the same name.--Ver. 410. With his usual propensity for punning, he alludes to the use of the word ‘vena,’ as signifying either ‘a vein’ of the body, or a ‘streak’ or ‘vein’ in stone, according to the context.〕

EXPLANATION.

  In the reign of Deucalion, king of Thessaly, the course of the river
  Peneus was stopped, probably by an earthquake. In the same year so
  great a quantity of rain fell, that all Thessaly was overflowed.
  Deucalion and some of his subjects fled to Mount Parnassus; where they
  remained until the waters abated. The children of those who were
  preserved are the stones of which the Poet here speaks. The Fable,
  probably, has for its foundation the double meaning of the word
  ‘Eben,’ or ‘Aben,’ which signifies either ‘a stone,’ or ‘a child.’ The
  Scholiast on Pindar tells us, too, that the word λάος, which means
  people, formerly also signified ‘a stone.’

  The brutal and savage nature of the early races of men may also have
  added strength to the tradition that they derived their original from
  stones. After the inundation, Deucalion is said to have repaired to
  Athens, where he built a temple to Jupiter, and instituted sacrifices
  in his honor. Some suppose that Cranaus reigned at Athens when
  Deucalion retired thither; though Eusebius informs us it was under the
  reign of Cecrops. Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, and his wife
  Pyrrha was the daughter of his uncle, Epimetheus. After his death, he
  received the honor of a temple, and was worshipped as a Divinity.

FABLE XI. [I.416-451]

  The Earth, being warmed by the heat of the sun, produces many
  monsters: among others, the serpent Python, which Apollo kills with
  his arrows. To establish a memorial of this event, he institutes the
  Pythian games, and adopts the surname of Pythius.

The Earth of her own accord brought forth other animals of different
forms; after that the former moisture was thoroughly heated by the rays
of the sun, and the mud and the wet fens fermented with the heat; and
the fruitful seeds of things nourished by the enlivening soil, as in the
womb of a mother, grew, and, in lapse of time, assumed some {regular}
shape. Thus, when the seven-streamed Nile[70] has forsaken the oozy
fields, and has returned its waters to their ancient channel, and the
fresh mud has been heated with the æthereal sun, the laborers, on
turning up the clods, meet with very many animals, and among them, some
just begun at the very moment of their formation, and some they see
{still} imperfect, and {as yet} destitute of {some} of their limbs; and
often, in the same body, is one part animated, the other part is coarse
earth. For when moisture and heat have been subjected to a due mixture,
they conceive; and all things arise from these two.

And although fire is the antagonist of heat, {yet} a moist vapor creates
all things, and this discordant concord is suited for generation; when,
therefore, the Earth, covered with mud by the late deluge, was
thoroughly heated by the æthereal sunshine and a penetrating warmth, it
produced species {of creatures} innumerable; and partly restored the
former shapes, and partly gave birth to new monsters. She, indeed, might
have been unwilling, but then she produced thee as well, thou enormous
Python; and thou, unheard-of serpent, wast a {source of} terror to this
new race of men, so vast a part of a mountain didst thou occupy.

The God that bears the bow, and that had never before used such arms,
but against the deer and the timorous goats, destroyed him, overwhelmed
with a thousand arrows, his quiver being well-nigh exhausted, {as} the
venom oozed forth through the black wounds; and that length of time
might not efface the fame of the deed, he instituted sacred games,[71]
with contests famed {in story}, called “Pythia,” from the name of the
serpent {so} conquered. In these, whosoever of the young men conquered
in boxing, in running, or in chariot-racing, received the honor of a
crown of beechen leaves.[72] As yet the laurel existed not, and Phœbus
used to bind his temples, graceful with long hair, with {garlands from}
any tree.

    〔note 70 — The seven-streamed Nile.--Ver. 423. The river Nile discharges itself into the sea by seven mouths. It is remarkable for its inundations, which happen regularly every year, and overflow the whole country of Egypt. To this is chiefly owing the extraordinary fertility of the soil of that country; for when the waters subside, they leave behind them great quantities of mud, which, settling upon the land, enrich it, and continually reinvigorate it.〕

    〔note 71 — Instituted sacred games.--Ver. 446. Yet Pausanias, in his Corinthiaca, tells us that they were instituted by Diomedes; others, again, say by Eurylochus the Thessalian; and others, by Amphictyon, or Adrastus. The Pythian games were celebrated near Delphi, on the Crissæan plain, which contained a race-course, a stadium of 1000 feet in length, and a theatre, in which the musical contests took place. They were once held at Athens, by the advice of Demetrius Poliorcetes, because the Ætolians were in possession of the passes round Delphi. They were most probably originally a religious ceremonial, and were perhaps only a musical contest, which consisted in singing a hymn in honor of the Pythian God, accompanied by the music of the cithara. In later times, gymnastic and equestrian games and exercises were introduced there. Previously to the 48th Olympiad, the Pythian games had been celebrated at the end of every eighth year; after that period they were held at the end of every fourth year. When they ceased to be solemnized is unknown; but in the time of the Emperor Julian they still continued to be held.〕

    〔note 72 — Crown of beechen leaves.--Ver. 449. This was the prize which was originally given to the conquerors in the Pythian games. In later times, as Ovid tells us, the prize of the victor was a laurel chaplet, together with the palm branch, symbolical of his victory.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The story of the serpent Python, being explained on philosophical
  principles, seems to mean, that the heat of the sun, having dissipated
  the noxious exhalations emitted by the receding waters, the reptiles,
  which had been produced from the slime left by the flood, immediately
  disappeared.

  If, however, we treat this narrative as based on historical facts, it
  is probable that the serpent represented some robber who infested the
  neighborhood of Parnassus, and molested those who passed that way for
  the purpose of offering sacrifice. A prince, either bearing the name
  of Apollo, or being a priest of that God, by his destruction liberated
  that region from this annoyance. This event gave rise to the
  institution of the Pythian games, which were celebrated near Delphi.
  Besides the several contests mentioned by Ovid, singing, dancing, and
  instrumental music, formed part of the exercises of these games. The
  event which Ovid here places soon after the deluge, must have happened
  much later, since in the time of Deucalion, the worship of Apollo was
  not known at Delphi. The Goddess Themis then delivered oracles there,
  which, previously to her time, had been delivered by the Earth.

FABLE XII. [I.452-567]

  Apollo, falling in love with Daphne, the daughter of the river Peneus,
  she flies from him. He pursues her; on which, the Nymph, imploring the
  aid of her father, is changed into a laurel.

Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, was the first love of Phœbus; whom, not
blind chance, but the vengeful anger of Cupid assigned to him.

The Delian {God},[73] proud of having lately subdued the serpent, had
seen him bending the bow and drawing the string, and had said, “What
hast thou to do, wanton boy, with gallant arms? Such a burden as that
{better} befits my shoulders; I, who am able to give unerring wounds to
the wild beasts, {wounds} to the enemy, who lately slew with arrows
innumerable the swelling Python, that covered so many acres {of land}
with his pestilential belly. Do thou be contented to excite I know not
what flames with thy torch; and do not lay claim to praises {properly}
my own.”

To him the son of Venus replies, “Let thy bow shoot all things, Phœbus;
my bow {shall shoot} thee; and as much as all animals fall short of
thee, so much is thy glory less than mine.” He {thus} said; and cleaving
the air with his beating wings, with activity he stood upon the shady
heights of Parnassus, and drew two weapons out of his arrow-bearing
quiver, of different workmanship; the one repels, the other excites
desire. That which causes {love} is of gold, and is brilliant, with a
sharp point; that which repels it is blunt, and contains lead beneath
the reed. This one the God fixed in the Nymph, the daughter of Peneus,
but with the other he wounded the {very} marrow of Apollo, through his
bones pierced {by the arrow}. Immediately the one is in love; the other
flies from the {very} name of a lover, rejoicing in the recesses of the
woods, and in the spoils of wild beasts taken {in hunting}, and becomes
a rival of the virgin Phœbe. A fillet tied together[74] her hair, put up
without any order. Many a one courted her; she hated all wooers; not
able to endure, and quite unacquainted with man, she traverses the
solitary parts of the woods, and she cares not what Hymen,[75] what
love, {or} what marriage means. Many a time did her father say, “My
daughter, thou owest me a son-in-law;” many a time did her father say,
“My daughter, thou owest me grandchildren.” She, utterly abhorring the
nuptial torch,[76] as though a crime, has her beauteous face covered
with the blush of modesty; and clinging to her father’s neck, with
caressing arms, she says, “Allow me, my dearest father, to enjoy
perpetual virginity; her father, in times, bygone, granted this to
Diana.”

He indeed complied. But that very beauty forbids thee to be what thou
wishest, and the charms of thy person are an impediment to thy desires.
Phœbus falls in love, and he covets an alliance with Daphne, {now} seen
by him, and what he covets he hopes for, and his own oracles deceive
him; and as the light stubble is burned, when the ears of corn are taken
off, and as hedges are set on fire by the torches, which perchance a
traveller has either held too near them, or has left {there}, now about
the break of day, thus did the God burst into a flame; thus did he burn
throughout his breast, and cherish a fruitless passion with his hopes.
He beholds her hair hanging unadorned upon her neck, and he says, “And
what would {it be} if it were arranged?” He sees her eyes, like stars,
sparkling with fire; he sees her lips, which it is not enough to have
{merely} seen; he praises both her fingers and her hands, and her arms
and her shoulders naked, from beyond the middle; whatever is hidden from
view, he thinks to be still more beauteous. Swifter than the light wind
she flies, and she stops not at these words of his, as he calls her
back:

“O Nymph, daughter of Peneus, stay, I entreat thee! I am not an enemy
following thee. In this way the lamb {flies} from the wolf; thus the
deer {flies} from the lion; thus the dove flies from the eagle with
trembling wing; {in this way} each {creature flies from} its enemy: love
is the cause of my following thee. Ah! wretched me! shouldst thou fall
on thy face, or should the brambles tear thy legs, that deserve not to
be injured, and should I prove the cause of pain to thee. The places are
rugged, through which thou art {thus} hastening; run more leisurely,
I entreat thee, and restrain thy flight; I myself will follow more
leisurely. And yet, inquire whom thou dost please; I am not an
inhabitant of the mountains, I am not a shepherd; I am not here, in rude
guise,[77] watching the herds or the flocks. Thou knowest not, rash
girl, thou knowest not from whom thou art flying, and therefore it is
that thou dost fly. The Delphian land, Claros and Tenedos,[78] and the
Pataræan palace pays service to me. Jupiter is my sire; by me, what
shall be, what has been, and what is, is disclosed; through me, songs
harmonize with the strings. My own {arrow}, indeed, is unerring; yet one
there is still more unerring than my own, which has made this wound in
my heart, {before} unscathed. The healing art is my discovery, and
throughout the world I am honored as the bearer of help, and the
properties of simples are[79] subjected to me. Ah, wretched me![80] that
love is not to be cured by any herbs; and that those arts which afford
relief to all, are of no avail for their master.”

The daughter of Peneus flies from him, about to say still more, with
timid step, and together with him she leaves his unfinished address.
Then, too, she appeared lovely; the winds exposed her form to view, and
the gusts meeting her fluttered about her garments, as they came in
contact, and the light breeze spread behind her her careless locks;
and {thus}, by her flight, was her beauty increased. But the youthful
God[81] has not patience any longer to waste his blandishments; and as
love urges him on, he follows her steps with hastening pace. As when the
greyhound[82] has seen the hare in the open field, and the one by {the
speed of} his legs pursues his prey, the other {seeks} her safety; the
one is like as if just about to fasten {on the other}, and now, even
now, hopes to catch her, and with nose outstretched plies upon the
footsteps {of the hare}. The other is in doubt whether she is caught
{already}, and is delivered from his very bite, and leaves behind the
mouth {just} touching her. {And} so is the God, and {so} is the
virgin;[83] he swift with hopes, she with fear.

Yet he that follows, aided by the wings of love, is the swifter, and
denies her {any} rest; and is {now} just at her back as she flies, and
is breathing upon her hair scattered upon her neck. Her strength being
{now} spent, she grows pale, and being quite faint, with the fatigue of
so swift a flight, looking upon the waters of Peneus, she says, “Give
me, my father, thy aid, if you rivers have divine power. Oh Earth,
either yawn {to swallow me}, or by changing it, destroy that form, by
which I have pleased too much, and which causes me to be injured.”

Hardly had she ended her prayer, {when} a heavy torpor seizes her limbs;
{and} her soft breasts are covered with a thin bark. Her hair grows into
green leaves, her arms into branches; her feet, the moment before so
swift, adhere by sluggish roots; a {leafy} canopy overspreads her
features; her elegance alone[84] remains in her. This, too, Phœbus
admires, and placing his right hand upon the stock, he perceives that
the breast still throbs beneath the new bark; and {then}, embracing the
branches as though limbs in his arms, he gives kisses to the wood, {and}
yet the wood shrinks from his kisses. To her the God said: “But since
thou canst not be my wife, at least thou shalt be my tree; my hair, my
lyre,[85] my quiver shall always have thee, oh laurel! Thou shalt be
presented to the Latian chieftains, when the joyous voice of the
soldiers shall sing the song of triumph,[86] and the long procession
shall resort to the Capitol. Thou, the same, shalt stand as a most
faithful guardian at the gate-posts of Augustus before his doors,[87]
and shalt protect the oak placed in the centre; and as my head is {ever}
youthful with unshorn locks, do thou, too, always wear the lasting
honors of thy foliage.”

Pæan had ended {his speech}; the laurel nodded assent with its new-made
boughs, and seemed to shake its top just like a head.

    〔note 73 — The Delian God.--Ver. 454. Apollo is so called, from having been born in the Isle of Delos, in the Ægean Sea. The Peneus was a river of Thessaly.〕

    〔note 74 — A fillet tied together.--Ver. 477. The ‘vitta’ was a band encircling the head, and served to confine the tresses of the hair. It was worn by maidens and by married women also; but the ‘vitta’ assumed on the day of marriage was of a different form from that used by virgins. It was not worn by women of light character, or even by the ‘libertinæ,’ or female slaves who had been liberated; so that it was not only deemed an emblem of chastity, but of freedom also. It was of various colors: white and purple are mentioned. In the later ages the ‘vitta’ was sometimes set with pearls.〕

    〔note 75 — Hymen.--Ver. 480. Hymen, or Hymenæus, was one of the Gods of Marriage; hence the name ‘Hymen’ was given to the union of two persons in marriage.〕

    〔note 76 — The nuptial torch.--Ver. 483. Plutarch tells us, that it was the custom in the bridal procession to carry five torches before the bride, on her way to the house of her husband. Among the Romans, the nuptial torch was lighted at the parental hearth of the bride, and was borne before her by a boy, whose parents were alive. The torch was also used at funerals, for the purpose of lighting the pile, and because funerals were often nocturnal ceremonies. Hence the expression of Propertius,-- ‘Vivimus inter utramque facem,’ ‘We are living between the two torches.’ Originally, the ‘tædæ’ seem to have been slips or lengths of resinous pine wood: while the ‘fax’ was formed of a bundle of wooden staves, either bound by a rope drawn round them in a spiral form, or surrounded by circular bands at equal distances. They were used by travellers and others, who were forced to be abroad after sunset; whence the reference in line 493 to the hedge ignited through the carelessness of the traveller, who has thrown his torch there on the approach of morning.〕

    〔note 77 — Here in rude guise.--Ver. 514. ‘Non hic armenta gregesve Horridus observo’ is quaintly translated by Clarke, ‘I do not here in a rude pickle watch herds or flocks.’〕

    〔note 78 — Claros and Tenedos.--Ver. 516. Claros was a city of Ionia, famed for a temple and oracle of Apollo, and near which there was a mountain and a grove sacred to him. There was an island in the Myrtoan Sea of that name, to which some suppose that reference is here made. Tenedos was an island of the Ægean Sea, in the neighborhood of Troy. Patara was a city of Lycia, where Apollo gave oracular responses during six months of the year. It was from Patara that St. Paul took ship for Phœnicia, Acts, xxi. 1, 2.〕

    〔note 79 — The properties of simples.--Ver. 522. The first cultivators of the medical art pretended to nothing beyond an acquaintance with the medicinal qualities of herbs and simples; it is not improbable that inasmuch as the vegetable world is nourished and raised to the surface of the earth in a great degree by the heat of the sun, a ground was thereby afforded for allegorically saying that Apollo, or the Sun, was the discoverer of the healing art.〕

    〔note 80 — Ah! wretched me!--Ver. 523. A similar expression occurs in the Heroides, v. 149, ‘Me miseram, quod amor non est medicabilis herbis.’〕

    〔note 81 — The youthful God.--Ver. 531. Apollo was always represented as a youth, and was supposed never to grow old. The Scholiast on the Thebais of Statius, b. i., v. 694, says, ‘The reason is, because Apollo is the Sun; and because the Sun is fire, which never grows old.’ Perhaps the youthfulness of the Deity is here mentioned, to account for his ardent pursuit of the flying damsel.〕

    〔note 82 — As when the greyhound.--Ver. 533. The comparison here of the flight of Apollo after Daphne, to that of the greyhound after the hare, is considered to be very beautifully drawn, and to give an admirable illustration of the eagerness with which the God pursues on the one hand, and the anxiety with which the Nymph endeavors to escape on the other. Pope, in his Windsor Forest, has evidently imitated this passage, where he describes the Nymph Lodona pursued by Pan, and transformed into a river. His words are-- ‘Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly, When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky; Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves, When through the clouds he drives the trembling doves; As from the God she flew with furious pace, Or as the God more furious urged the chase. Now fainting, sinking, pale, the nymph appears; Now close behind, his sounding steps she hears; And now his shadow reach’d her as she run, His shadow lengthened by the setting sun; And now his shorter breath, with sultry air, Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.’ The greyhound was probably called ‘canis Gallicus,’ from having been originally introduced into Italy from Gaul. ‘Vertagus’ was their Gallic name, which we find used by Martial, and Gratian in his Cynegeticon, ver. 203.〕

    〔note 83 — And so is the virgin.--Ver. 539. ‘Sic Deus et virgo est’ is translated by Clarke, ‘So is the God and the young lady;’ indeed, he mostly translates ‘virgo,’ ‘young lady.’〕

    〔note 84 — Her elegance alone.--Ver. 552. Clarke translates ‘Remanet nitor unus in illa,’ ‘her neatness alone continues in her.’〕

    〔note 85 — My lyre.--Ver. 559. The players of the cithara, the instrument of Apollo, were crowned with laurel, in the scenic representations of the stage.〕

    〔note 86 — The song of triumph.--Ver. 560. The Poet here pays a compliment to Augustus and the Roman people. The laurel was the emblem of victory among the Romans. On such occasions the ‘fasces’ of the general and the spears and javelins of the soldiers were wreathed with laurel; and after the time of Julius Cæsar, the Roman general, when triumphing, wore a laurel wreath on his head, and held a branch of laurel in his hand.〕

    〔note 87 — Before his doors.--Ver. 562. He here alludes to the civic crown of oak leaves which, by order of the Senate, was placed before the gate of the Palatium, where Augustus Cæsar resided, with branches of laurel on either side of it.〕

EXPLANATION.

  To explain this Fable, it must be laid down as a principle that there
  were originally many Jupiters, and Apollos, and Mercuries, whose
  intrigues being, in lapse of time, attributed to but one individual,
  that fact accounts for the great number of children which claimed
  those respective Gods for their fathers.

  Some prince probably, for whom his love of learning had acquired the
  name of Apollo, falling in love with Daphne, pursued her to the brink
  of the river Peneus, into which, being accidentally precipitated, she
  perished in her lover’s sight. Some laurels growing near the spot,
  perhaps gave rise to the story of her transformation; or possibly the
  etymology of the word ‘Daphne,’ which in Greek signifies a laurel, was
  the foundation of the Fable. Pausanias, however, in his Arcadia, gives
  another version of this story. He says that Leucippus, son of Œnomaus,
  king of Pisa, falling in love with Daphne, disguised himself in female
  apparel, and devoted himself to her service. He soon procured her
  friendship and confidence; but Apollo, who was his rival, having
  discovered his fraud, one day redoubled the heat of the sun. Daphne
  and her companions going to bathe, obliged Leucippus to follow their
  example, on which, having discovered his stratagem, they killed him
  with the arrows which they carried for the purposes of hunting.

  Diodorus Siculus tells us that Daphne was the same with Manto, the
  daughter of Tiresias, who was banished to Delphi, where she delivered
  oracles, of the language of which Homer availed himself in the
  composition of his poems. The inhabitants of Antioch asserted that the
  adventure here narrated happened in the suburbs of their city, which
  thence derived its name of Daphne.

FABLE XIII. [I.568-600]

  Jupiter, pursuing Io, the daughter of Inachus, covers the earth with
  darkness, and ravishes the Nymph.

There is a grove of Hæmonia,[88] which a wood, placed on a craggy rock,
encloses on every side. They call it Tempe;[89] through this the river
Peneus, flowing from the bottom of {mount} Pindus,[90] rolls along with
its foaming waves, and in its mighty fall, gathers clouds that scatter
{a vapor like} thin smoke,[91] and with its spray besprinkles the tops
of the woods, and wearies places, far from near to it, with its noise.
This is the home, this the abode, these are the retreats of the great
river; residing here in a cavern formed by rocks, he gives law to the
waters, and to the Nymphs that inhabit those waters. The rivers of that
country first repair thither, not knowing whether they should
congratulate, or whether console the parent; the poplar-bearing
Spercheus,[92] and the restless Enipeus,[93] the aged Apidanus,[94] the
gentle Amphrysus,[95] and Æas,[96] and, soon after, the other rivers,
which, as their current leads them, carry down into the sea their waves,
wearied by wanderings. Inachus[97] alone is absent, and, hidden in his
deepest cavern, increases his waters with his tears, and in extreme
wretchedness bewails his daughter Io as lost; he knows not whether she
{now} enjoys life, or whether she is among the shades below; but her,
whom he does not find anywhere, he believes to be nowhere, and in his
mind he dreads the worst.

Jupiter had seen Io as she was returning from her father’s stream, and
had said, “O maid, worthy of Jove, and destined to make I know not whom
happy in thy marriage, repair to the shades of this lofty grove (and he
pointed at the shade of the grove) while it is warm, and {while} the Sun
is at his height, in the midst of his course. But if thou art afraid to
enter the lonely abodes of the wild beasts alone, thou shalt enter the
recesses of the groves, safe under the protection of a God, and {that} a
God of no common sort; but {with me}, who hold the sceptre of heaven in
my powerful hand; {me}, who hurl the wandering lightnings--Do not fly
from me;” for {now} she was flying. And now she had left behind the
pastures of Lerna,[98] and the Lircæan plains planted with trees, when
the God covered the earth far and wide with darkness overspreading, and
arrested her flight, and forced her modesty.

    〔note 88 — A grove of Hæmonia.--Ver. 568. Hæmonia was an ancient name of Thessaly, so called from its king, Hæmon, a son of Pelasgus, and father of Thessalus, from which it received its later name.〕

    〔note 89 — Call it Tempe.--Ver. 569. Tempe was a valley of Thessaly, proverbial for its pleasantness and the beauty of its scenery. The river Peneus ran through it, but not with the violence which Ovid here depicts; for Ælian tells us that it runs with a gentle sluggish stream, more like oil than water.〕

    〔note 90 — Mount Pindus.--Ver. 570. Pindus was a mountain situate on the confines of Thessaly.〕

    〔note 91 — Like thin smoke.--Ver. 571. He speaks of the spray, which in the fineness of its particles resembles smoke.〕

    〔note 92 — Spercheus.--Ver. 579. The Spercheus was a rapid stream, flowing at the foot of Mount Æta into the Malian Gulf, and on whose banks many poplars grew.〕

    〔note 93 — Enipeus.--Ver. 579. The Enipeus rises in Mount Othrys, and runs through Thessaly. Virgil (Georgics, iv. 468) calls it ‘Altus Enipeus,’ the deep Enipeus.〕

    〔note 94 — Apidanus.--Ver. 580. The Apidanus, receiving the stream of the Enipeus at Pharsalia, flows into the Peneus. It is supposed by some commentators to be here called ‘senex,’ aged, from the slowness of its tide. But where it unites the Enipeus it flows with violence, so that it is probably called ‘senex,’ as having been known and celebrated by the poets from of old.〕

    〔note 95 — Amphrysus.--Ver. 580. This river ran through that part of Thessaly known by the name of Phthiotis.〕

    〔note 96 — Æas.--Ver. 580. Pliny the Elder (Book iii, ch. 23) calls this river Aous. It was a small limpid stream, running through Epirus and Thessaly, and discharging itself into the Ionian sea.〕

    〔note 97 — Inachus.--Ver. 583. This was a river of Argolis, now known as the Naio. It took its rise either in Lycæus or Artemisium, mountains of Arcadia. Stephens, however, thinks that Lycæus was a mountain of Argolis.〕

    〔note 98 — Lerna.--Ver. 597. This was a swampy spot on the Argive territory, where the poets say that the dragon with seven heads, called Hydra, which was slain by Hercules, had made his haunt. It is not improbable that the pestilential vapors of this spot were got rid of by means of its being drained under the superintendence of Hercules, on which fact the story was founded. Some commentators, however, suppose the Lerna to have been a flowing stream.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The Greeks frequently embellished their mythology with narratives of
  Phœnician or Egyptian origin. The story of Io probably came from
  Egypt. Isis was one of the chief divinities of that country, and her
  worship naturally passed, with their colonies, into foreign countries.
  Greece received it when Inachus went to settle there, and in lapse of
  time Isis, under the name of Io, was supposed to have been his
  daughter, and the fable was invented which is here narrated by Ovid.

  The Greek authors, Apollodorus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and
  Pausanias, say that Io was the daughter of Inachus, the first king of
  Argos; that Jupiter carried her away to Crete; and that by her he had
  a son named Epaphus, who went to reign in Egypt, whither his mother
  accompanied him. They also tell us that she married Apis, or Osiris,
  who, after his death, was numbered among the Deities of Egypt by the
  name of Serapis. From them we also learn that Juno, being actuated by
  jealousy, on the discovery of the intrigue, put Io under the care of
  her uncle Argus, a man of great vigilance, but that Jupiter having
  slain him, placed his mistress on board of a vessel which had the
  figure of a cow at its head; from which circumstance arose the story
  of the transformation of Io. The Greek writers also state, that the
  Bosphorus, a part of the Ægean sea, derived its name from the passage
  of Io in the shape of a cow.

FABLE XIV. [I.601-688]

  Jupiter, having changed Io into a cow, to conceal her from the
  jealousy of Juno, is obliged to give her to that Goddess, who commits
  her to the charge of the watchful Argus. Jupiter sends Mercury with an
  injunction to cast Argus into a deep sleep, and to take away his life.

In the meantime Juno looked down upon the midst of the fields, and
wondering that the fleeting clouds had made the appearance of night
under bright day, she perceived that they were not {the vapors} from a
river, nor were they raised from the moist earth, and {then} she looked
around {to see} where her husband was, as being one who by this time was
full well acquainted with the intrigues of a husband {who had been} so
often detected.[99] After she had found him not in heaven, she said,
“I am either deceived, or I am injured;” and having descended from the
height of heaven, she alighted upon the earth, and commanded the mists
to retire. He had foreseen the approach of his wife, and had changed the
features of the daughter of Inachus into a sleek heifer.[100] As a cow,
too, {she} is beautiful. The daughter of Saturn, though unwillingly,
extols the appearance of the cow; and likewise inquires, whose it is,
and whence, or of what herd it is, as though ignorant of the truth.
Jupiter falsely asserts that it was produced out of the earth, that the
owner may cease to be inquired after. The daughter of Saturn begs her of
him as a gift. What can {he} do? It is a cruel thing to deliver up his
{own} mistress, {and} not to give her up is a cause of suspicion. It is
shame which persuades him on the one hand, love dissuades him on the
other. His shame would have been subdued by his love; but if so trifling
a gift as a cow should be refused to the sharer of his descent and his
couch, she might {well} seem not to be a cow.

The rival now being given up {to her}, the Goddess did not immediately
lay aside all apprehension; and she was {still} afraid of Jupiter, and
was fearful of her being stolen, until she gave her to Argus, the son of
Aristor, to be kept {by him}. Argus had his head encircled with a
hundred eyes. Two of them used to take rest in their turns, the rest
watched, and used to keep on duty.[101] In whatever manner he stood, he
looked towards Io; although turned away, he {still} used to have Io
before his eyes. In the daytime he suffers her to feed; but when the sun
is below the deep earth, he shuts her up, and ties a cord round her neck
undeserving {of such treatment}. She feeds upon the leaves of the arbute
tree, and bitter herbs, and instead of a bed the unfortunate {animal}
lies upon the earth, that does not always have grass {on it}, and drinks
of muddy streams. And when, too, she was desirous, as a suppliant, to
stretch out her arms to Argus, she had no arms to stretch out to Argus;
and she uttered lowings from her mouth, {when} endeavoring to complain.
And at {this} sound she was terrified, and was affrighted at her own
voice.

She came, too, to the banks, where she was often wont to sport, the
banks of {her father}, Inachus; and soon as she beheld her new horns in
the water, she was terrified, and, astonished, she recoiled from
herself. The Naiads knew her not, and Inachus himself knew her not, who
she was; but she follows her father, and follows her sisters, and
suffers herself to be touched, and presents herself to them, as they
admire {her}. The aged Inachus held her some grass he had plucked; she
licks his hand, and gives kisses to the palms of her father. Nor does
she restrain her tears; and if only words would follow, she would
implore his aid, and would declare her name and misfortunes. Instead of
words, letters, which her foot traced in the dust, completed the sad
discovery of the transformation of her body. “Ah, wretched me!” exclaims
her father Inachus; and clinging to the horns and the neck of the
snow-white cow, as she wept, he repeats, “Ah, wretched me! and art thou
my daughter, that hast been sought for by me throughout all lands? While
undiscovered, thou wast a lighter grief {to me}, than {now, when} thou
art found. Thou art silent, and no words dost thou return in answer to
mine; thou only heavest sighs from the depth of thy breast, and what
alone thou art able to do, thou answerest in lowings to my words. But I,
in ignorance {of this}, was preparing the bridal chamber, and the
{nuptial} torches for thee; and my chief hope was that of a son-in-law,
my next was that of grandchildren. But now must thou have a mate from
the herd, now, {too}, an offspring of the herd. Nor is it possible for
me to end grief so great by death; but it is a detriment to be a God;
and the gate of death being shut against me, extends my grief to eternal
ages.”

While thus he lamented, the starry Argus removed her away, and carried
the daughter, {thus} taken from her father, to distant pastures. He
himself, at a distance, occupies the lofty top of a mountain, whence, as
he sits, he may look about on all sides.

Nor can the ruler of the Gods above, any longer endure so great miseries
of the granddaughter of Phoroneus;[102] and he calls his son {Mercury},
whom the bright Pleiad, {Maia},[103] brought forth, and orders him to
put Argus to death. There is {but} little delay to take wings upon his
feet, and his soporiferous wand[104] in his hand, and a cap for his
hair.[105] After he had put these things in order, the son of Jupiter
leaps down from his father’s high abode upon the earth, and there he
takes off his cap, and lays aside his wings; his wand alone was
retained. With this, as a shepherd, he drives some she-goats through the
pathless country, taken up as he passed along, and plays upon oaten
straws joined together.

The keeper appointed by Juno, charmed by the sound of this new
contrivance, says, “Whoever thou art, thou mayst be seated with me upon
this stone; for, indeed, in no {other} place is the herbage more
abundant for thy flock; and thou seest, too, that the shade is
convenient for the shepherds.” The son of Atlas sat down, and with much
talking he occupied the passing day with his discourse, and by playing
upon his joined reeds he tried to overpower his watchful eyes. Yet {the
other} strives hard to overcome soft sleep; and although sleep was
received by a part of his eyes, yet with a part he still keeps watch. He
inquires also (for the pipe had been {but} lately invented) by what
method it had been found out.

    〔note 99 — So often detected.--Ver. 606. Clarke translates ‘deprensi toties mariti’ by the expression, ‘who had been so often catched in his roguery.’〕

    〔note 100 — Into a sleek heifer.--Ver. 611. Clarke renders the words, ‘nitentem juvencam,’ a neat heifer.〕

    〔note 101 — To keep on duty.--Ver. 627. ‘In statione manebant.’ This is a metaphorical expression, taken from military affairs, as soldiers in turns relieve each other, and take their station, when they keep watch and ward.〕

    〔note 102 — Phoroneus.--Ver. 668. He was the father of Jasius and of Inachus, the parent of Io. Some accounts, however, say that Inachus was the father of Phoroneus, and the son of Oceanus.〕

    〔note 103 — Pleiad Maia.--Ver. 670. Maia was one of the seven daughters of Atlas, who were styled Pleiädes after they were received among the constellations.〕

    〔note 104 — Soporiferous wand.--Ver. 671. This was the ‘caduceus,’ or staff, with which Mercury summoned the souls of the departed from the shades, induced slumber, and did other offices pertaining to his capacity as the herald and messenger of Jupiter. It was represented as an olive branch, wreathed with two snakes. In time of war, heralds and ambassadors, among the Greeks, carried a ‘caduceus.’ It was not used by the Romans.〕

    〔note 105 — A cap for his hair.--Ver. 672. This was a cap called ‘Petasus.’ It had broad brims, and was not unlike the ‘causia,’ or Macedonian hat, except that the brims of the latter were turned up at the sides.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The story of the Metamorphosis of Io has been already enlarged upon in
  the Explanation of the preceding Fable. It may, however, not be
  irrelevant to observe, that myths, or mythological stories or fables,
  are frequently based upon some true history, corrupted by tradition in
  lapse of time. The poets, too, giving loose to their fancy in their
  love of the marvellous, have still further disfigured the original
  story; so that it is in most instances extremely difficult to trace
  back the facts to their primitive simplicity, by a satisfactory
  explanation of each circumstance attending them, either upon a
  philosophical, or an historical principle of solution.

FABLE XV. [I.689-712]

  Pan, falling in love with the Nymph Syrinx, she flies from him; on
  which he pursues her. Syrinx, arrested in her flight by the waves of
  the river Ladon, invokes the aid of her sisters, the Naiads, who
  change her into reeds. Pan unites them into an instrument with seven
  pipes, which bears the name of the Nymph.

Then the God says, “In the cold mountains of Arcadia, among the
Hamadryads of Nonacris,[106] there was one Naiad very famous; the Nymphs
called her Syrinx. And not once {alone} had she escaped the Satyrs as
they pursued, and whatever Gods either the shady grove or the fruitful
fields have {in them}. In her pursuits and her virginity itself she used
to devote herself to the Ortygian Goddess;[107] and being clothed after
the fashion of Diana, she might have deceived one, and might have been
supposed to be the daughter of Latona, if she had not had a bow of
cornel wood, the other, {a bow} of gold; and even then did she
{sometimes} deceive {people}. Pan spies her as she is returning from the
hill of Lycæus, and having his head crowned with sharp pine leaves, he
utters such words as these;” it remained {for Mercury} to repeat the
words, and how that the Nymph, slighting his suit, fled through pathless
spots, until she came to the gentle stream of sandy Ladon;[108] and that
here, the waters stopping her course, she prayed to her watery sisters,
that they would change her; and {how} that Pan, when he was thinking
that Syrinx was now caught by him, had seized hold of some reeds of the
marsh, instead of the body of the Nymph; and {how}, while he was sighing
there, the winds moving amid the reeds had made a murmuring noise, and
like one complaining; and {how} that, charmed by this new discovery and
the sweetness of the sound, he had said, “This mode of converse with
thee shall ever remain with me;” and that accordingly, unequal reeds
being stuck together among themselves by a cement of wax, had {since}
retained the name of the damsel.

    〔note 106 — Nonacris.--Ver. 690. Nonacris was the name of both a mountain and a city of Arcadia, in the Peloponnesus.〕

    〔note 107 — The Ortygian Goddess.--Ver. 694. Diana is called “Ortygian,” from the isle of Delos, where she was born, one of whose names was Ortygia, from the quantity of quails, ὄρτυγες, there found.〕

    〔note 108 — Ladon.--Ver. 702. This was a beautiful river of Arcadia, flowing into the Alpheus: its banks were covered with vast quantities of reeds. Ovid here calls its stream ‘placidum;’ whereas in the fifth book of the Fasti, l. 89, he calls it ‘rapax,’ ‘violent;’ and in the second book of the Fasti, l. 274, its waters are said to be ‘citæ aquæ,’ swift waters. Some commentators have endeavored to reconcile these discrepancies; but the probability is, that Ovid, like many other poets, used his epithets at random, or rather according to the requirements of the measure for the occasion.〕

EXPLANATION.

  This appears to have been an Egyptian fable, imported into the works
  of the Grecian poets. Pan was probably a Divinity of the Egyptians,
  who worshipped nature under that name, as we are told by Herodotus and
  Diodorus Siculus. As, however, according to Nonnus, there were not
  less than twelve Pans, it is possible that the adventure here related
  may have been supposed to have happened to one of them who was a
  native of Greece. He was most probably the inventor of the Syrinx, or
  Pandæan pipe, and, perhaps, formed his first instrument from the
  produce of the banks of the River Ladon, from which circumstance
  Syrinx may have been styled the daughter of that river.

FABLE XVI. [I.713-723]

  Mercury, having lulled Argus to sleep, cuts off his head, and Juno
  places his eyes in the peacock’s tail.

The Cyllenian God[109] being about to say such things, perceived that
all his eyes were sunk in sleep, and that his sight was wrapped[110] in
slumber. At once he puts an end to his song, and strengthens his
slumbers, stroking his languid eyes with his magic wand. There is no
delay; he wounds him, as he nods, with his crooked sword, where the head
is joined to the neck; and casts him, all blood-stained, from the rock,
and stains the craggy cliff with his gore.

Argus, thou liest low, and the light which thou hadst in so many eyes is
{now} extinguished; and one night takes possession of a {whole} hundred
eyes. The daughter of Saturn takes them, and places them on the feathers
of her own bird, and she fills its tail with starry gems.

    〔note 109 — The Cyllenian God.--Ver. 713. Mercury is so called from Cyllene, in Arcadia, where he was born.〕

    〔note 110 — That his sight was wrapped.--Ver. 714. Clarke translates ‘Adopertaque lumina somno,’ ‘and his peepers covered with sleep.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  The ancient writers, Asclepiades and Pherecydes, tell us, that Argus
  was the son of Arestor. He is supposed by some to have been the fourth
  king of Argos after Inachus, and to have been a person of great wisdom
  and penetration, on account of which he was said to have a hundred
  eyes. Io most probably was committed to his charge, and he watched
  over her with the greatest care.

  It is impossible to divine the reason why his eyes were said to have
  been set by Juno in the tail of the peacock; though, perhaps, the
  circumstance has no other foundation than the resemblance of the human
  eye to the spots in the tail of that bird, which was consecrated to
  Juno. Besides, if Juno is to be considered the symbol of Air, or
  Æther, through which light is transmitted to us, it is not surprising
  that the ancients bestowed so many eyes upon the bird which was
  consecrated to her.

FABLE XVII. [I.724-779]

  Io, terrified and maddened with dreadful visions, runs over many
  regions, and stops in Egypt, when Juno, at length, being pacified,
  restores her to her former shape, and permits her to be worshipped
  there, under the name of Isis.

Immediately, she was inflamed with rage, and deferred not the time of
{expressing} her wrath; and she presented a dreadful Fury before the
eyes and thoughts of the Argive mistress,[111] and buried in her bosom
invisible stings, and drove her, in her fright, a wanderer through the
whole earth. Thou, O Nile, didst remain, as the utmost boundary of her
long wanderings. Soon as she arrived there, she fell upon her knees,
placed on the edge of the bank, and raising herself up, with her neck
thrown back, and casting to Heaven those looks which then alone she
could, by her groans, and her tears, and her mournful lowing, she seemed
to be complaining of Jupiter, and to be begging an end of her sorrows.

He, embracing the neck of his wife with his arms, entreats her, at
length, to put an end to her punishment; and he says, “Lay aside thy
fears for the future; she shall never {more} be the occasion of any
trouble to thee;” and {then} he bids the Stygian waters to hear this
{oath}. As soon as the Goddess is pacified, {Io} receives her former
shape, and she becomes what she was before; the hairs flee from off of
her body, her horns decrease, and the orb of her eye becomes less; the
opening of her jaw is contracted; her shoulders and her hands return,
and her hoof, vanishing, is disposed of into five nails; nothing of the
cow remains to her, but the whiteness of her appearance; and the Nymph,
contented with the service of two feet, is raised erect {on them}; and
{yet} she is afraid to speak, lest she should low like a cow, and
timorously tries again the words {so long} interrupted. Now, as a
Goddess, she is worshipped by the linen-wearing throng[112] {of Egypt}.

To her, at length, Epaphus[113] is believed to have been born from the
seed of great Jove, and throughout the cities he possesses temples
joined to {those of} his parent. Phaëton, sprung from the Sun, was equal
to him in spirit and in years; whom formerly, as he uttered great
boasts, and yielded not {at all} to him, and proud of his father,
Phœbus, the grandson of Inachus could not endure; and said, “Thou,
{like} a madman, believest thy mother in all things, and art puffed up
with the conceit of an imaginary father.”

Phaëton blushed, and in shame repressed his resentment; and he reported
to his mother, Clymene,[114] the reproaches of Epaphus; and said,
“Mother, to grieve thee still more, I, the free, the bold {youth}, was
silent; I am ashamed both that these reproaches can be uttered against
us, and that they cannot be refuted; but do thou, if only I am born of a
divine race, give me some proof of so great a descent, and claim me for
heaven.” {Thus} he spoke, and threw his arms around the neck of his
mother; and besought her, by his own head and by that of Merops,[115]
and by the nuptial torches of his sisters, that she would give him some
token of his real father.

It is a matter of doubt whether Clymene was more moved by the entreaties
of Phaëton, or by resentment at the charge made against her; and she
raised both her arms to heaven, and, looking up to the light of the Sun,
she said, “Son, I swear to thee, by this beam, bright with shining rays,
which both hears and sees us, that thou, that thou, {I say}, wast
begotten by this Sun, which thou beholdest; by this {Sun}, which governs
the world. If I utter an untruth, let him deny himself to be seen by me,
and let this light prove the last for my eyes. Nor will it be any
prolonged trouble for thee to visit thy father’s dwelling; the abode
where he arises is contiguous to our regions.[116] If only thy
inclination disposes thee, go forth, and thou shalt inquire of himself.”

Phaëton immediately springs forth, overjoyed, upon these words of his
mother, and reaches the skies in imagination; and he passes by his own
Æthiopians, and the Indians situate beneath the rays of the Sun,[117]
and briskly wends his way to the rising of his sire.

    〔note 111 — The Argive mistress.--Ver. 726. Clarke renders ‘Pellicis Argolicæ,’ ‘of the Grecian miss.’〕

    〔note 112 — The linen-wearing throng.--Ver. 747. The priests, and worshippers of Isis, with whom Io is here said to be identical, paid their adoration to her clothed in linen vestments. Probably, Isis was the first to teach the Egyptians the cultivation of flax.〕

    〔note 113 — Epaphus.--Ver. 748. Herodotus, in his second book, tells us, that this son of Jupiter, by Io, was the same as the Egyptian God, Apis. Eusebius, quoting from Apollodorus, says that Epaphus was the son of Io, by Telegonus, who married her.〕

    〔note 114 — Clymene.--Ver. 756. She was a Nymph of the sea, the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys.〕

    〔note 115 — Merops.--Ver. 763. He was king of Ethiopia, and marrying the Nymph Clymene, was either the stepfather of Phaëton, or, as some writers say, his putative father.〕

    〔note 116 — To our regions.--Ver. 773. Ethiopia, which, in the time of Ovid, was generally looked upon as one of the regions of the East.〕

    〔note 117 — The rays of the Sun.--Ver. 778. ‘Ignibus sidereis,’ means here the ‘heat,’ or ‘fire of the sun,’ the sun being considered as a ‘sidus,’ or ‘luminous heavenly body.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  To the elucidation of this narrative, already given, we will only add,
  that some of the mythologists inform us, that when Mercury had lulled
  Argus to sleep, a youth named Hierax awoke him; on which Mercury
  killed Argus with a stone, and turned Hierax into a spar-hawk.

FABLE I. [II.1-303]

  Phaëton, insulted by Epaphus, goes to the Palace of Apollo, to beseech
  him to give some token that he is his son. Apollo, having sworn, by
  the river Styx, to refuse him nothing that he should desire, he
  immediately asks to guide his chariot for one day. He is unsuccessful
  in the attempt, and, the horses running away, the world is in danger
  of being consumed.

The palace of the Sun was raised high, on stately columns, bright with
radiant gold, and carbuncle that rivals the flames; polished ivory
covered its highest top, {and} double folding doors shone with the
brightness of silver. The workmanship {even} exceeded the material; for
there Mulciber had carved the sea circling round the encompassed Earth;
and the orb of the Earth, and the Heavens which hang over that orb.
{There} the waves have {in them} the azure Deities, both Triton,
sounding {with his shell}, and the changing Proteus, and Ægeon,[1]
pressing the huge backs of whales with his arms; Doris,[2] too, and her
daughters, part of whom appear to be swimming, part, sitting on the
bank, to be drying their green hair; some {are seen} borne upon fishes.
The features in all are not the same, nor, however, {remarkably}
different: {they are} such as those of sisters ought to be. The Earth
has {upon it} men and cities, and woods, and wild beasts, and rivers,
and Nymphs, and other Deities of the country. Over these is placed the
figure of the shining Heaven, and there are six Signs {of the Zodiac} on
the right door, and as many on the left.

Soon as the son of Clymene had arrived thither by an ascending path,
and entered the house of his parent, {thus} doubted of; he immediately
turned his steps to the presence of his father, and stood at a distance,
for he could not bear the refulgence nearer. Arrayed in a purple
garment, Phœbus was seated on a throne sparkling with brilliant
emeralds. On his right hand, and on his left, the Days, the Months,
the Years, the Ages, and the Hours were arranged, at corresponding
distances, and the fresh Spring was standing, crowned with a chaplet of
blossoms; Summer was standing naked, and wearing garlands made of ears
of corn; Autumn, too, was standing besmeared with the trodden-out
grapes; and icy Winter, rough with his hoary hair.

Then the Sun, from the midst of this place, with those eyes with which
he beholds all things, sees the young man struck with fear at the
novelty of {these} things, and says, “What is the occasion of thy
journey {hither}? What dost thou seek, Phaëton, in this {my} palace,
a son not to be denied by his parent?”

He answers, “O thou universal Light of the unbounded World, Phœbus, my
father, if thou grantest me the use of that name; and if Clymene is not
concealing an error under a {false} pretext, give me, my parent, some
token, by which I may be believed to be really thy progeny; and remove
this uncertainty from my mind.” Thus he spoke; but his parent took off
the rays shining all around his head, and commanded him to come nearer;
and, having embraced him, he says, “{And} neither art thou deserving to
be denied to be mine, and Clymene has told thee thy true origin; and
that thou mayst have the less doubt, ask any gift thou mayst please,
that thou mayst receive it from me bestowing it. Let the lake, by which
the Gods are wont to swear, and which is unseen, {even} by my eyes, be
as a witness of my promise.”

Hardly had he well finished, when he asks for his father’s chariot, and
for the command and guidance of the wing-footed horses for one day. His
father repented that he had {so} sworn, and shaking his splendid head
three or four times, he said, “By thine have my words been made rash.
I wish I were allowed not to grant what I have promised! I confess, my
son, that this alone I would deny thee. {Still}, I may dissuade thee:
thy desire is not attended with safety. Thou desirest, Phaëton, a gift
{too} great, and {one} which is suited neither to thy strength, nor to
such youthful years. Thy lot is that of a mortal; that which thou
desirest, belongs not to mortals. {Nay}, thou aimest, in thy ignorance,
at even more than it is allowed the Gods above to obtain. Let every one
be self-satisfied, {if he likes}; still, with the exception of myself,
no one is able to take his stand upon the fire-bearing axle-tree. Even
the Ruler of vast Olympus, who hurls the ruthless bolts with his
terrific right hand, cannot guide this chariot; and {yet}, what have we
greater than Jupiter? The first {part of the} road is steep, and such as
the horses, {though} fresh in the morning, can hardly climb. In the
middle of the heavens it is high aloft, from whence it is often a
{source of} fear, {even} to myself, to look {down} upon the sea and the
earth, and my breast trembles with fearful apprehensions. The last stage
is a steep descent, and requires a sure command {of the horses}. Then,
too, Tethys[3] herself, who receives me in her waves, extended below, is
often wont to fear, lest I should be borne headlong {from above}.
Besides, the heavens are carried round[4] with a constant rotation, and
carry {with them} the lofty stars, and whirl them with rapid revolution.
Against this I have to contend; and that force which overcomes {all}
other things, {does} not {overcome} me; and I am carried in a contrary
direction to the rapid world. Suppose the chariot given {to thee}; what
couldst thou do? Couldst thou proceed, opposed to the whirling poles, so
that the rapid heavens should not carry thee away? Perhaps, too, thou
dost fancy in thy mind that there are groves, and cities of the Gods,
and temples enriched with gifts; {whereas}, the way is through dangers,
and the forms of wild beasts;[5] and though thou shouldst keep on thy
road, and be drawn aside by no wanderings, still thou must pass amid the
horns of the threatening Bull, and the Hæmonian[6] bow, and {before} the
visage of the raging Lion, and the Scorpion, bending his cruel claws
with a wide compass, and the Crab, that bends his claws in a different
manner; nor is it easy for thee to govern the steeds spirited by those
fires which they have in their breasts, and which they breathe forth
from their mouths and their nostrils. Hardly are they restrained by me,
when their high-mettled spirit is {once} heated, and their necks
struggle against the reins. But do thou have a care, my son, that I be
not the occasion of a gift fatal to thee, and while the matter {still}
permits, alter thy intentions. Thou askest, forsooth, a sure proof that
thou mayst believe thyself sprung from my blood? I give thee a sure
proof in {thus} being alarmed {for thee}; and by my paternal
apprehensions, I am shown to be thy father. Lo, behold my countenance!
I wish, too, that thou couldst direct thy eyes into my breast, and
discover my fatherly concern within! Finally, look around thee, upon
whatever the rich world contains, and ask for anything out of the
blessings, so many and so great, of heaven, of earth, and of sea; {and}
thou shalt suffer no denial. In this one thing alone I beg to be
excused, which, {called} by its right name, is a penalty, and not an
honor; thou art asking, Phaëton, a punishment instead of a gift. Why, in
thy ignorance, art thou embracing my neck with caressing arms? Doubt
not; whatever thou shalt desire shall be granted thee (by the Stygian
waves I have sworn it); but do thou make thy desire more considerately.”

He had finished his admonitions; and yet {Phaëton} resists his advice,
and presses his point, and burns with eagerness for the chariot.
Wherefore, his parent having delayed as long as he could, leads the
young man to the lofty chariot, the gift of Vulcan. The axle-tree was of
gold, the poles were of gold; the circumference of the exterior of the
wheel was of gold; the range of the spokes was of silver. Chrysolites
and gems placed along the yoke in order, gave a bright light from the
reflected sun. And while the aspiring Phaëton is admiring these things,
and is examining the workmanship, behold! the watchful Aurora opened her
purple doors in the ruddy east, and her halls filled with roses. The
stars disappear, the troops whereof Lucifer gathers, and moves the last
from his station in the heavens. But the father Titan, when he beheld
the earth and the universe growing red, and the horns of the far-distant
Moon, as if about to vanish, orders the swift Hours to yoke the horses.
The Goddesses speedily perform his commands, and lead forth the steeds
from the lofty stalls, snorting forth flames, and filled with the juice
of Ambrosia; and {then} they put on the sounding bits.

Then the father touched the face of his son with a hallowed drug, and
made it able to endure the burning flames, and placed the rays upon his
locks, and fetching from his troubled heart sighs presaging his sorrow,
he said: “If thou canst here at least, my boy, obey the advice of thy
father, be sparing of the whip, and use the bridle with nerve. Of their
own accord they are wont to hasten on; the difficulty is to check them
in their full career. And let not the way attract thee through the five
direct circles.[7] There is a track cut obliquely, with a broad
curvature, and bounded by the extremities of three zones, and {so} it
shuns the South pole, and the Bear united to the North. Let thy way be
here; thou wilt perceive distinct traces of the wheels. And that heaven
and earth may endure equal heat, neither drive too low, nor urge the
chariot along the summit of the sky. Going forth too high, thou wilt set
on fire the signs of the heavens; too low, the earth; in the middle
course thou will go most safely. Neither let the right wheel bear thee
off towards the twisted Serpent, nor let the left lead thee to the low
Altar; hold thy course between them. The rest I leave to Fortune, who,
I pray, may aid thee, and take more care of thee, than thou dost of
thyself. Whilst I am speaking, the moist Night has touched the goals
placed on the Western shores; delay is not allowed me. I am required;
the Morning is shining forth, the darkness being dispersed. Seize the
reins with thy hands; or if thou hast a mind capable of change, make use
of my advice, {and} not my chariot, while thou art {still} able, and art
even yet standing upon solid ground; and while thou art not yet in thy
ignorance filling the chariot that thou didst so unfortunately covet.”

The other leaps into the light chariot with his youthful body, and
stands aloft, and rejoices to take in his hand the reins presented {to
him}, and then gives thanks to his reluctant parent. In the meantime the
swift Pyroeis, and Eoüs and Æthon, the horses of the sun, and Phlegon,
{making} the fourth, fill the air with neighings, sending forth flames,
and beat the barriers with their feet. After Tethys, ignorant of the
destiny of her grandson, had removed these, and the scope of the
boundless universe was given them, they take the road, and moving their
feet through the air, they cleave the resisting clouds, and raised aloft
by their wings, they pass by the East winds that had arisen from the
same parts. But the weight was light; and such as the horses of the sun
could not feel; and the yoke was deficient of its wonted weight. And as
the curving ships, without proper ballast, are tossed about, and
unsteady, through their too great lightness, are borne through the sea,
so does the chariot give bounds[8] in the air, unimpeded by its usual
burden, and is tossed on high, and is just like an empty one.

Soon as the steeds have perceived this, they rush on, and leave the
beaten track, and run not in the order in which {they did} before. He
himself becomes alarmed; and knows not which way to turn the reins
entrusted {to him}, nor does he know where the way is, nor, if he did
know, could he control them. Then, for the first time, did the cold
Triones grow warm with sunbeams, and attempt, in vain, to be dipped in
the sea that was forbidden {to them}. And the Serpent which is situate
next to the icy pole, being before torpid with cold, and formidable to
no one, grew warm, and regained new rage from the heat. They say,
too,[9] that thou, Boötes, being disturbed, took to flight; although
thou wast {but} slow, and thy wain impeded thee. But when, from the
height of the skies, the unhappy Phaëton looked down upon the earth,
lying far, very far beneath, he grew pale, and his knees shook with a
sudden terror; and in a light so great, darkness overspread his eyes.
And now he could wish that he had never touched the horses of his
father; and now he is sorry that he knew his descent, and that he
prevailed in his request; now desiring to be called the son of Merops.
He is borne along, just as a ship driven by the furious Boreas, to which
its pilot has given up the overpowered helm, {and} which he has resigned
to the Gods and {the effect of} his supplications. What can he do? much
of heaven is left behind his back; still more is before his eyes. Either
{space} he measures in his mind; and at one moment he is looking forward
to the West, which it is not allowed him by fate to reach; {and}
sometimes he looks back upon the East. Ignorant what to do, he is
stupefied; and he neither lets go the reins, nor is he able to retain
them; nor does he know the names of the horses. In his fright, too, he
sees strange objects scattered everywhere in various parts of the
heavens, and the forms of huge wild beasts. There is a spot where the
Scorpion bends his arms into two curves, and with his tail and claws
bending on either side, he extends his limbs through the space of two
signs {of the Zodiac}. As soon as the youth beheld him wet with the
sweat of black venom, and threatening wounds with the barbed point {of
his tail}, bereft of sense, he let go the reins, in a chill of horror.
Soon as they, falling down, have touched the top of their backs, the
horses range at large: and no one restraining them, they go through the
air of an unknown region; and where their fury drives them thither,
without check, do they hurry along, and they rush on to the stars fixed
in the sky, and drag the chariot through pathless places. One while they
are mounting aloft, and now they are borne through steep places, and
{along} headlong paths in a tract nearer to the earth.

The Moon, too, wonders that her brother’s horses run lower than her own,
and the scorched clouds send forth smoke. As each region is most
elevated, it is caught by the flames, and cleft, it makes {vast} chasms,
and becomes dry, its moisture being carried away. The grass grows pale;
the trees, with their foliage, are burnt up; and the dry standing corn
affords fuel for its own destruction. {But} I am complaining of trifling
{ills}. Great cities perish, together with their fortifications, and the
flames turn whole nations, with their populations, into ashes; woods,
together with mountains, are on fire. Athos[10] burns, and the Cilician
Taurus,[11] and Tmolus,[12] and Œta,[13] and Ida,[14] now dry, {but}
once most famed for its springs; and Helicon,[15] the resort of the
Virgin {Muses}, and Hæmus,[16] not yet {called} Œagrian. Ætna[17] burns
intensely with redoubled flames, and Parnassus, with its two summits,
and Eryx,[18] and Cynthus,[19] and Othrys, and Rhodope,[20] at length to
be despoiled of its snows, and Mimas,[21] and Dindyma,[22] and
Mycale,[23] and Cithæron,[24] created for {the performance of} sacred
rites. Nor does its cold avail {even} Scythia; Caucasus[25] is on fire,
and Ossa with Pindus, and Olympus, greater than them both, and the lofty
Alps,[26] and the cloud-bearing Apennines.[27]

Then, indeed, Phaëton beholds the world set on fire on all sides, and he
cannot endure heat so great, and he inhales with his mouth scorching
air, as though from a deep furnace, and perceives his own chariot to be
on fire. And neither is he able now to bear the ashes and the emitted
embers; and, on every side, he is involved in heated smoke. Covered with
a pitchy darkness, he knows not whither he is going, nor where he is,
and is hurried away at the pleasure of the winged steeds. They believe
that it was then that the nations of the Æthiopians contracted their
black hue,[28] the blood being attracted into the surface of the body.
Then was Libya[29] made dry by the heat, the moisture being carried off;
then, with dishevelled hair, the Nymphs lamented the springs and the
lakes. Bœotia bewails Dirce,[30] Argos Amymone,[31] and Ephyre[32] the
waters of Pirene. Nor do rivers that have got banks distant in
situation, remain {secure}; Tanais[33] smokes in the midst of its
waters, and the aged Peneus, and Teuthrantian Caïcus,[34] and rapid
Ismenus,[35] with Phocean Erymanthus,[36] and Xanthus[37] again to burn,
and yellow Lycormas,[38] and Mæander,[39] which sports with winding
streams, and the Mygdonian Melas,[40] and the Tænarian Eurotas.[41] The
Babylonian Euphrates, too, was on fire, Orontes[42] was in flames, and
the swift Thermodon[43] and Ganges,[44] and Phasis,[45] and Ister.[46]
Alpheus[47] boils; the banks of Spercheus burn; and the gold which
Tagus[48] carries with its stream, melts in the flames. The river birds
too, which made famous the Mæonian[49] banks {of the river} with their
song, grew hot in the middle of Caÿster. The Nile, affrighted, fled to
the remotest parts of the earth, and concealed his head, which still
lies hid; his seven last mouths are empty, {become} seven {mere}
channels, without any stream. The same fate dries up the Ismarian
{rivers}, Hebrus together with Strymon,[50] and the Hesperian[51]
streams, the Rhine, and the Rhone, and the Po, and the Tiber, to which
was promised the sovereignty of the world.

All the ground bursts asunder; and through the chinks, the light
penetrates into Tartarus, and startles the Infernal King with his
spouse. The Ocean too, is contracted, and that which lately was sea, is
a surface of parched sand; and the mountains which the deep sea had
covered, start up and increase {the number of} the scattered
Cyclades.[52] The fishes sink to the bottom, and the crooked Dolphins do
not care to raise themselves on the surface into the air, as usual. The
bodies of sea calves float lifeless on their backs, on the top of the
water. The story, too, is, that {even} Nereus himself, and Doris and
their daughters, lay hid in the heated caverns. Three times had Neptune
ventured, with a stern countenance, to thrust his arms out of the water;
three times he was unable to endure the scorching heat of the air.
However, the genial Earth, as she was surrounded with sea, amid the
waters of the main, and the springs, dried up on every side, which had
hidden themselves in the bowels of their cavernous parent, burnt-up,
lifted up her all-productive face[53] as far as her neck, and placed her
hands to her forehead, and shaking all things with a vast trembling, she
sank down a little, and retired below the spot where she is wont to be,
and thus she spoke, with a parched voice: “O sovereign of the Gods, if
thou approvest of this, if I have deserved it, why do thy lightnings
linger? Let me, {if} doomed to perish by the force of fire, perish by
thy flames; and alleviate my misfortune, by being the author {of it}.
With difficulty, indeed, do I open my mouth for these very words;” (the
vapor had oppressed her utterance.) “Behold my scorched hair, and such a
quantity of ashes over my eyes, so much {too}, over my features. And
dost thou give this as my recompense? this, as the reward of my
fertility and of my duty, in that I endure wounds from the crooked
plough and harrows, and am harassed all the year through? In that I
supply green leaves for the cattle, and corn, a wholesome food for
mankind, and frankincense for yourselves? But still, suppose that I am
deserving of destruction, why have the waves {deserved this}? Why has
thy brother deserved it? Why do the seas, delivered to him by lot,
decrease, and why do they recede still further from the sky? But if
regard for neither thy brother nor for myself influences thee, still
have consideration for thy own skies; look around, on either side, {how}
each pole is smoking; if the fire shall injure them, thy palace will
fall in ruins. See! Atlas[54] himself is struggling, and hardly can he
bear the glowing heavens on his shoulders. If the sea, if the earth
perishes, if the palace of heaven, we are thrown[55] into the confused
state of ancient chaos. Save it from the flames, if aught still
survives, and provide for the preservation of the universe.”

Thus spoke the Earth; nor, indeed, could she any longer endure the
vapor, nor say more; and she withdrew her face within herself, and the
caverns neighboring to the shades below.

    〔note 1 — Ægeon.--Ver. 10. Homer makes him to be the same with Briareus. According to another account, which Ovid here follows, he was a sea God, the son of Oceanus and Terra.〕

    〔note 2 — Doris.--Ver. 11. She was the daughter of Oceanus, the wife of Nereus, and the mother of the fifty Nereids.〕

    〔note 3 — Tethys.--Ver. 69. She was the daughter of Cœlus and Terra, and the wife of Oceanus. Her name is here used to signify the ocean itself.〕

    〔note 4 — Are carried round.--Ver. 70. Clarke thus renders this line,--“Add, too, that the heaven was whisked round with a continual rolling.”〕

    〔note 5 — Wild beasts.--Ver. 78. The signs of the Zodiac.〕

    〔note 6 — Hæmonian.--Ver. 81. Or Thessalian. He here alludes to the Thessalian Chiron, the Centaur, who, according to Ovid and other writers, was placed in the Zodiac as the Constellation Sagittarius: while others say that Crotus, or Croto, the son of Eupheme, the nurse of the Muses, was thus honored.〕

    〔note 7 — Through the five direct circles.--Ver. 129. There is some obscurity in this passage, arising from the mode of expression. Phœbus here counsels Phaëton what track to follow, and tells him to pursue his way by an oblique path, and not directly in the plane of the equator. This last is what he calls ‘directos via quinque per arcus.’ These five arcs, or circles, are the five parallel circles by which astronomers distinguish the heavens, namely, the two polar circles, the two tropics, and the equinoctial. The latter runs exactly in the middle, between the other two circles, so that the expression must be understood to mean, ‘pursue not your way directly through that circle which is the middlemost of the five, but observe the track that cuts it obliquely.’〕

    〔note 8 — The chariot give bounds.--Ver. 165-6. Clarke thus renders these lines.--‘Thus does the chariot give jumps into the air without its usual weight, and is kicked up on high, and is like one empty.’〕

    〔note 9 — They say, too.--Ver. 176-7. The following is Clarke’s translation of these two lines,--‘They say, too, that you, Boötes, scowered off in a mighty bustle, although you were but slow, and thy cart hindered thee.’〕

    〔note 10 — Athos.--Ver. 217. Athos (now Monte Santo) was a mountain of Macedonia, so lofty that its shadow was said to extend even to the Isle of Lemnos, which was eighty-seven miles distant.〕

    〔note 11 — Taurus.--Ver. 217. This was an immense mountain range which ran through the middle of Cilicia, in Asia Minor.〕

    〔note 12 — Tmolus.--Ver. 217. Tmolus (now Bozdaz) was a mountain of Lydia, famed for its wines and saffron. Pactolus, a stream with sands reputed to be golden, took its rise there.〕

    〔note 13 — Œta.--Ver. 217. This was a mountain chain, which divided Thessaly from Doris and Phocis; famed for the death of Hercules on one of its ridges.〕

    〔note 14 — Ida.--Ver. 218. There were two mountains of the name of Ide, or Ida; one in Crete, the other near Troy. The latter is here referred to, as being famed for its springs.〕

    〔note 15 — Helicon.--Ver. 219. This was a mountain of Bœotia, sacred to the Virgin Muses.〕

    〔note 16 — Hæmus.--Ver. 219. This, which is now called the Balkan range, was a lofty chain of mountains running through Thrace. Orpheus, the son of Œagrus and Calliope, was there torn in pieces by the Mænades, or Bacchanalian women, whence the mountain obtained the epithet of ‘Œagrian.’〕

    〔note 17 — Ætna.--Ver. 220. This is the volcanic mountain of Sicily; the flames caused by the fall of Phaëton, added to its own, caused them to be redoubled.〕

    〔note 18 — Eryx.--Ver. 221. This was a mountain of Sicily, now called San Juliano. On it, a magnificent temple was erected, in honor of Venus.〕

    〔note 19 — Cynthus.--Ver. 221. This was a mountain of Delos, on which Apollo and Diana were said to have been born.〕

    〔note 20 — Rhodope.--Ver. 222. It was a high mountain, capped with perpetual snows, in the northern part of Thrace.〕

    〔note 21 — Mimas.--Ver. 222. A mountain of Ionia, near the Ionian Sea. It was of very great height; whence Homer calls it ὑψίκρημνος.〕

    〔note 22 — Dindyma.--Ver. 223. This was a mountain of Phrygia, near Troy, sacred to Cybele, the mother of the Gods.〕

    〔note 23 — Mycale.--Ver. 223. A mountain of Caria, opposite to the Isle of Samos.〕

    〔note 24 — Cithæron.--Ver. 223. This was a mountain of Bœotia, famous for the orgies of Bacchus, there celebrated. In its neighborhood, Pentheus was torn to pieces by the Mænades, for slighting the worship of Bacchus.〕

    〔note 25 — Caucasus.--Ver. 224. This was a mountain chain in Asia, between the Euxine and Caspian Seas.〕

    〔note 26 — Alps.--Ver. 226. This mountain range divides France from Italy.〕

    〔note 27 — Apennines.--Ver. 226. This range of mountains runs down the centre of Italy.〕

    〔note 28 — Their black hue.--Ver. 235. The notion that the blackness of the African tribes was produced by the heat of the sun, is borrowed by the Poet from Hesiod. Hyginus, too, says, ‘the Indians, because, by the proximity of the fire, their blood was turned black by the heat thereof, became of black appearance themselves.’ Notwithstanding the learned and minute investigations of physiologists on the subject, this question is still involved in considerable obscurity.〕

    〔note 29 — Libya.--Ver. 237. This was a region between Mauritania and Cyrene. The Greek writers, however, often use the word to signify the whole of Africa. Servius gives a trifling derivation for the name, in saying that Libya was so called, because λείπει ὁ ὕετος, ‘it is without rain.’〕

    〔note 30 — Dirce.--Ver. 239. Dirce was a celebrated fountain of Bœotia, into which it was said that Dirce, the wife of Lycus, king of Thebes, was transformed.〕

    〔note 31 — Amymone.--Ver. 240. It was a fountain of Argos, near Lerna, into which the Nymph, Amymone, the daughter of Lycus, king of the Argives, was said to have been transformed.〕

    〔note 32 — Ephyre.--Ver. 240. It was the most ancient name of Corinth, in the citadel of which, or the Acrocorinthus, was the spring Pyrene, of extreme brightness and purity and sacred to the Muses.〕

    〔note 33 — Tanais.--Ver. 242. This river, now the Don, after a long winding course, discharges itself into the ‘Palus Mæotis,’ now the sea of ‘Azof.’〕

    〔note 34 — Caïcus.--Ver. 243. This is a river of Mysia, here called ‘Teuthrantian,’ from Mount Teuthras, in its vicinity.〕

    〔note 35 — Ismenus.--Ver. 244. Ismenus was a river of Bœotia, that flowed past Thebes into the Euripus.〕

    〔note 36 — Erymanthus.--Ver. 245. This was a river of Arcadia, which, rising in a mountain of that name, fell into the Alpheus.〕

    〔note 37 — Xanthus.--Ver. 245. This was a river of Troy; here spoken of as destined to behold flames a second time, in the conflagration of that city.〕

    〔note 38 — Lycormas.--Ver. 245. This was a rapid river of Ætolia, which was afterwards known by the name of Evenus.〕

    〔note 39 — Mæander.--Ver. 246. This was a river of Phrygia, flowing between Lydia and Caria; it was said to have 600 windings in its course.〕

    〔note 40 — Melas.--Ver. 247. This name was given to many rivers of Thrace, Thessaly, and Asia, on account of the darkness of the color of their waters; the name was derived from the Greek word μέλας, ‘black.’〕

    〔note 41 — Tænarian Eurotas.--Ver. 247. The Eurotas was a river of Laconia, which flowed under the walls of the city of Sparta, and discharged itself into the sea near the promontory of Tænarus, now called Cape Matapan. The Eurotas is now called ‘Basilipotamo,’ or ‘king of streams.’〕

    〔note 42 — Orontes.--Ver. 248. The Orontes was a river of Asia Minor, which flowed near Antioch.〕

    〔note 43 — Thermodon.--Ver. 249. This was a river of Cappadocia, near which the Amazons were said to dwell.〕

    〔note 44 — Ganges.--Ver. 249. This is one of the largest rivers in Asia, and discharges itself into the Persian Gulf; and not, as Gierig says, in his note on this passage, in the Red Sea.〕

    〔note 45 — Phasis.--Ver. 249. This was a river of Colchis, falling into the Euxine Sea.〕

    〔note 46 — Ister.--Ver. 249. The Danube had that name from its source to the confines of Germany; and thence, in its course through Scythia to the sea, it was called by the name of ‘Ister.’〕

    〔note 47 — Alpheus.--Ver. 250. It was a river of Arcadia, in Peloponnesus.〕

    〔note 48 — Tagus.--Ver. 251. This was a river of Spain, which was said to bring down from the mountains great quantities of golden sand. The Poet here feigns this to be melted by the heat of the sun, and in that manner to be carried along by the current of the river.〕

    〔note 49 — Mæonian.--Ver. 252. Mæonia was so called from the river Mæon, and was another name of Lydia. The Caÿster, famous for its swans, flowed through Lydia.〕

    〔note 50 — Strymon.--Ver. 257. The Hebrus and the Strymon were rivers of Thrace. Ismarus was a mountain of that country, famous for its vines.〕

    〔note 51 — Hesperian.--Ver. 258. Hesperia, or ‘the western country,’ was a general name of not only Spain and Gaul, but even Italy. The Rhine is a river of France and Germany, the Rhone of France. The Padus, or Po, and the Tiber, are rivers of Italy.〕

    〔note 52 — Cyclades.--Ver. 264. The Cyclades were a cluster of islands in the Ægean Sea, surrounding Delos as though with a circle, whence their name.〕

    〔note 53 — Her all-productive face.--Ver. 275. The earth was similarly called by the Greeks παμμήτωρ, ‘the mother of all things.’ So Virgil calls it ‘omniparens.’〕

    〔note 54 — Atlas.--Ver. 296. This was a mountain of Mauritania, which, by reason of its height, was said to support the heavens.〕

    〔note 55 — We are thrown.--Ver. 299. Clarke translates, ‘In chaos antiquum confundimur,’ ‘We are then jumbled into the old chaos again.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  If we were to regard this fable solely as an allegory intended to
  convey a moral, we should at once perceive that the adventure of
  Phaëton represents the wilful folly of a rash young man, who consults
  his own inclination, rather than the dictates of wisdom and prudence.
  Some ancient writers tell us that Phaëton was the son of Phœbus and
  Clymene, while others make the nymph Rhoda to have been his mother.
  Apollodorus, following Hesiod, says that Herse, the daughter of
  Cecrops, king of Athens, was the mother of Cephalus, who was carried
  away by Aurora; which probably means that he left Greece for the
  purpose of settling in the East. Cephalus had a son named Tithonus,
  the father of Phaëton. Thus Phaëton was the fourth in lineal descent
  from Cecrops, who reigned at Athens about 1580, B.C. The story is most
  probably based upon the fact of some excessive heat that happened in
  his time. Aristotle supposes that at that period flames fell from
  heaven, which ravaged several countries. Possibly the burning of the
  cities of the plain, or the stay of the sun in his course at the
  command of Joshua, may have been the foundation of the story. St.
  Chrysostom suggests that it is based upon an imperfect version of the
  ascent of Elijah in a chariot of fire; that name, or rather ‘Elias,’
  the Greek form of it, bearing a strong resemblance to Ἥλιος, the Greek
  name of the sun. Vossius suggests that this is an Egyptian history,
  and considers the story of the grief of Phœbus for the loss of his son
  to be another version of the sorrows of the Egyptians for the death of
  Osiris. The tears of the Heliades, or sisters of Phaëton, he conceives
  to be identical with the lamentations of the women who wept for the
  death of Thammuz. The Poet, when he tells us that Phaëton abandoned
  his chariot on seeing The Scorpion, probably intends to show that the
  event of which he treats happened in the month in which the sun enters
  that sign.

  Plutarch and Tzetzes tell us that Phaëton was a king of the
  Molossians, who drowned himself in the Po; that he was a student of
  astronomy, and foretold an excessive heat which happened in his reign,
  and laid waste his kingdom. Lucian, also, in his Discourse on
  Astronomy, gives a similar explanation of the story, and says that
  this prince dying very young, left his observations imperfect, which
  gave rise to the fable that he did not know how to drive the chariot
  of the sun to the end of its course.

FABLE II. [II.305-324]

  Jupiter, to save the universe from being consumed, hurls his thunder
  at Phaëton, on which he falls headlong into the river Eridanus.

But the omnipotent father, having called the Gods above to witness, and
him, too, who had given the chariot {to Phaëton}, that unless he gives
assistance, all things will perish in direful ruin, mounts aloft to the
highest eminence, from which he is wont to spread the clouds over the
spacious earth; from which he moves his thunders, and hurls the
brandished lightnings. But then, he had neither clouds that he could
draw over the earth, nor showers that he could pour down from the sky.
He thundered aloud, and darted the poised lightning from his right ear
against the charioteer, and at the same moment deprived him both of his
life and his seat, and by his ruthless fires restrained the flames. The
horses are affrighted, and, making a bound in an opposite direction,
they shake the yoke from off their necks, and disengage themselves from
the torn harness. In one place lie the reins; in another, the axle-tree
wrenched away from the pole; in another part {are} the spokes of the
broken wheels; and the fragments of the chariot torn in pieces are
scattered far and wide. But Phaëton, the flames consuming his yellow
hair, is hurled headlong, and is borne in a long tract through the air;
as sometimes a star from the serene sky may appear to fall, although it
{really} has not fallen. Him the great Eridanus receives, in a part of
the world far distant from his country, and bathes his foaming face.

FABLE III. [II.325-366]

  The sisters of Phaëton are changed into poplars, and their tears
  become amber distilling from those trees.

The Hesperian Naiads[56] commit his body, smoking from the three-forked
flames, to the tomb, and inscribe these verses on the stone:--“Here is
Phaëton buried, the driver of his father’s chariot, which if he did not
manage, still he miscarried in a great attempt.” But his wretched father
had hidden his face, overcast with bitter sorrow, and, if only we can
believe it, they say that one day passed without the sun.[57] The flames
afforded light; and {so far}, there was some advantage in that disaster.
But Clymene, after she had said whatever things were to be said amid
misfortunes so great, traversed the whole earth, full of woe, and
distracted, and tearing her bosom. And first seeking his lifeless limbs,
{and} then his bones, she found his bones, however, buried on a foreign
bank. She laid herself down on the spot; and bathed with tears the name
she read on the marble, and warmed it with her open breast. The
daughters of the Sun mourn no less, and give tears, an unavailing gift,
to his death; and beating their breasts with their hands, they call
Phaëton both night and day, who is doomed not to hear their sad
complaints; and they lie scattered about the tomb.

The Moon had four times filled her disk, by joining her horns; they,
according to their custom (for use had made custom), uttered
lamentations; among whom Phaëthusa, the eldest of the sisters, when she
was desirous to lie on the ground, complained that her feet had grown
stiff; to whom the fair Lampetie attempting to come, was detained by a
root suddenly formed. A third, when she is endeavoring to tear her hair
with her hands, tears off leaves; one complains that her legs are held
fast by the trunk of a tree, another that her arms are become long
branches. And while they are wondering at these things, bark closes upon
their loins; and by degrees, it encompasses their stomachs, their
breasts, their shoulders, and their hands; and only their mouths are
left uncovered, calling upon their mother. What is their mother to do?
but run here and there, whither frenzy leads her, and join her lips
{with theirs}, while {yet} she may? That is not enough; she tries to
pull their bodies out of the trunks {of the trees}, and with her hands
to tear away the tender branches; but from thence drops of blood flow as
from a wound. Whichever {of them} is wounded, cries out, “Spare me,
mother, O spare me, I pray; in the tree my body is being torn. And now
farewell.” The bark came over the last words.

Thence tears flow forth; and amber distilling from the new-formed
branches, hardens in the sun; which the clear river receives and sends
to be worn by the Latian matrons.

    〔note 56 — The Hesperian Naiads.--Ver. 325. These were the Naiads of Italy. They were by name Phaëthusa, Lampetie, and Phœbe.〕

    〔note 57 — Passed without the sun.--Ver. 331. There is, perhaps, in this line some faint reference to a tradition of the sun having, in the language of Scripture, ‘stood still upon Gibeon, in his course, by the command of Joshua, when dispensing the divine vengeance upon the Amorites,’ Joshua, x. 13. Or of the time when ‘the shadow returned ten degrees backward’, by the sun-dial of Ahaz, 2 Kings, xx. 11.〕

FABLE IV. [II.367-400]

  Cycnus, king of Liguria, inconsolable for the death of Phaëton, is
  transformed into a swan.

Cycnus, the son of Sthenelus,[58] was present at this strange event;
who, although he was related to thee, Phaëton, on his mother’s side, was
yet more nearly allied in affection. He having left his kingdom (for he
reigned over the people and the great cities of the Ligurians[59]) was
filling the verdant banks and the river Eridanus, and the wood, {now}
augmented by the sisters, with his complaints; when the man’s voice
became shrill, and gray feathers concealed his hair. A long neck, too,
extends from his breast, and a membrane joins his reddening toes;
feathers clothe his sides, {and} his mouth holds a bill without a point.
Cycnus becomes a new bird; but he trusts himself not to the heavens or
the air, as being mindful of the fire unjustly sent from thence. He
frequents the pools and the wide lakes, and abhorring fire, he chooses
the streams, the {very} contrary of flames.

Meanwhile, the father of Phaëton, in squalid garb, and destitute of his
comeliness, just as he is wont to be when he suffers an eclipse of his
disk, abhors both the light, himself, and the day; and gives his mind up
to grief, and adds resentment to his sorrow, and denies his services to
the world. “My lot,” says he, “has been restless enough from the {very}
beginning of time, and I am tired of labors endured by me, without end
and without honor. Let any one else drive the chariot that carries the
light. If there is no one, and all the Gods confess that they cannot do
it, let {Jupiter} himself drive it; that, at least, while he is trying
my reins, he may for a time lay aside the lightnings that bereave
fathers. Then he will know, having made trial of the strength of the
flame-footed steeds, that he who did not successfully guide them, did
not deserve death.”

All the Deities stand around the Sun, as he says such things; and they
entreat him, with suppliant voice, not to determine to bring darkness
over the world. Jupiter, as well, excuses the hurling of his lightnings,
and imperiously adds threats to entreaties. Phœbus calls together his
steeds, maddened and still trembling with terror, and, subduing them,
vents his fury both with whip and lash; for he is furious, and upbraids
them with his son, and charges {his death} upon them.

    〔note 58 — Sthenelus.--Ver. 367. He was a king of Liguria. Commentators have justly remarked that it was not very likely that a king of Liguria should be related to Clymene, a queen of the Ethiopians, as Ovid, in the next line, says was the case. This story was probably invented by some writer, who fancied that there were two persons of the name of Phaëton; one the subject of eastern tradition, and the other a personage of the Latin mythology.〕

    〔note 59 — The Ligurians.--Ver. 370. These were a people situate on the eastern side of Etruria, between the rivers Var and Macra. The Grecian writers were in the habit of styling the whole of the north of Italy Liguria.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Plutarch places the tomb of Phaëton on the banks of the river Po; and
  it is not improbable that his mother and sisters, grieving at his
  fate, ended their lives in the neighborhood of his tomb, being
  overcome with grief, which gave rise to the story that they were
  changed into the poplars on its banks, which distilled amber. Some
  writers say, that they were changed into larch trees, and not poplars.
  Hesiod and Pindar also make mention of this tradition. Possibly,
  Cycnus, being a friend of Phaëton, may have died from grief at his
  loss, on which the poets graced his attachment with the story that he
  was changed into a swan. Apollodorus mentions two other persons of the
  name of Cycnus. One was the son of Mars, and was killed before Troy;
  the other, as Hesiod tells us, was killed by Hercules. Lucian, in his
  satirical vein, tells us, that inquiring on the banks of the Po for
  the swans, and the poplars distilling amber, he was told that no such
  things had ever been seen there; and that even the tradition of
  Phaëton and his sisters was utterly unknown to the inhabitants of
  those parts.

FABLE V. [II.401-465]

  Jupiter, while taking a survey of the world, to extinguish the remains
  of the fire, falls in love with Calisto, whom he sees in Arcadia; and,
  in order to seduce that Nymph, he assumes the form of Diana. Her
  sister Nymphs disclose her misfortune before the Goddess, who drives
  her from her company, on account of the violation of her vow of
  chastity.

But the omnipotent father surveys the vast walls of heaven, and
carefully searches, that no part, impaired by the violence of the fire,
may fall to ruin. After he has seen them to be secure and in their own
{full} strength, he examines the earth, and the works of man; yet a care
for his own Arcadia is more particularly his object. He restores, too,
the springs and the rivers, that had not yet dared to flow, he gives
grass to the earth: green leaves to the trees; and orders the injured
forests again to be green. While {thus} he often went to and fro, he
stopped short on {seeing} a virgin of Nonacris, and the fires engendered
within his bones received {fresh} heat. It was not her employment to
soften the wool by teasing, nor to vary her tresses in their
arrangement; while a buckle fastened her garment, and a white fillet her
hair, carelessly flowing; and at one time she bore in her hand a light
javelin, at another, a bow. She was a warrior of Phœbe; nor did any
{Nymph} frequent Mænalus, more beloved by Trivia,[60] than she; but no
influence is of long duration. The lofty Sun had {now} obtained a
position beyond the mid course, when she enters a grove which no
generation had {ever} cut. Here she puts her quiver off from her
shoulders, and unbends her pliant bow, and lies down on the ground,
which the grass had covered, and presses her painted quiver, with her
neck laid on it. When Jupiter saw her {thus} weary, and without a
protector, he said, “For certain, my wife will know nothing of this
stolen embrace; or, if she should chance to know, is her scolding, is
it, {I say}, of such great consequence?”

Immediately he puts on the form and dress of Diana, and says, “O Virgin!
one portion of my train, upon what mountains hast thou been hunting?”
The virgin raises herself from the turf, and says, “Hail, Goddess! {that
art}, in my opinion, greater than Jove, even if he himself should hear
it.” He both smiles and he hears it, and is pleased at being preferred
to himself; and he gives her kisses, not very moderate, nor such as
would be given by a virgin. He stops her as she is preparing to tell him
in what wood she has been hunting, by an embrace, and he does not betray
himself without the commission {of violence}. She, indeed, on the other
hand, as far as a woman could do (would that thou hadst seen her,
daughter of Saturn, {then} thou wouldst have been more merciful), she,
indeed, {I say}, resists; but what damsel, or who {besides}, could
prevail against Jupiter? Jove, {now} the conqueror, seeks the heavens
above; the grove and the conscious wood is {now} her aversion. Making
her retreat thence, she is almost forgetting to take away her quiver
with her arrows, and the bow which she had hung up.

Behold, Dictynna,[61] attended by her train, as she goes along the lofty
Mænalus, and exulting in the slaughter of the wild beasts, beholds her,
and calls her, thus seen. Being so called, she drew back, and at first
was afraid lest Jupiter might be under her {shape}; but after she saw
the Nymphs walking along with her, she perceived that there was no
deceit,[62] and she approached their train. Alas! how difficult it is
not to betray a crime by one’s looks! She scarce raises her eyes from
the ground, nor, as she used to do, does she walk by the side of the
Goddess, nor is she the foremost in the whole company; but she is
silent, and by her blushes she gives signs of her injured honor. And
Diana, but {for the fact}, that she is a virgin, might have perceived
her fault by a thousand indications; the Nymphs are said to have
perceived it.

The horns of the Moon were {now} rising again in her ninth course, when
the hunting Goddess, faint from her brother’s flames, lighted on a cool
grove, out of which a stream ran, flowing with its murmuring noise, and
borne along the sand worn fine {by its action}. When she had approved of
the spot, she touched the surface of the water with her foot; and
commending it as well, she says, “All overlookers are far off; let us
bathe our bodies, with the stream poured over them.” She of
Parrhasia[63] blushed; they all put off their clothes; she alone sought
{an excuse for} delay. Her garment was removed as she hesitated, which
being put off, her fault was exposed with her naked body. Cynthia said
to her, in confusion, and endeavoring to conceal her stomach with her
hands, “Begone afar hence! and pollute not the sacred springs;” and she
ordered her to leave her train.

    〔note 60 — Trivia.--Ver. 416. This was an epithet of Diana, as presiding over and worshipped in the places where three roads met, which were called ‘trivia.’ Being known as Diana on earth, the Moon in the heavens, and Proserpine in the infernal regions, she was represented at these places with three faces; those of a horse, a dog, and a female; the latter being in the middle.〕

    〔note 61 — Dictynna.--Ver. 441. Diana was so called from the Greek word δικτὺς, ‘a net,’ which was used by her for the purposes of hunting.〕

    〔note 62 — There was no deceit.--Ver. 446. Clarke translates ‘sensit abesse dolos,’ ‘she was convinced there was no roguery in the case.’〕

    〔note 63 — She of Parrhasia.--Ver. 460. Calisto is so called from Parrhasia, a region of Arcadia. Parrhasius was the name of a mountain, a grove, and a city of that country and was derived from the name of Parrhasus, a son of Lycaon.〕

FABLES VI AND VII. [II.466-550]

  Juno, being jealous that Calisto has attracted Jupiter, transforms her
  into a Bear. Her son, Arcas, not recognizing his mother in that shape,
  is about to kill her; but Jupiter removes them both to the skies,
  where they form the Constellations of the Great and the Little Bear.
  The raven, as a punishment for his garrulity, is changed from white to
  black.

The spouse of the great Thunderer had perceived this some time before,
and had put off the severe punishment {designed for her}, to a proper
time. There is {now} no reason for delay; and now the boy Arcas (that,
too, was a grief to Juno) was born of the mistress {of her husband}.
Wherefore, she turned her thoughts, full of resentment, and her eyes
{upon her}, and said, “This thing, forsooth, alone was wanting, thou
adulteress, that thou shouldst be pregnant, and that my injury should
become notorious by thy labors, and that {thereby} the disgraceful
conduct of my {husband}, Jupiter, should be openly declared. Thou shalt
not go unpunished; for I will spoil that shape of thine, on which thou
pridest thyself, and by which thou, mischievous one,[64] dost charm my
husband.”

{Thus} she spoke; and seizing her straight in front by the hair,[65]
threw her on her face to the ground. She suppliantly stretched forth her
arms; those arms began to grow rough with black hair,[66] and her hands
to be bent, and to increase to hooked claws, and to do the duty of feet,
and the mouth, that was once admired by Jupiter, to become deformed with
a wide opening; and lest her prayers, and words not needed, should
influence her feelings, the power of speech is taken from her; an angry
and threatening voice, and full of terror, is uttered from her hoarse
throat. Still, her former understanding remains in her, even thus become
a bear; and expressing her sorrows by her repeated groans, she lifts up
her hands, such as they are, to heaven and to the stars, and she deems
Jove ungrateful, though she cannot call him so. Ah! how often, not
daring to rest in the lonely wood, did she wander about before her own
house, and in the fields once her own. Ah! how often was she driven over
the crags by the cry of the hounds; and, a huntress herself, she fled in
alarm, through fear of the hunters! Often, seeing the wild beasts, did
she lie concealed, forgetting what she was; and, a bear herself, dreaded
the he-bears seen on the mountains, and was alarmed at the wolves,
though her father was among them.

Behold! Arcas, the offspring of the daughter of Lycaon, ignorant of who
is his parent, approaches her, thrice five birthdays being now nearly
past; and while he is following the wild beasts, while he is choosing
the proper woods, and is enclosing the Erymanthian forests[67] with his
platted nets, he meets with his mother. She stood still, upon seeing
Arcas, and was like one recognizing {another}. He drew back, and, in his
ignorance, was alarmed at her keeping her eyes fixed upon him without
ceasing; and, as she was desirous to approach still nearer, he would
have pierced her breast with the wounding spear. Omnipotent {Jove}
averted this, and removed both them and {such} wickedness; and placed
them, carried through vacant space with a rapid wind, in the heavens,
and made them neighboring Constellations.

Juno swelled with rage after the mistress shone amid the stars, and
descended on the sea to the hoary Tethys, and the aged Ocean, a regard
for whom has often influenced the Gods; and said to them, inquiring the
reason of her coming, “Do you inquire why I, the queen of the Gods, am
come hither from the æthereal abodes? Another has possession of heaven
in my stead. May I be deemed untruthful, if, when the night has made the
world dark, you see not in the highest part of heaven stars but lately
{thus} honored to my affliction; there, where the last and most limited
circle surrounds the extreme part of the axis {of the world}. Is there,
then, {any ground} why one should hesitate to affront Juno, and dread my
being offended, who only benefit them by my resentment? See what a great
thing I have done! How vast is my power! I forbade her to be of human
shape; she has been made a Goddess; ’tis thus that I inflict punishment
on offenders; such is my mighty power! Let him obtain {for her} her
former shape, and let him remove this form of a wild beast; as he
formerly did for the Argive Phoronis. Why does he not marry her as well,
divorcing Juno, and place her in my couch, and take Lycaon for his
father-in-law? But if the wrong done to your injured foster-child
affects you, drive the seven Triones away from your azure waters, and
expel the stars received into heaven as the reward of adultery, that a
concubine may not be received into your pure waves.”

The Gods of the sea granted her request. The daughter of Saturn enters
the liquid air in her graceful chariot,[68] with her variegated
peacocks; peacocks just as lately tinted, upon the killing of Argus, as
thou, garrulous raven, hadst been suddenly transformed into {a bird
having} black wings, whereas thou hadst been white before. For this bird
was formerly of a silver hue, with snow-white feathers, so that he
equalled the doves entirely without spot; nor would he give place to the
geese that were to save the Capitol by their watchful voice, nor to the
swan haunting the streams. His tongue was the cause of his disgrace; his
chattering tongue being the cause, that the color which was white is now
the reverse of white.

There was no one more beauteous in all Hæmonia than Larissæan[69]
Coronis. At least, she pleased thee, Delphian {God}, as long as she
continued chaste, or was not the object of remark. But the bird of
Phœbus found out her infidelity;[70] and the inexorable informer winged
his way to his master, that he might disclose the hidden offence. Him
the prattling crow follows, with flapping wings, to make all inquiries
of him. And having heard the occasion of his journey, she says, “Thou
art going on a fruitless errand; do not despise the presages of my
voice.”

    〔note 64 — Thou, mischievous one.--Ver. 475. Clarke, rather too familiarly, renders ‘importuna,’ ‘plaguy baggage.’〕

    〔note 65 — In front by the hair.--Ver. 476. ‘Adversâ prensis a fronte capillis,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘seizing her fore-top.’ Had he been describing the combats of two fish-wives, such a version would have been, perhaps, more appropriate than in the present instance.〕

    〔note 66 — With black hair.--Ver. 478. To the explanation given at the end of the story, we may here add the curious one offered by Palæphatus. He says that Calisto was a huntress who entered the den of a bear, by which she was devoured; and that the bear coming out, and Calisto being no more seen, it was reported that she had been transformed into a bear.〕

    〔note 67 — Erymanthian forests.--Ver. 499. Erymanthus was a mountain of Arcadia, which was afterwards famous for the slaughter there, by Hercules, of the wild boar, which made it his haunt.〕

    〔note 68 — Graceful chariot.--Ver. 531. Clarke translates ‘habili curru,’ ‘her neat chariot.’〕

    〔note 69 — Larissæan.--Ver. 542. Larissa was the chief city of Thessaly, and was situate on the river Peneus.〕

    〔note 70 — Her infidelity.--Ver. 545. ‘Sed ales sensit adulterium Phœbeius,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘but the Phœban bird found out her pranks.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods, Book iii.) tells us, that Lycaon
  had a daughter who delighted in the chase, and that Jupiter, the
  second of that name, the king of Arcadia, fell in love with her. This
  was the ground on which she was said to have been a favorite of Diana.
  The story of Calisto having been received into Heaven, and forming the
  Constellation of the Bear, was perhaps grounded on the fact of Lycaon,
  her father, having been the first known to take particular notice of
  this Constellation. The story of the request of Juno, that Tethys will
  not receive this new Constellation into the Ocean, is probably derived
  from the circumstance, that the Bear, as well as the other stars
  within the Arctic Circle, never sets.

  Possibly, Arcas, the son of Calisto, dying at a youthful age, may have
  been the origin of the Constellation of the Lesser Bear.

FABLE VIII. [II.551-590]

  A virgin, the favorite of Apollo, of the same name with Coronis, is
  changed into a crow, for a story which she tells Minerva, concerning
  the basket in which Ericthonius was enclosed.

“Consider what I was, and what I am, and inquire into my deserts. Thou
wilt find that my fidelity was my ruin. For once upon a time, Pallas had
enclosed Ericthonius, an offspring born without a mother, in a basket
made of Actæan twigs; and had given it to keep to the three virgins born
of the two-shaped[71] Cecrops, and had given them this injunction, that
they should not inquire into her secrets. I, being hidden among the
light foliage, was watching from a thick elm what they were doing. Two
{of them}, Pandrosos and Herse, observe their charge without {any}
treachery; Aglauros alone calls her sisters cowards, and unties the
knots with her hand; but within they behold a child, and a dragon
extended by him. I told the Goddess what was done; for which such a
return as this is made to me, that I am said to have been banished from
the protection of Minerva, and am placed after the bird of the night. My
punishment may warn birds not to incur dangers, by their chattering. But
I consider {that} she courted me with no inclination of my own, nor
asking for any such {favors}. This thou mayst ask of Pallas thyself;
although she is angry, she will not, with all her anger, deny this. For
Coroneus, one famous in the land of Phocis (I mention what is well
known) begot me: and {so} I was a virgin of royal birth, and was courted
by rich suitors ({so} despise me not). My beauty was the cause of my
misfortune; for while I was passing with slow steps along the sea-shore,
on the surface of the sand, as I was wont {to do}, the God of the Ocean
beheld me, and was inflamed; and when he had consumed his time to no
purpose, in entreating me with soft words, he prepared {to use}
violence, and followed me. I fled, and I left the firm shore, and
wearied myself in vain on the yielding sand. Then I invoked both Gods
and men; but my voice did not reach any mortal. A virgin was moved for a
virgin, and gave me assistance. I was extending my arms toward heaven;
{when those} arms began to grow black with light feathers. I struggled
to throw my garments from off my shoulders, but they were feathers, and
had taken deep root in my skin. I tried to beat my naked breast with my
hands, but I had now neither hands nor naked breast. I ran; and the sand
did not retard my feet as before, and I was lifted up from the surface
of the ground. After that, being lifted up, I was carried through the
air, and was assigned, as a faultless companion, to Minerva. Yet what
does this avail me, if Nyctimene, made a bird for a horrid crime, has
succeeded me in my honor?”

    〔note 71 — Two-shaped.--Ver. 555. Cecrops is here so called, and in the Greek, διφυὴς from the fact of his having been born in Egypt, and having settled in Greece, and was thus to be reckoned both as an Egyptian, and in the number of the Greeks.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Ericthonius was fabled to be the son, or foster-child, of Athene, or
  Minerva, perhaps because he was the son of the daughter of Cranaus,
  who had the name of Athene, by a priest of Vulcan, which Divinity was
  said to have been his progenitor. St. Augustine alleges that he was
  exposed, and found in a temple dedicated to Minerva and Vulcan. His
  name being composed of two words, ἔρις and χθὼν, signifying
  ‘contention,’ and ‘earth,’ Strabo imagines that he was the son of
  Vulcan and the Earth. But it seems that the real ground on which he
  was called by that name was, that he disputed the right to the crown
  of Athens with Amphictyon, on the death of Cranaus, the second king.
  Amphictyon prevailed, but Ericthonius succeeded him. To hide his legs,
  which were deformed, he is said to have invented chariots; though that
  is not likely, as Egypt, from which Greece had received many colonies,
  was acquainted with the use of them from the earliest times. He is
  also said to have instituted the festival of the Panathenæa, at
  Athens, whence, in process of time, it was adopted by the whole of
  Greece.

  Hyginus tells us, that after his death he was received into heaven as
  the constellation ‘Auriga,’ or ‘the Charioteer;’ and he further
  informs us, that the deformity of his legs gave occasion to the
  saying, that he was half man and half a serpent. Apollodorus says that
  he was born in Attica; that he was the son of Cranaë, the daughter of
  Attis; and that he dethroned Amphictyon, and became the fourth king of
  Athens.

FABLE IX. [II.591-632]

  Nyctimene having entertained a criminal passion for her father,
  Nycteus, the Gods, to punish her incest, transform her into an owl.
  Apollo pierces the breast of Coronis with an arrow, on the raven
  informing him of the infidelity of his mistress.

“Has not the thing, which is very well known throughout the whole of
Lesbos,[72] been heard of by thee, that Nyctimene defiled the bed of her
father? She is a bird indeed; but being conscious of her crime, she
avoids {the human} gaze and the light, and conceals her shame in the
darkness; and by all {the birds} she is expelled entirely from the sky.”

The raven says to him, saying such things, “May this, thy calling of me
back, prove a mischief to thee, I pray; I despise the worthless omen.”
Nor does he drop his intended journey; and he tells his master, that he
has seen Coronis lying down with a youth of Hæmonia. On hearing the
crime of his mistress, his laurel fell down; and at the same moment his
usual looks, his plectrum,[73] and his color, forsook the God. And as
his mind was {now} burning with swelling rage, he took up his wonted
arms, and levelled his bow bent from the extremities, and pierced, with
an unerring shaft, that bosom, that had been so oft pressed to his own
breast. Wounded, she uttered a groan, and, drawing the steel from out of
the wound, she bathed her white limbs with purple blood; and she said,
“I might {justly}, Phœbus, have been punished by thee, but {still I
might} have first brought forth; now we two shall die in one.” Thus far
{she spoke}; and she poured forth her life, together with her blood.
A deadly coldness took possession of her body deprived of life.

The lover, too late, alas! repents of his cruel vengeance, and blames
himself that he listened {to the bird, and} that he was so infuriated.
He hates the bird, through which he was forced to know of the crime and
the cause of his sorrow; he hates, too, the string, the bow, and his
hand; and together with his hand, {those} rash weapons, the arrows. He
cherishes her fallen to the ground, and by late resources endeavors to
conquer her destiny; and in vain he practices his physical arts.

When he found that these attempts were made in vain, and that the
funeral pile was being prepared, and that her limbs were about to be
burnt in the closing flames, then, in truth, he gave utterance to sighs
fetched from the bottom of his heart (for it is not allowed the
celestial features to be bathed with tears). No otherwise than, as when
an axe, poised from the right ear {of the butcher}, dashes to pieces,
with a clean stroke, the hollow temples of the sucking calf, while the
dam looks on. Yet after Phœbus had poured the unavailing perfumes on her
breast, when he had given the {last} embrace and had performed the due
obsequies prematurely hastened, he did not suffer his own offspring to
sink into the same ashes; but he snatched the child from the flames and
from the womb of his mother, and carried him into the cave of the
two-formed Chiron. And he forbade the raven, expecting for himself the
reward of his tongue that told no untruth, to perch any longer among the
white birds.

    〔note 72 — Lesbos.--Ver. 591. This was an island in the Ægean sea, lying to the south of Troy.〕

    〔note 73 — Plectrum.--Ver. 601. This was a little rod, or staff, with which the player used to strike the strings of the lyre, or cithara, on which he was playing.〕

EXPLANATION.

  History does not afford us the least insight into the foundation of
  the story of Coronis transformed into a crow, for making too faithful
  a report, nor that of the raven changed from white to black, for
  talking too much. If they are based upon some events which really
  happened, we must be content to acknowledge that these Fables refer to
  the history of two persons entirely unknown to us, and who, perhaps,
  lived as far back as the time of the daughters of Cecrops, to whom the
  story seems to bear some relation. Coronis being the name of a crow as
  well as of a Nymph, Lucian and other writers have fabled that her son,
  Æsculapius, was produced from the egg of that bird, and was born in
  the shape of a serpent, under which form he was very generally
  worshipped.

FABLE X. [II.633-675]

  Ocyrrhoe, the daughter of the Centaur Chiron, attempting to predict
  future events, tells her father the fate of the child Æsculapius, on
  which the Gods transform her into a mare.

In the meantime the half-beast {Chiron} was proud of a pupil of Divine
origin, and rejoiced in the honor annexed to the responsibility. Behold!
the daughter of the Centaur comes, having her shoulders covered with her
yellow hair; whom once the nymph Chariclo,[74] having borne her on the
banks of a rapid stream, called Ocyrrhoë. She was not contented to learn
her father’s arts {only; but} she sang the secrets of the Fates.
Therefore, when she had conceived in her mind the prophetic transports,
and grew warm with the God, whom she held confined within her breast,
she beheld the infant, and she said, “Grow on, child, the giver of
health to the whole world; the bodies of mortals shall often owe their
{own existence} to thee. To thee will it be allowed to restore life when
taken away; and daring to do that once against the will of the Gods,
thou wilt be hindered by the bolts of thy grandsire from being able any
more to grant that {boon}. And from a God thou shalt become a lifeless
carcase; and a God {again}, who lately wast a carcase; and twice shalt
thou renew thy destiny. Thou likewise, dear father, now immortal, and
produced at thy nativity, on the condition of enduring for ever, wilt
then wish that thou couldst die, when thou shalt be tormented on
receiving the blood of a baneful serpent[75] in thy wounded limbs; and
the Gods shall make thee from an immortal {being}, subject to death, and
the three Goddesses[76] shall cut thy threads.”

Something still remained in addition to what she had said. She heaved a
sigh from the bottom of her breast, and the tears bursting forth,
trickled down her cheeks, and thus she said: “The Fates prevent me, and
I am forbidden to say any more, and the use of my voice is precluded. My
arts, which have brought the wrath of a Divinity upon me, were not of so
much value; I wish that I had not been acquainted with the future. Now
the human shape seems to be withdrawing from me; now grass pleases {me}
for my food; now I have a desire to range over the extended plains; I am
turned into a mare, and into a shape kindred {to that of my father}. But
yet, why entirely? For my father partakes of both forms.”

As she was uttering such words as these, the last part of her complaint
was but little understood; and her words were confused. And presently
neither {were} they words indeed, nor did it appear to be the voice of a
mare, but of one imitating a mare. And in a little time she uttered
perfect neighing, and stretched her arms upon the grass. Then did her
fingers grow together, and a smooth hoof united five nails in one
continued piece of horn. The length of her face and of her neck
increased; the greatest part of her long hair became a tail. And as the
hairs lay scattered about her neck, they were transformed into a mane
{lying} upon the right side; at once both her voice and her shape were
changed. And this wondrous change gave her the {new} name {of Enippe}.

    〔note 74 — Chariclo.--Ver. 636. She was the daughter of Apollo, or of Oceanus, but is supposed not to have been the same person that is mentioned by Apollodorus as the mother of the prophet Tiresias.〕

    〔note 75 — A baneful serpent.--Ver. 652. This happened when one of the arrows of Hercules, dipped in the poison of the Lernæan Hydra, pierced the foot of Chiron while he was examining it.〕

    〔note 76 — The three Goddesses.--Ver. 654. Namely, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, the ‘Parcæ,’ or ‘Destinies.’〕

FABLE XI. [II.676-707]

  Mercury, having stolen the oxen of Apollo, and Battus having perceived
  the theft, he engages him, by a present, to keep the matter secret.
  Mistrusting, however, his fidelity, he assumes another shape, and
  tempting him with presents, he succeeds in corrupting him. To punish
  his treachery, the God changes him into a touchstone.

The Philyrean[77] hero wept, and in vain, {God} of Delphi, implored thy
assistance; but neither couldst thou reverse the orders of great
Jupiter, nor, if thou couldst have reversed them wast thou then present;
{for then} thou wast dwelling in Elis and the Messenian[78] fields. This
was the time when a shepherd’s skin garment was covering thee, and a
stick cut out of the wood was the burden of thy left hand, {and} of the
other, a pipe unequal with its seven reeds. And while love is thy
concern, while thy pipe is soothing thee, some cows are said to have
strayed unobserved into the plains of Pylos.[79] The son of Maia the
daughter of Atlas, observes them, and with his {usual} skill hides them,
driven off, in the woods. Nobody but an old man, well-known in that
country, had noticed the theft: all the neighborhood called him Battus.
He was keeping the forests and the grassy pastures, and the set of
fine-bred mares of the rich Neleus.[80]

{Mercury} was afraid of him, and took him aside with a gentle hand, and
said to him, “Come, stranger, whoever thou art, if, perchance any one
should ask after these herds, deny that thou hast seen them; and, lest
no requital be paid thee for so doing, take a handsome cow as thy
reward;” and {thereupon} he gave {him one}. On receiving it, the
stranger returned this answer: “Thou mayst go in safety. May that stone
first make mention of thy theft;” and he pointed to a stone. The son of
Jupiter feigned to go away. {But} soon he returned, and changing his
form, together with his voice, he said, “Countryman, if thou hast seen
any cows pass along this way, give me thy help, and break silence about
the theft; a female, coupled together with its bull shall be presented
thee as a reward.” But the old man,[81] after his reward was {thus}
doubled, said, “They will be beneath those hills;” and beneath those
hills they {really} were. The son of Atlas laughed and said, “Dost thou,
treacherous man, betray me to my own self? Dost betray me to myself?”
and {then} he turned his perjured breast into a hard stone, which even
now is called the “Touchstone;”[82] and this old disgrace is {attached}
to the stone that {really} deserves it not.

    〔note 77 — Philyrean.--Ver. 676. Chiron was the son of Philyra, by Saturn.〕

    〔note 78 — Messenian.--Ver. 679. Elis and Messenia were countries of Peloponnesus; the former was on the northwest, and the latter on the southwest side of it.〕

    〔note 79 — Plains of Pylos.--Ver. 684. There were three cities named Pylos in Peloponnesus. One was in Elis, another in Messenia, and the third was situate between the other two. The latter is supposed to have been the native place of Nestor, though they all laid claim to that honor.〕

    〔note 80 — Neleus.--Ver. 689. He was the king of Pylos, and the father of Nestor.〕

    〔note 81 — The old man.--Ver. 702. Clarke quaintly translates ‘at senior,’ ‘but then the old blade.’〕

    〔note 82 — The ‘Touchstone.’--Ver. 706. It is a matter of doubt among commentators whether ‘index’ here means a general term for the touchstone, by which metals are tested; or whether it means that Battus was changed into one individual stone, which afterwards was called ‘index.’ Lactantius, by his words, seems to imply that the latter was the case. He says, ‘He changed him into a stone, which, from this circumstance, is called “index” about Pylos.’ ‘Index’ was a name of infamy, corresponding with the Greek word συκοφάντης, and with our term ‘spy.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  The Centaurs, fabulous monsters, half men and half horses, were
  perhaps the first horsemen in Thessaly and its neighborhood. It is
  also probable that Chiron, who was one of these, acquired great fame
  by the knowledge he had acquired at a time and in a country where
  learning was little cultivated. The ancients regarded him as the first
  promulgator of the utility of medicines, in which he was said to have
  instructed his pupil Æsculapius. He was also considered to be an
  excellent musician and a good astronomer, as we learn from Homer,
  Diodorus Siculus, and other authors. Most of the heroes of that age,
  and among them Hercules and Jason, studied under him. Very probably,
  the only foundation for the story of the transformation of Ocyrrhoë,
  was the skill and address which, under her father’s instruction, she
  acquired in riding and the management of horses. For if, as it seems
  really was the case, the horsemen of that age were taken for monsters,
  half men and half horses, it is not surprising to find the story that
  the daughter of a Centaur was transformed into a mare.

  Chiron is generally supposed to have marked out the Constellations,
  for the purpose of directing the Argonauts in their voyage for the
  recovery of the Golden Fleece.

FABLE XII. [II.708-764]

  Mercury, falling in love with Herse, the daughter of Cecrops,
  endeavors to engage Aglauros in his interest, and by her means, to
  obtain access to her sister. She refuses to assist him, unless he
  promises to present her with a large sum of money.

Hence, the bearer of the caduceus raised himself upon equal wings; and
as he flew, he looked down upon the fields of Munychia,[83] and the land
pleasing to Minerva, and the groves of the well-planted Lycæus. On that
day, by chance, the chaste virgins were, in their purity, carrying the
sacred offerings in baskets crowned with flowers, upon their heads to
the joyful citadel of Pallas. The winged God beholds them returning
thence; and he does not shape his course directly forward, but wheels
round in the {same} circle. As that bird swiftest in speed, the kite, on
espying the entrails, while he is afraid, and the priests stand in
numbers around the sacrifice, wings his flight in circles, and yet
ventures not to go far away, and greedily hovers around {the object of}
his hopes with waving wings, so does the active Cyllenian {God} bend his
course over the Actæan towers, and circles round in the same air. As
much as Lucifer shines more brightly than the other stars, and as much
as the golden Phœbe {shines more brightly} than thee, O Lucifer, so much
superior was Herse, as she went, to all the {other} virgins, and was the
ornament of the solemnity and of her companions. The son of Jupiter was
astonished at her beauty; and as he hung in the air, he burned no
otherwise than as when the Balearic[84] sling throws forth the plummet
of lead; it flies and becomes red hot in its course, and finds beneath
the clouds the fires which it had not {before}.

He alters his course, and, having left heaven, goes a different way; nor
does he disguise himself; so great is his confidence in his beauty.
This, though it is {every way} complete, still he improves by care, and
smooths his hair and {adjusts} his mantle,[85] that it may hang
properly, so that the fringe and all the gold may be seen; {and minds}
that his long smooth wand, with which he induces and drives away sleep,
is in his right hand, and that his wings[86] shine upon his beauteous
feet.

A private part of the house had three bed-chambers, adorned with ivory
and with tortoiseshell, of which thou, Pandrosos, hadst the right-hand
one, Aglauros the left-hand, and Herse had the one in the middle. She
that occupied the left-hand one was the first to remark Mercury
approaching, and she ventured to ask the name of the God, and the
occasion of his coming. To her thus answered the grandson of Atlas and
of Pleione: “I am he who carries the commands of my father through the
air. Jupiter himself is my father. Nor will I invent pretences; do thou
only be willing to be attached to thy sister, and to be called the aunt
of my offspring. Herse is the cause of my coming; I pray thee to favor
one in love.” Aglauros looks upon him with the same eyes with which she
had lately looked upon the hidden mysteries of the yellow-haired
Minerva, and demands for her agency gold of great weight; {and}, in the
meantime, obliges him to go out of the house. The warlike Goddess turned
upon her the orbs of her stern eyes, and drew a sigh from the bottom {of
her heart}, with so great a motion, that she heaved both her breast and
the Ægis placed before her valiant breast. It occurred {to her} that she
had laid open her secrets with a profane hand, at the time when she
beheld progeny created for {the God} who inhabits Lemnos,[87] without a
mother, {and} contrary to the assigned laws; and that she could now be
agreeable both to the God and to the sister {of Aglauros}, and that she
would be enriched by taking the gold, which she, in her avarice, had
demanded. Forthwith she repairs to the abode of Envy, hideous with black
gore. Her abode is concealed in the lowest recesses of a cave, wanting
sun, {and} not pervious to any wind, dismal and filled with benumbing
cold; and which is ever without fire, and ever abounding with darkness.

    〔note 83 — Munychia.--Ver. 709. Munychia was the name of a promontory and harbor of Attica, between the Piræus and the promontory of ‘Sunium.’ The spot was so called from Munychius, who there built a temple in honor of Diana.〕

    〔note 84 — Balearic.--Ver. 727. The Baleares were the islands of Majorca, Minorca, and Iviza, in the Mediterranean, near the coast of Spain. The natives of these islands were famous for their skill in the use of the sling. That weapon does not appear to have been used in the earliest times among the Greeks, as Homer does not mention it; it had, however, been introduced by the time of the war with Xerxes, though even then the sling was, perhaps, rarely used as a weapon. The Acarnanians and the Achæans of Agium, Patræ, and Dymæ were very expert in the use of the sling. That used by the Achæans was made of three thongs of leather, and not of one only, like those of other nations. The natives of the Balearic isles are said to have attained their skill from the circumstance of their mothers, when they were children, obliging them to obtain their food by striking it, from a tree, with a sling. While other slings were made of leather, theirs were made of rushes. Besides stones, plummets of lead, called ‘glandes,’ (as in the present instance), and μολύβδιδες, of a form between acorns and almonds, were cast in moulds, to be thrown from slings. They have been frequently dug up in various parts of Greece, and particularly on the plains of Marathon. Some have the device of a thunderbolt; while others are inscribed with δέξαι, ‘take this.’ It was a prevalent idea with the ancients that the stone discharged from the sling became red hot in its course, from the swiftness of its motion.〕

    〔note 85 — Adjusts his mantle.--Ver. 733. ‘Chlamydemque ut pendeat apte, Collocat,’ etc., is translated by Clarke--‘And he places his coat that it might hang agreeably, that the border and all its gold might appear.’〕

    〔note 86 — That his wings.--Ver. 736. Clarke renders ‘ut tersis niteant talaria plantis,’ ‘that his wings shine upon his spruce feet.’〕

    〔note 87 — God who inhabits Lemnos.--Ver. 757. Being precipitated from heaven for his deformity, Vulcan fell upon the Isle of Lemnos, in the Ægean Sea, where he exercised the craft of a blacksmith, according to the mythologists. The birth of Ericthonius, by the aid of Minerva, is here referred to.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Cicero tells us, that there were several persons in ancient times
  named Mercury. The probability is, that one of them fell in love with
  Herse, one of the daughters of Cecrops, king of Athens; and that
  Aglauros becoming jealous of her, this tradition was built upon facts
  of so ordinary a nature.

FABLE XIII. [II.765-832]

  Pallas commands Envy to make Aglauros jealous of her sister Herse.
  Envy obeys the request of the Goddess; and Aglauros, stung with that
  passion, continues obstinate in opposing Mercury’s passage to her
  sister’s apartment, for which the God changes her into a statue.

When the female warrior, to be dreaded in battle, came hither, she stood
before the abode (for she did not consider it lawful to go under the
roof), and she struck the door-posts with the end of the spear. The
doors, being shaken, flew open; she sees Envy within, eating the flesh
of vipers, the nutriment of her own bad propensities; and when she sees
her, she turns away her eyes. But the other rises sluggishly from the
ground, and leaves the bodies of the serpents half devoured, and stalks
along with sullen pace. And when she sees the Goddess graced with beauty
and with {splendid} arms, she groans, and fetches a deep sigh at her
appearance. A paleness rests on her face, {and} leanness in all her
body; she never looks direct on you; her teeth are black with rust; her
breast is green with gall; her tongue is dripping with venom. Smiles
there are none, except such as the sight of grief has excited. Nor does
she enjoy sleep, being kept awake with watchful cares; but sees with
sorrow the successes of men, and pines away at seeing them. She both
torments and is tormented at the same moment, and is {ever} her own
punishment. Yet, though Tritonia[88] hated her, she spoke to her briefly
in such words as these: “Infect one of the daughters of Cecrops with thy
poison; there is occasion so {to do}; Aglauros is she.”

Saying no more, she departed, and spurned the ground with her spear
impressed on it. She, beholding the Goddess as she departed, with a look
askance, uttered a few murmurs, and grieved at the success of Minerva;
and took her staff, which wreaths of thorns entirely surrounded; and
veiled in black clouds, wherever she goes she tramples down the blooming
fields, and burns up the grass, and crops the tops {of the flowers}.
With her breath, too, she pollutes both nations and cities, and houses;
and at last she descries the Tritonian[89] citadel, flourishing in arts
and riches, and cheerful peace. Hardly does she restrain her tears,
because she sees nothing to weep at. But after she has entered the
chamber of the daughter of Cecrops, she executes her orders; and touches
her breast with her hand stained with rust, and fills her heart with
jagged thorns. She breathes into her as well the noxious venom, and
spreads the poison black as pitch throughout her bones, and lodges it in
the midst of her lungs.

And that these causes of mischief may not wander through too wide a
space, she places her sister before her eyes, and the fortunate marriage
of {that} sister, and the God under his beauteous appearance, and
aggravates each particular. By this, the daughter of Cecrops being
irritated, is gnawed by a secret grief, and groans, tormented by night,
tormented by day, and wastes away in extreme wretchedness, with a slow
consumption, as ice smitten upon by a sun often clouded. She burns at
the good fortune of the happy Herse, no otherwise than as when fire is
placed beneath thorny reeds, which do not send forth flames, and burn
with a gentle heat. Often does she wish to die, that she may not be a
witness to any such thing; often, to tell the matters, as criminal, to
her severe father. At last, she sat herself down in the front of the
threshold, in order to exclude the God when he came; to whom, as he
proffered blandishments and entreaties, and words of extreme kindness,
she said, “Cease {all this}; I shall not remove myself hence, until thou
art repulsed.” “Let us stand to that agreement,” says the active
Cyllenian {God}; and he opens the carved door with his wand. But in her,
as she endeavors to arise, the parts which we bend in sitting cannot be
moved, through their numbing weight. She, indeed, struggles to raise
herself, with her body, upright; but the joints of her knees are stiff,
and a chill runs through her nails, and her veins are pallid, through
the loss of blood.

And as the disease {of} an incurable cancer is wont to spread in all
directions, and to add the uninjured parts to the tainted; so, by
degrees, did a deadly chill enter her breast, and stop the passages of
life, and her respiration. She did not endeavor to speak; but if she had
endeavored, she had no passage for her voice. Stone had now possession
of her neck; her face was grown hard, and she sat, a bloodless statue.
Nor was the stone white; her mind had stained it.

    〔note 88 — Tritonia.--Ver. 783. Minerva is said to have been called Tritonia, either from the Cretan word τριτω, signifying ‘a head,’ as she sprang from the head of Jupiter; or from Trito, a lake of Libya, near which she was said to have been born.〕

    〔note 89 — Tritonian.--Ver. 794. Athens, namely, which was sacred to Pallas, or Minerva, its tutelary divinity.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Pausanias, in his Attica, somewhat varies this story, and says that
  the daughters of Cecrops, running mad, threw themselves from the top
  of a tower. It is very probable that on the introduction of the
  worship of Pallas, or Minerva, into Attica, these daughters of Cecrops
  may have hesitated to encourage the innovation, and the story was
  promulgated that the Goddess had in that manner punished their
  impiety. This seems the more likely, from the fact mentioned by
  Pausanias that Pandrosos, the third daughter of Cecrops, had, after
  her death, a temple built in honor of her, near that of Minerva,
  because she had continued faithful to that Goddess, and had not
  disobeyed her, as her sisters had done. The reputation and good fame
  of Herse and Aglauros had, however, been restored by the time of
  Herodotus, since he informs us that they both had their temples at
  Athens.

FABLE XIV. [II.833-875]

  Jupiter assumes the shape of a Bull, and carrying off Europa, swims
  with her on his back to the isle of Crete.

When the grandson of Atlas had inflicted this punishment upon her words
and her profane disposition, he left the lands named after Pallas, and
entered the skies with his waving wings. His father calls him on one
side; and, not owning the cause of his love, he says, “My son, the
trusty minister of my commands, banish delay, and swiftly descend with
thy usual speed, and repair to the region which looks towards thy
{Constellation} mother on the left side, (the natives call it
Sidonis[90] by name) and drive towards the sea-shore, the herd belonging
to the king, which thou seest feeding afar upon the grass of the
mountain.”

{Thus} he spoke; and already were the bullocks, driven from the
mountain, making for the shore named, where the daughter of the great
king, attended by Tyrian virgins, was wont to amuse herself. Majesty and
love but ill accord, nor can they continue in the same abode. The father
and the ruler of the Gods, whose right hand is armed with the
three-forked flames, who shakes the world with his nod, laying aside the
dignity of empire, assumes the appearance of a bull; and mixing with the
oxen, he lows, and, in all his beauty, walks about upon the shooting
grass. For his color is that of snow, which neither the soles of hard
feet have trodden upon, nor the watery South wind melted. His neck
swells with muscles; dewlaps hang from {between} his shoulders. His
horns are small indeed, but such as you might maintain were made with
the hand, and more transparent than a bright gem. There is nothing
threatening in his forehead; nor is his eye formidable; his countenance
expresses peace.

The daughter of Agenor is surprised that he is so beautiful, and that he
threatens no attack; but although so gentle, she is at first afraid to
touch him. By and by she approaches him, and holds out flowers to his
white mouth. The lover rejoices, and till his hoped-for pleasure comes,
he gives kisses to her hands; scarcely, oh, scarcely, does he defer the
rest. And now he plays with her, and skips upon the green grass; {and}
now he lays his snow-white side upon the yellow sand. And, her fear
{now} removed by degrees, at one moment he gives his breast to be patted
by the hand of the virgin; at another, his horns to be wreathed with
new-made garlands. The virgin of royal birth even ventured to sit down
upon the back of the bull, not knowing upon whom she was pressing. Then
the God, by degrees {moving} from the land, and from the dry shore,
places the fictitious hoofs of his feet in the waves near the brink.
Then he goes still further, and carries his prize over the expanse of
the midst of the ocean. She is affrighted, and, borne off, looks back on
the shore she has left; and with her right hand she grasps his horn,
{while} the other is placed on his back; her waving garments are ruffled
by the breeze.

    〔note 90 — Sidonis.--Ver. 840. Sidon, or Sidonis, was a maritime city of Phœnicia, near Tyre, of whose greatness it was not an unworthy rival.〕

EXPLANATION.

  This Fable depicts one of the most famous events in the ancient
  Mythology. As we have already remarked, it is supposed that there were
  several persons of the name of Zeus, or Jupiter; though there is great
  difficulty in assigning to each individual his own peculiar
  adventures. Vossius refers the adventure of Niobe, the daughter of
  Phoroneus, to Jupiter Apis, the king of Argos, who reigned about B.C.
  1770; and that of Danaë to Jupiter Prœtus, who lived about 1350 years
  before the Christian era. It was Jupiter Tantalus, according to him,
  that carried off Ganymede; and it was Jupiter, the father of Hercules,
  that deceived Leda. He says that the subject of the present Fable was
  Jupiter Asterius, who reigned about B.C. 1400. Diodorus Siculus tells
  us that he was the son of Teutamus, who, having married the daughter
  of Creteus, went with some Pelasgians to settle in the island of
  Crete, of which he was the first king. We may then conclude, that
  Jupiter Asterius, having heard of the beauty of Europa, the daughter
  of Agenor, King of Tyre, fitted out a ship, for the purpose of
  carrying her off by force. This is the less improbable, as we learn
  from Herodotus, that the custom of carrying those away by force, who
  could not be obtained by fair means, was very common in these rude
  ages.

  The ship in which Asterius made his voyage, had, very probably, the
  form of a bull for its figure-head; which, in time, occasioned those
  who related the adventure, to say, that Jupiter concealed himself
  under the shape of that animal, to carry off his mistress. Palæphatus
  and Tzetzes suggest, that the story took its rise from the name of
  the general of Asterius, who was called Taurus, which is also the
  Greek name for a bull. Bochart has an ingenious suggestion, based upon
  etymological grounds. He thinks that the twofold meaning of the word
  ‘Alpha,’ or ‘Ilpha,’ which, in the Phœnician dialect, meant either a
  ship or a bull, gave occasion to the fable; and that the Greeks, on
  reading the annals of the Phœnicians, by mistake, took the word in the
  latter sense.

  Europa was honored as a Divinity after her death, and a festival was
  instituted in her memory, which Hesychius calls ‘Hellotia,’ from
  Ἑλλωτὶς, the name she received after her death.

FABLE I. [III.1-34]

  Jupiter, having carried away Europa, her father, Agenor, commands his
  son Cadmus to go immediately in search of her, and either to bring
  back his sister with him, or never to return to Phœnicia. Cadmus,
  wearied with his toils and fruitless inquiries, goes to consult the
  oracle at Delphi, which bids him observe the spot where he should see
  a cow lie down, and build a city there, and give the name of Bœotia to
  the country.

And now the God, having laid aside the shape of the deceiving Bull, had
discovered himself, and reached the Dictæan land; when her father,
ignorant {of her fate}, commands Cadmus to seek her {thus} ravished, and
adds exile as the punishment, if he does not find her; being {both}
affectionate and unnatural in the self-same act. The son of Agenor,
having wandered over the whole world,[1] as an exile flies from his
country and the wrath of his father, for who is there that can discover
the intrigues of Jupiter? A suppliant, he consults the oracle of Phœbus,
and inquires in what land he must dwell. “A heifer,” Phœbus says, “will
meet thee in the lonely fields, one that has never borne the yoke, and
free from the crooked plough. Under her guidance, go on thy way; and
where she shall lie down on the grass, there cause a city to be built,
and call it the Bœotian[2] {city}.”

Scarcely had Cadmus well got down from the Castalian cave,[3] {when} he
saw a heifer, without a keeper, slowly going along, bearing no mark of
servitude upon her neck. He follows, and pursues her steps with
leisurely pace, and silently adores Phœbus, the adviser of his way.
{And} now he had passed the fords of the Cephisus, and the fields of
Panope, {when} the cow stood still and raising her forehead, expansive
with lofty horns, towards heaven, she made the air reverberate with her
lowings. And so, looking back on her companions that followed behind,
she lay down, and reposed her side upon the tender grass. Cadmus
returned thanks, and imprinted kisses upon the stranger land, and
saluted the unknown mountains and fields. He was {now} going to offer
sacrifice to Jupiter, and commanded his servants to go and fetch some
water for the libation from the running springs. An ancient grove was
standing {there, as yet} profaned by no axe. There was a cavern in the
middle {of it}, thick covered with twigs and osiers, forming a low arch
by the junction of the rocks; abounding with plenty of water. Hid in
this cavern, there was a dragon sacred to Mars,[4] adorned with crests
and a golden {color}. His eyes sparkle with fire, {and} all his body is
puffed out with poison; three tongues, {too}, are brandished, and his
teeth stand in a triple row.

    〔note 1 — Over the whole world.--Ver. 6. Apollodorus tells us that Cadmus lived in Thrace until the death of his mother, Telephassa, who accompanied him; and that, after her decease, he proceeded to Delphi to make inquiries of the oracle.〕

    〔note 2 — Bœotian.--Ver. 13. He implies here that Bœotia received its name from the Greek word βοῦς, ‘an ox’ or ‘cow.’ Other writers say that it was so called from Bœotus, the son of Neptune and Arne. Some authors also say that Thebes received its name from the Syrian word ‘Thebe,’ which signified ‘an ox.’〕

    〔note 3 — Castalian cave.--Ver. 14. Castalius was a fountain at the foot of Mount Parnassus, and in the vicinity of Delphi. It was sacred to the Muses.〕

    〔note 4 — Sacred to Mars.--Ver. 32. Euripides says, that the dragon had been set there by Mars to watch the spot and the neighboring stream. Other writers say that it was a son of Mars, Dercyllus by name, and that a Fury, named Tilphosa, was its mother. Ancient history abounds with stories of enormous serpents. The army of Regulus is said by Pliny the Elder, to have killed a serpent of enormous size, which obstructed the passage of the river Bagrada, in Africa. It was 120 feet in length.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Reverting to the history of Europa, it may be here remarked, that
  Apollodorus has preserved her genealogy. Libya, according to that
  author, had two sons by Neptune, Belus and Agenor. The latter married
  Telephassa, by whom he had Cadmus, Phœnix, and Cilix, and a daughter
  named Europa. Some ancient writers, however, say, that Europa was the
  daughter of Phœnix, and the grandchild of Agenor.

  Some authors, and Ovid among the rest, have supposed that Europe
  received its name from Europa. Bochart has, with considerable
  probability, suggested that it was originally so called from the fair
  complexion of the people who inhabited it. Europa herself may have
  received her name also from the fairness of her complexion: hence, the
  poets, as the Scholiast on Theocritus tells us, invented a fable, that
  a daughter of Juno stole her mother’s paint, to give it to Europa, who
  used it with so much success as to ensure, by its use, an extremely
  fair and beautiful complexion.

FABLE II. [III.35-130]

  The companions of Cadmus, fetching water from the fountain of Mars,
  are devoured by the Dragon that guards it. Cadmus, on discovering
  their destruction, slays the monster, and, by the advice of Minerva,
  sows the teeth, which immediately produce a crop of armed men. They
  forthwith quarrel among themselves, and kill each other, with the
  exception of five who assist Cadmus in building the city of Thebes.

After the men who came from the Tyrian nation had touched this grove
with ill-fated steps, and the urn let down into the water made a splash;
the azure dragon stretched forth his head from the deep cave, and
uttered dreadful hissings. The urns dropped from their hands; and the
blood left their bodies, and a sudden trembling seized their astonished
limbs. He wreathes his scaly orbs in rolling spires, and with a spring
becomes twisted into mighty folds; and uprearing himself from below the
middle into the light air, he looks down upon all the grove, and is of
as large a size,[5] as, if you were to look on him entire, {the serpent}
which separates the two Bears.

There is no delay; he seizes the Phœnicians (whether they are resorting
to their arms or to flight, or whether fear itself is preventing either
{step}); some he kills with his sting,[6] some with his long folds, some
breathed upon[7] by the venom of his baneful poison.

The sun, now at its height, had made the shadows {but} small: the son of
Agenor wonders what has detained his companion and goes to seek his men.
His garment was a skin torn from a lion; his weapon was a lance with
shining steel, and a javelin; and a courage superior to any weapon. When
he entered the grove, and beheld the lifeless bodies, and the victorious
enemy of immense size upon them, licking the horrid wounds with
bloodstained tongue, he said, “Either I will be the avenger of your
death, bodies {of my} faithful {companions}, or {I will be} a sharer {in
it}.” {Thus} he said; and with his right hand he raised a huge stone,[8]
and hurled the vast {weight} with a tremendous effort. {And} although
high walls with lofty towers would have been shaken with the shock of
it, {yet} the dragon remained without a wound; and, being defended by
his scales as though with a coat of mail, and the hardness of his black
hide, he repelled the mighty stroke with his skin. But he did not
overcome the javelin as well with the same hardness; which stood fast,
fixed in the middle joint of his yielding spine, and sank with the
entire {point of} steel into his entrails. Fierce with pain, he turned
his head towards his back, and beheld his wounds, and bit the javelin
fixed there. And after he had twisted it on every side with all his
might, with difficulty he wrenched it from his back; yet the steel stuck
fast in his bones. But then, when this newly inflicted wound has
increased his wonted fury, his throat swelled with gorged veins, and
white foam flowed around his pestilential jaws. The Earth, too, scraped
with the scales, sounds again, and the livid steam that issues from his
infernal mouth,[9] infects the tainted air. One while he is enrolled in
spires making enormous rings; sometimes he unfolds himself straighter
than a long beam. Now with a vast impulse, like a torrent swelled with
rain, he is borne along, and bears down the obstructing forests with his
breast. The son of Agenor gives way a little; and by the spoil of the
lion he sustains the shock, and with his lance extended before him,
pushes back his mouth, as it advances. The dragon rages, and vainly
inflicts wounds on the hard steel, and fixes his teeth upon the point.
And now the blood began to flow from his poisonous palate, and had dyed
the green grass with its spray. But the wound was slight; because he
recoiled from the stroke, and drew back his wounded throat, and by
shrinking prevented the blow from sinking deep, and did not suffer it to
go very far. At length, the son of Agenor, still pursuing, pressed the
spear lodged in his throat, until an oak stood in his way as he
retreated, and his neck was pierced, together with the trunk. The tree
was bent with the weight of the serpent, and groaned at having its trunk
lashed with the extremity of its tail.

While the conqueror was surveying the vast size of his vanquished enemy,
a voice was suddenly heard (nor was it easy to understand whence {it
was}, but heard it was). “Why, son of Agenor, art thou {thus}
contemplating the dragon slain {by thee}? Even thou {thyself} shalt be
seen {in the form of} a dragon.”[10] He, for a long time in alarm, lost
his color together with his presence of mind, and his hair stood on end
with a chill of terror. Lo! Pallas, the favorer of the hero, descending
through the upper region of the air, comes to him, and bids him sow the
dragon’s teeth under the earth turned up, as the seeds of a future
people. He obeyed; and when he had opened a furrow with the pressed
plough, he scattered the teeth on the ground as ordered, the seed of a
race of men. Afterwards (’tis beyond belief) the turf began to move, and
first appeared a point of a spear out of the furrows, next the coverings
of heads nodding with painted cones;[11] then the shoulders and the
breast, and the arms laden with weapons start up, and a crop of men
armed with shields grows apace. So, when the curtains[12] are drawn up
in the joyful theaters, figures are wont to rise, and first to show
their countenances; by degrees the rest; and being drawn out in a
gradual continuation, the whole appear, and place their feet on the
lowest edge {of the stage}. Alarmed with this new enemy, Cadmus is
preparing to take arms, when one of the people that the earth had
produced cries out, “Do not take up {arms}, nor engage thyself in civil
war.” And then, engaged hand to hand, he strikes one of his earth-born
brothers with the cruel sword, {while} he himself falls by a dart sent
from a distance. He, also, who had put him to death, lives no longer
than the other, and breathes forth the air which he has so lately
received. In a similar manner, too, the whole troop becomes maddened,
and the brothers {so} newly sprung up, fall in fight with each other, by
mutual wounds. And now the youths that had the space of {so} short an
existence allotted them, beat with throbbing breast their blood-stained
mother, five {only} remaining, of whom Echion[13] was one. He, by the
advice of Tritonia, threw his arms upon the ground, and both asked and
gave the assurance of brotherly concord.

The Sidonian stranger had these as associates in his task, when he built
the city that was ordered by the oracle of Phœbus.

    〔note 5 — As large a size.--Ver. 44. This description of the enormous size of the dragon or serpent is inconsistent with what the Poet says in line 91, where we find Cadmus enabled to pin his enemy against an oak.〕

    〔note 6 — With his sting.--Ver. 48. He enumerates in this one instance the various modes by which serpents put their prey to death, either by means of their sting, or, in the case of the larger kinds of serpent, by twisting round it, and suffocating it in their folds.〕

    〔note 7 — Some breathed upon.--Ver. 49. It was a prevalent notion among the ancients, that some serpents had the power of killing their prey by their poisonous breath. Though some modern commentators on this passage may be found to affirm the same thing, it is extremely doubtful if such is the fact. The notion was, perhaps, founded on the power which certain serpents have of fascinating their prey by the agency of the eye, and thus depriving it of the means of escape.〕

    〔note 8 — A huge stone.--Ver. 59. ‘Molaris’ here means a stone as large as a mill-stone, and not a mill-stone itself, for we must remember that this was an uninhabited country, and consequently a stranger to the industry of man.〕

    〔note 9 — His infernal mouth.--Ver. 76. ‘Stygio’ means ‘pestilential as the exhalations of the marshes of Styx.’〕

    〔note 10 — Form of a dragon.--Ver. 98. This came to pass when, having been expelled from his dominions by Zethus and Amphion, he retired to Illyria, and was there transformed into a serpent, a fate which was shared by his wife Hermione.〕

    〔note 11 — With painted cones.--Ver. 108. The ‘conus’ was the conical part of the helmet into which the crest of variegated feathers was inserted.〕

    〔note 12 — When the curtains.--Ver. 111. The ‘Siparium’ was a piece of tapestry stretched on a frame, and, rising before the stage, answered the same purpose as the curtain or drop-scene with us, in concealing the stage till the actors appeared. Instead of drawing up this curtain to discover the stage and actors, according to our present practice, it was depressed when the play began, and fell beneath the level of the stage; whence ‘aulæa premuntur,’ ‘the curtain is dropped,’ meant that the play had commenced. When the performance was finished, this was raised again gradually from the foot of the stage; therefore ‘aulæa tolluntur,’ ‘the curtain is raised,’ would mean that the play had finished. From the present passage we learn, that in drawing it up from the stage, the curtain was gradually displayed, the unfolding taking place, perhaps, below the boards, so that the heads of the figures rose first, until the whole form appeared in full with the feet resting on the stage, when the ‘siparium’ was fully drawn up. From a passage in Virgil’s Georgics (book iii. l. 25), we learn that the figures of Britons (whose country had then lately been the scene of new conquests) were woven on the canvas of the ‘siparium,’ having their arms in the attitude of lifting the curtain.〕

    〔note 13 — Echion.--Ver. 126. The names of the others were Udeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelor, according to Apollodorus. To these some added Creon, as a sixth.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Agenor, on losing his daughter, commands his sons to go in search of
  her, and not to return till they have found her. The young princes,
  either unable to learn what was become of her, or, perhaps, being too
  weak to recover her out of the hands of the king of Crete, did not
  return to their father, but established themselves in different
  countries; Cadmus settling in Bœotia, Cilix in Cilicia, to which he
  gave his name, and Phœnix, as Hyginus tells us, remaining in Africa.
  Photius, quoting from Conon, the historian, informs us, that the hope
  of conquering some country in Europe, and establishing a colony there,
  was the true ground of the voyage of Cadmus.

  Palæphatus, and other writers, say, that the Dragon which was killed
  by Cadmus was a king of the country, who was named Draco, and was a
  son of Mars: that his teeth were his subjects, who rallied again after
  their defeat, and that Cadmus put them all to the sword, except
  Chthonius, Udeus, Hyperenor, Pelor, and Echion, who became reconciled
  to him. Heraclitus, however, assures us, that Cadmus really did slay a
  serpent, which was very annoying to the Bœotian territory. Bochart and
  LeClerc are of opinion that the Fable has the following
  foundation:--They say, that in the Phœnician language, the same word
  signifies either the teeth of a serpent, or short javelins, pointed
  with brass; that the word which signifies the number five likewise
  means an army; and that probably, from these circumstances, the Fable
  may have taken its rise. For the Greeks, in following the annals
  written in the Phœnician language, while writing the history of the
  founder of Thebes, instead of describing his soldiers as wearing
  helmets on their heads, with back and breast-plates, and with darts in
  their hands pointed with brass, which equipment was then entirely
  novel in Greece, chose rather to follow the more wonderful version,
  and to say, that Cadmus had five companions produced from the teeth of
  a serpent; as, according to Bochart’s suggestion, the same Phœnician
  phrase may either signify a company of men sprung from the teeth of a
  serpent, or a company of men armed with brazen darts.

  This conjecture is, perhaps, confirmed by a story related by Herodotus
  (book ii.), which resembles it very much. He tells us, that
  Psammeticus, king of Egypt, being driven to the marshy parts of his
  kingdom, sent to consult the oracle of Latona, which answered that he
  should be restored by brass men coming from the sea. At the time, this
  answer appeared to him entirely frivolous; but certain Ionian
  soldiers, being obliged, some years after, to retire to Egypt, and
  appearing on the shore with their weapons and armor, all of brass,
  those who perceived them ran immediately to inform the king, that men
  clad in brass were plundering the country. The prince then fully
  comprehended the meaning of the oracle, and making an alliance with
  them, recovered his throne by the assistance they gave him. These
  brass men come from the sea, and those sprung from the earth were
  soldiers who assisted Psammeticus and Cadmus in carrying out their
  objects. Bochart’s conjecture is strengthened by the fact, that Cadmus
  was either the inventor of the cuirass and javelin, or the first that
  brought them into Greece. Without inquiring further into the subject,
  we may conclude, that the men sprung from the earth, or the dragon’s
  teeth which were sown, were the people of the country, whom Cadmus
  found means to bring over to his interest; and that they first helped
  him to conquer his enemies, and then to build the citadel of Thebes,
  to ensure his future security. Apollodorus says that Cadmus, to
  expiate the slaughter of the dragon, was obliged to serve Mars a whole
  year; which year, containing eight of our years, it is not improbable
  that Cadmus rendered services for a long time to his new allies before
  he received any assistance from them.

FABLE III. [III.131-252]

  Actæon, the grandson of Cadmus, fatigued with hunting and excessive
  heat, inadvertently wanders to the cool valley of Gargaphie, the usual
  retreat of Diana, when tired with the same exercise. There, to his
  misfortune, he surprises the Goddess and her Nymphs while bathing, for
  which she transforms him into a stag, and his own hounds tear him to
  pieces.

And now Thebes was standing; now Cadmus, thou mightst seem happy in thy
exile. Both Mars and Venus[14] had become thy father-in-law and
mother-in-law; add to this, issue by a wife so illustrious, so many
sons[15] and daughters, and grandchildren, dear pledges {of love};
these, too, now of a youthful age. But, forsooth, the last day {of life}
must always be awaited by man, and no one ought to be pronounced happy
before his death,[16] and his last obsequies. Thy grandson, Cadmus, was
the first occasion of sorrow to thee, among so much prosperity, the
horns, too, not his own, placed upon his forehead, and you, O dogs,
glutted with the blood of your master. But, if you diligently inquire
into his {case}, you will find the fault of an accident, and not
criminality in him; for what criminality did mistake embrace?

There was a mountain stained with the blood of various wild beasts; and
now the day had contracted the meridian shadow of things, and the sun
was equally distant from each extremity {of the heavens}; when the
Hyantian youth[17] {thus} addressed the partakers of his toils, as they
wandered along the lonely haunts {of the wild beasts}, with gentle
accent: “Our nets are moistened, my friends, and our spears, too, with
the blood of wild beasts; and the day has yielded sufficient sport; when
the next morn, borne upon her rosy chariot, shall bring back the light,
let us seek again our proposed task. Now Phœbus is at the same distance
from both lands, {the Eastern and the Western}, and is cleaving the
fields with his heat. Cease your present toils, and take away the
knotted nets.” The men execute his orders, and cease their labors. There
was a valley, thick set with pitch-trees and the sharp-pointed cypress;
by name Gargaphie,[18] sacred to the active Diana. In the extreme recess
of this, there was a grotto in a grove, formed by no art; nature, by her
ingenuity, had counterfeited art; for she had formed a natural arch, in
the native pumice and the light sand-stones. A limpid fountain ran
murmuring on the right hand with its little stream, having its spreading
channels edged with a border of grass. Here, {when} wearied with
hunting, the Goddess of the woods was wont to bathe her virgin limbs in
clear water.

After she had entered there, she handed to one of the Nymphs, her
armor-bearer, her javelin, her quiver, and her unstrung bow. Another
Nymph put her arms under her mantle, when taken off: two removed the
sandals from her feet. But Crocale,[19] the daughter of Ismenus, more
skilled than they, gathered her hair, which lay scattered over her neck,
into a knot, although she herself was with {her hair} loose.
Nephele,[20] and Hyale,[21] and Rhanis,[22] fetch water, Psecas[23] and
Phyale[24] {do the same}, and pour it from their large urns. And while
the Titanian {Goddess} was there bathing in the wonted stream, behold!
the grandson of Cadmus, having deferred the remainder of his sport till
{next day}, came into the grove, wandering through the unknown wood,
with uncertain steps; thus did his fate direct him.

Soon as he entered the grotto, dropping with its springs, the Nymphs,
naked as they were, on seeing a man, smote their breasts, and filled all
the woods with sudden shrieks, and gathering round Diana, covered her
with their bodies. Yet the Goddess herself was higher than they, and was
taller than them all by the neck. The color that is wont to be in
clouds, tinted by the rays of the sun {when} opposite, or that of the
ruddy morning, was on the features of Diana, when seen without her
garments. She, although surrounded with the crowd of her attendants,
stood sideways, and turned her face back; and how did she wish that she
had her arrows at hand; {and} so she took up water,[25] which she did
have {at hand}, and threw it over the face of the man, and sprinkling
his hair with the avenging stream, she added these words, the presages
of his future woe: “Now thou mayst tell, if tell thou canst, how that I
was seen by thee without my garments.” Threatening no more, she places
on his sprinkled head the horns of a lively stag; she adds length to his
neck, and sharpens the tops of his ears; and she changes his hands into
feet, and his arms into long legs, and covers his body with a spotted
coat of hair; fear, too is added. The Autonoëian[26] hero took to
flight, and wondered that he was so swift in his speed; but when he
beheld his own horns in the wonted stream, he was about to say, “Ah,
wretched me!” {when} no voice followed. He groaned; that was {all} his
voice, and his tears trickled down a face not his own, {but that of a
stag}. His former understanding alone remained. What should he do?
Should he return home, and to the royal abode? or should he lie hid in
the woods? Fear hinders the one {step}, shame the other. While he was
hesitating, the dogs espied him, and first Melampus,[27] and the
good-nosed Ichnobates gave the signal, in full cry. Ichnobates,[28] was
a Gnossian {dog}; Melampus was of Spartan breed. Then the rest rush on,
swifter than the rapid winds; Pamphagus,[29] and Dorcæus,[30] and
Oribasus,[31] all Arcadian {dogs}; and able Nebrophonus,[32] and with
Lælaps,[33] fierce Theron,[34] and Pterelas,[35] excelling in speed,
Agre[36] in her scent, and Hylæus,[37] lately wounded by a fierce boar,
and Nape,[38] begotten by a wolf, and Pœmenis,[39] that had tended
cattle, and Harpyia,[40] followed by her two whelps, and the Sicyonian
Ladon,[41] having a slender girth; Dromas,[42] too, and Canace,[43]
Sticte,[44] and Tigris, and Alce,[45] and Leucon,[46] with snow-white
hair, and Asbolus,[47] with black, and the able-bodied Lacon,[48] and
Aëllo,[49] good at running, and Thoüs,[50] and swift Lycisca,[51] with
her Cyprian brother, Harpalus,[52] too, having his black face marked
with white down the middle, and Melaneus,[53] and Lachne,[54] with a
wire-haired body, and Labros,[55] and Agriodos,[56] bred of a Dictæan
sire, but of a Laconian dam, and Hylactor,[57] with his shrill note; and
others which it were tedious to recount.

