This e-text covers the second half, Books VIII-XV, of Henry T. Riley’s 1851translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The first half, Books I-VII, is alreadyavailable from Project Gutenberg ase-text 21765.Note that this text, unlike the earlier one, is based solely on the 1893 GeorgeBell reprint.

The text includes characters that will only display in UTF-8(Unicode) file encoding, including Greek words in the Notes:

œ, Œ (oe ligature)
κείρω, ἀκονιτὶ

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More information onthe text, includingline numbering,errors andvariations, and details offootnotenumbering, are given at the end of this file. References to Clarkein Transcriber’s Notes 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.

Fable descriptions are taken from the translator’s Synopses.

Introduction

Book VIII
Fable I: Minos and Scylla
Fable II: Theseus and the Minotaur
Fable III: Dædalus and Icarus
Fable IV: Meleager and the Calydonian Boar
Fable V: Acheloüs tells the five Naiads’ stories
Fable VI: Baucis and Philemon; the transformations of Proteus
Fable VII: Erisicthon’s hunger

Book IX
Fable I: Hercules defeats Acheloüs to win Deïanira
Fable II: Nessus and the death of Hercules
Fable III: Galanthis and the birth of Hercules
Fable IV: Lotis, Dryope and Iolaüs
Fable V: Caunus and Byblis
Fable VI: Iphis and Ianthe

Book X
Fable I: Orpheus and Eurydice
Fable II: Orpheus sings to the rocks and trees; the transformation of Attis
Fable III: Cyparissus
Fable IV: Jupiter and Ganymede
Fable V: Apollo accidentally kills Hyacinthus
Fable VI: the Cerastæ and the Propœtides
Fable VII: Pygmalion’s statue
Fable VIII: Cinyras, Myrrha and the birth of Adonis
Fable IX: Venus and Adonis; Hippomenes and Atalanta
Fable X: the death of Adonis

Book XI
Fable I: the Thracian women kill Orpheus
Fable II: Midas’s golden touch
Fable III: the contest of Pan and Apollo; Midas’s ears
Fable IV: the walls of Troy
Fables V and VI: Peleus and Thetis; assorted transformations
Fable VII: the shipwreck of Ceyx
Fable VIII: Hesperia and Æsacus

Book XII
Fables I and II: the Greeks sail for Troy; the sacrifice of Iphigenia
Fables III and IV: Cænis becomes Cæneus; the battle of the Lapithæ and Centaurs
Fables V and VI: Periclymenus; the death of Achilles

Book XIII
Fable I: Ajax and Ulysses fight for Achilles’s armor; the fall of Troy
Fables III and IV: the sacrifice of Polyxena; the funeral of Memnon
Fables V and VI: Æneas leaves Troy; the daughters of Anius and Orion
Fable VII: Polyphemus kills Acis
Fable VIII: Glaucus

Book XIV
Fable I: Circe, Glaucus and Scylla
Fable II: Dido and Æneas; the Cercopes
Fable III: Apollo and the Sibyl
Fable IV: Ulysses receives Æolus’s bag of winds
Fable V: Circe turns Ulysses’s men into swine
Fable VI: Circe, Pictus and Canens
Fables VII and VIII: the followers of Diomedes; the Apulian shepherd
Fables IX and X: the fleet of Æneas; the death of Turnus
Fable XI: Vertumnus and Pomona
Fables XII and XIII: Anaxarete; Romulus builds Rome

Book XV
Fable I: Myscelos builds Crotona
Fables II and III: Pythagoras teaches Numa
Fables IV, V and VI: the transformations of Egeria, Hippolytus and others
Fable VII: Æsculapius comes to Rome
Fable VIII: the assassination of Julius Cæsar

The Introduction is included here for completeness. TheSynopses of Books I-VII have been omitted.

INTRODUCTION.

The Metamorphoses of Ovid are acompendium of the Mythological narratives of ancient Greece and Rome, soingeniously framed, as to embrace a large amount of information uponalmost every subject connected with the learning, traditions, manners,and customs of antiquity, and have afforded a fertile field ofinvestigation to the learned of the civilized world. To present to thepublic a faithful translation of a work, universally esteemed, not onlyfor its varied information, but as being the masterpiece of one of thegreatest Poets of ancient Rome, is the object of the present volume.

To render the work, which, from its nature and design, must, ofnecessity, be replete with matter of obscure meaning, more inviting tothe scholar, and more intelligible to those who are unversed inClassical literature, the translation is accompanied with Notes andExplanations, which, it is believed, will be found to throw considerablelight upon the origin and meaning of some of the traditions of heathenMythology.

In the translation, the text of the Delphin edition has beengenerally adopted; and no deviation has been made from it, except in afew 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 beencarefully consulted. The several editions vary materially in respect topunctuation; the Translator has consequently used his own discretion inadopting that which seemed to him the most fully to convey in eachpassage the intended meaning of the writer.

The Metamorphoses of Ovid have been frequently translated into theEnglish language. On referring to Mr. Bohn’s excellent Catalogue of theGreek and Latin Classics and their Translations, we find that the wholeof the work has been twice translated into English Prose, while fivetranslations in Verse are there enumerated. A prose version of theMetamorphoses was published by Joseph Davidson,about theivmiddle of the last century, which professes to be “as near the originalas 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 ithas not the slightest pretension to be considered a literal translation,while, by its departure from the strict letter of the author, it hasgained nothing in elegance of diction. It is accompanied by “critical,historical, geographical, and classical notes in English, from the bestCommentators, both ancient and modern, beside a great number of notes,entirely new;” but notwithstanding this announcement, these annotationswill be found to be but few in number, and, with some exceptions in theearly part of the volume, to throw very little light on the obscuritiesof the text. A fifth edition of this translation was published sorecently as 1822, but without any improvement, beyond the furbishing upof the old-fashioned language of the original preface. A far moreliteral translation of the Metamorphoses is that by John Clarke, whichwas first published about the year 1735, and had attained to a seventhedition in 1779. Although this version may be pronounced very nearly tofulfil the promise set forth in its title page, of being “as literal aspossible,” still, from the singular inelegance of its style, and thefact of its being couched in the conversational language of the earlypart of the last century, and being unaccompanied by any attempt atexplanation, it may safely be pronounced to be ill adapted to therequirements of the present age. Indeed, it would not, perhaps, be toomuch to assert, that, although the translator may, in his own words,“have done an acceptable service to such gentlemen as are desirous ofregaining or improving the skill they acquired at school,” he has, inmany instances, burlesqued rather than translated his author. Some ofthe 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. Herenders “horridus,” “in a rude pickle;” “virgo” is generally translated“the young lady;” “vir” is “a gentleman;” “senex” and “senior” areindifferently “the old blade,” “the old fellow,”vor “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 “toscower off in a mighty bustle;” “confundor” is “to be jumbled;” and“squalidus” is “in a sorry pickle.” “Importuna” is “a plaguybaggage;” “adulterium” is rendered “her pranks;” “ambages” becomeseither “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 “theparlour;” while “accingere,” more literally than elegantly, istranslated “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’saccoutrements;” and “repetito munere Bacchi” is conveyed to the sense ofthe reader as, “they return again to their bottle, and take the otherglass.” These are but a specimen of the blemishes which disfigure themost literal of the English translations of the Metamorphoses.

The Clarke “translation” was published as part of a student editionof Ovid’sMetamorphoses, with the Latin on the top half of thepage, the English below. It was not intended as an independenttext.

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 grammarand the verse will bear, written chiefly for the use of schools, to beused according to the directions in the preface to the painfullschoolmaster, and more fully in the book called, ‘Ludus Literarius, orthe Grammar school, chap. 8.’” Notwithstanding a title so pretentious,it contains a translation of no more than the first 567 lines of thefirst Book, executed in a fanciful and pedantic manner; and its rarityis now the only merit of the volume. A literal interlineartranslation 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 theHamiltonian system, by a literal and interlineal translation,” publishedby James Hamilton, the author of the Hamiltonian system. This workcontains selections only from the first six books, and consequentlyembraces but a very small portion of the entire work.

For the better elucidation of the different fabulous narratives andallusions, explanations have been added, whichviare 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 ofantiquity. A great number of these illustrations are collected inthe elaborate edition of Ovid, published by the Abbé Banier, one of themost learned scholars of the last century; who has, therein, and in his“Explanations of the Fables of Antiquity,” with indefatigable labour andresearch, culled from the works of ancient authors, all such informationas he considered likely to throw any light upon the Mythology andhistory of Greece and Rome.

This course has been adopted, because it was considered that astatement of the opinions of contemporary authors would be the mostlikely to enable the reader to form his own ideas upon the varioussubjects presented to his notice. Indeed, except in two or threeinstances, space has been found too limited to allow of more than anoccasional reference to the opinions of modern scholars. Such being theobject of the explanations, the reader will not be surprised at theabsence of critical and lengthened discussions on many of those mootpoints of Mythology and early history which have occupied, with no verypositive result, the attention of Niebuhr, Lobeck, Müller, Buttmann, andmany other scholars of profound learning.

A SYNOPTICAL VIEW

OF THE

PRINCIPAL TRANSFORMATIONS MENTIONED IN

THE METAMORPHOSES.

BOOK VIII.

In the mean time Minos besiegesMegara. Scylla, becoming enamoured of him, betrays her country, thesafety of which depends upon the purple lock of her father Nisu. Beingafterwards rejected by Minos, she clings to his ship, and is changedinto a bird, while her father becomes a sea eagle. Minos returns toCrete, and having erected the Labyrinth with the assistance of Dædalus,he there encloses the Minotaur, the disgrace of his family, and feeds itwith his Athenian captives. Theseus being one of these, slays themonster: and having escaped from the Labyrinth by the aid of Ariadne, hetakes her with him, but deserts her in the isle of Dia, where Bacchusmeets with her, and places her crown among the Constellations. Dædalusbeing unable to escape from the island of Crete, invents wings and fliesaway; while Icarus, accompanying his father, is drowned. The partridgebeholds the father celebrating his funeral rites, and testifies his joy:Perdix, or Talus, who had been envied by Minos for his ingenuity, andhad been thrown by him from the temple of Minerva, having beentransformed into that bird. Theseus, having now become celebrated, isinvited to the chase of the Calydonian boar, which Atalanta is the firstto wound. Meleager slays the monster; and his death is accelerated byhis mother Althæa, who places in the fire the fatal billet. Returningfrom the expedition, Theseus comes to Acheloüs, and sees the islandscalled the Echinades, into which the Naiads have been transformed.Pirithoüs denies the possibility of this; but Lelex quotes, as anexample, the case of Baucis and Philemon, who were changed into trees,while their house became a temple, and the neighbouring country a poolof water. Acheloüs then tells the story of the transformations ofProteus and of Metra,xiiand how Metra supported her father Erisicthon, while afflicted withviolent hunger.

BOOK IX.

Acheloüs then relates his owntransformations, when he was contending with Hercules for the hand ofDeïanira. Hercules wins her, and Nessus attempts to carry her off: onwhich Hercules pierces him with one of his arrows that has been dippedin the blood of the Hydra. In revenge, Nessus, as he is dying, gives toDeïanira his garment stained with his blood. She, distrusting herhusband’s affection, sends him the garment; he puts it on, and hisvitals are consumed by the venom. As he is dying, he hurls his attendantLychas into the sea, where he becomes a rock. Hercules is conveyed toheaven, and is enrolled in the number of the Deities. Alcmena, hismother, goes to her daughter-in-law Iole, and tells her how Galanthiswas changed into a weasel; while she, in her turn, tells the story ofthe transformation of her sister Dryope into the lotus. In the meantimeIolaüs comes, whose youth has been restored by Hebe. Jupiter shows, bythe example of his sons Æacus and Minos, that all are not so blessed.Miletus, flying from Minos, arrives in Asia, and becomes the father ofByblis and Caunus. Byblis falls in love with her brother, and istransformed into a fountain. This would have appeared more surprising toall, 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, andthen goes to those of Orpheus; but with a bad omen, as Eurydice diessoon after, and cannot be brought to life. In his sorrow, Orpheusrepairs to the solitudes of the mountains, where the trees flock aroundhim at the sound of his lyre; and, among others, the pine, into whichAtys has been changed; and the cypress, produced from the transformationof Cyparissus. Orpheus sings of the rape of Ganymede; of the change ofHyacinthus, who was beloved and slain by Apollo, into a flower; of thetransformation of the Cerastæ into bulls; of the Propœtides, who werechanged into stones; and of the statue of Pygmalion, which was changedinto a living woman, who became the mother of Paphos. He then sings, howMyrrha, for her incestuous intercourse with her father, was changed intothe myrrh tree; and how Adonis (to whom Venus relates the transformationof Hippomenes and Atalanta into lions) was transformed into ananemone.

BOOK XI.

Orpheus is torn to pieces by theThracian women; on which, a serpent, which attacks his face, ischanged into stone. Thexiiiwomen are transformed into trees by Bacchus, who deserts Thrace, andbetakes himself to Phrygia; where Midas, for his care of Silenus,receives the power of making gold. He loathes this gift; and bathing inthe river Pactolus, its sands become golden. For his stupidity, his earsare changed by Apollo into those of an ass. After this, that God goes toTroy, and aids Laomedon in building its walls. Hercules rescues hisdaughter Hesione, when fastened to a rock, and his companion Telamonreceives her as his wife; while his brother Peleus marries the seaGoddess, Thetis. Going to visit Ceyx, he learns how Dædalion has beenchanged into a hawk, and sees a wolf changed into a rock. Ceyx goes toconsult the oracle of Claros, and perishes by shipwreck. On this,Morpheus appears to Halcyone, in the form of her husband, and she ischanged into a kingfisher; into which bird Ceyx is also transformed.Persons who observe them, as they fly, call to mind how Æsacus, the sonof Priam, was changed into a sea bird, called the didapper.

BOOK XII.

Priam performs the obsequies forÆsacus, believing him to be dead. The children of Priam attend, with theexception of Paris, who, having gone to Greece, carries off Helen, thewife of Menelaüs. The Greeks pursue Paris, but are detained at Aulis,where they see a serpent changed into stone, and prepare to sacrificeIphigenia to Diana; but a hind is substituted for her. The Trojanshearing of the approach of the Greeks, in arms await their arrival. Atthe first onset, Cygnus, dashed by Achilles against a stone, is changedby Neptune into the swan, a bird of the same name, he having beenvulnerable by no weapon. At the banquet of the chiefs, Nestor calls tomind Cæneus, who was also invulnerable; and who having been changed froma woman into a man, on being buried under a heap of trees, wastransformed into a bird. This Cæneus was one of the Lapithæ, at thebattle of whom with the Centaurs, Nestor was present. Nestor also tellshow his brother, Periclymenus, was changed into an eagle. Meanwhile,Neptune laments the death of Cygnus, and entreats Apollo to direct thearrow of Paris against the heel of Achilles, which is done, and thathero is slain.

BOOK XIII.

Ajax Telamon and Ulysses contend forthe arms of Achilles. Ihe former slays himself, on which a hyacinthsprings up from his blood. Troy being taken, Hecuba is carried toThrace, where she tears out the eyes of Polymnestor, and is afterwardschanged into a bitch. While the Gods deplore her misfortunes, Aurora isoccupied with grief for the death of herxivson Memnon, from whose ashes the birds called Memnonides arise. Æneasflying from Troy, visits Anius, whose daughters have been changed intodoves; and after touching at other places, remarkable for varioustransformations, he arrives in Sicily, where is the maiden Scylla, towhom Galatea relates how Polyphemus courted her, and how he slew Acis.On this, Glaucus, who has been changed into a sea Deity, makes hisappearance.

BOOK XIV.

Circe changes Scylla into a monster.Æneas arrives in Africa, and is entertained by Dido. Passing by theislands called Pithecusæ, where the Cecropes have been transformed frommen into apes, he comes to Italy; and landing near the spot which hecalls Caicta, he learns from Macareus many particulars respectingUlysses and the incantations of Circe, and how king Picus was changedinto a woodpecker. He afterwards wages war with Turnus. Through Venulus,Turnus asks assistance of Diomedes, whose companions have beentransformed into birds, and he is refused. Venulus, as he returns, seesthe 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 heronformerly arose from the flames of the city of Ardea. Æneas is now made aDeity. 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 forher cruelty, he reassumes the shape of a youth, and prevails upon theGoddess. Cold waters, by the aid of the Naiads become warm. Romulushaving 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 makinginquiry respecting the origin of the city of Crotona, learns how blackpebbles were changed into white; he also attends the lectures ofPythagoras, on the changes which all matter is eternally undergoing.Egeria laments the death of Numa, and will not listen to theconsolations of Hippolytus, who tells her of his own transformation, andshe pines away into a fountain. This is not less wonderful, than howTages sprang from a clod of earth; or how the lance of Romulus became atree; or how Cippus became decked with horns. The Poet concludes bypassing to recent events; and after shewing how Æsculapius was firstworshipped by the Romans, in the sacred isle of the Tiber, he relatesthe Deification of Julius Cæsar and his change into a Star; andforetells imperishable fame for himself.

BOOK THE EIGHTH.

FABLE I.

Minos commences the war with the siegeof Megara. The preservation of the city depends on a lock of the hair ofits king, Nisus. His daughter, Scylla, falling in love with Minos, cutsoff the fatal lock, and gives it to him. Minos makes himself master ofthe place; and, abhorring Scylla and the crime she has been guilty of,he takes his departure. In despair, she throws herself into the sea, andfollows his fleet. Nisus, being transformed into a sea eagle, attacksher in revenge, and she is changed into a bird called Ciris.

Now, Lucifer unveiling the day and dispelling the season of night,the East wind1 fell, and the moist vapours arose. The favourable Southwinds gave a passage to the sons of Æacus,2 and Cephalus returning;with which, being prosperously impelled, they made the port they werebound for, before it was expected.

In the meantime Minos is laying waste the Lelegeian coasts,3 andpreviously tries the strength of his arms against the city Alcathoë,which Nisus had; among whose honoured hoary hairs a lock, distinguishedby its purple colour, descended from the middle of his crown, thesafeguard of his powerful kingdom. The sixth horns of the rising Phœbewerenow growing again, and the fortune of the war was still insuspense, and for a long time did victory hover between them both withuncertain264viii. 13-47.wings. There was a regal tower built with vocal walls, on which the sonof Latona4 is reported to have laid his golden harp;andits sound adhered to the stone. The daughter of Nisus was wont often togo 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 thefight, and the contests of the hardy warfare, from that tower. And now,by the continuance of the hostilities, she had become acquainted withboth the names of the chiefs, their arms, their horses, their dresses,and the Cydonean5 quivers.

Before the rest, she had observed the face of the chieftain, the sonof Europa; even better than was enough for merely knowing him. In heropinion, Minos, whether it was that he had enclosed his head in a helmcrested with feathers, was beauteous in a helmet; or whether he hadtaken up a shield shining with gold, it became him to assume thatshield. Drawing his arm back, did he hurl the slender javelin; themaiden commended his skill, joined with strength. Did he bend the widebow with the arrow laid upon it; she used to swear that thus Phœbusstood, when assuming his arrows. But when he exposed his face, by takingoff the brazenhelmet, and, arrayed in purple, pressed the backof a white horse, beauteous with embroidered housings, and guided hisfoaming mouth; the virgin daughter of Nisus was hardly mistress ofherself, hardly able to control a sound mind. She used to call thejavelin happy which he touched, and the reins happy which he waspressing with his hand. She had an impulse (were it only possible) todirect her virgin footsteps through the hostile ranks; she had animpulse to cast her body from the top of the towers into the Gnossiancamp, or to open the gates, strengthened with brass, to the enemy; or,indeed, anything else, if Minos should wish it. And as she wassitting, looking at the white tents of the Dictæan king, she said,“I am in doubt whether I should rejoice, or whether I shouldgrieve, that this mournful war is carried on. I grieve that Minosis the enemy of the person who loves him; but unless there had been awar, would he have been known to me? yet, taking me for a265viii. 47-82.hostage, he might cease the war, and have me for his companion, me as apledge of peace. If, most beauteous of beings, she who bore thee, wassuch as thou art thyself, with reason was the GodJupiterinflamed withlove for her. Oh! thrice happy were I, if, movingupon wings through the air, I could light upon the camp of theGnossian king, and, owning myself and my flame, could ask him with whatdowry he could wish to be purchased; provided only, that he did not askthe city of my father. For, perish rather the desired alliance, thanthat I should prevail by treason; although the clemency of a mercifulconqueror has often made it of advantage to many, to be conquered. Hecertainly carries on a just war for his slain son,6 and is strong bothin 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 willbe better for him to conquer without slaughter and delay, and theexpense of his own blood. How much, indeed, do I dread, Minos, lest anyone should unknowingly wound thy breast! for who is so hardened as todare, unless unknowingly, to direct his cruel lance against thee? Thedesign pleases me; and my determination is to deliver up my country as adowry, together with myself, andso to put an end to the war. Butto be willing, is too little; a guard watches the approaches, andmy father keeps the keys of the gates. Him alone, in my wretchedness, doI dread; he alone obstructs my desires. Would that the Gods would grantI might be without a father! Every one, indeed, is a God to himself.Fortune is an enemy to idle prayers. Another woman, inflamed with apassion so great, would long since have taken a pleasure in destroyingwhatever stood in the way of her love. And why should any one be bolderthan myself? I could dare to go through flames,and amidswords. But in this case there is no occasion for any flames orany swords; I only want the lock of my father. Thatpurple lock is more precious to me than gold; it will make me happy, andmistress of my own wish.”

As she is saying such things, the night draws on, the greatest nurseof cares, and with the darkness her boldness266viii. 82-116.increases. The first slumbers are now come, in which sleep takespossession of the breast wearied with the cares of the day. She silentlyenters the chamber of her father, and (O abominable crime!)the daughter despoils the father of his fatal lock, and having got theprize of crime, carries with her the spoil of her impiety; and issuingforth by the gate, she goes through the midst of the enemy, (so great isher confidence in her deserts) to the king, whom, in astonishment, shethus addresses: “’Twas love that urged the deed. I amScylla, the royal issue of Nisus; to thee do I deliver the fortunes ofmy country and my own,as well; I ask for no reward, butthyself. Take this purple lock, as a pledge of my love; and do notconsider that I am delivering to thee a lock of hair, but the life of myfather.” Andthen, in her right hand, she holds forth theinfamous present. Minos refuses it,thus held out; and shocked atthe thought of so unheard of a crime, he says, “May the Gods,O thou reproach of our age, banish thee from their universe; andmay both earth and sea be denied to thee. At least, I will notallow so great a monster to come into Crete, the birth-place of Jupiter,which is my realm.” Hethus spoke;7 and when,like amost just lawgiver, he had imposed conditions on the vanquished, heordered thehalsers of the fleet to be loosened, and the brazenbeaked ships to be impelled with the oars. Scylla, when shebeheld the launched ships sailing on the main, andsaw that theprince did not give her theexpected reward of her wickedness,having spentall her entreaties, fell into a violent rage, andholding up her hands, with her hair dishevelled, in her frenzy sheexclaimed,

“Whither dost thou fly, the origin of thy achievementsthusleft behind, O thou preferred before my country, preferred beforemy father? Whither dost thou fly, barbarousman? whose victory isboth my crime and my merit. Has neither the gift presented to thee, noryet my passion, moved thee? nor yetthe fact that all my hopeswere centred in thee alone? For whither shall I return, forsakenbythee? To my country? Subdued, it is ruined. But suppose it werestill safe; by my treachery, it is shut against me. To the faceof my father, that I have placed in thy power. My fellow-citizens267viii. 116-142.hate me deservedly; the neighbours dread my example. I have closedthe whole world against me, that Crete alone might be opento 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 theinhospitable Syrtis,8 or Armenian9 tigresses, or Charybdis disturbed bythe South wind. Nor wast thou the son of Jupiter; nor was thy motherbeguiled by theassumed form of a bull. That story of thy birthis false. He was both a fierce bull, and one charmed with the love of noheifer, that begot thee. Nisus, my father, take vengeance upon me. Thoucity so lately betrayed, rejoice at my misfortunes; for I have deservedthem, I confess, and I am worthy to perish. Yet let some one ofthose, whom I have impiously ruined, destroy me. Why dost thou, who hastconquered by means of my crime, chastise that crime? This, which wastreason to my country and to my father, was an act of kindness to thee.She is truly worthy10 of thee for a husband, who, adulterouslyenclosed in wood, deceived the fierce-looking bull, and bore inher womb an offspring of shape dissimilarto herself. And do mycomplaints reach thy ears? Or do the same winds bear away my fruitlesswords, and thy ships, ungrateful man? Now,ah! now, it is not tobe wondered at that Pasiphaë preferred the bull to thee; thou didst havethe more savage natureof the two. Wretch that I am! He joys inspeeding onward, and the waves resound, cleaved by his oars. Togetherwith myself, alas! mynative land recedes from him. Nothing dostthou avail; oh thou! forgetful to no purpose of my deserts. In spite ofthee, will I follow thee, and grasping thy crooked stern, I will bedragged through the long seas.”

Scarce has she saidthis, when she leaps into the waves, andfollows the ships, Cupid giving her strength, and she hangs, anunwelcome 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 seaeagle, with tawny wings), he is going to tear her in pieces with hiscrooked beak. Through fear she quits the stern; but the light air seemsto support her as she is falling, that she may not touch the sea. It isfeathersthat support her. With feathers, being changed into abird, she is called Ciris;11 and this name does she obtain fromcutting off the lock.

EXPLANATION.

Minos, having raised an army and received auxiliary troops from hisallies, made war upon the Athenians, to revenge the death of his son,Androgeus. Having conquered Nisea, he laid siege to Megara, which wasbetrayed by the perfidy of Scylla, the daughter of its king, Nisus.Pausanias and other historians say that the story here related by thePoet is based on fact; and that Scylla held a secret correspondence withMinos during the siege of Megara, and, at length, introduced him intothe town, by opening the gates to him with the keys which she had stolenfrom her father, while he was asleep. This is probably alluded to underthe allegorical description of the fatal lock of hair, though why itshould 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 asea eagle, are poetical fictions based on the equivocal meanings oftheir names, the one Greek and the other Hebrew; for the name ‘Ciris’resembles the Greek verbκείρω, which signifies ‘to clip,’ or ‘cut short.’‘Nisus,’ too, resembles the Hebrew word ‘Netz,’ which means a birdresembling the osprey, or sea eagle. Apollodorus says, that Minosordered Scylla to be thrown into the sea; and Zenodotus, that he causedher to be hanged at the mainmast of his ship.

FABLEII.

Minos, having overcome the Athenians,obliges them to pay a tribute of youths and virgins of the bestfamilies, to be exposed to the Minotaur. The lot falls on Theseus, who,by the assistance of Ariadne, kills the monster, escapes from thelabyrinth, which Dædalus made, and carries Ariadne to the island ofNaxos, where he abandons her. Bacchus wooes her, and, to immortalize hername, he transforms the crown which he has given her into aConstellation.

Minos paid, as a vow to Jupiter, the bodies of a hundred bulls, assoon as, disembarking from his ships, he reached the land of theCuretes; and his palace was decorated with the spoils there hung up. Thereproach of his family hadnow grown up, and the shamefuladultery of his mother was notorious, from the unnatural shape of thetwo-formed monster. Minos resolves to remove the disgrace from hisabode, and to enclose it in a habitation of many divisions, and an abodefull of mazes. Dædalus, a man very famed for his skill inarchitecture, plans the work, and confounds the marksofdistinction, and leads the eyes into mazy wanderings, by theintricacy of its various passages. No otherwise than as the limpidMæander sports in the Phrygian fields, and flows backwards and forwardswith its varying course, and, meeting itself, beholds its waters thatare to follow, and fatigues its wandering current, nowpointingto its source, and now to the open sea. Just so, Dædalus fillsinnumerable paths with windings; and scarcely can he himself return tothe entrance, so great are the intricacies of the place. After he hasshut up here the double figure of a bull and of a youth;12 and the thirdsupply, chosen by lot each nine years, has subdued the monster twicebefore gorged with Athenian blood; and when the difficultentrance, retraced by none of thosewho have entered it before,has been found by the aid of the maiden, by means of the thread gatheredup again; immediately, the son of Ægeus, carrying away the daughter ofMinos, sets sail for Dia,13 and barbarously deserts hiscompanion on those shores.

Her,thus deserted and greatly lamenting, Liber embraces andaids; and, that she may be famed by a lasting Constellation, he placesin the heavens the crown taken from off her head. It flies through theyielding air, and, as it flies, its jewels are suddenly changed intofires, and they settle in their places, the shape of the crownstill remaining; which is in the middle,14 betweentheConstellation resting on his knee,15 and that which holds theserpents.

EXPLANATION.

Oppressed with famine, and seeing the enemy at their gates, theAthenians went to consult the oracle at Delphi; and were answered, thatto be delivered from their calamities, they must give satisfaction toMinos. They immediately sentambassadors to him, humbly suing for peace,which he granted them, on condition that each year, according toApollodorus and Diodorus Siculus, or every nine years, according toPlutarch and Ovid, they should send him seven young men and as manyvirgins. The severity of these conditions provoked the Athenians torender Minos as odious as possible; whereupon, they promulgated thestory, that he destined the youths that were sent to him, to fight inthe Labyrinth against the Minotaur, which was the fruit of an intrigueof his wife Pasiphaë with a white bull which Neptune had sent out of thesea. They added, that Dædalus favoured this extraordinary passion of thequeen; and that Venus inspired Pasiphaë with it, to be revenged forhaving been surprised with Mars by Apollo, her father. Plato, Plutarch,and other writers acknowledge that these stories were invented from thehatred which the Greeks bore to the king of Crete.

As, however, these extravagant fables have generally some foundation infact, we are informed by Servius, Tzetzes, and Zenobius, that, in theabsence of Minos, Pasiphaë fell in love with a young noble of the Cretancourt, named Taurus, who, according to Plutarch, was the commander ofthe fleet of Minos; that Dædalus, their confidant, allowed theirassignations to take place in his house, and that the queen wasafterwards271viii. 183-189.delivered of twins, of which the one resembled Minos, and the otherTaurus.This,according to those authors, was the foundation of the story as to thefate for which the young Athenians were said to be destined.Philochorus, quoted by Plutarch, says that Minos instituted funeralgames in honour of his son Androgeus, and that those who were vanquishedbecame the slaves of the conquerors. That author adds, that Taurus wasthe first who won all the prizes in these games, and that he used theunfortunate Athenians, who became his slaves, with great barbarity.Aristotle tells us that the tribute was paid three times by theAthenians, and that the lives of the captives were spent in the mostdreadful servitude.

Dædalus, on returning into Crete, built a labyrinth there, in which,very probably, these games were celebrated. Palæphatus, however, saysthat Theseus fought in a cavern, where the son of Taurus had beenconfined. Plutarch and Catullus say, that Theseus voluntarily offered togo to Crete with the other Athenians, while Diodorus Siculus says thatthe lot fell on him to be of the number. His delivery by Ariadne,through her giving him the thread, is probably a poetical method ofinforming us that she gave her lover the plan of the labyrinth where hewas 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 foundedon the fact, that on arriving at the Isle of Naxos, when she wasdeserted by Theseus, she became the wife of a priest of Bacchus.

FABLE III.

Dædalus, weary of his exile, findsmeans, by making himself wings, to escape out of Crete. His son Icarus,forgetting the advice of his father, and flying too high, the Sun meltshis wings, and he perishes in the sea, which afterwards bore his name.The sister of Dædalus commits her son Perdix to his care, for thepurpose of being educated. Dædalus, being jealous of the talent of hisnephew, throws him from a tower, with the intention of killing him; butMinerva supports him in his fall, and transforms him into apartridge.

In the meantime, Dædalus, abhorring Crete and his prolonged exile,16and inflamed by the love of his native soil, was enclosedthereby 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 Minospossess everythingbesides: he does not sway the air.”Thus he spoke; and he turned his thoughts to arts unknowntillthen; and variedthe course272viii. 189-221.of nature. For he arranges feathers in order, beginning from theleast, the shorter one succeeding the longer; so that you might supposethey grew on an incline. Thus does the rustic pipe sometimes rise bydegrees, with unequal straws. Then he binds those in the middle withthread, and the lowermost ones with wax; and, thus ranged, with a gentlecurvature, he bends them, so as to imitate realwings of birds.His son Icarus stands together with him; and, ignorant that he ishandlingthe source of danger to himself, with a smilingcountenance, he sometimes catches at the feathers which the shiftingbreeze is ruffling; and, at other times, he softens the yellow wax withhis thumb; and, by his playfulness, he retards the wondrous work of hisfather.

After the finishing hand was put to the work, the workman himselfpoised his own body upon the two wings, and hung suspended in the beatenair. He provided his sonwith them as well; and said to him,“Icarus, I recommend thee to keep the middle tract; lest, if thoushouldst go too low, the water should clog thy wings; if too high, thefireof the sun should scorch them. Fly between both; and I bidthee neither to look at Boötes, nor Helice,17 nor the drawn swordof Orion. Under my guidance, take thy way.” At the same time, hedelivered him rules for flying, and fitted the untried wings to hisshoulders. Amid his work and his admonitions, the cheeks of the old manwere wet, and the hands of the father trembled. He gives kisses to hisson, never again to be repeated; and, raised upon his wings, he fliesbefore, and is concerned for his companion, just as the bird which hasled forth her tender young from the lofty nest into the air. And heencourages him to follow, and instructs him in the fatal art, and bothmoves his own wings himself, and looks back on those of his son.A person while he is angling for fish with his quivering rod, orthe 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, andDelos,273viii. 221-253.and Paros, were left behind to the left hand. On the right wereLebynthus,19 and Calymne,20 fruitful in honey; when the boybegan to be pleased with a bolder flight, and forsook his guide; and,touched with a desire of reaching heaven, pursued his course stillhigher. The vicinity of the scorching Sun softened the fragrant wax thatfastened his wings. The wax was melted; he shook his naked arms, and,wanting his oar-like wings, he caught nomore air. His face, too,as he called on the name of his father, was received in the azure water,which received its name21 from him.

But the unhappy father, now no more a father, said, “Icarus, whereart thou? In what spot shall I seek thee, Icarus?” did he say;when he beheld his wings in the waters, andthen he cursedhis own arts; and he buried his body in a tomb, and the land was calledfrom the name of him buried there. As he was laying the body of hisunfortunate son in the tomb, a prattling partridge beheld him froma branching holm-oak,22 and, by its notes, testified its delight.’Twas then but a single birdof its kind, and never seen informer years, and, lately made a bird, was a grievous reproof, Dædalus,to thee. For, ignorantof the decrees of fate, his sister hadentrusted her son to be instructed by him, a boy who had passedtwice six birthdays, with a mind eager for instruction. ’Twas he, too,who took the backbones observed in the middle of the fish, for anexample, and cuta continuedrow of teeth in iron, with asharp edge, andthus discovered the use of the saw.

He was the first, too, that bound two arms of iron to one centre,that, being dividedand of equal length, the one part might standfixed,and the other might describe a circle. Dædalus wasenvious, and threw him headlong from the sacred citadel of Minerva,falsely pretending that he had fallenby accident. But Pallas,who favours ingenuity, received him, and made him a bird; and, in themiddle of the air, he flew upon274viii. 254-261.wings. Yet the vigour of his genius, once so active, passed into hiswings and into his feet; his name, too, remained the same as before. Yetthis bird does not raise its body aloft, nor make its nest in thebranches and the lofty topsof trees, but flies near the ground,and lays its eggs in hedges: and, mindful of its former fall, it dreadsthe higher regions.

EXPLANATION.

Dædalus was a talented Athenian, of the family of Erechtheus; and he wasparticularly famed for his skill in statuary and architecture. He becamejealous of the talents of his nephew, Talos, whom Ovid here callsPerdix; and, envying his inventions of the saw, the compasses, and theart of turning, he killed him privately. Flying to Crete, he wasfavourably received by Minos, who was then at war with the Athenians. Hethere built the Labyrinth, as Pliny the Elder asserts, after the plan ofthat in Egypt, which is described by Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, andStrabo. Philochorus, however, as quoted by Plutarch, says that it didnot resemble the Labyrinth of Egypt, and that it was only a prison inwhich criminals were confined.

Minos, being informed that Dædalus had assisted Pasiphaë in carrying outher criminal designs, kept him in prison; but escaping thence, by theaid 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 providedwith oars only. Icarus, either fell into the sea, or, overpowered withthe fatigues of the voyage, died near an island in the Archipelago,which afterwards received his name. These facts have been disguised bythe poets under the ingenious fiction of the wings, and the neglect ofIcarus to follow his father’s advice, as here related.

FABLE IV.

Diana, offended at the neglect ofŒneus, king of Calydon, when performing his vows to the Gods, sends awild boar to ravage his dominions; on which Œneus assembled the princesof 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 hisvictory. Their sister Althæa, the mother of Meleager, filled with griefat their death, loads her son with execrations; and, remembering thetorch which she received from the Fates at his birth, and on which thepreservation of his life depends, she throws it into the fire. As soonas it is consumed, Meleager expires in the greatest torments. Hissisters mourn over his body, until Diana changes them into birds.

And now the Ætnæan land received Dædalus in his fatigue; and275viii. 261-285.Cocalus,23 taking up arms for him as he entreated, was commendedfor his kindness.And now Athens has ceased to pay her mournfultribute, through the exploits of Theseus. The temples are decked withgarlands, and they invoke warlike Minerva, with Jupiter and the otherGods, whom they adore with the bloodof victims vowed, and withpresents offered, and censers24 of frankincense. Wandering Fame hadspread the renown of Theseus throughout the Argive cities, and thenations which rich Achaia contained, implored his aid amid greatdangers. Calydon,too, although it had Meleager,25 suppliantlyaddressed him with anxious entreaties. The occasion of askingaidwas a boar, the servant and the avenger of Diana in her wrath.

For they say that Œneus, for the blessings of a plenteous year, hadoffered the first fruits of the corn to Ceres, to Bacchus his wine, andthe Palladian juice26of olives to the yellow-haired Minerva.These invidious honours commencing with the ruralDeities, werecontinued to all the Gods above; they say that the altars of thedaughter of Latona, who was omitted, were alone left withoutfrankincense. Wrath affects even the Deities. “Butthis,” saysshe, “I will not tamely put up with; and I, who am thusdishonoured, will not be said to be unrevengedas well:” and shesends a boar as an avenger throughout the lands of Œneus, than which noteven does verdant Epirus27 possess bulls of greater size; even the fieldsof Sicily have them of less magnitude. His eyes shine with blood and276viii. 285-304.flames, his rough neck is stiff; bristles, too,28 stand up, likespikes, thickly set; like palisades29 do those bristles project, justlike high spikes. Boiling foam, with a harsh noise, flows down his broadshoulders; his tusks rival the tusks of India. Thunders issue from hismouth; the foliage is burnt up with the blast. One while he tramplesdown the corn in the growing blade, and crops the expectations of thehusbandman, doomed to lament, as yet unripe, and he intercepts the cornin the ear. In vain does the threshing floor, and in vain do the barnsawait the promised harvest. The heavy grapes, with the long branches ofthe vine, are scattered about, and the berries with the boughs of theever-green olive. He vents his fury, too, upon the flocks. These,neither dogs nor shepherdscan protect; noteven thefierce bulls are able to defend the herds. The people fly in alldirections, and do not consider themselves safe, but in the walls of acity, until Meleager, and, togetherwith him, a choice bodyof youths, unite from a desire for fame.

The two sons of Tyndarus,30 the one famous for boxing, the otherfor his skill in horsemanship; Jason, too, the builder of the firstship, and Theseus, with Pirithoüs,31 happy unison, and the two sons ofThestius,32 and Lynceus,33 the son of277viii. 304-312.Aphareus, and the swift Idas, and Cæneus,34 now no longer awoman; 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 Telamon42 absent; the father, too, of thegreat Achilles;43 and with the son of Pheres,44 and the HyantianIolaüs,45 the active Eurytion,46 and Echion,47 invincible inthe race, and the Narycian Lelex,48 and Panopeus,49 and278viii. 312-328.Hyleus,50 and bold Hippasus,51 and Nestor,52 now but in hisearly years. Those, too, whom Hippocoön53 sent from ancient Amyclæ,54and the father-in-law of Penelope,55 with the Parrhasian Ancæus,56 andthe sage son of Ampycus,57 and the descendant of Œclus,58 as yet safefrom his wife, and Tegeæan59Atalanta, the glory of theLycæan groves. A polished buckle fastened the top of her robe; herplain hair was gathered into a single knot. The ivory keeper of herweapons 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, withreason, was that of a maid in a boy, that of a boy in a maid. Her theCalydonian 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, happywill he be, if she shall vouchsafeto make anyone her husband.” The occasion and propriety allow him to say no more;the greater deeds of the mighty contestnow engage him.

A wood, thick with trees, which no age has cut down, rises from aplain, and looks down upon the fields below. After the heroes are comethere, some extend the nets; some take the couples off the dogs, somefollow close the traces of his feet, and are anxious to discover theirown danger. There is a hollow channel, along which rivulets of rainwater are wont to discharge themselves. The bending willows cover thelower parts of the cavity, and smooth sedges, and marshy rushes, andoziers, and thin reeds with their long stalks. Aroused from this spot,the boar rushes violently into the midst of the enemy, like lightningdarted 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 ashout, and with strong right hands hold their weapons extended beforethem, brandished with their broad points.Onward he rushes, and disperses the dogs, as any oneof them opposes his career; and scatters them, as they barkathim, with sidelong wounds. The spear that was first hurled by thearm of Echion, was unavailing, and made a slight incision in the trunkof a maple tree. The next, if it had not employed too much of thestrength of him who threw it, seemed as if it would stick in the back itwas aimed at: it went beyond. The owner of the weapon was the PagasæanJason. “Phœbus,” said the son of Ampycus,60 “if I have worshippedthee, and if I do worship thee, grant methe favour to reach whatisnow aimed at, with unerring weapon.” The God consented to hisprayer, so far as he could. The boar was struck by him, but without awound; Diana took the steel head from off the flying weapon; the shaftreached him without the point. The rage of the monster was aroused, andnot less violently was he inflamed than the lightnings; light dartedfrom his eyes, and flame was breathed from his breast. As the stoneflies, launched by the tightened rope, when it is aimed61 at eitherwalls, or towers filled with soldiers, with the like unerring onset isthe destroying boar borne on among the youths, and lays upon the groundEupalamus and Pelagon,62 who guard the right wing.Thus280viii. 361-391.prostrate, their companions bear them off. But Enæsimus, the son ofHippocoön, does not escape a deadly wound. The sinews of his knee, cutby the boar, fail him as he trembles, and prepares to turn hisback.

Perhaps, too, the PylianNestor would have perished63 beforethe times of the Trojanwar: but taking a spring, by means of hislance, plantedin the ground, he leaped into the branches of atree that was standing close by, and, safe in his position, looked downupon the enemy which he had escaped. He, having whetted his tusk on thetrunk of an oak, fiercely stood, ready for their destruction; and,trusting to his weapons newly pointed, gored the thigh of the greatOthriades64 with his crooked tusks. But the two brothers, not yetmade Constellations of the heavens, distinguished from the rest, wereborne upon horses whiter than the bleached snow;and both werebrandishing the points of their lances, poised in the air, with atremulous motion. They would have inflicted wounds, had not the bristlymonster entered the shady wood, a place penetrable byneither weapons nor horses. Telamon pursues him; and, heedless in theheat of pursuit, falls headlong, tripped up by the root of a tree. WhilePeleus65 is lifting him up, the Tegeæan damsel fits a swiftarrow to the string, and, bending the bow, lets it fly. Fixed under theear of the beast, the arrow razes the surface of the skin, and dyes thebristles red with a little blood. And not more joyful is she at thesuccess of her aim than Meleager is.

He is supposed to have observed it first, and first to have pointedout the blood to his companions, and to have said, “Thou shalt receivedue honour for thy bravery.” The heroes blushin emulation; andthey encourage one another, and raise their spirits with shouts, anddischarge their weapons without any order. Theirvery multitudeis a hindrance to those that are thrown, and it baffles the blow forwhich it is designed. Behold! the Arcadian,66 wielding hisbattle-axe, rushing madly281viii. 391-430.on to his fate, said, “Learn, O youths, how much the weapons of menexcel those of women, and give way for my achievement. Though thedaughter of Latona herself should protect him by her own arms, still, inspite of Diana, shall my right hand destroy him.” Such words did heboastingly utter with self-confident lips; and lifting his double-edgedaxe with both hands, he stood erect upon tiptoe. The beast seized himthus bold, and, where there is the nearest way to death, directedhis two tusks to the upper part of his groin. Ancæus fell; and hisbowels, twisted, rush forth, falling with plenteous blood, and the earthwas soaked with gore. Pirithoüs, the son of Ixion, was advancingstraight against the enemy, shaking his spear in his powerful righthand. To him the son of Ægeus, at a distance, said, “O thou, dearerto me than myself; stop, thou better part of my soul; we may be valiantat a distance: his rash courage was the destruction of Ancæus.”Thus he spoke, and he hurled his lance of cornel wood, heavy withits 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, whichunlucky chanceturned away fromthe beast, to the destruction of an unoffendingdog, and running through his entrails, it was pinned throughthose entrails into the earth. But the hand of the son of Œneushas different success; and of two discharged by him, the first spear isfastened in the earth, the second in the middle of his back. There is nodelay; while he rages, while he is wheeling his body round, and pouringforth foam, hissing with the fresh blood, the giver of the wound comesup, and provokes his adversary to fury, and buries his shining huntingspear in his opposite shoulder. His companions attest their delight inan encouraging shout, and in their right hands endeavour to grasp theconquering right hand; and with wonder they behold the huge beast as helies upon a large space of ground, and they do not deem it safe as yetto touch him; but yet they, each of them, stain their weapons with hisblood.Jason himself, placing his foot upon it, presses hisfrightful head, and thus he says: “Receive, Nonacrian Nymph, the spoilthat is my right; and let my glory be shared by thee.” Immediately hegives her the skin as the spoil, thick with the stiffening bristles, andthe head remarkable for the huge tusks. The giver of the present, aswell as the present, is asource of pleasure to282viii. 430-463.her. The others envy her, and there is a murmuring throughout the wholecompany. Of these, stretching out their arms, with a loud voice, thesons of Thestius cry out, “Come, lay them down, and do not thou,a woman, interfere with our honours; let not thy confidence in thybeauty deceive thee, and let the donor, seized with this passion forthee, keep at a distance.” Andthen from her they take thepresent,and from him the rightof disposing of thepresent.

The warlike67prince did not brook it, and, indignant withswelling rage, he said, “Learn, ye spoilers of the honour that belongsto another, how much deeds differ from threats;” and, with his cruelsword, he pierced the breast of Plexippus, dreading no such thing. Norsuffered he Toxeus, who was doubtful what to do, and both wishful toavenge 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 beingvictorious, when she beheld her slain brothers carried offfrom thefield: uttering a shriek, she filled the city with her sadlamentations, and assumed black garments in exchange for her goldenones. But soon as the author of their death was made known, all griefvanished; and from tears it was turned to a thirst for vengeance. Therewas a billet, which, when the daughter of Thestius was lying in labourwith her son, the three Sisters,the Fates, placed in theflames, and spinning the fatal threads, with their thumbs pressed uponthem, they said, “We give to thee, O new-bornbabe, and tothis wood, the same periodof existence.” Having uttered thischarm, the Goddesses departed;and the mother snatched theflaming brand from the fire, and sprinkled it with flowing water. Longhad it been concealed in her most retired apartment; and beingthus preserved, had preserved, O youth, thy life. Thisbillet the mothernow brings forth, and orders torches tobe heaped on broken piecesof wood; and when heaped, applies tothem the hostile flames. Then four times essaying to lay the branch uponthe flames, four times does she pause in the attempt. Both the mother283viii. 463-492.and the sister struggle hard, and the two different titles influence herbreast in different ways. Often is her countenance pale withapprehension of the impending crime; often does rage, glowing in hereyes, produce its red colour. And one while is her countenance like thatof one making some cruel threat or other; at another moment, such as youcould suppose to be full of compassion. And when the fierce heat of herfeelings has dried up her tears, still are tears foundto flow.Just as the ship, which the wind and a tide running contrary to thewind, seize, is sensible of the double assault, and unsteadily obeysthem both; no otherwise does the daughter of Thestius fluctuate betweentwo varying affections, and in turn lays by her anger, and rousesit again,when thus laid by. Still, the sister begins to get thebetter of the parent; and that, with blood she may appease the shades ofher relations, in her unnatural conduct she proves affectionate.

For after the pernicious flames gained strength, she said, “Let thisfuneral pile consume my entrails.” And as she was holding the fatalbillet in her ruthless hand, she stood, in her wretchedness, before thesepulchral altars,68 and said, “Ye Eumenides,69 the three Goddessesof punishment, turn your faces towards these baleful rites; I amboth avenging and am committing a crime. With death must death beexpiated; crime must be added to crime, funeral to funeral; byaccumulated calamities, let this unnatural race perish. Shall Œneus, inhappiness, be blessed in his victorious son; and shall Thestius bechildless? It is better that you both should mourn. Only do ye, ghostsof my brothers, phantoms newly made, regard this my act of affection,and receive this funeral offering,70 provided at a cost so great, theguilty pledge of my womb. Ah, wretched me! Whither am I hurried away?Pardon, my brothers,the feelings of a mother. My hands fail mein my284viii. 492-522.purpose, I confess that he deserves to die; but the author of hisdeath is repugnant to me. Shall he then go unpunished? Alive andvictorious, and flushed with his success, shall he possess the realms ofCalydon?And shall you lie, a little heap of ashes, andas lifeless phantoms? For my part, I will not endure this.Let the guilty wretch perish, and let him carry along with him the hopesof his father,71 and the ruin of his kingdom and country.Butwhere are the feelings of a mother, where are the affectionate ties ofthe parent? Where, too, are the pangs which for twice five months72I have endured? Oh, that thou hadst been burnt, when an infant, inthat first fire! And would that I had allowed it! By my aid hast thoulived; now, for thy own deserts, shalt thou die. Take the reward of thydeeds; and return to me that life which was twice given thee, first atthy birth, next when the billet was rescued; or else place me as well inthe tomb of my brothers. I both desireto do it, and I amunable. What shall I do? one while the wounds of my brothers are beforemy 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; butstill prevail; solong as I myself shall follow the appeasing sacrifice that I shall giveyou, and you yourselves;” shethus said, and turning herselfaway, with trembling right hand she threw the fatal brand into the midstof the flames.

That billet either utters, or seems to utter, a groan, and,caught by the reluctant flames, it is consumed. Unsuspecting, and at adistance, Meleager is burned by that flame, and feels his entrailsscorched by the secret fires; but with fortitude he supports the mightypain. Still, he grieves that he dies by an inglorious death, and withoutshedding his blood, and says that the wounds of Ancæus were ahappy lot. And while, with a sigh, he calls upon his aged father, andhis brother, and his affectionate sisters, and with his last words thecompanion of his bed,73 perhaps, too, his motheras well;285viii. 522-545.the fire and his torments increase; andthen again do theydiminish. Both of them are extinguished together, and by degrees hisspirit vanishes into the light air.

Lofty Calydonnow lies prostrate. Young and old mourn, bothpeople and nobles lament; and the Calydonian matrons of Evenus,74tearing their hair, bewail him. Lying along upon the ground, his fatherpollutes his white hair and his aged features with dust, and chides hisprolonged existence. But her own hand, conscious to itself of theruthless deed, exacted punishment of the mother, the sword piercing herentrails.75 If a God had given me a mouth sounding with a hundredtongues, and an enlarged genius, and the whole of Heliconbesides;still I could not enumerate the mournfulexpressions of his unhappy sisters. Regardless of shame, they beat theirlivid bosoms, and while the bodystill exists, they embrace it,and embrace it again; they give kisses to it,and they givekisses to the bierthere set. Afterhe is reduced toashes, they pour them, when gathered up, to their breasts; and they lieprostrate around the tomb, and kissing his name cut out in the stone,they pour their tears upon his name. Them, the daughter of Latona, atlength satiated with the calamities of the house of Parthaon,76 bearsaloft on wings springing from their bodies, except Gorge,77 and thedaughter-in-law of noble Alcmena; and she stretches long wings overtheir arms, and makes their mouths horny, and sends them,thustransformed, through the air.