This pack, in eagerness for their prey, are borne over rocks and cliffs,
and crags difficult of approach, where the path is steep, and where
there is no road. He flies along the routes by which he has so often
pursued; alas! he is {now} flying from his own servants. Fain would he
have cried, “I am Actæon, recognize your own master.” Words are wanting
to his wishes; the air resounds with their barking. Melanchætes[58] was
the first to make a wound on his back, Theridamas[59] the next;
Oresitrophus[60] fastened upon his shoulder. These had gone out later,
but their course was shortened by a near cut through the hill. While
they hold their master, the rest of the pack come up, and fasten their
teeth in his body. Now room is wanting for {more} wounds. He groans, and
utters a noise, though not that of a man, {still}, such as a stag cannot
make; and he fills the well-known mountains with dismal moans, and
suppliant on his bended knees, and like one in entreaty, he turns round
his silent looks as though {they were} his arms.

But his companions, in their ignorance, urge on the eager pack with
their usual cries, and seek Actæon with their eyes; and cry out “Actæon”
aloud, as though he were absent. At his name he turns his head, as they
complain that he is not there, and in his indolence, is not enjoying a
sight of the sport afforded them. He wished, indeed, he had been away,
but there he was; and he wished to see, not to feel as well, the cruel
feats of his own dogs. They gather round him on all sides, and burying
their jaws in his body, tear their master in pieces under the form of an
imaginary stag. And the rage of the quiver-bearing Diana is said not to
have been satiated, until his life was ended by many a wound.

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 17 — The Hyantian youth.--Ver. 147. Actæon is thus called, as being a Bœotian. The Hyantes were the ancient or aboriginal inhabitants of Bœotia.〕

    〔note 18 — Gargaphie.--Ver. 156. Gargaphie, or Gargaphia, was a valley situate near Platæa, having a fountain of the same name.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 20 — Nephele.--Ver. 171. From the Greek word νεφέλη, ‘a cloud.’〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 22 — Rhanis.--Ver. 171. This name is adapted from the Greek verb ῥαίνω, ‘to sprinkle.’〕

    〔note 23 — Psecas.--Ver. 172. From the Greek ψεκὰς, ‘a dew-drop.’〕

    〔note 24 — Phyale.--Ver. 172. This is from the Greek φιαλὴ, ‘an urn.’〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 28 — Ichnobates.--Ver. 207. ‘Tracer.’ From the Greek ἰχνὸς, ‘a footstep,’ and βαίνω, ‘to go.’〕

    〔note 29 — Pamphagus.--Ver. 210. ‘Glutton.’ From πᾶν, ‘all,’ and φάγω, ‘to eat.’〕

    〔note 30 — Dorcæus.--Ver. 210. ‘Quicksight.’ From δέρκω, ‘to see.’〕

    〔note 31 — Oribasus.--Ver. 210. ‘Ranger.’ From ὄρος, ‘a mountain,’ and βαίνω, ‘to go.’〕

    〔note 32 — Nebrophonus.--Ver. 211. ‘Kill-buck.’ From νεβρὸς, ‘a fawn,’ and φονέω, ‘to kill.’〕

    〔note 33 — Lælaps.--Ver. 211. ‘Tempest.’ So called from its swiftness and power, λαίλαψ, signifying ‘a whirlwind.’〕

    〔note 34 — Theron.--Ver. 211. ‘Hunter.’ From the Greek, θερεύω, ‘to trace,’ or ‘hunt.’〕

    〔note 35 — Pterelas.--Ver. 212. ‘Wing.’ ‘Swift-footed,’ from πτερὸν, ‘a wing,’ and ἐλαύνω, ‘to drive onward.’〕

    〔note 36 — Agre.--Ver. 212. ‘Catcher.’ ‘Quick-scented,’ from ἄγρα, ‘hunting,’ or ‘the chase.’〕

    〔note 37 — Hylæus.--Ver. 213. ‘Woodger,’ or ‘Wood-ranger;’ the Greek ὕλη, signifying ‘a wood.’〕

    〔note 38 — Nape.--Ver. 214. ‘Forester.’ A ‘forest,’ or ‘wood,’ being in Greek, νάπη.〕

    〔note 39 — Pœmenis.--Ver. 215. ‘Shepherdess,’ From the Greek ποίμενις, ‘a shepherdess.’〕

    〔note 40 — Harpyia.--Ver. 215. ‘Ravener.’ From the Greek word ἅρπυια, ‘a harpy,’ or ‘ravenous bird.’〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 42 — Dromas.--Ver. 217. ‘Runner.’ From the Greek δρόμος, ‘a race.’〕

    〔note 43 — Canace.--Ver. 217. ‘Barker.’ The word καναχὴ, signifies ‘a noise,’ or ‘din.’〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 45 — Alce.--Ver. 217. ‘Strong.’ From the Greek ἀλκὴ ‘strength.’〕

    〔note 46 — Leucon.--Ver. 218. ‘White.’ From λευκὸς, ‘white.’〕

    〔note 47 — Asbolus.--Ver. 218. ‘Soot,’ or ‘Smut.’ From the Greek ἄσβολος, ‘soot.’〕

    〔note 48 — Lacon.--Ver. 219. From his native country, Laconia.〕

    〔note 49 — Aëllo.--Ver. 219. ‘Storm.’ From ἄελλα, ‘a tempest.’〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 52 — Harpalus.--Ver. 222. ‘Snap.’ From ἁρπάζω, ‘to snatch,’ or ‘plunder.’〕

    〔note 53 — Melaneus.--Ver. 222. ‘Black-coat.’ From the Greek, μέλας, ‘black.’〕

    〔note 54 — Lachne.--Ver. 222. ‘Stickle.’ From the Greek work λαχνὴ, signifying ‘thickness of the hair.’〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 56 — Agriodos.--Ver. 224. ‘Wild-tooth.’ From ἄγριος ‘wild,’ and ὀδοῦς, ‘a tooth.’〕

    〔note 57 — Hylactor.--Ver. 224. ‘Babbler.’ From the Greek word ὑλακτέω, signifying ‘to bark.’〕

    〔note 58 — Melanchætes.--Ver. 232. ‘Black-hair.’ From the μέλας, ‘black,’ and χαιτὴ, ‘mane.’〕

    〔note 59 — Theridamas.--Ver. 233. ‘Kilham.’ From θὴρ, ‘a wild beast,’ and δαμάω, ‘to subdue.’〕

    〔note 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.

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 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.

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 69 — Many a youth.--Ver. 353. Clarke translates ‘multi juvenes,’ ‘many young fellows.’〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 76 — Regard for food.--Ver. 437. ‘Cereris.’ The name of the Goddess of corn is here used instead of bread itself.〕

    〔note 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.

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 79 — Pentheus.--Ver. 513. He was the son of Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 88 — Taygete.--Ver. 594. She was one of the Pleiades, the daughters of Atlas, who were placed among the Constellations.〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 91 — Epopeus.--Ver. 619. He was the κελεύστης, ‘pausarius,’ or keeper of time for the rowers.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 93 — Naxos.--Ver. 636. This was the most famous island of the group of the Cyclades.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 95 — To a long story.--Ver. 692. Clarke renders this line, ‘We have lent our ears to a long tale of a tub.’〕

    〔note 96 — Cithæron.--Ver. 702. This was a mountain of Bœotia, famous for the orgies of Bacchus there celebrated.〕

    〔note 97 — My two sisters.--Ver. 713. These were Ino and Autonoë.〕

    〔note 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.

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.”

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 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!’〕

    〔note 6 — Lyæus.--Ver. 11. Bacchus was called Lyæus, from the Greek word, λύειν, ‘to loosen,’ or ‘relax,’ because wine dispels care.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 9 — Lenæus.--Ver. 14. From the Greek word λῆνος, ‘a wine-press.’〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 11 — Iacchus.--Ver. 15. From the Greek ἰαχὴ, ‘clamor,’ or ‘noise.’〕

    〔note 12 — Evan.--Ver. 15. From the exclamation, Εὐοῖ, or ‘Evoë’ which the Bacchanals used in performing his orgies.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 16 — Palestine.--Ver. 46. Palæstina, or Philistia, in which Ascalon was situate, was a part of Syria, lying in its south-western extremity.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 18 — Most beauteous of youths.--Ver. 55. Clarke translates ‘juvenum pulcherrimus alter,’ ‘one of the most handsome of all the young fellows.’〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 20 — Walls of brick.--Ver. 58. The walls were built by Semiramis of bricks dried in the sun, cemented together with layers of bitumen.〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 35 — Produced.--Ver. 210. Eurynome was the wife of Orchamus, and was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys.〕

    〔note 36 — Achæmenian.--Ver. 212. Persia is called Achæmenian, from Achæmenes, one of its former kings.〕

    〔note 37 — Ancient Belus.--Ver. 213. The order of descent is thus reckoned from Belus; Abas, Acrisius, Danaë, Perseus, Bachæmon, Achæmenes, and Orchamus.〕

    〔note 38 — Ambrosia.--Ver. 215. Ambrosia was said to be the food of the Deities, and nectar their drink.〕

    〔note 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.

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.”

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.〕

    〔note 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.’〕

    〔note 49 — As when the Sun.--Ver. 349. Bailey gives this explanation of the passage,-- ‘The eyes of the Nymph seemed to sparkle and shine, just as the rays of the sun in a clear sky when a looking-glass is placed against them, for then they seem most splendid, and contract the fire.’ From the mention of the eyes of the Nymph burning ‘flagrant,’ we might be almost justified in concluding that ‘speculum’ means here not a mirror, but a burning-glass. The ‘specula,’ or looking-glasses, of the ancients were usually made of metal, either a composition of tin and copper, or silver; but in later times, alloy was mixed with the silver. Pliny mentions the obsidian stone, or, as it is now called, the Icelandic agate, as being used for this purpose. Nero is said to have used emeralds for mirrors. Pliny the Elder says that mirrors were made in the glass-houses of Sidon, which consisted of glass plates, with leaves of metal at the back; they were probably of an inferior character. Those of copper and tin were made chiefly at Brundisium. The white metal formed from this mixture soon becoming dim, a sponge with powdered pumice stone was usually fastened to the mirrors made of that composition. They were generally small, of a round or oval shape, and having a handle; and female slaves usually held them, while their mistresses were performing the duties of the toilet. Sometimes they were fastened to the walls, and they were occasionally of the length of a person’s body. Venus was supposed often to use the mirror; but Minerva repudiated the use of it.〕

    〔note 50 — Polypus.--Ver. 366. This is a fish which entangles its prey, mostly consisting of shell fish, in its great number of feet or feelers. Ovid here calls them ‘flagella;’ but in the Halieuticon he styles them ‘brachia’ and ‘crines.’ Pliny the Elder calls them ‘crines’ and ‘cirri.’〕

    〔note 51 — Descendant of Atlas.--Ver. 368. Hermaphroditus was the great-grandson of Atlas; as the latter was the father of Maia, the mother of Mercury, who begot Hermaphroditus.〕

    〔note 52 — The two are united.--Ver. 374. Clarke translates, ‘nam mixta duorum corpora junguntur,’ ‘for the bodies of both, being jumbled together, are united.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  The only probable solution of this story seems to have been the fact
  that there was in Caria, near the town of Halicarnassus, as we read in
  Vitruvius, a fountain which was instrumental in civilizing certain
  barbarians who had been driven from that neighborhood by the Argive
  colony established there. These men being obliged to repair to the
  fountain for water, and meeting the Greek colonists there, their
  intercourse not only polished them, but in course of time corrupted
  them, by the introduction of the luxurious manners of Greece. Hence
  the fountain had the reputation of changing men into women.

  Possibly the water of that fountain, by some peculiar chemical
  quality, made those who drank of it become soft and effeminate, as
  waters are to be occasionally found with extraordinary qualities.
  Lylius Gyraldus suggests, that several disgraceful adventures happened
  near this fountain (which was enclosed by walls), which in time gave
  it a bad name.

FABLE VI. [IV.389-415]

  Bacchus, to punish the daughters of Minyas for their contempt of his
  worship, changes them into bats, and their work into ivy and vine
  leaves.

There was {now} an end of their stories; and still do the daughters of
Minyas go on with their work, and despise the God, and desecrate his
festival; when, on a sudden, tambourines unseen resound with their
jarring noise; the pipe, too, with the crooked horn, and the tinkling
brass, re-echo; myrrh and saffron shed their fragrant odors; and,
a thing past all belief, their webs begin to grow green, and the cloth
hanging {in the loom} to put forth foliage like ivy. Part changes into
vines, and what were threads before, are {now} turned into vine shoots.
Vine branches spring from the warp, and the purple lends its splendor to
the tinted grapes.

And now the day was past, and the time came on, which you could neither
call darkness nor light, but yet the {very} commencement of the dubious
night along with the light. The house seemed suddenly to shake, and
unctuous torches to burn, and the building to shine with glowing fires,
and the fictitious phantoms of savage wild beasts to howl. Presently,
the sisters are hiding themselves throughout the smoking house, and in
different places are avoiding the fires and the light. While they are
seeking a hiding-place, a membrane is stretched over their small limbs,
and covers their arms with light wings; nor does the darkness suffer
them to know by what means they have lost their former shape. No
feathers bear them up; yet they support themselves on pellucid wings;
and, endeavoring to speak, they utter a voice very diminutive {even} in
proportion to their bodies, and express their low complaints with a
squeaking sound. They frequent houses, not woods; and, abhorring the
light, they fly {abroad} by night. And from the late evening do they
derive their name.[53]

    〔note 53 — Derive their name.--Ver. 415. In Greek they are called νυκτερίδες, from νυξ, ‘night;’ and in Latin, ‘vespertiliones,’ from ‘vesper,’ ‘evening,’ on account of their habits.〕

FABLE VII. [IV.416-562]

  Tisiphone, being sent by Juno to the Palace of Athamas, causes him to
  become mad; on which he dashes his son Learchus to pieces against a
  wall. He then pursues his wife Ino, who throws herself headlong from
  the top of a rock into the sea, with her other son Melicerta in her
  arms: when Neptune, at the intercession of Venus, changes them into
  Sea Deities. The attendants of Ino, who have followed her in her
  flight, are changed, some into stone, and others into birds, as they
  are about to throw themselves into the sea after their mistress.

But then the Divine power of Bacchus is famed throughout all Thebes; and
his aunt is everywhere telling of the great might of the new Divinity;
she alone,[54] out of so many sisters, is free from sorrow, except that
which her sisters have occasioned. Juno beholds her, having her soul
elevated with her {children}, and her alliance with Athamas, and the God
her foster-child. She cannot brook this, and says to herself, “Was the
child of a concubine able to transform the Mæonian sailors, and to
overwhelm them in the sea, and to give the entrails of the son to be
torn to pieces by his mother, and to cover the three daughters of Minyas
with newly formed wings? Shall Juno be able to do nothing but lament
these griefs unrevenged? And is that sufficient for me? Is this my only
power? He himself instructs me what to do. It is right to be taught even
by an enemy. And what madness can do, he shows enough, and more than
enough, by the slaughter of Pentheus. Why should not Ino, {too}, be
goaded by madness, and submit to an example kindred to those of her
sisters?”

There is a shelving path, shaded with dismal yew, which leads through
profound silence to the infernal abodes. {Here} languid Styx exhales
vapors; and the new-made ghosts descend this way, and phantoms when they
have enjoyed[55] funeral rites. Horror and winter possess these dreary
regions far and wide, and the ghosts newly arrived know not where the
way is that leads to the Stygian city, {or} where is the dismal palace
of the black Pluto. The wide city has a thousand passages, and gates
open on every side. And as the sea {receives} the rivers for the whole
earth, so does that spot[56] receive all the souls; nor is it {too}
little for any {amount of} people, nor does it perceive the crowd to
increase. The shades wander about, bloodless, without body and bones;
and some throng the place of judgment; some the abode of the infernal
prince. Some pursue various callings, in imitation of their former life;
their own punishment confines others.

Juno, the daughter of Saturn, leaving her celestial habitation, submits
to go thither, so much does she give way to hatred and to anger. Soon as
she has entered there, and the threshold groans, pressed by her sacred
body, Cerberus raises his threefold mouth, and utters triple barkings at
the same moment. She summons the Sisters,[57] begotten of Night,
terrible and implacable Goddesses. They are sitting before the doors of
the prison shut close with adamant, and are combing black vipers from
their hair. Soon as they recognize her amid the shades of darkness,
{these} Deities arise. This place is called “the accursed.” Tityus[58]
is giving his entrails to be mangled, and is stretched over nine acres.
By thee, Tantalus,[59] no waters are reached, and the tree which
overhangs thee, starts away. Sisyphus,[60] thou art either catching or
thou art pushing on the stone destined to fall again. Ixion[61] is
whirled round, and both follows and flies from himself. The
granddaughters, too, of Belus, who dared to plot the destruction of
their cousins, are everlastingly taking up the water which they lose.
After the daughter of Saturn has beheld all these with a stern look, and
Ixion before all; again, after him, looking upon Sisyphus, she says,

“Why does he alone, of {all} the brothers, suffer eternal punishment?
and why does a rich palace contain the proud Athamas, who, with his
wife, has ever despised me?” And {then} she explains the cause of her
hatred and of her coming, and what it is she desires. What she desires
is, that the palace of Cadmus shall not stand, and that the Sister
{Furies} shall involve Athamas in crime. She mingles together promises,
commands, and entreaties, and solicits the Goddesses. When Juno has thus
spoken, Tisiphone, with her locks dishevelled as they are, shakes them,
and throws back from her face the snakes crawling over it; and thus she
says: “There is no need of a long preamble; whatever thou commandest,
consider it as done: leave these hateful realms, and betake thyself to
the air of a better heaven.”

Juno returns, overjoyed; and, preparing to enter heaven, Iris,[62] the
daughter of Thaumas, purifies her by sprinkling water. Nor is there any
delay; the persecuting Tisiphone[63] takes a torch reeking with gore,
and puts on a cloak red with fluid blood, and is girt with twisted
snakes, and {then} goes forth from her abode. Mourning attends her as
she goes, and Fright, and Terror, and Madness with quivering features.
She {now} reaches the threshold; the Æolian door-posts are said to have
shaken, and paleness tints the maple door; the Sun, too, flies from the
place. His wife is terrified at these prodigies; Athamas, {too}, is
alarmed, and they are {both} preparing to leave the house. The baneful
Erinnys stands in the way, and blocks up the passage; and extending her
arms twisted round with folds of vipers, she shakes her locks; the
snakes {thus} moved, emit a sound. Some lying about her shoulders, some
gliding around her temples, send forth hissings and vomit forth
corruption, and dart forth their tongues. Then she tears away two snakes
from the middle of her hair, which, with pestilential hand, she throws
against them. But these creep along the breasts of Ino and Athamas, and
inspire them with direful intent. Nor do they inflict any wounds upon
their limbs; it is the mind that feels the direful stroke. She had
brought, too, with her a monstrous composition of liquid poison, the
foam of the mouth of Cerberus, and the venom of Echidna;[64] and
purposeless aberrations, and the forgetfulness of a darkened
understanding, and crime, and tears, and rage, and the love of murder.
All these were blended together; and, mingled with fresh blood she had
boiled them in a hollow vessel of brass, stirred about with {a stalk of}
green hemlock. And while they are trembling, she throws the maddening
poison into the breasts of them both, and moves their inmost vitals.
Then repeatedly waving her torch in the same circle, she swiftly follows
up the flames {thus} excited with {fresh} flames. Thus triumphant, and
having executed her commands, she returns to the empty realms of the
great Pluto; and she ungirds the snakes which she had put on.
Immediately the son of Æolus, filled with rage, cries out, in the midst
of his palace, “Ho! companions, spread your nets in this wood; for here
a lioness was just now beheld by me with two young ones.” And, in his
madness, he follows the footsteps of his wife, as though of a wild
beast; and he snatches Learchus, smiling and stretching forth his little
arms from the bosom of his mother, and three or four times he whirls him
round in the air like a sling, and, frenzied, he dashes in pieces[65]
the bones of the infant against the hard stones. Then, at last, the
mother being roused (whether it was grief that caused it, or whether the
power of the poison spread {over her}), yells aloud, and runs away
distracted, with dishevelled hair; and carrying thee, Melicerta,
a little {child}, in her bare arms, she cries aloud “Evoë, Bacche.” At
the name of Bacchus, Juno smiles, and says, “May thy foster-child[66] do
thee this service.”

There is a rock[67] that hangs over the sea; the lowest part is worn
hollow by the waves, and defends the waters covered {thereby} from the
rain. The summit is rugged, and stretches out its brow over the open
sea. This Ino climbs (madness gives her strength), and, restrained by no
fear, she casts herself and her burden[68] into the deep; the water,
struck {by her fall}, is white with foam. But Venus, pitying the
misfortunes of her guiltless granddaughter,[69] in soothing words thus
addresses her uncle: “O Neptune, thou God of the waters, to whom fell a
power next after the {empire of} heaven, great things indeed do I
request; but do thou take compassion on my kindred, whom thou seest
being tossed upon the boundless Ionian sea;[70] and add them to thy
Deities. I have {surely} some interest with the sea, if, indeed, I once
was foam formed in the hollowed deep, and my Grecian name is derived[71]
from that.” Neptune yields to her request; and takes away from them
{all} that is mortal, and gives them a venerable majesty; and alters
both their name and their shape, and calls Palæmon a Divinity,[72]
together with his mother Leucothoë.

Her Sidonian attendants,[73] so far as they could, tracing the prints of
their feet, saw the last of them on the edge of the rock; and thinking
that there was no doubt of their death, they lamented the house of
Cadmus, with their hands tearing their hair and their garments; and they
threw the odium on the Goddess, as being unjust and too severe against
the concubine. Juno could not endure their reproaches, and said, “I will
make you yourselves tremendous memorials of my displeasure.”
Confirmation followed her words. For the one who had been especially
attached, said, “I will follow the queen into the sea;” and about to
give the leap, she could not be moved any way, and adhering to the rock,
{there} she stuck fast. Another, while she was attempting to beat her
breast with the accustomed blows, perceived in the attempt that her arms
had become stiff. One, as by chance she had extended her hands over the
waters of the sea, becoming a rock, held out her hands in those same
waters. You might see the fingers of another suddenly hardened in her
hair, as she was tearing her locks seized on the top of her head. In
whatever posture each was found {at the beginning of the change}, in the
same she remained. Some became birds; which, sprung from Ismenus, skim
along the surface of the waves in those seas, with the wings which they
have assumed.

    〔note 54 — She alone.--Ver. 419. This was Ino, whose only sorrows hitherto had been caused by the calamities which befell her sisters and their offspring: Semele having died a shocking death, Autonoë having seen her son Actæon changed into a stag, and then devoured by his dogs, and Agave having assisted in tearing to pieces her own son Pentheus.〕

    〔note 55 — When they have enjoyed.--Ver. 435. The spirits whose bodies had not received the rites of burial, we learn from Homer and Virgil, were not allowed to pass the river Styx, but wandered on its banks for a hundred years.〕

    〔note 56 — So does that spot.--Ver. 441. That is to say, whatever number of ghosts arrives there, it receives them all with ease, and is not sensible of the increase of number; either because the place itself is of such immense extent, or because the souls of the dead do not occupy space.〕

    〔note 57 — The Sisters.--Ver. 450. These were the Furies, fabled to be the daughters of Night and Acheron. They were three in number, Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megæra, and were supposed to be the avengers of crime and wickedness.〕

    〔note 58 — Tityus.--Ver. 456. Tityus was the son of Jupiter and Elara. On account of his enormous size, the poets sometimes style him a son of the earth. Attempting to commit violence upon Latona, he was slain by the arrows of Apollo, and precipitated to the infernal regions, where he was condemned to have his liver constantly devoured by a vulture, and then renewed, to perpetuate his torments.〕

    〔note 59 — Tantalus.--Ver. 457. He was the son of Jupiter, by the Nymph Plote. The crime for which he was punished is differently related by the poets. Some say, that he divulged the secrets of the Gods, that had been entrusted to him; while others relate, that at an entertainment which he gave to the Deities, he caused his own son, Pelops, to be served up, on which Ceres inadvertently ate his shoulder. He was doomed to suffer intense hunger and thirst, amid provisions of all kinds within his reach, which perpetually receded from him.〕

    〔note 60 — Sisyphus.--Ver. 459. Sisyphus, the son of Æolus, was a daring robber, who infested Attica. He was slain by Theseus; and being sent to the infernal regions, was condemned to the punishment of rolling a great stone to the top of a mountain, which it had no sooner reached than it fell down again, and renewed his labor.〕

    〔note 61 — Ixion.--Ver. 461. Being advanced by Jupiter to heaven, he presumed to make an attempt on Juno. Jupiter, to deceive him, formed a cloud in her shape, on which Ixion begot the Centaurs. He was cast into Tartarus, and was there fastened to a wheel, which turned round incessantly.〕

    〔note 62 — Iris.--Ver. 480. Iris was the daughter of Thaumas and Electra, and the messenger of Juno. She was the Goddess of the Rainbow.〕

    〔note 63 — Tisiphone.--Ver. 481. Clarke translates ‘Tisiphone importuna,’ ‘the plaguy Tisiphone.’〕

    〔note 64 — Echidna.--Ver. 501. This word properly means, ‘a female viper;’ but it here refers to the Hydra, or dragon of the marsh of Lerna, which Hercules slew. It was fabled to be partly a woman, and partly a serpent, and to have been begotten by Typhon. According to some accounts, this monster had seven heads.〕

    〔note 65 — Dashes in pieces.--Ver. 519. Euripides and Hyginus relate, that Athamas slew his son while hunting; and Apollodorus says, that he mistook him for a stag.〕

    〔note 66 — Thy foster-child.--Ver. 524. Bacchus was the foster-child of Ino, who was the sister of his mother Semele. The remaining portion of the story of Ino and Melicerta is again related by Ovid in the sixth book of the Fasti.〕

    〔note 67 — There is a rock.--Ver. 525. Pausanias calls this the Molarian rock, and says, that it was one of the Scironian rocks, near Megara, in Attica. It was a branch of the Geranian mountain.〕

    〔note 68 — And her burden.--Ver. 530. This was her son Melicerta, who, according to Pausanias, was received by dolphins, and was landed by them on the isthmus of Corinth.〕

    〔note 69 — Guiltless granddaughter.--Ver. 531. Venus was the grandmother of Ino, inasmuch as Hermione, or Harmonia, the wife of Cadmus, was the daughter of Mars and Venus.〕

    〔note 70 — Boundless Ionian sea.--Ver. 535. The Ionian sea must be merely mentioned here as a general name for the broad expanse of waters, of which the Saronic gulf, into which the Molarian rock projected, formed part. Ovid may, however, mean to say that Ino threw herself from some rock in the Ionian sea, and not from the Molarian rock; following, probably, the account of some other writer, whose works are lost.〕

    〔note 71 — Grecian name is derived.--Ver. 538. Venus was called Aphrodite, by the Greeks, from ἄφρος, ‘the foam of the sea,’ from which she was said to have sprung.〕

    〔note 72 — A Divinity.--Ver. 542. Ino and Melicerta were worshipped as Divinities both in Greece and at Rome.〕

    〔note 73 — Sidonian attendants.--Ver. 543. The Theban matrons are meant, who had married the companions of Cadmus that accompanied him from Phœnices.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The story of Ino, Athamas, and Melicerta appears to have been based
  upon historical facts, as we are informed by Herodotus, Diodorus
  Siculus, and Pausanias.

  Athamas, the son of Æolus, and great-grandson of Deucalion, having, on
  the death of Themisto, his first wife, married Ino, the daughter of
  Cadmus, divorced her soon afterwards, to marry Nephele, by whom he had
  Helle and Phryxus. She having been divorced in her turn, he took Ino
  back again, and by her had Learchus and Melicerta. Ino, not being able
  to endure the presence of the children of Nephele, endeavored to
  destroy them. The city of Thebes being at that time afflicted with
  famine, which was said to have been caused by Ino, who ordered the
  seed to be parched before it was sown, Athamas ordered the oracle of
  Delphi to be consulted. The priests, either having been bribed, or the
  messengers having been corrupted, word was brought, that, to remove
  this affliction, the children of Nephele must be sacrificed.

  Phryxus being warned of the designs of his stepmother, embarked in a
  ship, with his sister Helle, and sailed for Colchis, where he met with
  a kind reception from his kinsman Æetes. The young princess, however,
  either becoming sea-sick, and leaning over the bulwarks of the vessel,
  fell overboard and was drowned, or died a natural death in the passage
  of the Hellespont, to which she gave its name from that circumstance.
  Athamas, having discovered the deceitful conduct of Ino, in his rage
  killed her son Learchus, and sought her, for the purpose of
  sacrificing her to his vengeance. To avoid his fury, she fled with her
  son Melicerta, and, being pursued, threw herself from a rock into the
  sea. To console her relatives, the story was probably invented, that
  the Gods had changed Ino and Melicerta into Sea Deities, under the
  names of Leucothoë and Palæmon. Melicerta was afterwards worshipped in
  the Isle of Tenedos, where children were offered to him in sacrifice.
  In his honor, Glaucus established the Isthmian games, which were
  celebrated for many ages at Corinth; and, being interrupted for a
  time, were revived by Theseus, in honor of Neptune. Leucothoë was also
  worshipped at Rome, and the Roman women used to offer up their vows to
  her for their brothers’ children, not daring to supplicate the Goddess
  for their own, because she had been unfortunate in hers. This Ovid
  tells us in the Sixth Book of the Fasti. The Romans gave the name of
  Matuta to Ino, and Melicerta, or Palæmon, was called Portunus.

  The circumstance mentioned by Ovid, that some of Ino’s attendants were
  changed into birds, and others into rocks, is, perhaps, only a
  poetical method of saying that some of her attendants escaped, while
  others perished with her.

FABLE VIII. [IV.563-603]

  The misfortunes of his family oblige Cadmus to leave Thebes, and to
  retire with his wife Hermione to Illyria, where they are changed into
  serpents.

The son of Agenor knows not that his daughter and his little grandson
are {now} Deities of the sea. Forced by sorrow, and a succession of
calamities, and the prodigies which, many in number, he had beheld, the
founder flies from his city, as though the {ill}-luck of the spot, and
not his own, pressed {hard} upon him, and driven, in a long series of
wandering, he reaches the coast of Illyria, with his exiled wife. And
now, loaded with woes and with years, while they are reflecting on the
first disasters of their house, and in their discourse are recounting
their misfortunes, Cadmus says, “Was that dragon a sacred one, that was
pierced by my spear, at the time when, setting out from Sidon, I sowed
the teeth of the dragon in the ground, a seed {till then} unknown? If
the care of the Gods avenges this with resentment so unerring, I pray
that I myself, as a serpent, may be lengthened out into an extended
belly.” {Thus} he says; and, as a serpent, he is lengthened out into an
extended belly, and perceives scales growing on his hardened skin, and
his black body become speckled with azure spots; and he falls flat on
his breast, and his legs, joined into one, taper out by degrees into a
thin round point. His arms are still remaining; those arms which remain
he stretches out; and, as the tears are flowing down his face, still
that of a man, he says, “Come hither, wife, come hither, most unhappy
one, and, while something of me yet remains, touch me; and take my hand,
while it is {still} a hand, {and} while I am not a serpent all over.”
He, indeed, desires to say more, but, on a sudden, his tongue is divided
into two parts. Nor are words in his power when he offers {to speak};
and as often as he attempts to utter any complaints, he makes a hissing:
this is the voice that Nature leaves him. His wife, smiting her naked
breast with her hand, cries aloud, “Stay, Cadmus! and deliver thyself,
unhappy one, from this monstrous form. Cadmus, what means this? Where
are thy feet? where are both thy shoulders and thy hands? where is thy
color and thy form, and, while I speak, {where} all else {besides}? Why
do ye not, celestial Gods, turn me as well into a similar serpent?”
{Thus} she spoke; he licked the face of his wife, and crept into her
dear bosom, as though he recognized her; and gave her embraces, and
reached her well-known neck.

Whoever is by, (some attendants are present), is alarmed; but the
crested snakes soothe them with their slippery necks, and suddenly they
are two {serpents}, and in joined folds they creep along, until they
enter the covert of an adjacent grove. Now, too, do they neither shun
mankind, nor hurt them with wounds, and the gentle serpents keep in mind
what once they were.

EXPLANATION.

  After Cadmus had reigned at Thebes many years, a conspiracy was formed
  against him. Being driven from the throne, and his grandson Pentheus
  assuming the crown, he and his wife Hermione retired into Illyria,
  where, as Apollodorus says, he commanded the Illyrian army, and at
  length was chosen king: on his death, the story here related by Ovid
  was invented. It is possible that it may have been based on the
  following grounds:--

  The Phœnicians were anciently called ‘Achivi,’ which name they still
  retained after their establishment in Greece. ‘Chiva’ being also the
  Hebrew, and perhaps Phœnician word for ‘a serpent,’ the Greeks,
  probably in reference to the Phœnician origin of Cadmus, reported
  after his death, that he and his wife were serpents; and in time, that
  transformation may have been stated to have happened at the end of his
  life. According to Aulus Gellius, the ancient inhabitants of Illyria
  had two eyelids to each eye, and with their looks, when angered, they
  were able to kill those whom they beheld stedfastly. The Greeks hence
  called them serpents and basilisks; and, it is not unlikely, that when
  Cadmus retired among them, they said that he had become one of the
  Illyrians, otherwise a dragon, or a serpent. All the ancient writers
  who mention his history agree that Cadmus really did retire into
  Illyria, where he first assisted the Enchelians in their war against
  the Illyrians. The latter were defeated, and, to obtain a peace from
  the Enchelians, they gave the crown to Cadmus; to which, on his death,
  his son Illyrus succeeded. The historian Christodorus, quoted by
  Pausanias, says that he built the city of Nygnis, in the country of
  the Enchelians.

  Some writers have supposed, upon the authority of Euhemerus as quoted
  by Eusebius that Cadmus was not the son of Agenor, but was one of his
  officers, who eloped thence with Hermione, a singing girl. Others
  suppose that Cadmus is not really a proper name, but that it signifies
  a ‘leader,’ or ‘conductor;’ and that he received the name from leading
  a colony into Greece. Bochart says that he was called Cadmus, because
  he came from the eastern part of Phœnicia, which is called in
  Scripture ‘Cadmonia,’ or ‘oriental;’ and that Hermione probably
  received her name from Mount Hermon.

FABLE IX. [IV.604-662]

  Perseus, the son of Jupiter and Danaë, having killed Medusa, carries
  her head into Africa, where the blood that runs from it produces
  serpents. Atlas, king of that country, terrified at the remembrance of
  an oracle, which had foretold that his golden fruit should be taken by
  one of the sons of Jupiter, not only orders him to depart, but even
  resorts to violence to drive him away, on which Perseus shows him the
  Gorgon’s head, and changes him into a mountain.

But yet their grandson, {Bacchus} gave them both a great consolation,
under this change of form; whom India, subdued {by him}, worshipped {as
a} God, {and} whom Achaia honored with erected temples. Acrisius the son
of Abas,[74] descended of the same race,[75] alone remained, to drive
him from the walls of the Argive city, and to bear arms against the God,
and to believe him not to be the offspring of Jove. Neither did he think
Perseus to be the offspring of Jupiter, whom Danaë had conceived in a
shower of gold; but soon (so great is the power of truth) Acrisius was
sorry, both that he had insulted the God, and that he had not
acknowledged his grandson. The one was now placed in heaven, while the
other, bearing the memorable spoil of the viperous monster, cut the
yielding air with hissing wings; and while the conqueror was hovering
over the Libyan sands, bloody drops, from the Gorgon’s head, fell down,
upon receiving {which, the} ground quickened them into various serpents.
For this cause, that region is filled and infested with snakes.

Carried thence, by the fitful winds, through boundless space, he is
borne now here, now there, just like a watery cloud, and, from the lofty
sky, looks down upon the earth, removed afar; and he flies over the
whole world. Three times he saw the cold Bears, thrice did he see the
claws of the Crab; ofttimes he was borne to the West, many a time to the
East. And now, the day declining, afraid to trust himself to the night,
he stopped in the Western part of the world, in the kingdom of Atlas;
and {there} he sought a little rest, until Lucifer should usher forth
the fires of Aurora, Aurora, the chariot of the day. Here was Atlas, the
son of Iapetus, surpassing all men in the vastness of his body. Under
this king was the extremity of the earth, and the sea which holds its
waters under the panting horses of the Sun, and receives the wearied
chariot. For him, a thousand flocks, and as many herds, wandered over
the pastures, and no neighboring places disturbed the land. Leaves of
the trees, shining with radiant gold, covered branches of gold, {and}
apples of gold. “My friend,” said Perseus to him, “if the glory of a
noble race influences thee, Jupiter is the author of my descent; or if
thou art an admirer of exploits, thou wilt admire mine. I beg of thee
hospitality, and a resting place.” The other was mindful of an ancient
oracle. The Parnassian Themis had given this response: “A time will
come, Atlas, when thy tree shall be stripped of its gold, and a son of
Jove shall have the honor of the prize.” Dreading this, Atlas had
enclosed his orchard with solid walls, and had given it to be kept by a
huge dragon;[76] and expelled all strangers from his territories. {To
Perseus}, too, he says, “Far hence begone, lest the glory of the
exploits, to which thou falsely pretendest, and Jupiter as well, be far
from protecting thee.” He adds violence as well to his threats, and
tries to drive him from his doors, as he hesitates and mingles resolute
words with persuasive ones. Inferior in strength (for who could be a
match for Atlas in strength?), he says “Since my friendship is of so
little value to thee, accept {this} present;” and then, turning his face
away, he exposes on the left side the horrible features of Medusa.
Atlas, great as he is, becomes a mountain. Now his beard and his hair
are changed into woods; his shoulders and his hands become mountain
ridges, and what was formerly his head, is the summit on the top of the
mountain. His bones become stones; then, enlarged on every side, he
grows to an immense height (so you willed it, ye Gods), and the whole
heaven, with so many stars, rests upon him.

    〔note 74 — Son of Abas.--Ver. 608. Acrisius was the son of Abas, king of Argos. He was the father of Danaë, by whom Jupiter was the father of Perseus.〕

    〔note 75 — Of the same race.--Ver. 607. Some suppose that by this it is meant that as Belus, the father of Abas, and grandfather of Acrisius, was the son of Jupiter, who was also the father of Bacchus, the latter and Acrisius were consequently related.〕

    〔note 76 — A huge dragon.--Ver. 647. The name of the dragon was Ladon.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The story of the seduction of Danaë, the mother of Perseus, by
  Jupiter, in the form of a shower of gold, has been thus explained by
  some of the ancient writers. Acrisius, hearing of a prediction that
  Danaë, his daughter, should bring forth a child that would kill him,
  caused her to be shut in a tower with brazen gates, or, according to
  some, in a subterraneous chamber, covered with plates of that metal;
  which place, according to Pausanias, remained till the time of
  Perilaus, the king of Argos, by whom it was destroyed. The precautions
  of Acrisius were, however, made unavailing by his brother Prœtus; who,
  falling in love with his niece, corrupted the guards with gold, and
  gained admission into the tower. Danaë, being delivered of Perseus,
  her father caused them to be exposed in a boat to the mercy of the
  waves. Being cast on shore near Seriphus, the king, Polydectes, gave
  them a hospitable reception, and took care of the education of
  Perseus.

  Diodorus Siculus says that the Gorgons were female warriors, who
  inhabited the neighborhood of Lake Tritonis, in Libya. Pausanias
  explains the story of Medusa, by saying that she ruled the people in
  that neighborhood, and laid waste the lands of the nations in her
  vicinity. Perseus, having fled, with some companions, from
  Peloponnesus, surprised her by night, and killed her, together with
  her escort. The next morning, the beauty of her face appeared so
  remarkable that he cut it off, and afterwards took it with him to
  Greece, to show it to the people, who could not look on it without
  being struck with astonishment. On this explanation we may remark,
  that if it is true, Perseus must have had more skill than the surgeons
  of our day, in being able to preserve the beauty of the features so
  long after death.

  Again, many of the ancient historians, with Pliny, Athenæus, and
  Solinus, think that the Gorgons were wild women of a savage nature,
  living in caves and forests, who, falling on wayfarers, committed
  dreadful atrocities. Palæphatus and Fulgentius think that the Gorgons
  really were three young women, possessed of great wealth, which they
  employed in a very careful manner; Phorcus, their father, having left
  them three islands, and a golden statue of Minerva, which they placed
  in their common treasury. They had one minister in common for the
  management of their affairs, who used to go for that purpose from one
  island to another, whence arose the story that they had but one eye,
  and that they lent it to one another alternately. Perseus, a fugitive
  from Argos, hearing of the golden statue, determined to obtain it; and
  with that view, seized their minister, or, in the allegorical language
  of the poets, took their eye away from them. He then sent them word,
  that if they would give him the statue, he would deliver up his
  captive, and threatened, in case of refusal, to put him to death.
  Stheno and Euryale consented to this; but Medusa resisting, she was
  killed by Perseus. Upon his obtaining the statue, which was called the
  Gorgon, or Gorgonian, he broke it in pieces, and placed the head on
  the prow of his ship. As the sight of this, and the fame of the
  exploits of Perseus, spread terror everywhere, and caused passive
  submission to him, the fable originated, that with Medusa’s head he
  turned his enemies into stone. Landing in the Isle of Seriphus, the
  king fled, with all his subjects; and, on entering the chief city,
  finding nothing but the bare stones there, he caused the report to be
  spread, that he had petrified the inhabitants.

  Servius, in his Commentary on the Æneid, quotes an opinion of Ammonius
  Serenus, that the Gorgons were young women of such beauty as to make a
  great impression on all that saw them; for which reason they were said
  to turn them into statues. Le Clerc thinks that the story bears
  reference to a voyage which the Phœnicians had made in ancient times
  to the coast of Africa, whence they brought a great number of horses;
  and that the name ‘Perseus’ comes from the Phœnician word ‘pharscha,’
  ‘a horseman;’ while the horse Pegasus was so called from the Phœnician
  ‘pagsous,’ ‘a bridled horse,’ according to the conjecture of Bochart.
  Alexander of Myndus, a historian quoted by Athenæus, says that Libya
  had an animal which the natives called ‘gorgon;’ that it resembled a
  sheep, and with its breath killed all those who approached it; that a
  tuft of hair fell over its eyes, which was so heavy as to be removed
  with difficulty, for the purpose of seeing the objects around it; but
  that when it was removed, by its looks it struck dead any person whom
  it gazed upon. He says, that in the war with Jugurtha, some of the
  soldiers of Marius were thus slain by it, and that it was at last
  killed by means of arrows discharged from a great distance.

  The Gorgons are said to have inhabited the Gorgades, islands in the
  Æthiopian Sea, the chief of which was called Cerna, according to
  Diodorus and Palæphatus. It is not improbable that the Cape Verde
  Islands were called by this name. The fable of the transformation of
  Atlas into the mountain of that name may possibly have been based upon
  the simple fact, that Perseus killed him in the neighborhood of that
  range, from which circumstance it derived the name which it has borne
  ever since. The golden apples, which Atlas guarded with so much care,
  were probably either gold mines, which Atlas had discovered in the
  mountains of his country, and had secured with armed men and watchful
  dogs; or sheep, whose fleeces were extremely valuable for their
  fineness; or else oranges and lemons, and other fruits peculiar to
  very hot climates, for the production of which the poets especially
  remarked the country of Tingitana (the modern Tangier), as being very
  celebrated.

FABLE X. [IV.663-803]

  Perseus, after his victory over Atlas, and his change into a mountain,
  arrives in Æthiopia, at the time when Andromeda is exposed to be
  devoured by a monster. He kills it, and hides the Gorgon’s head under
  the sand, covered with sea-weed and plants; which are immediately
  turned into coral. He then renders thanks to the Gods for his victory,
  and marries Andromeda. At the marriage feast he relates the manner in
  which he had killed Medusa; and the reason why Minerva had changed her
  hair into serpents.

The grandson of Hippotas[77] had shut up the winds in their eternal
prison; and Lucifer, who reminds {men} of their work, was risen in the
lofty sky, in all his splendor. Resuming his wings, {Perseus} binds his
feet with them on either side, and is girt with his crooked weapon, and
cleaves the liquid air with his winged ankles. Nations innumerable being
left behind, around and below, he beholds the people of the Æthiopians
and the lands of Cepheus. There the unjust Ammon[78] had ordered the
innocent Andromeda to suffer punishment for her mother’s tongue.[79]

Soon as the descendant of Abas beheld her, with her arms bound to the
hard rock, but that the light breeze was moving her hair, and her eyes
were running with warm[80] tears, he would have thought her to be a work
of marble. Unconsciously he takes fire, and is astonished; captivated
with the appearance of her beauty, {thus} beheld, he almost forgets to
wave his wings in the air. When he has lighted {on the ground}, he says,
“O thou, undeserving of these chains, but {rather} of those by which
anxious lovers are mutually united, disclose to me, inquiring both the
name of this land and of thyself, and why thou wearest {these} chains.”
At first she is silent, and, a virgin, she does not dare address[81] a
man; and with her hands she would have concealed her blushing features,
if she had not been bound; her eyes, ’twas {all} she could do, she
filled with gushing tears. Upon his often urging her, lest she should
seem unwilling to confess her offence, she told the name both of her
country and herself, and how great had been the confidence of her mother
in her beauty. All not yet being told, the waves roared, and a monster
approaching,[82] appeared with its head raised out of the boundless
ocean, and covered the wide expanse with its breast. The virgin shrieks
aloud; her mournful father, and her distracted mother, are there, both
wretched, but the latter more justly so. Nor do they bring her any help
with them, but tears suitable to the occasion, and lamentations, and
they cling round her body, bound {to the rock}.

Then thus the stranger says: “Plenty of time will be left for your tears
{hereafter}, the season for giving aid is {but} short. If I were to
demand her {in marriage}, I, Perseus, the son of Jove, and of her whom,
in prison, Jove embraced in the impregnating {shower of} gold, Perseus,
the conqueror of the Gorgon with her serpent locks, and who has dared,
on waving wings, to move through the ætherial air, I should surely be
preferred before all as your son-in-law. To so many recommendations I
endeavor to add merit (if only the Deities favor me). I {only} stipulate
that she may be mine, {if} preserved by my valor.” Her parents embrace
the condition, (for who could hesitate?) and they entreat {his aid}, and
promise as well, the kingdom as a dowry. Behold! as a ship onward
speeding, with the beak fixed {in its prow}, plows the waters, impelled
by the perspiring arms[83] of youths; so the monster, moving the waves
by the impulse of its breast, was as far distant from the rocks, as
{that distance} in the mid space of air, which a Balearic string can
pass with the whirled plummet of lead; when suddenly the youth, spurning
the earth with his feet, rose on high into the clouds. As the shadow of
the hero was seen on the surface of the sea, the monster vented its fury
on the shadow {so} beheld. And as the bird of Jupiter,[84] when he has
espied on the silent plain a serpent exposing its livid back to the
sun, seizes it behind; and lest it should turn upon him its raging
mouth, fixes his greedy talons in its scaly neck; so did the winged
{hero}, in his rapid flight through the yielding {air}, press the back
of the monster, and the descendant of Inachus thrust his sword up to the
very hilt in its right shoulder, as it roared aloud.

Tortured by the grievous wound, it sometimes raises itself aloft in the
air, sometimes it plunges beneath the waves, sometimes it wheels about,
just like a savage boar, which a pack of hounds in full cry around him
affrights. With swift wings he avoids the eager bites[85] {of the
monster}, and, with his crooked sword, one while wounds its back covered
with hollow shells, where it is exposed, at another time the ribs of its
sides, and now, where its tapering tail terminates in {that of} a fish.
The monster vomits forth from its mouth streams mingled with red blood;
its wings, {made} heavy {by it}, are wet with the spray. Perseus, not
daring any longer to trust himself on his dripping pinions,[86] beholds
a rock, which with its highest top projects from the waters {when}
becalmed, {but is now} covered by the troubled sea. Resting on that, and
clinging to the upper ridge[87] of the rock with his left hand, three or
four times he thrusts his sword through its entrails aimed at {by him}.
A shout, with applause, fills the shores and the lofty abodes of the
Gods. Cassiope and Cepheus, the father, rejoice, and salute him as their
son-in-law, and confess that he is the support and the preserver of
their house.

Released from her chains, the virgin walks along, both the reward and
the cause of his labors. He himself washes his victorious hands in water
taken {from the sea}; and that it may not injure the snake-bearing head
with the bare sand, he softens the ground with leaves; and strews some
weeds produced beneath the sea, and lays upon them the face of Medusa,
the daughter of Phorcys. The fresh weeds, being still alive, imbibed the
poison of the monster in their spongy pith, and hardened by its touch;
and felt an unwonted stiffness in their branches and their leaves. But
the Nymphs of the sea attempt the wondrous feat on many {other} weeds,
and are pleased at the same result; and raise seed again from them
scattered on the waves. Even now the same nature remains in the coral,
that it receives hardness from contact with the air; and what was a
plant in the sea, out of the sea becomes stone.

To three Deities he erects as many altars of turf; the left one to
Mercury; the right to thee, warlike Virgin; the altar of Jove is in the
middle. A cow is sacrificed to Minerva; a calf to the wing-footed {God,
and} a bull to thee, greatest of the Deities. Forthwith he takes
Andromeda, and the reward of an achievement so great, without any dowry.
Hymenæus and Cupid wave their torches before them; the fires are heaped
with abundant perfumes. Garlands, too, are hanging from the houses:
flageolets and lyres, and pipes, and songs resound, the happy tokens of
a joyous mind. The folding-doors thrown open, the entire gilded halls
are displayed, and the nobles of king Cepheus sit down at a feast
furnished with splendid preparations. After they have done the feast,
and have cheered their minds with the gifts of the generous Bacchus, the
grandson of Abas inquires the customs and habits of the country.
Immediately one {of them}, Lyncides, tells him, on his inquiring, the
manners and habits of the inhabitants. Soon as he had told him these
things, he said, “Now, most valiant Perseus, tell us, I beseech thee,
with how great valor and by what arts thou didst cut off the head all
hairy with serpents.” The descendant of Abas tells them that there is a
spot situate beneath cold Atlas, safe in its bulwark of a solid mass;
that, in the entrance of this, dwelt the two sisters, the daughters of
Phorcys, who shared the use of a single eye; that he stealthily, by sly
craft, while it was being handed over,[88] obtained possession of this
by putting his hand in the way; and that through rocks far remote, and
pathless, and bristling with woods on their craggy sides, he had arrived
at the abodes of the Gorgons, and saw everywhere, along the fields and
the roads, statues of men and wild beasts turned into stone, from their
{natural form}, at the sight of Medusa; yet that he himself, from the
reflection on the brass of the shield[89] which his left hand bore,
beheld the visage of the horrible Medusa; and that, while a sound sleep
held her and her serpents {entranced}, he took the head from off the
neck; and that Pegasus and his brother,[90] fleet with wings, were
produced from the blood of {her}, their mother. He added, too, the
dangers of his lengthened journey, {themselves} no fiction;[91] what
seas, what lands he had seen beneath him from on high, and what stars he
had reached with his waving wings.

Yet, before it was expected,[92] he was silent; {whereupon} one of the
nobles rejoined, inquiring why she alone, of the sisters, wore snakes
mingled alternately with her hair. “Stranger,” said he, “since thou
inquirest on a matter worthy to be related, hear the cause of the thing
thou inquirest after. She was the most famed for her beauty, and the
coveted hope of many wooers; nor, in the whole of her person, was any
part more worthy of notice than her hair: I have met {with some} who
said they had seen it. The sovereign of the sea is said to have
deflowered her in the Temple of Minerva. The daughter of Jove turned
away, and covered her chaste eyes with her shield. And that this might
not be unpunished, she changed the hair of the Gorgon into hideous
snakes. Now, too, that she may alarm her surprised foes with terror, she
bears in front upon her breast, those snakes which she {thus} produced.”

    〔note 77 — Hippotas.--Ver. 663. Æolus, the God of the Winds, was the son of Jupiter, by Acesta, the daughter of Hippotas.〕

    〔note 78 — Ammon.--Ver. 671. Jupiter, with the surname of Ammon, had a temple in the deserts of Libya, where he was worshipped under the shape of a ram; a form which he was supposed to have assumed, when, in common with the other Deities, he fled from the attacks of the Giants. The oracle of Jupiter Ammon being consulted relative to the sea monster, which Neptune, at the request of the Nereids, had sent against the Ethiopians, answered that Andromeda must be exposed to be devoured by it; which Ovid here, not without reason, calls an unjust demand.〕

    〔note 79 — Mother’s tongue.--Ver. 670. Cassiope, the mother of Andromeda, had dared to compare her own beauty with that of the Nereids. Cepheus, the son of Phœnix, was the father of Andromeda.〕

    〔note 80 — Warm.--Ver. 674. ‘Tepido,’ ‘warm,’ is decidedly preferable here to ‘trepido,’ ‘trembling.’〕

    〔note 81 — Dare address.--Ver. 682. Heinsius thinks that ‘appellare’ here is not the correct reading; and suggests ‘aspectare,’ which seems to be more consistent with the sense of the passage, which would then be, ‘and does not dare to look down upon the hero.’〕

    〔note 82 — Monster approaching.--Ver. 689. Pliny the Elder and Solinus tell us that the bones of this monster were afterwards brought from Joppa, a seaport of Judæa, to Rome, and that the skeleton was forty feet in length, and the spinal bone was six feet in circumference.〕

    〔note 83 — The perspiring arms.--Ver. 707. ‘Juvenum sudantibus acta lacertis’ is translated by Clarke, ‘forced forward by the arms of sweating young fellows.’〕

    〔note 84 — Bird of Jupiter.--Ver. 714. The eagle was the bird sacred to Jove. The larger kinds of birds which afforded auguries from their mode of flight, were called ‘præpetes.’〕

    〔note 85 — Avoids the eager bites.--Ver. 723. Clarke translates this line, ‘He avoids the monster’s eager snaps with his swift wings.’〕

    〔note 86 — His dripping pinions.--Ver. 730. ‘Talaria’ were either wings fitted to the ankles, or shoes having such wings fastened to them; they were supposed to be usually worn by Mercury.〕

    〔note 87 — Clinging to the upper ridge.--Ver. 733. ‘Tenens juga prima sinistra’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘seizing the tip-top of it with his left hand.’〕

    〔note 88 — Being handed over.--Ver. 766. Of course, as they had but one eye between them, they must have both been blind while it was passing from one hand to another, so that Perseus could have had but little difficulty in effecting the theft here mentioned.〕

    〔note 89 — Brass of the shield.--Ver. 783. This reflecting shield Perseus is said to have received from Minerva, and by virtue of it he was enabled to see without being seen. Lucian says that Minerva herself held this reflecting shield before him, and by that means afforded him the opportunity of seeing the reflection of Medusa’s figure; and that Perseus, seizing her by the hair with his left hand, and keeping his eye fixed on the image reflected in the shield, took his sword in his right, and cut off her head, and then, by the aid of his wings, flew away before the other Gorgon sisters were aware of what he had done.〕

    〔note 90 — Pegasus and his brother.--Ver. 786. Pegasus and Chrysaor were two winged horses, which were fabled to have sprung up from the blood of Medusa, when slain by Perseus.〕

    〔note 91 — Themselves no fiction.--Ver. 787. His dangers were not false or imaginary, inasmuch as he was pursued by Sthenyo and Euryale, the sisters of Medusa, who were fabled to have wings, and claws of iron on their hands. Ovid deals a sly hit in the words ‘non falsa pericula cursus,’ at the tales of travellers, who, even in his day, seem to have commenced dealing in the marvellous; as, indeed, we may learn for ourselves, on turning to the pages of Herodotus, who seems to have been often imposed upon.〕

    〔note 92 — Before it was expected.--Ver. 790. Showing thereby how delighted his audience was with his narrative.〕

EXPLANATION.

  It is extremely difficult to surmise what may have given rise to many
  of the fabulous circumstances here narrated. It has been conjectured
  by some, that Pegasus and his brother Chrysaor, the two horses
  produced from the blood of Medusa, were really two ships in the harbor
  of the island where that princess was residing at the time when she
  was slain by Perseus; and that, on that event, they were seized by
  him. Perhaps they had the figure of a winged horse on the prow; from
  which circumstance the fable had its origin. Possibly, the story of
  the production of coral from the blood of Medusa may have originated
  in the fact, that on the defeat of the Gorgons, navigation became more
  safe, and, consequently, the fishing for coral more common than it had
  been before.

  The story of the exposure of Andromeda may be founded on the fact,
  that she was contracted by her parents against her will to some
  fierce, piratical prince, who infested the adjacent seas with his
  depredations; and that the betrothal was made, on condition that he
  should allow the realms of her father, Cepheus, to be free and
  undisturbed; Perseus, being informed of this, slew the pirate, and
  Phineus having been kept in a state of inactivity through dread of the
  valor of Perseus, it was fabled that he had been changed into a stone.
  This interpretation of the story is the one suggested by Vossius.

  Some writers think, that Phineus, the uncle of Andromeda, was the
  enemy from which she was rescued by Perseus, and who is here
  represented under the form of a monster; while others suggest that
  this monster was the name of the ship in which the pirate before
  mentioned was to have carried away Andromeda.

FABLE I. [V.1-242]

  While Perseus is continuing the relation of the adventures of Medusa,
  Phineus, to whom Andromeda has been previously promised in marriage,
  rushes into the palace, with his adherents, and attacks his rival.
  A furious combat is the consequence, in which Perseus gives signal
  proofs of his valor. At length, perceiving himself likely to be
  overpowered by the number of his enemies, he shows them the head of
  the Gorgon; on which Phineus and his followers are turned into statues
  of stone. After this victory, he takes Andromeda with him to Argos,
  his native city, where he turns the usurper Prœtus into stone, and
  re-establishes his grandfather Acrisius on the throne.

And while the hero, the son of Danaë, is relating these things in the
midst of the company of the subjects of Cepheus, the royal courts are
filled with a raging multitude; nor is the clamor such as celebrates a
marriage-feast, but one which portends dreadful warfare. You might
compare the banquet, changed into a sudden tumult, to the sea, which,
when calm, the boisterous rage of the winds disturbs by raising its
waves.

Foremost among these, Phineus,[1] the rash projector of the onslaught,
shaking an ashen spear with a brazen point, cries, “Behold! {now},
behold! I am come, the avenger of my wife, ravished from me; neither
shall thy wings nor Jupiter turned into fictitious gold, deliver thee
from me.” As he is endeavoring to hurl {his lance}, Cepheus cries out,
“What art thou doing? What fancy, my brother, impels thee, in thy
madness, to this crime? Is this the due acknowledgment to return
for deserts so great? Dost thou repay the life of her {thus} preserved,
with this reward? ’Twas not Perseus, if thou wouldst know the truth,
that took her away from thee; but the incensed majesty of the Nereids,
and horned Ammon, and the monster of the sea, which came to be glutted
with my bowels. She was snatched from thee at that moment, at which she
was to have perished; unless it is that thou dost, in thy cruelty,
insist upon that very thing, that she should perish, and wilt be
appeased only by my affliction. It is not enough, forsooth, that in thy
presence she was bound and that thou, both her uncle and her betrothed,
didst give no assistance; wilt thou be grieving, besides, that she was
saved by another, and wilt thou deprive him of his reward? If this
appears great to thee, thou shouldst have recovered it from the rock to
which it was fastened. Now, let him who has recovered it, through whom
my old age is not childless, have what he stipulated for, both by his
merits and his words; and know that he was preferred not before thee,
but before certain death.”

{Phineus said} nothing, on the other hand; but viewing both him and
Perseus, with alternate looks, he was uncertain whether he should
{first} attack the one or the other; and, having paused a short time, he
vainly threw his spear, hurled with all the force that rage afforded. As
it stood fixed in the cushion,[2] then, at length, Perseus leapt off
from the couch, and in his rage would have pierced the breast of his
enemy with the weapon, thrown back, had not Phineus gone behind an
altar, and {thus} (how unworthily!) an altar[3] protected a miscreant.
However, the spear, not thrown in vain, stuck in the forehead of Rhœtus;
who, after he fell, and the steel was wrenched from the skull, he
{still} struggled, and besprinkled the laid tables with his blood. But
then does the multitude burst forth into ungovernable rage, and hurl
their weapons. Some there are, who say that Cepheus ought to die with
his son-in-law; but Cepheus has gone out by the entrance of the house,
calling right and good faith to witness, and the Gods of hospitality,[4]
that this disturbance is made contrary to his will. The warlike Pallas
comes; and with her shield protects her brother {Perseus}, and gives him
courage. There was an Indian, Athis {by name},[5] whom Limnate, the
daughter of the river Ganges, is believed to have brought forth beneath
the glassy waters; excelling in beauty, which he improved by his rich
dress; in his prime, as yet but twice eight years of age, dressed in a
purple tunic, which a golden fringe bordered; a gilded necklace graced
his neck, and a curved hair-pin his hair wet with myrrh. He, indeed, had
been taught to hit things, although at a distance, with his hurled
javelin, but {he was} more skilled at bending the bow. {Perseus} struck
him even then, as he was bending with his hands the flexible horns {of a
bow}, with a billet, which, placed in the middle of the altar, was
smoking, and he crushed his face into his broken skull.

When the Assyrian Lycabas, who was a most attached friend of his, and no
concealer of his real affection, saw him rolling his features, the
objects of such praises, in his blood; after he had bewailed Athis,
breathing forth his life from this cruel wound, he seized the bow which
he had bent, and said, “And {now} let the contest against thee be with
me; not long shalt thou exult in the fate of the youth, by which thou
acquirest more hatred than praise.” All this he had not yet said, {when}
the piercing weapon darted from the string, and {though} avoided, still
it hung in the folds of his garment. The grandson of Acrisius turned
against him his falchion,[6] {already} proved in the slaughter of
Medusa, and thrust it into his breast. But he, now dying, with his eyes
swimming in black night, looked around for Athis, and sank upon him, and
carried to the shades the consolation of a united death. Lo! Phorbas of
Syene,[7] the son of Methion, and Amphimedon, the Libyan, eager to
engage in the fight, fell down, slipping in the blood with which the
earth was warm, soaked on every side; as they arose the sword met them,
being thrust in the ribs of the one, {and} in the throat of Phorbas. But
Perseus does not attack Erithus, the son of Actor, whose weapon is a
broad battle-axe, by using his sword, but he takes up, with both hands,
a huge bowl,[8] standing out with figures deeply embossed, and of vast
mass in its weight, and hurls it against the man. The other vomits forth
red blood, and, falling on his back, beats the ground with his dying
head. Then he slays Polydæmon, sprung from the blood of Semiramis, and
the Caucasian Abaris, and Lycetus, the son of Sperchius,[9] and Elyces,
with unshorn locks, and Phlegias, and Clytus; and he tramples upon the
heaps of the dying, which he has piled up.

But Phineus, not daring to engage hand to hand with his enemy, hurls his
javelin, which accident carries against Idas, who, in vain, has declined
the warfare[10] and has followed the arms of neither. He, looking at the
cruel Phineus with stern eyes, says, “Since I am {thus} forced to take a
side, take the enemy, Phineus, that thou hast made, and make amends for
my wound with this wound.” And now, just about to return the dart drawn
from his body, he falls sinking down upon his limbs void of blood. Here,
too, Odytes, the next in rank among the followers of Cepheus, after the
king, lies prostrate under the sword of Clymenus; Hypseus kills
Protenor, {and} Lyncides Hypseus. There is, too, among them the aged
Emathion, an observer of justice, and a fearer of the Gods; as his years
prevent him from fighting, he engages by talking, and he condemns and
utters imprecations against their accursed arms. As he clings to the
altars[11] with trembling hands, Chromis cuts off his head with his
sword, which straightway falls upon the altar, and there, with his dying
tongue he utters words of execration, and breathes forth his soul in the
midst of the fires. Upon this, two brothers, Broteas and Ammon
invincible at boxing, if swords could only be conquered by boxing, fell
by the hand of Phineus; Ampycus, too, the priest of Ceres, having his
temples wreathed with a white fillet. Thou too, son of Iapetus, not to
be employed for these services; but one who tuned the lyre, the work of
peace, to thy voice, hadst been ordered to attend the banquet and
festival with thy music. As thou art standing afar, and holding the
unwarlike plectrum, Pettalus says, laughing, “Go sing the rest to the
Stygian ghosts,” and fixes the point of the sword in his left temple. He
falls, and with his dying fingers he touches once again the strings of
the lyre; and in his fall he plays a mournful dirge.[12] The fierce
Lycormas does not suffer him to fall unpunished; and tearing away a
massive bar from the doorpost on the right, he dashes it against the
bones of the middle of the neck {of Pettalus}; struck, he falls to the
ground, just like a slaughtered bullock.

The Cinyphian[13] Pelates, too, was trying to tear away the oaken bar of
the doorpost on the left; as he was trying, his right hand was fastened
{thereto} by the spear of Corythus, the son of Marmarus, and it stood
riveted to the wood. {Thus} riveted, Abas pierced his side; he did not
fall, however, but dying, hung from the post, which still held fast his
hand. Melaneus, too, was slain, who had followed the camp of Perseus,
and Dorylas, very rich in Nasamonian land.[14] Dorylas, rich in land,
than whom no one possessed it of wider extent, or received {thence} so
many heaps of corn. The hurled steel stood fixed obliquely in his groin;
the hurt was mortal. When the Bactrian[15] Halcyoneus, the author of the
wound, beheld him sobbing forth his soul, and rolling his eyes, he said,
“Take {for thine own} this {spot} of earth which thou dost press, out of
so many fields,” and he left his lifeless body. The descendant of Abas,
as his avenger, hurls against {Halcyoneus} the spear torn from his wound
{yet} warm, which, received in the middle of the nostrils, pierced
through his neck, and projected on both sides. And while fortune is
aiding his hand, he slays, with different wounds, Clytius and Clanis,
born of one mother. For an ashen spear poised with a strong arm is
driven through both the thighs of Clytius; with his mouth does Clanis
bite the javelin. Celadon, the Mendesian,[16] falls, too; Astreus falls,
born of a mother of Palestine, {but} of an uncertain father. Æthion,
too, once sagacious at foreseeing things to come, {but} now deceived[17]
by a false omen; and Thoactes, the armor-bearer of the king, and
Agyrtes, infamous for slaying his father.

More work still remains, than what is {already} done; for it is the
intention of all to overwhelm one. The conspiring troops fight on all
sides, for a cause that attacks both merit and good faith. The one side,
the father-in-law, attached in vain, and the new-made wife, together
with her mother, encourage; and {these} fill the halls with their
shrieks. But the din of arms, and the groans of those that fall,
prevail; and for once, Bellona[18] is deluging the household Gods
polluted with plenteous blood, and is kindling the combat anew. Phineus,
and a thousand that follow Phineus, surround Perseus {alone}; darts are
flying thicker than the hail of winter, on both his sides, past his
eyes, and past his ears. On this, he places his shoulders against the
stone of a large pillar, and, having his back secure, and facing the
adverse throng, he withstands their attack. Chaonian[19] Molpeus presses
on the left, Nabathæan Ethemon on the right. As a tiger, urged on by
hunger, when it hears the lowings of two herds, in different valleys,
knows not on which side in preference to rush out, and {yet} is eager to
rush out on both; so Perseus, being in doubt whether to bear onward to
the right or to the left, repulses Molpeus by a wound in the leg, which
he runs through, and is contented with his flight. Nor, indeed, does
Ethemon give him time, but fiercely attacks him; and, desirous to
inflict a wound deep in his neck, he breaks his sword, wielded with
incautious force; and against the extremity of a column which he has
struck, the blade flies to pieces, and sticks in the throat of its
owner; yet that blow has not power sufficient to {effect} his death.
Perseus stabs him with his Cyllenian[20] falchion, trembling, and vainly
extending his unarmed hands.

But when Perseus saw his valor {likely} to yield to such numbers, he
said, “Since you yourselves force me to do it, I will seek assistance
from an enemy: turn away your faces, if any of my friends are here;” and
{then} he produced the head of the Gorgon. “{Go}, seek some one else,”
said Thescelus, “for thy miracles to affect;” and, as he was preparing
to hurl his deadly javelin with his hand, he stood fast in that posture,
a statue of marble. Ampyx, being next him, made a pass with his sword at
the breast of Lyncidas, full of daring spirit, and, while making it, his
right hand became stiff, moving neither to one side nor the other. But
Nileus, who had falsely boasted that he was begotten by the
seven-mouthed Nile, and who had engraved on his shield its seven
channels, partly in silver, partly in gold, said, “Behold, Perseus, the
origin of my race; thou shalt carry to the silent shades a great
consolation for thy death, that thou wast killed by one so great.” The
last part of his address was suppressed in the midst of the utterance;
and you would think his half-open mouth was attempting to speak, but it
gave no passage for his words. Eryx rebuked them,[21] and said, “Ye are
benumbed by the cowardice of your minds, not by the locks of the Gorgon;
rush on with me, and strike to the ground {this} youth that wields his
magic arms.” He was about to rush on, {when} the earth arrested his
steps, and he remained an immovable stone, and an armed statue. But all
these met with the punishment they had deserved: there was one man,
however, Aconteus {by name}, a soldier of Perseus, for whom while he was
fighting, on beholding the Gorgon, he grew hard with stone rising upon
him. Astyages, thinking him still alive, struck him with his long sword;
the sword resounded with a shrill ringing. While Astyages was in
amazement, he took on himself the same nature: and the look of one in
surprise remained on his marble features. It is a tedious task to
recount the names of the men of the lower rank. Two hundred bodies were
{yet} remaining for the fight: two hundred bodies, on beholding the
Gorgon, grew stiff.

Now at length Phineus repents of this unjust warfare. But what can he
do? He sees statues varying in form, and he recognizes his friends, and
demands help of them each, called by name; and not {yet} persuaded, he
touches the bodies next him; they are marble. He turns away {his eyes};
and thus suppliant, and stretching forth his hands, that confessed {his
fault}, and his arms obliquely extended, he says, “Perseus, thou hast
conquered; remove the direful monster, and take away that stone-making
face of thy Medusa, whatever she may be; take it away, I pray. It is not
hatred, or the desire of a kingdom, that has urged me to war: for a wife
I wielded arms. Thy cause was the better in point of merit, mine in
point of time. I am not sorry to yield. Grant me nothing, most valiant
man, beyond this life; the rest be thine.” Upon his saying such things,
and not daring to look upon him, whom he is entreating with his voice,
{Perseus} says, “What am I able to give thee, most cowardly Phineus,
and, a great boon to a craven, that will I give; lay aside thy fears;
thou shalt be hurt by no weapon. Moreover, I will give thee a monument
to last forever, and in the house of my father-in-law thou shalt always
be seen, that my wife may comfort herself with the form of her
betrothed.” {Thus} he said, and he turned the daughter of Phorcys to
that side, towards which Phineus had turned himself with trembling face.
Then, even as he endeavored to turn away his eyes, his neck grew stiff,
and the moisture of his eyes hardened in stone. But yet his timid
features, and his suppliant countenance, and his hands hanging down, and
his guilty attitude, still remained.

The descendant of Abas, together with his wife, enters the walls of his
native city; and as the defender and avenger of his innocent mother, he
attacks Prœtus.[22] For, his brother being expelled by force of arms,
Prœtus had taken possession of the citadel of Acrisius; but neither by
the help of arms, nor the citadel which he had unjustly seized, did he
prevail against the stern eyes of the snake-bearing monster.

    〔note 1 — Phineus.--Ver. 8. He was the brother of Cepheus, to whom Andromeda had been betrothed. There was another person of the same name, who entertained the Argonauts, and who is also mentioned in the Metamorphoses.〕

    〔note 2 — In the cushion.--Ver. 34. This was probably the mattress or covering of the couch on which the ancients reclined during meals. It was frequently stuffed with wool; but among the poorer classes, with straw and dried weeds.〕

    〔note 3 — An altar.--Ver. 36. This was either the altar devoted to the worship of the Penates; or, more probably, perhaps, in this instance, that erected for sacrifice to the Gods on the occasion of the nuptials of Perseus and Andromeda.〕

    〔note 4 — Gods of hospitality.--Ver. 45. Jupiter was especially considered to be the avenger of a violation of the laws of hospitality.〕

    〔note 5 — Athis by name.--Ver. 47. Athis, or Atys, is here described as of Indian birth, to distinguish him from the Phrygian youth of the same name, beloved by Cybele, whose story is told by Ovid in the Fasti.〕

    〔note 6 — His falchion.--Ver. 69. The “Harpe” was a short, crooked sword, or falchion: such as we call a “scimitar.”〕

    〔note 7 — Syene.--Ver. 74. This was a city on the confines of Æthiopia, bordering upon Egypt. Ovid tells us in the Pontic Epistles (Book i. Ep. 5, l. 79), that “there, at the time of the summer solstice, bodies as they stand, have no shadow.”〕

    〔note 8 — A huge bowl.--Ver. 82. Clarke calls “ingentem cratera” “a swingeing bowl.”〕

    〔note 9 — Sperchius.--Ver. 86. This was probably a person, and not the river of Thessaly, flowing into the Malian Gulf.〕

    〔note 10 — Has declined the warfare.--Ver. 91. This is an illustration of the danger of neutrality, when the necessity of the times requires a man to adopt the side which he deems to be in the right.〕

    〔note 11 — Clings to the altars.--Ver. 103. In cases of extreme danger, it was usual to fly to the temples of the Deities, and to take refuge behind the altar or statue of the God, and even to cling to it, if necessity required.〕

    〔note 12 — A mournful dirge.--Ver. 118. Clarke translates ‘Casuque canit miserabile carmen;’ ‘and in his fall plays but a dismal ditty.’〕

    〔note 13 — Cinyphian.--Ver. 124. Cinyps, or Cinyphus, was the name of a river situate in the north of Africa.〕

    〔note 14 — Nasamonian land.--Ver. 129. The Nasamones were a people of Libya, near the Syrtes, or quicksands, who subsisted by plundering the numerous wrecks on their coasts.〕

    〔note 15 — Bactrian.--Ver. 135. Bactris was the chief city of Bactria, a region bordering on the western confines of India.〕

    〔note 16 — The Mendesian.--Ver. 144. Mendes was a city of Egypt, near the mouth of the Nile, where Pan was worshipped, according to Pliny. Celadon was a native of either this place, or of the city of Myndes, in Syria.〕

    〔note 17 — Now deceived.--Ver. 147. Because he had not foreseen his own approaching fate.〕

    〔note 18 — Bellona.--Ver. 155. She was the sister of Mars, and was the Goddess of War.〕

    〔note 19 — Chaonian.--Ver. 163. Chaonia was a mountainous part of Epirus, so called from Chaon, who was accidentally killed, while hunting, by Helenus, the son of Priam. It has been, however, suggested that the reading ought to be ‘Choanius;’ as the Choanii were a people bordering on Arabia; and very justly, for how should the Chaonians and Nabathæans, or Epirotes, and Arabians become united in the same sentence, as meeting in a region so distant as Æthiopia?〕

    〔note 20 — Cyllenian.--Ver. 176. His falchion had been given to him by Mercury, who was born on Mount Cyllene, in Arcadia.〕

    〔note 21 — Eryx rebuked them.--Ver. 195. ‘Increpat hos Eryx’ is translated by Clarke, ‘Eryx rattles these blades.’〕

    〔note 22 — Prœtus.--Ver. 238. He was the brother of Acrisius, the grandfather of Perseus.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The scene of this story is supposed by some to have been in Æthiopia,
  but it is more probably on the coast of Africa. Josephus and Strabo
  assert that this event happened near the city of Joppa, or Jaffa:
  indeed, Josephus says that the marks of the chains with which
  Andromeda was fastened, were remaining on the rock in his time.
  Pomponius Mela says, that Cepheus, the father of Andromeda, was king
  of Joppa, and that the memory of that prince and of his brother
  Phineus was honored there with religious services. He says, too, that
  the inhabitants used to show the bones of the monster which was to
  have devoured Andromeda. Pliny tells us the same, and that Scaurus
  carried these bones with him to Rome. He calls the monster ‘a
  Goddess,’ ‘Dea Cete.’ Vossius believes that he means the God Dagon,
  worshipped among the Syrians under the figure of a fish, or
  sea-monster. Some authors have suggested that the story of the
  creature which was to have devoured Andromeda, was a confused version
  of that of the prophet Jonah.

  The alleged power of Perseus, to turn his enemies into stone, was
  probably, a metaphorical mode of describing his heroism, and the
  terror which everywhere followed the fame of his victory over the
  Gorgons. This probably caused such consternation, that it was reported
  that he petrified his enemies by showing them the head of Medusa.
  Bochart supposes that the rocky nature of the island of Seriphus,
  where Polydectes reigned, was the ground of the various stories of the
  alleged metamorphoses into stone, effected by means of the Gorgon’s
  head.

FABLE II. [V.243-340]

  Polydectes continues his hatred against Perseus, and treats his
  victories and triumphs over Medusa as mere fictions, on which Perseus
  turns him into stone. Minerva leaves her brother, and goes to Mount
  Helicon to visit the Muses, who show the Goddess the beauties of their
  habitation, and entertain her with their adventure at the court of
  Pyreneus, and the death of that prince. They also repeat to her the
  song of the Pierides, who challenged them to sing.

Yet, O Polydectes,[23] the ruler of little Seriphus, neither the valor
of the youth proved by so many toils, nor his sorrows have softened
thee; but thou obstinately dost exert an inexorable hatred, nor is there
any limit to thy unjust resentment. Thou also detractest from his
praises, and dost allege that the death of Medusa is {but} a fiction.
“We will give thee a proof of the truth,” says Perseus; “have a regard
for your eyes, {all besides};” and he makes the face of the king
{become} stone, without blood, by means of the face of Medusa.

Hitherto Tritonia had presented herself as a companion to her
brother,[24] begotten in the golden shower. Now, enwrapped in an
encircling cloud, she abandons Seriphus, Cythnus and Gyarus[25] being
left on the right. And where the way seems the shortest over the sea,
she makes for Thebes and Helicon, frequented by the virgin {Muses};
having reached which mountain she stops, and thus addresses the learned
sisters: “The fame of the new fountain[26] has reached my ears, which
the hard hoof of the winged steed sprung from the blood of Medusa has
opened. That is the cause of my coming. I wished to see this wondrous
prodigy; I saw him spring from the blood of his mother.” Urania[27]
replies, “Whatever, Goddess, is the cause of thy visiting these abodes,
thou art most acceptable to our feelings. However, the report is true,
and Pegasus is the originator of this spring;” and {then} she conducts
Pallas to the sacred streams. She, long admiring the waters produced by
the stroke of his foot, looks around upon the groves of the ancient
wood, and the caves and the grass studded with flowers innumerable; and
she pronounces the Mnemonian[28] maids happy both in their pursuits and
in their retreat; when one of the sisters {thus} addresses her:

“O Tritonia, thou who wouldst have come to make one of our number, had
not thy valor inclined thee to greater deeds, thou sayest the truth, and
with justice thou dost approve both our pursuits and our retreat; and if
we are but safe, happy do we reckon our lot. But (to such a degree is no
denial borne by villany) all things affright our virgin minds, and the
dreadful Pyreneus is placed before our eyes; and not yet have I wholly
recovered my presence of mind. He, in his insolence, had taken the
Daulian and Phocean[29] land with his Thracian troops, and unjustly held
the government. We were making for the temple of Parnassus; he beheld us
going, and adoring our Divinities[30] in a feigned worship he said (for
he had recognized us), ‘O Mnemonian maids, stop, and do not scruple,
I pray, under my roof to avoid the bad weather and the showers (for it
was raining); oft have the Gods above entered more humble cottages.’
Moved by his invitation and the weather, we assented to the man, and
entered the front part of his house. The rain had {now} ceased, and the
South Wind {now} subdued by the North, the black clouds were flying from
the cleared sky. It was our wish to depart. Pyreneus closed his house,
and prepared for violence, which we escaped by taking wing. He himself
stood aloft on the top {of his abode}, as though about to follow us, and
said ‘Wherever there is a way for you, by the same road there will be
{one} for me.’ And then, in his insanity, he threw himself from the
height of the summit of the tower, and fell upon his face, and with the
bones of his skull thus broken, he struck the ground stained with his
accursed blood.”

{Thus} spoke the Muse. Wings resounded through the air, and a voice of
some saluting them[31] came from the lofty boughs. The daughter of
Jupiter looked up, and asked whence tongues that speak so distinctly
made that noise, and thought that a human being had spoken. They were
birds; and magpies that imitate everything, lamenting their fate, they
stood perched on the boughs, nine in number. As the Goddess wondered,
thus did the Goddess {Urania} commence: “Lately, too, did these being
overcome in a dispute, increase the number of the birds. Pierus, rich in
the lands of Pella,[32] begot them; the Pæonian[33] Evippe[34] was their
mother. Nine times did she invoke the powerful Lucina, being nine times
in labor. This set of foolish sisters were proud of their number, and
came hither through so many cities of Hæmonia, {and} through so many of
Achaia,[35] and engaged in a contest in words such as these: “Cease
imposing upon the vulgar with your empty melody. If you have any
confidence {in your skill}, ye Thespian Goddesses, contend with us; we
will not be outdone in voice or skill; and we are as many in number.
Either, if vanquished, withdraw from the spring formed by the steed of
Medusa, and the Hyantean Aganippe,[36] or we will retire from the
Emathian plains, as far as the snowy Pæonians. Let the Nymphs decide the
contest.” It was, indeed, disgraceful to engage, but to yield seemed
{even} more disgraceful. The Nymphs that are chosen swear by the rivers,
and they sit on seats made out of the natural rock. Then, without
casting lots, she who had been the first to propose the contest, sings
the wars of the Gods above, and gives the Giants honor not their due,
and detracts from the actions of the great Divinities; and {sings} how
that Typhœus, sent forth from the lowest realms of the earth, had struck
terror into the inhabitants of Heaven; and {how} they had all turned
their backs in flight, until the land of Egypt had received them in
their weariness, and the Nile, divided into its seven mouths. She tells,
how that Typhœus had come there, too, and the Gods above had concealed
themselves under assumed shapes; and ‘Jupiter,’ she says, ‘becomes the
leader of the flock, whence, even at the present day, the Libyan Ammon
is figured with horns. {Apollo}, the Delian {God}, lies concealed as a
crow, the son of Semele as a he-goat, the sister of Phœbus as a cat,
{Juno}, the daughter of Saturn, as a snow-white cow, Venus as a
fish,[37] {Mercury}, the Cyllenian {God}, beneath the wings of an
Ibis.’[38]

“Thus far she had exerted her noisy mouth to {the sound of} the lyre; we
of Aonia[39] were {then} called upon; but perhaps thou hast not the
leisure, nor the time to lend an ear to our strains.” Pallas says, “Do
not hesitate, and repeat your song to me in its order;” and she takes
her seat under the pleasant shade of the grove. The Muse {then} tells
her story. “We assigned the management of the contest to one {of our
number}. Calliope rises, and, having her long hair gathered up with ivy,
tunes with her thumb the sounding chords; and {then} sings these lines
in concert with the strings when struck.”

    〔note 23 — Polydectes.--Ver. 242. Polydectes was king of the little island of Seriphus, one of the Cyclades. His brother Dictys had removed Perseus, with his mother Danaë, to the kingdom of Polydectes. The latter became smitten with love for Danaë, though he was about to marry Hippodamia. On this occasion he exacted a promise from Perseus, of the head of the Gorgon Medusa. When Perseus returned victorious, he found that his mother, with her protector Dictys, had taken refuge at the altars of the Deities, against the violence of Polydectes; on which Perseus changed him into stone. The story of Perseus afforded abundant materials to the ancient poets. Æschylus wrote a Tragedy called Polydectes, Sophocles one called Danaë, while Euripides composed two, called respectively Danaë and Dictys. Pherecydes also wrote on this subject, and his work seems to have been a text book for succeeding poets. Polygnotus painted the return of Perseus with the head of Medusa, to the island of Seriphus.〕

    〔note 24 — To her brother.--Ver. 250. As both Tritonia, or Minerva, and Perseus had Jupiter for their father.〕

    〔note 25 — Gyarus.--Ver. 252. Cythnus and Gyarus were two islands of the Cyclades.〕

    〔note 26 — The new fountain.--Ver. 256. This was Helicon, which was produced by a blow from the hoof of Pegasus.〕

    〔note 27 — Urania.--Ver. 260. One of the Muses, who presided over Astronomy.〕

    〔note 28 — Mnemonian.--Ver. 268. The Muses are called ‘Mnemonides,’ from the Greek word μνήμων ‘remembering,’ or ‘mindful,’ because they were said to be the daughters, by Jupiter, of Mnemosyne, or Memory.〕

    〔note 29 — Phocean.--Ver. 276. Daulis was a city of Phocis; a district between Bœotia and Ætolia, in which the city of Delphi and Mount Parnassus were situate.〕

    〔note 30 — Our Divinities.--Ver. 279. ‘Nostra veneratus numina,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘and worshipping our Goddessships.’〕

    〔note 31 — Some saluting them.--Ver. 295. That is, crying out χαῖρε, χαῖρε, the usual salutation among the Greeks, equivalent to our ‘How d’ye do?’ From two lines of Persius, it seems to have been a common thing to teach parrots and magpies to repeat these words.〕

    〔note 32 — Lands of Pella.--Ver. 302. Pella was a city of Macedonia, in that part of it which was called Emathia. It was famed for being the birthplace of Philip, and Alexander the Great.〕

    〔note 33 — Pæonian.--Ver. 303. Pæonia was a mountainous region of Macedonia, adjacent to Emathia.〕

    〔note 34 — Evippe.--Ver. 303. Evippe was the wife of Pierus, and the mother of the Pierides.〕

    〔note 35 — Achaia.--Ver. 306. The Achaia here mentioned was the Hæmonian, or Thessalian Achaia. The other parts of Thessaly were Phthiotis and Pelasgiotis.〕

    〔note 36 — Aganippe.--Ver. 312. Aganippe was the name of a fountain in Bœotia, near Helicon, sacred to the Muses. It is called Hyantean, from the ancient name of the inhabitants of the country.〕

    〔note 37 — Venus as a fish.--Ver. 331. The story of the transformation of Venus into a fish, to escape the fury of the Giants, is told, at length, in the second Book of the Fasti.〕

    〔note 38 — Wings of an Ibis.--Ver. 331. The Ibis was a bird of Egypt, much resembling a crane, or stork. It was said to be of peculiarly unclean habits, and to subsist upon serpents.〕

    〔note 39 — We of Aonia.--Ver. 333. The Muses obtained the name of Aonides from Aonia, a mountainous district of Bœotia.〕

EXPLANATION.

  According to Plutarch, the adventure of the Muses with Pyreneus, and
  of their asking wings of the Gods to save themselves, is a metaphor,
  which shows that he, when reigning in Phocis, was no friend to
  learning. As he had caused all the institutions in which it was taught
  to be destroyed, it was currently reported, that he had offered
  violence to the Muses, and that he lost his life in pursuing them.
  Ovid is the only writer that mentions him by name.

  The challenge given by the Pierides to the Muses is not mentioned by
  any writer before the time of Ovid. By way of explaining it, it is
  said, that Pierus was a very bad poet, whose works were full of
  stories injurious to the credit of the Gods. Hence, in time, it became
  circulated, that his daughters, otherwise his works, were changed into
  magpies, thereby meaning that they were full of idle narratives,
  tiresome and unmeaning. It is not improbable that the story of
  Typhœus, who forces the Gods to conceal themselves in Egypt, under the
  forms of various animals, was a poem which Pierus composed on the war
  of the Gods with the Giants.

FABLE III. [V.341-384]

  One of the Muses repeats to Minerva the song of Calliope, in answer to
  the Pierides; in which she describes the defeat of the Giant Typhœus,
  and Pluto viewing the mountains of Sicily, where Venus persuades her
  son Cupid to pierce his heart with one of his arrows.

“Ceres was the first to turn up the clods with the crooked plough; she
first gave corn and wholesome food to the earth; she first gave laws;
everything is the gift of Ceres. She is to be sung by me; I only wish
that I could utter verses worthy of the Goddess, {for} doubtless she is
a Goddess worthy of my song. The vast island of Trinacria[40] is heaped
up on the limbs of the Giant, and keeps down Typhœus, that dared to hope
for the abodes of Heaven, placed beneath its heavy mass. He, indeed,
struggles, and attempts often to rise, but his right hand is placed
beneath the Ausonian Pelorus,[41] his left under thee, Pachynus;[42] his
legs are pressed down by Lilybœum;[43] Ætna bears down his head; under
it Typhœus, on his back, casts forth sand, and vomits flame from his
raging mouth; often does he struggle to throw off the load of earth, and
to roll away cities and huge mountains from his body. Then does the
earth tremble, and the King of the shades himself is in dread, lest it
may open, and the ground be parted with a wide chasm, and, the day being
let in, may affright the trembling ghosts.

“Fearing this ruin, the Ruler had gone out from his dark abode; and,
carried in his chariot by black horses, he cautiously surveyed the
foundations of the Sicilian land. After it was sufficiently ascertained
that no place was insecure, and fear was laid aside, Erycina,[44]
sitting down upon her mountain, saw him wandering; and, embracing her
winged son, she said, Cupid, my son, my arms, my hands, and my might,
take up those darts by which thou conquerest all, and direct the swift
arrows against the breast of the God, to whom fell the last lot of the
triple kingdom.[45] Thou subduest the Gods above, and Jupiter himself;
thou {subduest} the conquered Deities of the deep, and him who rules
over the Deities of the deep. Why is Tartarus exempt? Why dost thou not
extend the Empire of thy mother and thine own? A third part of the world
is {now} at stake. And yet so great power is despised even in our own
heaven, and, together with myself, the influence of Love becomes but a
trifling matter. Dost thou not see how that Pallas, and Diana, who
throws the javelin, have renounced me? The daughter of Ceres, too, will
be a virgin, if we shall permit it, for she inclines to similar hopes.
But do thou join the Goddess to her uncle, if I have any interest with
thee in favor of our joint sway.

“Venus {thus} spoke. He opened his quiver, and, by the direction of his
mother, set apart one out of his thousand arrows; but one, than which
there is not any more sharp or less unerring, or which is more true to
the bow. And he bent the flexible horn, by pressing his knee against it,
and struck Pluto in the breast with the barbed arrow.”

    〔note 40 — Trinacria.--Ver. 347. Sicily was called Trinacris, or Trinacria, from its three corners or promontories, which are here named by the Poet.〕

    〔note 41 — Pelorus.--Ver. 350. This cape, or promontory, now called Capo di Faro, is on the east of Sicily, looking towards Italy, whence its present epithet, ‘Ausonian.’ It was so named from Pelorus, the pilot of Hannibal, who, suspecting him of treachery, had put him to death, and buried him on that spot.〕

    〔note 42 — Pachynus.--Ver. 351. This Cape, now Capo Passaro, looks towards Greece, from the south of Sicily.〕

    〔note 43 — Lilybæum.--Ver. 351. Now called Capo Marsala. It is on the west of Sicily, looking towards the African coast.〕

    〔note 44 — Erycina.--Ver. 363. Venus is so called from Eryx, the mountain of Sicily, on which her son Eryx, one of the early Sicilian kings, erected a magnificent temple in her honor.〕

    〔note 45 — The triple kingdom.--Ver. 368. In the partition of the dominion of the universe the heavens fell to the lot of Jupiter, the seas to that of Neptune; while the infernal regions, or, as some say, the earth, were awarded to Pluto.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The ancients frequently accounted for natural phænomena on fabulous
  grounds: and whatever they found difficult to explain, from their
  ignorance of the principles of natural philosophy, they immediately
  attributed to the agency of a supernatural cause. Ætna was often seen
  to emit flames, and the earth was subjected to violent shocks from the
  forces of its internal fires when struggling for a vent. Instead of
  looking for the source of these eruptions in the sulphur and
  bituminous matter in which the mountain abounds, they fabled, that the
  Gods, having vanquished the Giant Typhœus, or, according to some
  authors, Enceladus, threw Mount Ætna on his body; and that the
  attempts he made to free himself from the superincumbent weight were
  the cause of those fires and earthquakes.

FABLE IV. [V.385-461]

  Pluto surprises Proserpina in the fields of Henna, and carries her
  away by force. The Nymph Cyane endeavors, in vain, to stop him in his
  passage, and through grief and anguish, dissolves into a fountain.
  Ceres goes everywhere in search of her daughter, and, in her journey,
  turns the boy Stellio into a newt.

“Not far from the walls of Henna[46] there is a lake of deep water,
Pergus by name; Cayster does not hear more songs of swans, in his
running streams, than that. A wood skirts the lake, surrounding it on
every side, and with its foliage, as though with an awning, keeps out
the rays of the sun. The boughs produce a coolness, the moist ground
flowers of Tyrian hue. {There} the spring is perpetual. In this grove,
while Proserpina is amusing herself, and is plucking either violets or
white lilies, and while, with childlike eagerness, she is filling her
baskets and her bosom, and is striving to outdo {her companions} of the
same age in gathering, almost at the same instant she is beheld,
beloved, and seized by Pluto;[47] in such great haste is love. The
Goddess, affrighted, with lamenting lips calls both her mother and her
companions,[48] but more frequently her mother;[49] and as she has torn
her garment from the upper edge, the collected flowers fall from her
loosened robes. So great, too, is the innocence of her childish years,
this loss excites the maiden’s grief as well. The ravisher drives on his
chariot, and encourages his horses, called, each by his name, along
whose necks and manes he shakes the reins, dyed with swarthy rust. He is
borne through deep lakes, and the pools of the Palici,[50] smelling
strong of sulphur, {and} boiling fresh from out of the burst earth; and
where the Bacchiadæ,[51] a race sprung from Corinth, with its two
seas,[52] built a city[53] between unequal harbors.

“There is a stream in the middle, between Cyane and the Pisæan Arethusa,
which is confined within itself, being enclosed by mountain ridges at a
short distance {from each other}. Here was Cyane,[54] the most
celebrated among the Sicilian Nymphs, from whose name the pool also was
called, who stood up from out of the midst of the water, as far as the
higher part of her stomach, and recognized the God, and said, ‘No
further shall you go. Thou mayst not be the son-in-law of Ceres against
her will. {The girl} should have been asked {of her mother}, not carried
away. But if I may be allowed to compare little matters with great ones,
Anapis[55] also loved me. Yet I married him, courted, and not frightened
{into it}, like her.’ She {thus} said, and stretching her arms on
different sides, she stood in his way. The son of Saturn no longer
restrained his rage; and encouraging his terrible steeds, he threw his
royal sceptre, hurled with a strong arm, into the lowest depths of the
stream. The earth, {thus} struck, made a way down to Tartarus, and
received the descending chariot in the middle of the yawning space. But
Cyane, lamenting both the ravished Goddess, and the slighted privileges
of her spring, carries in her silent mind an inconsolable wound, and is
entirely dissolved into tears, and melts away into those waters, of
which she had been but lately the great guardian Divinity. You might see
her limbs soften, her bones become subjected to bending, her nails lay
aside their hardness: each, too, of the smaller extremities of the whole
of her body melts away; both her azure hair, her fingers, her legs, and
her feet; for easy is the change of those small members into a cold
stream. After that, her back, her shoulders, her side, and her breast
dissolve, vanishing into thin rivulets. Lastly, pure water, instead of
live blood, enters her corrupted veins, and nothing remains which you
can grasp {in your hand}.

“In the mean time, throughout all lands and in every sea, the daughter
is sought in vain by her anxious mother. Aurora, coming with her ruddy
locks does not behold her taking any rest, neither does Hesperus. She,
with her two hands, sets light to some pines at the flaming Ætna, and
giving herself no rest, bears them through the frosty darkness. Again,
when the genial day has dulled the light of the stars, she seeks her
daughter from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof. Fatigued by
the labor, she has {now} contracted thirst, and no streams have washed
her mouth, when by chance she beholds a cottage covered with thatch, and
knocks at its humble door, upon which an old woman[56] comes out and
sees the Goddess, and gives her, asking for water, a sweet drink which
she has lately distilled[57] from parched pearled barley. While she is
drinking it {thus} presented, a boy[58] of impudent countenance and
bold, stands before the Goddess, and laughs, and calls her greedy. She
is offended; and a part being not yet quaffed, the Goddess sprinkles
him, as he is {thus} talking, with the barley mixed with the liquor.

“His face contracts the stains, and he bears legs where just now he was
bearing arms; a tail is added to his changed limbs; and he is contracted
into a diminutive form, that no great power of doing injury may exist;
his size is less than {that of} a small lizard. He flies from the old
woman, astounded and weeping, and trying to touch the monstrosity; and
he seeks a lurking place, and has a name suited to his color, having his
body speckled with various spots.”

    〔note 46 — Henna.--Ver. 385. Henna, or Enna, was a city so exactly situated in the middle of Sicily that it was called the navel of that island. The worship of Ceres there was so highly esteemed, that ancient writers remarked, that you might easily take the whole place for one vast temple of that Goddess, and all the inhabitants for her priests. Proserpine is said by many authors, besides Ovid, to have been carried away by Pluto in the vicinity of Henna; though some writers say that it took place in Attica, and others again in Asia, while the Hymn of Orpheus mentions the western coast of Spain. Cicero describes this spot in his Oration against Verres: his words are, ‘It is said that Libera, who is the Deity that we call Proserpine, was carried away from the Grove of Enna. Enna, where these events took place to which I now refer, is in a lofty and exposed situation; but on the summit the ground presents a level surface, and there are springs of everflowing water. The spot is entirely cut off and separated from all [ordinary〕 means of approach. Around it are many lakes
    and groves, and flowers in bloom at all seasons of the year; so
    that the very spot seems to portray the rape of the damsel, with
    which story, from our very infancy, we have been familiar. Close
    by, there is a cavern with its face towards the north, of an
    immense depth, from which they say that father Pluto, in his
    chariot, suddenly emerged, and carrying off the maiden, bore her
    away from that spot, and then, not far from Syracuse, descended
    into the earth, from which place a lake suddenly arose; where, at
    the present day, the inhabitants of Syracuse celebrate a yearly
    festival.’]

    〔note 47 — Seized by Pluto.--Ver. 395. Pluto is here called ‘Dis.’ This name was given to him as the God of the Earth, from the bowels of which riches are dug up.〕

    〔note 48 — Her companions.--Ver. 397. Pausanias, in his Messeniaca, has preserved the names of the companions of Ceres, having copied them from the works of Homer.〕

    〔note 49 — Her mother.--Ver. 397. Homer, in his poem on the subject, represents that Ceres heard the cries of her daughter, when calling upon her mother for assistance. Ovid recounts this tale much more at length in the fourth Book of the Fasti.〕

    〔note 50 — The Palici.--Ver. 406. The Palici were two brothers, sons of Jupiter and the Nymph Thalea, and, according to some, received their name from the Greek words πάλιν ἱκέσθαι, ‘to come again [to life〕.’ Their mother, when pregnant, prayed the
    earth to open, and to hide her from the vengeful wrath of Juno.
    This was done; and when they had arrived at maturity, the Palici
    burst from the ground in the island of Sicily. They were Deities
    much venerated there, but their worship did not extend to any
    other countries. We learn from Macrobius that the natives of
    Sicily pointed out two small lakes, from which the brothers were
    said to have emerged, and that the veneration attached to them was
    such, that by their means they decided disputes, as they imagined
    that perjurers would meet their death in these waters, while the
    guiltless would be able to come forth from them unharmed. They
    were fetid, sulphureous pools of water, probably affected by the
    volcanic action of Mount Ætna.]

    〔note 51 — The Bacchiadæ.--Ver. 407. Archias, one of the race of the Bacchiadæ, a powerful Corinthian family, being expelled from Corinth, was said to have founded Syracuse, the capital of Sicily. The family sprang either from Bacchius, a son of Dionysus, or Bacchus, or from the fifth king of Corinth, who was named Bacchis. The family was expelled from Corinth by Cypselus, either on account of their luxury and extravagant mode of life, or because they were supposed to aim at the sovereignty.〕

    〔note 52 — With its two seas.--Ver. 407. Corinth is called ‘Bimaris’ by the Latin poets, from its having the Ægean sea on one side of it, and the Ionian sea on the other.〕

    〔note 53 — Built a city.--Ver. 408. Syracuse had two harbors, one of which was much larger than the other.〕

    〔note 54 — Cyane.--Ver. 412. According to Claudian, Cyane was one of the companions of Proserpine, when she was carried off by Pluto.〕

    〔note 55 — Anapis.--Ver. 417. This was a river of Sicily, which, mingling with the waters of the fountain Cyane, falls into the sea at Syracuse, opposite to the island of Ortygia. This island, in which the fountain of Arethusa was situate, was separated from the isle of Sicily by a narrow strait of the sea, and communicating with the city of Syracuse by a bridge, was considered as part of it.〕

    〔note 56 — An old woman.--Ver. 449. Arnobius calls this old woman here mentioned by the name of Baubo. Nicander, in his Theriaca, calls her Metaneira. Antoninus Liberalis calls her Misma, and Ovid, in the fourth Book of the Fasti, Melanina.〕

    〔note 57 — Lately distilled.--Ver. 450. Orpheus, in his Hymn, calls the drink given by the old woman to Ceres κυκεὼν. According to Arnobius, it was a mixed liquor, called by the Romans ‘cinnus;’ made of parched pearled barley, honey, and wine, with flowers and various herbs floating in it. Antoninus Liberalis says, that Ceres drank it off, ἀθρόως, ‘at one draught.’〕

    〔note 58 — A boy.--Ver. 451. According to Nicander, the boy was the son of the old woman. If so, the Goddess made her but a poor return for her hospitality.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The story of the rape of Proserpine has caused much inquiry among
  writers, both ancient and modern, as to the facts on which it was
  founded. Some have grounded it on principles of natural philosophy;
  while others have supposed it to contain some portion of ancient
  history, defaced and blemished in lapse of time.

  The antiquarian Pezeron is of opinion, that in the partition of the
  world among the Titan kings, Pluto had the west for his share; and
  that he carried a colony to the further end of Spain, where he caused
  the gold and silver mines of that region to be worked. The situation
  of his kingdom, which lay very low, comparatively with Greece, and
  which the ancients believed to be covered with eternal darkness, gave
  rise to the fable, that Pluto had got Hell for his share; and this
  notion was much encouraged by the subterranean nature of the mines
  which he caused to be worked. He thinks that the river Tartarus, so
  famed in the realms of Pluto, was no other than the Tartessa, or
  Guadalquivir of the present day, which runs through the centre of
  Spain. Lethe, too, he thinks to have been the Guadalaviar, in the same
  country. Pluto, he suggests, had heard of the beauty of Proserpine,
  the daughter of Ceres, queen of Sicily, and carried her thence, which
  gave rise to the tradition that she had been carried to the Infernal
  Regions.

  Le Clerc, on the other hand, thinks that it was not Pluto that carried
  away Proserpine, but Aidoneus, king of Epirus, or Orcus king of the
  Molossians. Aidoneus is supposed to have wrought mines in his kingdom,
  and, as the entrance into it was over a river called Acheron, that
  prince has often been confounded with Pluto; Epirus too, which was
  situate very low, may have been figuratively described as the Infernal
  Regions; for which reason, the journeys of Theseus and Hercules into
  Epirus may have been spoken of as descents into the Stygian abodes.
  Le Clerc supposes that Ceres was reigning in Sicily at the time when
  Aidoneus was king of Epirus, and that she took great care to instruct
  her subjects in the art of tilling the ground and sowing corn, and
  established laws for regulating civil government and the preservation
  of private property; for which reasons she was afterward deemed to be
  the Goddess of the Earth, and of Corn. Cicero and Diodorus Siculus
  tell us that Ceres made her residence at Enna, or Henna, in Sicily,
  which name, according to Bochart, signifies ‘agreeable fountain.’
  Cicero and Strabo agree with Ovid in telling us that Proserpine, the
  only daughter of Ceres, whom other writers name Pherephata, was
  walking in the adjacent meadows, and gathering flowers with her
  companions; upon which, certain pirates seized her, and, placing her
  in a chariot, carried her to the seaside, whence they embarked for
  Epirus. As Pausanias tells us, it was immediately spread abroad, that
  Aidoneus, or Pluto, as he was called, had done it, the act having been
  really committed by others, according to his orders. As those who
  carried her off concealed themselves in the caverns of Mount Ætna,
  awaiting their opportunity to escape, it was afterwards fabled that
  Pluto came out of the Infernal Regions at that place; as that
  mountain, from its nature, was always deemed one of the outlets of
  Hell. Upon this, Ceres went to Greece, in search of her daughter; and,
  resting at Eleusis, in Attica, she heard that the ship in which her
  daughter was carried away had sailed westward. On this, she complained
  to Jupiter, one of the Titan kings, but could obtain no further
  satisfaction than that her daughter should be permitted to visit her
  occasionally, whereby, at length, her grief was mitigated.

  Banier does not agree with these suggestions of Pezeron and Le Clerc,
  and thinks that Ceres is no other personage than the Isis of the
  Egyptians, supposing that the story is founded on the following
  circumstance:--Greece, he says, was afflicted with famine in the
  reign of Erectheus, who was obliged to send to Egypt for corn, when
  those who went for it brought back the worship of the Deity who
  presided over agriculture. The evils which the Athenians had suffered
  by the famine, and the dread of again incurring the same calamity,
  made them willingly embrace the rites of a Goddess whom they believed
  able to protect them from it. Triptolemus established her worship in
  Eleusis, and there instituted the mysteries which he had brought over
  from Egypt. These had been previously introduced into Sicily, which
  was the reason why it was said that Ceres came from Sicily to Athens.
  Her daughter was said to have been taken away, because corn and fruit
  had not been produced in sufficient quantities, for some time, to
  furnish food for the people. Pluto was said to have carried her to the
  Infernal regions, because the grain and seeds at that time remained
  buried, as it were, at the very center of the earth. Jupiter was said
  to have decided the difference between Ceres and Pluto, because the
  earth again became covered with crops.

  This appears to be an ingenious allegorical explanation of the story;
  but it is not at all improbable that it may have been founded upon
  actual facts, and that, having lost her daughter, and going to Attica
  to seek her, Ceres taught Triptolemus the mysteries of Isis; and that,
  in process of time, Ceres, having become enrolled among the Divinities
  of Greece, her worship became confounded with that of Isis.

  It is very possible that the story of the transformation of Stellio
  into a newt may have had no other foundation than the Poet’s fancy.

FABLE V.
[V. 462-563]

  Ceres proceeds in a fruitless search for her daughter over the whole
  earth, until the Nymph Arethusa acquaints her with the place of her
  ravisher’s abode. The Goddess makes her complaint to Jupiter, and
  obtains his consent for her daughter’s return to the upper world,
  provided she has not eaten anything since her arrival in Pluto’s
  dominions. Ascalaphus, however, having informed that she has eaten
  some seeds of a pomegranate, Ceres is disappointed, and Proserpine, in
  her wrath, metamorphoses the informer into an owl. The Sirens have
  wings given them by the Gods, to enable them to be more expeditious in
  seeking for Proserpine. Jupiter, to console Ceres for her loss,
  decides that her daughter shall remain six months each year with her
  mother upon earth, and the other six with her husband, in the Infernal
  Regions.

“It were a tedious task[59] to relate through what lands and what seas
the Goddess wandered; for her search the world was too limited. She
returns to Sicily; and while, in her passage, she views all {places},
she comes, too, to Cyane; she, had she not been transformed, would have
told her everything. But both mouth and tongue were wanting to her,
{thus} desirous to tell, and she had no means whereby to speak. Still,
she gave unmistakable tokens, and pointed out, on the top of the water,
the girdle[60] of Proserpine, well known to her parent, which by chance
had fallen off in that place into the sacred stream.

“Soon as she recognized this, as if then, at last, she fully understood
that her daughter had been carried away[61] the Goddess tore her
unadorned hair, and struck her breast again and again with her hands.
Not as yet does she know where she is, yet she exclaims against all
countries, and calls them ungrateful, and not worthy of the gifts of
corn; {and} Trinacria before {all} others, in which she has found the
proofs of her loss. Wherefore, with vengeful hand, she there broke the
ploughs that were turning up the clods, and, in her anger, consigned to
a similar death both the husbandmen and the oxen that cultivated the
fields, and ordered the land to deny a return of what had been deposited
{therein}, and rendered the seed corrupted. The fertility of the soil,
famed over the wide world, lies in ruin, the corn dies in the early
blade, and sometimes excessive heat of the sun, sometimes excessive
showers, spoil it. Both the Constellations and the winds injure it, and
the greedy birds pick up the seed as it is sown; darnel, and thistles,
and unconquerable weeds, choke the crops of wheat.

“Then the Alpheian Nymph[62] raised her head from out of the Elean
waters, and drew back her dripping hair from her forehead to her ears,
and said, “O thou mother of the virgin sought over the whole world, and
of the crops {as well}, cease {at length} thy boundless toil, and in thy
wrath be not angered with a region that is faithful to thee. This land
does not deserve it; and against its will it gave a path for {the
commission of} the outrage. Nor am I {now} a suppliant for {my own}
country; a stranger I am come hither. Pisa is my native place, and from
Elis do I derive my birth. As a stranger do I inhabit Sicily, but this
land is more pleasing to me than any other soil. I, Arethusa, now have
this for my abode, this for my habitation; which, do thou, most kindly
{Goddess}, preserve. Why I have been removed from my {native} place, and
have been carried to Ortygia, through the waters of seas so spacious,
a seasonable time will come for my telling thee, when thou shalt be
eased of thy cares, and {wilt be} of more cheerful aspect. The pervious
earth affords me a passage, and, carried beneath its lowest caverns,
here I lift my head {again}, and behold the stars which I have not been
used {to see}. While, then, I was running under the earth, along the
Stygian stream, thy Proserpine was there beheld by my eyes.[63] {She}
indeed {was} sad, and not as yet without alarm in her countenance, but
still {she is} a queen, and the most ennobled {female} in the world of
darkness; still, too, is she the powerful spouse of the Infernal King.”

“The mother, on hearing these words, stood amazed, as though she {had
been made} of stone, and for a long time was like one stupefied; and
when her intense bewilderment was dispelled by the weight of her grief,
she departed in her chariot into the ætherial air, and there, with her
countenance all clouded, she stood before Jupiter, much to his
discredit, with her hair dishevelled; and she said, “I have come,
Jupiter, as a suppliant to thee, both for my own offspring and for
thine. If thou hast no respect for the mother, {still} let the daughter
move her father; and I pray thee not to have the less regard for her,
because she was brought forth by my travail. Lo! my daughter, so long
sought for, has been found by me at last; if you call it finding[64] to
be more certain of one’s loss; or if you call it finding, to know where
she is. I will endure {the fact}, that she has been carried off, if he
will only restore her. For, indeed, a daughter of thine is not deserving
of a ravisher for a husband, if now my own daughter is.” Jupiter
replied, “Thy daughter is a pledge and charge, in common to me and thee;
but, should it please thee only to give right names to things, this deed
is not an injury, but it is {a mark of} affection, nor will he, as a
son-in-law, be any disgrace to us, if thou only, Goddess, shouldst give
thy consent. Although other {recommendations} were wanting, how great a
thing is it to be the brother of Jupiter! and besides, is it not because
other points are not wanting, and because he is not my inferior, except
by the accident {of his allotment of the Stygian abodes}? But if thy
eagerness is so great for their separation, let Proserpine return to
heaven; still upon this fixed condition, if she has touched no food
there with her lips; for thus has it been provided by the law of the
Destinies.”

“{Thus} he spoke; still Ceres is {now} resolved to fetch away her
daughter; but not so do the Fates permit. For the damsel had broke her
fast; and, while in her innocence she was walking about the
finely-cultivated garden, she had plucked a pomegranate[65] from the
bending tree, and had chewed in her mouth seven grains[66] taken from
the pale rind. Ascalaphus[67] alone, of all persons, had seen this, whom
Orphne, by no means the most obscure among the Nymphs of Avernus,[68] is
said once to have borne to her own Acheron within {his} dusky caves. He
beheld {this}, and cruelly prevented her return by his discovery. The
Queen of Erebus grieved, and changed the informer into an accursed bird,
and turned his head, sprinkled with the waters of Phlegethon,[69] into a
beak, and feathers, and great eyes. He, {thus} robbed of his own
{shape}, is clothed with tawny wings, his head becomes larger, his long
nails bend inwards, and with difficulty can he move the wings that
spring through his sluggish arms. He becomes an obscene bird, the
foreboder of approaching woe, a lazy owl, a direful omen to mortals.

“But he, by his discovery, and his talkativeness, may seem to have
merited punishment. Whence have you, daughters of Acheloüs,[70] feathers
and the feet of birds, since you have the faces of maidens? Is it
because, when Proserpine was gathering the flowers of spring, you were
mingled in the number of her companions? After you had sought her in
vain throughout the whole world, immediately, that the waters might be
sensible of your concern, you wished to be able, on the support of your
wings, to hover over the waves, and you found the Gods propitious, and
saw your limbs grow yellow with feathers suddenly formed. But lest the
sweetness of your voice, formed for charming the ear, and so great
endowments of speech, should lose the gift of a tongue, your virgin
countenance and your human voice {still} remained.”

    〔note 59 — A tedious task.--Ver. 463. ‘Dicere longa mora est,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘It is a tedious business to tell.’〕

    〔note 60 — The girdle.--Ver. 470. The zone, or girdle, a fastening round the loins, was much worn by both sexes among the ancients. It was sometimes made of netted work, and the chief use of it was for holding up the tunic, and keeping it from dragging on the ground. Among the Romans, the Magister Equitum, or ‘Master of the Horse,’ wore a girdle of red leather, embroidered by the needle, and having its extremities joined by a gold buckle. It also formed part of the cuirass of the warrior. The girdle was used sometimes by men to hold money instead of a purse; and the ‘pera,’ ‘wallet,’ or ‘purse,’ was generally fastened to the girdle. As this article of dress was used to hold up the garments for the sake of expedition, it was loosened when people were supposed to be abstracted from the cares of the world, as in performing sacrifice or attending at funeral rites. A girdle was also worn by the young women, even when the tunic was not girt up; and it was only discontinued by them on the day of marriage. To that circumstance, allusion is made in the present instance, as a proof of the violence that had been committed on Proserpine.〕

    〔note 61 — Had been carried away.--Ver. 471. Clarke translates ‘tunc denique raptam Scisset,’ ‘knew that she had been kidnapped.’〕

    〔note 62 — Alpheian Nymph.--Ver. 487. Alpheus was a river of Elis, in the northwestern part of Peloponnesus. Its present name is ‘Carbon.’〕

    〔note 63 — Beheld by my eyes.--Ver. 505. Ovid here makes Arethusa the discoverer to Ceres of the fate of her daughter. In the Fourth Book of the Fasti, he represents the Sun as giving her that information, in which he follows the account given by Homer. Apollodorus describes the descent of Pluto as taking place at Hermione, a town of Argolis, in Peloponnesus, and the people of that place as informing Ceres of what had happened to her daughter.〕

    〔note 64 — If you call it finding.--Ver. 520. This remark of the Goddess is very like that of the Irish sailor, who vowed that a thing could not be said to be lost when one knows where it is; and that his master’s kettle was quite safe, for he knew it to be at the bottom of the sea.〕

    〔note 65 — Plucked a pomegranate.--Ver. 535. It was for this reason that the Thesmophoriazusæ, in the performance of the rites of Ceres, were especially careful not to taste the pomegranate. This fruit was most probably called ‘malum,’ or ‘pomum punicum,’ or ‘puniceum,’ from the deep red or purple color of the inside, and not as having been first introduced from Phœnicia.〕

    〔note 66 — Seven grains.--Ver. 537. He says here ‘seven,’ but in the Fourth Book of the Fasti, only ‘three’ grains.〕

    〔note 67 — Ascalaphus.--Ver. 539. He was the son of Acheron, by the Nymph Orphne, or Gorgyra, according to Apollodorus. The latter author says, that for his unseasonable discovery, Ceres placed a rock upon him; but that, having been liberated by Hercules, she changed him into an owl, called ὦτον. The Greek name of a lizard being ἀσκάλαβος, Mellman thinks that the transformation of the boy into a newt, or kind of lizard, which has just been related by the Poet, may have possibly originated in a confused version of the story of Ascalaphus.〕

    〔note 68 — Avernus.--Ver. 540. Avernus was a lake of Campania, near Baiæ, of a fetid smell and gloomy aspect. Being feigned to be the mouth, or threshold, of the Infernal Regions, its name became generally used to signify Tartarus, or the Infernal Regions. The name is said to have been derived from the Greek word ἄορνος, ‘without birds,’ or ‘unfrequented by birds,’ as they could not endure the exhalations that were emitted by it.〕

    〔note 69 — Phlegethon.--Ver. 544. This was a burning river of the Infernal Regions; which received its name from the Greek word φλέγω, ‘to burn.’〕

    〔note 70 — Acheloüs.--Ver. 552. The Sirens were said to be the daughters of the river Acheloüs and of one of the Muses, either Calliope, Melpomene, or Terpsichore.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Apollodorus says, that the terms of the treaty respecting Proserpine
  were, that she should stay on earth nine months with Ceres, and three
  with Pluto, in the Infernal Regions. Other writers divide the time
  equally; six months to Ceres, and six to Pluto. They also tell us that
  the story of Ascalaphus is founded on the fact, that he was one of the
  courtiers of Pluto, who, having advised his master to carry away
  Proserpine, did all that lay in his power to obstruct the endeavors of
  Ceres, and hinder the restoration of her daughter, on which Proserpine
  had him privately destroyed; to screen which deed the Fable was
  invented; the pernicious counsels which he gave his master being
  signified by the seeds of the pomegranate. It has also been suggested
  that the story of his change into an owl was based on the circumstance
  that he was the overseer of the mines of Pluto, in which he perished,
  removed from the light of day. Perhaps he was there crushed to death
  by the fall of a rock, which caused the poets to say that Proserpine
  had covered him with a large stone, as Apollodorus informs us, who
  also says that it was Ceres who inflicted the punishment upon him. The
  name ‘Ascalaphus’ signifies, ‘one that breaks stones,’ and, very
  probably, that name was only given him to denote his employment. Some
  writers state that he was changed into a lizard, which the Greeks call
  ‘Ascalabos,’ and, probably, the resemblance between the names gave
  rise to this version of the story.

  Probably, the story of the Nymph Cyane reproaching Pluto with his
  treatment of Proserpine, and being thereupon changed by him into a
  fountain, has no other foundation than the propinquity of the place
  where Pluto’s emissaries embarked to a stream of that name near the
  city of Syracuse; which was, perhaps, overflowing at that time, and
  may have impeded their passage.

  Ovid, probably, feigned that the Sirens begged the Gods to change them
  into birds, that they might seek for Proserpine, on the ground of some
  existing tradition, that living on the coast of Italy, near the island
  of Sicily, and having heard of the misfortune that had befallen her,
  they ordered a ship with sails to be equipped to go in search of her.
  Further reference to the Sirens will be made, on treating of the
  adventures of Ulysses.

FABLE VI. [V.564-641]

  The Muse continues her song, in which Ceres, being satisfied with the
  decision of Jupiter relative to her daughter, returns to Arethusa, to
  learn the history of her adventures. The Nymph entertains the Goddess
  with the Story of the passion of Alpheus, and his pursuit of her; to
  avoid which, she implores the assistance of Diana, who changes her
  into a fountain.

“But Jupiter being the mediator between his brother and his disconsolate
sister, divides the rolling year equally {between them}. For {now}, the
Goddess, a common Divinity of two kingdoms, is so many months with her
mother, and just as many with her husband. Immediately the appearance of
both her mind and her countenance is changed; for the brow of the
Goddess, which, of late, might appear sad, even to Pluto, himself, is
full of gladness; as the Sun, which has lately been covered with watery
clouds, when he comes forth from the clouds, {now} dispersed. The genial
Ceres, {now} at ease on the recovery of her daughter, {thus} asks, ‘What
was the cause of thy wanderings? Why art thou, Arethusa, a sacred
spring?’ The waters are silent, {and}, the Goddess raises her head from
the deep fountain; and, having dried her green tresses with her hand,
she relates the old amours of the stream of Elis.[71]

“‘I was,’ says she, ‘one of the Nymphs which exist in Achaia, nor did
any one more eagerly skim along the glades than myself, nor with more
industry set the nets. But though the reputation for beauty was never
sought by me, although, {too}, I was of robust make, {still} I had the
name of being beautiful. But my appearance, when so much commended, did
not please me; and I, like a country lass, blushed at those endowments
of person in which other females are wont to take a pride, and I deemed
it a crime to please. I remember, I was returning weary from the
Stymphalian[72] wood; the weather was hot, and my toil had redoubled the
intense heat. I found a stream gliding on without any eddies, without
any noise, {and} clear to the bottom; through which every pebble, at so
great a depth, might be counted, {and} which you could hardly suppose to
be in motion. The hoary willows[73] and poplars, nourished by the water,
furnished a shade, spontaneously produced, along the shelving banks.
I approached, and, at first, I dipped the soles of my feet, and then, as
far as the knee. Not content with that, I undressed, and I laid my soft
garments upon a bending willow; and, naked, I plunged into the waters.

“‘While I was striking them, and drawing them {towards me}, moving in a
thousand ways, and was sending forth my extended arms, I perceived a
most unusual murmuring noise beneath the middle of the stream; and,
alarmed, I stood on the edge of the nearer bank. ‘Whither dost thou
hasten, Arethusa?’ said Alpheus from his waves. ‘Whither dost thou
hasten?’ again he said to me, in a hollow tone. Just as I was, I fled
without my clothes; {for} the other side had my garments. So much the
more swiftly did he pursue, and become inflamed; and, because I was
naked, the more tempting to him did I appear. Thus was I running; thus
unrelentingly was he pursuing me; as the doves are wont to fly from the
hawk with trembling wings, and as the hawk is wont to pursue the
trembling doves, I held out in my course even as far as Orchomenus,[74]
and Psophis,[75] and Cyllene, and the Mænalian valleys, and cold
Erymanthus and Elis. Nor was he swifter than I, but unequal to {him} in
strength, I was unable, any longer, to keep up the chase; for he was
able to endure prolonged fatigue. However, I ran over fields {and} over
mountains covered with trees, rocks too, and crags, and where there was
no path. The sun was upon my back; I saw a long shadow advancing before
my feet, unless, perhaps, it was my fear that saw it. But, at all
events, I was alarmed at the sound of his feet, and his increased
hardness of breathing was {now} fanning the fillets of my hair. Wearied
with the exertion of my flight, I said, ‘Give aid, Dictynna, to thy
armor-bearer, {or} I am overtaken; {I}, to whom thou hast so often given
thy bow to carry, and thy darts enclosed in a quiver.’ The Goddess was
moved, and, taking one of the dense clouds, she threw it over me. The
river looked about for me, concealed in the darkness, and, in his
ignorance sought about the encircling cloud and twice, unconsciously did
he go around the place where the Goddess had concealed me, and twice did
he cry, ‘Ho, Arethusa![76] Ho, Arethusa!’ What, then, were my feelings
in my wretchedness? Were they not just those of the lamb, as it hears
the wolves howling around the high sheep-folds? Or of the hare, which,
lurking in the bush, beholds the hostile noses of the dogs, and dares
not make a single movement with her body? Yet he does not depart; for no
{further} does he trace any prints of my feet. He watches the cloud and
the spot. A cold perspiration takes possession of my limbs {thus}
besieged, and azure colored drops distil from all my body. Wherever I
move my foot, {there} flows a lake; drops trickle from my hair, and, in
less time than I take in acquainting thee with my fate, I was changed
into a stream. But still the river recognized the waters, the objects of
his love; and, having laid aside the shape of a mortal, which he had
assumed, he was changed into his own waters, that he might mingle with
me. {Thereupon}, the Delian Goddess cleaved the ground. Sinking, I was
carried through dark caverns to Ortygia,[77] which, being dear to me,
from the surname of my own Goddess, was the first to introduce me to the
upper air.’”

    〔note 71 — Stream of Elis.--Ver. 576. The Alpheus really rose in Arcadia; but, as it ran through the territory of the Eleans, and discharged itself into the sea, near Cyllene, the seaport of that people, they worshipped it with divine honors.〕

    〔note 72 — Stymphalian.--Ver. 585. Stymphalus was the name of a city, mountain, and river of Arcadia, near the territory of Elis.〕

    〔note 73 — Hoary willows.--Ver. 590. The leaf of the willow has a whitish hue, especially on one side of it.〕

    〔note 74 — Orchomenus.--Ver. 607. This was a city of Arcadia, in a marshy district, near to Mantinea. There was another place of the same name, in Bœotia, between Elatea and Coronea, famous for a splendid temple to the Graces, there erected.〕

    〔note 75 — Psophis.--Ver. 607. This was a city of Arcadia also, adjoining to the Elean territory, which received its name from Psophis, the daughter of Lycaon, or of Eryx, according to some writers. There were several other towns of the same name. The other places here mentioned, with the exception of Elis, were mountains of Arcadia.〕

    〔note 76 — Ho, Arethusa!--Ver. 625-6. Clarke thus translates these lines:--‘And twice called out Soho, Arethusa! Soho, Arethusa! What thought had I then, poor soul!’〕

    〔note 77 — To Ortygia.--Ver. 640. From the similarity of its name to that of the Goddess Diana, who was called Ortygia, from the Isle of Delos, where she was born.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Bochart tells us that the story of the fountain Arethusa and the river
  Alpheus, her lover, who traversed so many countries in pursuit of her,
  has no other foundation than an equivocal expression in the language
  of the first inhabitants of Sicily. The Phœnicians, who went to settle
  in that island, finding the fountain surrounded with willows, gave it
  the name of ‘Alphaga,’ or ‘the fountain of the willows.’ Others,
  again, gave it the name of ‘Arith,’ signifying ‘a stream.’ The Greeks,
  arriving there in after ages, not understanding the signification of
  these words, and remembering their own river Alpheus, in Elis,
  imagined that since the river and the fountain had nearly the same
  name, Alpheus had crossed the sea, to arrive in Sicily.

  This notion appearing, probably, to the poets not devoid of ingenuity,
  they accordingly founded on it the romantic story of the passion of
  the river God Alpheus for the Nymph Arethusa. Some of the ancient
  historians appear, however, in their credulity, really to have
  believed, at least, a part of the story, as they seriously tell us,
  that the river Alpheus passes under the bed of the sea, and rises
  again in Sicily, near the fountain of Arethusa. Even among the more
  learned, this fable gained credit; for we find the oracle of Delphi
  ordering Archias to conduct a colony of Corinthians to Syracuse, and
  the priestess giving the following directions:--‘Go into that island
  where the river Alpheus mixes his waters with the fair Arethusa.’

  Pausanias avows, that he regards the story of Alpheus and Arethusa as
  a mere fable; but, not daring to dispute a fact established by the
  response of an oracle, he does not contradict the fact of the river
  running through the sea, though he is at a loss to understand how it
  can happen.

FABLE VII. [V.642-678]

  Ceres entrusts her chariot to Triptolemus, and orders him to go
  everywhere, and cultivate the earth. He obeys her, and, at length,
  arrives in Scythia, where Lyncus, designing to kill him, is changed
  into a lynx. The Muse then finishes her song, on which the daughters
  of Pierus are changed into magpies.

“Thus far Arethusa. The fertile Goddess yoked[78] two dragons to her
chariot, and curbed their mouths with bridles; and was borne through the
mid air of heaven and of earth, and guided her light chariot to the
Tritonian citadel, to Triptolemus; and she ordered him to scatter the
seeds that were entrusted {to him} partly in the fallow ground, {and}
partly {in the ground} restored to cultivation after so long a time. Now
had the youth been borne on high over Europe and the lands of Asia,[79]
and he arrived at the coast of Scythia: Lyncus was the king there. He
entered the house of the king. Being asked whence he came, and the
occasion of his coming, and his name, and his country, he said, ‘My
country is the famous Athens, my name is Triptolemus. I came neither in
a ship through the waves, nor on foot by land; the pervious sky made a
way for me. I bring the gifts of Ceres, which, scattered over the wide
fields, are to yield {you} the fruitful harvests, and wholesome food.’
The barbarian envies him; and that he himself may be {deemed} the author
of so great a benefit, he receives him with hospitality, and, when
overpowered with sleep, he attacks him with the sword. {But}, while
attempting to pierce his breast, Ceres made him a lynx; and again sent
the Mopsopian[80] youth to drive the sacred drawers of her chariot
through the air.

“The greatest of us[81] had {now} finished her learned song. But the
Nymphs, with unanimous voice, pronounced that the Goddesses who inhabit
Helicon had proved the conquerors. Then the others, {thus} vanquished,
began to scatter their abuse: ‘Since,’ said she, ‘it is a trifling
matter for you to have merited punishment by this contest, you add
abuse, too, to your fault, and endurance is not permitted us: we shall
proceed to punishment, and whither our resentment calls, we shall
follow.’ The Emathian sisters smiled, and despised our threatening
language; and endeavoring to speak, and to menace with their insolent
hands amid great clamor, they beheld quills growing out of their nails,
and their arms covered with feathers. And they each see the face of the
other shooting out into a hard beak, and new birds being added to the
woods. And while they strive to beat their breasts elevated by the
motion of their arms, they hang poised in the air, {as} magpies, the
scandal of the groves. Even then their original talkativeness remains in
{them} as birds, and their jarring garrulity, and their enormous love of
chattering.”

    〔note 78 — Goddess yoked.--Ver. 642. Clarke renders ‘geminos Dea fertilis angues curribus admovit,’ ‘the fertile Goddess clapped two snakes to her chariot.’〕

    〔note 79 — Lands of Asia.--Ver. 648. Asia Minor is here meant; the other parts of Asia being included under the term ‘Scythicas oras.’〕

    〔note 80 — Mopsopian.--Ver. 661. This very uneuphonious name is derived from Mopsopus, one of the ancient kings of Attica. It here means ‘Athenian.’〕

    〔note 81 — The greatest of us.--Ver. 662. Namely, Calliope, who had commenced her song as the representative of the Muses, at line 341.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Triptolemus reigned at Eleusis at the time when the mysteries of Ceres
  were established there. As we are told by Philochorus, he went with a
  ship, to carry corn into different countries, and introduced there the
  worship of Ceres, whose priest he was. This is, doubtless, the key for
  the explanation of the story, that Ceres nursed him on her own milk,
  and purified him by fire. Some have supposed that the fable refers to
  the epoch when agriculture was introduced into Greece: but it is much
  more probable that it relates simply to the introduction there of the
  mysterious worship of Ceres, which was probably imported from Egypt.
  It is possible that, at the same period, the Greeks may have learned
  some improved method of tilling the ground, acquired by their
  intercourse with Egypt.

  Probably, the dangers which Triptolemus experienced in his voyages and
  travels, gave rise to the story of Lyncus, whose cruelty caused him to
  be changed into a lynx. Bochart and Le Clerc think that the fable of
  Triptolemus being drawn by winged dragons, is based upon the equivocal
  meaning of a Phœnician word, which signified either ‘a winged dragon,’
  or ‘a ship fastened with iron nails or bolts.’ Philochorus, however,
  as cited by Eusebius, says that his ship was called a flying dragon,
  from its carrying the figure of a dragon on its prow. We learn from a
  fragment of Stobæus, that Erectheus, when engaged in a war against the
  Eleusinians, was told by the oracle that he would be victorious, if he
  sacrificed his daughter Proserpine. This, perhaps, may have given
  rise, or added somewhat, to the story of the rape of Proserpine by
  Pluto.

  According to a fragment of Homer, cited by Pausanias, the names of the
  first Greeks, who were initiated into the mysteries of Ceres,
  were,--Celeus, Triptolemus, Eumolpus, and Diocles. Clement of
  Alexandria calls them Baubon, Dysaulus, Eubuleüs, Eumolpus, and
  Triptolemus. Eumolpus being the Hierophant, or explainer of the
  mysteries of Eleusis, made war against Erectheus, king of Athens. They
  were both killed in battle, and it was thereupon agreed that the
  posterity of Erectheus should be kings of Athens, and the descendants
  of Eumolpus should, in future, retain the office of Hierophant.

FABLE I. [VI.1-145]

  Arachne, vain-glorious of her ingenuity, challenges Minerva to a
  contest of skill in her art. The Goddess accepts the challenge, and,
  being enraged to see herself outdone, strikes her rival with her
  shuttle; upon which, Arachne, in her distress, hangs herself. Minerva,
  touched with compassion, transforms her into a spider.

Tritonia had {meanwhile} lent an ear to such recitals as these, and she
approved of the songs of the Aonian maids, and their just resentment.
Then {thus she says} to herself: “To commend is but a trifling matter;
let us, too, deserve commendation, and let us not permit our divine
majesty to be slighted without {due} punishment.” And {then} she turns
her mind to the fate of the Mæonian Arachne; who, as she had heard, did
not yield to her in the praises of the art of working in wool. She was
renowned not for the place {of her birth}, nor for the origin of her
family, but for her skill {alone}. Idmon, of Colophon,[1] her father,
used to dye the soaking wool in Phocæan[2] purple.[3] Her mother was
dead; but she, too, was of the lower rank, and of the same condition
with her husband. Yet {Arachne}, by her skill, had acquired a memorable
name throughout the cities of Lydia; although, born of a humble family,
she used to live in the little {town} of Hypæpæ.[4] Often did the Nymphs
desert the vineyards of their own Tymolus, that they might look at her
admirable workmanship; {often} did the Nymphs of the {river} Pactolus[5]
forsake their streams. And not only did it give them pleasure to look at
the garments when made, but even, too, while they were being made, so
much grace was there in her working. Whether it was that she was rolling
the rough wool into its first balls, or whether she was unravelling the
work with her fingers, and was softening the fleeces worked over again
with long drawings out, equalling the mists {in their fineness}; or
whether she was moving the {smooth} round spindle with her nimble thumb,
or was embroidering with the needle, you might perceive that she had
been instructed by Pallas.

This, however, she used to deny; and, being displeased with a mistress
so famed, she said, “Let her contend with me. There is nothing which, if
conquered, I should refuse {to endure}.” Pallas personates an old woman;
she both places false gray hair on her temples, and supports as well her
infirm limbs by a staff. Then thus she begins to speak: “Old age has not
everything which we should avoid; experience comes from lengthened
years. Do not despise my advice; let the greatest fame for working wool
be sought by thee among mortals. {But} yield to the Goddess, and, rash
woman, ask pardon for thy speeches with suppliant voice. She will grant
pardon at my entreaty.” {The other} beholds her with scowling {eyes},
and leaves the threads she has begun; and scarcely restraining her hand,
and discovering her anger by her looks, with such words as these does
she reply to the disguised Pallas: “Thou comest {here} bereft of thy
understanding, and worn out with prolonged old age; and it is thy
misfortune to have lived too long. If thou hast any daughter-in-law, if
thou hast any daughter {of thy own}, let her listen to these remarks.
I have sufficient knowledge for myself in myself, and do not imagine
that thou hast availed anything by thy advice; my opinion is {still} the
same. Why does not she come herself? why does she decline this contest?”

Then the Goddess says, “Lo! she is come;” and she casts aside the figure
of an old woman, and shows herself {as} Pallas. The Nymphs and the
Mygdonian[6] matrons venerate the Goddess. The virgin alone is not
daunted. But still she blushes, and a sudden flush marks her reluctant
features, and again it vanishes; {just} as the sky is wont to become
tinted with purple, when Aurora is first stirring, and after a short
time to grow white from the influence of the Sun. She persists in her
determination, and, from a desire for a foolish victory, she rushes upon
her own destruction. Nor, indeed, does the daughter of Jupiter decline
{it}, or advise her any further, nor does she now put off the contest.
There is no delay; they both take their stand in different places, and
stretch out two webs {on the loom} with a fine warp. The web is tied
around the beam; the sley separates the warp; the woof is inserted in
the middle with sharp shuttles, which the fingers hurry along, and being
drawn within the warp, the teeth notched in the moving sley strike it.
Both hasten on, and girding up their garments to their breasts, they
move their skilful arms, their eagerness beguiling their fatigue. There
both the purple is being woven, which is subjected to the Tyrian brazen
vessel,[7] and fine shades of minute difference; just as the rainbow,
with its mighty arch, is wont to tint a long tract of the sky by means
of the rays reflected by the shower: in which, though a thousand
different colors are shining, yet the very transition eludes the eyes
that look upon it; to such a degree is that which is adjacent the same;
and yet the extremes are different. There, too, the pliant gold is mixed
with the threads, and ancient subjects are represented on the webs.

Pallas embroiders the rock of Mars[8] in {Athens}, the citadel of
Cecrops, and the old dispute about the name of the country. Twice six[9]
celestial Gods are sitting on lofty seats in august state, with Jupiter
in the midst. His own proper likeness distinguishes each of the Gods.
The form of Jupiter is that of a monarch. She makes the God of the sea
to be standing {there}, and to be striking the rugged rocks with his
long trident, and a wild {horse} to be springing forth[10] out of the
midst of the opening of the rock; by which pledge {of his favor} he lays
claim to the city. But to herself she gives the shield, she gives the
lance with its sharp point; she gives the helmet to her head, {and} her
breast is protected by the Ægis. She {there} represents, too, the earth
struck by her spear, producing a shoot of pale olive with its berries,
and the Gods admiring it. Victory is the end of her work. But that the
rival of her fame may learn from precedents what reward to expect for an
attempt so mad, she adds, in four {different} parts, four contests
bright in their coloring, and distinguished by diminutive figures. One
corner contains Thracian Rhodope and Hæmus, now cold mountains, formerly
human bodies, who assumed to themselves the names of the supreme Gods.
Another part contains the wretched fate of the Pygmæan matron.[11] Her,
overcome in a contest, Juno commanded to be a crane, and to wage war
against her own people. She depicts, too, Antigone,[12] who once dared
to contend with the wife of the great Jupiter; {and} whom the royal Juno
changed into a bird; nor did Ilion protect her, or her father Laomedon,
from assuming wings, and {as} a white crane, from commending herself
with her chattering beak. The only corner that remains, represents the
bereft Cinyras;[13] and he, embracing the steps of a temple, {once} the
limbs of his own daughters, and lying upon the stone, appears to be
weeping. She surrounds the exterior borders with peaceful olive. That is
the close; and with her own tree she puts an end to the work.

The Mæonian Nymph delineates Europa, deceived by the form of the bull;
and you would think it a real bull, and real sea. She herself seems to
be looking upon the land which she has left, and to be crying out to her
companions, and to be in dread of the touch of the dashing waters, and
to be drawing up her timid feet. She drew also Asterie,[14] seized by
the struggling eagle; and made Leda, reclining beneath the wings of the
swan. She added, how Jupiter, concealed under the form of a Satyr,
impregnated {Antiope},[15] the beauteous daughter of Nycteus, with a
twin offspring; {how} he was Amphitryon, when he beguiled thee,
Tirynthian[16] dame; how, turned to gold, he deceived Danaë; {how},
changed into fire, the daughter of Asopus;[17] {how}, as a shepherd,
Mnemosyne;[18] and as a speckled serpent, Deois.[19] She depicted thee
too, Neptune, changed into a fierce bull, with the virgin daughter[20]
of Æolus. Thou, seeming to be Enipeus,[21] didst beget the Aloïdæ; as a
ram, thou didst delude {Theophane}, the daughter of Bisaltis.[22] Thee
too the most bounteous mother of corn, with her yellow hair,
experienced[23] as a steed; thee, the mother[24] of the winged horse,
with her snaky locks, received as a bird; Melantho,[25] as a dolphin. To
all these did she give their own likeness, and the {real} appearance of
the {various} localities. There was Phœbus, under the form of a rustic;
and how, {besides}, he was wearing the wings of a hawk at one time, at
another the skin of a lion; how, too, as a shepherd, he deceived
Isse,[26] the daughter of Macareus. How Liber deceived Erigone,[27] in a
fictitious bunch of grapes; {and} how Saturn[28] begot the two-formed
Chiron, in {the form of} a horse. The extreme part of the web, being
enclosed in a fine border, had flowers interwoven with the twining ivy.

Pallas could not blame that work, nor could Envy {censure} it. The
yellow-haired Virgin grieved at her success, and tore the web
embroidered with the criminal acts of the Gods of heaven. And as she was
holding her shuttle {made of boxwood} from Mount Cytorus, three or four
times did she strike the forehead of Arachne, the daughter of Idmon. The
unhappy creature could not endure it; and being of a high spirit, she
tied up her throat in a halter. Pallas, taking compassion, bore her up
as she hung; and thus she said: “Live on indeed, wicked one,[29] but
still hang; and let the same decree of punishment be pronounced against
thy race, and against thy latest posterity, that thou mayst not be free
from care in time to come.” After that, as she departed, she sprinkled
her with the juices of an Hecatean herb;[30] and immediately her hair,
touched by the noxious drug, fell off, and together with it her nose and
ears. The head of herself, {now} small as well throughout her whole
body, becomes very small. Her slender fingers cleave to her sides as
legs; her belly takes possession of the rest {of her}; but out of this
she gives forth a thread; and {as} a spider, she works at her web as
formerly.

    〔note 1 — Colophon.--Ver. 8. Colophon was an opulent city of Lydia, famous for an oracle of Apollo there.〕

    〔note 2 — Phocæan.--Ver. 9. Phocæa was a city of Æolia, in Ionia, on the shores of the Mediterranean, famous for its purple dye.〕

    〔note 3 — Purple.--Ver. 9. ‘Murex’ was a shell-fish, now called ‘the purple,’ the juices of which were much used by the ancients for dyeing a deep purple color. The most valuable kinds were found near Tyre and Phocæa, mentioned in the text.〕

    〔note 4 — Hypæpæ.--Ver. 13. This was a little town of Lydia, near the banks of the river Cayster. It was situate on the descent of Mount Tymolus, or Tmolus, famed for its wines and saffron.〕

    〔note 5 — Pactolus.--Ver. 16. This was a river of Lydia, which was said to have sands of gold.〕

    〔note 6 — Mygdonian.--Ver. 45. Mygdonia was a small territory of Phrygia, bordering upon Lydia, and colonized by a people from Thrace. Probably these persons had come from the neighboring country, to see the exquisite works of Arachne. As the Poet tells us, many were present when the Goddess discovered herself, and professed their respect and veneration, while Arachne alone remained unmoved.〕

    〔note 7 — Brazen vessel.--Ver. 60. It seems that brazen cauldrons were used for the purposes of dyeing, in preference to those of iron.〕

    〔note 8 — Rock of Mars.--Ver. 70. This was the spot called Areiopagus, which was said to have received its name from the trial there of Mars, when he was accused by Neptune of having slain his son Halirrothius.〕

    〔note 9 — Twice six.--Ver. 72. These were the ‘Dii consentes,’ mentioned before, in the note to Book i., l. 172. They are thus enumerated in an Elegiac couplet, more consistent with the rules of prosody than the two lines there quoted:-- ‘Vulcanus, Mars, Sol, Neptunus, Jupiter, Hermes, Vesta, Diana, Ceres, Juno, Minerva, Venus.’〕

    〔note 10 — To be springing forth.--Ver. 76-7. Clarke renders ‘facit--e vulnere saxi Exsiluisse ferum,’ ‘she makes a wild horse bounce out of the opening in the rock.’〕

    〔note 11 — Pygmæan matron.--Ver. 90. According to Ælian, the name of this queen of the Pigmies was Gerane, while other writers call her Pygas. She was worshipped by her subjects as a Goddess, which raised her to such a degree of conceit, that she despised the worship of the Deities, especially of Juno and Diana, on which in their indignation, they changed her into a crane, the most active enemy of the Pygmies. These people were dwarfs, living either in India, Arabia, or Thrace, and they were said not to exceed a cubit in height.〕

    〔note 12 — Antigone.--Ver. 93. She was the daughter of Laomedon, king of Troy, and was remarkable for the extreme beauty of her hair. Proud of this, she used to boast that she resembled Juno; on which the Goddess, offended at her presumption, changed her hair into serpents. In compassion, the Deities afterwards transformed her into a stork.〕

    〔note 13 — Cinyras.--Ver. 98. Cinyras had several daughters (besides Myrrha), remarkable for their extreme beauty. Growing insolent upon the strength of their good looks, and pretending to surpass even Juno herself in beauty, they incurred the resentment of that Goddess, who changed them into the steps of a temple, and transformed their father into a stone, as he was embracing the steps.〕

    〔note 14 — Asterie.--Ver. 108. She was the daughter of Cæus, the Titan, and of Phœbe, and was ravished by Jupiter under the form of an eagle. She was the wife of Perses, and the mother of Hecate. Flying from the wrath of Jupiter, she was first changed by him into a quail; and afterwards into a stone.〕

    〔note 15 — Antiope.--Ver. 110. Antiope was the daughter of Nycteus, a king of Bœotia. Being seduced by Jupiter under the form of a Satyr, she bore two sons, Zethus and Amphion. On being insulted by Dirce, she was seized with madness, and was cured by Phocus, whom she is said to have afterwards married.〕

    〔note 16 — Tirynthian.--Ver. 112. Tirynthus was a city near Argos, where Hercules was born and educated, and from which place his mother, Alcmene, derived her present appellation.〕

    〔note 17 — Daughter of Asopus.--Ver. 113. Jupiter changed himself into fire, or, according to some, into an eagle, to seduce Ægina, the daughter of Asopus, king of Bœotia. By her he was the father of Æacus.〕

    〔note 18 — Mnemosyne.--Ver. 114. This Nymph, as already mentioned, became the mother of the Nine Muses, having been seduced by Jupiter.〕

    〔note 19 — Deois.--Ver. 114. Proserpine was called Deois, or Dêous Δηοῦς κόρη, from her mother Ceres, who was called Δηὼ by the Greeks, from the verb δήω, ‘to find;’ because as it was said, when seeking for her daughter, the universal answer of those who wished her success in her search, was, δήεις, ‘You will find her.’〕

    〔note 20 — Virgin daughter.--Ver. 116. This was Canace, or Arne, the daughter of Æolus, whom Neptune seduced under the form of a bull.〕

    〔note 21 — Enipeus.--Ver. 116. Under the form of Enipeus, a river of Thessaly, Neptune committed violence upon Iphimedeia, the wife of the giant Aloëus, and by her was the father of the giants Otus and Ephialtes.〕

    〔note 22 — Bisaltis.--Ver. 117. Theophane was the daughter of Bisaltis. Changing her into a sheep, and himself into a ram, Neptune begot the Ram with the golden fleece, that bore Phryxus to Colchis.〕

    〔note 23 — Experienced.--Ver. 119. ‘Te sensit,’ repeated twice in this line, Clarke translates, not in a very elegant manner, ‘had a bout with thee,’ and ‘had a touch from thee.’ By Neptune, Ceres became the mother of the horse Arion; or, according to some, of a daughter, whose name it was not deemed lawful to mention.〕

    〔note 24 — Thee the mother.--Ver. 119. This was Medusa, who, according to some, was the mother of the horse Pegasus, by Neptune, though it is more generally said that it sprang from her blood, when she was slain by Perseus.〕

    〔note 25 — Melantho.--Ver. 120. Melantho was the daughter either of Proteus, or of Deucalion, and was the mother of Delphus, by Neptune.〕

    〔note 26 — Isse.--Ver. 124. She was a native of either Lesbos, or Eubœa. Her father, Macareus, was the son of Jupiter and Cyrene.〕

    〔note 27 — Erigone.--Ver. 125. She was the daughter of Icarus, and was placed among the Constellations.〕

    〔note 28 — How Saturn.--Ver. 126. By Phillyra, Saturn was the father of the Centaur Chiron. We may here remark, that Arachne was not very complimentary to the Gods, in the choice of her subjects; probably it was not her intention or wish to be so.〕

    〔note 29 — Wicked one.--Ver. 136. Clarke translates ‘improba,’ ‘thou wicked jade.’〕

    〔note 30 — An Hecatean Herb.--Ver. 139. This was aconite, or wolfsbane, said to have been discovered by Hecate, the mother of Medea. She was the first who sought after, and taught the properties of poisonous herbs. Some accounts say, that the aconite was produced from the foam of Cerberus, when dragged by Hercules from the infernal regions.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The story of Arachne is most probably based upon the simple fact, that
  she was the most skilful artist of her time, at working in silk and
  wool. Pliny the Elder tells us, that Arachne, the daughter of Idmon,
  a Lydian by birth, and of low extraction, invented the art of making
  linen cloths and nets; which invention was also by some attributed to
  Minerva. This competition, then, for the merit of the invention, is
  the foundation of the challenge here described by the Poet. As,
  however, Arachne is said to have hanged herself in despair, she
  probably fell a prey to some cause of grief or discontent, the
  particulars of which, in their simple form, have not come down to us.
  Perhaps the similarity of her name and employment with those of the
  spider, as known among the Greeks, gave rise to the story of her
  alleged transformation; unless we should prefer to attribute the story
  to the fact of the Hebrew word “arag,” signifying to spin, and, in
  some degree, resembling her name.

  In this story, Ovid takes the opportunity of touching upon several
  fables, the subjects whereof he states to have been represented in the
  works of Minerva and Arachne. He alludes, among other matters, to the
  dispute between Neptune and Minerva, about giving a name to the city
  of Athens. St. Augustine, on the authority of Varro, says, that
  Cecrops, in building that city, found an olive tree and a fountain,
  and that the oracle at Delphi, on being consulted, stating that both
  Minerva and Neptune had a right to name the city, the Senate decided
  in favor of the Goddess; and this circumstance, he says, gave rise to
  the story. According to some writers, it was based on the fact, that
  Cranaüs changed the name of the city from Poseidonius, which it was
  called after Neptune, to Athenæ, after his own daughter Athena: and as
  the Areiopagus sanctioned this change, it was fabled that Neptune had
  been overcome by the judgment of the Gods.

  The Jesuit Tournemine suggests the following explanation of the
  story:--He says, that the aborigines of Attica, being conquered by the
  Pelasgians, learned from them the art of navigation, which they turned
  to account by becoming pirates. Cecrops, bringing a colony from Saïs,
  in Egypt, tried to abolish this barbarous custom, and taught them a
  more civilized mode of life; and, among other things, he showed them
  how to till the earth, and to raise the olive, for the cultivation of
  which he found the soil very favorable. He also introduced the worship
  of Minerva, or Athena, as she was called, a Goddess highly honored at
  Saïs, and to whom the olive tree was dedicated. Her the Athenians
  afterwards regarded as the patroness of their city, which they called
  after her name. Athens becoming famous for its olives, and,
  considerable profit arising from their cultivation, the new settlers
  attempted to wean the natives from piracy, by calling their attention
  to agricultural pursuits. To succeed in this, they composed a fable,
  in which Neptune was said to be overcome by Minerva; who, even in the
  judgment of the twelve greater deities, had found out something of
  more utility than he. This fable Tournemine supposes to have been
  composed in the ancient language of the country, which was the
  Phrygian, mingled with many Phœnician words; and, as in those
  languages the same word signifies either a ship or a horse, those who
  afterwards interpreted the fable, took the word in the latter
  signification, and spoke of a horse instead of a ship, which was
  really the original emblem employed in the fiction.

  Vossius thinks that the fable originated in a dispute between the
  sailors of Athens, who acknowledged Neptune for their chief, and the
  people, who followed the Senate, governed by Minerva. The people
  prevailed, and a life of civilization, marked by attention to the
  pursuits of agriculture, was substituted for one of piracy; which gave
  occasion for the saying, that Minerva had overcome Neptune.

  With reference to the intrigues and lustful actions attributed to the
  various Deities by Arachne in the delineations on her embroidery, we
  may here remark, by way of elucidating the origin of these stories in
  general, that, in early times, when the earth was sunk in ignorance
  and superstition, and might formed the only right in the heathen
  world, where a king or petty chieftain demanded the daughter of a
  neighbor in marriage, and met with a refusal, he immediately had
  recourse to arms, to obtain her by force. Their standards and ships,
  on these expeditions, carrying their ensigns, consisting of birds,
  beasts, or fabulous monsters, gave occasion to those who described
  their feats of prowess to say, that the ravisher had changed himself
  into a bull, an eagle, or a lion, for the purpose of effecting his
  object. The kings and potentates of those days, being frequently
  called Jupiter, Apollo, Neptune, etc., and the priests of the Gods so
  named often obtaining their ends by assuming the names of the
  Divinities they served, we can account the more easily for the number
  of intrigues and abominable actions, attended by changes and
  transformations, which the poets and mythologists attribute to many of
  the Deities.

  Palæphatus suggests a very ingenious method of accounting for these
  stories; founded, however, it must be owned, on a very low estimate of
  female virtue in those times. He says, that these fabulous narratives
  originate in the figures of different animals which were engraved on
  the coins of those times; and that, when money was given to buy over
  or to procure the seduction of a female, it was afterward said that
  the lover had himself taken the figure which was represented on the
  coin, by means of which his object had been effected.

  Ovid, in common with many of the ancient historians, geographers, and
  naturalists, mentions the Pygmies, of which, from the time of Homer
  downwards, a nation was supposed to exist, in a state of continual
  warfare with the Cranes. Aristotle, who believed in their existence,
  placed them in Æthiopia; Pliny, Solinus, and Philostratus in India,
  near the source of the Ganges; others again, in Scythia, on the banks
  of the Danube. Some of the moderns have attempted to explain the
  origin of this prevalent notion. Olaüs Magnus thinks the Samoeids and
  Laplanders to have been the Pygmies of Homer. Gesner and others fancy
  that they have found their originals in Thuringia; while Albertus
  Magnus supposed that the Pygmies were the monkeys, which are so
  numerous in the interior of Africa, and which were taken for human
  beings of diminutive stature. Vander Hart, who has written a most
  ingenious treatise on the subject, suggests that the fable originated
  in a war between two cities in Greece, Pagæ and Gerania, the
  similarity of whose names to those of the Pygmies and the Cranes, gave
  occasion to their neighbors, the Corinthians, to confer on them those
  nicknames. It is most probable, however, that the story was founded
  upon the diminutive stature of some of the native tribes of the
  interior of Africa.

  As to the fable of Pygas being changed into a crane, Banier suggests,
  that the origin of it may be found in the work of Antoninus Liberalis,
  quoting from the Theogony of Bœus. That poet, whose works are lost,
  says, that among the Pygmies there was a very beautiful princess,
  named Œnoë, who greatly oppressed her subjects. Having married
  Nicodamas, she had by him a son, named Mopsus, whom her subjects
  seized upon, to educate him in their own way. She accordingly raised
  levies against her own subjects; and that circumstance, together with
  the name of Gerane, which, according to Ælian, she also bore, gave
  rise to the fable, which said that she was changed into a crane; the
  resemblance which it bore to ‘geranos,’ the Greek for ‘a crane,’
  suggesting the foundation of the story.

FABLE II. [VI.146-312]

  The Theban matrons, forming a solemn procession in honor of Latona,
  Niobe esteems herself superior to the Goddess, and treats her and her
  offspring with contempt; on which, Apollo and Diana, to avenge the
  affront offered to their mother, destroy all the children of Niobe;
  and she, herself, is changed into a statue.

All Lydia is in an uproar, and the rumor of the fact goes through the
town of Phrygia, and fills the wide world with discourse {thereon}.
Before her own marriage Niobe had known her,[31] at the time, when still
single, she was inhabiting Mæonia and Sipylus.[32] And yet by the
punishment of her countrywoman, Arachne, she was not warned to yield to
the inhabitants of Heaven, and to use less boastful words. Many things
augmented her pride; but yet, neither the skill of her husband, nor the
descent of them both, nor the sovereignty of a mighty kingdom, pleased
her so much (although all of them did please her) as her own progeny;
and Niobe might have been pronounced the happiest of mothers, if she had
not so seemed to herself.

For Manto, the daughter of Tiresias, foreknowing the future, urged by a
divine impulse, had proclaimed through the middle of the streets, “Ye
women of Ismenus, go all of you,[33] and give to Latona, and the two
children of Latona, the pious frankincense, together with prayers, and
wreathe your hair with laurel; by my mouth does Latona command {this}.”
Obedience is paid; and all the Theban women adorn their temples with
leaves {of laurel}, as commanded, and offer frankincense on the sacred
fires, and words of supplication. Lo! Niobe comes, surrounded with a
crowd of attendants, conspicuous for the gold interwoven in her Phrygian
garments, and beautiful, so far as anger will allow; and tossing her
hair, hanging down on both shoulders, with her graceful head, she stands
still; and as she loftily casts around her haughty eyes, she says, “What
madness is this to prefer the inhabitants of Heaven, that you have
{only} heard of, to those who are seen? or why is Latona worshipped at
the altars, {and} my Godhead is still without its {due} frankincense?
Tantalus was my father, who alone was allowed to approach the tables of
the Gods above. The sister of the Pleiades[34] is my mother; the most
mighty Atlas is my grandsire, who bears the æthereal skies upon his
neck. Jupiter is my other grandsire; of him, too, I boast as my
father-in-law.[35] The Phrygian nations dread me; the palace of Cadmus
is subject to me as its mistress; and the walls that were formed by the
strings of my husband’s {lyre}, together with their people, are governed
by me and my husband; to whatever part of the house I turn my eyes,
immense wealth is seen. To this is added a face worthy of a Goddess. Add
to this my seven daughters,[36] and as many sons, and, at a future day,
sons-in-law and daughters-in-law. Now inquire what ground my pride has
{for its existence}; and presume to prefer Latona the Titaness, the
daughter of some obscure Cæus, to whom, when in travail,[37] the great
earth once refused a little spot, to myself. Neither by heaven, nor by
earth, nor by water, was your Goddess received; she was banished the
world, till Delos, pitying the wanderer, said, “Thou dost roam a
stranger on the land, I in the waves;” and gave her an unstable place
{of rest}. She was made the mother of two children, that is {but} the
seventh part of my issue. I am fortunate, and who shall deny it? and
fortunate I shall remain; who, too, can doubt of that? Plenty has made
me secure; I am too great for Fortune possibly to hurt; and, though she
should take away many things from me, {even then} much more will she
leave me: my {many} blessings have now risen superior to apprehensions.
Suppose it possible for some part of this multitude of my children to be
taken away {from me}; still, thus stripped, I shall not be reduced to
two, the number of Latona; an amount, by the number of which, how far,
{I pray}, is she removed from one that is childless? Go from the
sacrifice; hasten away from the sacrifice, and remove the laurel from
your hair!”

They remove it, and the sacrifice they leave unperformed; and what they
can do, they adore the Divinity in gentle murmurs. The Goddess was
indignant; and on the highest top of {Mount} Cynthus, she spoke to her
two children in such words as these: “Behold! I, your mother, proud of
having borne you, and who shall yield to no one of the Goddesses, except
to Juno {alone}, am called in question whether I am a Goddess, and, for
all future ages, I am driven from the altars devoted {to me}, unless you
give me aid. Nor is this my only grief; the daughter of Tantalus has
added abusive language to her shocking deeds, and has dared to postpone
you to her own children, and (what {I wish} may fall upon herself), she
has called me childless; and the profane {wretch} has discovered a
tongue like her father’s.”[38] To this relation Latona was going to add
entreaties, when Phœbus said, “Cease thy complaints, ’tis prolonging the
delay of her punishment.” Phœbe said the same; and, by a speedy descent
through the air, they arrived, covered with clouds, at the citadel of
Cadmus.

There was near the walls a plain, level, and extending far and wide,
trampled continually by horses, where multitudes of wheels and hard
hoofs had softened the clods placed beneath them. There, part of the
seven sons of Amphion are mounting upon their spirited steeds, and press
their backs, red with the Tyrian dye, and wield the reins heavy with
gold; of these, Ismenus, who had formerly been the first burden of his
mother, while he is guiding the steps of the horses in a perfect circle,
and is curbing their foaming mouths, cries aloud, “Ah, wretched me!”
and, pierced through the middle of his breast, bears a dart {therein};
and the reins dropping from his dying hand, by degrees he falls on his
side, over {the horse’s} shoulder. The next {to him}, Sipylus, on
hearing the sound of a quiver in the air, gives rein[39] {to his horse};
as when the pilot, sensible of the storm {approaching}, flies on seeing
a cloud, and unfurls the hanging sails on every side, that the light
breeze may by no means escape them. He gives rein, {I said}; while thus
giving it, the unerring dart overtakes him, and an arrow sticks
quivering in the top of his neck, and the bare steel protrudes from his
throat. He, as he is bending forward, rolls over the neck, {now} let
loose, and {over} the mane, and stains the ground with his warm blood.
The unhappy Phædimus, and Tantalus, the heir to the name of his
grandsire, when they had put an end to their wonted exercise {of
riding}, had turned to the youthful exercises of the palæstra, glowing
with oil;[40] and now had they brought[41] breast to breast, struggling
in a close grapple, when an arrow, sped onward from the stretched bow,
pierced them both, just as they were united together. At the same
instant they groaned aloud, and together they laid their limbs on the
ground, writhing with pain; together as they lay, for the last time,
they rolled their eyeballs, and together they breathed forth their life.

Alphenor sees this, and, beating his torn breast, flies to them, to lift
up their cold limbs in his embrace, and falls in this affectionate duty.
For the Delian God pierces the inner part of his midriff with the fatal
steel. Soon as it is pulled out, a part of his lungs is dragged forth on
the barbs, and his blood is poured forth, with his life, into the air;
but no single wound reaches the unshaven Damasicthon. He is struck where
the leg commences, and where the sinewy ham makes the space between the
joints soft; and while he is trying with his hand to draw out the fatal
weapon, another arrow is driven through his neck, up to the feathers.
The blood drives this out, and itself starting forth, springs up on
high, and, piercing the air, spouts forth afar. The last {of them},
Ilioneus, had raised his unavailing arms in prayer, and had said,
“O, all ye Gods, in common, (not knowing that all were not to be
addressed) spare me!” The {God}, the bearer of the bow, was moved, when
now his arrow could not be recalled; yet he died with the slightest
wound {of all}, his heart not being struck deep by the arrow.

The report of this calamity, and the grief of the people, and the tears
of her family, made the mother acquainted with a calamity so sudden,
wondering that it could have happened, and enraged that the Gods above
had dared this, {and} that they enjoyed a privilege so great. For
Amphion the father, thrusting his sword through his breast, dying, had
ended his grief together with his life. Alas! how different is this
Niobe from that Niobe who had lately driven the people from the altars
of Latona, and, with lofty head, had directed her steps through the
midst of the city, envied by her own people, but now to be pitied even
by an enemy! She falls down upon the cold bodies, and with no
distinction she distributes her last kisses among all her sons. Raising
her livid arms from these towards heaven, she says, “Glut thyself, cruel
Latona, with my sorrow; glut thyself, and satiate thy breast with my
mourning; satiate, too, thy relentless heart with seven deaths. I have
received my death-blow;[42] exult and triumph, my victorious enemy. But
why victorious? More remains to me, in my misery, than to thee, in thy
happiness. Even after so many deaths, I am the conqueror.” {Thus} she
spoke; {when} the string twanged from the bent bow, which affrighted all
but Niobe alone; she {became} bold by her misfortunes.

The sisters were standing in black array, with their hair dishevelled,
before the biers[43] of their brothers. One of these, drawing out the
weapon sticking in her entrails, about to die, swooned away, with her
face placed upon her brother. Another, endeavoring to console her
wretched parent, was suddenly silent, and was doubled together with an
invisible wound; and did not close her mouth, until after the breath had
departed. Another, vainly flying, falls down; another dies upon her
sister; another lies hid; another you might see trembling. And {now} six
being put to death, and having received different wounds, the last
{only} remains; her mother covering her with all her body, {and} with
all her garments, cries, “Leave me but one, and that the youngest; the
youngest only do I ask out of so many, and {that but} one.” And while
she was entreating, she, for whom she was entreating, was slain.
Childless, she sat down among her dead sons and daughters and husband,
and became hardened by her woes. The breeze moves no hair {of hers}; in
her features is a color without blood; her eyes stand unmoved in her sad
cheeks; in her form there is no {appearance} of life. Her tongue itself,
too, congeals within, together with her hardened palate, and the veins
cease to be able to be moved. Her neck can neither be bent, nor can her
arms give any motion, nor her feet move. Within her entrails, too, it is
stone.

Still did she weep on; and, enveloped in a hurricane of mighty wind, she
was borne away to her native land. There, fixed on the top of a
mountain,[44] she dissolves; and even yet does the marble distil tears.

    〔note 31 — Had known her.--Ver. 148. This was the more likely, as Tantalus, the father of Niobe, was king of both Phrygia and Lydia.〕

    〔note 32 — Sipylus.--Ver. 149. This was the name of both a city and a mountain of Lydia.〕

    〔note 33 — Go all of you.--Ver. 159. Clarke renders the words ‘Ismenides, ite frequentes,’ ‘Go, ye Theban ladies in general.’〕

    〔note 34 — Sister of the Pleiades.--Ver. 174. Taygete, one of the Pleiades, was the mother of Niobe.〕

    〔note 35 — As my father-in-law.--Ver. 176. Because Jupiter was the father of her husband, Amphion.〕

    〔note 36 — Seven daughters.--Ver. 182. Tzetzes enumerates fourteen daughters of Niobe, and gives their names.〕

    〔note 37 — When in travail.--Ver. 187. She alludes to the occasion on which Latona fled from the serpent Python, which Juno, in her jealousy, had sent against her; and when Delos, which had hitherto been a floating island, became immovable, for the convenience of Latona, in labor with Apollo and Diana. That island was said to have received its name from the Greek, δῆλος, ‘manifest,’ or ‘appearing,’ from having risen to the surface of the sea on that occasion.〕

    〔note 38 — Like her father’s.--Ver. 213. Latona alludes to one of the crimes of Tantalus, the father of Niobe, who was accused of having indiscreetly divulged the secrets of the Gods.〕

    〔note 39 — Gives rein.--Ver. 230. This was done with the intention of making his escape.〕

    〔note 40 — Glowing with oil.--Ver. 241. Clarke renders this line, ‘Were gone to the juvenile work of neat wrestling.’ It would be hard to say what ‘neat’ wrestling is. He seems not to have known, that the ‘Palæstra’ was called ‘nitida,’ as shining with the oil which the wrestlers used for making their limbs supple, and the more difficult for their antagonist to grasp. Juvenal gives the epithet ‘ceromaticum’ to the neck of the athlete, or wrestler, which word means ‘rubbed with wrestler’s oil.’〕

    〔note 41 — Now had they brought.--Ver. 243-4. Clarke thus translates ‘Et jam contulerant arcto luctantia nexu Pectora pectoribus;’ ‘And now they had clapped breast to breast, struggling in a close hug.’〕

    〔note 42 — I have received my death-blow.--Ver. 283. ‘Efferor’ literally means, ‘I am carried out.’ ‘Effero’ was the term used to signify the carrying of the body out of the city walls, for the purposes of burial.〕

    〔note 43 — Before the biers.--Ver. 289. The body of the deceased person was in ancient times laid out on a bed of the ordinary kind, with a pillow for supporting the head and back; among the Romans, it was placed in the vestibule of the house, with its feet towards the door, and was dressed in the best robe which the deceased had worn when alive. Among the better classes, the body was borne to the place of burial, or the funeral pile, on a couch, which was called ‘feretrum,’ or ‘capulus.’ This was sometimes made of ivory, and covered with gold and purple.〕

    〔note 44 — Top of a mountain.--Ver. 311. This was Mount Sipylus, in Bœotia, which, as we learn from Pausanias, had on its summit a rock, which, at a distance, strongly resembled a female in an attitude of sorrow. This resemblance is said to exist even at the present day.〕

EXPLANATION.

  All the ancient historians agree with Diodorus Siculus and
  Apollodorus, that Niobe was the daughter of Tantalus, and the sister
  of Pelops; but she must not be confounded with a second Niobe, who was
  the daughter of Phoroneus, and the first mortal (Homer tells us) with
  whom Jupiter fell in love. Homer says that she was the mother of
  twelve children, six sons and six daughters. Herodotus says, that she
  had but two sons and three daughters. Diodorus Siculus makes her the
  mother of fourteen children, seven of each sex. Apollodorus, on the
  authority of Hesiod, says, that she had ten sons and as many
  daughters; but gives the names of fourteen only. The story of the
  destruction of her children is most likely based upon truth, and bears
  reference to a historical fact. The plague, which ravaged the city of
  Thebes, destroyed all the children of Niobe; and contagious distempers
  being attributed to the excessive heat of the sun, it was fabled that
  Apollo had killed them with his arrows; while women, who died of the
  plague, were said to owe their death to the anger of Diana. Thus,
  Homer says, that Laodamia and the mother of Andromache were killed by
  Diana. Valerius Flaccus relates the sorrow of Clytie, the wife of
  Cyzicus, on the death of her mother, killed by the same Goddess; so
  the Scholiast on Pindar (Pythia, ode iii.) says, on the authority of
  Pherecydes, that Apollo sent Diana to kill Coronis and several other
  women. Eustathius distinctly asserts, that the poets attributed the
  deaths of men, who died of the plague, to Apollo; and those of women,
  dying a similar death, to Diana.

  This supposition is based upon rational and just grounds; since many
  contagious distempers may be clearly traced to the exhalations of the
  earth, acted on by the intense heat of the sun. Homer, most probably,
  means this, when he says that the plague came upon the Grecian camp,
  on the God, in his anger, discharging his arrows against it; or, in
  other words, when the extreme heat of his rays had caused a corruption
  of the atmosphere. It may be here observed, that arrows were the
  symbol of Apollo, when angry, and the harp when he was propitious.
  Diogenes Laertius tells us, that, during the prevalence of the plague,
  it was the custom to place branches of laurel on the doors of the
  houses, in the hope that the God, being reminded of Daphne, would
  spare the places which thereby claimed his protection.

  Ovid says, that the sons of Niobe were killed while managing their
  horses; but Pausanias tells us that they died on Mount Cithæron, while
  engaged in hunting, and that her daughters died at Thebes. Homer says,
  that her children remained nine days without burial, because the Gods
  changed the Thebans into stones, and that the offended Divinities
  themselves performed the funeral rites on the tenth day; the meaning
  probably, is, that, they dying of the plague, no one ventured to bury
  them, and all seemed insensible to the sorrows of Niobe, as each
  consulted his own safety. Ismenus, her eldest son, not being able to
  endure the pain of his malady, is said to have thrown himself into a
  river of Bœotia, which, from that circumstance, received his name.
  After the death of her husband and children, Niobe is said to have
  retired to Mount Sipylus, in Lydia, where she died. Here, as Pausanias
  informs us, was a rock, resembling, at a distance, a woman overwhelmed
  with grief; though according to the same author, who had visited it,
  the resemblance could not be traced on approaching it. On this ground,
  Ovid relates, that she was borne on a whirlwind to the top of a Lydian
  mountain, where she was changed into a rock.

  Pausanias tells us, that Melibœa, or Chloris, and Amycle, two of her
  daughters, appeased Diana, who preserved their lives; or that, in
  other words, they recovered from the plague; though he inclines to
  credit the version of Homer, who says that all of her children died by
  the hands of Apollo and Diana. Melibœa received the surname of
  Chloris, from the paleness which ensued on her alarm at the sudden
  death of her sisters.

FABLE III. [VI.313-381]

  Latona, fatigued with the burden of her two children, during a long
  journey, and parched with thirst, goes to drink at a pond, near which
  some countrymen are at work. These clowns, in a brutal manner, not
  only hinder her from drinking, but trouble the water to make it muddy;
  on which, the Goddess, to punish their brutality, transforms them into
  frogs.

But then, all, both women and men, dread the wrath of the divinity,
{thus} manifested, and with more zeal {than ever} all venerate with
{divine} worship the great godhead of the Deity who produced the twins;
and, as {commonly} happens, from a recent fact they recur to the
narration of former events.

One of them says, “Some countrymen of old, in the fields of fertile
Lycia, {once} insulted the Goddess, {but} not with impunity. The thing,
indeed, is but little known, through the obscure station of the
individuals, still it is wonderful. I have seen upon the spot, the pool
and the lake noted for the miracle. For my father being now advanced in
years, and incapable of travel, ordered me to bring thence some choice
oxen, and on my setting out, had given me a guide of that nation: with
whom, while I was traversing the pastures, behold! an ancient altar,
black with the ashes of sacrifices, was standing in the middle of a
lake, surrounded with quivering reeds. My guide stood still, and said in
a timid whisper, ‘Be propitious to me;’ and with a like whisper, I said,
‘Be propitious.’ However, I asked him whether it was an altar of the
Naiads, or of Faunus, or of some native God; when the stranger answered
me in such words; ‘Young man, there is no mountain Divinity for this
altar. She calls this her own, whom once the royal Juno banished from
the world; whom the wandering Delos, at the time when it was swimming as
a light island, hardly received at her entreaties. There Latona, leaning
against a palm, together with the tree of Pallas, brought forth twins,
in spite of their stepmother {Juno}. Hence, too, the newly delivered
{Goddess} is said to have fled from Juno, and in her bosom to have
carried the two divinities, her children. And now the Goddess, wearied
with her prolonged toil, being parched with the heat of the season,
contracted thirst in the country of Lycia, which bred the Chimæra[45]
when the intense sun was scorching the fields; the craving children,
too, had exhausted her suckling breasts. By chance she beheld a lake[46]
of fine water, in the bottom of a valley; some countrymen were there,
gathering bushy osiers, together with bulrushes, and sedge natural to
fenny spots. The Titaness approached, and bending her knee, she pressed
the ground, that she might take up the cool water to drink; the company
of rustics forbade it. The Goddess thus addressed them, as they forbade
her: ‘Why do you deny me water? The use of water is common {to all}.
Nature has made neither sun, nor air, nor the running stream, the
property of any one. To her public bounty have I come, which yet I
humbly beg of you to grant me. I was not intending to bathe my limbs
here, and my wearied joints, but to relieve my thirst. My mouth, as I
speak, lacks moisture, and my jaws are parched, and scarce is there a
passage for my voice therein; a draught of water will be nectar to me,
and I shall own, that, together with it, I have received my life {at
your hands}. In {that} water you will be giving me life. Let these, too,
move you, who hold out their little arms from my bosom’; and by chance
the children were holding out their arms.

“What person might not these kindly words of the Goddess have been able
to influence? Still, they persist in hindering {the Goddess thus}
entreating them; and moreover add threats and abusive language, if she
does not retire to a distance. Nor is this enough. They likewise muddy
the lake itself {with} their feet and hands; and they raise the soft mud
from the very bottom of the water, by spitefully jumping to and fro.
Resentment removes her thirst. For now no longer does the daughter of
Cæus supplicate the unworthy {wretches}, nor does she any longer endure
to utter words below {the majesty of} a Goddess; and raising her hands
to heaven, she says, ‘For ever may you live in that pool.’ The wish of
the Goddess comes to pass. They delight to go beneath the water, and
sometimes to plunge the whole of their limbs in the deep pool; now to
raise their heads, and now to swim on the top of the water; oft to sit
on the bank of the pool, {and} often to leap back again into the cold
stream. And even now do they exercise their offensive tongues in strife:
and banishing {all} shame, although they are beneath the water, {still}
beneath the water,[47] do they try to keep up their abuse. Their voice,
too, is now hoarse, and their bloated necks swell out; and their very
abuse dilates their extended jaws. Their backs are united to their
heads: their necks seem as though cut off; their backbone is green;
their belly, the greatest part of their body, is white; and {as}
new-made frogs, they leap about in the muddy stream.”

    〔note 45 — The Chimæra.--Ver. 339. The Chimæra, according to the poets, was a monster having the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon. It seems, however, that it was nothing more than a volcanic mountain of Lycia, in Asia Minor, whence there were occasional eruptions of flame. The top of it was frequented by lions; the middle afforded plentiful pasture for goats; and towards the bottom, being rocky, and full of caverns, it was infested by vast numbers of serpents, that harbored there.〕

    〔note 46 — Beheld a lake.--Ver. 343. Probus, in his Commentary on the Second Book of the Georgics, says that the name of the spring was Mela, and that of the shepherd who so churlishly repulsed Latona, was Neocles. Antoninus Liberalis says, that the name of the stream was Melites, and that Latona required the water for the purpose of bathing her children. He further tells us, that on being repulsed, she carried her children to the river Xanthus, and returning thence, hurled stones at the peasants, and changed them into frogs.〕

    〔note 47 — Beneath the water.--Ver. 376. Some commentators are so fanciful as to say, that the repetition of the words ‘sub aqua,’ in the line ‘Quamvis sint sub aquâ, sub aquâ, maledicere tentant,’ not inelegantly [non ineleganter〕 expresses the croaking
    noise of the frogs. A man’s fancy must, indeed, be exuberant to
    find any such resemblance; more so, indeed, than that of
    Aristophanes, who makes his frogs say, by way of chorus,
    ‘brekekekekex koäx koäx.’ Possibly, however, that might have been
    the Attic dialect among frogs.]

EXPLANATION.

  This story may possibly be based upon some current tradition of Latona
  having been subjected to such cruel treatment from some country
  clowns; or, which is more probable, it may have been originally
  invented as a satire on the rude manners and uncouth conduct of the
  peasantry of ancient times. The story may also have been framed, to
  account, in a poetical manner, for the origin of frogs.

FABLE IV. [VI.382-411]

  The Satyr Marsyas, having challenged Apollo to a trial of skill on the
  flute, the God overcomes him, and then flays him alive for his
  presumption. The tears that are shed on the occasion of his death
  produce the river that bears his name.

When thus one, who, it is uncertain, had related the destruction of
{these} men of the Lycian race, another remembers {that of} the
Satyr;[48] whom, overcome {in playing} on the Tritonian reed, the son of
Latona visited with punishment. “Why,” said he, “art thou tearing me
from myself? Alas! I {now} repent; alas,” cried he, “the flute is not of
so much value!” As he shrieked aloud, his skin was stript[49] off from
the surface of his limbs, nor was he aught but {one entire} wound. Blood
is flowing on every side; the nerves, exposed, appear, and the quivering
veins throb without any skin. You might have numbered his palpitating
bowels, and the transparent lungs within his breast. The inhabitants of
the country, the Fauns, Deities of the woods, and his brothers the
Satyrs, and Olympus,[50] even then renowned, and the Nymphs lamented
him; and whoever {besides} on those mountains was feeding the
wool-bearing flocks, and the horned herds.

The fruitful earth was moistened, and being moistened received the
falling tears, and drank them up in her lowest veins, which, when she
had turned into a stream, she sent forth into the vacant air. And then,
as the clearest river in Phrygia, running towards the rapid sea within
steep banks, it bears the name of Marsyas.

From narratives such as these the people return at once to the present
events, and mourn Amphion extinct together with {all} his race. The
mother is {an object} of hatred. Yet {her brother} Pelops is said alone
to have mourned for her as well; and after he had drawn his clothes from
his shoulder towards his breast, he discovered the ivory on his left
shoulder. This shoulder, at the time of his birth, was of the same color
with the right one, and {was} formed of flesh. They say that the Gods
afterwards joined his limbs cut asunder by the hands of his father; and
the rest of them being found, that part which is midway between the
throat and the top of the arm, was wanting. Ivory was inserted there, in
the place of the part that did not appear; and so by that means Pelops
was made entire.

    〔note 48 — The Satyr.--Ver. 382. Herodotus tells this story of the Satyr Marsyas, under the name of Silenus. Fulgentius informs us, that in paintings, Marsyas was represented with the tail of a pig.〕

    〔note 49 — His skin was stript.--Ver. 387. Apollo fastened him to a pine-tree, or, according to Pliny the Elder, a plane-tree, which was to be seen even in his day. The skin was afterwards suspended by Apollo in the city of Celenæ. Hyginus says, that Apollo hewed Marsyas to pieces. The description here of the flaying is, perhaps, very natural; but it is all the more disgusting for being so. A commentator justly says, that it might suit a Roman, whose eyes were familiar with bloodshed, much better than the taste of the reader of modern times.〕

    〔note 50 — Olympus.--Ver. 393. He was a Satyr, the brother and pupil of Marsyas. Pausanias describes a picture, painted by Polygnotus, in which Olympus was represented as sitting by Marsyas, clad as a youth, and learning to play on the flute. Euripides, in the Iphigenia in Aulis (l. 576) says that Olympus discovered some new measures for the ‘tibia,’ or flute. From Hyginus we learn, that Apollo delivered to him the body of Marsyas for burial.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Marsyas was the son of Hyagnis, the inventor of a peculiar kind of
  flute, and of the Phrygian measure. Livy and Quintus Curtius tell us,
  that the story of Apollo and Marsyas is an allegory; and that the
  river Marsyas gave rise to it. They say that the river, falling from a
  precipice, in the neighborhood of the town of Celenæ, in Phrygia, made
  a very stunning and unpleasant noise; but that the smoothness of its
  course afterwards gave occasion for the saying, that the vengeance of
  Apollo had rendered it more tractable.

  It is, however, not improbable that the story may have been based on
  historical facts. Having learned from his father, Hyagnis, the art of
  playing on the flute, and, proud of his skill, at a time when the
  musical art was yet in its infancy, Marsyas may have been rash enough
  to challenge either a priest of Apollo, or some prince who bore that
  name, and, for his presumption, to have received the punishment
  described by Ovid. Herodotus certainly credited the story; for he says
  that the skin of the unfortunate musician was to be seen, in his time,
  in the town of Celenæ. Strabo, Pausanias, and Aulus Gellius also
  believe its truth. Suidas tells us, that Marsyas, mortified at his
  defeat, threw himself into the river that runs near Celenæ, which,
  from that time, bore his name. Strabo says, that Marsyas had stolen
  the flute from Minerva, which proved so fatal to him, and had thereby
  drawn upon himself the indignation of that Divinity. Ovid, in the
  Sixth Book of the Fasti, and Pausanias, quoting from Apollodorus, tell
  us, that Minerva, having observed, by seeing herself in the river
  Meander, that, when she played on the flute, her cheeks were swelled
  out in an unseemly manner, threw aside the flute in her disgust, and
  Marsyas finding it, learned to play on it so skilfully, that he
  challenged Apollo to a trial of proficiency. Hyginus, in his 165th
  Fable, says that Marsyas was the son of Œagrius, and not Hyagnis;
  perhaps, however, this is a corrupt reading.

FABLE V. [VI.412-586]

  Tereus, king of Thrace, having married Progne, the daughter of
  Pandion, king of Athens, falls in love with her sister Philomela, whom
  he ravishes, and then, having cut out her tongue, he shuts her up in a
  strong place in a forest, to prevent a discovery. The unfortunate
  Philomela finds means to acquaint her sister with her misfortunes;
  for, weaving her story on a piece of cloth, she sends it to Progne by
  the hands of one of her keepers.

The neighboring princes met together; and the cities that were near,
entreated their kings to go to console {Pelops, namely}, Argos and
Sparta, and the Pelopean Mycenæ, and Calydon,[51] not yet odious to the
stern Diana, and fierce Orchomeneus, and Corinth famous for its
brass,[52] and fertile Messene, and Patræ, and humble Cleonæ,[53] and
the Neleian Pylos, and Trœzen not yet named from Pittheus;[54] and other
cities which are enclosed by the Isthmus between the two seas, and those
which, situated beyond, are seen from the Isthmus between the two seas.
Who could have believed it? You, Athens, alone omitted it. A war
prevented this act of humanity; and barbarous troops[55] brought
{thither} by sea, were alarming the Mopsopian walls. The Thracian Tereus
had routed these by his auxiliary forces, and by his conquest had
acquired an illustrious name. Him, powerful both in riches and men, and,
as it happened, deriving his descent from the mighty Gradivus, Pandion
united to himself, by the marriage of {his daughter} Progne.

Neither Juno, the guardian of marriage rites, nor yet Hymeneus, nor the
Graces,[56] attended those nuptials. {On that occasion}, the Furies
brandished torches, snatched from the funeral pile. The Furies prepared
the nuptial couch, and the ill-boding owl hovered over the abode, and
sat on the roof of the bridal chamber. With these omens were Progne and
Tereus wedded; with these omens were they made parents. Thrace, indeed,
congratulated them, and they themselves returned thanks to the Gods, and
they commanded the day, upon which the daughter of Pandion was given to
the renowned prince, and that upon which Itys was born, to be considered
as festivals. So much does our true interest lie concealed {from us}.
Now Titan had drawn the seasons of the repeated year through five
autumns, when Progne, in gentle accents, said to her husband, “If I have
any influence {with thee}, either send me to see my sister, or let my
sister come hither. Thou shalt promise thy father-in-law that she shall
return in a short time. As good as a mighty God {wilt thou be} to me, if
thou shalt allow me to see my sister.”

He {thereupon} ordered ships to be launched;[57] and with sails and oars
he entered the Cecropian harbor, and landed upon the shores of the
Piræus.[58] As soon as ever an opportunity was given of {addressing} his
father-in-law, and right hand was joined to right hand, with evil omen
their discourse began. He had commenced to relate the occasion of his
coming, {and} the request of his wife, and to promise a speedy return
for {Philomela, if} sent. {When} lo! Philomela comes, richly adorned in
costly apparel; richer {by far} in her charms; such as we hear {of} the
Naiads and Dryads {as they} haunt the middle of the forests, if you were
only to give them the like ornaments and dress. Tereus was inflamed upon
seeing the virgin, no otherwise than if one were to put fire beneath the
whitening ears of corn, or were to burn leaves and {dry} grass laid up
in stacks. Her beauty, indeed, is worthy {of love}; but inbred lust, as
well, urges him on, and the people in those regions are {naturally} much
inclined to lustfulness. He burns, both by his own frailty and that of
his nation. He has a desire to corrupt the care of her attendants, and
the fidelity of her nurse, and {besides}, to tempt herself with large
presents, and to spend his whole kingdom {in so doing}; or else, to
seize her, and, when seized, to secure her by a cruel war. And there is
nothing which, being seized by an unbridled passion, he may not dare;
nor does his breast contain the internal flame. And now he ill bears
with delay; and with eager mouth returns to {urge} the request of
Progne, and under it he pleads his own wishes; passion makes him
eloquent. As oft as he presses beyond what is becoming, he pretends
that Progne has thus desired. He adds tears as well, as though she had
enjoined them too. O ye Gods above, how much of dark night do the
breasts of mortals contain! Through his very attempt at villany, Tereus
is thought to be affectionate, and from his crime does he gather praise.

And how is it, too, that Philomela desires the same thing? and fondly
embracing the shoulders of her father with her arms, she begs, even by
her own safety (and against it too), that she may visit her sister.
Tereus views her, and, while viewing her, is embracing her beforehand in
imagination; and, as he beholds her kisses, and her arms around {her
father’s} neck, he receives them all as incentives, and fuel, and the
food of his furious passion; and, as often as she embraces her father,
he could wish to be {that} father, and, even then, he would have been
not the less impious. The father is overcome by the entreaties of them
both. She rejoices, and returns thanks to her parent, and, to her
misfortune, deems that the success of both, which will be the cause of
sorrow to them both. Now but little of his toil was remaining for
Phœbus, and his steeds were beating with their feet the descending track
of Olympus; a regal banquet was set on the tables, and wine in golden
{vessels}; after this, their bodies were given up to gentle sleep. But
the Odrysian king,[59] though he was withdrawn, still burned for her;
and, recalling her form, her movements, her hands, fancies that which he
has not yet seen, to be such as he wishes; and he himself feeds his own
flames, his anxiety preventing sleep.

It was {now} day; and Pandion, grasping the right hand of his
son-in-law, about to depart, with tears bursting forth, recommended his
companion {to his care}. “I commit her, my dear son-in-law, to thee,
because reasons, grounded on affection, have compelled me, and both {my
daughters} have desired it, and thou as well, Tereus, hast wished it;
and I entreat thee, begging by thy honor, by thy breast {thus} allied to
us, {and} by the Gods above, to protect her with the love of a father;
and do send back to me, as soon as possible, this sweet comfort of my
anxious old age, {for} all delay will be tedious to me, and do thou,
too, Philomela, if thou hast any affection for me, return as soon as
possible: ’tis enough that thy sister is so far away.” {Thus} did he
enjoin, and at the same time he gave kisses to his daughter, and his
affectionate tears fell amid his instructions. He {then} demanded the
right hands of them both, as a pledge of their fidelity, and joined them
together when given, and bade them, with mindful lips, to salute for him
his absent daughter and grandson, and with difficulty[60] uttered the
last farewell, his mouth being filled with sobs; and he shuddered at the
presages of his own mind. But as soon as Philomela was put on board of
the painted ship, and the sea was urged by the oars, and the land was
left behind, he exclaimed, “I have gained my point; the object of my
desires is borne along with me.” The barbarian exults, too, and with
difficulty defers his joy in his intention, and turns not his eyes
anywhere away from her. No otherwise than when the ravenous bird of
Jupiter, with crooked talons, has placed a hare in his lofty nest; there
is no escape for the captive; the plunderer keeps his eye on his prey.
And now the voyage is ended, and now they have gone forth from the
wearied ship, upon his own shore; when the king drags the daughter of
Pandion into a lofty dwelling, concealed in an ancient wood, and there
he shuts her up, pale and trembling, and dreading everything, and now
with tears inquiring where her sister is; and confessing his baseness,
he masters by force her a maiden, and but one, while she often vainly
calls on her father, often on her sister, and on the great Gods above
all. She trembles like a frightened lamb, which, wounded, being snatched
from the mouth of a hoary wolf, does not as yet seem to itself in
safety; and as a dove, its feathers soaked with its own blood, still
trembles, and dreads the ravening talons wherein it has been {lately}
held. {But} soon, when consciousness returned, tearing her dishevelled
hair like one mourning, and beating her arms in lamentation, stretching
out her hands, she said, “Oh, barbarous {wretch}, for thy dreadful
deeds; oh, cruel {monster}! have neither the requests of my father, with
his affectionate tears, moved thee, nor a regard for my sister, nor my
virgin state, nor the laws of marriage? Thou hast confounded all. I am
become the supplanter of my sister; thou, the husband of both of us.
This punishment was not my due. Why dost thou not take away this life,
that no villany, perfidious {wretch}, may remain {unperpetrated} by
thee? and would that thou hadst done it before thy criminal embraces!
{then} I might have had a shade void of {all} crime. Yet, if the Gods
above behold these things, if the majesty of the Gods be anything; if,
with myself, all things are not come to ruin; one time or other thou
shalt give me satisfaction. I myself, having cast shame aside, will
declare thy deeds. If opportunity is granted me, I will come among the
people; if I shall be kept imprisoned in the woods, I will fill the
woods, and will move the conscious rocks. Let Heaven hear these things,
and the Gods, if there are any in it.”

After the wrath of the cruel tyrant was aroused by such words, and his
fear was not less than it, urged on by either cause, he drew the sword,
with which he was girt, from the sheath, and seizing her by the hair,
her arms being bent behind her back, he compelled her to submit to
chains. Philomela was preparing her throat, and, on seeing the sword,
had conceived hopes of her death. He cut away, with his cruel weapon,
her tongue seized with pincers, while giving vent to her indignation,
and constantly calling on the name of her father, and struggling to
speak. The extreme root of the tongue {still} quivers. {The tongue}
itself lies, and faintly murmurs, quivering upon the black earth; and as
the tail of a mangled snake is wont to writhe about, {so} does it throb,
and, as it dies, seeks the feet of its owner. It is said, too, that
often after this crime (I could hardly dare believe it) he satisfied his
lust upon her mutilated body.

He has the effrontery, after such deeds, to return to Progne, who, on
seeing her husband, inquires for her sister; but he heaves feigned
sighs, and tells a fictitious story of her death; and his tears procure
him credit. Progne tears from her shoulders her robes, shining with
broad gold, and puts on black garments, and erects an honorary
sepulchre, and offers expiation to an imaginary shade; and laments the
death of a sister not thus to be lamented.

The God {Apollo}, the year being completed, had run through the twice
six signs {of the Zodiac}. What can Philomela do? A guard prevents her
flight; the walls of the house are hard, built of solid stone: her
speechless mouth is deprived of the means of discovering the crime. But
in grief there is extreme ingenuity, and inventive skill arises in
misfortunes. She skilfully suspends the warp in a web of Barbarian
design,[61] and interweaves purple marks with white, as a mode of
discovering the villany {of Tereus}; and delivers it, when finished, to
one {of her attendants}, and begs her, by signs, to carry it to her
mistress. As desired, she carries it to Progne, and does not know what
she is delivering in it. The wife of the savage tyrant unfolds the web,
and reads the mournful tale[62] of her sister, and (wondrous that she
can be so!) she is silent. ’Tis grief that stops her utterance, and
words sufficiently indignant fail her tongue, in want of them; nor is
there room for weeping. But she rushes onward, about to confound both
right and wrong, and is wholly {occupied} in the contrivance of revenge.

    〔note 51 — Calydon.--Ver. 415. This was a city of Ætolia, which derived its name from Calydon, the son of Endymion. Diana, being incensed against Œneus, its king, because he omitted her when offering the first fruits to the other Deities, sent an immense boar to ravage its fields, which was slain by Meleager. Ovid recounts these circumstances in the eighth book of the Metamorphoses. Argos, Sparta, and Mycenæ, are also included in one line, by Homer, as having been under the particular tutelage of Juno.〕

    〔note 52 — Famous for its brass.--Ver. 416. According to some writers, the Corinthian brass became famous after the fall of Corinth, when it was taken and burnt by the Consul Mummius. On that occasion, they say, that from the immense number of statues melted in the conflagration, a stream of metal poured through the streets, consisting of melted gold, silver, and copper; in which, of course, the latter would be predominant. If that was the ground on which the Corinthian brass was so much commended, Ovid is here guilty of an anachronism.〕

    〔note 53 — Cleonæ.--Ver. 417. This was a little town, situate between Argos and Corinth. It is called ‘humilis,’ not from its situation, but from the small number of its inhabitants. Patræ was a city of Achaia.〕

    〔note 54 — Pittheus.--Ver. 418. He was the uncle of Theseus; and was (after the time here mentioned) the king of Trœzen, in Peloponnesus.〕

    〔note 55 — Barbarous troops.--Ver. 423. Some suggest that it is here meant that Attica was invaded by the Amazons at this time; and they rely on a passage of Justin in support of the position. The story is, however, very improbable.〕

    〔note 56 — The Graces.--Ver. 429. The Graces, who were the attendants of Venus, were three in number, Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne.〕

    〔note 57 — To be launched.--Ver. 445. The ships were launched into the sea by means of rollers placed beneath them, from which circumstance they were said ‘deduci,’ ‘to be led down.’〕

    〔note 58 — Shores of the Piræus.--Ver. 446. The Piræus was the arsenal and the harbor of the Athenians, and owed its magnificence to the vast conceptions of Themistocles.〕

    〔note 59 — The Odrysian king.--Ver. 490. Tereus is thus called, from the Odrysæ, a people of Thrace.〕

    〔note 60 — With difficulty.--Ver. 510. Clarke translates ‘vix,’ ‘with much ado.’〕

    〔note 61 — Barbarian design.--Ver. 576. Probably of a Phrygian design.〕

    〔note 62 — The mournful tale.--Ver. 582. This line is translated by Clarke, ‘And reads the miserable ditty of her sister.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  The gravest authors among the ancients, such as Strabo and Pausanias,
  speaking of this tragical story, agree that the narrative, divested of
  its poetical ornaments, is strictly conformable to truth; though, of
  course, the sequel bears evident marks of embellishment either by the
  fancy of the Poet, or the superstition of the vulgar.

FABLE VI. [VI.587-676]

  Progne delivers her sister Philomela from captivity, and brings her to
  the court of Tereus, where she revolves in her mind her different
  projects of revenge. Her son Itys, in the meantime, comes into her
  apartment, and is murdered by his mother and aunt. Progne afterwards
  serves him up at a feast, which she prepares for her husband; on
  which, being obliged to fly from the fury of the enraged king, she is
  changed into a swallow, Philomela into a nightingale, and Tereus
  himself into a lapwing.

It is {now} the time[63] when the Sithonian[64] matrons are wont to
celebrate the triennial festival of Bacchus. Night is conscious of their
rites; by night Rhodope resounds with the tinklings of the shrill
cymbal. By night the queen goes out of her house, and is arrayed
according to the rites of the God, and carries the arms of the frantic
solemnity. Her head is covered with vine leaves; from her left side hang
down the skins of a deer;[65] upon her shoulder rests a light spear.
{Then} the terrible Progne rushing through the woods, a multitude of her
followers attending her, and agitated by the fury of her resentment,
pretends, Bacchus, that it is {inspired} by thee.

She comes at length to the lonely dwelling, and howls aloud, and cries
“Evoë!” and breaks open the gates, and seizes her sister, and puts upon
her, {so} seized, the badges of Bacchus, and conceals her countenance
under the foliage of ivy; and dragging her along, full of amazement,
leads her within her threshold. When Philomela perceives that she has
arrived at that accursed house,[66] the wretched woman shudders, and
paleness spreads over her whole face. Progne having {now} got a
{fitting} place {for so doing}, takes away the symbols of the rites,[67]
and unveils the blushing face of her wretched sister; and holds her in
her embraces. But she, on the other hand, cannot endure to lift up her
eyes; seeming to herself the supplanter of her sister, and fixing her
looks on the ground, her hand is in the place of voice to her, as she
desires to swear and to call the Gods to witness that this disgrace has
been brought upon her by violence. Progne burns {with rage}, and
contains not her anger; and checking the grief of her sister, she says,
“We must not act in this matter with tears, but with the sword, {and
even} with anything, if {such} thou hast, that can possibly outdo the
sword. I have, sister, prepared myself for every crime! Either, when I
shall have set fire to the royal palace with torches, I will throw the
artful Tereus into the midst of the flames, or with the steel will I cut
away his tongue or his eyes, or the members that have deprived thee of
thy chastity, or by a thousand wounds will I expel his guilty soul {from
his body}. Something tremendous am I prepared for; what it is, I am
still in doubt.”

While Progne was uttering such expressions, Itys came to his mother. By
him she was put in mind of what she might do; and looking at him with
vengeful eyes, she said, “Ah! how like thou art to thy father!” And
saying no more, she prepared for a horrible deed, and burned with silent
rage. Yet when her son came to her, and saluted his mother and drew her
neck {towards him} with his little arms, and added kisses mingled with
childish endearments, the mother, in truth, was moved, and her anger
abated, and her eyes, in spite of her, became wet with tears {thus}
forced {from her}. But soon as she found the mother {in her} shrinking
from excess of affection, from him again did she turn towards the
features of her sister; and looking at them both by turns, she said,
“Why does the one employ endearments, {while} the other is silent with
her tongue torn from her? Why does she not call her sister, whom he
calls mother? Consider to what kind of husband thou art married,
daughter of Pandion. Thou dost grow degenerate. Tenderness in the wife
of Tereus is criminality.” No {more} delay {is there}; she drags Itys
along, just as the tigress of the banks of the Ganges {does} the
suckling offspring of the hind, through the shady forests. And when they
are come to a remote part of the lofty house, Progne strikes[68] him
with the sword, extending his hands, and as he beholds his fate, crying
now “Alas!” and now “My mother!” and clinging to her neck, where his
breast joins his side; nor does she turn away her face. Even one wound
{alone} is sufficient for his death; Philomela cuts his throat with the
sword; and they mangle his limbs, still quivering and retaining somewhat
of life. Part of them boils,[69] in the hollow cauldrons; part hisses on
spits; the inmost recesses stream with gore. His wife sets Tereus, in
his unconsciousness, before this banquet; and falsely pretending rites
after the manner of her country, at which it is allowed one man only to
be present, she removes his attendants and servants. Tereus himself,
sitting aloft on the throne of his forefathers, eats and heaps his own
entrails into his own stomach. And so great is the blindness of his
mind, {that} he says, “Send for Itys.” Progne is unable to conceal her
cruel joy; and now, desirous to be the discoverer of her having murdered
him, she says, “Thou hast within {thee}, that for which thou art
asking.” He looks around, and inquires where he is; as he inquires, and
calls him again, Philomela springs forth, just as she is, with her hair
disordered by the infernal murder, and throws the bloody head of Itys in
the face of his father; nor at any time has she more longed to be able
to speak, and to testify her joy by words such as are deserved.

The Thracian pushes from him the table with a loud cry, and summons the
Viperous sisters[70] from the Stygian valley; and at one moment he
desires, if he {only} can, by opening his breast to discharge thence the
horrid repast, and the half-digested entrails. And then he weeps, and
pronounces himself the wretched sepulchre of his own son; and then he
follows the daughters of Pandion with his drawn sword. You would have
thought the bodies of the Cecropian[71] Nymphs were supported by wings;
{and} they were supported by wings. The one of them makes for the woods,
the other takes her place beneath the roofs {of houses}. Nor {even} as
yet have the marks of murder withdrawn from her breast; and her feathers
are {still} stained with blood. He, made swift by his grief, and his
desire for revenge, is turned into a bird, upon whose head stands a
crested {plume}; a prolonged bill projects in place of the long spear.
The name of the bird is ‘epops’ [{lapwing}]; its face appears to be
armed. This affliction dispatched Pandion to the shades of Tartarus
before his day, and the late period of protracted old age.

    〔note 63 — Now the time.--Ver. 587. This was the festival of Bacchus, before mentioned as being celebrated every three years, in memory of his Indian expedition.〕

    〔note 64 — Sithonian.--Ver. 588. Sithonia was a region of Thrace, which lay between Mount Hæmus and the Euxine sea. The word, however, is often used to signify the whole of Thrace.〕

    〔note 65 — Skins of a deer.--Ver. 593. These were the ‘nebrides,’ or skins of fawns and deer, which the Bacchanals wore when celebrating the orgies. The lance mentioned here was, no doubt, the thyrsus.〕

    〔note 66 — That accursed house.--Ver. 601. Clarke translates this line, ‘As soon as Philomela perceived she had got into the wicked rogue’s house.’〕

    〔note 67 — Symbols of the rites.--Ver. 603. These were the ivy, the deer-skins, and the thyrsus.〕

    〔note 68 — Progne strikes.--Ver. 641. ‘Ense ferit Progne’ is translated by Clarke, ‘Progne strikes with the sword poor Itys.’〕

    〔note 69 — Part of them boils.--Ver. 645-6. Clarke gives this comical translation: ‘Then part of them bounces about in hollow kettles; part hisses upon spits; the parlor runs down with gore.’〕

    〔note 70 — Viperous sisters.--Ver. 662. Tereus invokes the Furies, who are thus called from having their hair wreathed with serpents. Clarke translates, ‘ingenti clamore,’ in line 661, ‘with a huge cry.’〕

    〔note 71 — Cecropian.--Ver. 667. The Cecropian or Athenian Nymphs are Progne and Philomela, the daughters of Pandion, king of Athens.〕

EXPLANATION.

  By the symbolical changes of Philomela, Progne, and Tereus, those who
  framed this termination of the story intended to depict the different
  characters of the persons whose actions are there represented. As the
  lapwing delights in filth and impurity, the ancients thereby portrayed
  the unscrupulous character of Tereus; and, as the flight of that bird
  is but slow, it shows that he was not able to overtake his wife and
  her sister. The nightingale, concealed in the woods and thickets,
  seems there to be concealing her misfortunes and sorrows; and the
  swallow, which frequents the abodes of man, shows the restlessness of
  Progne, who seeks in vain for her son, whom, in her frantic fit, she
  has so barbarously murdered.

  Anacreon and Apollodorus, however, reverse the story, saying that
  Philomela was changed into a swallow, and Progne into a nightingale.
  This event is said by some writers to have happened not in Thrace, but
  at Daulis, a town of Phocis, where Tereus is supposed to have gone to
  settle. Pausanias tells us, that the tomb of Tereus was to be seen
  near Athens, so that it is probable that he died at a distance from
  Thrace, his native country. Homer alludes to the story of Philomela in
  somewhat different terms; speaking of the grounds of the grief of
  Penelope, he says, that ‘she made her complaints to be heard like the
  inconsolable Philomela, the daughter of Pandarus, always hidden among
  the leaves and branches of trees. When the Spring arrives, she makes
  her voice echo through the woods, and laments her dear Itylus, whom
  she killed by an unhappy mistake; varying, in her continued plaints,
  the mournful melody of her notes.’ By this, Homer seems to have known
  nothing of Tereus or of Progne, and to have followed a tradition,
  which was to the following effect:--Pandarus had three daughters,
  Ædon, Mecrope, and Cleothera. Ædon, the eldest, was married to Zethus,
  the brother of Amphion, by whom she had one son, who was named Itylus.
  Envying the more numerous family of Niobe, her sister-in-law, she
  resolved to despatch the eldest of her nephews; and, as her son was
  brought up with his cousin, and was his bedfellow, she bade him change
  his place in the bed, on the night on which she intended to commit the
  crime. Itylus forgot her commands, and consequently his mother killed
  him by mistake for her nephew.

FABLE VII. [VI.677-721]

  Boreas, not obtaining the consent of Erectheus, king of Athens, for
  the marriage of his daughter, Orithyïa, takes that princess in his
  arms, and carries her away into Thrace. By her he has two sons, Calaïs
  and Zethes, who have wings, like their father, and afterwards embark
  with Jason in search of the Golden Fleece.

Erectheus[72] received the sceptre of {that} country, and the government
of the state; it is a matter of doubt whether he was more powerful
through his justice, or by his mighty arms. He had, indeed, begotten
four sons, and as many of the female sex: but the beauty of two {of
them} was equal. Of these, Cephalus,[73] the son of Æolus, was blessed
with thee, Procris, for his wife; Tereus and the Thracians were an
obstacle to Boreas; and long was {that} God without his much-loved
Orithyïa, while he was entreating, and choosing rather to use prayers
than force. But when nothing was effected by blandishments, terrible
with that rage which is his wont, and but too natural with that wind, he
said, “And {this is} deservedly {done}; for why did I relinquish my own
weapons, my violence, my strength, my anger, and my threatening spirit,
and turn to prayers, the employment of which ill becomes me? Violence is
suitable for me; by violence do I dispel the lowering clouds, by
violence do I arouse the seas, and overthrow the knotted oaks, and
harden the snow, and beat the earth with hail. I too, when I have met
with my brothers in the open air (for that is {peculiarly} my field),
struggle with efforts so great, that the intermediate sky thunders again
with our onset, and fires flash, struck forth from the hollow clouds.
I too, when I have descended into the hollow recesses of the earth, and
in my rage have placed my back against its lowest depths, disturb the
shades below, and the whole globe with earthquakes. By these means
should I have sought this alliance; and Erectheus ought not to have been
entreated {to be} my father-in-law, but made so by force.”

Boreas, having said these words, or some not less high-sounding than
these, shakes his wings, by the motion of which all the earth is fanned,
and the wide sea becomes ruffled; and the lover, drawing his dusty
mantle over the high tops {of mountains}, sweeps the ground, and, wrapt
in darkness, embraces with his tawny wings Orithyïa, as she trembles
with fear. As she flies, his flame, being agitated, burns more fiercely.
Nor does the ravisher check the reins of his airy course, before he
reaches the people and the walls of the Ciconians.[74] There, too, is
the Actæan damsel made the wife of the cold sovereign, and {afterwards}
a mother, bringing forth twins at a birth, who have the wings of their
father, the rest {like} their mother. Yet they say that these {wings}
were not produced together with their bodies; and while their long
beard, with its yellow hair, was away, the boys Calaïs and Zethes were
without feathers. {But} soon after, at once wings began to enclose both
their sides, after the manner of birds, and at once their cheeks {began}
to grow yellow {with down}. When, therefore, the boyish season of youth
was passed, they sought,[75] with the Minyæ, along the sea {before}
unmoved,[76] in the first ship {that existed}, the fleece that glittered
with shining hair {of gold}.

    〔note 72 — Erectheus.--Ver. 677. This personage really was king of Athens before Pandion, the father of Progne and Philomela, and not after him, as Ovid here states; at least, such is the account given by Pausanias and Eusebius: the order of succession being Actæus, Cecrops, Cranaüs, Amphictyon, Erecthonius, Pandion, Erectheus, Cecrops II., Pandion II., Ægeus, Theseus.〕

    〔note 73 — Cephalus.--Ver. 681. He was the son of Deioneus, and the grandson of Æolus. According to some writers, he was the son of Mercury; in and the Art of Love (Book iii. l. 725) he is called ‘Cyllenia proles.’ Strabo says that he was the son-in-law of Deioneus. His story is related at length in the next Book.〕

    〔note 74 — The Ciconians.--Ver. 710. The Cicones were a people of Thrace, living near Mount Ismarus, and the Bistonian lake.〕

    〔note 75 — They sought.--Ver. 720. This was the fleece of the ram that carried Phryxus along the Hellespont to Colchis, which is mentioned again in the next Book.〕

    〔note 76 — Before unmoved.--Ver. 721. This passage may mean that that part of the sea had not been navigated before; though many of the poets assert that the Argo was the first ship that was ever built. It is more probable that it was the first vessel that was ever fitted out as a ship of war.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Plato tells us that the story of the rape of Orithyïa is but an
  allegory, which signifies that, by accident, she was blown by the wind
  into the sea, where she was drowned. Apollodorus and Pausanias,
  however, assert that this story is based on historical facts, and that
  Boreas, king of Thrace, seized Orithyïa, the daughter of Erectheus,
  king of Athens, and sister of Procris, as she was passing the river
  Ilissus, and carried her into his dominions, where she became the
  mother of twins, Calaïs and Zethes. In the Argonautic expedition,
  these chiefs delivered Phineus, the king of Bithynia, from the
  persecution of the Harpies, which were in the habit of snatching away
  the victuals served up at his table.

FABLE I. [VII.1-158]

  Jason, after having met with various adventures, arrives with the
  Argonauts in Colchis, and demands the Golden Fleece. Medea falls in
  love with Jason, and by the power of her enchantments preserves him
  from the dangers he has to encounter in obtaining it. He obtains the
  prize, and carrying off Medea, returns in triumph to Thessaly.

And now the Minyæ[1] were ploughing the sea in the Pagasæan ship;[2] and
Phineus prolonging a needy old age under perpetual night, had been
visited, and the youthful sons of the North wind had driven the birds
with the faces of virgins from {before} the mouth of the distressed old
man;[3] and having suffered many things under the famous Jason, had
reached at length the rapid waters of the muddy Phasis.

And while they go to the king, and ask the fleece that once belonged to
Phryxus, and conditions are offered them, dreadful for the number of
mighty labors; in the meantime, the daughter of Æetes[4] conceives a
violent flame; and having long struggled {against it}, after she is
unable to conquer her frenzy by reason, she says: “In vain, Medea, dost
thou resist; some God, who, I know not, is opposing thee. It is a wonder
too, if it is not this, or at least something like this, which is called
‘love.’ For why do the commands of my father appear too rigid for me?
and yet too rigid they are. Why am I in dread, lest he whom I have seen
{but} so lately, should perish? What is the cause of alarm so great?
Banish the flames conceived in thy virgin breast, if thou canst, unhappy
{creature}. If I could, I would be more rational. But a new power draws
me on, against my will; and Cupid persuades one thing, reason another.
I see which is the more proper {course}, and I approve of it, {while} I
follow the wrong one. Why, royal maiden, art thou burning for a
stranger, and why coveting the nuptial ties of a strange country? This
land, too, may give thee something which thou mayst love. Whether he
shall live, or whether die, is in {the disposal of} the Gods. Yet he may
survive; and that I may pray for, even without love. For what {fault}
has Jason committed? Whom, but one of hard heart, would not the
{youthful} age of Jason affect? his descent too, and his valor? Whom,
though these other points were wanting, would not his beauty move? at
least, he has moved my breast. But unless I shall give him aid, he will
be breathed upon by the mouths of the bulls; and will engage with his
own {kindred} crops, an enemy sprung from the earth; or he will be given
as a cruel prey to the ravenous dragon. If I allow this, then I will
confess that I was born of a tigress; then, {too}, that I carry steel
and stone in my heart. Why do I not as well behold him perish? Why not,
too, profane my eyes by seeing it? Why do I not stimulate the bulls
against him, and the fierce sons of the earth, and the never-sleeping
dragon? May the Gods award better things. And yet these things are not
to be prayed for, but must be effected by myself. Shall I {then} betray
the kingdom of my father? and by my aid shall some stranger, I know not
who, be saved; that being delivered by my means, he may spread his sails
to the winds without me, and be the husband of another; and I, Medea, be
left for punishment? If he can do this, and if he is capable of
preferring another to me, let him perish in his ingratitude. But not
such is his countenance, not such that nobleness of soul, that
gracefulness of person, that I should fear treachery, and forgetfulness
of what I deserve. Besides, he shall first pledge his faith, and I will
oblige the Gods to be witnesses of our compact. What then dost thou
dread, {thus} secure? Haste {then},[5] and banish {all} delay. Jason
will ever be indebted to thee for his preservation; thee will he unite
to himself in the rites of marriage, and throughout the Pelasgian
cities[6] thou wilt be celebrated by crowds of matrons, as the preserver
{of their sons}. And shall I then, borne away by the winds, leave my
sister[7] and my brother,[8] and my father, and my Gods, and my native
soil? My father is cruel, forsooth; my country, too, is barbarous;[9] my
brother is still {but} an infant; the wishes of my sister are in my
favor. The greatest of the Gods is in possession of me. I shall not be
relinquishing anything great; I shall be pursuing what is great; the
credit of saving the youth of Greece,[10] acquaintance with a better
country, and cities, whose fame is flourishing even here, and the
politeness and the arts of their inhabitants; and the son of Æson, whom
I could be ready to take in exchange for {all} the things that the whole
world contains; with whom for my husband I shall both be deemed dear to
the Gods, and shall reach the stars with my head. Why say that I know
not what mountains[11] are reported to arise in the midst of the waves,
and that Charybdis, an enemy to ships, one while sucks in the sea, at
another discharges it; and how that Scylla, begirt with furious dogs, is
said to bark in the Sicilian deep? Yet holding him whom I love, and
clinging to the bosom of Jason, I shall be borne over the wide seas;
embracing him, naught will I dread; or if I fear anything, for my
husband alone will I fear. And dost thou, Medea, call this a marriage,
and dost thou give a plausible name to thy criminality? Do but consider
how great an offence thou art meditating, and, while {still} thou mayst,
fly from guilt.”

{Thus} she said, and before her eyes stood Virtue, Affection, and
Modesty; and now Cupid turned his vanquished back. She was going to the
ancient altars of Hecate,[12] the daughter of Perses, which a shady
grove and the recesses of a wood concealed. And now she was resolved,
and her passion being checked, had subsided; when she beheld the son of
Æson, and the extinguished flame revived. Her cheeks were covered with
blushes, and her whole face was suffused with a glow. As a spark is wont
to derive nourishment from the winds, which, but small when it lay
concealed beneath the ashes cast over it, {is wont} to increase, and
aroused, to rise again to its original strength, so her love, now
declining, which you would suppose was now growing languid, when she
beheld the youth, was rekindled with the appearance of him before her
eyes. And by chance, on that day, the son of Æson was more beauteous
than usual. You might forgive her loving him. She gazes; and keeps her
eyes fixed upon his countenance, as though but now seen for the first
time; and in her frenzy she thinks she does not behold the face of a
mortal; nor does she turn away from him. But when the stranger began to
speak, and seized her right hand, and begged her assistance with a
humble voice, and promised her marriage; she said, with tears running
down, “I see what I ought to do; and it will not be ignorance of the
truth, but love that beguiles me. By my agency thou shalt be saved; when
saved, grant what thou hast promised.”

He swears by the rites of the Goddess of the triple form, and the Deity
which is in that grove, and by the sire[13] of his future father-in-law,
who beholds all things, and by his own adventures, and by dangers so
great. Being believed {by her}, he immediately received some enchanted
herbs, and thoroughly learned the use of them, and went away rejoicing
to his abode. The next morning had {now} dispersed the twinkling stars,
{when} the people repaired to the sacred field of Mavors, and ranged
themselves on the hills. In the midst of the assembly sat the king
himself, arrayed in purple, and distinguished by a sceptre of ivory.
Behold! the brazen-footed bulls breathe forth flames[14] from their
adamantine nostrils; and the grass touched by the vapors is on fire. And
as the forges filled {with fire} are wont to roar, or when flints[15]
dissolved in an earthen furnace receive intense heat by the sprinkling
of flowing water; so do their breasts rolling forth the flames enclosed
within, and their scorched throats, resound. Yet the son of Æson goes
forth to meet them. The fierce {bulls} turn their terrible features, and
their horns pointed with iron, towards his face as he advances, and with
cloven hoofs they spurn the dusty ground, and fill the place with
lowings, that send forth clouds of smoke. The Minyæ are frozen with
horror. He comes up, and feels not the flames breathed forth by them, so
great is the power of the incantations. He even strokes their hanging
dewlaps with a bold right hand, and, subjected to the yoke, he obliges
them to draw the heavy weight of a plough, and to turn up with the share
the plain {till now} unused to it.[16]

The Colchians are astonished; the Minyæ fill {the air} with their
shouts, and give him {fresh} courage. Then in a brazen helmet he takes
the dragon’s teeth,[17] and strews them over the ploughed up fields. The
ground, impregnated beforehand with a potent drug, softens the seed; and
the teeth that were sown grow up, and become new bodies. And as the
infant receives the human form in the womb of the mother, and is there
formed in all its parts, and comes not forth into the common air until
at maturity, so when the figure of man is ripened in the bowels of the
pregnant earth, it arises in the fruitful plain; and, what is still more
surprising, it brandishes arms produced at the same time. When the
Pelasgians saw them preparing to hurl their spears with sharp points at
the head of the Hæmonian youth, they lowered their countenances and
their courage, {quailing} with fear. She, too, became alarmed, who had
rendered him secure; and when she saw the youth, being but one, attacked
by so many enemies, she turned pale, and suddenly chilled {with fear},
sat down without blood {in her cheeks}. And, lest the herbs that had
been given by her, should avail him but little, she repeats an auxiliary
charm, and summons {to her aid} her secret arts. He, hurling a heavy
stone into the midst of his enemies, turns the warfare, now averted from
himself, upon themselves. The Earth-born brothers perish by mutual
wounds, and fall in civil fight. The Greeks congratulate him, and caress
the conqueror, and cling to him in hearty embraces. And thou too,
barbarian maiden, wouldst fain have embraced him; ’twas modesty that
opposed the design; otherwise thou wouldst have embraced him; but regard
for thy reputation restrained thee from doing so. What thou mayst do,
{thou dost do}; thou rejoicest with a silent affection, and thou givest
thanks to thy charms, and to the Gods, the authors of them.

It {still} remains to lay asleep with herbs the watchful dragon, who,
distinguished by his crest and his three tongues, and terrible with his
hooked teeth, is the keeper of the Golden Fleece. After he has sprinkled
him with herbs of Lethæan juice,[18] and has thrice repeated words that
cause placid slumbers, which {would even calm} the boisterous ocean,
{and} which would stop the rapid rivers, sleep creeps upon the eyes that
were strangers to it, and the hero, the son of Æson, gains the gold; and
proud of the spoil and bearing with him the giver of the prize as a
second spoil, he arrives victorious, with his wife, at the port of
Iolcos.[19]

    〔note 1 — The Minyæ.--Ver. 1. The Argonauts. The Minyæ were a people of Thessaly, so called from Minyas, the son of Orchomenus.〕

    〔note 2 — Pagasæan ship.--Ver. 1. Pagasæ was a seaport of Thessaly, at the foot of Mount Pelion, where the ship Argo was built.〕

    〔note 3 — Distressed old man.--Ver. 4. Clarke translates ‘miseri senis ore,’ ‘from the mouth of the miserable old fellow.’〕

    〔note 4 — Daughter of Æetes.--Ver. 9. Medea was the daughter of Æetes, the king of Colchis. Juno, favoring Jason, had persuaded Venus to inspire Medea with love for him.〕

    〔note 5 — Haste then.--Ver. 47. Clarke translates ‘accingere,’ more literally than elegantly, ‘buckle to.’〕

    〔note 6 — Pelasgian cities.--Ver. 49. Pelasgia was properly that part of Greece which was afterwards called Thessaly. The province of Pelasgiotis, in Thessaly, afterwards retained its name, which was derived from the Pelasgi, an early people of Greece. Pliny informs us that Peloponnesus at first had the names of ‘Apia’ and ‘Pelasgia.’ Some suppose that the Pelasgi derived their name from Pelasgus, the son of Jupiter; while other writers assert that they were so called from πελαργοὶ, ‘storks,’ from their wandering habits. The name is frequently used, as in the present instance, to signify the whole of the Greeks.〕

    〔note 7 — My sister.--Ver. 51. Her sister was Chalciope, who had married Phryxus, after his arrival in Colchis. Her children being found by Jason, in the isle of Dia, they came with him to Colchis, and presented him to their mother, who afterwards commended him to the care of Medea.〕

    〔note 8 — And my brother.--Ver. 51. Her brother was Absyrtus, whose tragical death is afterwards mentioned.〕

    〔note 9 — Is barbarous.--Ver. 53. It was certainly ‘barbara’ in the eyes of a Greek; but the argument sounds rather oddly in the mouth of Medea, herself a native of the country.〕

    〔note 10 — The youth of Greece.--Ver. 56. These were the Argonauts, who were selected from the most noble youths of Greece.〕

    〔note 11 — What mountains.--Ver. 63. These were the Cyanean rocks, or Symplegades, at the mouth of the Euxine sea.〕

    〔note 12 — Hecate.--Ver. 74. Ancient writers seem to have been much divided in opinion who Hecate was. Ovid here follows the account which made her to be the daughter of Perses, who, according to Diodorus Siculus, was the son of Phœbus, and the brother of Æetes. Marrying her uncle Æetes, she is said to have been the mother of Circe, Medea, and Absyrtus. By some writers she is confounded with the Moon and with Proserpine; as identical with the Moon, she has the epithets ‘Triceps’ and ‘Triformis,’ often given to her by the poets, because the Moon sometimes is full, sometimes disappears, and often shows but part of her disk.〕

    〔note 13 — And by the sire.--Ver. 96. Allusion is made to the Sun, who was said to be the father of Æetes, the destined father-in-law of Jason.〕

    〔note 14 — Breathe forth flames.--Ver. 104. The name of the God of fire is here used to signify that element. Apollodorus says, that Medea gave Jason a drug (φάρμακον) to rub over himself and his armor.〕

    〔note 15 — Or when flints.--Ver. 107. It is difficult to determine whether ‘silices’ here means ‘flint-stones,’ or ‘lime-stone;’ probably the latter, from the mention of water sprinkled over them. If the meaning is ‘flint-stones,’ the passage may refer to the manufacture of glass, with the art of making which the ancients were perfectly acquainted.〕

    〔note 16 — Unused to it.--Ver. 119. Because, being sacred to Mars, it was not permitted to be ploughed.〕

    〔note 17 — Dragon’s teeth.--Ver. 122. These were a portion of the teeth of the dragon slain by Cadmus, which Mars and Minerva had sent to Æetes.〕

    〔note 18 — Lethæan juice.--Ver. 152. Lethe was a river of the infernal regions, whose waters were said to produce sleep and forgetfulness.〕

    〔note 19 — Port of Iolcos.--Ver. 158. Iolcos was a city of Thessaly, of which country Jason was a native.〕

EXPLANATION.

  To understand this story, one of the most famous in the early history
  of Greece, we must go back to the origin of it, and examine the
  fictions which the poets have mingled with the history of the
  expedition of the Argonauts, one of the most remarkable events of the
  fabulous ages.

  Athamas, the son of Æolus, grandson of Hellen, and great-grandson of
  Deucalion, having married Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, was obliged to
  divorce her, on account of the madness with which she was attacked. He
  afterwards married Nephele, by whom he had a son and daughter, Phryxus
  and Helle; but on his taking his first wife again, she brought him two
  sons, Learchus and Melicerta. Ino, hating the children of Nephele,
  sought to destroy them. Phryxus being informed thereof, ordered a ship
  to be privately prepared; and taking his father’s treasures, sailed
  with his sister Helle, to seek a retreat in the court of Æetes, his
  kinsman. Helle died on the voyage, but Phryxus arrived in Colchis,
  where he dedicated the prow of his ship to Neptune, or Jupiter. He
  there married Chalciope, by whom he had four sons, Argos, Phrontes,
  Molas, and Cylindus. Some years after, Æetes caused him to be
  assassinated; and his sons fleeing to the court of their grandfather,
  Athamas, were shipwrecked on an island, where they remained until
  found there by Jason, who took them back to their mother. Having
  mourned them as dead, she was transported with joy on finding them,
  and used every exertion to aid Jason in promoting his addresses to
  Medea. Æetes having seized the treasures of Athamas on the death of
  Phryxus, the Greeks prepared an expedition to recover them, and to
  avenge his death. Pelias, who had driven his brother Æson from the
  throne of Iolcos, desiring to procure the absence of his son Jason,
  took this opportunity of engaging him in an enterprise, which promised
  both glory, profit, and a large amount of personal exertion. The
  uneasiness which Pelias felt was caused by the prediction of an
  oracle, that he should be killed by a prince of the family of Æolus,
  and which warned him to beware of a person who should have but one
  shoe. Just at that period, Jason, returning from the school of Chiron,
  lost one of his shoes in crossing a river. On this, his uncle was
  desirous to destroy him; but not daring to do so publicly, he induced
  him to embark with the Argonauts, expecting that he would perish in an
  undertaking of so perilous a nature. Many young nobles of Greece
  repaired to the court of Iolcos, and joined in the undertaking, when
  they chose Jason for their leader, and embarked in a ship, the name of
  which was Argo, and from which the adventurers received the name of
  Argonauts.

  Diodorus Siculus says, that the ship was so named from its swiftness;
  while others say, that it was so called from Argus, the name of its
  builder, or from the Argives, or Greeks, on board of it. Bochart,
  however, supposes, that the name is derived from the Phœnician word
  ‘arco,’ which signifies ‘long,’ and suggests, that before that time
  the Greeks sailed in vessels of a rounder form, Jason being the first
  who sailed in a ship built in the form of a galley. After many
  adventures, on arriving at the Isle of Lemnos, they found that the
  women had killed their husbands in a fit of jealousy, on which the
  Argonauts took wives from their number, and Jason received for his
  companion Hypsipyle, the daughter of Thoas. Putting to sea again, they
  were driven on the coast of Bithynia, where they delivered Phineus,
  its king, from the persecution of the Harpies, who were in the habit
  of snatching away the victuals from his table. These monsters, of
  hideous form, with crooked beaks and talons, huge wings, and the faces
  of women, the Argonauts, and especially Calais and Zethes, pursued as
  far as the islands called Strophades, in the Ionian sea, where Iris
  appearing to them, enjoined them to pursue the Harpies no further,
  promising that Phineus should no longer be persecuted by them. To
  explain this story, some suppose that the Harpies were the daughters
  of Phineus, who by their dissipation and extravagance, had ruined him
  in his old age, which occasioned the saying, that they snatched the
  victuals out of his mouth. Le Clerc thinks, that the Harpies were vast
  swarms of grasshoppers, which ravaged all Paphlagonia, and caused a
  famine in the dominions of Phineus; the word ‘arbati,’ whence the term
  ‘Harpy’ is derived, signifying ‘a grasshopper;’ and that the North
  wind blowing them into the Ionian sea, it gave rise to the saying,
  that the sons of Boreas pursued them so far. Diodorus Siculus does not
  mention the Harpies, though he speaks of the arrival of the Argonauts
  at the court of Phineus.

  After some other adventures, the Argonauts arrived at Colchis. Æetes,
  or Æeta, the king, having been forewarned by an oracle, that a
  stranger should deprive him of his crown and life, had established a
  custom of sacrificing all strangers found in his dominions. His
  daughter Medea, falling in love with Jason, promised him her
  assistance in preserving them from the dangers to which they were
  exposed, on the condition of his marrying her. Having engaged to do
  so, she conducted him by night to the royal palace, and gave him a
  false key, by means whereof he found the royal treasures, and carrying
  them off, embarked with Medea and his companions. By way of explaining
  the miraculous portion of the story, we may, perhaps, not err in
  supposing, that the account of it was originally written in the
  Phœnician language; and through not understanding it, the Greeks
  invented the fiction of the Fleece, the Dragon, and the Fiery Bulls.
  Bochart and Le Clerc have observed, that the Syriac word ‘gaza,’
  signifies either ‘a treasure,’ or ‘a fleece.’ ‘Saur,’ which means ‘a
  wall,’ also means ‘a bull;’ and in the same language the same word,
  ‘nachas,’ signifies both ‘brass,’ ‘iron,’ and ‘a dragon.’ Hence,
  instead of the simple narrative, that Jason, by the aid of Medea,
  carried away the treasures which Æetes kept within walls, with bolts,
  or locks of metal, and which Phryxus had carried to Colchis in a ship
  with the figure of a ram at the prow, it was published, and circulated
  by the ignorant, that the Gods, to save Phryxus from his stepmother,
  sent him a sheep with a golden fleece, which bore him to Colchis; that
  its fleece became the object of the ambition of the leading men of
  Greece; and that whoever wished to bear it away was obliged to contend
  with bulls and dragons. Some historians, by way of interpreting the
  story, affirm, that the keeper of the treasures was named ‘Draco,’ or
  ‘Dragon,’ and that the garrison of the stronghold of Æetes was brought
  from the ‘Tauric’ Chersonesus. They say also, that the fleece was the
  skin of the sheep which Phryxus had sacrificed to Neptune, which he
  had caused to be gilt. It is not, however, very likely, that an object
  so trifling could have excited the avarice of the Greeks, and caused
  them to undertake an expedition accompanied with so many dangers. The
  dragon’s teeth most probably bear reference to some foreign troops
  which Jason, in the same way as Cadmus had done, found means to
  alienate from Æetes, and to bring over to his own side. Homer makes
  but very slight allusion to the adventures of the Argonauts.

FABLE II. [VII.159-349]

  Jason, after his return home, requests Medea to restore his father
  Æson to youth, which she performs; then, going to the court of Pelias,
  she avenges the injuries which he had done to the family of Jason, by
  making him the victim of the credulity of his own daughters, who, in
  compliance with her pretended regard for them, stab him to death.
  Medea, having executed her design, makes her escape in her chariot.

The Hæmonian mothers and aged fathers bring presents, for receiving
their sons {safe home}; and frankincense dissolves, piled on the flames,
and the devoted victim falls, having its horns gilded. But Æson is not
among those congratulating, being now near death, and worn out with the
years of old age; when thus the son of Æson {addresses Medea}: “O wife,
to whom I confess that I owe my safety, although thou hast granted me
everything, and the sum of thy favors exceeds {all} belief; {still}, if
{thy enchantments} can effect this (and what can enchantments not
effect?), take away from my own years, and, when taken, add them to
{those of} my father.”

And {thus saying}, he could not check his tears. She was moved with the
affection of the petitioner; and {her father}, Æetes, left behind,
recurred to her mind, unlike {that of Jason}; yet she did not confess
any such feelings. “What a piece of wickedness, husband,” said she, “has
escaped thy affectionate lips! Can I, then, seem capable of transferring
to any one a portion of thy life? May Hecate not allow of this; nor dost
thou ask what is reasonable; but, Jason, I will endeavor to grant thee a
favor {still} greater than that which thou art asking. By my arts we
will endeavor to bring back the long years of my father-in-law, and not
by means of thy years; if the Goddess of the triple form[20] do but
assist, and propitiously aid {so} vast an undertaking.” Three nights
were {now} wanting that the horns {of the Moon} might meet entirely, and
might form a {perfect} orb. After the Moon shone in her full, and looked
down upon the Earth, with her disk complete, {Medea} went forth from the
house, clothed in garments flowing loose, with bare feet,[21] and having
her unadorned hair hanging over her shoulders, and unattended, directed
her wandering steps through the still silence of midnight. Sound sleep
has {now} relaxed {the nerves of both} men, and birds, and beasts; the
hedges and the motionless foliage are still, without any noise, the dewy
air is still; the stars alone are twinkling; towards which, holding up
her arms, three times she turns herself about, three times she
besprinkles her hair with water taken from the stream; with three yells
she opens her mouth, and, her knee bending upon the hard ground, she
says, “O Night, most faithful to these my mysteries, and ye golden
Stars, who, with the Moon, succeed the fires of the day, and thou,
three-faced Hecate,[22] who comest conscious of my design, and ye charms
and arts of the enchanters, and thou, too, Earth, that dost furnish the
enchanters with powerful herbs; ye breezes, too, and winds, mountains,
rivers, and lakes, and all ye Deities of the groves, and all ye Gods of
night, attend here; through whose aid, whenever I will, the rivers run
back from their astonished banks to their sources, {and} by my charms I
calm the troubled sea, and rouse it when calm; I disperse the clouds,
and I bring clouds {upon the Earth}; I both allay the winds, and I raise
them; and I break the jaws of serpents with my words and my spells;
I move, too, the solid rocks, and the oaks torn up with their own
{native} earth, and the forests {as well}. I command the mountains, too,
to quake, and the Earth to groan, and the ghosts to come forth from
their tombs. Thee, too, O Moon, do I draw down, although the
Temesæan[23] brass relieves thy pangs. By my spells, also, the chariot
of my grandsire is rendered pale; Aurora, too, is pale through my
enchantments. For me did ye blunt the flames of the bulls, and with the
curving plough you pressed the necks that never before bore the yoke.
You raised a cruel warfare for those born of the dragon among
themselves, and you lulled to sleep the keeper {of the golden fleece},
that had never known sleep; and {thus}, deceiving the guardian, you sent
the treasure into the Grecian cities. Now there is need of juices, by
means of which, old age, being renewed, may return to the bloom {of
life}, and may receive back again its early years; and {this} ye will
give me; for not in vain did the stars {just now} sparkle; nor yet in
vain is the chariot come, drawn by the necks of winged dragons.”

A chariot sent down from heaven was come; which, soon as she had
mounted, and had stroked the harnessed necks of the dragons, and had
shaken the light reins with her hands, she was borne aloft, and looked
down upon Thessalian Tempe below her, and guided her dragons towards the
chalky regions;[24] and observed the herbs which Ossa, and which the
lofty Pelion bore, Othrys, too, and Pindus, and Olympus {still} greater
than Pindus; and part she tore up by the root gently worked, part she
cut down with the bend of a brazen sickle.[25] Many a herb, too, that
grew on the banks of Apidanus[26] pleased her; many, too, {on the banks}
of Amphrysus; nor, Enipeus, didst thou escape. The Peneian waters, and
the Spercheian as well, contributed something, and the rushy shores of
Bœbe.[27] She plucks, too, enlivening herbs by the Eubœan Anthedon,[28]
not yet commonly known by the change of the body of Glaucus.[29] And now
the ninth day,[30] and the ninth night had seen her visiting all the
fields in her chariot, and upon the wings of the dragons, when she
returned; nor had the dragons been fed, but with the odors {of the
plants}: and yet they cast the skin of old age full of years. On her
arrival she stood without the threshold and the gates, and was canopied
by the heavens alone, and avoided the contact of her husband, and
erected two altars of turf; on the right hand, one to Hecate, but on the
left side one to Youth.[31] After she had hung them round with vervain
and forest boughs, throwing up the earth from two trenches not far off,
she performed the rites, and plunged a knife into the throat of a black
ram, and besprinkled the wide trenches with blood. Then pouring thereon
goblets[32] of flowing wine, and pouring brazen goblets of warm milk;
she at the same time utters words, and calls upon the Deities of the
earth, and entreats the king of the shades[33] below, together with his
ravished wife, that they will not hasten to deprive the aged limbs of
life. When she had rendered them propitious both by prayers and
prolonged mutterings, she commanded the exhausted body of Æson to be
brought out to the altars, and stretched it cast into a deep sleep by
her charms, {and} resembling one dead, upon the herbs laid beneath him.

She orders the son of Æson to go far thence, and the attendants, too, to
go afar; and warns them to withdraw their profane eyes from her
mysteries. At her order, they retire. Medea, with dishevelled hair, goes
round the blazing altars like a worshipper of Bacchus, and dips her
torches, split into many parts, in the trench, black with blood, and
lights them, {thus} dipt, at the two altars. And thrice does she[34]
purify the aged man with flames, thrice with water, and thrice with
sulphur. In the meantime the potent mixture[35] is boiling and heaving
in the brazen cauldron, placed {on the flames}, and whitens with
swelling froth. There she boils roots cut up in the Hæmonian valleys,
and seeds and flowers and acrid juices. She adds stones fetched from the
most distant East, and sand, which the ebbing tide of the ocean has
washed. She adds, too, hoar-frost gathered at night by the light of the
moon, and the ill-boding wings of a screech owl,[36] together with its
flesh; and the entrails of an ambiguous wolf, that was wont to change
its appearance of a wild beast into {that of} a man. Nor is there
wanting there the thin scaly slough of the Cinyphian water-snake,[37]
and the liver of the long-lived stag;[38] to which, besides, she adds
the bill and head of a crow that had sustained {an existence of} nine
ages. When, with these and a thousand other things without a name, the
barbarian {princess} has completed the medicine prepared for the mortal
{body}, with a branch of the peaceful olive long since dried up, she
stirs them all up, and blends the lowest {ingredients} with the highest.
Behold! the old branch, turned about in the heated cauldron, at first
becomes green; and after no long time assumes foliage, and is suddenly
loaded with heavy olives. Besides, wherever the fire throws the froth
from out of the hollow cauldron, and the boiling drops fall upon the
earth, the ground becomes green, and flowers and soft grass spring up.

Soon as Medea sees this, she opens the throat[39] of the old man with a
drawn sword; and allowing the former blood to escape, replenishes {his
veins} with juices. Soon as Æson has drunk them in, either received in
his mouth or in his wound, his beard and his hair[40] laying aside their
hoariness, assume a black hue. His leanness flies, being expelled; his
paleness and squalor are gone. His hollow veins are supplied with
additional blood, and his limbs become instinct with vigor. Æson is
astonished, and calls to recollection that he was such four times ten
years before.

Liber had beheld from on high the miraculous operations of so great a
prodigy; and taught {thereby} that youthful years can be restored to his
nurses,[41] he requests this present from the daughter of Æetes.[42]

And that her arts[43] may not cease, the Phasian feigns a counterfeited
quarrel with her husband, and flies as a suppliant to the threshold of
Pelias[44] and (as he himself is oppressed with old age) his daughters
receive her; whom, after a short time, the crafty Colchian engages to
herself by the appearance of a pretended friendship. And while among the
greatest of her merits, she relates that the infirmities of Æson have
been removed, and is dwelling upon that part {of the story}, a hope is
suggested to the damsels, the daughters of Pelias, that by the like art
their parent may become young again; and this they request {of her}, and
repeatedly entreat her to name her own price. For a short time she is
silent, and appears to be hesitating, and keeps their mind in suspense,
as they ask, with an affected gravity.

Afterwards, when she has promised them, she says, “That there may be the
greater confidence in this my skill, the leader of the flock among your
sheep, which is the most advanced in age, shall become a lamb by this
preparation.” Immediately, a fleecy {ram}, enfeebled by innumerable
years, is brought, with his horns bending around his hollow temples;
whose withered throat, when she has cut with the Hæmonian knife, and
stained the steel with its scanty blood, the enchantress plunges the
limbs of the sheep, and her potent juices together, into the hollow
copper. The limbs of his body are lessened, and he puts off his horns,
and his years together with his horns; and in the midst of the kettle a
low bleating is heard. And without any delay, while they are wondering
at the bleating, a lamb springs forth, and gambols in its course, and
seeks the suckling dugs. The daughters of Pelias are amazed; and after
her promises have obtained her credit, then, indeed, they urge her still
more strongly. Phœbus had thrice taken the yoke off his horses sinking
in the Iberian sea;[45] and upon the fourth night the radiant stars were
twinkling, when the deceitful daughter of Æetes set pure water upon a
blazing fire, and herbs without any virtue. And now sleep like to death,
their bodies being relaxed, had seized the king, and the guards together
with their king, which her charms and the influence of her enchanting
tongue had caused. The daughters {of the king}, {as} ordered, had
entered the threshold, together with the Colchian, and had surrounded
the bed; “Why do you hesitate now, in your indolence? Unsheathe your
swords,” says she, “and exhaust the ancient gore, that I may replenish
his empty veins with youthful blood. The life and the age of your father
is now in your power. If you have any affection and cherish not vain
hopes, perform your duty to your father, and drive away old age with
your weapons, and, thrusting in the steel, let out his corrupted blood.”

Upon this exhortation, as each of them is affectionate, she becomes
especially undutiful, and that she may not be wicked, she commits
wickedness. Yet not one is able to look upon her own blow; and they
turn away their eyes, and turning away their faces, they deal chance
blows with their cruel right hands. He, streaming with gore, yet raises
his limbs on his elbows, and, half-mangled, attempts to rise from the
couch; and in the midst of so many swords stretching forth his pale
arms, he says, “What are you doing, my daughters? What arms you against
the life of your parent?” Their courage and their hands fail {them}. As
he is about to say more, the Colchian severs his throat, together with
his words, and plunges him, {thus} mangled, in the boiling cauldron.

    〔note 20 — Of the triple form.--Ver. 177. Hecate, the Goddess of enchantment.〕

    〔note 21 — With bare feet.--Ver. 183. To have the feet bare was esteemed requisite for the due performance of magic rites, though sometimes on such occasions, and probably in the present instance, only one foot was left unshod. In times of drought, according to Tertullian, a procession and ceremonial, called ‘nudipedalia,’ were resorted to, with a view to propitiate the Gods by this token of grief and humiliation.〕

    〔note 22 — Three-faced Hecate.--Ver. 194. Though Hecate and the Moon are here mentioned as distinct, they are frequently considered to have been the same Deity, with different attributes. The three heads with which Hecate was represented were those of a horse, a dog, and a pig, or sometimes, in the place of the latter, a human head.〕

    〔note 23 — Temesæan.--Ver. 207. Temesa was a town of the Brutii, on the coast of Etruria, famous for its copper mines. It was also sometimes called Tempsa. There was also another Temesa, a city of Cyprus, also famous for its copper.〕

    〔note 24 — Chalky regions.--Ver. 223. Such was the characteristic of the mountainous country of Thessaly, where she now alighted.〕

    〔note 25 — Brazen sickle.--Ver. 227. We learn from Macrobius and Cælius Rhodiginus that copper was preferred to iron in cutting herbs for the purposes of enchantment, in exorcising spirits, and in aiding the moon in eclipses against the supposed charms of the witches, because it was supposed to be a purer metal.〕

    〔note 26 — Apidanus.--Ver. 228. This and Amphrysus were rivers of Thessaly.〕

    〔note 27 — Shores of Bœbe.--Ver. 231. Strabo makes mention of lake Bœbeis, near the town of Bœbe, in Thessaly. It was not far from the mouth of the river Peneus.〕

    〔note 28 — Anthedon.--Ver. 232. This was a town of Bœotia, opposite to Eubœa, being situated on the Euripus, now called the straits of Negropont.〕

    〔note 29 — Glaucus.--Ver. 233. He was a fisherman, who was changed into a sea God, on tasting a certain herb. His story is related at the end of the 13th Book.〕

    〔note 30 — Ninth day.--Ver. 234. The numbers three and nine seem to have been deemed of especial virtue in incantations.〕

    〔note 31 — One to youth.--Ver. 241. This goddess was also called Hebe, from the Greek word signifying youth. She was the daughter of Juno, and the wife of Hercules. She was also the cup-bearer of the Gods, until she was supplanted by Ganymede.〕

    〔note 32 — Goblets.--Ver. 246. ‘Carchesia.’ The ‘carchesium’ was a kind of drinking cup, used by the Greeks from very early times. It was slightly contracted in the middle, and its two handles extended from the top to the bottom. It was employed in the worship of the Deities, and was used for libations of blood, wine, milk, and honey. Macrobius says that it was only used by the Greeks. Virgil makes mention of it as used to hold wine.〕

    〔note 33 — King of the shades.--Ver. 249. Pluto and Proserpine. Clarke translates this line and the next, ‘And prays to the king of shades with his kidnapped wife, that they would not be too forward to deprive the limbs of the old gentleman of life.’〕

    〔note 34 — Thrice does she.--Ver. 261. Clarke thus renders this and the two following lines: ‘And purifies the old gentleman three times with flame, three times with water, and three times with sulphur. In the meantime the strong medicine boils, and bounces about in a brazen kettle set on the fire.’〕

    〔note 35 — The potent mixture.--Ver. 262. This reminds us of the line of Shakespeare in Macbeth, ‘Make the hell-broth thick and slab.’〕

    〔note 36 — A screech owl.--Ver. 269. ‘Strigis.’ The ‘strix’ is supposed to have been the screech owl, and was a favorite bird with the enchanters, who were supposed to have the power of assuming that form. From the description given of the ‘striges’ in the Sixth Book of the Fasti, it would almost appear that the qualities of the vampyre bat were attributed to them.〕

    〔note 37 — Water snake.--Ver. 272. The ‘chelydrus’ was a venomous water-snake of a powerful and offensive smell. The Delphin Commentator seems to think that a kind of turtle is here meant.〕

    〔note 38 — Long-lived stag.--Ver. 273. The stag was said to live four times, and the crow nine times, as long as man.〕

    〔note 39 — Opened the throat.--Ver. 285-6. Clarke translates the words ‘quod simul ac vidit, stricto Medea recludit Ense senis jugulum,’ ‘which as soon as Medea saw, she opens the throat of the old gentleman with a drawn sword.’〕

    〔note 40 — And his hair.--Ver. 288. Medea is thought by some writers not only to have discovered a dye for giving a dark color to grey hair, but to have found out the invigorating properties of the warm bath.〕

    〔note 41 — To his nurses.--Ver. 295. These (in Book iii. l. 314.) he calls by the name of Nyseïdes; but in the Fifth Book of the Fasti they are styled Hyades, and are placed in the number of the Constellations. A commentator on Homer, quoting from Pherecydes, calls them ‘Dodonides.’〕

    〔note 42 — Daughter of Æetes.--Ver. 296. The reading in most of the MSS. here is Tetheiâ, or ‘Thetide;’ but Burmann has replaced it by Æetide, ‘the daughter of Æetes.’ It has been justly remarked, why should Bacchus apply to Tethys to have the age of the Nymphs, who had nursed him, renewed, when he had just beheld Medea, and not Tethys, do it in favor of Æson?〕

    〔note 43 — That her arts.--Ver. 297. ‘Neve doli cessent’ is translated by Clarke, ‘and that her tricks might not cease.’〕

    〔note 44 — Pelias.--Ver. 298. He was the brother of Æson, and had dethroned him, and usurped his kingdom.〕

    〔note 45 — The Iberian sea.--Ver. 324. The Atlantic, or Western Ocean, is thus called from Iberia, the ancient name of Spain; which country, perhaps, was so called from the river Iberus, or Ebro, flowing through it.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The authors who have endeavored to explain the true meaning and origin
  of the story of the restitution of Æson to youth, are much divided in
  their opinions concerning it. Some think it refers to the mystery of
  reviving the decrepit and aged by the transfusion of youthful blood.
  It is, however, not improbable, that Medea obtained the reputation of
  being a sorceress, only because she had been taught by her mother the
  virtues of various plants: and that she administered a potion to Æson,
  which furnished him with new spirits and strength.

  The daughters of Pelias being desirous to obtain the same favor of
  Medea for their father, she, to revenge the evils which he had brought
  upon her husband and his family, may possibly have mixed some venomous
  herbs in his drink, which immediately killed him.

FABLE III. [VII.350-401]

  Medea, after having killed Pelias, goes through several countries to
  Corinth, where, finding that Jason, in her absence, has married the
  daughter of king Creon, she sets fire to the palace, whereby the
  princess and her father are consumed. She then murders the two
  children which she had by Jason, before his face, and takes to flight.

And unless she had mounted into the air with winged dragons, she would
not have been exempt from punishment; she flies aloft, over both shady
Pelion, the lofty habitation[46] of the son of Phillyra, and over
Othrys, and the places noted for the fate of the ancient Cerambus.[47]
He, by the aid of Nymphs, being lifted on wings into the air, when the
ponderous earth was covered by the sea pouring over it, not being
overwhelmed, escaped the flood of Deucalion. On the left side, she
leaves the Æolian Pitane,[48] and the image of the long Dragon[49] made
out of stone, and the wood of Ida,[50] in which Bacchus hid a stolen
bullock beneath the appearance of a fictitious stag; {the spot} too,
where the father of Corythus[51] lies buried beneath a little sand, and
the fields which Mæra[52] alarmed by her unusual barking.

The city, too, of Eurypylus,[53] in which the Coan matrons[54] wore
horns, at the time when the herd of Hercules[55] departed {thence};
Phœbean Rhodes[56] also, and the Ialysian Telchines,[57] whose eyes[58]
corrupting all things by the very looking upon them, Jupiter utterly
hating, thrust beneath the waves of his brother. She passed, too, over
the Cartheian walls of ancient Cea,[59] where her father Alcidamas[60]
was destined to wonder that a gentle dove could arise from the body of
his daughter.

After that, she beholds the lakes of Hyrie,[61] and Cycneian Tempe,[62]
which the swan that had suddenly become such, frequented. For there
Phyllius, at the request of the boy, had given him birds, and a fierce
lion tamed; being ordered, too, to subdue a bull, he had subdued him;
and being angry at his despising his love so often, he denied him,
{when} begging the bull as his last reward. The other, indignant, said,
“Thou shalt wish that thou hadst given it;” and {then} leaped from a
high rock. All imagined he had fallen; but, transformed into a swan, he
hovered in the air on snow-white wings. But his mother, Hyrie, not
knowing that he was saved, dissolved in tears, and formed a lake
{called} after her own name.

Adjacent to these {places} is Pleuron;[63] in which Combe,[64] the
daughter of Ophis, escaped the wounds of her sons with trembling wings.
After that, she sees the fields of Calaurea,[65] sacred to Latona,
conscious of the transformation of their king, together with his wife,
into birds. Cyllene is on the right hand, on which Menephron[66] was
{one day} to lie with his mother, after the manner of savage beasts. Far
hence she beholds Cephisus,[67] lamenting the fate of his grandson,
changed by Apollo into a bloated sea-calf; and the house of Eumelus,[68]
lamenting his son in the air.

At length, borne on the wings of her dragons, she reached the Pirenian
Ephyre.[69] Here, those of ancient times promulgated that in the early
ages mortal bodies were produced from mushrooms springing from rain. But
after the new-made bride was consumed, through the Colchian drugs, and
both seas beheld the king’s house on fire, her wicked sword was bathed
in the blood of her sons; and the mother, having {thus} barbarously
revenged herself, fled from the arms of Jason. Being borne hence by her
Titanian dragons,[70] she entered the city of Pallas, which saw thee,
most righteous Phineus,[71] and thee, aged Periphas,[72] flying
together, and the granddaughter of Polypemon[73] resting upon new-formed
wings.

    〔note 46 — Lofty habitation.--Ver. 352. The mountains of Thessaly are so called, because Chiron, the son of the Nymph Phillyra, lived there.〕

    〔note 47 — Cerambus.--Ver. 353. Antoninus Liberalis, quoting from Nicander, calls him Terambus, and says that he lived at the foot of Mount Pelion; he incurred the resentment of the Nymphs, who changed him into a scarabæus, or winged beetle. Flying to the heights of Parnassus, at the time of the flood of Deucalion, he thereby made his escape. Some writers say that he was changed into a bird.〕

    〔note 48 — Pitane.--Ver. 357. This was a town of Ætolia, in Asia Minor, near the mouth of the river Caicus.〕

    〔note 49 — The long dragon.--Ver. 358. He alludes, most probably, to the story of the Lesbian changed into a dragon or serpent, which is mentioned in the Eleventh book, line 58.〕

    〔note 50 — Wood of Ida.--Ver. 359. This was the grove of Ida, in Phrygia. It is supposed that he refers to the story of Thyoneus, the son of Bacchus, who, having stolen an ox from some Phrygian shepherds, was pursued by them; on which Bacchus, to screen his son, changed the ox into a stag, and invested Thyoneus with the garb of a hunter.〕

    〔note 51 — Father of Corythus.--Ver. 361. Paris was the father of Corythus, by Œnone. He was said to have been buried at Cebrena, a little town of Phrygia, near Troy.〕

    〔note 52 — Mæra.--Ver. 362. This was the name of the dog of Icarius, the father of Erigone, who discovered the murder of his master by the shepherds of Attica, and was made a Constellation, under the name of the Dog-star. As, however, the flight of Medea was now far distant from Attica, it is more likely that the Poet refers to the transformation of some female, named Mæra, into a dog, whose story has not come down to us; indeed, Lactantius expresses this as his opinion. Burmann thinks that it refers to the transformation of Hecuba, mentioned in the 13th book, line 406; and that ‘Mæra’ is a corruption for some other name of Hecuba.〕

    〔note 53 — Eurypylus.--Ver. 363. He was a former king of the Isle of Cos, in the Ægean Sea, and was much famed for his skill as an augur.〕

    〔note 54 — The Coan matrons.--Ver. 363. Lactantius says that the women of Cos, extolling their own beauty as superior to that of Venus, incurred the resentment of that Goddess, and were changed by her into cows. Another version of the story is, that these women, being offended at Hercules for driving the oxen of Ægeon through their island, were very abusive, on which Juno transformed them into cows: to this latter version reference is made in the present passage.〕

    〔note 55 — Hercules.--Ver. 364. He besieged and took the chief city of the island, which was also called Cos; and having slain Eurypylus, carried off his daughter Chalciope.〕

    〔note 56 — Phœbean Rhodes.--Ver. 365. The island of Rhodes, in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Asia Minor, was sacred to the Sun, and was said never to be deserted by his rays.〕

    〔note 57 — Ialysian Telchines.--Ver. 365. Ialysus was one of the three most ancient cities of Rhodes, and was said to have been founded by Ialysus, whose parent was the Sun. The Telchines, or Thelchines, were a race supposed to have migrated thither from Crete. They were persons of great artistic skill, on which account they may, possibly, have obtained the character of being magicians; such was the belief of Strabo.〕

    〔note 58 — Whose eyes.--Ver. 366. The evil eye was supposed by the ancients not only to have certain fascinating powers, but to be able to destroy the beauty of any object on which it was turned.〕

    〔note 59 — Cea.--Ver. 368. This island, now Zia, is in the Ægean sea, near Eubœa. Carthæa was a city there, the ruins of which are still in existence.〕

    〔note 60 — Alcidamas.--Ver. 369. Antoninus Liberalis says, that Alcidamas lived not at Carthæa, but at Iülis, another city in the Isle of Cea.〕

    〔note 61 — Lakes of Hyrie.--Ver. 371. Hyrie was the mother of Cycnus; and pining away with grief on the transformation of her son, she was changed into a lake, called by her name.〕

    〔note 62 — Cycneian Tempe.--Ver. 371. This was not Thessalian Tempe, but a valley of Teumesia, or Teumesus, a mountain of Bœotia.〕

    〔note 63 — Pleuron.--Ver. 382. This was a city of Ætolia, near Mount Curius. It was far distant from Bœotia and Lake Hyrie. Some commentators, therefore, suggest that the reading should be Brauron, a village of Attica, near the confines of Bœotia.〕

    〔note 64 — Combe.--Ver. 383. She was the mother of the Curetes of Ætolia, who, perhaps, received that name from Mount Curius. There was another Combe, the daughter of Asopus, who discovered the use of brazen arms, and was called Chalcis, from that circumstance. She was said to have borne a hundred daughters to her husband.〕

    〔note 65 — Calaurea.--Ver. 384. This was an island between Crete and the Peloponnesus, in the Saronic gulf, which was sacred to Apollo. Latona resided there, having given Delos to Neptune in exchange for it. Demosthenes died there.〕

    〔note 66 — Menephron.--Ver. 386. Hyginus says, that he committed incest both with his mother Blias, and with Cyllene, his daughter.〕

    〔note 67 — Cephisus.--Ver. 388. The river Cephisus, in Bœotia, had a daughter, Praxithea. She was the wife of Erectheus, and bore him eight sons, the fate of one of whom is perhaps here referred to.〕

    〔note 68 — Eumelus.--Ver. 390. He was the king of Patræ, on the sea-coast of Achaia. Triptolemus visited him with his winged chariot; on which, Antheas, the son of Eumelus, ascended it while his father was sleeping, and falling from it, he was killed. He is, probably, here referred to; and the reading should be ‘natum,’ and not ‘natam.’ Some writers, however, suppose that his daughter was changed into a bird.〕

    〔note 69 — Pirenian Ephyre.--Ver. 391. Corinth was so called from Ephyre, the daughter of Neptune, who was said to have lived there. Its inhabitants were fabled to have sprung from mushrooms.〕

    〔note 70 — Titanian dragons.--Ver. 398. Her dragons are so called, either because, as Pindar says, they had sprung from the blood of the Titans, or because, according to the Greek tradition, the chariot and winged dragons had been sent to Medea by the Sun, one of whose names was Titan.〕

    〔note 71 — Phineus.--Ver. 399. Any further particulars of the person here named are unknown. Some commentators suggest ‘Phini,’ and that some female of the name of Phinis is alluded to, making the adjective ‘justissime’ of the feminine gender.〕

    〔note 72 — Periphas.--Ver. 400. He was a very ancient king of Attica, before the time of Cecrops, and was said to have been changed into an eagle by Jupiter, while his wife was transformed into an osprey.〕

    〔note 73 — Polypemon.--Ver. 401. This was a name of the robber Procrustes, who was slain by Theseus. Halcyone, the daughter of his son Scyron, having been guilty of incontinence, was thrown into the sea by her father, on which she was changed into a kingfisher, which bore her name.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Jason being reconciled to the children of Pelias, gave the crown to
  his son Acastus. Becoming tired of Medea, he married Glauce, or
  Creüsa, the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth. Medea, hastening to
  that place, left her two sons in the temple of Juno, and set fire to
  Creon’s palace, where he and his daughter were consumed to ashes,
  after which she killed her own children. Euripides, in his tragedy of
  Medea, makes a chorus of Corinthian women say, that the Corinthians
  themselves committed the murder, and that the Gods sent a plague on
  the city, as a punishment for the deed. Pausanias also says, that the
  tomb of Medea’s children, whom the Corinthians stoned to death, was
  still to be seen in his time; and that the Corinthians offered
  sacrifices there every year, to appease their ghosts, as the oracle
  had commanded them.

  Apollodorus relates this story in a different manner. He says, that
  Medea sent her rival a crown, dipped in a sort of gum of a combustible
  nature; and that when Glauce had put it on her head, it began to burn
  so furiously, that the young princess perished in the greatest misery.
  Medea afterwards retired to Thebes, where Hercules engaged to give her
  assistance against Jason, which promise, however, he failed to
  perform. Going thence to Athens, she married Ægeus.

  The story of her winged dragons may, perhaps, be based on the fact,
  that her ship was called ‘the Dragon.’ In recounting the particulars
  of her flight, Ovid makes allusion to several stories by the way, the
  most of which are entirely unknown to us. With regard to these
  fictions, it may not be out of place to remark here, as affording a
  key to many of them, that where a person escaped from any imminent
  danger, it was published that he had been changed into a bird. If, to
  avoid pursuit, a person hid himself in a cave, he was said to be
  transformed into a serpent; and if he burst into tears, from excess of
  grief, he was reported to have changed into a fountain; while, if a
  damsel lost herself in a wood, she became a Nymph, or a Dryad. The
  resemblance of names, also, gave rise to several fictions: thus,
  Alopis was changed into a fox; Cygnus into a swan; Coronis into a
  crow; and Cerambus into a horned beetle. As some few of the stories
  here alluded to by Ovid, refer to historical events, it may be
  remarked, that the account of the women of Cos being changed into
  cows, is thought by some to have been founded on the cruel act of the
  companions of Hercules, who sacrificed some of them to the Gods of the
  country. The inhabitants of the Isle of Rhodes were said to have been
  changed into rocks, because they perished in an inundation, which laid
  a part of that island under water, and particularly the town of
  Ialysus. The fruitfulness of the daughter of Alcidamas occasioned it
  to be said, that she was changed into a dove. The rage of Mæra is
  shown by her transformation into a bitch; and Arne was changed into a
  daw, because, having sold her country, her avarice was well depicted
  under the symbol of that bird, which, according to the popular
  opinion, is fond of money. Phillyra, the mother of the Centaur Chiron,
  was said to be changed into a linden-tree, probably because she
  happened to bear the name of that tree, which in the Greek language is
  called φιλύρα.

FABLE IV. [VII.402-468]

  Hercules chains the dog Cerberus, the guardian of the gates of the
  Infernal Regions. Theseus, after his exploits at Corinth, arrives at
  Athens, where Medea prepares a cup of poison for him. The king,
  however, recognizing his son, just as he is about to drink, snatches
  away the cup from him, while Medea flies in her chariot. Ægeus then
  makes a festival, to celebrate the arrival and preservation of
  Theseus. In the mean time, Minos, the king of Crete, solicits several
  princes to assist him in a war against Athens, to revenge the death of
  his son Androgeus, who had been murdered there.

Ægeus, to be blamed for this deed alone, shelters her; and hospitality
is not enough, he also joins her {to himself} by the ties of marriage.
And now was Theseus, his son, arrived, unknown to his father, who, by
his valor, had established peace in the Isthmus between the two seas.
For his destruction Medea mingles the wolfsbane, which she once brought
with her from the shores of Scythia. This, they say, sprang from the
teeth of the Echidnean dog. There is a gloomy cave,[74] with a dark
entrance, {wherein} there is a descending path, along which the
Tirynthian hero dragged away Cerberus resisting, and turning his eyes
sideways from the day and the shining rays {of the Sun}, in chains
formed of adamant; he, filled with furious rage, filled the air with
triple barkings at the same moment, and sprinkled the verdant fields
with white foam. This, they suppose, grew solid, and, receiving the
nourishment of a fruitful and productive soil, acquired the power of
being noxious. Because, full of life, it springs up on the hard rock,
the rustics call it aconite.[75]

This, by the contrivance of his wife, the father Ægeus himself presented
to his son,[76] as though to an enemy. Theseus had received the
presented cup with unsuspecting right hand, when his father perceived
upon the ivory hilt of his sword the tokens of his race,[77] and struck
the guilty {draught} from his mouth. She escaped death, having raised
clouds by her enchantments.

But the father, although he rejoices at his son’s being safe, astonished
that so great a wickedness can be committed with so narrow an escape
from death, heats the altars with fires, and loads the Gods with gifts;
and the axes strike the muscular necks of the oxen having their horns
bound with wreaths. No day is said {ever} to have shone upon the people
of Erectheus more famous than that--the senators and the common people
keep up the festivity; songs, too, they sing, wine inspiring wit. “Thee,
greatest Theseus,” said they, “Marathon[78] admired for {shedding} the
blood of the Cretan bull; and that the husbandman ploughs Cromyon[79] in
safety from the boar, is thy procurement and thy work. By thy means the
country of Epidaurus saw the club-bearing son of Vulcan[80] fall; {and}
the banks of the river Cephisus[81] saw the cruel Procrustes {fall by
thee}. Eleusis, sacred to Ceres, beheld the death of Cercyon.[82]
Sinnis[83] fell too, who barbarously used his great powers; who was able
to bend {huge} beams, and used to pull pine trees from aloft to the
earth, destined to scatter {human} bodies far and wide. The road to
Alcathoë,[84] the Lelegeïan city, is now open in safety, Scyron[85]
being laid low {in death}: {and} the earth denies a resting-place, the
water, {too}, denies a resting-place to the bones of the robber
scattered piecemeal; these, long tossed about, length of time is
reported to have hardened into rocks. To {these} rocks the name of
Scyron adheres. If we should reckon up thy glorious deeds, and thy
years, thy actions would exceed thy years {in number}. For thee, bravest
{hero}, we make public vows: in thy honor do we quaff the draughts of
wine.” The palace rings with the acclamations of the populace, and the
prayers of those applauding; and there is no place sorrowing throughout
the whole city.

And yet (so surely is the pleasure of no one unalloyed, and some anxiety
is {ever} interposing amid joyous circumstances), Ægeus does not have
his joy undisturbed, on receiving back his son. Minos prepares for war;
who, though he is strong in soldiers, strong in shipping, is still
strongest of all in the resentment of a parent, and, with retributive
arms, avenges the death of {his son} Androgeus. Yet, before the war, he
obtains auxiliary forces, and crosses the sea with a swift fleet, in
which he is accounted strong. On the one side, he joins Anaphe[86] to
himself; and the realms of Astypale; Anaphe by treaty, the realms of
Astypale by conquest; on the other side, the low Myconos, and the chalky
lands of Cimolus,[87] and the flourishing Cythnos, Scyros, and the level
Seriphos;[88] Paros, too, abounding in marble, and {the island} wherein
the treacherous Sithonian[89] betrayed the citadel, on receiving the
gold, which, in her covetousness, she had demanded. She was changed into
a bird, which even now has a passion for gold, the jackdaw {namely},
black-footed, and covered with black feathers.

    〔note 74 — A gloomy cave.--Ver. 409. This cavern was called Acherusia. It was situate in the country of the Mariandyni, near the city of Heraclea, in Pontus, and was said to be the entrance of the Infernal Regions. Cerberus was said to have been dragged from Tartarus by Hercules, through this cave, which circumstance was supposed to account for the quantity of aconite, or wolfsbane, that grew there.〕

    〔note 75 — Call it aconite.--Ver. 419. From the Greek ακόνη, ‘a whetstone.’〕

    〔note 76 — Presented to his son.--Ver. 420. Medea was anxious to secure the succession to the throne of Athens to her son Medus, and was therefore desirous to remove Theseus out of the way.〕

    〔note 77 — Tokens of his race.--Ver. 423. Ægeus, leaving Æthra at Trœzen, in a state of pregnancy, charged her, if she bore a son, to rear him, but to tell no one whose son he was. He placed his own sword and shoes under a large stone, and directed her to send his son to him when he was able to lift the stone, and to take them from under it; and he then returned to Athens, where he married Medea. When Theseus had grown to the proper age, his mother led him to the stone under which his father had deposited his sword and shoes, which he raised with ease, and took them out. It was, probably, by means of this sword that Ægeus recognized his son in the manner mentioned in the text.〕

    〔note 78 — Marathon.--Ver. 434. This was a town of Attica, adjoining a plain of the same name, where the Athenians, under the command of Miltiades, overthrew the Persians with immense slaughter. The bull which Theseus slew there was presented by Neptune to Minos. Being brought into Attica by Hercules, it laid waste that territory until it was slain by Theseus.〕

    〔note 79 — Cromyon.--Ver. 435. This was a village of the Corinthian territory, which was infested by a wild boar of enormous size, that slew both men and animals. It was put to death by Theseus.〕

    〔note 80 — Vulcan.--Ver. 437. By Antilia, Vulcan was the father of Periphetes, a robber who infested Epidaurus, in the Peloponnesus. He was so formidable with his club, that he was called Corynetas, from κορύνη, the Greek for ‘a club.’〕

    〔note 81 — Cephisus.--Ver. 438. Procrustes was a robber of such extreme cruelty that he used to stretch out, or lop off, the extremities of his captives, according as they were shorter or longer than his bedstead. He infested the neighborhood of Eleusis, in Attica, which was watered by the Cephisus. He was put to death by Theseus.〕

    〔note 82 — Cercyon.--Ver. 439. It was his custom to challenge travellers to wrestle, and to kill them, if they declined the contest, or were beaten in it. Theseus accepted his challenge; and having overcome him, put him to death. Eleusis was especially dedicated to Ceres; there the famous Eleusinian mysteries of that Goddess were held.〕

    〔note 83 — Sinnis.--Ver. 440. He was a robber of Attica, to whom reference is made in the Ibis, line 409.〕

    〔note 84 — Alcathoë.--Ver. 443. Megara, or Alcathoë, which was founded by Lelex, was almost destroyed by Minos, and was rebuilt by Alcathoüs, the son of Pelops. He, flying from his father, on being accused of the murder of his brother Chrysippus, retired to the city of Megara, where, having slain a lion which was then laying waste that territory, he was held in the highest veneration by the inhabitants.〕

    〔note 85 — Scyron.--Ver. 443. This robber haunted the rocks in the neighborhood of Megara, and used to insist on those who became his guests washing his feet. This being done upon the rocks, Scyron used to kick the strangers into the sea while so occupied, where a tortoise lay ready to devour the bodies. Theseus killed him, and threw his body down the same rocks, which derived their name of Saronic, or Scyronic, from this robber.〕

    〔note 86 — Anaphe.--Ver. 461. This, and the other islands here named, were near the isle of Crete, and perhaps in those times were subject to the sway of Minos.〕

    〔note 87 — Cimolus.--Ver. 463. Pliny the Elder tells us, that this island was famous for producing a clay which seems to have had much the properties of soap. It was of a grayish white color, and was also employed for medicinal purposes.〕

    〔note 88 — Seriphos.--Ver. 464. Commentators are at a loss to know why Seriphos should here have the epithet ‘plana,’ ‘level,’ inasmuch as it was a very craggy island. It is probably a corrupt reading.〕

    〔note 89 — Sithonian.--Ver. 466. This was Arne, whose story is referred to in the Explanation, p. 242 / p. 270.〕

EXPLANATION.

  If it is the fact, as many antiquarians suppose, that much of the
  Grecian mythology was derived from that of the Egyptians, there can be
  but little doubt that their system of the Elysian Fields and the
  Infernal Regions was derived from the Egyptian notions on the future
  state of man. The story too, of Cerberus is, perhaps, based upon the
  custom of the Egyptians, who kept dogs to guard the fields or caverns
  in which they kept their mummies.

  It is, however, very possible that the story of Cerberus may have been
  founded upon a fact, or what was believed to be such. There was a
  serpent which haunted the cavern of Tænarus, in Laconia, and ravaged
  the districts adjacent to that promontory. This cave, being generally
  considered to be one of the avenues to the kingdom of Pluto, the poets
  thence derived the notion that this serpent was the guardian of its
  portals. Pausanias observes, that Homer was the first who said that
  Cerberus was a dog; though, in reality, he was a serpent, whose name
  in the Greek language signified ‘one that devours flesh.’ The story
  that Cerberus, with his foam, poisoned the herbs that grew in
  Thessaly, and that the aconite and other poisonous plants were ever
  after common there, is probably based on the simple fact, that those
  herbs were found in great quantities in that region.

  Women, using these herbs in their pretended enchantments, gave ground
  for the stories of the witches of Thessaly, and of their ability to
  bring the moon down to the earth by their spells and incantations;
  which latter notion was probably based on the circumstance, that these
  women used to invoke the Night and the Moon as witnesses of their
  magical operations.

FABLE V. [VII.469-613]

  Minos, having engaged several powers in his interest, and having been
  refused by others, goes to the island of Ægina, where Æacus reigns,
  to endeavor to secure an alliance with that prince; but without
  success. Upon his departure, Cephalus arrives, as ambassador, from
  Athens, and obtains succors from the king; who gives him an account of
  the desolation which a pestilence had formerly made in his country,
  and of the surprising manner in which it had been re-peopled.

But Oliaros,[90] and Didyme, and Tenos,[91] and Andros,[92] and
Gyaros,[93] and Peparethos, fruitful in the smooth olive,[94] do not aid
the Gnossian ships. Then Minos makes for Œnopia,[95] the kingdom of
Æacus, lying to the left. The ancients called it Œnopia, but Æacus
himself called it Ægina, from the name of his mother. The multitude
rushes forth, and desires greatly to know a man of so great celebrity.
Both Telamon,[96] and Peleus, younger than Telamon, and Phocus, the
{king’s} third son, go to meet him. Æacus himself, too, {though} slow
through the infirmity of old age, goes forth, and asks him what is the
reason of his coming? The ruler of a hundred cities, being put in mind
of his fatherly sorrow {for his son}, sighs, and gives him this answer:
“I beg thee to assist arms taken up on account of my son; and be a party
in a war of affection. For his shades do I demand satisfaction.” To him
the grandson of Asopus says, “Thou askest in vain, and for a thing not
to be done by my city; for, indeed, there is no land more closely allied
to the people of Cecropia. Such are {the terms of} our compact.” {Minos}
goes away in sadness, and says, “This compact of thine will cost thee a
dear price;” and he thinks it more expedient to threaten war than to
wage it, and to waste his forces there prematurely.

Even yet may the Lyctian[97] fleet be beheld from the Œnopian walls,
when an Attic ship, speeding onward with full sail, appears, and enters
the friendly harbor, which is carrying Cephalus, and together {with him}
the request of his native country. The youthful sons of Æacus recognize
Cephalus, although seen but after a long period, and give their right
hands, and lead him into the house of their father. The graceful hero,
even still retaining some traces of his former beauty, enters; and,
holding a branch of his country’s olive, being the elder, he has on his
right and left hand the two younger in age, Clytus and Butes, the sons
of Pallas.[98] After their first meeting has had words suitable
{thereto}, Cephalus relates the request of the people of Cecrops, and
begs assistance, and recounts the treaties and alliances of their
forefathers; and he adds, that the subjection of the whole of Achaia is
aimed at. After the eloquence {of Cephalus} has thus promoted the cause
entrusted to him, Æacus, leaning with his left hand on the handle of his
sceptre, says--

“Ask not for assistance, O Athens, but take it, and consider, beyond
doubt, the resources which this island possesses, as thy own, and let
all the forces of my kingdom go {along with thee}. Strength is not
wanting. I have soldiers enough both for my defence, and for {opposing}
the enemy. Thanks to the Gods; this is a prosperous time, and one that
can excuse no refusal of mine.” “Yes, {and} be it so,” says
Cephalus:[99] “and I pray that thy power may increase along with thy
citizens. Indeed, as I came along just now, I received {much} pleasure,
when a number of youths, so comely and so equal in their ages, came
forward to meet me. Yet I miss many from among them, whom I once saw
when I was formerly entertained in this city.” Æacus heaves a sigh, and
thus he says, with mournful voice: “A better fortune will be following a
lamentable beginning; I {only} wish I could relate this to you. I will
now tell it you without any order, that I may not be detaining you by
any long preamble.[100] They are {now} lying as bones and ashes, for
whom thou art inquiring with tenacious memory. And how great a part were
they of my resources that perished! A dreadful pestilence fell upon my
people, through the anger of the vengeful Juno, who hated a country
named[101] from her rival. While the calamity seemed natural, and the
baneful cause of so great destruction was unknown, it was opposed by the
resources of medicine. {But} the havoc exceeded {all} help, which {now}
lay baffled. At first the heaven encompassed the earth with a thick
darkness, and enclosed within its clouds a drowsy heat. And while the
Moon was four times filling her orb by joining her horns, {and}, four
times decreasing, was diminishing her full orb, the hot South winds were
blowing with their deadly blasts. It is known for a fact that the
infection came even into fountains and lakes, and that many thousands of
serpents were wandering over the uncultivated fields, and were tainting
the rivers with their venom. The violence of this sudden distemper was
first discovered by the destruction of dogs, and birds, and sheep, and
oxen, and among the wild beasts. The unfortunate ploughman wonders that
strong oxen fall down at their work, and lie stretched in the middle of
the furrow. {And} while the wool-bearing flocks utter weakly bleatings,
both their wool falls off spontaneously, and their bodies pine away. The
horse, once of high mettle, and of great fame on the course, degenerates
for the {purposes of} victory; and, forgetting his ancient honors, he
groans at the manger, doomed to perish by an inglorious distemper. The
boar remembers not to be angry, nor the hind to trust to her speed, nor
the bears to rush upon the powerful herds.

“A faintness seizes all {animals}; both in the woods, in the fields, and
in the roads, loathsome carcases lie strewed. The air is corrupted with
the smell {of them}. I am relating strange events. The dogs, and the
ravenous birds, and the hoary wolves, touch them not; falling away, they
rot, and, by their exhalations, produce baneful effects, and spread the
contagion far and wide. With more dreadful destruction the pestilence
reaches the wretched husbandmen, and riots within the walls of the
extensive city. At first, the bowels are scorched,[102] and a redness,
and the breath drawn with difficulty, is a sign of the latent flame. The
tongue, {grown} rough, swells; and the parched mouth gapes, with its
throbbing veins; the noxious air, too, is inhaled by the breathing. {The
infected} cannot endure a bed, or any coverings; but they lay their
hardened breasts upon the earth, and their bodies are not made cool by
the ground, but the ground is made hot by their bodies. There is no
physician at hand; the cruel malady breaks out upon even those who
administer remedies; and {their own} arts become an injury to their
owners. The nearer at hand any one is, and the more faithfully he
attends on the sick, the sooner does he come in for his share of the
fatality. And when the hope of recovery is departed, and they see the
end of their malady {only} in death, they indulge their humors, and
there is no concern as to what is to their advantage; for, {indeed},
nothing is to their advantage. All sense, too, of shame being banished,
they lie {promiscuously} close to the fountains and rivers, and deep
wells; and their thirst is not extinguished by drinking, before their
life {is}. Many, overpowered {with the disease}, are unable to arise
thence, and die amid the very water; and yet another even drinks that
{water}. So great, too, is the irksomeness for the wretched {creatures}
of their hated beds, {that} they leap out, or, if their strength forbids
them standing, they roll their bodies upon the ground, and every man
flies from his own dwelling; each one’s house seems fatal to him: and
since the cause of the calamity is unknown, the place that is known is
blamed. You might see persons, half dead, wandering about the roads, as
long as they were able to stand; others, weeping and lying about on the
ground, and rolling their wearied eyes with the dying movement. They
stretch, too, their limbs towards the stars of the overhanging heavens,
breathing forth their lives here and there, where death has overtaken
them.

“What were my feelings then? Were they not such as they ought to be, to
hate life, and to desire to be a sharer with my people? On whichever
side my eyes were turned, there was the multitude strewed {on the
earth}, just as when rotten apples fall from the moved branches, and
acorns from the shaken holm-oak. Thou seest[103] a lofty temple,
opposite {thee}, raised on high with long steps: Jupiter has it {as his
own}. Who did not offer incense at those altars in vain? how often did
the husband, while he was uttering words of entreaty for his wife, {or}
the father for his son, end his life at the altars without prevailing?
in his hand, too, was part of the frankincense found unconsumed! How
often did the bulls, when brought to the temples, while the priest was
making his supplications, and pouring the pure wine between their horns,
fall without waiting for the wound! While I myself was offering
sacrifice to Jupiter, for myself, and my country, and my three sons, the
victim sent forth dismal lowings, and suddenly falling down without any
blow, stained the knives thrust into it, with its scanty blood; the
diseased entrails, too, had lost {all} marks of truth, and the warnings
of the Gods. The baneful malady penetrated to the entrails. I have seen
the carcases lying, thrown out before the sacred doors; before the very
altars, {too}, that death might become more odious[104] {to the Gods}.
Some finish their lives with the halter, and by death dispel the
apprehension of death, and voluntarily invite approaching fate. The
bodies of the dead are not borne out with any funeral rites, according
to the custom; for the {city} gates cannot receive {the multitude of}
the processions. Either unburied they lie upon the ground, or they are
laid on the lofty pyres without the usual honors. And now there is no
distinction, and they struggle for the piles; and they are burnt on
fires that belong to others. They who should weep are wanting; and the
souls of sons, and of husbands, of old and of young, wander about
unlamented: there is not room sufficient for the tombs, nor trees for
the fires.”

    〔note 90 — Oliaros.--Ver. 469. This was one of the Cyclades, in the Ægean sea; it was colonized by the Sidonians.〕

    〔note 91 — Tenos.--Ver. 469. This island was famous for a temple there, sacred to Neptune.〕

    〔note 92 — Andros.--Ver. 469. This was an island in the Ægean Sea, near Eubœa. It received its name from Andros, the son of Anius. The Andrian slave, who gives his name to one of the comedies of Terence, was supposed to be a native of this island.〕

    〔note 93 — Gyaros.--Ver. 470. This was a sterile island among the Cyclades; in later times, the Romans made it a penal settlement for their criminals. The mice of this island were said to be able to gnaw iron; perhaps, because they were starved by reason of its unfruitfulness.〕

    〔note 94 — Smooth olive.--Ver. 470. Clarke translates ‘nitidæ olivæ’ ‘the neat olive.’ ‘Nitidus’ here means ‘smooth and shining.’〕

    〔note 95 — Œnopia.--Ver. 473. This was the ancient name of the isle of Ægina, in the Saronic Gulf, famous as being the native place of the family of the Æacidæ. It obtained its later name from Ægina, the daughter of Asopus, and the mother of Æacus, whom Jupiter carried thither.〕

    〔note 96 — Telamon.--Ver. 476. Telamon, Peleus, and Phocus, were the three sons of Æacus.〕

    〔note 97 — Lyctian.--Ver. 490. Lyctus was the name of one of the cities of Crete.〕

    〔note 98 — Pallas.--Ver. 500. This was either Pallas the son of Pandion, king of Athens, or of Neleus, the brother of Theseus. This Pallas, together with his sons, was afterwards slain by Theseus.〕

    〔note 99 — Cephalus.--Ver. 512. He was the son of Deioneus, or according to some writers, of Mercury and Herse, the daughter of Cecrops.〕

    〔note 100 — Long preamble.--Ver. 520. Clarke translates ‘neu longâ ambage morer vos,’ ‘that I may not detain you with a long-winded detail of it.’〕

    〔note 101 — Country named.--Ver. 524. This was the island of Ægina, so called from the Nymph who was carried thither by Jupiter.〕

    〔note 102 — Bowels are scorched.--Ver. 554. Clarke quaintly renders the words ‘viscera torrentur primo.’ ‘first people’s bowels are searched;’ perhaps, however, the latter word is a misprint for ‘scorched.’〕

    〔note 103 — Thou seest.--Ver. 587. As Æacus says this, he must be supposed to point with his finger towards the temple.〕

    〔note 104 — More odious.--Ver. 603. Dead bodies were supposed to be particularly offensive to the Gods.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Minos (most probably the second prince that bore that name), upon his
  accession to the throne, after the death of his father, Lycastus, made
  several conquests in the islands adjoining Crete, where he reigned,
  and, at last, became master of those seas. The strength of his fleet
  is particularly remarked by Thucydides, Apollodorus, and Diodorus
  Siculus.

  The Feast of the Panathenæa being celebrated at Athens, Minos sent his
  son Androgeus to it, who joined as a combatant in the games, and was
  sufficiently skilful to win all the prizes. The glory which he thereby
  acquired, combined with his polished manners, obtained him the
  friendship of the sons of Pallas, the brother of Ægeus. This
  circumstance caused Ægeus to entertain jealous feelings, the more
  especially as he knew that his nephews were conspiring against him.
  Being informed that Androgeus was about to take a journey to Thebes,
  he caused him to be assassinated near Œnoë, a town on the confines of
  Attica. Apollodorus, indeed, says that he was killed by the Bull of
  Marathon, which was then making great ravages in Greece; but it is
  very possible that the Athenians encouraged this belief, with the view
  of screening their king from the infamy of an action so inhuman and
  unjust. Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch agree in stating that Ægeus
  himself caused Androgeus to be murdered.

  On hearing the news of his son’s death, Minos resolved on revenge. He
  ordered a strong fleet to be fitted out, and went in person to several
  courts, to contract alliances, and engage other powers to assist him;
  and this, with the history of the plague at Ægina, forms the subject
  of the present narrative.

FABLE VI. [VII.614-660]

  Jupiter, at the prayer of his son Æacus, transforms the ants that are
  in the hollow of an old oak into men; these, from the Greek name of
  those insects, are called Myrmidons.

“Stupefied by so great an outburst of misery, I said, ‘O Jupiter! if
stories do not falsely say that thou didst come into the embraces of
Ægina, the daughter of Asopus, and thou art not ashamed, great Father,
to be the parent of myself; either restore my people to me, or else bury
me, as well, in the sepulchre.’ He gave a signal by lightnings, and by
propitious thunders. I accepted {the omen}, and I said, ‘I pray that
these may be happy signs of thy intentions: the omen which thou givest
me, I accept as a pledge.’ By chance there was close by, an oak sacred
to Jupiter, of seed from Dodona,[105] but thinly covered with
wide-spreading boughs. Here we beheld some ants, the gatherers of corn,
in a long train, carrying a heavy burden in their little mouths, and
keeping their track in the wrinkled bark. While I was wondering at their
numbers, I said, ‘Do thou, most gracious Father, give me citizens as
many in number, and replenish my empty walls.’ The lofty oak trembled,
and made a noise in its boughs, moving without a breeze. My limbs
quivered, with trembling fear, and my hair stood on an end; yet I gave
kisses to the earth and to the oak, nor did I confess that I had any
hopes; {and} yet I did hope, and I cherished my own wishes in my mind.
Night came on, and sleep seized my body wearied with anxiety. Before my
eyes the same oak seemed to be present, and to bear as many branches,
and as many animals in its branches, and to be trembling with a similar
motion, and to be scattering the grain-bearing troop on the fields
below. These suddenly grew, and seemed greater and greater, and raised
themselves from the ground, and stood with their bodies upright; and
laid aside their leanness, and the {former} number of their feet, and
their sable hue, and assumed in their limbs the human shape.

“Sleep departs. When {now} awake, I censured the vision, and complained
that there was no help for me from the Gods above. But within my palace
there was a great murmur, and I seemed to be hearing the voices of men,
to which I had now become unaccustomed. While I was supposing that
these, too, were {a part} of my dream, lo! Telamon came in haste, and,
opening the door, said, ‘Father, thou wilt see things beyond thy hopes
or expectations. Do come out.’ I did go out, and I beheld and recognized
such men, each in his turn, as I had seemed to behold in the vision of
my sleep. They approached, and saluted me as their king. I offered up
vows to Jupiter, and divided the city and the lands void of their former
tillers, among this new-made people, and I called them Myrmidons,[106]
and did not deprive their name {of the marks} of their origin. Thou hast
beheld their persons. Even still do they retain the manners which they
formerly had; and they are a thrifty race, patient of toil, tenacious of
what they get, and what they get they lay up. These, alike in years and
in courage, will attend thee to the war, as soon as the East wind, which
brought thee prosperously hither (for the East wind had brought him),
shall have changed to the South.”

    〔note 105 — From Dodona.--Ver. 623. Dodona was a town of Chaonia, in Epirus, so called from Dodone, the daughter of Jupiter and Europa. Near it was a temple and a wood sacred to Jupiter, which was famous for the number and magnitude of its oaks. Doves were said to give oracular responses there, probably from the circumstance that the female soothsayers of Thessaly were called πελειαδαι. Some writers, however, say that the oaks had the gift of speech, combined with that of prophesying.〕

    〔note 106 — Myrmidons.--Ver. 654. From the Greek word μύρμηξ, ‘an ant;’ according to this version of the story.〕

EXPLANATION.

  This fable, perhaps, has no other foundation than the retreat of the
  subjects of Æacus into woods and caverns, whence they returned, when
  the contagion had ceased with which their country had been afflicted,
  and when he had nearly lost all hopes of seeing them again. It is
  probable that the old men were carried off by the plague, while the
  young, who had more strength, resisted its power, which circumstance
  would fully account for the active habits of the remaining subjects of
  Æacus. Some writers, however, suppose that the Myrmidons were a
  barbarous, but industrious people of Thessaly, who usually dwelt in
  caves, and who were brought thence by Æacus to people his island,
  which had been made desolate by a pestilence. The similarity of their
  name to the Greek word μύρμηξ, signifying ‘an ant,’ most probably
  gave occasion to the report that Jupiter had changed ants into men.

FABLE VII. [VII.661-793]

  Cephalus, having resisted the advances of Aurora, who has become
  enamoured of him while hunting, returns in disguise to his wife,
  Procris, to try if her affection for him is sincere. She, discovering
  his suspicions, flies to the woods, and becomes a huntress, with the
  determination not to see him again. Afterwards, on becoming reconciled
  to him, she bestows on him a dog and a dart, which Diana had once
  given her. The dog is turned into stone, while hunting a wild beast,
  which Themis has sent to ravage the territories of Thebes, after the
  interpretation of the riddle of the Sphinx, by Œdipus.

In these and other narratives they passed the day. The last part of the
day was spent in feasting, and the night in sleep. The golden Sun had
{now} shed his beams, {when} the East wind was still blowing, and
detained the sails about to return. The sons of Pallas repair to
Cephalus, who was stricken in years. Cephalus and the sons of Pallas,
together {with him}, {come} to the king; but a sound sleep still
possessed the monarch. Phocus, the son of Æacus, received them at the
threshold; for Telamon and his brother were levying men for the war.
Phocus conducted the citizens of Cecrops into an inner room, and a
handsome apartment. Soon as he had sat down with them, he observed that
the grandson of Æolus[107] was holding in his hand a javelin made of an
unknown wood, the point of which was of gold.

Having first spoken a few words in promiscuous conversation, he said,
“I am fond of the forests, and of the chase of wild beasts; still, from
what wood the shaft of the javelin, which thou art holding, is cut,
I have been for some time in doubt; certainly, if it were of wild ash,
it would be of brown color; if of cornel-wood, there would be knots in
it. Whence it comes I am ignorant, but my eyes have not looked upon a
weapon used for a javelin, more beautiful than this.” One of the
Athenian brothers replied, and said, “In it, thou wilt admire its
utility, {even} more than its beauty. Whatever it is aimed at, it
strikes; chance does not guide it when thrown, and it flies back stained
with blood, no one returning it.” Then, indeed, does the Nereian
youth[108] inquire into all particulars, why it was given, and whence
{it came}? who was the author of a present of so great value? What he
asks, {Cephalus} tells him; but as to what he is ashamed to tell, {and}
on what condition he received it, he is silent; and, being touched with
sorrow for the loss of his wife, he thus speaks, with tears bursting
forth: “Son of a Goddess, this weapon (who could have believed it?)
makes me weep, and long will make me do so, if the Fates shall grant me
long to live. ’Twas this that proved the destruction of me and of my
dear wife. Would that I had ever been without this present! Procris was
(if perchance {the fame of} Orithyïa[109] may have more probably reached
thy ears) the sister of Orithyïa, the victim of violence. If you should
choose to compare the face and the manners of the two, she was the more
worthy to be carried off. Her father Erectheus united her to me; love,
{too}, united her to me. I was pronounced happy, and {so} I was. Not
thus did it seem {good} to the Gods; or even now, perhaps, I should be
{so}. The second month was now passing, after the marriage rites, when
the saffron-colored Aurora, dispelling the darkness in the morn, beheld
me, as I was planting nets for the horned deer, from the highest summit
of the ever-blooming Hymettus,[110] and carried me off against my will.
By the permission of the Goddess, let me relate what is true; though she
is comely with her rosy face, {and} though she possesses the confines of
light, and possesses {the confines} of darkness, though she is nourished
with the draughts of nectar, {still} I loved Procris; Procris was {ever}
in my thoughts, Procris was ever on my lips. I alleged the sacred ties
of marriage, our late embraces, and our recent union, and the prior
engagements of my forsaken bed. The Goddess was provoked, and said,
‘Cease thy complaints, ungrateful man; keep thy Procris; but, if my mind
is gifted with foresight, thou wilt wish that thou hadst not had her;’”
and {thus}, in anger, she sent me back to her.

“While I was returning, and was revolving the sayings of the Goddess
within myself, there began to be apprehensions that my wife had not duly
observed the laws of wedlock. Both her beauty and her age bade me be
apprehensive of her infidelity; {yet} her virtue forbade me to believe
it. But yet, I had been absent; and besides, she, from whom I was {just}
returning, was an example of {such} criminality: but we that are in
love, apprehend all {mishaps}. I {then} endeavored to discover that, by
reason of which I must feel anguish, and by bribes to make attempts[111]
upon her chaste constancy. Aurora encouraged this apprehension, and
changed my shape, {as} I seemed {then} to perceive. I entered Athens,
the city of Pallas, unknown {to any one}, and I went into my own house.
The house itself was without fault, and gave indications of chastity,
and was in concern for the carrying off of its master.

“Having, with difficulty, made my way to the daughter of Erectheus by
means of a thousand artifices, soon as I beheld her, I was amazed, and
was nearly abandoning my projected trial of her constancy; with
difficulty did I restrain myself from telling the truth, with difficulty
from giving her the kisses which I ought. She was in sorrow; but yet no
one could be more beautiful than she, {even} in her sadness; and she was
consuming with regret for her husband, torn from her. {Only} think,
Phocus, how great was the beauty of her, whom even sorrow did so much
become. Why should I tell how often her chaste manners repulsed {all} my
attempts? How often she said, ‘I am reserved for {but} one, wherever he
is; for that one do I reserve my joys.’ For whom, in his senses, would
not that trial of her fidelity have been sufficiently great? {Yet} I was
not content; and I strove to wound myself, while I was promising to give
vast sums for {but one} night, and forced her at last to waver, by
increasing the reward. {On this} I cried out, ‘Lo! I, the gallant in
disguise, to my sorrow, {and} lavish in promises, to my misery, am thy
real husband; thou treacherous woman! thou art caught, {and} I the
witness.’ She said nothing: only, overwhelmed with silent shame, she
fled from the house of treachery, together with her wicked husband; and
from her resentment against me, abhorring the whole race of men, she
used to wander[112] on the mountains, employed in the pursuits of Diana.
Then, a more violent flame penetrated to my bones, thus deserted.
I begged forgiveness, and owned myself in fault; and that I too might
have yielded to a similar fault, on presents being made; if presents so
large had been offered. Upon my confessing this, having first revenged
her offended modesty, she was restored to me, and passed the pleasant
years in harmony with me. She gave me, besides, as though in herself she
had given me but a small present, a dog as a gift, which when her own
Cynthia had presented to her, she had said, ‘He will excel all dogs in
running.’ She gave her, too, a javelin, which, as thou seest, I am
carrying in my hand.

“Dost thou inquire what was the fortune of the other present--hear
{then}. Thou wilt be astonished at the novelty of the wondrous fact. The
son of Laius[113] had solved the verses not understood by the wit of
others before him; and the mysterious propounder lay precipitated,
forgetful of her riddle. But the genial Themis,[114] forsooth, did not
leave such things unrevenged. Immediately another plague was sent forth
against Aonian Thebes; and many of the peasants fed the savage monster,
both by the destruction of their cattle, and their own as well. We, the
neighboring youth, came together, and enclosed the extensive fields with
toils. With a light bound it leaped over the nets, and passed over the
topmost barriers of the toils that were set. The couples were taken off
the dogs, from which, as they followed, it fled, and eluded them, no
otherwise than as a winged bird. I myself, too, was requested, with
eager demands, for my {dog} Lælaps [{Tempest}]; that was the name of {my
wife’s} present. For some time already had he been struggling to get
free from the couples, and strained them with his neck, as they detained
him. Scarce was he well let loose; and {yet} we could not now tell where
he was; the warm dust had the prints of his feet, {but} he himself was
snatched from our eyes. A spear does not fly swifter than he {did}, nor
pellets whirled from the twisted sling, nor the light arrow from the
Gortynian bow.[115] The top of a hill, {standing} in the middle, looks
down upon the plains below. Thither I mount, and I enjoy the sight of an
unusual chase; wherein the wild beast[116] one while seemed to be
caught, at another to elude his very bite; and it does not fly in a
direct course, and straight onward, but deceives his mouth, as he
pursues it, and returns in circles, that its enemy may not have his full
career against it. He keeps close to it, and pursues it, a match for
him; and {though} like as if he has caught it, {still} he fails to catch
it, and vainly snaps at the air. I was {now} turning to the resources of
my javelin; while my right hand was poising it, {and} while I was
attempting to insert my fingers in the thongs {of it}, I turned away my
eyes; and again I had directed them, recalled to the same spot, when,
{most} wondrous, I beheld two marble statues in the middle of the plain;
you would think the one was flying, the other barking {in pursuit}. Some
God undoubtedly, if any God {really} did attend to them, desired them
both to remain unconquered in this contest of speed.”