EXPLANATION.

It is generally supposed that the story of the chase of the Calydonianboar, though embracing much of the fabulous, is still based uponhistorical facts. Homer, in the 9th book of the Iliad, alludes to it,though in somewhat286viii. 546-558.different terms from the account here given by Ovid; and from theancient historians we learn, that Œneus, offering the first fruits tothe Gods, forgot Diana in his sacrifices. A wild boar, the sameyear having ravaged some part of his dominions, and particularly avineyard, on the cultivation of which he had bestowed much pains, thesecircumstances, combined, gave occasion for saying that the boar had beensent by Diana. As the wild beast had killed some country people,Meleager collected the neighbouring nobles, for the purpose ofdestroying it. Plexippus and Toxeus, having been killed, in the mannermentioned by the Poet, Althæa, their sister, in her grief, devoted herson 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, saysthat his mother, Althæa, was pacified. Some writers, however, think thathe really was poisoned by his mother. The story of the change of thesisters of Meleager into birds is only the common poetical fiction,denoting the extent of their grief at the untimely death of theirbrother.

FABLE V.

Theseus, returning from the chase ofthe 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 hisgrotto. After the repast, Acheloüs gives him the history of the fiveNaiads, who had been changed into the islands called Echinades, and anaccount of his own amour with the Nymph Perimele, whom, being thrown byher father into the sea, Neptune had transformed into an island.

In the meantime, Theseus having performed his part in the jointlabour, was going to the Erecthean towers of Tritonis.ButAcheloüs, swollen with rains, opposed his journey,78 and caused himdelay as he was going. “Come,” said he,“famous Cecropian, beneath my roof; and do nottrustthyself tothe rapid floods. They are wont to bear away strong beams, and to rolldown stones, as they lie across, with immense roaring. I have seenhigh folds, contiguous to my banks, swept away, together with theflocks; nor was it of any avail there for the herd to be strong, nor forthe horses to be swift. Many bodies, too, of young men has this torrentoverwhelmed in its whirling eddies, when the snows of the mountainsdissolved. Rest is the saferfor thee; until the river runswithin its usual bounds, until its own channel receives the flowingwaters.”

Tothis the son of Ægeus agreed; and replied, “I willmake use of thy dwelling and of thy advice, Acheloüs;” and both he didmake use of. He entered an abode built of pumice stone with its manyholes, and the sand-stone far from smooth. The floor was moist with softmoss, shells with alternaterows of murex arched the roof. Andnow, Hyperion having measured out two parts of the light, Theseus andthe companions of his labours lay down upon couches; on the one side theson of Ixion,79 on the other, Lelex, the hero of Trœzen, having histemples now covered with thin grey hairs; and some others whom the riverof the Acarnanians, overjoyed with a guest so great, had graced with thelike honour. Immediately, some Nymphs, barefoot, furnished with thebanquet the tables that were set before them; and the dainties beingremoved, they served up wine inbowls adorned with gems. Then themighty hero, surveying the seas that lay beneath his eyes, said, “Whatplace is this?” and he pointed with his finger; “and inform me what namethat island bears; although it does not seem to be one only?” In answerto these words, the River said, “It is not, indeed, one object that wesee; five countries liethere; they deceive through theirdistance. And that thou mayst be the less surprised at the deeds of thedespised Diana, these were Naiads; who, when they had slain twice fivebullocks, and had invited the Gods of the country to a sacrifice, kept ajoyous festival, regardless of me.At this I swelled, and I wasas 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 theNymphs80 into the sea, who then, at last, were mindful of me.My waves and those of the main divided the land,beforecontinuous, and separated it into as many parts, as thou seestislands, called Echinades, in the midst of the waves.

“But yet, as thou thyself seest from afar, one island, see! waswithdrawn far off from the rest,an island pleasing to me. Themariner calls it Perimele.81 This beloved Nymph did I deprive288viii. 591-610.of the name of a virgin. This her father, Hippodamas, took amiss, andpushed 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 whichwe 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 andreasonable, or if he had been less unnatural, he ought to have pitiedher, and to have forgiven me. Give thy assistance; and grant a place,Neptune, I beseech thee, to her, plunged in the waters by thecruelty 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 yetshe swam. Her breast, as she was swimming, I myself touched, as itthrobbed with a tremulous motion; and while I felt it, I perceivedher whole body grow hard, and her breast become covered with earthgrowing over it. While I was speaking, fresh earth enclosed her floatinglimbs, and a heavy island grew upon her changed members.”

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 formedthe islands at its mouth, called the Echinades. The same solutionprobably applies to the narrative of the fate of the Nymph Perimele.

FABLE VI.

Jupiter and Mercury, disguised in humanshape, are received by Philemon and Baucis, after having been refusedadmittance by their neighbours. The Gods, in acknowledgment of theirhospitality, transform their cottage into a temple, of which, at theirown request, they are made the priest and priestess; and, after a longlife, the worthy couple are changed into trees. The village where theylive is laid under water, on account of the impiety of the inhabitants,and is turned into a lake. Acheloüs here relates the surprising changesof Proteus.

After these things the river was silent. The wondrous deed289viii. 613-642.had astonished them all. The son of Ixion laughed at them,82believingthe story; and as he was a despiser of the Gods, and ofa haughty disposition, he said, “Acheloüs, thou dost relate a fiction,and dost deem the Gods more powerful than they are, if they both giveand take away the formof things.”At this all wereamazed, and did not approve of such language; and before all, Lelex,ripe in understanding and age, spoke thus: “The power of heaven isimmense, and has no limits; and whatever the Gods above will, ’tisdone.

“And that thou mayst the less doubtof this, there is upon thePhrygian hills, an oak near to the lime tree, enclosed by a low wall.83I, myself, have seen the spot; for Pittheus sent me into the land ofPelops, once governed by his father,Pelops. Not far thence is astanding water, formerly habitable ground, but now frequented bycormorants and coots, that delight in fens. Jupiter came hither in theshape 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 fastenagainst them. Yet onereceived them, a small one indeed, thatched with straw,84 and thereeds of the marsh. But a pious old womannamed Baucis, andPhilemon of a like age, were united in their youthful years in thatcottage, and in it, they grew old together; and by owning theirpoverty, they rendered it light, and not to be endured with discontentedmind. It matters not, whether you ask for the masters there, or for theservants; the whole family are but two; the same persons both obey andcommand. When, therefore, the inhabitants of heaven reached this littleabode, and, bending their necks, entered the humble door, the old manbade them rest their limbs on a bench setthere; upon which theattentive Baucis threw a coarse cloth. Then she moves the warm embers onthe hearth, and stirs290viii. 642-669.up the fire they had had the day before, and supplies it with leaves anddry bark, and with her aged breath kindles it into a flame; and bringsout of the house faggots split into many pieces, and dry bits ofbranches, and breaks them, and puts them beneath a small boiler. Somepot-herbs, too, which her husband has gathered in the well-wateredgarden, she strips of their leaves.

“With a two-pronged forkPhilemon lifts down85 a rustyside of bacon, that hangs from a black beam; and cuts off a smallportion from the chine that has been kept so long; and when cut, softensit in boiling water. In the meantime, with discourse they beguile theintervening hours; and suffer not the length of time to be perceived.There is a beechen trough there, that hangs on a peg by its crookedhandle; this is filled with warm water, and receives their limbs torefresh them. On the middle of the couch, its feet and frame86 beingmade of willow, is placed a cushion of soft sedge. This they cover withcloths, which they have not been accustomed to place there but onfestive occasions; but even these cloths are coarse and old,though not unfitting for a couch of willow. The Gods seatthemselves. The old woman, wearing an apron, and shakingwithpalsy, sets the tablebefore them. But the third leg of thetable is too short; a potsherd,placed beneath, makes itequal. After this, being placed beneath, has taken away the inequality,green mint rubs down the tablethus made level. Here are set thedouble-tinted berries87 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 havebeen gently turned in the slow embers; allserved in earthenware.After this, an embossed goblet of291viii. 669-599.similar clay is placedthere; cups, too, made of beech wood,varnished, where they are hollowed out, with yellow wax.

“There isnow a short pause;88 the firethen sends upthe warm repast; and wine kept no long time, is again put on; andthen, set aside for a little time, it gives place to the secondcourse. Here are nuts,and here are dried figs mixed withwrinkled dates, plums too, and fragrant apples in wide baskets, andgrapes gathered from the purple vines. In the middle there is whitehoney-comb. Above all, there are welcome looks, and no indifferent andniggardly feelings. In the meanwhile, as oft as Baucis and the alarmedPhilemon behold the goblet,when drunk off, replenish itself ofits own accord, and the wine increase of itself, astonished at thissingular event, they are frightened, and, with hands held up, they offertheir prayers, and entreat pardon for their entertainment, and theirwant of preparation. There was a single goose, the guardian of theirlittle cottage, which its owners were preparing to kill for the Deities,their guests. Swift with its wings, it wearied them,renderedslow by age, and it escaped them a long time, and at length seemed tofly for safety to the Gods themselves. The immortals forbade it89 to bekilled, and said, ‘We are Divinities, and this impious neighbourhoodshall suffer deserved punishment. To you it will be allowed to be freefrom 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 toplace their feeton the top of the high hill. They werenow as far from the top, as an arrow discharged can go at once,when they turned their eyes, and beheld the other parts sinkingin a morass,and their own abode alone remaining. While they werewondering at these things,and while they were bewailing the fateof theirfellow countrymen, that old cottage oftheirs,292viii. 699-734.too little for even two owners, was changed into a temple.Columns took the place of forked stakes, the thatch grew yellow, and theearth was covered with marble; the doors appeared carved, and the roofto be of gold. Then, the son of Saturn uttered such words as these withbenign lips: ‘Tell us, good old man, and thou, wife, worthy of a husbandso good, what it is you desire?’ Having spoken a few words toBaucis, Philemon discovered their joint request to the Gods: ‘We desireto be your priests, and to have the care of your temple; and, since wehave passed our years in harmony, let the same hour take us off bothtogether; and let me not ever see the tomb of my wife, nor let me bedestined to be buried by her.’ Fulfilment attended their wishes. So longas life was granted, they were the keepers of the temple; and when,enervated by years and old age, they were standing, by chance, beforethe sacred steps, and were relating the fortunes of the spot, Baucisbeheld Philemon, and the aged Philemon saw Baucis,too, shootinginto 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 saidtogether, ‘Farewell! my spouse;’ and at the same moment the branchescovered their concealed faces. The inhabitants of Tyana90 still shewthese adjoining trees, made of their two bodies. Old men, no romancers,(and there was no reason why they should wish to deceive me) told methis. I, indeed, saw garlands hanging on the branches, and placingthere some fresh onesmyself, I said, ‘The good arethepeculiar care of the Gods, and those who worshippedtheGods, arenow worshippedthemselves.’”

He hadnow ceased; and the thingitself and the relatorof it had astonished them all;and especially Theseus,whom, desiring to hear of the wonderful actions of the Gods, theCalydonian river leaning on his elbow, addressed in words such as these:“There are, O most valianthero, some things, whose form hasbeen once changed, andthen 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 haveseen thee one while a young man, and again a lion; at one time thou wasta furious boar, at another a serpent, which they dreaded to touch;and293viii 734-736.sometimes, horns rendered thee a bull. Ofttimes thou mightst be seen asa stone; often, too, as a tree. Sometimes imitating the appearance offlowing water, thou wast a river; sometimes fire, theverycontrary of water.”

EXPLANATION.

The story of Baucis and Philemon, which is here so beautifully relatedby the Poet, is a moral tale, which shows the merit of hospitality, andhow, in some cases at least, virtue speedily brings its own reward. Ifthe story is based upon any actual facts, the history of its origin isentirely unknown. Huet, the theologian, indeed, supposes that it isfounded on the history of the reception of the Angels by Abraham. Thisis a bold surmise, but entirely in accordance with his position, thatthe greatest part of the fictions of the heathen mythology were mereglosses or perversions of the histories of the Old Testament. If derivedfrom Scripture, the story is just as likely to be founded on thehospitable 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 notfail.’ The story of the wretched fate of the inhospitable neighbours ofBaucis and Philemon is thought, by some modern writers, to be foundedupon the Scriptural account of the destruction of the wicked cities ofthe plain.

Ancient writers have made many attempts to solve the wondrous story ofProteus. Some say that he was an elegant orator, who charmed hisauditors by the force of his eloquence. Lucian says that he was an actorof pantomime, so supple that he could assume various postures.Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Clement of Alexandria, assert that hewas an ancient king of Egypt, successor to Pheron, and that he lived atthe time, of the Trojan war. Herodotus, who represents him as a princeof great wisdom and justice, does not make any allusion to his powers oftransformation, which was his great merit in the eyes of the poets.Diodorus Siculus says that his alleged changes may have had their risein a custom which Proteus had of adorning his helmet, sometimes with theskin of a panther, sometimes with that of a lion, and sometimes withthat of a serpent, or of some other animal. When Lycophron states thatNeptune saved Proteus from the fury of his children, by making him gothrough caverns from Pallene to Egypt, he follows the tradition whichsays that he originally came from that town in Thessaly, and that heretired thence to Egypt. Virgil, and Servius, his Commentator, assertthat Proteus returned to Thessaly after the death of his children, whowere slain by Hercules; in which assertion, however, they are notsupported by Homer or Herodotus.

FABLE VII.

Acheloüs continues his narrative withthe story of Metra, the daughter of Erisicthon, who is attacked withinsatiable hunger, for having cut down an oak, in one of the groves ofCeres. Metra begs of Neptune, who was formerly in love with her, thepower of transforming herself into different shapes; that she may beenabled, if possible, to satisfy the voracious appetite of her father.By these means, Erisicthon, being obliged to expose her for sale, inorder to purchase himself food, always recovers her again; until, by hisrepeated sale of her, the fraud is discovered. He at last becomes theavenger of his own impiety, by devouring his own limbs.

“Nor has the wife of Autolycus,91 the daughter of Erisicthon, lessprivilegesthan he. Her father was one who despised the majestyof the Gods; and he offered them no honours on their altars. He islikewise said to have profaned with an axe a grove of Ceres, and to haveviolated her ancient woods with the iron. In these there was standing anoak with an ancient trunk, a woodin itself alone, filletsand tablets,as memorials,92 and garlands, proofs of wishes thathad been granted, surrounded the middle of it. Often, beneath thistree, did the Dryads lead up the festive dance; often, too, withhands joined in order, did they go round the compass of its trunk; andthe girth of the oak made up three times five ells. The rest of thewood, too, lay as much under this oak as the grass lay beneath the wholeof the wood. Yet not on that accounteven did the son ofTriopas93 withhold the axe from it; and he ordered his servantsto cut down the sacred oak; and when he saw them hesitate,thusordered, the wickedwretch, snatching from one of them an axe,uttered these words: ‘Were it not only beloved by a Goddess, but evenwere it a Goddess itself, it should now touch the ground with its leafytop.’Thus he said; and while he was poising his weapon for aside stroke, the Deoïan oak94 shuddered, and uttered a groan; and295viii. 759-793.at once, its green leaves, and, with them, its acorns began to turnpale; and the long branches to be moistened with sweat. As soon as hisimpious hand had made an incision in its trunk, the blood flowed fromthe severed bark no otherwise than, as, at the time when the bull,a large victim, falls before the altars, the blood pours forth fromhis divided neck. All were amazed and one of the number attempted tohinder the wicked design, and to restrain the cruel axe. The Thessalianeyes him, and says, ‘Take the reward of thy pious intentions,’ and turnsthe axe from the tree upon the man, and hews off his head; andthen hacks at the oak again; when such words as these are utteredfrom the middle of the oak: ‘I, a Nymph,95 most pleasing toCeres, am beneath this wood; I,now dying, foretell to thee thatthe punishment of thy deeds, the solace of my death, is at hand.’

“He pursued his wicked design; and, at last, weakened by numberlessblows, and pulled downward with ropes, the tree fell down, and with itsweight 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 griefrepaired to Ceres, in black array,96 and requested the punishment ofErisicthon. She assented to theirrequest, and the most beauteousGoddess, with the nodding of her head, shook the fields loaded with theheavy crops; and contrivedfor him a kind of punishment,lamentable, if he had not, for his crimes, been deserving of thesympathy of none,namely, to torment him with deadly Famine. Andsince that Goddess could not be approached by herself (for the Destiniesdo not allow Ceres and Famine to come together), in such words as theseshe addressed rustic Oreas, one of the mountain Deities: ‘There is anicy region in the extreme part of Scythia, a dreary soil,a land, desolate, without cornand without trees; theredwell drowsy Cold, and Paleness, and Trembling, and famishing Hunger;order her to bury herself in the breast of this sacrilegiouswretch. Let no abundance of provisions overcome her;296viii. 793-824.and let her surpass my powers in the contest. And that the length of theroad may not alarm thee, take my chariot, take the dragons, which thoumayst guide aloft with the reins;’ andthen she gave them toher.

“She, borne through the air on the chariotthus granted,arrived in Scythia; and, on the top of a steep mountain (they call itCaucasus), she unyoked the neck of the dragons, and beheld Famine, whomshe was seeking, in a stony field, tearing up herbs, growing here andthere, with her nails and with her teeth. Rough was her hair, her eyeshollow, paleness on her face, her lips white with scurf,97 her jaws roughwith rustiness; her skin hard, through which her bowels might be seen;her dry bones were projecting beneath her crooked loins; instead of abelly, there wasonly the place for a belly. You would think herbreast was hanging, and was only supported from the chine98 of theback. Leanness had,to appearance, increased her joints, and thecaps of her knees were stiff, and excrescences projected from herovergrown ancles. Soon asOreas beheld her at a distance (for shedid 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 fromher,and although she had just come thither, still did she seemto feel hunger; and, turning the reins, she drove aloft the dragon’sback to Hæmonia.

“Famine executes the orders of Ceres (although she is ever opposingher operations), and is borne by the winds through the air to theassigned abode, and immediately enters the bedchamber of thesacrilegiouswretch, and embraces him, sunk in a deep sleep(for it is night-time), with her two wings. She breathes herselfinto the man, and blows upon his jaws, and his breast, and his face; andshe scatters hunger through his empty veins. And havingthusexecuted her commission, she forsakes the fruitful world, and returns toher famished abode, her wonted fields. Gentle sleep is still soothing99Erisicthon with its balmy wings. In a vision of his297viii. 824-857.sleep he craves for food, and moves his jaws to no purpose, and tireshis teethgrinding upon teeth, and wearies his throat deludedwith imaginary food; and, instead of victuals, he devours in vain theyielding air. But when sleep is banished, his desire for eating isoutrageous, and holds sway over his craving jaws, and his insatiateentrails. And no delayis there; he calls what the sea, what theearth, what the air produces, and complains of hunger with the tablesset before him, and requires food inthe midst of food. And whatmight be enough forwhole cities, and whatmight be enoughfor awhole people, is not sufficient for one man. The more, too,he swallows down into his stomach, the more does he desire. And just asthe ocean receives rivers from the whole earth, andyet is notsatiated with water, and drinks up the rivers of distant countries, andas the devouring fire never refuses fuel, and burns up beams of woodwithout number, and the greater the quantity that is given to it, themore does it crave, and it is the more voracious through the veryabundanceof fuel; so do the jaws of the impious Erisicthonreceive all victualspresented, and at the same time ask formore. In him all food isonly a ground formorefood, and there is always room vacant for eatingstill more.

“And now, through his appetite, and the voracity of his capaciousstomach, he had diminished his paternal estate; but yet, even then, didhis shocking hunger remain undiminished, and the craving of hisinsatiable appetite continued in full vigour. At last, after he hasswallowed down his estate into his paunch,100 his daughteralone is remaining, undeserving of him for a father; her, too, hesells, 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 myravished virginity.’ Thisprize Neptune hadpossessed himselfof. He, not despising her prayer, although, the moment before, shehas been seen by her master in pursuit of her, both alters her form, andgives her the appearance of a man, and a habit befitting such as catchfish. Looking at her, her master says, ‘O thou manager of the rod, whodost cover the brazenhook, as it hangs, with tiny morsels, evenso may the sea be smoothfor thee,298viii. 857-884.even so may the fish in the water beever credulous for thee, andmay they perceive no hook till caught; tell me where she is, who thismoment was standing upon this shore (for standing on the shore I sawher), with her hair dishevelled,and in humble garb; for nofurther do her footsteps extend.’ She perceives that the favour of theGod has turned to good purpose, and, well pleased that she is inquiredafter of herself, she replies to him, as he inquires, in these words:‘Whoever thou art, excuse me,but I have not turned my eyes onany side from this water, and, busily employed, I have beenattending to my pursuit. And that thou mayst the less disbelieveme, may the God of the sea so aid this employment of mine, no manhas been for some time standing on this shore, myself only excepted, norhas any woman been standinghere.’ Her master believed her, and, turning his feettogo away, he paced the sands, and,thus deceived, withdrew.Her own shape was restored to her.

“But when her father found that hisdaughter had a bodycapable of being transformed, he often sold the grand-daughter ofTriopas toother masters. But she used to escape, sometimes as amare, sometimes as a bird, now as a cow, now as a stag; andsoprovided a dishonest maintenance for her hungry parent. Yet, after thisviolence of his distemper had consumed all his provision, and had addedfresh fuel to his dreadful malady: he himself, with mangling bites,began to tear his own limbs, and the miserablewretch used tofeed his own body by diminishing it.But why do I dwell on theinstances of others? I, too, O youths,101 have a power ofoften changing my body,though limited in the numberof thosechanges. For, one while, I appear what I now am, another whileI am wreathed as a snake; thenas the leader of a herd,I receive strength in my horns. In my horns,I say, solong as I could. Now, one side of my forehead is deprived of itsweapons, as thou seest thyself.” Sighs followed his words.

EXPLANATION.

The story of Metra and Erisicthon has no other foundation, in allprobability, than the diligent care which she took, as a dutifuldaughter, to299support her father, when he had ruined himself by his luxury andextravagance. She, probably, was a young woman, who, in the hour ofneed, could, in common parlance, ‘turn her hand’ to any usefulemployment. Some, however, suppose that, by her changes are meant thewages she received from those whom she served in the capacity of aslave, 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 oftenpaid in kind. Other writers again suggest, less to the credit of thedamsel, that her changes denote the price she received for herdebaucheries. Ovid adds, that she married Autolycus, the robber, whostole the oxen of Eurytus. Callimachus also, in his Hymn to Ceres, givesthe story of Erisicthon at length. He was the great grandfather ofUlysses, and was probably a man noted for his infidelity and impiety, aswell as his riotous course of life. The story is probably of Easternorigin, and if a little expanded might vie with many of the interestingfictions which we read in the Arabian Night’s Entertainments.

BOOK THE NINTH.

FABLE I.

Deïanira, the daughter of Œneus, havingbeen wooed by several suitors, her father gives his consent that sheshall 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 intovarious shapes, and, at length, into that of a bull. These attempts arein 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 thevariety of fruits which Autumn affords; on which it obtains the name ofthe Horn of Plenty.

Theseus, the Neptunian hero,1 inquires what is the cause of hissighing, and of his forehead being mutilated; when thus begins theCalydonian river, having his unadorned hair crowned with reeds:

“A mournful task thou art exacting; for who, when overcome, isdesirous to relate his own battles? yet I will relate them in order; norwas 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 wasa most beautiful maiden, and the envied hope of many a wooer; togetherwith 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 forthy son-in-law.’ Alcides, too, saidthe same; the others yieldedtous two. He alleged that he was offeringto the301ix. 14-39.damsel both Jupiter as a father-in-law, and the glory of hislabours; the orders, too, of his step-mother, successfully executed. Onthe other hand (I thought it disgraceful for a God to give way to amortal, 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;noram I some stranger sent thee for a son-in-law, from foreignlands, but I shall be one of thy people, and a part of thy state. Onlylet it not be to my prejudice, that the royal Juno does not hate me, andthat all punishment, by labours enjoined, is afar from me. For, sincethou,Hercules, dost boast thyself born of Alcmena for thymother; Jupiter is either thy pretended sire, or thy real one through acriminal deed: by the adultery of thy mother art thou claiming a father.Choose,then, whether thou wouldst rather have Jupiterforthy pretendedfather, or that thou art sprungfrom himthrough a disgraceful deed?’

“While I was saying such things as these, for some time he looked atme with a scowling eye, and did not very successfully check his inflamedwrath; and he returned me just as many wordsas these: ‘My righthand is better than my tongue. If only I do but prevail in fighting, dothou get the better in talking;’ andthen he fiercelyattacked me. I was ashamed, after having so lately spokenbig words, to yield. I threw on one side my green garment from offmy body, and opposed my armsto his, and I held my hands bentinwards,5 from before my breast, on their guard, and I preparedmy limbs for the combat. He sprinkled me with dust, taken up in thehollow of his hands, and, in his turn, grew yellow with the casting ofyellow sand6upon himself. And at one moment he aimed at myneck, at another my legs, as they shifted about, or you would suppose hewas aimingat them; and he assaulted me on every side. My bulkdefended me, and I was attacked in vain; no302ix. 39-71.otherwise than a mole, which the waves beat against with loud noise: itremainsunshaken, and by its own weight is secure.

“We retire a little, andthen again we rush together inconflict, and we stand firm, determined not to yield; foot, too, isjoined to foot; andthen I, bending forward full with my breast,press upon his fingers with my fingers, and his forehead with myforehead. In no different manner have I beheld the strong bulls engage,when the most beauteous mate7 in all the pasture is sought as thereward of the combat; the herds look on and tremble, uncertain which themastery of so great a domain awaits. Thrice without effect did Alcidesattempt 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 claspedaround him; and, striking me with his hand, (I am resolved toconfess the truth) he turned me quite round, and clung, a mightyload, to my back. If any creditis to be given me, (and, indeed,no glory is sought by me through an untrue narration) I seemed tomyselfas though weighed down with a mountain placed upon me.Yet, with great difficulty, I disengaged my arms streaming withmuch perspiration,and, with great exertion, I unlocked hisfirm grasp from my body. He pressed on me as I panted for breath, andprevented me from recovering my strength, andthen seized hold ofmy neck. Then, at last, was the earth pressed by my knee, and with mymouth I bit the sand. Inferior in strength, I had recourse to myarts,8 and transformed into a long serpent, I escapedfrom the hero.

“After I had twisted my body into winding folds, and darted my forkedtongue with dreadful hissings, the Tirynthian laughed, and deriding myarts, he said, ‘It was the labour of my cradle to conquer serpents;9 andalthough, Acheloüs, thou shouldst excel other snakes, how large a partwilt thou,but one serpent, be of the Lernæan Echidna? By hervery wounds was she multiplied, and not one head of her hundredin303ix. 71-100.number10 was cut offby me without dangertomyself; but rather so that her neck became stronger, with twosuccessorsto the former head.Yet her I subdued,branching with serpents springing fromeach wound, and growingstronger by her disasters; and,so subdued, I slew her. Whatcanst thou think will become of thee, who, changed into a fictitiousserpent, art wielding arms that belong to another, and whom a form,obtained as a favour, isnow 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 intothoseof a bull I renewed the fight. He threw his arms over my brawnyneck, on the left side, and, draggingat me, followed me in myonward course; and seizing my horns, he fastened them in the hardground, and felled me upon the deep sand. And that was not enough; whilehis relentless right hand was holding my stubborn horn, he broke it, andtore it away from my mutilated forehead. This, heaped with fruit andodoriferous flowers, the Naiads have consecrated, and the bounteousGoddess, 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 thewholeof the produce of Autumn in the most plentiful horn, andchoice fruit for a second course.

Day comes on, and the rising sun striking the tops of the hills, theyoung men depart; nor do they stay till the stream has quietrestoredto it, and a smooth course, andtill the troubled waterssubside. 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, isnow concealed with willowbranches, or with reeds placed upon it.

EXPLANATION.

The river Acheloüs, which ran between Acarnania and Ætolia, often didconsiderable damage to those countries by its inundations, and, at thesame time, by confounding or sweeping away the limits which separatedthose nations, it engaged them in continual warfare with each other.Hercules, who seems really to have been a person of great scientificskill, which he was ever ready to employ for the service of his fellowmen, raised banks to it, and made its course so uniform and straight,that he was the means of establishing perpetual peace between theseadjoining nations.

The early authors who recorded these events have narrated them under athick and almost impenetrable veil of fiction. They say that Herculesengaged in combat with the God of that river, who immediatelytransformed himself into a serpent, by which was probably meant merelythe serpentine windings of its course. Next they say, that the Godchanged himself into a bull, under which allegorical form they refer tothe rapid and impetuous overflowing of its banks, ever rushing onwards,bearing down everything in its course, and leaving traces of its ravagesthroughout the country in its vicinity. This mode of description themore readily occurred to them in the case of Acheloüs, as from theroaring noise which they often make in their course, rivers in generalwere frequently represented under the figure of a bull, and, of course,as wearing horns, the great instruments of the havoc which theycreated.

It was said, then, that Hercules at length overcame this bull, and brokeoff one of his horns; by which was meant, according to Strabo, that hebrought both the branches of the river into one channel. Again, thishorn became the Horn of Plenty in that region; or, in other words, beingwithdrawn from its bed, the river left a large track of very fertileground for agricultural purposes. As to the Cornucopia, or Horn ofPlenty of the heathen Mythology, there is some variation in the accountsrespecting it. Some writers say that by it was meant the horn of thegoat Amalthea, which suckled Jupiter, and that the Nymphs gave it toAcheloüs, who again gave it in exchange for that of which Herculesafterwards deprived him. Deïanira, having given her hand to Hercules, asthe recompense of the important services which he had rendered to herfather, Œneus, it was fabled that she had been promised to Acheloüs, whowas vanquished by his rival; and on this foundation was built thesuperstructure of the famous combat which the Poet here describes. Afterhaving remained for some time at the court of his father-in-law,Hercules was obliged to leave it, in consequence of having killed theson of Architritilus, who was the cupbearer of that prince.

FABLE II.

Hercules, returning with Deïanira, asthe prize of his victory, entrusts her to the Centaur Nessus, to carryher over the river Evenus. Nessus seizes the opportunity of Herculesbeing on the other side of the river, and attempts to carry her off; onwhich Hercules, perceiving his design, shoots him with an arrow, andthus prevents its execution. The Centaur, when expiring, in order togratify his revenge, gives Deïanira his tunic dipped in his blood,assuring her that it contains an effectual charm against all infidelityon the part of her husband. Afterwards, on hearing that Hercules is inlove with Iole, Deïanira sends him the tunic, that it may have thesupposed effect. As soon as he puts it on, he is affected withexcruciating torments, and is seized with such violent fits of madness,that he throws Lychas, the bearer of the garment, into the sea, where heis changed into a rock. Hercules, then, in obedience to a response ofthe oracle, which he consults, prepares a funeral pile, and layinghimself upon it, his friend Philoctetes applies the torch to it, onwhich the hero, having first recounted his labours, expires in theflames. After his body is consumed, Jupiter translates him to theheavens, and he is placed in the number of the Gods.

But a passion for this same maiden proved fatal to thee, fierceNessus,11 pierced through the back with a swift arrow. For theson of Jupiter, as he was returning to his native city with his new-madewife, hadnow come to the rapid waters ofthe riverEvenus.12 The stream was swollen to a greater extent than usualwith the winter rains, and was full of whirlpools, and impassable.Nessus came up to him, regardless of himself,but feeling anxietyfor his wife, both strong of limb,13 and well acquainted with the fords,and said, “Alcides, she shall be landed on yonder bank through myservices, do thou employ thy strength in swimming;” and the Aonianhero entrusted to Nessus the Calydonian damsel full of alarm, andpale with apprehension, andequally dreading both the river andNessus himself. Immediately, just as he was, loaded both with hisquiver and the spoil of the lion, (for he had thrown his club and hiscrooked 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 isthe smoothest, and he spurns to be borne over by the compliance of theriver. And now having reached the bank, and as he is taking up the bowwhich he had thrown over, he recognizes the voice of his wife; and asNessus is preparing to rob him of what he has entrusted to his care, hecries out, “Whither, thou ravisher, does thy vain confidence in thy feethurry thee? to thee am I speaking, Nessus, thou two-shapedmonster. Listen; and do not carry off my property. If no regardfor myself influences thee, still the wheel of thy father14 mighthave restrained thee from forbidden embraces. Thou shall not escape,however, although thou dost confide15 in thy powers of a horse; with awound,and not with my feet, will I overtake thee.”Theselast words he confirms by deeds, and pierces him through the back, as heis flying, with an arrow dischargedat him. The barbed steelstands out from his breast; soon as it is wrenched out, the blood gushesforth from both wounds, mingled with the venom of the Lernæan poison.Nessus takes it out, and says to himself, “And yet I shall not dieunrevenged;” and gives his garment, dyed in the warm blood, as a presentto her whom he is carrying off, as though an incentive to love.

Long was the space of intervening time, and the feats of the mightyHercules and the hatred of his step-mother had filled the earth.Returning victorious from Œchalia, he is preparing a sacrificewhich he had vowed to Cenæan Jupiter,16 when tattling Rumour (who takespleasure in adding false things to the truth, and from a very littlebeginning, swells to a great bulk by her lies) runs before to thyears, Deïanira,to the effect that the son of Amphitryon isseized with a passion for Iole. As she loves him, she believes it; andbeing alarmed with the report of this new amour, at first she indulgesin307ix. 142-175.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 withthese tears; and since she is coming I must make haste, and somecontrivance must be resolved on while it isstill possible, andwhile, as yet, another has not taken possession of my bed. Shall Icomplain, or shall I be silent? Shall I return to Calydon, or shall Istay here? Shall I depart from this abode? or, if nothing more, shall Iopposetheir entrance? What if, O Meleager, remembering thatI am thy sister, I resolve on a desperate deed, and testify, bymurdering my rival, how much, injury and a woman’s grief caneffect?”

Her mind wavers, amid various resolves. Before them all, she prefersto send the garment dyed in the blood of Nessus, to restore strength tohis declining love. Not knowing herself what she is giving, she deliversthe cause of her own sorrows to the unsuspecting Lichas,17 andbids him, in gentle words, to deliver this most fatal gift to herhusband. In his ignorance, the hero receives it, and places upon hisshoulders the venom of the Lernæan Echidna. He is placing frankincenseon the rising flames, andis offering the words of prayer, andpouring wine from the bowl upon the marble altars. The virulence of thebane waxes warm, and, melted by the flames, it runs, widely diffusedover the limbs of Hercules. So long as he is able, he suppresses hisgroans with his wonted fortitude. After his endurance is overcome by hisanguish, he pushes down the altars, and fills the woody Œta with hiscries. There is nofurther delay; he attempts to tear off thedeadly garment;but where it is torn off, it tears away the skin,and, shocking to relate, it either sticks to his limbs, being tried invain to be pulled off, or it lays bare his mangled limbs, and his hugebones. The blood itself hisses, just as when a red hot plateof metalis dipped in cold water; and it boils with the burning poison. Thereis no limitto his misery; the devouring flames prey upon hisentrails, and a livid perspiration flows from his whole body; hishalf-burnt sinews also crack; and his marrow beingnow dissolvedby the subtle poison, lifting his hands towards the starsofheaven,308ix. 176-198.he exclaims, “Daughter of Saturn, satiate thyself with my anguish;satiate thyself, and look down from on high, O cruelGoddess, at thismy destruction, and glut thy relentlessheart. Or, if I am to be pitied even by an enemy (for an enemy I am tothee), take away a life insupportable through these dreadful agonies,hateful, too,to myself, andonly destined to trouble.Death will be a gain to me. It becomes a stepmother to grant such afavour.

“And was it for this that I subdued Busiris, who polluted the templesof the Gods with the blood of strangers? And did Iforthis, withdraw from the savage Antæus18 the support given himby his mother? Did neither the triple shape of the Iberian shepherd19,nor thy triple form, O Cerberus, alarm me? And did you, my hands,seize the horns of the mighty bull? Does Elis,too, possessthe result of your labours, and the Stymphalian waters, and theParthenian20 groveas well? By your valour was it that thebelt, inlaid with the gold of Thermodon21, was gained, the apples too,guarded in vain by the wakeful dragon? And could neither the Centaursresist me, nor yet the boar, the ravager of Arcadia? And was it not ofno avail to the Hydra to grow throughits own loss, and torecover double strength? And what besides? When I beheld the Thraciansteeds fattened with human blood, and the mangers filled with mangledbodies, did I throw them down whenthus beheld, and slay both themaster andthe horses themselves?And does the carcass ofthe Nemeanlion lie crushed by these arms? With this neck did Isupport the heavens?22309ix. 198-227.The unrelenting wife of Jupiter23 was weary of commanding,butI wasstill unwearied with doing. Butnow a new calamityis come upon me, to which resistance can be made neither by valour, norby weapons, nor by arms. A consuming flame is pervading the inmostrecesses of my lungs, and is preying on all my limbs. But Eurystheusstill survives. And are there,” says he, “any who can believethat the Deities exist?”

Andthen, racked with pain, he ranges along the lofty Œta, nootherwise than if a tiger should chance to carry the hunting spearsfixed in his body, and the perpetrator of the deed should be taking toflight. Often might you have beheld him uttering groans, often shriekingaloud, often striving to tear away the whole of his garments, andlevelling trees, and venting his fury against mountains, or stretchingout his arms towards the heaven of his father. Lo! he espies Lichas,trembling and lying concealed in a hollow rock, and, as his pain hassummoned together all his fury, he says, “Didst thou, Lichas, bringthis fatal present; and shalt thou be the cause of my death?” Hetrembles, andturning pale, is alarmed, and timorously utterssome words of excuse. As he is speaking, and endeavouring to clasp hisknees with his hands, Alcides seizes hold of him, and whirling him roundthree or four times, he hurls him into the Eubœan waves, with greaterforce thanif sent from an engine of war. As he soars aloft inthe aerial breeze he grows hard; and as they say that showers freezewith the cold winds,and that thence snow is formed, and thatfrom the snow, revolvingin its descent, the soft body iscompressed, and isthen made round in many a hailstone,24 so haveformer ages declared, that, hurled through the air by the strong armsof Hercules, and bereft of blood through fear, and having nomoisture left in him, he was transformed into hard stone. Even to thisday, in the Eubœan sea, a small rock projects to a height, and310ix. 227-257.retains the traces of the human form. This, the sailors are afraid totread upon, as though it could feel it; and they call it Lichas.

But thou, the famous offspring of Jupiter, having cut down, treeswhich lofty Œta bore, and having raised them for a pile, dost order theson of Pœas25 to take the bow and the capacious quiver, and thearrows which are again to visit26 the Trojan realms; by whoseassistance flames are put beneath the pile; and while the structure isbeing seized by the devouring fires, thou dost cover the summit of theheap of wood with the skin of the Nemeanlion, and dost lie downwith thy neck resting on thy club, with no other countenance than ifthou art lying as a guest crowned with garlands, amid the full cups ofwine.

And now, the flames, prevailing and spreading on every side,roared,27 and reached the limbsthus undismayed, and himwho despised them. The Gods were alarmed forthis protector ofthe earth;28 Saturnian Jupiter (for he perceived it) thusaddressed them with joyful voice: “This fear of yours is my own delight,O ye Gods of heaven, and, with all my heart, I gladlycongratulate myself that I am called the governor and the father of agrateful people, and that my progeny, too, is secure in your esteem.For, although thisconcern is givenin return for hismighty exploits,still I myself am obligedby it. But,however, that your affectionate breasts may not be alarmed with vainfears, despise these flames of Œta. He who has conquered all things,shall conquer the fires which you behold; nor shall he be sensible ofthe potency of the flame, but in the partof him which he derivedfrom his mother.That part of him, which he derived from me, isimmortal, and exempt and secure from death, and to be subdued by noflames. This, too, when disengaged from earth, I will receive intothe celestial regions, and I trust that this act of mine will beagreeable to all the Deities. Yet if any one, if any one,I say, perchance should311ix. 257-272.grieve at Hercules being a Divinity,and should be unwilling thatthis honour should be conferred on him; still he shall know that hedeserves it to be bestowedon him, andeven against hiswill, shall approve of it.”

To this the Gods assented; his royal spouse, too, seemed tobear the restof his remarks with no discontentedair, butonly the last words with a countenance of discontent, and to take itamiss that she wasso plainly pointed at. In the mean time,whatever was liable to be destroyed by flame, Mulciber consumed; and thefigure of Hercules remained, not to be recognized; nor did he haveanything derived from the form of his mother, and he only retained thetraces ofimmortal Jupiter. And as when a serpent revived, bythrowing off old age with his slough, is wont to be instinct with freshlife, and to glisten in his new-made scales; so, when the Tirynthianhero has put off his mortal limbs, he flourishes in his moreæthereal part, and begins to appear more majestic, and to becomevenerable in his august dignity. Him the omnipotent Father, taking upamong encircling clouds, bears aloft amid the glittering stars, in hischariot drawn byits four steeds.

EXPLANATION.

Hercules, leaving the court of Calydon with his wife, proceeded on theroad to the city of Trachyn, in Thessaly, to atone for the accidentaldeath of Eunomus, and to be absolved from it by Ceyx, who was the kingof that territory. Being obliged to cross the river Evenus, which hadoverflowed its banks, the adventure happened with the Centaur Nessus,which the Poet has here related. We learn from other writers, that afterNessus had expired, he was buried on Mount Taphiusa; and Strabo informsus, that his tomb (in which, probably, the ashes of other Centaurs weredeposited) sent forth so offensive a smell, that the Locrians, who werethe inhabitants of the adjacent country, were surnamed the ‘Ozolæ,’ thatis, the ‘ill-smelling,’ or ‘stinking,’ Locrians. Although the riverEvenus lay in the road between Calydon and Trachyn, still it did not runthrough the middle of the latter city, as some authors have supposed;for in such case Hercules would have been more likely to have passed itby the aid of a bridge or of a boat, than to have recourse to theassistance of the Centaur Nessus, and to have availed himself of hisacquaintance with the fords of the stream.

Hercules, in lapse of time, becoming tired of Deïanira, by whom he hadone 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 returnfrom that expedition, he sent Lychas for the vestments which he hadoccasion to use in a sacrifice which it was his intention to offer.Deïanira, jealous on account312ix. 273-274.of his passion for Iole, sent him either a philtre or love potion, whichunintentionally caused his death, or else a tunic smeared on the insidewith a certain kind of pitch, found near Babylon, which, when thoroughlywarmed, stuck fast to his skin; and this it is, most probably, which hasbeen 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, hethrew Lychas into the sea, which circumstance was made by the poets toaccount for the existence there of a rock known by that name.

Proceeding afterwards to Trachyn, he caused Deiänira to hang herself indespair; and, having consulted the oracle concerning his distemper, hewas ordered to go with his friends to Mount Œta, and there to raise afuneral pile. He understood the fatal answer, and immediately preparedto execute its commands. When the pile was ready, Hercules ascended it,and laid himself down with an air of resignation, on which Philocteteskindled the fire, which consumed him. Some, however, of the ancientauthors say, with more probability, that Hercules died at Trachyn, andthat his corpse was burned on Mount Œta. His apotheosis commenced at theceremonial of his funeral, and, from the moment of his death, he wasworshipped as a Demigod. Diodorus Siculus says that it was Iolus whofirst introduced this worship. It was also said that, as soon asPhiloctetes had applied fire to the pile, it thundered, and thelightnings descending from heaven immediately consumed Hercules.A tomb was raised for him on Mount Œta, with an altar, upon which abull, a wild boar, and a he-goat were yearly sacrificed in hishonour, at the time of his festival. The Thebans, and, after them, theother people of Greece, soon followed the example of the Trachinians,and temples and altars were raised to him in various places, where hewas honoured as a Demigod.

FABLE III.

Juno, to be revenged on Alcmena for heramour with Jupiter, desires Ilithyïa, the Goddess who presides overbirths, not to assist her on the occasion of the birth of Hercules.Lucina complies with her request, and places herself on an altar at thegate of Alcmena’s abode, where, by a magic spell, she increases herpains and impedes her delivery. Galanthis, one of her maids, seeing theGoddess at the door, imagines that she may possibly exercise some badinfluence on her mistress’s labour, and, to make her retire, declaresthat Alcmena is already delivered. Upon Ilithyïa withdrawing, Alcmena’spains are assuaged, and Hercules is born. The Goddess, to punishGalanthis for her officiousness, transforms her into a weazel,a creature which was supposed to bring forth its young through itsmouth.

Atlas was sensible29 of this burden. Nor, as yet, had Eurystheus,the son of Sthenelus, laid aside his wrathagainst Hercules;313ix. 274-301.and, in his fury, he vented his hatred for the father against hisoffspring. But the Argive Alcmena, disquieted with prolonged anxietiesfor her son has Iole, to whom to disclose the complaints of herold age, to whom to relate the achievements of her son attested byall the world, or to whomto tell her own misfortunes. Atthe command of Hercules, Hyllus had received her both into his bed andhis affections, and had filled her womb with a noble offspring. To her,thus Alcmena beganher story:—

“May the Gods be propitious to thee at least; and may they shortenthe tedious hours, at the hour when, having accomplished thy time, thoushalt be invoking Ilithyïa,30 who presides over the tremblingparturient women; her whom the influence of Juno rendered inexorable tomyself. For, when now the natal hour of Hercules, destined for so manytoils, was at hand, and the tenth signof the Zodiac was ladenwith thegreat luminary, the heavy weight was extending my womb;and that which I bore was so great, that you mighteasilypronounce Jupiter to be the father of the concealed burden. And now Iwas no longer able to endure my labours: even now, too, as I amspeaking, a cold shudder seizes my limbs, and a part of my pain isthe remembrance of it. Tormented for seven nights, and during as manydays, tired out with misery, and extending my arms towards heaven, withloud cries I used to invoke Lucina and the two Nixi.31 She came,indeed, but corrupted beforehand, and she had the intention to give mylife to the vengeful Juno. And when she heard my groans, she seatedherself upon that altar before the door, and pressing her left knee withher right knee, her fingers being joined together inform of acomb,32 she retarded my delivery; she uttered charms,314ix. 301-323.too, in a low voice; andthose charms impeded the birthnow begun. I struggled hard, and, in my frenzy,I vainly uttered reproaches against the ungrateful Jupiter, and Idesired to die, and complained in words that would have movedeven the hard stones. The Cadmeian matrons attended me, andoffered up vows, and encouraged me in my pains.

“There was present one of my hand-maids of the lower class of people,Galanthisby name, with yellow hair,and active in theexecution of my orders; one beloved for her good services. She perceivedthat something unusual33 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, linkedby the fingers; andthen she said, ‘Whoever thou art,congratulate my mistress; the Argive Alcmena is delivered, and, havingbrought forth, she has gained her wishes.’ The Goddess who presides34over pregnancy leaped up, and, struck with surprise, loosened her joinedhands. I, myself, on the loosening of those bonds, was delivered. Thestory is, that Galanthis laughed, upon deceiving the Divinity. The cruelGoddess dragged her alongthus laughing and seized by her veryhair, and she hindered her as she attempted to raise her body from theearth, and changed her arms into fore feet.

“Her former activitystill remains, and her back has not lostits colour;but her shape is different from her former one.Because she had assisted me in labour by a lying mouth, she brings forthfrom the mouth,35 and, just as before, she frequents my house.”

EXPLANATION.

According to Diodorus Siculus and Apollodorus, Amphitryon was the son ofAlceus, the son of Perseus, and his wife, Alcmena, was the daughter ofElectryon, also the son of Perseus; and thus they were cousins. Whentheir marriage was about to take place, an unforeseen accident preventedit. Electryon, who was king of Mycenæ, being obliged to revenge thedeath of his children, whom the sons of Taphius, king of the Teleboans,had killed in combat, returned victorious, and brought back with him hisflocks, which he had recovered from Taphius. Amphitryon, who went tomeet 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 kingdomof Mycenæ, which was to have formed the dower of Alcmena. Sthenelus, thebrother of Electryon, taking advantage of the public indignation, whichwas the result of the accident, drove Amphitryon out of the country ofArgos, and made himself master of his brother’s dominions, which heleft, at his death, to his son Eurystheus, the inveterate persecutor ofHercules.

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, notbeing satisfied with the revenge which her father had taken on theTeleboans, she would consent to be the prize of him who would undertaketo declare war against them. Amphitryon accepted these conditions, and,forming an alliance with Creon, Cephalus, and some other princes, made adescent upon the islands which the enemy possessed, and, making himselfmaster of them, bestowed one of them on his ally, Cephalus.

It was during this war that Hercules came into the world; and whetherAmphitryon had secretly consummated his marriage before his departure,or whether he had returned privately to Thebes, or to Tirynthus, whereHercules was said to have been born, it was published, that Jupiter, todeceive Alcmena, had taken the form of her husband, and was the fatherof the infant Hercules. If this is not the true explanation of thestory, it may have been invented to conceal some intrigue in whichAlcmena was detected; or, in process of time, to account for theextraordinary strength and valour of Hercules, it may have been saidthat Jupiter, and not Amphitryon, was the father of Hercules. Indeed, wefind Seneca, in one of his Tragedies, putting these words into the mouthof Hercules:— ‘Whether all that has been said upon this subject beheld as undoubted truth, or whether it proves to be but a fable, andthat my father was, after all, in reality, but a mortal; my mother’sfault is sufficiently effaced by my valour, and I have merit sufficientto have had Jupiter for my father.’ The more readily, perhaps, toaccount for the transcendent strength and prowess of Hercules, the storywas invented, that Jupiter made the night on which he was received byAlcmena under the form of Amphitryon, as long as three, or, according toPlautus, Hyginus, and Seneca, nine nights. Some writers say that Alcmenabrought 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 littleepisode here introduced by Ovid, to give greater plausibility to theother part of the story. It most probably originated in the resemblanceof the names of that slave to that of the weazel, which the Greekscalledγαλῆ. Ælian, indeed,tells us that the Thebans paid honour to that animal, because it hadhelped Alcmena in her labour. The more ancient poets also added, thatJuno retarded the birth of Hercules till the mother of Eurystheus wasdelivered, 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 oracleof Delphi. This king of Mycenæ having ordered him to rid Greece of thenumerous robbers and wild beasts that infested it, it is most probablethat, as we learn from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he performed thisservice 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 ofMycenæ.

As Ovid has here cursorily taken notice of the labours of Hercules, wemay observe, that it is very probable that his history is embellishedwith the pretended adventures of many persons who bore his name, and,perhaps, with those of others besides. Cicero, in his ‘Treatise on theNature of the Gods,’ mentions six persons who bore the name of Hercules;and possibly, after a minute examination, a much greater numbermight be reckoned, many nations of antiquity having given the name tosuch great men of their own as had rendered themselves famous by theiractions. Thus, we find one in Egypt in the time of Osiris, in Phœnicia,among the Gauls, in Spain, and in other countries. Confining ourselvesto the Grecian Hercules, surnamed Alcides, we find that his exploitshave generally been sung of by the poets, under the name of the TwelveLabours; but, on entering into the detail of them, we find them muchmore numerous. Killing some serpents in his youth, it was published, notonly that he had done so, but that they had been sent by Juno for thepurpose of destroying him. The forest of Nemea serving as a retreat fora 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, inArcadia, their resort, he freed the country of them; the nails and wingswhich the poets gave them, in representing them as birds, being typicalof their voracity and activity. The marshes of Lerna, near Argos, wereinfested by great numbers of serpents, which, as fast as they weredestroyed, were replaced by new swarms; draining the marshes, and,probably, setting fire to the adjacent thickets or jungles, he destroyedthese pestilent reptiles, on which it was fabled that he had destroyedthe Hydra of Lerna, with its heads, which grew as fast as they were cutoff. The forest of Erymanthus was full of wild boars, which laid wasteall the neighbouring country: he destroyed them all, and brought onewith him to the court of Eurystheus, of a size so monstrous, that theking was alarmed on seeing it, and was obliged to run and hidehimself.