    〔note 107 — Æolus.--Ver. 672. Apollodorus reckons Deioneus, the parent of Cephalus, among the children of Apollo.〕

    〔note 108 — Nereian youth.--Ver. 685. Phocus, who was the son of Æacus, by Psamathe, the daughter of Nereus.〕

    〔note 109 — Orithyïa.--Ver. 695. She was the daughter of Erectheus, king of Athens, and was carried off by Boreas, as already stated.〕

    〔note 110 — Hymettus.--Ver. 702. This was a mountain of Attica, famous for its honey and its marble.〕

    〔note 111 — To make attempts.--Ver. 721. Tzetzes informs us that she was found by her husband in company with a young man named Pteleon, who had made her a present of a golden wreath. Antoninus Liberalis says, that her husband tried her fidelity by offering her a bribe, through the medium of a slave.〕

    〔note 112 — Used to wander.--Ver. 746. Some writers say that she fled to Crete, on which, Diana, who was aware of the attachment of Aurora for her husband, made her a present of a javelin, which no person could escape; and gave her the dog Lælaps, which no wild beast could outrun. Such is the version given by Hyginus. But Apollodorus and Antoninus Liberalis say, that she fled to Minos, who, prevailing over her virtue, made her a present of the dog and the javelin. Afterwards, presenting herself before her husband, disguised as a huntress, she gave him proofs of the efficacy of them; and upon his requesting her to give them to him, she exacted, as a condition, what must, apparently, have resulted in a breach of the laws of conjugal fidelity. On his assenting to the proposal, she discovered herself, and afterwards made him the presents which he desired.〕

    〔note 113 — The son of Laius.--Ver. 759. Œdipus was the son of Laius, king of Thebes. The Sphinx was a monster, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, which haunted a mountain near Thebes. Œdipus solved the riddle which it proposed for solution, on which the monster precipitated itself from a rock. It had the face of a woman, the wings of a bird, and the extremities of a lion.〕

    〔note 114 — Genial Themis.--Ver. 762. Themis had a very ancient oracle in Bœotia.〕

    〔note 115 — Gortynian bow.--Ver. 778. Crete was called Gortynian, from Gortys or Gortyna, one of its cities, which was famous for the skill of its inhabitants in archery.〕

    〔note 116 — The wild beast.--Ver. 782. Antoninus Liberalis and Apollodorus say that this was a fox, which was called ‘the Teumesian,’ from Teumesus, a mountain of Bœotia, and that the Thebans, to appease its voracity, were wont to give it a child to devour every month. Palæphatus says that it was not a wild beast, but a man called Alopis.〕

EXPLANATION.

  There were two princes of the name of Cephalus; one, the son of
  Mercury and Herse, the daughter of Cecrops; the other, the son of
  Deïoneus, king of Phocis, and Diomeda, the daughter of Xuthus. The
  first was carried off by Aurora, and went to live with her in Syria;
  the second married Procris, the daughter of Erectheus, king of Athens.
  Though Apollodorus seems, in the first instance, to follow this
  genealogy, in his third book he confounds the actions of those two
  princes. Ovid and other writers have spoken only of the son of
  Deïoneus, who was carried off by Aurora, and having left her,
  according to them, returned to Procris.

FABLE VIII. [VII.794-865]

  Procris, jealous of Cephalus, in her turn, goes to the forest, which
  she supposes to be the scene of his infidelity, to surprise him.
  Hearing the rustling noise which she makes in the thicket, where she
  lies concealed, he imagines it is a wild beast, and, hurling the
  javelin, which she has formerly given to him, he kills her.

Thus far {did he speak}; and {then} he was silent. “But,” said Phocus,
“what fault is there in that javelin?” {whereupon} he thus informed him
of the demerits of the javelin. “Let my joys, Phocus, be the first
portion of my sorrowful story. These will I first relate. O son of
Æacus, I delight to remember the happy time, during which, for the first
years {after my marriage}, I was completely blessed in my wife, {and}
she was happy in her husband. A mutual kindness and social love
possessed us both. Neither would she have preferred the bed of Jupiter
before my love; nor was there any woman that could have captivated me,
not {even} if Venus herself had come. Equal flames fired the breasts {of
us both}. The Sun striking the tops of the mountains with his early
rays, I was wont generally to go with youthful ardor into the woods, to
hunt; but I neither suffered my servants, nor my horses, nor my
quick-scented hounds to go {with me}, nor the knotty nets to attend me;
I was safe with my javelin. But when my right hand was satiated with the
slaughter of wild beasts, I betook myself to the cool spots and the
shade, and the breeze which was breathing forth from the cool valleys.
The gentle breeze was sought by me, in the midst of the heat. For the
breeze was I awaiting; that was a refreshment after my toils: ‘Come,
breeze,’ I was wont to sing, for I remember it {full well}, ‘and, most
grateful, refresh me, and enter my breast; and, as thou art wont, be
willing to assuage the heat with which I am parched.’ Perhaps I may have
added ({for} so my destiny prompted me) many words of endearment, and I
may have been accustomed to say, ‘Thou art my great delight; thou dost
refresh and cherish me; thou makest me to love the woods and lonely
haunts, and thy breath is ever courted by my face.’ I was not aware that
some one was giving an ear, deceived by these ambiguous words; and
thinking the name of the breeze, so often called upon by me, to be that
of a Nymph, he believed some Nymph was beloved by me.

“The rash informer of an imaginary crime immediately went to Procris,
and with his whispering tongue related what he had heard. Love is a
credulous thing. When it was told her, she fell down fainting, with
sudden grief; and coming to, after a long time, she declared that she
was wretched, and {born} to a cruel destiny; and she complained about my
constancy. Excited by a groundless charge,[117] she dreads that which,
{indeed}, is nothing; {and} fears a name without a body; and, in her
wretchedness, grieves as though about a real rival. Yet she is often in
doubt, and, in her extreme wretchedness, hopes she may be deceived, and
denies credit to the information; and unless she beholds it herself,
will not pass sentence upon the criminality of her husband. The
following light of the morning had banished the night, when I sallied
forth, and sought the woods; and being victorious in the fields, I said,
‘Come, breeze, and relieve my pain;’ and suddenly I seemed to hear I
know not what groans in the midst of my words; yet I said, ‘Come hither,
most delightful {breeze}.’ Again, the falling leaves making a gentle
noise, I thought it was a wild beast, and I discharged my flying weapon.
It was Procris; and receiving the wound in the middle of her breast, she
cried out, ‘Ah, wretched me!’ When the voice of my attached wife was
heard, headlong and distracted, I ran towards {that} voice. I found her
dying, and staining her scattered vestments with blood, and drawing her
own present (ah, wretched me!) from out of her wound; I lifted up her
body, dearer to me than my own, in my guilty arms, and I bound up her
cruel wounds with the garments torn from my bosom; and I endeavored to
stanch the blood, and besought her that she would not forsake me, {thus}
criminal, by her death. She, wanting strength, and now expiring, forced
herself to utter these few words:

“‘I suppliantly beseech thee, by the ties of our marriage, and by the
Gods above, and my own Gods, and if I have deserved anything well of
thee, by that {as well}, and by the cause of my death, my love even now
enduring, while I am perishing, do not allow the Nymph Aura [{breeze}]
to share with thee my marriage ties.’ She {thus} spoke; and then, at
last, I perceived the mistake of the name, and informed her of it. But
what avails informing her? She sinks; and her little strength flies,
together with her blood. And so long as she can look on anything, she
gazes on me, and breathes out upon me, on my face,[118] her unhappy
life; but she seems to die free from care, and with a more contented
look.”

In tears, the hero is relating these things to them, as they weep, and,
lo! Æacus enters, with his two sons,[119] and his soldiers newly levied;
which Cephalus received, {furnished} with valorous arms.

    〔note 117 — Groundless charge.--Ver. 829. Possibly, Ovid may intend to imply that her jealousy received an additional stimulus from the similarity of the name ‘Aura’ to that of her former rival, Aurora.〕

    〔note 118 — On my face.--Ver. 861. He alludes to the prevalent custom of catching the breath of the dying person in the mouth.〕

    〔note 119 — His two sons.--Ver. 864. These were Telamon and Peleus, who had levied these troops.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The love which Cephalus, the son of Deïoneus, bore for the chase,
  causing him to rise early in the morning for the enjoyment of his
  sport, was the origin of the story of his love for Aurora. His wife,
  Procris, as Apollodorus tells us, carried on an amour with Pteleon,
  and, probably, caused that report to be spread abroad, to divert
  attention from her own intrigue. Cephalus, suspecting his wife’s
  infidelity, she fled to the court of the second Minos, king of Crete,
  who fell in love with her. Having, thereby, incurred the resentment of
  Pasiphaë, who adopted several methods to destroy her rival, and, among
  others, spread poison in her bed, she left Crete, and returned to
  Thoricus, the place of her former residence, where she was reconciled
  to Cephalus, and gave him the celebrated dog and javelin mentioned by
  Ovid.

  The poets tell us, that this dog was made by Vulcan, and presented by
  him to Jupiter, who gave him to Europa; and that coming to the hands
  of her son Minos, he presented it to Procris. The wild beast, which
  ravaged the country, and was pursued by the dog of Procris, and which
  some writers tell us was a monstrous fox, was probably a pirate or sea
  robber; and being, perhaps, pursued by some Cretan officer of Minos,
  who escorted Procris back to her country, on their vessels being
  shipwrecked near some rocks, it gave occasion to the story that the
  dog and the monster had been changed into stone. Indeed, Tzetzes says
  distinctly, that the dog was called Cyon, and the monster, or fox,
  Alopis; and he also says that Cyon was the captain who brought Procris
  back from Crete. It being believed that resentment had some share in
  causing the death of Procris, the court of the Areiopagus condemned
  Cephalus to perpetual banishment. The island of Cephalenia, which
  received its name from him, having been given to him by Amphitryon, he
  retired to it, where his son Celeus afterwards succeeded him.

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Transcriber’s Note on the Text:

Ovid’s Metamorphoses, translated by Henry Thomas Riley (1816-1878,
B.A. 1840, M.A. 1859), was originally published in 1851 as part of
Bohn’s Classical Library. This e-text, covering Books I-VII, uses
material from two reprints:

George Bell (London, 1893, one volume). This edition is described on
its title page as “reprinted from the stereotype plates”. These may have
been the original 1851 plates, since the entire Classical Library had
been sold by Bohn to Bell & Daldy, later George Bell.

David McKay (Philadelphia, 1899, two volumes), with introduction by
Edward Brooks. The introductory material from the Bell/Bohn edition is
absent. This edition was freshly typeset, correcting a few errors in the
Bell/Bohn edition but also introducing a number of new errors.

The McKay edition was the “base” of the e-text. The scanned, proofread
text was computer-checked against the text of the Bell edition, and
differences were in turn checked against page images of the printed
books. Where appropriate, the text was checked against one or more
versions of the Latin original. Most differences are trivial. McKay uses
American spelling such as “honor” for “honour”, and compound forms such
as “northwest” for “north-west”; punctuation is often changed, though
some apparent variations may be due to the quality of printing and
reproduction. Non-trivial differences are listed in the Errata, below.

Note that the title page of the Bell edition lists the translator as
“Henry T. Riley, B.A.”, while the McKay edition has “M.A.” The sequence
of dates-- original publication 1851, Riley M.A. 1859, reprint 1893--
supports the idea that the Bell edition is a strict facsimile.

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Errors and Anomalies noted by transcriber

Errors are grouped thematically:
  significant errors and inconsistencies;
  variant spellings, including name forms;
  Greek;
  punctuation;
  line and footnote numbering.
Abbreviations in the form “II.XIV Exp” mean “Book II, Fable XIV,
Explanation” (appended to most Fables); “Syn” means Synopsis (prefaced
to each Fable).

_Shared errors and irregularities (present in both McKay and Bell
editions), with original text in brackets []_

I.XII: the light breeze spread behind her her careless locks
  read as “spread her careless locks behind her”
  _in McKay, “her her” is printed at a line break and can easily be
  mistaken for an error_
I.XII Footnote 82, Pope quotation
  _McKay reads “trembling dove” and “reached her”; other
  modernizations in spelling are shared by both editions_
I.V: the dreadful carcasses
  anomalous spelling: both editions normally use “carcase(s)”
II.I and Footnote 16: Hæmus [Hœmus]
II.I Exp: Herse, the daughter of Cecrops (Hersa)
II.III Footnote 57: 2 Kings, xx. 11 [xx. 7]
II.XIV Exp: which Hesychius calls ... [Hesychus]
III.IV Footnote 62: ... Æneid (l. 620) [l. 260]
IV.I Footnote 3: Alcathoë, Leucippe, and Aristippe
  text unchanged; may be error for “Alcithoë”
IV.II Footnote 39: ‘Virgo victa nitore Dei.’ [uitore]
V.V Footnote 60: The zone, or girdle ... was much worn
  Bell has “was much wore“; McKay has “were much worn”
V.VI Footnote 75: adjoining to the Elean territory [Eleon]
VI.I: the sley separates the warp
  this technical term is missing from many dictionaries
VI.III Footnote 47: ‘brekekekekex koäx koäx.’
  text unchanged (one syllable too many)
VII.IV Footnote 89: the Explanation, p. 242 / p. 270
  final paragraph of the Explanation of Fable VII.III
VII.V Footnote 92: The Andrian slave, who gives his name [its name]

_Errors or variations introduced by McKay, with original text in
brackets []. Unless otherwise noted, the Bell version was treated as
the correct form. Italics in the translation (here shown in braces {})
are considered non-trivial because they indicate text added by the
translator, not present in the Latin original._

I.II Footnote 19: she was supposed to have her habitation
  [habitations]
I.II Footnote 22: Ver. 64. [34]
I.III Exp: the ground became unfruitful [become]
--: as they really happened [happen]
I. VI Footnote 38: Di majorum gentium [Di imajorum]
  intended text may have been “Dii majorum”
I.VIII Exp: ... that the sea joined its waters
  [... the sea joined in its waters]
--: the tradition here followed by Ovid [that tradition]
I.IX: {to endure} these sorrows [to {endure}]
I.X Exp: where he built a temple to Jupiter [when]
I.XII Footnotes 83, 84: Clarke [Clark]
I.XII: Thou, the same, shalt stand [shall]
I.XIII Footnote 92: mount Æta [Ætna]
  the reference is to the Greek mountain now spelled “Eta”
I.XIII Footnote 96: Pliny the Elder (Book iii. ch. 23)
  ... Aous [Aeus]
  _editions of Pliny vary; the cited passage may also be found as
  iii.58 or iii.145_
I.XIII: the wild beasts alone [beast]
I.XVI Exp: Argus was the son of Arestor [Argos]
I.XVII: Thou ... believest thy mother in all things [believes]
I.XVII Footnote 115: He was king of Ethiopia [Ethiopa]

II.I: Ignorant what to do, he is stupefied
  McKay reads “stupei/fied” at page break
  Bell has “stupified” here, “stupefied” elsewhere
II.I Footnote 13: Thessaly [Thessalis]
II.I Footnote 18: This was a mountain [A mountain]
II.I Footnote 24: Cithæron. [Cithœron]
II.I Footnote 41: Cape Matapan [Metapan]
II.I Exp: the Greek form of it [from]
II.II: a long tract through the air [track]
  Latin: longo ... tractu
II.VII: Larissæan[69] Coronis [Larissæn]
II.IX: the womb of his mother [the wound]
II.XI: The son of Atlas laughed [sun]
II.XIII Syn: her sister’s apartment [apartments]
  both editions consistently use “apartment”
II.XIV: which thou seest [seeest]
  this spelling is normal in Bell, but McKay uses “seest” elsewhere
II.XIV Exp: Palæphatus and Tzetzes suggest [suggests]

III.I Footnote 1: ‘Thebe,’ which signified ‘an ox.’ [signifies]
III.II: the victorious enemy of immense size [in immense size]
III.II Exp: sows the teeth [their]
III.III Footnote 24: Phyale. [Phyule]
III.III: Now thou mayst tell [mayest]
III.III Footnote 39: Pœmenis. [Parmenis]
III.III: Leucon,[46] with snow-white hair [Luecon]
--: her Cyprian brother, Harpalus,[52] [Harpaulus]
--: Lachne,[54] with a wire-haired body [white-haired]
  Bell text was substituted, but Latin simply has “hirsuta”
--: and Hylactor,[57] [Hylector]
III.III, Footnote 56: Ver. 224. [254]
III.V: become a woman from a man [became]
  participle: “having become”
III.VI: with the nearer flame did she burn
  word “did” illegible
III.VII: grief is taking away [has taken]
  _reading “has taken” would require a metrically impossible Latin
  “adēmit” for “adĭmit”_
III.VIII, Footnote 89: placed in the number of the Constellations
  [the number of Constellations]
III.VIII: ‘Lo! we are here,’ says Opheltes, my chief mate [Ophletes]
--: this Alcimedon approved of [Alcemedon]
--: now confessing that he has offended [had offended]
III.VIII Exp: ... tore him in pieces. Pausanias, however ...
  [to pieces, Pausanius]
--: The story ... is supposed by Bochart [Bochârt]

IV.I Footnote 1: ... Pausanias says that the Bœotians
  [Pausanius]
IV.I Footnote 8: Thyoneus. [Phyoneus]
IV.I: the grass wet with rime [went]
--: they determine, in the silent night [determined]
--: The arrangement suits them [arrangements]
--: the most unhappy cause and companion [anhappy]
IV.I Footnote 22: The lead decaying.
  footnote marker missing
IV.II Syn: the intrigue between Mars and Venus [betwen]
IV.II: nor {yet} Clytie [not]
IV.II Footnote 37: Abas, Acrisius, Danaë, Perseus [Danae, Persus]
IV.II: with her twirling spindle [with twirling spindle]
IV.V Footnote 48: (laborabat) ... ‘auxiliares.’
  [(laborat) ... ‘auxiliaries.’]
IV.VII: And what madness can do [what madness man can do]
  “madness” is the grammatical subject: “quidque furor valeat”
IV.VII Footnote 57: These were the Furies [furies]
IV.VII Footnote 63: Tisiphone importuna [importune]
IV.VII Exp: by whom he had Helle and Phryxus [Phrysus]
IV.VIII Exp: Bochart says [Bochard]
  last letter of “Bochart” illegible in Bell
IV.X: Soon as the descendant of Abas beheld her [So soon as]
  Bell wording adopted for consistency
--: When he has lighted {on the ground}
  “on the ground” not italicized
IV.X Footnote 84: præpetes [præptes]
IV.X: on the silent plain [on the salient plain]
  _“salient” is clearly wrong, but “silent plain” is also an odd
  translation of “vacuo ... arvo”_
IV.X Exp: more common than it had been before [more common that]

V.I: both by his merits and his words [its merits]
V.I Footnote 7: Syene. ... (Book i. Ep. 5, l. 79)
  _text reads “Book i. Ep. i. 79”; in the Bell printing the letter
  “l” is damaged and could be misread as “i”_
V.I: thou, both her uncle and her betrothed [though, both]
V.I Footnote 8: a swingeing bowl [swinging]
V.I: the middle of the neck {of Pettalus} [Pattalus]
V.II Footnote 32: Ver. 302. [303]
V.III Footnote 43: pressed down by Lilybœum [Lilybæum]
V.IV: both her mother and her companions,[48] [and companions]
V.IV Footnote 50: The Palici. [Palaci]
V.IV Footnote 51: Dionysus [Dionysius]
  _the names “Bacchius” and “Bacchus” in the same footnote are each
  correct as printed_
V.IV Footnote 57: Cinnus [Cinus]
V.IV Footnote 61: tunc denique raptam Scisset [raptum]
  Bell also has “tum” for “tunc”; both words are valid
V.IV Exp: the Isis of the Egyptians [the Isis of Egyptians]
--: the following circumstance: [circumstances:]
V.V Syn: Ceres proceeds in a fruitless search [the fruitless]
--: The Sirens have wings [rings]
V.V: it is {a mark of} affection [a {mark of}]
V.V: Footnote 67: The Greek name of a lizard being ἀσκάλαβος
  [a lizard ἀσκάλαβος]
V.VI: Erymanthus and Elis [Eyramanthus]
--: Ho, Arethusa! Ho, Arethusa!
  text reads “Ho, Arethusa! Ho, Ar-/thusa!” at line break
V.VI Exp: the oracle of Delphi [at Delphi]
V.VII: entrusted {to him} [to {him}]
V.VII Exp: which signified either ‘a winged dragon,’ or ‘a ship fastened
  with iron nails or bolts.’ [signifies ... nails and bolts]
--: explainer of the mysteries of Eleusis [Eleusi]

VI.I Footnote 3: the purple [purples]
VI.I Exp: unless we should prefer [he]
--: St. Augustine [Augustin]
--: calling their attention to agricultural pursuits [agricultual]
--: had himself taken the figure
  text has “the // the” at page break
--: numerous in the interior of Africa [is the]
VI.II: what {I wish} may fall upon herself [what I {wish}]
--: their wonted exercise {of riding} [of {riding}]
VI.III: her suckling breasts [sucking]
VI.IV: after he had drawn his clothes from his shoulder towards his
  breast [shoulders]
  _The Latin reads “... umeroque suas a pectore [or: ad pectora]
  postquam / deduxit [or: diduxit] vestes ebur ostendisse sinistro”. It
  is possible to construct a Latin variation that would translate as
  “from his shoulders”, but editorial or typographic error is a much
  likelier explanation._
VI.IV Exp: Livy and Quintus Curtius [Quintius]
--: Marsyas may have been rash enough [Maryas]
VI.V: beyond what is becoming [his]
VI.VI: forced {from her} [{from} her]
--: from excess of affection [from the excess]
VI.VII Footnote 73: and in the Art of Love [and the Art ...]

VII.I: {is wont} to increase [is {wont}]
VII.II: a counterfeited quarrel [counterfeit]
--: the guards together with their king [with the king]
  Latin “rege suo”
--: they turn away their eyes [they, turning away their eyes]
  Latin “oculosque reflectunt”
VII.III Footnote 62: ... This was not Thessalian Tempe
  “w” in “was” invisible
VII.III Footnote 69: who was said to have lived there
  [who was to have]
VII.III Exp: the young princess perished in the greatest misery
  text has “in / in” at line break
--: the account of the women of Cos being changed [accounts]
VII.IV Footnote 75: dragged from Tartarus by Hercules [Herculea]
VII.IV Footnote 86: Anaphe [Anophe]
VII.V Syn: the island of Ægina [islands]
VII.V: the grandson of Asopus says, “Thou askest in vain [asketh]
--: the souls of sons, and of husbands [the souls of the sons]
VII.VI Exp: gave occasion to the report [of the report]
VII.VII Syn: discovering his suspicions [suspicion]
VII.VII: {standing} in the middle [{standiny}]
VII.VIII Exp: as Apollodorus tells us [tell]

Corrections made by McKay, with Bell/Bohn text shown in brackets

III.VI Exp: phenomenon (two occurrences)
  Bell spells “phœnomenon” (error for “phænomenon”)
IV.IV Exp: beloved by Smilax [Simlax]
IV.V heading:
  Bell misprints “Fable IV”
IV.VII Exp: Learchus and Melicerta [Melacerta]
V.I Footnote 17: Now deceived. [How deceived]
  footnote marker missing in Bell
VI.II Exp: Valerius Flaccus relates the sorrow of Clytie [Clyte]
VI.VI Exp: the ancients thereby portrayed [pourtrayed]
VI.VII Footnote 74: The Ciconians.
  footnote marker missing in Bell
VII.II Footnote 40: And his hair.
  footnote marker missing in Bell

Variations

The readings listed here are “wrong” in the sense that they are
different from what is found in the Bell/Bohn text, but they are
acceptable translations of the Latin. The Bell text is shown in
brackets.

III.II: The Earth, too, scraped with the scales [his scales]
--: nor engage thyself in civil war [a civil war]
--: the youths ... beat with throbbing breast [breasts]
III.III: to bathe her virgin limbs in clear water [the clear water]
III.VIII: in vain try to restrain him [strive]
--: I made observations with my eyes [observation]
IV.I: the Sun, with its rays [his rays]
IV.VII: foam formed in the hollowed deep [hallowed]
  _The Latin has at least three variant readings: “in medio ...
  profundo”, “immenso ... profundo” and “dīo profundo”. Riley’s
  translation must have been based on the “dio” reading._
IV.X: the name both of her country and herself
  [... of the country and of herself]
V.IV: grasp {in your hand} [{in your hands}]
  the Latin has only the verb “prendere” (grasp)
V.VI: thy darts enclosed in a quiver [the quiver]
VI.III: oft to sit on the bank of the pool [often]
VI.V: delay will be tedious to me, and [to me. And]
VI.VI: she prepared for a horrible deed [horrid]
VII.II: to go far thence [afar]

Unusual or Inconsistent Spellings and Name Forms

Dieresis is unpredictable in both editions; forms such as “Phaeton”,
“Ocyrrhöe” and “Danäe” are common, and have been silently corrected.
Since the ligatures “æ” and “œ” are used consistently, dieresis can be
assumed even when not explicitly indicated.

Unless otherwise noted, comments apply to both texts.

III.VIII Footnote 92: the buccanier Morgan
IV.VIII Exp: they beheld stedfastly
V.II, VI.V: villany

Cæus, Calisto, Lilybœus, Phyale, Phryxus, Progne
  _these forms are used consistently; the original forms are Cœus
  (Κοιος), Callisto (Καλλιστω), Lilybæus (Λιλυβαιος), Phiale (Φιαλη),
  Phrixus (Φριξος), Procne (Προκνη). Note that in the main text, the
  name “Callisto” is never used, probably on metrical grounds._
Damasicthon, Erectheus and similar
  _spellings in “-cth-” used consistently in place of “-chth-” (-χθ-).
Achæa/Achaia; Ethiopia/Æthiopia; Phocea/Phocæa; Proserpine/Proserpina
  both forms occur, with McKay text following Bell in all cases

Greek

_Most errors in Greek words can be attributed to a typesetter who did
not know Greek. Errors and omissions in diacritical marks have been
silently corrected; only the more significant errors are listed._

I.VII Footnote 47: ἐν τῇ ἔρα ναίειν [ἵρα ναιειν (McKay)]
II.XII Footnote 84: δέξαι [δεζαί (McKay)]
II.XIV Exp: Ἑλλωτὶς
  both texts read Ἐλλωτὶς with smooth breathing
III.III Footnote 50: θοὸς
  both texts read θοὺς
III.IV Exp: Πανβασίλεια [Πανβασιγεια (McKay)]
III.VI Footnote 68: Λείριον [Λείοιον (McKay)]
III.VIII Footnote 86: ἀκοίτης
  McKay reads ἁκόιτης with rough breathing; both have misplaced accent
III.VIII Footnote 87: ὠλέναι
  both texts read ωλήναι; McKay has initial ώ for ὠ
IV.I Footnote 5: Εὐοῖ Βάκχε, ὦ Ἰακχε, Ιώ Βάκχε, Εὐοῖ σαβοῖ
  _text given as printed; exact form (with consistent capitalization)
  is probably Εὐοῖ Βάκχε, Ὦ Ἴακχε, Ἰώ Βάκχε, Εὐοῖ σαβαῖ_
IV.I Footnote 6: λύειν [κύειν (McKay)]
V.II Footnote 31: χαῖρε, χαῖρε [χαῖρε, χσἴρε (McKay)]
VII.VI Footnote 105: πελειαδαι
  text unchanged, but intended form is probably πελειάδες
VII.VI Exp: μύρμηξ [μύρμης (McKay)]

Punctuation

_The McKay (Philadelphia) edition sometimes uses double quotes where the
Bell (London) edition used single quotes. These are not individually
noted; neither is variation between colons and semicolons, and random
use of commas. Invisible punctuation at line-end has been supplied from
Bell._

Shared errors and irregularities in punctuation

IV.VII Footnote 69: Guiltless granddaughter.
  both print “grand-daughter” with anomalous hyphen
VI.III: ‘Young man, there is no mountain Divinity for this altar....
  _This embedded single quote was apparently abandoned by the editor;
  each double quote for the remainder of the Fable should be accompanied
  by a single quote._

I.XII Footnote 80: quod amor non est / medicabilis herbis.’
IV.I: our words to our loving ears.’
IV.IV: I will entertain your minds with a pleasing novelty.”
IV.X: {if} preserved by my valor.”
IV.X: those snakes which she {thus} produced.”
V.II: oft have the Gods above entered more humble cottages.’
V.II: Let the Nymphs decide the contest.”
  close quote missing in all

Punctuation errors introduced in McKay edition

[Verso of title page] Sherman & Co., Philadelphia
  period invisible
[General Introduction] about, ninety miles from Rome
  here and elsewhere, commas are as in the original
I.VI Exp: for it repenteth me that I have made them.’” [made them’]
  Bell omits quotes for Biblical citation
III.III: Thoüs,[50] [Thoüs,[50],]
IV.II: and he, no longer delaying [and, he,]
--: ‘I am he .... thou art pleasing to me.’ [‘I am .... to me.”]
IV.VII: with newly formed wings? [wings!]
V.VI: Why art thou, Arethusa, a sacred spring?’
  missing close quote
V.VI Exp: a mere fable; [fable!]
VI.II: she says, “What madness is this
  missing open quote
--: exult and triumph, my victorious enemy. But why victorious?
  [enemy, But why v’ctorious?]
VI.III: hold out their little arms from my bosom’
  missing close quote
VII.IV Exp: Egyptian notions on the future state of man. [of man,]
VII.V Syn: the surprising manner in which it had been re-peopled.
  invisible hyphen
VII.V: says Cephalus:[99] “and I pray
  missing open quote
--: not room sufficient for the tombs, nor trees for the fires.”
  missing close quote
VII.VI: shall have changed to the South.”
  missing close quote

Footnote Numbers

Errors in McKay edition

Bk. I, ll. 516-531 (Fable I.XII)
  Footnotes on this page were printed as 66-69 instead of 76-79
  (e-text note numbers 78-81); other pages were not affected.
Bk. IV, note 17*.
  The footnote tag was numbered as a second 17; the note itself was
  numbered the first of two 18.

Adjustments

In the original text-- both editions-- footnote numbers began from 1 in
each Book, and started over when the count passed 99. Almost all Books
had duplications in the sequence, usually in the form “17*”. In this
e-text, footnotes have been renumbered consecutively within each Book,
without duplication; Books I and VII continue past 100.

  Interpolations:
  Bk. I: 51*, 67*
  Bk. II: 4*, 71*
  Bk. III: 72*, 88*
  Bk. IV: 17*, 37*, 77*
  Bk. V: 46*, 76*
  Bk. VI: (no change from original sequence)
  Bk. VII: 4*, 73*, 2* (second series)

Line Numbers (printed as page headers)

Line numbers in the McKay edition were generally correct, although
different from those in Bell due to changes in pagination. Some book
numbers in the McKay edition were misprinted:

  [II. 550-564] printed as Bk. XV
  [II. 605-632] printed as Bk. XV
  [II. 632-651] printed as Bk. XIV
  [II. 652-675] printed as Bk. XV
  [II. 676-693] printed as Bk. XV
  [IV. 233-237] printed as Bk. I
  [V. 95-123] printed as Bk. IV
  [V. 123-151] printed as Bk. IV
  [V. 350-373] printed as Bk. IV

[Transcriber’s Note:

This e-text covers the second half, Books VIII-XV, of Henry T. Riley’s
1851 translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The first half, Books I-VII,
is already available from Project Gutenberg as e-text 21765. Note that
this text, unlike the earlier one, is based solely on the 1893 George
Bell reprint.

The text includes characters that will only display in UTF-8 (Unicode)
text readers, including many single words of Greek in the Notes:

  œ, Œ (oe ligature)
  κείρω, ἀκονιτὶ

If any of these characters do not display properly, or if the
apostrophes and quotation marks in this paragraph appear as garbage,
make sure your text reader’s “character set” or “file encoding” is set
to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need to change the default font. As a
last resort, use the latin-1 version of the file instead.

In the original text, words and phrases supplied by the translator
were printed in italics. In this e-text they are shown in braces {}.
Italics in the notes and commentary are shown conventionally with
lines. Square brackets [] in the body text are in the original.

Line numbers from the Latin poem--not its prose translation--were
printed as headnotes on each page. For this e-text, only the line
numbers of each complete “Fable” are given. Line numbers used in
footnotes are retained from the original text; these, too, refer to
the Latin poem and are independent of line divisions in the translation.

In Transcriber’s Notes, references to Clarke are from the third
edition (1752).]

                      The

                 METAMORPHOSES

                       of

                      OVID.

    Literally Translated into English Prose,
      with Copious Notes and Explanations,

            BY HENRY T. RILEY, B.A.
           of Clare Hall, Cambridge.

                    LONDON:

  GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN,
                 AND NEW YORK.

                     1893.

                    LONDON:

      Reprinted from the Stereotype Plates
          by Wm. Clowes & Sons, Ltd.,
       Stamford Street and Charing Cross.

[The Introduction is included here for completeness, omitting the
Synopses of Books I-VII.]

INTRODUCTION.

The Metamorphoses of Ovid are a compendium of the Mythological
narratives of ancient Greece and Rome, so ingeniously framed, as to
embrace a large amount of information upon almost every subject
connected with the learning, traditions, manners, and customs of
antiquity, and have afforded a fertile field of investigation to the
learned of the civilized world. To present to the public a faithful
translation of a work, universally esteemed, not only for its varied
information, but as being the masterpiece of one of the greatest Poets
of ancient Rome, is the object of the present volume.

To render the work, which, from its nature and design, must, of
necessity, be replete with matter of obscure meaning, more inviting to
the scholar, and more intelligible to those who are unversed in
Classical literature, the translation is accompanied with Notes and
Explanations, which, it is believed, will be found to throw considerable
light upon the origin and meaning of some of the traditions of heathen
Mythology.

In the translation, the text of the Delphin edition has been generally
adopted; and no deviation has been made from it, except in a few
instances, where the reason for such a step is stated in the notes;
at the same time, the texts of Burmann and Gierig have throughout been
carefully consulted. The several editions vary materially in respect to
punctuation; the Translator has consequently used his own discretion in
adopting that which seemed to him the most fully to convey in each
passage the intended meaning of the writer.

The Metamorphoses of Ovid have been frequently translated into the
English language. On referring to Mr. Bohn’s excellent Catalogue of the
Greek and Latin Classics and their Translations, we find that the whole
of the work has been twice translated into English Prose, while five
translations in Verse are there enumerated. A prose version of the
Metamorphoses was published by Joseph Davidson, about the middle of
the last century, which professes to be “as near the original as the
different idioms of the Latin and English will allow;” and to be
“printed for the use of schools, as well as of private gentlemen.” A few
moments’ perusal of this work will satisfy the reader that it has not
the slightest pretension to be considered a literal translation, while,
by its departure from the strict letter of the author, it has gained
nothing in elegance of diction. It is accompanied by “critical,
historical, geographical, and classical notes in English, from the best
Commentators, both ancient and modern, beside a great number of notes,
entirely new;” but notwithstanding this announcement, these annotations
will be found to be but few in number, and, with some exceptions in the
early part of the volume, to throw very little light on the obscurities
of the text. A fifth edition of this translation was published so
recently as 1822, but without any improvement, beyond the furbishing up
of the old-fashioned language of the original preface. A far more
literal translation of the Metamorphoses is that by John Clarke, which
was first published about the year 1735, and had attained to a seventh
edition in 1779. Although this version may be pronounced very nearly to
fulfil the promise set forth in its title page, of being “as literal as
possible,” still, from the singular inelegance of its style, and the
fact of its being couched in the conversational language of the early
part of the last century, and being unaccompanied by any attempt at
explanation, it may safely be pronounced to be ill adapted to the
requirements of the present age. Indeed, it would not, perhaps, be too
much to assert, that, although the translator may, in his own words,
“have done an acceptable service to such gentlemen as are desirous of
regaining or improving the skill they acquired at school,” he has, in
many instances, burlesqued rather than translated his author. Some of
the curiosities of his version will be found set forth in the notes;
but, for the purpose of the more readily justifying this assertion,
a few of them are adduced: the word “nitidus” is always rendered “neat,”
whether applied to a fish, a cow, a chariot, a laurel, the steps of a
temple, or the art of wrestling. He renders “horridus,” “in a rude
pickle;” “virgo” is generally translated “the young lady;” “vir” is
“a gentleman;” “senex” and “senior” are indifferently “the old blade,”
“the old fellow,” or “the old gentleman;” while “summa arx” is “the very
tip-top.” “Misera” is “poor soul;” “exsilio” means “to bounce forth;”
“pellex” is “a miss;” “lumina” are “the peepers;” “turbatum fugere” is
“to scower off in a mighty bustle;” “confundor” is “to be jumbled;” and
“squalidus” is “in a sorry pickle.” “Importuna” is “a plaguy baggage;”
“adulterium” is rendered “her pranks;” “ambages” becomes either “a long
rabble of words,” “a long-winded detail,” or “a tale of a tub;”
“miserabile carmen” is “a dismal ditty;” “increpare hos” is “to rattle
these blades;” “penetralia” means “the parlour;” while “accingere,” more
literally than elegantly, is translated “buckle to.” “Situs” is “nasty
stuff;” “oscula jungere” is “to tip him a kiss;” “pingue ingenium” is a
circumlocution for “a blockhead;” “anilia instrumenta” are “his old
woman’s accoutrements;” and “repetito munere Bacchi” is conveyed to the
sense of the reader as, “they return again to their bottle, and take the
other glass.” These are but a specimen of the blemishes which disfigure
the most literal of the English translations of the Metamorphoses.

  [Transcriber’s Note:

  The Clarke “translation” was published as part of a student edition
  of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, with the Latin on the top half of the page,
  the English below. It was not intended as an independent text.]

In the year 1656, a little volume was published, by J[ohn] B[ulloker,]
entitled “Ovid’s Metamorphosis, translated grammatically, and, according
to the propriety of our English tongue, so far as grammar and the verse
will bear, written chiefly for the use of schools, to be used according
to the directions in the preface to the painfull schoolmaster, and more
fully in the book called, ‘Ludus Literarius, or the Grammar school,
chap. 8.’” Notwithstanding a title so pretentious, it contains a
translation of no more than the first 567 lines of the first Book,
executed in a fanciful and pedantic manner; and its rarity is now the
only merit of the volume. A literal interlinear translation of the first
Book “on the plan recommended by Mr. Locke,” was published in 1839,
which had been already preceded by “a selection from the Metamorphoses
of Ovid, adapted to the Hamiltonian system, by a literal and interlineal
translation,” published by James Hamilton, the author of the Hamiltonian
system. This work contains selections only from the first six books, and
consequently embraces but a very small portion of the entire work.

For the better elucidation of the different fabulous narratives and
allusions, explanations have been added, which are principally derived
from the writings of Herodotus, Apollodorus, Pausanias, Dio Cassius,
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Strabo, Hyginus, Nonnus, and others of the
historians, philosophers, and mythologists of antiquity. A great number
of these illustrations are collected in the elaborate edition of Ovid,
published by the Abbé Banier, one of the most learned scholars of the
last century; who has, therein, and in his “Explanations of the Fables
of Antiquity,” with indefatigable labour and research, culled from the
works of ancient authors, all such information as he considered likely
to throw any light upon the Mythology and history of Greece and Rome.

This course has been adopted, because it was considered that a statement
of the opinions of contemporary authors would be the most likely to
enable the reader to form his own ideas upon the various subjects
presented to his notice. Indeed, except in two or three instances, space
has been found too limited to allow of more than an occasional reference
to the opinions of modern scholars. Such being the object of the
explanations, the reader will not be surprised at the absence of
critical and lengthened discussions on many of those moot points of
Mythology and early history which have occupied, with no very positive
result, the attention of Niebuhr, Lobeck, Müller, Buttmann, and many
other scholars of profound learning.

A SYNOPTICAL VIEW

OF THE

PRINCIPAL TRANSFORMATIONS MENTIONED IN

THE METAMORPHOSES.

BOOK VIII.

In the mean time Minos besieges Megara. Scylla, becoming enamoured of
him, betrays her country, the safety of which depends upon the purple
lock of her father Nisu. Being afterwards rejected by Minos, she clings
to his ship, and is changed into a bird, while her father becomes a sea
eagle. Minos returns to Crete, and having erected the Labyrinth with the
assistance of Dædalus, he there encloses the Minotaur, the disgrace of
his family, and feeds it with his Athenian captives. Theseus being one
of these, slays the monster: and having escaped from the Labyrinth by
the aid of Ariadne, he takes her with him, but deserts her in the isle
of Dia, where Bacchus meets with her, and places her crown among the
Constellations. Dædalus being unable to escape from the island of Crete,
invents wings and flies away; while Icarus, accompanying his father, is
drowned. The partridge beholds the father celebrating his funeral rites,
and testifies his joy: Perdix, or Talus, who had been envied by Minos
for his ingenuity, and had been thrown by him from the temple of
Minerva, having been transformed into that bird. Theseus, having now
become celebrated, is invited to the chase of the Calydonian boar, which
Atalanta is the first to wound. Meleager slays the monster; and his
death is accelerated by his mother Althæa, who places in the fire the
fatal billet. Returning from the expedition, Theseus comes to Acheloüs,
and sees the islands called the Echinades, into which the Naiads have
been transformed. Pirithoüs denies the possibility of this; but Lelex
quotes, as an example, the case of Baucis and Philemon, who were changed
into trees, while their house became a temple, and the neighbouring
country a pool of water. Acheloüs then tells the story of the
transformations of Proteus and of Metra, and how Metra supported her
father Erisicthon, while afflicted with violent hunger.

BOOK IX.

Acheloüs then relates his own transformations, when he was contending
with Hercules for the hand of Deïanira. Hercules wins her, and Nessus
attempts to carry her off: on which Hercules pierces him with one of his
arrows that has been dipped in the blood of the Hydra. In revenge,
Nessus, as he is dying, gives to Deïanira his garment stained with his
blood. She, distrusting her husband’s affection, sends him the garment;
he puts it on, and his vitals are consumed by the venom. As he is dying,
he hurls his attendant Lychas into the sea, where he becomes a rock.
Hercules is conveyed to heaven, and is enrolled in the number of the
Deities. Alcmena, his mother, goes to her daughter-in-law Iole, and
tells her how Galanthis was changed into a weasel; while she, in her
turn, tells the story of the transformation of her sister Dryope into
the lotus. In the meantime Iolaüs comes, whose youth has been restored
by Hebe. Jupiter shows, by the example of his sons Æacus and Minos, that
all are not so blessed. Miletus, flying from Minos, arrives in Asia, and
becomes the father of Byblis and Caunus. Byblis falls in love with her
brother, and is transformed into a fountain. This would have appeared
more surprising to all, if Iphis had not a short time before, on the day
of her nuptials, been changed into a man.

BOOK X.

Hymenæus attends these nuptials, and then goes to those of Orpheus; but
with a bad omen, as Eurydice dies soon after, and cannot be brought to
life. In his sorrow, Orpheus repairs to the solitudes of the mountains,
where the trees flock around him at the sound of his lyre; and, among
others, the pine, into which Atys has been changed; and the cypress,
produced from the transformation of Cyparissus. Orpheus sings of the
rape of Ganymede; of the change of Hyacinthus, who was beloved and slain
by Apollo, into a flower; of the transformation of the Cerastæ into
bulls; of the Propœtides, who were changed into stones; and of the
statue of Pygmalion, which was changed into a living woman, who became
the mother of Paphos. He then sings, how Myrrha, for her incestuous
intercourse with her father, was changed into the myrrh tree; and how
Adonis (to whom Venus relates the transformation of Hippomenes and
Atalanta into lions) was transformed into an anemone.

BOOK XI.

Orpheus is torn to pieces by the Thracian women; on which, a serpent,
which attacks his face, is changed into stone. The women are transformed
into trees by Bacchus, who deserts Thrace, and betakes himself to
Phrygia; where Midas, for his care of Silenus, receives the power of
making gold. He loathes this gift; and bathing in the river Pactolus,
its sands become golden. For his stupidity, his ears are changed by
Apollo into those of an ass. After this, that God goes to Troy, and aids
Laomedon in building its walls. Hercules rescues his daughter Hesione,
when fastened to a rock, and his companion Telamon receives her as his
wife; while his brother Peleus marries the sea Goddess, Thetis. Going to
visit Ceyx, he learns how Dædalion has been changed into a hawk, and
sees a wolf changed into a rock. Ceyx goes to consult the oracle of
Claros, and perishes by shipwreck. On this, Morpheus appears to
Halcyone, in the form of her husband, and she is changed into a
kingfisher; into which bird Ceyx is also transformed. Persons who
observe them, as they fly, call to mind how Æsacus, the son of Priam,
was changed into a sea bird, called the didapper.

BOOK XII.

Priam performs the obsequies for Æsacus, believing him to be dead. The
children of Priam attend, with the exception of Paris, who, having gone
to Greece, carries off Helen, the wife of Menelaüs. The Greeks pursue
Paris, but are detained at Aulis, where they see a serpent changed into
stone, and prepare to sacrifice Iphigenia to Diana; but a hind is
substituted for her. The Trojans hearing of the approach of the Greeks,
in arms await their arrival. At the first onset, Cygnus, dashed by
Achilles against a stone, is changed by Neptune into the swan, a bird of
the same name, he having been vulnerable by no weapon. At the banquet of
the chiefs, Nestor calls to mind Cæneus, who was also invulnerable; and
who having been changed from a woman into a man, on being buried under a
heap of trees, was transformed into a bird. This Cæneus was one of the
Lapithæ, at the battle of whom with the Centaurs, Nestor was present.
Nestor also tells how his brother, Periclymenus, was changed into an
eagle. Meanwhile, Neptune laments the death of Cygnus, and entreats
Apollo to direct the arrow of Paris against the heel of Achilles, which
is done, and that hero is slain.

BOOK XIII.

Ajax Telamon and Ulysses contend for the arms of Achilles. Ihe former
slays himself, on which a hyacinth springs up from his blood. Troy being
taken, Hecuba is carried to Thrace, where she tears out the eyes of
Polymnestor, and is afterwards changed into a bitch. While the Gods
deplore her misfortunes, Aurora is occupied with grief for the death of
her son Memnon, from whose ashes the birds called Memnonides arise.
Æneas flying from Troy, visits Anius, whose daughters have been changed
into doves; and after touching at other places, remarkable for various
transformations, he arrives in Sicily, where is the maiden Scylla, to
whom Galatea relates how Polyphemus courted her, and how he slew Acis.
On this, Glaucus, who has been changed into a sea Deity, makes his
appearance.

BOOK XIV.

Circe changes Scylla into a monster. Æneas arrives in Africa, and is
entertained by Dido. Passing by the islands called Pithecusæ, where the
Cecropes have been transformed from men into apes, he comes to Italy;
and landing near the spot which he calls Caicta, he learns from Macareus
many particulars respecting Ulysses and the incantations of Circe, and
how king Picus was changed into a woodpecker. He afterwards wages war
with Turnus. Through Venulus, Turnus asks assistance of Diomedes, whose
companions have been transformed into birds, and he is refused. Venulus,
as he returns, sees the spot where an Apulian shepherd had been changed
into an olive tree. The ships of Æneas, when on fire, become sea Nymphs,
just as a heron formerly arose from the flames of the city of Ardea.
Æneas is now made a Deity. Other kings succeed him, and in the time of
Procas Pomona lives. She is beloved by Vertumnus, who first assumes the
form of an old woman; and having told the story of Anaxarete, who was
changed into a stone for her cruelty, he reassumes the shape of a youth,
and prevails upon the Goddess. Cold waters, by the aid of the Naiads
become warm. Romulus having succeeded Numitor, he is made a Deity under
the name of Quirinus, while his wife Hersilia becomes the Goddess Hora.

BOOK XV.

Numa succeeds; who, on making inquiry respecting the origin of the city
of Crotona, learns how black pebbles were changed into white; he also
attends the lectures of Pythagoras, on the changes which all matter is
eternally undergoing. Egeria laments the death of Numa, and will not
listen to the consolations of Hippolytus, who tells her of his own
transformation, and she pines away into a fountain. This is not less
wonderful, than how Tages sprang from a clod of earth; or how the lance
of Romulus became a tree; or how Cippus became decked with horns. The
Poet concludes by passing to recent events; and after shewing how
Æsculapius was first worshipped by the Romans, in the sacred isle of the
Tiber, he relates the Deification of Julius Cæsar and his change into a
Star; and foretells imperishable fame for himself.

FABLE I. [VIII.1-151]

  Minos commences the war with the siege of Megara. The preservation
  of the city depends on a lock of the hair of its king, Nisus. His
  daughter, Scylla, falling in love with Minos, cuts off the fatal
  lock, and gives it to him. Minos makes himself master of the place;
  and, abhorring Scylla and the crime she has been guilty of, he takes
  his departure. In despair, she throws herself into the sea, and
  follows his fleet. Nisus, being transformed into a sea eagle,
  attacks her in revenge, and she is changed into a bird called Ciris.

Now, Lucifer unveiling the day and dispelling the season of night, the
East wind[1] fell, and the moist vapours arose. The favourable South
winds gave a passage to the sons of Æacus,[2] and Cephalus returning;
with which, being prosperously impelled, they made the port they were
bound for, before it was expected.

In the meantime Minos is laying waste the Lelegeian coasts,[3] and
previously tries the strength of his arms against the city Alcathoë,
which Nisus had; among whose honoured hoary hairs a lock, distinguished
by its purple colour, descended from the middle of his crown, the
safeguard of his powerful kingdom. The sixth horns of the rising Phœbe
were {now} growing again, and the fortune of the war was still in
suspense, and for a long time did victory hover between them both with
uncertain wings. There was a regal tower built with vocal walls, on
which the son of Latona[4] is reported to have laid his golden harp;
{and} its sound adhered to the stone. The daughter of Nisus was wont
often to go up thither, and to strike the resounding stones with a
little pebble, when it was a time of peace. She used, likewise, often to
view the fight, and the contests of the hardy warfare, from that tower.
And now, by the continuance of the hostilities, she had become
acquainted with both the names of the chiefs, their arms, their horses,
their dresses, and the Cydonean[5] quivers.

Before the rest, she had observed the face of the chieftain, the son of
Europa; even better than was enough for merely knowing him. In her
opinion, Minos, whether it was that he had enclosed his head in a helm
crested with feathers, was beauteous in a helmet; or whether he had
taken up a shield shining with gold, it became him to assume that
shield. Drawing his arm back, did he hurl the slender javelin; the
maiden commended his skill, joined with strength. Did he bend the wide
bow with the arrow laid upon it; she used to swear that thus Phœbus
stood, when assuming his arrows. But when he exposed his face, by taking
off the brazen {helmet}, and, arrayed in purple, pressed the back of a
white horse, beauteous with embroidered housings, and guided his foaming
mouth; the virgin daughter of Nisus was hardly mistress of herself,
hardly able to control a sound mind. She used to call the javelin happy
which he touched, and the reins happy which he was pressing with his
hand. She had an impulse (were it only possible) to direct her virgin
footsteps through the hostile ranks; she had an impulse to cast her body
from the top of the towers into the Gnossian camp, or to open the gates,
strengthened with brass, to the enemy; or, {indeed}, anything else, if
Minos should wish it. And as she was sitting, looking at the white tents
of the Dictæan king, she said, “I am in doubt whether I should rejoice,
or whether I should grieve, that this mournful war is carried on.
I grieve that Minos is the enemy of the person who loves him; but unless
there had been a war, would he have been known to me? yet, taking me for
a hostage, he might cease the war, and have me for his companion, me as
a pledge of peace. If, most beauteous of beings, she who bore thee, was
such as thou art thyself, with reason was the God {Jupiter} inflamed
with {love for} her. Oh! thrice happy were I, if, moving upon wings
through the air, I could light upon the camp of the Gnossian king, and,
owning myself and my flame, could ask him with what dowry he could wish
to be purchased; provided only, that he did not ask the city of my
father. For, perish rather the desired alliance, than that I should
prevail by treason; although the clemency of a merciful conqueror has
often made it of advantage to many, to be conquered. He certainly
carries on a just war for his slain son,[6] and is strong both in his
cause, and in the arms that defend his cause.

“We shall be conquered, as I suppose. If this fate awaits this city, why
should his own arms, and not my love, open the walls to him? It will be
better for him to conquer without slaughter and delay, and the expense
of his own blood. How much, indeed, do I dread, Minos, lest any one
should unknowingly wound thy breast! for who is so hardened as to dare,
unless unknowingly, to direct his cruel lance against thee? The design
pleases me; and my determination is to deliver up my country as a dowry,
together with myself, and {so} to put an end to the war. But to be
willing, is too little; a guard watches the approaches, and my father
keeps the keys of the gates. Him alone, in my wretchedness, do I dread;
he alone obstructs my desires. Would that the Gods would grant I might
be without a father! Every one, indeed, is a God to himself. Fortune is
an enemy to idle prayers. Another woman, inflamed with a passion so
great, would long since have taken a pleasure in destroying whatever
stood in the way of her love. And why should any one be bolder than
myself? I could dare to go through flames, {and} amid swords. But in
this case there is no occasion for any flames or {any} swords; I {only}
want the lock of my father. That purple lock is more precious to me than
gold; it will make me happy, and mistress of my own wish.”

As she is saying such things, the night draws on, the greatest nurse of
cares, and with the darkness her boldness increases. The first slumbers
are now come, in which sleep takes possession of the breast wearied with
the cares of the day. She silently enters the chamber of her father, and
({O abominable} crime!) the daughter despoils the father of his fatal
lock, and having got the prize of crime, carries with her the spoil of
her impiety; and issuing forth by the gate, she goes through the midst
of the enemy, (so great is her confidence in her deserts) to the king,
whom, in astonishment, she thus addresses: “’Twas love that urged the
deed. I {am} Scylla, the royal issue of Nisus; to thee do I deliver the
fortunes of my country and my own, {as well}; I ask for no reward, but
thyself. Take this purple lock, as a pledge of my love; and do not
consider that I am delivering to thee a lock of hair, but the life of my
father.” And {then}, in her right hand, she holds forth the infamous
present. Minos refuses it, {thus} held out; and shocked at the thought
of so unheard of a crime, he says, “May the Gods, O thou reproach of our
age, banish thee from their universe; and may both earth and sea be
denied to thee. At least, I will not allow so great a monster to come
into Crete, the birth-place of Jupiter, which is my realm.” He {thus}
spoke;[7] and when, {like} a most just lawgiver, he had imposed
conditions on the vanquished, he ordered the halsers of the fleet to be
loosened, and the brazen {beaked} ships to be impelled with the oars.
Scylla, when she beheld the launched ships sailing on the main, and
{saw} that the prince did not give her the {expected} reward of her
wickedness, having spent {all} her entreaties, fell into a violent rage,
and holding up her hands, with her hair dishevelled, in her frenzy she
exclaimed,

“Whither dost thou fly, the origin of thy achievements {thus} left
behind, O thou preferred before my country, preferred before my father?
Whither dost thou fly, barbarous {man}? whose victory is both my crime
and my merit. Has neither the gift presented to thee, nor yet my
passion, moved thee? nor yet {the fact} that all my hopes were centred
in thee alone? For whither shall I return, forsaken {by thee}? To my
country? Subdued, it is ruined. But suppose it were {still} safe; by my
treachery, it is shut against me. To the face of my father, that I have
placed in thy power. My fellow-citizens hate me deservedly; the
neighbours dread my example. I have closed the whole world against me,
that Crete alone might be open {to me}. And dost thou thus forbid me
that as well? Is it thus, ungrateful one, that thou dost desert me?
Europa was not thy mother, but the inhospitable Syrtis,[8] or
Armenian[9] tigresses, or Charybdis disturbed by the South wind. Nor
wast thou the son of Jupiter; nor was thy mother beguiled by the
{assumed} form of a bull. That story of thy birth is false. He was both
a fierce bull, and one charmed with the love of no heifer, that begot
thee. Nisus, my father, take vengeance upon me. Thou city so lately
betrayed, rejoice at my misfortunes; for I have deserved them,
I confess, and I am worthy to perish. Yet let some one of those, whom I
have impiously ruined, destroy me. Why dost thou, who hast conquered by
means of my crime, chastise that crime? This, which was treason to my
country and to my father, was an act of kindness to thee. She is truly
worthy[10] of thee for a husband, who, adulterously {enclosed} in wood,
deceived the fierce-looking bull, and bore in her womb an offspring of
shape dissimilar {to herself}. And do my complaints reach thy ears?
Or do the same winds bear away my fruitless words, and thy ships,
ungrateful man? Now, {ah!} now, it is not to be wondered at that
Pasiphaë preferred the bull to thee; thou didst have the more savage
nature {of the two}. Wretch that I am! He joys in speeding onward, and
the waves resound, cleaved by his oars. Together with myself, alas!
my {native} land recedes from him. Nothing dost thou avail; oh thou!
forgetful to no purpose of my deserts. In spite of thee, will I follow
thee, and grasping thy crooked stern, I will be dragged through the long
seas.”

Scarce has she said {this, when} she leaps into the waves, and follows
the ships, Cupid giving her strength, and she hangs, an unwelcome
companion, to the Gnossian ship. When her father beholds her, (for now
he is hovering in the air, and he has lately been made a sea eagle, with
tawny wings), he is going to tear her in pieces with his crooked beak.
Through fear she quits the stern; but the light air seems to support her
as she is falling, that she may not touch the sea. It is feathers {that
support her}. With feathers, being changed into a bird, she is called
Ciris;[11] and this name does she obtain from cutting off the lock.

    〔note 1 — The East wind.--Ver. 2. Eurus, or the East wind, while blowing, would prevent the return of Cephalus from the island of Ægina to Athens.〕

    〔note 2 — The sons of Æacus.--Ver. 4. ‘Æacidis’ may mean either the forces sent by Æacus, or his sons Telamon and Peleus, in command of those troops. It has been well observed, that ‘redeuntibus,’ ‘returning,’ is here somewhat improperly applied to the troops of Æacus, for they were not, strictly speaking, returning to Athens although Cephalus was.〕

    〔note 3 — Lelegeian coasts.--Ver. 6. Of Megara, which is also called Alcathoë, from Alcathoüs, its restorer.〕

    〔note 4 — Of Latona.--Ver. 15. The story was, that when Alcathoüs was rebuilding the walls of Megara, Apollo assisted him, and laying down his lyre among the stones, its tones were communicated to them.〕

    〔note 5 — Cydonean.--Ver 22. From Cydon, a city of Crete.〕

    〔note 6 — His slain son.--Ver. 58. Namely, his son Androgeus, who had been put to death, as already mentioned.〕

    〔note 7 — He thus spoke.--Ver. 101. The poet omits the continuation of the siege by Minos, and how he took Megara by storm, as not pertaining to the developement of his story.〕

    〔note 8 — Inhospitable Syrtis.--Ver. 120. There were two famous quicksands, or ‘Syrtes,’ in the Mediterranean Sea, near the coast of Africa; the former near Cyrene, and the latter near Byzacium, which were known by the name of ‘Syrtis Major’ and ‘Syrtis Minor.’ The inhabitants of the neighbouring coasts were savage and inhospitable, and subsisted by plundering the shipwrecked vessels.〕

    〔note 9 — Armenian.--Ver. 121. Armenia was a country of Asia, lying between Mount Taurus and the Caucasian chain, and extending from Cappadocia to the Caspian Sea. It was divided into the greater and the less Armenia, the one to the East, the other to the West. Its tigers were noted for their extreme fierceness.〕

    〔note 10 — She is truly worthy.--Ver. 131. Pasiphaë, who was the mother of the Minotaur.〕

    〔note 11 — She is called Ciris.--Ver. 151. From the Greek word κείρω, ‘to clip,’ or ‘cut.’ According to Virgil, who, in his Ciris, describes this transformation, this bird was of variegated colours, with a purple breast, and legs of a reddish hue, and lived a solitary life in retired spots. It is uncertain what kind of bird it was; some think it was a hawk, some a lark, and others a partridge. It has been suggested that Ovid did not enter into the details of this transformation, because it had been so recently depicted in beautiful language by Virgil. Hyginus says that the ‘Ciris’ was a fish.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Minos, having raised an army and received auxiliary troops from his
  allies, made war upon the Athenians, to revenge the death of his
  son, Androgeus. Having conquered Nisea, he laid siege to Megara,
  which was betrayed by the perfidy of Scylla, the daughter of its
  king, Nisus. Pausanias and other historians say that the story here
  related by the Poet is based on fact; and that Scylla held a secret
  correspondence with Minos during the siege of Megara, and, at
  length, introduced him into the town, by opening the gates to him
  with the keys which she had stolen from her father, while he was
  asleep. This is probably alluded to under the allegorical
  description of the fatal lock of hair, though why it should be
  depicted in that form especially, it is difficult to guess. The
  change of Scylla into a lark, or partridge, and of her father into a
  sea eagle, are poetical fictions based on the equivocal meanings of
  their names, the one Greek and the other Hebrew; for the name
  ‘Ciris’ resembles the Greek verb κείρω, which signifies ‘to clip,’
  or ‘cut short.’ ‘Nisus,’ too, resembles the Hebrew word ‘Netz,’
  which means a bird resembling the osprey, or sea eagle. Apollodorus
  says, that Minos ordered Scylla to be thrown into the sea; and
  Zenodotus, that he caused her to be hanged at the mainmast of his
  ship.

FABLE II. [VIII.152-182]

  Minos, having overcome the Athenians, obliges them to pay a tribute
  of youths and virgins of the best families, to be exposed to the
  Minotaur. The lot falls on Theseus, who, by the assistance of
  Ariadne, kills the monster, escapes from the labyrinth, which
  Dædalus made, and carries Ariadne to the island of Naxos, where he
  abandons her. Bacchus wooes her, and, to immortalize her name, he
  transforms the crown which he has given her into a Constellation.

Minos paid, as a vow to Jupiter, the bodies of a hundred bulls, as soon
as, disembarking from his ships, he reached the land of the Curetes; and
his palace was decorated with the spoils there hung up. The reproach of
his family had {now} grown up, and the shameful adultery of his mother
was notorious, from the unnatural shape of the two-formed monster. Minos
resolves to remove the disgrace from his abode, and to enclose it in a
habitation of many divisions, and an abode full of mazes. Dædalus, a man
very famed for his skill in architecture, plans the work, and confounds
the marks {of distinction}, and leads the eyes into mazy wanderings, by
the intricacy of its various passages. No otherwise than as the limpid
Mæander sports in the Phrygian fields, and flows backwards and forwards
with its varying course, and, meeting itself, beholds its waters that
are to follow, and fatigues its wandering current, now {pointing} to its
source, and now to the open sea. Just so, Dædalus fills innumerable
paths with windings; and scarcely can he himself return to the entrance,
so great are the intricacies of the place. After he has shut up here the
double figure of a bull and of a youth;[12] and the third supply, chosen
by lot each nine years, has subdued the monster twice {before} gorged
with Athenian blood; and when the difficult entrance, retraced by none
of those {who have entered it} before, has been found by the aid of the
maiden, by means of the thread gathered up again; immediately, the son
of Ægeus, carrying away the daughter of Minos, sets sail for Dia,[13]
and barbarously deserts his companion on those shores.

Her, {thus} deserted and greatly lamenting, Liber embraces and aids;
and, that she may be famed by a lasting Constellation, he places in the
heavens the crown taken from off her head. It flies through the yielding
air, and, as it flies, its jewels are suddenly changed into fires, and
they settle in their places, the shape of the crown {still} remaining;
which is in the middle,[14] between {the Constellation} resting on his
knee,[15] and that which holds the serpents.

    〔note 12 — Of a youth.--Ver. 169. Clarke translates this line, ‘In which, after he had shut the double figure of a bull and a young fellow.’〕

    〔note 13 — Sets sail for Dia.--Ver. 174. Dia was another name of the island of Naxos, one of the Cyclades, where Theseus left Ariadne. Commentators have complained, with some justice, that Ovid has here omitted the story of Ariadne; but it should be remembered that he has given it at length in the third book of the Fasti, commencing at line 460.〕

    〔note 14 — In the middle.--Ver. 182. The crown of Ariadne was made a Constellation between those of Hercules and Ophiuchus. Some writers say, that the crown was given by Bacchus to Ariadne as a marriage present; while others state that it was made by Vulcan of gold and Indian jewels, by the light of which Theseus was aided in his escape from the labyrinth, and that he afterwards presented it to Ariadne. Some authors, and Ovid himself, in the Fasti, represent Ariadne herself as becoming a Constellation.〕

    〔note 15 — Resting on his knee.--Ver. 182. Hercules, as a Constellation, is represented in the attitude of kneeling, when about to slay the dragon that watched the gardens of the Hesperides.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Oppressed with famine, and seeing the enemy at their gates, the
  Athenians went to consult the oracle at Delphi; and were answered,
  that to be delivered from their calamities, they must give
  satisfaction to Minos. They immediately sent ambassadors to him,
  humbly suing for peace, which he granted them, on condition that
  each year, according to Apollodorus and Diodorus Siculus, or every
  nine years, according to Plutarch and Ovid, they should send him
  seven young men and as many virgins. The severity of these
  conditions provoked the Athenians to render Minos as odious as
  possible; whereupon, they promulgated the story, that he destined
  the youths that were sent to him, to fight in the Labyrinth against
  the Minotaur, which was the fruit of an intrigue of his wife
  Pasiphaë with a white bull which Neptune had sent out of the sea.
  They added, that Dædalus favoured this extraordinary passion of the
  queen; and that Venus inspired Pasiphaë with it, to be revenged for
  having been surprised with Mars by Apollo, her father. Plato,
  Plutarch, and other writers acknowledge that these stories were
  invented from the hatred which the Greeks bore to the king of Crete.

  As, however, these extravagant fables have generally some foundation
  in fact, we are informed by Servius, Tzetzes, and Zenobius, that,
  in the absence of Minos, Pasiphaë fell in love with a young noble of
  the Cretan court, named Taurus, who, according to Plutarch, was the
  commander of the fleet of Minos; that Dædalus, their confidant,
  allowed their assignations to take place in his house, and that the
  queen was afterwards delivered of twins, of which the one resembled
  Minos, and the other Taurus. This, according to those authors, was
  the foundation of the story as to the fate for which the young
  Athenians were said to be destined. Philochorus, quoted by Plutarch,
  says that Minos instituted funeral games in honour of his son
  Androgeus, and that those who were vanquished became the slaves of
  the conquerors. That author adds, that Taurus was the first who won
  all the prizes in these games, and that he used the unfortunate
  Athenians, who became his slaves, with great barbarity. Aristotle
  tells us that the tribute was paid three times by the Athenians, and
  that the lives of the captives were spent in the most dreadful
  servitude.

  Dædalus, on returning into Crete, built a labyrinth there, in which,
  very probably, these games were celebrated. Palæphatus, however,
  says that Theseus fought in a cavern, where the son of Taurus had
  been confined. Plutarch and Catullus say, that Theseus voluntarily
  offered to go to Crete with the other Athenians, while Diodorus
  Siculus says that the lot fell on him to be of the number. His
  delivery by Ariadne, through her giving him the thread, is probably
  a poetical method of informing us that she gave her lover the plan
  of the labyrinth where he was confined, that he might know its
  windings and the passage out. Eustathius, indeed, says, that Ariadne
  received a thread from Dædalus; but he must mean a plan of the
  labyrinth, which he himself had designed. The story of Ariadne’s
  intercourse with Bacchus is most probably founded on the fact, that
  on arriving at the Isle of Naxos, when she was deserted by Theseus,
  she became the wife of a priest of Bacchus.

FABLE III. [VIII.183-259]

  Dædalus, weary of his exile, finds means, by making himself wings,
  to escape out of Crete. His son Icarus, forgetting the advice of his
  father, and flying too high, the Sun melts his wings, and he
  perishes in the sea, which afterwards bore his name. The sister of
  Dædalus commits her son Perdix to his care, for the purpose of being
  educated. Dædalus, being jealous of the talent of his nephew, throws
  him from a tower, with the intention of killing him; but Minerva
  supports him in his fall, and transforms him into a partridge.

In the meantime, Dædalus, abhorring Crete and his prolonged exile,[16]
and inflamed by the love of his native soil, was enclosed {there} by the
sea. “Although Minos,” said he, “may beset the land and the sea, still
the skies, at least, are open. By that way will we go: let Minos possess
everything {besides}: he does not sway the air.” {Thus} he spoke; and he
turned his thoughts to arts unknown {till then}; and varied {the course}
{of} nature. For he arranges feathers in order, beginning from the
least, the shorter one succeeding the longer; so that you might suppose
they grew on an incline. Thus does the rustic pipe sometimes rise by
degrees, with unequal straws. Then he binds those in the middle with
thread, and the lowermost ones with wax; and, thus ranged, with a gentle
curvature, he bends them, so as to imitate real {wings of} birds. His
son Icarus stands together with him; and, ignorant that he is handling
{the source of} danger to himself, with a smiling countenance, he
sometimes catches at the feathers which the shifting breeze is ruffling;
and, at other times, he softens the yellow wax with his thumb; and, by
his playfulness, he retards the wondrous work of his father.

After the finishing hand was put to the work, the workman himself poised
his own body upon the two wings, and hung suspended in the beaten air.
He provided his son {with them} as well; and said to him, “Icarus,
I recommend thee to keep the middle tract; lest, if thou shouldst go too
low, the water should clog thy wings; if too high, the fire {of the sun}
should scorch them. Fly between both; and I bid thee neither to look at
Boötes, nor Helice,[17] nor the drawn sword of Orion. Under my guidance,
take thy way.” At the same time, he delivered him rules for flying, and
fitted the untried wings to his shoulders. Amid his work and his
admonitions, the cheeks of the old man were wet, and the hands of the
father trembled. He gives kisses to his son, never again to be repeated;
and, raised upon his wings, he flies before, and is concerned for his
companion, just as the bird which has led forth her tender young from
the lofty nest into the air. And he encourages him to follow, and
instructs him in the fatal art, and both moves his own wings himself,
and looks back on those of his son. A person while he is angling for
fish with his quivering rod, or the shepherd leaning on his crook, or
the ploughman on the plough tail, when he beholds them, is astonished,
and believes them to be Divinities, who thus can cleave the air. And now
Samos,[18] sacred to Juno, and Delos, and Paros, were left behind to the
left hand. On the right were Lebynthus,[19] and Calymne,[20] fruitful in
honey; when the boy began to be pleased with a bolder flight, and
forsook his guide; and, touched with a desire of reaching heaven,
pursued his course still higher. The vicinity of the scorching Sun
softened the fragrant wax that fastened his wings. The wax was melted;
he shook his naked arms, and, wanting his oar-like wings, he caught no
{more} air. His face, too, as he called on the name of his father, was
received in the azure water, which received its name[21] from him.

But the unhappy father, now no more a father, said, “Icarus, where art
thou? In what spot shall I seek thee, Icarus?” did he say; {when} he
beheld his wings in the waters, and {then} he cursed his own arts; and
he buried his body in a tomb, and the land was called from the name of
him buried there. As he was laying the body of his unfortunate son in
the tomb, a prattling partridge beheld him from a branching
holm-oak,[22] and, by its notes, testified its delight. ’Twas then but a
single bird {of its kind}, and never seen in former years, and, lately
made a bird, was a grievous reproof, Dædalus, to thee. For, ignorant {of
the decrees} of fate, his sister had entrusted her son to be instructed
by him, a boy who had passed twice six birthdays, with a mind eager for
instruction. ’Twas he, too, who took the backbones observed in the
middle of the fish, for an example, and cut {a} continued {row of} teeth
in iron, with a sharp edge, and {thus} discovered the use of the saw.

He was the first, too, that bound two arms of iron to one centre, that,
being divided {and} of equal length, the one part might stand fixed,
{and} the other might describe a circle. Dædalus was envious, and threw
him headlong from the sacred citadel of Minerva, falsely pretending that
he had fallen {by accident}. But Pallas, who favours ingenuity, received
him, and made him a bird; and, in the middle of the air, he flew upon
wings. Yet the vigour of his genius, once so active, passed into his
wings and into his feet; his name, too, remained the same as before. Yet
this bird does not raise its body aloft, nor make its nest in the
branches and the lofty tops {of trees, but} flies near the ground, and
lays its eggs in hedges: and, mindful of its former fall, it dreads the
higher regions.

    〔note 16 — His prolonged exile.--Ver. 184. Dædalus had been exiled for murdering one of his scholars in a fit of jealousy; probably Perdix, his nephew, whose story is related by Ovid.〕

    〔note 17 — Helice.--Ver. 207. This was another name of the Constellation called the Greater Bear, into which Calisto had been changed.〕

    〔note 18 — Samos.--Ver. 220. This island, off the coast of Caria in Asia Minor, was famous as the birth-place of Juno, and the spot where she was married to Jupiter. She had a famous temple there.〕

    〔note 19 — Lebynthus.--Ver. 222. This island was one of the Cyclades, or, according to some writers, one of the Sporades, a group that lay between the Cyclades and Crete.〕

    〔note 20 — Calymne.--Ver. 222. This island was near Rhodes. Its honey is praised by Strabo.〕

    〔note 21 — Received its name.--Ver. 230. The island of Samos being near the spot where he fell, received the name of Icaria.〕

    〔note 22 — Branching holm oak.--Ver. 237. Ovid here forgot that partridges do not perch in trees; a fact, which, however, he himself remarks in line 257.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Dædalus was a talented Athenian, of the family of Erechtheus; and he
  was particularly famed for his skill in statuary and architecture.
  He became jealous of the talents of his nephew, Talos, whom Ovid
  here calls Perdix; and, envying his inventions of the saw, the
  compasses, and the art of turning, he killed him privately. Flying
  to Crete, he was favourably received by Minos, who was then at war
  with the Athenians. He there built the Labyrinth, as Pliny the Elder
  asserts, after the plan of that in Egypt, which is described by
  Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo. Philochorus, however, as
  quoted by Plutarch, says that it did not resemble the Labyrinth of
  Egypt, and that it was only a prison in which criminals were
  confined.

  Minos, being informed that Dædalus had assisted Pasiphaë in carrying
  out her criminal designs, kept him in prison; but escaping thence,
  by the aid of Pasiphaë, he embarked in a ship which she had prepared
  for him. Using sails, which till then, according to Pausanias and
  Palæphatus, were unknown, he escaped from the galleys of Minos,
  which were provided with oars only. Icarus, either fell into the
  sea, or, overpowered with the fatigues of the voyage, died near an
  island in the Archipelago, which afterwards received his name. These
  facts have been disguised by the poets under the ingenious fiction
  of the wings, and the neglect of Icarus to follow his father’s
  advice, as here related.

FABLE IV. [VIII.260-546]

  Diana, offended at the neglect of Œneus, king of Calydon, when
  performing his vows to the Gods, sends a wild boar to ravage his
  dominions; on which Œneus assembled the princes of the country for
  its pursuit. His son Meleager leads the chase, and, having killed
  the monster, presents its head to his mistress, Atalanta, the
  daughter of the king of Arcadia. He afterwards kills his two uncles,
  Plexippus and Toxeus, who would deprive her of this badge of his
  victory. Their sister Althæa, the mother of Meleager, filled with
  grief at their death, loads her son with execrations; and,
  remembering the torch which she received from the Fates at his
  birth, and on which the preservation of his life depends, she throws
  it into the fire. As soon as it is consumed, Meleager expires in the
  greatest torments. His sisters mourn over his body, until Diana
  changes them into birds.

And now the Ætnæan land received Dædalus in his fatigue; and
Cocalus,[23] taking up arms for him as he entreated, was commended for
his kindness. {And} now Athens has ceased to pay her mournful tribute,
through the exploits of Theseus. The temples are decked with garlands,
and they invoke warlike Minerva, with Jupiter and the other Gods, whom
they adore with the blood {of victims} vowed, and with presents offered,
and censers[24] of frankincense. Wandering Fame had spread the renown of
Theseus throughout the Argive cities, and the nations which rich Achaia
contained, implored his aid amid great dangers. Calydon, {too}, although
it had Meleager,[25] suppliantly addressed him with anxious entreaties.
The occasion of asking {aid} was a boar, the servant and the avenger of
Diana in her wrath.

For they say that Œneus, for the blessings of a plenteous year, had
offered the first fruits of the corn to Ceres, to Bacchus his wine, and
the Palladian juice[26] {of olives} to the yellow-haired Minerva. These
invidious honours commencing with the rural {Deities}, were continued to
all the Gods above; they say that the altars of the daughter of Latona,
who was omitted, were alone left without frankincense. Wrath affects
even the Deities. “But {this},” says she, “I will not tamely put up
with; and I, who am thus dishonoured, will not be said to be unrevenged
{as well}:” and she sends a boar as an avenger throughout the lands of
Œneus, than which not even does verdant Epirus[27] possess bulls of
greater size; even the fields of Sicily have them of less magnitude. His
eyes shine with blood and flames, his rough neck is stiff; bristles,
too,[28] stand up, like spikes, thickly set; like palisades[29] do those
bristles project, just like high spikes. Boiling foam, with a harsh
noise, flows down his broad shoulders; his tusks rival the tusks of
India. Thunders issue from his mouth; the foliage is burnt up with the
blast. One while he tramples down the corn in the growing blade, and
crops the expectations of the husbandman, doomed to lament, as yet
unripe, and he intercepts the corn in the ear. In vain does the
threshing floor, and in vain do the barns await the promised harvest.
The heavy grapes, with the long branches of the vine, are scattered
about, and the berries with the boughs of the ever-green olive. He vents
his fury, too, upon the flocks. These, neither dogs nor shepherds {can
protect}; not {even} the fierce bulls are able to defend the herds. The
people fly in all directions, and do not consider themselves safe, but
in the walls of a city, until Meleager, and, together {with him},
a choice body of youths, unite from a desire for fame.

The two sons of Tyndarus,[30] the one famous for boxing, the other for
his skill in horsemanship; Jason, too, the builder of the first ship,
and Theseus, with Pirithoüs,[31] happy unison, and the two sons of
Thestius,[32] and Lynceus,[33] the son of Aphareus, and the swift Idas,
and Cæneus,[34] now no longer a woman; and the valiant Leucippus,[35]
and Acastus,[36] famous for the dart, and Hippothoüs,[37] and Dryas,[38]
and Phœnix,[39] the son of Amyntor, and the two sons of Actor,[40] and
Phyleus,[41] sent from Elis, {are there}. Nor is Telamon[42] absent; the
father, too, of the great Achilles;[43] and with the son of Pheres,[44]
and the Hyantian Iolaüs,[45] the active Eurytion,[46] and Echion,[47]
invincible in the race, and the Narycian Lelex,[48] and Panopeus,[49]
and Hyleus,[50] and bold Hippasus,[51] and Nestor,[52] now but in his
early years. Those, too, whom Hippocoön[53] sent from ancient
Amyclæ,[54] and the father-in-law of Penelope,[55] with the Parrhasian
Ancæus,[56] and the sage son of Ampycus,[57] and the descendant of
Œclus,[58] as yet safe from his wife, and Tegeæan[59] {Atalanta}, the
glory of the Lycæan groves. A polished buckle fastened the top of her
robe; her plain hair was gathered into a single knot. The ivory keeper
of her weapons rattled, hanging from her left shoulder; her left hand,
too, held a bow. Such was her dress, and her face such as you might say,
with reason, was that of a maid in a boy, that of a boy in a maid. Her
the Calydonian hero both beheld, and at the same moment sighed for her,
against the will of the God; and he caught the latent flame, and said,
“Oh, happy {will he be}, if she shall vouchsafe {to make} any one her
husband.” The occasion and propriety allow him to say no more; the
greater deeds of the mighty contest {now} engage him.

A wood, thick with trees, which no age has cut down, rises from a plain,
and looks down upon the fields below. After the heroes are come there,
some extend the nets; some take the couples off the dogs, some follow
close the traces of his feet, and are anxious to discover their own
danger. There is a hollow channel, along which rivulets of rain water
are wont to discharge themselves. The bending willows cover the lower
parts of the cavity, and smooth sedges, and marshy rushes, and oziers,
and thin reeds with their long stalks. Aroused from this spot, the boar
rushes violently into the midst of the enemy, like lightning darted from
the bursting clouds. In his onset the grove is laid level, and the wood,
borne down, makes a crashing noise. The young men raise a shout, and
with strong right hands hold their weapons extended before them,
brandished with their broad points. Onward he rushes, and disperses the
dogs, as any one {of them} opposes his career; and scatters them, as
they bark {at him}, with sidelong wounds. The spear that was first
hurled by the arm of Echion, was unavailing, and made a slight incision
in the trunk of a maple tree. The next, if it had not employed too much
of the strength of him who threw it, seemed as if it would stick in the
back it was aimed at: it went beyond. The owner of the weapon was the
Pagasæan Jason. “Phœbus,” said the son of Ampycus,[60] “if I have
worshipped thee, and if I do worship thee, grant me {the favour} to
reach what is {now} aimed at, with unerring weapon.” The God consented
to his prayer, so far as he could. The boar was struck by him, but
without a wound; Diana took the steel head from off the flying weapon;
the shaft reached him without the point. The rage of the monster was
aroused, and not less violently was he inflamed than the lightnings;
light darted from his eyes, and flame was breathed from his breast. As
the stone flies, launched by the tightened rope, when it is aimed[61] at
either walls, or towers filled with soldiers, with the like unerring
onset is the destroying boar borne on among the youths, and lays upon
the ground Eupalamus and Pelagon,[62] who guard the right wing. {Thus}
prostrate, their companions bear them off. But Enæsimus, the son of
Hippocoön, does not escape a deadly wound. The sinews of his knee, cut
{by the boar}, fail him as he trembles, and prepares to turn his back.

Perhaps, too, the Pylian {Nestor} would have perished[63] before the
times of the Trojan {war}: but taking a spring, by means of his lance,
planted {in the ground}, he leaped into the branches of a tree that was
standing close by, and, safe in his position, looked down upon the enemy
which he had escaped. He, having whetted his tusk on the trunk of an
oak, fiercely stood, ready for their destruction; and, trusting to his
weapons newly pointed, gored the thigh of the great Othriades[64] with
his crooked tusks. But the two brothers, not yet made Constellations of
the heavens, distinguished from the rest, were borne upon horses whiter
than the bleached snow; {and} both were brandishing the points of their
lances, poised in the air, with a tremulous motion. They would have
inflicted wounds, had not the bristly {monster} entered the shady wood,
a place penetrable by neither weapons nor horses. Telamon pursues him;
and, heedless in the heat of pursuit, falls headlong, tripped up by the
root of a tree. While Peleus[65] is lifting him up, the Tegeæan damsel
fits a swift arrow to the string, and, bending the bow, lets it fly.
Fixed under the ear of the beast, the arrow razes the surface of the
skin, and dyes the bristles red with a little blood. And not more joyful
is she at the success of her aim than Meleager is.

He is supposed to have observed it first, and first to have pointed out
the blood to his companions, and to have said, “Thou shalt receive due
honour for thy bravery.” The heroes blush {in emulation}; and they
encourage one another, and raise their spirits with shouts, and
discharge their weapons without any order. Their {very} multitude is a
hindrance to those that are thrown, and it baffles the blow for which it
is designed. Behold! the Arcadian,[66] wielding his battle-axe, rushing
madly on to his fate, said, “Learn, O youths, how much the weapons of
men excel those of women, and give way for my achievement. Though the
daughter of Latona herself should protect him by her own arms, still,
in spite of Diana, shall my right hand destroy him.” Such words did he
boastingly utter with self-confident lips; and lifting his double-edged
axe with both hands, he stood erect upon tiptoe. The beast seized him
{thus} bold, and, where there is the nearest way to death, directed his
two tusks to the upper part of his groin. Ancæus fell; and his bowels,
twisted, rush forth, falling with plenteous blood, and the earth was
soaked with gore. Pirithoüs, the son of Ixion, was advancing straight
against the enemy, shaking his spear in his powerful right hand. To him
the son of Ægeus, at a distance, said, “O thou, dearer to me than
myself; stop, thou better part of my soul; we may be valiant at a
distance: his rash courage was the destruction of Ancæus.” {Thus} he
spoke, and he hurled his lance of cornel wood, heavy with its brazen
point; which, well poised, and likely to fulfil his desires, a leafy
branch of a beech-tree opposed.

The son of Æson, too, hurled his javelin, which {unlucky} chance turned
away from {the beast}, to the destruction of an unoffending dog, and
running through his entrails, it was pinned through {those} entrails
into the earth. But the hand of the son of Œneus has different success;
and of two discharged by him, the first spear is fastened in the earth,
the second in the middle of his back. There is no delay; while he rages,
while he is wheeling his body round, and pouring forth foam, hissing
with the fresh blood, the giver of the wound comes up, and provokes his
adversary to fury, and buries his shining hunting spear in his opposite
shoulder. His companions attest their delight in an encouraging shout,
and in their right hands endeavour to grasp the conquering right hand;
and with wonder they behold the huge beast as he lies upon a large space
of ground, and they do not deem it safe as yet to touch him; but yet
they, each of them, stain their weapons with his blood. {Jason} himself,
placing his foot upon it, presses his frightful head, and thus he says:
“Receive, Nonacrian Nymph, the spoil that is my right; and let my glory
be shared by thee.” Immediately he gives her the skin as the spoil,
thick with the stiffening bristles, and the head remarkable for the huge
tusks. The giver of the present, as well as the present, is a {source}
of pleasure to her. The others envy her, and there is a murmuring
throughout the whole company. Of these, stretching out their arms, with
a loud voice, the sons of Thestius cry out, “Come, lay them down, and do
not thou, a woman, interfere with our honours; let not thy confidence in
thy beauty deceive thee, and let the donor, seized with this passion for
thee, keep at a distance.” And {then} from her they take the present,
{and} from him the right {of disposing} of the present.

The warlike[67] {prince} did not brook it, and, indignant with swelling
rage, he said, “Learn, ye spoilers of the honour that belongs to
another, how much deeds differ from threats;” and, with his cruel sword,
he pierced the breast of Plexippus, dreading no such thing. Nor suffered
he Toxeus, who was doubtful what to do, and both wishful to avenge his
brother, and fearing his brother’s fate, long to be in doubt; but a
second time warmed his weapon, reeking with the former slaughter, in the
blood of the brother.

Althæa was carrying gifts to the temples of the Gods, her son being
victorious, when she beheld her slain brothers carried off {from the
field}: uttering a shriek, she filled the city with her sad
lamentations, and assumed black garments in exchange for her golden
ones. But soon as the author of their death was made known, all grief
vanished; and from tears it was turned to a thirst for vengeance. There
was a billet, which, when the daughter of Thestius was lying in labour
{with her son}, the three Sisters, {the Fates}, placed in the flames,
and spinning the fatal threads, with their thumbs pressed upon them,
they said, “We give to thee, O new-born {babe}, and to this wood, the
same period {of existence}.” Having uttered this charm, the Goddesses
departed; {and} the mother snatched the flaming brand from the fire, and
sprinkled it with flowing water. Long had it been concealed in her most
retired apartment; and being {thus} preserved, had preserved, O youth,
thy life. This {billet} the mother {now} brings forth, and orders
torches to be heaped on broken pieces {of wood}; and when heaped,
applies to them the hostile flames. Then four times essaying to lay the
branch upon the flames, four times does she pause in the attempt. Both
the mother and the sister struggle hard, and the two different titles
influence her breast in different ways. Often is her countenance pale
with apprehension of the impending crime; often does rage, glowing in
her eyes, produce its red colour. And one while is her countenance like
that of one making some cruel threat or other; at another moment, such
as you could suppose to be full of compassion. And when the fierce heat
of her feelings has dried up her tears, still are tears found {to flow}.
Just as the ship, which the wind and a tide running contrary to the
wind, seize, is sensible of the double assault, and unsteadily obeys
them both; no otherwise does the daughter of Thestius fluctuate between
{two} varying affections, and in turn lays by her anger, and rouses it
again, {when thus} laid by. Still, the sister begins to get the better
of the parent; and that, with blood she may appease the shades of her
relations, in her unnatural conduct she proves affectionate.

For after the pernicious flames gained strength, she said, “Let this
funeral pile consume my entrails.” And as she was holding the fatal
billet in her ruthless hand, she stood, in her wretchedness, before the
sepulchral altars,[68] and said, “Ye Eumenides,[69] the three Goddesses
of punishment, turn your faces towards these baleful rites; I am both
avenging and am committing a crime. With death must death be expiated;
crime must be added to crime, funeral to funeral; by accumulated
calamities, let this unnatural race perish. Shall Œneus, in happiness,
be blessed in his victorious son; and shall Thestius be childless? It is
better that you both should mourn. Only do ye, ghosts of my brothers,
phantoms newly made, regard this my act of affection, and receive this
funeral offering,[70] provided at a cost so great, the guilty pledge of
my womb. Ah, wretched me! Whither am I hurried away? Pardon, my
brothers, {the feelings of} a mother. My hands fail me in my purpose,
I confess that he deserves to die; but the author of his death is
repugnant to me. Shall he then go unpunished? Alive and victorious, and
flushed with his success, shall he possess the realms of Calydon? {And}
shall you lie, a little heap of ashes, and {as} lifeless phantoms? For
my part, I will not endure this. Let the guilty wretch perish, and let
him carry along with him the hopes of his father,[71] and the ruin of
his kingdom and country. {But} where are the feelings of a mother, where
are the affectionate ties of the parent? Where, too, are the pangs which
for twice five months[72] I have endured? Oh, that thou hadst been
burnt, when an infant, in that first fire! And would that I had allowed
it! By my aid hast thou lived; now, for thy own deserts, shalt thou die.
Take the reward of thy deeds; and return to me that life which was twice
given thee, first at thy birth, next when the billet was rescued; or
else place me as well in the tomb of my brothers. I both desire {to do
it}, and I am unable. What shall I do? one while the wounds of my
brothers are before my eyes, and the form of a murder so dreadful; at
another time, affection and the name of mother break my resolution.
Wretch that I am! To my sorrow, brothers, will you prevail; but {still}
prevail; so long as I myself shall follow the appeasing sacrifice that I
shall give you, and you yourselves;” she {thus} said, and turning
herself away, with trembling right hand she threw the fatal brand into
the midst of the flames.

That billet either utters, or seems to utter, a groan, and, caught by
the reluctant flames, it is consumed. Unsuspecting, and at a distance,
Meleager is burned by that flame, and feels his entrails scorched by the
secret fires; but with fortitude he supports the mighty pain. Still, he
grieves that he dies by an inglorious death, and without {shedding his}
blood, and says that the wounds of Ancæus were a happy lot. And while,
with a sigh, he calls upon his aged father, and his brother, and his
affectionate sisters, and with his last words the companion of his
bed,[73] perhaps, too, his mother {as well}; the fire and his torments
increase; and {then} again do they diminish. Both of them are
extinguished together, and by degrees his spirit vanishes into the light
air.

Lofty Calydon {now} lies prostrate. Young and old mourn, both people and
nobles lament; and the Calydonian matrons of Evenus,[74] tearing their
hair, bewail him. Lying along upon the ground, his father pollutes his
white hair and his aged features with dust, and chides his prolonged
existence. But her own hand, conscious to itself of the ruthless deed,
exacted punishment of the mother, the sword piercing her entrails.[75]
If a God had given me a mouth sounding with a hundred tongues, and an
enlarged genius, and the whole of Helicon {besides}; {still} I could not
enumerate the mournful expressions of his unhappy sisters. Regardless of
shame, they beat their livid bosoms, and while the body {still} exists,
they embrace it, and embrace it again; they give kisses to it, {and}
they give kisses to the bier {there} set. After {he is reduced to}
ashes, they pour them, when gathered up, to their breasts; and they lie
prostrate around the tomb, and kissing his name cut out in the stone,
they pour their tears upon his name. Them, the daughter of Latona, at
length satiated with the calamities of the house of Parthaon,[76] bears
aloft on wings springing from their bodies, except Gorge,[77] and the
daughter-in-law of noble Alcmena; and she stretches long wings over
their arms, and makes their mouths horny, and sends them, {thus}
transformed, through the air.

    〔note 23 — Cocalus.--Ver. 261. He was the king of Sicily, who received Dædalus with hospitality.〕

    〔note 24 — And censers.--Ver. 265. Acerris. The ‘acerra’ was properly a box used for holding incense for the purposes of sacrifice, which was taken from it, and placed on the burning altar. According to Festus, the word meant a small altar, which was placed before the dead, and on which perfumes were burnt. The Law of the Twelve Tables restricted the use of ‘acerræ’ at funerals.〕

    〔note 25 — Meleager.--Ver. 270. He was the son of Œneus, king of Calydon, a city of Ætolia, who had offended Diana by neglecting her rites.〕

    〔note 26 — Palladian juice.--Ver. 275. Oil, the extraction of which, from the olive, Minerva had taught to mortals.〕

    〔note 27 — Epirus.--Ver. 283. This country, sometimes also called Chaonia, was on the north of Greece, between Macedonia, Thessaly, and the Ionian sea, comprising the greater part of what is now called Albania. It was famous for its oxen. According to Pliny the Elder, Pyrrhus, its king, paid particular attention to improving the breed.〕

    〔note 28 — Bristles too.--Ver. 285. This line, or the following one, is clearly an interpolation, and ought to be omitted.〕

    〔note 29 — Palisades.--Ver. 286. The word ‘vallum’ is found applied either to the whole, or a portion only, of the fortifications of a Roman camp. It is derived from ‘vallus,’ ‘a stake;’ and properly means the palisade which ran along the outer edge of the ‘agger,’ or ‘mound:’ but it frequently includes the ‘agger’ also. The ‘vallum,’ in the latter sense, together with the ‘fossa,’ or ‘ditch,’ which surrounded the camp outside of the ‘vallum,’ formed a complete fortification.〕

    〔note 30 — Sons of Tyndarus.--Ver. 301. These were Castor and Pollux, the putative sons of Tyndarus, but really the sons of Jupiter, who seduced Leda under the form of a swan. According to some, however, Pollux only was the son of Jupiter. Castor was skilled in horsemanship, while Pollux excelled in the use of the cestus.〕

    〔note 31 — Pirithoüs.--Ver. 303. He was the son of Ixion of Larissa, and the bosom friend of Theseus.〕

    〔note 32 — Sons of Thestius.--Ver. 304. These were Toxeus and Plexippus, the uncles of Meleager, and the brothers of Althæa, who avenged their death in the manner afterwards described by Ovid. Pausanias calls them Prothoüs and Cometes. Lactantius adds a third, Agenor.〕

    〔note 33 — Lynceus.--Ver. 304. Lynceus and Idas were the sons of Aphareus. From his skill in physical science, the former was said to be able to see into the interior of the earth.〕

    〔note 34 — Cæneus.--Ver. 305. This person was originally a female, by name Cænis. At her request, she was changed by Neptune into a man, and was made invulnerable. Her story is related at length in the 12th book of the Metamorphoses.〕

    〔note 35 — Leucippus.--Ver. 306. He was the son of Perieres, and the brother of Aphareus. His daughters were Elaira, or Ilaira, and Phœbe, whom Castor and Pollux attempted to carry off.〕

    〔note 36 — Acastus.--Ver. 306. He was the son of Pelias, king of Thessaly.〕

    〔note 37 — Hippothoüs.--Ver. 307. According to Hyginus, he was the son of Geryon, or rather, according to Pausanias, of Cercyon.〕

    〔note 38 — Dryas.--Ver. 307. The son of Mars, or, according to some writers, of Iapetus.〕

    〔note 39 — Phœnix.--Ver. 307. He was the son of Amyntor. Having engaged in an intrigue, by the contrivance of his mother, with his father’s mistress, he fled to the court of Peleus, king of Thessaly, who entrusted to him the education of Achilles, and the command of the Dolopians. He attended his pupil to the Trojan war, and became blind in his latter years.〕

    〔note 40 — Two sons of Actor.--Ver. 308. These were Eurytus and Cteatus, the sons of Actor, of Elis. They were afterwards slain by Hercules.〕

    〔note 41 — Phyleus.--Ver. 308. He was the son of Augeas, king of Elis, whose stables were cleansed by Hercules.〕

    〔note 42 — Telamon.--Ver. 309. He was the son of Æacus. Ajax Telamon was his son.〕

    〔note 43 — Great Achilles.--Ver. 309. His father was Peleus, the brother of Ajax, and the son of Æacus and Ægina. Peleus was famed for his chastity.〕

    〔note 44 — The son of Pheres.--Ver. 310. This was Admetus, the son of Pheres, of Pheræ, in Thessaly.〕

    〔note 45 — Hyantian Iolaüs.--Ver. 310. Iolaüs, the Bœotian, the son of Iphiclus, aided Hercules in slaying the Hydra.〕

    〔note 46 — Eurytion.--Ver. 311. He was the son of Irus, and attended the Argonautic expedition.〕

    〔note 47 — Echion.--Ver. 311. He was an Arcadian, the son of Mercury and the Nymph Antianira, and was famous for his speed.〕

    〔note 48 — Narycian Lelex.--Ver. 312. So called from Naryx, a city of the Locrians.〕

    〔note 49 — Panopeus.--Ver. 312. He was the son of Phocus, who built the city of Panopæa, in Phocis, and was the father of Epytus, who constructed the Trojan horse.〕

    〔note 50 — Hyleus.--Ver. 312. According to Callimachus, he was slain, together with Rhœtus, by Atalanta, for making an attempt upon her virtue.〕

    〔note 51 — Hippasus.--Ver. 313. He was a son of Eurytus.〕

    〔note 52 — Nestor.--Ver. 313. He was the son of Neleus and Chloris. He was king of Pylos, and went to the Trojan war in his ninetieth, or, as some writers say, in his two hundredth year.〕

    〔note 53 — Hippocoön.--Ver. 314. He was the son of Amycus. He sent his four sons, Enæsimus, Alcon, Amycus, and Dexippus, to hunt the Calydonian boar. The first was killed by the monster, and the other three, with their father, were afterwards slain by Hercules.〕

    〔note 54 — Amyclæ.--Ver. 314. This was an ancient city of Laconia, built by Amycla, the son of Lacedæmon.〕

    〔note 55 — Of Penelope.--Ver. 315. This was Laërtes, the father of Ulysses, the husband of Penelope, and king of Ithaca.〕

    〔note 56 — Ancæus.--Ver. 315. He was an Arcadian, the son of Lycurgus.〕

    〔note 57 — Son of Ampycus.--Ver. 316. Ampycus was the son of Titanor, and the father of Mopsus, a famous soothsayer.〕

    〔note 58 — Descendant Œclus.--Ver. 317. This was Amphiaraüs, who, having the gift of prophecy, foresaw that he would not live to return from the Theban war; and, therefore, hid himself, that he might not be obliged to join in the expedition. His wife, Eriphyle, being bribed by Adrastus with a gold necklace, betrayed his hiding-place; on which, proceeding to Thebes, he was swallowed up in the earth, together with his chariot. Ovid refers here to the treachery of his wife.〕

    〔note 59 — Tegeæan.--Ver. 317. Atalanta was the daughter of Iasius, and was a native of Tegeæa, in Arcadia. She was the mother of Parthenopæus, by Meleager. She is thought, by some, to have been a different person from Atalanta, the daughter of Schœneus, famed for her swiftness in running, who is mentioned in the tenth book of the Metamorphoses.〕

    〔note 60 — Son of Ampycus.--Ver. 350. Mopsus was a priest of Apollo.〕

    〔note 61 — When it is aimed.--Ver. 357. When discharged from the ‘balista,’ or ‘catapulta,’ or other engine of war.〕

    〔note 62 — Eupalamus and Pelagon.--Ver. 360. They are not previously named in the list of combatants; and nothing further is known of them.〕

    〔note 63 — Would have perished.--Ver. 365. What is here told of Nestor, one of the Commentators on Homer attributes to Thersites, who, according to him, being the son of Agrius, the uncle of Meleager, was present on this occasion.〕

    〔note 64 — Othriades.--Ver. 371. Nothing further is known of him.〕

    〔note 65 — Peleus.--Ver. 375. According to Apollodorus, Peleus accidentally slew Eurytion on this occasion.〕

    〔note 66 — The Arcadian.--Ver. 391. This was Ancæus, who is mentioned before, in line 215.〕

    〔note 67 — Warlike.--Ver. 437. ‘Mavortius’ may possibly mean ‘the son of Mars,’ as, according to Hyginus, Mars was engaged in an intrigue with Althæa.〕

    〔note 68 — Sepulchral altars.--Ver. 480. The ‘sepulchralis ara’ is the funeral pile, which was built in the form of an altar, with four equal sides. Ovid also calls it ‘funeris ara,’ in the Tristia, book iii. Elegy xiii. line 21.〕

    〔note 69 — Eumenides.--Ver. 482. This name properly signifies ‘the well-disposed,’ or ‘wellwishers,’ and was applied to the Furies by way of euphemism, it being deemed unlucky to mention their names.〕

    〔note 70 — Funeral offering.--Ver. 490. The ‘inferiæ’ were sacrifices offered to the shades of the dead. The Romans appear to have regarded the souls of the departed as Gods; for which reason they presented them wine, milk, and garlands, and offered them victims in sacrifice.〕

    〔note 71 — Hopes of his father.--Ver. 498. Œneus had other sons besides Meleager, who were slain in the war that arose in consequence of the death of Plexippus and Toxeus. Nicander says they were five in number; Apollodorus names but three, Toxeus, Tyreus, and Clymenus.〕

    〔note 72 — Twice five months.--Ver. 500. That is, lunar months.〕

    〔note 73 — Of his bed.--Ver. 521. Antoninus Liberalis calls her Cleopatra, but Hyginus says that her name was Alcyone. Homer, however, reconciles this discrepancy, by saying that the original name of the wife of Meleager was Cleopatra, but that she was called Alcyone, because her mother had the same fate as Alcyone, or Halcyone.〕

    〔note 74 — Evenus.--Ver. 527. Evenus was a river of Ætolia.〕

    〔note 75 — Piercing her entrails.--Ver. 531. Hyginus says that she hanged herself.〕

    〔note 76 — Parthaon.--Ver. 541. Parthaon was the grandfather of Meleager and his sisters, Œneus being his son.〕

    〔note 77 — Gorge.--Ver. 542. Gorge married Andræmon, and Deïanira was the wife of Hercules, the son of Alcmena. The two sisters of Meleager who were changed into birds were Eurymede and Melanippe.〕

EXPLANATION.

  It is generally supposed that the story of the chase of the
  Calydonian boar, though embracing much of the fabulous, is still
  based upon historical facts. Homer, in the 9th book of the Iliad,
  alludes to it, though in somewhat different terms from the account
  here given by Ovid; and from the ancient historians we learn, that
  Œneus, offering the first fruits to the Gods, forgot Diana in his
  sacrifices. A wild boar, the same year having ravaged some part of
  his dominions, and particularly a vineyard, on the cultivation of
  which he had bestowed much pains, these circumstances, combined,
  gave occasion for saying that the boar had been sent by Diana. As
  the wild beast had killed some country people, Meleager collected
  the neighbouring nobles, for the purpose of destroying it. Plexippus
  and Toxeus, having been killed, in the manner mentioned by the Poet,
  Althæa, their sister, in her grief, devoted her son to the Furies;
  and, perhaps, having used some magical incantations, the story of
  the fatal billet was invented.

  Homer does not mention the death of Meleager; but, on the contrary,
  says that his mother, Althæa, was pacified. Some writers, however,
  think that he really was poisoned by his mother. The story of the
  change of the sisters of Meleager into birds is only the common
  poetical fiction, denoting the extent of their grief at the untimely
  death of their brother.

FABLE V. [VIII.547-610]

  Theseus, returning from the chase of the Calydonian boar, is stopped
  by an inundation of the river Acheloüs, and accepts of an invitation
  from the God of that river, to come to his grotto. After the repast,
  Acheloüs gives him the history of the five Naiads, who had been
  changed into the islands called Echinades, and an account of his own
  amour with the Nymph Perimele, whom, being thrown by her father into
  the sea, Neptune had transformed into an island.

In the meantime, Theseus having performed his part in the joint labour,
was going to the Erecthean towers of Tritonis. {But} Acheloüs, swollen
with rains, opposed his journey,[78] and caused him delay as he was
going. “Come,” said he, “famous Cecropian, beneath my roof; and do not
trust thyself to the rapid floods. They are wont to bear away strong
beams, and to roll down stones, as they lie across, with immense
roaring. I have seen high folds, contiguous to my banks, swept away,
together with the flocks; nor was it of any avail there for the herd to
be strong, nor for the horses to be swift. Many bodies, too, of young
men has this torrent overwhelmed in its whirling eddies, when the snows
of the mountains dissolved. Rest is the safer {for thee}; until the
river runs within its usual bounds, until its own channel receives the
flowing waters.”

To {this} the son of Ægeus agreed; and replied, “I will make use of thy
dwelling and of thy advice, Acheloüs;” and both he did make use of.
He entered an abode built of pumice stone with its many holes, and the
sand-stone far from smooth. The floor was moist with soft moss, shells
with alternate {rows of} murex arched the roof. And now, Hyperion having
measured out two parts of the light, Theseus and the companions of his
labours lay down upon couches; on the one side the son of Ixion,[79] on
the other, Lelex, the hero of Trœzen, having his temples now covered
with thin grey hairs; and some others whom the river of the Acarnanians,
overjoyed with a guest so great, had graced with the like honour.
Immediately, some Nymphs, barefoot, furnished with the banquet the
tables that were set before them; and the dainties being removed, they
served up wine in {bowls adorned with} gems. Then the mighty hero,
surveying the seas that lay beneath his eyes, said, “What place is
this?” and he pointed with his finger; “and inform me what name that
island bears; although it does not seem to be one only?” In answer to
these words, the River said, “It is not, indeed, one object that we see;
five countries lie {there}; they deceive through their distance. And
that thou mayst be the less surprised at the deeds of the despised
Diana, these were Naiads; who, when they had slain twice five bullocks,
and had invited the Gods of the country to a sacrifice, kept a joyous
festival, regardless of me. {At this} I swelled, and I was as great as I
ever am, in my course, when I am the fullest; and, redoubled both in
rage and in flood, I tore away woods from woods, and fields from fields;
and together with the spot, I hurled the Nymphs[80] into the sea, who
then, at last, were mindful of me. My waves and those of the main
divided the land, {before} continuous, and separated it into as many
parts, as thou seest {islands, called} Echinades, in the midst of the
waves.

“But yet, as thou thyself seest from afar, one island, see! was
withdrawn far off from the rest, {an island} pleasing to me. The mariner
calls it Perimele.[81] This beloved Nymph did I deprive of the name of a
virgin. This her father, Hippodamas, took amiss, and pushed the body of
his daughter, when about to bring forth, from a rock, into the sea.
I received her; and bearing her up when swimming, I said, ‘O thou bearer
of the Trident, who hast obtained, by lot, next in rank to the heavens,
the realms of the flowing waters, in which we sacred rivers end, {and}
to which we run; come hither, Neptune, and graciously listen to me, as I
pray. Her, whom I am bearing up, I have injured. If her father,
Hippodamas, had been mild and reasonable, or if he had been less
unnatural, he ought to have pitied her, and to have forgiven me. Give
thy assistance; and grant a place, Neptune, I beseech thee, to her,
plunged in the waters by the cruelty of her father; or allow her to
become a place herself. Her, even, {thus} will I embrace.’ The King of
the ocean moved his head, and shook all the waters with his assent. The
Nymph was afraid; but yet she swam. Her breast, as she was swimming,
I myself touched, as it throbbed with a tremulous motion; and while I
felt it, I perceived her whole body grow hard, and her breast become
covered with earth growing over it. While I was speaking, fresh earth
enclosed her floating limbs, and a heavy island grew upon her changed
members.”

    〔note 78 — Opposed his journey.--Ver. 548. It has been objected to this passage, that the river Acheloüs, which rises in Mount Pindus, and divides Acarnania from Ætolia, could not possibly lie in the road of Theseus, as he returned from Calydon to Athens.〕

    〔note 79 — Son of Ixion.--Ver. 566. Pirithoüs lay on the one side, and Lelex on the other; the latter is called ‘Trœzenius,’ from the fact of his having lived with Pittheus, the king of Trœzen.〕

    〔note 80 — I hurled the Nymphs.--Ver. 585. Clarke translates ‘Nymphas in freta provolvi,’ ‘I tumbled the nymphs into the sea.’〕

    〔note 81 — Perimele.--Ver. 590. According to Apollodorus, the name of the wife of Acheloüs was Perimede; and she bore him two sons, Hippodamas and Orestes. The Echinades were five small islands in the Ionian Sea, near the coast of Acarnania, which are now called Curzolari.〕

EXPLANATION.

  This story is simply based upon physical grounds. The river
  Acheloüs, running between Acarnania and Ætolia, and flowing into the
  Ionian Sea, carried with it a great quantity of sand and mud, which
  probably formed the islands at its mouth, called the Echinades. The
  same solution probably applies to the narrative of the fate of the
  Nymph Perimele.

FABLE VI. [VIII.611-737]

  Jupiter and Mercury, disguised in human shape, are received by
  Philemon and Baucis, after having been refused admittance by their
  neighbours. The Gods, in acknowledgment of their hospitality,
  transform their cottage into a temple, of which, at their own
  request, they are made the priest and priestess; and, after a long
  life, the worthy couple are changed into trees. The village where
  they live is laid under water, on account of the impiety of the
  inhabitants, and is turned into a lake. Acheloüs here relates the
  surprising changes of Proteus.

After these things the river was silent. The wondrous deed had
astonished them all. The son of Ixion laughed at them,[82] believing
{the story}; and as he was a despiser of the Gods, and of a haughty
disposition, he said, “Acheloüs, thou dost relate a fiction, and dost
deem the Gods more powerful than they are, if they both give and take
away the form {of things}.” {At this} all were amazed, and did not
approve of such language; and before all, Lelex, ripe in understanding
and age, spoke thus: “The power of heaven is immense, and has no limits;
and whatever the Gods above will, ’tis done.

“And that thou mayst the less doubt {of this}, there is upon the
Phrygian hills, an oak near to the lime tree, enclosed by a low
wall.[83] I, myself, have seen the spot; for Pittheus sent me into the
land of Pelops, once governed by his father, {Pelops}. Not far thence is
a standing water, formerly habitable ground, but now frequented by
cormorants and coots, that delight in fens. Jupiter came hither in the
shape of a man, and together with his parent, the grandson of Atlas,
{Mercury}, the bearer of the Caduceus, having laid aside his wings. To a
thousand houses did they go, asking for lodging and for rest. A thousand
houses did the bolts fasten {against them}. Yet one received them,
a small one indeed, thatched with straw,[84] and the reeds of the marsh.
But a pious old woman {named} Baucis, and Philemon of a like age, were
united in their youthful years in that {cottage}, and in it, they grew
old together; and by owning their poverty, they rendered it light, and
not to be endured with discontented mind. It matters not, whether you
ask for the masters there, or for the servants; the whole family are but
two; the same persons both obey and command. When, therefore, the
inhabitants of heaven reached this little abode, and, bending their
necks, entered the humble door, the old man bade them rest their limbs
on a bench set {there}; upon which the attentive Baucis threw a coarse
cloth. Then she moves the warm embers on the hearth, and stirs up the
fire they had had the day before, and supplies it with leaves and dry
bark, and with her aged breath kindles it into a flame; and brings out
of the house faggots split into many pieces, and dry bits of branches,
and breaks them, and puts them beneath a small boiler. Some pot-herbs,
too, which her husband has gathered in the well-watered garden, she
strips of their leaves.

“With a two-pronged fork {Philemon} lifts down[85] a rusty side of
bacon, that hangs from a black beam; and cuts off a small portion from
the chine that has been kept so long; and when cut, softens it in
boiling water. In the meantime, with discourse they beguile the
intervening hours; and suffer not the length of time to be perceived.
There is a beechen trough there, that hangs on a peg by its crooked
handle; this is filled with warm water, and receives their limbs to
refresh them. On the middle of the couch, its feet and frame[86] being
made of willow, is placed a cushion of soft sedge. This they cover with
cloths, which they have not been accustomed to place there but on
festive occasions; but even these cloths are coarse and old, {though}
not unfitting for a couch of willow. The Gods seat themselves. The old
woman, wearing an apron, and shaking {with palsy}, sets the table
{before them}. But the third leg of the table is too short; a potsherd,
{placed beneath}, makes it equal. After this, being placed beneath, has
taken away the inequality, green mint rubs down the table {thus} made
level. Here are set the double-tinted berries[87] of the chaste Minerva,
and cornel-berries, gathered in autumn, {and} preserved in a thin
pickle; endive, too, and radishes, and a large piece of curdled milk,
and eggs, that have been gently turned in the slow embers; all {served}
in earthenware. After this, an embossed goblet of similar clay is placed
{there}; cups, too, made of beech wood, varnished, where they are
hollowed out, with yellow wax.

“There is {now} a short pause;[88] the fire {then} sends up the warm
repast; and wine kept no long time, is again put on; and {then}, set
aside for a little time, it gives place to the second course. Here are
nuts, {and} here are dried figs mixed with wrinkled dates, plums too,
and fragrant apples in wide baskets, and grapes gathered from the purple
vines. In the middle there is white honey-comb. Above all, there are
welcome looks, and no indifferent and niggardly feelings. In the
meanwhile, as oft as Baucis and the alarmed Philemon behold the goblet,
{when} drunk off, replenish itself of its own accord, and the wine
increase of itself, astonished at this singular event, they are
frightened, and, with hands held up, they offer their prayers, and
entreat pardon for their entertainment, and their want of preparation.
There was a single goose, the guardian of their little cottage, which
its owners were preparing to kill for the Deities, their guests. Swift
with its wings, it wearied them, {rendered} slow by age, and it escaped
them a long time, and at length seemed to fly for safety to the Gods
themselves. The immortals forbade it[89] to be killed, and said, ‘We are
Divinities, and this impious neighbourhood shall suffer deserved
punishment. To you it will be allowed to be free from this calamity;
only leave your habitation, and attend our steps, and go together to the
summit of the mountain.’

“They both obeyed; and, supported by staffs, they endeavoured to place
their feet {on the top} of the high hill. They were {now} as far from
the top, as an arrow discharged can go at once, {when} they turned their
eyes, and beheld the other parts sinking in a morass, {and} their own
abode alone remaining. While they were wondering at these things, {and}
while they were bewailing the fate of their {fellow countrymen}, that
old cottage of {theirs}, {too} little for even two owners, was changed
into a temple. Columns took the place of forked stakes, the thatch grew
yellow, and the earth was covered with marble; the doors appeared
carved, and the roof to be of gold. Then, the son of Saturn uttered such
words as these with benign lips: ‘Tell us, good old man, and thou, wife,
worthy of a husband {so} good, what it is you desire?’ Having spoken a
few words to Baucis, Philemon discovered their joint request to the
Gods: ‘We desire to be your priests, and to have the care of your
temple; and, since we have passed our years in harmony, let the same
hour take us off both together; and let me not ever see the tomb of my
wife, nor let me be destined to be buried by her.’ Fulfilment attended
their wishes. So long as life was granted, they were the keepers of the
temple; and when, enervated by years and old age, they were standing, by
chance, before the sacred steps, and were relating the fortunes of the
spot, Baucis beheld Philemon, and the aged Philemon saw Baucis, {too},
shooting into leaf. And now the tops of the trees growing above their
two faces, so long as they could they exchanged words with each other,
and said together, ‘Farewell! my spouse;’ and at the same moment the
branches covered their concealed faces. The inhabitants of Tyana[90]
still shew these adjoining trees, made of their two bodies. Old men, no
romancers, (and there was no reason why they should wish to deceive me)
told me this. I, indeed, saw garlands hanging on the branches, and
placing {there} some fresh ones {myself}, I said, ‘The good are the
{peculiar} care of the Gods, and those who worshipped {the Gods}, are
{now} worshipped {themselves}.’”

He had {now} ceased; and the thing {itself} and the relator {of it} had
astonished them all; {and} especially Theseus, whom, desiring to hear of
the wonderful actions of the Gods, the Calydonian river leaning on his
elbow, addressed in words such as these: “There are, O most valiant
{hero}, some things, whose form has been once changed, and {then} has
continued under that change. There are some whose privilege it is to
pass into many shapes, as thou, Proteus, inhabitant of the sea that
embraces the earth. For people have seen thee one while a young man, and
again a lion; at one time thou wast a furious boar, at another a
serpent, which they dreaded to touch; {and} sometimes, horns rendered
thee a bull. Ofttimes thou mightst be seen as a stone; often, too, as a
tree. Sometimes imitating the appearance of flowing water, thou wast a
river; sometimes fire, the {very} contrary of water.”

    〔note 82 — Laughed at them.--Ver. 612. The Centaurs, from one of whom Pirithoüs was sprung, were famed for their contempt of, and enmity to, the Gods.〕

    〔note 83 — By a low wall.--Ver. 620. As a memorial of the wonderful events here related by Lelex.〕

    〔note 84 — Thatched with straw.--Ver. 630. It was the custom with the ancients, when reaping, to take off only the heads of the corn, and to leave the stubble to be reaped at another time. From this passage, we see that straw was used for the purpose of thatching.〕

    〔note 85 — Lifts down.--Ver. 647. The lifting down the flitch of bacon might induce us to believe that the account of this story was written yesterday, and not nearly two thousand years since. So true is it, that there is nothing new under the sun.〕

    〔note 86 — Feet and frame.--Ver. 659. ‘Sponda.’ This was the frame of the bedstead, and more especially the sides of it. In the case of a bed used for two persons, the two sides were distinguished by different names; the side at which they entered was open, and was called ‘sponda:’ the other side, which was protected by a board, was called ‘pluteus.’ The two sides were also called ‘torus exterior,’ or ‘sponda exterior,’ and ‘torus interior,’ or ‘sponda interior.’〕

    〔note 87 — Double-tinted berries.--Ver. 664. Green on one side, and swarthy on the other.〕

    〔note 88 — A short pause.--Ver. 671. This was the second course. The Roman ‘cœna,’ or chief meal, consisted of three stages. First, the ‘promulsis,’ ‘antecœna,’ or ‘gustatio,’ when they ate such things as served to stimulate the appetite. Then came the first course, which formed the substantial part of the meal; and next the second course, at which the ‘bellaria,’ consisting of pastry and fruits, such as are now used at dessert, were served.〕

    〔note 89 — Immortals forbade it.--Ver. 688. This act of humanity reflects credit on the two Deities, and contrasts favourably with their usual cruel and revengeful disposition, in common with their fellow Divinities of the heathen Mythology.〕

    〔note 90 — Of Tyana.--Ver. 719. This was a city of Cappadocia, in Asia Minor.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The story of Baucis and Philemon, which is here so beautifully
  related by the Poet, is a moral tale, which shows the merit of
  hospitality, and how, in some cases at least, virtue speedily brings
  its own reward. If the story is based upon any actual facts, the
  history of its origin is entirely unknown. Huet, the theologian,
  indeed, supposes that it is founded on the history of the reception
  of the Angels by Abraham. This is a bold surmise, but entirely in
  accordance with his position, that the greatest part of the fictions
  of the heathen mythology were mere glosses or perversions of the
  histories of the Old Testament. If derived from Scripture, the story
  is just as likely to be founded on the hospitable reception of the
  Prophet Elijah by the woman of Zarephath; and the miraculous
  increase of the wine in the goblet, calls to mind ‘the barrel of
  meal that wasted not, and the cruse of oil that did not fail.’ The
  story of the wretched fate of the inhospitable neighbours of Baucis
  and Philemon is thought, by some modern writers, to be founded upon
  the Scriptural account of the destruction of the wicked cities of
  the plain.

  Ancient writers have made many attempts to solve the wondrous story
  of Proteus. Some say that he was an elegant orator, who charmed his
  auditors by the force of his eloquence. Lucian says that he was an
  actor of pantomime, so supple that he could assume various postures.
  Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Clement of Alexandria, assert that
  he was an ancient king of Egypt, successor to Pheron, and that he
  lived at the time, of the Trojan war. Herodotus, who represents him
  as a prince of great wisdom and justice, does not make any allusion
  to his powers of transformation, which was his great merit in the
  eyes of the poets. Diodorus Siculus says that his alleged changes
  may have had their rise in a custom which Proteus had of adorning
  his helmet, sometimes with the skin of a panther, sometimes with
  that of a lion, and sometimes with that of a serpent, or of some
  other animal. When Lycophron states that Neptune saved Proteus from
  the fury of his children, by making him go through caverns from
  Pallene to Egypt, he follows the tradition which says that he
  originally came from that town in Thessaly, and that he retired
  thence to Egypt. Virgil, and Servius, his Commentator, assert that
  Proteus returned to Thessaly after the death of his children, who
  were slain by Hercules; in which assertion, however, they are not
  supported by Homer or Herodotus.

FABLE VII. [VIII.738-884]

  Acheloüs continues his narrative with the story of Metra, the
  daughter of Erisicthon, who is attacked with insatiable hunger, for
  having cut down an oak, in one of the groves of Ceres. Metra begs of
  Neptune, who was formerly in love with her, the power of
  transforming herself into different shapes; that she may be enabled,
  if possible, to satisfy the voracious appetite of her father. By
  these means, Erisicthon, being obliged to expose her for sale, in
  order to purchase himself food, always recovers her again; until,
  by his repeated sale of her, the fraud is discovered. He at last
  becomes the avenger of his own impiety, by devouring his own limbs.

“Nor has the wife of Autolycus,[91] the daughter of Erisicthon, less
privileges {than he}. Her father was one who despised the majesty of the
Gods; and he offered them no honours on their altars. He is likewise
said to have profaned with an axe a grove of Ceres, and to have violated
her ancient woods with the iron. In these there was standing an oak with
an ancient trunk, a wood {in itself} alone, fillets and tablets, {as}
memorials,[92] and garlands, proofs of wishes that had been granted,
surrounded the middle of it. Often, beneath this {tree}, did the Dryads
lead up the festive dance; often, too, with hands joined in order, did
they go round the compass of its trunk; and the girth of the oak made up
three times five ells. The rest of the wood, too, lay as much under this
oak as the grass lay beneath the whole of the wood. Yet not on that
account {even} did the son of Triopas[93] withhold the axe from it; and
he ordered his servants to cut down the sacred oak; and when he saw them
hesitate, {thus} ordered, the wicked {wretch}, snatching from one of
them an axe, uttered these words: ‘Were it not only beloved by a
Goddess, but even were it a Goddess itself, it should now touch the
ground with its leafy top.’ {Thus} he said; and while he was poising his
weapon for a side stroke, the Deoïan oak[94] shuddered, and uttered a
groan; and at once, its green leaves, and, with them, its acorns began
to turn pale; and the long branches to be moistened with sweat. As soon
as his impious hand had made an incision in its trunk, the blood flowed
from the severed bark no otherwise than, as, at the time when the bull,
a large victim, falls before the altars, the blood pours forth from his
divided neck. All were amazed and one of the number attempted to hinder
the wicked design, and to restrain the cruel axe. The Thessalian eyes
him, and says, ‘Take the reward of thy pious intentions,’ and turns the
axe from the tree upon the man, and hews off his head; and {then} hacks
at the oak again; when such words as these are uttered from the middle
of the oak: ‘I, a Nymph,[95] most pleasing to Ceres, am beneath this
wood; I, {now} dying, foretell to thee that the punishment of thy deeds,
the solace of my death, is at hand.’

“He pursued his wicked design; and, at last, weakened by numberless
blows, and pulled downward with ropes, the tree fell down, and with its
weight levelled a great part of the wood. All her sisters, the Dryads,
being shocked at the loss of the grove and their own, in their grief
repaired to Ceres, in black array,[96] and requested the punishment of
Erisicthon. She assented to their {request}, and the most beauteous
Goddess, with the nodding of her head, shook the fields loaded with the
heavy crops; and contrived {for him} a kind of punishment, lamentable,
if he had not, for his crimes, been deserving of the sympathy of none,
{namely}, to torment him with deadly Famine. And since that Goddess
could not be approached by herself (for the Destinies do not allow Ceres
and Famine to come together), in such words as these she addressed
rustic Oreas, one of the mountain Deities: ‘There is an icy region in
the extreme part of Scythia, a dreary soil, a land, desolate, without
corn {and} without trees; there dwell drowsy Cold, and Paleness, and
Trembling, and famishing Hunger; order her to bury herself in the breast
of this sacrilegious {wretch}. Let no abundance of provisions overcome
her; and let her surpass my powers in the contest. And that the length
of the road may not alarm thee, take my chariot, take the dragons, which
thou mayst guide aloft with the reins;’ and {then} she gave them to her.

“She, borne through the air on the chariot {thus} granted, arrived in
Scythia; and, on the top of a steep mountain (they call it Caucasus),
she unyoked the neck of the dragons, and beheld Famine, whom she was
seeking, in a stony field, tearing up herbs, growing here and there,
with her nails and with her teeth. Rough was her hair, her eyes hollow,
paleness on her face, her lips white with scurf,[97] her jaws rough with
rustiness; her skin hard, through which her bowels might be seen; her
dry bones were projecting beneath her crooked loins; instead of a belly,
there was {only} the place for a belly. You would think her breast was
hanging, and was only supported from the chine[98] of the back. Leanness
had, {to appearance}, increased her joints, and the caps of her knees
were stiff, and excrescences projected from her overgrown ancles. Soon
as {Oreas} beheld her at a distance (for she did not dare come near
her), she delivered the commands of the Goddess; and, staying for so
short a time, although she was at a distance from her, {and} although
she had just come thither, still did she seem to feel hunger; and,
turning the reins, she drove aloft the dragon’s back to Hæmonia.

“Famine executes the orders of Ceres (although she is ever opposing her
operations), and is borne by the winds through the air to the assigned
abode, and immediately enters the bedchamber of the sacrilegious
{wretch}, and embraces him, sunk in a deep sleep ({for} it is
night-time), with her two wings. She breathes herself into the man, and
blows upon his jaws, and his breast, and his face; and she scatters
hunger through his empty veins. And having {thus} executed her
commission, she forsakes the fruitful world, and returns to her famished
abode, her wonted fields. Gentle sleep is still soothing[99] Erisicthon
with its balmy wings. In a vision of his sleep he craves for food, and
moves his jaws to no purpose, and tires his teeth {grinding} upon teeth,
and wearies his throat deluded with imaginary food; and, instead of
victuals, he devours in vain the yielding air. But when sleep is
banished, his desire for eating is outrageous, and holds sway over his
craving jaws, and his insatiate entrails. And no delay {is there}; he
calls what the sea, what the earth, what the air produces, and complains
of hunger with the tables set before him, and requires food in {the
midst of} food. And what might be enough for {whole} cities, and what
{might be enough} for a {whole} people, is not sufficient for one man.
The more, too, he swallows down into his stomach, the more does he
desire. And just as the ocean receives rivers from the whole earth, and
{yet} is not satiated with water, and drinks up the rivers of distant
countries, and as the devouring fire never refuses fuel, and burns up
beams of wood without number, and the greater the quantity that is given
to it, the more does it crave, and it is the more voracious through the
very abundance {of fuel}; so do the jaws of the impious Erisicthon
receive all victuals {presented}, and at the same time ask for {more}.
In him all food is {only} a ground for {more} food, and there is always
room vacant for eating {still more}.

“And now, through his appetite, and the voracity of his capacious
stomach, he had diminished his paternal estate; but yet, even then, did
his shocking hunger remain undiminished, and the craving of his
insatiable appetite continued in full vigour. At last, after he has
swallowed down his estate into his paunch,[100] his daughter {alone} is
remaining, undeserving of him for a father; her, too, he sells, pressed
by want. Born of a noble race, she cannot brook a master; and stretching
out her hands, over the neighbouring sea, she says, ‘Deliver me from a
master, thou who dost possess the prize of my ravished virginity.’ This
{prize} Neptune had {possessed himself of}. He, not despising her
prayer, although, the moment before, she has been seen by her master in
pursuit of her, both alters her form, and gives her the appearance of a
man, and a habit befitting such as catch fish. Looking at her, her
master says, ‘O thou manager of the rod, who dost cover the brazen
{hook}, as it hangs, with tiny morsels, even so may the sea be smooth
{for thee}, even so may the fish in the water be {ever} credulous for
thee, and may they perceive no hook till caught; tell me where she is,
who this moment was standing upon this shore (for standing on the shore
I saw her), with her hair dishevelled, {and} in humble garb; for no
further do her footsteps extend.’ She perceives that the favour of the
God has turned to good purpose, and, well pleased that she is inquired
after of herself, she replies to him, as he inquires, in these words:
‘Whoever thou art, excuse me, {but} I have not turned my eyes on any
side from this water, and, busily employed, I have been attending to my
pursuit. And that thou mayst the less disbelieve {me}, may the God of
the sea so aid this employment of mine, no man has been for some time
standing on this shore, myself only excepted, nor has any woman been
standing {here}.’ Her master believed her, and, turning his feet {to go
away}, he paced the sands, and, {thus} deceived, withdrew. Her own shape
was restored to her.

“But when her father found that his {daughter} had a body capable of
being transformed, he often sold the grand-daughter of Triopas to
{other} masters. But she used to escape, sometimes as a mare, sometimes
as a bird, now as a cow, now as a stag; and {so} provided a dishonest
maintenance for her hungry parent. Yet, after this violence of his
distemper had consumed all his provision, and had added fresh fuel to
his dreadful malady: he himself, with mangling bites, began to tear his
own limbs, and the miserable {wretch} used to feed his own body by
diminishing it. {But} why do I dwell on the instances of others? I, too,
O youths,[101] have a power of often changing my body, {though} limited
in the number {of those changes}. For, one while, I appear what I now
am, another while I am wreathed as a snake; then {as} the leader of a
herd, I receive strength in my horns. In my horns, {I say}, so long as I
could. Now, one side of my forehead is deprived of its weapons, as thou
seest thyself.” Sighs followed his words.

    〔note 91 — Autolycus.--Ver. 738. He was the father of Anticlea, the mother of Ulysses, and was instructed by Mercury in the art of thieving. His wife was Metra, whose transformations are here described by the Poet.〕

    〔note 92 — Tablets as memorials.--Ver. 744. That is, they had inscribed on them the grateful thanks of the parties who placed them there to Ceres, for having granted their wishes.〕

    〔note 93 — Son of Triopas.--Ver. 751. Erisicthon was the son of Triopas.〕

    〔note 94 — Deoïan oak.--Ver. 758. Belonging to Ceres. See Book vi. line 114.〕

    〔note 95 — I, a Nymph.--Ver. 771. She was one of the Hamadryads, whose lives terminated with those of the trees which they respectively inhabited.〕

    〔note 96 — In black array.--Ver. 778. The Romans wore mourning for the dead; which seems, in the time of the Republic, to have been black or dark blue for either sex. Under the Empire, the men continued to wear black, but the women wore white. On such occasions all ornaments were laid aside.〕

    〔note 97 — With scurf.--Ver. 802. Clarke gives this translation of ‘Labra incana situ:’ ‘Her lips very white with nasty stuff.’〕

    〔note 98 — From the chine.--Ver. 806. ‘A spinæ tantummodo crate teneri,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘Was only supported by the wattling of her backbone.’〕

    〔note 99 — Is still soothing.--Ver. 823. Clarke renders the words ‘Lenis adhuc somnus--Erisicthona pennis mulcebat;’ ‘Gentle sleep as yet clapped Erisicthon with her wings.’〕

    〔note 100 — Into his paunch.--Ver. 846. Clarke translates ‘Tandem, demisso in viscera censu;’ ‘at last, after he had swallowed down all his estate into his g--ts.’〕

    〔note 101 — I too, O youths.--Ver. 880. Acheloüs is addressing Theseus, Pirithoüs, and Lelex. The words, ‘Etiam mihi sæpe novandi Corporis, O Juvenes,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘I too, gentlemen, have the power of changing my body.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  The story of Metra and Erisicthon has no other foundation, in all
  probability, than the diligent care which she took, as a dutiful
  daughter, to support her father, when he had ruined himself by his
  luxury and extravagance. She, probably, was a young woman, who, in
  the hour of need, could, in common parlance, ‘turn her hand’ to any
  useful employment. Some, however, suppose that, by her changes are
  meant the wages she received from those whom she served in the
  capacity of a slave, and which she gave to her father; and it must
  be remembered that, in ancient times, as money was scarce, the wages
  of domestics were often paid in kind. Other writers again suggest,
  less to the credit of the damsel, that her changes denote the price
  she received for her debaucheries. Ovid adds, that she married
  Autolycus, the robber, who stole the oxen of Eurytus. Callimachus
  also, in his Hymn to Ceres, gives the story of Erisicthon at length.
  He was the great grandfather of Ulysses, and was probably a man
  noted for his infidelity and impiety, as well as his riotous course
  of life. The story is probably of Eastern origin, and if a little
  expanded might vie with many of the interesting fictions which we
  read in the Arabian Night’s Entertainments.

FABLE I. [IX.1-100]

  Deïanira, the daughter of Œneus, having been wooed by several
  suitors, her father gives his consent that she shall marry him who
  proves to be the bravest of them. Her other suitors, having given
  way to Hercules and Acheloüs, they engage in single combat.
  Acheloüs, to gain the advantage over his rival, transforms himself
  into various shapes, and, at length, into that of a bull. These
  attempts are in vain, and Hercules overcomes him, and breaks off one
  of his horns. The Naiads, the daughters of Acheloüs, take it up, and
  fill it with the variety of fruits which Autumn affords; on which it
  obtains the name of the Horn of Plenty.

Theseus, the Neptunian hero,[1] inquires what is the cause of his
sighing, and of his forehead being mutilated; when thus begins the
Calydonian river, having his unadorned hair crowned with reeds:

“A mournful task thou art exacting; for who, when overcome, is desirous
to relate his own battles? yet I will relate them in order; nor was it
so disgraceful to be overcome, as it is glorious to have engaged; and a
conqueror so mighty affords me a great consolation. If, perchance,
Deïanira,[2] by her name, has at last reached thy ears, once she was a
most beautiful maiden, and the envied hope of many a wooer; together
with these, when the house of him, whom I desired as my father-in-law,
was entered by me, I said, ‘Receive me, O son of Parthaon,[3] for thy
son-in-law.’ Alcides, too, said {the same}; the others yielded to {us}
two. He alleged that he was offering {to the damsel} both Jupiter as a
father-in-law, and the glory of his labours; the orders, too, of his
step-mother, successfully executed. On the other hand (I thought it
disgraceful for a God to give way to a mortal, for then he was not a
God), I said, ‘Thou beholdest me, a king of the waters, flowing amid thy
realms,[4] with my winding course; nor {am I some} stranger sent thee
for a son-in-law, from foreign lands, but I shall be one of thy people,
and a part of thy state. Only let it not be to my prejudice, that the
royal Juno does not hate me, and that all punishment, by labours
enjoined, is afar from me. For, since thou, {Hercules}, dost boast
thyself born of Alcmena for thy mother; Jupiter is either thy pretended
sire, or thy real one through a criminal deed: by the adultery of thy
mother art thou claiming a father. Choose, {then}, whether thou wouldst
rather have Jupiter {for thy} pretended {father}, or that thou art
sprung {from him} through a disgraceful deed?’

“While I was saying such things as these, for some time he looked at me
with a scowling eye, and did not very successfully check his inflamed
wrath; and he returned me just as many words {as these}: ‘My right hand
is better than my tongue. If only I do but prevail in fighting, do thou
get the better in talking;’ and {then} he fiercely {attacked} me. I was
ashamed, after having so lately spoken big words, to yield. I threw on
one side my green garment from off my body, and opposed my arms {to
his}, and I held my hands bent inwards,[5] from before my breast, on
their guard, and I prepared my limbs for the combat. He sprinkled me
with dust, taken up in the hollow of his hands, and, in his turn, grew
yellow with the casting of yellow sand[6] {upon himself}. And at one
moment he aimed at my neck, at another my legs, as they shifted about,
or you would suppose he was aiming {at them}; and he assaulted me on
every side. My bulk defended me, and I was attacked in vain; no
otherwise than a mole, which the waves beat against with loud noise:
it remains {unshaken}, and by its own weight is secure.

“We retire a little, and {then} again we rush together in conflict, and
we stand firm, determined not to yield; foot, too, is joined to foot;
and {then} I, bending forward full with my breast, press upon his
fingers with my fingers, and his forehead with my forehead. In no
different manner have I beheld the strong bulls engage, when the most
beauteous mate[7] in all the pasture is sought as the reward of the
combat; the herds look on and tremble, uncertain which the mastery of so
great a domain awaits. Thrice without effect did Alcides attempt to hurl
away from him my breast, as it bore hard against him; the fourth time,
he shook off my hold, and loosened my arms clasped around him; and,
striking me with his hand, (I am resolved to confess the truth) he
turned me quite round, and clung, a mighty load, to my back. If any
credit {is to be given me}, (and, indeed, no glory is sought by me
through an untrue narration) I seemed to myself {as though} weighed down
with a mountain placed upon me. Yet, with great difficulty, I disengaged
my arms streaming with much perspiration, {and}, with great exertion,
I unlocked his firm grasp from my body. He pressed on me as I panted for
breath, and prevented me from recovering my strength, and {then} seized
hold of my neck. Then, at last, was the earth pressed by my knee, and
with my mouth I bit the sand. Inferior in strength, I had recourse to my
arts,[8] and transformed into a long serpent, I escaped from the hero.

“After I had twisted my body into winding folds, and darted my forked
tongue with dreadful hissings, the Tirynthian laughed, and deriding my
arts, he said, ‘It was the labour of my cradle to conquer serpents;[9]
and although, Acheloüs, thou shouldst excel other snakes, how large a
part wilt thou, {but} one serpent, be of the Lernæan Echidna? By her
{very} wounds was she multiplied, and not one head of her hundred in
number[10] was cut off {by me} without danger {to myself}; but rather so
that her neck became stronger, with two successors {to the former head}.
{Yet} her I subdued, branching with serpents springing from {each}
wound, and growing stronger by her disasters; and, {so} subdued, I slew
her. What canst thou think will become of thee, who, changed into a
fictitious serpent, art wielding arms that belong to another, and whom a
form, obtained as a favour, is {now} disguising?’ {Thus} he spoke; and
he planted the grip of his fingers on the upper part of my neck. I was
tortured, just as though my throat was squeezed with pincers; and I
struggled hard to disengage my jaws from his fingers.

“Thus vanquished, too, there still remained for me my third form, {that}
of a furious bull; with my limbs changed into {those of} a bull I
renewed the fight. He threw his arms over my brawny neck, on the left
side, and, dragging {at me}, followed me in my onward course; and
seizing my horns, he fastened them in the hard ground, and felled me
upon the deep sand. And that was not enough; while his relentless right
hand was holding my stubborn horn, he broke it, and tore it away from my
mutilated forehead. This, heaped with fruit and odoriferous flowers, the
Naiads have consecrated, and the bounteous {Goddess}, Plenty, is
enriched by my horn.” {Thus} he said; but a Nymph, girt up after the
manner of Diana, one of his handmaids, with her hair hanging loose on
either side, came in, and brought the whole {of the produce} of Autumn
in the most plentiful horn, and choice fruit for a second course.

Day comes on, and the rising sun striking the tops of the hills, the
young men depart; nor do they stay till the stream has quiet {restored
to it}, and a smooth course, and {till} the troubled waters subside.
Acheloüs conceals his rustic features, and his mutilated horn, in the
midst of the waves; yet the loss of this honour, taken from him, {alone}
affects him; in other respects, he is unhurt. The injury, too, which has
befallen his head, is {now} concealed with willow branches, or with
reeds placed upon it.

    〔note 1 — The Neptunian hero.--Ver. 1. Theseus was the grandson of Neptune, through his father Ægeus.〕

    〔note 2 — Deïanira.--Ver. 9. She was the daughter of Œneus, king of Ætolia, and became the wife of Hercules.〕

    〔note 3 — Parthaon.--Ver. 12. He was the son of Agenor and Epicaste. Homer, however, makes Portheus, and not Parthaon, to have been the father of Œneus.〕

    〔note 4 — Amid thy realms.--Ver. 18. The river Acheloüs flowed between Ætolia and Acarnania.〕

    〔note 5 — Bent inwards.--Ver. 33. ‘Varus,’ which we here translate ‘bent inwards,’ according to some authorities, means ‘bent outwards.’〕

    〔note 6 — Casting of yellow sand.--Ver. 35. It was the custom of wrestlers, after they had anointed the body with ‘ceroma’ or wrestler’s oil, in order to render the body supple and pliant, to sprinkle the body with sand, or dust, to enable the antagonist to take a firm hold. It was, however, considered more praiseworthy to conquer in a contest which was ἀκονιτὶ ‘without the use of sand.’〕

    〔note 7 — Most beauteous mate.--Ver. 47. Clarke translates ‘nitidissima conjux,’ ‘the neatest cow.’〕

    〔note 8 — Recourse to my arts.--Ver. 62. ‘Devertor ad artes,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘I fly to my tricks.’〕

    〔note 9 — To conquer serpents.--Ver. 67. Hercules, while an infant in his cradle, was said to have strangled two serpents, which Juno sent for the purpose of destroying him.〕

    〔note 10 — Hundred in number.--Ver. 71. The number of heads of the Hydra varies in the accounts given by different writers. Seven, nine, fifty, and a hundred are the numbers mentioned. This, however, is not surprising, as we are told that where one was cut off, two sprang up in their place, until Hercules, to prevent such consequences, adopted the precaution of searing the neck, where the head had been cut off, with a red hot iron.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The river Acheloüs, which ran between Acarnania and Ætolia, often
  did considerable damage to those countries by its inundations, and,
  at the same time, by confounding or sweeping away the limits which
  separated those nations, it engaged them in continual warfare with
  each other. Hercules, who seems really to have been a person of
  great scientific skill, which he was ever ready to employ for the
  service of his fellow men, raised banks to it, and made its course
  so uniform and straight, that he was the means of establishing
  perpetual peace between these adjoining nations.

  The early authors who recorded these events have narrated them under
  a thick and almost impenetrable veil of fiction. They say that
  Hercules engaged in combat with the God of that river, who
  immediately transformed himself into a serpent, by which was
  probably meant merely the serpentine windings of its course. Next
  they say, that the God changed himself into a bull, under which
  allegorical form they refer to the rapid and impetuous overflowing
  of its banks, ever rushing onwards, bearing down everything in its
  course, and leaving traces of its ravages throughout the country in
  its vicinity. This mode of description the more readily occurred to
  them in the case of Acheloüs, as from the roaring noise which they
  often make in their course, rivers in general were frequently
  represented under the figure of a bull, and, of course, as wearing
  horns, the great instruments of the havoc which they created.

  It was said, then, that Hercules at length overcame this bull, and
  broke off one of his horns; by which was meant, according to Strabo,
  that he brought both the branches of the river into one channel.
  Again, this horn became the Horn of Plenty in that region; or, in
  other words, being withdrawn from its bed, the river left a large
  track of very fertile ground for agricultural purposes. As to the
  Cornucopia, or Horn of Plenty of the heathen Mythology, there is
  some variation in the accounts respecting it. Some writers say that
  by it was meant the horn of the goat Amalthea, which suckled
  Jupiter, and that the Nymphs gave it to Acheloüs, who again gave it
  in exchange for that of which Hercules afterwards deprived him.
  Deïanira, having given her hand to Hercules, as the recompense of
  the important services which he had rendered to her father, Œneus,
  it was fabled that she had been promised to Acheloüs, who was
  vanquished by his rival; and on this foundation was built the
  superstructure of the famous combat which the Poet here describes.
  After having remained for some time at the court of his
  father-in-law, Hercules was obliged to leave it, in consequence of
  having killed the son of Architritilus, who was the cupbearer of
  that prince.

FABLE II. [IX.101-272]

  Hercules, returning with Deïanira, as the prize of his victory,
  entrusts her to the Centaur Nessus, to carry her over the river
  Evenus. Nessus seizes the opportunity of Hercules being on the other
  side of the river, and attempts to carry her off; on which Hercules,
  perceiving his design, shoots him with an arrow, and thus prevents
  its execution. The Centaur, when expiring, in order to gratify his
  revenge, gives Deïanira his tunic dipped in his blood, assuring her
  that it contains an effectual charm against all infidelity on the
  part of her husband. Afterwards, on hearing that Hercules is in love
  with Iole, Deïanira sends him the tunic, that it may have the
  supposed effect. As soon as he puts it on, he is affected with
  excruciating torments, and is seized with such violent fits of
  madness, that he throws Lychas, the bearer of the garment, into the
  sea, where he is changed into a rock. Hercules, then, in obedience
  to a response of the oracle, which he consults, prepares a funeral
  pile, and laying himself upon it, his friend Philoctetes applies the
  torch to it, on which the hero, having first recounted his labours,
  expires in the flames. After his body is consumed, Jupiter
  translates him to the heavens, and he is placed in the number of the
  Gods.

But a passion for this same maiden proved fatal to thee, fierce
Nessus,[11] pierced through the back with a swift arrow. For the son of
Jupiter, as he was returning to his native city with his new-made wife,
had {now} come to the rapid waters of {the river} Evenus.[12] The stream
was swollen to a greater extent than usual with the winter rains, and
was full of whirlpools, and impassable. Nessus came up to him,
regardless of himself, {but} feeling anxiety for his wife, both strong
of limb,[13] and well acquainted with the fords, and said, “Alcides, she
shall be landed on yonder bank through my services, do thou employ thy
strength in swimming;” and the Aonian {hero} entrusted to Nessus the
Calydonian damsel full of alarm, and pale with apprehension, and
{equally} dreading both the river and {Nessus} himself. Immediately,
just as he was, loaded both with his quiver and the spoil of the lion,
(for he had thrown his club and his crooked bow to the opposite side),
he said, “Since I have undertaken it, the stream must be passed.”

And he does not hesitate; nor does he seek out where the stream is the
smoothest, and he spurns to be borne over by the compliance of the
river. And now having reached the bank, and as he is taking up the bow
which he had thrown over, he recognizes the voice of his wife; and as
Nessus is preparing to rob him of what he has entrusted to his care, he
cries out, “Whither, thou ravisher, does thy vain confidence in thy feet
hurry thee? to thee am I speaking, Nessus, thou two-shaped {monster}.
Listen; and do not carry off my property. If no regard for myself
influences thee, still the wheel of thy father[14] might have restrained
thee from forbidden embraces. Thou shall not escape, however, although
thou dost confide[15] in thy powers of a horse; with a wound, {and} not
with my feet, will I overtake thee.” {These} last words he confirms by
deeds, and pierces him through the back, as he is flying, with an arrow
discharged {at him}. The barbed steel stands out from his breast; soon
as it is wrenched out, the blood gushes forth from both wounds, mingled
with the venom of the Lernæan poison. Nessus takes it out, and says to
himself, “And yet I shall not die unrevenged;” and gives his garment,
dyed in the warm blood, as a present to her whom he is carrying off,
as though an incentive to love.

Long was the space of intervening time, and the feats of the mighty
Hercules and the hatred of his step-mother had filled the earth.
{Returning} victorious from Œchalia, he is preparing a sacrifice which
he had vowed to Cenæan Jupiter,[16] when tattling Rumour (who takes
pleasure in adding false things to the truth, and from a very little
{beginning}, swells to a great bulk by her lies) runs before to thy
ears, Deïanira, {to the effect} that the son of Amphitryon is seized
with a passion for Iole. As she loves him, she believes it; and being
alarmed with the report of this new amour, at first she indulges in
tears and in her misery gives vent to her grief in weeping. Soon,
however, she says, “But why do I weep? My rival will be delighted with
these tears; and since she is coming I must make haste, and some
contrivance must be resolved on while it is {still} possible, and while,
as yet, another has not taken possession of my bed. Shall I complain,
or shall I be silent? Shall I return to Calydon, or shall I stay here?
Shall I depart from this abode? or, if nothing more, shall I oppose
{their entrance}? What if, O Meleager, remembering that I am thy sister,
I resolve on a desperate deed, and testify, by murdering my rival, how
much, injury and a woman’s grief can effect?”

Her mind wavers, amid various resolves. Before them all, she prefers to
send the garment dyed in the blood of Nessus, to restore strength to his
declining love. Not knowing herself what she is giving, she delivers
{the cause of} her own sorrows to the unsuspecting Lichas,[17] and bids
him, in gentle words, to deliver this most fatal gift to her husband. In
his ignorance, the hero receives it, and places upon his shoulders the
venom of the Lernæan Echidna. He is placing frankincense on the rising
flames, and {is offering} the words of prayer, and pouring wine from the
bowl upon the marble altars. The virulence of the bane waxes warm, and,
melted by the flames, it runs, widely diffused over the limbs of
Hercules. So long as he is able, he suppresses his groans with his
wonted fortitude. After his endurance is overcome by his anguish, he
pushes down the altars, and fills the woody Œta with his cries. There is
no {further} delay; he attempts to tear off the deadly garment; {but}
where it is torn off, it tears away the skin, and, shocking to relate,
it either sticks to his limbs, being tried in vain to be pulled off,
or it lays bare his mangled limbs, and his huge bones. The blood itself
hisses, just as when a red hot plate {of metal is} dipped in cold water;
and it boils with the burning poison. There is no limit {to his misery};
the devouring flames prey upon his entrails, and a livid perspiration
flows from his whole body; his half-burnt sinews also crack; and his
marrow being {now} dissolved by the subtle poison, lifting his hands
towards the stars {of heaven}, he exclaims, “Daughter of Saturn, satiate
thyself with my anguish; satiate thyself, and look down from on high,
O cruel {Goddess}, at this {my} destruction, and glut thy relentless
heart. Or, if I am to be pitied even by an enemy (for an enemy I am to
thee), take away a life insupportable through these dreadful agonies,
hateful, too, {to myself}, and {only} destined to trouble. Death will be
a gain to me. It becomes a stepmother to grant such a favour.

“And was it for this that I subdued Busiris, who polluted the temples
{of the Gods} with the blood of strangers? And did I {for this},
withdraw from the savage Antæus[18] the support given him by his mother?
Did neither the triple shape of the Iberian shepherd[19], nor thy triple
form, O Cerberus, alarm me? And did you, my hands, seize the horns of
the mighty bull? Does Elis, {too}, possess {the result} of your labours,
and the Stymphalian waters, and the Parthenian[20] grove {as well}? By
your valour was it that the belt, inlaid with the gold of Thermodon[21],
was gained, the apples too, guarded in vain by the wakeful dragon? And
could neither the Centaurs resist me, nor yet the boar, the ravager of
Arcadia? And was it not of no avail to the Hydra to grow through {its
own} loss, and to recover double strength? And what besides? When I
beheld the Thracian steeds fattened with human blood, and the mangers
filled with mangled bodies, did I throw them down when {thus} beheld,
and slay both the master and {the horses} themselves? {And} does the
carcass of the Nemean {lion} lie crushed by these arms? With this neck
did I support the heavens?[22] The unrelenting wife of Jupiter[23] was
weary of commanding, {but} I was {still} unwearied with doing. But {now}
a new calamity is come upon me, to which resistance can be made neither
by valour, nor by weapons, nor by arms. A consuming flame is pervading
the inmost recesses of my lungs, and is preying on all my limbs. But
Eurystheus {still} survives. And are there,” says he, “any who can
believe that the Deities exist?”

And {then}, racked with pain, he ranges along the lofty Œta, no
otherwise than if a tiger should chance to carry the hunting spears
fixed in his body, and the perpetrator of the deed should be taking to
flight. Often might you have beheld him uttering groans, often shrieking
aloud, often striving to tear away the whole of his garments, and
levelling trees, and venting his fury against mountains, or stretching
out his arms towards the heaven of his father. Lo! he espies Lichas,
trembling and lying concealed in a hollow rock, and, as his pain has
summoned together all his fury, he says, “Didst thou, Lichas, bring
{this} fatal present; and shalt thou be the cause of my death?” He
trembles, and {turning} pale, is alarmed, and timorously utters some
words of excuse. As he is speaking, and endeavouring to clasp his knees
with his hands, Alcides seizes hold of him, and whirling him round three
or four times, he hurls him into the Eubœan waves, with greater force
than {if sent} from an engine of war. As he soars aloft in the aerial
breeze he grows hard; and as they say that showers freeze with the cold
winds, {and} that thence snow is formed, and that from the snow,
revolving {in its descent}, the soft body is compressed, and is {then}
made round in many a hailstone,[24] so have former ages declared, that,
hurled through the air by the strong arms {of Hercules}, and bereft of
blood through fear, and having no moisture left in him, he was
transformed into hard stone. Even to this day, in the Eubœan sea,
a small rock projects to a height, and retains the traces of the human
form. This, the sailors are afraid to tread upon, as though it could
feel it; and they call it Lichas.

But thou, the famous offspring of Jupiter, having cut down, trees which
lofty Œta bore, and having raised them for a pile, dost order the son of
Pœas[25] to take the bow and the capacious quiver, and the arrows which
are again to visit[26] the Trojan realms; by whose assistance flames are
put beneath the pile; and while the structure is being seized by the
devouring fires, thou dost cover the summit of the heap of wood with the
skin of the Nemean {lion}, and dost lie down with thy neck resting on
thy club, with no other countenance than if thou art lying as a guest
crowned with garlands, amid the full cups of wine.

And now, the flames, prevailing and spreading on every side, roared,[27]
and reached the limbs {thus} undismayed, and him who despised them. The
Gods were alarmed for {this} protector of the earth;[28] Saturnian
Jupiter (for he perceived it) thus addressed them with joyful voice:
“This fear of yours is my own delight, O ye Gods of heaven, and, with
all my heart, I gladly congratulate myself that I am called the governor
and the father of a grateful people, and that my progeny, too, is secure
in your esteem. For, although this {concern} is given {in return} for
his mighty exploits, {still} I myself am obliged {by} it. But, however,
that your affectionate breasts may not be alarmed with vain fears,
despise these flames of Œta. He who has conquered all things, shall
conquer the fires which you behold; nor shall he be sensible of the
potency of the flame, but in the part {of him} which he derived from his
mother. {That part of him}, which he derived from me, is immortal, and
exempt and secure from death, and to be subdued by no flames. This, too,
when disengaged from earth, I will receive into the celestial regions,
and I trust that this act of mine will be agreeable to all the Deities.
Yet if any one, if any one, {I say}, perchance should grieve at Hercules
being a Divinity, {and} should be unwilling that this honour should be
conferred on him; still he shall know that he deserves it to be bestowed
{on him}, and {even} against his will, shall approve of it.”

{To this} the Gods assented; his royal spouse, too, seemed to bear the
rest {of his remarks} with no discontented {air}, but only the last
words with a countenance of discontent, and to take it amiss that she
was {so plainly} pointed at. In the mean time, whatever was liable to be
destroyed by flame, Mulciber consumed; and the figure of Hercules
remained, not to be recognized; nor did he have anything derived from
the form of his mother, and he only retained the traces of {immortal}
Jupiter. And as when a serpent revived, by throwing off old age with his
slough, is wont to be instinct with fresh life, and to glisten in his
new-made scales; so, when the Tirynthian {hero} has put off his mortal
limbs, he flourishes in his more æthereal part, and begins to appear
more majestic, and to become venerable in his august dignity. Him the
omnipotent Father, taking up among encircling clouds, bears aloft amid
the glittering stars, in his chariot drawn by {its} four steeds.

    〔note 11 — Nessus.--Ver. 101. He was one of the Centaurs which were begotten by Ixion the cloud sent by Jupiter, under the form of Juno.〕

    〔note 12 — Evenus.--Ver. 104. This was a river of Ætolia, which was also called by the name of ‘Lycormas.’〕

    〔note 13 — Strong of limb.--Ver. 108. ‘Membrisque valens,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘being an able-limbed fellow.’〕

    〔note 14 — Wheel of thy father.--Ver. 124. He alludes to the punishment of Ixion, the father of Nessus, who was fastened to a revolving wheel in the Infernal Regions, as a punishment for his attempt on the chastity of Juno.〕

    〔note 15 — Thou dost confide.--Ver. 125. ‘Quamvis ope fidis equinâ,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘Although thou trustest to the help of thy horse part.’〕

    〔note 16 — Cenæan Jupiter.--Ver. 136. Jupiter was called Cenæan, from Cenæum, a promontory of Eubœa, where Hercules, after having taken the town of Œchalia, built an altar in honour of Jupiter. Hercules slew Eurytus, the king of Œchalia, and carried away his daughter Iole.〕

    〔note 17 — Lichas.--Ver. 155. This was the attendant of Hercules, whom he sent to Deïanira for the garment which he used to wear while performing sacrifice.〕

    〔note 18 — The savage Antæus.--Ver. 183. He alludes to the fresh strength which the giant Antæus gained each time he touched the earth.〕

    〔note 19 — Iberian shepherd.--Ver. 184. Allusion is here made to Geryon, who had three bodies, and whom Hercules slew, and then carried away his herds. It has been suggested that the story of his triple form originated in the fact that he and his two brothers reigned amicably in conjunction over some portion of Spain, or the islands adjoining to it.〕

    〔note 20 — Parthenian.--Ver. 188. A part of Arcadia was so called from Parthenium, a mountain which divided it from Argolis; there was also, according to Pliny the Elder, a town of the same name in Arcadia.〕

    〔note 21 — Gold of Thermodon.--Ver. 189. The Thermodon was a river of Scythia, near which the Amazons were said to dwell. Eurystheus ordered Hercules to bring to him the belt of Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons.〕

    〔note 22 — Support the heavens.--Ver. 198. Atlas, king of Mauritania, was said to support the heavens on his shoulders, of which burden Hercules relieved him for a time, when he partook of his hospitality. It has been suggested that the meaning of this story is, that Hercules learned the study of astronomy from Atlas.〕

    〔note 23 — Wife of Jupiter.--Ver. 199. Juno gave her commands to Hercules through Eurystheus, the son of Sthenelus, king of Mycenæ, who imposed upon him his various labours.〕

    〔note 24 — Many a hailstone.--Ver. 222. Ovid here seems to think that snow is an intermediate state between rain and hail, and that hail is formed by the rapid motion of the snow as it falls.〕

    〔note 25 — The son of Pœas.--Ver. 233. Philoctetes was the son of Pœas.〕

    〔note 26 — Again to visit.--Ver. 232. It was decreed by the destinies that Troy should not be taken, unless the bow and arrows of Hercules were present; for which reason it was necessary to send for Philoctetes, who was the possessor of them. Troy had already seen them, when Hercules punished Laomedon, its king, for his perfidious conduct.〕

    〔note 27 — Roared.--Ver. 239. ‘Diffusa sonabat--flamma’ is translated by Clarke, ‘The flame, being diffused on all sides, rattled.’〕

    〔note 28 — Protector of the earth.--Ver. 241. Hercules merited this character, for having cleared the earth of monsters, robbers, and tyrants.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Hercules, leaving the court of Calydon with his wife, proceeded on
  the road to the city of Trachyn, in Thessaly, to atone for the
  accidental death of Eunomus, and to be absolved from it by Ceyx, who
  was the king of that territory. Being obliged to cross the river
  Evenus, which had overflowed its banks, the adventure happened with
  the Centaur Nessus, which the Poet has here related. We learn from
  other writers, that after Nessus had expired, he was buried on Mount
  Taphiusa; and Strabo informs us, that his tomb (in which, probably,
  the ashes of other Centaurs were deposited) sent forth so offensive
  a smell, that the Locrians, who were the inhabitants of the adjacent
  country, were surnamed the ‘Ozolæ,’ that is, the ‘ill-smelling,’ or
  ‘stinking,’ Locrians. Although the river Evenus lay in the road
  between Calydon and Trachyn, still it did not run through the middle
  of the latter city, as some authors have supposed; for in such case
  Hercules would have been more likely to have passed it by the aid of
  a bridge or of a boat, than to have recourse to the assistance of
  the Centaur Nessus, and to have availed himself of his acquaintance
  with the fords of the stream.

  Hercules, in lapse of time, becoming tired of Deïanira, by whom he
  had one son, named Hyllus, fell in love with Iole, the daughter of
  Eurytus; and that prince, refusing to give her to him, he made war
  upon Œchalia, and, having slain Eurytus, he bore off his daughter.
  Upon his return from that expedition, he sent Lychas for the
  vestments which he had occasion to use in a sacrifice which it was
  his intention to offer. Deïanira, jealous on account of his passion
  for Iole, sent him either a philtre or love potion, which
  unintentionally caused his death, or else a tunic smeared on the
  inside with a certain kind of pitch, found near Babylon, which, when
  thoroughly warmed, stuck fast to his skin; and this it is, most
  probably, which has been termed by poets and historians, the tunic
  of Nessus. It seems, however, pretty clear that Hercules fell into a
  languishing distemper, without any hopes of recovery, and, probably,
  in a fit of madness, he threw Lychas into the sea, which
  circumstance was made by the poets to account for the existence
  there of a rock known by that name.

  Proceeding afterwards to Trachyn, he caused Deïanira to hang herself
  in despair; and, having consulted the oracle concerning his
  distemper, he was ordered to go with his friends to Mount Œta, and
  there to raise a funeral pile. He understood the fatal answer, and
  immediately prepared to execute its commands. When the pile was
  ready, Hercules ascended it, and laid himself down with an air of
  resignation, on which Philoctetes kindled the fire, which consumed
  him. Some, however, of the ancient authors say, with more
  probability, that Hercules died at Trachyn, and that his corpse was
  burned on Mount Œta. His apotheosis commenced at the ceremonial of
  his funeral, and, from the moment of his death, he was worshipped as
  a Demigod. Diodorus Siculus says that it was Iolus who first
  introduced this worship. It was also said that, as soon as
  Philoctetes had applied fire to the pile, it thundered, and the
  lightnings descending from heaven immediately consumed Hercules.
  A tomb was raised for him on Mount Œta, with an altar, upon which a
  bull, a wild boar, and a he-goat were yearly sacrificed in his
  honour, at the time of his festival. The Thebans, and, after them,
  the other people of Greece, soon followed the example of the
  Trachinians, and temples and altars were raised to him in various
  places, where he was honoured as a Demigod.

FABLE III. [IX.273-323]

  Juno, to be revenged on Alcmena for her amour with Jupiter, desires
  Ilithyïa, the Goddess who presides over births, not to assist her on
  the occasion of the birth of Hercules. Lucina complies with her
  request, and places herself on an altar at the gate of Alcmena’s
  abode, where, by a magic spell, she increases her pains and impedes
  her delivery. Galanthis, one of her maids, seeing the Goddess at the
  door, imagines that she may possibly exercise some bad influence on
  her mistress’s labour, and, to make her retire, declares that
  Alcmena is already delivered. Upon Ilithyïa withdrawing, Alcmena’s
  pains are assuaged, and Hercules is born. The Goddess, to punish
  Galanthis for her officiousness, transforms her into a weazel,
  a creature which was supposed to bring forth its young through its
  mouth.

Atlas was sensible[29] of this burden. Nor, as yet, had Eurystheus, the
son of Sthenelus, laid aside his wrath {against Hercules}; and, in his
fury, he vented his hatred for the father against his offspring. But the
Argive Alcmena, disquieted with prolonged anxieties {for her son} has
Iole, to whom to disclose the complaints of her old age, to whom to
relate the achievements of her son attested by {all} the world, or to
whom {to tell} her own misfortunes. At the command of Hercules, Hyllus
had received her both into his bed and his affections, and had filled
her womb with a noble offspring. To her, thus Alcmena began {her
story}:--

“May the Gods be propitious to thee at least; and may they shorten the
tedious hours, at the hour when, having accomplished thy time, thou
shalt be invoking Ilithyïa,[30] who presides over the trembling
parturient women; her whom the influence of Juno rendered inexorable to
myself. For, when now the natal hour of Hercules, destined for so many
toils, was at hand, and the tenth sign {of the Zodiac} was laden with
the {great} luminary, the heavy weight was extending my womb; and that
which I bore was so great, that you might {easily} pronounce Jupiter to
be the father of the concealed burden. And now I was no longer able to
endure my labours: even now, too, as I am speaking, a cold shudder
seizes my limbs, and a part of my pain is the remembrance of it.
Tormented for seven nights, and during as many days, tired out with
misery, and extending my arms towards heaven, with loud cries I used to
invoke Lucina and the two Nixi.[31] She came, indeed, but corrupted
beforehand, and she had the intention to give my life to the vengeful
Juno. And when she heard my groans, she seated herself upon that altar
before the door, and pressing her left knee with her right knee, her
fingers being joined together in {form of} a comb,[32] she retarded my
delivery; she uttered charms, too, in a low voice; and {those} charms
impeded the birth {now} begun. I struggled hard, and, in my frenzy,
I vainly uttered reproaches against the ungrateful Jupiter, and I
desired to die, and complained in words that would have moved {even} the
hard stones. The Cadmeian matrons attended me, and offered up vows, and
encouraged me in my pains.

“There was present one of my hand-maids of the lower class of people,
Galanthis {by name}, with yellow hair, {and} active in the execution of
my orders; one beloved for her good services. She perceived that
something unusual[33] was being done by the resentful Juno; and, while
she was often going in and out of the door, she saw the Goddess, sitting
upon the altar, and supporting her arms upon her knees, linked by the
fingers; and {then} she said, ‘Whoever thou art, congratulate my
mistress; the Argive Alcmena is delivered, and, having brought forth,
she has gained her wishes.’ The Goddess who presides[34] over pregnancy
leaped up, and, struck with surprise, loosened her joined hands.
I, myself, on the loosening of those bonds, was delivered. The story is,
that Galanthis laughed, upon deceiving the Divinity. The cruel Goddess
dragged her along {thus} laughing and seized by her very hair, and she
hindered her as she attempted to raise her body from the earth, and
changed her arms into fore feet.

“Her former activity {still} remains, and her back has not lost its
colour; {but} her shape is different from her former one. Because she
had assisted me in labour by a lying mouth, she brings forth from the
mouth,[35] and, just as before, she frequents my house.”

    〔note 29 — Atlas was sensible.--Ver. 273. By reason of his supporting the heavens, to the inhabitants of which Hercules was now added.〕

    〔note 30 — Ilithyïa.--Ver. 283. This Goddess is said by some to have been the daughter of Jupiter and Juno, while other writers consider her to have been the same either with Diana, or Juno Lucina.〕

    〔note 31 — The two Nixi.--Ver. 294. Festus says, ‘the three statues in the Capitol, before the shrine of Minerva, were called the Gods Nixii.’ Nothing whatever is known of these Gods, who appear to have been obstetrical Divinities. It has been suggested, as there were three of them, that the reading should be, not ‘Nixosque pares,’ but ‘Nixosque Lares,’ ‘and the Lares the Nixi.’〕

    〔note 32 — Form of a comb.--Ver. 299. This charm probably was suggestive of difficult or impeded parturition, the bones of the pelvis being firmly knit together in manner somewhat resembling the fingers when inserted one between the other, instead of yielding for the passage of the infant. Pliny the Elder informs us how parturition may be impeded by the use of charms.〕

    〔note 33 — Something unusual.--Ver. 309. ‘Nescio quid.’ This very indefinite phrase is repeatedly used by Ovid; and in such cases, it expresses either actual doubt or uncertainty, as in the present instance; or it is used to denote something remarkable or indescribable, or to show that a thing is insignificant, mean, and contemptible.〕

    〔note 34 — Goddess who presides.--Ver. 315. This was Ilithyïa, or Lucina, who was acting as the emissary of Juno.〕

    〔note 35 — From the mouth.--Ver. 323. This notion is supposed to have been grounded on the fact of the weasel (like many other animals) carrying her young in her mouth from place to place.〕

EXPLANATION.

  According to Diodorus Siculus and Apollodorus, Amphitryon was the
  son of Alceus, the son of Perseus, and his wife, Alcmena, was the
  daughter of Electryon, also the son of Perseus; and thus they were
  cousins. When their marriage was about to take place, an unforeseen
  accident prevented it. Electryon, who was king of Mycenæ, being
  obliged to revenge the death of his children, whom the sons of
  Taphius, king of the Teleboans, had killed in combat, returned
  victorious, and brought back with him his flocks, which he had
  recovered from Taphius. Amphitryon, who went to meet his uncle, to
  congratulate him upon the success of his expedition, throwing his
  club at a cow, which happened to stray from the herd, unfortunately
  killed him. This accidental homicide lost him the kingdom of Mycenæ,
  which was to have formed the dower of Alcmena. Sthenelus, the
  brother of Electryon, taking advantage of the public indignation,
  which was the result of the accident, drove Amphitryon out of the
  country of Argos, and made himself master of his brother’s
  dominions, which he left, at his death, to his son Eurystheus, the
  inveterate persecutor of Hercules.

  Amphitryon, obliged to retire to Thebes, was there absolved by
  Creon; but when, as he thought, he was about to receive the hand of
  Alcmena, who accompanied him to the court of that prince, she
  declared that, not being satisfied with the revenge which her father
  had taken on the Teleboans, she would consent to be the prize of him
  who would undertake to declare war against them. Amphitryon accepted
  these conditions, and, forming an alliance with Creon, Cephalus, and
  some other princes, made a descent upon the islands which the enemy
  possessed, and, making himself master of them, bestowed one of them
  on his ally, Cephalus.

  It was during this war that Hercules came into the world; and
  whether Amphitryon had secretly consummated his marriage before his
  departure, or whether he had returned privately to Thebes, or to
  Tirynthus, where Hercules was said to have been born, it was
  published, that Jupiter, to deceive Alcmena, had taken the form of
  her husband, and was the father of the infant Hercules. If this is
  not the true explanation of the story, it may have been invented to
  conceal some intrigue in which Alcmena was detected; or, in process
  of time, to account for the extraordinary strength and valour of
  Hercules, it may have been said that Jupiter, and not Amphitryon,
  was the father of Hercules. Indeed, we find Seneca, in one of his
  Tragedies, putting these words into the mouth of Hercules:--
  ‘Whether all that has been said upon this subject be held as
  undoubted truth, or whether it proves to be but a fable, and that my
  father was, after all, in reality, but a mortal; my mother’s fault
  is sufficiently effaced by my valour, and I have merit sufficient to
  have had Jupiter for my father.’ The more readily, perhaps, to
  account for the transcendent strength and prowess of Hercules, the
  story was invented, that Jupiter made the night on which he was
  received by Alcmena under the form of Amphitryon, as long as three,
  or, according to Plautus, Hyginus, and Seneca, nine nights. Some
  writers say that Alcmena brought forth twins, one of which,
  Iphiclus, was the son of Amphitryon, while Hercules had Jupiter for
  his father.

  With respect to the metamorphosis of Galanthis, it is but a little
  episode here introduced by Ovid, to give greater plausibility to the
  other part of the story. It most probably originated in the
  resemblance of the names of that slave to that of the weazel, which
  the Greeks called γαλῆ. Ælian, indeed, tells us that the Thebans
  paid honour to that animal, because it had helped Alcmena in her
  labour. The more ancient poets also added, that Juno retarded the
  birth of Hercules till the mother of Eurystheus was delivered, which
  was the cause of his being the subject of that king; though others
  state that this came to pass by the command of the oracle of Delphi.
  This king of Mycenæ having ordered him to rid Greece of the numerous
  robbers and wild beasts that infested it, it is most probable that,
  as we learn from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he performed this
  service at the head of the troops of Eurystheus. If this is the
  case, the persecutions which the poets have ascribed to the jealousy
  of Juno, really originated either in the policy or the jealousy of
  the court of Mycenæ.

  As Ovid has here cursorily taken notice of the labours of Hercules,
  we may observe, that it is very probable that his history is
  embellished with the pretended adventures of many persons who bore
  his name, and, perhaps, with those of others besides. Cicero, in his
  ‘Treatise on the Nature of the Gods,’ mentions six persons who bore
  the name of Hercules; and possibly, after a minute examination,
  a much greater number might be reckoned, many nations of antiquity
  having given the name to such great men of their own as had rendered
  themselves famous by their actions. Thus, we find one in Egypt in
  the time of Osiris, in Phœnicia, among the Gauls, in Spain, and in
  other countries. Confining ourselves to the Grecian Hercules,
  surnamed Alcides, we find that his exploits have generally been sung
  of by the poets, under the name of the Twelve Labours; but, on
  entering into the detail of them, we find them much more numerous.
  Killing some serpents in his youth, it was published, not only that
  he had done so, but that they had been sent by Juno for the purpose
  of destroying him. The forest of Nemea serving as a retreat for a
  great number of lions that ravaged the country, Hercules hunted
  them, and, killing the most furious of them, always wore his skin.

  Several thieves, having made the neighbourhood of Lake Stymphalus,
  in Arcadia, their resort, he freed the country of them; the nails
  and wings which the poets gave them, in representing them as birds,
  being typical of their voracity and activity. The marshes of Lerna,
  near Argos, were infested by great numbers of serpents, which, as
  fast as they were destroyed, were replaced by new swarms; draining
  the marshes, and, probably, setting fire to the adjacent thickets or
  jungles, he destroyed these pestilent reptiles, on which it was
  fabled that he had destroyed the Hydra of Lerna, with its heads,
  which grew as fast as they were cut off. The forest of Erymanthus
  was full of wild boars, which laid waste all the neighbouring
  country: he destroyed them all, and brought one with him to the
  court of Eurystheus, of a size so monstrous, that the king was
  alarmed on seeing it, and was obliged to run and hide himself.

  The stables of Augeas, king of Elis, were so filled with manure,
  by reason of the great quantity of oxen that he kept, that Hercules
  being called upon to cleanse them, employed his engineering skill in
  bringing the river Alpheus through them. Having pursued a hind for a
  whole year, which Eurystheus had commanded him to take, it was
  circulated, probably on account of her untiring swiftness, that she
  had feet of brass. The river Acheloüs having overflowed the adjacent
  country, he raised banks to it, as already mentioned. Theseus was a
  prisoner in Epirus, where he had been with Pirithous, to bring away
  the daughter of Aidoneus. Hercules delivered him; and that was the
  foundation of the Fable which said that he had gone down to Hades,
  or Hell. In the cavern of Tænarus there was a monstrous serpent;
  this he was ordered to kill, and, probably, this gave rise to the
  story of Cerberus being chained by him. Pelias having been killed by
  his daughters, his son Acastus pursued them to the court of Admetus,
  who, refusing to deliver up Alcestis, of whom he was enamoured, was
  taken prisoner in an engagement, and was delivered by that princess,
  who herself offered to be his ransom. Hercules being then in
  Thessaly, he took her away from Acastus, who was about to put her to
  death, and returned her to Admetus. This, probably, was the
  foundation of the fable which stated, that he had recovered her from
  the Infernal Regions, after having vanquished death, and bound him
  in chains.

  The Amazons were a nation of great celebrity in the time of
  Hercules, and their frequent victories had rendered them very
  formidable to their neighbours. Eurystheus ordered him to go and
  bring away the girdle of Hippolyta, or, in other words, to make war
  upon them, and to pillage their treasures. Embarking on the Euxine
  Sea, Hercules arrived on the banks of the Thermodon, and, giving
  battle to the female warriors, defeated them; killing some, and
  putting the rest to flight. He took Antiope, or Hippolyta, prisoner,
  whom he gave to Theseus; but her sister, Menalippa, redeemed herself
  by giving up the famous girdle, or, in other words, by paying a
  large ransom. It is very probable, that in that expedition, he slew
  Diomedes, the barbarous king of Thrace, and brought away his mares,
  which were said to have been fed by him on human flesh. In returning
  by way of Thessaly, he embarked in the expedition of the Argonauts;
  but, leaving them soon afterwards, he went to Troy, and delivered
  Hesione from the monster which was to have devoured her; but not
  receiving from Laomedon, the king, the recompense which had been
  promised him, he killed that prince, sacked the city, and brought
  away Hesione, whom he gave to Telamon, who had accompanied him on
  the expedition.

  This is probably the extent of the labours of Hercules in Greece,
  Thrace, and Phrygia. The poets have made him engage in many other
  laborious undertakings in distant countries, which most probably
  ought not to be attributed to the Grecian Hercules. Among other
  stories told of him, it is said, that having set out to fight with
  Geryon, the king of Spain, he was so much incommoded by the heat of
  the sun, that his wrath was excited against the luminary, and he
  fired his arrows at it, on which, the Sun, struck with admiration at
  his spirited conduct, made him a present of a golden goblet. After
  this, embarking and arriving in Spain, he defeated Geryon, a prince
  who was famed for having three heads, which probably either meant
  that he reigned over the three Balearic islands of Maiorca, Minorca,
  and Iviza, or else that Hercules defeated three princes who were
  strictly allied. Having thence passed the straits of Gibraltar to go
  over to Africa, he fought with the Giant Antæus, who sought to
  oppose his landing. That prince was said to be a son of the Earth,
  and was reported to recover fresh strength every time he was thrown
  on the ground; consequently, Hercules was obliged to hold him in his
  arms, till he had squeezed him to death. The solution of this fable
  is most probably that Antæus, always finding succour in a country
  where he was known as a powerful monarch, Hercules took measures to
  deprive him of aid, by engaging him in a sea fight, and thereby
  defeated him, without much trouble, as well as the Pygmies, who were
  probably some African tribes of stunted stature, who came to his
  assistance.

  Hercules, returning from these two expeditions, passed through Gaul
  with the herds of Geryon, and went into Italy, where Cacus,
  a celebrated robber, who had made the caverns of Mount Aventine his
  haunts, having stolen some of his oxen, he, with the assistance,
  according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, of Evander and Faunus,
  destroyed him, and shared his spoils with his allies. In his journey
  from Africa, Hercules delivered Atlas from the enmity of Busiris,
  the tyrant of Egypt, whom he killed; and gave such good advice to
  the Mauritanian king, that it was said that he supported the heavens
  for some time on his own shoulders, to relieve those of Atlas. The
  latter, by way of acknowledgment of his services, made him a present
  of several fine sheep, or rather, according to Diodorus Siculus, of
  some orange and lemon trees, which he carried with him into Greece.
  These were represented as the golden apples watched by a dragon in
  the garden of the Hesperides. As the ocean there terminated the
  scene of his conquests, he was said to have raised two pillars on
  those shores, to signify the fact of his having been there, and the
  impossibility of proceeding any further.

  The deliverance of Prometheus, as already mentioned; the death of
  the two brothers, the Cercopes, famous robbers; the defeat of the
  Bull of Marathon; the death of Lygis, who disputed the passage of
  the Alps with him; that of the giant Alcyaneus, who hurled at him a
  stone so vast that it crushed twenty-four men to death; that of
  Eryx, king of Sicily, whom he killed with a blow of the cestus, for
  refusing to deliver to him the oxen which he had stolen; the combat
  with Cycnus, which was terminated by a peal of thunder, which
  separated the combatants; another combat against the Giants in Gaul,
  during which, as it was said, Jupiter rained down vast quantities of
  stones; all these are also attributed to Hercules, besides many more
  stories, which, if diligently collected, would swell to a large
  volume.

  The foregoing remarks on the history of Hercules, give us an insight
  into the ideas which, based upon the explanations given by the
  authors of antiquity, the Abbè Banier, one of the most accomplished
  scholars of his age, entertained on this subject. We will conclude
  with some very able and instructive remarks on this mythus, which we
  extract from Mr. Keightley’s Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy.
  He says--

  “Various theories have been formed respecting the mythus of
  Hercules. It is evidently one of very remote antiquity, long
  perhaps, anterior to the times of Homer. We confess that we cannot
  see any very valid reason for supposing no such real personage to
  have existed; for it will, perhaps, be found that mythology not
  unfrequently prefers to absolute fiction, the assuming of some real
  historic character, and making it the object of the marvels devised
  by lively and exuberant imagination, in order thereby to obtain more
  ready credence for the strange events which it creates. Such, then,
  may the real Hercules have been,--a Dorian, a Theban, or an Argive
  hero, whose feats of strength lived in the traditions of the people,
  and whom national vanity raised to the rank of a son of Zeus
  [Jupiter], and poetic fancy, as geographic knowledge extended, sent
  on journies throughout the known world, and accumulated in his
  person the fabled exploits of similar heroes of other regions.

  “We may perceive, by the twelve tasks, that the astronomical theory
  was applied to the mythus of the hero, and that he was regarded as a
  personification of the Sun, which passes through the twelve signs of
  the Zodiac. This, probably, took place during the Alexandrian
  period. Some resemblance between his attributes and those of the
  Deity, with whom the Egyptian priests were pleased to identify him,
  may have given occasion to this notion; and he also bore some
  similitude to the God whom the Phœnicians chiefly worshipped, and
  who, it is probable, was the Sun. But we must steadily bear in mind,
  that Hercules was a hero in the popular legend long before any
  intercourse was opened between Greece and Egypt; and that, however
  (which is certainly not very likely) a God might be introduced from
  Phœnicia, the same could hardly be the case with a popular
  hero.--A very ingenious theory on the mythus of Hercules is given by
  Buttmann (Mythologus, vol. i., p. 246). Though acknowledging that
  Perseus, Theseus, and Hercules may have been real persons, he is
  disposed, from an attentive consideration of all the circumstances
  in the mythus of the last, to regard him as one of those poetical
  persons or personifications, who, as he says, have obtained such
  firm footing in the dark periods of antiquity, as to have acquired
  the complete air of historic personages.

  “In his view of the life of Hercules, it is a mythus of extreme
  antiquity and great beauty, setting forth the ideal of human
  perfection, consecrated to the weal of mankind, or rather, in its
  original form, to that of his own nation. This perfection, according
  to the ideas of the heroic age, consists in the greatest bodily
  strength, united with the advantages of mind and soul recognised by
  that age. Such a hero is, he says, a man; but these noble qualities
  in him are of divine origin. He is, therefore, the son of the king
  of the Gods by a mortal mother. To render his perfection the more
  manifest, the Poet makes him to have a twin brother, the child of a
  mortal sire. As virtue is not to be learned, Hercules exhibits his
  strength and courage in infancy; he strangles the snakes, which
  fills his brother with terror. The character of the hero throughout
  life, as that of the avenger of injustice and punisher of evil, must
  exhibit itself in the boy as the wild instinct of nature; and the
  mythus makes him kill his tutor Linus with a blow of the lyre. When
  sent away by Amphitryon, he prepares himself, in the stillness and
  solitude of the shepherd’s life, by feats of strength and courage,
  for his future task of purifying the earth of violence.

  “--The number of tasks may not originally have been twelve, though
  most accounts agree in that number, but they were all of a nature
  agreeable to the ideas of an heroic age--the destruction of
  monsters, and bringing home to his own country the valuable
  productions of other regions. These are, however, regarded by
  Buttmann as being chiefly allegorical. The Hydra, for instance,
  he takes to have been meant to represent the evils of democratic
  anarchy, with its numerous heads, against which, though one may not
  be able to effect anything, yet the union of even two may suffice to
  become dominant over it.

  “The toils of the hero conclude with the greatest and most rare of
  all in the heroic age--the conquest over death. This is represented
  by his descent into the under world, and dragging Cerberus to light
  is a proof of his victory. In the old mythus, he was made to engage
  with and wound Hades; and the Alcestis of Euripides exhibits him in
  conflict with Death. But virtue, to be a useful example, must
  occasionally succumb to human weakness in the power of the evil
  principle. Hence, Hercules falls into fits of madness, sent on him
  by Hera [Juno]; and hence--he becomes the willing slave of Omphale,
  the fair queen of Lydia, and changes his club and lion’s skin for
  the distaff and the female robe.

  “The mythus concludes most nobly with the assumption of the hero
  into Olympus. His protecting Deity abandons him to the power of his
  persevering enemy; his mortal part is consumed by fire, the fiercest
  of elements; his shade (εἴδωλον), like those of other men, descends
  to the realms of Hades, while the divine portion himself (αὐτὸς)
  mounts from the pyre in a thunder-cloud, and the object of Hera’s
  persecution being now accomplished, espouses youth, the daughter of
  his reconciled foe.

  “Muller (Dorians, vol. i. part ii. ch. 11, 12) is also disposed to
  view in Hercules a personification of the highest powers of man in
  the heroic age. He regards him as having been the national hero of
  the Dorian race, and appropriates to him all the exploits of the
  hero in Thessaly, Ætolia, and Epirus, which last place he supposes
  to have been the original scene of the Geryoneia, which was
  afterwards transformed to the western stream of the ocean. He
  thinks, however, that the Argives had an ancient hero of perhaps the
  same name, to whom the Peloponnesus adventures belong, and whom the
  Dorians combined with their own hero. The servitude to Eurystheus,
  and the enmity of Hera, he looks on as inventions of the Dorians to
  justify their own invasion of the Peloponnesus. This critic also
  proves that the Theban Hercules had nothing to do with the Gods and
  traditions of the Cadmeians; and he thinks that it was the Dorian
  Heracleides who introduced the knowledge of him into Thebes, or that
  he came from Delphi with the worship of Apollo, a Deity with whom,
  as the tutelar God of the Dorians, he supposes their national hero
  to have been closely connected.”

FABLE IV. [IX.324-425]

  The Nymph Lotis, pursued by Priapus, in her flight, is changed into
  a tree. Dryope, going to sacrifice to the Naiads at the same spot,
  and ignorant of the circumstance, breaks a branch off the tree for
  her child, which she is carrying with her, and is subjected to a
  similar transformation. While Iole is relating these circumstances
  to Alcmena, she is surprised to see her brother Iolaüs restored to
  youth. The Poet here introduces the prediction of Themis concerning
  the children of Calirrhoë.

Thus she said; and, moved by the remembrance of her old servant, she
heaved a deep sigh. Her daughter-in-law[36] addressed her, thus
grieving. “Even her form being taken away from one that was an alien to
thy blood, affects thee, O mother. What if I were to relate to thee the
wondrous fate of my own sister? although tears and sorrow hinder me, and
forbid me to speak. Dryope, the most remarkable for her beauty of the
Œchalian maids, was the only daughter of her mother ({for} my father had
me by another {wife}). Deprived of her virginity, and having suffered
violence from the God that owns Delphi and Delos, Andræmon married her,
and he was esteemed fortunate in his wife.

“There is a lake that gives the appearance of a sloping shore, by its
shelving border; groves of myrtle crown the upper part. Hither did
Dryope come, unsuspecting of her fate; and, that thou mayst be the more
indignant {at her lot}, she was about to offer garlands to the Nymphs.
In her bosom, too, she was bearing her son, who had not yet completed
his first year, a pleasing burden; and she was nursing him, with the
help of {her} warm milk. Not far from the lake was blooming a watery
lotus that vied with the Tyrian tints, in hope of {future} berries.
Dryope had plucked thence some flowers, which she might give as
playthings to her child; and I, too, was just on the point of doing the
same; for I was present. I saw bloody drops fall from the flower, and
the boughs shake with a tremulous quivering; for, as the swains say,
now, at length, too late {in their information}, the Nymph Lotis, flying
from the lust of Priapus,[37] had transferred her changed form into this
{plant}, her name being {still} preserved.

“Of this my sister was ignorant. When, in her alarm, she is endeavouring
to retire and to depart, having adored the Nymphs, her feet are held
fast by a root. She strives hard to tear them up, but she moves nothing
except her upper parts. From below, a bark slowly grows up, and, by
degrees, it envelopes the whole of her groin. When she sees this,
endeavouring to tear her hair with her hands, she fills her hand with
leaves, {for} leaves are covering all her head. But the boy Amphissos
(for his grandfather Eurytus gave him this name) feels his mother’s
breast growing hard; nor does the milky stream follow upon his sucking.
I was a spectator of thy cruel destiny, and I could give thee no help,
my sister; and {yet}, as long as I could, I delayed the growing trunk
and branches by embracing them; and, I confess it, I was desirous to be
hidden beneath the same bark. Behold! her husband Andræmon and her most
wretched father[38] appear, and inquire for Dryope: on their inquiring
for Dryope, I show them the lotus. They give kisses to the wood {still}
warm {with life}, and, extended {on the ground}, they cling to the roots
of their own tree. {And} now, dear sister, thou hadst nothing except thy
face, that was not tree. Tears drop upon the leaves made out of thy
changed body; and, while she can, and {while} her mouth gives passage to
her voice, she pours forth such complaints {as these} into the air:--

“‘If any credit {is to be given} to the wretched, I swear by the Deities
that I merited not this cruel usage. I suffer punishment without a
crime. I lived in innocence; if I am speaking false, withered away, may
I lose the leaves which I bear, and, cut down with axes, may I be burnt.
Yet take this infant away from the branches of his mother, and give him
to his nurse; and often, beneath my tree, make him drink milk, and
beneath my tree let him play; and, when he shall be able to speak, make
him salute his mother, and let him in sadness say, ‘Beneath this trunk
is my mother concealed.’ Yet let him dread the ponds, and let him not
pluck flowers from the trees; and let him think that all shrubs are the
bodies of Goddesses. Farewell, dear husband; and thou, sister; and,
{thou} my father; in whom, if there is any affection {towards me},
protect my branches from the wounds of the sharp pruning-knife, {and}
from the bite of the cattle. And since it is not allowed me to bend down
towards you, stretch your limbs up hither, and come near for my kisses,
while they can {still} be reached, and lift up my little son. More I
cannot say. For the soft bark is now creeping along my white neck, and I
am being enveloped at the top of my head. Remove your hands from my
eyes;[39] {and}, without your help, let the bark, closing over them,
cover my dying eyes.’ Her mouth ceased at once to speak, at once to
exist; and long after her body was changed, were her newly formed
branches {still} warm.”

And {now}, while Iole was relating the wretched fate of her sister, and
while Alcmena was drying away the tears of the daughter of Eurytus, with
her fingers applied {to her face}, and still she herself was weeping,
a novel event hushed all their sorrow; for Iolaüs[40] stood at the lofty
threshold, almost a boy {again}, and covering his cheeks with a down
almost imperceptible, having his visage changed to {that of} the first
years {of manhood}. Hebe, the daughter of Juno had granted him this
favour, overcome by the solicitations of her husband. When she was about
to swear that she would hereafter grant such favours to no one, Themis
did not allow her. “For now,” said she, “Thebes is commencing civil
warfare,[41] and Capaneus will not be able to be overcome, except by
Jupiter, and the two brothers will engage in bloody combat, and the
earth dividing, the prophet {Amphiaraüs} will see his {destined} shades,
while he still lives;[42] and the son avenging one parent, by {the death
of} the {other} parent, will be dutiful and wicked in the same action;
and confounded by his misfortunes, deprived both of his reason and of
his home, he will be persecuted both by the features of the Eumenides,
and by the ghost of his mother; until his wife shall call upon him for
the fatal gold, and the Phegeïan sword shall stab the side of their
kinsman. Then, at last, shall Calirrhoë, the daughter of Acheloüs,
suppliantly ask of mighty Jupiter these years {of youth} for her infant
sons. Jupiter, concerned {for them}, will prescribe for them the
{peculiar} gift of her who is {both} his step-daughter and his
daughter-in-law,[43] and will make them men in their years of
childhood.”

When Themis, foreseeing the future, had said these words with prophetic
voice, the Gods above murmured in varying discourse; and the complaint
was,[44] why it might not be allowed others to grant the same gifts.
{Aurora}, the daughter of Pallas, complained of the aged years of her
husband; the gentle Ceres complained that Iäsion[45] was growing grey;
Mulciber demanded for Ericthonius a life to live over again; a concern
for the future influenced Venus, too, and she made an offer to renew the
years of Anchises.

    〔note 36 — Her daughter-in-law.--Ver. 325. Iole was the wife of Hyllus, the son of Deïanira, by Hercules.〕

    〔note 37 — Lust of Priapus.--Ver. 347. ‘Fugiens obscœna Priapi,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Flying from the nasty attempts of Priapus upon her.’〕

    〔note 38 — Most wretched father.--Ver. 363. Eurytus was the father of Dryope.〕

    〔note 39 — From my eyes.--Ver. 390. This alludes to the custom among the ancients of closing the eyes of the dying, which duty was performed by the nearest relations, who, closing the eyes and mouth, called upon the dying person by name, and exclaimed ‘Vale,’ ‘farewell.’〕

    〔note 40 — Iolaüs.--Ver. 399. He was the son of Iphiclus, the brother of Hercules. See the Explanation in the next page.〕

    〔note 41 — Civil warfare.--Ver. 404. This alludes to the Theban war, carried on between Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of Œdipus and Jocasta. Agreeing to reign in alternate years, Eteocles refused to give place to his brother when his year had terminated, on which Polynices fled to the court of Adrastus, king of Argos, and raised troops against his brother.〕

    〔note 42 — While he still lives.--Ver. 407. This was Amphiaraüs, the son of Œcleus, and Hypermnestra, who was betrayed by his wife Eriphyle.〕

    〔note 43 — Daughter-in-law.--Ver. 415. Hebe, the Goddess of Youth, was the daughter of Juno alone, without the participation of Jupiter; and from this circumstance she is styled the step-daughter of Jupiter. She was also his daughter-in-law on becoming the wife of Hercules.〕

    〔note 44 — The complaint was.--Ver. 420. ‘Murmur erat,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘The grumbling was, why, &c.’〕

    〔note 45 — Iäsion.--Ver. 422. Iäsius, or Iäsion, was the son of Jupiter and Electra, and was the father of Plutus, the God of Riches, by the Goddess Cybele.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The adventure of Dryope is one of those narratives which have no
  connexion with the main story which the Poet is relating, and, if
  really founded on fact, it would almost baffle any attempt to guess
  at its origin. It is, most probably, built entirely upon the name of
  the damsel who was said to have met with the untimely and unnatural
  fate so well depicted by the Poet.

  The name of Dryope comes, very probably, from the Greek word Δρῦς,
  ‘an oak,’ which tree has a considerable resemblance to the lotus
  tree. If we seek for an historical solution, perhaps Dryope was
  punished for attempting to profane a tree consecrated to the Gods,
  a crime of which Erisicthon was guilty, and for which he was so
  signally punished. All the particulars that we know of Dryope are,
  that she was the daughter of Eurytus, and the sister of Iole; and
  that she was the wife of Andræmon.

  Ovid says, that while Iole was relating this adventure to Alcmena,
  Iolaüs, who, according to some, was the son of Hercules, by Hebe,
  after his apotheosis, and, according to others, was the son of
  Iphiclus, the brother of Hercules, became young, at the intercession
  of that Goddess, who had appeased Juno. This was, probably, no other
  than a method of accounting for the great age to which and
  individual of the name of Iolaüs had lived.

  Ovid then passes on to the surprising change in the children of
  Calirrhoë, the outline of which the story may be thus
  explained:--Amphiaraüs, foreseeing, (by the aid of the prophetic
  art, as we learn from Homer, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny and Statius),
  that the civil wars of Thebes, his native country, would prove fatal
  to him, retired from the court of Adrastus, King of Argos, whose
  sister he had married, to conceal himself in some place of safety.
  The Argives, to whom the oracle had declared, that Thebes could not
  be taken unless they had Amphiaraüs with their troops, searched for
  him in every direction; but their labour would have been in vain, if
  Eriphyle, his wife, gained by a necklace of great value, which her
  brother Adrastus gave her, had not discovered where he was.
  Discovered in his retreat, Amphiaraüs accompanied the Argives, and
  while, according to the rules of the soothsaying art, he was
  observing a flight of birds, in order to derive an augury from it,
  his horses fell down a precipice, and he lost his life. Statius and
  other writers, to describe this event in a poetical manner, say that
  the earth opened and swallowed up him and his chariot.

  Amphiaraüs had engaged his son Alcmæon, in case he lost his life in
  the war, to kill Eriphyle; which injunction he performed as soon as
  he heard of the death of his father. Alcmæon, going to the court of
  Phegeus, to receive expiation for his crime, and to deliver himself
  from the persecution of the Furies, or, in other words, by the
  ceremonial of expiation, to tranquillize his troubled conscience,
  that prince received him with kindness, and gave him his daughter
  Alphesibæa in marriage. Alcmæon made her a present of his mother
  Eriphyle’s necklace; but, having afterwards repudiated her to marry
  Calirrhoë, or Arsinoë, the daughter of Acheloüs, he went to demand
  the necklace from his brothers-in-law, who assassinated him.
  Amphiterus and Acarnanus, who were his sons by Calirrhoë, revenged
  the death of their father when they were very young; and this it is,
  possibly, which is meant by the Poet when he says that the Goddess
  Hebe augmented the number of their years, the purpose being, to put
  them speedily in a position to enable them to avenge the death of
  their father.

  Thus we see, that Iolaüs was, like Æson, who also renewed his youth,
  a person who, in his old age, gave marks of unusual vigour; while in
  Amphiterus and Arcananus, to whom Hebe added years, are depicted two
  young men, who, by a deed of blood, exacted retribution for the
  death of their father, at a time when they were in general only
  looked upon as mere children.

FABLE V. [IX.426-665]

  Byblis falls in love with her brother Caunus, and her passion is
  inflamed to such a degree, that he is obliged to leave his native
  country, to avoid any encouragement of her incestuous flame. On
  this, she follows him; and, in her way through Caria, she is changed
  into a fountain.

Every God has[46] some one to favour; and their jarring discord is
increasing by their {various} interests, until Jupiter opens his mouth,
and says, “O, if you have any regard for me, to what rash steps are you
proceeding? Does any one {of you} seem to himself so powerful as to
overcome even the Fates? By the Fates has Iolaüs returned to those years
which he has spent; by the Fates ought the sons of Calirrhoë to become
young men, {and} not by ambition or by dint of arms. And do you, too,
endure this as well with more contented mind, {for} even me do the Fates
govern; could I but change them, declining years should not be making my
{son} Æacus to bend {beneath them}; and Rhadamanthus should have the
everlasting flower of age, together with my {son}, Minos, who is {now}
looked down upon on account of the grievous weight of old age, and does
not reign with the dignity with which once {he did}.”

The words of Jupiter influenced the Divinities; and no one continued to
complain when they saw Rhadamanthus and Æacus, and Minos, weary with
years; {Minos}, who, when he was in the prime of life, had alarmed great
nations with his very name. Then, {however}, he was enfeebled by age,
and was alarmed by Miletus, the son of Deione,[47] exulting in the
strength of youth, and in Phœbus as his sire; and {though} believing
that he was aiming at his kingdom, still he did not dare to drive him
away from his native home. Of thy own accord, Miletus, thou didst fly,
and in the swift ship thou didst pass over the Ægean waters, and in the
land of Asia didst build a city, bearing the name of its founder. Here
Cyane, the daughter of {the river} Mæander, that so often returns to the
same place, while she was following the windings of her father’s bank,
of a body excelling in beauty, being known by thee, brought forth a
double offspring, Byblis, with Caunus, {her brother}.

Byblis is an example that damsels {only} ought to love what it is
allowed them {to love}; Byblis, seized with a passion for her brother,
the descendant of Apollo, loved him not as a sister {loves} a brother,
nor in such manner as she ought. At first, indeed, she understands
nothing of the flame, and she does not think[48] that she is doing wrong
in so often giving him kisses, {and} in throwing her arms round the neck
of her brother; and for a long time she {herself} is deceived, by this
resemblance of natural affection. By degrees this affection degenerates,
and decked out, she comes to see her brother, and is too anxious to
appear beautiful; and if there is any woman there more beautiful, she
envies her. But, as yet she is not fully discovered to herself, and
under that flame conceives no wishes; but still, inwardly she is
agitated. At one moment she calls him sweetheart,[49] at another, she
hates the mention of his relationship; and now she prefers that he
should call her Byblis, rather than sister. Still, while awake, she does
not dare admit any criminal hopes into her mind; {but} when dissolved in
soft sleep, she often sees the {object} which she is in love with. She
seems to be even embracing her brother, and she blushes, though she is
lying buried in sleep. Slumber departs; for a long time she is silent,
and she recalls to {memory} the appearance of her dream, and thus she
speaks with wavering mind:

“Ah, wretched me! What means this vision of the silent night? How far am
I from wishing it real. Why have I seen this dream? He is, indeed,
beautiful, even to envious eyes. He pleases me, too; and were he not my
brother, I could love him, and he would be worthy of me. But it is my
misfortune that I am his sister. So long as I strive, while awake,
to commit no such {attempt}, let sleep often return with the like
appearance. No witness is there in sleep; and yet there is the
resemblance of the delight. O Venus and winged Cupid, together with thy
voluptuous mother, how great the joys I experienced! how substantial the
transport which affected me! How I lay dissolved {in delight} throughout
my whole marrow! How pleasing to remember it; although short-lived was
that pleasure, and the night sped onward rapidly, and was envious of my
attempts {at bliss}. Oh, could I only be united {to thee}, by changing
my name, how happily, Caunus, could I become the daughter-in-law of thy
father! how happily, Caunus, couldst thou become the son-in-law of my
father! O, that the Gods would grant that all things were in common with
us, except our ancestors. Would that thou wast more nobly born than
myself. For this reason then, most beauteous one, thou wilt make some
stranger, whom I know not, a mother; but to me, who have unhappily got
the same parents as thyself, thou wilt be nothing {more} than a brother.
That {tie} alone we shall have, which bars all else. What, then, do my
visions avail me? And what weight have dreams? And do dreams have any
weight? The Gods {fare} better; for the Gods have their own sisters {in
marriage}. Thus Saturn married Ops,[50] related to him by blood; Ocean
Tethys, the ruler of Olympus Juno. The Gods above have their privileges.
Why do I attempt to reduce human customs to the rule of divine
ordinances, and those so different? Either this forbidden flame shall be
expelled from my heart, or if I cannot effect that, I pray that I may
first perish, and that when dead I may be laid out on my bed, and that
my brother may give me kisses as I lie. And besides, this matter
requires the inclination of us both; suppose it pleases me; to him it
will seem to be a crime. But the sons of Æolus[51] did not shun the
embraces of their sisters. But whence have I known of these? Why have I
furnished myself with these precedents? Whither am I hurried onward? Far
hence begone, ye lawless flames! and let not my brother be loved by me,
but as it is lawful for a sister {to love him}. But yet, if he had been
first seized with a passion for me, perhaps I might have indulged his
desires. Am I then, myself, to court him, whom I would not have
rejected, had he courted me? And canst thou speak out? And canst thou
confess it? Love will compel me. I can. Or if shame shall restrain my
lips, a private letter shall confess the latent flame.”

This thought pleases her, this determines her wavering mind. She raises
herself on her side, and leaning on her left elbow, she says, “He shall
see it; let me confess my frantic passion. Ah, wretched me! How am I
degrading myself! What flame is my mind {now} kindling!” And {then},
with trembling hand, she puts together the words well weighed. Her right
hand holds the iron {pen}, the other, clean wax tablets.[52] She begins,
and {then} she hesitates; she writes, and {then} corrects what is
written; she marks, and {then} scratches out; she alters, and condemns,
and approves; and one while she throws them down when taken up, and at
another time, she takes them up again, when thrown aside. What she would
have, she knows not. Whatever she seems on the point of doing, is not to
her taste. In her features are assurance mingled with shame. {The word}
‘sister’ is written; it seems {as well} to efface {the word} ‘sister,’
and {then} to write such words as these upon the smoothed wax: “Thy
lover wishes thee that health which she, herself, is not to enjoy,
unless thou shalt grant it. I am ashamed! Oh, I am ashamed to disclose
my name! and shouldst thou inquire what it is I wish; without my
name[53] could I wish my cause to be pleaded, and that I might not be
known as Byblis, until the hopes of {enjoying} my desires were realized.
There might have been as a proof to thee of my wounded heart, my {pale}
complexion, my falling away, my {downcast} looks, and my eyes often wet
with tears, sighs, too, fetched without any seeming cause; frequent
embraces too, and kisses, which, if perchance thou didst observe, could
not be deemed to be those of a sister. Still I, myself, though I had a
grievous wound in my soul, {and} although there was a raging fire
within, have done everything, as the Gods are my witnesses, that at last
I might be cured; and long, in my wretchedness, have I struggled to
escape the ruthless weapon of Cupid; and I have endured more hardships
than thou wouldst believe that a maiden could endure.

“Vanquished {at length}, I am forced to own {my passion}; and with
timorous prayers, to entreat thy aid. Thou alone canst save, thou
destroy, one who loves thee. Choose which thou wilt do. She is not thy
enemy who begs this; but one who, though most nearly connected with
thee, desires to be still more closely connected, and to be united to
thee in a nearer tie. Let aged men be acquainted with ordinances, and
make inquiry what is lawful, and what is wicked, and what is proper; and
let them employ themselves in considering the laws. A passion that dares
all consequences is suited to our years. As yet, we know not what is
lawful, and we believe that all things are lawful, and {so} follow the
example of the great Gods. Neither a severe father, nor regard for
character, nor fear, shall restrain us, {if} only the cause for fearing
is removed. Under a brother’s name will we conceal our stolen joys {so}
sweet. I have the liberty of conversing with thee in private; and {even}
before others do we give embraces, and exchange kisses. How little is it
that is wanting! do have pity on the love of her who confesses it, and
who would not confess it, did not extreme passion compel her; and merit
not to be inscribed on my tomb as the cause {of my death}.”

The filled tablets fall short for her hand, as it vainly inscribes such
words as these, and the last line is placed in the margin.[54] At once
she seals up her own condemnation, with the impress of a signet, which
she wets with her tears, {for} the moisture has deserted her tongue.
Filled with shame, she {then} calls one of her male domestics, and
gently addressing him in timorous tones, she said, “Carry these, most
trusty one, to my,” and, after a long pause, she added, “brother.” While
she was delivering them, the tablets, slipping from her hands, fell
down. She was shocked by this omen, but still she sent them. The
servant, having got a fit opportunity, goes {to her brother} and
delivers the secret writing. The Mæandrian youth,[55] seized with sudden
anger, throws away the tablets {so} received, when he has read a part;
and, with difficulty withholding his hands from the face of the
trembling servant, he says, “Fly hence, O thou accursed pander to
forbidden lust, who shouldst have given me satisfaction by thy death,
if {it was} not {that} thy destruction would bring disgrace on my
character.” Frightened, he hastens away, and reports to his mistress the
threatening expressions of Caunus. Thou, Byblis, on hearing of his
refusal, turnest pale, and thy breast, beset with an icy chill, is
struck with alarm; yet when thy senses return, so, too, does thy frantic
passion return, and thy tongue with difficulty utters such words as
these, the air being struck {by thy accents}:

“And deservedly {am I thus treated}; for why, in my rashness, did I make
the discovery of this wound? why have I so speedily committed words to a
hasty letter, which ought {rather} to have been concealed? The feelings
of his mind ought first to have been tried beforehand by me, with
ambiguous expressions. Lest he should not follow me in my course,
I ought, with some part of my sail[56] {only}, to have observed what
kind of a breeze it was, and to have scudded over the sea in safety;
{whereas}, now, I have filled my canvass with winds {before} untried.
I am driven upon rocks in consequence; and sunk, I am buried beneath the
whole ocean, and my sails have {now} no retreat. And besides, was I not
forbidden, by unerring omens, to indulge my passion, at the time when
the waxen {tablets} fell, as I ordered him to deliver them, and made my
hopes sink to the ground? and ought not either the day to have been
changed, or else my whole intentions; but rather, {of the two},[57] the
day? {Some} God himself warned me, and gave me unerring signs, if I had
not been deranged; and yet I ought to have spoken out myself, and not to
have committed myself to writing, and personally {I ought} to have
discovered my passion; {then} he would have seen my tears, {then} he
would have seen the features of her who loved him; I might have given
utterance to more than what the letter contained. I might have thrown my
arms around his reluctant neck, and have embraced his feet, and lying
{on the ground}, I might have begged for life; and if I had been
repelled, I might have seemed on the point of death. All this, {I say},
I might {then} have done; if each of these things could not {singly}
have softened his obdurate feelings, {yet} all of them might.

“Perhaps, too, there may be some fault in the servant that was sent.
He did not wait on him at a convenient moment; he did not choose,
I suppose, a fitting time; nor did he request both the hour and his
attention to be disengaged. ’Tis this that has undone me; for he was not
born of a tigress, nor does he carry in his breast hard flints, or solid
iron, or adamant; nor yet did he suck the milk of a lioness. He will
{yet} be won. Again must he be attacked.[58] And no weariness will I
admit of in {the accomplishment of} my design, so long as this breath
{of mine} shall remain. For the best thing (if I could {only} recall
what has been destined) would have been, not to have made the attempt;
the next best thing is, to urge the accomplishment of what is begun; for
he cannot (suppose I were to relinquish my design) ever be unmindful of
this my attempt; and because I have desisted, I shall appear to have
desired for but an instant, or even to have been trying him, and to have
solicited him with the intention to betray; or, at least, I shall be
thought not to have been overcome by this God, who with such intensity
{now} burns, and has burnt my breast, but rather by lust. In fine,
I cannot now be guiltless of a wicked deed; I have both written {to
him}, and I have solicited {him}; my inclination has been defiled.
Though I were to add nothing more, I cannot be pronounced innocent: as
to what remains, {’twill add} much to {the gratifying of} my wishes,
{but} little to my criminality.”

{Thus} she says; and (so great is the unsteadiness of her wavering mind)
though she is loath to try him, she has a wish to try him, and she
exceeds {all} bounds, and, to her misery, exposes herself to be often
repulsed. At length, when there is {now} no end {to this}, he flies from
his country and {the commission of} this crime, and founds a new
city[59] in a foreign land. But then, they say that the daughter of
Miletus, in her sadness, was bereft of all understanding. Then did she
tear her garments away from her breast, and in her frenzy beat her arms.
And now she is openly raving, and she proclaims the unlawful hopes of
{unnatural} lust. Deprived of these {hopes}, she deserts her native
land, and her hated home, and follows the steps of her flying brother.
And as the Ismarian[60] Bacchanals, son of Semele, aroused by thy
thyrsus, celebrate thy triennial festivals, as they return, no otherwise
did the Bubasian matrons[61] see Byblis howling over the wide fields;
leaving which, she wandered through {the country of} the Carians, and
the warlike Leleges,[62] and Lycia.

And now she has left behind Cragos,[63] and Lymira,[64] and the waves of
Xanthus, and the mountain in which the Chimæra had fire in its middle
parts, the breast and the face of a lioness, and the tail of a serpent.
The woods {at length} fail thee; when thou, Byblis, wearied with
following him, dost fall down, and laying thy tresses upon the hard
ground, art silent, and dost press the fallen leaves with thy face.
Often, too, do the Lelegeïan Nymphs endeavour to raise her in their
tender arms; often do they advise her to curb her passion, and they
apply consolation to a mind insensible {to their advice}. Silent does
Byblis lie, and she tears the green herbs with her nails, and waters the
grass with the stream of her tears. They say that the Naiads placed
beneath these {tears} a channel which could never become dry; and what
greater gift had they to bestow? Immediately, as drops from the cut bark
of the pitch tree, or as the viscid bitumen distils from the impregnated
earth, or as water which has frozen with the cold, at the approach of
Favonius, gently blowing, melts away in the sun, so is Byblis, the
descendant of Phœbus, dissolving in her tears, changed into a fountain,
which even now, in those vallies, bears the name of its mistress, and
flows beneath a gloomy oak.

    〔note 46 — Every God has.--Ver. 425-6. ‘Cui studeat, Deus omnis habet crescitque favore Turbida seditio.’ Clarke thus renders these words, ‘Every God has somebody to stickle for, and a turbulent sedition arises by their favours for their darlings.’〕

    〔note 47 — Son of Deione.--Ver. 442. According to some writers, Miletus was the son of Apollo and Deione, though others say that Thia was the name of his mother. He was the founder of the celebrated city of Miletus, in Caria, a country of Asia Minor.〕

    〔note 48 — Does not think.--Ver. 457. Clarke translates this line, ‘Nor does she think she does amiss that she so often tips him a kiss.’ Antoninus Liberalis says, that Eidothea, the daughter of the king of Paria, and not Cyane, was the mother of Byblis and Caunus.〕

    〔note 49 — Sweetheart.--Ver. 465. The word ‘dominus’ was often used as a term of endearment between lovers.〕

    〔note 50 — Married Ops.--Ver. 497. Ops, the daughter of Cœlus or Uranus, who was also called Cybele, Rhea, and ‘the great Mother,’ was fabled to have been the wife of her brother Saturn; while Oceanus, the son of Cœlus and Vesta, married his sister Tethys.〕

    〔note 51 — Sons of Æolus.--Ver. 506. Æolus had six sons, to whom he was said to have given their sisters for wives. In the case, however, of his daughter Canace, who was pregnant by her brother Macareus, Æolus was more severe, as he sent her a sword, with which to put herself to death.〕

    〔note 52 — Clean wax tablets.--Ver. 521. Before the tablet was written upon, the wax was ‘vacua,’ empty; or, as we say of writing-paper, ‘clean.’ There was a blunt end to the upper part of the ‘stylus,’ or iron pen, with which the wax was smoothed down when any writing was erased.〕

    〔note 53 — Without my name.--Ver. 531-2. ‘Sine nomine vellem Posset agi mea causa meo,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘I could wish my business might be transacted without my name.’〕

    〔note 54 — In the margin.--Ver. 564. Clarke translates, ‘Summusque in margine versus adhæsit,’ ‘And the last line was clapped into the margin.’〕

    〔note 55 — Meandrian youth.--Ver. 573. Caunus was the grandson of the river Mæander.〕

    〔note 56 — Part of my sail.--Ver. 589. She borrows this metaphor from sailors, who, before setting out, sometimes unfurl a little portion of the sail, to see how the wind blows.〕

    〔note 57 — Rather of the two.--Ver. 598. Willing to believe anything in the wrong rather than herself; she is sure that the day was an unlucky one.〕

    〔note 58 — Be attacked.--Ver. 615. ‘Repeteudas erit,’ Clarke translates, ‘I must at him again.’〕

    〔note 59 — Founds a new city.--Ver. 633. This was Caunus, a city of Caria.〕

    〔note 60 — Ismarian.--Ver. 641. Ismarus was a mountain of Thrace. The festival here alluded to was the ‘trieterica,’ or triennial feast of Bacchus.〕

    〔note 61 — Bubasian matrons.--Ver. 643. We learn from Pliny the Elder that Bubasus was a region of Caria.〕

    〔note 62 — Leleges.--Ver. 644. The Leleges were a warlike people of Caria, in Asia Minor, who were supposed to have sprung from Grecian emigrants, who first inhabited the adjacent island, and afterwards the continent. They were said to have their name from the Greek word λελεγμένοι ‘gathered,’ because they were collected from various places.〕

    〔note 63 — Cragos.--Ver. 645. Cragos was a mountain of Lycia.〕

    〔note 64 — Lymira.--Ver. 645. This was a city of Lycia, near Cragos.〕

EXPLANATION.

  This shocking story has been also recounted by Antoninus Liberalis
  and both he and Ovid have embellished it with circumstances, which
  are the fruit of a lively imagination. They make Byblis travel over
  several countries in search of her brother, who flies from her
  extravagant passion, and they both agree in tracing her to Caria.
  There, according to Antoninus Liberalis, she was transformed into a
  Hamadryad, just as she was on the point of throwing herself from the
  summit of a mountain. Ovid, on the other hand, says that she was
  changed into a fountain, which afterwards bore her name.

  It is, however, most probable, that if the story is founded on
  truth, the whole of the circumstances happened in Caria; since we
  learn, both from Apollodorus and Pausanias, that Miletus, her
  father, went from the island of Crete to lead a colony into Caria,
  when he conquered a city, to which he gave his own name. Pausanias
  says, that all the men of the city being killed during the siege,
  the conquerors married their wives and daughters. Cyanea, the
  daughter of Mæander, fell to the share of Miletus, and Caunus and
  Byblis were the offspring of that marriage. Byblis, having conceived
  a criminal passion for her brother, he was obliged to leave his
  father’s court, that he might avoid her importunities; upon which
  she died of grief. As she often went to weep by a fountain, which
  was outside of the town, those who related the adventure, magnified
  it, by stating that she was changed into the fountain, which, after
  her death, bore her name. We are informed by Photius, on the
  authority of the historian Conon, that it was Caunus who fell in
  love with Byblis, and that she hanged herself upon a walnut tree.
  Ovid also, in his ‘Art of Love,’ follows the tradition that she
  hanged herself. ‘Arsit et est laqueo fortiter ulta nefas.’ Miletus
  lived in the time of the first Minos, and, according to some
  writers, married his daughter Acallis; but, having disagreed with
  his father-in-law, he was obliged to leave Crete, and retired to
  Caria.

  The Persians had certain state ordinances, by which their monarchs
  were enjoined to marry their own sisters; and, as Asia Minor was
  overrun by them at the time when Crœsus was conquered by Cyrus, it
  is possible that the story of Byblis and Caunus may have originated
  in the disgust which the natives felt for their conquerors, and as a
  covert reproach to them for sanctioning alliances of so incestuous a
  nature. While Ovid enters into details in the story, which trench on
  the rules of modesty and decorum, the moral of the tale, aided by
  some of his precepts, is not uninstructive as a warning to youth to
  learn betimes how to regulate the passions.

FABLE VI. [IX.666-797]

  Ligdus commands his wife Telethusa, who is pregnant, to destroy the
  infant, should it prove to be a girl; on which, the Goddess Isis
  appears to her in a dream, and, forbidding her to obey, promises her
  her protection. Telethusa is delivered of a daughter, who is called
  Iphis, and passes for a son. Iphis is afterwards married to Ianthe,
  on which, Isis, to reward her mother’s piety, transforms her into a
  man.

The fame of this new prodigy would, perhaps, have filled the hundred
cities of Crete, if Crete had not lately produced a nearer wonder {of
her own}, in the change of Iphis.

For once on a time the Phæstian land[65] adjoining to the Gnossian
kingdom produced one Ligdus, of obscure name, a man of the freeborn
class of common people. Nor were his means any greater than his rank,
but his life and his honour were untainted. He startled the ears of his
wife in her pregnancy, with these words, when her lying-in was near at
hand: “Two things there are which I wish for; that thou mayst be
delivered with very little pain, and that thou mayst bring forth a male
child. The other alternative is a cause of greater trouble, and
providence has denied us means {for bringing up a female}. The thing I
abominate; but if a female should, by chance, be brought forth at thy
delivery, (I command it with reluctance, forgive me, natural affection)
let it be put to death.” {Thus} he said, and they bathed their faces
with tears streaming down; both he who commanded, and she to whom the
commands were given. But yet Telethusa incessantly urged her husband,
with fruitless entreaties, not to confine his hopes within a compass so
limited. {But} Ligdus’s resolution was fixed.

And now was she hardly {able} to bear her womb big with the burden ripe
for birth; when in the middle of the night, under the form of a vision,
the daughter of Inachus, attended by a train of her votaries, either
stood, or seemed to stand, before her bed. The horns of the moon were
upon her forehead, with ears of corn with their bright golden colour,
and the royal ornament {of the diadem}; with her was the barking
Anubis,[66] and the holy Bubastis,[67] and the particoloured Apis;[68]
he, too, who suppresses[69] his voice, and with his finger enjoins
silence. There were the sistra too, and Osiris,[70] never enough sought
for; and the foreign serpent,[71] filled with soporiferous poison. When
thus the Goddess addressed her, as though roused from her sleep, and
seeing {all} distinctly: “O Telethusa, one of my votaries, lay aside thy
grievous cares, and evade the commands of thy husband; and do not
hesitate, when Lucina shall have given thee ease by delivery, to bring
up {the child}, whatever it shall be. I am a befriending Goddess,[72]
and, when invoked, I give assistance; and thou shalt not complain that
thou hast worshipped an ungrateful Divinity.”

{Thus} she advises her, and {then} retires from her chamber. The Cretan
matron arises joyful from her bed; and suppliantly raising her pure
hands towards the stars {of heaven}, prays that her vision may be
fulfilled. When her pains increased, and her burden forced itself into
the light, and a girl was born to the father unaware of it, the mother
ordered it to be brought up, pretending it was a boy; and the thing
gained belief, nor was any one but the nurse acquainted with the fact.
The father performed his vows, and gave {the child} the name of its
grandfather. The grandfather had been called Iphis. The mother rejoiced
in that name because it was common {to both sexes}, nor would she be
deceiving[73] any one by it. Her deception lay unperceived under this
fraud, the result of natural affection. The {child’s} dress was that of
a boy; the face such, that, whether you gave it to a girl or to a boy,
either would be beautiful. In the meantime the third year had {now}
succeeded the tenth, when her father, O Iphis, promised to thee, in
marriage, the yellow-haired Iänthe, who was a virgin the most commended
among all the women of Phæstus, for the endowments of her beauty; the
daughter of the Dictæan Telestes. Equal was their age, their beauty
equal; and they received their first instruction, the elements {suited}
to their age, from the same preceptor.

Love, in consequence, touches the inexperienced breasts of them both,
and inflicts on each an equal wound; but {how} different are their
hopes! Iänthe awaits the time of their union, and of the ceremonial
agreed upon, and believes that she, whom she thinks to be a man, will be
{her husband}. Iphis is in love with her whom she despairs to be able to
enjoy, and this very thing increases her flame; and, {herself} a maid,
she burns with passion for a maid. And, with difficulty, suppressing her
tears, she says, “What issue {of my love} awaits me, whom the anxieties
unknown to any {before}, and {so} unnatural, of an unheard-of passion,
have seized upon? if the Gods would spare me, (they ought to have
destroyed me, and if they would not have destroyed me), at least they
should have inflicted some natural evil, and {one} common {to the human
race}. Passion for a cow does not inflame a cow, nor does that for mares
{inflame} the mares. The ram inflames the ewes; its own female follows
the buck. And so do birds couple; and among all animals, no female is
seized with passion for a female. Would that I did not exist.

“Yet, lest Crete might not be the producer of {all kinds of} prodigies,
the daughter of the Sun loved a bull; that is to say, a female {loved} a
male. My passion, if I confess the truth, is more extravagant than that.
Still she pursued the hopes of enjoyment; still, by a subtle
contrivance, and under the form of a cow, did she couple with the bull,
and her paramour was one that might be deceived. But though the
ingenuity of the whole world were to centre here, though Dædalus himself
were to fly back again with his waxen wings, what could he do? Could he,
by his skilful arts, make me from a maiden into a youth? or could he
transform thee, Iänthe? But why dost thou not fortify thy mind, and
recover thyself, Iphis? And why not shake off this passion, void of
{all} reason, and senseless {as it is}? Consider what it was thou wast
born (unless thou art deceiving thyself as well), and pursue that which
is allowable, and love that which, as a woman, thou oughtst {to love}.
Hope it is that produces, Hope it is that nourishes love. This, the
{very} case {itself} deprives thee of. No guard is keeping thee away
from her dear embrace; no care of a watchful husband, no father’s
severity; does not she herself deny thy solicitations. And yet she
cannot be enjoyed by thee; nor, were everything possible done, couldst
thou be blessed; {not}, though Gods and men were to do their utmost. And
now, too, no portion of my desires is baffled, and the compliant Deities
have granted me whatever they were able, and what I {desire}, my father
wishes, she herself wishes, and {so does} my destined father-in-law; but
nature, more powerful than all these, wills it not; she alone is an
obstacle to me. Lo, the longed-for time approaches, and the wedding-day
is at hand, when Iänthe should be mine; and {yet} she will not fall to
my lot. In the midst of water, I shall be athirst. Why, Juno, guardian
of the marriage rites, and why, Hymenæus, do you come to this
ceremonial, where there is not the person who should marry {the wife},
{and} where both {of us females}, we are coupled in wedlock?”

After {saying} these words, she closes her lips. And no less does the
other maid burn, and she prays thee, Hymenæus, to come quickly.
Telethusa, dreading the same thing that she desires, at one time puts
off the time {of the wedding}, and then raises delays, by feigning
illness. Often, by way of excuse, she pretends omens and visions. But
now she has exhausted all the resources of fiction; and the time for the
marriage {so long} delayed is {now} at hand, and {only} one day remains;
whereon she takes off the fillets for the hair from her own head and
from that of her daughter,[74] and embracing the altar with dishevelled
locks, she says, “O Isis, thou who dost inhabit Parætonium,[75] and the
Mareotic fields,[76] and Pharos,[77] and the Nile divided into its seven
horns, give aid, I beseech thee, and ease me of my fears. Thee, Goddess,
thee, I once beheld, and these thy symbols; and all {of them} I
recognized; both thy attendants, and thy torches, and the sound of the
sistra, and I noted thy commands with mindful care. That this {girl}[78]
{now} sees the light, that I, myself, am not punished, is {the result
of} thy counsel, and thy admonition; pity us both, and aid us with thy
assistance.”

Tears followed her words. The Goddess seemed to move, (and she {really}
did move) her altars; and the doors of her temple shook. Her horns,
too,[79] shone, resembling {those of} the moon, and the tinkling sistrum
sounded. The mother departs from the temple, not free from concern
indeed, still pleased with this auspicious omen. Iphis follows her, her
companion as she goes, with longer strides than she had been wont; her
fairness does not continue on her face; both her strength is increased,
and her features are more stern; and shorter is the length of her
scattered locks. There is more vigour, also, than she had {as} a female.
{And} now thou art a male, who so lately wast a female. Bring offerings
to the temple, and rejoice with no hesitating confidence. They do bring
their offerings to the temple. They add, too, an inscription; the
inscription contains {one} short line: “Iphis, a male, offers the
presents, which, as a female, he had vowed.”

The following morn has disclosed the wide world with the rays {of the
Sun}; when Venus, and Juno, and Hymenæus, repair to the social
fires[80]; and Iphis, {now} a youth, gains his {dear} Iänthe.

    〔note 65 — Phæstian land.--Ver. 668. Phæstus was a city of Crete, built by Minos.〕

    〔note 66 — Anubis.--Ver. 689. This was an Egyptian Deity, which had the body of a man, and the head of a dog. Some writers say that it was Mercury who was so represented, and that this form was given him in remembrance of the fact of Isis having used dogs in her search for Osiris, when he was slain by his brother Typhon. Other authors say, that Anubis was the son of Osiris, and that he distinguished himself with an helmet, bearing the figure of a dog, when he followed his father to battle.〕

    〔note 67 — Bubastis.--Ver. 690. Though she is here an attendant of Isis, Diodorus Siculus represents her to have been the same divinity as Isis. Herodotus, however, says that Diana was worshipped by the Egyptians under that name. There was a city of Lower Egypt, called Bubastis, in which Isis was greatly venerated.〕

    〔note 68 — Apis.--Ver. 690. This is supposed to have been another name for Osiris, whose body, having been burned on the funeral pile, the Egyptians believed that he re-appeared under the form of a bull; the name for which animal was ‘apis.’〕

    〔note 69 — Who suppresses.--Ver. 691. This was the Egyptian divinity Harpocrates, the God of Secresy and Silence, who was represented with his finger laid on his lips.〕

    〔note 70 — Osiris.--Ver. 692. When slain by his brother Typhon, Isis long sought him in vain, till, finding his scattered limbs by the aid of dogs, she entombed them. As the Egyptians had a yearly festival, at which they bewailed the loss of Osiris, and feigned that they were seeking him, Ovid calls that God, ‘Nunquam satis quæsitus,’ ‘Never enough sought for.’〕

    〔note 71 — Foreign serpent.--Ver. 693. This is, most probably, the asp, a small serpent of Egypt, which is frequently found represented on the statues of Isis. Its bite was said to produce a lethargic sleep, ending in death. Cleopatra ended her life by the bite of one, which she ordered to be conveyed to her in a basket of fruit. Some commentators have supposed that the crocodile is here alluded to; but, as others have justly observed, the crocodile has no poisonous sting, but rather a capacity for devouring.〕

    〔note 72 — A befriending Goddess.--Ver. 698. Diodorus Siculus says, that Isis was the discoverer of numerous remedies for disease, and that she greatly improved the healing art.〕

    〔note 73 — Be deceiving.--Ver. 709. The name ‘Iphis’ being equally well for a male or a female.〕

    〔note 74 — Of her daughter.--Ver. 770. We must suppose that Iphis wore the ‘vitta,’ which was an article of female dress, in private only, and in presence of her mother. Of course, in public, such an ornament would not have suited her, when appearing in the character of a man.〕

    〔note 75 — Parætonium.--Ver. 772. Strabo says, that Parætonium was a city of Libya, with a capacious harbour.〕

    〔note 76 — Mareotic fields.--Ver. 772. The Mareotic Lake was in the neighbourhood of the city of Alexandria.〕

    〔note 77 — Pharos.--Ver. 772. This was an island opposite to Alexandria, famed for its light-house, which was erected to warn sailors from off the dangerous quicksands in the neighbourhood.〕

    〔note 78 — This girl.--Ver. 778. Pointing at Iphis, who had attended her, Antoninus Liberalis says, that Telethusa prayed that Iphis might be transformed into a man, and cited a number of precedents for such a change.〕

    〔note 79 — Her horns too.--Ver. 783. Isis was sometimes worshipped under the form of a cow, to the horns of which reference is here made.〕

    〔note 80 — The social fires.--Ver. 795. On the occasion of marriages, offerings were made on the altars of Hymenæus and the other Deities, who were the guardians of conjugal rites.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The story of Iphis being changed from a young woman into a man,
  of which Ovid lays the scene in the isle of Crete, is one of those
  facts upon which ancient history is entirely silent. Perhaps, the
  origin of the story was a disguise of a damsel in male dress,
  carried on, for family reasons, even to the very point of marriage;
  or it may have been based upon an account of some remarkable
  instance of androgynous formation.

  Ovid may possibly have invented the story himself, merely as a
  vehicle for showing how the Deities recompense piety and strict
  obedience to their injunctions.

FABLE I. [X.1-85]

  Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, while sporting in the fields, with
  other Nymphs, is bitten by a serpent, which causes her death. After
  having mourned for her, Orpheus resolves to go down to the Infernal
  Regions in quest of her. Pluto and the Fates consent to her return,
  on condition that Orpheus shall not look on her till he is out of
  their dominions. His curiosity prevailing, he neglects this
  injunction, on which she is immediately snatched away from him,
  beyond the possibility of recovery. Upon this occasion, the Poet
  relates the story of a shepherd, who was turned into a rock by a
  look of Cerberus; and that of Olenus and Lethæa, who were
  transformed into stones.

Thence Hymenæus, clad in a saffron-coloured[1] robe, passed through the
unmeasured tract of air, and directed his course to the regions of the
Ciconians[2], and, in vain, was invoked by the voice of Orpheus. He
presented himself indeed, but he brought with him neither auspicious
words, nor joyful looks, nor {yet} a happy omen. The torch, too, which
he held, was hissing with a smoke that brought tears to the eyes, and as
it was, it found no flames amid its waving. The issue was more
disastrous than the omens; for the newmade bride, while she was
strolling along the grass, attended by a train of Naiads, was killed,
having received the sting of a serpent on her ancle.

After the Rhodopeïan bard had sufficiently bewailed her in the upper
{realms of} air, that he might try the shades below as well, he dared to
descend to Styx by the Tænarian gate, and amid the phantom inhabitants
and ghosts that had enjoyed the tomb, he went to Persephone, and him
that held these unpleasing realms, the Ruler of the shades; and touching
his strings in concert with his words, he thus said, “O ye Deities of
the world that lies beneath the earth, to which we {all} come {at last},
each that is born to mortality; if I may be allowed, and you suffer me
to speak the truth, laying aside[3] the artful expressions of a
deceitful tongue; I have not descended hither {from curiosity} to see
dark Tartarus, nor to bind the threefold throat of the Medusæan monster,
bristling with serpents. {But} my wife was the cause of my coming; into
whom a serpent, trodden upon {by her}, diffused its poison, and cut
short her growing years. I was wishful to be able to endure {this}, and
I will not deny that I have endeavoured {to do so}. Love has proved the
stronger. That God is well known in the regions above. Whether he be so
here, too, I am uncertain; but yet I imagine that even here he is; and
if the story of the rape of former days is not untrue, ’twas love that
united you {two} together. By these places filled with horrors, by this
vast Chaos, and by the silence of these boundless realms, I entreat you,
weave over again the quick-spun thread {of the life} of Eurydice.

“To you we all belong; and having staid but a little while {above},
sooner or later we {all} hasten to one abode. Hither are we all
hastening. This is our last home; and you possess the most lasting
dominion over the human race. She, too, when, in due season she shall
have completed her allotted {number of} years, will be under your sway.
The enjoyment {of her} I beg as a favour. But if the Fates deny me this
privilege in behalf of my wife, I have determined that I will not
return. Triumph in the death of us both.”

As he said such things, and touched the strings to his words, the
bloodless spirits wept. Tantalus did not catch at the retreating water,
and the wheel of Ixion stood still, {as though} in amazement; the birds
did not tear the liver {of Tityus}; and the granddaughters of Belus
paused at their urns; thou, too, Sisyphus, didst seat thyself on thy
stone. The story is, that then, for the first time, the cheeks of the
Eumenides, overcome by his music, were wet with tears; nor could the
royal consort, nor he who rules the infernal regions, endure to deny him
his request; and they called for Eurydice. She was among the shades
newly arrived, and she advanced with a slow pace, by reason of her
wound.

The Rhodopeïan hero receives her, and, at the same time, {this}
condition, that he turn not back his eyes until he has passed the
Avernian vallies, or else that the grant will be revoked. The ascending
path is mounted in deep silence, steep, dark, and enveloped in deepening
gloom. And {now} they were not far from the verge of the upper earth.
He, enamoured, fearing lest she should flag, and impatient to behold
her, turned his eyes; and immediately she sank back again. She, hapless
one! both stretching out her arms, and struggling to be grasped, and to
grasp him, caught nothing but the fleeting air. And now, dying a second
time, she did not at all complain of her husband; for why should she
complain of being beloved? And now she pronounced the last farewell,
which scarcely did he catch with his ears; and again was she hurried
back to the same place.

No otherwise was Orpheus amazed at this twofold death of his wife, than
he who, trembling, beheld the three necks[4] of the dog, the middle one
supporting chains; whom fear did not forsake, before his former nature
{deserted him}, as stone gathered over his body: and {than} Olenus,[5]
who took on himself the crime {of another}, and was willing to appear
guilty; and {than} thou, unhappy Lethæa, confiding in thy beauty;
breasts, once most united, now rocks, which the watery Ida supports. The
ferryman drove him away entreating, and, in vain, desiring again to
cross {the stream}. Still, for seven days, in squalid guise[6] did he
sit on the banks without the gifts of Ceres. Vexation, and sorrow of
mind, and tears were his sustenance. Complaining that the Deities of
Erebus[7] were cruel, he betook himself to lofty Rhodope, and Hæmus,[8]
buffeted by the North winds. The third Titan had {now} ended the year
bounded by the Fishes of the ocean;[9] and Orpheus had avoided all
intercourse with woman, either because it had ended in misfortune to
him, or because he had given a promise {to that effect}. Yet a passion
possessed many a female to unite herself to the bard, {and} many a one
grieved when repulsed. He also was the {first} adviser of the people of
Thrace to transfer their affections to tender youths; and, on this side
of manhood, to enjoy the short spring of life, and its early flowers.

    〔note 1 — Saffron-coloured.--Ver. 1. This was in order to be dressed in a colour similar to that of the ‘flammeum,’ which was a veil of a bright yellow colour, worn by the bride. This custom prevailed among the Romans, among whom the shoes worn by the bride were of the same colour with the veil.〕

    〔note 2 — Ciconians.--Ver. 2. These were a people of Thrace, near the river Hebrus and the Bistonian Lake.〕

    〔note 3 — Laying aside.--Ver. 19. ‘Falsi positis ambagibus oris,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Laying aside all the long-winded fetches of a false tongue.’〕

    〔note 4 — The three necks.--Ver. 65. There was a story among the ancients, that when Cerberus was dragged by Hercules from the Infernal Regions, a certain man, through fear of Hercules, hid himself in a cave; and that on peeping out, and beholding Cerberus, he was changed into a stone by his fright. Suidas says, that in his time the stone was still to be seen, and that the story gave rise to a proverb.〕

    〔note 5 — Olenus.--Ver. 69. Olenus, who was supposed to be the son of Vulcan, had a beautiful wife, whose name was Lethæa. When about to be punished for comparing her own beauty to that of the Goddesses, Olenus offered to submit to the penalty in her stead, on which they were both changed into stones.〕

    〔note 6 — In squalid guise.--Ver. 74. ‘Squallidus in ripa--sedit,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘He sat in a sorry pickle on the bank.’〕

    〔note 7 — Erebus.--Ver. 76. Erebus was the son of Chaos and Darkness; but his name is often used to signify the Infernal Regions.〕

    〔note 8 — Hæmus.--Ver. 77. This was a mountain of Thrace, which was much exposed to the North winds.〕

    〔note 9 — Fishes of the ocean.--Ver. 78. ‘Pisces,’ ‘the Fishes,’ being the last sign of the Zodiac, when the sun has passed through it, the year is completed.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Though Ovid has separated the adventures of Orpheus, whose death he
  does not relate till the beginning of the eleventh Book, we will
  here shortly enter upon an examination of some of the more important
  points of his history.

  As, in his time, Poetry and Music were in a very low state of
  perfection, and as he excelled in both of those arts, it was said
  that he was the son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope; and it was
  added, that he charmed lions and tigers, and made even the trees
  sensible of the melodious tones of his lyre. These were mere
  hyperbolical expressions, which signified the wondrous charms of his
  eloquence and of his music combined, which he employed in
  cultivating the genius of a savage and uncouth people. Some
  conjecture that this personage originally came from Asia into
  Thrace, and suppose that he, together with Linus and Eumolpus,
  brought poetry and music into Greece, the use of which, till then,
  was unknown in that country; and that they introduced, at the same
  time, the worship of Ceres, Mars, and the orgies of Bacchus, which,
  from him who instituted them, received their name of ‘Orphica.’
  Orpheus, too, is supposed to have united the office of high priest
  with that of king. Horace styles him the interpreter of the Gods;
  and he was said to have interposed with the Deities for the
  deliverance of the Argonauts from a dangerous tempest. It is thought
  that he passed some part of his life in Egypt, and became acquainted
  with many particulars of the ancient religion of the Egyptians,
  which he introduced into the theology of Greece. Some modern writers
  even go so far as to suggest that he learned from the Hebrews, who
  were then sojourning in Egypt, the knowledge of the true God.

  His wife, Eurydice, dying very young, he was inconsolable for her
  loss. To alleviate his grief, he went to Thesprotia, in Epirus, the
  natives of which region were said to possess incantations, for the
  purpose of raising the ghosts of the departed. Here, according to
  some accounts, being deceived by a phantom, which was made to appear
  before him, he died of sorrow; but, according to other writers,
  he renounced the society of mankind for ever and retired to the
  mountains of Thrace. His journey to that distant country gave
  occasion to say, that he descended to the Infernal Regions. This is
  the more likely, as he is supposed to have there promulgated his
  notions of the infernal world, which, according to Diodorus Siculus,
  he had learned among the Egyptians.

  Tzetzes, however, assures us that this part of his history is
  founded on the circumstance, that Orpheus cured his wife of the bite
  of a serpent, which had till then been considered to be mortal; and
  that the poets gave an hyperbolical version of the story, in saying
  that he had rescued her from Hell. He says, too, that he had learned
  in Egypt the art of magic, which was much cultivated there, and
  especially the method of charming serpents.

  After the loss of his wife, he retired to mount Rhodope, to assuage
  the violence of his grief. There, according to Ovid and other poets,
  the Mænades, or Bacchanals, to be revenged for his contempt of them
  and their rites, tore him in pieces; which story is somewhat
  diversified by the writers who relate that Venus, exasperated
  against Calliope, the mother of Orpheus, for having adjudged to
  Proserpine the possession of Adonis, caused the women of Thrace to
  become enamoured of her son, and to tear him in pieces while
  disputing the possession of him. An ancient author, quoted by
  Hyginus, says that Orpheus was killed by the stroke of a
  thunderbolt, while he was accompanying the Argonauts; and
  Apollodorus says the same. Diodorus Siculus calls him one of the
  kings of Thrace; while other writers, among whom are Cicero and
  Aristotle, assert that there never was such a person as Orpheus. The
  learned Vossius says, that the Phœnician word ‘ariph,’ which
  signifies ‘learned,’ gave rise to the story of Orpheus. Le Clerc
  thinks that in consequence of the same Greek word signifying ‘an
  enchanter,’ and also meaning ‘a singer,’ he acquired the reputation
  of having been a most skilful magician.

  We may, perhaps, safely conclude, that Orpheus really did introduce
  the worship of many Gods into Greece; and that, possibly, while he
  promulgated the necessity of expiating crimes, he introduced
  exorcism, and brought magic into fashion in Greece. Lucian affirms
  that he was also the first to teach the elements of astronomy.
  Several works were attributed to him, which are now no longer in
  existence; among which were a Poem on the Expedition of the
  Argonauts, one on the War of the Giants, another on the Rape of
  Proserpine, and a fourth upon the Labours of Hercules. The Poem on
  the Argonautic Expedition, which now exists, and is attributed to
  him, is supposed to have been really written by a poet named
  Onomacritus, who lived in the sixth century B.C., in the time of
  Pisistratus.

  After his death, Orpheus was reckoned in the number of Heroes or
  Demigods; and we are informed by Philostratus that his head was
  preserved at Lesbos, where it gave oracular responses. Orpheus is
  not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod. The learned scholar Lobeck, in his
  Aglaophamus, has entered very deeply into an investigation of the
  real nature of the discoveries and institutions ascribed to him.

FABLE II. [X.86-105]

  Orpheus, retiring to Mount Rhodope, by the charms of his music,
  attracts to himself all kinds of creatures, rocks, and trees; among
  the latter is the pine tree, only known since the transformation of
  Attis.

There was a hill, and upon the hill a most level space of a plain, which
the blades of grass made green: {all} shade was wanting in the spot.
After the bard, sprung from the Gods, had seated himself in this place,
and touched his tuneful strings, a shade came over the spot. The tree of
Chaonia[10] was not absent, nor the grove of the Heliades,[11] nor the
mast-tree with its lofty branches, nor the tender lime-trees, nor yet
the beech, and the virgin laurel,[12] and the brittle hazels, and the
oak, adapted for making spears, and the fir without knots, and the holm
bending beneath its acorns, and the genial plane-tree,[13] and the
parti-coloured maple,[14] and, together with them, the willows growing
by the rivers, and the watery lotus, and the evergreen box, and the
slender tamarisks, and the two-coloured myrtle, and the tine-tree,[15]
with its azure berries.

You, too, the ivy-trees, with your creeping tendrils, came, and
together, the branching vines, and the elms clothed with vines; the
ashes, too, and the pitch-trees, and the arbute, laden with its blushing
fruit, and the bending palm,[16] the reward of the conqueror; the pine,
too, with its tufted foliage,[17] and bristling at the top, pleasing to
the Mother of the Gods; since for this the Cybeleïan Attis put off the
human form, and hardened into that trunk.

    〔note 10 — Tree of Chaonia.--Ver. 90. This was the oak, for the growth of which Chaonia, a province of Epirus, was famous.〕

    〔note 11 — Grove of the Heliades.--Ver. 91. He alludes to the poplars, into which tree, as we have already seen, the Heliades, or daughters of the sun, were changed after the death of Phaëton.〕

    〔note 12 — Virgin laurel.--Ver. 92. The laurel is so styled from the Virgin Daphne, who refused to listen to the solicitations of Apollo.〕

    〔note 13 — Genial plane-tree.--Ver. 95. The plane tree was much valued by the ancients, as affording, by its extending branches, a pleasant shade to festive parties. Virgil says, in the Fourth Book of the Georgics, line 146, ‘Atque ministrantem platanum potantibus umbram,’ ‘And the plane-tree that gives its shade for those that carouse.’〕

    〔note 14 — Parti-coloured maple.--Ver. 95. The grain of the maple being of a varying colour, it was much valued by the ancients, for the purpose of making articles of furniture.〕

    〔note 15 — The tine tree.--Ver. 98. The ‘tinus,’ or ‘tine tree,’ according to Pliny the Elder, was a wild laurel, with green berries.〕

    〔note 16 — The bending palm.--Ver. 102. The branches of the palm were remarkable for their flexibility, while no superincumbent weight could break them. On this account they were considered as emblematical of victory.〕

    〔note 17 — Tufted foliage.--Ver. 103. The pine is called ‘succincta,’ because it sends forth its branches from the top, and not from the sides.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The story of Attis, or Athis, here briefly referred to, is related
  by the ancient writers in many different ways; so much so, that it
  is not possible to reconcile the discrepancy that exists between
  them. From Diodorus Siculus we learn that Cybele, the daughter of
  Mæon, King of Phrygia, falling in love with a young shepherd named
  Attis, her father ordered him to be put to death. In despair, at the
  loss of her lover, Cybele left her father’s abode, and, accompanied
  by Marsyas, crossed the mountains of Phrygia. Apollo, (or, as
  Vossius supposes, some priest of that God,) touched with the
  misfortunes of the damsel, took her to the country of the
  Hyperboreans in Scythia, where she died. Some time after, the plague
  ravaging Phrygia, and the oracle being consulted, an answer was
  returned, that, to ensure the ceasing of the contagion, they must
  look for the body of Attis, and give it funeral rites, and render to
  Cybele the same honour which they were wont to pay to the Gods: all
  which was done with such scrupulous care, that in time she became
  one of the most esteemed Divinities.

  Arnobius, says that Attis was a shepherd, with whom Cybele fell in
  love in her old age. Unmoved by her rank, and repelled by her faded
  charms, he despised her advances. Midas, King of Pessinus, on seeing
  this, destined his own daughter, Agdistis, for the young Attis.
  Fearing the resentment of Cybele, he caused the gates of the city to
  be shut on the day on which the marriage was to be solemnized.
  Cybele being informed of this, hastened to Pessinus, and, destroying
  the gates, met with Attis, who had concealed himself behind a pine
  tree, and caused him to be emasculated; on which Agdistis committed
  self-destruction in a fit of sorrow.

  Servius, Lactantius, and St. Augustine, give another version of the
  story, which it is not necessary here to enlarge upon, any farther
  than to say, that it depicts the love of a powerful queen for a
  young man who repulsed her advances. Ovid, also, gives a similar
  account in the fourth Book of the Fasti, line 220. Other authors,
  quoted by Arnobius, have given some additional circumstances, the
  origin of which it is almost impossible to guess at. They say that a
  female called Nana, by touching a pomegranate or an almond tree,
  which grew from the blood of Agdistis whom Bacchus had slain,
  conceived Attis, who afterwards became very dear to Cybele.

  All that we can conclude from these accounts, and more especially
  from that given by Ovid in the Fasti, is, that the worship of Cybele
  being established in Phrygia, Attis was one of her priests; and
  that, as he led the example of mutilating himself, all her other
  priests, who were called Galli, submitted to a similar operation,
  to the great surprise of the uninitiated, who were not slow in
  inventing some wonderful story to account for an act so
  extraordinary.

FABLE III. [X.106-142]

  Cyparissus is about to kill himself for having slain, by accident,
  a favourite deer; but, before he is able to execute his design,
  Apollo transforms him into a Cypress.

Amid this throng was present the cypress, resembling the cone,[18] now a
tree, {but} once a youth, beloved by that God who fits the lyre with the
strings, and the bow with strings. For there was a large stag, sacred to
the Nymphs who inhabit the Carthæan fields; and, with his horns
extending afar, he himself afforded an ample shade to his own head. His
horns were shining with gold, and a necklace studded with gems,[19]
falling upon his shoulders, hung down from his smooth round neck;
a silver ball,[20] fastened with little straps, played upon his
forehead; and pendants of brass,[21] of equal size, shone on either ear
around his hollow temples. He, too, void of fear, and laying aside his
natural timorousness, used to frequent the houses, and to offer his neck
to be patted by any hands, even though unknown {to him}.

But yet, above all others, he was pleasing to thee, Cyparissus, most
beauteous of the nation of Cea.[22] Thou wast wont to lead the stag to
new pastures, and to the streams of running waters; sometimes thou didst
wreathe flowers of various colours about his horns, and at other times,
seated on his back, {like} a horseman, {first} in this direction and
{then} in that, thou didst guide his easy mouth with the purple bridle.
’Twas summer and the middle of the day, and the bending arms of the
Crab, that loves the sea-shore, were glowing with the heat of the sun;
the stag, fatigued, was reclining his body on the grassy earth, and was
enjoying the coolness from the shade of a tree. By inadvertence the boy
Cyparissus pierced him with a sharp javelin; and, when he saw him dying
from the cruel wound, he resolved to attempt to die {as well}. What
consolations did not Phœbus apply? and he advised him to grieve with
moderation, and according to the occasion. Still did he lament, and as a
last favour, he requested this of the Gods above, that he might mourn
for ever. And now, his blood quite exhausted by incessant weeping, his
limbs began to be changed into a green colour, and the hair, which but
lately hung from his snow-white forehead, to become a rough bush, and,
a stiffness being assumed, to point to the starry heavens with a
tapering top. The God {Phœbus} lamented deeply, and in his sorrow he
said, “Thou shalt be mourned by me, and shalt mourn for others, and
shalt {ever} attend upon those who are sorrowing[23] {for the dead}.”

    〔note 18 — Resembling the cone.--Ver. 106. In the Roman Circus for the chariot races, a low wall ran lengthways down the course, which, from its resemblance in position to the spinal bone, was called by the name of ‘spina.’ At each extremity of this ‘spina,’ there were placed upon a base, three large cones, or pyramids of wood, in shape very much like cypress trees, to which fact allusion is here made. They were called ‘metæ,’ ‘goals.’〕

    〔note 19 — Studded with gems.--Ver. 113. Necklaces were much worn in ancient times by the Indians, Persians, and Egyptians. They were more especially used by the Greek and Roman females as bridal ornaments. The ‘monile baccatum,’ or ‘bead necklace,’ was the most common, being made of berries, glass, or other materials, strung together. They were so strung with thread, silk, or wire, and links of gold. Emeralds seem to have been much used for this purpose, and amber was also similarly employed. Thus Ovid says, in the second Book of the Metamorphoses, line 366, that the amber distilled from the trees, into which the sisters of Phaëton were changed, was sent to be worn by the Latian matrons. Horses and favourite animals, as in the present instance, were decked with ‘monilia,’ or necklaces.〕

    〔note 20 — A silver ball.--Ver. 114. The ‘bulla’ was a ball of metal, so called from its resemblance in shape to a bubble of water. These were especially worn by the Roman children, suspended from the neck, and were mostly made of thin plates of gold, being of about the size of a walnut. The use of these ornaments was derived from the people of Etruria; and though originally worn only by the children of the Patricians, they were subsequently used by all of free birth. The children of the Libertini, or ‘freedmen,’ indeed wore ‘bullæ,’ but they were only made of leather. The ‘bulla’ was laid aside at the same time as the ‘toga prætexta,’ and was on that occasion consecrated to the Lares. The bulls of the Popes of Rome, received their names from this word; the ornament which was pendent from the rescript or decree being used to signify the document itself.〕

    〔note 21 — Pendants of brass.--Ver. 116. The ear-ring was called among the Greeks ἐνώτιον, and by the Romans ‘inauris.’ The Greeks also called it ἐλλόβιον, from its being inserted in the lobe of the ear. Earrings were worn by both sexes among the Lydians, Persians, Libyans, Carthaginians, and other nations. Among the Greeks and Romans, the females alone were in the habit of wearing them. As with us, the ear-ring consisted of a ring and drop, the ring being generally of gold, though bronze was sometimes used by the common people. Pearls, especially those of elongated form, which were called ‘elenchi,’ were very much valued for pendants.〕

    〔note 22 — Nation of Cea.--Ver. 120. Cea was one of the Cyclades, and Carthæa was one of its four cities.〕

    〔note 23 — Who are sorrowing.--Ver. 142. The Poet in this manner accounts for the Roman custom of placing branches of Cypress before the doors of houses in which a dead body lay. Pliny the Elder says, that the Cypress was sacred to Pluto, and that for that reason it was used at funerals, and was placed upon the pile. Varro says, that it was used for the purpose of removing, by its own strong scent, the bad smell of the spot where the bodies were burnt, and also of the bodies themselves. It was also said to be so used, because, when once its bark is cut, it withers, and is consequently emblematical of the frail tenure of human life.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Cyparissus, who, according to Ovid was born at Carthæa, a town in
  the isle of Cea, was probably a youth of considerable poetical
  talent and proficiency in the polite arts, which caused him to be
  deemed the favourite of Apollo. His transformation into a Cypress is
  founded on the resemblance between their names, that tree being
  called by the Greeks κυπάρισσος. The conclusion of the story is that
  Apollo, to console himself, enjoined that the Cypress tree should be
  the symbol of sorrow, or in other words that it should be used at
  funerals and be planted near graves and sepulchres; which fiction
  was most likely founded on the fact, that the tree was employed for
  those purposes; perhaps because its branches, almost destitute of
  leaves, have a somewhat melancholy aspect.

  Some ancient writers also tell us that Cyparissus was a youth
  beloved by the God Sylvanus, for which reason that God is often
  represented with branches of Cypress in his hand.

FABLE IV. [X.143-161]

  Jupiter, charmed with the beauty of the youth Ganymede, transforms
  himself into an Eagle, for the purpose of carrying him off. He is
  taken up into Heaven, and is made the Cup-bearer of the Divinities.

Such a grove {of trees} had the bard attracted {round him}, and he sat
in the midst of an assembly of wild beasts, and of a multitude of birds.
When he had sufficiently tried the strings struck with his thumb, and
perceived that the various tones, though they gave different sounds,
{still} harmonize, in this song he raised his voice: “Begin, my parent
Muse, my song from Jove, all things submit to the sway of Jove. By me,
often before has the power of Jove been sung. In loftier strains have I
sung of the Giants, and the victorious thunderbolts scattered over the
Phlegræan plains.[24] Now is there occasion for a softer lyre; and let
us sing of youths beloved by the Gods above, and of girls surprised by
unlawful flames, who, by their wanton desires, have been deserving of
punishment.

“The king of the Gods above was once inflamed with a passion for
Ganymede, and something was found that Jupiter preferred to be, rather
than what he was. Yet into no bird does he vouchsafe to be transformed,
but that which can carry his bolts.[25] And no delay {is there}.
Striking the air with his fictitious wings, he carries off the youth of
Ilium; who even now mingles his cups {for him}, and, much against the
will of Juno, serves nectar to Jove.”

    〔note 24 — Phlegræan plains.--Ver. 151. Some authors place the Phlegræan {plains} near Cumæ, in Italy, and say that in a spot near there, much impregnated with sulphur, Jupiter, aided by Hercules and the other Deities, conquered the Giants with his lightnings. Others say that their locality was in that part of Macedonia which was afterwards called Pallene; others again, in Thessaly, or Thrace.〕

    〔note 25 — Carry his bolts.--Ver. 158. The eagle was feigned to be the attendant bird of Jove, among other reasons, because it was supposed to fly higher than any other bird, to be able to fix its gaze on the sun without being dazzled, and never to receive injury from lightning. It was also said to have been the armour-bearer of Jupiter in his wars against the Titans, and to have carried his thunderbolts.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The rape of Ganymede is probably based upon an actual occurrence,
  which may be thus explained. Tros, the king of Troy, having
  conquered several of his neighbours, as Eusebius, Cedrenus, and
  Suidas relate, sent his son Ganymede into Lydia, accompanied by
  several of the nobles of his court, to offer sacrifice in the temple
  dedicated to Jupiter; Tantalus, the king of that country, who was
  ignorant of the designs of the Trojan king, took his people for
  spies, and put Ganymede in prison. He having been arrested in a
  temple of Jupiter, by order of a prince, whose ensign was an eagle,
  it gave occasion for the report that he had been carried off by
  Jupiter in the shape of an eagle.

  The reason why Jupiter is said to have made Ganymede his cup-bearer
  is difficult to conjecture, unless we suppose that he had served his
  father, in that employment at the Trojan court. The poets say that
  he was placed by the Gods among the Constellations, where he shines
  as Aquarius, or the Water-bearer.

  The capture of Ganymede occasioned a protracted and bloody war
  between Tros and Tantalus; and after their death, Ilus, the son of
  Tros, continued it against Pelops, the son of Tantalus, and obliged
  him to quit his kingdom and retire to the court of Œnomaüs, king of
  Pisa, whose daughter he married, and by her had a son named Atreus,
  who was the father of Agamemnon and Menelaüs. Thus we see that
  probably Paris, the great grandson of Tros, carried off Helen, as a
  reprisal on Menelaüs, the great grandson of Tantalus, the persecutor
  of Ganymede. Agamemnon did not fail to turn this fact to his own
  advantage, by putting the Greeks in mind of the evils which his
  family had suffered from the kings of Troy.

FABLE V. [X.162-219]

  As Apollo is playing at quoits with the youth Hyacinthus, one of
  them, thrown by the Divinity, rebounds from the earth, and striking
  Hyacinthus on the head, kills him. From his blood springs up the
  flower which still bears his name.

“Phœbus would have placed thee too, descendant of Amycla,[26] in the
heavens, if the stern Fates had given him time to place thee there.
Still, so far as is possible, thou art immortal; and as oft as the
spring drives away the winter, and the Ram succeeds the watery Fish, so
often dost thou spring up and blossom upon the green turf. Thee, beyond
{all} others, did my father love, and Delphi, situate in the middle[27]
of the earth, was without its guardian {Deity}, while the God was
frequenting the Eurotas, and the unfortified Sparta;[28] and neither his
lyre nor his arrows were {held} in esteem {by him}.

“Unmindful of his own dignity, he did not refuse to carry the nets, or
to hold the dogs, or to go, as his companion, over the ridges of the
rugged mountains; and by lengthened intimacy he augmented his flame. And
now Titan was almost in his mid course between the approaching and the
past night, and was at an equal distance from them both; {when} they
stripped their bodies of their garments, and shone with the juice of the
oily olive, and engaged in the game of the broad quoit.[29] First,
Phœbus tossed it, well poised, into the airy breeze, and clove the
opposite clouds with its weight. After a long pause, the heavy mass fell
on the hard ground, and showed skill united with strength. Immediately
the Tænarian youth,[30] in his thoughtlessness, and urged on by
eagerness for the sport, hastened to take up the circlet; but the hard
ground sent it back into the air with a rebound against thy face,
Hyacinthus.

“Equally as pale as the youth does the Divinity himself turn; and he
bears up thy sinking limbs; and at one moment he cherishes thee, at
another, he stanches thy sad wound; {and} now he stops the fleeting life
by the application of herbs. His skill is of no avail. The wound is
incurable. As if, in a well-watered garden, any one should break down
violets, or poppies, and lilies, as they adhere to their yellow stalks;
drooping, they would suddenly hang down their languid heads, and could
not support themselves; and would look towards the ground with their
tops. So sink his dying features; and, forsaken by its vigour, the neck
is a burden to itself, and reclines upon the shoulder. ‘Son of Œbalus,’
says Phœbus, ‘thou fallest, deprived of thy early youth; and I look on
thy wound as my own condemnation. Thou art {the object of} my grief, and
{the cause of} my crime. With thy death is my right hand to be charged;
I am the author of thy destruction. Yet what is my fault? unless to
engage in sport can be termed a fault; unless it can be called a fault,
too, to have loved thee. And oh! that I could give my life for thee, or
together with thee; but since I am restrained by the decrees of destiny,
thou shalt ever be with me, and shalt dwell on my mindful lips. The lyre
struck with my hand, my songs, too, shall celebrate thee; and,
{becoming} a new flower, by the inscription {on thee}, thou shalt
imitate[31] my lamentations. The time, too, shall come, at which a most
valiant hero[32] shall add his {name} to this flower, and it shall be
read upon the same leaves.’

“While such things are being uttered by the prophetic lips of Apollo,
behold! the blood which, poured on the ground, has stained the grass,
ceases to be blood, and a flower springs up, more bright than the Tyrian
purple, and it assumes the appearance which lilies {have}, were there
not in this a purple hue, {and} in them that of silver. This was not
enough for Phœbus, for ’twas he that was the author of this honour. He
himself inscribed his own lamentations on the leaves, and the flower has
‘ai, ai,’ inscribed {thereon}; and the mournful characters[33] {there}
are traced. Nor is Sparta ashamed to have given birth to Hyacinthus; and
his honours continue to the present time; the Hyacinthian festival[34]
returns, too, each year, to be celebrated with the prescribed
ceremonials, after the manner of former {celebrations}.”

    〔note 26 — Descendant of Amycla.--Ver. 162. Hyacinthus is here called Amyclides, as though being the son of Amycla, whereas, in line 196 he is called ‘Œbalides,’ as though the son of Œbalus. Pausamas and Apollodorus (in one instance) say that he was the son of Amycla, the Lacedæmonian, who founded the city of Amyclæ; though, in another place, Apollodorus says that Piërus was his father. On the other hand, Hyginus, Lucian, and Servius say that he was the son of Œbalus. Some explain ‘Amyclide,’ as meaning ‘born at Amyclæ;’ and, indeed, Claudian says that he was born there. Others, again, would have Œbalide to signify ‘born at Œbalia.’ But, if he was the son of Amycla, this could not be the signification, as Œbalia was founded by Œbalus, who was the grandson of Amycla. The poet, most probably, meant to style him the descendant of Amycla, as being his great grandson, and the son of Œbalus. Again, in the 217th line of this Book, the Poet says that he was born at Sparta; but, in the fifth Book of the Fasti, line 223, he mentions Therapnæ, a town of Laconia, as having been his birthplace. Perizonius thinks that Ovid has here inadvertently confounded the different versions of the story of Hyacinthus.〕

    〔note 27 — In the middle.--Ver. 168. Delphi, situated on a ridge of Parnassus, was styled the navel of the world, as it was supposed to be situate in the middle of the earth. The story was, that Jupiter, having let go two eagles, or pigeons, at the opposite extremities of the earth, with the view of ascertaining the central spot of it, they met in their flight at this place.〕

    〔note 28 — Unfortified Sparta.--Ver. 169. Sparta was not fortified, because Lycurgus considered that it ought to trust for its defence to nothing but the valour and patriotism of its citizens.〕

    〔note 29 — The broad quoit.--Ver. 177. The ‘discus,’ or quoit, of the ancients, was made of brass, iron, stone, or wood, and was about ten or twelve inches in diameter. Sometimes, a heavy mass of iron, of spherical form, was thrown instead of the ‘discus.’ It was perforated in the middle, and a rope or thong being passed through, was used in throwing it.〕

    〔note 30 — The Tænarian youth.--Ver. 183. Hyacinthus is so called, not as having been born there, but because Tænarus was a famous headland or promontory of Laconia, his native country.〕

    〔note 31 — Thou shalt imitate.--Ver. 206. The blood of Hyacinthus, changing into a flower, according to the ideas of the poets, the words Αἰ, Αἰ, expressive, in the Greek language, of lamentation, were said to be impressed on its leaves.〕

    〔note 32 — Most valiant hero.--Ver. 207. He alludes to Ajax, the son of Telamon, from whose blood, when he slew himself, a similar flower was said to have arisen, with the letters Αἰ, Αἰ, on its leaves, expressive either of grief, or denoting the first two letters of his name, Αἴας. See Book xiii. line 397. The hyacinth was the emblem of death, among the ancient Greeks.〕

    〔note 33 — Mournful characters.--Ver. 216. The letters are called ‘funesta,’ because the words αἰ, αἰ were the expressions of lamentation at funerals.〕

    〔note 34 — Hyacinthian festival.--Ver. 219. The Hyacinthia was a festival celebrated every year at Amyclæ, in Laconia, by the people of that town and of Sparta. Some writers say that it was held solely in honour of Apollo; others, of Hyacinthus; but it is much more probable, that it was intended to be in honour of both Apollo and Hyacinthus. The festival lasted for three days, and began on the longest day of the Spartan month, Hecatombæus. On the first and last day, sacrifices were offered to the dead, and the fate of Hyacinthus was lamented. Garlands were forbidden to be worn on those days, bread was not allowed to be eaten, and no songs were recited in praise of Apollo. On the second day, rejoicing and amusements prevailed; the praises of Apollo were sung, and horse races were celebrated; after which, females, riding in chariots made of wicker-work, and splendidly adorned, formed a beautiful procession. On this day, sacrifices were offered, and the citizens kept open houses for their friends and relations. Athenæus mentions a favourite meal of the Laconians on this occasion, which was called κοπίς, and consisted of cakes, bread, meat, broth, raw herbs, figs, and other fruits, with the seeds of the lupine. Macrobius says, that chaplets of ivy were worn at the Hyacinthia; but, of course, that remark can only apply to the second day. Even when they had taken the field against an enemy, the people of Amyclæ were in the habit of returning home on the approach of the Hyacinthia, to celebrate that festival.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Hyacinthus, as Pausanias relates, was a youth of Laconia. His father
  educated him with so much care, that he was looked upon as the
  favourite of Apollo, and of the Muses. As he was one day playing
  with his companions, he unfortunately received a blow on the head
  from a quoit, from the effects of which he died soon after. Some
  funeral verses were probably composed on the occasion; in which it
  was said, with the view of comforting his relations, that Boreas,
  jealous of the affection which Apollo had evinced for the youth, had
  turned aside the quoit with which they played; and thus, by degrees,
  in length of time the name of Apollo became inseparably connected
  with the story.

  The Lacedæmonians each year celebrated a solemn festival near his
  tomb, where they offered sacrifices to him; and we are told by
  Athenæus, that they instituted games in his honour, which were
  called after his name. Pausanias makes mention of his tomb, upon
  which he says was engraved the figure of Apollo. His alleged change
  into the flower of the same name is probably solely owing to the
  similarity of their names. It is not very clear what flower it is
  that was known to the ancients under the name of Hyacinthus.
  Dioscorides believes it to be that called ‘vaccinium’ by the Romans,
  which is of a purple colour, and on which can be traced, though
  imperfectly, the letters αἰ (alas!) mentioned by Ovid. The
  lamentations of Apollo, on the death of Hyacinthus, formed the
  subject of bitter, and, indeed, deserved raillery, for several of
  the satirical writers among the ancients.

FABLE VI. [X.220-242]

  Venus, incensed at the Cerastæ for polluting the island of Cyprus,
  which is sacred to her, with the human sacrifices which they offer
  to their Gods, transforms them into bulls; and the Propœtides, as a
  punishment for their dissolute conduct, are transformed into rocks.

“But if, perchance, you were to ask of Amathus,[35] abounding in metals,
whether she would wish to have produced the Propœtides; she would deny
it, as well as those whose foreheads were of old rugged with two horns,
from which they also derived the name of Cerastæ. Before the doors of
these was standing an altar of Jupiter Hospes,[36] {a scene} of tragic
horrors; if any stranger had seen it stained with blood, he would have
supposed that sucking calves had been killed there, and Amathusian
sheep;[37] strangers were slain there. Genial Venus, offended at the
wicked sacrifices {there offered}, was preparing to abandon her own
cities and the Ophiusian lands.[38] ‘But how,’ said she, ‘have these
delightful spots, how have my cities offended? What criminality is there
in them? Let the inhuman race rather suffer punishment by exile or by
death, or if there is any middle course between death and exile; and
what can that be, but the punishment of changing their shape?’

“While she is hesitating into what she shall change them, she turns her
eyes towards their horns, and is put in mind that those may be left to
them; and {then} she transforms their huge limbs into {those of} fierce
bulls.

“And yet the obscene Propœtides presumed to deny that Venus is a
Goddess; for which they are reported the first {of all women} to have
prostituted their bodies,[39] with their beauty, through the anger of
the Goddess. And when their shame was gone, and the blood of their face
was hardened, they were, by a slight transition, changed into hard
rocks.”

    〔note 35 — Amathus.--Ver. 220. Amathus was a city of Cyprus, sacred to Venus, and famous for the mines in its neighbourhood.〕

    〔note 36 — Jupiter Hospes.--Ver. 224. Jupiter, in his character of Ζεῦς ξένιος, was the guardian and protector of travellers and wayfarers.〕

    〔note 37 — Amathusian sheep.--Ver. 227. Amathusia was one of the names of the island of Cyprus.〕

    〔note 38 — Ophiusian lands.--Ver. 229. Cyprus was anciently called Ophiusia, on account of the number of serpents that infested it; ὄφις being the Greek for a serpent.〕

    〔note 39 — Their bodies.--Ver. 240. The women of Cyprus were notorious for the levity of their character. We learn from Herodotus that they had recourse to prostitution to raise their marriage portions.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The Cerastæ, a people of the island of Cyprus, were, perhaps, said
  to have been changed into bulls, to show the barbarous nature and
  rustic manners of those islanders, who stained their altars with the
  blood of strangers, in sacrifice to the Gods.

  An equivocation of names also, probably, aided in originating the
  story. The island of Cyprus is surrounded with promontories which
  rise out of the sea, and whose pointed rocks appear at a distance
  like horns, from which it had the name of Cerastis, the Greek word
  κέρας, signifying a ‘horn.’ Thus, the inhabitants having the name of
  Cerastæ, it was most easy to invent a fiction of their having been
  once turned into oxen, to account the more readily for their bearing
  that name.

  The Propœtides, who inhabited the same island, were females of very
  dissolute character. Justin, and other writers, mention a singular
  and horrible custom in that island, of prostituting young girls in
  the very temple of Venus. It was most probably the utter disregard
  of these women for common decency, that occasioned the poets to say
  that they were transformed into rocks.

FABLE VII. [X.243-297]

  Pygmalion, shocked by the dissolute lives of the Propœtides, throws
  off all fondness for the female sex, and resolves on leading a life
  of perpetual celibacy. Falling in love with a statue which he has
  made, Venus animates it; on which he marries this new object of his
  affections, and has a son by her, who gives his name to the island.

“When Pygmalion saw these women spending their lives in criminal
pursuits, shocked at the vices which Nature had {so} plentifully
imparted to the female disposition, he lived a single life without a
wife, and for a long time was without a partner of his bed. In the
meantime, he ingeniously carved {a statue of} snow-white ivory with
wondrous skill; and gave it a beauty with which no woman can be born;
and {then} conceived a passion for his own workmanship. The appearance
was that of a real virgin, whom you might suppose to be alive, and if
modesty did not hinder her, to be desirous to move; so much did art lie
concealed under his skill. Pygmalion admires it; and entertains, within
his breast, a flame for this fictitious body.

“Often does he apply his hands to the work, to try whether it is a
{human} body, or whether it is ivory; and yet he does not own it to be
ivory. He gives it kisses, and fancies that they are returned, and
speaks to it, and takes hold of it, and thinks that his fingers make an
impression on the limbs which they touch, and is fearful lest a livid
mark should come on her limbs {when} pressed. And one while he employs
soft expressions, at another time he brings her presents that are
agreeable to maidens, {such as} shells, and smooth pebbles, and little
birds, and flowers of a thousand tints, and lilies, and painted balls,
and tears of the Heliades, that have fallen from the trees. He decks her
limbs, too, with clothing, and puts jewels on her fingers; he puts,
{too}, a long necklace on her neck. Smooth pendants hang from her ears,
and bows from her breast.[40] All things are becoming {to her}; and she
does not seem less beautiful than when naked. He places her on coverings
dyed with the Sidonian shell, and calls her the companion of his bed,
and lays down her reclining neck upon soft feathers, as though it were
sensible.

“A festival of Venus, much celebrated throughout all Cyprus, had {now}
come; and heifers, with snow-white necks, having their spreading horns
tipped with gold, fell, struck {by the axe}. Frankincense, too, was
smoking, when, having made his offering, Pygmalion stood before the
altar, and timorously said, ‘If ye Gods can grant all things, let my
wife be, I pray,’ {and} he did not dare to say ‘this ivory maid,’ {but}
‘like to this {statue} of ivory.’ The golden Venus, as she herself was
present at her own festival, understood what that prayer meant; and as
an omen of the Divinity being favourable, thrice was the flame kindled
up, and it sent up a tapering flame into the air. Soon as he returned,
he repaired to the image of his maiden, and, lying along the couch, he
gave her kisses. She seems to grow warm. Again he applies his mouth;
with his hands, too, he feels her breast. The pressed ivory becomes
soft, and losing its hardness, yields to the fingers, and gives way,
just as Hymettian wax[41] grows soft in the sun, and being worked with
the fingers is turned into many shapes, and becomes pliable by the very
handling. While he is amazed, and is rejoicing, {though} with
apprehension, and is fearing that he is deceived; the lover again and
again touches the object of his desires with his hand. It is a {real}
body; the veins throb, when touched with the thumb.

“Then, indeed, the Paphian hero conceives {in his mind} the most lavish
expressions, with which to give thanks to Venus, and at length presses
lips, no {longer} fictitious, with his own lips. The maiden, too, feels
the kisses given her, and blushes; and raising her timorous eyes towards
the light {of day}, she sees at once her lover and the heavens. The
Goddess was present at the marriage which she {thus} effected. And now,
the horns of the moon having been nine times gathered into a full orb,
she brought forth Paphos; from whom the island derived its name.”

    〔note 40 — Bows from her breast.--Ver. 265. The ‘Redimiculum’ was a sort of fillet, or head band, worn by females. Passing over the shoulders, it hung on each side, over the breast. In the statues of Venus, it was often imitated in gold. Clarke translates it by the word ‘solitaire.’〕

    〔note 41 — Hymettian wax.--Ver. 284. Hymettus was a mountain of Attica, much famed for its honey.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The Pygmalion here mentioned must not be mistaken for the person of
  the same name, who was the brother of Dido, and king of Tyre. The
  story is most probably an allegory, which was based on the fact that
  Pygmalion being a man of virtuous principles, and disgusted with the
  vicious conduct of the women of Cyprus, took a great deal of care in
  training the mind and conduct of a young female, whom he kept at a
  distance from the contact of the prevailing vices; and whom, after
  having recovered her from the obdurate and rocky state to which the
  other females were reduced, he made his wife, and had a son by her
  named Paphos; who was said to have been the founder of the city of
  Cyprus, known by his name.

FABLE VIII. [X.298-518]

  Myrrha, the daughter of Cinyras and Cenchris, having conceived an
  incestuous passion for her own father, and despairing of satisfying
  it, attempts to hang herself. Her nurse surprises her in the act,
  and prevents her death. Myrrha, after repeated entreaties and
  assurances of assistance, discloses to her the cause of her despair.
  The nurse, by means of a stratagem, procures her the object of her
  desires, which being discovered by her father, he pursues his
  daughter with the intention of killing her. Myrrha flies from her
  father’s dominions and being delivered of Adonis, is transformed
  into a tree.

“Of him was that Cinyras sprung, who, if he had been without issue,
might have been reckoned among the happy. Of horrible events shall I
{now} sing. Daughters, be far hence; far hence be parents, {too}; or, if
my verse shall charm your minds, let credit not be given to me in this
part {of my song}, and do not believe that it happened; or, if you will
believe, believe as well in the punishment of the deed.

“Yet, if Nature allows this crime to appear to have been committed,
I congratulate the Ismarian matrons, and my own {division of the} globe.
I congratulate this land, that it is afar from those regions which
produced so great an abomination. Let the Panchæan land[42] be rich in
amomum, and let it produce cinnamon, and its zedoary,[43] and
frankincense distilling from its tree, and its other flowers, so long as
it produces the myrrh-tree, as well. The new tree was not of so much
worth {as to be a recompense for the crime to which it owed its origin}.
Cupid himself denies, Myrrha, that it was his arrows that injured thee;
and he defends his torches from that imputation; one of the three
Sisters kindled {this flame} within thee, with a Stygian firebrand and
with swelling vipers. It is a crime to hate a parent; {but} this love is
a greater degree of wickedness than hatred. On every side worthy nobles
are desiring thee {in marriage}, and throughout the whole East the
youths come to the contest for thy bed. Choose out of all these one for
thyself, Myrrha, so that, in all that number, there be not one person,
{namely, thy father}.

“She, indeed, is sensible {of her criminality}, and struggles hard
against her infamous passion, and says to herself, ‘Whither am I being
carried away by my feelings? What am I attempting? I beseech you, O ye
Gods, and natural affection, and ye sacred ties of parents, forbid this
guilt: defend me from a crime so great! if, indeed, this be a crime. But
yet the ties of parent and child are said not to forbid this {kind of}
union; and other animals couple with no distinction. It is not
considered shameful for the heifer to mate with her sire; his own
daughter becomes the mate of the horse; the he-goat, too, consorts with
the flocks of which he is the father; and the bird conceives by him,
from whose seed she herself was conceived. Happy they, to whom these
things are allowed! The care of man has provided harsh laws, and what
Nature permits, malignant ordinances forbid. {And} yet there are said to
be nations[44] in which both the mother is united to the son, and the
daughter to the father, and natural affection is increased by a twofold
passion. Ah, wretched me! that it was not my chance to be born there,
{and that} I am injured by my lot {being cast} in this place! {but} why
do I ruminate on these things? Forbidden hopes, begone! He is deserving
to be beloved, but as a father {only}. Were I not, therefore, the
daughter of the great Cinyras, with Cinyras I might be united. Now,
because he is so much mine, he is not mine, and his very nearness {of
relationship} is my misfortune.

“‘A stranger, I were more likely to succeed. I could wish to go far away
hence, and to leave my native country, so I might {but} escape this
crime. A fatal delusion detains me {thus} in love; that being present,
I may look at Cinyras, and touch him, and talk with him, and give him
kisses, if nothing more is allowed me. But canst thou hope for anything
more, impious maid? and dost thou not perceive both how many laws, and
{how many} names thou art confounding? Wilt thou be both the rival of
thy mother, and the harlot of thy father? Wilt thou be called the sister
of thy son, and the mother of thy brother? and wilt thou not dread the
Sisters that have black snakes for their hair, whom guilty minds see
threatening their eyes and their faces with their relentless torches?
But do not thou conceive criminality in thy mind, so long as thou hast
suffered none in body, and violate not the laws of all-powerful Nature
by forbidden embraces. Suppose he were to be compliant, the action
itself forbids {thee; but} he is virtuous, and regardful of what is
right. And {yet}, O that there were a like infatuation in him!’

“{Thus} she says; but Cinyras, whom an honourable crowd of suitors is
causing to be in doubt what he is to do, inquires of herself, as he
repeats their names, of which husband she would wish {to be the wife}.
At first she is silent; and, fixing her eyes upon her father’s
countenance, she is in confusion, and fills her eyes with the warm
tears. Cinyras, supposing this to be {the effect} of virgin bashfulness,
bids her not weep, and dries her cheeks, and gives her kisses. On these
being given, Myrrha is too much delighted; and, being questioned what
sort of a husband she would have, she says, ‘One like thyself.’ But he
praises the answer not {really}[45] understood by him, and says, ‘Ever
be thus affectionate.’ On mention being made of affection, the maiden,
conscious of her guilt, fixed her eyes on the ground.

“It is {now} midnight, and sleep has dispelled the cares, and {has
eased} the minds {of mortals}. But the virgin daughter of Cinyras, kept
awake, is preyed upon by an unconquerable flame, and ruminates upon her
wild desires. And one while she despairs, and at another she resolves to
try; and is both ashamed, and {yet} is desirous, and is not certain what
she is to do; and, just as a huge tree, wounded by the axe, when the
last stroke {now} remains, is in doubt, {as it were}, on which side it
is to fall, and is dreaded in each direction; so does her mind, shaken
by varying passions, waver in uncertainty, this way and that, and
receives an impulse in either direction; {and} no limit or repose is
found for her love, but death: ’tis death that pleases her. She raises
herself upright, and determines to insert her neck[46] in a halter; and
tying her girdle to the top of the door-post, she says, ‘Farewell, dear
Cinyras, and understand the cause of my death;’ and {then} fits the
noose to her pale neck.

“They say that the sound of her words reached the attentive ears of her
nurse,[47] as she was guarding the door of her foster-child. The old
woman rises, and opens the door; and, seeing the instruments of the
death she has contemplated, at the same moment she cries aloud, and
smites herself, and rends her bosom, and snatching the girdle from her
neck, tears it to pieces. {And} then, at last, she has time to weep,
then to give her embraces, and to inquire into the occasion for the
halter. The maid is silent, {as} {though} dumb, and, without moving,
looks upon the earth; and {thus} detected, is sorry for her attempt at
death in this slow manner. The old woman {still} urges her; and laying
bare her grey hair, and her withered breasts, begs her, by her cradle
and by her first nourishment, to entrust her with that which is causing
her grief. She, turning from her as she asks, heaves a sigh. The nurse
is determined to find it out, and not to promise her fidelity only.
‘Tell me,’ says she, ‘and allow me to give thee assistance; my old age
is not an inactive one. If it is a frantic passion, I have the means of
curing it with charms and herbs; if any one has hurt thee by spells, by
magic rites shalt thou be cured; or if it is the anger of the Gods, that
anger can be appeased by sacrifice. What more {than these} can I think
of? No doubt thy fortunes and thy family are prosperous, and in the way
of continuing so; thy mother and thy father are {still} surviving.’
Myrrha, on hearing her father’s {name}, heaves a sigh from the bottom of
her heart. Nor, even yet, does her nurse apprehend in her mind any
unlawful passion; {and} still she has a presentiment that it is
something {connected with} love. Persisting in her purpose, she entreats
her, whatever it is, to disclose it to her, and takes her, as she weeps,
in her aged lap; and so embracing her in her feeble arms, she says,
‘Daughter, I understand it; thou art in love, and in this case (lay
aside thy fears) my assiduity will be of service to thee; nor shall thy
father ever be aware of it.’

“Furious, she sprang away from her bosom; and pressing the bed with her
face, she said, ‘Depart, I entreat thee, and spare my wretched shame.’
Upon the other insisting, she said, ‘Either depart, or cease to inquire
why it is I grieve; that which thou art striving to know, is impious.’
The old woman is struck with horror, and stretches forth her hands
palsied both with years and with fear, and suppliantly falls before the
feet of her foster-child. And one while she soothes her, sometimes she
terrifies her {with the consequences}, if she is not made acquainted
with it; and {then} she threatens her with the discovery of the halter,
{and} of her attempted destruction, and promises her good offices, if
the passion is confided to her. She lifts up her head, and fills the
breast of her nurse with tears bursting forth; and often endeavouring to
confess, as often does she check her voice; and she covers her blushing
face with her garments, and says, ‘O, mother, happy in thy husband!’
Thus much {she says}; and {then} she sighs. A trembling shoots through
the chilled limbs and the bones of her nurse, for she understands her;
and her white hoariness stands bristling with stiff hair all over her
head; and she adds many a word to drive away a passion so dreadful, if
{only} she can. But the maiden is well aware that she is not advised to
a false step; still she is resolved to die, if she does not enjoy him
whom she loves. ‘Live {then},’ says {the nurse}, ‘thou shalt enjoy
thy----’ and, not daring to say ‘parent,’ she is silent; and {then} she
confirms her promise with an oath.

“The pious matrons were {now} celebrating the annual festival of
Ceres,[48] on which, having their bodies clothed with snow-white robes,
they offer garlands made of ears of corn, as the first fruits of the
harvest; and for nine nights they reckon embraces, and the contact of a
husband, among the things forbidden. Cenchreïs, the king’s wife, is
absent in that company, and attends the mysterious rites. Therefore,
while his bed is without his lawful wife, the nurse, wickedly
industrious, having found Cinyras overcome with wine, discloses to him a
real passion, {but} under a feigned name, and praises the beauty {of the
damsel}. On his enquiring the age of the maiden, she says, ‘She is of
the same age as Myrrha.’ After she is commanded to bring her, and as
soon as she has returned home, she says, ‘Rejoice, my fosterling, we
have prevailed.’ The unhappy maid does not feel joy throughout her
entire body, and her boding breast is sad. And still she does rejoice:
so great is the discord in her mind.

“’Twas the time when all things are silent, and Boötes had turned his
wain with the pole obliquely directed among the Triones.[49] She
approaches to {perpetrate} her enormity. The golden moon flies from the
heavens; black clouds conceal the hiding stars; the night is deprived of
its fires. Thou, Icarus, dost conceal thy rising countenance; and
{thou}, Erigone, raised to the heavens through thy affectionate love for
thy father. Three times was she recalled by the presage of her foot
stumbling; thrice did the funereal owl give an omen by its dismal cry.
Yet {onward} she goes, and the gloom and the dark night lessen her
shame. In her left hand she holds that of her nurse, the other, by
groping, explores the secret road. {And} now she is arrived at the door
of the chamber; and now she opens the door; now she is led in; but her
knees tremble beneath her sinking hams, her colour and her blood vanish;
and her courage deserts her as she moves along. The nearer she is to
{the commission of} her crime, the more she dreads it, and she repents
of her attempt, and could wish to be able to return unknown. The old
woman leads her on by the hand as she lingers, and when she has
delivered her up on her approach to the lofty bed, she says, ‘Take her,
Cinyras, she is thy own,’ and {so} unites their doomed bodies. The
father receives his own bowels into the polluted bed, and allays her
virgin fears, and encourages her as she trembles. Perhaps, too, he may
have called her by a name {suited to} her age, and she may have called
him ‘father,’ that the {appropriate} names might not be wanting in this
deed of horror. Pregnant by her father, she departs from the chamber,
and, in her impiety, bears his seed in her incestuous womb, and carries
{with her}, criminality in her conception. The ensuing night repeats the
guilty deed; nor on that {night} is there an end. At last, Cinyras,
after so many embraces, longing to know who is his paramour, on lights
being brought in, discovers both the crime and his own daughter.

“His words checked through grief, he draws his shining sword from the
scabbard as it hangs. Myrrha flies, rescued from death by the gloom and
the favour of a dark night; and wandering along the wide fields, she
leaves the Arabians famed for their palms, and the Panchæan fields. And
she wanders during nine horns of the returning moon; when, at length,
being weary, she rests in the Sabæan country,[50] and with difficulty
she supports the burden of her womb. Then, uncertain what to wish, and
between the fear of death and weariness of life, she uttered such a
prayer {as this}: ‘O ye Deities, if any of you favour those who are
penitent; I have deserved severe punishment, and I do not shrink from
it. But that, neither existing, I may pollute the living, nor dead,
those who are departed, expel me from both these realms; and
transforming me, deny me both life and death.’ {Some} Divinity {ever}
regards the penitent; at least, the last of her prayers found its Gods
{to execute it}. For the earth closes over her legs as she speaks, and a
root shoots forth obliquely through her bursting nails, {as} a firm
support to her tall trunk. Her bones, too, become hard wood, and her
marrow continuing in the middle, her blood changes into sap, her arms
into great branches, her fingers into smaller ones; her skin grows hard
with bark. And now the growing tree has run over her heavy womb, and has
covered her breast, and is ready to enclose her neck. She cannot endure
delay, and sinks down to meet the approaching wood, and hides her
features within the bark. Though she has lost her former senses together
with her {human} shape, she still weeps on, and warm drops distil[51]
from the tree. There is a value even in her tears, and the myrrh
distilling from the bark, retains the name of its mistress, and will be
unheard-of in no {future} age.

“But the infant conceived in guilt grows beneath the wood, and seeks out
a passage, by which he may extricate himself, having left his mother.
Her pregnant womb swells in the middle of the tree. The burden distends
the mother, nor have her pangs words of their own {whereby to express
themselves}; nor can Lucina be invoked by her voice {while} bringing
forth. Yet she is like one struggling {to be delivered}; and the bending
tree utters frequent groans, and is moistened with falling tears. Gentle
Lucina stands by the moaning boughs, and applies her hands, and utters
words that promote delivery. The tree gapes open, in chinks, and through
the cleft bark it discharges the living burden. The child cries; the
Naiads, laying him on the soft grass, anoint him with the tears of his
mother.

“Even Envy {herself} would have commended his face; for just as the
bodies of naked Cupids are painted in a picture, such was he. But that
their dress may not make any difference, either give to him or take away
from them, the polished quivers.”

    〔note 42 — The Panchæan land.--Ver. 309. Panchæa was a region of Arabia Felix, abounding in the choicest wines and frankincense. Here, the Phœnix was said to find the materials for making its nest.〕

    〔note 43 — Its zedoary.--Ver. 308. ‘Costus,’ or ‘costum,’ was an Indian shrub, which yielded a fragrant ointment, much esteemed by the ancients. Clarke translates it ‘Coysts,’ a word apparently of his own coining.〕

    〔note 44 — Said to be nations.--Ver. 331. We do not read of any such nations, except the fabulous Troglodytes of Ethiopia, who were supposed to live promiscuously, like the brutes. Attica, king of the Huns, long after Ovid’s time, married his own daughter, amid the rejoicings of his subjects.〕

    〔note 45 — Not really.--Ver. 365. That is to say, not understood by him in the sense in which Myrrha meant it.〕

    〔note 46 — To insert her neck.--Ver. 378. ‘Laqueoque innectere fauces Destinat,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘And resolves to stitch up her neck in a halter.’〕

    〔note 47 — Of her nurse.--Ver. 382. Antoninus Liberalis gives this hag the name of Hippolyte.〕

    〔note 48 — Festival of Ceres.--Ver. 431. Commentators, in general, suppose that he here alludes to the festival of the Thesmophoria, which was celebrated in honour of Demeter, or Ceres, in various parts of Greece; in general, by the married women, though the virgins joined in some of the ceremonies. Demosthenes, Diodorus Siculus, and Plutarch, say that it was first celebrated by Orpheus; while Herodotus states, that it was introduced from Egypt by the daughters of Danaüs; and that, after the Dorian conquest, it fell into disuse, being retained only by the people of Arcadia. It was intended to commemorate the introduction of laws and the regulations of civilized life, which were generally ascribed to Demeter. It is not known whether the festival lasted four or five days with the Athenians. Many days were spent by the matrons in preparing for its celebration. The solemnity was commenced by the women walking in procession from Athens to Eleusis. In this procession they carried on their heads representations of the laws which had been introduced by Ceres, and other symbols of civilized life. They then spent the night at Eleusis, in celebrating the mysteries of the Goddess. The second day was one of mourning, during which the women sat on the ground around the statues of Ceres, taking no food but cakes made of sesame and honey. On it no meetings of the people were held. Probably it was in the afternoon of this day that there was a procession at Athens, in which the women walked bare-footed behind a waggon, upon which were baskets, with sacred symbols. The third day was one of merriment and festivity among the women, in commemoration of Iämbe, who was said to have amused the Goddess during her grief at the loss of Proserpine. An atoning sacrifice, called ζήμια, was probably offered to the Goddess, at the end of this day. It is most probable that the ceremonial lasted but three days. The women wore white dresses during the period of its performance, and they adopted the same colour during the celebration of the Cerealia at Rome. Burmann thinks, that an Eastern festival, in honour of Ceres, is here referred to. If so, no accounts of it whatever have come down to us.〕

    〔note 49 — Among the Triones.--Ver. 446. ‘Triones’. This word, which is applied to the stars of the Ursa Major, or Charles’s Wain, literally means ‘oxen;’ and is by some thought to come from ‘tero,’ ‘to bruise,’ because oxen were used for the purpose of threshing corn; but it is more likely to have its origin from ‘terra,’ ‘the earth,’ because oxen were used for ploughing. The Poet employs this periphrasis, to signify the middle of the night.〕

    〔note 50 — Sabæan country.--Ver. 480. Sabæa, or Saba, was a region of Arabia Felix, now called ‘Yemen.’ It was famed for its myrrh, frankincense, and spices. In the Scriptures it is called Sheba, and it was the queen of this region, who came to listen to the wisdom of Solomon.〕

    〔note 51 — Warm drops distil.--Ver. 500. He alludes to the manner in which frankincense is produced, it exuding from the bark of the tree in drops; this gum, Pliny the Elder and Lucretius call by the name of ‘stacta,’ or ‘stacte.’ The ancients flavoured their wines with myrrh.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Le Clerc, forming his ideas on what Lucian, Phurnutus, and other
  authors have said on the subject, explains the story of Cinyras and
  Myrrha in the following manner. Cynnor, or Cinyras, the grandfather
  of Adonis, having one day drank to excess, fell asleep in a posture
  which violated the rules of decency. Mor, or Myrrha, his
  daughter-in-law, the wife of Ammon, together with her son Adonis,
  seeing him in that condition, acquainted her husband with her
  father’s lapse. On his repeating this to Cinyras, the latter was so
  full of indignation, that he loaded Myrrha and Adonis with
  imprecations.

  Loaded with the execrations of her father, Myrrha retired into
  Arabia, where she remained some time; and because Adonis passed some
  portion of his youth there, the poets feigned that Myrrha was
  delivered of him in that country. Her transformation into a tree was
  only invented on account of the equivocal character of her name,
  ‘Mor,’ which meant in the Arabic language ‘Myrrh.’ It is very
  probable that the story was founded on a tradition among the
  Phœnicians of the history of Noah, and of the malediction which Ham
  drew on himself by his undutiful conduct towards his father.

FABLE IX. [X.519-707]

  Adonis is educated by the Naiads. His beauty makes a strong
  impression on the Goddess Venus, and, in her passion, she traverses
  the same wilds in pursuit of the youth, which his mother did, when
  flying from the wrath of her father. After chasing the wild beasts,
  she invites Adonis to a poplar shade, where she warns him of his
  danger in hunting lions, wild boars, and such formidable animals.
  On this occasion, too, she relates the adventures of Hippomenes and
  Atalanta. The beauty of the latter was such, that her charms daily
  attracted crowds of suitors. Having consulted the oracle, whether
  she shall marry, she is answered that a husband will certainly prove
  her destruction. On this, to avoid marrying, she makes it a rule to
  offer to run with her suitors, promising that she herself will be
  the prize of the victor, but only on condition that immediate death
  shall be the fate of those who are vanquished by her. As she excels
  in running, her design succeeds, and several suitors die in the
  attempt to win her. Hippomenes, smitten with her charms, is not
  daunted at their ill success; but boldly enters the lists, after
  imploring the aid of Venus. Atalanta is struck with his beauty, and
  is much embarrassed, whether she shall yield to the charms of the
  youth, or to the dissuasions of the oracle. Hippomenes attracts her
  attention in the race, by throwing down some golden apples which
  Venus has given him, and then, reaching the goal before her, he
  carries off the reward of victory. Venus, to punish his subsequent
  ingratitude towards her, raises his desires to such a pitch, that he
  incurs the resentment of Cybele, by defiling her shrine with the
  embraces of his mistress; on which they are both transformed into
  lions, and thenceforth draw the chariot of the Goddess.

“Winged time glides on insensibly and deceives us; and there is nothing
more fleeting than years. He, born of his own sister and of his
grandfather, who, so lately enclosed in a tree, was so lately born, and
but just now a most beauteous infant, is now a youth, now a man, {and}
now more beauteous than he {was before}. {And} now he pleases even
Venus,[52] and revenges the flames of his mother, {kindled by her}. For,
while the boy that wears the quiver is giving kisses to his mother, he
unconsciously grazes her breast with a protruding arrow. The Goddess,
wounded, pushed away her son with her hand. The wound was inflicted more
deeply than it seemed to be, and at first had deceived {even} herself.
Charmed with the beauty of the youth, she does not now care for the
Cytherian shores, nor does she revisit Paphos, surrounded with the deep
sea, and Cnidos,[53] abounding in fish, or Amathus, rich in metals.

“She abandons even the skies; him she {ever} attends; and she who has
been always accustomed to indulge in the shade, and to improve her
beauty, by taking care of it, wanders over the tops of mountains,
through the woods, and over bushy rocks, bare to the knee and with her
robes tucked up after the manner of Diana, and she cheers on the dogs,
and hunts animals that are harmless prey, either the fleet hares, or the
stag with its lofty horns, or the hinds; she keeps afar from the fierce
boars, and avoids the ravening wolves, and the bears armed with claws,
and the lions glutted with the slaughter of the herds. Thee, too,
Adonis, she counsels to fear them, if she can aught avail by advising
thee. And she says, “Be brave against those {animals} that fly; boldness
is not safe against those that are bold. Forbear, youth, to be rash at
my hazard, and attack not the wild beasts to which nature has granted
arms, lest thy {thirst for} glory should cost me dear. Neither thy age,
nor thy beauty, nor {other} things which have made an impression on
Venus, make any impression on lions and bristly boars, and the eyes and
the tempers of wild beasts. The fierce boars carry lightning[54] in
their curving tusks; there is rage and fury unlimited in the tawny
lions; and the {whole} race is odious to me.”