The stables of Augeas, king of Elis, were so filled with manure, byreason of the great quantity of oxen that he kept, that Hercules being317called upon to cleanse them, employed his engineering skill in bringingthe river Alpheus through them. Having pursued a hind for a whole year,which Eurystheus had commanded him to take, it was circulated, probablyon account of her untiring swiftness, that she had feet of brass. Theriver Acheloüs having overflowed the adjacent country, he raised banksto it, as already mentioned. Theseus was a prisoner in Epirus, where hehad been with Pirithous, to bring away the daughter of Aidoneus.Hercules delivered him; and that was the foundation of the Fable whichsaid that he had gone down to Hades, or Hell. In the cavern of Tænarusthere 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 themto the court of Admetus, who, refusing to deliver up Alcestis, of whomhe was enamoured, was taken prisoner in an engagement, and was deliveredby that princess, who herself offered to be his ransom. Hercules beingthen in Thessaly, he took her away from Acastus, who was about to puther to death, and returned her to Admetus. This, probably, was thefoundation of the fable which stated, that he had recovered her from theInfernal Regions, after having vanquished death, and bound him inchains.

The Amazons were a nation of great celebrity in the time of Hercules,and their frequent victories had rendered them very formidable to theirneighbours. Eurystheus ordered him to go and bring away the girdle ofHippolyta, or, in other words, to make war upon them, and to pillagetheir treasures. Embarking on the Euxine Sea, Hercules arrived on thebanks of the Thermodon, and, giving battle to the female warriors,defeated them; killing some, and putting the rest to flight. He tookAntiope, or Hippolyta, prisoner, whom he gave to Theseus; but hersister, Menalippa, redeemed herself by giving up the famous girdle, or,in other words, by paying a large ransom. It is very probable, that inthat expedition, he slew Diomedes, the barbarous king of Thrace, andbrought away his mares, which were said to have been fed by him on humanflesh. In returning by way of Thessaly, he embarked in the expedition ofthe Argonauts; but, leaving them soon afterwards, he went to Troy, anddelivered Hesione from the monster which was to have devoured her; butnot receiving from Laomedon, the king, the recompense which had beenpromised him, he killed that prince, sacked the city, and brought awayHesione, whom he gave to Telamon, who had accompanied him on theexpedition.

This is probably the extent of the labours of Hercules in Greece,Thrace, and Phrygia. The poets have made him engage in many otherlaborious undertakings in distant countries, which most probably oughtnot to be attributed to the Grecian Hercules. Among other stories toldof him, it is said, that having set out to fight with Geryon, the kingof Spain, he was so much incommoded by the heat of the sun, that hiswrath was excited against the luminary, and he fired his arrows at it,on which, the Sun, struck with admiration at his spirited conduct, madehim a present of a golden goblet. After this, embarking and arriving inSpain, he defeated Geryon, a prince who was famed for having threeheads, which probably either meant that he reigned over the threeBalearic islands of Maiorca, Minorca, and Iviza, or else that318Hercules defeated three princes who were strictly allied. Having thencepassed the straits of Gibraltar to go over to Africa, he fought with theGiant Antæus, who sought to oppose his landing. That prince was said tobe a son of the Earth, and was reported to recover fresh strength everytime he was thrown on the ground; consequently, Hercules was obliged tohold him in his arms, till he had squeezed him to death. The solution ofthis fable is most probably that Antæus, always finding succour in acountry where he was known as a powerful monarch, Hercules took measuresto deprive him of aid, by engaging him in a sea fight, and therebydefeated him, without much trouble, as well as the Pygmies, who wereprobably some African tribes of stunted stature, who came to hisassistance.

Hercules, returning from these two expeditions, passed through Gaul withthe herds of Geryon, and went into Italy, where Cacus, a celebratedrobber, who had made the caverns of Mount Aventine his haunts, havingstolen some of his oxen, he, with the assistance, according to Dionysiusof Halicarnassus, of Evander and Faunus, destroyed him, and shared hisspoils with his allies. In his journey from Africa, Hercules deliveredAtlas 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 thathe supported the heavens for some time on his own shoulders, to relievethose of Atlas. The latter, by way of acknowledgment of his services,made him a present of several fine sheep, or rather, according toDiodorus Siculus, of some orange and lemon trees, which he carried withhim into Greece. These were represented as the golden apples watched bya dragon in the garden of the Hesperides. As the ocean there terminatedthe scene of his conquests, he was said to have raised two pillars onthose shores, to signify the fact of his having been there, and theimpossibility of proceeding any further.

The deliverance of Prometheus, as already mentioned; the death of thetwo brothers, the Cercopes, famous robbers; the defeat of the Bull ofMarathon; the death of Lygis, who disputed the passage of the Alps withhim; that of the giant Alcyaneus, who hurled at him a stone so vast thatit crushed twenty-four men to death; that of Eryx, king of Sicily, whomhe killed with a blow of the cestus, for refusing to deliver to him theoxen which he had stolen; the combat with Cycnus, which was terminatedby a peal of thunder, which separated the combatants; another combatagainst the Giants in Gaul, during which, as it was said, Jupiter raineddown vast quantities of stones; all these are also attributed toHercules, 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 insightinto the ideas which, based upon the explanations given by the authorsof antiquity, the Abbè Banier, one of the most accomplished scholars ofhis age, entertained on this subject. We will conclude with some veryable 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. Itis evidently one of very remote antiquity, long perhaps, anterior to the319times of Homer. We confess that we cannot see any very valid reason forsupposing 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 objectof the marvels devised by lively and exuberant imagination, in orderthereby to obtain more ready credence for the strange events which itcreates. Such, then, may the real Hercules havebeen,—a Dorian, a Theban, or an Argive hero, whose featsof strength lived in the traditions of the people, and whom nationalvanity raised to the rank of a son of Zeus [Jupiter], and poetic fancy,as geographic knowledge extended, sent on journies throughout the knownworld, and accumulated in his person the fabled exploits of similarheroes of other regions.

“We may perceive, by the twelve tasks, that the astronomical theory wasapplied to the mythus of the hero, and that he was regarded as apersonification of the Sun, which passes through the twelve signs of theZodiac. This, probably, took place during the Alexandrian period. Someresemblance between his attributes and those of the Deity, with whom theEgyptian priests were pleased to identify him, may have given occasionto this notion; and he also bore some similitude to the God whom thePhœnicians chiefly worshipped, and who, it is probable, was the Sun. Butwe must steadily bear in mind, that Hercules was a hero in the popularlegend long before any intercourse was opened between Greece and Egypt;and that, however (which is certainly not very likely) a God mightbe introduced from Phœnicia, the same could hardly be the case with apopular hero.—A very ingenious theory on the mythus ofHercules is given by Buttmann (Mythologus, vol. i., p. 246). Thoughacknowledging that Perseus, Theseus, and Hercules may have been realpersons, he is disposed, from an attentive consideration of all thecircumstances in the mythus of the last, to regard him as one of thosepoetical persons or personifications, who, as he says, have obtainedsuch firm footing in the dark periods of antiquity, as to have acquiredthe complete air of historic personages.

“In his view of the life of Hercules, it is a mythus of extremeantiquity and great beauty, setting forth the ideal of human perfection,consecrated to the weal of mankind, or rather, in its original form, tothat of his own nation. This perfection, according to the ideas of theheroic age, consists in the greatest bodily strength, united with theadvantages of mind and soul recognised by that age. Such a hero is, hesays, 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. Torender his perfection the more manifest, the Poet makes him to have atwin brother, the child of a mortal sire. As virtue is not to belearned, Hercules exhibits his strength and courage in infancy; hestrangles the snakes, which fills his brother with terror. The characterof the hero throughout life, as that of the avenger of injustice andpunisher of evil, must exhibit itself in the boy as the wild instinct ofnature; and the mythus makes him kill his tutor Linus with a blow of thelyre. When sent away by Amphitryon, he prepares himself, in thestillness and solitude of the shepherd’s life, by feats of strength andcourage, for his future task of purifying the earth of violence.

“—The number of tasks may not originally have been twelve, thoughmost accounts agree in that number, but they were all of a natureagreeable to the ideas of an heroic age—the destruction ofmonsters, and bringing home to his own country the valuable productionsof other regions. These are, however, regarded by Buttmann as beingchiefly allegorical. The Hydra, for instance, he takes to have beenmeant to represent the evils of democratic anarchy, with its numerousheads, against which, though one may not be able to effect anything, yetthe union of even two may suffice to become dominant over it.

“The toils of the hero conclude with the greatest and most rare of allin the heroic age—the conquest over death. This is represented byhis descent into the under world, and dragging Cerberus to light is aproof of his victory. In the old mythus, he was made to engage with andwound Hades; and the Alcestis of Euripides exhibits him in conflict withDeath. But virtue, to be a useful example, must occasionally succumb tohuman weakness in the power of the evil principle. Hence, Hercules fallsinto fits of madness, sent on him by Hera [Juno]; and hence—hebecomes the willing slave of Omphale, the fair queen of Lydia, andchanges his club and lion’s skin for the distaff and the femalerobe.

“The mythus concludes most nobly with the assumption of the hero intoOlympus. His protecting Deity abandons him to the power of hispersevering enemy; his mortal part is consumed by fire, the fiercest ofelements; his shade (εἴδωλον), like those of other men, descends to therealms 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, espousesyouth, the daughter of his reconciled foe.

“Muller (Dorians, vol. i. part ii. ch. 11, 12) is also disposed to viewin Hercules a personification of the highest powers of man in the heroicage. 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 theoriginal scene of the Geryoneia, which was afterwards transformed to thewestern stream of the ocean. He thinks, however, that the Argives had anancient hero of perhaps the same name, to whom the Peloponnesusadventures belong, and whom the Dorians combined with their own hero.The servitude to Eurystheus, and the enmity of Hera, he looks on asinventions of the Dorians to justify their own invasion of thePeloponnesus. This critic also proves that the Theban Hercules hadnothing to do with the Gods and traditions of the Cadmeians; and hethinks that it was the Dorian Heracleides who introduced the knowledgeof him into Thebes, or that he came from Delphi with the worship ofApollo, a Deity with whom, as the tutelar God of the Dorians, hesupposes their national hero to have been closely connected.”

FABLE IV.

The Nymph Lotis, pursued by Priapus, inher flight, is changed into a tree. Dryope, going to sacrifice to theNaiads at the same spot, and ignorant of the circumstance, breaks abranch off the tree for her child, which she is carrying with her, andis subjected to a similar transformation. While Iole is relating thesecircumstances to Alcmena, she is surprised to see her brother Iolaüsrestored to youth. The Poet here introduces the prediction of Themisconcerning the children of Calirrhoë.

Thus she said; and, moved by the remembrance of her old servant, sheheaved a deep sigh. Her daughter-in-law36 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 thewondrous fate of my own sister? although tears and sorrow hinder me, andforbid me to speak. Dryope, the most remarkable for her beauty of theŒchalian maids, was the only daughter of her mother (for myfather had me by anotherwife). Deprived of her virginity, andhaving 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 itsshelving border; groves of myrtle crown the upper part. Hither didDryope come, unsuspecting of her fate; and, that thou mayst be the moreindignantat her lot, she was about to offer garlands to theNymphs. In her bosom, too, she was bearing her son, who had not yetcompleted his first year, a pleasing burden; and she was nursinghim, with the help ofher warm milk. Not far from the lake wasblooming a watery lotus that vied with the Tyrian tints, in hope offuture berries. Dryope had plucked thence some flowers, which shemight give as playthings to her child; and I, too, was just on the pointof doing the same; for I was present. I saw bloody drops fall fromthe flower, and the boughs shake with a tremulous quivering; for, as theswains say, now, at length, too latein their information, theNymph Lotis, flying from the lust of Priapus,37 had transferred herchanged form into thisplant, her name beingstillpreserved.

“Of this my sister was ignorant. When, in her alarm, she isendeavouring to retire and to depart, having adored the Nymphs, her feetare held fast by a root. She strives hard to tear them up, but she movesnothing except her upper parts. From below, a bark slowly grows up,and, by degrees, it envelopes the whole of her groin. When she seesthis, endeavouring to tear her hair with her hands, she fills her handwith leaves,for leaves are covering all her head. But the boyAmphissos (for his grandfather Eurytus gave him this name) feels hismother’s breast growing hard; nor does the milky stream follow upon hissucking. I was a spectator of thy cruel destiny, and I could givethee no help, my sister; andyet, 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 samebark. Behold! her husband Andræmon and her most wretched father38appear, and inquire for Dryope: on their inquiring for Dryope,I show them the lotus. They give kisses to the woodstillwarmwith life, and, extendedon the ground, they cling tothe roots of their own tree.And now, dear sister, thou hadstnothing except thy face, that was not tree. Tears drop upon the leavesmade out of thy changed body; and, while she can, andwhile hermouth gives passage to her voice, she pours forth such complaintsasthese into the air:—

“‘If any creditis to be given to the wretched, I swearby the Deities that I merited not this cruel usage. I sufferpunishment without a crime. I lived in innocence; if I am speakingfalse, withered away, may I lose the leaves which I bear, and, cut downwith axes, may I be burnt. Yet take this infant away from the branchesof 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 heshall be able to speak, make him salute his mother, and let him insadness say, ‘Beneath this trunk is my mother concealed.’ Yet let himdread the ponds, and let him not pluck flowers from the trees; and lethim think that all shrubs are the bodies of Goddesses. Farewell, dearhusband; and thou, sister; and,thou my father; in whom, if thereis any affectiontowards me, protect my branches from the woundsof the sharp pruning-knife,323ix. 383-410.and from the bite of the cattle. And since it is not allowed meto bend down towards you, stretch your limbs up hither, and come nearfor my kisses, while they canstill be reached, and lift up mylittle son. More I cannot say. For the soft bark is now creeping alongmy white neck, and I am being enveloped at the top of my head. Removeyour hands from my eyes;39and, without your help, let the bark,closing over them, cover my dying eyes.’ Her mouth ceased at once tospeak, at once to exist; and long after her body was changed, were hernewly formed branchesstill warm.”

Andnow, while Iole was relating the wretched fate of hersister, and while Alcmena was drying away the tears of the daughter ofEurytus, with her fingers appliedto her face, and still sheherself was weeping, a novel event hushed all their sorrow; forIolaüs40 stood at the lofty threshold, almost a boyagain, and covering his cheeks with a down almost imperceptible,having his visage changed tothat of the first yearsofmanhood. Hebe, the daughter of Juno had granted him this favour,overcome by the solicitations of her husband. When she was about toswear that she would hereafter grant such favours to no one, Themis didnot allow her. “For now,” said she, “Thebes is commencing civilwarfare,41 and Capaneus will not be able to be overcome, exceptby Jupiter, and the two brothers will engage in bloody combat, and theearth dividing, the prophetAmphiaraüs will see hisdestined shades, while he still lives;42 and the son avengingone parent, bythe death of theother parent, will bedutiful and wicked in the same action; and confounded by hismisfortunes, deprived both of his reason and of his home, he will bepersecuted both by the features of the324ix. 410-424.Eumenides, and by the ghost of his mother; until his wife shall callupon him for the fatal gold, and the Phegeïan sword shall stab the sideof their kinsman. Then, at last, shall Calirrhoë, the daughter ofAcheloüs, suppliantly ask of mighty Jupiter these yearsof youthfor her infant sons. Jupiter, concernedfor them, will prescribefor them thepeculiar gift of her who isboth hisstep-daughter and his daughter-in-law,43 and will make them men in theiryears of childhood.”

When Themis, foreseeing the future, had said these words withprophetic voice, the Gods above murmured in varying discourse; and thecomplaint was,44 why it might not be allowed others to grant the samegifts.Aurora, the daughter of Pallas, complained of the agedyears of her husband; the gentle Ceres complained that Iäsion45 wasgrowing grey; Mulciber demanded for Ericthonius a life to live overagain; a concern for the future influenced Venus, too, and she madean offer to renew the years of Anchises.

EXPLANATION.

The adventure of Dryope is one of those narratives which have noconnexion with the main story which the Poet is relating, and, if reallyfounded on fact, it would almost baffle any attempt to guess at itsorigin. It is, most probably, built entirely upon the name of the damselwho was said to have met with the untimely and unnatural fate so welldepicted by the Poet.

The name of Dryope comes, very probably, from the Greek wordΔρῦς, ‘an oak,’ which tree has aconsiderable resemblance to the lotus tree. If we seek for an historicalsolution, perhaps Dryope was punished for attempting to profane a treeconsecrated to the Gods, a crime of which Erisicthon was guilty,and for which he was so signally punished. All the particulars that weknow of Dryope are, that she was the daughter of Eurytus, and the sisterof 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, afterhis apotheosis, and, according to others, was the son of Iphiclus, thebrother of Hercules, became young, at the intercession of that Goddess,who had325ix. 425-426.appeased Juno. This was, probably, no other than a method of accountingfor the great age to which and individual of the name of Iolaüs hadlived.

Ovid then passes on to the surprising change in the children ofCalirrhoë, the outline of which the story may be thusexplained:—Amphiaraüs, foreseeing, (by the aid of the propheticart, as we learn from Homer, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny and Statius), thatthe civil wars of Thebes, his native country, would prove fatal to him,retired from the court of Adrastus, King of Argos, whose sister he hadmarried, to conceal himself in some place of safety. The Argives, towhom the oracle had declared, that Thebes could not be taken unless theyhad Amphiaraüs with their troops, searched for him in every direction;but their labour would have been in vain, if Eriphyle, his wife, gainedby a necklace of great value, which her brother Adrastus gave her, hadnot discovered where he was. Discovered in his retreat, Amphiaraüsaccompanied the Argives, and while, according to the rules of thesoothsaying art, he was observing a flight of birds, in order to derivean augury from it, his horses fell down a precipice, and he lost hislife. Statius and other writers, to describe this event in a poeticalmanner, say that the earth opened and swallowed up him and hischariot.

Amphiaraüs had engaged his son Alcmæon, in case he lost his life in thewar, to kill Eriphyle; which injunction he performed as soon as he heardof the death of his father. Alcmæon, going to the court of Phegeus, toreceive expiation for his crime, and to deliver himself from thepersecution of the Furies, or, in other words, by the ceremonial ofexpiation, to tranquillize his troubled conscience, that prince receivedhim 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, thedaughter of Acheloüs, he went to demand the necklace from hisbrothers-in-law, who assassinated him. Amphiterus and Acarnanus, whowere his sons by Calirrhoë, revenged the death of their father when theywere very young; and this it is, possibly, which is meant by the Poetwhen 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 toavenge 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; whilein Amphiterus and Arcananus, to whom Hebe added years, are depicted twoyoung men, who, by a deed of blood, exacted retribution for the death oftheir father, at a time when they were in general only looked upon asmere children.

FABLE V.

Byblis falls in love with her brotherCaunus, and her passion is inflamed to such a degree, that he is obligedto leave his native country, to avoid any encouragement of herincestuous flame. On this, she follows him; and, in her way throughCaria, she is changed into a fountain.

Every God has46 some one to favour; and their jarring discord326ix. 428-457.is increasing by theirvarious interests, until Jupiter opens hismouth, and says, “O, if you have any regard for me, to what rash stepsare you proceeding? Does any oneof you seem to himself sopowerful as to overcome even the Fates? By the Fates has Iolaüs returnedto those years which he has spent; by the Fates ought the sons ofCalirrhoë to become young men,and not by ambition or by dint ofarms. 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 myson Æacus to bendbeneath them; and Rhadamanthus should have the everlasting flowerof age, together with myson, Minos, who isnow lookeddown upon on account of the grievous weight of old age, and does notreign with the dignity with which oncehe did.”

The words of Jupiter influenced the Divinities; and no one continuedto complain when they saw Rhadamanthus and Æacus, and Minos, weary withyears;Minos, who, when he was in the prime of life, had alarmedgreat nations with his very name. Then,however, he was enfeebledby age, and was alarmed by Miletus, the son of Deione,47 exulting inthe strength of youth, and in Phœbus as his sire; andthoughbelieving that he was aiming at his kingdom, still he did not dare todrive him away from his native home. Of thy own accord, Miletus, thoudidst 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 itsfounder. Here Cyane, the daughter ofthe river Mæander, that sooften returns to the same place, while she was following the windings ofher father’s bank, of a body excelling in beauty, being known by thee,brought forth a double offspring, Byblis, with Caunus,herbrother.

Byblis is an example that damselsonly ought to love what itis allowed themto love; Byblis, seized with a passion for herbrother, the descendant of Apollo, loved him not as a sisterloves a brother, nor in such manner as she ought. At first,indeed, she understands nothing of the flame, and she327ix. 457-488.does not think48 that she is doing wrong in so often giving himkisses,and in throwing her arms round the neck of her brother;and for a long time sheherself is deceived, by this resemblanceof natural affection. By degrees this affection degenerates, and deckedout, she comes to see her brother, and is too anxious to appearbeautiful; and if there is any woman there more beautiful, she enviesher. But, as yet she is not fully discovered to herself, and under thatflame conceives no wishes; but still, inwardly she is agitated. At onemoment she calls him sweetheart,49 at another, she hates the mention ofhis relationship; and now she prefers that he should call her Byblis,rather than sister. Still, while awake, she does not dare admit anycriminal hopes into her mind;but when dissolved in soft sleep,she often sees theobject which she is in love with. She seems tobe even embracing her brother, and she blushes, though she is lyingburied in sleep. Slumber departs; for a long time she is silent, and sherecalls tomemory the appearance of her dream, and thus shespeaks with wavering mind:

“Ah, wretched me! What means this vision of the silent night? How faram 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 mybrother, I could love him, and he would be worthy of me. But it ismy misfortune that I am his sister. So long as I strive, while awake, tocommit no suchattempt, let sleep often return with the likeappearance. No witness is there in sleep; and yet there is theresemblance of the delight. O Venus and winged Cupid, together withthy voluptuous mother, how great the joys I experienced! how substantialthe transport which affected me! How I lay dissolvedin delightthroughout my whole marrow! How pleasing to remember it; althoughshort-lived was that pleasure, and the night sped onward rapidly, andwas envious of my attemptsat bliss. Oh, could I only be unitedto thee, by changing my name, how happily, Caunus, could I becomethe daughter-in-law of thy father! how328ix. 488-516.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, exceptour ancestors. Would that thou wast more nobly born than myself. Forthis reason then, most beauteous one, thou wilt make some stranger, whomI know not, a mother; but to me, who have unhappily got the sameparents as thyself, thou wilt be nothingmore than a brother.Thattie alone we shall have, which bars all else. What, then, domy visions avail me? And what weight have dreams? And do dreams have anyweight? The Godsfare better; for the Gods have their own sistersin marriage. Thus Saturn married Ops,50 related to him byblood; Ocean Tethys, the ruler of Olympus Juno. The Gods above havetheir privileges. Why do I attempt to reduce human customs to the ruleof divine ordinances, and those so different? Either this forbiddenflame 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 laidout on my bed, and that my brother may give me kisses as I lie. Andbesides, this matter requires the inclination of us both; suppose itpleases me; to him it will seem to be a crime. But the sons of Æolus51did not shun the embraces of their sisters. But whence have I known ofthese? Why have I furnished myself with these precedents? Whither am Ihurried onward? Far hence begone, ye lawless flames! and let not mybrother be loved by me, but as it is lawful for a sisterto lovehim. 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 courthim, whom I would not have rejected, had he courted me? And canst thouspeak out? And canst thou confess it? Love will compel me. I can.Or if shame shall restrain my lips, a private letter shall confessthe latent flame.”

This thought pleases her, this determines her wavering329ix. 516-546.mind. She raises herself on her side, and leaning on her left elbow, shesays, “He shall see it; let me confess my frantic passion. Ah, wretchedme! How am I degrading myself! What flame is my mindnowkindling!” Andthen, with trembling hand, she puts together thewords well weighed. Her right hand holds the ironpen, the other,clean wax tablets.52 She begins, andthen she hesitates; shewrites, andthen corrects what is written; she marks, andthen scratches out; she alters, and condemns, and approves; andone while she throws them down when taken up, and at another time, shetakes them up again, when thrown aside. What she would have, she knowsnot. Whatever she seems on the point of doing, is not to her taste. Inher features are assurance mingled with shame.The word ‘sister’is written; it seemsas well to effacethe word ‘sister,’andthen to write such words as these upon the smoothed wax: “Thylover wishes thee that health which she, herself, is not to enjoy,unless thou shalt grant it. I am ashamed! Oh, I am ashamed todisclose my name! and shouldst thou inquire what it is I wish; withoutmy name53 could I wish my cause to be pleaded, and that I mightnot be known as Byblis, until the hopes ofenjoying my desireswere realized. There might have been as a proof to thee of my woundedheart, mypale complexion, my falling away, mydowncastlooks, and my eyes often wet with tears, sighs, too, fetched without anyseeming cause; frequent embraces too, and kisses, which, if perchancethou didst observe, could not be deemed to be those of a sister. StillI, myself, though I had a grievous wound in my soul,and althoughthere was a raging fire within, have done everything, as the Gods are mywitnesses, that at last I might be cured; and long, in my wretchedness,have I struggled to escape the ruthless weapon of Cupid; and I haveendured more hardships than thou wouldst believe that a maiden couldendure.

“Vanquishedat length, I am forced to ownmy passion;and with timorous prayers, to entreat thy aid. Thou alone canst330ix. 546-579.save, thou destroy, one who loves thee. Choose which thou wilt do. Sheis not thy enemy who begs this; but one who, though most nearlyconnected with thee, desires to be still more closely connected, and tobe united to thee in a nearer tie. Let aged men be acquainted withordinances, and make inquiry what is lawful, and what is wicked, andwhat is proper; and let them employ themselves in considering the laws.A passion that dares all consequences is suited to our years. Asyet, we know not what is lawful, and we believe that all things arelawful, andso follow the example of the great Gods. Neither asevere father, nor regard for character, nor fear, shall restrain us,if only the cause for fearing is removed. Under a brother’s namewill we conceal our stolen joysso sweet. I have the libertyof conversing with thee in private; andeven before others do wegive embraces, and exchange kisses. How little is it that is wanting! dohave pity on the love of her who confesses it, and who would not confessit, did not extreme passion compel her; and merit not to be inscribed onmy tomb as the causeof my death.”

The filled tablets fall short for her hand, as it vainly inscribessuch words as these, and the last line is placed in the margin.54 Atonce she seals up her own condemnation, with the impress of a signet,which she wets with her tears,for the moisture has deserted hertongue. Filled with shame, shethen calls one of her maledomestics, and gently addressing him in timorous tones, she said, “Carrythese, most trusty one, to my,” and, after a long pause, she added,“brother.” While she was delivering them, the tablets, slipping from herhands, fell down. She was shocked by this omen, but still she sent them.The servant, having got a fit opportunity, goesto her brotherand delivers the secret writing. The Mæandrian youth,55 seized withsudden anger, throws away the tabletsso received, when he hasread a part; and, with difficulty withholding his hands from the face ofthe trembling servant, he says, “Fly hence, O thou accursed panderto forbidden lust, who shouldst have given me satisfaction by thy death,ifit was notthat thy destruction would bring disgrace onmy character.” Frightened, he hastens331ix. 579-609.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 sensesreturn, so, too, does thy frantic passion return, and thy tongue withdifficulty utters such words as these, the air being struckby thyaccents:

“And deservedlyam I thus treated; for why, in my rashness,did I make the discovery of this wound? why have I so speedily committedwords to a hasty letter, which oughtrather to have beenconcealed? The feelings of his mind ought first to have been triedbeforehand by me, with ambiguous expressions. Lest he should not followme in my course, I ought, with some part of my sail56only,to have observed what kind of a breeze it was, and to have scudded overthe sea in safety;whereas, now, I have filled my canvasswith windsbefore untried. I am driven upon rocks inconsequence; and sunk, I am buried beneath the whole ocean, and mysails havenow no retreat. And besides, was I not forbidden, byunerring omens, to indulge my passion, at the time when the waxentablets fell, as I ordered him to deliver them, and made my hopessink 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 hadnot been deranged; and yet I ought to have spoken out myself, and not tohave committed myself to writing, and personallyI ought tohave 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 lettercontained. I might have thrown my arms around his reluctant neck,and have embraced his feet, and lyingon the ground, I mighthave begged for life; and if I had been repelled, I might haveseemed on the point of death. All this,I say, I mightthen have done; if each of these things could notsinglyhave softened his obdurate feelings,yet all of them might.

“Perhaps, too, there may be some fault in the servant that332ix. 609-641.was sent. He did not wait on him at a convenient moment; he did notchoose, I suppose, a fitting time; nor did he request both thehour 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 hardflints, or solid iron, or adamant; nor yet did he suck the milk of alioness. He willyet be won. Again must he be attacked.58 And noweariness will I admit of inthe accomplishment of my design, solong as this breathof mine shall remain. For the best thing (ifI couldonlyrecall what has been destined) would have been, not tohave made the attempt; the next best thing is, to urge theaccomplishment of what is begun; for he cannot (suppose I were torelinquish my design) ever be unmindful of this my attempt; and becauseI 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 theintention to betray; or, at least, I shall be thought not to havebeen overcome by this God, who with such intensitynow burns, andhas burnt my breast, but rather by lust. In fine, I cannot now beguiltless of a wicked deed; I have both writtento him, andI have solicitedhim; my inclination has been defiled. Though Iwere to add nothing more, I cannot be pronounced innocent: as towhat remains,’twill add much tothe gratifying of mywishes,but little to my criminality.”

Thus she says; and (so great is the unsteadiness of herwavering mind) though she is loath to try him, she has a wish to tryhim, and she exceedsall bounds, and, to her misery, exposesherself to be often repulsed. At length, when there isnow no endto this, he flies from his country andthe commission ofthis crime, and founds a new city59 in a foreign land. But then, theysay that the daughter of Miletus, in her sadness, was bereft of allunderstanding. Then did she tear her garments away from her breast, andin her frenzy beat her arms. And now she is openly raving, and sheproclaims the unlawful hopes ofunnatural lust. Deprived of thesehopes, she deserts her native land, and her hated home, andfollows the steps of her flying brother. And as the Ismarian60Bacchanals,333ix. 641-664.son of Semele, aroused by thy thyrsus, celebrate thy triennialfestivals, as they return, no otherwise did the Bubasian matrons61 seeByblis howling over the wide fields; leaving which, she wandered throughthe country of the Carians, and the warlike Leleges,62 andLycia.

And now she has left behind Cragos,63 and Lymira,64 and the wavesof Xanthus, and the mountain in which the Chimæra had fire in its middleparts, the breast and the face of a lioness, and the tail of a serpent.The woodsat length fail thee; when thou, Byblis, wearied withfollowing him, dost fall down, and laying thy tresses upon the hardground, art silent, and dost press the fallen leaves with thy face.Often, too, do the Lelegeïan Nymphs endeavour to raise her in theirtender arms; often do they advise her to curb her passion, and theyapply consolation to a mind insensibleto their advice. Silentdoes Byblis lie, and she tears the green herbs with her nails, andwaters the grass with the stream of her tears. They say that the Naiadsplaced beneath thesetears a channel which could never becomedry; and what greater gift had they to bestow? Immediately, as dropsfrom the cut bark of the pitch tree, or as the viscid bitumen distilsfrom the impregnated earth, or as water which has frozen with the cold,at the approach of Favonius, gently blowing, melts away in the sun, sois Byblis, the descendant of Phœbus, dissolving in her tears, changedinto a fountain, which even now, in those vallies, bears the name of itsmistress, and flows beneath a gloomy oak.

EXPLANATION.

This shocking story has been also recounted by Antoninus Liberalis andboth he and Ovid have embellished it with circumstances, which are thefruit of a lively imagination. They make Byblis travel over severalcountries in search of her brother, who flies from her extravagantpassion, and they both agree in tracing her to Caria. There, accordingto Antoninus Liberalis, she was transformed into a Hamadryad, just asshe was on334ix. 665-668.the point of throwing herself from the summit of a mountain. Ovid, onthe other hand, says that she was changed into a fountain, whichafterwards 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, bothfrom Apollodorus and Pausanias, that Miletus, her father, went from theisland 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 thecity being killed during the siege, the conquerors married their wivesand daughters. Cyanea, the daughter of Mæander, fell to the share ofMiletus, and Caunus and Byblis were the offspring of that marriage.Byblis, having conceived a criminal passion for her brother, he wasobliged to leave his father’s court, that he might avoid herimportunities; upon which she died of grief. As she often went to weepby a fountain, which was outside of the town, those who related theadventure, magnified it, by stating that she was changed into thefountain, which, after her death, bore her name. We are informed byPhotius, on the authority of the historian Conon, that it was Caunus whofell in love with Byblis, and that she hanged herself upon a walnuttree. Ovid also, in his ‘Art of Love,’ follows the tradition that shehanged herself. ‘Arsit et est laqueo fortiter ulta nefas.’ Miletus livedin the time of the first Minos, and, according to some writers, marriedhis daughter Acallis; but, having disagreed with his father-in-law, hewas obliged to leave Crete, and retired to Caria.

The Persians had certain state ordinances, by which their monarchs wereenjoined to marry their own sisters; and, as Asia Minor was overrun bythem at the time when Crœsus was conquered by Cyrus, it is possible thatthe story of Byblis and Caunus may have originated in the disgust whichthe natives felt for their conquerors, and as a covert reproach to themfor sanctioning alliances of so incestuous a nature. While Ovid entersinto details in the story, which trench on the rules of modesty anddecorum, the moral of the tale, aided by some of his precepts, is notuninstructive as a warning to youth to learn betimes how to regulate thepassions.

FABLE VI.

Ligdus commands his wife Telethusa, whois pregnant, to destroy the infant, should it prove to be a girl; onwhich, the Goddess Isis appears to her in a dream, and, forbidding herto obey, promises her her protection. Telethusa is delivered of adaughter, who is called Iphis, and passes for a son. Iphis is afterwardsmarried 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 hundredcities of Crete, if Crete had not lately produced a nearer wonderofher own, in the change of Iphis.

For once on a time the Phæstian land65 adjoining to the335ix. 668-691.Gnossian kingdom produced one Ligdus, of obscure name, a man of thefreeborn class of common people. Nor were his means any greater than hisrank, but his life and his honour were untainted. He startled the earsof his wife in her pregnancy, with these words, when her lying-in wasnear at hand: “Two things there are which I wish for; that thou mayst bedelivered with very little pain, and that thou mayst bring forth a malechild. The other alternative is a cause of greater trouble, andprovidence has denied us meansfor bringing up a female. Thething I abominate; but if a female should, by chance, be brought forthat thy delivery, (I command it with reluctance, forgive me, naturalaffection) let it be put to death.”Thus he said, and they bathedtheir faces with tears streaming down; both he who commanded, and she towhom the commands were given. But yet Telethusa incessantly urged herhusband, with fruitless entreaties, not to confine his hopes within acompass so limited.But Ligdus’s resolution was fixed.

And now was she hardlyable to bear her womb big with theburden ripe for birth; when in the middle of the night, under the formof a vision, the daughter of Inachus, attended by a train of hervotaries, either stood, or seemed to stand, before her bed. The horns ofthe moon were upon her forehead, with ears of corn with their brightgolden colour, and the royal ornamentof the diadem; with her wasthe barking Anubis,66 and the holy Bubastis,67 and the particolouredApis;68 he, too, who suppresses69 his voice, and with336ix. 691-711.his finger enjoins silence. There were the sistra too, and Osiris,70never enough sought for; and the foreign serpent,71 filled withsoporiferous poison. When thus the Goddess addressed her, as thoughroused from her sleep, and seeingall distinctly:“O Telethusa, one of my votaries, lay aside thy grievous cares, andevade the commands of thy husband; and do not hesitate, when Lucinashall have given thee ease by delivery, to bring upthe child,whatever it shall be. I am a befriending Goddess,72 and, wheninvoked, I give assistance; and thou shalt not complain that thouhast worshipped an ungrateful Divinity.”

Thus she advises her, andthen retires from herchamber. The Cretan matron arises joyful from her bed; and suppliantlyraising her pure hands towards the starsof heaven, prays thather vision may be fulfilled. When her pains increased, and her burdenforced itself into the light, and a girl was born to the father unawareof 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 acquaintedwith the fact. The father performed his vows, and gavethe childthe name of its grandfather. The grandfather had been called Iphis. Themother rejoiced in that name because it was commonto both sexes,nor would she be deceiving73 any one by it. Her deception layunperceived under this fraud, the result of natural affection. The337ix. 711-743.child’s dress was that of a boy; the face such, that, whether yougave it to a girl or to a boy, either would be beautiful. In themeantime the third year hadnow succeeded the tenth, when herfather, O Iphis, promised to thee, in marriage, the yellow-hairedIänthe, who was a virgin the most commended among all the women ofPhæstus, for the endowments of her beauty; the daughter of the DictæanTelestes. Equal was their age, their beauty equal; and they receivedtheir first instruction, the elementssuited to their age, fromthe same preceptor.

Love, in consequence, touches the inexperienced breasts of them both,and inflicts on each an equal wound; buthow different are theirhopes! Iänthe awaits the time of their union, and of the ceremonialagreed upon, and believes that she, whom she thinks to be a man, will beher husband. Iphis is in love with her whom she despairs to beable to enjoy, and this very thing increases her flame; and,herself a maid, she burns with passion for a maid. And, withdifficulty, suppressing her tears, she says, “What issueof mylove awaits me, whom the anxieties unknown to anybefore, andso unnatural, of an unheard-of passion, have seized upon? if theGods would spare me, (they ought to have destroyed me, and if they wouldnot have destroyed me), at least they should have inflicted some naturalevil, andone commonto the human race. Passion for a cowdoes not inflame a cow, nor does that for maresinflame themares. The ram inflames the ewes; its own female follows the buck. Andso do birds couple; and among all animals, no female is seized withpassion for a female. Would that I did not exist.

“Yet, lest Crete might not be the producer ofall kinds ofprodigies, the daughter of the Sun loved a bull; that is to say,a femaleloved 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 shecouple with the bull, and her paramour was one that might be deceived.But though the ingenuity of the whole world were to centre here, thoughDædalus himself were to fly back again with his waxen wings, what couldhe do? Could he, by his skilful arts, make me from a maiden into ayouth? or could he transform338ix. 743-772.thee, Iänthe? But why dost thou not fortify thy mind, and recoverthyself, Iphis? And why not shake off this passion, void ofallreason, and senselessas it is? Consider what it was thou wastborn (unless thou art deceiving thyself as well), and pursue that whichis allowable, and love that which, as a woman, thou oughtsttolove. Hope it is that produces, Hope it is that nourishes love.This, thevery caseitself deprives thee of. No guard iskeeping thee away from her dear embrace; no care of a watchful husband,no father’s severity; does not she herself deny thy solicitations. Andyet she cannot be enjoyed by thee; nor, were everything possible done,couldst thou be blessed;not, though Gods and men were to dotheir utmost. And now, too, no portion of my desires is baffled, and thecompliant Deities have granted me whatever they were able, and what Idesire, my father wishes, she herself wishes, andso doesmy 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 timeapproaches, and the wedding-day is at hand, when Iänthe should be mine;andyet she will not fall to my lot. In the midst of water,I shall be athirst. Why, Juno, guardian of the marriage rites, andwhy, Hymenæus, do you come to this ceremonial, where there is not theperson who should marrythe wife,and where bothof usfemales, we are coupled in wedlock?”

Aftersaying these words, she closes her lips. And no lessdoes the other maid burn, and she prays thee, Hymenæus, to come quickly.Telethusa, dreading the same thing that she desires, at one time putsoff the timeof the wedding, and then raises delays, by feigningillness. Often, by way of excuse, she pretends omens and visions. Butnow she has exhausted all the resources of fiction; and the time for themarriageso long delayed isnow at hand, andonlyone day remains; whereon she takes off the fillets for the hair from herown head and from that of her daughter,74 and embracing the altar withdishevelled locks, she says, “O Isis, thou who dost inhabit339ix. 772-795.Parætonium,75 and the Mareotic fields,76 and Pharos,77 and theNile divided into its seven horns, give aid, I beseech thee, andease me of my fears. Thee, Goddess, thee, I once beheld, and thesethy symbols; and allof them I recognized; both thy attendants,and thy torches, and the sound of the sistra, and I noted thy commandswith mindful care. That thisgirl78now sees thelight, that I, myself, am not punished, isthe result of thycounsel, and thy admonition; pity us both, and aid us with thyassistance.”

Tears followed her words. The Goddess seemed to move, (and shereally did move) her altars; and the doors of her temple shook.Her horns, too,79 shone, resemblingthose of the moon, and thetinkling sistrum sounded. The mother departs from the temple, not freefrom concern indeed, still pleased with this auspicious omen. Iphisfollows her, her companion as she goes, with longer strides than she hadbeen wont; her fairness does not continue on her face; both her strengthis increased, and her features are more stern; and shorter is the lengthof her scattered locks. There is more vigour, also, than she hadas a female.And now thou art a male, who so lately wast afemale. Bring offerings to the temple, and rejoice with no hesitatingconfidence. They do bring their offerings to the temple. They add, too,an inscription; the inscription containsone 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 raysofthe Sun; when Venus, and Juno, and Hymenæus,340ix. 795-796.repair to the social fires80; and Iphis,now a youth,gains hisdear Iänthe.

EXPLANATION.

The story of Iphis being changed from a young woman into a man, of whichOvid lays the scene in the isle of Crete, is one of those facts uponwhich ancient history is entirely silent. Perhaps, the origin of thestory was a disguise of a damsel in male dress, carried on, for familyreasons, even to the very point of marriage; or it may have been basedupon an account of some remarkable instance of androgynousformation.

Ovid may possibly have invented the story himself, merely as a vehiclefor showing how the Deities recompense piety and strict obedience totheir injunctions.

BOOK THE TENTH.

FABLE I.

Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, whilesporting in the fields, with other Nymphs, is bitten by a serpent, whichcauses her death. After having mourned for her, Orpheus resolves to godown to the Infernal Regions in quest of her. Pluto and the Fatesconsent to her return, on condition that Orpheus shall not look on hertill he is out of their dominions. His curiosity prevailing, he neglectsthis injunction, on which she is immediately snatched away from him,beyond the possibility of recovery. Upon this occasion, the Poet relatesthe story of a shepherd, who was turned into a rock by a look ofCerberus; and that of Olenus and Lethæa, who were transformed intostones.

Thence Hymenæus, clad in a saffron-coloured1 robe, passed throughthe unmeasured tract of air, and directed his course to the regions ofthe Ciconians2, and, in vain, was invoked by the voice of Orpheus. Hepresented himself indeed, but he brought with him neither auspiciouswords, nor joyful looks, noryet 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 moredisastrous than the omens; for thenewmade bride, while she wasstrolling 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 upperrealms of air, that he might try the shades below as well, hedared to descend to Styx by the Tænarian gate, and amid the phantominhabitants and ghosts that had enjoyed342x. 15-47.the tomb, he went to Persephone, and him that held these unpleasingrealms, the Ruler of the shades; and touching his strings in concertwith his words, he thus said, “O ye Deities of the world that liesbeneath the earth, to which weall comeat last, each thatis born to mortality; if I may be allowed, and you suffer me to speakthe truth, laying aside3 the artful expressions of a deceitful tongue;I have not descended hitherfrom curiosity to see darkTartarus, 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 uponby her, diffused its poison,and cut short her growing years. I was wishful to be able to endurethis, and I will not deny that I have endeavouredto doso. Love has proved the stronger. That God is well known in theregions above. Whether he be so here, too, I am uncertain; but yetI imagine that even here he is; and if the story of the rape of formerdays is not untrue, ’twas love that united youtwo together. Bythese places filled with horrors, by this vast Chaos, and by the silenceof these boundless realms, I entreat you, weave over again thequick-spun threadof the life of Eurydice.

“To you we all belong; and having staid but a little whileabove, sooner or later weall hasten to one abode. Hitherare we all hastening. This is our last home; and you possess the mostlasting dominion over the human race. She, too, when, in due season sheshall have completed her allottednumber of years, will be underyour sway. The enjoymentof her I beg as a favour. But if theFates deny me this privilege in behalf of my wife, I havedetermined that I will not return. Triumph in the death of us both.”

As he said such things, and touched the strings to his words, thebloodless spirits wept. Tantalus did not catch at the retreating water,and the wheel of Ixion stood still,as though in amazement; thebirds did not tear the liverof Tityus; and the granddaughters ofBelus paused at their urns; thou, too, Sisyphus, didst seat thyself onthy stone. The story is, that then, for the first time, the cheeks ofthe Eumenides, overcome by his music, were wet with tears; nor could theroyal consort, nor he who rules the infernal regions, endure343x. 47-75.to deny him his request; and they called for Eurydice. She was among theshades newly arrived, and she advanced with a slow pace, by reason ofher wound.

The Rhodopeïan hero receives her, and, at the same time,thiscondition, that he turn not back his eyes until he has passed theAvernian vallies, or else that the grant will be revoked. The ascendingpath is mounted in deep silence, steep, dark, and enveloped in deepeninggloom. Andnow they were not far from the verge of the upperearth. He, enamoured, fearing lest she should flag, and impatient tobehold 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 asecond time, she did not at all complain of her husband; for why shouldshe complain of being beloved? And now she pronounced the last farewell,which scarcely did he catch with his ears; and again was she hurriedback to the same place.

No otherwise was Orpheus amazed at this twofold death of his wife,than he who, trembling, beheld the three necks4 of the dog, the middleone supporting chains; whom fear did not forsake, before his formernaturedeserted him, as stone gathered over his body: andthan Olenus,5 who took on himself the crimeof another, andwas willing to appear guilty; andthan thou, unhappy Lethæa,confiding in thy beauty; breasts, once most united, now rocks, which thewatery Ida supports. The ferryman drove him away entreating, and, invain, desiring again to crossthe stream. Still, for seven days,in squalid guise6 did he sit on the banks without the gifts of Ceres.Vexation,344x. 75-85.and sorrow of mind, and tears were his sustenance. Complaining that theDeities of Erebus7 were cruel, he betook himself to lofty Rhodope, andHæmus,8 buffeted by the North winds. The third Titan hadnow ended the year bounded by the Fishes of the ocean;9 andOrpheus had avoided all intercourse with woman, either because it hadended in misfortune to him, or because he had given a promiseto thateffect. Yet a passion possessed many a female to unite herself tothe bard,and many a one grieved when repulsed. He also was thefirst adviser of the people of Thrace to transfer theiraffections to tender youths; and, on this side of manhood, to enjoy theshort spring of life, and its early flowers.

EXPLANATION.

Though Ovid has separated the adventures of Orpheus, whose death he doesnot relate till the beginning of the eleventh Book, we will here shortlyenter upon an examination of some of the more important points of hishistory.

As, in his time, Poetry and Music were in a very low state ofperfection, and as he excelled in both of those arts, it was said thathe was the son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope; and it was added, thathe charmed lions and tigers, and made even the trees sensible of themelodious tones of his lyre. These were mere hyperbolical expressions,which signified the wondrous charms of his eloquence and of his musiccombined, which he employed in cultivating the genius of a savage anduncouth people. Some conjecture that this personage originally came fromAsia into Thrace, and suppose that he, together with Linus and Eumolpus,brought poetry and music into Greece, the use of which, till then, wasunknown in that country; and that they introduced, at the same time, theworship of Ceres, Mars, and the orgies of Bacchus, which, from him whoinstituted them, received their name of ‘Orphica.’ Orpheus,too, is supposed to haveunited the office of high priest with that of king. Horace styles himthe interpreter of the Gods; and he was said to have interposed with theDeities for the deliverance of the Argonauts from a dangerous tempest.It is thought that he passed some part of his life in Egypt, and becameacquainted with many particulars of the ancient religion of theEgyptians, which he introduced into the theology of Greece. Some modernwriters even go so far as to suggest that he learned from the345Hebrews, who were then sojourning in Egypt, the knowledge of the trueGod.

His wife, Eurydice, dying very young, he was inconsolable for her loss.To alleviate his grief, he went to Thesprotia, in Epirus, the natives ofwhich region were said to possess incantations, for the purpose ofraising the ghosts of the departed. Here, according to some accounts,being deceived by a phantom, which was made to appear before him, hedied of sorrow; but, according to other writers, he renounced thesociety of mankind for ever and retired to the mountains of Thrace. Hisjourney to that distant country gave occasion to say, that he descendedto the Infernal Regions. This is the more likely, as he is supposed tohave 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 onthe circumstance, that Orpheus cured his wife of the bite of a serpent,which had till then been considered to be mortal; and that the poetsgave an hyperbolical version of the story, in saying that he had rescuedher from Hell. He says, too, that he had learned in Egypt the art ofmagic, which was much cultivated there, and especially the method ofcharming serpents.

After the loss of his wife, he retired to mount Rhodope, to assuage theviolence of his grief. There, according to Ovid and other poets, theMænades, or Bacchanals, to be revenged for his contempt of them andtheir rites, tore him in pieces; which story is somewhat diversified bythe writers who relate that Venus, exasperated against Calliope, themother of Orpheus, for having adjudged to Proserpine the possession ofAdonis, caused the women of Thrace to become enamoured of her son, andto tear him in pieces while disputing the possession of him. An ancientauthor, quoted by Hyginus, says that Orpheus was killed by the stroke ofa thunderbolt, while he was accompanying the Argonauts; and Apollodorussays the same. Diodorus Siculus calls him one of the kings of Thrace;while other writers, among whom are Cicero and Aristotle, assert thatthere never was such a person as Orpheus. The learned Vossius says, thatthe Phœnician word ‘ariph,’ which signifies ‘learned,’ gave rise to thestory of Orpheus. Le Clerc thinks that in consequence of the same Greekword signifying ‘an enchanter,’ and also meaning ‘a singer,’ he acquiredthe reputation of having been a most skilful magician.

We may, perhaps, safely conclude, that Orpheus really did introduce theworship of many Gods into Greece; and that, possibly, while hepromulgated the necessity of expiating crimes, he introduced exorcism,and brought magic into fashion in Greece. Lucian affirms that he wasalso the first to teach the elements of astronomy. Several works wereattributed to him, which are now no longer in existence; among whichwere a Poem on the Expedition of the Argonauts, one on the War of theGiants, another on the Rape of Proserpine, and a fourth upon the Laboursof Hercules. The Poem on the Argonautic Expedition, which now exists,and is attributed to him, is supposed to have been really written by apoet named Onomacritus, who lived in the sixth centuryB.C., in the time of Pisistratus.

After his death, Orpheus was reckoned in the number of Heroes orDemigods; and we are informed by Philostratus that his head waspreserved at Lesbos, where it gave oracular responses. Orpheus is notmentioned by Homer or Hesiod. The learned scholar Lobeck, in hisAglaophamus, has entered very deeply into an investigation of the realnature of the discoveries and institutions ascribed to him.

FABLE II.

Orpheus, retiring to Mount Rhodope, bythe charms of his music, attracts to himself all kinds of creatures,rocks, and trees; among the latter is the pine tree, only known sincethe 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 inthe spot. After the bard, sprung from the Gods, had seated himself inthis place, and touched his tuneful strings, a shade came over thespot. The tree of Chaonia10 was not absent, nor the grove ofthe Heliades,11 nor the mast-tree with its lofty branches, nor thetender lime-trees, nor yet the beech, and the virgin laurel,12 andthe brittle hazels, and the oak, adapted for making spears, and the firwithout knots, and the holm bending beneath its acorns, and the genialplane-tree,13 and the parti-coloured maple,14 and, together withthem, the willows growing by the rivers, and the watery lotus, and theevergreen 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,347x. 99-105.and together, the branching vines, and the elms clothed with vines; theashes, too, and the pitch-trees, and the arbute, laden with its blushingfruit, and the bending palm,16 the reward of the conqueror; thepine, too, with its tufted foliage,17 and bristling at the top,pleasing to the Mother of the Gods; since for this the Cybeleïan Attisput off the human form, and hardened into that trunk.

EXPLANATION.