“Upon his asking, what is the reason, she says, ‘I will tell thee, and
thou wilt be surprised at the prodigious result of a fault long since
committed. But {this} toil to which I am unaccustomed has now fatigued
me, and see! a convenient poplar invites us, by its shade, and the turf
furnishes a couch. Here I am desirous to repose myself, together with
thee;’ and {forthwith} she rests herself on the ground, and presses at
once the grass and himself. And with her neck reclining on the bosom of
the youth, smiling, she thus says, and she mingles kisses in the midst
of her words:--

“Perhaps thou mayst have heard how a certain damsel excelled the
swiftest men in the contest of speed. That report was no idle tale; for
she did excel them. Nor couldst thou have said, whether she was more
distinguished in the merit of her swiftness, or in the excellence of her
beauty. Upon her consulting the oracle about a husband, the God said to
her, ‘Thou hast no need, Atalanta, of a husband; avoid obtaining a
husband. And yet thou wilt not avoid it, and, while {still} living, thou
wilt lose thyself.’ Alarmed with the response of the God, she lives a
single life in the shady woods, and determinedly repulses the pressing
multitude of her suitors with these conditions. ‘I am not,’ says she,
‘to be gained, unless first surpassed in speed. Engage with me in
running. Both a wife and a wedding shall be given as the reward of the
swift; death {shall be} the recompense of the slow. Let that be the
condition of the contest.’ She, indeed, was cruel {in this proposal};
but (so great is the power of beauty) a rash multitude of suitors agreed
to these terms. Hippomenes had sat, as a spectator, of this unreasonable
race, and said, ‘Is a wife sought by any one, amid dangers so great?’
And {thus} he condemned the excessive ardour of the youths. {But} when
he beheld her face, and her body with her clothes laid aside, such as
mine is, or such as thine would be, {Adonis}, if thou wast to become a
woman, he was astonished, and raising his hands, he said, ‘Pardon me, ye
whom I was just now censuring; the reward which you contended for was
not yet known to me.’

“In commending her, he kindles the flame, and wishes that none of the
young men may run more swiftly than she, and, in his envy, is
apprehensive of it. ‘But why,’ says he, ‘is my chance in this contest
left untried? The Divinity himself assists the daring.’ While Hippomenes
is pondering such things within himself, the virgin flies with winged
pace. Although she appears to the Aonian youth to go no less swiftly
than the Scythian arrow, he admires her still more in her beauty, and
the very speed makes her beauteous. The breeze that meets her bears back
her pinions on her swift feet, and her hair is thrown over her ivory
shoulders and the leggings which are below her knees with their
variegated border, and upon her virgin whiteness her body has contracted
a blush; no otherwise than as when purple hangings[55] over a whitened
hall tint it with a shade of a similar colour. While the stranger is
observing these things, the last course is run,[56] and the victorious
Atalanta is adorned with a festive crown. The vanquished utter sighs,
and pay the penalty, according to the stipulation. Still, not awed by
the end of these young men, he stands up in the midst; and fixing his
eyes on the maiden, he says, ‘Why dost thou seek an easy victory by
conquering the inactive? Contend {now} with me. If fortune shall render
me victorious, thou wilt not take it ill to be conquered by one so
illustrious. For my father was Megareus, Onchestius his;[57] Neptune was
his grandsire; I am the great grandson of the king of the waves. Nor is
my merit inferior to my extraction. Or if I shall be conquered, in the
conquest of Hippomenes thou wilt have a great and honourable name.’

“As he utters such words as these, the daughter of Schœneus regards him
with a benign countenance, and is in doubt whether she shall wish to be
overcome or to conquer; and thus she says: ‘What Deity, a foe to the
beauteous, wishes to undo this {youth}? and commands him, at the risk of
a life {so} dear, to seek this alliance? In my own opinion, I am not of
so great value. Nor {yet} am I moved by his beauty. Still, by this, too,
I could be moved. But, {’tis} because he is still a boy; ’tis not
himself that affects me, but his age. And is it not, too, because he has
courage and a mind undismayed by death? And is it not, besides, because
he is reckoned fourth in descent from the {monarch} of the sea? And is
it not, because he loves me, and thinks a marriage with me of so much
worth as to perish {for it}, if cruel fortune should deny me to him?
Stranger, while {still} thou mayst, begone, and abandon an alliance
stained with blood. A match with me is cruelly hazardous. No woman will
be unwilling to be married to thee; and thou mayst be desired {even} by
a prudent maid. But why have I any concern for thee, when so many have
already perished? Let him look to it; {and} let him die, since he is not
warned by the fate of so many of my wooers, and is impelled onwards to
weariness of life.

“‘Shall he then die because he was desirous with me to live? And shall
he suffer an undeserved death, the reward of his love? My victory will
not be able to support the odium {of the deed}. But it is no fault of
mine. I wish thou wouldst desist! or since thou art {thus} mad, would
that thou wast more fleet {than I!} But what a feminine look[58] there
is in his youthful face! Ah, wretched Hippomenes, I would that I had not
been seen by thee! Thou wast worthy to have lived! And if I had been
more fortunate; and if the vexatious Divinities had not denied me {the
blessings of} marriage, thou wast one with whom I could have shared my
bed.’ Thus she said; and as one inexperienced, and smitten by Cupid for
the first time, not knowing what she is doing, she is in love, and {yet}
does not know that she is in love.

“{And} now, both the people and her father, demanded the usual race,
when Hippomenes, the descendant of Neptune, invoked me with anxious
voice; ‘I entreat that Cytherea may favour my undertaking, and aid the
passion that she has inspired {in me}.’ The breeze, not envious, wafted
to me this tender prayer; I was moved, I confess it; nor was any long
delay made in {giving} aid. There is a field, the natives call it by
name the Tamasenian {field},[59] the choicest spot in the Cyprian land;
this the elders of former days consecrated to me, and ordered to be
added as an endowment for my temple. In the middle of this field a tree
flourishes, with yellow foliage, {and} with branches tinkling with
yellow gold. Hence, by chance as I was coming, I carried three golden
apples, that I had plucked, in my hand; and being visible to none but
him, I approached Hippomenes, and I showed him what {was to be} the use
of them. The trumpets have {now} given the signal, when each {of them}
darts precipitately from the starting place, and skims the surface of
the sand with nimble feet. You might have thought them able to pace the
sea with dry feet, and to run along the ears of white standing corn
{while} erect. The shouts and the applause of the populace give courage
to the youth, and the words of those who exclaim, ‘Now, now, Hippomenes,
is the moment to speed onward! make haste. Now use all thy strength!
Away with delay! thou shalt be conqueror.’ It is doubtful whether the
Megarean hero, or the virgin daughter of Schœneus rejoiced the most at
these sayings. O how often when she could have passed by him, did she
slacken her speed, and {then} unwillingly left behind the features that
long she had gazed upon.

“A parched panting is coming from his faint mouth, and the goal is
{still} a great way off. Then, at length, the descendant of Neptune
throws one of the three products of the tree. The virgin is amazed, and
from a desire for the shining fruit, she turns from her course, and
picks up the rolling gold. Hippomenes passes her. The theatres ring[60]
with applause. She makes amends for her delay, and the time that she has
lost, with a swift pace, and again she leaves the youth behind. And,
retarded by the throwing of a second apple, again she overtakes the
{young} man, and passes by him. The last part of the race {now}
remained. ‘{And} now,’ said he, ‘O Goddess, giver of this present, aid
me;’ and {then} with youthful might, he threw the shining gold, in an
oblique direction, on one side of the plain, in order that she might
return the more slowly. The maiden seemed to be in doubt, whether she
should fetch it; I forced her to take it up, and added weight to the
apple, when she had taken it up, and I impeded her, both by the
heaviness of the burden, and the delay in reaching it. And that my
narrative may not be more tedious than that race, the virgin was outrun,
and the conqueror obtained the prize.

“And was I not, Adonis, deserving that he should return thanks to me,
and the tribute of frankincense? but, in his ingratitude, he gave me
neither thanks nor frankincense. I was thrown into a sudden passion; and
provoked at being slighted, I provided by {making} an example, that I
should not be despised in future times, and I aroused myself against
them both. They were passing by a temple, concealed within a shady wood,
which the famous Echion had formerly built for the Mother of the Gods,
according to his vow; and the length of their journey moved them to take
rest {there}. There, an unseasonable desire of caressing {his wife}
seized Hippomenes, excited by my agency. Near the temple was a recess,
with {but} little light, like a cave, covered with native pumice stone,
{one} sacred from ancient religious observance; where the priest had
conveyed many a wooden image of the ancient Gods. This he entered, and
he defiled the sanctuary by a forbidden crime. The sacred images turned
away their eyes, and the Mother {of the Gods}, crowned with turrets,[61]
was in doubt whether she should plunge these guilty ones in the Stygian
stream. That seemed {too} light a punishment. Wherefore yellow manes
cover their necks so lately smooth; their fingers are bent into claws,
of their shoulders are made fore-legs;[62] their whole weight passes
into their breasts. The surface of the sand is swept by their tails.[63]
Their look has anger {in it}; instead of words they utter growls;
instead of chambers they haunt the woods; and dreadful to others, {as}
lions, they champ the bits of Cybele with subdued jaws. Do thou, beloved
by me, avoid these, and together with these, all kinds of wild beasts
which turn not their backs in flight, but their breasts to the fight;
lest thy courage should be fatal to us both.”

    〔note 52 — Pleases even Venus.--Ver. 524. According to Apollodorus, Venus had caused Myrrha to imbibe her infamous passion, because she had treated the worship of that Goddess with contempt.〕

    〔note 53 — Cnidos.--Ver. 531. This was a city of Caria, situate on a promontory. Strangers resorted thither, to behold a statue of Venus there, which was made by Praxiteles.〕

    〔note 54 — Carry lightning.--Ver. 551. The lightning shock seems to be attributed to the wild boar, from the vehemence with which he strikes down every impediment in his way.〕

    〔note 55 — Purple hangings.--Ver. 595. Curtains, or hangings, called ‘aulæa,’ were used by the ancients to ornament their halls, sitting rooms, and bed chambers. In private houses they were also sometimes hung as coverings over doors, and in the interior, as substitutes for them. In the palace of the Roman emperors, a slave, called ‘velarius,’ was posted at each of the principal doors, to raise the curtain when any one passed through. Window curtains were also used by the Romans, while they were employed in the temples, to veil the statue of the Divinity. Ovid here speaks of them as being of purple colour; while Lucretius mentions them as being of yellow, red, and rusty hue.〕

    〔note 56 — Last course is run.--Ver. 597. Among the Romans, the race consisted of seven rounds of the Circus, or rather circuits of the ‘spina,’ or wall, in the midst of it, at each end of which was the ‘meta,’ or goal. Livy and Dio Cassius speak of seven conical balls, resembling eggs, which were called ‘ova,’ and were placed upon the ‘spina.’ Their use was to enable the spectators to count the number of rounds which had been run, for which reason they were seven in number; and as each round was run, one of the ‘ova’ was put up, or, according to Varro, taken down. The form of the egg was adopted in honour of Castor and Pollux, who were said to have been produced from eggs. The words ‘novissima meta’ here mean either ‘the last part of the course,’ or, possibly, ‘the last time round the course.’〕

    〔note 57 — Onchestius his.--Ver. 605. But Hyginus says that Neptune was the father of Megareus, or Macareus, as the Scholiast of Sophocles calls him. Neptune being the father of Onchestius, Hippomenes was the fourth from Neptune, inclusively. Onchestius founded a city of that name in Bœotia, in honour of Neptune, who had a temple there; in the time of Pausanias the place was in ruins. That author tells us that Megareus aided Nisus against Minos, and was slain in that war.〕

    〔note 58 — A feminine look.--Ver. 631. Clarke renders this line-- ‘But what a lady-like countenance there is in his boyish face!’〕

    〔note 59 — Tamasenian field.--Ver. 644. Tamasis, or Tamaseus, is mentioned by Pliny as a city of Cyprus.〕

    〔note 60 — The theatres ring.--Ver. 668. ‘Spectacula’ may mean either the seats, or benches, on which the spectators sat, or an amphitheatre. The former is most probably the meaning in the present instance.〕

    〔note 61 — Crowned with turrets.--Ver. 696. Cybele, the Goddess of the Earth, was usually represented as crowned with turrets, and drawn in a chariot by lions.〕

    〔note 62 — Are made fore-legs.--Ver. 700. ‘Armus’ is generally the shoulder of a brute; while ‘humerus’ is that of a man. ‘Armus’ is sometimes used to signify the human shoulder.〕

    〔note 63 — By their tails.--Ver. 701. Pliny the Elder remarks that the temper of the lion is signified by his tail, in the same way as that of the horse by his ears. When in motion, it shows that he is angry; when quiet, that he is in a good temper.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The Atalanta who is mentioned in this story was the daughter of
  Schœneus, and the granddaughter of Athamas, whose misfortunes
  obliged him to retire into Bœotia, where he built a little town,
  which was called after his name, as we learn from Pausanias and
  Eustathius. Ovid omits to say that it was one of the conditions of
  the agreement, that the lover was to have the start in the race.
  According to some writers, the golden apples were from the gardens
  of the Hesperides; while, according to others, they were plucked by
  Venus in the isle of Cyprus. The story seems to be founded merely on
  the fact, that Hippomenes contrived by means of bribes to find the
  way to the favour of his mistress.

  Apollodorus, however, relates the story in a different manner;
  he says that the father of Atalanta desiring to have sons, but no
  daughters, exposed her, on her birth, in a desert, that she might
  perish. A she-bear found the infant, and nourished it, until it was
  discovered by some hunters. As the damsel grew up, she made hunting
  her favourite pursuit, and slew two Centaurs, who offered her
  violence, with her arrows. On her parents pressing her to marry, she
  consented to be the wife of that man only who could outrun her, on
  condition that those who were conquered by her in the race should be
  put to death. Several of her suitors having failed in the attempt,
  one of the name of Melanion, by using a similar stratagem to that
  attributed by Ovid to Hippomenes, conquered her in the race, and
  became her husband. Having profaned the temple of Jupiter, they were
  transformed, Melanion into a lion, and Atalanta into a lioness.
  According to Apollodorus, her father’s name was Iasius, though in
  his first book he says she was the daughter of Schœneus. He also
  says that she was the same person that was present at the hunt of
  the Calydonian boar, though other writers represent them to have
  been different personages. Euripides makes Mænalus to have been the
  name of her father.

  Atalanta had by Melanion, or, as some authors say, by Mars, a son
  named Parthenopæus, who was present at the Theban war. Ælian gives a
  long account of her history, which does not very much differ from
  the narrative of Apollodorus.

FABLE X. [X.708-739]

  Adonis being too ardent in the pursuit of a wild boar, the beast
  kills him, on which Venus changes his blood into a flower of crimson
  colour.

“She, indeed, {thus} warned him; and, harnessing her swans, winged her
way through the air; but his courage stood in opposition to her advice.
By chance, his dogs having followed its sure track, roused a boar, and
the son of Cinyras pierced him, endeavouring to escape from the wood,
with a wound from the side. Immediately the fierce boar, with his
crooked snout, struck out the hunting-spear, stained with his blood, and
{then} pursued him, trembling and seeking a safe retreat, and lodged his
entire tusks in his groin, and stretched him expiring on the yellow
sand.

“Cytherea, borne in her light chariot[64] through the middle of the air,
had not yet arrived at Cyprus upon the wings of her swans. She
recognized afar his groans, as he was dying, and turned her white birds
in that direction. And when, from the lofty sky, she beheld him half
dead, and bathing his body in his own blood, she rapidly descended, and
rent both her garments and her hair, and she smote her breast with her
distracted hands. And complaining of the Fates, she says, ‘But, however,
all things shall not be in your power; the memorials of my sorrow,
Adonis, shall ever remain; and the representation of thy death, repeated
yearly, shall exhibit an imitation of my mourning. But thy blood shall
be changed into a flower. Was it formerly allowed thee, Persephone, to
change the limbs[65] of a female into fragrant mint; and shall the hero,
the son of Cinyras, {if} changed, be a cause of displeasure against me?’
Having thus said, she sprinkles his blood with odoriferous nectar,
which, touched by it, effervesces, just as the transparent bubbles are
wont to rise in rainy weather. Nor was there a pause longer than a full
hour, when a flower sprang up from the blood, of the same colour {with
it}, such as the pomegranates are wont to bear, which conceal their
seeds beneath their tough rind. Yet the enjoyment of it is but
short-lived; for the same winds[66] which give it a name, beat it down,
as it has but a slender hold, and is apt to fall by reason of its
extreme slenderness.”

    〔note 64 — In her light chariot.--Ver. 717. ‘Vecta levi curru Cytherea,’ Clarke quaintly renders, ‘The Cytherean Goddess riding in her light chair.’〕

    〔note 65 — To change the limbs.--Ver. 729. Proserpine was said to have changed the Nymph, ‘Mentha,’ into a plant of that name, which we call ‘mint.’ Some writers say that she found her intriguing with Pluto while, according to other writers, she was the mistress of Pollux.〕

    〔note 66 — The same winds.--Ver. 739. The flower which sprang from the blood of Adonis was the anemone, or wind-flower, of which Pliny the Elder says-- ‘This flower never opens but when the wind is blowing, from which too, it receives its name, as ἄνεμος means the wind.’ --(Book i. c. 23).〕

EXPLANATION.

  Theocritus, Bion, Hyginus, and Antoninus Liberalis, beside several
  other authors, relate the history of the loves of Venus and Adonis.
  They inform us of many particulars which Ovid has here neglected to
  remark. They say that Mars, jealous of the passion which Venus had
  for Adonis, implored the aid of Diana, who, to gratify his revenge,
  sent the boar that destroyed the youth. According to some writers,
  it was Apollo himself that took the form of that animal; and they
  say that Adonis descending to the Infernal Regions, Proserpine fell
  in love with him, and refused to allow him to return,
  notwithstanding the orders of Jupiter. On this, the king of heaven
  fearing to displease both the Goddesses, referred the dispute to the
  Muse Calliope, who directed that Adonis should pass one half of his
  time with Venus on earth, and the other half in the Infernal
  Regions. They also tell us that it took up a year before the dispute
  could be determined, and that the Hours brought Adonis at last to
  the upper world, on which, Venus being dissatisfied with the
  decision of Calliope, instigated the women of Thrace to kill her son
  Orpheus.

  The mythologists have considered this story to be based on grounds
  either historical or physical. Cicero, in his Discourse on the
  Nature of the Gods, says, that there were several persons who had
  the name of Venus, and that the fourth, surnamed Astarte, was a
  Syrian, who married Adonis, the son of Cinyras, king of Cyprus.
  Hunting in the forests of Mount Libanus, or Lebanon, he was wounded
  in the groin by a wild boar, which accident ultimately caused his
  death. Astarte caused the city of Byblos and all Syria to mourn for
  his loss; and, to keep his name and his sad fate in remembrance,
  established feasts in his honour, to be celebrated each year. Going
  still further, if we suppose the story to have originated in
  historical facts, it seems not improbable that Adonis did not die of
  his wound, and that, contrary to all expectation, he was cured; as
  the Syrians, after having mourned for several days during his
  festival, rejoiced as though he had been raised from the dead, at a
  second festival called ‘The Return.’ The worship both of Venus and
  Adonis probably originated in Syria, and was spread through Asia
  Minor into Greece; while the Carthaginians, a Phœnician colony
  introduced it into Sicily. The festival of Adonis is most amusingly
  described by Theocritus the Sicilian poet, in his ‘Adoniazusæ.’ Some
  authors have suggested that Adonis was the same with the Egyptian
  God Osiris, and that the affliction of Venus represented that of
  Isis at the death of her husband. According to Hesiod, Adonis was
  the son of Phœnix and Alphesibœa, while Panyasis says that he was
  son of Theias, the king of the Assyrians.

  In support of the view which some commentators take of the story of
  Adonis having been founded on physical circumstance, we cannot do
  better than quote the able remarks of Mr. Keightley on the subject.
  He says (Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, p. 109)-- “The tale
  of Adonis is apparently an Eastern mythus. His very name is Semitic
  (Hebrew ‘Adon,’ ‘Lord’), and those of his parents also refer to that
  part of the world. He appears to be the same with the Thammuz,
  mentioned by the prophet Ezekiel, and to be a Phœnician
  personification of the sun who, during a part of the year is absent,
  or, as the legend expresses it, with the Goddess of the under world:
  during the remainder with Astarte, the regent of heaven. It is
  uncertain when the Adonia were first celebrated in Greece; but we
  find Plato alluding to the gardens of Adonis, as boxes of flowers
  used in them were called; and the ill fortune of the Athenian
  expedition to Sicily was in part ascribed to the circumstance of the
  fleet having sailed during that festival.”

  This notion of the mourning for Adonis being a testimony of grief
  for the absence of the Sun during the winter, is not, however, to be
  too readily acquiesced in. Lobeck (Aglaophamus, p. 691), for
  example, asks, with some appearance of reason, why those nations
  whose heaven was mildest, and their winter shortest, should so
  bitterly bewail the regular changes of the seasons, as to feign that
  the Gods themselves were carried off or slain; and he shrewdly
  observes, that, in that case, the mournful and the joyful parts of
  the festival should have been held at different times of the year,
  and not joined together, as they were. He further inquires, whether
  the ancient writers, who esteemed these Gods to be so little
  superior to men, may not have believed them to have been really and
  not metaphorically put to death? And, in truth, it is not easy to
  give a satisfactory answer to these questions.

FABLE I. [XI.1-84]

  While Orpheus is singing to his lyre on Mount Rhodope, the women of
  Thrace celebrate their orgies. During that ceremony they take
  advantage of the opportunity to punish Orpheus for his indifference
  towards their sex; and, in the fury inspired by their rites, they
  beat him to death. His head and lyre are carried by the stream of
  the river Hebrus into the sea, and are cast on shore on the isle of
  Lesbos. A serpent, about to attack the head when thrown on shore,
  is changed into a stone, and the Bacchanals who have killed him are
  transformed into trees.

While with songs such as these, the Thracian poet is leading the woods
and the natures of savage beasts, and the following rocks, lo! the
matrons of the Ciconians, having their raving breasts covered with the
skins of wild beasts, from the summit of a hill, espy Orpheus adapting
his voice to the sounded strings {of his harp}. One of these, tossing
her hair along the light breeze, says, “See! see! here is our
contemner!” and hurls her spear at the melodious mouth of the bard of
Apollo: {but}, being wreathed at the end with leaves, it makes a mark
without any wound. The weapon of another is a stone, which, when thrown,
is overpowered in the very air by the harmony of his voice and his lyre,
and lies before his feet, a suppliant, as it were, for an attempt so
daring.

But still this rash warfare increases, and {all} moderation departs, and
direful fury reigns {triumphant}. And {yet} all their weapons would have
been conquered by his music; but the vast clamour, and the Berecynthian
pipe[1] with the blown horns, and the tambourines, and the clapping of
hands, and Bacchanalian yells, prevented the sound of the lyre from
being heard. Then, at last, the stones became red with the blood of the
bard, {now} no longer heard. But first the Mænades lay hands on
innumerable birds, even yet charmed with his voice as he sang, and
serpents, and a throng of wild beasts, the glory of {this} audience of
Orpheus; and after that, they turn upon Orpheus with blood-stained right
hands; and they flock together, as the birds, if at any time they see
the bird of night strolling about by day; {and} as when the stag that is
doomed to die[2] in the morning sand in the raised amphitheatre is a
prey to the dogs; they both attack the bard, and hurl the thyrsi,
covered with green leaves, not made for such purposes as these. Some
throw clods, some branches torn from trees, others flint stones. And
that weapons may not be wanting for their fury, by chance some oxen are
turning up the earth with the depressed ploughshare; and not far from
thence, some strong-armed peasants, providing the harvest with plenteous
sweat, are digging the hard fields; they, seeing this {frantic} troop,
run away, and leave the implements of their labour; and there lie,
dispersed throughout the deserted fields, harrows and heavy rakes, and
long spades.

After they, in their rage, have seized upon these, and have torn to
pieces the oxen with their threatening horns, they return to the
destruction of the bard; and they impiously murder him, extending his
hands, and then for the first time uttering words in vain, and making no
effect on them with his voice. And (Oh Jupiter!) through those lips
listened to by rocks, and understood by the senses of wild beasts, his
life breathed forth, departs into the breezes.[3] The mournful birds,
the crowd of wild beasts, the hard stones, the woods that oft had
followed thy song bewailed thee. Trees, {too}, shedding their foliage,
mourned thee, losing their leaves. They say, too, that rivers swelled
with their own tears; and the Naiads and Dryads had mourning garments of
dark colour, and dishevelled hair. The limbs lie scattered[4] in various
places. Thou, Hebrus, dost receive the head and the lyre; and (wondrous
{to relate}!) while it rolls down the midst of the stream, the lyre
complains in I know not what kind of mournful strain. His lifeless
tongue, {too}, utters a mournful sound, {to which} the banks mournfully
reply. And now, borne onward to the sea, they leave their native stream,
and reach the shores of Methymnæan Lesbos.[5] Here an infuriated serpent
attacks the head thrown up on the foreign sands, and the hair
besprinkled with the oozing blood. At last Phœbus comes to its aid, and
drives it away as it tries to inflict its sting, and hardens the open
jaws of the serpent into stone, and makes solid its gaping mouth just as
it is. His ghost descends under the earth, and he recognizes all the
spots which he has formerly seen; and seeking Eurydice through the
fields of the blessed, he finds her, and enfolds her in his eager arms.
Here, one while, they walk together side by side,[6] and at another time
he follows her as she goes before, and {again} at another time, walking
in front, precedes her; and now, in safety, Orpheus looks back upon his
own Eurydice.

Yet Lyæus did not suffer this wickedness to go unpunished; and grieving
for the loss of the bard of his sacred rites, he immediately fastened
down in the woods, by a twisting root, all the Edonian matrons who had
committed this crime. For he drew out the toes of her feet, just as each
one had pursued him, and thrust them by their sharp points into the
solid earth. And, as when a bird has entangled its leg in a snare, which
the cunning fowler has concealed, and perceives that it is held fast, it
beats its wings, and, fluttering, tightens the noose with its struggles;
so, as each one of these had stuck fast, fixed in the ground, in her
alarm, she attempted flight in vain; but the pliant root held her fast,
and confined her, springing forward[7] {to escape}. And while she is
looking where her toes are, where, {too}, are her feet and her nails,
she sees wood growing up upon her well-turned legs. Endeavouring, too,
to smite her thigh, with grieving right hand, she strikes solid oak; her
breast, too, becomes oak; her shoulders are oak. You would suppose that
her extended arms are real boughs, and you would not be deceived in {so}
supposing.

    〔note 1 — Berecynthian pipe.--Ver. 16. This pipe, made of box-wood, was much used in the rites of Cybele, or Berecynthia.〕

    〔note 2 — Doomed to die.--Ver. 26. The Romans were wont to exhibit shows of hunting in the amphitheatre in the morning; and at mid-day the gladiatorial spectacles commenced. The ‘arena’ was the name given to the central open space, which derived its name from the sand with which it was covered, chiefly for the purpose of absorbing the blood of the wild beasts and of the combatants. Caligula, Nero, and Carus showed their extravagant disposition by using cinnabar and borax instead of sand. In the earlier amphitheatres there were ditches, called ‘Euripi,’ between the open space, or arena, and the seats, to defend the spectators from the animals. They were introduced by Julius Cæsar, but were filled up by Nero, to gain space for the spectators. Those who fought with the beasts (as it will be remembered St. Paul did at Ephesus) were either condemned criminals or captives, or persons who did so for pay, being trained for the purpose. Lucius Metellus was the first that we read of who introduced wild beasts in the theatre for the amusement of the public. He exhibited in the Circus one hundred and forty-two elephants, which he brought from Sicily, after his victory over the Carthaginians, and which are said to have been slain, more because the Romans did not know what to do with them, than for the amusement of the public. Lions and panthers were first exhibited by M. Fulvius, after the Ætolian war. In the Circensian games, exhibited by the Curule Ædiles, P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, and P. Lentulus, B.C. 168, there were sixty-three African panthers and forty bears and elephants. These latter animals were sometimes introduced to fight with bulls. Sylla, when Prætor, exhibited one hundred lions, which were pierced with javelins. We also read of hippopotami and crocodiles being introduced for the same purpose, while cameleopards were also hunted in the games given by Julius Caesar in his third consulship. He also introduced bull fights, and Augustus first exhibited the rhinoceros, and a serpent, fifty cubits in length. When Titus constructed his great amphitheatre, five thousand wild beasts and four thousand tame animals were slain; while in the games celebrated by Trajan, after his victories over the Dacians, eleven thousand animals are said to have been killed. For further information on this subject, the reader is referred to the article ‘Venatio,’ in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, which valuable work contains a large quantity of interesting matter on this barbarous practice of the Romans.〕

    〔note 3 — Into the breezes.--Ver. 43. ‘In ventos anima exhalata recessit’ is rendered by Clarke-- ‘his life breathed out, marches off into the wind.’〕

    〔note 4 — Limbs lie scattered.--Ver. 50. The limbs of Orpheus were collected by the Muses, and, according to Pausanias, were buried by them in Dium in Macedonia, while his head was carried to Lesbos.〕

    〔note 5 — Methymnæan Lesbos.--Ver. 55. Methymna was a town in the isle of Lesbos, famed for its wines.〕

    〔note 6 — Side by side.--Ver. 64. ‘Conjunctis passibus’ means ‘at an equal pace, and side by side.’〕

    〔note 7 — Springing forward.--Ver. 78. ‘Exsultantem’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘bouncing hard to get away.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  Some of the ancient mythologists say that the story of the serpent,
  changed into stone for insulting the head of Orpheus, was founded on
  the history of a certain inhabitant of the isle of Lesbos, who was
  punished for attacking the reputation of Orpheus. This critic
  excited contempt, as a malignant and ignorant person, who
  endeavoured, as it were, to sting the character of the deceased
  poet, and therefore, by way of exposing his spite and stupidity, he
  was said to have been changed from a serpent into a stone. According
  to Philostratus, the poet’s head was preserved in the temple of
  Apollo at Lesbos; and he tells us that Diomedes, and Neoptolemus,
  the son of Achilles, brought Philoctetes to Troy, after having
  explained to him the oracular response which the head of Orpheus had
  given to him from the bottom of a cave at Lesbos.

  The harp of Orpheus was preserved in the same temple; and so many
  wonders were reported of it, that Neanthus, the son of the tyrant
  Pytharus, purchased it of the priests of Apollo, believing that its
  sound would be sufficient to put rocks and trees in motion; but,
  according to Lucian, he succeeded so ill, that on his trying the
  harp, the dogs of the neighbouring villages fell upon him and tore
  him to pieces.

  The transformation of the women of Thrace into trees, for the murder
  of Orpheus, is probably an allegory intended to show that these
  furious and ill-conditioned females did not escape punishment for
  their misdeeds; and that they were driven by society to pass the
  rest of their lives in woods and caverns.

FABLE II. [XI.85-145]

  Bacchus, having punished the Thracian women for the murder of
  Orpheus, leaves Thrace. His tutor, Silenus, having become
  intoxicated, loses his companions, and is brought by some Phrygian
  peasants to Midas. He sends him to Bacchus, on which the God, in
  acknowledgment of his kindness, promises him whatever favour he may
  desire. Midas asks to be able to turn everything that he touches
  into gold. This power is granted; but, soon convinced of his folly,
  Midas begs the God to deprive him of it, on which he is ordered to
  bathe in the river Pactolus. He obeys the God, and communicates the
  power which he possesses to the stream; from which time that river
  has golden sands.

And this is not enough for Bacchus. He resolves to forsake the country
itself, and, with a superior train, he repairs to the vineyards of his
own Tymolus, and Pactolus; although it was not golden at that time, nor
to be coveted for its precious sands. The usual throng, {both} Satyrs
and Bacchanals, surround him, but Silenus is away. The Phrygian rustics
took him, as he was staggering with age and wine, and, bound with
garlands, they led him to {their} king, Midas, to whom, together with
the Cecropian Eumolpus,[8] the Thracian Orpheus had intrusted the
{mysterious} orgies {of Bacchus}. Soon as he recognized this associate
and companion of these rites, he hospitably kept a festival on the
coming of this guest, for twice five days, and {as many} nights joined
in succession.

“And now the eleventh Lucifer had closed the lofty host of the stars,
when the king came rejoicing to the Lydian lands, and restored Silenus
to the youth, his foster-child. To him the God, being glad at the
recovery of his foster-father, gave the choice of desiring a favour,
pleasing, {indeed}, but useless, {as it turned out}. He, destined to
make a foolish use of the favour, says, ‘Cause that whatever I shall
touch with my body shall be turned into yellow gold.’ Liber assents to
his wish, and grants him the hurtful favour, and is grieved that he has
not asked for something better. The Berecynthian hero[9] departs joyful,
and rejoices in his own misfortune, and tries the truth of his promise
by touching everything. And, hardly believing himself, he pulls down a
twig from a holm-oak, growing on a bough not lofty; the twig becomes
gold. He takes up a stone from the ground; the stone, too, turns pale
with gold. He touches a clod, also; by his potent touch the clod becomes
a mass {of gold}. He plucks some dry ears of corn, that wheat is golden.
He holds an apple taken from a tree, you would suppose that the
Hesperides had given it. If he places his fingers upon the lofty
door-posts, {then} the posts are seen to glisten. When, too, he has
washed his hands in the liquid stream, the water flowing from his hands
might have deceived Danaë. He scarcely can contain his own hopes in his
mind, imagining everything to be of gold. As he is {thus} rejoicing, his
servants set before him a table supplied with dainties, and not
deficient in parched corn. But then, whether he touches the gifts of
Ceres with his right hand, the gifts of Ceres, {as gold}, become hard;
or if he attempts to bite the dainties with hungry teeth, those
dainties, upon the application of his teeth, shine as yellow plates of
gold. {Bacchus}, the grantor of this favour, he mingles with pure water;
you could see liquid gold flowing through his jaws.

“Astonished at the novelty of his misfortune, being both rich and
wretched, he wishes to escape from his wealth, and {now} he hates what
but so lately he has wished for; no plenty relieves his hunger, dry
thirst parches his throat, and he is deservedly tormented by the {now}
hated gold; and raising his hands towards heaven, and his shining arms,
he says, “Grant me pardon, father Lenæus; I have done wrong, but have
pity on me, I pray, and deliver me from this specious calamity!”
Bacchus, the gentle Divinity among the Gods, restored him, as he
confessed that he had done wrong, {to his former state}, and annulled
his given promise, and the favour that was granted: “And that thou mayst
not remain overlaid with thy gold, so unhappily desired, go,” said he,
“to the river adjoining to great Sardis,[10] and trace thy way, meeting
the waters as they fall from the height of the mountain, until thou
comest to the rise of the stream. And plunge thy head beneath the
bubbling spring, where it bursts forth most abundantly, and at once
purge thy body, at once thy crime.” The king placed himself beneath the
waters prescribed; the golden virtue tinged the river, and departed from
the human body into the stream. And even now, the fields, receiving the
ore of this ancient vein {of gold}, are hard, growing of pallid colour,
from their clods imbibing the gold.

    〔note 8 — Eumolpus.--Ver. 93. There were three celebrated persons of antiquity named Eumolpus. The first was a Thracian, the son of Neptune and Chione, who lived in the time of Erectheus, king of Athens, against whom he led the people of Eleusis, and who established the Eleusinian mysteries. Some of his posterity settling at Athens, the Eumolpus here named was born there. He was the son of Musæus and the disciple of Orpheus. The third Eumolpus is supposed to have lived between the times of the two already named.〕

    〔note 9 — Berecynthian hero.--Ver. 106. Midas is so called from mount Berecynthus in Phrygia.〕

    〔note 10 — Sardis.--Ver. 137. The city of Sardis was the capital of Lydia, where Crœsus had his palace. The river Pactolus flowed through it.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The ancients divided the Divinities into several classes, and in the
  last class, which Ovid calls the populace, or commonalty of the
  Gods, were the Satyrs and Sileni. The latter, according to
  Pausanias, were no other than Satyrs of advanced age. There seems,
  however, to have been one among them, to whom the name of Silenus
  was especially given, and to him the present story relates.
  According to Pindar and Pausanias he was born at Malea, in Laconia;
  while Theopompus, quoted by Ælian, represents him as being the son
  of a Nymph. He was inferior to the higher Divinities, but superior
  to man, in not being subject to mortality. He was represented as
  bald, flat-nosed, and red-faced, a perfect specimen of a drunken old
  man. He is often introduced either sitting on an ass, or reeling
  along on foot, with a thyrsus to support him.

  He was said to have tended the education of the infant Bacchus, and
  indeed, according to the author whose works are quoted as those of
  Orpheus, he was an especial favourite of the Gods; while some
  writers represent him not as a drunken old man, but as a learned
  philosopher and a skilful commander. Lucian combines the two
  characters, and describes him as an aged man with large straight
  ears and a huge belly, wearing yellow clothes, and generally mounted
  on an ass, or supported by a staff, but, nevertheless, as being a
  skilful general. Hyginus says, that the Phrygian peasants found
  Midas near a fountain, into which, according to Xenophon, some one
  had put wine, which had made him drunk. In his interview with Midas,
  according to Theopompus, as quoted by Ælian, they had a conversation
  concerning that unknown region of the earth, to which Plato refers
  under the name of the New Atlantis, and which, after long employing
  the speculations of the ancient philosophers, was realized to the
  moderns in the discovery of America. The passage is sufficiently
  curious to deserve to be quoted. He says, “Asia, Europe, and Libya,
  are but three islands, surrounded by the ocean; but beyond that
  ocean there is a vast continent, whose bounds are entirely unknown
  to us. The men and the animals of that country are much larger, and
  live much longer than those of this part of the world. Their towns
  are fine and magnificent; their customs are different from ours; and
  they are governed by different laws. They have two cities, one of
  which is called ‘the Warlike,’ and the other ‘the Devout.’ The
  inhabitants of the first city are much given to warfare, and make
  continual attacks upon their neighbours, whom they bring under their
  subjection. Those who inhabit the other city are peaceable, and
  blessed with plenty; the earth without toil or tillage furnishing
  them with abundance of the necessaries of life. Except their sick,
  they all live in the midst of riches and continual festivity and
  pleasure; but they are so just and righteous that the Gods
  themselves delight to go frequently and pass their time among them.

  “The warlike people of the first city having extended their
  conquests in their own vast continent, made an irruption into ours,
  with a million of men, as far as the country of the Hyperboreans;
  but when they saw their mode of living, they deemed them to be
  unworthy of their notice, and returned home. These warriors rarely
  die of sickness; they delight in warfare, and generally lose their
  lives in battle. There is also in this new world another numerous
  people called Meropes; and in their country is a place called
  ‘Anostus,’ that is to say, ‘not to be repassed,’ because no one ever
  comes back from thence. It is a dreadful abyss, having no other than
  a reddish sort of light. There are two rivers in that place; one
  called the River of Sorrow, and the other the River of Mirth. Trees
  as large as planes grow about these rivers. Those who eat of the
  fruit of the trees growing near the River of Sorrow, pass their
  lives in affliction, weeping continually, even to their last breath;
  but such as eat of the fruit of the other trees, forget the past,
  and revert through the different stages of their life, and then
  die.”

  Ælian regards the passage as a mere fable, and the latter part is
  clearly allegorical. The mention of the two cities, ‘the Warlike’
  and ‘the Devout,’ can hardly fail to remind us of Japan, with its
  spiritual and temporal capitals.

  Some writers say, that Silenus was the king of Caria, and was the
  contemporary and friend of Midas, to whom his counsel proved of
  considerable service, in governing his dominions. He was probably
  called the foster-father or tutor, of Bacchus, because he introduced
  his worship into Phrygia and the neighbouring countries.

FABLE III. [XI.146-193]

  Pan is so elated with the praises of some Nymphs who hear the music
  of his pipe, that he presumes to challenge Apollo to play with him.
  The mountain God, Tmolus, who is chosen umpire of the contest,
  decides in favour of Apollo, and the whole company approve of his
  judgment except Midas, who, for his stupidity in preferring Pan,
  receives a pair of asses’ ears. He carefully conceals them till they
  are discovered by his barber, who publishes his deformity in a very
  singular manner.

He, abhorring riches, inhabited the woods and the fields, and {followed}
Pan, who always dwells in caves of the mountains; but his obtuse
understanding[11] still remained, and the impulse of his foolish mind
was fated again, as before, to be an injury to its owner. For the lofty
Tmolus, looking far and wide over the sea, stands erect, steep with its
lofty ascent; and extending in its descent on either side, is bounded on
the one side by Sardis, on the other by the little Hypæpæ.

While Pan is there boasting of his strains to the charming Nymphs, and
is warbling a little tune upon the reeds joined with wax, daring to
despise the playing of Apollo in comparison with his own, he comes to
the unequal contest under the arbitration of Tmolus.[12] The aged umpire
seats himself upon his own mountain, and frees his ears of the
{incumbering} trees. His azure-coloured hair is only covered with oak,
and acorns hang around his hollow temples. And looking at the God of the
flocks, he says, “there is no delay in {me}, your umpire.” He sounds his
rustic reeds, and delights Midas with his uncouth music; for he, by
chance, is present as he plays. After this the sacred Tmolus turns his
face towards the countenance of Apollo; his words follow {the direction
of} his face. He, having his yellow head wreathed with Parnassian
laurel, sweeps the ground with his robe, soaked in Tyrian purple,[13]
and supports with his left hand his lyre, adorned with gems and Indian
ivory; the other hand holds the plectrum. The very posture is that of an
artist. He then touches the strings with a skilful thumb; charmed by the
sweetness of which, Tmolus bids Pan to hold his reeds in submission to
the lyre; and the judgment and decision of the sacred mountain pleases
them all. Yet it is blamed, and is called unjust by the voice of Midas
alone. But the Delian {God} does not allow his stupid ears to retain
their human shape: but draws them out to a {great} length, and he fills
them with grey hairs, and makes them unsteady at the lower part, and
gives them the power of moving. The rest {of his body} is that of a man;
in one part alone is he condemned {to punishment}; and he assumes the
ears of the slowly moving ass.

He, indeed, concealed them, and endeavoured to veil his temples, laden
with this foul disgrace, with a purple turban. But a servant, who was
wont to cut his hair, when long, with the steel {scissars}, saw it; who,
when he did not dare disclose the disgraceful thing he had seen, though
desirous to publish it, and yet could not keep it secret, retired, and
dug up the ground, and disclosed, in a low voice, what kind of ears he
had beheld on his master, and whispered it to the earth cast up. And
{then} he buried this discovery of his voice with the earth thrown in
again, and, having covered up the ditch, departed in silence.

There, a grove, thick set with quivering reeds, began to rise; and as
soon as it came to maturity, after a complete year, it betrayed its
planter. For, moved by the gentle South wind, it repeated the words
{there} buried, and disclosed the ears of his master.

    〔note 11 — Obtuse understanding.--Ver. 148. ‘Pingue sed ingenium mansit,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘but he continued a blockhead still.’〕

    〔note 12 — Tmolus.--Ver. 156. This was the tutelary divinity of the mountain of Tmolus, or Tymolus.〕

    〔note 13 — Soaked in Tyrian purple.--Ver. 166. Being saturated with Tyrian purple, the garment would be ‘dibaphus,’ or ‘twice dipt;’ being first dyed in the grain, and again when woven. Of course, these were the most valuable kind of cloths.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Midas, according to Pausanias, was the son of Gordius and Cybele,
  and reigned in the Greater Phrygia. Strabo says that he and his
  father kept their court near the river Sangar, in cities which, in
  the time of that author had become mean villages. As Midas was very
  rich, and at the same time very frugal, it was reported that
  whatever he touched was at once turned into gold; and Bacchus was
  probably introduced into his story, because Midas had favoured the
  introduction of his worship, and was consequently supposed to have
  owed his success to the good offices of that Divinity. He was
  probably the first who extracted gold from the sands of the river
  Pactolus, and in that circumstance the story may have originated.
  Strabo says that Midas found the treasures which he possessed in the
  mines of Mount Bermius. It was said that in his infancy some ants
  were seen to creep into his cradle, and to put grains of wheat in
  his mouth, which was supposed to portend that he would be rich and
  frugal.

  As he was very stupid and ignorant, the fable of his preference of
  the music of Pan to that of Apollo was invented, to which was added,
  perhaps, as a mark of his stupidity, that the God gave him a pair of
  asses’ ears. The scholiast of Aristophanes, to explain the story,
  says either it was intended to shew that Midas, like the ass, was
  very quick of hearing, or in other words, had numerous spies in all
  parts of his dominions; or, it was invented, because his usual place
  of residence was called Onouta, ὄνου ὦτα, ‘the ears of an ass.’
  Strabo says that he took a draught of warm bullock’s blood, from the
  effects of which he died; and, according to Plutarch, he did so to
  deliver himself from the frightful dreams with which he was
  tormented.

  Tmolus, the king of Lydia, according to Clitophon, was the son of
  Mars and the Nymph Theogene, or, according to Eustathius, of Sipylus
  and Eptonia. Having violated Arriphe, a Nymph of Diana, he was, as a
  punishment, tossed by a bull, and falling on some sharp pointed
  stakes, he lost his life, and was buried on the mountain that
  afterwards bore his name.

FABLE IV. [XI.194-220]

  Apollo and Neptune build the walls of Troy for king Laomedon, who
  refuses to give the Gods the reward which he has promised: on which
  Neptune punishes his perjury by an inundation of his country.
  Laomedon is then obliged to expose his daughter to a sea monster,
  in order to appease the God. Hercules delivers her; and Laomedon
  defrauds him likewise of the horses which he has promised him.
  In revenge, Hercules plunders the city of Troy, and carries off
  Hesione, whom he gives in marriage to his companion Telamon.

The son of Latona, having {thus} revenged himself, departs from Tmolus,
and, borne through the liquid air, rests on the plains of Laomedon, on
this side of the narrow sea of Helle, the daughter of Nephele. On the
right hand of Sigæum and on the left of the lofty Rhœtæum,[14] there is
an ancient altar dedicated to the Panomphæan[15] Thunderer. Thence, he
sees Laomedon {now} first building the walls of rising Troy, and that
this great undertaking is growing up with difficult labour, and requires
no small resources. And {then}, with the trident-bearing father of the
raging deep, he assumes a mortal form, and for the Phrygian king they
build the walls,[16] a sum of gold being agreed on for the defences.

The work is {now} finished; the king refuses the reward, and, as a
completion of his perfidy, adds perjury to his false words. “Thou shalt
not escape unpunished,” says the king of the sea; and he drives all his
waters towards the shores of covetous Troy. He turns the land, too, into
the form of the sea, and carries off the wealth of the husbandmen, and
overwhelms the fields with waves. Nor is this punishment sufficient: the
daughter of the king, is also demanded for a sea monster. Chained to the
rugged rocks, Alcides delivers her, and demands the promised reward, the
horses agreed upon; and the recompense of so great a service being
denied him, he captures the twice-perjured walls of conquered Troy. Nor
does Telamon, a sharer in the warfare, come off without honour; and he
obtains Hesione, who is given to him.

But Peleus was distinguished by a Goddess for his wife; nor was he more
proud of the name of his grandfather than that of his father-in-law.[17]
Since, not to his lot alone did it fall to be the grandson of Jove; to
him alone, was a Goddess given for a wife.

    〔note 14 — Rhœtæum.--Ver. 197. Sigæum and Rhœtæum were two promontories, near Troy, between which was an altar dedicated to Jupiter Panomphæus.〕

    〔note 15 — Panomphæan.--Ver. 198. Jupiter had the title ‘Panomphæus,’ from πᾶν, ‘all,’ and ὀμφὴ, ‘the voice,’ either because he was worshipped by the voices of all, or because he was the author of all prophecy.〕

    〔note 16 — Build the walls.--Ver. 204. It has been suggested that the story of Laomedon obtaining the aid of Neptune in building the walls of Troy, only meant that he built it of bricks made of clay mixed with water, and dried in the sun.〕

    〔note 17 — His father-in-law.--Ver. 219. Nereus, the father of Thetis; was a Divinity of the sea, and was gifted with the power of prophecy.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Laomedon, being King of Troy, and the city being open and
  defenceless, he undertook to enclose it with walls, and succeeded so
  well, that the work was attributed to Apollo. The strong banks which
  he was obliged to raise to keep out the sea and to prevent
  inundations, were regarded as the work of Neptune. In time, these
  banks being broken down by tempests, it was reported that the God of
  the sea had thus revenged himself on Laomedon, for refusing him the
  reward which had been agreed upon between them. This story received
  the more ready credit from the circumstance mentioned by Herodotus
  and Eustathius, that this king used the treasure belonging to the
  temple of Neptune, in raising these embankments, and building the
  walls of his city; having promised the priests to restore it when he
  should be in a condition to do so; which promise he never performed.
  Homer says that Neptune and Apollo tended the flocks while all the
  subjects of Laomedon were engaged in building the walls.

  When these embankments were laid under water, and a plague began to
  rage within the city, the Trojans were told by an oracle that to
  appease the God of the sea, they must sacrifice a virgin of the
  royal blood. The lot fell upon Hesione, and she was exposed to the
  fury of a sea-monster. Hercules offered to deliver her for a reward
  of six horses, and having succeeded, was refused his recompense by
  Laomedon; whom he slew, and then plundered his city. He then gave
  the kingdom to Podarces, the son of Laomedon, and Hesione to his
  companion Telamon, who had assisted him. This monster was probably
  an allegorical representation of the inundations of the sea; and
  Hesione having been made the price of him that could succeed in
  devising a remedy, she was said to have been exposed to the fury of
  a monster. The six horses promised by Laomedon were perhaps so many
  ships, which Hercules demanded for his recompense; and this is the
  more likely, as the ancients said that these horses were so light
  and swift, that they ran upon the waves, which story seems to point
  at the qualities of a galley or ship under sail.

  Lycophron gives a more wonderful version of the story. He says that
  the monster, to which Hesione was exposed, devoured Hercules, and
  that he was three days in its belly, and came out, having lost all
  his hair. This is, probably, a way of telling us that Hercules and
  his assistants were obliged to work in the water, which incommoded
  them very much. Palæphatus gives another explanation: he says that
  Hesione was about to be delivered up to a pirate, and that Hercules,
  on boarding his ship, was wounded, although afterwards victorious.

FABLES V. AND VI. [XI.221-409]

  Proteus foretells that Thetis shall have a son, who shall be more
  powerful than his father, and shall exceed him in valour. Jupiter,
  who is in love with Thetis, is alarmed at this prediction, and
  yields her to Peleus. The Goddess flies from his advances by
  assuming various shapes, till, by the advice of Proteus, he holds
  her fast, and then having married her, she bears Achilles. Peleus
  goes afterwards to Ceyx, king of Trachyn, to expiate the death of
  his brother Phocus, whom he has killed. Ceyx is in a profound
  melancholy, and tells him how his brother Dædalion, in the
  transports of his grief for his daughter Chione, who had been slain
  for vying with Diana, has been transformed into a hawk. During this
  relation, Peleus is informed that a wolf which Psamathe has sent to
  revenge the death of Phocus, is destroying his herds. He endeavours
  to avert the wrath of the Goddess, but she is deaf to his
  entreaties, till, by the intercession of Thetis, she is appeased,
  and she turns the wolf into stone.

For the aged Proteus had said to Thetis, “Goddess of the waves,
conceive; thou shalt be the mother of a youth, who by his gallant
actions shall surpass the deeds of his father, and shall be called
greater than he.” Therefore, lest the world might contain something
greater than Jove, although he had felt no gentle flame in his breast,
Jupiter avoided the embraces of Thetis,[18] {the Goddess} of the sea,
and commanded his grandson, the son of Æacus,[19] to succeed to his own
pretensions, and rush into the embraces of the ocean maid. There is a
bay of Hæmonia, curved into a bending arch; its arms project out; there,
were the water {but} deeper, there would be a harbour, {but} the sea is
{just} covering the surface of the sand. It has a firm shore, which
retains not the impression of the foot, nor delays the step {of the
traveller}, nor is covered with sea-weeds. There is a grove of myrtle at
hand, planted with particoloured berries. In the middle there is a cave,
whether formed by nature or art, it is doubtful; still, by art rather.
To this, Thetis, thou wast wont often to come naked, seated on thy
harnessed dolphin. There Peleus seized upon thee, as thou wast lying
fast bound in sleep; and because, being tried by entreaties, thou didst
resist, he resolved upon violence, clasping thy neck with both his arms.
And, unless thou hadst had recourse to thy wonted arts, by frequently
changing thy shape, he would have succeeded in his attempt. But, at one
moment, thou wast a bird (still, as a bird he held thee fast); at
another time a large tree: to {that} tree did Peleus cling. Thy third
form was that of a spotted tiger; frightened by that, the son of Æacus
loosened his arms from thy body.

Then pouring wine upon its waters,[20] he worshipped the Gods of the
sea, both with the entrails of sheep and with the smoke of frankincense;
until the Carpathian[21] prophet said, from the middle of the waves,
“Son of Æacus, thou shalt gain the alliance desired by thee. Do thou
only, when she shall be resting fast asleep in the cool cave, bind her
unawares with cords and tenacious bonds. And let her not deceive thee,
by imitating a hundred forms; but hold her fast, whatever she shall be,
until she shall reassume the form which she had before.” Proteus said
this, and hid his face in the sea, and received his own waves at his
closing words. Titan was {now} descending, and, with the pole of his
chariot bent downward, was taking possession of the Hesperian main; when
the beautiful Nereid, leaving the deep, entered her wonted place of
repose. Hardly had Peleus well seized the virgin’s limbs, {when} she
changed her shape, until she perceived her limbs to be held fast, and
her arms to be extended different ways. Then, at last, she sighed, and
said, “Not without {the aid of} a Divinity, dost thou overcome me;” and
then she appeared {as} Thetis {again}. The hero embraced her {thus}
revealed, and enjoyed his wish, and by her was the father of great
Achilles.

And happy was Peleus in his son, happy, too, in his wife, and one to
whose lot all {blessings} had fallen, if you except the crime of his
killing Phocus. The Trachinian land[22] received him guilty of his
brother’s blood, and banished from his native home. Here Ceyx, sprung
from Lucifer for his father, and having the comeliness of his sire in
his face, held the sway without violence and without bloodshed, who,
being sad at that time and unlike his {former} self, lamented the loss
of his brother. After the son of Æacus, wearied, both with troubles and
the length of the journey, has arrived there, and has entered the city
with a few attending him, and has left the flocks of sheep and the herds
which he has brought with him, not far from the walls, in a shady
valley; when an opportunity is first afforded him of approaching the
prince, extending the symbols of peace[23] with his suppliant hand,
he tells him who he is, and from whom descended. He only conceals his
crime, and, dissembling as to the {true} reason of his banishment, he
entreats {him} to aid him {by a reception} either in his city or in his
territory. On the other hand, the Trachinian {prince} addresses him with
gentle lips, in words such as these: “Peleus, our bounties are open even
to the lowest ranks, nor do I hold an inhospitable sway. To this my
inclination, thou bringest in addition as powerful inducements, an
illustrious name, and Jupiter as thy grandsire. And do not lose thy time
in entreaty; all that thou askest thou shalt have. Look upon all these
things, whatever thou seest, as in part thy own: would that thou couldst
behold them in better condition!” and {then} he weeps. Pelcus and his
companions enquire what it is that occasions grief so great. To them he
{thus} speaks:--

“Perhaps you may think that this bird, which lives upon prey, and
affrights all the birds, always had wings. It was a man; and as great is
the vigour of its courage, as he {who was} Dædalion by name was active,
and bold in war, and ready for violence; {he was} sprung from him, for
his father, who summons forth[24] Aurora, and withdraws the last from
the heavens. Peace was cherished by me; the care of maintaining peace
and my marriage contract was mine; cruel warfare pleased my brother;
that prowess of his subdued both kings and nations, which, changed, now
chases the Thisbean doves.[25] Chione was his daughter, who, highly
endowed with beauty, was pleasing to a thousand suitors, when
marriageable at the age of twice seven years. By chance Phœbus, and the
son of Maia, returning, the one from his own Delphi, the other from the
heights of Cyllene, beheld her at the same moment, and at the same
moment were inspired with passion. Apollo defers his hope of enjoyment
until the hours of night; the other brooks no delay, and with his wand,
that causes sleep, touches the maiden’s face. At the potent touch she
lies entranced, and suffers violence from the God. Night has {now}
bespangled the heavens with stars; Phœbus personates an old woman, and
takes those delights before enjoyed {in imagination}. When her mature
womb had completed the {destined} time, Autolycus was born, a crafty
offspring of the stock of the God with winged feet, ingenious at every
kind of theft, {and} who used, not degenerating from his father’s
skill,[26] to make white out of black, and black out of white. From
Phœbus was born (for she brought forth twins) Philammon, famous for his
tuneful song, and for his lyre.

“{But} what avails it for her to have brought forth two children, and to
have been pleasing to two Gods, and to have sprung from a valiant
father, and the Thunderer as her ancestor?[27] Is even glory {thus}
prejudicial to many? To her, at least, it was a prejudice; who dared to
prefer herself to Diana, and decried the charms of the Goddess. But
violent wrath was excited in her, and she said, ‘We will please her by
our deeds.’[28] And there was no delay: she bent her bow, and let fly an
arrow from the string, and pierced with the reed the tongue that
deserved it. The tongue was silent; nor did her voice, and the words
which she attempted {to utter, now} follow; and life, with her blood,
left her, as she endeavoured to speak. Oh hapless affection! What pain
did I {then} endure in my heart, as her uncle, and what consolations did
I give to my affectionate brother? These the father received no
otherwise than rocks do the murmurs of the ocean, and he bitterly
lamented his daughter {thus} snatched from him. But when he beheld her
burning, four times had he an impulse to rush into the midst of the
pile; thence repulsed, four times did he commit his swift limbs to
flight, and, like an ox, bearing upon his galled neck the stings of
hornets, he rushed where there was no path. Already did he seem to me to
run faster than a human being, and you would have supposed that his feet
had assumed wings. Therefore he outran all; and, made swift by the
desire for death, he gained the heights of Parnassus.

“Apollo pitying him, when Dædalion would have thrown himself from the
top of the rock, made him into a bird, and supported him, hovering {in
the air} upon {these} sudden wings; and he gave him a curved beak, and
crooked claws on his talons, his former courage, and strength greater
{in proportion} than his body; and, now {become} a hawk, sufficiently
benignant to none, he rages {equally} against all birds; and grieving
{himself}, becomes the cause of grief to others.”

While the son of Lucifer is relating these wonders about his brother,
hastening with panting speed, Phocæan Antenor, the keeper of his herds,
runs up to him. “Alas, Peleus! Peleus!” says he, “I am the messenger to
thee of a great calamity;” and {then} Peleus bids him declare whatever
news it is that he has brought; and the Trachinian hero himself is in
suspense, and trembles through apprehension. The other tells {his
story:} “I had driven the weary bullocks to the winding shore, when the
Sun at his height, in the midst of his course, could look back on as
much of it as he could see to be {now} remaining; and a part of the oxen
had bent their knees on the yellow sands, and, as they lay, viewed the
expanse of the wide waters; some, with slow steps, were wandering here
and there; others were swimming, and appearing with their lofty necks
above the waves. A temple is hard by the sea, adorned neither with
marble nor with gold, but {made} of solid beams, and shaded with an
ancient grove; the Nereids and Nereus possess it. A sailor, while he was
drying his nets upon the shore, told us that these were the Gods of the
temple. Adjacent to this is a marsh, planted thickly with numerous
willows, which the water of the stagnating waves of the sea has made
into a swamp. From that spot, a huge monster, a wolf, roaring with a
loud bellowing, alarms the neighbouring places, and comes forth from the
thicket of the marsh, {both} having his thundering jaws covered with
foam and with clotted blood, {and} his eyes suffused with red flame.
Though he was raging both with fury and with hunger, still was he more
excited by fury; for he did not care to satisfy his hunger by the
slaughter of the oxen, and to satiate his dreadful appetite, but he
mangled the whole herd, and, like a true foe, pulled each {to the
ground}. Some, too, of ourselves, while we were defending them, wounded
with his fatal bite, were killed. The shore and the nearest waves were
red with blood, and the fens were filled with the lowings {of the herd}.
But delay is dangerous, and the case does not allow us to hesitate:
while anything is {still} left, let us all unite, and let us take up
arms, arms, {I say}, and in a body let us bear weapons.”

{Thus} speaks the countryman. And the loss does not affect Peleus; but,
remembering his crime, he considers that the bereaved Nereid has sent
these misfortunes of his, as an offering to the departed Phocus. The
Œtæan king[29] commands his men to put on their armour, and to take up
stout weapons; together with whom, he himself is preparing to go. But
Halcyone, his wife, alarmed at the tumult, runs out, and not yet having
arranged all her hair, even that which is {arranged} she throws in
disorder; and clinging to the neck of her husband, she entreats him,
both with words and tears, to send assistance without himself, and {so}
to save two lives in one. The son of Æacus says to her, “O queen, lay
aside thy commendable and affectionate fears; the kindness of thy
proposal is {too} great {for me}. It does not please me, that arms
should be employed against this new monster. The Divinity of the sea
must be adored.” There is a lofty tower; a fire {is} upon the extreme
summit,[30] a place grateful to wearied ships. They go up there, and
with sighs they behold the bulls lying scattered upon the sea shore, and
the cruel ravager with blood-stained mouth, having his long hair stained
with gore. Peleus, thence extending his hands towards the open sea,
entreats the azure Psamathe to lay aside her wrath, and to give him her
aid. But she is not moved by the words of the son of Æacus, thus
entreating. Thetis, interceding on behalf of her husband, obtains that
favour {for him}.

But still the wolf persists, not recalled from the furious slaughter,
{and} keenly urged by the sweetness of the blood; until she changes him
into marble, as he is fastening on the neck of a mangled heifer. His
body preserves every thing except its colour. The colour of the stone
shows that he is not now a wolf, and ought not now to be feared. Still,
the Fates do not permit the banished Peleus to settle in this land: the
wandering exile goes to the Magnetes,[31] and there receives from the
Hæmonian Acastus[32] an expiation of the murder.

    〔note 18 — Embraces of Thetis.--Ver. 226. Fulgentius suggests, that the meaning of this is, that Jupiter, or fire, will not unite with Thetis, who represents water.〕

    〔note 19 — Son of Æacus.--Ver. 227. Peleus was the son of Æacus, who was the son of Jupiter, by Ægina, the daughter of Æsopus.〕

    〔note 20 — Upon its waters.--Ver. 247. While libations were made to the other Divinities, either on their altars, or on the ground, the marine Deities were so honoured by pouring wine on the waves of the sea.〕

    〔note 21 — Carpathian.--Ver. 249. The Carpathian sea was so called from the Isle of Carpathus, which lay between the island of Rhodes and the Egyptian coast.〕

    〔note 22 — Trachinian land.--Ver. 269. Apollodorus says, that Peleus, when exiled, repaired to Phthia, and not to the city of Trachyn.〕

    〔note 23 — Symbols of peace.--Ver. 276. The ‘velamenta’ were branches of olive, surrounded with bandages of wool, which were held in the hands of those who begged for mercy or pardon. The wool covering the hand was emblematical of peace, the hand being thereby rendered powerless to effect mischief.〕

    〔note 24 — Who summons forth.--Ver. 296. This is a periphrasis for Lucifer, or the Morning Star, which precedes, and appears to summon the dawn.〕

    〔note 25 — Thisbean doves.--Ver. 300. Thisbe was a town of Bœotia, so called from Thisbe, the daughter of Æsopus. It was famous for the number of doves which it produced.〕

    〔note 26 — Father’s skill.--Ver. 314. Being the son of Mercury, who was noted for his thieving propensities.〕

    〔note 27 — Her ancestor.--Ver. 319. Jupiter was the great-grandfather of Chione, being the father of Lucifer, and the grandfather of Dædalion.〕

    〔note 28 — By our deeds.--Ver. 323. This is said sarcastically, as much as to say, ‘If I do not please her by my looks, at least I will by my actions.’〕

    〔note 29 — The Œtæan king.--Ver. 383. Namely, Ceyx, the king of Trachyn, which city Hercules had founded, at the foot of Mount Œta.〕

    〔note 30 — The extreme summit.--Ver. 393. The upper stories of the ancient light-houses had windows looking towards the sea; and torches, or fires (probably in cressets, or fire-pans, at the end of poles), were kept burning on them by night, to guide vessels. ‘Pharos,’ or ‘Pharus,’ the name given to light-houses, is derived from the celebrated one built on the island of Pharos, at the entrance of the port of Alexandria. It was erected by Sostratus, of Cnidos, at the expense of one of the Ptolemies, and cost 800 talents. It was of huge dimensions, square, and constructed of white stone. It contained many stories, and diminished in width from below upwards. There were ‘phari,’ or ‘light-houses,’ at Ostia, Ravenna, Capreæ, and Brundisium.〕

    〔note 31 — The Magnetes.--Ver. 408. The Magnetes were the people of Magnesia, a district of Thessaly. They were famed for their skill in horsemanship.〕

    〔note 32 — Hæmonian Acastus.--Ver. 409. Acastus was the son of Pelias. His wife Hippolyta, being enamoured of Peleus, and he not encouraging her advances, she accused him of having made an attempt on her virtue. On this, Acastus determined upon his death; and having taken him to Mount Pelion, on the pretext of hunting, he took away his arms, and left him there, to be torn to pieces by the wild beasts. Mercury, or, according to some, Chiron, came to his assistance, and gave him a sword made by Vulcan, with which he slew Acastus and his wife.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Thetis being a woman of extraordinary beauty, it is not improbable,
  that in the Epithalamia that were composed on her marriage, it was
  asserted, that the Gods had contended for her hand, and had been
  forced to give way, in obedience to the superior power of destiny.
  Hyginus says that Prometheus was the only person that was acquainted
  with the oracle; and that he imparted it to Jupiter, on condition
  that he would deliver him from the eagle that tormented him:
  whereupon the God sent Hercules to Mount Caucasus, to perform his
  promise. It was on the occasion of this marriage that the Goddess
  Discord presented the golden apple, the dispute for which occasioned
  the Trojan war. The part of the story which relates how she assumed
  various forms, to avoid the advances of Peleus, is perhaps an
  ingenious method of stating, that having several suitors, she was
  originally disinclined to Peleus, and used every pretext to avoid
  him, until, by the advice of a wise friend, he found means to remove
  all the difficulties which opposed his alliance with her.

  Some writers state that Thetis was the daughter of Chiron; but
  Euripides, in a fragment of his Iphigenia, tells us that Achilles,
  who was the son of this marriage, took a pride in carrying the
  figure of a Nereid on his shield. The three sons of Æacus were
  Peleus, Telamon, and Phocus; while they were playing at quoits, the
  latter accidentally received a blow from Peleus, which killed him.
  Ovid, however, seems here to imply that Peleus killed his brother
  purposely.

  The story of Chione most probably took its rise from the difference
  between the inclinations of the two children that she bore.
  Autolycus, being cunning, and addicted to theft, he was styled the
  son of Mercury; while Philammon being a lover of music, Apollo was
  said to be his father. According to Pausanias, Autolycus was the son
  of Dædalion, and not of Chione. The story of the wolf, the minister
  of the vengeance of Psamathe, for the death of Phocus, is probably
  built on historical grounds. Æacus had two wives, Ægina and
  Psamathe, the sister of Thetis; by the first he had Peleus and
  Telamon; by the second, Phocus. Lycomedes, the king of Scyros, the
  brother of Psamathe, resolved to revenge the death of his nephew,
  whom Peleus had killed: and declared war against Ceyx, for receiving
  him into his dominions. The troops of Lycomedes ravaged the country,
  and carried away the flocks of Peleus: on which prayers and
  entreaties were resorted to, with the view of pacifying him; which
  object having been effected, he withdrew his troops. On this, it was
  rumoured that he was changed into a rock, after having ravaged the
  country like a wild beast, which comparison was perhaps suggested by
  the fact of his name being partly compounded of the word λυκὸς,
  ‘a wolf.’

FABLE VII. [XI.410-748]

  Ceyx, going to Claros, to consult the oracle about his brother’s
  fate, is shipwrecked on the voyage. Juno sends Iris to the God of
  Sleep, who, at her request, dispatches Morpheus to Halcyone, in a
  dream, to inform her of the death of her husband. She awakes in the
  morning, full of solicitude, and goes to the shore where she finds
  the body of Ceyx thrown up by the waves. She is about to cast
  herself into the sea in despair, when the Gods transform them both
  into king-fishers.

In the mean time, Ceyx being disturbed in mind, both on account of the
strange fate of his brother, and {the wonders} that had succeeded his
brother, prepares to go to the Clarian God, that he may consult the
sacred oracle, the consolation of mortals: for the profane Phorbas,[33]
with his Phlegyans, renders the {oracle} of Delphi inaccessible. Yet he
first makes thee acquainted with his design, most faithful Halcyone,
whose bones receive a chill, and a paleness, much resembling boxwood,
comes over her face, and her cheeks are wet with tears gushing forth.
Three times attempting to speak, three times she moistens her face with
tears, and, sobs interrupting her affectionate complaints, she says:--

“What fault of mine, my dearest, has changed thy mind? Where is that
care of me, which once used to exist? Canst thou now be absent without
anxiety, thy Halcyone being left behind? Now, is a long journey pleasing
to thee? Now, am I dearer to thee when at a distance? But I suppose thy
journey is by land, and I shall only grieve, and shall not fear as well,
and my anxiety will be free from apprehension. The seas and the aspect
of the stormy ocean affright me. And lately I beheld broken planks on
the sea shore; and often have I read the names upon tombs,[34] without
bodies {there buried}. And let not any deceitful assurance influence thy
mind, that the grandson of Hippotas[35] is thy father-in-law; who
confines the strong winds in prison, and assuages the seas when he
pleases. When, once let loose, the winds have taken possession of the
deep, nothing is forbidden to them; every land and every sea is
disregarded by them. Even the clouds of heaven do they insult, and by
their bold onsets strike forth the brilliant fires.[36] The more I know
them, (for I do know them, and, when little, have often seen them in my
father’s abode,) the more I think they are to be dreaded. But if thy
resolution, my dear husband, cannot be altered by my entreaties, and if
thou art {but} too determined to go; take me, too, as well. At least, we
shall be tossed together; nor shall I fear anything, but what I shall be
{then} suffering; and together we shall endure whatever shall happen;
together we shall be carried over the wide seas.”

By such words and the tears of the daughter of Æolus, is her husband,
son of the {Morning} Star, {much} affected; for the flame {of love}
exists no less in him. But he neither wishes to abandon his proposed
voyage, nor to admit Halcyone to a share in the danger; and he says,
in answer, many things to console her timorous breast. And yet she does
not, on that account, approve of his reasons. To them he adds this
alleviation, with which alone he influences his affectionate {wife}:
“All delay will, indeed, be tedious to me; but I swear to thee by the
fire of my sire, (if only the fates allow me to return,) that I will
come back before the moon has twice completed her orb.” When, by these
promises, a hope has been given her of his {speedy} return, he forthwith
orders a ship, drawn out of the dock, to be launched in the sea, and to
be supplied with its {proper} equipments. On seeing this, Halcyone again
shuddered, as though presaging the future, and shed her flowing tears,
and gave him embraces; and at last, in extreme misery, she said, with a
sad voice, “Farewell!” and then she sank with all her body {to the
ground}.

But the youths, while Ceyx is {still} seeking pretexts for delay, in
double rows,[37] draw the oars towards their hardy breasts, and cleave
the main with equal strokes. She raises her weeping eyes, and sees her
husband standing on the crooked stern, and by waving his hand making the
first signs to her; and she returns the signals. When the land has
receded further, and her eyes are unable to distinguish his countenance:
{still}, while she can, she follows the retreating ship with her sight.
When this too, borne onward, cannot be distinguished from the distance;
still she looks at the sails waving from the top of the mast. When she
no {longer} sees the sails; she anxiously seeks her deserted bed, and
lays herself on the couch. The bed, and the spot, renew the tears of
Halcyone, and remind her what part {of herself} is wanting.

They have {now} gone out of harbour, and the breeze shakes the rigging;
the sailor urges the pendent oars towards their sides;[38] and fixes the
sailyards[39] on the top of the mast, and spreads the canvass full from
the mast, and catches the coming breezes. Either the smaller part, or,
at least, not more than half her course, had {now} been cut by the ship,
and both lands were at a great distance, when, towards night, the sea
began to grow white with swelling waves, and the boisterous East wind to
blow with greater violence. Presently the master cries, “At once, lower
the top sails, and furl the whole of the sail to the yards!” He orders,
{but} the adverse storm impedes the execution; and the roaring of the
sea does not allow any voice to be heard.

Yet, of their own accord, some hasten to draw in the oars, some to
secure the sides, some to withdraw the sails from the winds. This one
pumps up the waves, and pours back the sea into the sea; another takes
off the yards. While these things are being done without any order, the
raging storm is increasing, and the fierce winds wage war on every side,
and stir up the furious main. The master of the ship is himself alarmed,
and himself confesses that he does not know what is their {present}
condition, nor what to order or forbid; so great is the amount of their
misfortunes, and more powerful than all his skill. For the men are
making a noise with their shouts, the cordage with its rattling, the
heavy waves with the dashing of {other} waves, the skies with the
thunder. The sea is upturned with billows, and appears to reach the
heavens, and to sprinkle the surrounding clouds with its foam. And one
while, when it turns up the yellow sands from the bottom, it is of the
same colour with them; at another time {it is} blacker than the Stygian
waves. Sometimes it is level, and is white with resounding foam. The
Trachinian ship too, is influenced by these vicissitudes; and now aloft,
as though from the summit of a mountain, it seems to look down upon the
vallies and the depths of Acheron; at another moment, when the
engulphing sea has surrounded it, sunk below, it seems to be looking at
heaven above from the infernal waters. Struck on its side by the waves,
it often sends forth a low crashing sound, and beaten against, it sounds
with no less noise, than on an occasion when the iron battering ram, or
the balista, is shaking the shattered towers. And as fierce lions are
wont, gaining strength in their career, to rush with their breasts upon
the weapons, and arms extended {against them}; so the water, when upon
the rising of the winds it had rushed onwards, advanced against the
rigging of the ship, and was much higher than it.

And now the bolts shrink, and despoiled of their covering of wax,[40]
the seams open wide, and afford a passage to the fatal waves. Behold!
vast showers fall from the dissolving clouds, and you would believe that
the whole of the heavens is descending into the deep, and that the
swelling sea is ascending to the tracts of heaven. The sails are wet
with the rain, and the waves of the ocean are mingled with the waters of
the skies. The firmament is without its fires; {and} the gloomy night is
oppressed both with its own darkness and that of the storm. Yet the
lightnings disperse these, and give light as they flash; the waters are
on fire with the flames of the thunder-bolts. And now, too, the waves
make an inroad into the hollow texture of the ship; and as a soldier,
superior to all the rest of the number, after he has often sprung
forward against the fortifications of a defended city, at length gains
his desires; and, inflamed with the desire of glory, {though but} one
among a thousand more, he still mounts the wall, so, when the violent
waves have beaten against the lofty sides, the fury of the tenth
wave,[41] rising more impetuously {than the rest}, rushes onward; and it
ceases not to attack the wearied ship, before it descends within the
walls, as it were, of the captured bark. Part, then, of the sea is still
attempting to get into the ship, part is within it. All are now in
alarm, with no less intensity than a city is wont to be alarmed, while
some are undermining the walls without, and others within have
possession of the walls. {All} art fails them, and their courage sinks;
and as many {shapes of} death seem to rush and to break in {upon them},
as the waves that approach. One does not refrain from tears; another is
stupefied; another calls those happy[42] whom funeral rites await;
another, in his prayers, addresses the Gods, and lifting up his hands in
vain to that heaven which he sees not, implores their aid. His brothers
and his parent recur to the mind of another; to another, his home, with
his pledges {of affection}, and {so} what has been left behind by each.

{The remembrance of} Halcyone affects Ceyx; on the lips of Ceyx there is
nothing but Halcyone; and though her alone he regrets, still he rejoices
that she is absent. {Gladly}, too, would he look back to the shore of
his native land, and turn his last glance towards his home; but he knows
not where it is. The sea is raging in a hurricane[43] so vast, and all
the sky is concealed beneath the shade brought on by the clouds of
pitchy darkness, and the face of the night is redoubled {in gloom}. The
mast is broken by the violence of the drenching tempest; the helm, too,
is broken; and the undaunted wave, standing over its spoil, looks down
like a conqueror, upon the waves as they encircle {below}. Nor, when
precipitated, does it rush down less violently, than if any {God} were
to hurl Athos or Pindus, torn up from its foundations, into the open
sea; and with its weight and its violence together, it sinks the ship to
the bottom. With her, a great part of the crew overwhelmed in the deep
water, and not rising again to the air, meet their fate. Some seize hold
of portions and broken pieces of the ship. Ceyx himself seizes a
fragment of the wreck, with that hand with which he was wont {to wield}
the sceptre, and in vain, alas! he invokes his father, and his
father-in-law. But chiefly on his lips, as he swims, is his wife
Halcyone. Her he thinks of, and {her name} he repeats: he prays the
waves to impel his body before her eyes; and that when dead he may be
entombed by the hands of his friends. While he {still} swims, he calls
upon Halcyone far away, as often as the billows allow[44] him to open
his mouth, and in the very waves he murmurs {her name}. {When}, lo!
a darkening arch[45] of waters breaks over the middle of the waves, and
buries his head sinking beneath the bursting billow. Lucifer was
obscured that night, and such that you could not have recognized him;
and since he was not allowed to depart from the heavens,[46] he
concealed his face beneath thick clouds.

In the meantime, the daughter of Æolus, ignorant of so great
misfortunes, reckons the nights; and now she hastens {to prepare} the
garments[47] for him to put on, and now, those which, when he comes, she
herself may wear, and vainly promises herself his return. She, indeed,
piously offers frankincense to all the Gods above; but, before all, she
pays her adorations at the temple of Juno, and comes to the altars on
behalf of her husband, who is not in existence. And she prays that her
husband may be safe, and that he may return, and may prefer no woman
before her. But this {last} alone can be her lot, out of so many of her
wishes. But the Goddess endures not any longer to be supplicated on
behalf of one who is dead; and, that she may repel her polluted
hands[48] from the altars,--she says, “Iris, most faithful messenger of
my words, hasten quickly to the soporiferous court of Sleep, and command
him, under the form of Ceyx who is dead, to send a vision to Halcyone,
to relate her real misfortune.” {Thus} she says. Iris assumes garment of
a thousand colours, and, marking the heavens with her curving arch, she
repairs to the abode of the king, {Sleep}, as bidden, concealed beneath
a rock.

There is near the Cimmerians[49] a cave with a long recess, a hollowed
mountain, the home and the habitation of slothful Sleep, into which the
Sun, {whether} rising, or in his mid course, or setting, can never come.
Fogs mingled with darkness are exhaled from the ground, and {it is} a
twilight with a dubious light. No wakeful bird, with the notes of his
crested features, there calls forth the morn; nor do the watchful dogs,
or the geese more sagacious[50] than the dogs, break the silence with
their voices. No wild beasts, no cattle, no boughs waving with the
breeze, no {loud} outbursts of the human voice, {there} make any sound;
mute Rest has there her abode. But from the bottom of the rock runs a
stream, the waters of Lethe,[51] through which the rivulet, trickling
with a murmuring noise amid the sounding pebbles, invites sleep. Before
the doors of the cavern, poppies bloom in abundance, and innumerable
herbs, from the juice of which the humid night gathers sleep, and
spreads it over the darkened Earth. There is no door in the whole
dwelling, to make a noise by the turning of the hinges; no porter at the
entrance. But in the middle is a couch, raised high upon black ebony,
stuffed with feathers, of a dark colour, concealed by a dark coverlet;
on which the God himself lies, his limbs dissolved in sloth. Around him
lie, in every direction, imitating divers shapes, unsubstantial dreams
as many as the harvest bears ears of corn, the wood green leaves, the
shore the sands thrown up. Into this, soon as the maiden had entered,
and had put aside with her hands the visions that were in her way, the
sacred house shone with the splendour of her garment, and the God, with
difficulty lifting up his eyes sunk in languid sloth, again and again
relapsing, and striking the upper part of his breast with his nodding
chin, at last aroused himself from his {dozing}; and, raised on his
elbow, he inquired why she had come; for he knew {who she was}.

But she {replied}, “Sleep, thou repose of all things; Sleep, thou
gentlest of the Deities; thou peace of the mind, from which care flies,
who dost soothe the hearts {of men}, wearied with the toils of the day,
and refittest them for labour, command a vision, that resembles in
similitude the real shape, to go to Halcyone, in Herculean Trachyn, in
the form of the king, and to assume the form of one that has suffered
shipwreck. Juno commands this.” After Iris had executed her commission,
she departed; for she could no longer endure the effects of the vapour;
and, as soon as she perceived sleep creeping over her limbs, she took to
flight,[52] and departed along the bow by which she had come just
before.

But Father {Sleep}, out of the multitude of his thousand sons, raises
Morpheus,[53] a {skilful} artist, and an imitator of {any human} shape.
No one more dexterously than he mimics the gait, and the countenance,
and the mode of speaking; he adds the dress, too, and the words most
commonly used by any one. But he imitates men only; for another one
becomes a wild beast, becomes a bird, {or} becomes a serpent, with its
lengthened body: this one, the Gods above call Icelos; the tribe of
mortals, Phobetor. There is likewise a third, {master} of a different
art, {called} Phantasos: he cleverly changes {himself} into earth, and
stone, and water, and a tree, and all those things which are destitute
of life. These are wont, by night, to show their features to kings and
to generals, {while} others wander amid the people and the commonalty.
These, Sleep, the aged {God}, passes by, and selects Morpheus alone from
all his brothers, to execute the commands of the daughter of Thaumas;
and again he both drops his head, sunk in languid drowsiness, and
shrinks back within the lofty couch.

{Morpheus} flies through the dark with wings that make no noise, and in
a short space of intervening time arrives at the Hæmonian city; and,
laying aside his wings from off his body, he assumes the form of Ceyx;
and in that form, wan, and like one without blood, without garments,
he stands before the bed of his wretched wife. The beard of the hero
appears to be dripping, and the water to be falling thickly from his
soaking hair. Then leaning on the bed, with tears running down his face,
he says these words: “My most wretched wife, dost thou recognise {thy}
Ceyx, or are my looks {so} changed with death? Observe me; thou wilt
{surely} know me: and, instead of thy husband, thou wilt find the ghost
of thy husband. Thy prayers, Halcyone, have availed me nothing; I have
perished. Do not promise thyself, {thus} deceived, my {return}. The
cloudy South wind caught my ship in the Ægean Sea,[54] and dashed it to
pieces, tossed by the mighty blasts; and the waves choked my utterance,
in vain calling upon thy name. It is no untruthful messenger that tells
thee this: thou dost not hear these things through vague rumours.
I, myself, shipwrecked, in person, am telling thee my fate. Come, arise
then, shed tears, and put on mourning; and do not send me unlamented to
the phantom {realms of} Tartarus.”

To these words Morpheus adds a voice, which she may believe to be that
of her husband. He seems, too, to be shedding real tears, and his hands
have the gesture of Ceyx. As she weeps, Halcyone groans aloud, and moves
her arms in her sleep, and catching at his body, grasps the air; and she
cries aloud, “Stay, whither dost thou hurry? We will go together.”
Disturbed by her own voice, and by the appearance of her husband, she
shakes off sleep; and first she looks about there, to see if he, who has
been so lately seen, is there; for the servants, roused by her voice,
have brought in lights. After she has found him nowhere, she smites her
face with her hands, and tears her garments from off her breast, and
beats her breast itself. Nor cares she to loosen her hair; she tears it,
and says to her nurse, as she inquires what is the occasion of her
sorrow: “Halcyone is no more! no more! with her own Ceyx is she dead.
Away with words of comfort. He has perished by shipwreck. I have seen
him, and I knew him; and as he departed, desirous to detain him,
I extended my hands towards him. The ghost fled: but, yet it was the
undoubted and the real ghost of my husband. It had not, indeed, if thou
askest me {that}, his wonted features; nor was he looking cheerful with
his former countenance. Hapless, I beheld him, pale, and naked, and with
his hair still dripping. Lo! ill-fated {man}, he stood on this very
spot;” and she seeks the prints of his footsteps, if any are left. “This
it was, this is what I dreaded in my ill-boding mind, and I entreated
that thou wouldst not, deserting me, follow the winds. But, I could have
wished, since thou didst depart to perish, that, at least, thou hadst
taken me as well. To have gone with thee, {yes}, with thee, would have
been an advantage to me; for then neither should I have spent any part
of my life otherwise than together with thee, nor would my death have
been divided {from thee}. Now, absent {from thee}, I perish; now,
absent, I am tossed on the waves; and the sea has thee without me.

“My heart were more cruel than the sea itself, were I to strive to
protract my life any further; and, were I to struggle to survive so
great a misfortune. But I will not struggle, nor, hapless one, will I
abandon thee; and, at least, I will {now} come to be thy companion. And,
in the tomb, if the urn {does} not, yet the inscription[55] shall unite
us: if {I touch} not thy bones with my bones, still will I unite thy
name with my name.” Grief forbids her saying more, and wailings come
between each word, and groans are heaved from her sorrow-stricken
breast.

It is {now} morning: she goes forth from her abode to the sea-shore,
and, wretched, repairs to that place from which she had seen him go, and
says, “While he lingered, and while he was loosening the cables, at his
departure, he gave me kisses upon this sea-shore;” and while she calls
to recollection the incidents which she had observed with her eyes, and
looks out upon the sea, she observes on the flowing wave, I know not
what {object}, like a body, within a distant space: and at first she is
doubtful what it is. After the water has brought it a little nearer,
and, although it is {still} distant, it is plain that it is a corpse.
Ignorant who it may be, because it is ship-wrecked, she is moved at the
omen, and, though unknown, would fain give it a tear. “Alas! thou
wretched one!” she says, “whoever thou art; and if thou hast any wife!”
Driven by the waves, the body approaches nearer. The more she looks at
it, the less and the less is she mistress of her senses. And now she
sees it brought close to the land, that now she can well distinguish it:
it is her husband. “’Tis he!” she exclaims, and, on the instant, she
tears her face, her hair, {and} her garments; and, extending her
trembling hands towards Ceyx, she says, “And is it thus, Oh dearest
husband! is it thus, Oh ill-fated one! that thou dost return to me?”

A mole, made by the hand of man, adjoins the waves, which breaks the
first fury of the ocean, and weakens the first shock of its waters. Upon
that she leaped, and ’tis wondrous that she could. She flew, and beating
the light air with her wings newly formed, she, a wretched bird, skimmed
the surface of the water. And, while she flew, her croaking mouth, with
its slender bill, uttered a sound like that of one in sadness, and full
of complaining. But when she touched the body, dumb, and without blood,
embracing the beloved limbs with her new-made wings, in vain she gave
him cold kisses with her hardened bill. The people were in doubt whether
Ceyx was sensible of this, or whether, by the motion of the wave, he
seemed to raise his countenance; but {really} he was sensible of it;
and, at length, through the pity of the Gods above, both were changed
into birds. Meeting with the same fate, even then their love remained.
Nor, when {now} birds, is the conjugal tie dissolved: they couple, and
they become parents; and for seven calm days,[56] in the winter-time,
does Halcyone brood upon her nest floating on the sea.[57] Then the
passage of the deep is safe; Æolus keeps the winds in, and restrains
them from sallying forth, and secures a {smooth} sea for his
descendants.

    〔note 33 — The profane Phorbas.--Ver. 414. The temple at Delphi was much nearer and more convenient for Ceyx to resort to; but at that period it was in the hands of the Phlegyans, a people of Thessaly, of predatory and lawless habits, who had plundered the Delphic shrine. They were destroyed by thunderbolts and pestilence, or, according to some authors, by Neptune, who swept them away in a flood. Phorbas, here mentioned, was one of the Lapithæ, a savage robber, who forced strangers to box with him, and then slew them. Having the presumption to challenge the Gods, he was slain by Apollo.〕

    〔note 34 — Names upon tombs.--Ver. 429. Cenotaphs, or honorary tombs, were erected in honour of those, who having been drowned, their bodies could not be found. One great reason for erecting these memorials was the notion, that the souls of those who had received no funeral honours, wandered in agony on the banks of the Styx for the space of one hundred years.〕

    〔note 35 — Hippotas.--Ver. 431. Æolus was the grandson of Hippotas, through his daughter Sergesta, who bore Æolus to Jupiter. Ovid says that he was the father of Halcyone; but, according to Lucian, she was the daughter of Æolus the Hellenian, the grandson of Deucalion.〕

    〔note 36 — Brilliant fires.--Ver. 436. Ovid probably here had in view the description given by Lucretius, commencing Book i. line 272.〕

    〔note 37 — In double rows.--Ver. 462. By this it is implied that the ship of Ceyx was a ‘biremis,’ or one with two ranks of rowers; one rank being placed above the other. Pliny the Elder attributes the invention of the ‘biremis’ to the Erythræans. Those with three ranks of rowers were introduced by the Corinthians; while Dionysius, the first king of Sicily, was the inventor of the Quadriremis, or ship with four ranks of rowers. Quinqueremes, or those with five ranks, are said to have been the invention of the Salaminians. The first use of those with six ranks has been ascribed to the Syracusans. Ships were sometimes built with twelve, twenty, and even forty ranks of rowers, but they appear to have been intended rather for curiosity than for use. As, of course, the labour of each ascending rank increased, through the necessity of the higher ranks using longer oars, the pay of the lowest rank was the lowest, their work being the easiest. Where there were twenty ranks or more, the upper oars required more than one man to manage them. Ptolemy Philopater had a vessel built as a curiosity, which had no less than four thousand rowers.〕

    〔note 38 — Towards their sides.--Ver. 475. ‘Obvertere lateri remos’ most probably means ‘To feather the oars,’ which it is especially necessary to do in a gale, to avoid the retarding power of the wind against the surface of the blade of the oar.〕

    〔note 39 — Fixes the sail-yards.--Ver. 476. ‘Cornua’ means, literally, ‘The ends or points of the sail-yards,’ or ‘Antennæ:’ but here the word is used to signify the sail-yards themselves.〕

    〔note 40 — Covering of wax.--Ver. 514. The ‘Cera’ with which the seams of the ships were stopped, was most probably a composition of wax and pitch, or other bituminous and resinous substances.〕

    〔note 41 — The tenth wave.--Ver. 530. This is said in allusion to the belief that every tenth wave exceeded the others in violence.〕

    〔note 42 — Calls those happy.--Ver. 540. Those who died on shore would obtain funeral rites; while those who perished by shipwreck might become food for the fishes, a fate which was regarded by the ancients with peculiar horror. Another reason for thus regarding death by shipwreck, was the general belief among the ancients, that the soul was an emanation from æther, or fire, and that it was contrary to the laws of nature for it to be extinguished by water. Ovid says in his Tristia, or Lament (Book I. El. 2, l. 51-57), ‘I fear not death: ’tis the dreadful kind of death; Take away the shipwreck: then death will be a gain to me. ’Tis something for one, either dying a natural death, or by the sword, to lay his breathless corpse in the firm ground, and to impart his wishes to his kindred, and to hope for a sepulchre, and not to be food for the fishes of the sea.’〕

    〔note 43 — A hurricane.--Ver. 548-9. ‘Tanta vertigine pontus Fervet’ is transcribed by Clarke, ‘The sea is confounded with so great a vertigo.’〕

    〔note 44 — The billows allow.--Ver. 566. ‘Quoties sinit hiscere fluctus’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘As oft as the waves suffer him to gape.’〕

    〔note 45 — A darkening arch.--Ver. 568. Possibly ‘niger arcus’ means a sweeping wave, black with the sand which it has swept from the depths of the ocean; or else with the reflection of the dark clouds.〕

    〔note 46 — From the heavens.--Ver. 571. The word Olympus is frequently used by the poets to signify ‘the heavens;’ as the mountain of that name in Thessaly, from its extreme height, was supposed to be the abode of the Gods.〕

    〔note 47 — Prepare the garments.--Ver. 575. Horace tells us that their clients wove garments for the Roman patricians; and the females of noble family did the same for their husbands, children, and brothers. Ovid, in the Fasti, describes Lucretia as making a ‘lacerna,’ or cloak, for her husband Collatinus. She says to her hand-maidens, ‘With all speed there must be sent to your master a cloak made with our hands.’ (Book ii. l. 746.) Suetonius tells us that Augustus would wear no clothes but those made by his wife, sister, or daughter.〕

    〔note 48 — Polluted hands.--Ver. 584. All persons who had been engaged in the burial of the dead were considered to be polluted, and were not allowed to enter the temples of the Gods till they had been purified. Among the Greeks, persons who had been supposed to have died in foreign countries, and whose funeral rites had been performed in an honorary manner by their own relatives, if it turned out that they were not dead, and they returned to their own country, were considered impure, and were only purified by being dressed in swaddling clothes, and treated like new-born infants. We shall, then, be hardly surprised at Juno considering Halcyone to be polluted by the death of her husband Ceyx, although at a distance, and as yet unknown to her.〕

    〔note 49 — The Cimmerians.--Ver. 592. Ovid appropriately places the abode of the drowsy God in the cold, damp, and foggy regions of the Cimmerians, who are supposed, by some authors, to have been a people of Sarmatia, or Scythia, near the Palus Mæotis, or sea of Azof. Other writers suppose that a fabulous race of people, said to live near Baiæ in Italy, and to inhabit dark caves throughout the day, while they sallied forth to plunder at night, are here referred to. This description of the abode of Sleep, and of his appearance and attendants, is supposed to have been borrowed by Ovid from one of the Greek poets.〕

    〔note 50 — Geese more sagacious.--Ver. 599. This is said in compliment to the geese, for the service they rendered, in giving the alarm, and saving the Capitol, when in danger of being taken by the Gauls.〕

    〔note 51 — Waters of Lethe.--Ver. 603. After the dead had tasted the waters of Lethe, one of the rivers of Hell, it was supposed that they lost all recollection of the events of their former life.〕

    〔note 52 — Took to flight.--Ver. 632. Clarke translates this line, ‘Away she scours, and returns through the bow through which she had come.’〕

    〔note 53 — Morpheus.--Ver. 635. Morpheus was so called from the Greek μορφὴ, ‘shape,’ or ‘figure,’ because he assumed various shapes. Icelos has his name from the Greek ἴκελος, ‘like,’ for a similar reason. Phobetor is from the Greek φοβὸς, ‘fear,’ because it was his office to terrify mortals. Lucian appears to mean the same Deity, under the name of Taraxion. Phantasos is from the Greek φάντασις, ‘fancy.’〕

    〔note 54 — In the Ægean Sea.--Ver. 663. The Ægean Sea lay between the city of Trachyn and the coast of Ionia, whither Ceyx had gone.〕

    〔note 55 — The inscription.--Ver. 706. The epitaphs on the tombs of the ancients usually contained the name of the person, his age, and (with the Greeks) some account of the principal events of his life. Halcyone, in her affectionate grief, promises her husband, at least, an honorary funeral, and a share in her own epitaph.〕

    〔note 56 — Seven calm days.--Ver. 745. Simonides mentions eleven as being the number of the days; Philochorus, nine; but Demagoras says seven, the number here adopted by Ovid.〕

    〔note 57 — Floating on the sea.--Ver. 746. The male of the kingfisher was said by the ancients to be so constant to his mate, that on her death he refused to couple with any other, for which reason the poets considered that bird as the emblem of conjugal affection. The sea was supposed to be always calm when the female was sitting; from which time of serenity, our proverb, which speaks of ‘Halcyon days,’ takes its rise.〕

EXPLANATION.

  According to the testimony of several of the ancient writers, Ceyx
  was the king of Trachyn, and was a prince of great knowledge and
  experience; and many had recourse to him to atone for the murders
  which they had committed, whether through imprudence or otherwise.
  Pausanias says that Eurystheus having summoned Ceyx to deliver up to
  him the children of Hercules, that prince, who was not able to
  maintain a war against so powerful a king, sent the youths to
  Theseus, who took them into his protection.

  To recover from the melancholy consequent upon the death of his
  brother Dædalion and his niece Chione, he went to Claros to consult
  the oracle of Apollo, and was shipwrecked on his return; on which,
  his wife, Halcyone, was so afflicted, that she died of grief, or
  else threw herself into the sea, as Hyginus informs us. It was said
  that they were changed into the birds which we call kingfishers,
  a story which, probably, has no other foundation than the name of
  Halcyone, which signifies that bird; which by the ancients was
  considered to be the symbol of conjugal affection.

  Apollodorus, however, does not give us so favourable an idea of the
  virtue of these persons as Ovid has done. According to him, it was
  their pride which proved the cause of their destruction. Jupiter
  enraged at Ceyx, because he had assumed his name as Halcyone had
  done that of Juno, changed them both into birds, he becoming a
  cormorant, and she a kingfisher. This story is remarkable for the
  beautiful and affecting manner in which it is told.

FABLE VIII. [XI.749-795]

  The Nymph Hesperia flying from Æsacus, who is enamoured of her,
  is bitten by a serpent, and instantly dies from the effects of the
  wound. He is so afflicted at her death, that he throws himself into
  the sea, and is transformed into a didapper.

Some old man[58] observes them as they fly over the widely extended
seas, and commends their love, preserved to the end {of their
existence}. One, close by, or the same, if chance so orders it, says,
“This one, too, which you see, as it cuts through the sea, and having
its legs drawn up,” pointing at a didapper, with its wide throat, “was
the son of a king. And, if you want to come down to him in one
lengthened series, his ancestors are Ilus, and Assaracus, and
Ganymede,[59] snatched away by Jupiter, and the aged Laomedon, and
Priam, to whom were allotted the last days of Troy. He himself was the
brother of Hector, and had he not experienced a strange fate in his
early youth, perhaps he would have had a name not inferior to {that} of
Hector; although the daughter of Dymas bore this {last}. Alexirhoë, the
daughter of the two-horned Granicus,[60] is said secretly to have
brought forth Æsacus, under shady Ida.

“He loathed the cities, and distant from the splendid court, frequented
the lonely mountains, and the unambitious fields; nor went but rarely
among the throngs of Ilium. Yet, not having a breast either churlish, or
impregnable to love, he espies Hesperie, the daughter of Cebrenus,[61]
on the banks of her sire, who has been often sought by him throughout
all the woods, drying her locks, thrown over her shoulders, in the sun.
The Nymph, {thus} seen, takes to flight, just as the frightened hind
from the tawny wolf; and {as} the water-duck, surprised at a distance,
having left her {wonted} stream, from the hawk. Her the Trojan hero
pursues, and, swift with love, closely follows her, made swift by fear.
Behold! a snake, lurking in the grass, with its barbed sting, wounds her
foot as she flies, and leaves its venom in her body. With her flight is
her life cut short. Frantic, he embraces her breathless, and cries
aloud,-- “I grieve, I grieve that {ever} I pursued {thee}. But I did not
apprehend this; nor was it of so much value to me to conquer. We two
have proved the destruction of wretched thee. The wound was given by the
serpent; by me was the occasion given. I should be more guilty than he,
did I not give the consolation for thy fate by my own death.” {Thus} he
said; and from a rock which the hoarse waves had undermined, he hurled
himself into the sea. Tethys, pitying him as he fell, received him
softly, and covered him with feathers as he swam through the sea; and
the power of obtaining the death he sought was not granted to him. The
lover is vexed that, against his will, he is obliged to live on, and
that opposition is made to his spirit, desirous to depart from its
wretched abode. And, as he has assumed newformed wings on his shoulders,
he flies aloft, and again he throws his body in the waves: his feathers
break the fall. Æsacus is enraged; and headlong he plunges into the
deep,[62] and incessantly tries the way of destruction. Love caused his
leanness; the spaces between the joints of his legs are long; his neck
remains long, {and} his head is far away from his body. He loves the
sea, and has his name because he plunges[63] in it.

    〔note 58 — Some old man.--Ver. 749-50. ‘Hos aliquis senior--spectat;’ these words are translated by Clarke, ‘Some old blade spies them.’〕

    〔note 59 — Ganymede.--Ver. 756. Ovid need not have inserted Assaracus and Ganymede, as they were only the brothers of Ilus, and the three were the sons of Tros. Ilus was the father of Laomedon, whose son was Priam, the father of Æsacus.〕

    〔note 60 — Granicus.--Ver. 763. The Granicus was a river of Mysia, near which Alexander the Great defeated Darius with immense slaughter.〕

    〔note 61 — Cebrenus.--Ver. 769. The Cebrenus was a little stream of Phrygia, not far from Troy.〕

    〔note 62 — Plunges into the deep.--Ver. 791-2. ‘Inque profundum Pronus abit,’ Clarke renders, ‘Goes plumb down into the deep.’ Certainly this is nearer to its French origin, ‘a plomb,’ than the present form, ‘plump down;’ but, like many other instances in his translation, it decidedly does not help us, as he professes to do, to ‘the attainment of the elegancy of this great Poet.’〕

    〔note 63 — Because he plunges.--Ver. 795. He accounts for the Latin name of the diver, or didapper, ‘mergus,’ by saying that it was so called, ‘a mergendo,’ from its diving, which doubtless was the origin of the name, though not taking its rise in the fiction here related by the Poet.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Ovid and Apollodorus agree that Æsacus was the son of Priam, and
  that he was changed into a didapper, or diver, but they differ in
  the other circumstances of his life. Instead of being the son of
  Alexirhoë, Apollodorus says that he was the son of Priam and Arisbe
  the daughter of Merope, his first wife; that his father made him
  marry Sterope, who dying very young, he was so afflicted at her
  death, that he threw himself into the sea. He also says that Priam
  having repudiated Arisbe to marry Hecuba, the daughter of Cisseus,
  Æsacus seeing his mother-in-law pregnant of her second son, foretold
  his father that her progeny would be the cause of a bloody war,
  which would end in the destruction of the kingdom of Troy; and that
  upon this prediction, the infant, when born, was exposed on Mount
  Ida.

  Tzetzes adds, that Æsacus told his father that it was absolutely
  necessary to put to death both the mother and the infant which was
  born on that same day; on which Priam being informed that Cilla, the
  wife of Thymætes, being delivered on that day of a son, he ordered
  them both to be killed; thinking thereby to escape the realization
  of the prediction. Servius, on the authority of Euphorion, relates
  the story in much the same manner; but a poet quoted by Cicero in
  his first book on Divination, says that it was the oracle of Zelia,
  a little town at the foot of Mount Ida, which gave that answer as an
  interpretation of the dream of Hecuba. Pausanias says it was the
  sibyl Herophila who interpreted the dream, while other ancient
  writers state that it was Cassandra. Apollodorus says that Æsacus
  learned from his grandfather Merops the art of foretelling things to
  come.

FABLES I. AND II. [XII.1-145]

  The Greeks assemble their troops at Aulis, to proceed against the
  city of Troy, and revenge the rape of Helen; but the fleet is
  detained in port by contrary winds. Calchas, the priest, after a
  prediction concerning the success of the expedition, declares that
  the weather will never be favourable till Agamemnon shall have
  sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia. She is immediately led to the
  altar for that purpose; but Diana, appeased by this act of
  obedience, carries away the maiden, and substitutes a hind in her
  place, on which a fair wind arises. Upon the Greeks landing at Troy,
  a battle is fought, in which Protesilaüs is killed by Hector, and
  Achilles kills Cygnus, a Trojan, on which his father Neptune
  transforms him into a swan.

His father Priam mourned him, not knowing that Æsacus, having assumed
wings, was {still} living; Hector, too, with his brothers, made
unavailing offerings[1] at a tomb, that bore his name {on it}. The
presence of Paris was wanting, at this mournful office: who, soon after,
brought into his country a lengthened war, together with a ravished
wife;[2] and a thousand ships[3] uniting together, followed him, and,
together {with them}, the whole body[4] of the Pelasgian nation. Nor
would vengeance have been delayed, had not the raging winds made the
seas impassable, and the Bœotian land detained in fishy Aulis the ships
ready to depart. Here, when they had prepared a sacrifice to Jupiter,
after the manner of their country, as the ancient altar was heated with
kindled fires, the Greeks beheld an azure-coloured serpent creep into a
plane tree, which was standing near the sacrifice they had begun. There
was on the top of the tree a nest of twice four birds, which the serpent
seized[5] together, and the dam as she fluttered around {the scene of}
her loss, and he buried them in his greedy maw. All stood amazed. But
{Calchas}, the son of Thestor, a soothsayer, foreseeing the truth, says,
“Rejoice, Pelasgians, we shall conquer. Troy will fall, but the
continuance of our toil will be long;” and he allots the nine birds to
the years of the war. {The serpent}, just as he is, coiling around the
green branches in the tree, becomes a stone, and, under the form of a
serpent, retains that stone {form}.

Nereus continued boisterous in the Ionian waves, and did not impel the
sails onwards; and there are some who think that Neptune favoured Troy,
because he made the walls of the city. But not {so} the son of Thestor.
For neither was he ignorant, nor did he conceal, that the wrath of the
virgin Goddess must be appeased by the blood of a virgin. After the
public good had prevailed over affection, and the king over the father,
and Iphigenia, ready to offer her chaste blood, stood before the altar,
while the priests were weeping; the Goddess was appeased, and cast a
mist before their eyes, and, amid the service and the hurry of the
rites, and the voices of the suppliants, is said to have changed
Iphigenia, the Mycenian maiden, for a substituted hind. Wherefore, when
the Goddess was appeased by a death which was {more} fitting, and at the
same moment the wrath of Phœbe, and of the sea was past, the thousand
ships received the winds astern, and having suffered much, they gained
the Phrygian shore.

There is a spot in the middle of the world, between the land and the
sea, and the regions of heaven, the confines of the threefold universe,
whence is beheld whatever anywhere exists, although it may be in far
{distant} regions, and every sound pierces the hollow ears. {Of this
place} Fame is possessed, and chooses for herself a habitation on the
top[6] of a tower, and has added innumerable avenues, and a thousand
openings to her house, and has closed the entrances with no gates. Night
and day are they open. It is all of sounding brass; it is all
resounding, and it reechoes the voice, and repeats what it hears. Within
there is no rest, and silence in no part. Nor yet is there a clamour,
but the murmur of a low voice, such as is wont to arise from the waves
of the sea, if one listens at a distance, or like the sound which the
end of the thundering {makes} when Jupiter has clashed the black clouds
together. A crowd occupies the hall; the fickle vulgar come and go; and
a thousand rumours, false mixed with true, wander up and down, and
circulate confused words. Of these, some fill the empty ears with
conversation; some are carrying elsewhere what is told them; the measure
of the fiction is ever on the increase, and each fresh narrator adds
something to what he has heard. There, is Credulity, there, rash
Mistake, and empty Joy, and alarmed Fears, and sudden Sedition, and
Whispers of doubtful origin. She sees what things are done in heaven and
on the sea, and on the earth; and she pries into the whole universe.

She has made it known that Grecian ships are on their way, with valiant
troops: nor does the enemy appear in arms unlooked for. The Trojans
oppose their landing, and defend the shore, and thou, Protesilaüs,[7]
art, by the decrees of fate, the first to fall by the spear of
Hector;[8] and the battles {now} commenced, and the courageous spirits
of {the Trojans}, and Hector, {till then} unknown, cost the Greeks dear.
Nor do the Phrygians experience at small expense of blood what the
Grecian right hand can do. And now the Sigæan shores are red {with
blood}: now Cygnus, the son of Neptune, has slain a thousand men. Now is
Achilles pressing on in his chariot, and levelling the Trojan ranks,
with the blow of his Peleian spear; and seeking through the lines either
Cygnus or Hector, he engages with Cygnus: Hector is reserved for the
tenth year. Then animating the horses, having their white necks pressed
with the yoke, he directed his chariot against the enemy, and
brandishing his quivering spear with his arm, he said, “O youth, whoever
thou art, take this consolation in thy death, that thou art slain by the
Hæmonian Achilles.”

Thus far the grandson of Æacus. His heavy lance followed his words. But,
although there was no missing in the unerring lance, yet it availed
nothing, by the sharpness of its point, {thus} discharged; and as it
only bruised his breast with a blunt stroke, {the other} said, “Thou son
of a Goddess, (for by report have we known of thee beforehand) why art
thou surprised that wounds are warded off from me? (for {Achilles} was
surprised); not this helmet that thou seest tawny with the horse’s mane,
nor the hollowed shield, the burden of my left arm, are assistant to me;
from them ornament {alone} is sought; for this cause, too, Mars is wont
to take up arms. All the assistance of defensive armour shall be
removed, {and} yet I shall come off unhurt. It is something to be born,
not of a Nereid,[9] but {of one} who rules both Nereus and his daughter,
and the whole ocean.”

{Thus} he spoke; and he hurled against the descendant of Æacus his dart,
destined to stick in the rim of his shield; it broke through both the
brass and the next nine folds of bull’s hide; but stopping in the tenth
circle {of the hide}, the hero wrenched it out, and again hurled the
quivering weapon with a strong hand; again his body was without a wound,
and unharmed, nor was a third spear able {even} to graze Cygnus,
unprotected, and exposing himself. Achilles raged no otherwise than as a
bull,[10] in the open Circus,[11] when with his dreadful horns he butts
against the purple-coloured garments, used as the means of provoking
him, and perceives that his wounds are evaded. Still, he examines
whether the point has chanced to fall from off the spear. It is {still}
adhering to the shaft. “My hand then is weak,” says he, “and it has
spent {all} the strength it had before, upon one man. For decidedly it
was strong enough, both when at first I overthrew the walls of
Lyrnessus, or when I filled both Tenedos and Eëtionian[12] Thebes with
their own blood. Or when Caÿcus[13] flowed empurpled with the slaughter
of its people: and Telephus[14] was twice sensible of the virtue of my
spear. Here, too, where so many have been slain, heaps of whom I both
have made along this shore, and I {now} behold, my right hand has proved
mighty, and is mighty.”

{Thus} he spoke; and as if he distrusted what he had done before, he
hurled his spear against Menœtes, one of the Lycian multitude,[15] who
{was} standing opposite, and he tore asunder both his coat of mail, and
his breast beneath it. He beating the solid earth with his dying head,
he drew the same weapon from out of the reeking wound, and said, “This
is the hand, this the lance, with which I conquered but now. The same
will I use against him; in his {case}, I pray that the event may prove
the same.” Thus he said, and he hurled it at Cygnus, nor did the ashen
lance miss him; and, not escaped {by him}, it resounded on his left
shoulder: thence it was repelled, as though by a wall, or a solid rock.
Yet Achilles saw Cygnus marked with blood, where he had been struck, and
he rejoiced, {but in} vain. There was no wound; that was the blood of
Menœtes.

Then indeed, raging, he leaps headlong from his lofty chariot, and hand
to hand, with his gleaming sword striking at his fearless foe, he
perceives that the shield and the helmet are pierced with his sword, and
that his weapon, too, is blunted upon his hard body. He endures it no
longer; and drawing back his shield, he three or four times strikes the
face of the hero, and his hollow temples, with the hilt of the sword;
and following, he presses onward as the other gives ground, and
confounds him, and drives him on, and gives him no respite in his
confusion. Horror seizes on him, and darkness swims before his eyes; and
as he moves backwards his retreating steps, a stone in the middle of the
field stands in his way. Impelled over this, with his breast upwards,
Achilles throws Cygnus with great violence, and dashes him[16] to the
earth. Then, pressing down his breast with his shield and his hard
knees, he draws tight the straps of his helmet; which, fastened beneath
his pressed chin, squeeze close his throat, and take away his
respiration and the passage of his breath.

He is preparing to strip his vanquished {foe}; he sees {nothing but} his
armour, left behind. The God of the Ocean changed his body into a white
bird, of which he {so} lately bore the name.

    〔note 1 — Unavailing offerings.--Ver. 3. ‘Inferias inanes’ is a poetical expression, signifying the offering sacrifices of honey, milk, wine, blood, flowers, frankincense, and other things, at a tomb, which was empty or honorary. The Greeks called these kind of sacrifices by the name of χοαὶ.〕

    〔note 2 — A ravished wife.--Ver. 5. This was Helen, the wife of Menelaüs, whose abduction by Paris was the cause of the Trojan war.〕

    〔note 3 — A thousand ships.--Ver. 7. That is, a thousand in round numbers. For Homer makes them, 1186; Dictys Cretensis, 1225; and Dares, 1140.〕

    〔note 4 — The whole body.--Ver. 7. The adjective ‘commune’ is here used substantively, and signifies ‘the whole body.’〕

    〔note 5 — Serpent seized.--Ver. 16-17. Clarke translates this line, ‘Which the snake whipt up, as also the dam flying about her loss, and buried them in his greedy paunch.’〕

    〔note 6 — On the top.--Ver. 43. ‘Summaque domum sibi legit in arce,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘And chooses there a house for herself, on the very tip-top of it.’〕

    〔note 7 — Protesilaüs.--Ver. 68. He was the husband of Laodamia, the daughter of Acastus. His father was Iphiclus, who was noted for his extreme swiftness.〕

    〔note 8 — Spear of Hector.--Ver. 67. Some writers say that he fell by the hand of Æneas.〕

    〔note 9 — Of a Nereid.--Ver. 93. Cygnus says this sarcastically, in allusion to Achilles being born of Thetis, a daughter of Nereus.〕

    〔note 10 — As a bull.--Ver. 103-4. Clarke translates these lines in this comical strain: ‘Achilles was as mad as a bull in the open Circus, when he pushes at the red coat, stuffed, used on purpose to provoke him.’〕

    〔note 11 — The open Circus.--Ver. 104. We learn from Seneca, that it was the custom in the ‘venationes’ of the Circus to irritate the bull against his antagonist, by thrusting in his path figures stuffed with straw or hay, and covered with red cloth. Similar means are used to provoke the bull in the Spanish bull-fights of the present day.〕

    〔note 12 — Eëtionian.--Ver. 110. Eëtion, the father of Andromache, the wife of Hector, was the king of Thebes in Cilicia, which place was ravaged by the Greeks for having sent assistance to the Trojans.〕

    〔note 13 — Caÿcus.--Ver. 111. The Caÿcus was a river of Mysia, in Asia Minor, which country had incurred the resentment of the Greeks, for having assisted the Trojans.〕

    〔note 14 — Telephus.--Ver. 112. Telephus, the son of Hercules and the Nymph Auge, was wounded in combat by Achilles. By the direction of the oracle, he applied to Achilles for his cure, which was effected by means of the rust of the weapon with which the wound was made.〕

    〔note 15 — Lycian multitude.--Ver. 116. The Lycians, whose territory was in Asia Minor, between Caria and Pamphylia, were allies of the Trojans.〕

    〔note 16 — And dashes him.--Ver. 139. Clarke renders this line, ‘He overset him, and thwacked him against the ground.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  It is not improbable that the prediction of Calchas, at Aulis, that
  the war against Troy would endure nine years, had no other
  foundation than his desire to check an enterprise which must be
  attended with much bloodshed, and difficulties of the most
  formidable nature. It is not unlikely, too, that this interpretation
  of the story of the serpent devouring the birds may have been
  planned by some of the Grecian generals, who did not dare openly to
  refuse their assistance to Agamemnon. The story of Iphigenia was,
  perhaps, founded on a similar policy. The ancient poets and
  historians are by no means agreed as to the fate of Iphigenia, as
  some say that she really was sacrificed, while others state that she
  was transformed into a she-bear, others into an old woman, and
  Nicander affirms that she was changed into a heifer.

  There is no story more celebrated among the ancients than that of
  the intended immolation of Iphigenia. Euripides wrote two tragedies
  on the subject. Homer, however, makes no allusion to the story of
  Iphigenia; but he mentions Iphianassa, the daughter of Agamemnon,
  who was sent for, to be a hostage on his reconciliation with
  Achilles; she is probably the same person that is meant by the later
  poets, under the name of Iphigenia.

  It has been suggested by some modern commentators, that the story of
  Iphigenia was founded on the sacrifice of his own daughter, by
  Jeptha, the judge of Israel, which circumstance happened much about
  the same time. The story of the substitution of the hind for the
  damsel, when about to be slain, was possibly founded on the
  substituted offering for Isaac when about to be offered by his
  father; for it is not probable that the people of Greece were
  entirely ignorant of the existence of the books of Moses, and that
  wonderful narrative would be not unlikely to make an impression on
  minds ever ready to be attracted by the marvellous. Some writers
  have taken pains to show that Agamemnon did not sacrifice, or
  contemplate sacrificing, his own daughter, by asserting that the
  Iphigenia here mentioned was the daughter of Helen, who was educated
  by Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, and the sister of Helen.
  Pausanias also adopts this view, and gives for his authorities
  Euphorion of Chalcis, Alexander, Stesichorus, and the people of
  Argos, who preserved a tradition to the same effect.

  Lucretius, Virgil, and Diodorus Siculus are in the number of those
  who assert that Iphigenia actually was immolated. According to
  Dictys the Cretan, and several of the ancient scholiasts, Ulysses
  having left the Grecian camp without the knowledge of Agamemnon,
  went to Argos, and returned with Iphigenia, under the pretext that
  her father intended to marry her to Achilles. Some writers state
  that Achilles was in love with Iphigenia; and that he was greatly
  enraged at Ulysses for bringing her to the camp, and opposed her
  sacrifice to the utmost of his power.

  Ovid then proceeds to recount the adventures of the Greeks, after
  their arrival at Troy. An oracle had warned the Greeks, that he who
  should be the first to land on the Trojan shores, would inevitably
  be slain. Protesilaüs seeing that this prediction damped the courage
  of his companions, led the way, and sacrificed his life for the
  safety of his friends, being slain by Hector immediately on his
  landing. Cygnus, signalizing himself by his bravery, attracted the
  attention of Achilles, who singled him out as a worthy antagonist.
  It was said that this hero was the son of Neptune; perhaps because
  he was powerful by sea, and the prince of some island in the
  Archipelago. He was said to be invulnerable, most probably because
  his shield was arrow-proof. The story of his transformation into a
  swan, has evidently no other foundation than the resemblance between
  his name and that of that bird.

FABLES III. AND IV. [XII.146-535]

  A truce ensuing, the Grecian chiefs having assembled at a feast,
  express their surprise at the fact of Cygnus being invulnerable.
  Nestor, by way of showing a still more surprising instance, relates
  how the Nymph Cænis, the daughter of Elatus, having yielded to the
  caresses of Neptune, was transformed by him into a man, and made
  invulnerable. Cæneus being present at the wedding feast of
  Pirithoüs, the son of Ixion, where Eurytus was a guest, the latter,
  being elevated with wine, made an attempt upon Hippodamia, the
  bride; on which a quarrel arose between the Centaurs and the
  Lapithæ. After many on both sides had been slain, Cæneus still
  remained unhurt; on which, the Centaurs having heaped up trunks of
  trees upon him, he was pressed to death; Neptune then changed his
  body into a bird.

This toil[17] {and} this combat brought on a cessation for many days;
and both sides rested, laying aside their arms. And while a watchful
guard was keeping the Phrygian walls, and a watchful guard was keeping
the Argive trenches, a festive day had arrived, on which Achilles, the
conqueror of Cygnus, appeased Pallas with the blood of a heifer, adorned
with fillets. As soon as he had placed its entrails[18] upon the glowing
altars, and the smell, acceptable to the Deities, mounted up to the
skies, the sacred rites had their share, the other part was served up at
the table. The chiefs reclined on couches, and sated their bodies with
roasted flesh,[19] and banished both their cares and their thirst with
wine. No harps, no melody of voices,[20] no long pipe of boxwood pierced
with many a hole, delights them; but in discourse they pass the night,
and valour is the subject-matter of their conversation. They relate the
combats of the enemy and their own; and often do they delight to
recount, in turn, both the dangers that they have encountered and that
they have surmounted. For of what {else} should Achilles speak? or of
what, in preference, should they speak before the great Achilles? {But}
especially the recent victory over the conquered Cygnus was the subject
of discourse. It seemed wonderful to them all, that the body of the
youth was penetrable by no weapon, and was susceptible of no wounds, and
that it blunted the steel itself. This same thing, the grandson of
Æacus, this, the Greeks wondered at.

When thus Nestor says {to them}: “Cygnus has been the only despiser of
weapons in your time, and penetrable by no blows. But I myself formerly
saw the Perrhæbean[21] Cæneus bear a thousand blows with his body
unhurt; Cæneus the Perrhæbean, {I say}, who, famous for his
achievements, inhabited Othrys. And that this, too, might be the more
wondrous in him, he was born a woman.” They are surprised, whoever are
present, at the singular nature of this prodigy, and they beg him to
tell the story. Among them, Achilles says, “Pray tell us, (for we all
have the same desire to hear it,) O eloquent old man,[22] the wisdom of
our age; who was {this} Cæneus, {and} why changed to the opposite sex?
in what war, and in the engagements of what contest was he known to
thee? by whom was he conquered, if he was conquered by any one?”

Then the aged man {replied}: “Although tardy old age is a disadvantage
to me, and many things which I saw in my early years escape me {now},
yet I remember most {of them}; and there is nothing, amid so many
transactions of war and peace, that is more firmly fixed in my mind than
that circumstance. And if extended age could make any one a witness of
many deeds, I have lived two hundred[23] years, {and} now my third
century is being passed {by me}. Cænis, the daughter of Elatus, was
remarkable for her charms; the most beauteous virgin among the
Thessalian maids, and one sighed for in vain by the wishes of many
wooers through the neighbouring {cities}, and through thy cities,
Achilles, for she was thy countrywoman. Perhaps, too, Peleus would have
attempted that alliance; but at that time the marriage of thy mother had
either befallen him, or had been promised him. Cænis did not enter into
any nuptial ties; and as she was walking along the lonely shore, she
suffered violence from the God of the ocean. ’Twas thus that report
stated; and when Neptune had experienced the pleasures of this new
amour, he said, ‘Be thy wishes secure from all repulse; choose whatever
thou mayst desire.’ The same report has related this too; Cænis replied,
‘This mishap makes my desire extreme, that I may not be in a condition
to suffer any such thing {in future}. Grant that I be no {longer} a
woman, {and} thou wilt have granted me all.’ She spoke these last words
with a hoarser tone, and the voice might seem to be that of a man, as
{indeed} it was.

“For now the God of the deep ocean had consented to her wish; and had
granted moreover that he should not be able to be pierced by any wounds,
or to fall by {any} steel. Exulting in his privilege, the Atracian[24]
departed; and {now} spent his time in manly exercises, and roamed over
the Peneïan plains. {Pirithoüs}, the son of the bold Ixion, had married
Hippodame,[25] and had bidden the cloud-born monsters to sit down at the
tables ranged in order, in a cave shaded with trees. The Hæmonian nobles
were there; I, too, was there, and the festive palace resounded with the
confused rout. Lo! they sing the marriage song, and the halls smoke with
the fires;[26] the maiden, too, is there, remarkable for her beauty,
surrounded by a crowd of matrons and newly married women. We {all}
pronounce Pirithoüs fortunate in her for a wife; an omen which we had
well nigh falsified. For thy breast, Eurytus, most savage of the savage
Centaurs, is inflamed as much with wine as with seeing the maiden; and
drunkenness, redoubled by lust, holds sway {over thee}. On the sudden
the tables being overset, disturb the feast, and the bride is violently
dragged away by her seized hair. Eurytus snatches up Hippodame, {and}
the others such as each one fancies, or is able {to seize}; and there is
{all} the appearance of a captured city. The house rings with the cries
of women. Quickly we all rise; and first, Theseus says, ‘What madness,
Eurytus, is impelling thee, who, while I {still} live, dost provoke
Pirithoüs, and, in thy ignorance, in one dost injure two?’ And that the
valiant hero may not say these things in vain, he pushes them off as
they are pressing on, and takes her whom they have seized away from them
as they grow furious.

“He says nothing in answer, nor, indeed, can he defend such actions by
words; but he attacks the face of her protector with insolent hands, and
strikes his generous breast. By chance, there is near at hand an ancient
bowl, rough with projecting figures, which, huge as it is, the son of
Ægeus, himself huger {still}, takes up and hurls full in his face. He,
vomiting both from his wounds and his mouth clots of blood,[27] and
brains and wine together, lying on his back, kicks on the soaking sand.
{The} double-limbed[28] {Centaurs} are inflamed at the death of their
brother; and all vying, with one voice exclaim, ‘To arms! to arms!’ Wine
gives them courage, and, in the first onset, cups hurled are flying
about, and shattered casks[29] and hollow cauldrons; things before
adapted for a banquet, now for war and slaughter. First, the son of
Ophion, Amycus, did not hesitate to spoil the interior of the house of
its ornaments; and first, from the shrine he tore up a chandelier,[30]
thick set with blazing lamps; and lifting it on high, like him who
attempts to break the white neck of the bull with sacrificial axe, he
dashed it against the forehead of Celadon the Lapithean, and left his
skull mashed into his face, no {longer} to be recognized. His eyes
started out, and the bones of his face being dashed to pieces, his nose
was driven back, and was fixed in the middle of his palate. Him, Belates
the Pellæan, having torn away the foot of a maple table, laid flat on
the ground, with his chin sunk upon his breast, and vomiting forth his
teeth mixed with blood; and sent him, by a twofold wound, to the shades
of Tartarus.

“As Gryneus stood next, looking at the smoking altar with a grim look,
he said, ‘{And} why do we not make use of this?’ and {then} he raised an
immense altar, together with its fire; and hurled it into the midst of
the throng of the Lapithæ, and struck down two {of them}, Broteus and
Orius. The mother of Orius was Mycale, who was known by her incantations
to have often drawn down the horns of the struggling moon. {On this}
Exadius says, ‘Thou shalt not go unpunished, if only the opportunity of
getting a weapon is given me;’ and, as his weapon, he wields the antlers
of a votive stag,[31] which were upon a lofty pine-tree. With the double
branches of these, Gryneus is pierced through the eyes, and has those
eyes scooped out. A part of them adheres to the antlers, a part runs
down his beard, and hangs down clotted with gore. Lo! Rhœtus snatches up
an immense flaming brand, from the middle of the altar, and on the right
side breaks through the temples of Charaxus, covered with yellow hair.
His locks, seized by the violent flames, burn like dry corn, and the
blood seared in the wound emits a terrific noise in its hissing, such as
the iron glowing in the flames is often wont to emit, which, when the
smith has drawn it out with the crooked pincers, he plunges into the
trough; whereon it whizzes, and, sinking in the bubbling water, hisses.
Wounded, he shakes the devouring fire from his locks, and takes upon his
shoulders the threshold, torn up out of the ground, a {whole}
waggon-load, which its very weight hinders him from throwing full
against the foe. The stony mass, too, bears down Cometes, a friend, who
is standing at a short distance; nor does Rhœtus {then} restrain his
joy, {and} he says, ‘In such manner do I pray that the rest of the
throng of thy party may be brave;’ and {then} he increases the wound,
redoubled with the half-burnt stake, and three or four times he breaks
the sutures of his head with heavy blows, and its bones sink within the
oozing brains.

“Victorious, he passes on to Evagrus, and Corythus, and Dryas; of which
{number}, when Corythus, having his cheeks covered[32] with their first
down, has fallen, Evagrus says, ‘What glory has been acquired by thee,
in killing a boy?’ Rhœtus permits him to say no more, and fiercely
thrusts the glowing flames into the open mouth of the hero, as he is
speaking, and through the mouth into the breast. Thee, too, cruel Dryas,
he pursues, whirling the fire around his head, but the same issue does
not await thee as well. Thou piercest him with a stake burnt at the end,
while triumphing in the success of an uninterrupted slaughter, in the
spot where the neck is united to the shoulder. Rhœtus groans aloud, and
with difficulty wrenches the stake out of the hard bone, and, drenched
in his own blood, he flies. Orneus flies, too, and Lycabas, and Medon,
wounded in his right shoulder-blade, and Thaumas with Pisenor; Mermerus,
too, who lately excelled all in speed of foot, {but} now goes more
slowly from the wound he has received; Pholus, too, and Melaneus, and
Abas a hunter of boars, and Astylos the augur, who has in vain dissuaded
his own party from this warfare. He also says to Nessus,[33] as he
dreads the wounds, ‘Fly not! {for} thou shalt be reserved for the bow of
Hercules.’ But Eurynomus and Lycidas, and Areos, and Imbreus did not
escape death, all of whom the right hand of Dryas pierced right through.
Thou, too, Crenæus, didst receive a wound in front,[34] although thou
didst turn thy back in flight; for looking back, thou didst receive the
fatal steel between thy two eyes, where the nose is joined to the lower
part of the forehead. In the midst of so much noise, Aphidas was lying
fast asleep from the wine which he had drunk incessantly, and was not
aroused, and in his languid hand was grasping the mixed bowl, stretched
at full length upon the shaggy skin of a bear of Ossa. Soon as Phorbas
beheld him from afar, wielding no arms, he inserted his fingers in the
strap of his lance,[35] and said, ‘Drink thy wine mingled with {the
water of} Styx;’ and, delaying no longer, he hurled his javelin against
the youth, and the ash pointed with steel was driven into his neck, as,
by chance, he lay {there} on his back. His death happened without his
being sensible of it; and the blood flowed from his full throat, both
upon the couch and into the bowl itself.

“I saw Petræus endeavouring to tear up an acorn-bearing oak from the
earth; {and}, as he was grasping it in his embrace, and was shaking it
on this side and that, and was moving about the loosened tree, the lance
of Pirithoüs hurled at the ribs of Petræus, transfixed his struggling
breast together with the tough oak. They said, {too}, that Lycus fell by
the valour of Pirithoüs, {and} that Chromis fell {by the hand} of
Pirithoüs. But each of them {gave} less glory to the conqueror, than
Dictys and Helops gave. Helops was transfixed by the javelin, which
passed right through his temples, and, hurled from the right side,
penetrated to his left ear. Dictys, slipping from the steep point of a
rock, while, in his fear, he is flying from the pursuing son of Ixion,
falls down headlong, and, by the weight of his body, breaks a huge ash
tree, and spits his own entrails upon it, {thus} broken. Aphareus
advances {as} his avenger, and endeavours to hurl a stone torn away from
the mountain. As he is endeavouring {to do so}, the son of Ægeus attacks
him with an oaken club, and breaks the huge bones of his arm, and has
neither leisure, nor, {indeed}, does he care to put his useless body to
death; and he leaps upon the back of the tall Bianor, not used to
bear[36] any other than himself; and he fixes his knees in his ribs, and
holding his long hair, seized with his left hand, shatters his face, and
his threatening features, and his very hard temples, with the knotty
oak. With his oak, {too}, he levels Nedymnus, and Lycotas the darter,
and Hippasus having his breast covered with his flowing beard, and
Ripheus, who towered above the topmost woods, and Tereus, who used to
carry home the bears, caught in the Hæmonian mountains, alive and
raging.

“Demoleon could not any longer endure Theseus enjoying this success in
the combat, and he tried with vast efforts to tear up from the thick-set
wood an aged pine; because he could not effect this, he hurled it,
broken short, against his foe. But Theseus withdrew afar from the
approaching missile, through the warning of Pallas; so {at least} he
himself wished it to be thought. Yet the tree did not fall without
effect: for it struck off from the throat of the tall Crantor, both his
breast and his left shoulder. He, Achilles, had been the armour-bearer
of thy father: him Amyntor, king of the Dolopians,[37] when conquered in
war, had given to the son of Æacus, as a pledge and confirmation of
peace. When Peleus saw him at a distance, mangled with a foul wound, he
said, ‘Accept however, Crantor, most beloved of youths, this sacrifice;’
and, with a strong arm, and energy of intention, he hurled his ashen
lance against Demoleon, which broke through the enclosures of his ribs,
and quivered, sticking amid the bones. He draws out with his hand the
shaft without the point; even that follows, with much difficulty; the
point is retained within his lungs. The very pain gives vigour to his
resolution; {though} wounded, he rears against the enemy, and tramples
upon the hero with his horse’s feet. The other receives the re-echoing
strokes upon his helmet and his shield, and defends his shoulders, and
holds his arms extended before him, and through the shoulder-blades he
pierces two breasts[38] at one stroke. But first, from afar, he had
consigned to death Phlegræus, and Hyles; in closer combat, Hiphinoüs and
Clanis. To these is added Dorylas, who had his temples covered with a
wolf’s skin, and the real horns of oxen reddened with much blood, that
performed the duty of a cruel weapon.

“To him I said, for courage gave me strength, ‘Behold, how much thy
horns are inferior to my steel;’ and {then} I threw my javelin. When he
could not avoid this, he held up his right hand before his forehead,
about to receive the blow; {and} to his forehead his hand was pinned.
A shout arose; but Peleus struck him delaying, and overpowered by the
painful wound, (for he was standing next to him) with his sword beneath
the middle of his belly. He leaped forth, and fiercely dragged his own
bowels on the ground, and trod on them {thus} dragged, and burst them
{thus} trodden; and he entangled his legs, as well in them, and fell
down, with his belly emptied {of its inner parts}. Nor did thy beauty,
Cyllarus,[39] save thee while fighting, if only we allow beauty to that
{monstrous} nature {of thine}. His beard was beginning {to grow}; the
colour of his beard was that of gold; and golden-coloured hair was
hanging from his shoulders to the middle of his shoulder-blades. In his
face there was a pleasing briskness; his neck, and his shoulders, and
his hands, and his breast {were} resembling the applauded statues of the
artists, and {so} in those parts in which he was a man; nor was the
shape of the horse beneath that {shape}, faulty and inferior to {that
of} the man. Give him {but} the neck and the head {of a horse, and} he
would be worthy of Castor. So fit is his back to be sat upon, so stands
his breast erect with muscle; {he is} all over blacker than black pitch;
yet his tail is white; the colour, too, of his legs is white. Many a
female of his own kind longed for him; but Hylonome alone gained him,
than whom no female more handsome lived in the lofty woods, among the
half beasts. She alone attaches Cyllarus, both by her blandishments, and
by loving, and by confessing that she loves him. Her care, too, of her
person is as great as can be in those limbs: so that her hair is
smoothed with a comb; so that she now decks herself with rosemary, now
with violets or roses, {and} sometimes she wears white lilies; and twice
a day she washes her face with streams that fall from the height of the
Pagasæan wood; {and} twice she dips her body in the stream: and she
throws over her shoulder or her left side no skins but what are
becoming, and are those of choice beasts.

“Their love was equal: together they wandered upon the mountains;
together they entered the caves; and then, too, together had they
entered the Lapithæan house; together were they waging the fierce
warfare. The author {of the deed} is unknown: {but} a javelin came from
the left side, and pierced thee, Cyllarus, below {the spot} where the
breast is joined to the neck. The heart, being pierced with a small
wound, grew cold, together with the whole body, after the weapon was
drawn out. Immediately, Hylonome receives his dying limbs, and cherishes
the wound, by laying her hand on it, and places her mouth on his, and
strives to stop the fleeting life. When she sees him dead, having
uttered what the clamour hinders from reaching my ears, she falls upon
the weapon that has pierced him, and as she dies, embraces her husband.
He, too, {now} stands before my eyes, Phæocomes, {namely}, who had bound
six lions’ skins together with connecting knots; covered all over, both
horse and man. He, having discharged the trunk of a tree, which two
yokes of oxen joined together could hardly have moved, battered the son
of Phonolenus on the top of his head. The very broad round form of his
skull was broken; and through his mouth, and through his hollow
nostrils, and his eyes, and his ears, his softened brains poured down;
just as curdled milk is wont through the oaken twigs, or as {any} liquor
flows under the weight of a well-pierced sieve, and is squeezed out
thick through the numerous holes. But I, while he was preparing to strip
him of his arms as he lay, (this thy sire knows,) plunged my sword into
the lower part of his belly, as he was spoiling him. Chthonius, too, and
Teleboas, lay {pierced} by my sword. The former was bearing a two-forked
bough {as his weapon}, the latter a javelin; with his javelin he gave me
a wound. You see the marks; look! the old scar is still visible.

“Then ought I[40] to have been sent to the taking of Troy; then I might,
if not have overcome, {still} have stayed the arms of the mighty Hector.
But at that time Hector was not existing, or {but} a boy; {and} now my
age is failing. Why tell thee of Periphas, the conqueror of the
two-formed Pyretus? Why of Ampyx, who fixed his cornel-wood spear,
without a point, full in the face of the four-footed Oëclus? Macareus,
struck down the Pelethronian[41] Erigdupus,[42] by driving a crowbar
into his breast. I remember, too, that a hunting spear, hurled by the
hand of Nessus, was buried in the groin of Cymelus. And do not believe
that Mopsus,[43] the son of Ampycus, only foretold things to come;
a two-formed {monster} was slain by Mopsus, darting {at him}, and Odites
in vain attempted to speak, his tongue being nailed to his chin, and his
chin to his throat. Cæneus had put five to death, Stiphelus, and Bromus,
and Antimachus, and Helimus, and Pyracmos, wielding the axe. I do not
remember {their respective} wounds, {but} I marked their numbers, and
their names. Latreus, most huge both in his limbs and his body, sallied
forth, armed with the spoils of Emathian[44] Halesus, whom he had
consigned to death. His age was between that of a youth, and an old man;
his vigour that of a youth; grey hairs variegated his temples.
Conspicuous by his buckler, and his helmet, and his Macedonian pike;[45]
and turning his face towards both sides, he brandished his arms, and
rode in one same round, and vaunting, poured forth thus many words into
the yielding air:--

“‘And shall I put up with thee, too, Cænis? for to me thou shalt ever be
a woman, to me always Cænis. Does not thy natal origin lower thy
{spirit}? And does it not occur to thy mind for what {foul} deed thou
didst get thy reward, and at what price the false resemblance to a man?
Consider both what thou wast born, as well as what thou hast submitted
to: go, and take up a distaff together with thy baskets, and twist the
threads[46] with thy thumb; leave warfare to men.’ As he is vaunting in
such terms, Cæneus pierces his side, stretched in running, with a lance
hurled at him, just where the man is joined to the horse. He raves with
pain, and strikes at the exposed face of the Phylleian [47] youth with
his pike. It bounds back no otherwise than hail from the roof of a
house; or than if any one were to beat a hollow drum with a little
pebble. Hand to hand he encounters him, and strives to plunge his sword
into his tough side; {but} the parts are impervious to his sword. ‘Yet,’
says he, ‘thou shalt not escape me; with the middle of the sword shalt
thou be slain, since the point is blunt;’ and {then} he slants the sword
against his side, and grasps his stomach with his long right arm. The
blow produces an echo, as on a body of marble when struck; and the
shivered blade flies different ways, upon striking his neck.

“After Cæneus had enough exposed his unhurt limbs to him in his
amazement, ‘Come now,’ said he, ‘let us try thy body with my steel;’ and
up to the hilt he plunged his fatal sword into his shoulder-blade, and
extended his hand unseen into his entrails, and worked it about, and in
the wound made a {fresh} wound. Lo! the double-limbed {monsters,}
enraged, rush on in an impetuous manner, and all of them hurl and thrust
their weapons at him alone. Their weapons fall blunted. Unstabbed and
bloodless the Elateïan Cæneus remains from each blow. This strange thing
makes them astonished. ‘Oh great disgrace!’ cries Monychus; ‘a {whole}
people, we are overcome by one, and that hardly a man; although,
{indeed}, he is a man; and we by our dastardly actions, are what he
{once} was. What signify our huge limbs? What our twofold strength? What
that our twofold nature has united in us the stoutest animals in
existence? I neither believe that we are born of a Goddess for our
mother, nor of Ixion, who was so great a person, that he conceived hopes
of {even} the supreme Juno. By a half male foe are we baffled. Heap upon
him stones and beams, and entire mountains, and dash out his long-lived
breath, by throwing {whole} woods {upon him}. Let a {whole} wood press
on his jaws; and weight shall be in the place of wounds.’

“{Thus} he said; and by chance having got a tree, thrown down by the
power of the boisterous South wind, he threw it against the powerful
foe: and he was an example {to the rest}; and in a short time, Othrys,
thou wast bare of trees, and Pelion had no shades. Overwhelmed by this
huge heap, Cæneus swelters beneath the weight of the trees, and bears on
his brawny shoulders the piled-up oaks. But after the load has increased
upon his face and his head, and his breath has no air to draw; at one
moment he faints, at another he endeavours, in vain, to raise himself
into the {open} air, and to throw off the wood cast {upon him}: and
sometimes he moves it. Just as lo! we see, if lofty Ida is convulsed
with earthquakes. The event is doubtful. Some gave out that his body was
hurled to roomy Tartarus by the weight of the wood. The son of Ampycus
denied this, and saw go forth into the liquid air, from amid the pile,
a bird with tawny wings; which then was beheld by me for the first time,
then, {too}, for the last. When Mopsus saw it with gentle flight
surveying his camp, and making a noise around it with a vast clamour,
following him both with his eyes and his feelings, he said, ‘Hail! thou
glory of the Lapithæan race, once the greatest of men, but now the only
bird {of thy kind}, Cæneus.’ This thing was credited from its assertor.
Grief added resentment, and we bore it with disgust, that one was
overpowered by foes so many. Nor did we cease to exercise our weapons,
in {shedding their} blood, before a part of them was put to death, and
flight and the night dispersed the rest.”

    〔note 17 — This toil.--Ver. 146. Clarke translates ‘Hic labor,’ ‘This laborious bout.’〕

    〔note 18 — Its entrails.--Ver. 152. The ‘prosecta,’ or ‘prosiciæ,’ or ‘ablegamina,’ were portions of the animal which were the first cut off, for the purpose of becoming as a sacrifice to the Deities. The ‘prosecta,’ in general, consisted of a portion of the entrails.〕

    〔note 19 — Roasted flesh.--Ver. 155. We are informed by Servius, that boiled meat was not eaten in the heroic ages.〕

    〔note 20 — Melody of voices.--Ver. 157. Plutarch remarks, that that entertainment is the most pleasant where no musician is introduced; conversation, in his opinion, being preferable.〕

    〔note 21 — Perrhæbean.--Ver. 172. The Perrhæbeans were a people of Thessaly, who, having been conquered by the Lapithæ, betook themselves to the mountain fortresses of Pindus.〕

    〔note 22 — Eloquent old man.--Ver. 176-181. Clarke renders these lines, ‘Come, tell us, O eloquent old gentleman, the wisdom of our age, who was that Cæneus, and why he was turned into the other sex? in which war, or what engagement, he was known to you? by whom he was conquered, if he was conquered by any one?’ Upon that, the old blade replied.’〕

    〔note 23 — Two hundred.--Ver. 188. Ovid does not here follow the more probable version, that the age of Nestor was three generations of thirty years each.〕

    〔note 24 — The Atracian.--Ver. 209. ‘Atracides’ is an epithet, meaning ‘Thessalian,’ as Atrax, or Atracia, was a town of Thessaly, situated near the banks of the river Peneus.〕

    〔note 25 — Hippodame.--Ver. 210. She is called Ischomache by Propertius, and Deidamia by Plutarch.〕

    〔note 26 — With the fires.--Ver. 215. These fires would be those of the nuptial torches, and of the altars for sacrifice to Hymenæus and the other tutelary divinities of marriage.〕

    〔note 27 — Clots of blood.--Ver. 238. Clarke renders ‘Sanguinis globos,’ ‘goblets of blood.’〕

    〔note 28 — Double-limbed.--Ver. 240. Clarke translates, ‘Ardescunt bimembres,’ ‘The double-limbed fellows are in a flame.’〕

    〔note 29 — Shattered cask.--Ver. 243. ‘Cadi’ were not only earthenware vessels, in which wine was kept, but also the vessels used for drawing water.〕

    〔note 30 — A chandelier.--Ver. 247. ‘Funale’ ordinarily means, ‘a link,’ or ‘torch,’ made of fibrous substances twisted together, and smeared with pitch or wax. In this instance the word seems to mean a chandelier with several branches.〕

    〔note 31 — A votive stag.--Ver. 267. It appears that the horns of a stag were frequently offered as a votive gift to the Deities, especially to Diana, the patroness of the chase. Thus in the seventh Eclogue of Virgil, Mycon vows to present to Diana, ‘Vivacis cornua cervi,’ ‘The horns of a long-lived stag.’〕

    〔note 32 — Cheeks covered.--Ver. 291. ‘Prima tectus lanugine malas,’ is not very elegantly rendered by Clarke, ‘Having his chaps covered with down, then first putting out.’〕

    〔note 33 — Nessus.--Ver. 309. We have already seen how Nessus the Centaur met his death from the arrow of Hercules, when about to offer violence to Deïanira.〕

    〔note 34 — A wound in front.--Ver. 312. It has been suggested that, perhaps Ovid here had in his mind the story of one Pomponius, of whom Quintilian relates, that, having received a wound in his face, he was showing it to Cæsar, on which he was advised by the latter never to look behind him when he was running away.〕

    〔note 35 — Strap of his lance.--Ver. 321. The ‘amentum’ was the thong, or strap of leather, with which the lance, or javelin, was fastened, in order to draw it back when thrown.〕

    〔note 36 — Not used to bear.--Ver. 346. He alludes to the twofold nature, or ‘horse-part’ of the Centaur, as Clarke calls it.〕

    〔note 37 — The Dolopians.--Ver. 364. They were a people of Phthiotis and Thessaly.〕

    〔note 38 — Pierces two breasts.--Ver. 377. He says this by poetical license, in allusion to the two-fold form of the Centaurs.〕

    〔note 39 — Cyllarus.--Ver. 393. This was also the name of the horse which Castor tamed, to which Ovid alludes in the 401st line.〕

    〔note 40 — Then ought I.--Ver. 445. Nestor here shows a little of the propensity for boasting, which distinguishes him in the Iliad.〕

    〔note 41 — Pelethronian.--Ver. 452. Pelethronia was a region of Thessaly, which contained a town and a mountain of that name.〕

    〔note 42 — Erigdupus.--Ver. 453. The signification of this name is ‘The noise of strife.’〕

    〔note 43 — Mopsus.--Ver. 456. He was a prophet, and one of the Lapithæ. There are two other persons mentioned in ancient history of the same name.〕

    〔note 44 — Emathian.--Ver. 462. Properly, Emathia was a name of Macedonia; but it is here applied to Thessaly, which adjoined to that country.〕

    〔note 45 — Macedonian pike.--Ver. 466. The ‘sarissa’ is supposed to have been a kind of pike with which the soldiers of the Macedonia phalanx were armed. Its ordinary length was twenty-one feet; but those used by the phalanx were twenty-four feet long.〕

    〔note 46 — Twist the threads.--Ver. 475. The woof was called ‘subtegmen,’ ‘subtemen,’ or ‘trama,’ while the warp was called ‘stamen,’ from ‘stare,’ ‘to stand,’ on account of its erect position in the loom.〕

    〔note 47 — Phylleian.--Ver. 479. Phyllus was a city of Phthiotis, in Thessaly.〕

EXPLANATION.

  We learn from Diodorus Siculus, and other ancient authors, that the
  people of Thessaly, and those especially who lived near Mount
  Pelion, were the first who trained horses for riding, and used them
  as a substitute for chariots. Pliny the Elder says that they
  excelled all the other people of Greece in horsemanship, and that
  they carried it to such perfection, that the name of ἱππεὺς,
  ‘a horseman,’ and that of ‘Thessalian,’ became synonymous. Again,
  the Thessalians, from their dexterity in killing the wild bulls that
  infested the neighbouring mountains, sometimes with darts or spears,
  and at other times in close engagement, acquired the name of
  Hippocentaurs, that is, ‘horsemen that hunted bulls,’ or simply
  κένταυροι, ‘Centaurs.’