The story of Attis, or Athis, here briefly referred to, is related bythe ancient writers in many different ways; so much so, that it is notpossible to reconcile the discrepancy that exists between them. FromDiodorus Siculus we learn that Cybele, the daughter of Mæon, King ofPhrygia, falling in love with a young shepherd named Attis, her fatherordered 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 themountains of Phrygia. Apollo, (or, as Vossius supposes, some priest ofthat God,) touched with the misfortunes of the damsel, took her to thecountry of the Hyperboreans in Scythia, where she died. Some time after,the plague ravaging Phrygia, and the oracle being consulted, an answerwas returned, that, to ensure the ceasing of the contagion, they mustlook for the body of Attis, and give it funeral rites, and render toCybele the same honour which they were wont to pay to the Gods: allwhich was done with such scrupulous care, that in time she became one ofthe most esteemed Divinities.

Arnobius, says that Attis was a shepherd, with whom Cybele fell in lovein 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 theresentment of Cybele, he caused the gates of the city to be shut on theday on which the marriage was to be solemnized. Cybele being informed ofthis, hastened to Pessinus, and, destroying the gates, met with Attis,who had concealed himself behind a pine tree, and caused him to beemasculated; on which Agdistis committed self-destruction in a fit ofsorrow.

Servius, Lactantius, and St. Augustine, give another version of thestory, which it is not necessary here to enlarge upon, any farther thanto say, that it depicts the love of a powerful queen for a young man whorepulsed her advances. Ovid, also, gives a similar account in the fourthBook of the Fasti, line 220. Other authors, quoted by Arnobius, havegiven some additional circumstances, the origin of which it is348x. 106-114.almost impossible to guess at. They say that a female called Nana, bytouching a pomegranate or an almond tree, which grew from the blood ofAgdistis whom Bacchus had slain, conceived Attis, who afterwards becamevery dear to Cybele.

All that we can conclude from these accounts, and more especially fromthat given by Ovid in the Fasti, is, that the worship of Cybele beingestablished in Phrygia, Attis was one of her priests; and that, as heled the example of mutilating himself, all her other priests, who werecalled Galli, submitted to a similar operation, to the great surprise ofthe uninitiated, who were not slow in inventing some wonderful story toaccount for an act so extraordinary.

FABLE III.

Cyparissus is about to kill himself forhaving slain, by accident, a favourite deer; but, before he is ableto 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 thatGod who fits the lyre with the strings, and the bow with strings. Forthere was a large stag, sacred to the Nymphs who inhabit the Carthæanfields; and, with his horns extending afar, he himself afforded an ampleshade to his own head. His horns were shining with gold, and a necklacestudded with gems,19 falling upon his shoulders, hung down fromhis smooth round neck; a silver ball,20 fastened withlittle straps, played upon his forehead;349x. 114-134.and pendants of brass,21 of equal size, shone on either ear around hishollow temples. He, too, void of fear, and laying aside his naturaltimorousness, used to frequent the houses, and to offer his neck to bepatted by any hands, even though unknownto him.

But yet, above all others, he was pleasing to thee, Cyparissus, mostbeauteous of the nation of Cea.22 Thou wast wont to lead the stag tonew pastures, and to the streams of running waters; sometimes thou didstwreathe flowers of various colours about his horns, and at other times,seated on his back,like a horseman,first in thisdirection andthen in that, thou didst guide his easy mouth withthe purple bridle. ’Twas summer and the middle of the day, and thebending arms of the Crab, that loves the sea-shore, were glowing withthe heat of the sun; the stag, fatigued, was reclining his body on thegrassy earth, and was enjoying the coolness from the shade of a tree. Byinadvertence the boy Cyparissus pierced him with a sharp javelin; and,when he saw him dying from the cruel wound, he resolved to attempt todieas well. What consolations did not Phœbus apply? and headvised him to grieve with moderation, and350x. 134-144.according to the occasion. Still did he lament, and as a last favour, herequested this of the Gods above, that he might mourn for ever. And now,his blood quite exhausted by incessant weeping, his limbs began to bechanged into a green colour, and the hair, which but lately hung fromhis snow-white forehead, to become a rough bush, and, a stiffnessbeing assumed, to point to the starry heavens with a tapering top. TheGodPhœbus lamented deeply, and in his sorrow he said, “Thoushalt be mourned by me, and shalt mourn for others, and shaltever attend upon those who are sorrowing23for thedead.”

EXPLANATION.

Cyparissus, who, according to Ovid was born at Carthæa, a town inthe isle of Cea, was probably a youth of considerable poetical talentand proficiency in the polite arts, which caused him to be deemed thefavourite of Apollo. His transformation into a Cypress is founded on theresemblance between their names, that tree being called by the Greeksκυπάρισσος. Theconclusion of the story is that Apollo, to console himself, enjoinedthat the Cypress tree should be the symbol of sorrow, or in other wordsthat it should be used at funerals and be planted near graves andsepulchres; which fiction was most likely founded on the fact, that thetree 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 bythe God Sylvanus, for which reason that God is often represented withbranches of Cypress in his hand.

FABLE IV.

Jupiter, charmed with the beauty of theyouth Ganymede, transforms himself into an Eagle, for the purpose ofcarrying him off. He is taken up into Heaven, and is made the Cup-bearerof the Divinities.

Such a groveof trees had the bard attractedround him,and he sat in the midst of an assembly of wild beasts, and of amultitude351x. 144-161.of birds. When he had sufficiently tried the strings struck with histhumb, and perceived that the various tones, though they gave differentsounds,still harmonize, in this song he raised his voice:“Begin, my parent Muse, my song from Jove, all things submit to the swayof Jove. By me, often before has the power of Jove been sung. In loftierstrains have I sung of the Giants, and the victorious thunderboltsscattered over the Phlegræan plains.24 Now is there occasion for asofter lyre; and let us sing of youths beloved by the Gods above, and ofgirls surprised by unlawful flames, who, by their wanton desires, havebeen deserving of punishment.

“The king of the Gods above was once inflamed with a passion forGanymede, and something was found that Jupiter preferred to be, ratherthan what he was. Yet into no bird does he vouchsafe to be transformed,but that which can carry his bolts.25 And no delayis there.Striking the air with his fictitious wings, he carries off the youth ofIlium; who even now mingles his cupsfor him, and, much againstthe will of Juno, serves nectar to Jove.” 

EXPLANATION.

The rape of Ganymede is probably based upon an actual occurrence, whichmay be thus explained. Tros, the king of Troy, having conquered severalof his neighbours, as Eusebius, Cedrenus, and Suidas relate, sent hisson Ganymede into Lydia, accompanied by several of the nobles of hiscourt, to offer sacrifice in the temple dedicated to Jupiter; Tantalus,the king of that country, who was ignorant of the designs of the Trojanking, took his people for spies, and put Ganymede in prison. He havingbeen arrested in a temple of Jupiter, by order of a prince, whose ensignwas an eagle, it gave occasion for the report that he had been carriedoff by Jupiter in the shape of an eagle.

The reason why Jupiter is said to have made Ganymede his cup-bearer352x. 162-168.is difficult to conjecture, unless we suppose that he had served hisfather, in that employment at the Trojan court. The poets say that hewas placed by the Gods among the Constellations, where he shines asAquarius, or the Water-bearer.

The capture of Ganymede occasioned a protracted and bloody war betweenTros and Tantalus; and after their death, Ilus, the son of Tros,continued it against Pelops, the son of Tantalus, and obliged him toquit his kingdom and retire to the court of Œnomaüs, king of Pisa, whosedaughter he married, and by her had a son named Atreus, who was thefather of Agamemnon and Menelaüs. Thus we see that probably Paris, thegreat grandson of Tros, carried off Helen, as a reprisal on Menelaüs,the great grandson of Tantalus, the persecutor of Ganymede. Agamemnondid not fail to turn this fact to his own advantage, by putting theGreeks in mind of the evils which his family had suffered from the kingsof Troy.

FABLE V.

As Apollo is playing at quoits with theyouth Hyacinthus, one of them, thrown by the Divinity, rebounds from theearth, and striking Hyacinthus on the head, kills him. From his bloodsprings up the flower which still bears his name.

“Phœbus would have placed thee too, descendant of Amycla,26 inthe 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 thespring drives away the winter, and the Ram succeeds the watery Fish, sooften dost thou spring up and blossom upon the green turf. Thee, beyondall others, did my father love, and Delphi, situate in the353x. 168-192.middle27 of the earth, was without its guardianDeity,while the God was frequenting the Eurotas, and the unfortified Sparta;28 and neither his lyre nor his arrows wereheldin esteemby 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 therugged mountains; and by lengthened intimacy he augmented his flame. Andnow Titan was almost in his mid course between the approaching and thepast night, and was at an equal distance from them both;whenthey stripped their bodies of their garments, and shone with the juiceof the oily olive, and engaged in the game of the broad quoit.29First, Phœbus tossed it, well poised, into the airy breeze, and clovethe opposite clouds with its weight. After a long pause, the heavy massfell on the hard ground, and showed skill united with strength.Immediately the Tænarian youth,30 in his thoughtlessness, and urgedon by eagerness for the sport, hastened to take up the circlet; but thehard 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 hebears up thy sinking limbs; and at one moment he cherishes thee, atanother, he stanches thy sad wound;and now he stops the fleetinglife by the application of herbs. His skill is of no avail. The wound isincurable. As if, in a well-watered garden, any one should break downviolets, or poppies, and lilies, as they adhere to their yellow stalks;drooping, they354x. 192-217.would suddenly hang down their languid heads, and could not supportthemselves; and would look towards the ground with their tops. So sinkhis dying features; and, forsaken by its vigour, the neck is a burden toitself, and reclines upon the shoulder. ‘Son of Œbalus,’ says Phœbus,‘thou fallest, deprived of thy early youth; and I look on thy wound asmy own condemnation. Thou artthe object of my grief, andthecause 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 toengage 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, ortogether 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 lyrestruck with my hand, my songs, too, shall celebrate thee; and,becoming a new flower, by the inscriptionon thee, thoushalt imitate31 my lamentations. The time, too, shall come, at whicha most valiant hero32 shall add hisname to this flower, andit 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 Tyrianpurple, and it assumes the appearance which lilieshave, werethere not in this a purple hue,and in them that of silver. Thiswas not enough for Phœbus, for ’twas he that was the author of thishonour. He himself inscribed his own lamentations on the leaves, and theflower has ‘ai, ai,’ inscribedthereon; and the mournfulcharacters33there are traced. Nor is Sparta ashamed tohave given birth355x. 217-219.to Hyacinthus; and his honours continue to the present time; theHyacinthian festival34 returns, too, each year, to be celebratedwith the prescribed ceremonials, after the manner of formercelebrations.”

EXPLANATION.

Hyacinthus, as Pausanias relates, was a youth of Laconia. His fathereducated him with so much care, that he was looked upon as the favouriteof Apollo, and of the Muses. As he was one day playing with hiscompanions, he unfortunately received a blow on the head from a quoit,from the effects of which he died soon after. Some funeral verses wereprobably composed on the occasion; in which it was said, with the viewof comforting his relations, that Boreas, jealous of the affection whichApollo had evinced for the youth, had turned aside the quoit with whichthey played; and thus, by degrees, in length of time the name of Apollobecame 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, thatthey instituted games in his honour, which were called after his name.Pausanias makes mention of his tomb, upon which he says was engraved thefigure of Apollo. His alleged change into the flower of the same name isprobably solely owing to the similarity of their names. It is not veryclear what flower it is that was known to the ancients under the name ofHyacinthus. Dioscorides believes it to be that called ‘vaccinium’ by theRomans, which is356x. 220-240.of a purple colour, and on which can be traced, though imperfectly, thelettersαἰ (alas!) mentionedby Ovid. The lamentations of Apollo, on the death of Hyacinthus, formedthe subject of bitter, and, indeed, deserved raillery, for several ofthe satirical writers among the ancients.

FABLE VI.

Venus, incensed at the Cerastæ forpolluting the island of Cyprus, which is sacred to her, with the humansacrifices which they offer to their Gods, transforms them into bulls;and the Propœtides, as a punishment for their dissolute conduct, aretransformed into rocks.

“But if, perchance, you were to ask of Amathus,35 abounding inmetals, whether she would wish to have produced the Propœtides; shewould deny it, as well as those whose foreheads were of old rugged withtwo horns, from which they also derived the name of Cerastæ. Before thedoors of these was standing an altar of Jupiter Hospes,36a scene of tragic horrors; if any stranger had seen itstained with blood, he would have supposed that sucking calves had beenkilled there, and Amathusian sheep;37 strangers were slain there.Genial Venus, offended at the wicked sacrificesthere offered,was preparing to abandon her own cities and the Ophiusian lands.38‘But how,’ said she, ‘have these delightful spots, how have my citiesoffended? What criminality is there in them? Let the inhuman race rathersuffer punishment by exile or by death, or if there is any middle coursebetween death and exile; and what can that be, but the punishment ofchanging their shape?’

“While she is hesitating into what she shall change them, she turnsher eyes towards their horns, and is put in mind that those may be leftto them; andthen she transforms their huge limbs intothoseof fierce bulls.

“And yet the obscene Propœtides presumed to deny that Venus is aGoddess; for which they are reported the first357x. 240-251.of all women to have prostituted their bodies,39 with theirbeauty, through the anger of the Goddess. And when their shame was gone,and the blood of their face was hardened, they were, by a slighttransition, changed into hard rocks.” 

EXPLANATION.

The Cerastæ, a people of the island of Cyprus, were, perhaps, saidto have been changed into bulls, to show the barbarous nature and rusticmanners of those islanders, who stained their altars with the blood ofstrangers, 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 ofthe sea, and whose pointed rocks appear at a distance like horns, fromwhich it had the name of Cerastis, the Greek wordκέρας, signifying a ‘horn.’ Thus, the inhabitantshaving the name of Cerastæ, it was most easy to invent a fiction oftheir having been once turned into oxen, to account the more readily fortheir bearing that name.

The Propœtides, who inhabited the same island, were females of verydissolute character. Justin, and other writers, mention a singular andhorrible custom in that island, of prostituting young girls in the verytemple of Venus. It was most probably the utter disregard of these womenfor common decency, that occasioned the poets to say that they weretransformed into rocks.

FABLE VII.

Pygmalion, shocked by the dissolutelives of the Propœtides, throws off all fondness for the female sex, andresolves on leading a life of perpetual celibacy. Falling in love with astatue which he has made, Venus animates it; on which he marries thisnew object of his affections, and has a son by her, who gives his nameto the island.

“When Pygmalion saw these women spending their lives in criminalpursuits, shocked at the vices which Nature hadso plentifullyimparted to the female disposition, he lived a single life without awife, and for a long time was without a partner of his bed. In themeantime, he ingeniously carveda statue of snow-white ivorywith wondrous skill; and gave it a beauty with which no woman can beborn; andthen conceived a passion for his own workmanship. Theappearance was that of a real virgin, whom you might suppose to bealive, and if358x. 251-282.modesty did not hinder her, to be desirous to move; so much did art lieconcealed under his skill. Pygmalion admires it; and entertains, withinhis breast, a flame for this fictitious body.

“Often does he apply his hands to the work, to try whether it is ahuman body, or whether it is ivory; and yet he does not own it tobe ivory. He gives it kisses, and fancies that they are returned, andspeaks to it, and takes hold of it, and thinks that his fingers make animpression on the limbs which they touch, and is fearful lest a lividmark should come on her limbswhen pressed. And one while heemploys soft expressions, at another time he brings her presents thatare agreeable to maidens,such as shells, and smooth pebbles, andlittle birds, and flowers of a thousand tints, and lilies, and paintedballs, and tears of the Heliades, that have fallen from the trees. Hedecks her limbs, too, with clothing, and puts jewels on her fingers; heputs,too, a long necklace on her neck. Smooth pendants hangfrom her ears, and bows from her breast.40 All things arebecomingto her; and she does not seem less beautiful than whennaked. He places her on coverings dyed with the Sidonian shell, andcalls her the companion of his bed, and lays down her reclining neckupon soft feathers, as though it were sensible.

“A festival of Venus, much celebrated throughout all Cyprus, hadnow come; and heifers, with snow-white necks, having theirspreading horns tipped with gold, fell, struckby the axe.Frankincense, too, was smoking, when, having made his offering,Pygmalion stood before the altar, and timorously said, ‘If ye Gods cangrant all things, let my wife be, I pray,’and he did notdare to say ‘this ivory maid,’but ‘like to thisstatue ofivory.’ The golden Venus, as she herself was present at her ownfestival, understood what that prayer meant; and as an omen of theDivinity being favourable, thrice was the flame kindled up, and it sentup a tapering flame into the air. Soon as he returned, he repaired tothe image of his maiden, and, lying along the couch, he gave her kisses.She seems to grow warm. Again he applies his mouth;359x. 282-299.with his hands, too, he feels her breast. The pressed ivory becomessoft, and losing its hardness, yields to the fingers, and gives way,just as Hymettian wax41 grows soft in the sun, and being worked withthe fingers is turned into many shapes, and becomes pliable by the veryhandling. While he is amazed, and is rejoicing,though withapprehension, and is fearing that he is deceived; the lover again andagain touches the object of his desires with his hand. It is areal body; the veins throb, when touched with the thumb.

“Then, indeed, the Paphian hero conceivesin his mind the mostlavish expressions, with which to give thanks to Venus, and at lengthpresses lips, nolonger fictitious, with his own lips. Themaiden, too, feels the kisses given her, and blushes; and raising hertimorous eyes towards the lightof day, she sees at once herlover and the heavens. The Goddess was present at the marriage which shethus effected. And now, the horns of the moon having been ninetimes gathered into a full orb, she brought forth Paphos; from whom theisland derived its name.”

EXPLANATION.

The Pygmalion here mentioned must not be mistaken for the person of thesame name, who was the brother of Dido, and king of Tyre. The story ismost probably an allegory, which was based on the fact that Pygmalionbeing a man of virtuous principles, and disgusted with the viciousconduct of the women of Cyprus, took a great deal of care in trainingthe mind and conduct of a young female, whom he kept at a distance fromthe contact of the prevailing vices; and whom, after having recoveredher from the obdurate and rocky state to which the other females werereduced, he made his wife, and had a son by her named Paphos; who wassaid to have been the founder of the city of Cyprus, known by hisname.

FABLE VIII.

Myrrha, the daughter of Cinyras andCenchris, having conceived an incestuous passion for her own father, anddespairing of satisfying it, attempts to hang herself. Her nursesurprises her in the act, and prevents her death. Myrrha, after repeatedentreaties and assurances of assistance, discloses to her the cause ofher despair. The nurse, by means of a stratagem, procures her the objectof her desires, which being discovered by her father, he pursues hisdaughter with the intention of killing her. Myrrha flies from herfather’s dominions and being delivered of Adonis, is transformed into atree.

“Of him was that Cinyras sprung, who, if he had been without360x. 299-327.issue, might have been reckoned among the happy. Of horrible eventsshall Inow sing. Daughters, be far hence; far hence be parents,too; or, if my verse shall charm your minds, let credit not begiven to me in this partof my song, and do not believe that ithappened; or, if you will believe, believe as well in the punishment ofthe deed.

“Yet, if Nature allows this crime to appear to have been committed,I congratulate the Ismarian matrons, and my owndivision ofthe globe. I congratulate this land, that it is afar from thoseregions which produced so great an abomination. Let the Panchæan land42 be rich in amomum, and let it produce cinnamon, andits zedoary,43 and frankincense distilling from its tree, and itsother flowers, so long as it produces the myrrh-tree, as well. The newtree was not of so much worthas to be a recompense for the crime towhich it owed its origin. Cupid himself denies, Myrrha, that it washis arrows that injured thee; and he defends his torches from thatimputation; one of the three Sisters kindledthis flame withinthee, with a Stygian firebrand and with swelling vipers. It is a crimeto hate a parent;but this love is a greater degree of wickednessthan hatred. On every side worthy nobles are desiring theeinmarriage, and throughout the whole East the youths come to thecontest for thy bed. Choose out of all these one for thyself, Myrrha, sothat, in all that number, there be not one person,namely, thyfather.

“She, indeed, is sensibleof her criminality, and struggleshard against her infamous passion, and says to herself, ‘Whither am Ibeing carried away by my feelings? What am I attempting? I beseechyou, O ye Gods, and natural affection, and ye sacred ties ofparents, 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 toforbid thiskind of union; and other animals couple with nodistinction. It is not considered shameful for the heifer to mate withher sire; his own daughter becomes the mate of the horse; the he-goat,too, consorts361x. 327-358.with the flocks of which he is the father; and the bird conceives byhim, from whose seed she herself was conceived. Happy they, to whomthese things are allowed! The care of man has provided harsh laws, andwhat Nature permits, malignant ordinances forbid.And yet thereare said to be nations44 in which both the mother is united to theson, and the daughter to the father, and natural affection is increasedby a twofold passion. Ah, wretched me! that it was not my chance to beborn there,and that I am injured by my lotbeing cast inthis place!but why do I ruminate on these things? Forbiddenhopes, begone! He is deserving to be beloved, but as a fatheronly. Were I not, therefore, the daughter of the great Cinyras,with Cinyras I might be united. Now, because he is so much mine, he isnot mine, and his very nearnessof relationship is mymisfortune.

“‘A stranger, I were more likely to succeed. I could wish to gofar away hence, and to leave my native country, so I mightbutescape this crime. A fatal delusion detains methus in love;that being present, I may look at Cinyras, and touch him, and talkwith him, and give him kisses, if nothing more is allowed me. But canstthou hope for anything more, impious maid? and dost thou not perceiveboth how many laws, andhow many names thou art confounding? Wiltthou be both the rival of thy mother, and the harlot of thy father? Wiltthou be called the sister of thy son, and the mother of thy brother? andwilt thou not dread the Sisters that have black snakes for their hair,whom guilty minds see threatening their eyes and their faces with theirrelentless torches? But do not thou conceive criminality in thy mind, solong as thou hast suffered none in body, and violate not the laws ofall-powerful Nature by forbidden embraces. Suppose he were to becompliant, the action itself forbidsthee; but he is virtuous,and regardful of what is right. Andyet, O that there were alike infatuation in him!’

“Thus she says; but Cinyras, whom an honourable crowd ofsuitors is causing to be in doubt what he is to do, inquires of herself,as he repeats their names, of which husband she would362x. 358-389.wishto be the wife. At first she is silent; and, fixing her eyesupon her father’s countenance, she is in confusion, and fills her eyeswith the warm tears. Cinyras, supposing this to bethe effect ofvirgin bashfulness, bids her not weep, and dries her cheeks, and givesher kisses. On these being given, Myrrha is too much delighted; and,being questioned what sort of a husband she would have, she says, ‘Onelike thyself.’ But he praises the answer notreally45understood by him, and says, ‘Ever be thus affectionate.’ On mentionbeing made of affection, the maiden, conscious of her guilt, fixed hereyes on the ground.

“It isnow midnight, and sleep has dispelled the cares, andhas eased the mindsof mortals. But the virgin daughter ofCinyras, kept awake, is preyed upon by an unconquerable flame, andruminates upon her wild desires. And one while she despairs, and atanother she resolves to try; and is both ashamed, andyet isdesirous, and is not certain what she is to do; and, just as a hugetree, wounded by the axe, when the last strokenow remains, is indoubt,as it were, on which side it is to fall, and is dreaded ineach direction; so does her mind, shaken by varying passions, waver inuncertainty, this way and that, and receives an impulse in eitherdirection;and no limit or repose is found for her love, butdeath: ’tis death that pleases her. She raises herself upright, anddetermines to insert her neck46 in a halter; and tying her girdleto the top of the door-post, she says, ‘Farewell, dear Cinyras, andunderstand the cause of my death;’ andthen fits the noose to herpale neck.

“They say that the sound of her words reached the attentive ears ofher nurse,47as 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 hascontemplated, at the same moment she cries aloud, and smites herself,and rends her bosom, and snatching the girdle from her neck, tears it topieces.And then, at last, she has time to weep, then to give herembraces, and to inquire into the occasion for the halter. The maid issilent,as363x. 389-422.though dumb, and, without moving, looks upon the earth; andthus detected, is sorry for her attempt at death in this slowmanner. The old womanstill urges her; and laying bare her greyhair, and her withered breasts, begs her, by her cradle and by her firstnourishment, to entrust her with that which is causing her grief. She,turning from her as she asks, heaves a sigh. The nurse is determined tofind 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 inactiveone. If it is a frantic passion, I have the means of curing it withcharms and herbs; if any one has hurt thee by spells, by magic ritesshalt thou be cured; or if it is the anger of the Gods, that anger canbe appeased by sacrifice. What morethan these can I think of? Nodoubt thy fortunes and thy family are prosperous, and in the way ofcontinuing so; thy mother and thy father arestill surviving.’Myrrha, on hearing her father’sname, heaves a sigh from thebottom of her heart. Nor, even yet, does her nurse apprehend in her mindany unlawful passion;and still she has a presentiment that it issomethingconnected with love. Persisting in her purpose, sheentreats her, whatever it is, to disclose it to her, and takes her, asshe weeps, in her aged lap; and so embracing her in her feeble arms, shesays, ‘Daughter, I understand it; thou art in love, and in thiscase (lay aside thy fears) my assiduity will be of service to thee; norshall thy father ever be aware of it.’

“Furious, she sprang away from her bosom; and pressing the bed withher face, she said, ‘Depart, I entreat thee, and spare my wretchedshame.’ Upon the other insisting, she said, ‘Either depart, or cease toinquire why it is I grieve; that which thou art striving to know, isimpious.’ The old woman is struck with horror, and stretches forth herhands palsied both with years and with fear, and suppliantly fallsbefore the feet of her foster-child. And one while she soothes her,sometimes she terrifies herwith the consequences, if she is notmade acquainted with it; andthen she threatens her with thediscovery of the halter,and of her attempted destruction, andpromises her good offices, if the passion is confided to her. She liftsup her head, and fills the breast of her nurse with tears burstingforth; and often endeavouring to confess, as often does she check hervoice; and she covers her blushing face with her garments, and says, ‘O,mother, happy in thy husband!’364x. 423-434.Thus muchshe says; andthen she sighs. A tremblingshoots through the chilled limbs and the bones of her nurse, for sheunderstands her; and her white hoariness stands bristling with stiffhair all over her head; and she adds many a word to drive away a passionso dreadful, ifonly she can. But the maiden is well aware thatshe is not advised to a false step; still she is resolved to die, if shedoes not enjoy him whom she loves. ‘Livethen,’ saysthenurse, ‘thou shalt enjoy thy——’ and, not daring to say‘parent,’ she is silent; andthen she confirms her promise withan oath.

“The pious matrons werenow celebrating the annual festival ofCeres,48 on which, having their bodies clothed withsnow-white robes, they offer garlands made of ears of corn, as the firstfruits of the harvest; and for nine nights365x. 434-464.they reckon embraces, and the contact of a husband, among the thingsforbidden. Cenchreïs, the king’s wife, is absent in that company, andattends the mysterious rites. Therefore, while his bed is without hislawful wife, the nurse, wickedly industrious, having found Cinyrasovercome with wine, discloses to him a real passion,but under afeigned name, and praises the beautyof the damsel. On hisenquiring the age of the maiden, she says, ‘She is of the same age asMyrrha.’ After she is commanded to bring her, and as soon as she hasreturned home, she says, ‘Rejoice, my fosterling, we have prevailed.’The unhappy maid does not feel joy throughout her entire body, and herboding breast is sad. And still she does rejoice: so great is thediscord in her mind.

“’Twas the time when all things are silent, and Boötes had turned hiswain with the pole obliquely directed among the Triones.49 Sheapproaches toperpetrate her enormity. The golden moon flies fromthe heavens; black clouds conceal the hiding stars; the night isdeprived of its fires. Thou, Icarus, dost conceal thy risingcountenance; andthou, Erigone, raised to the heavens through thyaffectionate love for thy father. Three times was she recalled by thepresage of her foot stumbling; thrice did the funereal owl give an omenby its dismal cry. Yetonward she goes, and the gloom and thedark night lessen her shame. In her left hand she holds that of hernurse, the other, by groping, explores the secret road.And nowshe 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, hercolour and her blood vanish; and her courage deserts her as she movesalong. The nearer she is tothe commission of her crime, the moreshe dreads it, and she repents of her attempt, and could wish to be ableto return unknown. The old woman leads her on by the hand as shelingers, and when she has delivered her up on her approach to the loftybed, she says, ‘Take her, Cinyras, she is thy366x. 464-496.own,’ andso unites their doomed bodies. The father receives hisown bowels into the polluted bed, and allays her virgin fears, andencourages her as she trembles. Perhaps, too, he may have called her bya namesuited to her age, and she may have called him ‘father,’that theappropriate names might not be wanting in this deed ofhorror. Pregnant by her father, she departs from the chamber, and, inher impiety, bears his seed in her incestuous womb, and carrieswithher, criminality in her conception. The ensuing night repeats theguilty deed; nor on thatnight is there an end. At last, Cinyras,after so many embraces, longing to know who is his paramour, on lightsbeing brought in, discovers both the crime and his own daughter.

“His words checked through grief, he draws his shining sword from thescabbard as it hangs. Myrrha flies, rescued from death by the gloom andthe favour of a dark night; and wandering along the wide fields, sheleaves the Arabians famed for their palms, and the Panchæan fields. Andshe wanders during nine horns of the returning moon; when, at length,being weary, she rests in the Sabæan country,50 and withdifficulty she supports the burden of her womb. Then, uncertain what towish, and between the fear of death and weariness of life, she utteredsuch a prayeras this: ‘O ye Deities, if any of you favour thosewho are penitent; I have deserved severe punishment, and I do notshrink from it. But that, neither existing, I may pollute theliving, nor dead, those who are departed, expel me from both theserealms; and transforming me, deny me both life and death.’SomeDivinityever regards the penitent; at least, the last of herprayers found its Godsto execute it. For the earth closes overher legs as she speaks, and a root shoots forth obliquely through herbursting nails,as a firm support to her tall trunk. Her bones,too, become hard wood, and her marrow continuing in the middle, herblood changes into sap, her arms into great branches, her fingers intosmaller ones; her skin grows hard with bark. And now the growing treehas run over her heavy womb, and has covered her breast, and367x. 496-518.is ready to enclose her neck. She cannot endure delay, and sinks down tomeet the approaching wood, and hides her features within the bark.Though she has lost her former senses together with herhumanshape, she still weeps on, and warm drops distil51 from the tree.There is a value even in her tears, and the myrrh distilling from thebark, retains the name of its mistress, and will be unheard-of in nofuture age.

“But the infant conceived in guilt grows beneath the wood, and seeksout a passage, by which he may extricate himself, having left hismother. Her pregnant womb swells in the middle of the tree. The burdendistends the mother, nor have her pangs words of their ownwhereby toexpress themselves; nor can Lucina be invoked by her voicewhile bringing forth. Yet she is like one strugglingto bedelivered; and the bending tree utters frequent groans, and ismoistened with falling tears. Gentle Lucina stands by the moaningboughs, and applies her hands, and utters words that promote delivery.The tree gapes open, in chinks, and through the cleft bark it dischargesthe living burden. The child cries; the Naiads, laying him on the softgrass, anoint him with the tears of his mother.

“Even Envyherself would have commended his face; for just asthe bodies of naked Cupids are painted in a picture, such was he. Butthat their dress may not make any difference, either give to him or takeaway from them, the polished quivers.” 

EXPLANATION.

Le Clerc, forming his ideas on what Lucian, Phurnutus, and other authorshave said on the subject, explains the story of Cinyras and Myrrha inthe following manner. Cynnor, or Cinyras, the grandfather of Adonis,having one day drank to excess, fell asleep in a posture which violatedthe rules of decency. Mor, or Myrrha, his daughter-in-law, the wife ofAmmon, together with her son Adonis, seeing him in that condition,acquainted her husband with her father’s lapse. On his repeating this toCinyras, the latter was so full of indignation, that he loaded Myrrhaand Adonis with imprecations.

Loaded with the execrations of her father, Myrrha retired into Arabia,where she remained some time; and because Adonis passed some portion368x. 519-525.of his youth there, the poets feigned that Myrrha was delivered of himin that country. Her transformation into a tree was only invented onaccount of the equivocal character of her name, ‘Mor,’ which meant inthe Arabic language ‘Myrrh.’ It is very probable that the story wasfounded on a tradition among the Phœnicians of the history of Noah, andof the malediction which Ham drew on himself by his undutiful conducttowards his father.

FABLEIX.

Adonis is educated by the Naiads. Hisbeauty makes a strong impression on the Goddess Venus, and, in herpassion, she traverses the same wilds in pursuit of the youth, which hismother did, when flying from the wrath of her father. After chasing thewild beasts, she invites Adonis to a poplar shade, where she warns himof his danger in hunting lions, wild boars, and such formidable animals.On this occasion, too, she relates the adventures of Hippomenes andAtalanta. The beauty of the latter was such, that her charms dailyattracted crowds of suitors. Having consulted the oracle, whether sheshall marry, she is answered that a husband will certainly prove herdestruction. On this, to avoid marrying, she makes it a rule to offer torun with her suitors, promising that she herself will be the prize ofthe victor, but only on condition that immediate death shall be the fateof those who are vanquished by her. As she excels in running, her designsucceeds, and several suitors die in the attempt to win her. Hippomenes,smitten with her charms, is not daunted at their ill success; but boldlyenters the lists, after imploring the aid of Venus. Atalanta is struckwith his beauty, and is much embarrassed, whether she shall yield to thecharms of the youth, or to the dissuasions of the oracle. Hippomenesattracts her attention in the race, by throwing down some golden appleswhich Venus has given him, and then, reaching the goal before her, hecarries off the reward of victory. Venus, to punish his subsequentingratitude towards her, raises his desires to such a pitch, that heincurs the resentment of Cybele, by defiling her shrine with theembraces 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 isnothing more fleeting than years. He, born of his own sister and of hisgrandfather, who, so lately enclosed in a tree, was so lately born, andbut just now a most beauteous infant, is now a youth, now a man,and now more beauteous than hewas before.And nowhe pleases even Venus,52 and revenges the flames of his mother,kindled by her. For, while the boy that wears the quiver isgiving kisses to his mother, he369x. 526-556.unconsciously grazes her breast with a protruding arrow. The Goddess,wounded, pushed away her son with her hand. The wound was inflicted moredeeply than it seemed to be, and at first had deceivedevenherself. Charmed with the beauty of the youth, she does not now care forthe Cytherian shores, nor does she revisit Paphos, surrounded with thedeep sea, and Cnidos,53 abounding in fish, or Amathus, rich inmetals.

“She abandons even the skies; him sheever attends; and shewho has been always accustomed to indulge in the shade, and to improveher 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 herrobes 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 thestag with its lofty horns, or the hinds; she keeps afar from the fierceboars, 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 advisingthee. And she says, “Be brave against thoseanimals that fly;boldness is not safe against those that are bold. Forbear, youth, to berash at my hazard, and attack not the wild beasts to which nature hasgranted arms, lest thythirst for glory should cost me dear.Neither thy age, nor thy beauty, norother things which have madean impression on Venus, make any impression on lions and bristly boars,and the eyes and the tempers of wild beasts. The fierce boars carrylightning54 in their curving tusks; there is rage and furyunlimited in the tawny lions; and thewhole race is odiousto 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 longsince committed. Butthis toil to which I am unaccustomed has nowfatigued 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 with370x. 556-592.thee;’ andforthwith she rests herself on the ground, and pressesat once the grass and himself. And with her neck reclining on the bosomof the youth, smiling, she thus says, and she mingles kisses in themidst of her words:—

“Perhaps thou mayst have heard how a certain damsel excelled theswiftest men in the contest of speed. That report was no idle tale; forshe did excel them. Nor couldst thou have said, whether she was moredistinguished in the merit of her swiftness, or in the excellence of herbeauty. Upon her consulting the oracle about a husband, the God said toher, ‘Thou hast no need, Atalanta, of a husband; avoid obtaining ahusband. And yet thou wilt not avoid it, and, whilestill living,thou wilt lose thyself.’ Alarmed with the response of the God, she livesa single life in the shady woods, and determinedly repulses the pressingmultitude of her suitors with these conditions. ‘I am not,’ says she,‘to be gained, unless first surpassed in speed. Engage with me inrunning. Both a wife and a wedding shall be given as the reward of theswift; deathshall be the recompense of the slow. Let that be thecondition of the contest.’ She, indeed, was cruelin thisproposal; but (so great is the power of beauty) a rashmultitude of suitors agreed to these terms. Hippomenes had sat, as aspectator, of this unreasonable race, and said, ‘Is a wife sought by anyone, amid dangers so great?’ Andthus he condemned the excessiveardour of the youths.But when he beheld her face, and her bodywith 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, andraising his hands, he said, ‘Pardon me, ye whom I was just nowcensuring; the reward which you contended for was not yet known tome.’

“In commending her, he kindles the flame, and wishes that none of theyoung men may run more swiftly than she, and, in his envy, isapprehensive of it. ‘But why,’ says he, ‘is my chance in this contestleft untried? The Divinity himself assists the daring.’ While Hippomenesis pondering such things within himself, the virgin flies with wingedpace. Although she appears to the Aonian youth to go no less swiftlythan the Scythian arrow, he admires her still more in her beauty, andthe very speed makes her beauteous. The breeze that meets her bears backher pinions on her swift feet, and371x. 592-606.her hair is thrown over her ivory shoulders and the leggings which arebelow her knees with their variegated border, and upon her virginwhiteness her body has contracted a blush; no otherwise than as whenpurple hangings55 over a whitened hall tint it with a shade of asimilar colour. While the stranger is observing these things, the lastcourse is run,56 and the victorious Atalanta is adorned with afestive crown. The vanquished utter sighs, and pay the penalty,according to the stipulation. Still, not awed by the end of these youngmen, he stands up in the midst; and fixing his eyes on the maiden, hesays, ‘Why dost thou seek an easy victory by conquering the inactive?Contendnow with me. If fortune shall render me victorious, thouwilt not take it ill to be conquered by one so illustrious. For myfather was Megareus, Onchestius his;57 Neptune was his grandsire;I am372x. 606-636.the great grandson of the king of the waves. Nor is my merit inferior tomy extraction. Or if I shall be conquered, in the conquest of Hippomenesthou wilt have a great and honourable name.’

“As he utters such words as these, the daughter of Schœneus regardshim with a benign countenance, and is in doubt whether she shall wish tobe overcome or to conquer; and thus she says: ‘What Deity, a foe tothe beauteous, wishes to undo thisyouth? and commands him, atthe risk of a lifeso dear, to seek this alliance? In my ownopinion, I am not of so great value. Noryet am I moved byhis beauty. Still, by this, too, I could be moved. But,’tisbecause he is still a boy; ’tis not himself that affects me, but hisage. And is it not, too, because he has courage and a mind undismayed bydeath? And is it not, besides, because he is reckoned fourth in descentfrom themonarch of the sea? And is it not, because he loves me,and thinks a marriage with me of so much worth as to perishforit, if cruel fortune should deny me to him? Stranger, whilestill thou mayst, begone, and abandon an alliance stained withblood. A match with me is cruelly hazardous. No woman will beunwilling to be married to thee; and thou mayst be desiredevenby a prudent maid. But why have I any concern for thee, when so manyhave already perished? Let him look to it;and let him die, sincehe is not warned by the fate of so many of my wooers, and is impelledonwards to weariness of life.

“‘Shall he then die because he was desirous with me to live? Andshall he suffer an undeserved death, the reward of his love? My victorywill not be able to support the odiumof the deed. But it is nofault of mine. I wish thou wouldst desist! or since thou artthus mad, would that thou wast more fleetthan I! But whata feminine look58 there is in his youthful face! Ah, wretchedHippomenes, I would that I had not been seen by thee! Thou wastworthy to have lived! And if I had been more fortunate; and if thevexatious Divinities had not denied methe blessings of marriage,thou wast one with whom I could have shared my bed.’ Thus she said; andas one inexperienced, and smitten by Cupid for the first373x. 636-669.time, not knowing what she is doing, she is in love, andyet doesnot know that she is in love.

“And now, both the people and her father, demanded the usualrace, when Hippomenes, the descendant of Neptune, invoked me withanxious voice; ‘I entreat that Cytherea may favour my undertaking, andaid the passion that she has inspiredin me.’ The breeze, notenvious, wafted to me this tender prayer; I was moved,I confess it; nor was any long delay made ingiving aid.There is a field, the natives call it by name the Tamasenianfield,59 the choicest spot in the Cyprian land; this theelders of former days consecrated to me, and ordered to be added as anendowment 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 whatwas to be theuse of them. The trumpets havenow given the signal, when eachof them darts precipitately from the starting place, and skimsthe surface of the sand with nimble feet. You might have thought themable to pace the sea with dry feet, and to run along the ears of whitestanding cornwhile erect. The shouts and the applause of thepopulace give courage to the youth, and the words of those who exclaim,‘Now, now, Hippomenes, is the moment to speed onward! make haste. Nowuse all thy strength! Away with delay! thou shalt be conqueror.’ It isdoubtful whether the Megarean hero, or the virgin daughter of Schœneusrejoiced the most at these sayings. O how often when she could havepassed by him, did she slacken her speed, andthen unwillinglyleft behind the features that long she had gazed upon.

“A parched panting is coming from his faint mouth, and the goal isstill a great way off. Then, at length, the descendant of Neptunethrows one of the three products of the tree. The virgin is amazed, andfrom a desire for the shining fruit, she turns from her course, andpicks up the rolling gold. Hippomenes passes her. The theatres ring60 with applause. She374x. 669-701.makes amends for her delay, and the time that she has lost, with a swiftpace, and again she leaves the youth behind. And, retarded by thethrowing of a second apple, again she overtakes theyoung man,and passes by him. The last part of the racenow remained.‘And now,’ said he, ‘O Goddess, giver of this present, aid me;’andthen with youthful might, he threw the shining gold, in anoblique direction, on one side of the plain, in order that she mightreturn the more slowly. The maiden seemed to be in doubt, whether sheshould fetch it; I forced her to take it up, and added weight tothe apple, when she had taken it up, and I impeded her, both by theheaviness of the burden, and the delay in reaching it. And that mynarrative 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 meneither thanks nor frankincense. I was thrown into a suddenpassion; and provoked at being slighted, I provided bymaking 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 formerlybuilt for the Mother of the Gods, according to his vow; and the lengthof their journey moved them to take restthere. There, anunseasonable desire of caressinghis wife seized Hippomenes,excited by my agency. Near the temple was a recess, withbutlittle light, like a cave, covered with native pumice stone,onesacred from ancient religious observance; where the priest had conveyedmany a wooden image of the ancient Gods. This he entered, and he defiledthe sanctuary by a forbidden crime. The sacred images turned away theireyes, and the Motherof the Gods, crowned with turrets,61 wasin doubt whether she should plunge these guilty ones in the Stygianstream. That seemedtoo light a punishment. Wherefore yellowmanes cover their necks so lately smooth; their fingers are bent intoclaws, of their shoulders are made fore-legs;62 their whole weightpasses375x. 701-707.into their breasts. The surface of the sand is swept by their tails.63 Their look has angerin it; instead of wordsthey utter growls; instead of chambers they haunt the woods; anddreadful to others,as lions, they champ the bits of Cybele withsubdued jaws. Do thou, beloved by me, avoid these, and together withthese, 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 usboth.”

EXPLANATION.

The Atalanta who is mentioned in this story was the daughter ofSchœneus, and the granddaughter of Athamas, whose misfortunes obligedhim to retire into Bœotia, where he built a little town, which wascalled after his name, as we learn from Pausanias and Eustathius. Ovidomits to say that it was one of the conditions of the agreement, thatthe 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 Hippomenescontrived by means of bribes to find the way to the favour of hismistress.

Apollodorus, however, relates the story in a different manner; he saysthat 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 wasdiscovered by some hunters. As the damsel grew up, she made hunting herfavourite pursuit, and slew two Centaurs, who offered her violence, withher arrows. On her parents pressing her to marry, she consented to bethe wife of that man only who could outrun her, on condition that thosewho were conquered by her in the race should be put to death. Several ofher 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 thetemple of Jupiter, they were transformed, Melanion into a lion, andAtalanta into a lioness. According to Apollodorus, her father’s name wasIasius, though in his first book he says she was the daughter ofSchœneus. He also says that she was the same person that was present atthe hunt of the Calydonian boar, though other writers represent them tohave been different personages. Euripides makes Mænalus to have been thename of her father.

Atalanta had by Melanion, or, as some authors say, by Mars, a sonnamed Parthenopæus, who was present at the Theban war. Ælian gives along account of her history, which does not very much differ from thenarrative of Apollodorus.

FABLE X.

Adonis being too ardent in the pursuitof a wild boar, the beast kills him, on which Venus changes his bloodinto 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 toher advice. By chance, his dogs having followed its sure track, roused aboar, and the son of Cinyras pierced him, endeavouring to escape fromthe wood, with a wound from the side. Immediately the fierce boar, withhis crooked snout, struck out the hunting-spear, stained with his blood,andthen pursued him, trembling and seeking a safe retreat, andlodged his entire tusks in his groin, and stretched him expiring on theyellow sand.

“Cytherea, borne in her light chariot64 through the middleof 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 whitebirds in that direction. And when, from the lofty sky, she beheld himhalf 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 withher distracted hands. And complaining of the Fates, she says, ‘But,however, all things shall not be in your power; the memorials of mysorrow, Adonis, shall ever remain; and the representation of thy death,repeated yearly, shall exhibit an imitation of my mourning. But thyblood shall be changed into a flower. Was it formerly allowed thee,Persephone, to change the limbs65 of a female into fragrant mint;and shall the hero, the son of Cinyras,if changed, be a cause ofdispleasure against me?’ Having thus said, she sprinkles his blood withodoriferous nectar, which, touched by it, effervesces, just as thetransparent bubbles are wont to rise in rainy weather. Nor was there apause longer than a full hour, when a flower sprang up from the blood,of the same colourwith it, such as377x. 736-739.the pomegranates are wont to bear, which conceal their seeds beneaththeir tough rind. Yet the enjoyment of it is but short-lived; for thesame winds66 which give it a name, beat it down, as it has but aslender hold, and is apt to fall by reason of its extremeslenderness.”

EXPLANATION.

Theocritus, Bion, Hyginus, and Antoninus Liberalis, beside several otherauthors, relate the history of the loves of Venus and Adonis. Theyinform 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 boarthat destroyed the youth. According to some writers, it was Apollohimself that took the form of that animal; and they say that Adonisdescending to the Infernal Regions, Proserpine fell in love with him,and refused to allow him to return, notwithstanding the orders ofJupiter. On this, the king of heaven fearing to displease both theGoddesses, referred the dispute to the Muse Calliope, who directed thatAdonis should pass one half of his time with Venus on earth, and theother half in the Infernal Regions. They also tell us that it took up ayear before the dispute could be determined, and that the Hours broughtAdonis at last to the upper world, on which, Venus being dissatisfiedwith the decision of Calliope, instigated the women of Thrace to killher son Orpheus.

The mythologists have considered this story to be based on groundseither historical or physical. Cicero, in his Discourse on the Nature ofthe Gods, says, that there were several persons who had the name ofVenus, and that the fourth, surnamed Astarte, was a Syrian, who marriedAdonis, the son of Cinyras, king of Cyprus. Hunting in the forests ofMount Libanus, or Lebanon, he was wounded in the groin by a wild boar,which accident ultimately caused his death. Astarte caused the city ofByblos and all Syria to mourn for his loss; and, to keep his name andhis sad fate in remembrance, established feasts in his honour, to becelebrated each year. Going still further, if we suppose the story tohave originated in historical facts, it seems not improbable that Adonisdid not die of his wound, and that, contrary to all expectation, he wascured; as the Syrians, after having mourned for several days during hisfestival, rejoiced as though he had been raised from the dead, at asecond festival called ‘The Return.’ The worship both of Venus andAdonis probably originated in Syria, and was spread through Asia Minorinto Greece; while the Carthaginians, a Phœnician colony introducedit into Sicily. The festival of Adonis is most amusingly described byTheocritus the Sicilian poet, in his ‘Adoniazusæ.’ Some authors havesuggested that Adonis was the same with the Egyptian God Osiris, andthat the affliction378of Venus represented that of Isis at the death of her husband. Accordingto Hesiod, Adonis was the son of Phœnix and Alphesibœa, while Panyasissays that he was son of Theias, the king of the Assyrians.

In support of the view which some commentators take of the story ofAdonis having been founded on physical circumstance, we cannot do betterthan quote the able remarks of Mr. Keightley on the subject. He says(Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, p. 109)— “The tale ofAdonis is apparently an Eastern mythus. His very name is Semitic (Hebrew‘Adon,’ ‘Lord’), and those of his parents also refer to that part of theworld. He appears to be the same with the Thammuz, mentioned by theprophet 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 firstcelebrated in Greece; but we find Plato alluding to the gardens ofAdonis, as boxes of flowers used in them were called; and the illfortune of the Athenian expedition to Sicily was in part ascribed to thecircumstance of the fleet having sailed during that festival.”

Thisnotion of the mourning for Adonis being a testimony of grief for theabsence of the Sun during the winter, is not, however, to be too readilyacquiesced in. Lobeck (Aglaophamus, p. 691), for example, asks,with some appearance of reason, why those nations whose heaven wasmildest, and their winter shortest, should so bitterly bewail theregular changes of the seasons, as to feign that the Gods themselveswere carried off or slain; and he shrewdly observes, that, in that case,the mournful and the joyful parts of the festival should have been heldat different times of the year, and not joined together, as they were.He further inquires, whether the ancient writers, who esteemed theseGods to be so little superior to men, may not have believed them to havebeen really and not metaphorically put to death? And, in truth, it isnot easy to give a satisfactory answer to these questions.

BOOK THE ELEVENTH.

FABLE I.

While Orpheus is singing to his lyre onMount Rhodope, the women of Thrace celebrate their orgies. During thatceremony they take advantage of the opportunity to punish Orpheus forhis indifference towards their sex; and, in the fury inspired by theirrites, they beat him to death. His head and lyre are carried by thestream of the river Hebrus into the sea, and are cast on shore on theisle of Lesbos. A serpent, about to attack the head when thrown onshore, is changed into a stone, and the Bacchanals who have killed himare transformed into trees.

While with songs such as these, the Thracian poet is leading thewoods and the natures of savage beasts, and the following rocks, lo! thematrons of the Ciconians, having their raving breasts covered with theskins of wild beasts, from the summit of a hill, espy Orpheus adaptinghis voice to the sounded stringsof his harp. One of these,tossing her hair along the light breeze, says, “See! see! here is ourcontemner!” and hurls her spear at the melodious mouth of the bard ofApollo:but, being wreathed at the end with leaves, it makes amark without any wound. The weapon of another is a stone, which, whenthrown, is overpowered in the very air by the harmony of his voice andhis lyre, and lies before his feet, a suppliant, as it were, for anattempt so daring.

But still this rash warfare increases, andall moderationdeparts, and direful fury reignstriumphant. Andyet alltheir weapons would have been conquered by his music; but the vastclamour, and the Berecynthian pipe1 with the blown horns, and thetambourines, and the clapping of hands, and Bacchanalian yells,prevented the sound of the lyre from being heard.380xi. 13-28.Then, at last, the stones became red with the blood of the bard,now no longer heard. But first the Mænades lay hands oninnumerable birds, even yet charmed with his voice as he sang, andserpents, and a throng of wild beasts, the glory ofthis audienceof Orpheus; and after that, they turn upon Orpheus with blood-stainedright hands; and they flock together, as the birds, if at any time theysee the bird of night strolling about by day;and as when thestag that is doomed to die2 in the morning sand in the raisedamphitheatre is a prey to the dogs; they both attack the bard, and hurlthe thyrsi, covered with381xi. 28-60.green leaves, not made for such purposes as these. Some throw clods,some branches torn from trees, others flint stones. And that weapons maynot be wanting for their fury, by chance some oxen are turning up theearth with the depressed ploughshare; and not far from thence, somestrong-armed peasants, providing the harvest with plenteous sweat, aredigging the hard fields; they, seeing thisfrantic troop, runaway, and leave the implements of their labour; and there lie, dispersedthroughout the deserted fields, harrows and heavy rakes, and longspades.

After they, in their rage, have seized upon these, and havetorn to pieces the oxen with their threatening horns, they return to thedestruction of the bard; and they impiously murder him, extending hishands, and then for the first time uttering words in vain, and making noeffect on them with his voice. And (Oh Jupiter!) through those lipslistened to by rocks, and understood by the senses of wild beasts, hislife breathed forth, departs into the breezes.3 The mournful birds,the crowd of wild beasts, the hard stones, the woods that oft hadfollowed thy song bewailed thee. Trees,too, shedding theirfoliage, mourned thee, losing their leaves. They say, too, that riversswelled with their own tears; and the Naiads and Dryads had mourninggarments of dark colour, and dishevelled hair. The limbs lie scattered4in various places. Thou, Hebrus, dost receive the head and the lyre; and(wondrousto relate!) while it rolls down the midst of thestream, the lyre complains in I know not what kind of mournful strain.His lifeless tongue,too, utters a mournful sound,towhich the banks mournfully reply. And now, borne onward to the sea,they leave their native stream, and reach the shores of MethymnæanLesbos.5 Here an infuriated serpent attacks the head thrown upon the foreign sands, and the hair besprinkled with the oozing blood. Atlast Phœbus comes to its aid, and drives it away as it tries to inflictits sting, and hardens the open jaws of the serpent382xi. 60-84.into stone, and makes solid its gaping mouth just as it is. His ghostdescends under the earth, and he recognizes all the spots which he hasformerly seen; and seeking Eurydice through the fields of the blessed,he finds her, and enfolds her in his eager arms. Here, one while, theywalk together side by side,6 and at another time he follows her asshe goes before, andagain at another time, walking in front,precedes her; and now, in safety, Orpheus looks back upon his ownEurydice.

Yet Lyæus did not suffer this wickedness to go unpunished; andgrieving for the loss of the bard of his sacred rites, he immediatelyfastened down in the woods, by a twisting root, all the Edonian matronswho had committed this crime. For he drew out the toes of her feet, justas each one had pursued him, and thrust them by their sharp points intothe 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 heldfast, it beats its wings, and, fluttering, tightens the noose with itsstruggles; 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 herfast, and confined her, springing forward7to escape. Andwhile she is looking where her toes are, where,too, are her feetand her nails, she sees wood growing up upon her well-turned legs.Endeavouring, too, to smite her thigh, with grieving right hand, shestrikes solid oak; her breast, too, becomes oak; her shoulders are oak.You would suppose that her extended arms are real boughs, and you wouldnot be deceived inso supposing.

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 thehistory of a certain inhabitant of the isle of Lesbos, who was punishedfor attacking the reputation of Orpheus. This critic excited contempt,as a malignant and ignorant person, who endeavoured, as it were, tosting the character of the deceased poet, and therefore, by way ofexposing his spite and stupidity, he was said to have been changed froma serpent into a stone. According to Philostratus, the poet’s head waspreserved in the temple of Apollo at Lesbos; and he tells us thatDiomedes, and383xi. 85-94.Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, brought Philoctetes to Troy, afterhaving explained to him the oracular response which the head of Orpheushad given to him from the bottom of a cave at Lesbos.

The harp of Orpheus was preserved in the same temple; and so manywonders were reported of it, that Neanthus, the son of the tyrantPytharus, purchased it of the priests of Apollo, believing that itssound 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 topieces.

The transformation of the women of Thrace into trees, for the murder ofOrpheus, is probably an allegory intended to show that these furious andill-conditioned females did not escape punishment for their misdeeds;and that they were driven by society to pass the rest of their lives inwoods and caverns.

FABLE II.

Bacchus, having punished the Thracianwomen for the murder of Orpheus, leaves Thrace. His tutor, Silenus,having become intoxicated, loses his companions, and is brought by somePhrygian peasants to Midas. He sends him to Bacchus, on which the God,in acknowledgment of his kindness, promises him whatever favour he maydesire. Midas asks to be able to turn everything that he touches intogold. This power is granted; but, soon convinced of his folly, Midasbegs the God to deprive him of it, on which he is ordered to bathe inthe river Pactolus. He obeys the God, and communicates the power whichhe possesses to the stream; from which time that river has goldensands.

And this is not enough for Bacchus. He resolves to forsake thecountry itself, and, with a superior train, he repairs to the vineyardsof his own Tymolus, and Pactolus; although it was not golden at thattime, 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 totheir king, Midas, towhom, together with the Cecropian Eumolpus,8 the Thracian Orpheushad intrusted themysterious orgiesof Bacchus. Soon as herecognized this associate384xi. 94-130.and companion of these rites, he hospitably kept a festival on thecoming of this guest, for twice five days, andas many nightsjoined 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 Silenusto the youth, his foster-child. To him the God, being glad at therecovery 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 whateverI shall touch with my body shall be turned into yellow gold.’ Liberassents to his wish, and grants him the hurtful favour, and is grievedthat he has not asked for something better. The Berecynthian hero9departs joyful, and rejoices in his own misfortune, and tries the truthof his promise by touching everything. And, hardly believing himself, hepulls down a twig from a holm-oak, growing on a bough not lofty; thetwig 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 theclod becomes a massof gold. He plucks some dry ears of corn,that wheat is golden. He holds an apple taken from a tree, you wouldsuppose that the Hesperides had given it. If he places his fingers uponthe lofty door-posts,then the posts are seen to glisten. When,too, he has washed his hands in the liquid stream, the water flowingfrom his hands might have deceived Danaë. He scarcely can contain hisown hopes in his mind, imagining everything to be of gold. As he isthus rejoicing, his servants set before him a table supplied withdainties, and not deficient in parched corn. But then, whether hetouches the gifts of Ceres with his right hand, the gifts of Ceres,as gold, become hard; or if he attempts to bite the dainties withhungry teeth, those dainties, upon the application of his teeth, shineas yellow plates of gold.Bacchus, the grantor of this favour, hemingles with pure water; you could see liquid gold flowing through hisjaws.

“Astonished at the novelty of his misfortune, being both rich andwretched, he wishes to escape from his wealth, andnow he hateswhat but so lately he has wished for; no plenty relieves his hunger, drythirst parches his throat, and he is deservedly tormented385xi. 130-145.by thenow hated gold; and raising his hands towards heaven, andhis shining arms, he says, “Grant me pardon, father Lenæus; I havedone wrong, but have pity on me, I pray, and deliver me from thisspecious calamity!” Bacchus, the gentle Divinity among the Gods,restored him, as he confessed that he had done wrong,to his formerstate, and annulled his given promise, and the favour that wasgranted: “And that thou mayst not remain overlaid with thy gold, sounhappily desired, go,” said he, “to the river adjoining to greatSardis,10 and trace thy way, meeting the waters as they fallfrom the height of the mountain, until thou comest to the rise of thestream. And plunge thy head beneath the bubbling spring, where it burstsforth most abundantly, and at once purge thy body, at once thy crime.”The king placed himself beneath the waters prescribed; the golden virtuetinged the river, and departed from the human body into the stream. Andeven now, the fields, receiving the ore of this ancient veinofgold, are hard, growing of pallid colour, from their clods imbibingthe gold.

EXPLANATION.

The ancients divided the Divinities into several classes, and in thelast class, which Ovid calls the populace, or commonalty of the Gods,were the Satyrs and Sileni. The latter, according to Pausanias, were noother than Satyrs of advanced age. There seems, however, to have beenone among them, to whom the name of Silenus was especially given, and tohim the present story relates. According to Pindar and Pausanias he wasborn at Malea, in Laconia; while Theopompus, quoted by Ælian, representshim as being the son of a Nymph. He was inferior to the higherDivinities, but superior to man, in not being subject to mortality. Hewas represented as bald, flat-nosed, and red-faced, a perfectspecimen of a drunken old man. He is often introduced either sitting onan ass, or reeling along on foot, with a thyrsus to support him.

He was said to have tended the education of the infant Bacchus, andindeed, according to the author whose works are quoted as those ofOrpheus, he was an especial favourite of the Gods; while some writersrepresent him not as a drunken old man, but as a learned philosopher anda skilful commander. Lucian combines the two characters, and describeshim as an aged man with large straight ears and a huge belly, wearingyellow clothes, and generally mounted on an ass, or supported by astaff, but, nevertheless, as being a skilful general. Hyginus says, thatthe Phrygian peasants found Midas near a fountain, into which,386according to Xenophon, some one had put wine, which had made him drunk.In his interview with Midas, according to Theopompus, as quoted byÆlian, they had a conversation concerning that unknown region of theearth, to which Plato refers under the name of the New Atlantis, andwhich, after long employing the speculations of the ancientphilosophers, 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 theocean; but beyond that ocean there is a vast continent, whose bounds areentirely unknown to us. The men and the animals of that country are muchlarger, and live much longer than those of this part of the world. Theirtowns are fine and magnificent; their customs are different from ours;and they are governed by different laws. They have two cities, one ofwhich is called ‘the Warlike,’ and the other ‘the Devout.’ Theinhabitants of the first city are much given to warfare, and makecontinual attacks upon their neighbours, whom they bring under theirsubjection. Those who inhabit the other city are peaceable, and blessedwith plenty; the earth without toil or tillage furnishing them withabundance of the necessaries of life. Except their sick, they all livein the midst of riches and continual festivity and pleasure; but theyare so just and righteous that the Gods themselves delight to gofrequently and pass their time among them.

“The warlike people of the first city having extended their conquestsin their own vast continent, made an irruption into ours, with a millionof men, as far as the country of the Hyperboreans; but when they sawtheir mode of living, they deemed them to be unworthy of their notice,and returned home. These warriors rarely die of sickness; they delightin warfare, and generally lose their lives in battle. There is also inthis new world another numerous people called Meropes; and in theircountry is a place called ‘Anostus,’ that is to say, ‘not to berepassed,’ because no one ever comes back from thence. It is a dreadfulabyss, having no other than a reddish sort of light. There are tworivers in that place; one called the River of Sorrow, and the other theRiver of Mirth. Trees as large as planes grow about these rivers. Thosewho eat of the fruit of the trees growing near the River of Sorrow, passtheir lives in affliction, weeping continually, even to their lastbreath; but such as eat of the fruit of the other trees, forget thepast, and revert through the different stages of their life, and thendie.”

Ælian regards the passage as a mere fable, and the latter part isclearly allegorical. The mention of the two cities, ‘the Warlike’ and‘the Devout,’ can hardly fail to remind us of Japan, with its spiritualand temporal capitals.

Some writers say, that Silenus was the king of Caria, and was thecontemporary and friend of Midas, to whom his counsel proved ofconsiderable service, in governing his dominions. He was probably calledthe foster-father or tutor, of Bacchus, because he introduced hisworship into Phrygia and the neighbouring countries.

FABLE III.

Pan is so elated with the praises ofsome Nymphs who hear the music of his pipe, that he presumes tochallenge Apollo to play with him. The mountain God, Tmolus, who ischosen umpire of the contest, decides in favour of Apollo, and the wholecompany approve of his judgment except Midas, who, for his stupidity inpreferring Pan, receives a pair of asses’ ears. He carefully concealsthem till they are discovered by his barber, who publishes his deformityin a very singular manner.

He, abhorring riches, inhabited the woods and the fields, andfollowed Pan, who always dwells in caves of the mountains; buthis obtuse understanding11 still remained, and the impulse ofhis foolish mind was fated again, as before, to be an injury to itsowner. For the lofty Tmolus, looking far and wide over the sea, standserect, steep with its lofty ascent; and extending in its descent oneither side, is bounded on the one side by Sardis, on the other by thelittle 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 todespise the playing of Apollo in comparison with his own, he comes tothe unequal contest under the arbitration of Tmolus.12 The agedumpire seats himself upon his own mountain, and frees his ears of theincumbering trees. His azure-coloured hair is only covered withoak, and acorns hang around his hollow temples. And looking at the Godof the flocks, he says, “there is no delay inme, 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 Tmolusturns his face towards the countenance of Apollo; his words followthe direction of his face. He, having his yellow head wreathedwith Parnassian laurel, sweeps the ground with his robe, soaked inTyrian purple,13 and supports with his left hand his lyre, adornedwith gems and Indian ivory; the other hand holds the plectrum. The veryposture388xi. 169-193.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 insubmission to the lyre; and the judgment and decision of the sacredmountain pleases them all. Yet it is blamed, and is called unjust by thevoice of Midas alone. But the DelianGod does not allow hisstupid ears to retain their human shape: but draws them out to agreat length, and he fills them with grey hairs, and makes themunsteady at the lower part, and gives them the power of moving. The restof his body is that of a man; in one part alone is he condemnedto punishment; and he assumes the ears of the slowly movingass.

He, indeed, concealed them, and endeavoured to veil his temples,laden with this foul disgrace, with a purple turban. But a servant, whowas wont to cut his hair, when long, with the steelscissars, 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 kindof ears he had beheld on his master, and whispered it to the earth castup. Andthen he buried this discovery of his voice with the earththrown in again, and, having covered up the ditch, departed insilence.

There, a grove, thick set with quivering reeds, began to rise; and assoon as it came to maturity, after a complete year, it betrayed itsplanter. For, moved by the gentle South wind, it repeated the wordsthere buried, and disclosed the ears of his master.

EXPLANATION.

Midas, according to Pausanias, was the son of Gordius and Cybele, andreigned in the Greater Phrygia. Strabo says that he and his father kepttheir court near the river Sangar, in cities which, in the time of thatauthor had become mean villages. As Midas was very rich, and at the sametime very frugal, it was reported that whatever he touched was at onceturned into gold; and Bacchus was probably introduced into his story,because Midas had favoured the introduction of his worship, and wasconsequently supposed to have owed his success to the good offices ofthat Divinity. He was probably the first who extracted gold from thesands of the river Pactolus, and in that circumstance the story may haveoriginated. Strabo says that Midas found the treasures which hepossessed in the mines of Mount Bermius. It was said that in his infancysome ants were seen to creep into his cradle, and to put grains of wheatin his mouth, which was supposed to portend that he would be rich andfrugal.

As he was very stupid and ignorant, the fable of his preference of themusic 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 ofasses’ ears. The scholiast of Aristophanes, to explain the story, sayseither it was intended to shew that Midas, like the ass, was very quickof hearing, or in other words, had numerous spies in all parts of hisdominions; or, it was invented, because his usual place of residence wascalled Onouta,ὄνου ὦτα,‘the ears of an ass.’ Strabo says that he took a draught of warmbullock’s blood, from the effects of which he died; and, according toPlutarch, he did so to deliver himself from the frightful dreams withwhich he was tormented.

Tmolus, the king of Lydia, according to Clitophon, was the son of Marsand the Nymph Theogene, or, according to Eustathius, of Sipylus andEptonia. Having violated Arriphe, a Nymph of Diana, he was, as apunishment, tossed by a bull, and falling on some sharp pointed stakes,he lost his life, and was buried on the mountain that afterwards borehis name.

FABLE IV.

Apollo and Neptune build the walls ofTroy for king Laomedon, who refuses to give the Gods the reward which hehas promised: on which Neptune punishes his perjury by an inundation ofhis country. Laomedon is then obliged to expose his daughter to a seamonster, in order to appease the God. Hercules delivers her; andLaomedon 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, havingthus revenged himself, departs fromTmolus, and, borne through the liquid air, rests on the plains ofLaomedon, on this side of the narrow sea of Helle, the daughter ofNephele. On the right hand of Sigæum and on the left of the loftyRhœtæum,14 there is an ancient altar dedicated to thePanomphæan15 Thunderer. Thence, he sees Laomedonnow firstbuilding the walls of rising Troy, and that this great undertaking isgrowing up with difficult labour, and requires no small resources. Andthen, with the trident-bearing father of the raging deep, heassumes a mortal form, and for the Phrygian king they build the walls,16 a sum of gold being agreed on for thedefences.

The work isnow finished; the king refuses the reward, and, asa completion of his perfidy, adds perjury to his false words. “Thoushalt not escape unpunished,” says the king of the sea; and he drivesall 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 thehusbandmen, and overwhelms the fields with waves. Nor is this punishmentsufficient: the daughter of the king, is also demanded for a seamonster. Chained to the rugged rocks, Alcides delivers her, and demandsthe promised reward, the horses agreed upon; and the recompense of sogreat a service being denied him, he captures the twice-perjured wallsof conquered Troy. Nor does Telamon, a sharer in the warfare, comeoff without honour; and he obtains Hesione, who is given to him.

But Peleus was distinguished by a Goddess for his wife; nor was hemore proud of the name of his grandfather than that of hisfather-in-law.17 Since, not to his lot alone did it fall to be thegrandson of Jove; to him alone, was a Goddess given for a wife.

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 thework was attributed to Apollo. The strong banks which he was obliged toraise to keep out the sea and to prevent inundations, were regarded asthe 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 onLaomedon, for refusing him the reward which had been agreed upon betweenthem. This story received the more ready credit from the circumstancementioned by Herodotus and Eustathius, that this king used the treasurebelonging to the temple of Neptune, in raising these embankments, andbuilding the walls of his city; having promised the priests to restoreit when he should be in a condition to do so; which promise he neverperformed. Homer says that Neptune and Apollo tended the flocks whileall the subjects of Laomedon were engaged in building the walls.

When these embankments were laid under water, and a plague began to ragewithin the city, the Trojans were told by an oracle that to appease theGod of the sea, they must sacrifice a virgin of the royal blood. The lotfell upon Hesione, and she was exposed to the fury of a sea-monster.Hercules offered to deliver her for a reward of six horses,391xi. 211-228.and having succeeded, was refused his recompense by Laomedon; whom heslew, and then plundered his city. He then gave the kingdom to Podarces,the son of Laomedon, and Hesione to his companion Telamon, who hadassisted him. This monster was probably an allegorical representation ofthe inundations of the sea; and Hesione having been made the price ofhim that could succeed in devising a remedy, she was said to have beenexposed to the fury of a monster. The six horses promised by Laomedonwere perhaps so many ships, which Hercules demanded for his recompense;and this is the more likely, as the ancients said that these horses wereso light and swift, that they ran upon the waves, which story seems topoint at the qualities of a galley or ship under sail.

Lycophron gives a more wonderful version of the story. He says that themonster, to which Hesione was exposed, devoured Hercules, and that hewas three days in its belly, and came out, having lost all his hair.This is, probably, a way of telling us that Hercules and hisassistants were obliged to work in the water, which incommoded them verymuch. Palæphatus gives another explanation: he says that Hesione wasabout to be delivered up to a pirate, and that Hercules, on boarding hisship, was wounded, although afterwards victorious.

FABLES V. ANDVI.

Proteus foretells that Thetis shallhave a son, who shall be more powerful than his father, and shall exceedhim in valour. Jupiter, who is in love with Thetis, is alarmed at thisprediction, and yields her to Peleus. The Goddess flies from hisadvances by assuming various shapes, till, by the advice of Proteus, heholds her fast, and then having married her, she bears Achilles. Peleusgoes afterwards to Ceyx, king of Trachyn, to expiate the death of hisbrother Phocus, whom he has killed. Ceyx is in a profound melancholy,and tells him how his brother Dædalion, in the transports of his grieffor his daughter Chione, who had been slain for vying with Diana, hasbeen transformed into a hawk. During this relation, Peleus is informedthat a wolf which Psamathe has sent to revenge the death of Phocus, isdestroying 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 gallantactions shall surpass the deeds of his father, and shall be calledgreater than he.” Therefore, lest the world might contain somethinggreater than Jove, although he had felt no gentle flame in his breast,Jupiter avoided the embraces of Thetis,18the Goddessof the sea, and commanded his grandson,392xi. 228-258.the son of Æacus,19 to succeed to his own pretensions, and rush intothe embraces of the ocean maid. There is a bay of Hæmonia, curved into abending arch; its arms project out; there, were the waterbutdeeper, there would be a harbour,but the sea isjustcovering the surface of the sand. It has a firm shore, which retains notthe impression of the foot, nor delays the stepof 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 thyharnessed dolphin. There Peleus seized upon thee, as thou wast lyingfast bound in sleep; and because, being tried by entreaties, thou didstresist, he resolved upon violence, clasping thy neck with both his arms.And, unless thou hadst had recourse to thy wonted arts, by frequentlychanging thy shape, he would have succeeded in his attempt. But, at onemoment, thou wast a bird (still, as a bird he held thee fast); atanother time a large tree: tothat tree did Peleus cling. Thythird form was that of a spotted tiger; frightened by that, the son ofÆacus loosened his arms from thy body.

Then pouring wine upon its waters,20 he worshipped the Gods of thesea, both with the entrails of sheep and with the smoke of frankincense;until the Carpathian21 prophet said, from the middle of the waves,“Son of Æacus, thou shalt gain the alliance desired by thee. Do thouonly, when she shall be resting fast asleep in the cool cave, bind herunawares 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 saidthis, and hid his face in the sea, and received his own waves at hisclosing words. Titan wasnow descending, and, with the pole ofhis chariot bent downward, was taking possession of the Hesperian main;when the beautiful393xi. 228-289.Nereid, leaving the deep, entered her wonted place of repose. Hardly hadPeleus well seized the virgin’s limbs,when she changed hershape, until she perceived her limbs to be held fast, and her arms to beextended different ways. Then, at last, she sighed, and said, “Notwithoutthe aid of a Divinity, dost thou overcome me;” and thenshe appearedas Thetisagain. The hero embraced herthus revealed, and enjoyed his wish, and by her was the father ofgreat Achilles.

And happy was Peleus in his son, happy, too, in his wife, and one towhose lot allblessings had fallen, if you except the crime ofhis killing Phocus. The Trachinian land22 received himguilty of his brother’s blood, and banished from his native home. HereCeyx, sprung from Lucifer for his father, and having the comeliness ofhis sire in his face, held the sway without violence and withoutbloodshed, who, being sad at that time and unlike hisformerself, lamented the loss of his brother. After the son of Æacus, wearied,both with troubles and the length of the journey, has arrived there, andhas entered the city with a few attending him, and has left the flocksof sheep and the herds which he has brought with him, not far from thewalls, in a shady valley; when an opportunity is first afforded him ofapproaching the prince, extending the symbols of peace23 with hissuppliant hand, he tells him who he is, and from whom descended. He onlyconceals his crime, and, dissembling as to thetrue reason of hisbanishment, he entreatshim to aid himby a receptioneither in his city or in his territory. On the other hand, theTrachinianprince addresses him with gentle lips, in words suchas these: “Peleus, our bounties are open even to the lowest ranks, nordo I hold an inhospitable sway. To this my inclination, thou bringest inaddition as powerful inducements, an illustrious name, and Jupiter asthy grandsire. And do not lose thy time in entreaty; all that thouaskest thou shalt have. Look upon all these things, whatever thou seest,as in part thy own: would that thou couldst behold them in bettercondition!” andthen394xi. 289-320.he weeps. Pelcus and his companions enquire what it is that occasionsgrief so great. To them hethus speaks:—

“Perhaps you may think that this bird, which lives upon prey, andaffrights all the birds, always had wings. It was a man; and as great isthe vigour of its courage, as hewho was Dædalion by name wasactive, and bold in war, and ready for violence;he was sprungfrom him, for his father, who summons forth24 Aurora, andwithdraws the last from the heavens. Peace was cherished by me; the careof maintaining peace and my marriage contract was mine; cruel warfarepleased my brother; that prowess of his subdued both kings and nations,which, changed, now chases the Thisbean doves.25 Chione was hisdaughter, who, highly endowed with beauty, was pleasing to a thousandsuitors, when marriageable at the age of twice seven years. By chancePhœbus, and the son of Maia, returning, the one from his own Delphi, theother from the heights of Cyllene, beheld her at the same moment, and atthe same moment were inspired with passion. Apollo defers his hope ofenjoyment until the hours of night; the other brooks no delay, and withhis wand, that causes sleep, touches the maiden’s face. At the potenttouch she lies entranced, and suffers violence from the God. Night hasnow bespangled the heavens with stars; Phœbus personates an oldwoman, and takes those delights before enjoyedin imagination.When her mature womb had completed thedestined time, Autolycuswas born, a crafty offspring of the stock of the God with wingedfeet, ingenious at every kind of theft,and who used, notdegenerating from his father’s skill,26 to make white out of black,and black out of white. From Phœbus was born (for she brought forthtwins) Philammon, famous for his tuneful song, and for his lyre.

“But what avails it for her to have brought forth twochildren, and to have been pleasing to two Gods, and to have sprung froma valiant father, and the Thunderer as her ancestor?27395xi. 320-353.Is even glorythus prejudicial to many? To her, at least, it wasa prejudice; who dared to prefer herself to Diana, and decried thecharms of the Goddess. But violent wrath was excited in her, and shesaid, ‘We will please her by our deeds.’28 And there was nodelay: she bent her bow, and let fly an arrow from the string, andpierced with the reed the tongue that deserved it. The tongue wassilent; nor did her voice, and the words which she attemptedtoutter, now follow; and life, with her blood, left her, as sheendeavoured to speak. Oh hapless affection! What pain did Ithenendure in my heart, as her uncle, and what consolations did I give to myaffectionate brother? These the father received no otherwise than rocksdo the murmurs of the ocean, and he bitterly lamented his daughterthus snatched from him. But when he beheld her burning, fourtimes had he an impulse to rush into the midst of the pile; thencerepulsed, four times did he commit his swift limbs to flight, and, likean ox, bearing upon his galled neck the stings of hornets, he rushedwhere there was no path. Already did he seem to me to run faster than ahuman being, and you would have supposed that his feet had assumedwings. 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 thetop of the rock, made him into a bird, and supported him, hoveringinthe air uponthese sudden wings; and he gave him a curvedbeak, and crooked claws on his talons, his former courage, and strengthgreaterin proportion than his body; and, nowbecome ahawk, sufficiently benignant to none, he ragesequally againstall birds; and grievinghimself, becomes the cause of grief toothers.”

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 themessenger to thee of a great calamity;” andthen Peleus bids himdeclare whatever news it is that he has brought; and the Trachinian herohimself is in suspense, and trembles through apprehension. The othertellshis story: “I had driven the weary bullocks to thewinding shore, when396xi. 353-388.the Sun at his height, in the midst of his course, could look back on asmuch of it as he could see to benow remaining; and a part of theoxen had bent their knees on the yellow sands, and, as they lay, viewedthe expanse of the wide waters; some, with slow steps, were wanderinghere and there; others were swimming, and appearing with their loftynecks above the waves. A temple is hard by the sea, adorned neitherwith marble nor with gold, butmade of solid beams, and shadedwith 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 theGods of the temple. Adjacent to this is a marsh, planted thickly withnumerous willows, which the water of the stagnating waves of the sea hasmade into a swamp. From that spot, a huge monster, a wolf,roaring with a loud bellowing, alarms the neighbouring places, and comesforth from the thicket of the marsh,both having his thunderingjaws covered with foam and with clotted blood,and his eyessuffused with red flame. Though he was raging both with fury and withhunger, still was he more excited by fury; for he did not care tosatisfy his hunger by the slaughter of the oxen, and to satiate hisdreadful appetite, but he mangled the whole herd, and, like a true foe,pulled eachto the ground. Some, too, of ourselves, while we weredefending them, wounded with his fatal bite, were killed. The shore andthe nearest waves were red with blood, and the fens were filled with thelowingsof the herd. But delay is dangerous, and the case doesnot allow us to hesitate: while anything isstill left, let usall unite, and let us take up arms, arms,I say, and in abody let us bear weapons.”

Thus speaks the countryman. And the loss does not affectPeleus; but, remembering his crime, he considers that the bereavedNereid has sent these misfortunes of his, as an offering to the departedPhocus. The Œtæan king29 commands his men to put on their armour, andto take up stout weapons; together with whom, he himself is preparing togo. But Halcyone, his wife, alarmed at the tumult, runs out, and not yethaving arranged all her hair, even that which isarranged shethrows in disorder; and clinging to the neck of her husband, sheentreats him, both with words and tears, to send assistance withouthimself, andso to save two lives in one.397xi. 388-409.The son of Æacus says to her, “O queen, lay aside thy commendableand affectionate fears; the kindness of thy proposal istoo greatfor me. It does not please me, that arms should be employedagainst this new monster. The Divinity of the sea must be adored.” Thereis a lofty tower; a fireis upon the extreme summit,30a place grateful to wearied ships. They go up there, and with sighsthey behold the bulls lying scattered upon the sea shore, and the cruelravager with blood-stained mouth, having his long hair stained withgore. Peleus, thence extending his hands towards the open sea, entreatsthe azure Psamathe to lay aside her wrath, and to give him her aid. Butshe is not moved by the words of the son of Æacus, thus entreating.Thetis, interceding on behalf of her husband, obtains that favourforhim.

But still the wolf persists, not recalled from the furious slaughter,and keenly urged by the sweetness of the blood; until she changeshim into marble, as he is fastening on the neck of a mangled heifer. Hisbody preserves every thing except its colour. The colour of the stoneshows 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: thewandering exile goes to the Magnetes,31 and there receives from theHæmonian Acastus32 an expiation of the murder.

EXPLANATION.

Thetis being a woman of extraordinary beauty, it is not improbable, thatin the Epithalamia that were composed on her marriage, it was asserted,that the Gods had contended for her hand, and had been forced to giveway, in obedience to the superior power of destiny. Hyginus says thatPrometheus was the only person that was acquainted with the oracle; andthat he imparted it to Jupiter, on condition that he would deliver himfrom the eagle that tormented him: whereupon the God sent Hercules toMount Caucasus, to perform his promise. It was on the occasion of thismarriage that the Goddess Discord presented the golden apple, thedispute for which occasioned the Trojan war. The part of the story whichrelates 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 toavoid him, until, by the advice of a wise friend, he found means toremove all the difficulties which opposed his alliance with her.

Some writers state that Thetis was the daughter of Chiron; butEuripides, in a fragment of his Iphigenia, tells us that Achilles, whowas the son of this marriage, took a pride in carrying the figure of aNereid on his shield. The three sons of Æacus were Peleus, Telamon, andPhocus; while they were playing at quoits, the latter accidentallyreceived a blow from Peleus, which killed him. Ovid, however, seems hereto imply that Peleus killed his brother purposely.

The story of Chione most probably took its rise from the differencebetween 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 hisfather. According to Pausanias, Autolycus was the son of Dædalion, andnot of Chione. The story of the wolf, the minister of the vengeance ofPsamathe, for the death of Phocus, is probably built on historicalgrounds. 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 torevenge the death of his nephew, whom Peleus had killed: and declaredwar against Ceyx, for receiving him into his dominions. The troops ofLycomedes ravaged the country, and carried away the flocks of Peleus: onwhich prayers and entreaties were resorted to, with the view ofpacifying him; which object having been effected, he withdrew histroops. On this, it was rumoured that he was changed into a rock, afterhaving ravaged the country like a wild beast, which comparison wasperhaps suggested by the fact of his name being partly compounded of thewordλυκὸς, ‘a wolf.’

FABLE VII.

Ceyx, going to Claros, to consult theoracle about his brother’s fate, is shipwrecked on the voyage. Junosends Iris to the God of Sleep, who, at her request, dispatches Morpheusto Halcyone, in a dream, to inform her of the death of her husband. Sheawakes in the morning, full of solicitude, and goes to the shore whereshe finds the body of Ceyx thrown up by the waves. She is about to castherself into the sea in despair, when the Gods transform them both intoking-fishers.

In the mean time, Ceyx being disturbed in mind, both on account ofthe strange fate of his brother, andthe wonders that hadsucceeded his brother, prepares to go to the Clarian God, that he mayconsult the sacred oracle, the consolation of mortals: for the profanePhorbas,33 with his Phlegyans, renders theoracle ofDelphi 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 wetwith tears gushing forth. Three times attempting to speak, three timesshe moistens her face with tears, and, sobs interrupting heraffectionate complaints, she says:—

“What fault of mine, my dearest, has changed thy mind? Where is thatcare of me, which once used to exist? Canst thou now be absent withoutanxiety, thy Halcyone being left behind? Now, is a long journey pleasingto thee? Now, am I dearer to thee when at a distance? But I suppose thyjourney 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 aspectof the stormy ocean affright me. And lately I beheld broken planks onthe sea shore; and often have I read the names upon tombs,34without bodiesthere buried.400xi. 430-460.And let not any deceitful assurance influence thy mind, that thegrandson of Hippotas35 is thy father-in-law; who confines the strongwinds in prison, and assuages the seas when he pleases. When, once letloose, the winds have taken possession of the deep, nothing is forbiddento them; every land and every sea is disregarded by them. Even theclouds of heaven do they insult, and by their bold onsets strike forththe 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 Ithink they are to be dreaded. But if thy resolution, my dear husband,cannot be altered by my entreaties, and if thou artbut toodetermined to go; take me, too, as well. At least, we shall be tossedtogether; nor shall I fear anything, but what I shall bethensuffering; and together we shall endure whatever shall happen; togetherwe shall be carried over the wide seas.”

By such words and the tears of the daughter of Æolus, is her husband,son of theMorning Star,much affected; for the flameof love exists no less in him. But he neither wishes to abandonhis proposed voyage, nor to admit Halcyone to a share in the danger; andhe says, in answer, many things to console her timorous breast. And yetshe does not, on that account, approve of his reasons. To them he addsthis alleviation, with which alone he influences his affectionatewife: “All delay will, indeed, be tedious to me; but I swear tothee 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 hisspeedy return, he forthwith orders a ship, drawn out of the dock,to be launched in the sea, and to be supplied with itsproperequipments. On seeing this, Halcyone again shuddered, as thoughpresaging 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 bodyto the ground.

But the youths, while Ceyx isstill seeking pretexts fordelay, in double rows,37 draw the oars towards their hardy breasts,and cleave the main with equal strokes. She raises her weeping eyes, andsees her husband standing on the crooked stern, and by waving his handmaking the first signs to her; and she returns the signals. When theland has receded further, and her eyes are unable to distinguish hiscountenance:still, while she can, she follows the retreatingship with her sight. When this too, borne onward, cannot bedistinguished from the distance; still she looks at the sails wavingfrom the top of the mast. When she nolonger sees the sails; sheanxiously seeks her deserted bed, and lays herself on the couch. Thebed, and the spot, renew the tears of Halcyone, and remind her what partof herself is wanting.

They havenow gone out of harbour, and the breeze shakes therigging; the sailor urges the pendent oars towards their sides;38 andfixes the sailyards39 on the top of the mast, and spreads thecanvass full from the mast, and catches the coming breezes. Either thesmaller part, or, at least, not more than half her course, hadnow been cut by the ship, and both lands were at a402xi. 479-515.great distance, when, towards night, the sea began to grow white withswelling waves, and the boisterous East wind to blow with greaterviolence. Presently the master cries, “At once, lower the top sails, andfurl the whole of the sail to the yards!” He orders,but theadverse storm impedes the execution; and the roaring of the sea does notallow any voice to be heard.

Yet, of their own accord, some hasten to draw in the oars, some tosecure the sides, some to withdraw the sails from the winds. This onepumps up the waves, and pours back the sea into the sea; another takesoff the yards. While these things are being done without any order, theraging 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 theirpresentcondition, nor what to order or forbid; so great is the amount of theirmisfortunes, and more powerful than all his skill. For the men aremaking a noise with their shouts, the cordage with its rattling, theheavy waves with the dashing ofother waves, the skies with thethunder. The sea is upturned with billows, and appears to reach theheavens, and to sprinkle the surrounding clouds with its foam. And onewhile, when it turns up the yellow sands from the bottom, it is of thesame colour with them; at another timeit is blacker than theStygian waves. Sometimes it is level, and is white with resounding foam.The Trachinian ship too, is influenced by these vicissitudes; and nowaloft, as though from the summit of a mountain, it seems to look downupon the vallies and the depths of Acheron; at another moment, when theengulphing sea has surrounded it, sunk below, it seems to be looking atheaven above from the infernal waters. Struck on its side by the waves,it often sends forth a low crashing sound, and beaten against, it soundswith no less noise, than on an occasion when the iron battering ram, orthe balista, is shaking the shattered towers. And as fierce lions arewont, gaining strength in their career, to rush with their breasts uponthe weapons, and arms extendedagainst them; so the water, whenupon the rising of the winds it had rushed onwards, advanced against therigging 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 the403xi. 515-540.fatal waves. Behold! vast showers fall from the dissolving clouds, andyou would believe that the whole of the heavens is descending into thedeep, 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 mingledwith the waters of the skies. The firmament is without its fires;and the gloomy night is oppressed both with its own darkness andthat of the storm. Yet the lightnings disperse these, and give light asthey 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 theship; and as a soldier, superior to all the rest of the number, after hehas 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 furyof the tenth wave,41 rising more impetuouslythan the rest,rushes onward; and it ceases not to attack the wearied ship, before itdescends 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 bealarmed, while some are undermining the walls without, and others withinhave possession of the walls.All art fails them, and theircourage sinks; and as manyshapes of death seem to rush and tobreak inupon them, as the waves that approach. One does notrefrain from tears; another is stupefied; another calls those happy42 whom funeral rites404xi. 540-569.await; another, in his prayers, addresses the Gods, and lifting up hishands in vain to that heaven which he sees not, implores their aid. Hisbrothers and his parent recur to the mind of another; to another, hishome, with his pledgesof affection, andso what has beenleft behind by each.

The remembrance of Halcyone affects Ceyx; on the lips of Ceyxthere is nothing but Halcyone; and though her alone he regrets, still herejoices that she is absent.Gladly, too, would he look back tothe 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 hurricane43 sovast, and all the sky is concealed beneath the shade brought on by theclouds of pitchy darkness, and the face of the night is redoubledingloom. The mast is broken by the violence of the drenching tempest;the helm, too, is broken; and the undaunted wave, standing over itsspoil, looks down like a conqueror, upon the waves as they encirclebelow. Nor, when precipitated, does it rush down less violently,than if anyGod were to hurl Athos or Pindus, torn up from itsfoundations, into the open sea; and with its weight and its violencetogether, it sinks the ship to the bottom. With her, a great partof the crew overwhelmed in the deep water, and not rising again to theair, meet their fate. Some seize hold of portions and broken pieces ofthe ship. Ceyx himself seizes a fragment of the wreck, with that handwith which he was wontto 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, andher namehe repeats: he prays the waves to impel his body before her eyes; andthat when dead he may be entombed by the hands of his friends. While hestill swims, he calls upon Halcyone far away, as often as thebillows allow44 him to open his mouth, and in the very waves hemurmursher name.When, lo! a darkening arch45 ofwaters breaks over the middle of the waves, and buries his head sinkingbeneath the bursting billow.405xi. 569-590.Lucifer was obscured that night, and such that you could not haverecognized him; and since he was not allowed to depart from theheavens,46 he concealed his face beneath thick clouds.

In the meantime, the daughter of Æolus, ignorant of so greatmisfortunes, reckons the nights; and now she hastensto preparethe garments47 for him to put on, and now, those which, when hecomes, 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 tothe altars on behalf of her husband, who is not in existence. And sheprays that her husband may be safe, and that he may return, and mayprefer no woman before her. But thislast alone can be her lot,out of so many of her wishes. But the Goddess endures not any longer tobe supplicated on behalf of one who is dead; and, that she may repel herpolluted hands48 from the altars,—she says, “Iris, mostfaithful messenger of my words, hasten quickly to the soporiferous courtof Sleep, and command him, under the form of Ceyx who is dead, to send avision to Halcyone, to relate her real misfortune.”Thus shesays. Iris assumes garment of a thousand colours, and, marking theheavens406xi. 590-617.with her curving arch, she repairs to the abode of the king,Sleep, as bidden, concealed beneath a rock.

There is near the Cimmerians49 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, orsetting, can never come. Fogs mingled with darkness are exhaled from theground, andit is a twilight with a dubious light. No wakefulbird, with the notes of his crested features, there calls forth themorn; nor do the watchful dogs, or the geese more sagacious50 thanthe dogs, break the silence with their voices. No wild beasts, nocattle, no boughs waving with the breeze, noloud outbursts ofthe human voice,there make any sound; mute Rest has there herabode. But from the bottom of the rock runs a stream, the waters ofLethe,51 through which the rivulet, trickling with amurmuring noise amid the sounding pebbles, invites sleep. Before thedoors of the cavern, poppies bloom in abundance, and innumerable herbs,from the juice of which the humid night gathers sleep, and spreads itover the darkened Earth. There is no door in the whole dwelling, to makea noise by the turning of the hinges; no porter at the entrance. But inthe middle is a couch, raised high upon black ebony, stuffed withfeathers, of a dark colour, concealed by a dark coverlet; on which theGod himself lies, his limbs dissolved in sloth. Around him lie, in everydirection, imitating divers shapes, unsubstantial dreams as many as theharvest bears ears of corn, the wood green leaves, the shore the sandsthrown up. Into this, soon as the maiden had entered, and had put asidewith her hands the visions that were407xi. 617-648.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 breastwith his nodding chin, at last aroused himself from hisdozing;and, raised on his elbow, he inquired why she had come; for he knewwho she was.

But shereplied, “Sleep, thou repose of all things; Sleep,thou gentlest of the Deities; thou peace of the mind, from which careflies, who dost soothe the heartsof men, wearied with the toilsof the day, and refittest them for labour, command a vision, thatresembles in similitude the real shape, to go to Halcyone, in HerculeanTrachyn, in the form of the king, and to assume the form of one that hassuffered shipwreck. Juno commands this.” After Iris had executed hercommission, she departed; for she could no longer endure the effects ofthe 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 hadcome just before.

But FatherSleep, out of the multitude of his thousand sons,raises Morpheus,53 a skilful artist, and an imitator ofany 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 becomesa serpent, with its lengthened body: this one, the Gods above callIcelos; the tribe of mortals, Phobetor. There is likewise a third,master of a different art,called Phantasos: he cleverlychangeshimself into earth, and stone, and water, and a tree, andall those things which are destitute of life. These are wont, by night,to show their features to kings and to generals,while otherswander amid the people and the commonalty. These, Sleep, the agedGod, passes by, and selects Morpheus alone from all his brothers,to execute the commands of the daughter of Thaumas; and again he408xi. 648-684.both drops his head, sunk in languid drowsiness, and shrinks back withinthe 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 ofCeyx; and in that form, wan, and like one without blood, withoutgarments, he stands before the bed of his wretched wife. The beard ofthe hero appears to be dripping, and the water to be falling thicklyfrom his soaking hair. Then leaning on the bed, with tears running downhis face, he says these words: “My most wretched wife, dost thourecognisethy Ceyx, or are my looksso changed with death?Observe me; thou wiltsurely know me: and, instead of thyhusband, thou wilt find the ghost of thy husband. Thy prayers, Halcyone,have availed me nothing; I have perished. Do not promise thyself,thus deceived, myreturn. The cloudy South wind caught myship in the Ægean Sea,54 and dashed it to pieces, tossed by the mightyblasts; and the waves choked my utterance, in vain calling upon thyname. It is no untruthful messenger that tells thee this: thou dost nothear these things through vague rumours. I, myself, shipwrecked, inperson, am telling thee my fate. Come, arise then, shed tears, and puton mourning; and do not send me unlamented to the phantomrealmsof Tartarus.”

To these words Morpheus adds a voice, which she may believe to bethat of her husband. He seems, too, to be shedding real tears, and hishands have the gesture of Ceyx. As she weeps, Halcyone groans aloud, andmoves her arms in her sleep, and catching at his body, grasps the air;and she cries aloud, “Stay, whither dost thou hurry? We will gotogether.” Disturbed by her own voice, and by the appearance of herhusband, she shakes off sleep; and first she looks about there, to seeif he, who has been so lately seen, is there; for the servants, rousedby 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 herbreast, 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 theoccasion409xi. 684-715.of her sorrow: “Halcyone is no more! no more! with her own Ceyx is shedead. Away with words of comfort. He has perished by shipwreck.I have seen him, and I knew him; and as he departed, desirous todetain 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 methat, his wonted features; nor was helooking cheerful with his former countenance. Hapless, I beheldhim, pale, and naked, and with his hair still dripping. Lo! ill-fatedman, he stood on this very spot;” and she seeks the prints of hisfootsteps, if any are left. “This it was, this is what I dreaded in myill-boding mind, and I entreated that thou wouldst not, deserting me,follow the winds. But, I could have wished, since thou didst departto perish, that, at least, thou hadst taken me as well. To have gonewith thee,yes, with thee, would have been an advantage to me;for then neither should I have spent any part of my life otherwise thantogether with thee, nor would my death have been dividedfromthee. Now, absentfrom 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 toprotract my life any further; and, were I to struggle to survive sogreat a misfortune. But I will not struggle, nor, hapless one, will Iabandon thee; and, at least, I willnow come to be thycompanion. And, in the tomb, if the urndoes not, yet theinscription55 shall unite us: ifI touch not thy boneswith my bones, still will I unite thy name with my name.” Grief forbidsher saying more, and wailings come between each word, and groans areheaved from her sorrow-stricken breast.

It isnow morning: she goes forth from her abode to thesea-shore, and, wretched, repairs to that place from which she had seenhim go, and says, “While he lingered, and while he was loosening thecables, at his departure, he gave me kisses upon this sea-shore;” andwhile she calls to recollection the incidents which she had observedwith her eyes, and looks410xi. 715-747.out upon the sea, she observes on the flowing wave, I know not whatobject, like a body, within a distant space: and at first she isdoubtful what it is. After the water has brought it a little nearer,and, although it isstill distant, it is plain that it is acorpse. Ignorant who it may be, because it is ship-wrecked, she is movedat the omen, and, though unknown, would fain give it a tear. “Alas! thouwretched one!” she says, “whoever thou art; and if thou hast any wife!”Driven by the waves, the body approaches nearer. The more she looks atit, the less and the less is she mistress of her senses. And now shesees 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, shetears her face, her hair,and her garments; and, extending hertrembling hands towards Ceyx, she says, “And is it thus, Oh dearesthusband! is it thus, Oh ill-fated one! that thou dost returnto me?”

A mole, made by the hand of man, adjoins the waves, which breaks thefirst fury of the ocean, and weakens the first shock of its waters. Uponthat she leaped, and ’tis wondrous that she could. She flew, and beatingthe light air with her wings newly formed, she, a wretched bird,skimmed the surface of the water. And, while she flew, her croakingmouth, with its slender bill, uttered a sound like that of one insadness, 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 werein doubt whether Ceyx was sensible of this, or whether, by the motion ofthe wave, he seemed to raise his countenance; butreally he wassensible of it; and, at length, through the pity of the Gods above, bothwere changed into birds. Meeting with the same fate, even then theirlove remained. Nor, whennow birds, is the conjugal tiedissolved: they couple, and they become parents; and for seven calmdays,56 in the winter-time, does Halcyone brood upon hernest floating on the sea.57 Then the passage of the deep issafe;411xi. 747-754.Æolus keeps the winds in, and restrains them from sallying forth, andsecures asmooth sea for his descendants.

EXPLANATION.

According to the testimony of several of the ancient writers, Ceyx wasthe 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 hadcommitted, whether through imprudence or otherwise. Pausanias says thatEurystheus having summoned Ceyx to deliver up to him the children ofHercules, that prince, who was not able to maintain a war against sopowerful a king, sent the youths to Theseus, who took them into hisprotection.

To recover from the melancholy consequent upon the death of his brotherDædalion and his niece Chione, he went to Claros to consult the oracleof Apollo, and was shipwrecked on his return; on which, his wife,Halcyone, was so afflicted, that she died of grief, or else threwherself into the sea, as Hyginus informs us. It was said that they werechanged into the birds which we call kingfishers, a story which,probably, has no other foundation than the name of Halcyone, whichsignifies that bird; which by the ancients was considered to be thesymbol of conjugal affection.

Apollodorus, however, does not give us so favourable an idea of thevirtue of these persons as Ovid has done. According to him, it was theirpride which proved the cause of their destruction. Jupiter enraged atCeyx, because he had assumed his name as Halcyone had done that of Juno,changed them both into birds, he becoming a cormorant, and she akingfisher. This story is remarkable for the beautiful and affectingmanner in which it is told.

FABLE VIII.

The Nymph Hesperia flying from Æsacus,who is enamoured of her, is bitten by a serpent, and instantly dies fromthe effects of the wound. He is so afflicted at her death, that hethrows himself into the sea, and is transformed into a didapper.

Some old man58 observes them as they fly over the widely extendedseas, and commends their love, preserved to the endof theirexistence. 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 havingits legs drawn up,” pointing at a didapper, with its wide throat, “wasthe son of a king.412xi. 754-786.And, if you want to come down to him in one lengthened series, hisancestors are Ilus, and Assaracus, and Ganymede,59 snatched away byJupiter, and the aged Laomedon, and Priam, to whom were allotted thelast days of Troy. He himself was the brother of Hector, and had he notexperienced a strange fate in his early youth, perhaps he would have hada name not inferior tothat of Hector; although the daughter ofDymas bore thislast. Alexirhoë, the daughter of the two-hornedGranicus,60 is said secretly to have brought forth Æsacus, undershady Ida.

“He loathed the cities, and distant from the splendid court,frequented the lonely mountains, and the unambitious fields; nor wentbut rarely among the throngs of Ilium. Yet, not having a breast eitherchurlish, or impregnable to love, he espies Hesperie, the daughter ofCebrenus,61 on the banks of her sire, who has been often soughtby him throughout all the woods, drying her locks, thrown over hershoulders, in the sun. The Nymph,thus seen, takes to flight,just as the frightened hind from the tawny wolf; andas thewater-duck, surprised at a distance, having left herwontedstream, from the hawk. Her the Trojan hero pursues, and, swift withlove, closely follows her, made swift by fear. Behold! a snake,lurking in the grass, with its barbed sting, wounds her foot as sheflies, and leaves its venom in her body. With her flight is her life cutshort. Frantic, he embraces her breathless, and cries aloud,—“I grieve, I grieve thatever I pursuedthee.But I did not apprehend this; nor was it of so much value to me toconquer. We two have proved the destruction of wretched thee. The woundwas given by the serpent; by me was the occasion given. I should bemore guilty than he, did I not give the consolation for thy fate by myown death.”Thus he said; and from a rock which the hoarse waveshad undermined, he hurled himself into the sea. Tethys, pitying him ashe fell, received him softly, and covered him with feathers as he swamthrough the sea; and the power of obtaining413xi. 786-795.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 madeto his spirit, desirous to depart from its wretched abode. And, as hehas assumed newformed wings on his shoulders, he flies aloft, and againhe throws his body in the waves: his feathers break the fall. Æsacus isenraged; and headlong he plunges into the deep,62 and incessantlytries the way of destruction. Love caused his leanness; the spacesbetween 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 hashis name because he plunges63 in it.

EXPLANATION.

Ovid and Apollodorus agree that Æsacus was the son of Priam, and that hewas changed into a didapper, or diver, but they differ in the othercircumstances of his life. Instead of being the son of Alexirhoë,Apollodorus says that he was the son of Priam and Arisbe the daughter ofMerope, his first wife; that his father made him marry Sterope, whodying very young, he was so afflicted at her death, that he threwhimself into the sea. He also says that Priam having repudiated Arisbeto marry Hecuba, the daughter of Cisseus, Æsacus seeing hismother-in-law pregnant of her second son, foretold his father that herprogeny would be the cause of a bloody war, which would end in thedestruction of the kingdom of Troy; and that upon this prediction, theinfant, when born, was exposed on Mount Ida.

Tzetzes adds, that Æsacus told his father that it was absolutelynecessary to put to death both the mother and the infant which was bornon that same day; on which Priam being informed that Cilla, the wife ofThymætes, being delivered on that day of a son, he ordered them both tobe killed; thinking thereby to escape the realization of the prediction.Servius, on the authority of Euphorion, relates the story in much thesame manner; but a poet quoted by Cicero in his first book onDivination, says that it was the oracle of Zelia, a little town atthe foot of Mount Ida, which gave that answer as an interpretation ofthe dream of Hecuba. Pausanias says it was the sibyl Herophila whointerpreted the dream, while other ancient writers state that it wasCassandra. Apollodorus says that Æsacus learned from his grandfatherMerops the art of foretelling things to come.