  It is not improbable that, because the Thessalians began to practise
  riding in the reign of Ixion, the poets made the Centaurs his sons;
  and they were said to have a cloud for their mother, which Jupiter
  put in the place of Juno, to baulk the attempt of Ixion on her
  virtue, because, according to Palæphatus, many of them lived in a
  city called Nephele, which, in Greek, signifies a cloud. As another
  method of accounting for their alleged descent from a cloud, it has
  been suggested that the Centaurs were a rapacious race of men, who
  ravaged the neighbouring country: that those who wrote the first
  accounts of them, in the ancient dialect of Greece, gave them the
  name of Nephelim, (the epithet of the giants of Scripture,) many
  Phœnician words having been imported in the early language of that
  country; and that in later times, finding them called by this name,
  the Greek word Nephelè, signifying ‘a cloud,’ persons readily
  adopted the fable that they were born of one.

  The Centaurs being the descendants of Centaurus, the son of Ixion,
  and Pirithoüs being also the son of Ixion, by Dia, the former,
  declared war against Pirithoüs, asserting, that, as the descendants
  of Ixion, they had a right to share in the succession to his
  dominions. This quarrel, however, was made up, and they continued on
  friendly terms, until the attempt of Eurytus, or Eurytion, on
  Hippodamia, the bride of Pirithoüs, which was followed by the
  consequences here described by Ovid. The Centaurs are twice
  mentioned in the Iliad as φῆρες, or ‘wild beasts,’ and once under
  the name of ‘Centaurs.’ Pindar is the first writer that mentions
  them as being of a twofold form, partly man, and partly horse. In
  the twenty-first Book of the Odyssey, line 295, Eurytion is said to
  have had his ears and nose cut off by way of punishment, and that,
  from that period, ‘discord arose between the Centaurs and men.’

  Buttman, (Mythologus, ii. p. 22, as quoted by Mr. Keightley), says
  that the names of Centaurs and Lapithæ are two purely poetic names,
  used to designate two opposite races of men,--the former, the rude
  horse-riding tribes, which tradition records to have been spread
  over the north of Greece: the latter, the more civilized race, which
  founded towns, and gradually drove their wild neighbours back into
  the mountains. He thinks that the explanation of the word
  ‘Centaurs,’ as ‘Air-piercers,’ (from κεντεῖν τὴν αὔραν) not an
  improbable one, for the idea is suggested by the figure of a Cossack
  leaning forward with his protruded lance as he gallops along. But he
  regards the idea of κένταυρος, having been in its origin simply
  κέντωρ, as much more probable, [it meaning simply ‘the spurrer-on.’]
  Lapithæ may, he thinks, have signified ‘Stone persuaders,’ from λᾶας
  πείθειν, a poetic appellation for the builders of towns. He supposes
  Hippodamia to have been a Centauress, married to the prince of the
  Lapithæ, and thus accounts for the Centaurs having been at the
  wedding. Mr. Keightley, in his ‘Mythology of Ancient Greece and
  Italy,’ remarks that ‘it is certainly not a little strange that a
  rude mountain race like the Centaurs should be viewed as horsemen;
  and the legend which ascribes the perfecting of the art of
  horsemanship to the Lapithæ, is unquestionably the more probable
  one. The name Centaur, which so much resembles the Greek verb
  κεντέω, ‘to spur,’ we fancy gave origin to the fiction. This
  derivation of it is, however, rather dubious.’

  After the battle here described, the Centaurs retreated to the
  mountains of Arcadia. The Lapithæ pursuing them, drove them to the
  Promontory of Malea in Laconia, where, according to Apollodorus,
  Neptune took them into his protection. Servius and Antimachus, as
  quoted by Comes Natalis, say that some of them fled to the Isle of
  the Sirens (or rather to that side of Italy which those Nymphs had
  made their abode); and that there they were destroyed by the
  voluptuous and debauched lives they led.

  The fable of Cæneus, which Ovid has introduced, is perhaps simply
  founded on the prodigious strength and the goodness of the armour of
  a person of that name. The story of Halyonome killing herself on the
  body of Cyllarus, may possibly have been handed down by tradition.
  It is not unlikely that, if the Centaurs were horsemen, their women
  were not unacquainted with horsemanship; indeed, representations of
  female Centaurs are given, on ancient monuments, as drawing the
  chariot of Bacchus.

FABLES V. AND VI. [XII.536-628]

  Periclymenus, the brother of Nestor, who has received from Neptune
  the power of transforming himself, is changed into an eagle, in a
  combat with Hercules; and in his flight is shot by him with an
  arrow. Neptune prays Apollo to avenge the death of Cygnus: because
  the Destinies will not permit him to do so himself. Apollo enters
  the Trojan camp in disguise, and directs the arrow which Paris aims
  at Achilles; who is mortally wounded in the heel, the only
  vulnerable part of his body.

As the Pylian related this fight between the Lapithæ and the Centaurs,
{but} half human, Tlepolemus[48] could not endure his sorrow for Alcides
being passed by with silent lips, and said, “It is strange, old man,
that thou shouldst have a forgetfulness of the exploits of Hercules;
at least, my father himself used often to relate to me, that these
cloud-begotten {monsters} were conquered by him.” The Pylian, sad at
this, said, “Why dost thou force me to call to mind my misfortunes, and
to rip up my sorrows, concealed beneath years, and to confess my hatred
of, and disgust at, thy father? He, indeed, ye Gods! performed things
beyond all belief, and filled the world with his services; which I could
rather wish could be denied; but we are in the habit of praising neither
Deiphobus nor Polydamas,[49] nor Hector himself: for who would commend
an enemy? That father of thine once overthrew the walls of Messene, and
demolished guiltless cities, Elis and Pylos, and carried the sword and
flames into my abode. And, that I may say nothing of others whom he
slew, we were twice six sons of Neleus, goodly youths; the twice six
fell by the might of Hercules, myself alone excepted. And that the
others were vanquished might have been endured; {but} the death of
Periclymenus is wonderful; to whom Neptune, the founder of the Neleian
family, had granted to be able to assume whatever shapes he might
choose, and again, when assumed, to lay them aside. He, after he had in
vain been turned into all other shapes, was turned into the form of the
bird that is wont to carry the lightnings in his crooked talons, the
most acceptable to the king of the Gods. Using the strength of {that}
bird, his wings, and his crooked bill, together with his hooked talons,
he tore the face of the hero. The Tirynthian hero aims at him his bow,
too unerring, and hits him, as he moves his limbs aloft amid the clouds,
and hovering {in the air}, just where the wing is joined to the side.

“Nor is the wound a great one, but his sinews, cut by the wound, fail
him, and deny him motion and strength for flying. He fell down to the
earth, his weakened pinions not catching the air; and where the smooth
arrow had stuck in his wing, it was pressed {still further} by the
weight of his pierced body, and it was driven, through the upper side,
into the left part of the neck. Do I seem to be owing encomiums to the
exploits of thy {father} Hercules, most graceful leader of the Rhodian
fleet?[50] Yet I will no further avenge my brothers, than by being
silent on his brave deeds: with thyself I have a firm friendship.” After
the son[51] of Neleus had said these things with his honied tongue, the
gifts of Bacchus being resumed after the discourse of the aged man, they
arose from their couches: the rest of the night was given to sleep.

But the God who commands the waters of the sea with his trident,
laments, with the affection of a father, the body of his son, changed
into the bird of the son of Sthenelus; and abhorring the ruthless
Achilles, pursues his resentful wrath in more than an ordinary manner.
And now, the war having been protracted for almost twice five years,
with such words as these he addresses the unshorn Smintheus:[52]
“O thou, most acceptable to me, by far, of the sons of my brother, who,
together with me, didst build the walls of Troy in vain; and dost thou
not grieve when thou lookest upon these towers so soon to fall? or dost
thou not lament that so many thousands are slain in defending these
walls? and (not to recount them all) does not the ghost of Hector,
dragged around his Pergamus, recur to thee? Though still the fierce
Achilles, more blood-stained than war itself, lives on, the destroyer of
our toil, let him but put himself in my power, I will make him feel what
I can do with my triple spear. But since it is not allowed us to
encounter the enemy in close fight, destroy him, when off his guard,
with a secret shaft.”

He nodded his assent; and the Delian {God}, indulging together both his
own resentment and that of his uncle, veiled in a cloud, comes to the
Trojan army, and in the midst of the slaughter of the men, he sees
Paris, at intervals, scattering his darts among the ignoble Greeks; and,
discovering himself to be a Divinity, he says, “Why dost thou waste thy
arrows upon the blood of the vulgar? If thou hast any concern for thy
friends, turn upon the grandson of Æacus, and avenge thy slaughtered
brothers.” {Thus} he said; and pointing at the son of Peleus, mowing
down the bodies of the Trojans with the sword, he turned his bow towards
him, and directed his unerring arrow with a fatal right hand. This was
{the only thing} at which, after {the death of} Hector, the aged Priam
could rejoice. And art thou then, Achilles, the conqueror of men so
great, conquered by the cowardly ravisher of a Grecian wife? But if it
had been fated for thee to fall by the hand of a woman, thou wouldst
rather have fallen by the Thermodontean[53] battle-axe.

Now that dread of the Phrygians, the glory and defence of the Pelasgian
name, the grandson of Æacus, a head invincible in war, had been burnt:
the same Divinity had armed him,[54] and had burned him. He is now {but}
ashes; and there remains of Achilles, so renowned, I know not what; that
which will not well fill a little urn. But his glory lives, which can
fill the whole world: this allowance is befitting that hero, and in this
the son of Peleus is equal to himself, and knows not the empty Tartarus.
Even his very shield gives occasion for war, that you may know to whom
it belongs; and arms are wielded for arms. The son of Tydeus does not
dare to claim them, nor Ajax, the son of Oïleus,[55] nor the younger son
of Atreus, nor he who is his superior both in war and age, nor {any}
others; the hope of so much glory exists only in him begotten by Telamon
and {the son} of Laërtes. The descendant of Tantalus[56] removes from
himself the burden and the odium {of a decision}, and orders the Argive
leaders to sit in the midst of the camp, and transfers the judgment of
the dispute to them all.

    〔note 48 — Tlepolemus.--Ver. 537. He was a son of Hercules, by Astioche.〕

    〔note 49 — Polydamas.--Ver. 547. He was a noble Trojan, of great bravery, who had married a daughter of Priam.〕

    〔note 50 — Rhodian fleet.--Ver. 575. Tlepolemus, when a youth, slew his uncle, Lycimnius, the son of Mars. Flying from his country with some followers, he retired to the Island of Rhodes, where he gained the sovereignty. He went to the Trojan war with nine ships, to aid the Greeks, where he fell by the hand of Sarpedon.〕

    〔note 51 — After the son.--Ver. 578-9. ‘A sermone senis repetito munere Bacchi Surrexere toris.’ These words are thus quaintly rendered in Clarke’s translation: ‘From listening to the old gentleman’s discourse, they return again to their bottle; and taking the other glass, they departed.’〕

    〔note 52 — Smintheus.--Ver. 585. Apollo was so called, in many of the cities of Asia, and was worshipped under this name, in the Isle of Tenedos. He is said by Eustathius, to have been so called from Smynthus, a town near Troy. But, according to other accounts, he received the epithet from the Cretan word σμίνθος, a mouse; being supposed to protect man against the depredations of that kind of vermin.〕

    〔note 53 — Thermodontean.--Ver. 611. He alludes to Penthesilea, the Queen of the Amazons, who, aiding the Trojans against the Greeks, was slain by Achilles. The battle-axe was the usual weapon of the Amazons〕

    〔note 54 — Had armed him.--Ver. 614. Vulcan, the God of Fire, made his armour at the request of his mother, Thetis; and now his body was burned by fire.〕

    〔note 55 — Son of Oïleus.--Ver. 622. This was Ajax, the King of the Locrians.〕

    〔note 56 — Descendant of Tantalus.--Ver. 626. Agamemnon was the son of Atreus, grandson of Pelops, and great-grandson of Tantalus. He wisely refused to take upon himself alone the onus of deciding the contention between Ajax and Ulysses.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Periclymenus was the son of Neleus and Chloris, as we are told by
  Homer, Apollodorus, and other authors. According to these authors,
  Neleus, king of Orchomenus, was the son of Neptune, who assumed the
  form of the river Enipeus, the more easily to deceive Tyro, the
  daughter of Salmoneus. Neleus married Chloris, the daughter of
  Amphion, king of Thebes, who bore him eleven sons and one daughter,
  of which number, Homer names but three. Periclymenus, the youngest
  of the family, was a warlike prince, and, according to Apollodorus,
  accompanied Jason in the expedition of the Argonauts. Hercules,
  after having instituted the Olympic games, marched into Messenia,
  and declared war with Neleus. The ancient writers differ as to the
  cause of this expedition; but they agree in stating, that Hercules
  made himself master of Pylos, a town which Neleus had built, as a
  refuge from the capricious humours of his brother Pelias; and that
  Neleus and all his children were killed, except Nestor, who had been
  brought up among the Geranians, and who afterwards reigned in Pylos.
  The story which here relates how Periclymenus transformed himself
  into an eagle, and was then killed by Hercules, may possibly mean,
  that having long resisted the attacks of his formidable enemy, he
  was at length put to flight, and slain by an arrow. It is said that
  Neptune had given him the power to metamorphose himself into
  different figures, very probably because his grandfather, who was a
  maritime prince, had taught him the art of war and various
  stratagems, which he industriously made use of, to avert the ruin of
  his family.

  In relation to the story of the death of Achilles, Dictys the Cretan
  tells us, that Achilles having seen Polyxena, the daughter of Priam,
  along with Cassandra, as she was sacrificing to Apollo, fell in love
  with her, and demanded her in marriage and that Hector would not
  consent to it, except on condition of his betraying the Greeks. This
  demand, so injurious to his honour, provoked Achilles so much, that
  he forthwith slew Hector, and dragged his body round the walls of
  the city. He further says that when Priam went to demand the body of
  Hector, he took Polyxena with him, in order to soften Achilles. His
  design succeeded, and Priam then agreed to give her to him in
  marriage. On the day appointed for the solemnity in the temple of
  Apollo, Paris, concealing himself behind the altar, while Deiphobus
  pretended to embrace Achilles, wounded him in the heel, and killed
  him on the spot, either because the arrow was poisoned, or because
  he was wounded on the great tendon, which has since been called
  ‘tendon Achillis,’ a spot where a wound might very easily be mortal.

  This story of the death of Achilles does not seem to have been known
  to Homer; for he appears, in the twenty-fourth book of the Odyssey,
  to insinuate that that hero died in battle, fighting for the Grecian
  cause.

  After his death Achilles was honoured as a Demigod, and Strabo says
  that he had a temple near the promontory of Sigæum. Pausanias and
  Pliny the Elder make mention of an island in the Euxine Sea, where
  the memory of Achilles was expressly honoured, from which
  circumstances it had the name of Achillea.

FABLE I. [XIII.1-438]

  After the death of Achilles, Ajax and Ulysses contend for his
  armour; the Greek chiefs having adjudged it to the last, Ajax kills
  himself in despair, and his blood is changed into a flower. When
  Ulysses has brought Philoctetes, who is possessed of the arrows of
  Hercules, to the siege, and the destinies of Troy are thereby
  accomplished, the city is taken and sacked, and Hecuba becomes the
  slave of Ulysses.

The chiefs were seated; and a ring of the common people standing
{around}, Ajax, the lord of the seven-fold shield, arose before them.
And as he was impatient in his wrath, with stern features he looked back
upon the Sigæan shores, and the fleet upon the shore, and, stretching
out his hands, he said, “We are pleading,[1] O Jupiter, our cause before
the ships, and Ulysses vies with me! But he did not hesitate to yield to
the flames of Hector, which I withstood, {and} which I drove from this
fleet. It is safer, therefore, for him to contend with artful words than
with his {right} hand. But neither does my talent lie in speaking, nor
his[2] in acting; and as great ability as I have in fierce warfare, so
much has he in talking. Nor do I think, O Pelasgians, that my deeds need
be related to you; for you have been eye-witnesses of them. Let Ulysses
recount his, which he has performed without any witness, {and} of which
night alone[3] is conscious. I own that the prize that is sought is
great; but the rival of Ajax lessens its value. It is no proud thing,
great though it may be, to possess any thing which Ulysses has hoped
for. Already has he obtained the reward of this contest, in which, when
he shall have been worsted, he will be said to have contended with me.
And I, if my prowess were to be questioned, should prevail by the
nobleness of my birth, being the son of Telamon, who took the city[4] of
Troy under the valiant Hercules, and entered the Colchian shores in the
Pagasæan ship. Æacus was his father, who there gives laws to the silent
{shades}, where the heavy stone urges {downward} Sisyphus,[5] the son of
Æolus.

“The supreme Jupiter owns Æacus, and confesses that he is his offspring.
Thus Ajax is the third[6] from Jupiter. And yet, O Greeks, let not this
line of descent avail me in this cause, if it be not common to me with
the great Achilles. He was my cousin;[7] I ask for what belonged to my
cousin? Why does one descended from the blood of Sisyphus, and very like
him in thefts and fraud, intrude the name of a strange family among the
descendants of Æacus? Are the arms to be denied me, because I took up
arms before {him}, and through the means of no informer?[8] and shall
one seem preferable who was the last to take them up, and who, by
feigning madness, declined war, until the son of Nauplius,[9] more
cunning than he, but more unhappy for himself, discovered the
contrivance[10] of his cowardly mind, and dragged him forth to the arms
which he had avoided. Now let him take the best arms who would have
taken none. Let me be dishonoured, and stripped of the gifts that
belonged to my cousin, who presented myself in the front of danger. And
I could wish that that madness had been either real or believed {so to
be}, and that he had never attended us as a companion to the Phrygian
towers, this counsellor of evil! Then, son of Pœas,[11] Lemnos would not
have had thee exposed {there} through our guilt; who now, as they say,
concealed in sylvan caves, art moving the {very} rocks with thy groans,
and art wishing for the son of Laërtes what he has deserved; which, may
the Gods, the Gods, {I say}, grant thee not to pray in vain.

“And now, he that was sworn upon the same arms with ourselves, one of
our leaders, alas! by whom, as his successor, the arrows of Hercules are
used, broken by disease and famine, is being clothed[12] and fed by
birds; and in shooting fowls, he is employing the shafts destined for
the destruction of Troy. Still, he lives, because he did not accompany
Ulysses. And the unhappy Palamedes would have preferred that he had been
left behind; {then} he would have been living, or, at least, he would
have had a death without any criminality. Him, {Ulysses} remembering too
well the unlucky discovery of his madness, pretended to be betraying the
Grecian interests, and proved his feigned charge, and shewed {the
Greeks} the gold, which he had previously hidden in the ground. By exile
then, or by death,[13] has he withdrawn from the Greeks their {best}
strength. Thus Ulysses fights, thus is he to be dreaded. Though he were
to excel even the faithful Nestor in eloquence, yet he would never cause
me to believe that the forsaking of Nestor[14] was not a crime; who,
when he implored {the aid of} Ulysses, retarded by the wound of his
steed, and wearied with the years of old age, was deserted by his
companion. The son of Tydeus knows full well that these charges are not
invented by me, who calling on him often by name, rebuked him, and
upbraided[15] his trembling friend with his flight. The Gods above
behold the affairs of men with just eyes. Lo! he wants help, himself,
who gave it not; and as he left {another}, so was he doomed to be left:
{such} law had he made for himself.

“He called aloud to his companions. I came, and I saw him trembling, and
pale with fear, and shuddering at the impending death. I opposed the
mass of my shield {to the enemy}, and covered him[16] as he lay; and I
preserved (and that is the least part of my praise) his dastardly life.
If thou dost persist in vying, let us return to that place; restore the
enemy, and thy wound, and thy wonted fear; and hide behind my shield,
and under that contend with me. But, after I delivered him, he to whom
his wounds {before} gave no strength for standing, fled, retarded by no
wound {whatever}. Hector approaches, and brings the Gods along with him
to battle, and where he rushes on, not only art thou alarmed, Ulysses,
but even the valiant {are}; so great terror does he bring. Him, as he
exulted in the successes of his bloodstained slaughter, in close
conflict, I laid flat with a huge stone. Him demanding one with whom he
might engage, did I alone withstand; and you, Greeks, prayed {it might
fall} to my lot;[17] and your prayers prevailed. If you inquire into the
issue of this fight, I was not beaten by him.

“Lo! the Trojans bring fire and sword, and Jove, {as well}, against the
Grecian fleet. Where is now the eloquent Ulysses? I, forsooth, protected
a thousand ships, the hopes of your return, with my breast. Grant me the
arms, in return for so many ships. But, if I may be allowed to speak the
truth, a greater honour is sought for them than is for me, and our glory
is united; and Ajax is sought for the arms, and not the arms by Ajax.
Let the Ithacan {Ulysses} compare with these things Rhesus,[18] and the
unwarlike Dolon,[19] and Helenus,[20] the son of Priam, made captive
with the ravished Pallas. By daylight nothing was done; nothing when
Diomedes was afar. If once you give these arms for services so mean,
divide them, and that of Diomedes would be the greater share of them.
But, why these for the Ithacan? who, by stealth and unarmed, ever does
his work, and deceives the unwary enemy by stratagem? The very
brilliancy of his helmet, as it sparkles with bright gold, will betray
his plans, and discover him as he lies hid. But neither will the
Dulichian[21] head, beneath the helm of Achilles, sustain a weight so
great; and the spear[22] from Pelion must be heavy and burdensome for
unwarlike arms. Nor will the shield, embossed with the form of the great
globe, beseem a dastard left hand, and one formed for theft. Why {then},
caitiff, dost thou ask for a gift that will {but} weaken thee? should
the mistake of the Grecian people bestow it on thee, there would be a
cause for thee to be stripped, not for thee to be dreaded by the enemy.
Thy flight, too, (in which, alone, most dastardly {wretch}! thou dost
excel all {others},) will be retarded, when dragging a load so great.
Besides, that shield of thine, which has so rarely experienced the
conflict, is unhurt; for mine, which is gaping in a thousand wounds from
bearing the darts, a new successor must be obtained. In fine, what need
is there for words? Let us be tried in action. Let the arms of that
brave hero be thrown in the midst of the enemy: order them to be fetched
thence, and adorn him that brings them back, with them so brought off.”

The son of Telamon had {now} ended, and a murmur among the multitude
ensued upon his closing words, until the Laërtian hero stood up, and
fixing his eyes, for a short time, on the ground, raised them towards
the chiefs, and opened his mouth in the accents that were looked for;
nor was gracefulness wanting to his eloquent words.

“If my prayers had been of any avail together with yours, Pelasgians,
the successor to a prize so great would not {now} be in question, and
thou wouldst now be enjoying thine arms, and we thee, O Achilles. But
since the unjust Fates have denied him to me and to yourselves, (and
here he wiped his eyes with his hands as though shedding tears,) who
could better succeed the great Achilles than he through whom[23] the
great Achilles joined the Greeks? Only let it not avail him that he
seems to be as stupid as he {really} is; and let not my talents, which
ever served you, O Greeks, be a prejudice to me: and let this eloquence
of mine, if there is any, which now pleads for its possessor, and has
often {done so} for yourselves, stand clear of envy, and let each man
not disown his own advantages. For {as to} descent and ancestors, and
the things which we have not made ourselves, I scarce call these our
own. But, indeed, since Ajax boasts that he is the great grandson of
Jove, Jupiter, too, is the founder of my family, and by just as many
degrees am I distant from him. For Laërtes is my father, Arcesius his,
Jupiter his; nor was any one of these {ever} condemned[24] and banished.
Through the mother,[25] too, Cyllenian {Mercury}, another noble stock,
is added to myself. On the side of either parent there was a God. But
neither because I am more nobly born on my mother’s side, nor because my
father is innocent of his brother’s blood, do I claim the arms {now} in
question. By {personal} merit weigh the cause. So that it be no merit in
Ajax that Telamon and Peleus were brothers; and {so that} not
consanguinity, but the honour of merit, be regarded in {the disposal of}
these spoils. Or if nearness of relationship and the next heir is
sought, Peleus is his sire, and Pyrrhus is his son. What room, {then},
is there for Ajax? Let them be taken to Phthia[26] or to Scyros. Nor is
Teucer[27] any less a cousin of Achilles than he; and yet does he sue
for, does he expect to bear away the arms?

“Since then the contest is simply one of deeds; I, in truth, have done
more than what it is easy for me to comprise in words. Yet I shall
proceed in the order of events. {Thetis}, the Nereid mother, prescient
of coming death, conceals her son by his dress. The disguise of the
assumed dress deceived all, among whom was Ajax. Amid woman’s trinkets I
mixed arms such as would affect the mind of a man. And not yet had the
hero thrown aside the dress of a maiden, when, as he was brandishing a
shield and a spear, I said, ‘O son of a Goddess, Pergamus reserves
itself to fall through thee. Why, {then}, dost thou delay to overthrow
the mighty Troy?’ And {then} I laid my hands on him, and to brave deeds
I sent forth the brave. His deeds then are my own. ’Twas I that subdued
Telephus, as he fought with his lance; ’twas I that recovered him,
vanquished, and begging {for his life}. That Thebes has fallen, is my
doing. Believe me, that I took Lesbos, that I {took} Tenedos, Chrysa[28]
and Cylla, cities of Apollo, and Scyros {too}. Consider too, that the
Lyrnessian[29] walls were levelled with the ground, shaken by my right
hand. And, not to mention other things, ’twas I, in fact, that found one
who might slay the fierce Hector; through me the renowned Hector lies
prostrate. By those arms through which Achilles was found out, I demand
these arms. To him when living I gave them; after his death I ask them
back again.

“After the grief of one[30] had reached all the Greeks, and a thousand
ships had filled the Eubœan Aulis, the breezes long expected were either
not existing or adverse to the fleet; and the ruthless oracles commanded
Agamemnon to slay his innocent daughter for the cruel Diana. This the
father refuses, and is enraged against the Gods themselves, and, a king,
he is still a father. By my words I swayed the gentle disposition of the
parent to the public advantage. Now, indeed, I make this confession, and
let the son of Atreus forgive me as I confess it; before a partial judge
I upheld a difficult cause. Yet the good of the people and his brother,
and the supreme power of the sceptre granted to him, influence him to
balance praise against blood. I was sent, too, to the mother, who was
not to be persuaded, but to be deceived with craft; to whom, if the son
of Telamon had gone, until even now would our sails have been without
wind. A bold envoy, too, I was sent to the towers of Ilium, and the
senate-house of lofty Troy was seen and entered by me; and still was it
filled with their heroes. Undaunted, I pleaded the cause which all
Greece had entrusted to me; and I accused Paris, and I demanded back the
plunder, and Helen {as well}; and I moved Priam and Antenor[31], related
to Priam. But Paris and his brothers, and those who, under him, had been
ravishers, scarce withheld their wicked hands; {and} this thou knowest,
Menelaüs, and that was the first day of my danger in company with thee.
It were a tedious matter to relate the things which, by my counsel and
my valour, I have successfully executed in the duration of this tedious
warfare.

“After the first encounter, the enemy for a long time kept themselves
within the walls of the city, and there was no opportunity for open
fight. At length, in the tenth year we fought. {And} what wast thou
doing in the mean time, thou, who knowest of nothing but battles? what
was the use of thee? But if thou inquirest into my actions: I lay
ambuscades for the enemy; I surround the trenches[32] with redoubts;
I cheer our allies that they may bear with patient minds the tediousness
of a protracted war; I show, {too}, how we are to be supported, and how
to be armed; I am sent[33] whither necessity requires. Lo! by the advice
of Jove, the king, deceived by a form in his sleep, commands him to
dismiss all care of the war {thus} begun. He is enabled, through the
author of it, to defend his own cause. Ajax should not have allowed
this, and should have demanded that Troy be razed. And he should have
fought, the {only} thing he could do. Why, does he not stop them when
about to depart? Why does he not take up arms, and {why not} suggest
some course for the fickle multitude to pursue? This was not too much
for him, who never says any thing but what is grand. Well, and didst
thou take to flight? I was witness of it, and ashamed I was to see, when
thou wast turning thy back, and wast preparing the sails of disgrace.
Without delay, I exclaimed, ‘What are you doing? What madness made you,
O my friends, quit Troy, {well nigh} taken? And what, in this tenth
year, are you carrying home but disgrace?’

“With these and other {words}, for which grief itself had made me
eloquent, I brought back the resisting {Greeks} from the flying fleet.
The son of Atreus calls together his allies, struck with terror; nor,
even yet, does the son of Telamon dare to utter a word; yet
Thersites[34] dares to launch out against the kings with impudent
remarks, although not unpunished by myself. I am aroused, and I incite
the trembling citizens against the foe, and by my voice I reclaim their
lost courage. From that time, whatever that man, whom I drew away as he
was turning his back, may seem to have done bravely, is {all} my own. In
fine, who of the Greeks is either praising thee, or resorts to thee; but
with me the son of Tydeus shares his exploits; he praises me, and is
ever confident while Ulysses is his companion. It is something, out of
so many thousands of the Greeks, to be singled out alone by Diomedes.
Nor was it lot that ordered me to go forth; and yet, despising the
dangers of the night and of the enemy, I slew Dolon, {one} of the
Phrygian race, who dared the same things that we {dared}; though not
before I had compelled him[35] to disclose everything, and had learned
what perfidious Troy designed. Everything had I {now} discovered, and I
had nothing {further} to find out, and I might now have returned, with
my praises going before me. Not content with that, I sought the tent of
Rhesus, and in his own camp slew himself and his attendants. And thus,
as a conqueror, and having gained my own desires, I returned in the
captured chariot, resembling a joyous triumph. Deny me the arms of him
whose horses the enemy had demanded as the price for {one} night’s
service; and let Ajax be {esteemed} your greater benefactor.

“Why should I make reference to the troops of Lycian Sarpedon,[36] mowed
down by my sword? With much bloodshed I slew Cœranos, the son of
Iphitus, and Alastor, and Chromius, and Alcander, and Halius, and
Noëmon, and Prytanis, and I put to death Thoön, with Chersidamas, and
Charops, and Ennomos, impelled by his relentless fate; five of less
renown fell by my hand beneath the city walls. I, too, fellow-citizens,
have wounds, honourable in their place.[37] Believe not {his} crafty
words; here! behold them.” And {then}, with his hand, he pulls aside his
garment, and, “this is the breast,” says he, “that has been ever
employed in your service.”

“But the son of Telamon has spent none of his blood on his friends for
so many years, and he has a body without a {single} wound.[38] But what
signifies that, if he says that he bore arms for the Pelasgian fleet
against both the Trojans and Jupiter himself? I confess it, he did bear
them; nor is it any part of mine with malice to detract from the good
deeds {of others;} but let him not alone lay claim to what belongs to
all, and let him give to yourselves, as well, some of the honour. The
descendant of Actor, safe under the appearance of Achilles, repelled the
Trojans, with their defender, from the ships on the point of being
burnt. He, too, unmindful of the king, and of the chiefs, and of myself,
fancies that he alone dared to engage[39] with Hector in combat, being
the ninth in that duty, and preferred by favour of the lot. But yet,
most brave {chief}, what was the issue of thy combat? Hector came off,
injured by no wound. Ah, wretched me! with how much grief am I compelled
to recollect that time at which Achilles, the bulwark of the Greeks, was
slain: nor tears, nor grief, nor fear, hindered me from carrying his
body aloft from the ground; on these shoulders, I say, on these
shoulders I bore the body of Achilles, and his arms together {with him},
which now, too, I am endeavouring to bear off. I have strength to
suffice for such a weight, {and}, assuredly, I have a soul that will be
sensible of your honours.

“Was then, forsooth! his azure mother {so} anxious in her son’s behalf
that the heavenly gifts, a work of so great ingenuity, a rough soldier,
and one without any genius, should put on? For he will not understand
the engravings on the shield; the ocean, and the earth, and the stars
with the lofty heavens and the Pleïades, and the Hyades, and the Bear
that avoids the sea, and the different cities, and the blazing sword of
Orion; arms he insists on receiving, which he does not understand. What!
and does he charge that I, avoiding the duties of this laborious war,
came but late to the toil begun? and does he not perceive that {in this}
he is defaming the brave Achilles? If he calls dissembling a crime, we
have both of us dissembled. If delay {stands} for a fault, I was earlier
than he. A fond wife detained me, a fond mother Achilles. The first part
of our time was given to them, the rest to yourselves. I am not alarmed,
if now I am unable to defend myself against this accusation, in common
with so great a man. Yet he was found out by the dexterity of Ulysses,
but not Ulysses {by that} of Ajax.

“And that we may not be surprised at his pouring out on me the
reproaches of his silly tongue, against you, too, does he make
objections worthy of shame. Is it base for me, with a false crime to
have charged Palamedes, {and} honourable for you to have condemned him?
But neither could {Palamedes}, the son of Nauplius, defend a crime so
great, and so manifest; nor did you {only} hear the charges against him,
{but} you witnessed them, and in the bribe {itself} the charge was
established. Nor have I deserved to be accused, because Lemnos, {the
isle} of Vulcan, {still} receives {Philoctetes}, the son of Pœas.
{Greeks}, defend your own acts! for you consented to it. Nor yet shall I
deny that I advised him to withdraw himself from the toils of the
warfare and the voyage, and to try by rest to assuage his cruel pains.
He consented, and {still} he lives. This advice was not only well-meant,
but {it was} fortunate as well, when ’twas enough to be well-meant.
Since our prophets demand him for the purpose of destroying Troy,
entrust not that to me. The son of Telamon will be better to go, and by
his eloquence will soften the hero, maddened by diseases and anger, or
by some wile will skilfully bring him thence. Sooner will Simoïs flow
backward, and Ida stand without foliage, and Achaia promise aid to Troy,
than, my breast being inactive in your interest, the skill of stupid
Ajax shall avail the Greeks.

“Though thou be, relentless Philoctetes, enraged against thy friends and
the king, and myself, though thou curse and devote my head,
everlastingly, and though thou wish to have me in thy anguish thrown in
thy way perchance, and to shed my blood; and though if I meet thee,
so thou wilt have the opportunity of meeting me, still will I attempt
{thee, and} will endeavour to bring thee back with me. And, if Fortune
favours me, I will as surely be the possessor of thy arrows, as I was
the possessor of the Dardanian prophet[40] whom I took {prisoner; and
so} I revealed the answers of the Deities and the fates of Troy; {and}
as I carried off the hidden statue[41] of the Phrygian Minerva from the
midst of the enemy. And does Ajax, {then}, compare himself with me? The
Fates, in fact, would not allow Troy to be captured without that
{statue}. Where is the valiant Ajax? where are the boastful words of
that mighty man? Why art thou trembling here? Why dares Ulysses to go
through the guards, and to entrust himself to the night, and, through
fell swords, to enter not only the walls of Troy, but even its highest
towers, and to tear the Goddess from her shrine, and, {thus} torn,
to bear her off amid the enemy?

“Had I not done these things, in vain would the son of Telamon been
bearing the seven hides of the bulls on his left arm. On that night was
the victory over Troy gained by me; then did I conquer Pergamus, when I
rendered it capable of being conquered. Forbear by thy looks,[42] and
thy muttering, to show me the son of Tydeus; a part of the glory in
these things is his own. Neither wast thou alone, when for the allied
fleet thou didst grasp thy shield: a multitude was attending thee,
{while} but one fell to me: who, did he not know that a fighting man is
of less value than a wise one, and that the reward is not the due of the
invincible right hand, would himself, too, have been suing for these
{arms}; the more discreet Ajax would have been suing, and the fierce
Eurypilus,[43] and the son of the famous Andremon;[44] no less, {too}
would Idomeneus,[45] and Meriones[46] sprung from the same land, and the
brother of the greater son of Atreus have sought them. But these, brave
in action, (nor are they second to thee in war,) have {all} yielded to
my wisdom. Thy right hand is of value in war, {but} thy temper is one
that stands in need of my direction. Thou hast strength without
intelligence; I have a care for the future. Thou art able to fight; with
me, the son of Atreus chooses the {proper} time for fighting. Thou only
art of service with thy body; I with my mind: and as much as he who
guides the bark, is superior to the capacity of the rower, as much as
the general is greater than the soldier, so much do I excel thee; and in
my body there is an intellect that is superior to hands: in that {lies}
all my vigour.

“But you, ye chieftains, give the reward to your watchful {servant;} and
for the cares of so many years which I have passed in anxiety, grant
this honour as a compensation for my services. Our toil is now at its
close; I have removed the opposing Fates, and by rendering it capable of
being taken, {in effect} I have taken the lofty Pergamus. Now, by our
common hopes, and the walls of the Trojans doomed to fall, and by those
Gods whom lately I took from the enemy, by anything that remains,
through wisdom to be done; if, too, anything {remains} of bold
enterprize, and to be recovered from a dangerous spot; if you think that
anything is still wanting for the downfall of Troy; {then} remember me;
or if you give not me the arms, concede them to this;” and {then} he
discovers the fatal statue of Minerva.

The body of the chiefs is moved, and {then}, in fact appears what
eloquence can do; and the fluent man receives the arms of a brave one.
He, who so often has alone withstood both Hector, and the sword, and
flames, and Jove {himself}, cannot {now} withstand his wrath alone, and
grief conquers the man that is invincible. He seizes his sword, and he
says:-- “This, at least, is my own; or will Ulysses claim this, too, for
himself. This must I use against myself; and {the blade}, which has
often been wet with the blood of the Phrygians, will now be wet with the
slaughter of its owner: that no one but Ajax {himself}, may be enabled
to conquer Ajax.”

{Thus} he said; and he plunged the fatal sword into his breast, then for
the first time suffering a wound, where it lay exposed to the steel. Nor
were his hands able to draw out the weapon there fixed: the blood itself
forced it out. And the earth, made red by the blood, produced a purple
flower from the green turf, {the same} which had formerly been produced
from the Œbalian wound. Letters common to {that} youth and to the hero,
were inscribed in the middle of the leaves; the latter {belonging to}
the name,[47] the former to the lamentation.

The conqueror, Ulysses, set sail for the country of Hypsipyle,[48] and
of the illustrious Thoas, and the regions infamous for the slaughter
{there} of the husbands of old; that he might bring back the arrows, the
weapons of the Tirynthian {hero}. After he had carried them back to the
Greeks, their owner attending too, the concluding hand was put, at
length, to this protracted war. Troy and Priam fell together; the
wretched wife of Priam lost after every thing {else} her human form, and
alarmed a foreign air[49] with her barkings. Where the long Hellespont
is reduced into a narrow compass, Ilion was in flames; nor had the
flames yet ceased; and the altar of Jove had drank up the scanty blood
of the aged Priam. The priestess of Apollo[50] dragged by the hair,
extends her unavailing hands towards the heavens. The victorious Greeks
drag along the Dardanian matrons, embracing, while they may, the statues
of their country’s Gods, and clinging to the burning temples, an envied
spoil. Astyanax[51] is hurled from those towers from which he was often
wont, when shown by his mother, to behold his father, fighting for
himself, and defending the kingdom of his ancestors.

And now Boreas bids them depart, and with a favourable breeze, the
sails, as they wave, resound, {and} the sailors bid them take advantage
of the winds. “Troy, farewell!” the Trojan women cry;-- “We are torn
away!” and they give kisses to the soil, and leave the smoking roofs of
their country. The last that goes on board the fleet, a dreadful sight,
is Hecuba, found amid the sepulchres of her children. Dulichian hands
have dragged her away, while clinging to their tombs and giving kisses
to their bones; yet the ashes of one has she taken out, and, {so} taken
out, has carried with her in her bosom the ashes of Hector. On the tomb
of Hector she leaves the grey hair of her head, an humble offering, her
hair and her tears. There is opposite to Phrygia, where Troy stood,
a land inhabited by the men of Bistonia. There, was the rich palace of
Polymnestor, to whom thy father, Polydorus, entrusted thee, to be
brought up privately, and removed thee {afar} from the Phrygian arms.
A wise resolution; had he not added, {as well}, great riches, the reward
of crime, the incentive of an avaricious disposition. When the fortunes
of the Phrygians were ruined, the wicked king of the Phrygians took a
sword, and plunged it in the throat of his fosterchild; and, as though
the crime could be removed with the body, he hurled him lifeless from a
rock into the waters below.

    〔note 1 — We are pleading.--Ver. 5. The skill of the Poet is perceptible in the abrupt commencement of the speech of the impetuous Ajax.〕

    〔note 2 — Nor his.--Ver. 11. Ajax often uses the pronoun ‘iste’ as a term of reproach.〕

    〔note 3 — Night alone.--Ver. 15. By this he means that the alleged exploits of Ulysses were altogether fictitious; or that they were done in the dark to conceal his fear.〕

    〔note 4 — Took the city.--Ver. 23. Telamon, was the companion of Hercules when he sacked Troy, as a punishment for the perfidy of Laomedon.〕

    〔note 5 — Sisyphus.--Ver. 26. This is intended as a reproachful hint against Ulysses, whose mother, Anticlea, was said to have been seduced by Sisyphus before her marriage to Laërtes.〕

    〔note 6 — Ajax is the third.--Ver. 28. That is the third, exclusive of Jupiter; for Ajax was the grandson of Æacus, and the great grandson of Jupiter.〕

    〔note 7 — My cousin.--Ver. 31. ‘Frater’ here means, not ‘brother,’ but ‘cousin,’ as Peleus and Telamon, the fathers of Achilles and Ajax, were brothers.〕

    〔note 8 — No informer.--Ver. 34. He alludes to the means which Ulysses adopted to avoid going to the Trojan war. Pretending to be seized with madness, he ploughed the sea-shore, and sowed it with salt. To ascertain the truth, Palamedes placed his infant son, Telemachus, before the plough; on which Ulysses turned on one side, to avoid hurting the child, which was considered a proof that his madness was not real.〕

    〔note 9 — Son of Nauplius.--Ver. 39. Palamedes was the son of Nauplius, the king of Eubœa, and a son of Neptune.〕

    〔note 10 — The contrivance.--Ver. 38. Ulysses forged a letter from Priam, in which the king thanked Palamedes for his intended assistance to the Trojan cause, and begged to present him a sum of money. By bribing the servants of Palamedes, he caused a large quantity of gold to be buried in the ground, under his tent. He then caused the letter to be intercepted, and to be carried to Agamemnon. On the appearance of Palamedes to answer the charge, Ulysses appeared seemingly as his friend, and suggested, that if no gold should be found in his possession, he must be innocent. The gold, however, being found, Palamedes was stoned to death.〕

    〔note 11 — Son of Pœas.--Ver. 45. Philoctetes was the possessor of the arrows of Hercules, without the presence of which Troy could not be taken. Accompanying the Greeks to the Trojan war, he was wounded in the foot by one of the arrows; and the smell arising from the wound was so offensive, that, by the advice of Ulysses, he was left behind, in the island of Lemnos, one of the Cyclades.〕

    〔note 12 — Is being clothed.--Ver. 53. The Poet Attius, as quoted by Cicero, says that Philoctetes, while in Lemnos, made himself clothing out of the feathers of birds.〕

    〔note 13 — Or by death.--Ver. 61. Exile in the case of Philoctetes; death, in that of Palamedes.〕

    〔note 14 — Forsaking of Nestor.--Ver. 64. Nestor having been wounded by Paris, and being overtaken by Hector, was on the point of perishing, when Diomedes came to his rescue, Ulysses having taken to flight. See the Iliad, Book iii.〕

    〔note 15 — And upbraided.--Ver. 69. He alludes to the words in the Iliad, which Homer puts in the mouth of Diomedes.〕

    〔note 16 — And covered him.--Ver. 75. Ajax, at the request of Menelaüs, protected Ulysses with his shield, when he was wounded.〕

    〔note 17 — Fall to my lot.--Ver. 85. He alludes to the occasion when some of the bravest of the Greeks drew lots which should accept the challenge of Hector: the Greeks wishing, according to Homer, that the lot might fall to Ajax Telamon, Ajax Oïleus, or Agamemnon.〕

    〔note 18 — Rhesus.--Ver. 98. He was slain by Ulysses and Diomedes on the night on which he arrived, Iliad, Book x.〕

    〔note 19 — Dolon.--Ver. 98. Being sent out by Hector to spy, he was intercepted by Ulysses and Diomedes, and slain at Troy. Iliad, Book x.〕

    〔note 20 — Helenus.--Ver. 99. Being skilled in prophesy, after he was taken prisoner by Diomedes and Ulysses, his life was saved; and marrying Andromache, after the death of Pyrrhus, he succeeded to the throne of part of the kingdom of Chaonia.〕

    〔note 21 — Dulichian.--Ver. 107. Dulichium was an island of the Ionian Sea, near Ithaca, and part of the realms of Ulysses.〕

    〔note 22 — The spear.--Ver. 109. The spear of Achilles had been cut from the wood on Mount Pelion, and given by the Centaur Chiron to his father Peleus.〕

    〔note 23 — He through whom.--Ver. 134. Through whom Achilles had been discovered, concealed among the daughters of Lycomedes, king of Seyros.〕

    〔note 24 — Ever condemned.--Ver. 145. He alludes to the joint crime of Peleus the uncle, and Telamon, the father of Ajax, who were banished for the murder of their brother Phocus.〕

    〔note 25 — Through the mother.--Ver. 146. Anticlea, the mother of Ulysses, was the daughter of Autolycus, of whom Mercury was the father by Chione, the daughter of Dædalion.〕

    〔note 26 — Phthia.--Ver. 156. Phthia was the city of Thessaly, where Peleus, the father of Achilles, was residing; while Pyrrhus, his son, was living with his mother Deidamia, in the isle of Scyros, one of the Cyclades.〕

    〔note 27 — Teucer.--Ver. 157. Teucer was the cousin of Achilles, being the son of Telamon, and the half-brother of Ajax; Hesione being the mother of Teucer, while Ajax was the son of Eubœa.〕

    〔note 28 — Chrysa.--Ver. 174. Chrysa and Cylla were cities in the vicinity of Troy. This Scyros was, probably, not the island of that name, but some place near Troy.〕

    〔note 29 — Lyrnessian.--Ver. 176. This was a city of the Troad, on the taking of which by Achilles, Hippodamia, or Briseïs, the daughter of Bryses, was made captive by Achilles.〕

    〔note 30 — Grief of one.--Ver. 181. He alludes to the misfortune of Menelaüs in losing his wife, if, indeed, it could be deemed a misfortune.〕

    〔note 31 — Antenor.--Ver. 201. Antenor, who was related to Priam, always advocated peace with the Greeks; for which reason, according to Livy, the Greeks did not treat him as an enemy.〕

    〔note 32 — Surround the trenches.--Ver. 212. He probably alludes to the trenches thrown up before the ships of the Greeks, and defended by embankments, which were afterwards destroyed by Neptune.〕

    〔note 33 — I am sent.--Ver. 215. As on the occasion when he was sent to restore Chryseis to her father Chryses, the priest of Apollo, that the pestilence might be stayed, which had been sent by the offended God.〕

    〔note 34 — Thersites.--Ver. 233. He was the most deformed, cowardly, and impudent of the Greeks, who, always abusing his betters, was beaten by Ulysses, and was at last killed by Achilles with a blow of his fist.〕

    〔note 35 — Compelled him.--Ver. 245. When he was taken prisoner by them, Ulysses and Diomedes compelled Dolon to disclose what was going on in the Trojan camp, and learned from him the recent arrival of Rhesus, the son of either Mars or Strymon, and the king of Thrace.〕

    〔note 36 — Sarpedon.--Ver. 255. He was the son of Jupiter and Europa, and was king of Lycia. Aiding the Trojans, he was slain by Patroclus.〕

    〔note 37 — In their place.--Ver. 263. That is, inflicted on the breast, and not on the back.〕

    〔note 38 — A single wound.--Ver. 267. He alludes to his being invulnerable, from having been wrapped in the lion’s skin of Hercules.〕

    〔note 39 — Dared to engage.--Ver. 275. Hector and Ajax Telamon meeting in single combat, neither was the conqueror; but on parting they exchanged gifts, which were fatal to them both. Hector was dragged round the walls of Troy by the belt which he received from Ajax; while the latter committed suicide with the sword which was given to him by Hector.〕

    〔note 40 — Dardanian prophet.--Ver. 335. Helenus, the son of Priam.〕

    〔note 41 — The hidden statue.--Ver. 337. This was the Palladium, or statue of Minerva, which was destined to be the guardian of the safety of Troy, so long as it was in the possession of the Trojans.〕

    〔note 42 — By thy looks.--Ver. 350. We are to suppose, that here Ajax is nodding at, or pointing towards Diomedes, as having helped Ulysses on all the occasions which he names, he having been his constant companion in his exploits.〕

    〔note 43 — Eurypilus.--Ver. 357. He was the son of Evæmon, and came with forty ships to aid the Greeks. He was from Ormenius, a city of Thessaly.〕

    〔note 44 — Andremon.--Ver. 357. Thoas, the son of Andremon, was the leader of the Ætolians; he came with forty ships to the Trojan war.〕

    〔note 45 — Idomeneus.--Ver. 358. He was the son of Deucalion, king of Crete. After the siege of Troy, he settled at Salentinum, a promontory of Calabria, in Italy.〕

    〔note 46 — Meriones.--Ver. 359. He was the nephew and charioteer of Idomeneus.〕

    〔note 47 — To the name.--Ver. 398. See note to Book x., line 207.〕

    〔note 48 — Country of Hypsipyle.--Ver. 399. The island of Lemnos is here called the country of Hypsipyle, who saved the life of her father Thoas, when the other women of the island slew the males.〕

    〔note 49 — A foreign air.--Ver. 406. Namely, Thrace, which was far away from her native country.〕

    〔note 50 — Priestess of Apollo.--Ver. 410. Cassandra was the priestess of Apollo. Being ravished by Ajax Oïleus, she became the captive of Agamemnon, and was slain by Clytemnestra.〕

    〔note 51 — Astyanax.--Ver. 415. He was the only child of Hector and Andromache. Ulysses threw him from the top of a high tower, that none of the royal blood might survive.〕

EXPLANATION.

  It may with justice be said, that in the speeches of Ajax Telamon,
  and Ulysses, here given, the Poet has presented us with a
  masterpiece of genius; both in the lively colours in which he has
  described the two rivals, and the ingenious manner in which he has
  throughout sustained the contrast between their respective
  characters.

  The ancient writers are not agreed upon the question, who was the
  mother of Ajax Telamon; Dares says that it was Hesione; while
  Apollodorus, Plutarch, Tzetzes and others, allege that it was
  Peribœa, the daughter of Alcathoüs, the son of Pelops. Pindar and
  Apollodorus say, that Hercules, on going to visit his friend
  Telamon, prayed to Jupiter that Telamon might have a son, whose skin
  should be as impenetrable as that of the Nemæan lion, which he then
  wore. As he prayed, he espied an eagle; upon which, he informed his
  friend that a favourable event awaited his prayer, and desired him
  to call his son after the name of an eagle, which in the Greek is
  αἰετὸς. The Scholiast on Sophocles, Suidas and Tzetzes, say further,
  that when Hercules returned to see Telamon, after the birth of Ajax,
  he covered him with the lion’s skin, and that by this means Ajax
  became invulnerable except in that spot of his body, which was
  beneath the hole which the arrow of Hercules had made in the skin of
  the beast.

  Dictys, Suidas, and Cedrenus affirm, that the dispute of Ulysses and
  Ajax Telamon was about the Palladium, to which each of them laid
  claim. They add, that the Grecian nobles, having adjudged it to
  Ulysses, Ajax threatened to slay them, and was found dead in his
  tent the next morning; but it is more generally stated to the effect
  here related by Ovid, that he killed himself, because he could not
  obtain the armour of Achilles. Filled with grief and anger combined,
  he became distracted; and after falling on some flocks, which in his
  madness he took for enemies, he at last stabbed himself with the
  sword which he had received from Hector. This account has been
  followed by Euripides, in his tragedy on the subject of the death of
  Ajax; and Homer seems to allude to this story, when he makes Ulysses
  say, that on his descent to the Infernal Regions, the shades of all
  the Grecian heroes immediately met him, except that of Ajax, whose
  resentment at their former dispute about the armour of Achilles was
  still so warm, that he would not come near him. The Scholiast on
  Homer, and Eustathius, say that Agamemnon being much embarrassed how
  to behave in a dispute which might have proved fatal to the Grecian
  cause, ordered the Trojan prisoners to come before the council to
  give their opinion, as to which of them had done the most mischief;
  and that they answered in favour of Ulysses. The Scholiast on
  Aristophanes also adds, that Agamemnon, not satisfied with this
  enquiry, sent out spies to know what was the opinion of the Trojans
  on the relative merits of Ulysses and Ajax; and that upon their
  report, he decided in favour of Ulysses.

  According to Pliny and Pausanias, Ajax was buried near the
  promontory of Sigæum, where a tomb was erected for him; though other
  writers, on the authority of Dictys, place his tomb on the
  promontory of Rhœtæum. Horace speaks of him as being denied the
  honour of a funeral; but he evidently alludes to a passage in the
  tragedy of Sophocles, where the poet introduces Agamemnon as
  obstinately refusing to allow him burial, till he is softened by the
  entreaties of Teucer.

  It is probable that Homer knew nothing of the story here mentioned
  relative to the concealment of Achilles, disguised in female
  apparel, by Thetis, in the court of Lycomedes, her brother; for
  speaking of the manner in which Achilles engaged in the war, he says
  that Nestor and Ulysses went to visit Peleus and Menœtius, and
  easily prevailed with them that Achilles and Patroclus should
  accompany them to the war. It was, however, at the court of
  Lycomedes that Achilles fell in love with and married Deidamia, by
  whom he had Pyrrhus, or Neoptolemus, who was present at the taking
  of Troy, at a very early age.

  The story of Polydorus is related in the third Book of the Æneid,
  and is also told by Hyginus, with some variations. He says that
  Polydorus was sent by Priam to Polymnestor, king of Thrace, while he
  was yet in his cradle; and that Ilione, the daughter of Priam,
  distrusting the cruelty and avarice of Polymnestor, who was her
  husband, educated the child as her own son, and made their own son
  Deiphylus pass for Polydorus, the two infants being of the same age.
  He also says that the Greeks, after the taking of Troy, offered
  Electra to Polymnestor in marriage, on condition that he should
  divorce Ilione, and slay Polydorus, and that Polymnestor, having
  acceded to their proposal, unconsciously killed his own son
  Deiphylus. Polydorus going to consult the oracle concerning his
  future fortune, was told, that his father was dead, and his native
  city reduced to ashes; on which he imagined that the oracle had
  deceived him; but returning to Thrace, his sister informed him of
  the secret, on which he deprived Polymnestor of his sight.

FABLES III. AND IV. [XIII.439-622]

  In returning from Troy, the Greeks are stopped in Thrace by the
  shade of Achilles, who requests that Polyxena shall be sacrificed to
  his manes. While Hecuba is fetching water with which to bathe the
  body of her daughter, she espies the corpse of her son Polydorus.
  In her exasperations she repairs to the court of Polymnestor; and
  having torn out his eyes, is transformed into a bitch. Memnon, who
  has been slain by Achilles, is honoured with a magnificent funeral,
  and, at the prayer of Aurora, his ashes are transformed by Jupiter
  into birds, since called Memnonides.

On the Thracian shore the son of Atreus had moored his fleet, until the
sea was calm, {and} until the wind was more propitious. Here, on a
sudden, Achilles, as great as he was wont to be when alive, rises from
the ground, bursting far and wide, and, like to one threatening, revives
the countenance of that time when he fiercely attacked Agamemnon with
his lawless sword. “And are you departing, unmindful of me, ye Greeks?”
he says; “and is all grateful remembrance of my valour buried together
with me? Do not so. And that my sepulchre may not be without honour, let
Polyxena slain appease the ghost of Achilles.” {Thus} he said; and his
companions obeying the implacable shade, the noble and unfortunate maid,
and more than {an ordinary} woman, torn from the bosom of her mother,
which she now cherished almost alone, was led to the tomb, and became a
sacrifice at his ruthless pile.

She, mindful of herself, after she was brought to the cruel altar, and
had perceived that the savage rites were preparing for her; and when she
saw Neoptolemus standing {by}, and wielding his sword, and fixing his
eyes upon her countenance, said-- “Quickly make use of this noble blood:
{in me} there is no resistance: and do thou bury thy weapons either in
my throat or in my breast!” and, at the same time she laid bare her
throat and her breast; “should I, Polyxena, forsooth,[52] either endure
to be the slave of any person, or will any sacred Deity be appeased by
such a sacrifice. I only wish that my death could be concealed from my
mother. My mother is the impediment; and she lessens my joys at death.
Yet it is not my death, but her own life, that should be lamented by
her. Only, stand ye off, lest I should go to the Stygian shades not a
free woman: if {in this} I demand what is just; and withhold the hands
of males from the contact of a virgin. My blood will be the more
acceptable to him, whoever it is that you are preparing to appease by my
slaughter. Yet, if the last prayers of my lips move any of you,--’tis
the daughter of king Priam, {and} not a captive that entreats--return my
body unconsumed to my mother, and let her not purchase for me with gold,
but with tears, the sad privilege of a sepulchre. When {in former times}
she could, then used she to purchase with gold.”

{Thus} she said; but the people did not restrain those tears which she
restrained. Even the priest himself, weeping and reluctant, divided her
presented breast with the piercing steel. She, sinking to the earth on
her failing knees, maintained an undaunted countenance to the last
moment of her life. Even then was it her care, when she fell, to cover
the features that ought to be concealed, and to preserve the honour of
her chaste modesty. The Trojan matrons received her, and reckoned the
children of Priam whom they had had to deplore; and how much blood one
house had expended. And they lament thee, Oh virgin! and thee, Oh thou!
so lately called a royal wife {and} a royal mother, {once} the
resemblance of flourishing Asia, but now a worthless prey amid the
plunder {of Troy}; which the conquering Ulysses would have declined as
his, but that thou hadst brought Hector forth. {And} scarce did Hector
find an owner for his mother. She, embracing the body bereft of a soul
so brave, gave to that as well, those tears which so oft she had given
for her country, her children, and her husband; {and} her tears she
poured in his wounds. And she impressed kisses with her lips, and beat
her breast {now} accustomed to it; and trailing her grey hairs in the
clotted blood, many things indeed did she say, but these as well, as she
tore her breast:

“My daughter, the last affliction (for what now remains?) to thy mother:
my daughter, thou liest prostrate, and I behold thy wound {as} my own
wounds. Lo! lest I should have lost any one of my children without
bloodshed, thou, too, dost receive thy wound. Still, because {thou wast}
a woman, I supposed thee safe from the sword; and {yet}, a woman, thou
hast fallen by the sword. The same Achilles, the ruin of Troy, and the
bereaver of myself, the same has destroyed thus many of thy brothers,
{and} thyself. But, after he had fallen by the arrows of Paris and of
Phœbus, ‘Now, at least,’ I said, ‘Achilles is no {longer} to be
dreaded;’ and yet even now, was he to be dreaded by me. The very ashes
of him, as he lies buried, rage against this family; and {even} in the
tomb have we found him an enemy. For the descendant of Æacus have I been
{thus} prolific. Great Ilion lies prostrate, and the public calamity is
completed by a dreadful catastrophe; if indeed, it is completed.
Pergamus alone remains for me: and my sorrow is still in its career. So
lately the greatest woman in the world, powerful in so many sons-in-law,
and children[53], and daughters-in-law, and in my husband, now I am
dragged into exile, destitute, {and} torn away from the tombs of my
kindred, as a present to Penelope. She, pointing me out to the matrons
of Ithaca, as I tease my allotted task, will say, ‘This is that famous
mother of Hector; this is the wife of Priam.’ And, now thou, who after
the loss of so many {children}, alone didst alleviate the sorrows of thy
mother, hast made the atonement at the tomb of the enemy. Atoning
sacrifices for an enemy have I brought forth. For what purpose, lasting
like iron, am I reserved? and why do I linger {here}? To what end dost
thou, pernicious age, detain me? Why, ye cruel Deities, unless to the
end that I may see fresh deaths, do ye reprieve an aged woman of years
so prolonged? Who could have supposed, that after the fall of Troy,
Priam could have been pronounced happy? Blessed in his death, he has not
beheld thee, my daughter, {thus} cut off; and at the same moment, he
lost his life and his kingdom.

“But, I suppose, thou, a maiden of royal birth, wilt be honoured with
funeral rites, and thy body will be deposited in the tombs of thy
ancestors. This is not the fortune of thy house; tears and a handful of
foreign sand will be thy lot, the {only} gifts of a mother. We have lost
all; a child most dear to his mother, now alone remains as a reason for
me to endure to live yet for a short time, once the youngest of {all} my
male issue, Polydorus, entrusted on these coasts to the Ismarian king.
Why, in the mean time, am I delaying to bathe her cruel wounds with the
stream, her features, too, besmeared with dreadful blood?”

{Thus} she spoke; and with aged step she proceeded towards the shore,
tearing her grey locks. “Give me an urn, ye Trojan women,” the unhappy
{mother} had just said, in order that she might take up the flowing
waters, {when} she beheld[54] the body of Polydorus thrown up on the
shore, and the great wounds made by the Thracian weapons. The Trojan
women cried out aloud; with grief she was struck dumb; and very grief
consumed both her voice and the tears that arose within; and much
resembling a hard rock she became benumbed. And at one moment she fixed
her eyes on the ground before her; {and} sometimes she raised her
haggard features towards the skies; {and} now she viewed the features,
now the wounds of her son, as he lay; the wounds especially; and she
armed and prepared herself for vengeance by rage. Soon as she was
inflamed by it, as though she {still} remained a queen, she determined
to be revenged, and was wholly {employed} in {devising} a {fitting} form
of punishment. And as the lioness rages when bereft of her sucking
whelp, and having found the tracks of his feet, follows the enemy that
she sees not; so Hecuba, after she had mingled rage with mourning, not
forgetful of her spirit, {but} forgetful of her years, went to
Polymnestor, the contriver of this dreadful murder, and demanded an
interview; for that it was her wish to show him a concealed treasure
left for him to give to her son.

The Odrysian {king} believes her, and, inured to the love of gain, comes
to a secret spot. Then with soothing lips, he craftily says, “Away with
delays, Hecuba, {and} give the present to thy son; all that thou givest,
and what thou hast already given, I swear by the Gods above, shall be
his.” Sternly she eyes him as he speaks, and falsely swears; and she
boils with heaving rage; and so flies on him, seized by a throng of the
captive matrons, and thrusts her fingers into his perfidious eyes; and
of their sight she despoils his cheeks, and plunges her hands {into the
sockets}, (’tis rage that makes her strong); and, defiled with his
guilty blood, she tears not his eyes, for they are not left, {but} the
places for his eyes.

Provoked by the death of their king, the Thracian people begin to attack
the Trojan {matron} with the hurling of darts and of stones. But she
attacks the stones thrown at her with a hoarse noise, and with bites;
and attempting to speak, her mouth just ready for the words, she barks
aloud. The place {still} exists, and derives its name[55] from the
circumstance; and long remembering her ancient misfortunes, even then
did she howl dismally through the Sithonian plains. Her {sad} fortune
moved both her own Trojans, and her Pelasgian foes, and all the Gods as
well; so much so, that even the wife and sister of Jove herself denied
that Hecuba had deserved that fate.

Although she has favoured those same arms, there is not leisure for
Aurora to be moved by the calamities and the fall of Troy. A nearer care
and grief at home for her lost Memnon is afflicting her. Him his
rosy-coloured mother saw perish by the spear of Achilles on the Phrygian
plains. {This} she saw; and that colour with which the hours of the
morning grow ruddy, turned pale, and the æther lay hid in clouds. But
the parent could not endure to behold his limbs laid on the closing
flames. But with loose hair, just as she was, she disdained not to fall
down at the knees of great Jove, and to add these words to her tears:
“Inferior to all {the Goddesses} which the golden æther does sustain,
(for throughout all the world are my temples the fewest), still,
a Goddess, I am come; not that thou shouldst grant me temples and days
of sacrifice, and altars to be heated with fires. But if thou
considerest how much I, a female, perform for thee, at the time when,
with the early dawn, I keep the confines of the night, thou wouldst
think that some reward ought to be given to me. But that is not my care,
nor is such now the condition of Aurora such that she should demand the
honours deserved by her. Bereft of my Memnon am I come; {of him} who,
in vain, wielded valiant arms for his uncle, and who in his early years
(’twas thus ye willed it,) was slain by the brave Achilles. Give him,
I pray, supreme ruler of the Gods, some honour, as a solace for his
death, and ease the wounds of a mother.”

Jove nods his assent; when {suddenly} the lofty pile of Memnon sinks
with its towering fires, and volumes of black smoke darken the {light
of} day. Just as when the rivers exhale the rising fogs, and the sun is
not admitted below them. The black embers fly, and rolling into one
body, they thicken, and take a form, and assume heat and life from the
flames. Their own lightness gives them wings; and first, like birds,
{and} then real birds, they flutter with their wings. At once
innumerable sisters are fluttering, whose natal origin is the same. And
thrice do they go around the pile, and thrice does their clamour rise in
concert into the air. In the fourth flight they separate their company.
Then two fierce tribes wage war from opposite sides, and with their
beaks and crooked claws expend their rage, and weary their wings and
opposing breasts; and down their kindred bodies fall, a sacrifice to the
entombed ashes, and they remember that from a great man they have
received their birth. Their progenitor gives a name to these birds so
suddenly formed, called Memnonides after him; when the Sun has run
through the twelve signs {of the Zodiac}, they fight, doomed to perish
in battle, in honour of their parent.[56]

To others, therefore, it seemed a sad thing, that the daughter of Dymas
was {now} barking; {but} Aurora was intent on her own sorrows; and even
now she sheds the tears of affection, and sprinkles them in dew over all
the world.

    〔note 52 — Forsooth.--460. Clarke translates ‘scilicet,’ ‘I warrant ye.’〕

    〔note 53 — And children.--Ver. 509. Hyginus names fifty-four children of Priam, of whom seventeen were by Hecuba.〕

    〔note 54 — She beheld.--Ver. 536. Euripides represents, in his tragedy of Hecuba, that a female servant, sent by Hecuba to bring water from the sea shore for the purpose of washing the body of Polyxena, was the first to see the corpse of Polydorus.〕

    〔note 55 — Derives its name.--Ver. 569. Strabo places it near Sestos, in the Thracian Chersonesus, and calls it κυνὸς σῆμα, ‘The bitches’ tomb.’〕

    〔note 56 — Of their parent.--Ver. 619. He perhaps alludes to the fights of the Gladiators, on the occasion of the funerals of the Roman patricians. ‘Parentali perituræ Marte,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘to fall in the fight of parentation.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  The particulars which Ovid here gives of the misfortunes that befell
  the family of Priam, with the exception of a few circumstances,
  agree perfectly with the narratives of the ancient historians.

  According to Dictys, Philostratus, and Hyginus, after Achilles was
  slain by the treachery of Paris, on the eve of his marriage with
  Polyxena, she became inconsolable at his death, and returning to the
  Grecian camp, she was kindly received by Agamemnon; but being unable
  to get the better of her despair, she stole out of the camp at
  night, and stabbed herself at the tomb of Achilles. Philostratus
  adds, that the ghost of Achilles appeared to Apollonius Tyanæus, the
  hero of his story, and gave him permission to ask him any questions
  he pleased, assuring him, that he would give him full information on
  the subject of them. Among other things, Apollonius desired to know
  if it was the truth that the Greeks had sacrificed Polyxena on his
  tomb; to which the ghost replied, that her grief made her take the
  resolution not to survive her intended husband, and that she had
  killed herself.

  Other writers, agreeing with Ovid as to the manner of her death,
  tell us that it was Pyrrhus who sacrificed Polyxena to his father’s
  shade, to revenge his death, of which, though innocently, she had
  been the cause. Pausanias, who says that this was the general
  opinion, avers, on what ground it is difficult to conceive, that
  Homer designedly omitted this fact, because it was so dishonourable
  to the Greeks; and in his description of the paintings at Delphi,
  by Polygnotus, of the destruction of Troy, he says that Polyxena was
  there represented as being led out to the tomb of Achilles, where
  she was sacrificed by the Greeks. He also says, that he had seen her
  story painted in the same manner at Pergamus, Athens, and other
  places. Many of the poets, and Virgil in the number, affirm that
  Polyxena was sacrificed in Phrygia, near Troy, on the tomb of
  Achilles, he having desired it at his death; while Euripides says
  that it was in the Thracian Chersonesus, on a cenotaph, which was
  erected there in honour of Achilles: and that his ghost appearing,
  Calchas was consulted, who answered, that it was necessary to
  sacrifice Polyxena, which was accordingly done by Pyrrhus.

  The ancient writers are divided as to the descent of Hecuba. Homer,
  who has been followed by his Scholiast, and by Ovid and Suidas, says
  that she was the daughter of Dymas, King of Phrygia. Euripides says
  that she was the daughter of Cisscus, and with him Virgil and
  Servius agree. Apollodorus, again, makes her to be descended from
  Sangar and Merope. In the distribution of spoil after the siege of
  Troy, Hecuba fell to the share of Ulysses, and became his slave; but
  died soon after, in Thrace. Plautus and Servius allege that the
  Greeks themselves circulated the story of her transformation into a
  bitch, because she was perpetually railing at them, to provoke them
  to put her to death, rather than condemn her to pass her life as a
  slave. According to Strabo and Pomponius Mela, in their time, the
  place of her burial was still to be seen in Thrace. Euripides, in
  his Hecuba, has not followed this tradition, but represents her as
  complaining that the Greeks had chained her to the door of Agamemnon
  like a dog. Perhaps she became the slave of Agamemnon after Ulysses
  had left the army, on his return to Ithaca; and it is possible that
  the story of her transformation may have been solely founded on this
  tradition. She bore to Priam ten sons and seven daughters, and
  survived them all except Helenus; most of her sons having fallen by
  the hand of Achilles.

  Many ancient writers, with whom Ovid here agrees, affirm that Memnon
  was the son of Tithonus, the brother of Priam, and Aurora, or Eos,
  the Goddess of the morn. They also say that he came to assist the
  Trojans with ten thousand Persians, and as many Æthiopians. Diodorus
  Siculus asserts that Memnon was said to have been the son of Aurora,
  because he left Phrygia, and went to settle in the East. It is not
  clear in what country he fixed his residence. Some say that it was
  at Susa, in Persia; others that it was in Egypt, or in Æthiopia,
  which perhaps amounts to the same, as Æthiopia was not in general
  distinguished from the Higher or Upper Egypt. Marsham is of opinion
  that Memnon was the same with Amenophis, one of the kings of Egypt:
  while Le Clerc considers him to have been the same person as Ham,
  the son of Noah; and Vossius identifies him with Boalcis, a God of
  the Syrians. It seems probable that he was an Egyptian, who had
  perhaps formed an alliance with the reigning family of Troy.

FABLES V. AND VI. [XIII.623-718]

  After the taking of Troy, Æneas escapes with his father and his son,
  and goes to Delos. Anius, the priest of Apollo, recounts to him how
  his daughters have been transformed into doves, and at parting they
  exchange presents. The Poet here introduces the story of the
  daughters of Orion, who, having sacrificed their lives for the
  safety of Thebes, when ravaged by a plague, two young men arise out
  of their ashes.

But yet the Fates do not allow the hope of Troy to be ruined even with
its walls. The Cytherean hero bears on his shoulders the sacred relics
and his father, another sacred relic, a venerable burden. In his
affection, out of wealth so great, he selects that prize, and his own
Ascanius, and with his flying fleet is borne through the seas from
Antandros,[57] and leaves the accursed thresholds of the Thracians, and
the earth streaming with the blood of Polydorus; and, with good winds
and favouring tide, he enters the city of Apollo, his companions
attending him.

Anius, by whom, as king, men were, {and} by whom, as priest, Phœbus was
duly provided for, received him both into his temple and his house, and
showed him the city and the dedicated temples, and the two trunks of
trees once grasped[58] by Latona in her labour. Frankincense being given
to the flames, and wine poured forth on the frankincense, and the
entrails of slain oxen[59] being duly burnt, they repair to the royal
palace, and reclining on lofty couches, with flowing wine, they take the
gifts of Ceres. Then the pious Anchises {says}, “O chosen priest of
Phœbus, am I deceived? or didst thou not have a son, also, when first I
beheld these walls, and twice two daughters, so far as I remember?” To
him Anius replies, shaking his temples wreathed with snow-white fillets,
and says, “Thou art not mistaken, greatest hero; thou didst see me the
parent of five children, whom now (so great a vicissitude of fortune
affects mankind) thou seest almost bereft {of all}. For what assistance
is my absent son to me, whom Andros, a land {so} called after his name,
possesses, holding that place and kingdom on behalf of his father?

“The Delian {God} granted him {the art of} augury; to my female progeny
Liber gave other gifts, exceeding {both} wishes and belief. For, at the
touch of my daughters, all things were transformed into corn, and the
stream of wine, and the berry of Minerva; and in these were there rich
advantages. When the son of Atreus, the destroyer of Troy, learned this
(that thou mayst not suppose that we, too, did not in some degree feel
your storms) using the force of arms, he dragged them reluctantly from
the bosom of their father, and commanded them to feed, with their
heavenly gifts, the Argive fleet. Whither each of them could, they made
their escape. Eubœa was sought by two; and by as many of my daughters,
was Andros, their brother’s {island}, sought. The forces came, and
threatened war if they were not given up. Natural affection, subdued by
fear, surrendered to punishment those kindred breasts; and, that thou
mayst be able to forgive a timid brother, there was no Æneas, no Hector
to defend Andros, through whom you {Trojans} held out to the tenth year.
And now chains were being provided for their captive arms. Lifting up
towards heaven their arms still free, they said, ‘Father Bacchus, give
us thy aid!’ and the author of their gift did give them aid; if
destroying them, in a wondrous manner, be called giving aid. By what
means they lost their shape, neither could I learn, nor can I now tell.
The sum of their calamity is known {to me}: they assumed wings, and were
changed into birds of thy consort,[60] the snow-white doves.”

With such and other discourse, after they have passed the {time of}
feasting, the table being removed, they seek sleep. And they rise with
the day, and repair to the oracle of Phœbus, who bids them seek the
ancient mother and the kindred shores. The king attends, and presents
them with gifts when about to depart; a sceptre to Anchises, a scarf and
a quiver to his grandson, {and} a goblet to Æneas, which formerly
Therses, his Ismenian guest, had sent him from the Aonian shores; this
Therses had sent to him, {but} the Mylean Alcon had made it, and had
carved it with this long device:

There was a city, and you might point out {its} seven gates: these were
in place of[61] a name, and showed what {city} it was. Before the city
was a funeral, and tombs, and fires, and funeral piles; and matrons,
with hair dishevelled and naked breasts, expressed their grief; the
Nymphs, too, seem to be weeping, and to mourn their springs dried up.
Without foliage the bared tree runs straight up; the goats are gnawing
the dried stones. Lo! he represents the daughters of Orion in the middle
of Thebes; the one, as presenting her breast, more than woman’s, with
her bared throat; the other, thrusting a sword in her valorous wounds,
as dying for her people, and as being borne, with an honoured funeral,
through the city, and as being burnt in a conspicuous part {of it};
{and} then from the virgin embers, lest the race should fail, twin
youths arising, whom Fame calls ‘Coronæ,’[62] and for their mothers’
ashes leading the {funeral} procession.

Thus far for the figures that shine on the ancient brass; the summit of
the goblet is rough with gilded acanthus. Nor do the Trojans return
gifts of less value than those given; and to the priest they give an
incense-box, to keep the frankincense; they give a bowl, {too}, and a
crown, brilliant with gold and gems. Then recollecting that the
{Trojans}, {as} Teucrians, derived their origin from the blood of
Teucer, they make for Crete, and cannot long endure the air of that
place;[63] and, having left behind the hundred cities, they desire to
reach the Ausonian harbours. A storm rages, and tosses the men to and
fro; and winged Aëllo frightens them, when received in the unsafe
harbours of the Strophades.[64] And now, borne along, they have passed
the Dulichian harbours, and Ithaca, and Same,[65] and the Neritian
abodes, the kingdom of the deceitful Ulysses; and they behold
Ambracia,[66] contended for in a dispute of the Deities, which now is
renowned for the Actian Apollo,[67] and the stone in the shape of the
transformed judge, and the land of Dodona, vocal with its oaks; and the
Chaonian bays, where the sons of the Molossian king escaped the
unavailing flames, with wings attached {to them}.

    〔note 57 — Antandros.--Ver. 628. This was a city of Phrygia, at the foot of Mount Ida, where the fleet of Æneas was built.〕

    〔note 58 — Trees once grasped.--Ver. 635. These were a palm and an olive tree, which were pointed out by the people of Delos, as having been held by Latona, when in the pangs of labour.〕

    〔note 59 — Of slain oxen.--Ver. 637. This, however, was contrary to the usual practice; for if we credit Macrobius, no victim was slain on the altars of Apollo, in the island of Delos.〕

    〔note 60 — Of thy consort.--Ver. 673. It must be remembered, that he is addressing Anchises, who was said to have enjoyed the favour of Venus; to which Goddess the dove was consecrated.〕

    〔note 61 — In place of.--Ver. 686. For the seven gates, would at once lead to the conclusion that it represented the city of Thebes, in Bœotia. Myla, before referred to, was a town of Sicily.〕

    〔note 62 — Calls ‘Coronæ’.--Ver. 698. The word ‘Coronas’ is here employed as the plural of a female name ‘Corona;’ in Greek Κώρωνις.〕

    〔note 63 — Of that place.--Ver. 707. Æneas and his followers founded in Crete the city of Pergamea; but the pestilence which raged there, and a continued drought, combined with the density of the atmosphere, obliged them to leave the island.〕

    〔note 64 — The Strophades.--Ver. 709. These were two islands in the Ionian Sea, on the western side of Peloponnesus. They received their name from the Greek work στροφὴ, ‘a return,’ because Calais and Zethes pursued the Harpies, which persecuted Phineus so far, and then returned home by the command of Jupiter.〕

    〔note 65 — Same.--Ver. 711. This island was also called Cephalenia. It was in the Ionian Sea, and formed part of the kingdom of Ulysses.〕

    〔note 66 — Ambracia.--Ver. 714. This was a famous city of Epirus, which gave its name to the gulf of Ambracia.〕

    〔note 67 — Actian Apollo.--Ver. 715. Augustus built a temple to Apollo, at Actium, in Epirus, near which he had defeated the fleet of Antony and Cleopatra. He also instituted games, to be celebrated there every fifth year in honour of his victory.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Virgil describes Anius as the king of Delos, and the priest of
  Apollo at the same time. ‘Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique
  sacerdos.’ Æneid, Book III. He was descended from Cadmus, through
  his mother Rhea, the daughter of Staphilus. Having engaged in some
  intrigue, as Diodorus Siculus conjectures, her father exposed her on
  the sea in an open boat, which drove to Delos, and she was there
  delivered of Anius, who afterwards became the king of the island. By
  his wife Dorippe he had three daughters, who were extremely frugal,
  and by means of the offerings and presents that were brought to the
  temple of Apollo, amassed a large store of provisions. During the
  siege of Troy, the Greeks sent Palamedes to Delos, to demand food
  for the army; and, as a security for his compliance with these
  demands, they exacted the daughters of Anius as hostages. The
  damsels soon afterwards finding means to escape, it was said that
  Bacchus, who was their kinsman through Cadmus, had transformed them
  into doves. Probably the story of their transforming every thing
  they touched, into wine, corn, and oil, was founded solely on their
  thriftiness and parsimony. Bochart, however, explains the story from
  the circumstance of their names being, as he conjectures, Oëno,
  Spermo, and Elaï, which, in the old Phœnician dialect, signified
  wine, corn, and oil; and he thinks that the story was confirmed in
  general belief by the fact that large quantities of corn, wine, and
  oil were supplied from Delos to the Grecian army when before Troy.

  In the reign of Orion, Thebes being devastated by a plague, the
  oracles were consulted, and the Thebans were told that the contagion
  would cease as soon as the daughters of the king should be
  sacrificed to the wrath of heaven. The two maidens immediately
  presented themselves at the altar; and on their immolation, the Gods
  were appeased, and the plague ceased. This example of patriotism and
  fortitude filled the more youthful Thebans with so much emulation,
  that they shook off their former inactivity, and soon became
  conspicuous for their bravery: which sudden change gave occasion to
  the saying, that the ashes of these maidens had been transformed
  into men.

  The Poet follows Æneas on his voyage, to gain an opportunity of
  referring to several other current stories. Among other places, he
  passes the city of Ambracia, about which the Gods had contended, and
  sees the rock into which the umpire of their dispute, who had
  decided in favour of Hercules, was changed. Ambracia was on the
  coast of Epirus, and gave its name to an adjacent inlet of the sea,
  called the Ambracian Gulf. Antoninus Liberalis tells us, on the
  authority of Nicander, that Apollo, Diana, and Hercules disputed
  about this city, and left the decision to Cragaleus, who gave it in
  favour of Hercules; on which, Apollo transformed him into a rock.
  Very possibly the meaning of this may be, that when the people of
  Ambracia were considering to which of these Deities they should
  dedicate their city, Cragaleus preferred Hercules to the other two,
  or, in other words, the feats of war to the cultivation of the arts
  and sciences. Apollo was said to have turned him into a stone,
  either because he met with his death near the promontory where a
  temple of Apollo stood, or to show the stupidity of his decision.
  Antoninus Liberalis is the only writer besides Ovid that makes
  mention of the adventure of the sons of the Molossian king; he tells
  us that Munychus, king of the Molossi, had three sons, Alcander,
  Megaletor, and Philæus, and a daughter named Hyperippe. Some robbers
  setting fire to their father’s house, they were transformed by
  Jupiter into birds. This, in all probability, is a poetical way of
  saying that the youths escaped from the flames, contrary to
  universal expectation.

  The opinions of writers have been very conflicting as to the origin
  of the oracle of Dodona. Silius Italicus says that two pigeons flew
  from Thebes in Egypt, one of which went to Libya, and occasioned the
  founding of the oracle of Jupiter Ammon; while the other settled
  upon an oak in Chaonia, and signified thereby to the inhabitants,
  that it was the will of heaven that there should be an oracle in
  that place. Herodotus says that two priestesses of Egyptian Thebes
  being carried off by some Phœnician merchants, one of them was sold
  to the Greeks, after which she settled in the forest of Dodona,
  where a little chapel was founded by her in honour of Jupiter, in
  which she gave responses. He adds, that they called her ‘the dove,’
  because being a foreigner they did not understand her language. At
  length, having learned the language of the Pelasgians, it was said
  that the dove had spoken. On that foundation grew the tradition that
  the oaks themselves uttered oracular responses.

  Notwithstanding this plausible account of Herodotus, it is not
  impossible that some equivocal expressions in the Hebrew and Arabian
  languages may have given rise to the story. ‘Himan,’ in the one
  language, signified ‘a priest;’ and ‘Heman,’ in the other, was the
  name for ‘a pigeon.’ Possibly those who found the former word in the
  history of ancient Greece, written in the dialect of the original
  Phœnician settlers, did not understand it, and by their mistake,
  caused it to be asserted that a dove had founded the oracle of
  Dodona. Bochart tells us that the same word, in the Phœnician
  tongue, signifies either ‘pigeons,’ or ‘women;’ but the Abbè Sallier
  has gone still further, and has shown that, in the language of the
  ancient inhabitants of Epirus, the same word had the two
  significations mentioned by Bochart.

  This oracle afterwards grew famous for its responses, and the
  priests used considerable ingenuity in the delivery of their
  answers. They cautiously kept all who came to consult them at a
  distance from the dark recess where the shrine was situated; and
  took care to deliver their responses in a manner so ambiguous, as to
  make people believe whatever they pleased. In this circumstance
  originates the variation in the descriptions of the oracle which the
  ancients have left us. According to some, it was the oaks that
  spoke; according to others, the beeches; while a third account was
  that pigeons gave the answers; and, lastly, it was said that the
  ringing of certain cauldrons there suspended, divulged the will of
  heaven. Stephanus Byzantinus has left a curious account of this
  contrivance of the cauldrons; he says that in that part of the
  forest of Dodona, where the oracle stood, there were two pillars
  erected, at a small distance from each other. On one there was
  placed a brazen vessel, about the size of an ordinary cauldron: and
  on the other a little boy, which was most probably a piece of
  mechanism, who held a brazen whip with several thongs which hung
  loose, and were easily moved. When the wind blew, the lashes struck
  against the vessel, and occasioned a noise while the wind continued.
  It was from them, he says, that the forest took the name of Dodona;
  ‘dodo,’ in the ancient language, signifying ‘a cauldron.’

  Strabo says that the responses were originally given by three
  priestesses: and he gives the reason why two priests were afterwards
  added to them. The Bœotians having been treacherously attacked by
  the people of Thrace during a truce which they had made, went to
  consult the oracle of Dodona; and the priestess answering them that
  if they would act impiously their design would succeed to their
  wish, the envoys suspected that this response had been suggested by
  the enemy, and burned her in revenge; after which they vindicated
  their cruelty by saying that if the priestess designed to deceive
  them, she well deserved her punishment; and that if she spoke with
  truthfulness, they had only followed the advice of the oracle. This
  argument not satisfying the people of the district, the Bœotian
  envoys were seized; but as they pleaded that it was unjust that two
  women already prejudiced against them should be their judges, two
  priests were added to decide the matter. These, in return for their
  being the occasion of putting them in an office so honourable and
  lucrative, acquitted the Bœotians; whose fellow countrymen were
  always in the habit from that time of addressing the priests when
  they consulted the oracle. These priests were called by the name of
  ‘Selli.’

FABLE VII. [XIII.719-897]

  Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, jealous of Acis, who is in love with
  Galatea, kills the youth with a rock which he hurls at him; on
  which, his blood is changed into a river which bears his name.

They make for the neighbouring land of the Phæacians,[68] planted with
beauteous fruit. After this, Epirus and Buthrotos,[69] ruled over by the
Phrygian prophet, and a fictitious Troy, are reached. Thence, acquainted
with the future, all which, Helenus, the son of Priam, in his faithful
instructions has forewarned them of, they enter Sicania. With three
points this projects into the sea. Of these, Pachynos is turned towards
the showery South: Lilybæum is exposed to the soft Zephyrs: but Peloros
looks towards the Bear, free from the sea, and towards Boreas. By this
{part} the Trojans enter; and with oars and favouring tide, at nightfall
the fleet makes the Zanclæan sands. Scylla infests the right hand side,
the restless Charybdis the left. This swallows and vomits forth again
ships taken down; the other, having the face of a maiden, has her
swarthy stomach surrounded with fierce dogs; and (if the poets have not
left the whole a fiction) once on a time, too, {she was} a maiden. Many
suitors courted her; who being repulsed, she, most beloved by the Nymphs
of the ocean, went to the ocean Nymphs, and used to relate the eluded
loves of the youths.

While Galatea[70] was giving her hair be to combed, heaving sighs, she
addressed her in such words as these: “{And} yet, O maiden, no ungentle
race of men does woo thee; and as thou dost, thou art able to deny them
with impunity. But I, whose sire is Nereus, whom the azure Doris bore,
who am guarded, too, by a crowd of sisters, was not able, but through
the waves, to escape the passion of the Cyclop;” and as she spoke, the
tears choked her utterance. When, with her fingers like marble, the
maiden had wiped these away, and had comforted the Goddess, “Tell me,
dearest,” said she, “and conceal not {from me} ({for} I am true to thee)
the cause of thy grief.” In these words did the Nereid reply to the
daughter of Cratæis:[71] “Acis was the son of Faunus and of the Nymph
Symæthis, a great delight, indeed, to his father and his mother, yet a
still greater to me. For the charming {youth} had attached me to himself
alone, and eight birth-days having a second time been passed, he had
{now} marked his tender cheeks with the dubious down. Him I {pursued};
incessantly did the Cyclop me pursue. Nor can I, shouldst thou enquire,
declare whether the hatred of the Cylops, or the love of Acis, was the
stronger in me. They were equal. O genial Venus! how great is the power
of thy sway. For that savage, and one to be dreaded by the very woods,
and beheld with impunity by no stranger, the contemner of great Olympus
with the Gods {themselves}, {now} feels what love is; and, captivated
with passion for me, he burns, forgetting his cattle and his caves.

“And now, Polyphemus, thou hast a care for thy looks, and now for {the
art of} pleasing; now thou combest out thy stiffened hair with rakes,
{and} now it pleases thee to cut thy shaggy beard with the sickle, and
to look at thy fierce features in the water, and {so} to compose them.
Thy love for carnage, and thy fierceness, and thy insatiate thirst for
blood, {now} cease; and the ships both come and go in safety. Telemus,
in the mean time arriving at the Sicilian Ætna, Telemus, the son of
Eurymus, whom no omen had {ever} deceived, accosts the dreadful
Polyphemus, and says, ‘The single eye that thou dost carry in the midst
of thy forehead, Ulysses shall take away from thee.’ He laughed, and
said, ‘O most silly of the prophets, thou art mistaken, {for} another
has already taken it away.’ Thus does he slight him, in vain warning him
of the truth; and he either burdens the shore, stalking along with huge
strides, or, wearied, he returns to his shaded cave.

“A hill, in form of a wedge, runs out with a long projection into the
sea: {and} the waves of the ocean flow round either side. Hither the
fierce Cyclop ascended, and sat down in the middle. His woolly flocks
followed, there being no one to guide them. After the pine tree,[72]
which afforded him the service of a staff, {but more} fitted for
sail-yards, was laid before his feet, and his pipe was taken up, formed
of a hundred reeds; all the mountains were sensible of the piping of the
shepherd: the waves, {too}, were sensible. I, lying hid within a rock,
and reclining on the bosom of my own Acis, from afar caught such words
as these with my ears, and marked them {so} heard in my mind:
‘O Galatea, fairer than[73] the leaf of the snow-white privet,[74] more
blooming than the meadows, more slender than the tall alder, brighter
than glass, more wanton than the tender kid, smoother than the shells
worn by continual floods, more pleasing than the winter’s sun, {or} than
the summer’s shade, more beauteous than the apples, more sightly than
the lofty plane tree, clearer than ice, sweeter than the ripened grape,
softer than both the down of the swan, and than curdled milk, and, didst
thou not fly me, more beauteous than a watered garden. {And yet} thou,
the same Galatea, {art} wilder than the untamed bullocks, harder than
the aged oak, more unstable than the waters, tougher than both the twigs
of osier and than the white vines, more immoveable than these rocks,
more violent than the torrent, prouder than the bepraised peacock,
fiercer than the fire, rougher than the thistles, more cruel than the
pregnant she-bear, more deaf than the ocean waves, more savage than the
trodden water-snake: and, what I could especially wish to deprive thee
of, fleeter not only than the deer when pursued by the loud barkings,
but even than the winds and the fleeting air.

“‘But didst thou {but} know me well, thou wouldst repine at having fled,
and thou thyself wouldst blame thy own hesitation, and wouldst strive to
retain me. I have a part of the mountain for my cave, pendent with the
native rock; in which the sun is not felt in the middle of the heat, nor
is the winter felt: there are apples that load the boughs; there are
grapes on the lengthening vines, resembling gold; and there are purple
ones {as well}; both the one and the other do I reserve for thee. With
thine own hands thou shalt thyself gather the soft strawberries growing
beneath the woodland shade; thou thyself {shalt pluck} the cornels of
autumn, and plums not only darkened with their black juice, but even of
the choicest kinds, and resembling new wax. Nor, I being thy husband,
will there be wanting to thee chesnuts, nor the fruit of the arbute
tree:[75] every tree shall be at thy service. All this cattle is my own:
many, too, are wandering in the valleys: many the wood conceals: many
{more} are penned in my caves. Nor, shouldst thou ask me perchance,
could I tell thee, how many there are; ’tis for the poor man to count
his cattle. For the praises of these trust not me at all; in person thou
thyself mayst see how they can hardly support with their legs their
distended udders. Lambs, too, a smaller breed, are in the warm folds:
there are kids, too, of equal age {to them} in other folds. Snow-white
milk I always have: a part of it is kept for drinking, {another} part
the liquified rennet hardens. Nor will common delights, and ordinary
enjoyments alone fall to thy lot, {such as} does, and hares, and
she-goats, or a pair of doves, or a nest taken from the tree top. I have
found on the mountain summit the twin cubs of a shaggy she-bear, which
can play with thee, so like each other that thou couldst scarce
distinguish them. {These} I found, and I said, ‘These for my mistress
will I keep.’

“‘Do now but raise thy beauteous head from out of the azure sea; now,
Galatea, come, and do not scorn my presents. Surely I know myself, and
myself but lately I beheld in the reflection of the limpid water; and my
figure[76] pleased me as I saw it. See how huge I am. Not Jove, in
heaven, is greater than this body; for thou art wont to tell how one
Jupiter reigns, who he is I know not. Plenty of hair hangs over my
grisly features, and, like a grove, overshadows my shoulders; nor think
it uncomely that my body is rough, thick set with stiff bristles. A tree
without leaves is unseemly; a horse is unseemly, unless a mane covers
his tawny neck. Feathers cover the birds; their wool is an ornament to
the sheep; a beard and rough hair upon their body is becoming to men.
I have but one eye in the middle of my forehead, but it is like a large
buckler. Well! and does not the Sun from the heavens behold all these
things? and yet the Sun has but one eye. And, besides, in your seas does
my father reign. Him do I offer thee for a father-in-law; only do take
pity on a suppliant, and hear his prayer, for to thee alone do I give
way. And I, who despise Jove, and the heavens, and the piercing
lightnings, dread thee, daughter of Nereus; than the lightnings is thy
wrath more dreadful to me. But I should be more patient under these
slights, if thou didst avoid all men. For why, rejecting the Cyclop,
dost thou love Acis? And why prefer Acis to my embraces? Yet, let him
please himself, and let him please thee, too, Galatea, {though} I wish
he could not; if only the opportunity is given, he shall find that I
have strength proportioned to a body so vast. I will pull out his
palpitating entrails; and I will scatter his torn limbs about the
fields, and throughout thy waves, {and} thus let him be united to thee.
For I burn: and my passion, {thus} slighted, rages with the greater
fury; and I seem to be carrying in my breast Ætna, transferred there
with {all} its flames; and yet, Galatea, thou art unmoved.’

“Having in vain uttered such complaints (for all this I saw), he rises;
and like an enraged bull, when the heifer is taken away from him, he
could not stand still, and he wandered in the wood, and the well known
forests. When the savage {monster} espied me, and Acis unsuspecting and
apprehensive of no such thing; and he exclaimed:-- ‘I see you, and I
shall cause this to be the last union for your affection.’ And that
voice was as loud as an enraged Cyclop ought, {for his size}, to have.
Ætna trembled at the noise; but I, struck with horror, plunged into the
adjoining sea. The hero, son of Symæthis, turned his back and fled, and
cried,-- ‘Help me, Galatea, I entreat thee; help me, ye parents {of
hers}; and admit me, {now} on the point of destruction, within your
realms.’ The Cyclop pursued, and hurled a fragment, torn from the
mountain; and though the extreme angle only of the rock reached him, yet
it entirely crushed Acis. But I did the only thing that was allowed by
the Fates to be done, that Acis might assume the properties of his
grandsire. The purple blood flowed from beneath the rock, and in a
little time the redness began to vanish; and at first it became the
colour of a stream muddied by a shower; and, in time, it became clear.
Then the rock, that had been thrown, opened, and through the chinks,
a reed vigorous and stately arose, and the hollow mouth of the rock
resounded with the waters gushing forth. And, wondrous event! a youth
suddenly emerged, as far as the midriff, having his new-made horns
encircled with twining reeds. And he, but that he was of larger stature,
and azure in all his features, was Acis {still}. But, even then, still
it was Acis, changed into a river; and the stream has since retained
that ancient name.”

    〔note 68 — The Phæacians.--Ver. 719. The Phæacians were the people of the Island of Corcyra (now Corfu), who were so called from Phæax, the son of Neptune. This island was famous for the gardens of Alcinoüs, which are mentioned in the Odyssey. The Corcyrans were the originators of the disastrous Peloponnesian war.〕

    〔note 69 — Buthrotos.--Ver. 721. This was a city of Epirus, not far from Corcyra. It received its name from its founder.〕

    〔note 70 — Galatea.--Ver. 738. She was a sea Nymph, the daughter of Nereus and Doris.〕

    〔note 71 — Daughter of Cratæis.--Ver. 749. Cratæis was a river of Calabria, in Italy. Symæthis was a stream of Sicily, opposite to Calabria.〕

    〔note 72 — The pine tree.--Ver. 782. By way of corroborating this assertion, Boccaccio tells us, that the body of Polyphemus was found in Sicily, his left hand grasping a walking-stick longer than the mast of a ship.〕

    〔note 73 — Fairer than.--Ver. 789. This song of Polyphemus is, in some measure, imitated from that of the Cyclop, in the Eleventh Idyll of Theocritus.〕

    〔note 74 — Snow-white privet.--Ver. 789. Hesiod says, that Galatea had her name from her extreme fairness; γάλα being the Greek word for milk. To this the Poet here alludes.〕

    〔note 75 — Arbute tree.--Ver. 820. The fruit of the arbutus, or strawberry tree, were so extremely sour, that they were called, as Pliny the Elder tells us, ‘unedones;’ because people could not eat more than one. The tree itself was valued for the beauty and pleasing shade of its foliage.〕

    〔note 76 — My figure.--Ver. 841. Virgil and Theocritus also represent Polyphemus as boasting of his good looks.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Homer, who, in the ninth Book of the Odyssey, has entered fully into
  the subject of Polyphemus and the other Cyclops, does not recount
  this adventure, which Ovid has borrowed from Theocritus, the
  Sicilian poet. Some writers have suggested that Acis was a Sicilian
  youth, who, having met with a repulse from Galatea, threw himself
  into the river, which was afterwards called by his name. It is,
  however, more probable that this river was so called from the
  rapidity of its course. Indeed, the scholiast on Theocritus and
  Eustathius distinctly say that the stream was called Acis, because
  the swiftness of its course resembled that of an arrow, which was
  called ἀκὶς, in the Greek language.

  Homer, in describing the Cyclops, informs us that they were a
  lawless race, who, neglecting husbandry, lived on the spontaneous
  produce of a rich soil, and dwelling in mountain caves, devoted
  themselves entirely to the pleasures of a pastoral life. He says
  that they were men of monstrous stature, and had but one eye, in the
  middle of their forehead. Thucydides supposes them to have been the
  original inhabitants of Sicily. As their origin was unknown, it was
  said that they were the offspring of Neptune, or, in other words,
  that they had come by sea, to settle in Sicily. According to Justin,
  they retained possession of the island till the time of Cocalus; but
  in that point he disagrees with Homer, who represents them as being
  in the island after the time of Cocalus, who was a contemporary of
  Minos, and lived long before the Trojan war.

  They inhabited the western parts of Sicily, near the promontories of
  Lilybæum and Drepanum; and from that circumstance, according to
  Bochart, they received their name. He supposes that the Cyclopes
  were so called from the Phœnician compound word Chek-lub, contracted
  for Chek-le-lub, which, according to him, was the name of the Gulf
  of Lilybæum. Because, in the Greek language κυκλὸς signified ‘a
  circle,’ and ὤπς, ‘an eye,’ it was given out that the name of
  Cyclops was given to them, because they had but one round eye in the
  middle of the forehead. It is possible that they may have acquired
  their character of being cannibals on true grounds, or, perhaps,
  only because they were noted for their extreme cruelty. Living near
  the volcanic mountain of Ætna, they were called the workmen of
  Vulcan; and Virgil describes them as forging the thunderbolts of
  Jupiter. Some writers represent them as having armed the three
  Deities, who divided the empire of the world: Jupiter with thunder;
  Pluto with his helmet; and Neptune with his trident. Statius
  represents them as the builders of the walls of Argos and Virgil as
  the founders of the gates of the Elysian fields. Aristotle supposes
  that they were the first builders of towers.

  Diodorus Siculus and Tzetzes say that Polyphemus was king of a part
  of Sicily, when Ulysses landed there; who, falling in love with
  Elpe, the daughter of the king, carried her off. The Læstrygons, the
  neighbours of Polyphemus, pursued him, and obliged him to give up
  the damsel, who was brought back to her father. Ulysses, in relating
  the story to the Phæacians, artfully concealed circumstances so
  little to his credit, and with impunity invented the absurdities
  which he related concerning a country to which his audience were
  utter strangers.

FABLE VIII. [XIII.898-968]

  Glaucus having observed some fishes which he has laid upon the grass
  revive and leap again into the water, is desirous to try the
  influence of the grass on himself. Putting some of it into his
  mouth, he immediately becomes mad, and leaping into the sea, is
  transformed into a sea God.

Galatea ceases[77] speaking, and the company breaking up, they depart;
and the Nereids swim in the becalmed waves. Scylla returns, (for, in
truth, she does not trust herself in the midst of the ocean) and either
wanders about without garments on the thirsty sand, or, when she is
tired, having lighted upon some lonely recess of the sea, cools her
limbs in the enclosed waves. {When}, lo! cleaving the deep, Glaucus
comes, a new-made inhabitant of the deep sea, his limbs having been
lately transformed at Anthedon,[78] near Eubœa; and he lingers from
passion for the maiden {now} seen, and utters whatever words he thinks
may detain her as she flies. Yet still she flies, and, swift through
fear, she arrives at the top of a mountain, situate near the shore.

In front of the sea, there is a huge ridge, terminating in one summit,
bending for a long distance over the waves, {and} without trees. Here
she stands, and secured by the place, ignorant whether he is a monster
or a God, she both admires his colour, and his flowing hair that covers
his shoulders and his back, and how a wreathed fish closes the extremity
of his groin. {This} he perceives; and leaning upon a rock that stands
hard by, he says, “Maiden, I am no monster, no savage beast; I am a God
of the waters: nor have Proteus, and Triton, and Palæmon, the son of
Athamas, a more uncontrolled reign over the deep. Yet formerly I was a
mortal; but, still, devoted to the deep sea, even then was I employed in
it. For, at one time, I used to drag the nets that swept up the fish;
at another time, seated on a rock, I managed the line with the rod. The
shore was adjacent to a verdant meadow, one part of which was surrounded
with water, the other with grass, which, neither the horned heifers had
hurt with their browsing, nor had you, ye harmless sheep, nor {you}, ye
shaggy goats, {ever} cropped it. No industrious bee took {thence} the
collected blossoms, no festive garlands were gathered thence for the
head; and no mower’s hands had ever cut it. I was the first to be seated
on that turf, while I was drying the dripping nets. And that I might
count in their order the fish that I had taken; I laid out those upon it
which either chance had driven to my nets, or their own credulity to my
barbed hooks.

“The thing is like a fiction (but of what use is it to me to coin
fictions?); on touching the grass my prey began to move, and to shift
their sides, and to skip about on the land, as though in the sea. And
while I both paused and wondered, the whole batch flew off to the waves,
and left behind their new master and the shore. I was amazed, and, in
doubt for a long time, I considered what could be the cause; whether
some Divinity had done this, or whether the juice of {some} herb. ‘And
yet,’ said I, ‘what herb has these properties?’ and with my hand I
plucked the grass, and I chewed it, {so} plucked, with my teeth. Hardly
had my throat well swallowed the unknown juices, when I suddenly felt my
entrails inwardly throb, and my mind taken possession of by the passions
of another nature. Nor could I stay in {that} place; and I exclaimed,
‘Farewell, land, never more to be revisited;’ and plunged my body
beneath the deep. The Gods of the sea vouchsafed me, on being received
by them, kindred honours, and they entreated Oceanus and Tethys to take
away from me whatever mortality I bore. By them was I purified; and a
charm being repeated over me nine times, that washes away {all} guilt,
I was commanded to put my breast beneath a hundred streams.

“There was no delay; rivers issuing from different springs, and whole
seas, were poured over my head. Thus far I can relate to thee what
happened worthy to be related, and thus far do I remember; but my
understanding was not conscious of the rest. When it returned {to me},
I found myself different throughout all my body from what I was before,
and not the same in mind. Then, for the first time, did I behold this
beard, green with its deep colour, and my flowing hair, which I sweep
along the spacious seas, and my huge shoulders, and my azurecoloured
arms, and the extremities of my legs tapering in {the form of} a finny
fish. But still, what does this form avail me, what to have pleased the
ocean Deities, {and} what to be a God, if thou art not moved by these
things?”

As he was saying such things as these, and about to say still more,
Scylla left the God. He was enraged, and, provoked at the repulse, he
repaired to the marvellous court of Circe, the daughter of Titan.

    〔note 77 — Ceases.--Ver. 898. ‘Desierat Galatea loqui,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘Galatea gave over talking.’〕

    〔note 78 — Anthedon.--Ver. 905. Anthedon was a maritime city of Bœotia, only separated from the Island of Eubœa, by the narrow strait of the Euripus.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The ancient writers mention three persons of the name of Glaucus:
  one was the son of Minos, the second of Hippolochus, and the third
  is the one here mentioned. Strabo calls him the son of Polybus,
  while other writers make him to have been the son of Phorbas, and
  others of Neptune. Being drowned, perhaps by accident, to do honour
  to his memory, it was promulgated that he had become a sea God, and
  the city of Anthedon, of which he was a native, worshipped him as
  such.

  Athenæus says that he carried off Ariadne from the isle of Naxos,
  where Theseus had left her; on which Bacchus punished him by binding
  him to a vine. According to Diodorus Siculus, he appeared to the
  Argonauts, when overtaken by a storm. From Apollonius Rhodius we
  learn that he foretold to them that Hercules, and Castor and Pollux,
  would be received into the number of the Gods. It was also said,
  that in the battle which took place between Jason and the
  Tyrrhenians, he was the only person that escaped unwounded.
  Euripides, who is followed by Pausanias, says that he was the
  interpreter of Nereus, and was skilled in prophecy; and Nicander
  even says that it was from him that Apollo learned the art of
  prediction. Strabo and Philostratus say that he was metamorphosed
  into a Triton, which is a-kin to the description of his appearance
  here given by Ovid.

  The place where he leaped into the sea was long remembered; and in
  the days of Pausanias ‘Glaucus’ Leap’ was still pointed out by the
  people of Anthedon. It is not improbable that he drowned himself for
  some reason which tradition failed to hand down to posterity.

FABLE I. [XIV.1-74]

  Circe becomes enamoured of Glaucus, who complains to her of his
  repulse by Scylla. She endeavours, without success, to make him
  desert Scylla for herself. In revenge, she poisons the fountain
  where the Nymph is wont to bathe, and communicates to her a hideous
  form; which is so insupportable to Scylla, that she throws herself
  into the sea, and is transformed into a rock.

And now {Glaucus}, the Eubœan plougher of the swelling waves, had left
behind Ætna, placed upon the jaws of the Giant, and the fields of the
Cyclops, that had never experienced the harrow or the use of the plough,
and that were never indebted to the yoked oxen; he had left Zancle, too,
behind, and the opposite walls of Rhegium,[1] and the sea, abundant
cause of shipwreck, which, confined by the two shores, bounds the
Ausonian and the Sicilian lands. Thence, swimming with his huge hands
through the Etrurian seas, Glaucus arrived at the grass-clad hills, and
the halls of Circe, the daughter of the Sun, filled with various wild
beasts. Soon as he beheld her, after salutations were given and
received, he said, “Do thou, a Goddess, have compassion on me a God; for
thou alone (should I only seem deserving of it,) art able to relieve
this passion {of mine}. Daughter of Titan, by none is it better known
how great is the power of herbs, than by me, who have been transformed
by their agency; and, that the cause of my passion may not be unknown to
thee, Scylla has been beheld by me on the Italian shores, opposite the
Messenian walls. I am ashamed to recount my promises, my entreaties, my
caresses, and my rejected suit. But, do thou, if there is any power in
incantations, utter the incantation with thy holy lips; or, if {any}
herb is more efficacious, make use of the proved virtues of powerful
herbs. But I do not request thee to cure me, and to heal these wounds;
and there is no necessity for an end {to them; but} let her share in the
flame.” But Circe, (for no one has a temper more susceptible of such a
passion, whether it is that the cause of it originates in herself, or
whether it is that Venus, offended[2] by her father’s discovery, causes
this,) utters such words as these:--

“Thou wilt more successfully court her who is willing, and who
entertains similar desires, and who is captivated with an equal passion.
Thou art worthy of it, and assuredly thou oughtst to be courted
spontaneously; and, if thou givest any hopes, believe me, thou shalt be
courted[3] spontaneously. That thou mayst entertain no doubts, or lest
confidence in thy own beauty may not exist, behold! I who am both a
Goddess, and the daughter of the radiant Sun, and am so potent with my
charms, and so potent with my herbs, wish to be thine. Despise her who
despises thee; her, who is attached to thee, repay by like attachment,
and, by one act, take vengeance on two individuals.”

Glaucus answered her, making such attempts as these,-- “Sooner shall
foliage grow in the ocean, and {sooner} shall sea-weed spring up on the
tops of the mountains, than my affections shall change, while Scylla is
alive.” The Goddess is indignant; and since she is not able to injure
him, and as she loves him she does not wish {to do so}, she is enraged
against her, who has been preferred to herself; and, offended with these
crosses in love, she immediately bruises herbs, infamous for their
horrid juices, and, when bruised, she mingles with them the incantations
of Hecate. She puts on azure vestments too, and through the troop of
fawning wild beasts she issues from the midst of her hall; and making
for Rhegium, opposite to the rocks of Zancle, she enters the waves
boiling with the tides; on these, as though on the firm shore, she
impresses her footsteps, and with dry feet she skims along the surface
of the waves.

There was a little bay, curving in {the shape of} a bent bow,
a favourite retreat of Scylla, whither she used to retire from the
influence both of the sea and of the weather, when the sun was at its
height in his mid career, and made the smallest shadow from the head
{downwards}. This the Goddess infects beforehand, and pollutes it with
monster-breeding drugs; on it she sprinkles the juices distilled from
the noxious root, and thrice nine times, with her magic lips, she
mutters over the mysterious charm, {enwrapt} in the dubious language of
strange words.[4] Scylla comes; and she has {now} gone in up to the
middle of her stomach, when she beholds her loins grow hideous with
barking monsters; and, at first believing that they are no part of her
own body, she flies from them and drives them off, and is in dread of
the annoying mouths of the dogs; but those that she flies from, she
carries along with {herself}; and as she examines the substance of her
thighs, her legs, and her feet, she meets with Cerberean jaws in place
of those parts. The fury of the dogs {still} continues, and the backs of
savage {monsters} lying beneath her groin, cut short, and her prominent
stomach, {still} adhere to them.

Glaucus, {still} in love, bewailed {her}, and fled from an alliance with
Circe, who had {thus} too hostilely employed the potency of herbs.
Scylla remained on that spot; and, at the first moment that an
opportunity was given, in her hatred of Circe, she deprived Ulysses of
his companions. Soon after, the same {Scylla} would have overwhelmed the
Trojan ships, had she not been first transformed into a rock, which even
now is prominent with its crags; {this} rock the sailor, too, avoids.

    〔note 1 — Rhegium.--Ver. 5. Rhegium was a city of Calabria, opposite to the coast of Sicily.〕

    〔note 2 — Venus offended.--Ver. 27. The Sun, or Apollo, the father of Circe, as the Poet has already related in his fourth Book, betrayed the intrigues of Mars with Venus.〕

    〔note 3 — Shalt be courted.--Ver. 31. She means that he shall be courted, but by herself.〕

    〔note 4 — Of strange words.--Ver. 57. ‘Obscurum verborum ambage novorum’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Darkened with a long rabble of new words.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  According to Hesiod, Circe was the daughter of the Sun and of the
  Nymph Perse, and the sister of Pasiphaë, the wife of Minos. Homer
  makes her the sister of Æetes, the king of Colchis, while other
  authors represent her as the daughter of that monarch, and the
  sister of Medea. Being acquainted with the properties of simples,
  and having used her art in mixing poisonous draughts, she was
  generally looked upon as a sorceress. Apollonius Rhodius says that
  she poisoned her husband, the king of the Sarmatians, and that her
  father Apollo rescued her from the rage of her subjects, by
  transporting her in his chariot into Italy. Virgil and Ovid say that
  she inhabited one of the promontories of Italy, which afterwards
  bore her name, and which at the present day is known by the name of
  Monte Circello.

  It is not improbable that the person who went by the name of Circe
  was never in Colchis or Thrace, and that she was styled the sister
  of Medea, merely on account of the similarity of their characters;
  that they both were called daughters of the Sun, because they
  understood the properties of simples; and that their pretended
  enchantments were only a poetical mode of describing the effect of
  their beauty, which drew many suitors after them, who lost
  themselves in the dissipation of a voluptuous life. Indeed, Strabo
  says, and very judiciously, as it would seem, that Homer having
  heard persons mention the expedition of Jason to Colchis, and
  hearing the stories of Medea and Circe, he took occasion to say,
  from the resemblance of their characters, that they were sisters.

  According to some authors, Scylla was the daughter of Phorcys and
  Hecate; but as other writers say, of Typhon. Homer describes her in
  the following terms:-- ‘She had a voice like that of a young whelp;
  no man, not even a God, could behold her without horror. She had
  twelve feet, six long necks, and at the end of each a monstrous
  head, whose mouth was provided with a triple row of teeth.’ Another
  ancient writer says, that these heads were those of an insect,
  a dog, a lion, a whale, a Gorgon, and a human being. Virgil has in a
  great measure followed the description given by Homer. Between
  Messina and Reggio there is a narrow strait, where high crags
  project into the sea on each side. The part on the Sicilian side was
  called Charybdis, and that on the Italian shore was named Scylla.
  This spot has ever been famous for its dangerous whirlpools, and the
  extreme difficulty of its navigation. Several rapid currents meeting
  there, and the tide running through the strait with great
  impetuosity, the sea sends forth a dismal noise, not unlike that of
  the howling or barking of dogs, as Virgil has expressed it, in the
  words, ‘Multis circum latrantibus undis.’

  Palæphatus and Fusebius, not satisfied with the story being based on
  such simple facts, assert that Scylla was a ship that belonged to
  certain Etrurian pirates, who used to infest the coasts of Sicily,
  and that it had the figure of a woman carved on its head, whose
  lower parts were surrounded with dogs. According to these writers,
  Ulysses escaped them; and then, using the privileges of a traveller,
  told the story to the credulous Phæacians in the marvellous terms in
  which Homer has related it. Bochart, however, says that the two
  names were derived from the Phœnician language, in which ‘Scol,’ the
  root of Scylla, signified ‘a ruin,’ and Charybdis, ‘a gulf.’

FABLE II. [XIV.75-100]

  Dido entertains Æneas in her palace, and falls in love with him.
  He afterwards abandons her, on which she stabs herself in despair.
  Jupiter transforms the Cercopes into apes; and the islands which
  they inhabit are afterwards called ‘Pithecusæ,’ from the Greek word
  signifying ‘an ape.’

After the Trojan ships, with their oars, had passed by her and the
ravening Charybdis; when now they had approached near the Ausonian
shores, they were carried back by the winds[5] to the Libyan coasts. The
Sidonian {Dido}, she who was doomed not easily to endure the loss of her
Phrygian husband, received Æneas, both in her home and her affection; on
the pile, too, erected under the pretext of sacred rites, she fell upon
the sword; and, {herself} deceived, she deceived all. Again, flying from
the newly erected walls of the sandy regions, and being carried back to
the seat of Eryx and the attached Acestes, he performs sacrifice, and
pays honour[6] to the tomb of his father. He now loosens {from shore}
the ships which Iris, the minister of Juno, has almost burned; and
passes by the realms of the son of Hippotas, and the regions that smoke
with the heated sulphur, and leaves behind him the rocks of the
Sirens,[7] daughters of Acheloüs; and the ship, deprived of its
pilot,[8] coasts along Inarime[9] and Prochyta,[10] and Pithecusæ,
situate on a barren hill, so called from the name of its inhabitants.

For the father of the Gods, once abhorring the frauds and perjuries of
the Cercopians, and the crimes of the fraudulent race, changed these men
into ugly animals; that these same beings might be able to appear unlike
men, and yet like them. He both contracted their limbs, and flattened
their noses; bent back from their foreheads; and he furrowed their faces
with the wrinkles of old age. And he sent them into this spot, with the
whole of their bodies covered with long yellow hair. Moreover, he first
took away from them the use of language, and of their tongues, made for
dreadful perjury; he only allowed them to be able to complain with a
harsh jabbering.

    〔note 5 — By the winds.--Ver. 77. The storm in which Æneas is cast upon the shores of Africa forms the subject of part of the first Book of the Æneid.〕

    〔note 6 — And pays honour.--Ver. 84. The annual games which Æneas instituted at the tomb of his father, in Sicily, are fully described in the fifth Book of the Æneid.〕

    〔note 7 — The Sirens.--Ver. 87. The Sirens were said to have been the daughters of the river Acheloüs. Their names are Parthenope, Lysia, and Leucosia.〕

    〔note 8 — Deprived of its pilot.--Ver. 88. This was Palinurus, who, when asleep, fell overboard, and was drowned. See the end of the fifth Book of the Æneid.〕

    〔note 9 — Inarime.--Ver. 89. This was an island not far from the coast of Campania, which was also called Ischia and Ænaria. The word ‘Inarime’ is thought to have been coined by Virgil, from the expression of Homer, εῖν Ἀρίμοις, when speaking of it, as that writer is the first who is found to use it, and is followed by Ovid, Lucan, and others. Strabo tells us, that ‘aremus’ was the Etrurian name for an ape; if so, the name of this spot may account for the name of Pithecusæ, the adjoining islands, if the tradition here related by the Poet really existed. Pliny the Elder, however, says that Pithecusæ were so called from πίθος, an earthern cask, or vessel, as there were many potteries there.〕

    〔note 10 — Prochyta.--Ver. 89. This island was said to have been torn away from the isle of Inarime by an earthquake; for which reason it received its name from the Greek verb προχέω, which means ‘to pour forth.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  Although Ovid passes over the particulars of the visit of Æneas to
  Dido, and only mentions her death incidentally, we may give a few
  words to a story which has been rendered memorable by the beautiful
  poem of Virgil. Elisa, or Dido, was the daughter of Belus, king of
  Tyre. According to Justin, at his death he left his crown to his son
  Pygmalion jointly with Dido, who was a woman of extraordinary
  beauty. She was afterwards married to her uncle Sicharbas, who is
  called Sichæus by Virgil. Being priest of Hercules, an office next
  in rank to that of king, he was possessed of immense treasures,
  which the known avarice of Pygmalion caused him to conceal in the
  earth. Pygmalion having caused him to be assassinated, at which Dido
  first expressed great resentment, she afterwards pretended a
  reconciliation, the better to cover the design which she had formed
  to escape from the kingdom.

  Having secured the cooperation of several of the discontented
  Tyrians, she requested permission to visit Tyre, and to leave her
  melancholy retreat, where every thing contributed to increase her
  misery by recalling the remembrance of her deceased husband. Hoping
  to seize her treasures, Pygmalion granted her request. Putting her
  wealth on board ship, she mixed some bags filled with sand among
  those that contained gold, for the purpose of deceiving those whom
  the king had sent to observe her and to escort her to Tyre. When out
  at sea, she threw the bags overboard, to appease the spirit of her
  husband, as she pretended, by sacrificing those treasures that had
  cost him his life. Then addressing the officers that accompanied
  her, she assured them that they would meet with but a bad reception
  from the king for having permitted so much wealth to be wasted, and
  that it would be more advantageous for them to fly from his
  resentment. The officers embarking in her design, after they had
  taken on board some Tyrian nobles, who were privy to the plan, she
  offered sacrifice to Hercules, and again set sail. Landing in
  Cyprus, they carried off eighty young women, who were married to her
  companions. On discovering her flight, Pygmalion at first intended
  to pursue her; but the intreaties of his mother, and the
  remonstrances of the priests, caused him to abandon his design.

  Having arrived on the coast of Africa, Dido bargained with the
  inhabitants of the coast for as much ground as she could encompass
  with a bull’s hide. This being granted, she cut the hide into as
  many thongs as enclosed ground sufficient to build a fort upon;
  which was in consequence called ‘Byrsa.’ In making the foundation,
  an ox’s head was dug up, which being supposed to portend slavery to
  the city, if built there, they removed to another spot, where, in
  digging, they found a horse’s head, which was considered to be a
  more favourable omen. The story of the citadel being named from the
  bull’s hide was very probably invented by the Greeks; who, finding
  in the Phœnician narrative of the foundation of Carthage, the
  citadel mentioned by the Tyrian name of ‘Bostra,’ which had that
  signification, and fancying, from its resemblance to their word
  βυρσὰ, that it was derived from it, invented the fable of the hide.

  Being pressed by Iarbas, king of Mauritania, to marry him, she asked
  for three months to come to a determination. The time expiring, she
  ordered a sacrifice to be made as an expiation to her husband’s
  shade, and caused a pile to be erected, avowedly for the purpose of
  burning all that belonged to him. Ascending it, she pretended to
  expedite the sacrifice, and then despatched herself with a poniard.
  Virgil, wishing to deduce the hatred of the Romans and Carthaginians
  from the very time of Æneas, invented the story of the visit of
  Æneas to Dido; though he was perhaps guilty of a great anachronism
  in so doing, as the taking of Troy most probably preceded the
  foundation of Carthage by at least two centuries. Ovid has also
  related her story at length in the third book of the Fasti, and has
  followed Virgil’s account of the treacherous conduct of Æneas, while
  he represents Iarbas as capturing her city after her death, and
  driving her sister Anna into exile. In the Phœnician language the
  word ‘Dido’ signified ‘the bold woman,’ and it is probable that
  Elisa only received that name after her death. Bochart has taken
  considerable pains to prove that she was the aunt of Jezebel, the
  famous, or rather infamous, wife of King Ahab.

  The Poet then proceeds to say that Æneas saw the islands of the
  Cercopians on his way, whom Jupiter had transformed into apes.
  Æschines and Suidas say that there were two notorious robbers,
  inhabitants of an island adjacent to Sicily, named Candulus and
  Atlas, who committed outrages on all who approached the island.
  Being about to insult Jupiter himself, he transformed them into
  apes, from which circumstance the island received its name of
  Pithecusa. Sabinus says that they were called Cercopes, because in
  their treachery they were like monkeys, who fawn with their tails,
  when they design nothing but mischief. Zenobius places the Cercopes
  in Libya; and says that they were changed into rocks, for having
  offered to fight with Hercules.

FABLE III. [XIV.101-153]

  Apollo is enamoured of the Sibyl, and, to engage her affection,
  offers her as many years as she can grasp grains of sand. She
  forgets to ask that she may always continue in the bloom of youth,
  and consequently becomes gray and decrepit.

After he has passed by these, and has left the walls of Parthenope[11]
on the right hand, on the left side he {approaches} the tomb of the
tuneful son of Æolus[12]; and he enters the shores of Cumæ, regions
abounding in the sedge of the swamp, and the cavern of the long-lived
Sibyl[13], and entreats {her}, that through Avernus, he may visit the
shade of his father. But she raises her countenance, a long time fixed
on the ground; and at length, inspired by the influence of the God, she
says, “Thou dost request a great thing, O hero, most renowned by thy
achievements, whose right hand has been proved by the sword, whose
affection {has been proved} by the flames. Yet, Trojan, lay aside {all}
apprehension, thou shalt obtain thy request; and under my guidance thou
shalt visit the abodes of Elysium, the most distant realms of the
universe, and the beloved shade of thy parent. To virtue, no path is
inaccessible.”

{Thus} she spoke, and she pointed out a branch refulgent with gold, in
the woods of the Juno of Avernus[14], and commanded him to pluck it from
its stem. Æneas obeyed; and he beheld the power of the dread Orcus, and
his own ancestors, and the aged ghost of the magnanimous Anchises; he
learned, too, the ordinances of {those} regions, and what dangers would
have to be undergone by him in his future wars. Tracing back thence his
weary steps along the path, he beguiled his labour in discourse with his
Cumæan guide. And while he was pursuing his frightful journey along
darkening shades, he said, “Whether thou art a Goddess personally, or
whether {thou art but a woman} most favoured by the Deities, to me shalt
thou always be equal to a Divinity; I will confess, too, that I exist
through thy kindness, who hast willed that I should visit the abodes of
death, and that I should escape those abodes of death {when} beheld {by
me}. For this kindness, when I have emerged into the breezes of the air,
I will erect a temple to thee, {and} I will give thee the honours of
frankincense.”

The prophetess looks upon him, and, with heaving sighs, she says,
“Neither am I a Goddess, nor do thou honour a human being with the
tribute of the holy frankincense. And, that thou mayst not err in
ignorance, life eternal and without end was offered me, had my virginity
but yielded to Phœbus, in love {with me}. But while he was hoping for
this, while he was desiring to bribe me beforehand with gifts, he said:
‘Maiden of Cumæ, choose whatever thou mayst wish, thou shalt gain thy
wish.’ I, pointing to a heap of collected dust, inconsiderately asked
that as many birth-days might be my lot, as the dust contained
particles. It escaped me to desire as well, at the same time, years
vigorous with youth. But yet he offered me these, and eternal youth, had
I submitted to his desires. Having rejected the offers of Phœbus,
I remain unmarried. But now my more vigorous years have passed by, and
crazy old age approaches with its trembling step, and this must I long
endure.

“For thou beholdest me, having now lived seven ages; it remains for me
to equal the number of particles of the dust; {yet} to behold three
hundred harvests, {and} three hundred vintages. The time will come, when
length of days will make me diminutive from a person so large; and when
my limbs, wasted by old age, will be reduced to the most trifling
weight. {Then} I shall not seem to have {once} been beloved, nor {once}
to have pleased a God. Even Phœbus himself will, perhaps, not recognize
me; or, {perhaps}, he will deny that he loved me. To that degree shall I
be said to be changed; and though perceived by none, I shall still be
recognized by my voice. My voice the Destinies will leave me.”

    〔note 11 — Parthenope.--Ver. 101. The city of Naples, or Neapolis, was called Parthenope from the Siren of that name, who was said to have been buried there.〕

    〔note 12 — Son of Æolus.--Ver. 103. Misenus, the trumpeter, was said to have been the son of Æolus. From him the promontory Misenum received its name.〕

    〔note 13 — Long-lived Sibyl.--Ver. 104. The Sibyls were said by some to have their name from the fact of their revealing the will of the Deities, as in the Æolian dialect, Σιὸς was ‘a God,’ and βουλὴ was the Greek for ‘will.’ According to other writers, they were so called from Σίου βύλλη, ‘full of the Deity.’〕

    〔note 14 — Juno of Avernus.--Ver. 114. The Infernal, or Avernian Juno, is a title sometimes given by the poets to Proserpine.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The early fathers of the church, and particularly Justin, in their
  works in defence of Christianity, made use of the Sibylline verses
  of the ancients. The Emperor Constantine, too, in his harangue
  before the Nicene Council, quoted them, as redounding to the
  advantage of Christianity; although he then stated that many persons
  did not believe that the Sibyls were the authors of them. St.
  Augustin, too, employs several of their alleged predictions to
  enforce the truths of the Christian religion.

  Sebastian Castalio has warmly maintained the truth of the oracles
  contained in these verses, though he admits that they have been very
  much interpolated. Other writers, however, having carefully examined
  them, have pronounced them to be spurious, and so many pious frauds;
  which, perhaps, may be pronounced to be the general opinion at the
  present day. We will, however, shortly enquire how many Sibyls of
  antiquity there were, and when they lived; whether any of their
  works were ever promulgated for the perusal of the public, and
  whether the verses which still exist under their name have any
  ground to be considered genuine.

  There is no doubt but that in ancient times there existed certain
  women, who, led by a frenzied enthusiasm, uttered obscure sentences,
  which passed for predictions with the credulous people who went to
  consult them. Virgil and Ovid represent Æneas as going to the cave
  of the Cumæan Sibyl, to learn from her the success of the wars he
  should be engaged in. Plato, Strabo, Plutarch, Pliny, Solinus, and
  Pausanias, with many other writers, have mentioned the Sibyls; and
  it would be absurd, with Faustus Socinus, to affirm that no Sibyls
  ever existed. Indeed, Plato and other authors of antiquity go so far
  as to say, that by their productions they were essentially the
  benefactors of mankind. Some mention but one Sibyl, who was born
  either at Babylon or at Erythræ, in Phrygia. Diodorus Siculus
  mentions one only, and assigns Delphi as her locality, calling her
  by the name of Daphne. Strabo and Stephanus Byzantinus mention two,
  the one of Gergæ, a little town near Troy, and the other of
  Mermessus, in the same country. Solinus reckons three; the Delphian,
  named Herophile, the Erythræan, and the Cumæan. According to Varro,
  their number amounted to ten, whose names, in the order of time
  which Pausanias assigns them, were as follows:

  The first and the most ancient was the Delphian, who lived before
  the Trojan war. The second was the Erythræan, who was said to have
  been the first composer of acrostic verses, and who also lived
  before the Trojan war. The third was the Cumæan, who was mentioned
  by Nævius in his book on the first Punic war, and by Piso in his
  annals. She is the Sibyl spoken of in the Æneid, and her name was
  Deïphobe. The fourth was the Samian, called Pitho, though Eusebius
  calls her Herophile, and he makes her to have lived about the time
  of Numa Pompilius. The fifth, whose name was Amalthea, or Demophile,
  lived at Cumæ, in Asia Minor. The sixth was the Hellespontine Sibyl,
  born at Mermessus, near Troy. The seventh was the Libyan, mentioned
  by Euripides. Some suppose that she was the first who had the name
  of Sibyl, which was given to her by the people of Africa. The eighth
  was the Persian or Babylonian Sibyl, whom Suidas names Sambetha. The
  ninth was the Phrygian, who delivered her oracles at Ancyra, in
  Phrygia. The tenth was the Tiburtine, who was called Albunea, and
  prophesied near Tibur, or Tivoli, on the banks of the Anio. In the
  present story Ovid evidently intends to represent these various
  Sibyls as being the same person; and to account for her prolonged
  existence, by representing that Apollo had granted her a life to
  last for many ages.

  Several ages before the Christian era, the Romans had a collection
  of verses, which were commonly attributed to the Sibyls. These they
  often consulted; and in the time of Tarquinius Superbus, two
  officers were appointed for the purpose of keeping the Sibylline
  books, whose business it was to look in them on the occasion of any
  public calamity, in order to see whether it had been foretold and to
  make their report to the Senate. The books were kept in a stone
  chest, beneath the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. These Duumvirs
  continued until the year of Rome 388, when eight others being added,
  they formed the College of the Decemvirs. About eighty-three years
  before the Christian era five other keepers of these books were
  added, who thus formed the body called the Quindecimvirs.

  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Aulus Gellius, Servius, and many other
  writers, state the following as the origin of the Sibylline books.
  An aged woman presented to Tarquinius Superbus three books that
  contained the oracles of the Sibyls, and demanded a large sum for
  them. The king refusing to buy them, she went and burned them; and
  returning, asked the same price for the remaining six, as she had
  done for the original number. Being again repulsed, she burnt three
  more, and coming back again, demanded the original price for the
  three that remained. Astonished at the circumstance, the king bought
  the books. Pliny and Solinus vary the story a little, in saying that
  the woman at first presented but three books, and that she destroyed
  two of them.

  It is generally supposed, that on the burning of the Capitol, about
  eighty-three years before the Christian era, the Sibylline books of
  Tarquinius Superbus were destroyed in the flames. To repair the
  loss, the Romans despatched officers to various cities of Italy, and
  even to Asia and Africa, to collect whatever they could find, under
  the name of Sibylline oracles. P. Gabinius, M. Ottacilius, and L.
  Valerius brought back a large collection, of which the greater part
  was rejected, and the rest committed to the care of the
  Quindecimvirs. Augustus ordered a second revision of them; and,
  after a severe scrutiny, those which were deemed to be genuine, were
  deposited in a box, under a statue of Apollo Palatinus. Tiberius
  again had them examined, and some portion of them was then rejected.
  Finally, about the year A.D. 399, Stilcho, according to Rutilius
  Numatianus, or rather, the Emperor Honorius himself, ordered them to
  be burnt.

  The so-called collection of Sibylline verses which now exists is
  generally looked upon as spurious; or if any part is genuine, it
  bears so small a proportion to the fictitious portion, that it has
  shared in the condemnation. Indeed, their very distinctness stamps
  them as forgeries; for they speak of the mysteries of Christianity
  in undisguised language, and the names of our Saviour and the Virgin
  Mary occur as openly as they do in the Holy Scriptures.

  It is a singular assertion of St. Jerome, that the gift of prophecy
  was a reward to the Sibyls for their chastity. If such was the
  condition, we have a right to consider that the Deities were very
  partial in the distribution of their rewards, and in withholding
  them from the multitudes who, we are bound in charity to believe,
  were as deserving as the Sibyls themselves of the gift of
  vaticination.

FABLE IV. [XIV.154-247]

  Æneas arrives at Caieta, in Italy. Achæmenides, an Ithacan, who is
  on board his ship, meets his former companion Macareus there; and
  relates to him his escape from being devoured by Polyphemus.
  Macareus afterwards tells him how Ulysses had received winds from
  Æolus in a hide, and by that means had a prosperous voyage; till,
  on the bag being opened by the sailors in their curiosity, the winds
  rushed out, and raised a storm that drove them back to Æolia, and
  afterwards upon the coast of the Læstrygons.

While the Sibyl was relating such things as these, during the steep
ascent, the Trojan Æneas emerged from the Stygian abodes to the Eubœan
city,[15] and the sacrifice being performed, after the usual manner, he
approached the shores that not yet bore the name of his nurse;[16] here,
too, Macareus of Neritos, the companion of the experienced Ulysses, had
rested, after the prolonged weariness of his toils. He recognized
Achæmenides, once deserted in the midst of the crags of Ætna; and
astonished that, thus unexpectedly found again, he was yet alive, he
said, “What chance, or what God, Achæmenides, preserves thee? why is a
barbarian[17] vessel carrying {thee}, a Greek? What land is sought by
thy bark?”

No longer ragged in his clothing, {but} now his own {master},[18] and
wearing clothes tacked together with no thorns, Achæmenides says, “Again
may I behold Polyphemus, and those jaws streaming with human blood,
if my home and Ithaca be more delightful to me than this bark; if I
venerate Æneas any less than my own father. And, though I were to do
everything {possible}, I could never be sufficiently grateful. ’Tis he
that has caused that I speak, and breathe, and behold the heavens and
the luminary of the sun; and can I be ungrateful, and forgetful of this?
{’Tis through him} that this life of mine did not fall into the jaws of
the Cyclop; and though I were, even now, to leave the light of life,
I should either be buried in a tomb, or, at least, not in that paunch
{of his}. What were my feelings at that moment (unless, indeed, terror
deprived me of all sense and feeling), when, left behind, I saw you
making for the open sea? I wished to shout aloud, but I was fearful of
betraying myself to the enemy; the shouts of Ulysses were very nearly
causing[19] the destruction of even your ship. I beheld him when, having
torn up a mountain, he hurled the immense rock in the midst of the
waves; again I beheld him hurling huge stones, with his giant arms, just
as though impelled by the powers of the engine of war. And, forgetful
that I was not in it, I was now struck with horror lest the waves or the
stones might overwhelm the ship.

“But when your flight had saved you from a cruel death, he, indeed,
roaring with rage, paced about all Ætna, and groped out the woods with
his hands, and, deprived of his eye, stumbled against the rocks; and
stretching out his arms, stained with gore, into the sea, he cursed the
Grecian race, and he said, ‘Oh! that any accident would bring back
Ulysses to me, or any one of his companions, against whom my anger might
find vent, whose entrails I might devour, whose living limbs I might
mangle with my right hand, whose blood might drench my throat, whose
crushed members might quiver beneath my teeth: how insignificant, or how
trifling, {then}, would be the loss of my sight, that has been taken
from me!’ This, and more, he said in his rage. Ghastly horror took
possession of me, as I beheld his features, streaming even yet with
blood, and the ruthless hands, and the round space deprived of the eye,
and his limbs, and his beard matted with human blood. Death was before
my eyes, {and} yet that was the least of my woes. I imagined that[20]
now he was about to seize hold of me, and that now he was on the very
point of swallowing my vitals within his own; in my mind was fixed the
impress of that time when I beheld two bodies of my companions three or
four times dashed against the ground. Throwing himself on the top of
them, just like a shaggy lion, he stowed away their entrails, their
flesh, their bones with the white marrow, and their quivering limbs, in
his ravenous paunch. A trembling seized me; in my alarm I stood without
blood {in my features}, as I beheld him both chewing and belching out
his bloody banquet from his mouth, and vomiting pieces mingled with
wine; {and} I fancied that such a doom was in readiness for wretched me.

“Concealing myself for many a day, and trembling at every sound, and
both fearing death and {yet} desirous to die, satisfying hunger with
acorns, and with grass mixed with leaves, alone, destitute, desponding,
abandoned to death and destruction, after a length of time, I beheld a
ship not far off; by signs I prayed for deliverance, and I ran down to
the shore; I prevailed; and a Trojan ship received me, a Greek. Do thou
too, dearest of my companions, relate thy adventures, and those of thy
chief, and of the company, which, together with thee, entrusted
{themselves} to the ocean.”

The other relates how that Æolus rules over the Etrurian seas; Æolus,
the grandson of Hippotas, who confines the winds in their prison, which
the Dulichean chief had received, shut up in a leather {bag}, a wondrous
gift; how, with a favouring breeze, he had proceeded for nine days, and
had beheld the land he was bound for; {and how}, when the first morning
after the ninth had arrived, his companions, influenced by envy and a
desire for booty, supposing it to be gold, had cut the fastenings of the
winds; {and how}, through these, the ship had gone back along the waves
through which it had just come, and had returned to the harbour of the
Æolian king.

“Thence,” said he, “we came to the ancient city[21] of Lamus, the
Læstrygon. Antiphates was reigning in that land. I was sent to him, two
in number accompanying me; and with difficulty was safety procured by me
and one companion, by flight; the third of us stained the accursed jaws
of the Læstrygon with his blood. Antiphates pursued us as we fled, and
called together his followers; they flocked together, and, without
intermission, they showered both stones and beams, and they overwhelmed
men, and ships, too, did they overwhelm; yet one, which carried us and
Ulysses himself, escaped. A part of our companions {thus} lost, grieving
and lamenting much we arrived at those regions which thou perceivest
afar hence. Look! afar hence thou mayst perceive an island,[22] that has
been seen by me; and do thou, most righteous of the Trojans, thou son of
a Goddess, (for, since the war is ended, thou art not, Æneas, to be
called an enemy) I warn thee--avoid the shores of Circe.”

    〔note 15 — Eubœan city.--Ver. 155. ‘Cumæ’ was said to have been founded by a colony from Chalcis, in Eubœa.〕

    〔note 16 — Of his nurse.--Ver. 157. Caieta was the name of the nurse of Æneas, who was said to have been buried there by him.〕

    〔note 17 — Barbarian.--Ver. 163. That is, Trojan; to the Greeks all people but themselves were βαρβαροὶ.〕

    〔note 18 — His own master.--Ver. 166. ‘Now his own master,’ in contradistinction to the time when Macareus looked on himself as the devoted victim of Polyphemus.〕

    〔note 19 — Nearly causing.--Ver. 181. Homer, in the Ninth Book of the Odyssey, recounts how Ulysses, after having put out the eye of Polyphemus, fled to his own ship, and when the Giant followed, called out to him, disclosing his real name; whereas, he had before told the Cyclop that his name was οὔτις, ‘nobody.’ By this indiscreet action, the Cyclop was able to ascertain the locality of the ship, and nearly sank it with a mass of rock which he hurled in that direction.〕

    〔note 20 — I imagined that.--Ver. 203-4. ‘Et jam prensurum, jam, jam mea viscera rebar In sua mersurum.’ Clarke thus renders these words; ‘And now I thought he would presently whip me up, and cram my bowels within his own.’〕

    〔note 21 — The ancient city.--Ver. 233. This city was afterwards known as Formiæ, in Campania.〕

    〔note 22 — An island.--Ver. 245. Macareus here points towards the promontory of Circæum, which was supposed to have formerly been an island.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Æolus, according to Servius and Varro, was the son of Hippotas, and
  about the time of the Trojan war reigned in those islands, which
  were formerly called ‘Vulcaniæ,’ but were afterwards entitled
  ‘Æoliæ,’ and are now known as the Lipari Islands. Homer mentions
  only one of these islands, which were seven in number. He calls it
  by the name of Æolia, and probably means the one which was called
  Lipara, and gave its name to the group, and which is now known as
  Strombolo. Æolus seems to have been a humane prince, who received
  with hospitality those who had the misfortune to be cast on his
  island. Diodorus Siculus says that he was especially careful to warn
  strangers of the shoals and dangerous places in the neighbouring
  seas. Pliny adds, that he applied himself to the study of the winds,
  by observing the direction of the smoke of the volcanos, with which
  the isles abounded.

  Being considered as an authority on that subject, at a time when
  navigation was so little reduced to an art, the poets readily
  feigned that he was the master of the winds, and kept them pent up
  in caverns, under his control. The story of the winds being
  entrusted to Ulysses, which Ovid here copies from Homer, is merely a
  poetical method of saying, that Ulysses disregarded the advice of
  Æolus, and staying out at sea beyond the time he had been
  recommended, was caught in a violent tempest. It is possible that
  Homer may allude to some custom which prevailed among the ancients,
  similar to that of the Lapland witches in modern times, who pretend
  to sell a favourable wind, enclosed in a bag, to mariners. Homer
  speaks of the six sons and six daughters of Æolus; perhaps they were
  the twelve principal winds, upon which he had expended much pains in
  making accurate observations.

  Bochart suggests that the isle of Lipara was called by the
  Phœnicians ‘Nibara,’ on account of its volcano, (that word
  signifying ‘a torch,’) which name was afterwards corrupted to
  Lipara.

FABLE V. [XIV.248-319]

  Achæmenides lands in the isle of Circe, and is sent to her palace
  with some of his companions. Giving them a favourable reception, she
  makes them drink of a certain liquor; and, on her touching them with
  a wand, they are immediately transformed into swine. Eurylochus, who
  has refused to drink, informs Ulysses, who immediately repairs to
  the palace, and obliges Circe to restore to his companions their
  former shape.

“We, too, having fastened our ships to the shores of Circe, remembering
Antiphates and the cruel Cyclop, refused to go and enter her unknown
abode. By lot were we chosen; that lot sent both me and the faithful
Polytes, and Eurylochus, and Elpenor, too much addicted[23] to wine, and
twice nine[24] companions, to the walls of Circe. Soon as we reached
them, and stood at the threshold of her abode; a thousand wolves, and
bears and lionesses mixed with the wolves, created fear through meeting
them; but not one {of them} needed to be feared, and not one was there
to make a wound on our bodies. They wagged their caressing tails in the
air, and fawning, they attended our footsteps, until the female servants
received us, and led us, through halls roofed with marble, to their
mistress.

“She is sitting in a beautiful alcove, on her wonted throne, and clad in
a splendid robe; over it she is arrayed in a garment of gold tissue. The
Nereids and the Nymphs, together, who tease no fleeces with the motion
of their fingers nor draw out the ductile threads, are placing the
plants in due order, and arranging in baskets the flowers confusedly
scattered, and the shrubs variegated in their hues. She herself
prescribes the tasks that they perform; she herself is aware what is the
use of every leaf; what combined virtue there is in them when mixed; and
giving attention, she examines {each} herb as weighed.[25] When she
beheld us, having given and received a salutation, she gladdened her
countenance, and granted every thing to our wishes. And without delay,
she ordered the grains of parched barley to be mingled, and honey, and
the strength of wine, and curds with pressed milk. Secretly, she added
drugs to be concealed beneath this sweetness. We received the cups
presented by her sacred right hand. Soon as, in our thirst, we quaffed
them with parching mouth, and the ruthless Goddess, with her wand,
touched the extremity of our hair (I am both ashamed, and {yet} I will
tell of it), I began to grow rough with bristles, and no longer to be
able to speak; and, instead of words, to utter a harsh noise, and to
grovel on the ground with all my face. I felt, too, my mouth receive a
hard skin, with its crooked snout, and my neck swell with muscles; and
with the member with which, the moment before, I had received the cup,
with the same did I impress my footsteps.

“With the rest who had suffered the same treatment (so powerful are
enchanted potions) I was shut up in a pig-sty; and we perceived that
Eurylochus, alone, had not the form of a swine; he, alone, escaped the
proffered draught. And had he not escaped it, I should even, at this
moment, have still been one of the bristle-clad animals; nor would
Ulysses, having been informed by him of so direful a disaster, have come
to Circe as {our} avenger. The Cyllenian peace-bearer had given him a
white flower; the Gods above call it ‘Moly;’[26] it is supported by a
black root. Protected by that, and at the same time by the instruction
of the inhabitants of heaven, he entered the dwelling of Circe, and
being invited to the treacherous draughts, he repelled her, while
endeavouring to stroke his hair with her wand, and prevented her, in her
terror, with his drawn sword. Upon that, her promise {was given}, and
right hands were exchanged; and, being received into her couch, he
required the bodies of his companions as his marriage gift.

“We are {then} sprinkled with the more favouring juices of harmless
plants, and are smitten on the head with a blow from her inverted wand;
and charms are repeated, the converse of the charms that had been
uttered. The longer she chaunts them, the more erect are we raised from
the ground; and the bristles fall off, and the fissure leaves our cloven
feet; our shoulders return; our arms become attached[27] to their upper
parts. In tears, we embrace him {also} in tears; and we cling to the
neck of our chief; nor do we utter any words before those that testify
that we are grateful.

“The space of a year detained us there; and, as {I was} present for such
a length of time, I saw many things; and many things I heard with my
ears. This, too, among many other things {I heard}, which one of the
four handmaids appointed for such rites, privately informed me of. For
while Circe was passing her time apart with my chief, she pointed out to
me a youthful statue made of snow-white marble, carrying a woodpecker on
its head, erected in the hallowed temple, and bedecked with many a
chaplet. When I asked, and desired to know who he was, and why he was
venerated in the sacred temple, and why he carried that bird; she
said:-- ‘Listen, Macareus, learn hence, too, what is the power of my
mistress, and give attention to what I say.’”

    〔note 23 — Too much addicted.--Ver. 252. He alludes to the fate of Elpenor, who afterwards, in a fit of intoxication, fell down stairs, and broke his neck.〕

    〔note 24 — Twice nine.--Ver. 253. Homer mentions Eurylochus and twenty-two others as the number, being one more than the number here given by Ovid.〕

    〔note 25 — As weighed.--Ver. 270. Of course drugs and simples would require to be weighed before being mixed in their due proportions.〕

    〔note 26 — Call it ‘Moly.’--Ver. 292. Homer, in the tenth Book of the Odyssey, says that this plant had a black root, and a flower like milk.〕

    〔note 27 — Become attached.--Ver. 304-5. ‘Subjecta lacertis Brachia sunt,’ Clarke has not a very lucid translation of these words. His version is, ‘Brachia are put under our lacerti.’ The ‘brachium’ was the forearm, or part, from the wrist to the elbow; while the ‘lacertus’ was the muscular part, between the elbow and the shoulder.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Ulysses having stayed some time at the court of Circe, where all
  were immersed in luxury and indolence, begins to reflect on the
  degraded state to which he is reduced, and resolutely abandons so
  unworthy a mode of life. This resolution is here typified by the
  herb moly, the symbol of wisdom. His companions, changed into swine,
  are emblems of the condition to which a life of sensuality reduces
  its votaries; while the wolves, lions, and horses show that man in
  such a condition fails not to exhibit the various bad propensities
  of the brute creation. Thus was the prodigal son, mentioned in the
  New Testament, reduced to a level with the brutes, ‘and fain would
  have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.’