BOOK THE TWELFTH.

FABLES I. ANDII.

The Greeks assemble their troops atAulis, to proceed against the city of Troy, and revenge the rape ofHelen; but the fleet is detained in port by contrary winds. Calchas, thepriest, after a prediction concerning the success of the expedition,declares that the weather will never be favourable till Agamemnon shallhave sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia. She is immediately led to thealtar for that purpose; but Diana, appeased by this act of obedience,carries away the maiden, and substitutes a hind in her place, on which afair wind arises. Upon the Greeks landing at Troy, a battle isfought, in which Protesilaüs is killed by Hector, and Achilles killsCygnus, a Trojan, on which his father Neptune transforms him into aswan.

His father Priam mourned him, not knowing that Æsacus, having assumedwings, wasstill living; Hector, too, with his brothers, madeunavailing offerings1 at a tomb, that bore his nameon it. Thepresence of Paris was wanting, at this mournful office: who, soon after,brought into his country a lengthened war, together with a ravishedwife;2 and a thousand ships3 uniting together, followed him,and, togetherwith them, the whole body4 of the Pelasgiannation. Nor would vengeance have been delayed, had not the raging windsmade the seas impassable, and the Bœotian land detained in fishy Aulisthe ships ready to depart. Here, when they had prepared a415xii. 11-44.sacrifice to Jupiter, after the manner of their country, as the ancientaltar was heated with kindled fires, the Greeks beheld an azure-colouredserpent creep into a plane tree, which was standing near the sacrificethey had begun. There was on the top of the tree a nest of twice fourbirds, which the serpent seized5 together, and the dam as shefluttered aroundthe scene of her loss, and he buried them in hisgreedy maw. All stood amazed. ButCalchas, the son of Thestor,a soothsayer, foreseeing the truth, says, “Rejoice, Pelasgians, weshall conquer. Troy will fall, but the continuance of our toil will belong;” and he allots the nine birds to the years of the war.Theserpent, just as he is, coiling around the green branches in thetree, becomes a stone, and, under the form of a serpent, retains thatstoneform.

Nereus continued boisterous in the Ionian waves, and did not impelthe sails onwards; and there are some who think that Neptune favouredTroy, because he made the walls of the city. But notso the sonof Thestor. For neither was he ignorant, nor did he conceal, that thewrath of the virgin Goddess must be appeased by the blood of a virgin.After the public good had prevailed over affection, and the king overthe father, and Iphigenia, ready to offer her chaste blood, stood beforethe altar, while the priests were weeping; the Goddess was appeased, andcast a mist before their eyes, and, amid the service and the hurry ofthe rites, and the voices of the suppliants, is said to have changedIphigenia, the Mycenian maiden, for a substituted hind. Wherefore, whenthe Goddess was appeased by a death which wasmore fitting, andat the same moment the wrath of Phœbe, and of the sea was past, thethousand ships received the winds astern, and having suffered much, theygained the Phrygian shore.

There is a spot in the middle of the world, between the land and thesea, and the regions of heaven, the confines of the threefold universe,whence is beheld whatever anywhere exists, although it may be in fardistant regions, and every sound pierces the hollow ears.Ofthis place Fame is possessed, and chooses for herself a habitationon the top6 of a tower, and416xii. 45-78.has added innumerable avenues, and a thousand openings to her house, andhas closed the entrances with no gates. Night and day are they open. Itis all of sounding brass; it is all resounding, and it reechoes thevoice, and repeats what it hears. Within there is no rest, and silencein 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 adistance, or like the sound which the end of the thunderingmakeswhen Jupiter has clashed the black clouds together. A crowdoccupies the hall; the fickle vulgar come and go; and a thousandrumours, false mixed with true, wander up and down, and circulateconfused words. Of these, some fill the empty ears with conversation;some are carrying elsewhere what is told them; the measure of thefiction is ever on the increase, and each fresh narrator adds somethingto what he has heard. There, is Credulity, there, rash Mistake, andempty Joy, and alarmed Fears, and sudden Sedition, and Whispers ofdoubtful 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, withvaliant troops: nor does the enemy appear in arms unlooked for. TheTrojans oppose their landing, and defend the shore, and thou,Protesilaüs,7 art, by the decrees of fate, the first to fall by thespear of Hector;8 and the battlesnow commenced, and thecourageous spirits ofthe Trojans, and Hector,till thenunknown, cost the Greeks dear. Nor do the Phrygians experience at smallexpense of blood what the Grecian right hand can do. And now the Sigæanshores are redwith blood: now Cygnus, the son of Neptune, hasslain a thousand men. Now is Achilles pressing on in his chariot, andlevelling the Trojan ranks, with the blow of his Peleian spear; andseeking through the lines either Cygnus or Hector, he engages withCygnus: Hector is reserved for the tenth year. Then animating thehorses, having their417xii. 78-105.white necks pressed with the yoke, he directed his chariot against theenemy, 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 availednothing, by the sharpness of its point,thus discharged; and asit 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? (forAchilles was surprised); not this helmet that thou seest tawnywith the horse’s mane, nor the hollowed shield, the burden of my leftarm, are assistant to me; from them ornamentalone is sought; forthis cause, too, Mars is wont to take up arms. All the assistance ofdefensive armour shall be removed,and yet I shall come offunhurt. It is something to be born, not of a Nereid,9 butofone who rules both Nereus and his daughter, and the wholeocean.”

Thus he spoke; and he hurled against the descendant of Æacushis dart, destined to stick in the rim of his shield; it broke throughboth the brass and the next nine folds of bull’s hide; but stopping inthe tenth circleof the hide, the hero wrenched it out, and againhurled the quivering weapon with a strong hand; again his body waswithout a wound, and unharmed, nor was a third spear ableeven tograze Cygnus, unprotected, and exposing himself. Achilles raged nootherwise than as a bull,10 in the open Circus,11 whenwith his dreadful horns he butts against the purple-coloured garments,used as the means of provoking him, and perceives that his wounds areevaded. Still, he examines whether the point has chanced to fall418xii. 105-132.from off the spear. It isstill adhering to the shaft. “My handthen is weak,” says he, “and it has spentall the strength it hadbefore, upon one man. For decidedly it was strong enough, both when atfirst I overthrew the walls of Lyrnessus, or when I filled both Tenedosand Eëtionian12 Thebes with their own blood. Or when Caÿcus13flowed empurpled with the slaughter of its people: and Telephus14 wastwice sensible of the virtue of my spear. Here, too, where so many havebeen slain, heaps of whom I both have made along this shore, and Inow behold, my right hand has proved mighty, and is mighty.”

Thus he spoke; and as if he distrusted what he had donebefore, he hurled his spear against Menœtes, one of the Lycianmultitude,15 whowas standing opposite, and he toreasunder both his coat of mail, and his breast beneath it. He beating thesolid earth with his dying head, he drew the same weapon from out of thereeking wound, and said, “This is the hand, this the lance, with which Iconquered but now. The same will I use against him; in hiscase,I pray that the event may prove the same.” Thus he said, and hehurled it at Cygnus, nor did the ashen lance miss him; and, not escapedby him, it resounded on his left shoulder: thence it wasrepelled, as though by a wall, or a solid rock. Yet Achilles saw Cygnusmarked with blood, where he had been struck, and he rejoiced,butin vain. There was no wound; that was the blood of Menœtes.

Then indeed, raging, he leaps headlong from his lofty chariot, andhand to hand, with his gleaming sword striking at his fearless foe, heperceives that the shield and the helmet are pierced with his sword, andthat his weapon, too, is blunted upon his hard body. He endures it nolonger; and drawing back his419xii. 133-145.shield, he three or four times strikes the face of the hero, and hishollow temples, with the hilt of the sword; and following, he pressesonward as the other gives ground, and confounds him, and drives him on,and gives him no respite in his confusion. Horror seizes on him, anddarkness swims before his eyes; and as he moves backwards his retreatingsteps, a stone in the middle of the field stands in his way.Impelled over this, with his breast upwards, Achilles throws Cygnus withgreat violence, and dashes him16 to the earth. Then, pressing downhis breast with his shield and his hard knees, he draws tight the strapsof his helmet; which, fastened beneath his pressed chin, squeeze closehis throat, and take away his respiration and the passage of hisbreath.

He is preparing to strip his vanquishedfoe; he seesnothing but his armour, left behind. The God of the Ocean changedhis body into a white bird, of which heso lately bore thename.

EXPLANATION.

It is not improbable that the prediction of Calchas, at Aulis, that thewar against Troy would endure nine years, had no other foundation thanhis desire to check an enterprise which must be attended with muchbloodshed, and difficulties of the most formidable nature. It is notunlikely, too, that this interpretation of the story of the serpentdevouring the birds may have been planned by some of the Greciangenerals, who did not dare openly to refuse their assistance toAgamemnon. The story of Iphigenia was, perhaps, founded on a similarpolicy. The ancient poets and historians are by no means agreed as tothe fate of Iphigenia, as some say that she really was sacrificed, whileothers state that she was transformed into a she-bear, others into anold woman, and Nicander affirms that she was changed into a heifer.

There is no story more celebrated among the ancients than that of theintended immolation of Iphigenia. Euripides wrote two tragedies on thesubject. 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 thesame person that is meant by the later poets, under the name ofIphigenia.

It has been suggested by some modern commentators, that the story ofIphigenia was founded on the sacrifice of his own daughter, by Jeptha,the judge of Israel, which circumstance happened much about the sametime. The story of the substitution of the hind for the damsel, whenabout to be slain, was possibly founded on the substituted offering forIsaac when about to be offered by his father; for it is not probablethat the people420xii.146.of Greece were entirely ignorant of the existence of the books of Moses,and that wonderful narrative would be not unlikely to make an impressionon minds ever ready to be attracted by the marvellous. Some writers havetaken pains to show that Agamemnon did not sacrifice, or contemplatesacrificing, his own daughter, by asserting that the Iphigenia herementioned was the daughter of Helen, who was educated by Clytemnestra,the wife of Agamemnon, and the sister of Helen. Pausanias also adoptsthis view, and gives for his authorities Euphorion of Chalcis,Alexander, Stesichorus, and the people of Argos, who preserved atradition to the same effect.

Lucretius, Virgil, and Diodorus Siculus are in the number of those whoassert that Iphigenia actually was immolated. According to Dictys theCretan, and several of the ancient scholiasts, Ulysses having left theGrecian camp without the knowledge of Agamemnon, went to Argos, andreturned with Iphigenia, under the pretext that her father intended tomarry her to Achilles. Some writers state that Achilles was in love withIphigenia; and that he was greatly enraged at Ulysses for bringing herto the camp, and opposed her sacrifice to the utmost of his power.

Ovid then proceeds to recount the adventures of the Greeks, after theirarrival at Troy. An oracle had warned the Greeks, that he who should bethe first to land on the Trojan shores, would inevitably be slain.Protesilaüs seeing that this prediction damped the courage of hiscompanions, led the way, and sacrificed his life for the safety of hisfriends, 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 herowas the son of Neptune; perhaps because he was powerful by sea, and theprince of some island in the Archipelago. He was said to beinvulnerable, most probably because his shield was arrow-proof. Thestory of his transformation into a swan, has evidently no otherfoundation than the resemblance between his name and that of thatbird.

FABLES III. ANDIV.

A truce ensuing, the Grecian chiefshaving assembled at a feast, express their surprise at the fact ofCygnus being invulnerable. Nestor, by way of showing a still moresurprising instance, relates how the Nymph Cænis, the daughter ofElatus, having yielded to the caresses of Neptune, was transformed byhim into a man, and made invulnerable. Cæneus being present at thewedding 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 theLapithæ. After many on both sides had been slain, Cæneus still remainedunhurt; on which, the Centaurs having heaped up trunks of trees uponhim, he was pressed to death; Neptune then changed his body into abird.

This toil17and this combat brought on a cessation formany421xii.146-174.days; and both sides rested, laying aside their arms. And while awatchful guard was keeping the Phrygian walls, and a watchful guard waskeeping the Argive trenches, a festive day had arrived, on whichAchilles, the conqueror of Cygnus, appeased Pallas with the blood of aheifer, adorned with fillets. As soon as he had placed its entrails18 upon the glowing altars, and the smell, acceptableto the Deities, mounted up to the skies, the sacred rites had theirshare, the other part was served up at the table. The chiefs reclined oncouches, and sated their bodies with roasted flesh,19 and banishedboth their cares and their thirst with wine. No harps, no melody ofvoices,20 no long pipe of boxwood pierced with many a hole,delights them; but in discourse they pass the night, and valour is thesubject-matter of their conversation. They relate the combats of theenemy and their own; and often do they delight to recount, in turn, boththe dangers that they have encountered and that they have surmounted.For of whatelse should Achilles speak? or of what, inpreference, should they speak before the great Achilles?Butespecially the recent victory over the conquered Cygnus was the subjectof discourse. It seemed wonderful to them all, that the body of theyouth was penetrable by no weapon, and was susceptible of no wounds, andthat it blunted the steel itself. This same thing, the grandson ofÆacus, this, the Greeks wondered at.

When thus Nestor saysto them: “Cygnus has been the onlydespiser of weapons in your time, and penetrable by no blows. But Imyself formerly saw the Perrhæbean21 Cæneus bear a thousand blowswith his body unhurt; Cæneus the Perrhæbean,I say, who,famous for his achievements, inhabited Othrys. And that this, too, mightbe the more wondrous in422xii.174-205.him, he was born a woman.” They are surprised, whoever are present, atthe 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 samedesire to hear it,) O eloquent old man,22 the wisdom of ourage; who wasthis Cæneus,and why changed to the oppositesex? in what war, and in the engagements of what contest was he known tothee? by whom was he conquered, if he was conquered by any one?”

Then the aged manreplied: “Although tardy old age is adisadvantage to me, and many things which I saw in my early years escapemenow, yet I remember mostof them; and there is nothing,amid so many transactions of war and peace, that is more firmly fixed inmy mind than that circumstance. And if extended age could make any one awitness of many deeds, I have lived two hundred23 years,and now my third century is being passedby me. Cænis, thedaughter of Elatus, was remarkable for her charms; the most beauteousvirgin among the Thessalian maids, and one sighed for in vain by thewishes of many wooers through the neighbouringcities, andthrough thy cities, Achilles, for she was thy countrywoman. Perhaps,too, Peleus would have attempted that alliance; but at that time themarriage of thy mother had either befallen him, or had been promisedhim. Cænis did not enter into any nuptial ties; and as she was walkingalong the lonely shore, she suffered violence from the God of the ocean.’Twas thus that report stated; and when Neptune had experienced thepleasures of this new amour, he said, ‘Be thy wishes secure from allrepulse; choose whatever thou mayst desire.’ The same report has relatedthis too; Cænis replied, ‘This mishap makes my desire extreme, that Imay not be in a condition to suffer any such thingin future.Grant that I be nolonger a woman,and thou wilt havegranted me all.’ She spoke these last words with a hoarser tone, and thevoice might seem to be that of a man, asindeed it was.

“For now the God of the deep ocean had consented to her423xii.206-238.wish; and had granted moreover that he should not be able to be piercedby any wounds, or to fall byany steel. Exulting in hisprivilege, the Atracian24 departed; andnow spent histime 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 downat the tables ranged in order, in a cave shaded with trees. The Hæmoniannobles were there; I, too, was there, and the festive palace resoundedwith the confused rout. Lo! they sing the marriage song, and the hallssmoke with the fires;26 the maiden, too, is there, remarkable for herbeauty, surrounded by a crowd of matrons and newly married women. Weall pronounce Pirithoüs fortunate in her for a wife; an omenwhich we had well nigh falsified. For thy breast, Eurytus, most savageof the savage Centaurs, is inflamed as much with wine as with seeing themaiden; and drunkenness, redoubled by lust, holds swayover thee.On the sudden the tables being overset, disturb the feast, and the brideis violently dragged away by her seized hair. Eurytus snatches upHippodame,and the others such as each one fancies, or is ableto seize; and there isall the appearance of a capturedcity. The house rings with the cries of women. Quickly we all rise; andfirst, Theseus says, ‘What madness, Eurytus, is impelling thee, who,while Istill live, dost provoke Pirithoüs, and, in thyignorance, in one dost injure two?’ And that the valiant hero may notsay 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 growfurious.

“He says nothing in answer, nor, indeed, can he defend such actionsby words; but he attacks the face of her protector with insolent hands,and strikes his generous breast. By chance, there is near at hand anancient bowl, rough with projecting figures, which, huge as it is, theson of Ægeus, himself hugerstill, takes up and hurls full in hisface. He, vomiting424xii. 239-266.both from his wounds and his mouth clots of blood,27 and brains andwine together, lying on his back, kicks on the soaking sand.Thedouble-limbed28Centaurs are inflamed at the death of theirbrother; and all vying, with one voice exclaim, ‘To arms! to arms!’ Winegives them courage, and, in the first onset, cups hurled are flyingabout, and shattered casks29 and hollow cauldrons; thingsbefore adapted for a banquet, now for war and slaughter. First, the sonof Ophion, Amycus, did not hesitate to spoil the interior of the houseof its ornaments; and first, from the shrine he tore up a chandelier,30 thick set with blazing lamps; and lifting it onhigh, like him who attempts to break the white neck of the bull withsacrificial axe, he dashed it against the forehead of Celadon theLapithean, and left his skull mashed into his face, nolonger tobe recognized. His eyes started out, and the bones of his face beingdashed to pieces, his nose was driven back, and was fixed in the middleof his palate. Him, Belates the Pellæan, having torn away the foot of amaple table, laid flat on the ground, with his chin sunk upon hisbreast, and vomiting forth his teeth mixed with blood; and sent him, bya twofold wound, to the shades of Tartarus.

“As Gryneus stood next, looking at the smoking altar with a grimlook, he said, ‘And why do we not make use of this?’ andthen he raised an immense altar, together with its fire; andhurled it into the midst of the throng of the Lapithæ, and struck downtwoof them, Broteus and Orius. The mother of Orius was Mycale,who was known by her incantations to have often drawn down the horns ofthe struggling moon.On this Exadius says, ‘Thou shalt not gounpunished, if only the opportunity of getting a weapon is given me;’and, as his weapon,425xii. 266-299.he wields the antlers of a votive stag,31 which were upon alofty pine-tree. With the double branches of these, Gryneus is piercedthrough the eyes, and has those eyes scooped out. A part of themadheres to the antlers, a part runs down his beard, and hangs downclotted with gore. Lo! Rhœtus snatches up an immense flaming brand, fromthe middle of the altar, and on the right side breaks through thetemples of Charaxus, covered with yellow hair. His locks, seized by theviolent flames, burn like dry corn, and the blood seared in the woundemits a terrific noise in its hissing, such as the iron glowing in theflames is often wont to emit, which, when the smith has drawn it outwith the crooked pincers, he plunges into the trough; whereon itwhizzes, and, sinking in the bubbling water, hisses. Wounded, he shakesthe devouring fire from his locks, and takes upon his shoulders thethreshold, 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 standingat a short distance; nor does Rhœtusthen restrain his joy,and he says, ‘In such manner do I pray that the rest of thethrong of thy party may be brave;’ andthen he increases thewound, redoubled with the half-burnt stake, and three or four times hebreaks the sutures of his head with heavy blows, and its bones sinkwithin the oozing brains.

“Victorious, he passes on to Evagrus, and Corythus, and Dryas; ofwhichnumber, when Corythus, having his cheeks covered32 withtheir first down, has fallen, Evagrus says, ‘What glory has beenacquired 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 sameissue does not await thee as well. Thou piercest him with a stake burntat the end, while triumphing in the success of an426xii. 299-328.uninterrupted slaughter, in the spot where the neck is united to theshoulder. Rhœtus groans aloud, and with difficulty wrenches the stakeout of the hard bone, and, drenched in his own blood, he flies. Orneusflies, too, and Lycabas, and Medon, wounded in his right shoulder-blade,and Thaumas with Pisenor; Mermerus, too, who lately excelled all inspeed of foot,but now goes more slowly from the wound he hasreceived; Pholus, too, and Melaneus, and Abas a hunter of boars, andAstylos the augur, who has in vain dissuaded his own party from thiswarfare. He also says to Nessus,33 as he dreads the wounds, ‘Fly not!for thou shalt be reserved for the bow of Hercules.’ ButEurynomus and Lycidas, and Areos, and Imbreus did not escape death, allof whom the right hand of Dryas pierced right through. Thou, too,Crenæus, didst receive a wound in front,34 although thoudidst turn thy back in flight; for looking back, thou didst receive thefatal steel between thy two eyes, where the nose is joined to the lowerpart of the forehead. In the midst of so much noise, Aphidas was lyingfast asleep from the wine which he had drunk incessantly, and was notaroused, and in his languid hand was grasping the mixed bowl, stretchedat full length upon the shaggy skin of a bear of Ossa. Soon as Phorbasbeheld him from afar, wielding no arms, he inserted his fingers in thestrap of his lance,35 and said, ‘Drink thy wine mingled withthewater of Styx;’ and, delaying no longer, he hurled his javelinagainst the youth, and the ash pointed with steel was driven into hisneck, as, by chance, he laythere on his back. His death happenedwithout his being sensible of it; and the blood flowed from his fullthroat, both upon the couch and into the bowl itself.

“I saw Petræus endeavouring to tear up an acorn-bearing oak from theearth;and, as he was grasping it in his embrace,427xii. 328-364.and was shaking it on this side and that, and was moving about theloosened 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 thatChromis fellby the hand of Pirithoüs. But each of themgave less glory to the conqueror, than Dictys and Helops gave.Helops was transfixed by the javelin, which passed right through histemples, and, hurled from the right side, penetrated to his left ear.Dictys, slipping from the steep point of a rock, while, in his fear, heis flying from the pursuing son of Ixion, falls down headlong, and, bythe weight of his body, breaks a huge ash tree, and spits his ownentrails upon it,thus broken. Aphareus advancesas hisavenger, and endeavours to hurl a stone torn away from the mountain. Ashe is endeavouringto do so, the son of Ægeus attacks him with anoaken club, and breaks the huge bones of his arm, and has neitherleisure, nor,indeed, does he care to put his useless body todeath; and he leaps upon the back of the tall Bianor, not used to bear36 any other than himself; and he fixes his knees inhis ribs, and holding his long hair, seized with his left hand, shattershis face, and his threatening features, and his very hard temples, withthe knotty oak. With his oak,too, he levels Nedymnus, andLycotas the darter, and Hippasus having his breast covered with hisflowing beard, and Ripheus, who towered above the topmost woods, andTereus, who used to carry home the bears, caught in the Hæmonianmountains, alive and raging.

“Demoleon could not any longer endure Theseus enjoying this successin the combat, and he tried with vast efforts to tear up from thethick-set wood an aged pine; because he could not effect this, he hurledit, broken short, against his foe. But Theseus withdrew afar from theapproaching missile, through the warning of Pallas; soat leasthe himself wished it to be thought. Yet the tree did not fall withouteffect: for it struck off from the throat of the tall Crantor, both hisbreast and his left shoulder. He, Achilles, had been the armour-bearerof thy father: him Amyntor, king of the Dolopians,37428xii. 364-397.when conquered in war, had given to the son of Æacus, as a pledge andconfirmation of peace. When Peleus saw him at a distance, mangled with afoul wound, he said, ‘Accept however, Crantor, most beloved of youths,this sacrifice;’ and, with a strong arm, and energy of intention, hehurled his ashen lance against Demoleon, which broke through theenclosures of his ribs, and quivered, sticking amid the bones. He drawsout with his hand the shaft without the point; even that follows, withmuch difficulty; the point is retained within his lungs. The very paingives vigour to his resolution;though wounded, he rears againstthe enemy, and tramples upon the hero with his horse’s feet. The otherreceives the re-echoing strokes upon his helmet and his shield, anddefends his shoulders, and holds his arms extended before him, andthrough the shoulder-blades he pierces two breasts38 at one stroke.But first, from afar, he had consigned to death Phlegræus, and Hyles; incloser combat, Hiphinoüs and Clanis. To these is added Dorylas, who hadhis temples covered with a wolf’s skin, and the real horns of oxenreddened with much blood, that performed the duty of a cruel weapon.

“To him I said, for courage gave me strength, ‘Behold, how much thyhorns are inferior to my steel;’ andthen I threw my javelin.When he could not avoid this, he held up his right hand before hisforehead, about to receive the blow;and to his forehead his handwas pinned. A shout arose; but Peleus struck him delaying, andoverpowered by the painful wound, (for he was standing next to him) withhis sword beneath the middle of his belly. He leaped forth, and fiercelydragged his own bowels on the ground, and trod on themthusdragged, and burst themthus trodden; and he entangled his legs,as well in them, and fell down, with his belly emptiedof its innerparts. Nor did thy beauty, Cyllarus,39 save thee whilefighting, if only we allow beauty to thatmonstrous natureofthine. His beard was beginningto grow; the colour of hisbeard was that of gold; and golden-coloured hair was hanging from hisshoulders to the middle of his shoulder-blades. In his face there was apleasing briskness; his neck, and his429xii. 397-435.shoulders, and his hands, and his breastwere resembling theapplauded statues of the artists, andso in those parts in whichhe was a man; nor was the shape of the horse beneath thatshape,faulty and inferior tothat of the man. Give himbut theneck and the headof a horse, and he would be worthy of Castor.So fit is his back to be sat upon, so stands his breast erect withmuscle;he is all over blacker than black pitch; yet his tail iswhite; the colour, too, of his legs is white. Many a female of his ownkind longed for him; but Hylonome alone gained him, than whom no femalemore handsome lived in the lofty woods, among the half beasts. She aloneattaches Cyllarus, both by her blandishments, and by loving, and byconfessing that she loves him. Her care, too, of her person is as greatas can be in those limbs: so that her hair is smoothed with a comb; sothat she now decks herself with rosemary, now with violets or roses,and sometimes she wears white lilies; and twice a day she washesher face with streams that fall from the height of the Pagasæan wood;and twice she dips her body in the stream: and she throws overher shoulder or her left side no skins but what are becoming, and arethose of choice beasts.

“Their love was equal: together they wandered upon the mountains;together they entered the caves; and then, too, together had theyentered the Lapithæan house; together were they waging the fiercewarfare. The authorof the deed is unknown:but a javelincame from the left side, and pierced thee, Cyllarus, belowthespot where the breast is joined to the neck. The heart, beingpierced with a small wound, grew cold, together with the whole body,after the weapon was drawn out. Immediately, Hylonome receives his dyinglimbs, and cherishes the wound, by laying her hand on it, and places hermouth on his, and strives to stop the fleeting life. When she sees himdead, having uttered what the clamour hinders from reaching my ears, shefalls upon the weapon that has pierced him, and as she dies, embracesher husband. He, too,now stands before my eyes, Phæocomes,namely, who had bound six lions’ skins together with connectingknots; covered all over, both horse and man. He, having discharged thetrunk of a tree, which two yokes of oxen joined together could hardlyhave moved, battered the son of Phonolenus on the top of his head. Thevery broad round form of his skull was broken; and through his mouth,and430xii. 435-464.through his hollow nostrils, and his eyes, and his ears, his softenedbrains poured down; just as curdled milk is wont through the oakentwigs, or asany liquor flows under the weight of a well-piercedsieve, 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 thysire knows,) plunged my sword into the lower part of his belly, as hewas spoiling him. Chthonius, too, and Teleboas, laypierced by mysword. The former was bearing a two-forked boughas his weapon,the latter a javelin; with his javelin he gave me a wound. You see themarks; look! the old scar is still visible.

“Then ought I40 to have been sent to the taking of Troy; then Imight, if not have overcome,still have stayed the arms of themighty Hector. But at that time Hector was not existing, orbut aboy;and now my age is failing. Why tell thee of Periphas, theconqueror of the two-formed Pyretus? Why of Ampyx, who fixed hiscornel-wood spear, without a point, full in the face of the four-footedOëclus? Macareus, struck down the Pelethronian41 Erigdupus,42 bydriving a crowbar into his breast. I remember, too, that a huntingspear, 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 foretoldthings to come; a two-formedmonster was slain by Mopsus,dartingat him, and Odites in vain attempted to speak, his tonguebeing nailed to his chin, and his chin to his throat. Cæneus had putfive to death, Stiphelus, and Bromus, and Antimachus, and Helimus, andPyracmos, wielding the axe. I do not remembertheirrespective wounds,but I marked their numbers, and theirnames. Latreus, most huge both in his limbs and his body, sallied forth,armed with the spoils of Emathian44 Halesus, whom he had consigned todeath. His age was between that of a youth, and an old man;431xii. 465-494.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, hebrandished his arms, and rode in one same round, and vaunting, pouredforth thus many words into the yielding air:—

“‘And shall I put up with thee, too, Cænis? for to me thou shalt everbe a woman, to me always Cænis. Does not thy natal origin lower thyspirit? And does it not occur to thy mind for whatfouldeed thou didst get thy reward, and at what price the false resemblanceto a man? Consider both what thou wast born, as well as what thou hastsubmitted to: go, and take up a distaff together with thy baskets, andtwist the threads46 with thy thumb; leave warfare to men.’ As he isvaunting 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 Phylleian47 youth with his pike. It bounds back no otherwisethan hail from the roof of a house; or than if any one were to beat ahollow drum with a little pebble. Hand to hand he encounters him, andstrives to plunge his sword into his tough side;but the partsare 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 isblunt;’ andthen he slants the sword against his side, and graspshis stomach with his long right arm. The blow produces an echo, as on abody 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 hisamazement, ‘Come now,’ said he, ‘let us try thy body with my steel;’ andup to the hilt he plunged his fatal sword into his shoulder-blade, andextended his hand unseen into his entrails, and worked it about, and inthe wound made afresh wound. Lo! the double-limbedmonsters, enraged, rush on432xii. 494-533.in an impetuous manner, and all of them hurl and thrust their weapons athim alone. Their weapons fall blunted. Unstabbed and bloodless theElateïan Cæneus remains from each blow. This strange thing makes themastonished. ‘Oh great disgrace!’ cries Monychus; ‘awhole 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 heoncewas. What signify our huge limbs? What our twofold strength? What thatour twofold nature has united in us the stoutest animals in existence?I neither believe that we are born of a Goddess for our mother, norof Ixion, who was so great a person, that he conceived hopes ofeven the supreme Juno. By a half male foe are we baffled. Heapupon him stones and beams, and entire mountains, and dash out hislong-lived breath, by throwingwhole woodsupon him. Let awhole wood press on his jaws; and weight shall be in the place ofwounds.’

“Thus he said; and by chance having got a tree, thrown down bythe power of the boisterous South wind, he threw it against the powerfulfoe: and he was an exampleto the rest; and in a short time,Othrys, thou wast bare of trees, and Pelion had no shades. Overwhelmedby this huge heap, Cæneus swelters beneath the weight of the trees, andbears on his brawny shoulders the piled-up oaks. But after the load hasincreased 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 raisehimself into theopen air, and to throw off the wood castuponhim: and sometimes he moves it. Just as lo! we see, if lofty Ida isconvulsed with earthquakes. The event is doubtful. Some gave out thathis body was hurled to roomy Tartarus by the weight of the wood. The sonof Ampycus denied this, and saw go forth into the liquid air, from amidthe pile, a bird with tawny wings; which then was beheld by me forthe first time, then,too, for the last. When Mopsus saw it withgentle flight surveying his camp, and making a noise around it with avast clamour, following him both with his eyes and his feelings, hesaid, ‘Hail! thou glory of the Lapithæan race, once the greatest of men,but now the only birdof thy kind, Cæneus.’ This thing wascredited from its assertor. Grief added resentment, and we bore it withdisgust, that one was overpowered by foes so433xii. 533-535.many. Nor did we cease to exercise our weapons, inshedding theirblood, before a part of them was put to death, and flight and the nightdispersed the rest.”

EXPLANATION.

We learn from Diodorus Siculus, and other ancient authors, that thepeople of Thessaly, and those especially who lived near Mount Pelion,were the first who trained horses for riding, and used them as asubstitute for chariots. Pliny the Elder says that they excelled all theother people of Greece in horsemanship, and that they carried it to suchperfection, that the name ofἱππεὺς, ‘a horseman,’ and that of ‘Thessalian,’ becamesynonymous. Again, the Thessalians, from their dexterity in killing thewild bulls that infested the neighbouring mountains, sometimes withdarts or spears, and at other times in close engagement, acquired thename of Hippocentaurs, that is, ‘horsemen that hunted bulls,’ or simplyκένταυροι,‘Centaurs.’

It is not improbable that, because the Thessalians began to practiseriding in the reign of Ixion, the poets made the Centaurs his sons; andthey were said to have a cloud for their mother, which Jupiter put inthe 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 fortheir alleged descent from a cloud, it has been suggested that theCentaurs were a rapacious race of men, who ravaged the neighbouringcountry: that those who wrote the first accounts of them, in the ancientdialect of Greece, gave them the name of Nephelim, (the epithet of thegiants of Scripture,) many Phœnician words having been imported in theearly language of that country; and that in later times, finding themcalled 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, andPirithoüs being also the son of Ixion, by Dia, the former, declared waragainst Pirithoüs, asserting, that, as the descendants of Ixion, theyhad a right to share in the succession to his dominions. This quarrel,however, was made up, and they continued on friendly terms, until theattempt of Eurytus, or Eurytion, on Hippodamia, the bride of Pirithoüs,which was followed by the consequences here described by Ovid. TheCentaurs are twice mentioned in the Iliad asφῆρες, or ‘wild beasts,’ and once under the name of‘Centaurs.’ Pindar is the first writer that mentions them as being of atwofold form, partly man, and partly horse. In the twenty-first Book ofthe Odyssey, line 295, Eurytion is said to have had his ears and nosecut off by way of punishment, and that, from that period, ‘discord arosebetween the Centaurs and men.’

Buttman, (Mythologus, ii. p. 22, as quoted by Mr. Keightley), says thatthe names of Centaurs and Lapithæ are two purely poetic names, used todesignate two opposite races of men,—the former, the rudehorse-riding tribes, which tradition records to have been spread overthe north of Greece: the latter, the more civilized race, which foundedtowns, and gradually drove their wild neighbours back into themountains. He thinks434xii. 536-541.that the explanation of the word ‘Centaurs,’ as ‘Air-piercers,’ (fromκεντεῖν τὴναὔραν) not an improbable one, for the idea is suggested by thefigure of a Cossack leaning forward with his protruded lance as hegallops along. But he regards the idea ofκένταυρος, having been in its origin simplyκέντωρ, as much more probable,[it meaning simply ‘the spurrer-on.’] Lapithæ may, he thinks, havesignified ‘Stone persuaders,’ fromλᾶας πείθειν, a poetic appellation for thebuilders of towns. He supposes Hippodamia to have been a Centauress,married to the prince of the Lapithæ, and thus accounts for the Centaurshaving been at the wedding. Mr. Keightley, in his ‘Mythology of AncientGreece and Italy,’ remarks that ‘it is certainly not a little strangethat a rude mountain race like the Centaurs should be viewed ashorsemen; and the legend which ascribes the perfecting of the art ofhorsemanship to the Lapithæ, is unquestionably the more probable one.The name Centaur, which so much resembles the Greek verbκεντέω, ‘to spur,’ we fancy gave originto the fiction. This derivation of it is, however, rather dubious.’

After the battle here described, the Centaurs retreated to the mountainsof Arcadia. The Lapithæ pursuing them, drove them to the Promontory ofMalea in Laconia, where, according to Apollodorus, Neptune took theminto 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 thatside of Italy which those Nymphs had made their abode); and that therethey were destroyed by the voluptuous and debauched lives they led.

The fable of Cæneus, which Ovid has introduced, is perhaps simplyfounded on the prodigious strength and the goodness of the armour of aperson of that name. The story of Halyonome killing herself on the bodyof Cyllarus, may possibly have been handed down by tradition. It is notunlikely that, if the Centaurs were horsemen, their women were notunacquainted with horsemanship; indeed, representations of femaleCentaurs are given, on ancient monuments, as drawing the chariot ofBacchus.

FABLES V. ANDVI.

Periclymenus, the brother of Nestor,who has received from Neptune the power of transforming himself, ischanged into an eagle, in a combat with Hercules; and in his flight isshot by him with an arrow. Neptune prays Apollo to avenge the death ofCygnus: because the Destinies will not permit him to do so himself.Apollo enters the Trojan camp in disguise, and directs the arrow whichParis aims at Achilles; who is mortally wounded in the heel, the onlyvulnerable part of his body.

As the Pylian related this fight between the Lapithæ and theCentaurs,but half human, Tlepolemus48 could not endurehis sorrow for Alcides being passed by with silent lips, and said, “Itis strange, old man, that thou shouldst have aforgetfulness of the exploitsof Hercules; at least, my father himself used often435xii. 541-576.to relate to me, that these cloud-begottenmonsters wereconquered by him.” The Pylian, sad at this, said, “Why dost thou forceme to call to mind my misfortunes, and to rip up my sorrows, concealedbeneath years, and to confess my hatred of, and disgust at, thy father?He, indeed, ye Gods! performed things beyond all belief, and filled theworld with his services; which I could rather wish could be denied; butwe are in the habit of praising neither Deiphobus nor Polydamas,49 norHector himself: for who would commend an enemy? That father of thineonce 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 ofNeleus, goodly youths; the twice six fell by the might of Hercules,myself alone excepted. And that the others were vanquished might havebeen endured;but the death of Periclymenus is wonderful; to whomNeptune, the founder of the Neleian family, had granted to be able toassume whatever shapes he might choose, and again, when assumed, to laythem 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 thelightnings in his crooked talons, the most acceptable to the king of theGods. Using the strength ofthat bird, his wings, and his crookedbill, together with his hooked talons, he tore the face of the hero. TheTirynthian hero aims at him his bow, too unerring, and hits him, as hemoves his limbs aloft amid the clouds, and hoveringin 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, failhim, and deny him motion and strength for flying. He fell down to theearth, his weakened pinions not catching the air; and where the smootharrow had stuck in his wing, it was pressedstill further by theweight 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 theexploits of thyfather Hercules, most graceful leader of theRhodian fleet?50 Yet I will no further avenge my brothers,436xii. 576-602.than by being silent on his brave deeds: with thyself I have a firmfriendship.” After the son51 of Neleus had said these thingswith his honied tongue, the gifts of Bacchus being resumed after thediscourse of the aged man, they arose from their couches: the rest ofthe 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, changedinto the bird of the son of Sthenelus; and abhorring the ruthlessAchilles, 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 dostthou not grieve when thou lookest upon these towers so soon to fall? ordost thou not lament that so many thousands are slain in defending thesewalls? and (not to recount them all) does not the ghost of Hector,dragged around his Pergamus, recur to thee? Though still the fierceAchilles, more blood-stained than war itself, lives on, the destroyer ofour toil, let him but put himself in my power, I will make him feelwhat I can do with my triple spear. But since it is not allowed us toencounter the enemy in close fight, destroy him, when off his guard,with a secret shaft.”

He nodded his assent; and the DelianGod, indulging togetherboth his own resentment and that of his uncle, veiled in a cloud, comesto the Trojan army, and in the midst of the slaughter of the men, hesees Paris, at intervals, scattering his darts among the ignoble Greeks;and, discovering himself to be a Divinity, he says, “Why dost thou wastethy arrows upon437xii. 602-628.the blood of the vulgar? If thou hast any concern for thy friends, turnupon the grandson of Æacus, and avenge thy slaughtered brothers.”Thus he said; and pointing at the son of Peleus, mowing down thebodies of the Trojans with the sword, he turned his bow towards him, anddirected his unerring arrow with a fatal right hand. This wastheonly thing at which, afterthe death of Hector, the agedPriam could rejoice. And art thou then, Achilles, the conqueror of menso great, conquered by the cowardly ravisher of a Grecian wife? But ifit had been fated for thee to fall by the hand of a woman, thou wouldstrather have fallen by the Thermodontean53 battle-axe.

Now that dread of the Phrygians, the glory and defence of thePelasgian name, the grandson of Æacus, a head invincible in war,had been burnt: the same Divinity had armed him,54 and had burnedhim. He is nowbut ashes; and there remains of Achilles, sorenowned, I know not what; that which will not well fill a littleurn. But his glory lives, which can fill the whole world: this allowanceis befitting that hero, and in this the son of Peleus is equal tohimself, and knows not the empty Tartarus. Even his very shield givesoccasion for war, that you may know to whom it belongs; and arms arewielded for arms. The son of Tydeus does not dare to claim them, norAjax, the son of Oïleus,55 nor the younger son of Atreus, norhe who is his superior both in war and age, norany others; thehope of so much glory exists only in him begotten by Telamon andtheson of Laërtes. The descendant of Tantalus56 removes fromhimself the burden and the odiumof a decision, and orders theArgive leaders to sit in the midst of the camp, and transfers thejudgment of the dispute to them all. 

EXPLANATION.

Periclymenus was the son of Neleus and Chloris, as we are told by438Homer, Apollodorus, and other authors. According to these authors,Neleus, king of Orchomenus, was the son of Neptune, who assumed the formof the river Enipeus, the more easily to deceive Tyro, the daughter ofSalmoneus. Neleus married Chloris, the daughter of Amphion, king ofThebes, who bore him eleven sons and one daughter, of which number,Homer names but three. Periclymenus, the youngest of the family, was awarlike prince, and, according to Apollodorus, accompanied Jason in theexpedition of the Argonauts. Hercules, after having instituted theOlympic games, marched into Messenia, and declared war with Neleus. Theancient writers differ as to the cause of this expedition; but theyagree in stating, that Hercules made himself master of Pylos,a town which Neleus had built, as a refuge from the capricioushumours of his brother Pelias; and that Neleus and all his children werekilled, except Nestor, who had been brought up among the Geranians, andwho afterwards reigned in Pylos. The story which here relates howPericlymenus transformed himself into an eagle, and was then killed byHercules, may possibly mean, that having long resisted the attacks ofhis formidable enemy, he was at length put to flight, and slain by anarrow. It is said that Neptune had given him the power to metamorphosehimself into different figures, very probably because his grandfather,who was a maritime prince, had taught him the art of war and variousstratagems, which he industriously made use of, to avert the ruin of hisfamily.

In relation to the story of the death of Achilles, Dictys the Cretantells us, that Achilles having seen Polyxena, the daughter of Priam,along with Cassandra, as she was sacrificing to Apollo, fell in lovewith her, and demanded her in marriage and that Hector would not consentto it, except on condition of his betraying the Greeks. This demand, soinjurious to his honour, provoked Achilles so much, that he forthwithslew Hector, and dragged his body round the walls of the city. Hefurther says that when Priam went to demand the body of Hector, he tookPolyxena with him, in order to soften Achilles. His design succeeded,and Priam then agreed to give her to him in marriage. On the dayappointed for the solemnity in the temple of Apollo, Paris, concealinghimself behind the altar, while Deiphobus pretended to embrace Achilles,wounded him in the heel, and killed him on the spot, either because thearrow was poisoned, or because he was wounded on the great tendon, whichhas since been called ‘tendon Achillis,’ a spot where a wound mightvery easily be mortal.

This story of the death of Achilles does not seem to have been known toHomer; for he appears, in the twenty-fourth book of the Odyssey, toinsinuate that that hero died in battle, fighting for the Greciancause.

After his death Achilles was honoured as a Demigod, and Strabo says thathe had a temple near the promontory of Sigæum. Pausanias and Pliny theElder make mention of an island in the Euxine Sea, where the memory ofAchilles was expressly honoured, from which circumstances it had thename of Achillea.

BOOK THE THIRTEENTH.

FABLEI.

After the death of Achilles, Ajax andUlysses contend for his armour; the Greek chiefs having adjudged it tothe last, Ajax kills himself in despair, and his blood is changed into aflower. When Ulysses has brought Philoctetes, who is possessed of thearrows of Hercules, to the siege, and the destinies of Troy are therebyaccomplished, the city is taken and sacked, and Hecuba becomes the slaveof Ulysses.

The chiefs were seated; and a ring of the common people standingaround, Ajax, the lord of the seven-fold shield, arose beforethem. And as he was impatient in his wrath, with stern features helooked 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 nothesitate to yield to the flames of Hector, which I withstood,andwhich I drove from this fleet. It is safer, therefore, for him tocontend with artful words than with hisright hand. But neitherdoes my talent lie in speaking, nor his2 in acting; and as great abilityas 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 havebeen eye-witnesses of them. Let Ulysses recount his, which he hasperformed without any witness,and of which night alone3 isconscious. I own that the prize that is sought is great; but therival of Ajax lessens its value. It is no proud thing, great though itmay be, to possess any thing440xiii. 18-38.which Ulysses has hoped for. Already has he obtained the reward of thiscontest, in which, when he shall have been worsted, he will be said tohave 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 city4 of Troy under the valiant Hercules, and entered theColchian shores in the Pagasæan ship. Æacus was his father, who theregives laws to the silentshades, where the heavy stone urgesdownward Sisyphus,5 the son of Æolus.

“The supreme Jupiter owns Æacus, and confesses that he is hisoffspring. Thus Ajax is the third6 from Jupiter. And yet, O Greeks,let not this line of descent avail me in this cause, if it be not commonto me with the great Achilles. He was my cousin;7 I ask for whatbelonged to my cousin? Why does one descended from the blood ofSisyphus, and very like him in thefts and fraud, intrude the name of astrange family among the descendants of Æacus? Are the arms to be deniedme, because I took up arms beforehim, and through the means ofno informer?8 and shall one seem preferable who was the last to takethem up, and who, by feigning madness, declined war, until the son ofNauplius,9 more cunning than he, but more unhappy for himself,discovered the contrivance10 of his441xiii. 38-61.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 bedishonoured, and stripped of the gifts that belonged to my cousin, whopresented myself in the front of danger. And I could wish that thatmadness had been either real or believedso to be, and that hehad never attended us as a companion to the Phrygian towers, thiscounsellor of evil! Then, son of Pœas,11 Lemnos would not have hadthee exposedthere through our guilt; who now, as they say,concealed in sylvan caves, art moving thevery rocks with thygroans, and art wishing for the son of Laërtes what he has deserved;which, may the Gods, the Gods,I say, grant thee not to prayin vain.

“And now, he that was sworn upon the same arms with ourselves, one ofour leaders, alas! by whom, as his successor, the arrows of Hercules areused, broken by disease and famine, is being clothed12 and fed bybirds; and in shooting fowls, he is employing the shafts destined forthe destruction of Troy. Still, he lives, because he did not accompanyUlysses. And the unhappy Palamedes would have preferred that he had beenleft behind;then he would have been living, or, at least, hewould have had a death without any criminality. Him,Ulyssesremembering too well the unlucky discovery of his madness, pretended tobe betraying the Grecian interests, and proved his feigned charge, andshewedthe Greeks the gold, which he had previously hidden in theground. By exile then, or by death,13 has he withdrawn from the Greekstheir442xiii. 61-89.best strength. Thus Ulysses fights, thus is he to be dreaded.Though he were to excel even the faithful Nestor in eloquence, yet hewould never cause me to believe that the forsaking of Nestor14 wasnot a crime; who, when he imploredthe aid of Ulysses, retardedby the wound of his steed, and wearied with the years of old age, wasdeserted by his companion. The son of Tydeus knows full well that thesecharges are not invented by me, who calling on him often by name,rebuked him, and upbraided15 his trembling friend with hisflight. The Gods above behold the affairs of men with just eyes. Lo! hewants help, himself, who gave it not; and as he leftanother, sowas 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 shieldto the enemy, and coveredhim16 as he lay; and I preserved (and that is the leastpart 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 thywonted fear; and hide behind my shield, and under that contend with me.But, after I delivered him, he to whom his woundsbefore gave nostrength for standing, fled, retarded by no woundwhatever.Hector approaches, and brings the Gods along with him to battle, andwhere he rushes on, not only art thou alarmed, Ulysses, but even thevaliantare; so great terror does he bring. Him, as he exulted inthe successes of his bloodstained slaughter, in close conflict,I laid flat with a huge stone. Him demanding one with whom he mightengage, did I alone withstand; and you, Greeks, prayedit mightfall to my lot;17 and your prayers prevailed.443xiii. 89-116.If you inquire into the issue of this fight, I was not beaten byhim.

“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 mybreast. Grant me the arms, in return for so many ships. But, if I may beallowed to speak the truth, a greater honour is sought for themthan is for me, and our glory is united; and Ajax is sought for thearms, and not the arms by Ajax. Let the IthacanUlysses comparewith these things Rhesus,18 and the unwarlike Dolon,19 andHelenus,20 the son of Priam, made captive with the ravishedPallas. By daylight nothing was done; nothing when Diomedes was afar. Ifonce you give these arms for services so mean, divide them, and that ofDiomedes would be the greater share of them. But, why these for theIthacan? who, by stealth and unarmed, ever does his work, and deceivesthe unwary enemy by stratagem? The very brilliancy of his helmet, as itsparkles with bright gold, will betray his plans, and discover him as helies hid. But neither will the Dulichian21 head, beneath thehelm of Achilles, sustain a weight so great; and the spear22 fromPelion must be heavy and burdensome for unwarlike arms. Nor will theshield, embossed with the form of the great globe, beseem a dastard lefthand, and one formed for theft. Whythen, caitiff, dost thou askfor a gift that willbut weaken thee? should the mistake of theGrecian people bestow it on thee, there would be a cause for thee to bestripped, not for thee to be dreaded by the enemy. Thy flight, too, (inwhich, alone, most dastardlywretch! thou dost excel allothers,) will be retarded, when dragging a load so444xiii. 116-146.great. Besides, that shield of thine, which has so rarely experiencedthe conflict, is unhurt; for mine, which is gaping in a thousand woundsfrom 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 ofthat brave hero be thrown in the midst of the enemy: order them to befetched thence, and adorn him that brings them back, with them sobrought off.”

The son of Telamon hadnow ended, and a murmur among themultitude ensued upon his closing words, until the Laërtian hero stoodup, and fixing his eyes, for a short time, on the ground, raised themtowards the chiefs, and opened his mouth in the accents that were lookedfor; 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 notnow 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 toyourselves, (and here he wiped his eyes with his hands as thoughshedding tears,) who could bettersucceed the great Achilles than he throughwhom23 the great Achilles joined the Greeks? Only let itnot avail him that he seems to be as stupid as hereally is; andlet not my talents, which ever served you, O Greeks, be a prejudiceto me: and let this eloquence of mine, if there is any, which now pleadsfor its possessor, and has oftendone so for yourselves, standclear of envy, and let each man not disown his own advantages. Forasto descent and ancestors, and the things which we have not madeourselves, I scarce call these our own. But, indeed, since Ajaxboasts that he is the great grandson of Jove, Jupiter, too, is thefounder 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 oftheseever condemned24 and banished. Through themother,25 too,445xiii. 146-167.CyllenianMercury, another noble stock, is added to myself. Onthe side of either parent there was a God. But neither because I am morenobly born on my mother’s side, nor because my father is innocent of hisbrother’s blood, do I claim the armsnow in question. Bypersonal merit weigh the cause. So that it be no merit in Ajaxthat Telamon and Peleus were brothers; andso that notconsanguinity, but the honour of merit, be regarded inthe disposalof these spoils. Or if nearness of relationship and the next heir issought, Peleus is his sire, and Pyrrhus is his son. What room,then, is there for Ajax? Let them be taken to Phthia26 or toScyros. Nor is Teucer27 any less a cousin of Achilles than he; andyet does he sue for, does he expect to bear away the arms?

“Since then the contest is simply one of deeds; I, in truth, havedone more than what it is easy for me to comprise in words. Yet I shallproceed in the order of events.Thetis, the Nereid mother,prescient of coming death, conceals her son by his dress. The disguiseof the assumed dress deceived all, among whom was Ajax. Amid woman’strinkets I mixed arms such as would affect the mind of a man. And notyet had the hero thrown aside the dress of a maiden, when, as he wasbrandishing a shield and a spear, I said, ‘O son of a Goddess,Pergamus reserves itself to fall through thee. Why,then, dostthou delay to overthrow the mighty Troy?’ Andthen I laid myhands on him, and to brave deeds I sent forth the brave. His deeds thenare my own. ’Twas I that subdued Telephus, as he fought with his lance;’twas I that recovered him, vanquished, and beggingfor his life.That Thebes has fallen, is my doing. Believe me, that I took Lesbos,that Itook Tenedos, Chrysa28 and Cylla, cities of Apollo, andScyrostoo. Consider too, that the Lyrnessian29446xiii. 176-208.walls were levelled with the ground, shaken by my right hand. And, notto mention other things, ’twas I, in fact, that found one who might slaythe fierce Hector; through me the renowned Hector lies prostrate. Bythose arms through which Achilles was found out, I demand thesearms. To him when living I gave them; after his death I ask them backagain.

“After the grief of one30 had reached all the Greeks, and athousand ships had filled the Eubœan Aulis, the breezes long expectedwere either not existing or adverse to the fleet; and the ruthlessoracles commanded Agamemnon to slay his innocent daughter for the cruelDiana. This the father refuses, and is enraged against the Godsthemselves, and, a king, he is still a father. By my words I swayedthe gentle disposition of the parent to the public advantage. Now,indeed, I make this confession, and let the son of Atreus forgiveme 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 thesceptre granted to him, influence him to balance praise against blood.I was sent, too, to the mother, who was not to be persuaded, but tobe deceived with craft; to whom, if the son of Telamon had gone, untileven 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 loftyTroy was seen and entered by me; and still was it filled with theirheroes. Undaunted, I pleaded the cause which all Greece hadentrusted to me; and I accused Paris, and I demanded back the plunder,and Helenas well; and I moved Priam and Antenor31, related toPriam. But Paris and his brothers, and those who, under him, had beenravishers, scarce withheld their wicked hands;and this thouknowest, Menelaüs, and that was the first day of my danger in companywith thee. It were a tedious matter to relate the things which, by mycounsel and my valour, I have successfully executed in the durationof this tedious warfare.

“After the first encounter, the enemy for a long time kept themselveswithin the walls of the city, and there was447xiii. 209-237.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 ofnothing but battles? what was the use of thee? But if thou inquirestinto my actions: I lay ambuscades for the enemy; I surroundthe trenches32 with redoubts; I cheer our allies that they maybear with patient minds the tediousness of a protracted war;I show,too, how we are to be supported, and how to bearmed; I am sent33 whither necessity requires. Lo! by the adviceof Jove, the king, deceived by a form in his sleep, commands him todismiss all care of the warthus begun. He is enabled, throughthe author of it, to defend his own cause. Ajax should not have allowedthis, and should have demanded that Troy be razed. And he should havefought, theonly thing he could do. Why, does he not stop themwhen about to depart? Why does he not take up arms, andwhy notsuggest some course for the fickle multitude to pursue? This was not toomuch for him, who never says any thing but what is grand. Well, anddidst thou take to flight? I was witness of it, and ashamed I wasto see, when thou wast turning thy back, and wast preparing the sails ofdisgrace. Without delay, I exclaimed, ‘What are you doing? Whatmadness 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 otherwords, for which grief itself had mademe eloquent, I brought back the resistingGreeks from theflying fleet. The son of Atreus calls together his allies, struck withterror; nor, even yet, does the son of Telamon dare to utter a word; yetThersites34 dares to launch out against the kings with impudentremarks, although not unpunished by myself. I am aroused, and Iincite the trembling citizens against the foe, and by my voice I reclaimtheir lost courage. From that time, whatever that man, whom I drew awayas he448xiii. 237-266.was turning his back, may seem to have done bravely, isall myown. In fine, who of the Greeks is either praising thee, or resorts tothee; 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 byDiomedes. Nor was it lot that ordered me to go forth; and yet, despisingthe dangers of the night and of the enemy, I slew Dolon,oneof the Phrygian race, who dared the same things that wedared;though not before I had compelled him35 to disclose everything, andhad learned what perfidious Troy designed. Everything had Inowdiscovered, and I had nothingfurther to find out, and I mightnow have returned, with my praises going before me. Not content withthat, I sought the tent of Rhesus, and in his own camp slew himselfand his attendants. And thus, as a conqueror, and having gained my owndesires, I returned in the captured chariot, resembling a joyoustriumph. Deny me the arms of him whose horses the enemy had demanded asthe price forone night’s service; and let Ajax beesteemed your greater benefactor.

“Why should I make reference to the troops of Lycian Sarpedon,36 mowed down by my sword? With much bloodshed I slewCœranos, the son of Iphitus, and Alastor, and Chromius, and Alcander,and Halius, and Noëmon, and Prytanis, and I put to death Thoön, withChersidamas, 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 nothis crafty words; here! behold them.” Andthen, with hishand, 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 friendsfor so many years, and he has a body without a449xiii. 266-299.single wound.38 But what signifies that, if he says that hebore arms for the Pelasgian fleet against both the Trojans and Jupiterhimself? I confess it, he did bear them; nor is it any part of minewith malice to detract from the good deedsof others; but let himnot alone lay claim to what belongs to all, and let him give toyourselves, as well, some of the honour. The descendant of Actor, safeunder the appearance of Achilles, repelled the Trojans, with theirdefender, from the ships on the point of being burnt. He, too, unmindfulof the king, and of the chiefs, and of myself, fancies that he alonedared to engage39 with Hector in combat, being the ninth in that duty,and preferred by favour of the lot. But yet, most bravechief,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 thattime at which Achilles, the bulwark of the Greeks, was slain: nor tears,nor grief, nor fear, hindered me from carrying his body aloft from theground; on these shoulders, I say, on these shoulders I bore thebody of Achilles, and his arms togetherwith him, which now, too,I am endeavouring to bear off. I have strength to suffice forsuch a weight,and, assuredly, I have a soul that will besensible of your honours.

“Was then, forsooth! his azure motherso anxious in her son’sbehalf that the heavenly gifts, a work of so great ingenuity,a rough soldier, and one without any genius, should put on? For hewill not understand the engravings on the shield; the ocean, and theearth, and the stars with the lofty heavens and the Pleïades, and theHyades, and the Bear that avoids the sea, and the different cities, andthe blazing sword of Orion; arms he insists on receiving, which he doesnot understand. What! and does he charge that I, avoiding the duties ofthis laborious war, came but late to the toil begun? and does he notperceive thatin this he is defaming the brave Achilles? If hecalls dissembling a crime, we have both of us dissembled.450xiii. 299-336.If delaystands for a fault, I was earlier than he.A fond wife detained me, a fond mother Achilles. The firstpart of our time was given to them, the rest to yourselves. I amnot alarmed, if now I am unable to defend myself against thisaccusation, in common with so great a man. Yet he was found out by thedexterity of Ulysses, but not Ulyssesby that of Ajax.

“And that we may not be surprised at his pouring out on me thereproaches of his silly tongue, against you, too, does he makeobjections worthy of shame. Is it base for me, with a false crime tohave charged Palamedes,and honourable for you to have condemnedhim? But neither couldPalamedes, the son of Nauplius, defend acrime so great, and so manifest; nor did youonly hear thecharges against him,but you witnessed them, and in the bribeitself the charge was established. Nor have I deserved to beaccused, because Lemnos,the isle of Vulcan,stillreceivesPhiloctetes, the son of Pœas.Greeks, defend yourown acts! for you consented to it. Nor yet shall I deny that I advisedhim to withdraw himself from the toils of the warfare and the voyage,and to try by rest to assuage his cruel pains. He consented, andstill he lives. This advice was not only well-meant, butitwas fortunate as well, when ’twas enough to be well-meant. Since ourprophets demand him for the purpose of destroying Troy, entrust not thatto me. The son of Telamon will be better to go, and by his eloquencewill soften the hero, maddened by diseases and anger, or by some wilewill skilfully bring him thence. Sooner will Simoïs flow backward, andIda stand without foliage, and Achaia promise aid to Troy, than, mybreast being inactive in your interest, the skill of stupid Ajax shallavail the Greeks.

“Though thou be, relentless Philoctetes, enraged against thy friendsand the king, and myself, though thou curse and devote my head,everlastingly, and though thou wish to have me in thy anguish thrown inthy way perchance, and to shed my blood; and though if I meet thee, sothou wilt have the opportunity of meeting me, still will I attemptthee, and will endeavour to bring thee back with me. And, ifFortune favours me, I will as surely be the possessor of thyarrows, as I was the possessor of the Dardanian prophet40 whom I tookprisoner; and so I revealed the answers of the Deities and thefates of Troy;451xiii. 337-362.and as I carried off the hidden statue41 of the PhrygianMinerva from the midst of the enemy. And does Ajax,then, comparehimself with me? The Fates, in fact, would not allow Troy to be capturedwithout thatstatue. Where is the valiant Ajax? where are theboastful words of that mighty man? Why art thou trembling here? Whydares Ulysses to go through the guards, and to entrust himself to thenight, 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 beenbearing the seven hides of the bulls on his left arm. On that night wasthe victory over Troy gained by me; then did I conquer Pergamus, when Irendered it capable of being conquered. Forbear by thy looks,42 andthy muttering, to show me the son of Tydeus; a part of the glory inthese things is his own. Neither wast thou alone, when for the alliedfleet thou didst grasp thy shield: a multitude was attending thee,while but one fell to me: who, did he not know that a fightingman is of less value than a wise one, and that the reward is not the dueof the invincible right hand, would himself, too, have been suing forthesearms; the more discreet Ajax would have been suing, and thefierce Eurypilus,43 and the son of the famous Andremon;44 noless,too would Idomeneus,45 and Meriones46 sprung from thesame land, and the brother of the greater son of Atreus have soughtthem. But these, brave in action, (nor are they second to thee in war,)haveall yielded to my wisdom. Thy right hand is of value in war,452xiii. 362-397.but thy temper is one that stands in need of my direction. Thouhast strength without intelligence; I have a care for the future.Thou art able to fight; with me, the son of Atreus chooses theproper 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 superiorto the capacity of the rower, as much as the general is greater than thesoldier, so much do I excel thee; and in my body there is an intellectthat is superior to hands: in thatlies all my vigour.

“But you, ye chieftains, give the reward to your watchfulservant; and for the cares of so many years which I have passedin anxiety, grant this honour as a compensation for my services. Ourtoil is now at its close; I have removed the opposing Fates, and byrendering it capable of being taken,in effect I have taken thelofty Pergamus. Now, by our common hopes, and the walls of the Trojansdoomed to fall, and by those Gods whom lately I took from the enemy, byanything that remains, through wisdom to be done; if, too, anythingremains of bold enterprize, and to be recovered from a dangerousspot; if you think that anything is still wanting for the downfall ofTroy;then remember me; or if you give not me the arms, concedethem to this;” andthen he discovers the fatal statue ofMinerva.

The body of the chiefs is moved, andthen, in fact appearswhat eloquence can do; and the fluent man receives the arms of a braveone. He, who so often has alone withstood both Hector, and the sword,and flames, and Jovehimself, cannotnow withstand hiswrath alone, and grief conquers the man that is invincible. He seizeshis sword, and he says:— “This, at least, is my own; or willUlysses claim this, too, for himself. This must I use against myself;andthe blade, which has often been wet with the blood of thePhrygians, will now be wet with the slaughter of its owner: that no onebut Ajaxhimself, 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 thesteel. Nor were his hands able to draw out the weapon there fixed: theblood itself forced it out. And the earth, made red by the blood,produced a purple flower from the green turf,the same which hadformerly been produced from the Œbalian wound. Letters common tothat youth453xiii. 397-426.and to the hero, were inscribed in the middle of the leaves; the latterbelonging 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 regionsinfamous for the slaughterthere of the husbands of old; that hemight bring back the arrows, the weapons of the Tirynthianhero.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 andPriam fell together; the wretched wife of Priam lost after every thingelse her human form, and alarmed a foreign air49 with herbarkings. Where the long Hellespont is reduced into a narrow compass,Ilion was in flames; nor had the flames yet ceased; and the altar ofJove had drank up the scanty blood of the aged Priam. The priestess ofApollo50 dragged by the hair, extends her unavailing handstowards the heavens. The victorious Greeks drag along the Dardanianmatrons, embracing, while they may, the statues of their country’s Gods,and clinging to the burning temples, an envied spoil. Astyanax51 ishurled from those towers from which he was often wont, when shown by hismother, to behold his father, fighting for himself, and defending thekingdom of his ancestors.

And now Boreas bids them depart, and with a favourable breeze, thesails, as they wave, resound,and the sailors bid them takeadvantage of the winds. “Troy, farewell!” the Trojan women cry;—“We are torn away!” and they give kisses to the soil, and leave thesmoking roofs of their country. The last that goes on board the fleet,a dreadful sight, is Hecuba, found amid the sepulchres of herchildren. Dulichian hands have dragged her away, while clinging to theirtombs and giving kisses to their bones; yet the ashes of one has shetaken out,454xiii. 426-438.and,so taken out, has carried with her in her bosom the ashes ofHector. On the tomb of Hector she leaves the grey hair of her head, anhumble 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 theeafarfrom the Phrygian arms. A wise resolution; had he not added,aswell, great riches, the reward of crime, the incentive of anavaricious disposition. When the fortunes of the Phrygians were ruined,the wicked king of the Phrygians took a sword, and plunged it in thethroat of his fosterchild; and, as though the crime could be removedwith the body, he hurled him lifeless from a rock into the watersbelow.

EXPLANATION.

It may with justice be said, that in the speeches of Ajax Telamon, andUlysses, here given, the Poet has presented us with a masterpiece ofgenius; both in the lively colours in which he has described the tworivals, and the ingenious manner in which he has throughout sustainedthe contrast between their respective characters.

The ancient writers are not agreed upon the question, who was the motherof Ajax Telamon; Dares says that it was Hesione; while Apollodorus,Plutarch, Tzetzes and others, allege that it was Peribœa, the daughterof Alcathoüs, the son of Pelops. Pindar and Apollodorus say, thatHercules, on going to visit his friend Telamon, prayed to Jupiter thatTelamon might have a son, whose skin should be as impenetrable as thatof the Nemæan lion, which he then wore. As he prayed, he espied aneagle; upon which, he informed his friend that a favourable eventawaited his prayer, and desired him to call his son after the name of aneagle, which in the Greek isαἰετὸς. The Scholiast on Sophocles, Suidas and Tzetzes,say further, that when Hercules returned to see Telamon, after the birthof Ajax, he covered him with the lion’s skin, and that by this meansAjax became invulnerable except in that spot of his body, which wasbeneath the hole which the arrow of Hercules had made in the skin of thebeast.

Dictys, Suidas, and Cedrenus affirm, that the dispute of Ulysses andAjax Telamon was about the Palladium, to which each of them laid claim.They add, that the Grecian nobles, having adjudged it to Ulysses, Ajaxthreatened to slay them, and was found dead in his tent the nextmorning; but it is more generally stated to the effect here related byOvid, that he killed himself, because he could not obtain the armour ofAchilles. Filled with grief and anger combined, he became distracted;and after falling on some flocks, which in his madness he took forenemies, he at last stabbed himself with the sword which he had receivedfrom Hector. This account has been followed by Euripides, in his tragedyon the subject of the death of Ajax; and Homer seems to allude to thisstory, when he makes Ulysses say, that on his descent to the InfernalRegions, the shades of all455the Grecian heroes immediately met him, except that of Ajax, whoseresentment at their former dispute about the armour of Achilles wasstill so warm, that he would not come near him. The Scholiast on Homer,and Eustathius, say that Agamemnon being much embarrassed how to behavein a dispute which might have proved fatal to the Grecian cause, orderedthe Trojan prisoners to come before the council to give their opinion,as to which of them had done the most mischief; and that they answeredin favour of Ulysses. The Scholiast on Aristophanes also adds, thatAgamemnon, not satisfied with this enquiry, sent out spies to know whatwas the opinion of the Trojans on the relative merits of Ulysses andAjax; and that upon their report, he decided in favour of Ulysses.

According to Pliny and Pausanias, Ajax was buried near the promontory ofSigæum, where a tomb was erected for him; though other writers, on theauthority of Dictys, place his tomb on the promontory of Rhœtæum. Horacespeaks of him as being denied the honour of a funeral; but he evidentlyalludes to a passage in the tragedy of Sophocles, where the poetintroduces Agamemnon as obstinately refusing to allow him burial, tillhe is softened by the entreaties of Teucer.

It is probable that Homer knew nothing of the story here mentionedrelative to the concealment of Achilles, disguised in female apparel, byThetis, in the court of Lycomedes, her brother; for speaking of themanner in which Achilles engaged in the war, he says that Nestor andUlysses went to visit Peleus and Menœtius, and easily prevailed withthem that Achilles and Patroclus should accompany them to the war. Itwas, however, at the court of Lycomedes that Achilles fell in love withand married Deidamia, by whom he had Pyrrhus, or Neoptolemus, who waspresent at the taking of Troy, at a very early age.

The story of Polydorus is related in the third Book of the Æneid, and isalso told by Hyginus, with some variations. He says that Polydorus wassent by Priam to Polymnestor, king of Thrace, while he was yet in hiscradle; and that Ilione, the daughter of Priam, distrusting the crueltyand avarice of Polymnestor, who was her husband, educated the child asher own son, and made their own son Deiphylus pass for Polydorus, thetwo infants being of the same age. He also says that the Greeks, afterthe taking of Troy, offered Electra to Polymnestor in marriage, oncondition that he should divorce Ilione, and slay Polydorus, and thatPolymnestor, having acceded to their proposal, unconsciously killed hisown son Deiphylus. Polydorus going to consult the oracle concerning hisfuture fortune, was told, that his father was dead, and his native cityreduced to ashes; on which he imagined that the oracle had deceived him;but returning to Thrace, his sister informed him of the secret, on whichhe deprived Polymnestor of his sight. 

FABLES III. ANDIV.

In returning from Troy, the Greeks arestopped in Thrace by the shade of Achilles, who requests that Polyxenashall be sacrificed to his manes. While Hecuba is fetching water withwhich to bathe the body of her daughter, she espies the corpse of herson Polydorus. In her exasperations456xiii. 439-472.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, ishonoured with a magnificent funeral, and, at the prayer of Aurora, hisashes are transformed by Jupiter into birds, since calledMemnonides.

On the Thracian shore the son of Atreus had moored his fleet, untilthe 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, risesfrom the ground, bursting far and wide, and, like to one threatening,revives the countenance of that time when he fiercely attacked Agamemnonwith his lawless sword. “And are you departing, unmindful of me, yeGreeks?” he says; “and is all grateful remembrance of my valour buriedtogether with me? Do not so. And that my sepulchre may not be withouthonour, let Polyxena slain appease the ghost of Achilles.”Thushe said; and his companions obeying the implacable shade, the noble andunfortunate maid, and more thanan ordinary woman, torn from thebosom of her mother, which she now cherished almost alone, was led tothe 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 whenshe saw Neoptolemus standingby, and wielding his sword, andfixing his eyes upon her countenance, said— “Quickly make use ofthis noble blood:in me there is no resistance: and do thou burythy weapons either in my throat or in my breast!” and, at the same timeshe laid bare her throat and her breast; “should I, Polyxena,forsooth,52 either endure to be the slave of any person, or willany sacred Deity be appeased by such a sacrifice. I only wish thatmy 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 ownlife, that should be lamented by her. Only, stand ye off, lest I shouldgo to the Stygian shades not a free woman: ifin this I demandwhat is just; and withhold the hands of males from the contact of avirgin. My blood will be the more acceptable to him, whoever it is thatyou are preparing to appease by my slaughter. Yet, if the last prayersof my lips move any of you,—’tis the daughter of king Priam,and not a captive that entreats—return457xiii. 472-505.my body unconsumed to my mother, and let her not purchase for me withgold, but with tears, the sad privilege of a sepulchre. Wheninformer times she could, then used she to purchase with gold.”

Thus she said; but the people did not restrain those tearswhich she restrained. Even the priest himself, weeping and reluctant,divided her presented breast with the piercing steel. She, sinking tothe earth on her failing knees, maintained an undaunted countenance tothe 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 thehonour of her chaste modesty. The Trojan matrons received her, andreckoned the children of Priam whom they had had to deplore; and howmuch blood one house had expended. And they lament thee, Oh virgin! andthee, Oh thou! so lately called a royal wifeand a royal mother,once the resemblance of flourishing Asia, but now a worthlessprey amid the plunderof Troy; which the conquering Ulysses wouldhave 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 sheimpressed kisses with her lips, and beat her breastnowaccustomed to it; and trailing her grey hairs in the clotted blood, manythings indeed did she say, but these as well, as she tore herbreast:

“My daughter, the last affliction (for what now remains?) to thymother: my daughter, thou liest prostrate, and I behold thy woundas my own wounds. Lo! lest I should have lost any one of mychildren without bloodshed, thou, too, dost receive thy wound. Still,becausethou wast a woman, I supposed thee safe from thesword; andyet, a woman, thou hast fallen by the sword. Thesame Achilles, the ruin of Troy, and the bereaver of myself, the samehas destroyed thus many of thy brothers,and thyself. But, afterhe had fallen by the arrows of Paris and of Phœbus, ‘Now, at least,’I said, ‘Achilles is nolonger to be dreaded;’ and yet evennow, was he to be dreaded by me. The very ashes of him, as he liesburied, rage against this family; andeven in the tomb have wefound him an enemy. For the descendant of Æacus have I beenthusprolific.458xiii. 505-536.Great Ilion lies prostrate, and the public calamity is completed by adreadful catastrophe; if indeed, it is completed. Pergamus alone remainsfor me: and my sorrow is still in its career. So lately the greatestwoman in the world, powerful in so many sons-in-law, and children53, and daughters-in-law, and in my husband, now I amdragged into exile, destitute,and torn away from the tombs of mykindred, as a present to Penelope. She, pointing me out to the matronsof Ithaca, as I tease my allotted task, will say, ‘This is that famousmother of Hector; this is the wife of Priam.’ And, now thou, who afterthe loss of so manychildren, alone didst alleviate the sorrowsof thy mother, hast made the atonement at the tomb of the enemy. Atoningsacrifices for an enemy have I brought forth. For what purpose, lastinglike iron, am I reserved? and why do I lingerhere? To what enddost thou, pernicious age, detain me? Why, ye cruel Deities, unless tothe end that I may see fresh deaths, do ye reprieve an aged woman ofyears so prolonged? Who could have supposed, that after the fall ofTroy, Priam could have been pronounced happy? Blessed in his death, hehas not beheld thee, my daughter,thus cut off; and at the samemoment, he lost his life and his kingdom.

“But, I suppose, thou, a maiden of royal birth, wilt be honouredwith funeral rites, and thy body will be deposited in the tombs of thyancestors. This is not the fortune of thy house; tears and a handful offoreign sand will be thy lot, theonly gifts of a mother. We havelost all; a child most dear to his mother, now alone remains as areason for me to endure to live yet for a short time, once the youngestofall my male issue, Polydorus, entrusted on these coasts to theIsmarian king. Why, in the mean time, am I delaying to bathe her cruelwounds with the stream, her features, too, besmeared with dreadfulblood?”

Thus she spoke; and with aged step she proceeded towards theshore, tearing her grey locks. “Give me an urn, ye Trojan women,” theunhappymother had just said, in order that she might take up theflowing waters,when she beheld54459xiii. 536-571.the body of Polydorus thrown up on the shore, and the great wounds madeby the Thracian weapons. The Trojan women cried out aloud; with griefshe was struck dumb; and very grief consumed both her voice and thetears that arose within; and much resembling a hard rock she becamebenumbed. 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 helay; the wounds especially; and she armed and prepared herself forvengeance by rage. Soon as she was inflamed by it, as though shestill remained a queen, she determined to be revenged, and waswhollyemployed indevising afitting form ofpunishment. And as the lioness rages when bereft of her sucking whelp,and having found the tracks of his feet, follows the enemy that she seesnot; so Hecuba, after she had mingled rage with mourning, not forgetfulof her spirit,but forgetful of her years, went to Polymnestor,the contriver of this dreadful murder, and demanded an interview; forthat it was her wish to show him a concealed treasure left for him togive to her son.

The Odrysianking believes her, and, inured to the love ofgain, comes to a secret spot. Then with soothing lips, he craftily says,“Away with delays, Hecuba,and give the present to thy son; allthat thou givest, and what thou hast already given, I swear by theGods above, shall be his.” Sternly she eyes him as he speaks, andfalsely swears; and she boils with heaving rage; and so flies on him,seized by a throng of the captive matrons, and thrusts her fingers intohis perfidious eyes; and of their sight she despoils his cheeks, andplunges her handsinto the sockets, (’tis rage that makes herstrong); and, defiled with his guilty blood, she tears not his eyes, forthey are not left,but the places for his eyes.

Provoked by the death of their king, the Thracian people begin toattack the Trojanmatron with the hurling of darts and of stones.But she attacks the stones thrown at her with a hoarse noise, and withbites; and attempting to speak, her mouth just ready for the words, shebarks aloud. The placestill exists, and derives its name55from the circumstance; and long remembering her ancient misfortunes,even then did460xiii. 571-612.she howl dismally through the Sithonian plains. Hersad fortunemoved both her own Trojans, and her Pelasgian foes, and all the Gods aswell; so much so, that even the wife and sister of Jove herself deniedthat Hecuba had deserved that fate.

Although she has favoured those same arms, there is not leisure forAurora to be moved by the calamities and the fall of Troy. A nearercare and grief at home for her lost Memnon is afflicting her. Him hisrosy-coloured mother saw perish by the spear of Achilles on the Phrygianplains.This she saw; and that colour with which the hours of themorning grow ruddy, turned pale, and the æther lay hid in clouds. Butthe parent could not endure to behold his limbs laid on the closingflames. But with loose hair, just as she was, she disdained not to falldown at the knees of great Jove, and to add these words to her tears:“Inferior to allthe Goddesses which the golden æther doessustain, (for throughout all the world are my temples the fewest),still, a Goddess, I am come; not that thou shouldst grant metemples and days of sacrifice, and altars to be heated with fires. Butif thou considerest how much I, a female, perform for thee, at thetime 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 isnot my care, nor is such now the condition of Aurora such that sheshould demand the honours deserved by her. Bereft of my Memnon am Icome;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 thebrave Achilles. Give him, I pray, supreme ruler of the Gods, somehonour, as a solace for his death, and ease the wounds of a mother.”

Jove nods his assent; whensuddenly the lofty pile of Memnonsinks with its towering fires, and volumes of black smoke darken thelight of day. Just as when the rivers exhale the rising fogs, andthe sun is not admitted below them. The black embers fly, and rollinginto one body, they thicken, and take a form, and assume heat and lifefrom the flames. Their own lightness gives them wings; and first, likebirds,and then real birds, they flutter with their wings. Atonce innumerable sisters are fluttering, whose natal origin is the same.And thrice do they go around the pile, and thrice does their clamourrise in concert into the air. In the fourth flight they separate theircompany. Then two fierce tribes461xiii. 612-622.wage war from opposite sides, and with their beaks and crooked clawsexpend their rage, and weary their wings and opposing breasts; and downtheir kindred bodies fall, a sacrifice to the entombed ashes, andthey remember that from a great man they have received their birth.Their progenitor gives a name to these birds so suddenly formed, calledMemnonides after him; when the Sun has run through the twelve signsof the Zodiac, they fight, doomed to perish in battle, in honourof their parent.56

To others, therefore, it seemed a sad thing, that the daughter ofDymas wasnow barking;but Aurora was intent on her ownsorrows; and even now she sheds the tears of affection, and sprinklesthem in dew over all the world.

EXPLANATION.

The particulars which Ovid here gives of the misfortunes that befell thefamily of Priam, with the exception of a few circumstances, agreeperfectly with the narratives of the ancient historians.

According to Dictys, Philostratus, and Hyginus, after Achilles was slainby the treachery of Paris, on the eve of his marriage with Polyxena, shebecame inconsolable at his death, and returning to the Grecian camp, shewas kindly received by Agamemnon; but being unable to get the better ofher despair, she stole out of the camp at night, and stabbed herself atthe tomb of Achilles. Philostratus adds, that the ghost of Achillesappeared to Apollonius Tyanæus, the hero of his story, and gave himpermission to ask him any questions he pleased, assuring him, that hewould give him full information on the subject of them. Among otherthings, Apollonius desired to know if it was the truth that the Greekshad sacrificed Polyxena on his tomb; to which the ghost replied, thather grief made her take the resolution not to survive her intendedhusband, and that she had killed herself.

Other writers, agreeing with Ovid as to the manner of her death, tell usthat it was Pyrrhus who sacrificed Polyxena to his father’s shade, torevenge his death, of which, though innocently, she had been the cause.Pausanias, who says that this was the general opinion, avers, on whatground it is difficult to conceive, that Homer designedly omitted thisfact, because it was so dishonourable to the Greeks; and in hisdescription of the paintings at Delphi, by Polygnotus, of thedestruction of Troy, he says that Polyxena was there represented asbeing led out to the tomb of Achilles, where she was sacrificed by theGreeks. He also says, that he had seen her story painted in the samemanner at Pergamus, Athens, and other places. Many of the poets, andVirgil in the number, affirm462that Polyxena was sacrificed in Phrygia, near Troy, on the tomb ofAchilles, he having desired it at his death; while Euripides says thatit was in the Thracian Chersonesus, on a cenotaph, which was erectedthere in honour of Achilles: and that his ghost appearing, Calchas wasconsulted, 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, whohas been followed by his Scholiast, and by Ovid and Suidas, says thatshe was the daughter of Dymas, King of Phrygia. Euripides says that shewas the daughter of Cisscus, and with him Virgil and Servius agree.Apollodorus, again, makes her to be descended from Sangar and Merope. Inthe distribution of spoil after the siege of Troy, Hecuba fell to theshare of Ulysses, and became his slave; but died soon after, in Thrace.Plautus and Servius allege that the Greeks themselves circulated thestory of her transformation into a bitch, because she was perpetuallyrailing at them, to provoke them to put her to death, rather thancondemn her to pass her life as a slave. According to Strabo andPomponius Mela, in their time, the place of her burial was still to beseen in Thrace. Euripides, in his Hecuba, has not followed thistradition, but represents her as complaining that the Greeks had chainedher to the door of Agamemnon like a dog. Perhaps she became the slave ofAgamemnon after Ulysses had left the army, on his return to Ithaca; andit is possible that the story of her transformation may have been solelyfounded on this tradition. She bore to Priam ten sons and sevendaughters, and survived them all except Helenus; most of her sons havingfallen by the hand of Achilles.

Many ancient writers, with whom Ovid here agrees, affirm that Memnon wasthe son of Tithonus, the brother of Priam, and Aurora, or Eos, theGoddess of the morn. They also say that he came to assist the Trojanswith ten thousand Persians, and as many Æthiopians. Diodorus Siculusasserts that Memnon was said to have been the son of Aurora, because heleft Phrygia, and went to settle in the East. It is not clear in whatcountry 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 tothe same, as Æthiopia was not in general distinguished from the Higheror Upper Egypt. Marsham is of opinion that Memnon was the same withAmenophis, one of the kings of Egypt: while Le Clercconsiders him tohave been the same person as Ham, the son of Noah; and Vossiusidentifies him with Boalcis, a God of the Syrians. It seemsprobable that he was an Egyptian, who had perhaps formed an alliancewith the reigning family of Troy.

FABLES V. ANDVI.

After the taking of Troy, Æneas escapeswith his father and his son, and goes to Delos. Anius, the priest ofApollo, recounts to him how his daughters have been transformed intodoves, and at parting they exchange presents. The Poet here introducesthe story of the daughters of Orion, who, having sacrificed their livesfor the safety of Thebes, when ravaged by a plague, two young men ariseout of their ashes.

But yet the Fates do not allow the hope of Troy to be ruined evenwith its walls. The Cytherean hero bears on his shoulders the sacredrelics and his father, another sacred relic, a venerable burden. Inhis affection, out of wealth so great, he selects that prize, and hisown Ascanius, and with his flying fleet is borne through the seas fromAntandros,57 and leaves the accursed thresholds of the Thracians,and the earth streaming with the blood of Polydorus; and, with goodwinds and favouring tide, he enters the city of Apollo, his companionsattending 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 hishouse, and showed him the city and the dedicated temples, and the twotrunks of trees once grasped58 by Latona in her labour.Frankincense being given to the flames, and wine poured forth on thefrankincense, and the entrails of slain oxen59 being duly burnt,they repair to the royal palace, and reclining on lofty couches, withflowing wine, they take the gifts of Ceres. Then the pious Anchisessays, “O chosen priest of Phœbus, am I deceived? or didstthou not have a son, also, when first I beheld these walls, and twicetwo daughters, so far as I remember?” To him Anius replies, shaking histemples wreathed with snow-white fillets, and says, “Thou art notmistaken, greatest hero; thou didst see me the parent of five children,whom now (so great a vicissitude of fortune464xiii. 646-683.affects mankind) thou seest almost bereftof all. For whatassistance is my absent son to me, whom Andros, a landsocalled after his name, possesses, holding that place and kingdom onbehalf of his father?

“The DelianGod granted himthe art of augury; to myfemale progeny Liber gave other gifts, exceedingboth wishes andbelief. For, at the touch of my daughters, all things were transformedinto corn, and the stream of wine, and the berry of Minerva; and inthese were there rich advantages. When the son of Atreus, the destroyerof Troy, learned this (that thou mayst not suppose that we, too, did notin some degree feel your storms) using the force of arms, he draggedthem reluctantly from the bosom of their father, and commanded them tofeed, with their heavenly gifts, the Argive fleet. Whither each of themcould, they made their escape. Eubœa was sought by two; and by as manyof my daughters, was Andros, their brother’sisland, sought. Theforces came, and threatened war if they were not given up. Naturalaffection, subdued by fear, surrendered to punishment those kindredbreasts; and, that thou mayst be able to forgive a timid brother, therewas no Æneas, no Hector to defend Andros, through whom youTrojans held out to the tenth year. And now chains were beingprovided for their captive arms. Lifting up towards heaven their armsstill free, they said, ‘Father Bacchus, give us thy aid!’ and the authorof their gift did give them aid; if destroying them, in a wondrousmanner, 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 isknownto me: they assumed wings, and were changed into birds ofthy consort,60 the snow-white doves.”

With such and other discourse, after they have passed thetimeof feasting, the table being removed, they seek sleep. And they risewith the day, and repair to the oracle of Phœbus, who bids them seek theancient mother and the kindred shores. The king attends, and presentsthem 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 Aonianshores; this465xiii. 683-712.Therses had sent to him,but the Mylean Alcon had made it, andhad carved it with this long device:

There was a city, and you might point outits seven gates:these were in place of61 a name, and showed whatcity itwas. Before the city was a funeral, and tombs, and fires, and funeralpiles; and matrons, with hair dishevelled and naked breasts, expressedtheir grief; the Nymphs, too, seem to be weeping, and to mourn theirsprings dried up. Without foliage the bared tree runs straight up; thegoats are gnawing the dried stones. Lo! he represents the daughters ofOrion in the middle of Thebes; the one, as presenting her breast, morethan woman’s, with her bared throat; the other, thrusting a sword in hervalorous wounds, as dying for her people, and as being borne, with anhonoured funeral, through the city, and as being burnt in a conspicuouspartof it;and then from the virgin embers, lest the raceshould fail, twin youths arising, whom Fame calls ‘Coronæ,’62 andfor their mothers’ ashes leading thefuneral procession.

Thus far for the figures that shine on the ancient brass; the summitof the goblet is rough with gilded acanthus. Nor do the Trojans returngifts of less value than those given; and to the priest they give anincense-box, to keep the frankincense; they give a bowl,too, anda crown, brilliant with gold and gems. Then recollecting that theTrojans,as Teucrians, derived their origin from the bloodof Teucer, they make for Crete, and cannot long endure the air of thatplace;63 and, having left behind the hundred cities, theydesire to reach the Ausonian harbours. A storm rages, and tossesthe men to and fro; and winged Aëllo frightens them, when received inthe unsafe harbours of the Strophades.64 And now, borne along,466xiii. 712-718.they have passed the Dulichian harbours, and Ithaca, and Same,65 andthe Neritian abodes, the kingdom of the deceitful Ulysses; and theybehold Ambracia,66 contended for in a dispute of the Deities, whichnow is renowned for the Actian Apollo,67 and the stone in the shape ofthe transformed judge, and the land of Dodona, vocal with its oaks; andthe Chaonian bays, where the sons of the Molossian king escaped theunavailing flames, with wings attachedto them.

EXPLANATION.

Virgil describes Anius as the king of Delos, and the priest of Apollo atthe same time. ‘Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique sacerdos.’ Æneid,Book III. He was descended from Cadmus, through his mother Rhea, thedaughter of Staphilus. Having engaged in some intrigue, as DiodorusSiculus conjectures, her father exposed her on the sea in an open boat,which drove to Delos, and she was there delivered of Anius, whoafterwards became the king of the island. By his wife Dorippe he hadthree daughters, who were extremely frugal, and by means of theofferings and presents that were brought to the temple of Apollo,amassed a large store of provisions. During the siege of Troy, theGreeks sent Palamedes to Delos, to demand food for the army; and, as asecurity for his compliance with these demands, they exacted thedaughters of Anius as hostages. The damsels soon afterwards findingmeans to escape, it was said that Bacchus, who was their kinsman throughCadmus, had transformed them into doves. Probably the story of theirtransforming every thing they touched, into wine, corn, and oil, wasfounded solely on their thriftiness and parsimony. Bochart, however,explains the story from the circumstance of their names being, as heconjectures, Oëno, Spermo, and Elaï, which, in the old Phœniciandialect, signified wine, corn, and oil; and he thinks that the story wasconfirmed in general belief by the fact that large quantities of corn,wine, and oil were supplied from Delos to the Grecian army when beforeTroy.

In the reign of Orion, Thebes being devastated by a plague, the oracleswere consulted, and the Thebans were told that the contagion would ceaseas soon as the daughters of the king should be sacrificed to the wrathof heaven. The two maidens immediately presented themselves at thealtar; and on their immolation, the Gods were appeased, and the plagueceased.467This example of patriotism and fortitude filled the more youthfulThebans with so much emulation, that they shook off their formerinactivity, and soon became conspicuous for their bravery: which suddenchange gave occasion to the saying, that the ashes of these maidens hadbeen transformed into men.

The Poet follows Æneas on his voyage, to gain an opportunity ofreferring to several other current stories. Among other places, hepasses the city of Ambracia, about which the Gods had contended, andsees the rock into which the umpire of their dispute, who had decided infavour of Hercules, was changed. Ambracia was on the coast of Epirus,and gave its name to an adjacent inlet of the sea, called the AmbracianGulf. Antoninus Liberalis tells us, on the authority of Nicander, thatApollo, Diana, and Hercules disputed about this city, and left thedecision to Cragaleus, who gave it in favour of Hercules; on which,Apollo transformed him into a rock. Very possibly the meaning of thismay be, that when the people of Ambracia were considering to which ofthese Deities they should dedicate their city, Cragaleus preferredHercules to the other two, or, in other words, the feats of war to thecultivation of the arts and sciences. Apollo was said to have turned himinto a stone, either because he met with his death near the promontorywhere a temple of Apollo stood, or to show the stupidity of hisdecision. Antoninus Liberalis is the only writer besides Ovid that makesmention of the adventure of the sons of the Molossian king; he tells usthat Munychus, king of the Molossi, had three sons, Alcander, Megaletor,and Philæus, and a daughter named Hyperippe. Some robbers setting fireto their father’s house, they were transformed by Jupiter into birds.This, in all probability, is a poetical way of saying that the youthsescaped from the flames, contrary to universal expectation.

The opinions of writers have been very conflicting as to the origin ofthe oracle of Dodona. Silius Italicus says that two pigeons flew fromThebes in Egypt, one of which went to Libya, and occasioned the foundingof the oracle of Jupiter Ammon; while the other settled upon an oak inChaonia, and signified thereby to the inhabitants, that it was the willof heaven that there should be an oracle in that place. Herodotus saysthat two priestesses of Egyptian Thebes being carried off by somePhœnician merchants, one of them was sold to the Greeks, after which shesettled in the forest of Dodona, where a little chapel was founded byher in honour of Jupiter, in which she gave responses. He adds, thatthey called her ‘the dove,’ because being a foreigner they did notunderstand her language. At length, having learned the language of thePelasgians, it was said that the dove had spoken. On that foundationgrew the tradition that the oaks themselves uttered oracularresponses.

Notwithstanding this plausible account of Herodotus, it is notimpossible that some equivocal expressions in the Hebrew and Arabianlanguages may have given rise to the story. ‘Himan,’ in the onelanguage, signified ‘a priest;’ and ‘Heman,’ in the other, was the namefor ‘a pigeon.’ Possibly those who found the former word in the historyof ancient Greece, written in the dialect of the original Phœniciansettlers, did not understand it, and by their mistake, caused it to beasserted that a dove had founded the468oracle of Dodona. Bochart tells us that the same word, in the Phœniciantongue, signifies either ‘pigeons,’ or ‘women;’ but the Abbè Sallier hasgone still further, and has shown that, in the language of the ancientinhabitants of Epirus, the same word had the two significationsmentioned by Bochart.

This oracle afterwards grew famous for its responses, and the priestsused considerable ingenuity in the delivery of their answers. Theycautiously kept all who came to consult them at a distance from the darkrecess where the shrine was situated; and took care to deliver theirresponses in a manner so ambiguous, as to make people believe whateverthey pleased. In this circumstance originates the variation in thedescriptions of the oracle which the ancients have left us. According tosome, it was the oaks that spoke; according to others, the beeches;while a third account was that pigeons gave the answers; and, lastly, itwas said that the ringing of certain cauldrons there suspended, divulgedthe will of heaven. Stephanus Byzantinus has left a curious account ofthis contrivance of the cauldrons; he says that in that part of theforest of Dodona, where the oracle stood, there were two pillarserected, at a small distance from each other. On one there was placed abrazen vessel, about the size of an ordinary cauldron: and on the othera little boy, which was most probably a piece of mechanism, who held abrazen whip with several thongs which hung loose, and were easily moved.When the wind blew, the lashes struck against the vessel, and occasioneda noise while the wind continued. It was from them, he says, that theforest took the name of Dodona; ‘dodo,’ in the ancient language,signifying ‘a cauldron.’

Strabo says that the responses were originally given by threepriestesses: and he gives the reason why two priests were afterwardsadded to them. The Bœotians having been treacherously attacked by thepeople of Thrace during a truce which they had made, went to consult theoracle of Dodona; and the priestess answering them that if they wouldact impiously their design would succeed to their wish, the envoyssuspected that this response had been suggested by the enemy, and burnedher in revenge; after which they vindicated their cruelty by saying thatif the priestess designed to deceive them, she well deserved herpunishment; and that if she spoke with truthfulness, they had onlyfollowed the advice of the oracle. This argument not satisfying thepeople of the district, the Bœotian envoys were seized; but as theypleaded that it was unjust that two women already prejudiced againstthem should be their judges, two priests were added to decide thematter. These, in return for their being the occasion of putting them inan office so honourable and lucrative, acquitted the Bœotians; whosefellow countrymen were always in the habit from that time of addressingthe priests when they consulted the oracle. These priests were called bythe name of ‘Selli.’

FABLE VII.

Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, jealousof Acis, who is in love with Galatea, kills the youth with a rock whichhe hurls at him; on which, his blood is changed into a river which bearshis name.

They make for the neighbouring land of the Phæacians,68 plantedwith beauteous fruit. After this, Epirus and Buthrotos,69 ruled overby the Phrygian prophet, and a fictitious Troy, are reached. Thence,acquainted with the future, all which, Helenus, the son of Priam, in hisfaithful instructions has forewarned them of, they enter Sicania. Withthree points this projects into the sea. Of these, Pachynos is turnedtowards the showery South: Lilybæum is exposed to the soft Zephyrs: butPeloros looks towards the Bear, free from the sea, and towards Boreas.By thispart the Trojans enter; and with oars and favouring tide,at nightfall the fleet makes the Zanclæan sands. Scylla infests theright hand side, the restless Charybdis the left. This swallows andvomits forth again ships taken down; the other, having the face of amaiden, has her swarthy stomach surrounded with fierce dogs; and (if thepoets have not left the whole a fiction) once on a time, too,shewas a maiden. Many suitors courted her; who being repulsed, she,most beloved by the Nymphs of the ocean, went to the ocean Nymphs, andused to relate the eluded loves of the youths.

While Galatea70 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 theCyclop;” and as she spoke, the tears choked her utterance. When, withher fingers like marble, the maiden had wiped these away, and hadcomforted470xiii. 747-782.the Goddess, “Tell me, dearest,” said she, “and conceal notfromme (for I am true to thee) the cause of thy grief.” In thesewords did the Nereid reply to the daughter of Cratæis:71 “Acis wasthe 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 thecharmingyouth had attached me to himself alone, and eightbirth-days having a second time been passed, he hadnow markedhis tender cheeks with the dubious down. Him Ipursued;incessantly did the Cyclop me pursue. Nor can I, shouldst thou enquire,declare whether the hatred of theCyclop, or the love of Acis, was the strongerin me. They were equal. O genial Venus! how great is the power ofthy sway. For that savage, and one to be dreaded by the very woods, andbeheld with impunity by no stranger, the contemner of great Olympus withthe Godsthemselves,now feels what love is; and,captivated with passion for me, he burns, forgetting his cattle and hiscaves.

“And now, Polyphemus, thou hast a care for thy looks, and now forthe art of pleasing; now thou combest out thy stiffened hair withrakes,and now it pleases thee to cut thy shaggy beard with thesickle, and to look at thy fierce features in the water, andsoto compose them. Thy love for carnage, and thy fierceness, and thyinsatiate thirst for blood,now cease; and the ships both comeand go in safety. Telemus, in the mean time arriving at the SicilianÆtna, Telemus, the son of Eurymus, whom no omen hadeverdeceived, accosts the dreadful Polyphemus, and says, ‘The single eyethat thou dost carry in the midst of thy forehead, Ulysses shall takeaway from thee.’ He laughed, and said, ‘O most silly of the prophets,thou art mistaken,for another has already taken it away.’ Thusdoes he slight him, in vain warning him of the truth; and he eitherburdens the shore, stalking along with huge strides, or, wearied, hereturns to his shaded cave.

“A hill, in form of a wedge, runs out with a long projection into thesea:and the waves of the ocean flow round either side. Hitherthe fierce Cyclop ascended, and sat down in the middle. His woollyflocks followed, there being no one to guide them. After the pinetree,72 which afforded him the471xiii. 782-816.service of a staff,but more fitted for sail-yards, was laidbefore his feet, and his pipe was taken up, formed of a hundred reeds;all the mountains were sensible of the piping of the shepherd: thewaves,too, were sensible. I, lying hid within a rock, andreclining on the bosom of my own Acis, from afar caught such words asthese with my ears, and marked themso heard in my mind: ‘OGalatea, fairer than73 the leaf of the snow-white privet,74 moreblooming than the meadows, more slender than the tall alder, brighterthan glass, more wanton than the tender kid, smoother than the shellsworn by continual floods, more pleasing than the winter’s sun,orthan the summer’s shade, more beauteous than the apples, more sightlythan the lofty plane tree, clearer than ice, sweeter than the ripenedgrape, softer than both the down of the swan, and than curdled milk,and, didst thou not fly me, more beauteous than a watered garden.Andyet thou, the same Galatea,art wilder than the untamedbullocks, harder than the aged oak, more unstable than the waters,tougher than both the twigs of osier and than the white vines, moreimmoveable than these rocks, more violent than the torrent, prouder thanthe 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 especiallywish to deprive thee of, fleeter not only than the deer when pursued bythe loud barkings, but even than the winds and the fleeting air.

“‘But didst thoubut know me well, thou wouldst repine at having fled, and thouthyself wouldst blame thy own hesitation, and wouldst strive to retainme. I have a part of the mountain for my cave, pendent with thenative rock; in which the sun is not felt in the middle of the heat, noris the winter felt: there are apples that load the boughs; there aregrapes on the lengthening vines, resembling gold; and there are purpleonesas well; both the one and the other do I reserve for thee.With thine own hands thou shalt thyself gather the soft strawberriesgrowing beneath the woodland472xiii. 816-851.shade; thou thyselfshalt pluck the cornels of autumn, and plumsnot only darkened with their black juice, but even of the choicestkinds, and resembling new wax. Nor, I being thy husband, will therebe wanting to thee chesnuts, nor the fruit of the arbute tree:75 everytree shall be at thy service. All this cattle is my own: many, too, arewandering in the valleys: many the wood conceals: manymore arepenned in my caves. Nor, shouldst thou ask me perchance, could I tellthee, how many there are; ’tis for the poor man to count his cattle. Forthe praises of these trust not me at all; in person thou thyself maystsee 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 ageto them in other folds. Snow-white milk Ialways have: a part of it is kept for drinking,another partthe liquified rennet hardens. Nor will common delights, and ordinaryenjoyments alone fall to thy lot,such as does, and hares, andshe-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 shaggyshe-bear, which can play with thee, so like each other that thou couldstscarce distinguish them.These I found, and I said, ‘These for mymistress 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, andmyself but lately I beheld in the reflection of the limpid water; and myfigure76 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 oneJupiter reigns, who he is I know not. Plenty of hair hangs over mygrisly features, and, like a grove, overshadows my shoulders; nor thinkit uncomely that my body is rough, thick set with stiff bristles.A tree without leaves is unseemly; a horse is unseemly, unlessa mane covers his tawny neck. Feathers cover the birds; their wool is anornament to the sheep; a beard and rough hair upon their body isbecoming to men. I have but one eye in the middle of my forehead,but it is like473xiii. 852-890.a large buckler. Well! and does not the Sun from the heavens beholdall these things? and yet the Sun has but one eye. And, besides, in yourseas does my father reign. Him do I offer thee for a father-in-law; onlydo take pity on a suppliant, and hear his prayer, for to thee alone do Igive way. And I, who despise Jove, and the heavens, and the piercinglightnings, dread thee, daughter of Nereus; than the lightnings is thywrath more dreadful to me. But I should be more patient under theseslights, if thou didst avoid all men. For why, rejecting the Cyclop,dost thou love Acis? And why prefer Acis to my embraces? Yet, let himplease himself, and let him please thee, too, Galatea,though Iwish he could not; if only the opportunity is given, he shall find thatI have strength proportioned to a body so vast. I will pull out hispalpitating entrails; and I will scatter his torn limbs about thefields, and throughout thy waves,and thus let him be united tothee. For I burn: and my passion,thus slighted, rages with thegreater fury; and I seem to be carrying in my breast Ætna, transferredthere withall its flames; and yet, Galatea, thou artunmoved.’

“Having in vain uttered such complaints (for all this I saw), herises; 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 wellknown forests. When the savagemonster espied me, and Acisunsuspecting and apprehensive of no such thing; and he exclaimed:—‘I see you, and I shall cause this to be the last union for youraffection.’ And that voice was as loud as an enraged Cyclop ought,for his size, to have. Ætna trembled at the noise; but I, struckwith 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 parentsof hers; and admit me,now on the point of destruction, within your realms.’ The Cycloppursued, and hurled a fragment, torn from the mountain; and though theextreme angle only of the rock reached him, yet it entirely crushedAcis. 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 bloodflowed from beneath the rock, and in a little time the redness began tovanish; and at first it became the colour of a stream muddied by ashower; and, in time, it became clear. Then the rock, that had beenthrown, opened,474xiii. 890-897.and through the chinks, a reed vigorous and stately arose, and thehollow 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 thathe was of larger stature, and azure in all his features, was Acisstill. But, even then, still it was Acis, changed into a river;and the stream has since retained that ancient name.”

EXPLANATION.

Homer, who, in the ninth Book of the Odyssey, has entered fully into thesubject of Polyphemus and the other Cyclops, does not recount thisadventure, which Ovid has borrowed from Theocritus, the Sicilian poet.Some writers have suggested that Acis was a Sicilian youth, who, havingmet with a repulse from Galatea, threw himself into the river, which wasafterwards called by his name. It is, however, more probable that thisriver was so called from the rapidity of its course. Indeed, thescholiast on Theocritus and Eustathius distinctly say that the streamwas called Acis, because the swiftness of its course resembled that ofan arrow, which was calledἀκὶς, in the Greek language.