  It is not improbable that Circe was the original from which the
  Eastern romancer depicted the enchantress queen Labè in the story of
  Beder and Giauhare in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. They were
  both ladies of light reputation, both fond of exercising their
  magical power on strangers, and in exactly the same manner: and as
  Ulysses successfully resisted the charms of Circe, so Beder thwarted
  the designs of Labè; but here the parallel ends.

FABLE VI. [XIV.320-440]

  Circe, being enamoured of Picus, and being unable to shake his
  constancy to his wife Canens, transforms him into a woodpecker, and
  his retinue into various kinds of animals. Canens pines away with
  grief at the loss of her husband, and the place where she disappears
  afterwards bears her name.

“‘Picus, the son of Saturn, was a king in the regions of Ausonia, an
admirer of horses useful in warfare. The form of this person was such as
thou beholdest. Thou thyself {here} mayst view his comeliness, and thou
mayst approve of his real form from this feigned resemblance of it. His
disposition was equal to his beauty; and not yet, in his age, could he
have beheld four times the {Olympic} contest celebrated each fifth year
in the Grecian Elis. He had attracted, by his {good} looks, the Dryads,
born in the hills of Latium; the Naiads, the fountain Deities, wooed
him; {Nymphs}, which Albula,[28] and which the waters of Numicus, and
which those of Anio, and Almo but very short[29] in its course, and the
rapid Nar,[30] and Farfarus,[31] with its delightful shades, produced,
and those which haunt the forest realms of the Scythian[32] Diana, and
the neighbouring streams.

“‘Yet, slighting all these, he was attached to one Nymph, whom, on the
Palatine hill, Venilia is said once to have borne to the Ionian
Janus.[33] Soon as she was ripe with marriageable years, she was
presented to Laurentine Picus, preferred {by her} before all others;
wondrous, indeed, was she in her beauty, but more wondrous still,
through her skill in singing; thence she was called Canens.[34] She was
wont, with her voice, to move the woods and the rocks, and to tame the
wild beasts, and to stop {the course of} the long rivers, and to detain
the fleeting birds. While she was singing her songs with her feminine
voice, Picus had gone from his dwelling into the Laurentine fields, to
pierce the wild boars there bred; and he was pressing the back of his
spirited horse, and was carrying two javelins in his left hand, having a
purple cloak fastened with yellow gold. The daughter of the Sun, too,
had come into the same wood; and that she might pluck fresh plants on
the fruitful hills, she had left behind the Circæan fields, {so} called
after her own name.

“‘Hidden by the shrubs, soon as she beheld the youth, she was astounded;
the plants which she had gathered fell from her bosom, and a flame
seemed to pervade her entire marrow. As soon as she regained her
presence of mind from {so} powerful a shock, she was about to confess
what she desired; the speed of his horse, and the surrounding guards,
caused that she could not approach. ‘And yet thou shalt not escape me,’
she said, ‘even shouldst thou be borne on the winds, if I only know
myself, if all potency in herbs has not vanished, and if my charms do
not deceive me.’ {Thus} she said; and she formed the phantom of a
fictitious wild boar, with no substance, and commanded it to run past
the eyes of the king, and to seem to go into a forest, thick set with
trees, where the wood is most dense, and where the spot is inaccessible
to a horse. There is no delay; Picus, forthwith, unconsciously follows
the phantom of the prey; hastily too, he leaves the reeking back of his
steed, and, in pursuit of a vain hope, wanders on foot in the lofty
forest. She repeats prayers to herself, and utters magical incantations,
and adores strange Gods in strange verses, with which she is wont both
to darken the disk of the snow-white moon, and to draw the clouds that
suck up the moisture, over the head of her father. Then does the sky
become lowering at the repeating of the incantation, and the ground
exhales its vapours; and his companions wander along the darkened paths,
and his guards are separated from the king.

“‘She, having now gained a {favourable} place and opportunity, says, ‘O,
most beauteous {youth}! by thy eyes, which have captivated mine, and by
this graceful person, which makes me, though a Goddess, to be thy
suppliant, favour my passion, and receive the Sun, that beholds all
things, as thy father-in-law, and do not in thy cruelty despise Circe,
the daughter of Titan.’ {Thus} she says. He roughly repels her and her
entreaties: and he says, ‘Whoever thou art, I am not for thee; another
female holds me enthralled, and for a long space of time, I pray, may
she so hold me. I will not pollute the conjugal ties with the love of a
stranger, while the Fates shall preserve for me Canens, the daughter of
Janus.’ The daughter of Titan, having often repeated her entreaties in
vain, says, ‘Thou shalt not depart with impunity, nor shalt thou return
to Canens; and by experience shalt thou learn what one slighted, what
one in love, what a woman, can do; but that one in love, and slighted,
and a woman, is Circe.’

“‘Then twice did she turn herself to the West, and twice to the East;
thrice did she touch the youth with her wand; three charms did she
repeat. He fled; wondering that he sped more swiftly than usual, he
beheld wings on his body; and indignant that he was added suddenly as a
strange bird to the Latian woods, he struck the wild oaks with his hard
beak, and, in his anger, inflicted wounds[35] on the long branches. His
wings took the purple colour of his robe. The piece of gold that had
formed a buckle, and had fastened his garment, became feathers, and his
neck was encompassed with {the colour of} yellow gold; and nothing {now}
remained to Picus of his former {self}, beyond the name.

“‘In the meantime his attendants, having, often in vain, called on Picus
throughout the fields, and, having found him in no direction, meet with
Circe, (for now she has cleared the air, and has allowed the clouds to
be dispersed by the woods and the sun); and they charge her with just
accusations, and demand back their king, and are using violence, and are
preparing to attack her with ruthless weapons. She scatters noxious
venom and poisonous extracts; and she summons together Night, and the
Gods of Night, from Erebus and from Chaos, and she invokes Hecate in
magic howlings. Wondrous to tell, the woods leap from their spot; the
ground utters groans, the neighbouring trees become pallid, the grass
becomes moist, besprinkled with drops of blood; the stones seem to send
forth harsh lowings, the dogs {seem} to bark, and the ground to grow
loathsome with black serpents, and unsubstantial ghosts of the departed
{appear} to flit about. The multitude trembles, astonished at these
prodigies; she touches their astonished faces, as they tremble, with her
enchanted wand. From the touch of this, the monstrous forms of various
wild beasts come upon the young men; his own form remains to no one of
them.

“‘The setting Sun has {now} borne down upon the Tartessian shores;[36]
and in vain is her husband expected, both by the eyes and the longings
of Canens. Her servants and the people run about through all the woods,
and carry lights to meet him. Nor is it enough for the Nymph to weep,
and to tear her hair, and to beat her breast; though all this she does,
she rushes forth, and, in her distraction, she wanders through the
Latian fields. Six nights, and as many returning lights of the Sun,
beheld her, destitute of sleep and of food, going over hills and
valleys, wherever chance led her. Tiber, last {of all}, beheld her, worn
out with weeping and wandering, and reposing her body on his cold banks.
There, with tears, she poured forth words attuned, lamenting, in a low
voice, her very woes, as when the swan, now about to die, sings his own
funereal dirge.

“‘At last, melting with grief, {even} to her thin marrow, she pined
away, and by degrees vanished into light air. Yet the Fame of it became
attached to the spot, which the ancient Muses have properly called
Canens, after the name of the Nymph.’ During that long year, many such
things as these were told me and were seen {by me}. Sluggish and
inactive through idleness, we were ordered again to embark on the deep,
again to set our sails. The daughter of Titan had said that dangerous
paths, and a protracted voyage, and the perils of the raging sea were
awaiting us. I was alarmed, I confess; and having reached these shores,
{here} I remained.”

    〔note 28 — Albula.--Ver. 328. The ancient name of the river Tiber was Albula. It was so called from the whiteness of its water.〕

    〔note 29 — But very short.--Ver. 329. The Almo falls in the Tiber, close to its own source, whence its present epithet.〕

    〔note 30 — Rapid Nar.--Ver. 330. The ‘Nar’ was a river of Umbria, which fell into the Tiber.〕

    〔note 31 — Farfarus.--Ver. 330. This river, flowing slowly through the valleys of the country of the Sabines, received a pleasant shade from the trees with which its banks were lined.〕

    〔note 32 — Scythian.--Ver. 331. He alludes to the statue of the Goddess Diana, which, with her worship, Orestes was said to have brought from the Tauric Chersonesus, and to have established at Aricia, in Latium. See the Fasti, Book III. l. 263, and Note.〕

    〔note 33 — Ionian Janus.--Ver. 334. Janus was so called because he was thought to have come from Thessaly, and to have crossed the Ionian Sea.〕

    〔note 34 — Canens.--Ver. 338. This name literally means ‘singing,’ being the present participle of the Latin verb ‘cano,’ ‘to sing.’〕

    〔note 35 — Inflicted wounds.--Ver. 392. The woodpecker is supposed to tap the bark of the tree with his beak, to ascertain, from the sound, if it is hollow, and if there are any insects beneath it.〕

    〔note 36 — Tartessian shores.--Ver. 416. ‘Tartessia’ is here used as a general term for Western, as Tartessus was a city of the Western coast of Spain. It afterwards had the name of Carteia, and is thought to have been situated not far from the site of the present Cadiz, at the mouth of the Bætis, now called the Guadalquivir. Some suppose this name to be the same with the Tarshish of Scripture.〕

EXPLANATION.

  When names occur in the ancient Mythology, of Oriental origin, we
  may conclude that they were imported into Greece and Italy from
  Egypt or Phœnicia; and that their stories were derived from the same
  sources; such as those of Adonis, Arethusa, Arachne, and Isis. Those
  that are derived from the Greek languages are attached to fictions
  of purely Greek origin, such as the fables of Daphne, Galantis,
  Cygnus, and the Myrmidons; and where the names are of Latin
  original, we may conclude that their stories originated in Italy:
  such, for instance, as those of Canens, Picus, Anna Perenna, Flora,
  Quirinus, and others.

  To this rule there are certain exceptions; for both Greece and Italy
  occasionally appropriated each other’s traditions, by substituting
  the names of one language for those of the other. Thus it would not
  be safe to affirm positively that the story of Portumnus and Matuta
  is of Latin origin, since Greece lays an equal claim to it under the
  names of Leucothoë and Palæmon, while, probably, Cadmus originally
  introduced it from Phœnicia, under the names of Ino and Melicerta.

  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, on the authority of Cato the Censor and
  Asellius Sempronius, says that the original inhabitants of Italy
  were a Greek colony. Cato and Sempronius state that they were from
  Achaia, while Dionysius says that they came from Arcadia, under the
  command of Œnotrius. Picus is generally supposed to have been one of
  the aboriginal kings of Italy, who was afterwards Deified. Servius,
  in his Commentary on the seventh Book of the Æneid, informs us that
  Picus pretended to know future events, and made use of a woodpecker,
  which he had tamed, for the purpose of his auguries. On this ground,
  after his death, it was generally reported that he had been
  transformed into that bird, and he was ranked among the Dii
  Indigetes of Latium. Dying in his youth, his wife Canens retired to
  a solitary spot, where she ended her life, and the intensity of her
  grief gave rise to the fable that she had pined away into a sound.

  It has been suggested that the story took its rise from the oracles
  of Mars among the Sabines, when a woodpecker was said to give the
  responses. According to Bochart, it arose from the confusion of the
  meaning of the Phœnician word ‘picea,’ which signified a ‘diviner.’
  It is the exuberant fancy of Ovid alone which connects Picus with
  the story of Circe.

FABLES VII. AND VIII. [XIV.441-526]

  Turnus having demanded succour from Diomedes against Æneas, the
  Grecian prince, fearing the resentment of Venus, refuses to send him
  assistance; and relates how some of his followers have been
  transformed by Venus into birds. An Apulian shepherd surprising some
  Nymphs, insults them, on which he is changed into a wild olive tree.

Macareus had concluded. And the nurse of Æneas, {now} buried in a marble
urn, had {this} short inscription on her tomb:-- “My foster-child, of
proved piety, here burned me, Caieta, preserved from the Argive flames,
with that fire which was my due.” The fastened cable is loosened from
the grassy bank, and they leave far behind the wiles and the dwelling of
the Goddess, of whom so ill a report has been given, and seek the groves
where the Tiber, darkened with the shade {of trees}, breaks into the sea
with his yellow sands. {Æneas}, too, gains the house and the daughter of
Latinus, the {son of} Faunus;[37] but not without warfare. A war is
waged with a fierce nation, and Turnus is indignant on account of the
wife that had been betrothed to him.[38] All Etruria meets {in battle}
with Latium, and long is doubtful victory struggled for with ardent
arms. Each side increases his strength with foreign forces, and many
take the part of the Rutulians, many that of the Trojan side. Nor {had}
Æneas {arrived} in vain at the thresholds of Evander,[39] but Venulus
came {in vain} to the great city, of the exiled Diomedes. He, indeed,
had founded a very great city under the Iapygian Daunus, and held the
lands given to him in dower.

But after Venulus had executed the commands of Turnus, and had asked for
aid, the Ætolian hero pleaded his resources as an excuse: that he was
not wishful to commit the subjects of his father-in-law to a war, and
that he had no men to arm of the nation of his own countrymen; “And that
ye may not think this a pretext, although my grief be renewed at the
bitter recollection, yet I will endure the recital {of it}. After lofty
Ilion was burnt, and Pergamus had fed the Grecian flames, and the
Narycian hero,[40] having ravished the virgin, distributed that
vengeance upon all, which he alone merited, on account of the virgin; we
were dispersed and driven by the winds over the hostile seas; we Greeks
had to endure lightning, darkness, rain, and the wrath both of the
heavens and of the sea, and Caphareus, the completion of our misery. And
not to detain you by relating these sad events in their order, Greece
might then have appeared even to Priam, worthy of a tear. Yet the care
of the armed universe preserved me, rescued from the waves.

“But again was I driven from Argos, {the land} of my fathers; and genial
Venus exacted satisfaction in vengeance for her former wound: and so
great hardships did I endure on the deep ocean, so great amid arms on
shore, that many a time were they pronounced {happy} by me, whom the
storm, common {to all}, and Caphareus, swallowed up in the
threatening[41] waves; and I wished that I had been one of them. My
companions having now endured the utmost extremities, both in war and on
the ocean, lost courage, and demanded an end of their wanderings. But
Agmon, of impetuous temper, and then embittered as well by misfortunes,
said, ‘What does there remain now, ye men, for your patience to refuse
to endure? What has Cytherea, (supposing her to desire it), that she can
do beyond this? For so long as greater evils are dreaded, there is room
for prayers; but where one’s lot is the most wretched possible, fear is
{trampled} under foot, and the extremity {of misfortune} is free from
apprehensions. Let {Venus} herself hear it, if she likes; let her hate,
as she does {hate}, all the men under the rule of Diomedes. Yet all of
us despise her hate, and this our great power is bought by us at great
price.’

“With such expressions does the Pleuronian[42] Agmon provoke Venus
against her will, and revive her former anger. His words are approved of
by a few. We, the greater number of his friends, rebuke Agmon: and as he
is preparing to answer, his voice and the passage of his voice together
become diminished; his hair changes into feathers; his neck newly
formed, his breast and his back are covered with down; his arms assume
longer feathers; and his elbows curve out into light wings. A great part
of his foot receives toes; his mouth becomes stiff and hardened with
horn, and has its end in a point. Lycus and Idas, and Nycteus, together
with Rhetenor, and Abas, are {all} astounded at him; and while they are
astounded, they assume a similar form; and the greater portion of my
company fly off, and resound around the oars with the flapping of their
wings. Shouldst thou inquire what was the form of these birds so
suddenly made; although it was not that of swans, yet it was approaching
to that of white swans. With difficulty, for my part, do I, the
son-in-law of the Iapygian Daunus, possess these abodes and the parched
fields with a very small remnant of my companions.”

Thus far the grandson of Œneus. Venulus leaves the Calydonian[43] realms
and the Peucetian[44] bays, and the Messapian[45] fields. In these he
beholds a cavern, which, overshadowed by a dense grove, and trickling
with a smooth stream, the God Pan, the half goat, occupies; but once on
a time the Nymphs possessed it. An Apulian shepherd alarmed them, scared
away from that spot; and, at first, he terrified them with a sudden
fear; afterwards, when their presence of mind returned, and they
despised him as he followed, they formed dances, moving their feet to
time. The shepherd abused them; and imitating them with grotesque
capers, he added rustic abuse in filthy language. Nor was he silent,
before the {growing} tree closed his throat. But from this tree and its
sap you may understand {what} were his manners. For the wild olive, by
its bitter berries, indicates the infamy of his tongue; the coarseness
of his words passed into them.

    〔note 37 — Son of Faunus.--Ver. 449. The parents of Latinus were Faunus and Marica.〕

    〔note 38 — Betrothed to him.--Ver. 451. Amata, the mother of Lavinia, had promised her to Turnus, in spite of the oracle of Faunus, which had declared that she was destined for a foreign husband.〕

    〔note 39 — Evander.--Ver. 456. His history is given by Ovid in the first Book of the Fasti.〕

    〔note 40 — Narycian hero.--Ver. 468. Naryx, which was also called Narycium and Naryce, was a city of Locris. He alludes to the divine vengeance which punished Ajax Oïleus, who had ravished Cassandra in the temple of Minerva. For this reason the Greeks were said to have been afflicted with shipwreck, on their return after the destruction of Troy.〕

    〔note 41 — Threatening.--Ver. 481. ‘Importunis’ is translated by Clarke, ‘plaguy.’ For some account of Caphareus, see the Tristia, or Lament, Book I. El. 1. l. 83. and note.〕

    〔note 42 — Pleuronian.--Ver. 494. Pleuron was a town of Ætolia, adjoining to Epirus.〕

    〔note 43 — Calydonian.--Ver. 512. That part of Apulia, which Diomedes received from Daunus, as a dower with his wife, was called Calydon, from the city of Calydon, in his native Ætolia.〕

    〔note 44 — Peucetian.--Ver. 513. Apulia was divided by the river Aufidus into two parts, Peucetia and Daunia. Peucetia was to the East, and Daunia lay to the West. According to Antoninus Liberalis, Daunus, Iapyx, and Peucetius, the sons of Lycaon, were the first to colonize these parts.〕

    〔note 45 — Messapian.--Ver. 513. Messapia was a name given to a part of Calabria, from its king Messapus, who aided Turnus against Æneas.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Latinus having been told by an oracle that a foreign prince should
  come into his country and marry his daughter Lavinia, received Æneas
  hospitably, and formed an alliance with him, promising him his
  daughter in marriage; on which Turnus, who was the nephew of Amata,
  his wife, and to whom Lavinia was betrothed, declared war against
  Æneas.

  The ancient historians tell us, that, on returning from the siege of
  Troy, Diomedes found that his throne had been usurped by Cyllabarus,
  who had married his wife Ægiale. Not having sufficient forces to
  dispossess the intruder, he sought a retreat in Italy, where he
  built the city of Argyripa, or Argos Hippium. Diomedes having
  married the daughter of Daunus, quarrelled with his father-in-law,
  and was killed in fight; on which his companions fled to an adjacent
  island, which, from his name, was called Diomedea. It was afterwards
  reported, that on their flight they were changed into birds, and
  that Venus inflicted this punishment, in consequence of Diomedes
  having wounded her at the siege of Troy. Of this story a confused
  version is here presented by Ovid, who makes the transformation to
  take place in the lifetime of Diomedes. It is supposed that the fact
  of the island being the favourite resort of swans and herons,
  facilitated this story of their transformation. Pliny and Solinus
  add to this marvellous account by stating, that these birds fawned
  upon all Greeks who entered the island, and fled from the people of
  all other nations. Ovid says that the birds resembled swans, while
  other writers thought them to be herons, storks, or falcons.

  The ancient authors are utterly silent as to the rude shepherd who
  was changed into a wild olive, but the story was probably derived by
  Ovid from some local tradition.

FABLES IX. AND X. [XIV.527-608]

  Turnus sets fire to the fleet of Æneas: but Cybele transforms the
  ships into sea Nymphs. After the death of Turnus, his capital,
  Ardea, is burnt, and a bird arises out of the flames. Venus obtains
  of Jupiter that her son, after so many heroic deeds, shall be
  received into the number of the Gods.

When the ambassador had returned thence, bringing word that the Ætolian
arms had been refused them, the Rutulians carried on the warfare
prepared for, without their forces; and much blood was shed on either
side. Lo! Turnus bears the devouring torches against the {ships},
fabrics of pine; and those, whom the waves have spared, are {now} in
dread of fire. And now the flames were burning the pitch and the wax,
and the other elements of flame, and were mounting the lofty mast to the
sails, and the benches of the curved ships were smoking; when the holy
Mother of the Gods, remembering that these pines were cut down on the
heights of Ida, filled the air with the tinkling of the clashing cymbal,
and with the noise of the blown boxwood {pipe}. Borne through the
yielding air by her harnessed lions, she said: “Turnus, in vain dost
thou hurl the flames with thy sacrilegious right hand; I will save {the
ships}, and the devouring flames shall not, with my permission, burn a
portion, and the {very} limbs of my groves.”

As the Goddess speaks, it thunders; and following the thunder, heavy
showers fall, together with bounding hailstones; the brothers, sons of
Astræus, arouse both the air and the swelling waves with sudden
conflicts, and rush to the battle. The genial Mother, using the strength
of one of these, first bursts the hempen cables of the Phrygian fleet,
and carries the ships headlong, and buries them beneath the ocean. Their
hardness being now softened, and their wood being changed into flesh,
the crooked sterns are changed into the features of the head; the oars
taper off in fingers and swimming feet; that which has been so before,
is {still} the side; and the keel, laid below in the middle of the ship,
is changed, for the purposes of the back bone. The cordage becomes soft
hair, the yards {become} arms. Their colour is azure, as it was before.
As Naiads of the ocean, with their virgin sports they agitate those
waves, which before they dreaded; and, born on the rugged mountains,
they inhabit the flowing sea; their origin influences them not. And yet,
not forgetting how many dangers they endured on the boisterous ocean,
often do they give a helping hand to the tossed ships; unless any one is
carrying men of the Grecian race.

Still keeping in mind the Phrygian catastrophe, they hated the
Pelasgians; and, with joyful countenances, they looked upon the
fragments of the ship of him of Neritos; and with pleasure did they see
the ship of Alcinoüs[46] become hard upon the breakers, and stone
growing over the wood.

There is a hope that, the fleet having received life in the form of sea
Nymphs, the Rutulian may desist from the war through fear, on account of
this prodigy. He persists, {however}, and each side has {its own}
Deities;[47] and they have courage, equal to the Gods. And now they do
not seek kingdoms as a dower, nor the sceptre of a father-in-law, nor
thee, virgin Lavinia, but {only} to conquer; and they wage the war
through shame at desisting. At length, Venus sees the arms of her son
victorious, and Turnus falls; Ardea falls, which, while Turnus lived,
was called ‘the mighty.’ After ruthless flames consumed it, and its
houses sank down amid the heated embers, a bird, then known for the
first time, flew aloft from the midst of the heap, and beat the ashes
with the flapping of its wings. The voice, the leanness, the paleness,
and every thing that befits a captured city, and the very name of the
city, remain in that {bird}; and Ardea itself is bewailed by {the
beating of} its wings.

And now the merit of Æneas had obliged all the Deities, and Juno
herself, to put an end to their former resentment; when, the power of
the rising Iülus being now well established, the hero, the son of
Cytherea, was ripe for heaven, Venus, too, had solicited the Gods above;
and hanging round the neck of her parent had said: “My father, {who
hast} never {proved} unkind to me at any time, I beseech thee now to be
most indulgent {to me}; and to grant, dearest {father}, to my Æneas,
who, {born} of my blood, has made thee a grandsire, a godhead, {even}
though of the lowest class; so that thou only grant him one. It is
enough to have once beheld the unsightly realms, {enough} to have once
passed over the Stygian streams.” The Gods assented; nor did his royal
wife keep her countenance unmoved; {but}, with pleased countenance, she
nodded assent. Then her father said; “You are worthy of the gift of
heaven; both thou who askest, and he, for whom thou askest: receive, my
daughter, what thou dost desire.” {Thus} he decrees. She rejoices, and
gives thanks to her parent; and, borne by her harnessed doves through
the light air, she arrives at the Laurentine shores; where Numicius,[48]
covered with reeds, winds to the neighbouring sea with the waters of his
stream. Him she bids to wash off from Æneas whatever is subject to
death, and to bear it beneath the ocean in his silent course.

The horned {river} performed the commands of Venus; and with his waters
washed away from Æneas whatever was mortal, and sprinkled him. His
superior essence remained. His mother anointed his body {thus} purified
with divine odours, and touched his face with ambrosia, mingled with
sweet nectar, and made him a God. Him the people of Quirinus, called
Indiges,[49] and endowed with a temple and with altars.

    〔note 46 — Ship of Alcinoüs.--Ver. 565. Alcinoüs, the king of the Phæacians, having saved Ulysses from shipwreck, gave him a ship in which to return to Ithaca. Neptune, to revenge the injuries of his son Polyphemus, changed the ship into a rock.〕

    〔note 47 — Its own Deities.--Ver. 568. The Trojans were aided by Venus, while Juno favoured the Rutulians.〕

    〔note 48 — Numicius.--Ver. 599. Livy, in the first Book of his History, seems to say that Æneas lost his life in a battle, fought near the Numicius, a river of Latium. He is generally supposed to have been drowned there.〕

    〔note 49 — Indiges.--Ver. 608. Cicero says, that ‘those, who for their merits were reckoned in the number of the Gods, and who formerly living on earth, and afterwards lived among the Gods (in Diis agerent), were called Indigetes;’ thus implying that the word ‘Indiges’ came from ‘in Diis ago;’ ‘to live among the Gods.’ This seems a rather far-fetched derivation. The true meaning of the word seems to be ‘native,’ or ‘indigenous;’ and it applies to a person Deified, and considered as a tutelary Deity of his native country. Most probably, it is derived from ‘in,’ or ‘indu,’ the old Latin form of ‘in,’ and γείνω (for γίνομαι), ‘to be born.’ Some would derive the word from ‘in,’ negative, and ‘ago,’ to speak, as signifying Deities, whose names were not be mentioned.〕

EXPLANATION.

  It is asserted by some writers, that when the ships of Æneas were
  set on fire by Turnus, a tempest arose, which extinguished the
  flames; on which circumstance the story here related by Ovid was
  founded. Perhaps Virgil was the author of the fiction, as he is the
  first known to have related it, and is closely followed by Ovid in
  the account of the delivery of the ships.

  The story of the heron arising out of the flames of Ardea seems to
  be founded on a very simple fact. It is merely a poetical method of
  accounting for the Latin name of that bird, which was very plentiful
  in the vicinity of the city of Ardea, and, perhaps, thence derived
  its name of ‘ardea.’ The story may have been the more readily
  suggested to the punning mind of Ovid, from the resemblance of the
  Latin verb ‘ardeo,’ signifying ‘to burn,’ to that name.

  Some of the ancient authors say, that after killing Turnus and
  marrying Lavinia, Æneas was killed in battle with Mezentius, after a
  reign of three years, leaving his wife pregnant with a son,
  afterwards known by the name of Sylvius. His body not being found
  after the battle, it was given out that his Goddess mother had
  translated him to heaven, and he was thenceforth honoured by the
  name of Jupiter Indiges.

FABLE XI. [XIV.609-697]

  Vertumnus, enamoured of Pomona, assumes several shapes for the
  purpose of gaining her favour; and having transformed himself into
  an old woman, succeeds in effecting his object.

From that time Alba and the Latin state were under the sway of Ascanius
with the two names;[50] Sylvius[51] succeeded him; sprung of whom,
Latinus had a renewed name, together with the ancient sceptre. Alba
succeeded the illustrious Latinus; Epitos {sprang} from him; {and} next
to him {were} Capetus, and Capys; but Capys was the first {of these}.
Tiberinus received the sovereignty after them; and, drowned in the waves
of the Etrurian river, he gave his name to the stream. By him Remulus
and the fierce Acrota were begotten; Remulus, {who was} the elder,
an imitator of the lightnings, perished by the stroke[52] of a
thunder-bolt. Acrota, more moderate than his brother {in his views},
handed down the sceptre to the valiant Aventinus, who lies buried on the
same mount over which he had reigned; and to that mountain he gave his
name. And now Proca held sway over the Palatine nation.

Under this king Pomona lived; than her, no one among the Hamadryads of
Latium more skilfully tended her gardens, and no one was more attentive
to the produce of the trees; thence she derives her name. She {cares}
not {for} woods, or streams; {but} she loves the country, and the boughs
that bear the thriving fruit. Her right hand is not weighed down with a
javelin, but with a curved pruning-knife, with which, at one time she
crops the {too} luxuriant shoots, and reduces the branches that straggle
without order; at another time, she is engrafting the sucker in the
divided bark, and is {so} finding nourishment for a stranger nursling.
Nor does she suffer them to endure thirst; she waters, too, the winding
fibres of the twisting root with the flowing waters. This is her
delight, this her pursuit; and no desire has she for love. But fearing
the violence of the rustics, she closes her orchard within {a wall}, and
both forbids and flies from the approach of males.

What did not the Satyrs do, a youthful crew expert at the dance, and the
Pans with their brows wreathed with pine, and Sylvanus, ever more
youthful than his years, and the God who scares the thieves either with
his pruning-hook or with his groin, in order that they might gain her?
But yet Vertumnus exceeded even these in his love, nor was he more
fortunate than the rest. O! how often did he carry the ears of corn in a
basket, under the guise of a hardy reaper; and he was the very picture
of a reaper! Many a time, having his temples bound with fresh bay, he
would appear to have been turning over the mowed grass. He often bore a
whip in his sturdy hand, so that you would have sworn that he had that
instant been unyoking the wearied oxen. A pruning-knife being given him,
he was a woodman, and the pruner of the vine. {Now} he was carrying a
ladder, {and} you would suppose he was going to gather fruit.
{Sometimes} he was a soldier, with a sword, {and sometimes} a fisherman,
taking up the rod; in fact, by means of many a shape, he often obtained
access for himself, that he might enjoy the pleasure of gazing on her
beauty.

He, too, having bound his brows with a coloured cap,[53] leaning on a
stick, with white hair placed around his temples, assumed the shape of
an old woman, and entered the well-cultivated gardens, and admired the
fruit; and he said, “So much better off {art thou}!” and {then} he gave
her, thus commended, a few kisses, such as no real old woman {ever}
could have given; and stooping, seated himself upon the grass, looking
up at the branches bending under the load of autumn. There was an elm
opposite, widely spread with swelling grapes; after he had praised it,
together with the vine united {to it}, he said, “{Aye}, but if this
trunk stood unwedded,[54] without the vine, it would have nothing to
attract beyond its leaves; this vine, too, while it finds rest against
the elm, joined to it, if it were not united to it, would lie prostrate
on the ground; {and} yet thou art not influenced by the example of this
tree, and thou dost avoid marriage, and dost not care to be united.
I {only} wish that thou wouldst desire it: Helen would not {then} be
wooed by more suitors, nor she who caused the battles of the Lapithæ,
nor the wife of Ulysses, {so} bold against the cowards. Even now, while
thou dost avoid them courting thee, and dost turn away in disgust,
a thousand suitors desire thee; both Demigod and Gods, and the Deities
which inhabit the mountains of Alba.

“But thou, if thou art wise, {and} if thou dost wish to make a good
match, and to listen to an old woman, (who loves thee more than them
all, and more than thou dost believe) despise a common alliance, and
choose for thyself Vertumnus, as the partner of thy couch; and take me
as a surety {for him}. He is not better known, even to himself, than he
is to me. He is not wandering about, straying here and there, throughout
all the world; these spots only does he frequent; and he does not, like
a great part of thy wooers, fall in love with her whom he sees last.
Thou wilt be his first and his last love, and to thee alone does he
devote his life. Besides, he is young, he has naturally the gift of
gracefulness, he can readily change himself into every shape, and he
will become whatever he shall be bidden, even shouldst thou bid him be
everything. {And} besides, have you {not both} the same tastes? Is {not}
he the first to have the fruits which are thy delight? and does he {not}
hold thy gifts in his joyous right hand? But now he neither longs for
the fruit plucked from the tree, nor the herbs that the garden produces,
with their pleasant juices, nor anything else, but thyself. Have pity on
his passion! and fancy that he who wooes thee is here present, pleading
with my lips; fear, too, the avenging Deities, and the Idalian
{Goddess}, who abhors cruel hearts, and the vengeful anger of her of
Rhamnus.[55]

“And that thou mayst the more stand in awe of them, (for old age has
given me the opportunity of knowing many things) I will relate some
facts very well known throughout all Cyprus, by which thou mayst the
more easily be persuaded and relent.”

    〔note 50 — The two names.--Ver. 609. The other name of Ascanius was Iülus. Alba Longa was built by Ascanius.〕

    〔note 51 — Sylvius.--Ver. 610. See the lists of the Alban kings, as given by Ovid, Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Eusebius, compared in the notes to the Translation of the Fasti, Book IV. line 43.〕

    〔note 52 — By the stroke.--Ver. 618. Possibly both Remulus (if there ever was such a person) and Tullus Hostilius may have fallen victims to some electrical experiments which they were making; this may have given rise to the story that they had been struck with lightning for imitating the prerogative of Jupiter.〕

    〔note 53 — A coloured cap.--Ver. 654. ‘Pictâ redimitus tempora mitrâ,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Having his temples wrapped up in a painted bonnet.’ The ‘mitra,’ which was worn on the head by females, was a broad cloth band of various colours. The use of it was derived from the Eastern nations, and, probably, it was very similar to our turban. It was much used by the Phrygians, and in later times among the Greeks and Romans. It is supposed that it was worn in a broad fillet round the head, and was tied under the chin with bands. When Clodius went disguised in female apparel to the rites of Bona Dea, he wore a ‘mitra.’〕

    〔note 54 — Stood unwedded.--Ver. 663. Ovid probably derived this notion from the language of the Roman husbandmen. Columella and other writers on agricultural matters often make mention of a ‘maritus ulmus,’ and a ‘nupta vitis,’ in contradistinction to those trees which stood by themselves.〕

    〔note 55 — Her of Rhamnus.--Ver. 694. See Book III. l. 406.〕

EXPLANATION.

  Among the Deities borrowed by the Romans from the people of Etruria,
  were Vertumnus and Pomona, who presided over gardens and fruits.
  Propertius represents Vertumnus as rejoicing at having left Tusculum
  for the Roman Forum. According to Varro and Festus, the Romans
  offered sacrifices to these Deities, and they had their respective
  temples and altars at Rome, the priest of Pomona being called
  ‘Flamen Pomonalis.’ It is probable that this story originated in the
  fancy of the Poet.

  The name of Vertumnus, from ‘verto,’ ‘to change,’ perhaps relates to
  the vicissitudes of the seasons; and if this story refers to any
  tradition, its meaning may have been, that in his taking various
  forms, to please Pomona, the change of seasons requisite for
  bringing the fruits to ripeness was symbolized. It is possible that
  in the disguises of a labourer, a reaper, and an old woman, the Poet
  may intend to pourtray the spring, the harvest, and the winter.

  There was a market at Rome, near the temple of this God, who was
  regarded as one of the tutelary Deities of the traders. Horace
  alludes to his temple which was in the Vicus Tuscus, or Etrurian
  Street, which led to the Circus Maximus. According to some authors,
  he was an ancient king of Etruria, who paid great attention to his
  gardens, and, after his death, was considered to have the tutelage
  of them.

FABLES XII. AND XIII. [XIV.698-851]

  Vertumnus relates to Pomona how Anaxarete was changed into a rock
  after her disdain of his advances had forced her lover Iphis to hang
  himself. After the death of Amulius and Numitor, Romulus builds
  Rome, and becomes the first king of it. Tatius declares war against
  him, and is favoured by Juno, while Venus protects the Romans.
  Romulus and Hersilia are added to the number of the Deities, under
  the names of Quirinus and Ora.

Iphis, born of an humble family, had beheld the noble Anaxarete, sprung
from the race of the ancient Teucer;[56] he had seen her, and had felt
the flame in all his bones; and struggling a long time, when he could
not subdue his passion by reason, he came suppliantly to her doors. And
now having confessed to her nurse his unfortunate passion, he besought
her, by the hopes {she reposed} in her nursling, not to be hard-hearted
to him; and at another time, complimenting each of the numerous
servants, he besought their kind interest with an anxious voice. He
often gave his words to be borne on the flattering tablets; sometimes he
fastened garlands, wet with the dew of his tears, upon the door-posts,
and laid his tender side upon the hard threshold, and uttered reproaches
against the obdurate bolt.

She, more deaf than the sea, swelling when {the Constellation of} the
Kids is setting, and harder than the iron which the Norican fire[57]
refines, and than the rock which in its native state is yet held fast by
the firm roots, despises, and laughs at him; and to her cruel deeds, in
her pride, she adds boastful words, and deprives her lover of even hope.
Iphis, unable to endure this prolonged pain, endured his torments no
{longer}; and before her doors he spoke these words as his last: “Thou
art the conquerer, Anaxarete; and no more annoyances wilt thou have to
bear from me. Prepare the joyous triumph, invoke the God Pæan, and crown
thyself with the shining laurel. For thou art the conqueror, and of my
own will I die; do thou, {woman} of iron, rejoice. At least, thou wilt
be obliged to commend something in me, and there will be one point in
which I shall be pleasing to thee, and thou wilt confess my merits. Yet
remember that my affection for thee has not ended sooner than my life;
and that at the same moment I am about to be deprived of a twofold
light. And report shall not come to thee as the messenger of my death;
I myself will come, doubt it not; and I myself will be seen in person,
that thou mayst satiate thy cruel eyes with my lifeless body. But if, ye
Gods above, you take cognizance of the fortunes of mortals, be mindful
of me; beyond this, my tongue is unable to pray; and cause me to be
remembered in times far distant; and give those hours to Fame which you
have taken away from my existence.”

{Thus} he said; and raising his swimming eyes and his pallid arms to the
door-posts, so often adorned by him with wreaths, when he had fastened a
noose at the end of a halter upon the door; he said,-- “Are these the
garlands that delight thee, cruel and unnatural {woman}?” And he placed
his head within it; but even then he was turned towards her; and he hung
a hapless burden, by his strangled throat. The door, struck by the
motion of his feet as they quivered, seemed to utter a sound, as {of
one} groaning much, and flying open, it discovered the deed; the
servants cried aloud, and after lifting him up in vain, they carried him
to the house of his mother (for his father was dead). She received him
into her bosom; and embracing the cold limbs of her child, after she had
uttered the words that are {natural} to wretched mothers, and had
performed the {usual} actions of wretched mothers, she was preceding[58]
the tearful funeral through the midst of the city, and was carrying his
ghastly corpse on the bier, to be committed to the flames.

By chance, her house was near the road where the mournful procession was
passing, and the sound of lamentation came to the ears of the
hardhearted Anaxarete, whom now an avenging Deity pursued. Moved,
however, she said:-- “Let us behold these sad obsequies;” and she
ascended to an upper room[59] with wide windows. And scarce had she well
seen Iphis laid out on the bier, {when} her eyes became stiffened, and a
paleness coming on, the warm blood fled from her body. And as she
endeavoured to turn her steps back again, she stood fixed {there}; and
as she endeavoured to turn away her face, this too she was unable to do;
and by degrees the stone, which already existed in her cruel breast,
took possession of her limbs.

“And, that thou mayst not think this a fiction, Salamis still keeps the
statue under the form of the maiden; it has also a temple under the name
of ‘Venus, the looker-out.’ Remembering these things, O Nymph, lay aside
this prolonged disdain, and unite thyself to one who loves thee. Then,
may neither cold in the spring nip thy fruit in the bud, nor may the
rude winds strike them off in blossom.” When the God, fitted for every
shape, had in vain uttered these words, he returned to his youthful
form,[60] and took off from himself the garb of the old woman. And such
did he appear to her, as, when the form of the sun, in all his
brilliancy, has dispelled the opposing clouds, and has shone forth, no
cloud intercepting {his rays}. And he {now} purposed violence, but there
was no need for force, and the Nymph was captivated by the form of the
God, and was sensible of a reciprocal wound.

Next, the soldiery of the wicked Amulius held sway over the realms of
Ausonia; and by the aid of his grandsons, the aged Numitor gained the
kingdom that he had lost; and on the festival of Pales, the walls of the
City were founded. Tatius and the Sabine fathers waged war; and {then},
the way to the citadel being laid open, by a just retribution, Tarpeia
lost her life, the arms being heaped {upon her}. On this, they, sprung
from {the town of} Cures, just like silent wolves, suppressed their
voices with their lips, and fell upon the bodies {now} overpowered by
sleep, and rushed to the gates, which the son of Ilia had shut with a
strong bolt. But {Juno}, the daughter of Saturn, herself opened one, and
made not a sound at the turning of the hinge. Venus alone perceived that
the bars of the gate had fallen down; and she would have shut it, were
it not, that it is never allowed for a Deity to annul the acts of the
{other} Gods. The Naiads of Ausonia occupied a spot near {the temple of}
Janus, {a place} besprinkled by a cold fountain; of these she implored
aid. Nor did the Nymphs resist, the Goddess making so fair a request;
and they gave vent to the springs and the streams of the fountain. But
not yet were the paths closed to the open {temple of} Janus, and the
water had not stopped the way. They placed sulphur, with its faint blue
light, beneath the plenteous fountain, and they applied fire to the
hollowed channels, with smoking pitch.

By these and other violent means, the vapour penetrated to the very
sources of the fountain; and {you}, ye waters, which, so lately, were
able to rival the coldness of the Alps, yielded not {in heat} to the
flames themselves. The two door-posts smoked with the flaming spray; and
the gate, which was in vain left open for the fierce Sabines, was
rendered impassable by this new-made fountain, until the warlike
soldiers had assumed their arms. After Romulus had readily led them
onward, and the Roman ground was covered with Sabine bodies, and was
covered with its own {people,} and the accursed sword had mingled the
blood of the son-in-law with the gore of the father-in-law; they
determined that the war should end in peace, and that they would not
contend with weapons to the last extremity, and that Tatius should share
in the sovereignty.

Tatius was {now} dead, and thou, Romulus, wast giving laws in common to
both peoples; when Mavors,[61] his helmet laid aside, in such words as
these addressed the Parent of both Gods and men: “The time is {now}
come, O father, (since the Roman state is established on a strong
foundation, and is no longer dependent on the guardianship of but one),
for thee to give the reward which was promised to me, and to thy
grandson {so} deserving of it, and, removed from earth, to admit him to
heaven. Thou saidst to me once, a council of the Gods being present,
(for I remember it, and with grateful mind I remarked the affectionate
speech), he shall be one, whom thou shalt raise to the azure heaven. Let
the tenor of thy words be {now} performed.”

The all-powerful {God} nodded in assent, and he obscured the air with
thick clouds, and alarmed the City with thunder and lightning. Gradivus
knew that this was a signal given to him for the promised removal; and,
leaning on his lance, he boldly mounted {behind} his steeds, laden with
the blood-stained pole {of the chariot}, and urged them on with the lash
of the whip; and descending along the steep air, he stood on the summit
of the hill of the woody Palatium; and he took away the son of Ilia,
that moment giving out his royal ordinances to his own Quirites. His
mortal body glided through the yielding air; just as the leaden plummet,
discharged from the broad sling, is wont to dissolve itself[62] in mid
air. A beauteous appearance succeeded, one more suitable to the lofty
couches[63] of heaven, and a form, such as that of Quirinus arrayed in
his regal robe. His wife was lamenting him as lost; when the royal Juno
commanded Iris to descend to Hersilia, along her bending path; and thus
to convey to the bereft {wife} her commands:--

“O matron, the especial glory of the Latian and of the Sabine race; thou
woman, most worthy to have been before the wife of a hero so great,
{and} now of Quirinus; cease thy weeping, and if thou hast a wish to see
thy husband, under my guidance repair to the grove which flourishes on
the hill of Quirinus, and overshadows the temple of the Roman king.”
Iris obeys, and gliding down to earth along her tinted bow, she
addressed Hersilia in the words enjoined. She, with a modest
countenance, hardly raising her eyes, replies, “O Goddess, (for {though}
it is not in my power to say who thou art, {yet}, still it is clear that
thou art a Goddess), lead me, O lead me on, and present to me the
features of my husband. If the Fates should but allow me to be enabled
once to behold these, I will confess that I have beheld Heaven.”

There was no delay; with the virgin daughter of Thaumas she ascended the
hill of Romulus. There, a star falling from the skies, fell upon the
earth; the hair of Hersilia set on fire from the blaze of this, ascended
with the star to the skies. The founder of the Roman city received her
with his well-known hands; and, together with her body, he changed her
former name; and he called her Ora; which Goddess is still united to
Quirmus.

    〔note 56 — Ancient Teucer.--Ver. 698. When Teucer returned home after the Trojan war, his father Telamon banished him, for not having revenged the death of his brother Ajax, which was imputed to Ulysses, as having been the occasion of it, by depriving him of the armour of Achilles. Thus exiled, he fled to Cyprus, where he founded the city of Salamis.〕

    〔note 57 — Norican fire.--Ver. 712. Noricum was a district of Germany, between the Danube and the Alps. It is still famous for its excellent steel; the goodness of which, Pliny attributes partly to the superior quality of the ore, and partly to the temperature of the climate.〕

    〔note 58 — She was preceding.--Ver. 746. It was customary for the relations, both male and female, to attend the body to the tomb or the funeral pile. Among the Greeks, the male relatives walked in front of the body, preceded by the head mourners, while the female relations walked behind. Among the Romans, all the relations walked behind the corpse; the males having their heads veiled, and the females with their heads bare and hair dishevelled, contrary to the usual practice of each sex.〕

    〔note 59 — An upper room.--Ver. 752. Anaxarete went to an upper room, to look out into the street, as the apartments on the ground floor were rarely lighted with windows. The principal apartments on the ground floor received their light from above, and the smaller rooms there, usually derived their light from the larger ones; while on the other hand, the rooms on the upper floor were usually lighted with windows. The conduct of Anaxarete reminds us of that of Marcella, the hardhearted shepherdess, which so aroused the indignation of the amiable, but unfortunate, Don Quixotte.〕

    〔note 60 — His youthful form.--Ver. 766-7. ‘In juvenem rediit: et anilia demit Instrumenta sibi.’ These words are thus translated by Clarke: ‘He returned into a young fellow, and takes off his old woman’s accoutrements from him.’ We hear of the accoutrements of a cavalry officer much more frequently than we do those of an old woman.〕

    〔note 61 — Mavors.--Ver. 806. Mavors, which is often used by the poets as a name of Mars, probably gave rise to the latter name as a contracted form of it.〕

    〔note 62 — To dissolve itself.--Ver. 826. Not only, as we have already remarked, was it a notion among the ancients that the leaden plummet thrown from the sling grew red hot; but they occasionally went still further, and asserted that, from the rapidity of the motion, it melted and disappeared altogether. See note to Book II. l. 727.〕

    〔note 63 — Lofty couches.--Ver. 827. The ‘pulvinaria’ were the cushions, or couches, placed in the temples of the Gods, for the use of the Divinities; which probably their priests (like their brethren who administered to Bel) did not omit to enjoy. At the festivals of the ‘lectisternia,’ the statues of the Gods were placed upon these cushions. The images of the Deities in the Roman Circus, were also placed on a ‘pulvinar.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  We are not informed that the story of Iphis, hanging himself for
  love of Anaxarete, is based upon any actual occurrence, though
  probably it was, as Salamis is mentioned as the scene of it. The
  transformation of Anaxarete into a stone, seems only to be the usual
  metaphor employed by the poets to denote extreme insensibility.

  Following the example of Homer, who represents the Gods as divided
  into the favourers of the Greeks and of the Trojans, he represents
  the Sabines as entering Rome, while Juno opens the gates for them;
  on which the Nymphs of the spot pour forth streams of flame, which
  oblige them to return. He tells the same story in the first Book of
  the Fasti, where Janus is introduced as taking credit to himself for
  doing what the Nymphs are here said to have effected.

  As Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives some account of these
  transactions, on the authority of the ancient Roman historians, it
  will be sufficient here to give the substance thereof. Jealous of
  the increasing power of Romulus, the Sabines collected an army, and
  marched to attack his city. A virgin named Tarpeia, whose father
  commanded the guard, perceiving the golden bracelets which the
  Sabines wore on their arms, offered Tatius to open the gate to him,
  if he would give her these jewels. This condition being assented to,
  the enemy was admitted into the town; and Tarpeia, who is said by
  some writers only to have intended to disarm the Sabines, by
  demanding their bucklers, which she pretended were included in the
  original agreement, was killed on the spot, by the violence of the
  blows; Tatius having ordered that they should be thrown on her head.

  The same historian says, that opinions were divided as to the death
  of Romulus, and that many writers had written, that as he was
  haranguing his army, the sky became overcast, and a thick darkness
  coming on, it was followed by a violent tempest, in which he
  disappeared; on which it was believed that Mars had taken him up to
  heaven. Others assert that he was killed by the citizens, for having
  sent back the hostages of the Veientes without their consent, and
  for assuming an air of superiority, which their lawless spirits
  could ill brook. For these reasons, his officers assassinated him,
  and cut his body in pieces; each of them carrying off some portion,
  that it might be privately interred. According to Livy, great
  consternation was the consequence of his death; and the people
  beginning to suspect that the senators had committed the crime,
  Julius Proculus asserted that Romulus had appeared to him, and
  assured him of the fact of his having been Deified. His speech on
  the occasion is given by Livy, and Ovid relates the same story in
  the second Book of the Fasti. On this, the Roman people paid him
  divine honours as a God, under the name of Quirinus, one of the
  epithets of Mars. He had a chief priest, who was called ‘Flamen
  Quirinalis.’

  His wife, Hersilia, also had divine honours paid to her, jointly
  with him, under the name of Ora, or ‘Horta.’ According to Plutarch,
  she had the latter name from the exhortation which she had given to
  the youths to distinguish themselves by courage.

FABLE I. [XV.1-59]

  Myscelos is warned, in a dream, to leave Argos, and to settle in
  Italy. When on the point of departing, he is seized under a law
  which forbids the Argives to leave the city without the permission
  of the magistrates. Being brought up for judgment, through a miracle
  he is acquitted. He retires to Italy, where he builds the city of
  Crotona.

Meanwhile, one is being sought who can bear a weight of such magnitude,
and can succeed a king so great. Fame, the harbinger of truth, destines
the illustrious Numa for the sovereign power. He does not deem it
sufficient to be acquainted with the ceremonials of the Sabine nation;
in his expansive mind he conceives greater views, and inquires into the
nature of things. ’Twas love of this pursuit, his country and cares left
behind, that caused him to penetrate to the city of the stranger
Hercules. To him, making the inquiry what founder it was that had
erected a Grecian city on the Italian shores, one of the more aged
natives, who was not unacquainted with {the history of} the past, thus
replied:

“The son of Jove, enriched with the oxen of Iberia, is said to have
reached the Lacinian shores,[1] from the ocean, after a prosperous
voyage, and, while his herd was straying along the soft pastures,
himself to have entered the abode of the great Croton, no inhospitable
dwelling, and to have rested in repose after his prolonged labours, and
to have said thus at departing: ‘In the time of thy grandsons this shall
be the site of a city;’ and his promise was fulfilled. For there was a
certain Myscelos, the son of Alemon, an Argive, most favoured by the
Gods in those times. Lying upon him, as he is overwhelmed with the
drowsiness of sleep, the club-bearer, {Hercules}, addresses him: ‘Come,
{now}, desert thy native abodes; go, {and} repair to the pebbly streams
of the distant Æsar.’[2] And he utters threats, many and fearful, if he
does not obey: after that, at once both sleep and the God depart. The
son of Alemon arises, and ponders his recent vision in his thoughtful
mind; and for a long time his opinions are divided among themselves. The
Deity orders him to depart; the laws forbid his going; and death has
been awarded as the punishment of him who attempts to leave his country.

“The brilliant Sun had {now} hidden his shining head in the ocean, and
darkest Night had put forth her starry face, {when} the same God seemed
to be present, and to give the same commands, and to utter threats, more
numerous and more severe, if he does not obey. He was alarmed; and {now}
he was also preparing to transfer his country’s home to a new
settlement, {when} a rumour arose in the city, and he was accused of
holding the laws in contempt. And, when the accusation had first been
made, and his crime was evident, proved without a witness, the accused,
in neglected garb, raising his face and his hands towards the Gods
above, says, ‘Oh thou! for whom the twice six labours have created the
privilege of the heavens, aid me, I pray; for thou wast the cause of my
offence.’ It was the ancient custom, by means of white and black
pebbles, with the one to condemn the accused, with the other to acquit
them of the charge; and on this occasion thus was the sad sentence
passed, and every black pebble was cast into the ruthless urn. Soon as
it, being inverted, poured forth the pebbles to be counted, the colour
of them all was changed from black to white, and the sentence, changed
to a favourable one by the aid of Hercules, acquitted the son of Alemon.

“He gives thanks to the parent, the son of Amphitryon,[3] and with
favouring gales sails over the Ionian sea, and passes by the
Lacedæmonian Tarentum,[4] and Sybaris, and the Salentine Neæthus,[5] and
the bay of Thurium,[6] and Temesa, and the fields of Iapyx;[7] and
having with difficulty coasted along the spots which skirt these shores,
he finds the destined mouth of the river Æsar; and, not far thence,
a mound, beneath which the ground was covering the sacred bones of
Croton. And there, on the appointed land, did he found his walls, and he
transferred the name of him that was {there} entombed to his city. By
established tradition, it was known that such was the original of that
place, and of the city built on the Italian coasts.”

    〔note 1 — Lacinian shores.--Ver. 13. Lacinium was a promontory of Italy, not far from Crotona.〕

    〔note 2 — Distant Æsar.--Ver. 23. The Æsar was a little stream of Calabria, which flowed into the sea, near the city of Crotona.〕

    〔note 3 — Son of Amphitryon.--Ver. 49. Hercules was the putative son of Amphitryon, king of Thebes, who was the husband of his mother Alcmena.〕

    〔note 4 — Tarentum.--Ver. 50. Tarentum was a famous city of Calabria, said to have been founded by Taras, the son of Neptune. It was afterwards enlarged by Phalanthus, a Lacedæmonian, whence its present epithet.〕

    〔note 5 — Neæthus.--Ver. 51. This was a river of the Salentine territory, near Crotona.〕

    〔note 6 — Thurium.--Ver. 52. Thurium was a city of Calabria, which received its name from a fountain in its vicinity. It was also called Thuria and Thurion.〕

    〔note 7 — Fields of Iapyx.--Ver. 52. Iapygia was a name which Calabria received from Iapyx, the son of Dædalus. There was also a city of Calabria, named Iapygia, and a promontory, called Iapygium.〕

EXPLANATION.

  To the story here told of Micylus, or Myscelus, as most of the
  ancient writers call him, another one was superadded. Suidas, on the
  authority of the Scholiast of Aristophanes, says that Myscelus,
  having consulted the oracle, concerning the colony which he was
  about to lead into a foreign country, was told that he must settle
  at the place where he should meet with rain in a clear sky, ἐξ
  αἰθρίας. His faith surmounting the apparent impossibility of having
  both fair and foul weather at the same moment, he obeyed the oracle,
  and put to sea; and, after experiencing many dangers, he landed in
  Italy. Being full of uncertainty where to fix his colony, he was
  reduced to great distress; on which his wife, whose name was
  Aithrias, with the view of comforting him, embraced him, and bedewed
  his face with her tears. He immediately adopted the presage, and
  understood the spot where he then was to be the site of his intended
  city.

  Strabo says that Myscelus, who was so called from the smallness of
  his legs, designing to found a colony in a foreign land, arrived on
  the coast of Italy. Observing that the spot which the oracle had
  pointed out enjoyed a healthy climate, though the soil was not so
  fertile as in the adjacent plains, he went once more to consult the
  oracle; but was answered that he must not refuse what was offered
  him; an answer which was afterwards turned into a proverb. On this,
  he founded the city of Crotona, and another colony founded the city
  of Sybaris on the spot which he had preferred; a place which
  afterwards became infamous for its voluptuousness and profligacy.

FABLES II. AND III. [XV.60-478]

  Pythagoras comes to the city of Crotona, and teaches the principles
  of his philosophy. His reputation draws Numa Pompilius to hear his
  discourses; on which he expounds his principles, and, more
  especially, enlarges on the transmigration of the soul, and the
  practice of eating animal food.

There was a man, a Samian by birth; but he had fled from both Samos and
its rulers,[8] and, through hatred of tyranny, he was a voluntary exile.
He too, mentally, held converse with the Gods, although far distant in
the region of the heavens; and what nature refused to human vision, he
viewed with the eyes of his mind. And when he had examined all things
with his mind, and with watchful study, he gave them to be learned by
the public; and he sought the crowds of people {as they sat} in silence,
and wondered at the revealed origin of the vast universe, and the cause
of things, and what nature {meant}, and what was God; whence {came} the
snow, what was the cause of lightning; {whether it was} Jupiter, or
whether the winds that thundered when the cloud was rent asunder; what
it was that shook the earth; by what laws the stars took their course;
and whatever {besides} lay concealed {from mortals}.

He, too, was the first to forbid animals to be served up at table, and
he was the first that opened his lips, learned indeed, but still not
obtaining credit, in such words as these: “Forbear, mortals, to pollute
your bodies with {such} abominable food. There is the corn; there are
the apples that bear down the branches by their weight, and {there are}
the grapes swelling upon the vines; there are the herbs that are
pleasant; there are some that can become tender, and be softened by {the
action of} fire. The flowing milk, too, is not denied you, nor honey
redolent of the bloom of the thyme. The lavish Earth yields her riches,
and her agreable food, and affords dainties without slaughter and
bloodshed. The beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh; and yet not all
of them; for the horse, and the sheep, and the herds subsist on grass.
But those whose disposition is cruel and fierce, the Armenian tigers,
and the raging lions, and the bears together with the wolves, revel in
their diet with blood. Alas! what a crime is it, for entrails to be
buried in entrails, and for one ravening body to grow fat on {other}
carcases crammed {into} it; and for one living creature to exist through
the death of another living creature! And does, forsooth! amid so great
an abundance, which the earth, that best of mothers, produces, nothing
delight you but to gnaw with savage teeth the sad {produce of your}
wounds, and to revive the habits of the Cyclops? And can you not appease
the hunger of a voracious and ill-regulated stomach unless you first
destroy another? But that age of old, to which we have given the name of
‘Golden,’ was blest in the produce of the trees, and in the herbs which
the earth produces, and it did not pollute the mouth with blood.

“Then, both did the birds move their wings in safety in the air, and the
hare without fear wander in the midst of the fields; then its own
credulity had not suspended the fish from the hook; every place was
without treachery, and in dread of no injury, and was full of peace.
Afterwards, {some one}, no good adviser[9] (whoever among mortals he
might have been), envied this simple food, and engulphed in his greedy
paunch victuals made from a carcase; ’twas he that opened the path to
wickedness; and I can believe that the steel, {since} stained with
blood, first grew warm from the slaughter of wild beasts. And that had
been sufficient. I confess that the bodies {of animals} that seek our
destruction are put to death with no breach of the sacred laws; but,
although they might be put to death, yet they were not to be eaten as
well. Then this wickedness proceeded still further; and the swine is
believed to have deserved death as the first victim, because it grubbed
up the seeds with its turned-up snout, and cut short the hopes of the
year. Having gnawed the vine, the goat was led[10] for slaughter to the
altars of the avenging Bacchus. Their own faults were the ruin of the
two. But why have you deserved this, ye sheep? a harmless breed, and
born for the service of man; who carry the nectar in your full udders;
who afford your wool as soft coverings for us, and who assist us more by
your life than by your death. Why have the oxen deserved this, an animal
without guile and deceit, innocent, harmless, born to endure labour? In
fact, the man is ungrateful, and not worthy of the gifts of the harvest,
who could, just after taking off the weight of the curving plough,
slaughter the tiller of his fields; who could strike, with the axe, that
neck worn bare with labour, through which he had so oft turned up the
hard ground, {and} had afforded so many a harvest.

“And it is not enough for such wickedness to be committed; they have
imputed to the Gods themselves this abomination; and they believe that a
Deity in the heavens can rejoice in the slaughter of the laborious ox.
A victim free from a blemish, and most beauteous in form (for ’tis being
sightly that brings destruction), adorned with garlands and gold, is
placed upon the altars, and, in its ignorance, it hears one praying, and
sees the corn, which it has helped to produce, placed on its forehead
between its horns; and, felled, it stains with its blood the knives
perhaps before seen by it in the limpid water. Immediately, they examine
the entrails snatched from its throbbing breast, and in them they seek
out the intentions of the Deities. Whence comes it that men have so
great a hankering for forbidden food? Do you presume to feed {on flesh},
O race of mortals? Do it not, I beseech you; and give attention to my
exhortations. And when you shall be presenting the limbs of slaughtered
oxen to your palates, know and consider that you are devouring your
{tillers of the ground}. And since a God impels me to speak, I will duly
obey the God that {so} prompts me to speak; and I will pronounce my own
Delphic {warnings}, and disclose the heavens themselves; and I will
reveal the oracles of the Divine will. I will sing of wondrous things,
never investigated by the intellects of the ancients, and {things} which
have long lain concealed. It delights me to range among the lofty stars;
it delights me, having left the earth and this sluggish spot {far
behind}, to be borne amid the clouds, and to be supported on the
shoulders of the mighty Atlas; and to look down from afar on minds
wandering {in uncertainty}, and devoid of reason; and so to advise them
alarmed and dreading extinction, and to unfold the range of things
ordained by fate.

“O race! stricken by the alarms of icy death, why do you dread Styx? why
the shades, why empty names, the stock subjects of the poets, and the
atonements of an imaginary world? Whether the funeral pile consumes your
bodies with flames, or old age with gradual dissolution, believe that
they cannot suffer any injury. Souls are not subject to death; and
having left their former abode, they ever inhabit new dwellings, and,
{there} received, live on.

“I, myself, for I remember it, in the days of the Trojan war, was
Euphorbus,[11] the son of Panthoüs, in whose opposing breast once was
planted the heavy spear of the younger son of Atreus. I lately
recognised the shield, {once} the burden of my left arm, in the temple
of Juno, at Argos, the realm of Abas. All things are {ever} changing;
nothing perishes. The soul wanders about and comes from that spot to
this, from this to that, and takes possession of any limbs whatever; it
both passes from the beasts to human bodies, and {so does} our {soul}
into the beasts; and in no {lapse} of time does it perish. And as the
pliable wax is moulded into new forms, and no {longer} abides as it was
{before}, nor preserves the same shape, but yet is still the same {wax},
so I tell you that the soul is ever the same, but passes into different
forms. Therefore, that natural affection may not be vanquished by the
craving of the appetite, cease, I warn you, to expel the souls of your
kindred {from their bodies} by this dreadful slaughter; and let not
blood be nourished with blood.

“And, since I am {now} borne over the wide ocean, and I have given my
full sails to the winds, there is nothing in all the world that
continues in the same state. All things are flowing {onward},[12] and
every shape is assumed in a fleeting course. Even time itself glides on
with a constant progress, no otherwise than a river. For neither can the
river, nor the fleeting hour stop in its course; but, as wave is
impelled by wave, and the one before is pressed on by that which
follows, and {itself} presses on that before it; so do the moments
similarly fly on, and similarly do they follow, and they are ever
renewed. For the moment which was before, is past; and that which was
not, {now} exists; and every minute is replaced. You see, too, the night
emerge and proceed onward to the dawn, and this brilliant light of the
day succeed the dark night. Nor is there the same appearance in the
heavens, when all things in their weariness lie in the midst of repose,
and when Lucifer is coming forth on his white steed; and, again, there
is another appearance, when {Aurora}, the daughter of Pallas, preceding
the day, tints the world about to be delivered to Phœbus. The disk
itself of {that} God, when it is rising from beneath the earth, is of
ruddy colour in the morning, and when it is hiding beneath the earth it
is of a ruddy colour. At its height it is of brilliant whiteness,
because there the nature of the æther is purer, and far away, he avoids
{all} infection from the earth. Nor can there ever be the same or a
similar appearance of the nocturnal Diana; and always that of the
present day is less than on the morrow, if she is on the increase; {but}
greater if she is contracting her orb.

“And further. Do you not see the year, affording a resemblance of our
life, assume four {different} appearances? for, in early Spring, it is
mild, and {like} a nursling, and greatly resembling the age of youth.
Then, the blade is shooting, and void of strength, it swells, and is
flaccid, and delights the husbandman in his expectations. Then, all
things are in blossom, and the genial meadow smiles with the tints of
its flowers; and not as yet is there any vigour in the leaves. The year
{now} waxing stronger, after the Spring, passes into the Summer; and in
its youth it becomes robust. And indeed no season is there more
vigorous, or more fruitful, or which glows with greater warmth. Autumn
follows, the ardour of youth {now} removed, ripe, and placed between
youth and old age, moderate in his temperature, with a {few} white hairs
sprinkled over his temples. Then comes aged Winter, repulsive with his
tremulous steps, either stript of his locks, or white with those which
he has.

“Our own bodies too are changing always and without any intermission,
and to-morrow we shall not be what we were or what we {now} are. The
time was, when only as embryos, and the earliest hope of human beings,
we lived in the womb of the mother. Nature applied her skilful hands,
and willed not that our bodies should be tortured {by} being shut up
within the entrails of the distended parent, and brought us forth from
our dwelling into the vacant air. Brought to light, the infant lies
without {any} strength; soon, {like} a quadruped, it uses its limbs
after the manner of the brutes; and by degrees it stands upright,
shaking, and with knees still unsteady, the sinews being supported by
some assistance. Then he becomes strong and swift, and passes over the
hours of youth; and the years of middle age, too, now past, he glides
adown the steep path of declining age. This undermines and destroys the
robustness of former years; and Milo,[13] {now} grown old, weeps when he
sees the arms, which equalled those of Hercules in the massiveness of
the solid muscles, hang weak and exhausted. The daughter of Tyndarus
weeps, too, as she beholds in her mirror the wrinkles of old age, and
enquires of herself why it is that she was twice ravished. Thou, Time,
the consumer of {all} things, and thou, hateful Old Age, {together}
destroy all things; and, by degrees ye consume each thing, decayed by
the teeth of age, with a slow death.

“These things too, which we call elements, are not of unchanging
duration; pay attention, and I will teach you what changes they undergo.

“The everlasting universe contains four elementary bodies. Two of these,
{namely}, earth and water, are heavy, and are borne downwards by their
weight; and as many are devoid of weight, and air, and fire still purer
than air, nothing pressing them, seek the higher regions. Although these
are separated in space, yet all things are made from them, and are
resolved into them. Both the earth dissolving distils into flowing
water; the water, too, evaporating, departs in the breezes and the air;
its weight being removed again, the most subtle air shoots upwards into
the fires {of the æther} on high. Thence do they return back again, and
the same order is unravelled; for fire becoming gross, passes into dense
air; this {changes} into water, and earth is formed of the water made
dense. Nor does its own form remain to each; and nature, the renewer of
{all} things, re-forms one shape from another. And, believe me, in this
universe so vast, nothing perishes; but it varies and changes its
appearance; and to begin to be something different from what it was
before, is called being born; and to cease to be the same thing, {is to
be said} to die. Whereas, perhaps, those things are transferred hither,
and these things thither; yet, in the whole, all things {ever} exist.

“For my part, I cannot believe that anything lasts long under the same
form. ’Twas thus, ye ages, that ye came down to the iron from the gold;
’tis thus, that thou hast so often changed the lot of {various} places.
I have beheld that {as} sea, which once had been the most solid earth.
I have seen land made from the sea; and far away from the ocean the
sea-shells lay, and old anchors were found {there} on the tops of the
mountains. That which was a plain, a current of water has made into a
valley, and by a flood the mountain has been levelled into a plain; the
ground that was swampy is parched with dry sand; and places which have
endured drought, are wet with standing pools. Here nature has opened
fresh springs, but there she has shut them up; and rivers have burst
forth, aroused by ancient earthquakes; or, vanishing, they have
subsided.

“Thus, after the Lycus[14] has been swallowed up by a chasm in the
earth, it burst forth far thence, and springs up afresh at another
mouth. Thus the great Erasinus[15] is at one time swallowed up, and then
flowing with its stream concealed, is cast up again on the Argive
plains. They say, too, that the Mysus, tired of its spring and of its
former banks, now flows in another direction, {as} the Caicus. The
Amenanus,[16] too, at one time flows, rolling along the Sicilian sands,
{and} at another is dry, its springs being stopped up. Formerly, {the
water of} the Anigros[17] was used for drinking; it now pours out water
which you would decline to touch; since, (unless all credit must be
denied to the poets), the {Centaurs}, the double-limbed mortals, there
washed the wounds which the bow of the club-bearing Hercules had made.
And what besides? Does not the Hypanis[18] too, which before was sweet,
rising from the Scythian mountains, become impregnated with bitter
salts? Antissa,[19] Pharos,[20] and Phœnician Tyre,[21] were once
surrounded by waves; no one of these is now an island. The ancient
inhabitants had Leucas[22] annexed to the continent; now the sea
surrounds it. Zancle,[23] too, is said to have been united to Italy,
until the sea cut off the neighbouring region, and repelled the land
with its waves {flowing} between.

“Should you seek Helice and Buris,[24] cities of Achaia, you will find
them beneath the waves, and the sailors are still wont to point out
{these} levelled towns, with their walls buried under water.

“There is a high hill near Trœzen of Pittheus, without any trees, once a
very level surface of a plain, {but} now a hill; for (frightful to tell)
the raging power[25] of the winds, pent up in dark caverns, desiring to
find some vent and having long struggled in vain to enjoy a freer air,
as there was no opening in all their prison and it was not pervious to
their blasts, swelled out the extended earth, just as the breath of the
mouth is wont to inflate a bladder, or the hide[26] stripped from the
two-horned goat. That swelling remained on the spot, and {still}
preserves the appearance of a high hill, and has grown hard in length of
time. Though many other {instances} may occur, either heard of by, or
known to, yourselves, {yet} I will mention a few more. And besides, does
not water, as well, both produce and receive new forms? In the middle of
the day, thy waters, horned Ammon,[27] are frozen, at the rising and at
the setting {of the sun} they are warm. On applying its waters,
Athamanis[28] is said to kindle wood when the waning moon has shrunk
into her smallest orb. The Ciconians have a river,[29] which when drunk
of, turns the entrails into stone, and lays {a covering of} marble on
things that are touched by it. The Crathis[30] and the Sybaris adjacent
to it, in our own country, make the hair similar {in hue} to amber and
gold.

“And, what is still more wonderful, there are some streams which are
able to change, not only bodies, but even the mind. By whom has not
Salmacis,[31] with its obscene waters, been heard of? {Who has not
heard}, too, of that lake of Æthiopia,[32] of which, if any body drinks
with his mouth, he either becomes mad, or falls into a sleep wondrous
for its heaviness? Whoever quenches his thirst from the Clitorian
spring[33] hates wine, and in his sobriety takes pleasure in pure water.
Whether it is that there is a virtue in the water, the opposite of
heating wine, or whether, as the natives tell us, after the son of
Amithaon,[34] by his charms and his herbs, had delivered the raving
daughters of Prœtus from the Furies, he threw the medicines for the mind
in that stream; and a hatred of wine remained in those waters.

“The river Lyncestis[35] flows unlike that {stream} in its effect; for
as soon as any one has drunk of it with immoderate throat, he reels,
just as if he had been drinking unmixed wine. There is a place in
Arcadia, (the ancients called it Pheneos,)[36] suspicious for the
twofold nature of its water. Stand in dread of it at night; if drunk of
in the night time, it is injurious; in the daytime, it is drunk of
without any ill effects. So lakes and rivers have, some, one property,
and some another. There was a time when Ortygia[37] was floating on the
waves, now it is fixed. The Argo dreaded the Symplegades tossed by the
assaults of the waves dashing against them; they now stand immoveable,
and resist {the attacks of} the winds.

“Nor will Ætna, which burns with its sulphureous furnaces, always be a
fiery {mountain}; nor yet was it always fiery. For, if the earth is an
animal, and is alive, and has lungs that breathe forth flames in many a
place, it may change the passages for its breathing, and oft as it is
moved, may close these caverns {and} open others; or if the light winds
are shut up in its lowermost caverns, and strike rocks against rocks,
and matter that contains the elements of flame, {and} it takes fire at
the concussion, the winds {once} calmed, the caverns will become cool;
or, if the bituminous qualities take fire, or yellow sulphur is being
dried up with a smouldering smoke, still, when the earth shall no longer
give food and unctuous fuel to the flame, its energies being exhausted
in length of time, and when nutriment shall be wanting to its devouring
nature, it will not {be able to} endure hunger, and left destitute, it
will desert its flames.

“The story is, that in the far Northern Pallene[38] there are persons,
who are wont to have their bodies covered with light feathers, when they
have nine times entered the Tritonian lake. For my part I do not believe
it; {but} the Scythian women, as well, having their limbs sprinkled with
poison, are said to employ the same arts. But if we are to give any
credit[39] to things proved {by experience}, do you not see that
whatever bodies are consumed by length of time, or by dissolving heat,
are changed into small animals? Come too, bury some choice bullocks
{just} slain, it is a thing well ascertained by experience, {that}
flower-gathering bees are produced promiscuously from the putrefying
entrails. These, after the manner of their producers, inhabit the
fields, delight in toil, and labour in hope. The warlike steed,[40]
buried in the ground, is the source of the hornet. If you take off the
bending claws from the crab of the sea-shore, {and} bury the rest in the
earth, a scorpion will come forth from the part {so} buried, and will
threaten with its crooked tail.

“The silkworms, too, that are wont to cover the leaves with their white
threads, a thing observable by husbandmen, change their forms into that
of the deadly moth.[41] Mud contains seed that generate green frogs; and
it produces them deprived of feet;[42] soon it gives them legs adapted
for swimming; and that the same may be fitted for long leaps, the length
of the hinder ones exceeds {that of} the fore legs. And it is not a
cub[43] which the bear produces at the moment of birth, but a mass of
flesh hardly alive. By licking, the mother forms it into limbs, and
brings it into a shape, such as she herself has. Do you not see, that
the offspring of the honey bees, which the hexagonal cell conceals, are
produced without limbs, and that they assume both feet and wings {only}
after a time. Unless he knew it was the case, could any one suppose it
possible that the bird of Juno, which carries stars on its tail, and the
{eagle}, the armour-bearer of Jove, and the doves of Cytherea, and all
the race of birds, are produced from the middle portion of an egg? There
are some who believe that human marrow changes into a serpent,[44] when
the spine has putrefied in the enclosed sepulchre.

“But these {which I have named} derive their origin from other
particulars; there is one bird which renews and reproduces itself. The
Assyrians call it the Phœnix. It lives not on corn or grass, but on
drops of frankincense, and the juices of the amomum. This {bird}, when
it has completed the five ages of its life, with its talons and its
crooked beak constructs for itself a nest in the branches of a holm-oak,
or on the top of a quivering palm. As soon as it has strewed in this
cassia and ears of sweet spikenard and bruised cinnamon with yellow
myrrh, it lays itself down on it, and finishes its life in the midst of
odours. They say that thence, from the body of its parent, is reproduced
a little Phœnix, which is destined to live as many years. When time has
given it strength, and it is able to bear the weight, it lightens the
branches of the lofty tree of the burden of the nest, and dutifully
carries both its own cradle and the sepulchre of its parent; and, having
reached the city of Hyperion through the yielding air, it lays it down
before the sacred doors in the temple of Hyperion.

“And if there is any wondrous novelty in these things, {still more} may
we be surprised that the hyæna changes its sex,[45] and that the one
which has just now, as a female, submitted to the embrace of the male,
is now become a male itself. That animal, too, which feeds upon[46] the
winds and the air, immediately assumes, from its contact, any colour
whatever. Conquered India presented her lynxes to Bacchus crowned with
clusters; {and}, as they tell, whatever the bladder of these discharges
is changed into stone,[47] and hardens by contact with the air. So
coral, too, as soon as it has come up to the air becomes hard; beneath
the waves it was a soft plant.[48] “The day will fail me, and Phœbus
will bathe his panting steeds in the deep sea, before I can embrace in
my discourse all things that are changed into new forms. So in lapse of
time, we see nations change, and these gaining strength, {while} those
are falling. So Troy was great, both in her riches and her men, and for
ten years could afford so much blood; {whereas}, now laid low, she only
shows her ancient ruins, and, instead of her wealth, {she points at} the
tombs of her ancestors. Sparta was famed;[49] great Mycenæ flourished;
so, too, the citadel of Cecrops, and that of Amphion. {Now} Sparta is a
contemptible spot; lofty Mycenæ is laid low. What now is Thebes, the
city of Œdipus, but a {mere} story? What remains of Athens, the city of
Pandion, but its name?

“Now, too, there is a report that Dardanian Rome is rising; which, close
to the waters of Tiber that rises in the Apennines, is laying the
foundations of her greatness beneath a vast structure. She then, in her
growth, is changing her form, and will one day be the mistress of the
boundless earth. So they say that the soothsayers, and the oracles,
revealers of destiny, declare; and, so far as I recollect, Helenus, the
son of Priam, said to Æneas, as he was lamenting, and in doubt as to his
safety, when {now} the Trojan state was sinking, ‘Son of a Goddess, if
thou dost thyself well understand the presentiment of my mind, Troy
shall not, thou being preserved, entirely fall. The flames and the sword
shall afford thee a passage. Thou shalt go, and, together with thee,
thou shalt bear ruined Pergamus; until a foreign soil, more friendly
than thy native land, shall be the lot of Troy and thyself. Even now do
I see that our Phrygian posterity are destined {to build} a city, so
great as neither now exists, nor will exist, nor has been seen in former
times. Through a long lapse of ages, other distinguished men shall make
it powerful, but one born[50] of the blood of Iülus shall make it the
mistress of the world. After the earth shall have enjoyed his presence,
the æthereal abodes shall gain him, and heaven shall be his
destination.’ Remembering it, I call to mind that Helenus prophesied
this to Æneas, who bore the Penates {from Troy}; and I rejoice that my
kindred walls are rising apace, and that to such good purpose for the
Phrygians the Pelasgians conquered.

“But that we may not range afar with steeds that forget to hasten to the
goal; the heavens, and whatever there is beneath them, and the earth,
and whatever is upon it, change their form. We too, {who are} a portion
of the universe, (since we are not only bodies, but are fleeting souls
as well, and can enter into beasts {as our} abode, and be hidden within
the breasts of the cattle), should allow those bodies which may contain
the souls of our parents, or of our brothers, or of those allied with us
by some tie, or of men at all events, to be safe and unmolested; and we
ought not to fill[51] our entrails with victuals fit for Thyestes. How
greatly he disgraces himself, how in his impiety does he prepare himself
for shedding human blood, who cuts the throat of the calf with the
knife, and gives a deaf ear to its lowings! or who can kill the kid as
it sends forth cries like those of a child; or who can feed upon the
bird to which he himself has given food. How much is there wanting in
these instances for downright criminality? A {short} step {only} is
there thence {to it}!

“Let the bull plough, or let it owe its death to aged years; let the
sheep furnish us a defence against the shivering Boreas; let the
well-fed she-goats afford their udders to be pressed by the hand. Away
with your nets, and your springes and snares and treacherous
contrivances; deceive not the bird with the bird-limed twig; deceive not
the deer with the dreaded feather foils;[52] and do not conceal the
barbed hooks in the deceitful bait. If any thing is noxious, destroy it,
but even then only destroy it. Let your appetites abstain from it for
food, and let them consume {a more} befitting sustenance.”

    〔note 8 — And its rulers.--Ver. 61. Pythagoras is said to have fled from the tyranny of Polycrates, the king of Samos.〕

    〔note 9 — No good adviser.--Ver. 103. Clarke translates ‘Non utilis auctor,’ ‘Some good-for-nothing introducer.’〕

    〔note 10 — The goat is led.--Ver 114. See the Fasti, Book I. l. 361.〕

    〔note 11 — Was Euphorbus.--Ver. 161. Diogenes Laërtius, in the life of Pythagoras, says that Pythagoras affirmed, that he was, first, Æthalides; secondly, Euphorbus, which he proved by recognizing his shield hung up among the spoil in the temple of Juno, at Argos; next, Hermotimus; then, Pyrrhus and fifthly, Pythagoras.〕

    〔note 12 — Flowing onward.--Ver. 178. ‘Cuncta fluunt’ is translated by Clarke, ‘All things are in a flux.’〕

    〔note 13 — Milo.--Ver. 229. Milo, of Crotona, was an athlete of such strength that he was said to be able to kill a bull with a blow of his fist, and then to carry it with ease on his shoulders, and afterwards to devour it. His hands being caught within the portions of the trunk of a tree, which he was trying to cleave asunder, he became a prey to wild beasts.〕

    〔note 14 — Lycus.--Ver. 273. There were several rivers of this name. The one here referred to was also called by the name of Marsyas, and flowed past the city of Laodicea, in Lydia.〕

    〔note 15 — Erasinus.--Ver. 276. This was a river of Arcadia, which running out of the Stymphalian marsh, under the name of Stymphalus, disappeared in the earth, and rose again in the Argive territory, under the name of Erasinus.〕

    〔note 16 — Amenanus.--Ver. 279. This was a little river of Sicily, rising in Mount Ætna, and falling into the sea near the city of Catania.〕

    〔note 17 — Anigros.--Ver. 282. The Anigros, flowing from the mountain of Lapitha, in Arcadia, had waters of a fetid smell, in which no fish could exist. Pausanias thinks that this smell proceeded from the soil, and not the water. He adds, that some said that Chiron, others that Polenor, when wounded by the arrow of Hercules, washed the wound in the water of this river, which became impure from its contact with the venom of the Hydra.〕

    〔note 18 — Hypanis.--Ver. 285. Now the Bog. It falls into the Black Sea.〕

    〔note 19 — Antissa.--Ver. 287. This island, in the Ægean Sea, was said to have been formerly united to Lesbos.〕

    〔note 20 — Pharos.--Ver. 287. According to Herodotus, this island was once a whole day’s sail from the main land of Egypt. In later times, having been increased by the mud discharged by the Nile, it was united to the shore by a bridge.〕

    〔note 21 — Tyre.--Ver. 288. Tyre once stood on an island, separated from the shore by a strait, seven hundred paces in width. Alexander the Great, when besieging it, united it to the main land by a causeway. This, however, does not aid the argument of Pythagoras, who intends to recount the changes wrought by nature, and not by the hand of man. Besides, it is not easy to see how Pythagoras could refer to a fact which took place several hundred years after his death.〕

    〔note 22 — Leucas.--Ver. 289. The island of Leucas was formerly a peninsula, on the coast of Acarnania.〕

    〔note 23 — Zancle.--Ver. 290. Under this name he means the whole of the isle of Sicily, which was supposed to have once joined the shores of Italy.〕

    〔note 24 — Helice and Buris.--Ver. 293. We learn from Pliny the Elder and Orosius, that Helice and Buris, cities of Achaia at the mouth of the Corinthian gulf, were swallowed up by an earthquake, and that their remains could be seen in the sea. A similar fate attended Port Royal, in the island of Jamaica, in the year 1692. Its houses are said to be still visible beneath the waves.〕

    〔note 25 — The raging power.--Ver. 299. Pausanias tells us, that in the time of Antigonus, king of Macedonia, warm waters burst from the earth, through the action of subterranean fires, near the city of Trœzen. Perhaps the ‘tumulus’ here mentioned sprang up at the same time.〕

    〔note 26 — Or the hide.--Ver. 305. He alludes to the goat-skins, which formed the ‘utres,’ or leathern bottles, for wine and oil.〕

    〔note 27 — Horned Ammon.--Ver. 309. The lake of Ammon, in Libya, which is here referred to, is thus described by Quintius Curtius (Book IV. c. 7)-- ‘There is also another grove at Ammon; in the middle it contains a fountain, which they call ‘the water of the Sun.’ At daybreak it is tepid; at mid-day, when the heat is intense, it is ice cold. As the evening approaches, it grows warmer; at midnight, it boils and bubbles; and as the morning approaches, its midnight heat goes off.’ Jupiter was worshipped in its vicinity, under the form of a ram.〕

    〔note 28 — Athamanis.--Ver. 311. This wonderful fountain was said to be in Dodona, the grove sacred to Jupiter.〕

    〔note 29 — Have a river.--Ver. 313. Possibly the Hebrus is here meant. The petrifying qualities of some streams is a fact well known to naturalists.〕

    〔note 30 — The Crathis.--Ver. 315. Crathis and Sybaris were streams of Calabria, flowing into the sea, near Crotona. Euripides and Strabo tell the same story of the river Crathis. Pliny the Elder, in his thirty-second Book, says-- ‘Theophrastus tells us that Crathis, a river of the Thurians, produces whiteness, whereas the Sybaris causes blackness, in sheep and cattle. Men, too, are sensible of this difference; for those who drink of the Sybaris, become more swarthy and hardy, with the hair curling; while those who drink of the Crathis become fairer, and more effeminate with the hair straight.’〕

    〔note 31 — Salmacis.--Ver. 319. See Book IV. l. 285.〕

    〔note 32 — Lake of Æthiopia.--Ver. 320. Possibly these may be the waters of trial, mentioned by Porphyry, as being used among the Indians. He says, that, according to their influence on the person accused, when drunk of by him, he was acquitted or condemned.〕

    〔note 33 — Clitorian spring.--Ver. 322. Clitorium was a town of Arcadia. Pliny the Elder, quoting from Varro, mentions the quality here referred to.〕

    〔note 34 — Son of Amithaon.--Ver. 325. Melampus, the physician, the son of Amithaon, cured Mera, Euryale, Lysippe, and Iphianassa, the daughters of Prœtus, king of Argos, of madness, which Venus was said to have inflicted on them for boasting of their superior beauty. Their derangement consisted in the fancy that they were changed into cows. Melampus afterwards married Iphianassa. He was said to have employed the herb hellebore in the cure, which thence obtained the name of ‘melampodium.’〕

    〔note 35 — Lyncestis.--Ver. 329. The Lyncesti were the people of the town of Lyncus, in Epirus. This stream flowed past that place.〕

    〔note 36 — Pheneos.--Ver. 332. Pheneos was the name of a town of Arcadia, afterwards called ‘Nonacris.’ In its neighbourhood, according to Pausanias, was a rock, from which water oozed drop by drop, which the Greeks called ‘the water of Styx.’ At certain periods it was said to be fatal to men and cattle, to break vessels with which it came in contact, and to melt all metals. Ovid is the only author that mentions the difference in its qualities by day and by night.〕

    〔note 37 — Ortygia.--Ver. 337. Ortygia, or Deloe, was said to have floated till it was made fast by Jupiter as a resting-place for Latona, when pregnant with Apollo and Diana. The Symplegades, or Cyanean Islands, were also said to have formerly floated.〕

    〔note 38 — Far Northern Pallene.--Ver. 356. Pallene was the name of a mountain and a city of Thrace. Tritonis was a lake in the neighbourhood. Vibius Sequester says, ‘When a person has nine times bathed himself in the Tritonian lake, in Thrace, he is changed into a bird.’ The continuous fall of fleecy snow in that neighbourhood is supposed by some to have given rise to the story.〕

    〔note 39 — Give any credit.--Ver. 361. This was a very common notion among the ancients. See the story of Aristæus and the recovery of his bees, in the Fourth Book of Virgil’s Georgics, I. 281-314. It is also told by Ovid in the Fasti, Book I. l. 377.〕

    〔note 40 — The warlike steed.--Ver. 368. Pliny the Elder, Nicander, and Varro state that bees and hornets are produced from the carcase of the horse. Pliny also says, that beetles are generated by the putrefying carcase of the ass.〕

    〔note 41 — Deadly moth.--Ver. 374. Pliny, in the twenty-eighth Book of his History, says, ‘The moth, too, that flies at the flame of the lamp, is numbered among the bad potions,’ evidently alluding to their being used in philtres or incantations. There is a kind called the death’s head moth; but it is so called simply from the figure of a skull, which appears very exactly represented on its body, and not on account of any noxious qualities known to be inherent in it.〕

    〔note 42 — Deprived of feet.--Ver. 376. He alludes to frogs when in the tadpole state.〕

    〔note 43 — Not a cub.--Ver. 379. This was long the common belief. Pliny says, speaking of the cub of the bear, ‘These are white and shapeless lumps of flesh, a little bigger than mice, without eyes, and without hair; the claws, however, are prominent. These the dams by degrees reduce to shape.’〕

    〔note 44 — Into a serpent.--Ver. 390. Pliny tells the same story; and Antigonus (on Miracles, ch. 96) goes still further, and says, that the persons to whom this happens, after death, are able to smell the snakes while they are yet alive. The fiction, very probably, was invented with the praiseworthy object of securing freedom from molestation for the bones of the dead.〕

    〔note 45 — Changes its sex.--Ver. 408. Pliny mentions it as a vulgar belief that the hyæna is male and female in alternate years. Aristotle took the pains to confute this silly notion.〕

    〔note 46 — Which feeds upon.--Ver. 411. The idea that the chameleon subsists on wind and air, arose from the circumstance of its sitting with its mouth continually open, that it may catch flies and small insects, its prey. That it changes colour according to the hue of the surrounding objects, is a fact well known. It receives its name from the Greek χάμαι λέων, ‘The lion on the ground.’〕

    〔note 47 — Changed into stone.--Ver. 415. Pliny says, that this becomes hard, and turns into gems, like the carbuncle, being of a fiery tint, and that the stone has the name of ‘lyncurium.’ Beckmann (Hist. Inventions) thinks that this was probably the jacinth, or hyacinth, while others suppose it to have been the tourmaline, or transparent amber.〕

    〔note 48 — A soft plant.--Ver. 417. Modern improvement in knowledge has shown that coral is not a plant, but an animal substance.〕

    〔note 49 — Sparta was famed.--Ver. 426-30. These lines are looked upon by many Commentators as spurious, as they are omitted in most MSS. Besides, all these cities were flourishing in the time of Pythagoras. If they are genuine, Ovid is here guilty of a series of anachronisms.〕

    〔note 50 — But one born.--Ver. 447. This was Octavius, the adopted son of Julius Cæsar. According to Suetonius, he traced his descent, through his mother, from Ascanius or Iülus.〕

    〔note 51 — Ought not to fill.--Ver. 462. Clarke’s quaint translation is, ‘And let us not cram our g--ts with Thyestian victuals.’〕

    〔note 52 — Feather foils.--Ver. 475. He alludes to the ‘formido;’ which was made of coloured feathers, and was used to scare the deer into the toils.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The Poet having now exhausted nearly all the transformations which
  ancient history afforded him, proceeds to enlist in the number some
  of the real phenomena of nature, together with some imaginary ones.
  As Pythagoras was considered to have pursued metaphysical studies
  more deeply, perhaps, than any other of the ancient philosophers,
  Ovid could not have introduced a personage more fitted to discuss
  these subjects. Having travelled through Asia, it is supposed that
  Pythagoras passed into Italy, and settled at Crotona, to promulgate
  there the philosophical principles which he had acquired in his
  travels through Egypt and Asia Minor.

  The Pythagorean philosophy was well-suited for the purpose of
  mingling its doctrines with the fabulous narratives of the Poet, as
  it consisted, in great part, of the doctrine of an endless series of
  transformations. Its main features may be reduced to two general
  heads; the first of which was the doctrine of the Metempsychosis,
  or continual transmigration of souls from one body into another.
  Pythagoras is supposed not to have originated this doctrine, but to
  have received it from the Egyptians, by whose priesthood there is
  little doubt that it was generally promulgated. Some writers have
  suggested that this transmigration was only taught by Pythagoras in
  a metaphorical sense; as, for instance, when he said that the souls
  of men were transferred to beasts, it was only to teach us that
  irregular passions render us brutes; on examination, however, we
  shall find that there is no ground to doubt that he intended his
  doctrines to be understood according to the literal meaning of his
  words; indeed, the more strongly to enforce his doctrine by a
  personal illustration, he was in the habit of promulgating that he
  remembered to have been Euphorbus, at the time of the siege of Troy,
  and that his soul, after several other transmigrations, had at last
  entered the body which it then inhabited, under the name of
  Pythagoras. In consequence of this doctrine, it was a favourite
  tenet of his followers to abstain from eating the flesh of animals,
  for fear of unconsciously devouring some friend or kinsman.

  The second feature of this philosophy consisted in the elucidation
  of the changes that happen in the physical world, a long series of
  which is here set forth by the Poet; truth being mingled at random
  with fiction. While some of his facts are based upon truth, others
  seem to have only emanated from the fertile invention of the
  travellers of those days; of the latter kind are the stories of the
  river of Thrace, whose waters petrified those who drank of it; the
  fountains that kindled wood, that caused a change of sex, that
  created an aversion to wine, that transformed men into birds, and
  fables of a similar nature; such, too, are those stories which were
  generally believed by even the educated men of antiquity, but which
  the wisdom of modern times has long since shown to be utterly
  baseless, as, for instance, that bees grew from the entrails of the
  ox, and hornets from those of the horse. The principle of
  Pythagoras, that everything is continually changing and that nothing
  perishes, is true to a certain extent; but in his times, and even in
  those of Ovid, philosophy was not sufficiently advanced to speak
  with precision on the subject, and to discover the true boundary
  between truth and fiction.

FABLES IV. V. AND VI. [XV.479-621]

  Egeria, the wife of Numa, is inconsolable after his death, and is
  changed into a fountain. The horses of Hippolytus being frightened
  by a sea-monster, he is killed by being thrown from his chariot, and
  becomes a God, under the name of Virbius. Tages, the Diviner, arises
  out of a clod of earth. The lance of Romulus is changed into a
  cornel-tree. Cippus becomes horned, and goes into voluntary
  banishment, rather than his country should be deprived of its
  liberty by his means.

With his mind cultivated with precepts such as these and others, they
say that Numa returned to his country, and, being voluntarily
invited,[53] received the sovereignty of the Roman people. Blest with a
Nymph for his wife, and the Muses for his guides, he taught the rites of
sacrifice, and brought over to the arts of peace a race inured to savage
warfare. After, full of years, he had finished his reign and his life,
the Latian matrons and the people and the Senators lamented Numa at his
death. But his wife, leaving the city, lay hid, concealed in the thick
groves of the valley of Aricia, and by her groans and lamentations
disturbed the sacred rites of Diana, brought thither by Orestes. Ah! how
oft did the Nymphs of the grove and of the lake entreat her not to do
so, and utter soothing words. Ah! how often did the hero, the son of
Theseus, say to her as she wept, “Put an end to it; for thy lot is not
the only one to be lamented. Consider the like calamities of others,
thou wilt {then} bear thine own better. And would that an example, not
my own, could lighten thy grief! yet even my own can do so.”

“I suppose, in discourse it has reached thy ears that a certain
Hippolytus met with his death through the credulity of his father, by
the deceit of his wicked step-mother. Thou wilt wonder, and I shall
hardly be able to prove it; but yet I am he. In former times, the
daughter of Pasiphaë, having tempted me in vain, pretended that I wished
to defile the couch of my father, a thing that she herself wished to do;
and having turned the accusation {against me}, (whether it was more
through dread of discovery, or through mortification at her repulse) she
charged me. And my father expelled me, {thus} innocent, from the city,
and as I went he uttered imprecations against my head, with ruthless
prayers. I was going to Trœzen, {the city} of Pittheus,[54] in my flying
chariot, and I was now proceeding along the shores of the Corinthian
gulf, when the sea was aroused, and an enormous mass of waters seemed to
bend and to grow in the form of a mountain, and to send forth a roaring
noise, and to burst asunder at its very summit. Thence, the waves being
divided, a horned bull was sent forth, and erect in the light air as far
as his breast, he vomited forth a quantity of sea-water from his
nostrils and his open mouth. The hearts of my attendants quailed; my
mind remained without fear, intent {only} on my exile, when the fierce
horses turned their necks towards the sea, and were terrified, with ears
erect; and they were alarmed with dread of the monster, and precipitated
the chariot over the lofty rocks. I struggled, with unavailing hand,
to guide the bridle covered with white foam, and, throwing myself
backwards, I pulled back the loosened reins. And, indeed, the madness of
my steeds would not have exceeded that strength {of mine}, had not the
wheel, by running against a stump, been broken and disjoined just where
it turns round on the long axle-tree.

“I was hurled from my chariot; and, the reins entwined around my limbs,
you might have seen my palpitating entrails dragged, my sinews fasten
upon the stump, my limbs partly torn to pieces and partly left behind,
being caught by {various obstacles}, my bones in their breaking emit a
loud noise, and my exhausted breath become exhaled, and not a part in my
body which you could recognize; and the whole of {me} formed {but} one
{continued} wound. And canst thou, Nymph, or dost thou venture to
compare thy misfortune to mine? I have visited, too, the realms deprived
of light, and I have bathed my lacerated body in the waves of
Phlegethon.[55] Nor could life have been restored me, but through the
powerful remedies of the son of Apollo. After I had received it, through
potent herbs and the Pæonian aid,[56] much against the will of Pluto,
then Cynthia threw around me thick clouds, that I might not, by my
presence, increase his anger at this favour; and that I might be safe,
and be seen in security, she gave me a {more} aged appearance, and left
me no features that could be recognized. For a long time she was
doubtful whether she should give me Crete or Delos for me to possess.
Delos and Crete being abandoned, she placed me here, and, at the same
time, she ordered me to lay aside my name, which might have reminded me
of my steeds, and she said, ‘Thou, the same who wast Hippolytus, be thou
now Virbius.’[57] From that time I have inhabited this grove; and,
as one of the lower Gods, I lie concealed under the protection of my
mistress, and to her am I devoted.”[58]

But yet the misfortunes of others were not able to alleviate the grief
of Egeria; and, throwing herself down at the base of the hill, she
dissolved into tears; until, moved by her affection as she grieved, the
sister of Phœbus formed a cool fountain from her body, and dissolved her
limbs in ever-flowing waters.

But this new circumstance surprised the Nymphs; and the son of the
Amazon[59] was astonished, in no other manner than as when the Etrurian
ploughman beheld the fate-revealing clod in the midst of the fields move
at first of its own accord and no one touching it, and afterwards assume
a human form, and lose {that} of earth, and open its new-made mouth with
{the decrees of} future destiny. The natives called him Tages. He was
the first to teach the Etrurian nation to foretell future events.

Or, as when Romulus once saw his lance, fixed in the Palatine hill,
suddenly shoot forth; which {now} stood there with a root newly-formed,
{and} not with the iron {point} driven in; and, now no longer as a dart,
but as a tree with limber twigs, it sent forth, for the admiring
{spectators}, a shade that was not looked for.

Or, {as} when Cippus beheld his horns in the water of the stream, (for
he did see them) and, believing that there was a false representation in
the reflection, often returning his fingers to his forehead, he touched
what he saw. And now, no {longer} condemning his own eyesight, he stood
still, as he was returning victorious from the conquest of the enemy;
and raising his eyes towards heaven, and his hands in the same
direction, he exclaimed, “Ye Gods above! whatever is portended by this
prodigy, if it is auspicious, then be it auspicious to my country and to
the people of Quirinus; but if unfortunate, be it {so} for myself.” And
{then} he made atonement at the grassy altars built of green turf, with
odoriferous fires, and presented wine in bowls, and consulted the
panting entrails of slaughtered sheep what the meaning of it was. Soon
as the soothsayer of the Etrurian nation had inspected them, he beheld
in them the great beginnings of {future} events, but still not clearly.
But when he raised his searching eyes from the entrails of the sheep, to
the horns of Cippus, he said, “Hail, O king! for thee, Cippus, thee and
thy horns shall this place and the Latian towers obey. Only do thou lay
aside all delay; hasten to enter the gates wide open; thus the fates
command thee. For, {once} received within the City, thou shalt be king,
and thou shalt safely enjoy a lasting sceptre.” He retreated backwards,
and turning his stern visage away from the walls of the City, he
exclaimed, “Far, O far away may the Gods drive such omens! Much more
righteously shall I pass my life in exile, than if the Capitol were to
see me a king.”

{Thus} he says; and forthwith he convokes the people and the dignified
Senate; but first, he veils his horns with laurel that betokens peace,
and he stands upon a mound raised by his brave soldiers; and praying to
the Gods after the ancient manner, “Behold!” says he, “one is here who
will be king, if you do not expel him from the City. I will tell you who
he is by a sign, {and} not by name. He wears horns on his forehead; the
augur predicts to you, that if he enters the City, he shall give you
laws as his slaves. He, indeed, was able to enter the open gates, but I
have opposed him; although no one is more nearly allied with him than
myself. Forbid your City to this man, ye Romans, or, if he shall deserve
it, bind him with heavy fetters; or else end your fears by the death of
the destined tyrant.”

As the murmur which arises among the groves of the slender pine,[60]
when the furious East wind whistles among them, or as that which the
waves of the ocean produce, if any one hears them from afar, such is the
noise of the crowd. But yet amid the confused words of the shouting
multitude, one cry is distinguished, “Which is he?” And then they
examine the foreheads, and seek the predicted horns. Cippus again
addresses them: “Him whom you require, ye {now} have;” and, despite of
the people, throwing the chaplet from his head, he exhibits his temples,
remarkable for two horns. All cast down their eyes, and utter groans,
and (who would have supposed it?) they unwillingly look upon that head
famed for its merits. And no longer suffering it to be deprived of its
honours, they place upon it the festive chaplet. But the nobles, Cippus,
since thou art forbidden to enter the city, give thee as much land, as a
mark of honour, as thou canst, with the oxen yoked to the pressed
plough, make the circuit of from the rising of the sun to its setting.
They carve, too, the horns, imitating their wondrous form, on the
door-posts adorned with brass, {there} to remain for long ages.

    〔note 53 — Voluntarily invited.--Ver. 481. He was living at the Sabine town of Cures, when the throne was pressed upon him by the desire of both the Roman and the Sabine nations.〕

    〔note 54 — City of Pittheus.--Ver. 506. Pittheus was the son of Pelops, and the father of Æthra, the mother of Theseus; consequently he was the great-grandfather of Hippolytus.〕

    〔note 55 — Phlegethon.--Ver. 532. This was said to be one of the rivers of the Infernal Regions, and to be flowing with fire and brimstone.〕

    〔note 56 — Pæonian aid.--Ver. 536. Pæon was a skilful physician, mentioned by Homer, in the Fifth Book of the Iliad. Eustathius thinks that Apollo is meant under that name.〕

    〔note 57 — Virbius.--Ver. 544. This name is formed from the words ‘vir’ and ‘bis,’ twice a man.〕

    〔note 58 — Am I devoted.--Ver. 546. In the same relation to her as Adonis was to Venus, Ericthonius to Minerva, and Atys to Cybele.〕

    〔note 59 — Son of the Amazon.--Ver. 552. Hippolytus was the son either of the Amazon Hippolyta, or Antiope.〕

    〔note 60 — Slender pine.--Ver. 603-4. The words ‘succinctis pinetis’ are rendered by Clarke, ‘the neat pine-groves.’〕

EXPLANATION.

  Ovid, following the notion that was generally entertained of the
  wisdom of Numa, pretends that before he was elected to the
  sovereignty he went to Crotona, for the purpose of studying under
  Pythagoras; but he is guilty of a considerable anachronism in this
  instance, as Pythagoras was not born till very many years after the
  time of Numa. According to Livy, Pythagoras flourished in the time
  of Servius Tullius, the sixth Roman king, about one hundred and
  fifty years after Numa. Modern authors are of opinion that upwards
  of two hundred years intervened between the days of Numa and
  Pythagoras. Besides, Dionysius of Halicarnassus distinctly asserts
  that the city of Crotona was only built in the fourth year of the
  reign of Numa Pompilius.

  Numa is said to have been in the habit of retiring to the Arician
  grove, to consult the Nymph Egeria upon the laws which he was about
  to promulgate for the benefit of his subjects. It is probable, that
  to ensure their observance the more effectually, he wished the
  people to believe that his enactments were compiled under the
  inspection of one who partook of the immortal nature, and that in so
  doing he followed the example of previous lawgivers. Zamolxis
  pretended that the laws which he gave to the Scythians were dictated
  to him by his attendant genius or spirit. The first Minos affirmed
  that Jupiter was the author of the ordinances which he gave to the
  people of Crete, while Lycurgus attributed his to Apollo. It is not
  improbable that in this they imitated the example of Moses,
  a tradition of whose reception of the laws on Mount Sinai they may
  have received from the people of Phœnicia.

  Dionysius of Halicarnassus has an interesting passage relative to
  Numa, which throws some light upon his alleged intercourse with the
  Nymph Egeria. His words are-- ‘The Romans affirm that Numa was never
  engaged in any warlike expedition; but that he passed his whole
  reign in profound peace: that his first care was to encourage piety
  and justice in his dominions, and to civilize his people by good and
  wholesome laws. His profound skill in governing made him pass for
  being inspired, and gave rise to many fabulous stories. Some have
  said that he had secret interviews with the Nymph Egeria; others,
  that he frequently consulted one of the Muses, and was instructed by
  her in the art of government. Numa was desirous to confirm the
  people in this opinion; but because some hesitated to believe his
  bare affirmation, and others went so far as to call his alleged
  converse with the Deities a fiction, he took an opportunity to give
  them such proofs of it, that the most sceptical among them should
  have no room left for suspicion. This he effected in the following
  manner. He one day invited several of the nobles to his palace, and
  showed them the plainness of the apartments, where no rich furniture
  was to be seen, nor any thing like an attempt at splendour; and how
  even the most ordinary necessaries were wanting for anything like a
  great entertainment; after which, he dismissed them with an
  invitation to come to sup with him on the same night. At the
  appointed hour his guests arrived; they were received on stately
  couches; the tables were decked with a variety of plate, and were
  loaded with the most exquisite dainties. The guests were struck with
  the sumptuousness and profusion of the entertainment, and
  considering how impossible it was for any man to have made such
  preparations in so short a time, were persuaded that his
  communication with heaven was not a fiction, and that he must have
  had the aid of the celestial powers to do things of a nature so
  extraordinary. ‘But,’ as the same author says, ‘those who were not
  so ready at adopting fabulous narratives as a part of history, say
  that it was the policy of Numa which led him to feign a conversation
  with the Nymph Egeria, to make his laws respected by his people, and
  that he thence followed the example of the Greek sages, who adopted
  the same method of enforcing the authority of their laws with the
  people.’

  The Romans were so persuaded of the fact of Numa’s conferences with
  the Nymph Egeria, that they went into the grove of Aricia to seek
  her; but finding nothing but a fountain in the spot which he used to
  frequent, they promulgated the story of the transformation of the
  Nymph. St. Augustin, speaking on this subject, says that Numa made
  use of the waters of that fountain in the divination which was
  performed by the aid of water, and was called Hydromancy.

  Theseus having left Ariadne in the isle of Naxos, flattered himself
  with the hopes of marrying her sister Phædra. Deucalion, succeeding
  Minos in Crete immediately after his death, sent Phædra to Athens.
  On arriving there, she fell in love with Hippolytus, the son of
  Theseus, who had been brought up at Trœzen by Pittheus. As she did
  not dare to request of Theseus that his son might be brought from
  the court of Pittheus, she built a temple to Venus near Trœzen, that
  she might the more frequently have the opportunity of seeing
  Hippolytus, and called it by the name of Hippolyteum. According to
  Euripides, this youth was wise, chaste, and an enemy to all
  voluptuousness. He spent his time in hunting and chariot racing,
  with other exercises which formed the pursuits of youths of high
  station. According to Plutarch, it was at the time when Theseus was
  a prisoner in Epirus, that Phædra took the opportunity of disclosing
  to Hippolytus the violence of her passion for him. Her declaration
  being but ill received, she grew desperate on his refusal to comply
  with her desires, and was about to commit self-destruction, when her
  nurse suggested the necessity of revenging the virtuous disdain of
  the youth.

  Theseus having been liberated by Hercules, Phædra, being fearful
  lest the intrigue should come to his knowledge, hanged herself,
  having first written a letter to inform him that she could not
  survive an attempt which Hippolytus had made on her virtue.
  Plutarch, Servius and Hyginus, following Euripides, give this
  account of her death. But Seneca, in his Hippolytus, says that she
  only appeared before her husband in extreme grief, holding a sword
  in her hand to signify the violence which Hippolytus had offered
  her. On this, Theseus implored the assistance of Neptune, who sent a
  monster out of the sea, to frighten his horses, as he was driving
  along the sea-shore: on which, they took fright, and throwing him
  from his chariot, he was killed. It has been suggested that the true
  meaning of this is, that Theseus having ordered his son to come and
  justify himself, he made so much haste that his horses ran away with
  him; and his chariot being dashed over the rocks, he was killed.

  Seneca also differs from the other writers, in saying that Phædra
  did not put herself to death till she had heard of the catastrophe
  of Hippolytus, on which she stabbed herself. The people of Trœzen,
  regretting his loss, decreed him divine honours, built a temple, and
  appointed a priest to offer yearly sacrifices to him. Euripides
  says, that the young women of Trœzen, when about to be married, cut
  off their hair and carried it to the temple of Hippolytus. It was
  also promulgated that the Gods had translated him to the heavens,
  where he was changed into the Constellation, called by the Latins
  ‘Auriga,’ or ‘the Charioteer.’ Later authors, whom Ovid here
  follows, added, that Æsculapius restored him to life, and that he
  afterwards appeared in Italy under the name of Virbius. This story
  was probably invented as a source of profit by the priesthood, who
  were desirous to find some good reason for introducing his worship
  into the Arician grove near Rome. This story is mentioned by
  Apollodorus, who quotes the author of the Naupactan verses in favour
  of it, and by the Scholiasts of Euripides and Pindar.

  The ancient Etrurians were great adepts in the art of divination;
  their favourite method of exercising which was by the inspection of
  the entrails of beasts, and the observation of the flight of birds;
  and from them, as we learn from Cicero in his book on Divination,
  the system spread over the whole of Italy. Tages is supposed to have
  been the first who taught this art, and he wrote treatises upon it,
  which, according to Plutarch, were quoted by ancient authors. It not
  being known whence he came, or who were his parents, he was called,
  in the language of the poets, a son of the earth. Ammianus
  Marcellinus speaks of him as being said to have sprung out of the
  earth in Etruria.

  Ovid next makes a passing allusion to the spear of Romulus, which,
  when thrown by him from the Mount Aventine towards the Capitol,
  sticking in the ground was converted into a tree, which immediately
  put forth leaves. This prodigy was taken for a presage of the future
  greatness of Rome: and Plutarch, in his life of Romulus, says that
  so long as this tree stood, the Republic flourished. It began to
  wither in the time of the first civil war; and Julius Cæsar having
  afterwards ordered a building to be erected near where it stood, the
  workmen cutting some of its roots in sinking the foundations, it
  soon after died. It is hardly probable that a cornel tree would
  stand in a thronged city for nearly seven hundred years; and it is,
  therefore, most likely, that care was taken to renovate it from time
  to time, by planting slips from the former tree.

  The story of Genucius Cippus is one of those strange fables with
  which the Roman history is diversified. Valerius Maximus gives the
  following account of it. He says that Cippus, going one day out of
  Rome, suddenly found that something which resembled horns was
  growing out of his forehead. Surprised at an event so extraordinary,
  he consulted the augurs, who said that he would be chosen king, if
  he ever entered the city again. As the royal power was abhorred in
  Rome, he preferred a voluntary banishment to revisiting Rome on
  those terms. Struck with this heroism, the Romans erected a brazen
  statue with horns over the gate by which he departed, and it was
  afterwards called ‘Porta raudusculana,’ because the ancient Latin
  name of brass was ‘raudus,’ ‘rodus,’ or ‘rudus.’ The fact is,
  however, as Ovid represents it, that Cippus was not going out of
  Rome, but returning to it, when the prodigy happened; he having been
  to convey assistance to the Consul Valerius. The Senate also
  conferred certain lands on Cippus, as a reward for his patriotism.
  He lived about two hundred and forty years before the Christian era.
  Pliny the Elder considers the story of the horns of Cippus as much a
  fable as that of Actæon. It appears, however, that the account of
  the horns may have possibly been founded on fact, as excrescences
  resembling them have appeared on the bodies of individuals. Bayle
  makes mention of a girl of Palermo, who had little horns all over
  her body, like those of a young calf. In the Ashmolean museum at
  Oxford, a substance much resembling the horn of a goat is shown,
  which is said to have sprung from the forehead of a female named
  Mary Davis, whose likeness is there shown. The excrescence was most
  probably produced by a deranged secretion of the hair, and something
  of a similar nature may perhaps have befallen Genucius Cippus,
  which, of course, would be made the most of in those ages of
  superstition. Valerius Maximus, with all his credulity, does not say
  that they were real horns that made their appearance, but that they
  were ‘just like horns.’

  It is not improbable that the story originally was, that Cippus, on
  his return to Rome, dreamt that he had horns on his head, and that
  having consulted the augurs, and received the answer mentioned by
  Ovid, he preferred to suffer exile, rather than enslave his country;
  and that, in length of time, the more wonderful part of the story
  was added to it.

FABLE VII. [XV.622-744]

  Rome being wasted by a pestilence, the Delphian oracle is consulted;
  and the answer is given, that to cause it to cease Æsculapius must
  be brought to Rome. On this, ambassadors are sent to Epidaurus to
  demand the God. The people refuse to part with him; but he appears
  to one of the Romans in a dream, and consents to go. On his arrival
  at Rome the contagion ceases, and a Temple is built in his honour.

Relate, now, ye Muses, the guardian Deities of poets (for you know, and
remote antiquity conceals it not from you), whence {it is that} the
Island surrounded by the channel of the Tiber introduced the son of
Coronis into the sacred rites of the City of Romulus. A dire contagion
had once infected the Latian air, and the pale bodies were deformed by a
consumption that dried up the blood. When, wearied with {so many}
deaths, they found that mortal endeavours availed nothing, and that the
skill of physicians had no effect, they sought the aid of heaven, and
they repaired to Delphi which occupies the centre spot of the world, the
oracle of Phœbus, and entreated that he would aid their distressed
circumstances by a response productive of health, and put an end to the
woes of a City so great. Both the spot, and the laurels, and the quivers
which it has, shook at the same moment, and the tripod[61] gave this
answer from the recesses of the shrine, and struck {with awe} their
astonished breasts:-- “What here thou dost seek, O Roman, thou mightst
have sought in a nearer spot: and now seek it in a nearer spot; thou
hast no need of Apollo to diminish thy grief, but of the son of Apollo.
Go with a good omen, and invite my son.”

After the prudent Senate had received the commands of the Deity, they
enquired what city the youthful son of Phœbus inhabited; and they sent
some to reach the coasts of Epidaurus[62] with the winds. Soon as those
sent had reached them in the curving ship, they repaired to the council
and the Grecian elders, and besought them to grant them the Divinity,
who by his presence could put an end to the mortality of the Ausonian
nation; {for} that so the unerring response had directed. Their opinions
were divided, and differed; and some thought that aid ought not to be
refused. Many refused it, and advised them not to part with their own
protector, and to give up their own guardian Deity. While they were
deliberating, twilight had {now} expelled the waning day, and the shadow
of the earth had brought darkness over the world; when, in thy sleep,
the saving God seemed, O Roman, to be standing before thy couch; but
just as he is wont to be in his temple; and, holding a rustic staff in
his left hand, {he seemed} to be stroking the long hair of his beard
with his right, and to utter such words as these from his kindly
breast-- “Lay aside thy fears; I will come, and I will leave these {my}
statues. Only observe {now} this serpent, which with its folds entwines
around this staff, and accurately mark it with thine eyes, that thou
mayst be able to know it again. Into this shall I be changed; but I
shall be greater, and I shall appear to be of a size as great as that
into which heavenly bodies ought to be transformed.”

Forthwith, with {these} words, the God departs; and with his words and
the God sleep {departs}, and genial light follows upon the departure of
sleep. The following morn has {now} dispersed the starry fires;
uncertain what to do, the nobles meet together in the sumptuous temple
of the God {then} sought, and beseech him to indicate, by celestial
tokens, in what spot he would wish to abide. Hardly have they well
ceased, when the God, all glittering with gold, in {the form of} a
serpent, with crest erect, sends forth a hissing, as a notice of his
approach; and in his coming, he shakes both his statue, the altars, the
doors, the marble pavement, and the gilded roof, and as far as the
breast he stands erect in the midst of the temple, and rolls around his
eyes that sparkle with fire. The frightened multitude is alarmed; the
priest, having his chaste hair bound with a white fillet, recognizes the
Deity and exclaims, “The God! Behold the God! Whoever you are that are
present, be of good omen, both with your words and your feelings. Mayst
thou, most beauteous one, be beheld to our advantage; and mayst thou aid
the nations that perform thy sacred rites.” Whoever are present, adore
the Deity as bidden; and all repeat the words of the priest over again;
and the descendants of Æneas give a pious omen, both with their
feelings, and in their words. To these the God shows favour; and with
crest erected, he gives a hiss, a sure token, repeated thrice with his
vibrating tongue. Then he glides down the polished steps,[63] and turns
back his head, and, about to depart, he looks back upon his ancient
altars, and salutes his wonted abode and the temple that {so long} he
has inhabited. Then, with his vast bulk, he glides along the ground
covered with the strewn flowers, and coils his folds, and through the
midst of the city repairs to the harbour protected by its winding quay.

Here he stops; and seeming to dismiss his train, and the dutiful
attendance of the accompanying crowd, with a placid countenance, he
places his body in the Ausonian ship. It is sensible of the weight of
the God; and the ship {now} laden with the Divinity for its freight, the
descendants of Æneas rejoice; and a bull having first been slain on the
sea-shore, they loosen the twisted cables of the bark bedecked with
garlands. A gentle breeze has {now} impelled the ship. The God is
conspicuous aloft,[64] and pressing upon the crooked stern with his neck
laid upon it, he looks down upon the azure waters; and with the gentle
Zephyrs along the Ionian sea, on the sixth rising of the daughter of
Pallas, he makes Italy, and is borne along the Lacinian shores, ennobled
by the temple of the Goddess {Juno}, and the Scylacean[65] coasts. He
leaves Iapygia behind, and flies from the Amphissian[66] rocks with the
oars on the left side; on the right side he passes by the steep
Ceraunia, and Romechium, and Caulon,[67] and Narycia, and he crosses the
sea and the straits of the Sicilian Pelorus, and the abodes of the king
the grandson of Hippotas, and the mines of Temesa; and then he makes for
Leucosia,[68] and the rose-beds of the warm Pæstum. Then he coasts by
Capreæ,[69] and the promontory of Minerva, and the hills ennobled with
the Surrentine[70] vines, and the city of Hercules,[71] and Stabiæ,[72]
and Parthenope made for retirement, and after it the temple of the
Cumæan Sibyl. Next, the warm springs[73] are passed by, and
Linternum,[74] that bears mastick trees; and {then} Vulturnus,[75] that
carries much sand along with its tide, and Sinuessa, that abounds with
snow-white snakes,[76] and the pestilential Minturnæ,[77] and she for
whom[78] her foster-child erected the tomb, and the abode of
Antiphates,[79] and Trachas,[80] surrounded by the marsh, and the land
of Circe, and Antium,[81] with its rocky coast.

After the sailors have steered the sail-bearing ship hither (for now the
sea is aroused), the Deity unfolds his coils, and gliding with many a
fold and in vast coils, he enters the temple of his parent, that skirts
the yellow shore. The sea {now} becalmed, the {God} of Epidaurus leaves
the altars of his sire; and having enjoyed the hospitality of the Deity,
{thus} related to him, he furrows the sands of the sea-shore with the
dragging of his rattling scales, and reclining against the helm of the
ship, he places his head upon the lofty stern; until he comes to
Castrum,[82] and the sacred abodes of Lavinium, and the mouths of the
Tiber. Hither, all the people indiscriminately, a crowd both of matrons
and of men, rush to meet him; they, too, Vesta! who tend thy fires; and
with joyous shouts they welcome the God. And where the swift ship is
steered through the tide running out, altars being erected in a line,
the frankincense crackles along {the banks} on either side, and perfumes
the air with its smoke; the felled victim too, {with its blood} makes
warm the knives thrust {into it}.

And now he has entered Rome, the sovereign of the world. The serpent
rises erect, and lifts his neck that reclines against the top of the
mast, and looks around for a habitation suited for himself. {There is a
spot, where} the river flowing around, is divided into two parts; it is
called “the Island.” {The river} in the direction of each side extends
its arms of equal length, the dry land {lying} in the middle. Hither,
the serpent, son of Phœbus, betakes himself from the Latian ship; and he
puts an end to the mourning, having resumed his celestial form. And
{thus} did he come, the restorer of health, to the City.

    〔note 61 — The tripod.--Ver. 635. The tripod on which the priestess of Apollo or ‘Pythia,’ sat when inspired, was called ‘Cortina,’ from the skin, ‘corium,’ of the serpent Python, which, when it had been killed by Apollo was used to cover it.〕

    〔note 62 — Epidaurus.--Ver. 643. There were several towns of this name. The one here mentioned was in the state of Argolis.〕

    〔note 63 — Polished steps.--Ver. 685. Clarke translates ‘Gradibus nitidis,’ ‘the neat steps.’〕

    〔note 64 — Is conspicuous aloft.--Ver. 697. ‘Deus eminet alte.’ This is rendered by Clarke, ‘The God rears up to a good height.’〕

    〔note 65 — Scylacean.--Ver. 702. Scylace was a town on the Calabrian coast; it was said to have been founded by an Athenian colony.〕

    〔note 66 — Amphissian.--Ver. 703. Amphissia was the name of a city of Locris; but that cannot be the place here alluded to on the coast of Italy. It is most probably a corrupt reading.〕

    〔note 67 — Caulon.--Ver. 705. Caulon was a colony of the Achæa on the coast of Calabria. Narycia, or Naritium, or Naricia, was also a town on the Calabrian coast. The localities of Ceraunia and Romechium are not known.〕

    〔note 68 — Leucosia.--Ver. 708. Leucosia was a little island off the town of Pæstum, which was in Lucania; it was famous for its mild climate, and the beauty of its roses, which are celebrated by Virgil.〕

    〔note 69 — Capreæ.--Ver. 709. Capreæ was an island near the coast of Naples.〕

    〔note 70 — Surrentine.--Ver. 710. Surrentum was a city of Campania, famed for its wines.〕

    〔note 71 — City of Hercules.--Ver. 711. This was Herculaneum, at the foot of Vesuvius; the place which shared so disastrous a fate from the eruption of that mountain.〕

    〔note 72 — Stabiæ.--Ver. 711. This was a town of Campania, which was destroyed by Sylla in the Social war. It was afterwards rebuilt.〕

    〔note 73 — The warm springs.--Ver. 711. He alludes to the city of Baiæ, famed for its warm springs and baths.〕

    〔note 74 — Linternum.--Ver. 714. This place was in Campania. It was famous as the place of retirement of the elder Scipio; he was buried there.〕

    〔note 75 — Vulturnus.--Ver. 715. This was a river of Campania, which flowed past the city of Capua.〕

    〔note 76 — Snow-white snakes.--Ver. 715. Sinuessa was a town of Campania; Heinsius very properly suggests ‘columbis,’ ‘doves;’ for ‘colubris,’ ‘snakes.’ We are told by Pliny the Elder, that Campania was famed for its doves.〕

    〔note 77 — Minturnæ.--Ver. 716. This was a town of Latium; the marshes in its neighbourhood produced pestilential exhalations.〕

    〔note 78 — She for whom.--Ver. 716. This was Caieta, who, being buried there by her foster-child Æneas, gave her name to the spot.〕

    〔note 79 — Abode of Antiphates.--Ver. 717. Formiæ.〕

    〔note 80 — Trachas.--Ver. 717. This place was also called ‘Anxur.’ Its present name is Terracina. Livy mentions it as lying in the marshes.〕

    〔note 81 — Antium.--Ver. 718. This was the capital of the ancient Volscians.〕

    〔note 82 — Castrum.--Ver. 727. This was ‘Castrum Inui,’ or ‘the tents of Pan;’ an old town of the Rutulians.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The story here narrated by Ovid is derived from the Roman history,
  to which we will shortly refer for an explanation.

  Under the consulate of Quintus Fabius Gurges, and Decimus Junius
  Brutus Scæva, Rome was ravaged by a frightful pestilence. The
  resources of physic having been exhausted, the Sibylline books were
  consulted to ascertain by what expedient the calamity might be put
  an end to, and they found that the plague would not cease till they
  had brought Æsculapius from Epidaurus to Rome. Being then engaged in
  war, they postponed their application to the Epidaurians for a year,
  at the end of which time they despatched an embassy to Epidaurus;
  on which a serpent was delivered to them, which the priests of the
  Deity assured them was the God himself. Taking it on board their
  ship, the delegates set sail. When near Antium, they were obliged to
  put in there by stress of weather, and the serpent, escaping from
  the ship, remained three days on shore; after which it came on board
  of its own accord, and they continued their voyage. On arriving at
  the Island of the Tiber the serpent escaped, and concealed itself
  amid the reeds; and as they, in their credulity, fancied that the
  God had chosen the place for his habitation, they built a temple
  there in his honour. From this period, which was about the year of
  Rome 462, the worship of Æsculapius was introduced in the city, and
  to him recourse was had in cases of disease, and especially in times
  of pestilence.

FABLE VIII. [XV.745-879]

  Julius Cæsar is assassinated in the Senate-house, and by the
  intercession of Venus, his ancestor, he is changed into a star. The
  Poet concludes his work with a compliment to Augustus, and a promise
  of immortality to himself.

And still, he came a stranger to our temples; Cæsar is a Deity in his
own city; whom, {alike} distinguished both in war and peace, wars ending
with triumphs, his government at home, and the rapid glory of his
exploits, did not more {tend to} change into a new planet, and a star
with brilliant train, than did his own progeny. For of {all} the acts of
Cæsar, there is not one more ennobling than that he was the father of
this {our Cæsar}. Was it, forsooth, a greater thing to have conquered
the Britons surrounded by the ocean, and to have steered his victorious
ships along the seven-mouthed streams of the Nile that bears the
papyrus, and to have added to the people of Quirinus the rebellious
Numidians[83] and the Cinyphian Juba, and Pontus[84] proud of the fame
of Mithridates, and to have deserved many a triumph, {and} to have
enjoyed some, than it was to have been the father of a personage so
great, under whose tutelage over the world, you, ye Gods above, have
shewn excessive care for the human race? That he {then} might not be
sprung from mortal seed, {’twas fit that Julius} should be made a
Divinity. When the resplendent mother of Æneas was sensible of this; and
{when} she saw that a sad death was in preparation for the Pontiff, and
that the arms of the conspirators were brandished; she turned pale, and
said to each of the Deities, as she met them:--

“Behold, on how vast a scale treason is plotted against me, and with how
great perfidy that life is sought, which alone remains for me from the
Dardanian Iülus. Shall I alone be everlastingly harassed by justified
anxieties? I, whom one while the Calydonian lance of the son of Tydeus
is wounding, {and} at another time the walls of Troy, defended in vain,
are grieving? I, who have seen my son driven about in protracted
wanderings, tossed on the ocean, entering the abodes of the departed,
and waging war with Turnus; or, if we confess the truth, with Juno
rather? {But}, why am I now calling to mind the ancient misfortunes of
my own offspring? Present apprehensions do not allow me to remember
things of former days. Against me, you behold how the impious swords are
{now} being whetted. Avert them, I entreat; hinder this crime, and do
not, by the murder of the priest, extinguish the flames of Vesta.”

Such expressions as these did Venus, full of anxiety, vainly let fall
throughout the heavens, and she moved the Gods above. Although they were
not able to frustrate the iron decrees of the aged sisters, yet they
afforded no unerring tokens of approaching woe. They say, that arms
resounding amid the black clouds, and dreadful {blasts of} the trumpet,
and clarions heard through the heavens, forewarned men of the crime. The
sad face too of the sun gave a livid light to the alarmed earth. Often
did torches seem to be burning in the midst of the stars; often did
drops of blood fall in the showers. The azure-coloured Lucifer had his
light tinted with a dark iron colour; the chariot of the moon was
besprinkled with blood. The Stygian owl gave omens of ill in a thousand
places; in a thousand places did the ivory statues shed tears; dirges,
too, are said to have been heard, and threatening expressions in the
sacred groves. No victim gave an omen of good; the entrails, too, showed
that great tumults were imminent; and the extremity {of the liver} was
found cut off among the entrails. They say, too, that in the Forum, and
around the houses and the temples of the Gods, the dogs were howling by
night; and that the ghosts of the departed were walking, and that the
City was shaken by earthquakes. But still the warnings of the Gods could
not avert treachery and the approach of Fate, and drawn swords were
carried into a temple; and no other place in the {whole} City than the
Senate-house pleased them for this crime and this atrocious murder.

But then did Cytherea beat her breast with both her hands, and attempt
to hide the descendant of Æneas in a cloud, in which, long since, Paris
was conveyed from the hostile son of Atreus,[85] and Æneas had escaped
from the sword of Diomedes. In such words as these {did} her father
{Jove address her}: “Dost thou, my daughter, unaided, attempt to change
the insuperable {decrees} of Fate? Thou, thyself, mayst enter the abode
of the three sisters, {and} there thou wilt behold the register of
{future} events, {wrought} with vast labour, of brass and of solid iron;
these, safe and destined for eternity, fear neither the {thundering}
shock of the heavens, nor the rage of the lightnings, nor any {source
of} destruction. There wilt thou find the destinies of thy descendants
engraved in everlasting adamant. I myself have read them, and I have
marked them in my mind; I will repeat them, that thou mayst not still be
ignorant of the future. He (on whose account, Cytherea, thou art {thus}
anxious), has completed his time, those years being ended which he owed
to the earth. Thou, with his son, who, as the heir to his glory, will
bear the burden of government devolving {on him}, wilt cause him, as a
Deity, to reach the heavens, and to be worshipped in temples; and he, as
a most valiant avenger of his murdered parent, will have us to aid him
in his battles. The conquered walls of Mutina,[86] besieged under his
auspices, shall sue for peace; Pharsalia shall be sensible of him, and
Philippi,[87] again drenched with Emathian gore; and the name {of one
renowned as} Great, shall be subdued in the Sicilian waves; the Egyptian
dame too, the wife[88] of the Roman general, shall fall, vainly trusting
in that alliance; and in vain shall she threaten, that our own Capitol
shall be obedient to her Canopus.[89] Why should I recount to thee the
regions of barbarism, {and} nations situate in either ocean? Whatever
the habitable world contains, shall be his; the sea, too, shall be
subject to him. Peace being granted to the earth, he will turn his
attention to civil rights, and, as a most upright legislator, he will
enact laws. After his own example, too, will he regulate manners; and,
looking forward to the days of future time, and of his coming posterity,
he will order the offspring born of his hallowed wife[90] to assume both
his own name and his cares. Nor shall he, until as an aged man he shall
have equalled {his glories with} like years,[91] arrive at the abodes of
heaven and his kindred stars. Meanwhile, change this soul, snatched from
the murdered body, into a beam of light, that eternally the Deified
Julius may look down from his lofty abode upon our Capitol and Forum.”

Hardly had he uttered these words, when the genial Venus, perceived by
none, stood in the very midst of the Senate-house, and snatched the
soul, just liberated {from the body}, away from the limbs of her own
Cæsar, and, not suffering it to dissolve in air, she bore it amid the
stars of heaven. And as she bore it, she perceived it assume a {train
of} light and become inflamed; and she dropped it from her bosom. Above
the moon it takes its flight, and, as a star, it glitters, carrying a
flaming train with a lengthened track; and, as he beholds the
illustrious deeds of his son, he confesses that they are superior to his
own, and rejoices that he is surpassed by him. Although {Augustus}
forbids his own actions to be lauded before those of his father, still
Fame, in her freedom and subject to no commands, prefers him against his
will; and, in {this} one point, she disobeys him. Thus does Atreus yield
to the glories of the great Agamemnon; thus does Theseus excel Ægeus,
{and} thus Achilles Peleus. In fine, that I may use examples that equal
themselves, thus too, is Saturn inferior to Jove. Jupiter rules the
abodes of heaven and the realms of the threefold world:[92] the earth is
under Augustus: each of them is a father and a ruler. Ye Gods, the
companions of Æneas,[93] for whom both the sword and the flames made a
way; and you, ye native Deities, and thou, Quirinus, the father of the
City, and thou, Gradivus, the son of the invincible Quirinus, and thou,
Vesta, held sacred among the Penates of Cæsar; and, with the Vesta of
Cæsar, thou, Phœbus, enshrined in thy abode, and thou, Jupiter, who
aloft dost possess the Tarpeian heights, and whatever other {Deities} it
is lawful and righteous for a Poet to invoke; late, I pray, may be that
day, and protracted beyond my life, on which the person of Augustus,
leaving that world which he rules, shall approach the heavens: and
{when} gone, may he propitiously listen to those who invoke him.

And now I have completed a work, which neither the anger of Jove, nor
fire, nor steel, nor consuming time will be able to destroy! Let that
day, which has no power but over this body {of mine}, put an end to the
term of my uncertain life, when it will. Yet, in my better part, I shall
be raised immortal above the lofty stars, and indelible shall be my
name. And wherever the Roman power is extended throughout the vanquished
earth, I shall be read by the lips of nations, and (if the presages of
Poets have aught of truth) throughout all ages shall I survive in fame.

    〔note 83 — Numidians.--Ver. 754. The Numidians under Syphax, together with Juba, King of Mauritania, aided Cato, Scipio, and Petreius, who had been partizans of Pompey, against Julius Cæsar, and were conquered by him.〕

    〔note 84 — Pontus.--Ver. 756. Cæsar conquered Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, king of Pontus, in one battle. It was on this occasion, according to Suetonius, that his despatch was in the words, ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici,’ ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’〕

    〔note 85 — Son of Atreus.--Ver. 805. This was Menelaüs, from whom Paris was saved by Venus. See the Iliad, book III.〕

    〔note 86 — Mutina.--Ver. 823. This was a place in Cisalpine Gaul, where Augustus defeated Antony, and took his camp.〕

    〔note 87 — Philippi.--Ver. 824. Pharsalia was in Thessaly, and Philippi was in Thrace. He uses a poet’s license, in treating them as being the same battle-field, as they both formed part of the former kingdom of Macedonia. Pompey was defeated by Julius Cæsar at Pharsalia, while Brutus and Cassius were defeated by Augustus and Antony at Philippi. The fleet of the younger Pompey was totally destroyed off the Sicilian coast.〕

    〔note 88 — The wife.--Ver. 826. Mark Antony was so infatuated as to divorce his wife, Octavia, that he might be enabled to marry Cleopatra.〕

    〔note 89 — Canopus.--Ver. 828. This was a city of Egypt, situate on the Western mouth of the river Nile.〕

    〔note 90 — His hallowed wife.--Ver. 836. Augustus took Livia Drusilla, while pregnant, from her husband, Tiberius Nero, and married her. He adopted her son Tiberius, and constituted him his successor.〕

    〔note 91 — With like years.--Ver. 838. Julius Cæsar was slain when he was fifty-six years old. Augustus died in his seventy-sixth year.〕

    〔note 92 — Threefold world.--Ver. 859. This is explained as meaning the realms of the heavens, the æther and the air; but it is difficult to guess exactly what is the Poet’s meaning here.〕

    〔note 93 — Companions of Æneas.--Ver. 861. He probably refers to the Penates which Æneas brought into Latium. Dionysius of Halicarnassus says that he had seen them in a temple at Rome, and that they bore the figures of two youths seated and holding spears.〕

EXPLANATION.

  The Poet having fulfilled his promise, and having brought down his
  work from the beginning of the world to his own times, concludes it
  with the apotheosis of Julius Cæsar. He here takes an opportunity of
  complimenting Augustus, as being more worthy of divine honours than
  even his predecessor, while he promises him a long and glorious
  reign. Augustus, however, had not to wait for death to receive
  divine honours, as he enjoyed the glory of seeing himself worshipped
  as a Deity and adored at altars erected to him, even in his
  lifetime. According to Appian, he was but twenty-eight years of age
  when he was ranked among the tutelar Divinities by all the cities of
  the empire.

  The Romans, who deduced their origin from Æneas, were flattered at
  the idea of Venus interesting herself in behalf of her posterity,
  and securing the honours of an apotheosis for Julius Cæsar. The
  historical circumstances which Ovid here refers to were the
  following:--After Julius Cæsar had been murdered in the Senate
  house, Augustus ordered public games to be instituted in his honour.
  We learn from Suetonius, that during their celebration a new star,
  or rather a comet, made its appearance, on which it was promulgated
  that the soul of the deified Julius had taken its place among the
  stars, and that Venus had procured him that honour. It was then
  remembered, that the light of the Sun had been unusually pallid the
  whole year following the death of Cæsar; this which is generally
  supposed to have been caused by some spots which then appeared on
  the disk of the sun, was ascribed to the grief of Apollo. Various
  persons were found to assert various prodigies. Some said that it
  had rained blood, others that the moon and stars had been obscured;
  while others, still more imaginative, asserted that beasts had
  uttered words, and that the dead had risen from their graves.

  The sorrow of the Gods and of nature at the untimely death of Julius
  being thus manifested, Augustus proceeded to found a temple in his
  honour, established priests for his service, and erected a statue of
  him with a star on its forehead. He was afterwards represented in
  the attitude of ascending to the heavens, and wielding a sceptre in
  his hand. While flatterers complimented Augustus upon the care which
  he had taken to enrol his predecessor among the Deities, there were
  some, the poet Manilius being of the number, who considered that
  heaven was almost over-peopled by him. Augustus, however, was not
  the sole author of the story of the apotheosis of Julius Cæsar. The
  people had previously attempted to deify him, though opposed by
  Cicero and Dolabella. In the funeral oration which was delivered
  over Julius Cæsar by Antony, he spoke of him as a God, and the
  populace, moved by his eloquence, and struck at his blood-stained
  garments and his body covered with wounds, were filled with
  indignation against the conspirators, and were about to take the
  corpse to the Capitol, there to be buried; but the priests would not
  permit it, and had it brought back to the Forum, where it was burnt.
  Dio Cassius says, that the Roman people raised an altar on the spot
  where the body had been burnt, and endeavoured to make libations and
  to offer sacrifices there, as to a Divinity, but that the Consuls
  overthrew the altar. Suetonius says, that a pillar was also erected
  to him, of about twenty feet in height, with the inscription,
  ‘parenti patriæ,’ ‘To the father of his country,’ and that for some
  time persons resorted to that spot to offer sacrifices and to make
  vows. He adds, that he was made a Divinity by a public decree, but
  he does not say at what time.

THE END.

  London: Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Limited,
  Stamford Street and Charing Cross.

       *       *       *       *       *
           *       *       *       *
       *       *       *       *       *

Errors and Anomalies noted by transcriber

Abbreviations in the form “II.XIV Exp.” mean “Book II, Fable XIV,
Explanation” (appended to most Fables).

Hyphenization is inconsistent--for example, the forms “sea monster”
and “sea-monster” both occur--and is not marked unless one form is
clearly anomalous. Errors and omissions in Greek diacritical marks
have been silently corrected.

  VIII.I
    he ordered the halsers of the fleet to be loosened
    [variant spelling of “hawsers”]
  VIII.II
    FABLE II.  [FABLE VI.]
    They immediately sent ambassadors  [ambasssadors]
  VIII.V
    and do not trust thyself  [invisible h]
  IX.II
    Fn. 22: Branching holm oak.  [body text has “holm-oak”]
  IX.V
    (if I could {only} recall what has been destined)  [recal]
  X.I
    for the newmade bride  [elsewhere “new-made” with hyphen]
    Exp.: Orpheus, too, is supposed to have  [to]
  X.VIII
    Fn. 43: Clarke translates it ‘Coysts,’
      [Clarke (1752) has “costys”, but this is hardly less obscure.]
    Fn. 48: whether the festival  [invisible e in “the”]
  X.IX
    FABLE IX.  [FABLE VI.]
  XI.III
    with the steel {scissars},  [attested variant spelling]
  XI.VI
    Fn. 31: The Magnetes.   [Magnete]
  XII.III, IV
    Fn. 38: the two-fold form of the Centaurs
      [elsewhere “twofold” without hyphen]
  XII.V, VI
    thou shouldst have a forgetfulness  [forgetfuless]
  XIII.I
    FABLE I.  [error for “FABLES I. AND II.”?]
    who could better succeed the great Achilles  [succed]
  XIII.III, IV Exp.
    Le Clerc considers him  [consideres]
  XIII.V, VII
    Fn. 64: from the Greek word  [work]
  XIII.VII
    the hatred of the Cyclop  [Cylop]
  XIV.II Exp.
    An aged woman presented to Tarquinius Superbus three books
      [text unchanged: error for “nine books”]
  XIV.V
    they attended our footsteps  [foosteps]
  XIV.VI
    Fn. 28: so called from the whiteness  [ths]
  XIV.X Exp.
     The story of the heron  [invisible y]
  XIV.XII, XIII
    Fn. 59: the apartments on the ground floor  [grouud]
  XV.II, III
    If any thing is noxious,
      [word “If” missing at line-beginning (Latin “siqua nocent”)]
  XV.II, III
    and her agreable food  [spelling unchanged]
    Fn. 10: The goat is led.  [body text has “was led”]
    Fn. 13:
    _The line-endings of this footnote are missing, apparently through
    printing error. Reconstructed words are shown in {braces}. The word
    given as “then” might be “also” or any word of similar length:_
      ... was an athlete of such stren{gth}
      ... with a blow of his fist, and {then}
      ... and afterwards to devour it. {His}
      [page break in footnote: remainder is clear]
    Fn. 31: ... See Book IV. l. 285  [invisible l]
    Fn. 49: flourishing in the time of Pythagoras
      [invisible t in “time”]
  XV.IV, V, VI Exp
    According to Euripides  [Acccording]

Variant Names

This is not intended to be a complete list.

Dieresis is unpredictable; forms such as “Alcathöe” and “Pirithöus”
are common, and have been silently corrected. Since the ligatures “æ”
and “œ” are used consistently, dieresis in “oe” and “ae” can be assumed
even when not explicitly indicated.

Treatment of names in Ia- (pronounced as two syllables) is inconsistent.
“Iäsion” and “Iänthe” are regularly written with dieresis, while
“Iarbas”, “Iapyx”, “Iapygia” are written without.

The forms “Lapithean” and “Lapithæan” both occur.

The “Lilybœus” of Books I-VII is now correctly written “Lilybæus”,
but Erysichthon (with y or upsilon) is written “Erisicthon”.

As in Books I-VII, spellings in “-cth-” (Erisicthon, Erectheus) are
used consistently in place of “-chth-” (-χθ-). Similarly, Phaëthon
is written “Phaëton”.

Punctuation

_Invisible periods (full stops) at line-end have been silently supplied.
Unless otherwise noted, items in the following list were missing the
closing quotation mark, either single or double._

  Introduction:
    published by Joseph Davidson,  [. for ,]
  VIII.II Exp.
    ...the one resembled Minos, and the other Taurus.  [invisible .]
  VIII.IV
    brandished with their broad points.  [, for .]
    Fn. 33: ... the sons of Aphareus.  [invisible .]
  VIII.V
    “Come,” said he, “famous Cecropian  [second , invisible]
  VIII.VII
    nor has any woman been standing {here}.’  [” for ’]
    Fn. 100: Ver. 846.  [invisible . in “Ver.”]
    ----: ‘Tandem, demisso in viscera censu;’  [invisible ;]
    ----: swallowed down all his estate into his g--ts.’
      [Clarke writes out “guts”]
  X.IV
    serves nectar to Jove.”
  X.VI
    changed into hard rocks.”
  X.VIII
    or take away from them, the polished quivers.”
  X.IX
    Fn. 58: ‘... in his boyish face!’
  X.X
    Fn. 64: ‘... riding in her light chair.  [missing ’]
    Exp.: during that festival.” / This notion of the mourning
      [_open quote at beginning of final paragraph instead of close
      quote at end of previous paragraph_]
  XI.I
    After they, in their rage  [superfluous “ at beginning]
  XI.VII
    Fn. 39: ... ‘The ends or points of the sail-yards,  [missing ‘]
    Fn. 42: ’tis the dreadful kind of death  [invisible ’ in ’tis]
    Fn. 51: they lost all recollection  [invisible -coll-]
    Fn. 54: ... Ver. 663.  [, for . in “Ver.”]
  XII.I, II
    Fn. 16: ‘He overset him ...’  [invisible ‘]
  XII.III, IV
    Fn. 21: a people of Thessaly, who,   [invisible ,]
    Fn. 22: Clarke renders these lines, ‘Come, tell us... by any one?’
    ... the old blade replied.’  [mismatched quotes as shown]
    Fn. 27: Clarke renders ... ‘goblets of blood.’
      [if this is an error for “gobbets”, it is Clarke’s error]
  XII.V, VI
    of the dispute to them all.  [superfluous ” at end]
  XIII.I
    Fn. 40: ... Helenus, the son of Priam.  [invisible ,]
  XIII.VII
    “‘But didst thou {but} know me well  [missing inner ‘]
    ... retained that ancient name.”
    Exp.: Elpe, the daughter of the king, carried her off.  [, for .]
  XIV.II
    Exp.: which was in consequence called ‘Byrsa.’  [missing ‘]
  XIV.VI
    ‘And yet thou shalt not escape me,’ she said
    he sped more swiftly than usual,  [invisible ,]
    “‘The setting Sun  [missing inner ‘]
  XV.II, III
    Fn. 9: Clarke translates ‘Non utilis auctor,’
  XV.IV, V, VI Exp
    ‘But,’ as the same author says  [missing ‘]
  XV.VII
    Fn. 76: for ‘colubris,’ ‘snakes.’  [missing ‘ in “‘snakes’”]
  XV.VIII
    Fn. 84: ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici,’  [invisible ,’]

Footnote Numbers

Numbers begin from 1 in each Book. Almost all Books had duplications in
the sequence, usually in the form “17*”; some had omissions. In this
e-text, footnotes have been renumbered consecutively within each Book,
without duplication.

  Bk. VIII:
    Note 6: tag missing in text
    ... that thou dost desert me?: extraneous footnote tag 7, no note
    Notes 39-79: printed as 38*, 39-78
    Notes 80-101: printed as 78*, 79-99
  Bk. IX:
    Notes 49-80: printed as 48*, 49-79
  Bk. X:
    Note 47: tag misprinted as 74
    Note 50-65: 50 omitted, printed as 51-66
    Note 66: 67 omitted, printed as 68
  Bk. XI:
    Notes 36-63: printed as 35*, 36-62
    Note 51: tag (50) missing in text
  Bk. XII:
    Notes 49-55: 49 omitted, printed as 50-56
    Note 56: misprinted as 59 (for 57)
  Bk. XIII:
    Notes 31-41: 31 omitted, printed as 32-42
    Notes 42-51: printed as 42*, 43-51
    Notes 52-78: 52 omitted, printed as 53-79
  Bk. XIV:
    Note 6: tag missing in text
    Note 19: footnote and tag misprinted as 17
    Notes 20-27: printed as 18-25
    Notes 28-32: 26 omitted, printed as 27-31
    Notes 33-41: 32 omitted, printed as 33-41
    Notes 42-63: 42 omitted, printed as 43-64
  Bk. XV:
    Notes 9-11: 9 omitted, printed as 10-12
    Note 10: tag (11) missing in text
    Notes 12-33: 13 omitted, printed as 14-35
    Notes 34-63: printed as 35*, 36-64
    Notes 64-84: printed as 64*, 65-84
    Notes 85-93: 85 omitted, printed as 86-94