Homer, in describing the Cyclops, informs us that they were a lawlessrace, who, neglecting husbandry, lived on the spontaneous produce of arich soil, and dwelling in mountain caves, devoted themselves entirelyto the pleasures of a pastoral life. He says that they were men ofmonstrous stature, and had but one eye, in the middle of their forehead.Thucydides supposes them to have been the original inhabitants ofSicily. As their origin was unknown, it was said that they were theoffspring of Neptune, or, in other words, that they had come by sea, tosettle in Sicily. According to Justin, they retained possession of theisland till the time of Cocalus; but in that point he disagrees withHomer, who represents them as being in the island after the time ofCocalus, who was a contemporary of Minos, and lived long before theTrojan war.

They inhabited the western parts of Sicily, near the promontories ofLilybæum and Drepanum; and from that circumstance, according to Bochart,they received their name. He supposes that the Cyclopes were so calledfrom 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 languageκυκλὸς signified ‘a circle,’ andὤπς, ‘an eye,’ it was given out that the name ofCyclops was given to them, because they had but one round eye in themiddle of the forehead. It is possible that they may have acquired theircharacter of being cannibals on true grounds, or, perhaps, only becausethey were noted for their extreme cruelty. Living near the volcanicmountain of Ætna, they were called the workmen of Vulcan; and Virgildescribes them as forging the thunderbolts of Jupiter. Some writersrepresent them as having armed the three Deities, who divided the empireof the world: Jupiter with thunder; Pluto with his helmet; and Neptunewith his trident. Statius represents them as the builders of the wallsof Argos and Virgil as the475xiii. 898-917.founders of the gates of the Elysian fields. Aristotle supposes thatthey were the first builders of towers.

Diodorus Siculus and Tzetzes say that Polyphemus was king of a part ofSicily, when Ulysses landed there; who, falling in love with Elpe, thedaughter of the king, carried her off.The Læstrygons, the neighbours of Polyphemus, pursuedhim, and obliged him to give up the damsel, who was brought back to herfather. Ulysses, in relating the story to the Phæacians, artfullyconcealed circumstances so little to his credit, and with impunityinvented the absurdities which he related concerning a country to whichhis audience were utter strangers.

FABLE VIII.

Glaucus having observed some fisheswhich 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 someof it into his mouth, he immediately becomes mad, and leaping into thesea, is transformed into a sea God.

Galatea ceases77 speaking, and the company breaking up, theydepart; 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, whenshe is tired, having lighted upon some lonely recess of the sea, coolsher limbs in the enclosed waves.When, lo! cleaving the deep,Glaucus comes, a new-made inhabitant of the deep sea, his limbshaving been lately transformed at Anthedon,78 near Eubœa; and helingers from passion for the maidennow seen, and utters whateverwords 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 nearthe shore.

In front of the sea, there is a huge ridge, terminating in onesummit, bending for a long distance over the waves,and withouttrees. Here she stands, and secured by the place, ignorant whether he isa monster or a God, she both admires his colour, and his flowing hairthat covers his shoulders and his back, and how a wreathed fish closesthe extremity of his groin.This he perceives; and leaning upon arock that stands hard by, he says, “Maiden, I am no monster, nosavage476xiii. 917-956.beast; I am a God of the waters: nor have Proteus, and Triton, andPalæmon, the son of Athamas, a more uncontrolled reign over thedeep. 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 dragthe 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 averdant meadow, one part of which was surrounded with water, the otherwith grass, which, neither the horned heifers had hurt with theirbrowsing, nor had you, ye harmless sheep, noryou, ye shaggygoats,ever cropped it. No industrious bee tookthence thecollected blossoms, no festive garlands were gathered thence for thehead; and no mower’s hands had ever cut it. I was the first to beseated on that turf, while I was drying the dripping nets. And that Imight count in their order the fish that I had taken; I laid outthose upon it which either chance had driven to my nets, or their owncredulity to my barbed hooks.

“The thing is like a fiction (but of what use is it to me to coinfictions?); on touching the grass my prey began to move, and to shifttheir sides, and to skip about on the land, as though in the sea. Andwhile 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 ofsomeherb. ‘And yet,’ said I, ‘what herb has these properties?’ and with myhand I plucked the grass, and I chewed it,so plucked, with myteeth. Hardly had my throat well swallowed the unknown juices, when Isuddenly felt my entrails inwardly throb, and my mind taken possessionof by the passions of another nature. Nor could I stay inthatplace; 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 Oceanusand Tethys to take away from me whatever mortality I bore. By them was Ipurified; and a charm being repeated over me nine times, that washesawayall guilt, I was commanded to put my breast beneath ahundred streams.

“There was no delay; rivers issuing from different springs, and wholeseas, were poured over my head. Thus far I can477xiii. 956-968.relate to thee what happened worthy to be related, and thus far do Iremember; but my understanding was not conscious of the rest. When itreturnedto me, I found myself different throughout all mybody from what I was before, and not the same in mind. Then, for thefirst time, did I behold this beard, green with its deep colour, and myflowing hair, which I sweep along the spacious seas, and my hugeshoulders, and my azurecoloured arms, and the extremities of my legstapering inthe form of a finny fish. But still, what does thisform avail me, what to have pleased the ocean Deities,and whatto 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, herepaired to the marvellous court of Circe, the daughter of Titan.

EXPLANATION.

The ancient writers mention three persons of the name of Glaucus: onewas the son of Minos, the second of Hippolochus, and the third is theone here mentioned. Strabo calls him the son of Polybus, while otherwriters 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 waspromulgated that he had become a sea God, and the city of Anthedon, ofwhich he was a native, worshipped him as such.

Athenæus says that he carried off Ariadne from the isle of Naxos, whereTheseus had left her; on which Bacchus punished him by binding him to avine. According to Diodorus Siculus, he appeared to the Argonauts, whenovertaken by a storm. From Apollonius Rhodius we learn that he foretoldto them that Hercules, and Castor and Pollux, would be received into thenumber of the Gods. It was also said, that in the battle which tookplace between Jason and the Tyrrhenians, he was the only person thatescaped unwounded. Euripides, who is followed by Pausanias, says that hewas the interpreter of Nereus, and was skilled in prophecy; and Nicandereven says that it was from him that Apollo learned the art ofprediction. Strabo and Philostratus say that he was metamorphosed into aTriton, which is a-kin to the description of his appearance here givenby Ovid.

The place where he leaped into the sea was long remembered; and in thedays of Pausanias ‘Glaucus’ Leap’ was still pointed out by the people ofAnthedon. It is not improbable that he drowned himself for some reasonwhich tradition failed to hand down to posterity.

BOOK THE FOURTEENTH.

FABLE I.

Circe becomes enamoured of Glaucus, whocomplains to her of his repulse by Scylla. She endeavours, withoutsuccess, to make him desert Scylla for herself. In revenge, she poisonsthe fountain where the Nymph is wont to bathe, and communicates to her ahideous form; which is so insupportable to Scylla, that she throwsherself into the sea, and is transformed into a rock.

And nowGlaucus, the Eubœan plougher of the swelling waves,had left behind Ætna, placed upon the jaws of the Giant, and the fieldsof the Cyclops, that had never experienced the harrow or the use of theplough, and that were never indebted to the yoked oxen; he had leftZancle, too, behind, and the opposite walls of Rhegium,1 and the sea,abundant cause of shipwreck, which, confined by the two shores, boundsthe Ausonian and the Sicilian lands. Thence, swimming with his hugehands through the Etrurian seas, Glaucus arrived at the grass-cladhills, and the halls of Circe, the daughter of the Sun, filled withvarious wild beasts. Soon as he beheld her, after salutations were givenand received, he said, “Do thou, a Goddess, have compassion on me aGod; for thou alone (should I only seem deserving of it,) art able torelieve this passionof mine. Daughter of Titan, by none is itbetter known how great is the power of herbs, than by me, who have beentransformed by their agency; and, that the cause of my passion may notbe 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 thereis any power in incantations, utter the incantation with thy holy lips;479xiv. 21-50.or, ifany herb is more efficacious, make use of the provedvirtues of powerful herbs. But I do not request thee to cure me, and toheal these wounds; and there is no necessity for an endto them;but let her share in the flame.” But Circe, (for no one has a tempermore susceptible of such a passion, whether it is that the cause of itoriginates in herself, or whether it is that Venus, offended2 by herfather’s discovery, causes this,) utters such words as these:—

“Thou wilt more successfully court her who is willing, and whoentertains similar desires, and who is captivated with an equal passion.Thou art worthy of it, and assuredly thou oughtst to be courtedspontaneously; and, if thou givest any hopes, believe me, thou shalt becourted3 spontaneously. That thou mayst entertain no doubts, orlest confidence in thy own beauty may not exist, behold! I who amboth a Goddess, and the daughter of the radiant Sun, and am so potentwith my charms, and so potent with my herbs, wish to be thine. Despiseher who despises thee; her, who is attached to thee, repay by likeattachment, and, by one act, take vengeance on two individuals.”

Glaucus answered her, making such attempts as these,— “Soonershall foliage grow in the ocean, andsooner shall sea-weed springup on the tops of the mountains, than my affections shall change, whileScylla is alive.” The Goddess is indignant; and since she is not able toinjure him, and as she loves him she does not wishto do so, sheis enraged against her, who has been preferred to herself; and, offendedwith these crosses in love, she immediately bruises herbs, infamous fortheir horrid juices, and, when bruised, she mingles with them theincantations of Hecate. She puts on azure vestments too, and through thetroop of fawning wild beasts she issues from the midst of her hall; andmaking for Rhegium, opposite to the rocks of Zancle, she enters thewaves boiling with the tides; on these, as though on the firm shore, sheimpresses her footsteps, and with dry feet she skims along the surfaceof the waves.

There was a little bay, curving inthe shape of a bent bow,a favourite retreat of Scylla, whither she used to retire from theinfluence both of the sea and of the weather, when the sun was at itsheight in his mid career, and made the smallest shadow from the headdownwards. This the Goddess infects beforehand, and pollutes itwith monster-breeding drugs; on it she sprinkles the juices distilledfrom the noxious root, and thrice nine times, with her magic lips, shemutters over the mysterious charm,enwrapt in the dubiouslanguage of strange words.4 Scylla comes; and she hasnowgone in up to the middle of her stomach, when she beholds her loins growhideous with barking monsters; and, at first believing that they are nopart of her own body, she flies from them and drives them off, and is indread of the annoying mouths of the dogs; but those that she flies from,she carries along withherself; and as she examines the substanceof her thighs, her legs, and her feet, she meets with Cerberean jaws inplace of those parts. The fury of the dogsstill continues, andthe backs of savagemonsters lying beneath her groin, cut short,and her prominent stomach,still adhere to them.

Glaucus,still in love, bewailedher, and fled from analliance with Circe, who hadthus too hostilely employed thepotency of herbs. Scylla remained on that spot; and, at the first momentthat an opportunity was given, in her hatred of Circe, she deprivedUlysses of his companions. Soon after, the sameScylla would haveoverwhelmed the Trojan ships, had she not been first transformed into arock, which even now is prominent with its crags;this rock thesailor, too, avoids.

EXPLANATION.

According to Hesiod, Circe was the daughter of the Sun and of the NymphPerse, and the sister of Pasiphaë, the wife of Minos. Homer makes herthe sister of Æetes, the king of Colchis, while other authors representher as the daughter of that monarch, and the sister of Medea. Beingacquainted with the properties of simples, and having used her art inmixing poisonous draughts, she was generally looked upon as a sorceress.Apollonius Rhodius says that she poisoned her husband, the king of theSarmatians, and that her father Apollo rescued her from the rage of hersubjects, by transporting her in his chariot into Italy. Virgil and Ovidsay that she inhabited one of the promontories of Italy, whichafterwards bore her name, and which at the present day is known by thename of Monte Circello.

It is not improbable that the person who went by the name of Circe wasnever in Colchis or Thrace, and that she was styled the sister of Medea,merely on account of the similarity of their characters; that they bothwere called daughters of the Sun, because they understood the propertiesof simples; and that their pretended enchantments were only a poeticalmode of describing the effect of their beauty, which drew many suitorsafter them, who lost themselves in the dissipation of a voluptuous life.Indeed, Strabo says, and very judiciously, as it would seem, that Homerhaving heard persons mention the expedition of Jason to Colchis, andhearing the stories of Medea and Circe, he took occasion to say, fromthe resemblance of their characters, that they were sisters.

According to some authors, Scylla was the daughter of Phorcys andHecate; but as other writers say, of Typhon. Homer describes her in thefollowing terms:— ‘She had a voice like that of a young whelp; noman, not even a God, could behold her without horror. She had twelvefeet, six long necks, and at the end of each a monstrous head, whosemouth was provided with a triple row of teeth.’ Another ancient writersays, that these heads were those of an insect, a dog, a lion,a whale, a Gorgon, and a human being. Virgil has in a greatmeasure followed the description given by Homer. Between Messina andReggio there is a narrow strait, where high crags project into the seaon each side. The part on the Sicilian side was called Charybdis, andthat on the Italian shore was named Scylla. This spot has ever beenfamous for its dangerous whirlpools, and the extreme difficulty of itsnavigation. Several rapid currents meeting there, and the tide runningthrough the strait with great impetuosity, the sea sends forth a dismalnoise, not unlike that of the howling or barking of dogs, as Virgil hasexpressed it, in the words, ‘Multis circum latrantibus undis.’

Palæphatus and Fusebius, not satisfied with the story being based onsuch simple facts, assert that Scylla was a ship that belonged tocertain Etrurian pirates, who used to infest the coasts of Sicily, andthat it had the figure of a woman carved on its head, whose lower partswere surrounded with dogs. According to these writers, Ulysses escapedthem; and then, using the privileges of a traveller, told the story tothe credulous Phæacians in the marvellous terms in which Homer hasrelated it. Bochart, however, says that the two names were derived fromthe Phœnician language, in which ‘Scol,’ the root of Scylla, signified‘a ruin,’ and Charybdis, ‘a gulf.’

FABLE II.

Dido entertains Æneas in her palace,and falls in love with him. He afterwards abandons her, on which shestabs herself in despair. Jupiter transforms the Cercopes into apes; andthe islands which they inhabit are afterwards called ‘Pithecusæ,’ fromthe Greek word signifying ‘an ape.’

After the Trojan ships, with their oars, had passed by her and theravening Charybdis; when now they had approached482xiv. 76-93.near the Ausonian shores, they were carried back by the winds5 to theLibyan coasts. The SidonianDido, she who was doomed not easilyto endure the loss of her Phrygian husband, received Æneas, both in herhome and her affection; on the pile, too, erected under the pretext ofsacred rites, she fell upon the sword; and,herself deceived, shedeceived all. Again, flying from the newly erected walls of the sandyregions, and being carried back to the seat of Eryx and the attachedAcestes, he performs sacrifice, and pays honour6 to the tomb of his father. Henow loosensfrom shore the ships which Iris, the minister ofJuno, has almost burned; and passes by the realms of the son ofHippotas, and the regions that smoke with the heated sulphur, and leavesbehind him the rocks of the Sirens,7 daughters of Acheloüs; and theship, deprived of its pilot,8 coasts along Inarime9 and Prochyta,10 and Pithecusæ, situate on a barren hill, so calledfrom the name of its inhabitants.

For the father of the Gods, once abhorring the frauds and perjuriesof the Cercopians, and the crimes of the fraudulent race, changed thesemen into ugly animals; that these same483xiv. 93-100.beings might be able to appear unlike men, and yet like them. He bothcontracted their limbs, and flattened their noses; bent back from theirforeheads; and he furrowed their faces with the wrinkles of old age. Andhe sent them into this spot, with the whole of their bodies covered withlong yellow hair. Moreover, he first took away from them the use oflanguage, and of their tongues, made for dreadful perjury; he onlyallowed them to be able to complain with a harsh jabbering.

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 astory which has been rendered memorable by the beautiful poem of Virgil.Elisa, or Dido, was the daughter of Belus, king of Tyre. According toJustin, at his death he left his crown to his son Pygmalion jointly withDido, who was a woman of extraordinary beauty. She was afterwardsmarried to her uncle Sicharbas, who is called Sichæus by Virgil. Beingpriest of Hercules, an office next in rank to that of king, he waspossessed of immense treasures, which the known avarice of Pygmalioncaused him to conceal in the earth. Pygmalion having caused him to beassassinated, at which Dido first expressed great resentment, sheafterwards pretended a reconciliation, the better to cover the designwhich 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 melancholyretreat, where every thing contributed to increase her misery byrecalling the remembrance of her deceased husband. Hoping to seize hertreasures, Pygmalion granted her request. Putting her wealth on boardship, she mixed some bags filled with sand among those that containedgold, for the purpose of deceiving those whom the king had sent toobserve her and to escort her to Tyre. When out at sea, she threw thebags overboard, to appease the spirit of her husband, as she pretended,by sacrificing those treasures that had cost him his life. Thenaddressing the officers that accompanied her, she assured them that theywould meet with but a bad reception from the king for having permittedso much wealth to be wasted, and that it would be more advantageous forthem to fly from his resentment. The officers embarking in her design,after they had taken on board some Tyrian nobles, who were privy to theplan, she offered sacrifice to Hercules, and again set sail. Landing inCyprus, they carried off eighty young women, who were married to hercompanions. On discovering her flight, Pygmalion at first intended topursue her; but the intreaties of his mother, and the remonstrances ofthe priests, caused him to abandon his design.

Having arrived on the coast of Africa, Dido bargained with theinhabitants of the coast for as much ground as she could encompass witha bull’s hide. This being granted, she cut the hide into as many thongsas enclosed ground sufficient to build a fort upon; which was inconsequence called‘Byrsa.’ In making the foundation, an ox’s head was dug up,484xiv. 101-102.which being supposed to portend slavery to the city, if built there,they removed to another spot, where, in digging, they found a horse’shead, which was considered to be a more favourable omen. The story ofthe citadel being named from the bull’s hide was very probably inventedby the Greeks; who, finding in the Phœnician narrative of the foundationof Carthage, the citadel mentioned by the Tyrian name of ‘Bostra,’ whichhad that signification, and fancying, from its resemblance to their wordβυρσὰ, that it was derivedfrom it, invented the fable of the hide.

Being pressed by Iarbas, king of Mauritania, to marry him, she asked forthree months to come to a determination. The time expiring, she ordereda sacrifice to be made as an expiation to her husband’s shade, andcaused a pile to be erected, avowedly for the purpose of burning allthat belonged to him. Ascending it, she pretended to expedite thesacrifice, and then despatched herself with a poniard. Virgil, wishingto deduce the hatred of the Romans and Carthaginians from the very timeof Æneas, invented the story of the visit of Æneas to Dido; though hewas perhaps guilty of a great anachronism in so doing, as the taking ofTroy most probably preceded the foundation of Carthage by at least twocenturies. Ovid has also related her story at length in the third bookof the Fasti, and has followed Virgil’s account of the treacherousconduct of Æneas, while he represents Iarbas as capturing her city afterher death, and driving her sister Anna into exile. In the Phœnicianlanguage the word ‘Dido’ signified ‘the bold woman,’ and it is probablethat Elisa only received that name after her death. Bochart has takenconsiderable pains to prove that she was the aunt of Jezebel, thefamous, or rather infamous, wife of King Ahab.

The Poet then proceeds to say that Æneas saw the islands of theCercopians on his way, whom Jupiter had transformed into apes. Æschinesand Suidas say that there were two notorious robbers, inhabitants of anisland adjacent to Sicily, named Candulus and Atlas, who committedoutrages on all who approached the island. Being about to insult Jupiterhimself, he transformed them into apes, from which circumstance theisland received its name of Pithecusa. Sabinus says that they werecalled Cercopes, because in their treachery they were like monkeys, whofawn with their tails, when they design nothing but mischief. Zenobiusplaces the Cercopes in Libya; and says that they were changed intorocks, for having offered to fight with Hercules.

FABLE III.

Apollo is enamoured of the Sibyl, and,to engage her affection, offers her as many years as she can graspgrains of sand. She forgets to ask that she may always continue in thebloom of youth, and consequently becomes gray and decrepit.

After he has passed by these, and has left the walls of Parthenope11 on the right hand, on the left side heapproaches485xiv. 102-128.the tomb of the tuneful son of Æolus12; and he enters the shores ofCumæ, regions abounding in the sedge of the swamp, and the cavern of thelong-lived Sibyl13, and entreatsher, that through Avernus, hemay visit the shade of his father. But she raises her countenance,a long time fixed on the ground; and at length, inspired by theinfluence of the God, she says, “Thou dost request a great thing,O hero, most renowned by thy achievements, whose right hand hasbeen proved by the sword, whose affectionhas been proved by theflames. Yet, Trojan, lay asideall apprehension, thou shaltobtain thy request; and under my guidance thou shalt visit the abodes ofElysium, the most distant realms of the universe, and the beloved shadeof thy parent. To virtue, no path is inaccessible.”

Thus she spoke, and she pointed out a branch refulgent withgold, in the woods of the Juno of Avernus14, and commanded himto pluck it from its stem. Æneas obeyed; and he beheld the power of thedread Orcus, and his own ancestors, and the aged ghost of themagnanimous Anchises; he learned, too, the ordinances ofthoseregions, and what dangers would have to be undergone by him in hisfuture wars. Tracing back thence his weary steps along the path, hebeguiled his labour in discourse with his Cumæan guide. And while he waspursuing his frightful journey along darkening shades, he said, “Whetherthou art a Goddess personally, or whetherthou art but a womanmost favoured by the Deities, to me shalt thou always be equal to aDivinity; I will confess, too, that I exist through thy kindness,who hast willed that I should visit the abodes of death, and that Ishould escape those abodes of deathwhen beheldby me. Forthis kindness, when I have emerged into the breezes of the air,I will erect a temple to thee,and I will give thee thehonours 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 thetribute of the holy frankincense. And, that thou mayst not err inignorance, life eternal and without end was offered me, had my virginitybut yielded to Phœbus, in lovewith me. But while he was hopingfor this, while he was desiring to bribe me beforehand with gifts, hesaid: ‘Maiden of Cumæ, choose whatever thou mayst wish, thou shalt gainthy wish.’ I, pointing to a heap of collected dust, inconsideratelyasked that as many birth-days might be my lot, as the dust containedparticles. It escaped me to desire as well, at the same time, yearsvigorous with youth. But yet he offered me these, and eternal youth, hadI 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 Ilong endure.

“For thou beholdest me, having now lived seven ages; it remains forme to equal the number of particles of the dust;yet to beholdthree hundred harvests,and three hundred vintages. The time willcome, when length of days will make me diminutive from a person solarge; and when my limbs, wasted by old age, will be reduced to the mosttrifling weight.Then I shall not seem to haveonce beenbeloved, noronce to have pleased a God. Even Phœbus himselfwill, perhaps, not recognize me; or,perhaps, he will deny thathe loved me. To that degree shall I be said to be changed; and thoughperceived by none, I shall still be recognized by my voice. Myvoice the Destinies will leave me.”

EXPLANATION.

The early fathers of the church, and particularly Justin, in their worksin defence of Christianity, made use of the Sibylline verses of theancients. The Emperor Constantine, too, in his harangue before theNicene Council, quoted them, as redounding to the advantage ofChristianity; although he then stated that many persons did not believethat the Sibyls were the authors of them. St. Augustin, too, employsseveral of their alleged predictions to enforce the truths of theChristian religion.

Sebastian Castalio has warmly maintained the truth of the oraclescontained in these verses, though he admits that they have been verymuch interpolated. Other writers, however, having carefully examinedthem, have pronounced them to be spurious, and so many pious frauds;which, perhaps, may be pronounced to be the general opinion at thepresent day. We will, however, shortly enquire how many Sibyls of487antiquity there were, and when they lived; whether any of their workswere ever promulgated for the perusal of the public, and whether theverses which still exist under their name have any ground to beconsidered genuine.

There is no doubt but that in ancient times there existed certain women,who, led by a frenzied enthusiasm, uttered obscure sentences, whichpassed for predictions with the credulous people who went to consultthem. Virgil and Ovid represent Æneas as going to the cave of the CumæanSibyl, to learn from her the success of the wars he should be engagedin. Plato, Strabo, Plutarch, Pliny, Solinus, and Pausanias, with manyother writers, have mentioned the Sibyls; and it would be absurd, withFaustus Socinus, to affirm that no Sibyls ever existed. Indeed, Platoand other authors of antiquity go so far as to say, that by theirproductions they were essentially the benefactors of mankind. Somemention but one Sibyl, who was born either at Babylon or at Erythræ, inPhrygia. Diodorus Siculus mentions one only, and assigns Delphi as herlocality, calling her by the name of Daphne. Strabo and StephanusByzantinus 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. Accordingto Varro, their number amounted to ten, whose names, in the order oftime which Pausanias assigns them, were as follows:

The first and the most ancient was the Delphian, who lived before theTrojan war. The second was the Erythræan, who was said to have been thefirst composer of acrostic verses, and who also lived before the Trojanwar. The third was the Cumæan, who was mentioned by Nævius in his bookon the first Punic war, and by Piso in his annals. She is the Sibylspoken of in the Æneid, and her name was Deïphobe. The fourth was theSamian, called Pitho, though Eusebius calls her Herophile, and he makesher to have lived about the time of Numa Pompilius. The fifth, whosename was Amalthea, or Demophile, lived at Cumæ, in Asia Minor. The sixthwas the Hellespontine Sibyl, born at Mermessus, near Troy. The seventhwas the Libyan, mentioned by Euripides. Some suppose that she was thefirst who had the name of Sibyl, which was given to her by the people ofAfrica. The eighth was the Persian or Babylonian Sibyl, whom Suidasnames Sambetha. The ninth was the Phrygian, who delivered her oracles atAncyra, in Phrygia. The tenth was the Tiburtine, who was called Albunea,and prophesied near Tibur, or Tivoli, on the banks of the Anio. In thepresent story Ovid evidently intends to represent these various Sibylsas being the same person; and to account for her prolonged existence, byrepresenting that Apollo had granted her a life to last for manyages.

Several ages before the Christian era, the Romans had a collection ofverses, which were commonly attributed to the Sibyls. These they oftenconsulted; and in the time of Tarquinius Superbus, two officers wereappointed for the purpose of keeping the Sibylline books, whose businessit was to look in them on the occasion of any public calamity, in orderto see whether it had been foretold and to make their report to theSenate. The books were kept in a stone chest, beneath the temple ofJupiter Capitolinus. These Duumvirs continued until the year of Rome388, when eight others being added, they formed the College of theDecemvirs.488About eighty-three years before the Christian era five other keepers ofthese books were added, who thus formed the body called theQuindecimvirs.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Aulus Gellius, Servius, and many otherwriters, state the following as the origin of the Sibylline books. Anaged woman presented to Tarquinius Superbusthree books thatcontained 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 theoriginal number. Being again repulsed, she burnt three more, and comingback again, demanded the original price for the three that remained.Astonished at the circumstance, the king bought the books. Pliny andSolinus vary the story a little, in saying that the woman at firstpresented but three books, and that she destroyed two of them.

It is generally supposed, that on the burning of the Capitol, abouteighty-three years before the Christian era, the Sibylline books ofTarquinius Superbus were destroyed in the flames. To repair the loss,the Romans despatched officers to various cities of Italy, and even toAsia and Africa, to collect whatever they could find, under the name ofSibylline oracles. P. Gabinius, M. Ottacilius, and L. Valerius broughtback a large collection, of which the greater part was rejected, and therest committed to the care of the Quindecimvirs. Augustus ordered asecond revision of them; and, after a severe scrutiny, those which weredeemed to be genuine, were deposited in a box, under a statue of ApolloPalatinus. Tiberius again had them examined, and some portion of themwas then rejected. Finally, about the yearA.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 isgenerally looked upon as spurious; or if any part is genuine, it bearsso small a proportion to the fictitious portion, that it has shared inthe condemnation. Indeed, their very distinctness stamps them asforgeries; for they speak of the mysteries of Christianity inundisguised language, and the names of our Saviour and the Virgin Maryoccur as openly as they do in the Holy Scriptures.

It is a singular assertion of St. Jerome, that the gift of prophecy wasa reward to the Sibyls for their chastity. If such was the condition, wehave a right to consider that the Deities were very partial in thedistribution of their rewards, and in withholding them from themultitudes who, we are bound in charity to believe, were as deserving asthe Sibyls themselves of the gift of vaticination.

FABLE IV.

Æneas arrives at Caieta, in Italy.Achæmenides, an Ithacan, who is on board his ship, meets his formercompanion Macareus there; and relates to him his escape from beingdevoured by Polyphemus. Macareus afterwards tells him how Ulysses hadreceived winds from Æolus in a hide, and by that means had a prosperousvoyage; till, on the489xiv. 154-181.bag being opened by the sailors in their curiosity, the winds rushedout, and raised a storm that drove them back to Æolia, and afterwardsupon the coast of the Læstrygons.

While the Sibyl was relating such things as these, during the steepascent, the Trojan Æneas emerged from the Stygian abodes to the Eubœancity,15 and the sacrifice being performed, after the usualmanner, he approached the shores that not yet bore the name of hisnurse;16 here, too, Macareus of Neritos, the companion of theexperienced Ulysses, had rested, after the prolonged weariness of histoils. He recognized Achæmenides, once deserted in the midst of thecrags of Ætna; and astonished that, thus unexpectedly found again, hewas yet alive, he said, “What chance, or what God, Achæmenides,preserves thee? why is a barbarian17 vessel carryingthee,a Greek? What land is sought by thy bark?”

No longer ragged in his clothing,but now his ownmaster,18 and wearing clothes tacked together with no thorns,Achæmenides says, “Again may I behold Polyphemus, and those jawsstreaming with human blood, if my home and Ithaca be more delightful tome than this bark; if I venerate Æneas any less than my own father. And,though I were to do everythingpossible, I could never besufficiently grateful. ’Tis he that has caused that I speak, andbreathe, and behold the heavens and the luminary of the sun; and can Ibe ungrateful, and forgetful of this?’Tis through him that thislife of mine did not fall into the jaws of the Cyclop; and though Iwere, even now, to leave the light of life, I should either beburied in a tomb, or, at least, not in that paunchof his. Whatwere my feelings at that moment (unless, indeed, terror deprived me ofall sense and feeling), when, left behind, I saw you making for theopen sea? I wished to shout aloud, but I was fearful of betrayingmyself to the enemy; the shouts of Ulysses were very nearly causing19 the destruction of even your ship. I beheld490xiv. 181-211.him when, having torn up a mountain, he hurled the immense rock in themidst of the waves; again I beheld him hurling huge stones, with hisgiant 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 horrorlest 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 withhis hands, and, deprived of his eye, stumbled against the rocks; andstretching out his arms, stained with gore, into the sea, he cursed theGrecian race, and he said, ‘Oh! that any accident would bring backUlysses to me, or any one of his companions, against whom my anger mightfind vent, whose entrails I might devour, whose living limbs I mightmangle with my right hand, whose blood might drench my throat, whosecrushed members might quiver beneath my teeth: how insignificant, or howtrifling,then, would be the loss of my sight, that has beentaken from me!’ This, and more, he said in his rage. Ghastly horror tookpossession of me, as I beheld his features, streaming even yet withblood, and the ruthless hands, and the round space deprived of the eye,and his limbs, and his beard matted with human blood. Death was beforemy eyes,and yet that was the least of my woes. I imaginedthat20 now he was about to seize hold of me, and that nowhe was on the very point of swallowing my vitals within his own; in mymind was fixed the impress of that time when I beheld two bodies of mycompanions three or four times dashed against the ground. Throwinghimself on the top of them, just like a shaggy lion, he stowed awaytheir entrails, their flesh, their bones with the white marrow, andtheir quivering limbs, in his ravenous paunch. A trembling seizedme; in my alarm I stood without bloodin my features, as I beheldhim both chewing and belching out his bloody491xv. 211-247.banquet from his mouth, and vomiting pieces mingled with wine;and I fancied that such a doom was in readiness forwretched me.

“Concealing myself for many a day, and trembling at every sound, andboth fearing death andyet desirous to die, satisfying hungerwith 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, andI ran down to the shore; I prevailed; and a Trojan ship receivedme, a Greek. Do thou too, dearest of my companions, relate thyadventures, and those of thy chief, and of the company, which, togetherwith thee, entrustedthemselves 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, whichthe Dulichean chief had received, shut up in a leatherbag,a wondrous gift; how, with a favouring breeze, he had proceeded fornine 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, hadcut the fastenings of the winds;and how, through these, the shiphad gone back along the waves through which it had just come, and hadreturned to the harbour of the Æolian king.

“Thence,” said he, “we came to the ancient city21 of Lamus, theLæstrygon. Antiphates was reigning in that land. I was sent to him,two in number accompanying me; and with difficulty was safety procuredby me and one companion, by flight; the third of us stained the accursedjaws of the Læstrygon with his blood. Antiphates pursued us as we fled,and called together his followers; they flocked together, and, withoutintermission, they showered both stones and beams, and they overwhelmedmen, and ships, too, did they overwhelm; yet one, which carried us andUlysses himself, escaped. A part of our companionsthuslost, grieving and lamenting much we arrived at those regions which thouperceivest afar hence. Look! afar hence thou mayst perceive an island,22 that has been seen by me; and do thou, mostrighteous of the Trojans, thou son of a Goddess,492xiv. 247-253.(for, since the war is ended, thou art not, Æneas, to be called anenemy) I warn thee—avoid the shores of Circe.”

EXPLANATION.

Æolus, according to Servius and Varro, was the son of Hippotas, andabout the time of the Trojan war reigned in those islands, which wereformerly called ‘Vulcaniæ,’ but were afterwards entitled ‘Æoliæ,’ andare now known as the Lipari Islands. Homer mentions only one of theseislands, 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 tothe group, and which is now known as Strombolo. Æolus seems to have beena humane prince, who received with hospitality those who had themisfortune to be cast on his island. Diodorus Siculus says that he wasespecially careful to warn strangers of the shoals and dangerous placesin the neighbouring seas. Pliny adds, that he applied himself to thestudy of the winds, by observing the direction of the smoke of thevolcanos, with which the isles abounded.

Being considered as an authority on that subject, at a time whennavigation was so little reduced to an art, the poets readily feignedthat 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 ofsaying, that Ulysses disregarded the advice of Æolus, and staying out atsea beyond the time he had been recommended, was caught in a violenttempest. It is possible that Homer may allude to some custom whichprevailed among the ancients, similar to that of the Lapland witches inmodern 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 expendedmuch 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.

Achæmenides lands in the isle of Circe,and is sent to her palace with some of his companions. Giving them afavourable reception, she makes them drink of a certain liquor; and, onher touching them with a wand, they are immediately transformed intoswine. Eurylochus, who has refused to drink, informs Ulysses, whoimmediately repairs to the palace, and obliges Circe to restore to hiscompanions 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 herunknown abode. By lot were we chosen; that lot sent both me and thefaithful Polytes, and Eurylochus, and493xiv. 253-283.Elpenor, too much addicted23 to wine, and twice nine24companions, to the walls of Circe. Soon as we reached them, and stood atthe threshold of her abode; a thousand wolves, and bears andlionesses mixed with the wolves, created fear through meeting them; butnot oneof them needed to be feared, and not one was there tomake a wound on our bodies. They wagged their caressing tails in theair, and fawning, they attended ourfootsteps, until the female servantsreceived us, and led us, through halls roofed with marble, to theirmistress.

“She is sitting in a beautiful alcove, on her wonted throne, and cladin 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 themotion of their fingers nor draw out the ductile threads, are placingthe plants in due order, and arranging in baskets the flowers confusedlyscattered, and the shrubs variegated in their hues. She herselfprescribes the tasks that they perform; she herself is aware what is theuse of every leaf; what combined virtue there is in them when mixed; andgiving attention, she examineseach herb as weighed.25 Whenshe beheld us, having given and received a salutation, she gladdened hercountenance, and granted every thing to our wishes. And without delay,she ordered the grains of parched barley to be mingled, and honey, andthe strength of wine, and curds with pressed milk. Secretly, she addeddrugs to be concealed beneath this sweetness. We received the cupspresented by her sacred right hand. Soon as, in our thirst, we quaffedthem with parching mouth, and the ruthless Goddess, with her wand,touched the extremity of our hair (I am both ashamed, andyet 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 aharsh 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 neckswell with muscles; and with the member with which, the moment before,494xiv. 283-314.I had received the cup, with the same did I impress myfootsteps.

“With the rest who had suffered the same treatment (so powerful areenchanted potions) I was shut up in a pig-sty; and we perceivedthat Eurylochus, alone, had not the form of a swine; he, alone, escapedthe proffered draught. And had he not escaped it, I should even, atthis moment, have still been one of the bristle-clad animals; nor wouldUlysses, having been informed by him of so direful a disaster, have cometo Circe asour avenger. The Cyllenian peace-bearer had given hima white flower; the Gods above call it ‘Moly;’26 it is supported bya black root. Protected by that, and at the same time by the instructionof the inhabitants of heaven, he entered the dwelling of Circe, andbeing invited to the treacherous draughts, he repelled her, whileendeavouring to stroke his hair with her wand, and prevented her, in herterror, with his drawn sword. Upon that, her promisewas given,and right hands were exchanged; and, being received into her couch, herequired the bodies of his companions as his marriage gift.

“We arethen sprinkled with the more favouring juices ofharmless plants, and are smitten on the head with a blow from herinverted wand; and charms are repeated, the converse of the charms thathad been uttered. The longer she chaunts them, the more erect are weraised from the ground; and the bristles fall off, and the fissureleaves our cloven feet; our shoulders return; our arms become attached27 to their upper parts. In tears, we embrace himalso in tears; and we cling to the neck of our chief; nor do weutter any words before those that testify that we are grateful.

“The space of a year detained us there; and, asI waspresent for such a length of time, I saw many things; and manythings I heard with my ears. This, too, among many other thingsI heard, which one of the four handmaids appointed for suchrites, privately informed me of. For while Circe was passing her timeapart with my chief, she pointed out495xiv. 314-328.to me a youthful statue made of snow-white marble, carrying a woodpeckeron its head, erected in the hallowed temple, and bedecked with many achaplet. When I asked, and desired to know who he was, and why he wasvenerated in the sacred temple, and why he carried that bird; shesaid:— ‘Listen, Macareus, learn hence, too, what is the power ofmy mistress, and give attention to what I say.’”

EXPLANATION.

Ulysses having stayed some time at the court of Circe, where all wereimmersed in luxury and indolence, begins to reflect on the degradedstate to which he is reduced, and resolutely abandons so unworthy a modeof life. This resolution is here typified by the herb moly, the symbolof wisdom. His companions, changed into swine, are emblems of thecondition to which a life of sensuality reduces its votaries; while thewolves, lions, and horses show that man in such a condition fails not toexhibit the various bad propensities of the brute creation. Thus was theprodigal son, mentioned in the New Testament, reduced to a level withthe brutes, ‘and fain would have filled his belly with the husks thatthe swine did eat.’

It is not improbable that Circe was the original from which the Easternromancer depicted the enchantress queen Labè in the story of Beder andGiauhare in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. They were both ladies oflight reputation, both fond of exercising their magical power onstrangers, and in exactly the same manner: and as Ulysses successfullyresisted the charms of Circe, so Beder thwarted the designs of Labè; buthere the parallel ends.

FABLE VI.

Circe, being enamoured of Picus, andbeing unable to shake his constancy to his wife Canens, transforms himinto a woodpecker, and his retinue into various kinds of animals. Canenspines away with grief at the loss of her husband, and the place whereshe disappears afterwards bears her name.

“‘Picus, the son of Saturn, was a king in the regions of Ausonia, anadmirer of horses useful in warfare. The form of this person was such asthou beholdest. Thou thyselfhere mayst view his comeliness, andthou 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, couldhe have beheld four times theOlympic contest celebrated eachfifth year in the Grecian Elis. He had attracted, by hisgoodlooks, the Dryads, born in the hills of Latium; the Naiads, the fountainDeities, wooed him;Nymphs, which Albula,28 and which the496xiv. 328-354.waters of Numicus, and which those of Anio, and Almo but very short29 in its course, and the rapid Nar,30 andFarfarus,31 with its delightful shades, produced, and thosewhich haunt the forest realms of the Scythian32 Diana, and theneighbouring streams.

“‘Yet, slighting all these, he was attached to one Nymph, whom, onthe Palatine hill, Venilia is said once to have borne to the IonianJanus.33 Soon as she was ripe with marriageable years, shewas presented to Laurentine Picus, preferredby her before allothers; wondrous, indeed, was she in her beauty, but more wondrousstill, through her skill in singing; thence she was called Canens.34 She was wont, with her voice, to move the woods andthe rocks, and to tame the wild beasts, and to stopthe course ofthe long rivers, and to detain the fleeting birds. While she was singingher songs with her feminine voice, Picus had gone from his dwelling intothe Laurentine fields, to pierce the wild boars there bred; and he waspressing the back of his spirited horse, and was carrying two javelinsin his left hand, having a purple cloak fastened with yellow gold. Thedaughter of the Sun, too, had come into the same wood; and that shemight pluck fresh plants on the fruitful hills, she had left behind theCircæan fields,so called after her own name.

“‘Hidden by the shrubs, soon as she beheld the youth, she wasastounded; the plants which she had gathered fell from her bosom, and aflame seemed to pervade her entire marrow. As soon as she regained herpresence of mind fromso powerful a shock, she was about toconfess what she desired; the speed of his horse, and the surroundingguards, caused that she497xiv. 354-389.could not approach. ‘And yet thou shalt not escape me,’ she said, ‘even shouldst thoube borne on the winds, if I only know myself, if all potency in herbshas not vanished, and if my charms do not deceive me.’Thus shesaid; and she formed the phantom of a fictitious wild boar, with nosubstance, and commanded it to run past the eyes of the king, and toseem to go into a forest, thick set with trees, where the wood is mostdense, and where the spot is inaccessible to a horse. There is no delay;Picus, forthwith, unconsciously follows the phantom of the prey; hastilytoo, he leaves the reeking back of his steed, and, in pursuit of a vainhope, wanders on foot in the lofty forest. She repeats prayers toherself, and utters magical incantations, and adores strange Gods instrange verses, with which she is wont both to darken the disk of thesnow-white moon, and to draw the clouds that suck up the moisture, overthe head of her father. Then does the sky become lowering at therepeating of the incantation, and the ground exhales its vapours; andhis companions wander along the darkened paths, and his guards areseparated from the king.

“‘She, having now gained afavourable place and opportunity,says, ‘O, most beauteousyouth! by thy eyes, which havecaptivated mine, and by this graceful person, which makes me, though aGoddess, 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 crueltydespise Circe, the daughter of Titan.’Thus she says. He roughlyrepels her and her entreaties: and he says, ‘Whoever thou art, I amnot for thee; another female holds me enthralled, and for a long spaceof time, I pray, may she so hold me. I will not pollute theconjugal ties with the love of a stranger, while the Fates shallpreserve for me Canens, the daughter of Janus.’ The daughter of Titan,having often repeated her entreaties in vain, says, ‘Thou shalt notdepart with impunity, nor shalt thou return to Canens; and by experienceshalt thou learn what one slighted, what one in love, what a woman, cando; 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 sherepeat. He fled; wondering that he sped more swiftly than usual,he beheld wings onhis body;498xiv. 390-419.and indignant that he was added suddenly as a strange bird to the Latianwoods, he struck the wild oaks with his hard beak, and, in his anger,inflicted wounds35 on the long branches. His wings took the purplecolour of his robe. The piece of gold that had formed a buckle, and hadfastened his garment, became feathers, and his neck was encompassed withthe colour of yellow gold; and nothingnow remained toPicus of his formerself, beyond the name.

“‘In the meantime his attendants, having, often in vain, called onPicus throughout the fields, and, having found him in no direction, meetwith Circe, (for now she has cleared the air, and has allowed the cloudsto be dispersed by the woods and the sun); and they charge her with justaccusations, and demand back their king, and are using violence, and arepreparing to attack her with ruthless weapons. She scatters noxiousvenom and poisonous extracts; and she summons together Night, and theGods of Night, from Erebus and from Chaos, and she invokes Hecate inmagic howlings. Wondrous to tell, the woods leap from their spot; theground utters groans, the neighbouring trees become pallid, the grassbecomes moist, besprinkled with drops of blood; the stones seem to sendforth harsh lowings, the dogsseem to bark, and the ground togrow loathsome with black serpents, and unsubstantial ghosts of thedepartedappear to flit about. The multitude trembles, astonishedat these prodigies; she touches their astonished faces, as they tremble,with her enchanted wand. From the touch of this, the monstrous forms ofvarious wild beasts come upon the young men; his own form remains to noone of them.

“‘The setting Sunhasnow borne down upon the Tartessian shores;36 and in vainis her husband expected, both by the eyes and the longings of Canens.Her servants and the people run about through all the woods, and carrylights to499xiv. 419-440.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 sleepand of food, going over hills and valleys, wherever chance led her.Tiber, lastof all, beheld her, worn out with weeping andwandering, and reposing her body on his cold banks. There, with tears,she poured forth words attuned, lamenting, in a low voice, her verywoes, as when the swan, now about to die, sings his own funerealdirge.

“‘At last, melting with grief,even to her thin marrow, shepined away, and by degrees vanished into light air. Yet the Fame of itbecame attached to the spot, which the ancient Muses have properlycalled Canens, after the name of the Nymph.’ During that long year, manysuch things as these were told me and were seenby me. Sluggishand inactive through idleness, we were ordered again to embark on thedeep, again to set our sails. The daughter of Titan had said thatdangerous paths, and a protracted voyage, and the perils of the ragingsea were awaiting us. I was alarmed, I confess; and havingreached these shores,here I remained.”

EXPLANATION.

When names occur in the ancient Mythology, of Oriental origin, we mayconclude that they were imported into Greece and Italy from Egypt orPhœnicia; and that their stories were derived from the same sources;such as those of Adonis, Arethusa, Arachne, and Isis. Those that arederived from the Greek languages are attached to fictions of purelyGreek origin, such as the fables of Daphne, Galantis, Cygnus, and theMyrmidons; and where the names are of Latin original, we may concludethat their stories originated in Italy: such, for instance, as those ofCanens, Picus, Anna Perenna, Flora, Quirinus, and others.

To this rule there are certain exceptions; for both Greece and Italyoccasionally appropriated each other’s traditions, by substituting thenames of one language for those of the other. Thus it would not be safeto affirm positively that the story of Portumnus and Matuta is of Latinorigin, since Greece lays an equal claim to it under the names ofLeucothoë and Palæmon, while, probably, Cadmus originally introduced itfrom Phœnicia, under the names of Ino and Melicerta.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, on the authority of Cato the Censor andAsellius Sempronius, says that the original inhabitants of Italy were aGreek colony. Cato and Sempronius state that they were from Achaia,while Dionysius says that they came from Arcadia, under the command500xiv. 441-456.of Œnotrius. Picus is generally supposed to have been one of theaboriginal kings of Italy, who was afterwards Deified. Servius, in hisCommentary on the seventh Book of the Æneid, informs us that Picuspretended to know future events, and made use of a woodpecker, which hehad tamed, for the purpose of his auguries. On this ground, after hisdeath, it was generally reported that he had been transformed into thatbird, and he was ranked among the Dii Indigetes of Latium. Dying in hisyouth, his wife Canens retired to a solitary spot, where she ended herlife, and the intensity of her grief gave rise to the fable that she hadpined away into a sound.

It has been suggested that the story took its rise from the oracles ofMars among the Sabines, when a woodpecker was said to give theresponses. According to Bochart, it arose from the confusion of themeaning of the Phœnician word ‘picea,’ which signified a ‘diviner.’ Itis the exuberant fancy of Ovid alone which connects Picus with the storyof Circe.

FABLES VII. ANDVIII.

Turnus having demanded succour fromDiomedes against Æneas, the Grecian prince, fearing the resentment ofVenus, refuses to send him assistance; and relates how some of hisfollowers have been transformed by Venus into birds. An Apulian shepherdsurprising some Nymphs, insults them, on which he is changed into a wildolive tree.

Macareus had concluded. And the nurse of Æneas,now buried ina marble urn, hadthis short inscription on her tomb:— “Myfoster-child, of proved piety, here burned me, Caieta, preserved fromthe Argive flames, with that fire which was my due.” The fastened cableis loosened from the grassy bank, and they leave far behind the wilesand the dwelling of the Goddess, of whom so ill a report has been given,and seek the groves where the Tiber, darkened with the shadeoftrees, breaks into the sea with his yellow sands.Æneas, too,gains the house and the daughter of Latinus, theson of Faunus;37 but not without warfare. A war is waged with afierce nation, and Turnus is indignant on account of the wife that hadbeen betrothed to him.38 All Etruria meetsin battle withLatium, and long is doubtful victory struggled for with ardent arms.Each side increases his strength with foreign forces, and many take thepart of the Rutulians, many that of the Trojan side.501xiv. 456-485.Norhad Æneasarrived in vain at the thresholds ofEvander,39 but Venulus camein vain to the great city,of the exiled Diomedes. He, indeed, had founded a very great city underthe Iapygian Daunus, and held the lands given to him in dower.

But after Venulus had executed the commands of Turnus, and had askedfor aid, the Ætolian hero pleaded his resources as an excuse: that hewas 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; “Andthat ye may not think this a pretext, although my grief be renewed atthe bitter recollection, yet I will endure the recitalof it.After lofty Ilion was burnt, and Pergamus had fed the Grecian flames,and the Narycian hero,40 having ravished the virgin, distributed thatvengeance upon all, which he alone merited, on account of the virgin; wewere dispersed and driven by the winds over the hostile seas; we Greekshad to endure lightning, darkness, rain, and the wrath both of theheavens and of the sea, and Caphareus, the completion of our misery. Andnot to detain you by relating these sad events in their order, Greecemight then have appeared even to Priam, worthy of a tear. Yet the careof 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 amidarms on shore, that many a time were they pronouncedhappy by me,whom the storm, commonto all, and Caphareus, swallowed up in thethreatening41 waves; and I wished that I had been one of them. Mycompanions having now endured the utmost extremities, both in war and onthe ocean, lost courage, and demanded an end of their wanderings. ButAgmon, of impetuous temper, and502xiv. 485-513.then embittered as well by misfortunes, said, ‘What does there remainnow, 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 longas greater evils are dreaded, there is room for prayers; but where one’slot is the most wretched possible, fear istrampled under foot,and the extremityof misfortune is free from apprehensions. LetVenus herself hear it, if she likes; let her hate, as she doeshate, all the men under the rule of Diomedes. Yet all of usdespise her hate, and this our great power is bought by us at greatprice.’

“With such expressions does the Pleuronian42 Agmon provokeVenus against her will, and revive her former anger. His words areapproved of by a few. We, the greater number of his friends, rebukeAgmon: and as he is preparing to answer, his voice and the passage ofhis 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 lightwings. A great part of his foot receives toes; his mouth becomesstiff and hardened with horn, and has its end in a point. Lycus andIdas, and Nycteus, together with Rhetenor, and Abas, areallastounded at him; and while they are astounded, they assume a similarform; and the greater portion of my company fly off, and resound aroundthe oars with the flapping of their wings. Shouldst thou inquire whatwas the form of these birds so suddenly made; although it was not thatof swans, yet it was approaching to that of white swans. Withdifficulty, 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 ofmy companions.”

Thus far the grandson of Œneus. Venulus leaves the Calydonian43realms and the Peucetian44 bays, and the503xiv. 513-526.Messapian45 fields. In these he beholds a cavern, which,overshadowed by a dense grove, and trickling with a smooth stream, theGod Pan, the half goat, occupies; but once on a time the Nymphspossessed it. An Apulian shepherd alarmed them, scared away from thatspot; and, at first, he terrified them with a sudden fear; afterwards,when their presence of mind returned, and they despised him as hefollowed, they formed dances, moving their feet to time. The shepherdabused them; and imitating them with grotesque capers, he added rusticabuse in filthy language. Nor was he silent, before thegrowingtree closed his throat. But from this tree and its sap you mayunderstandwhat were his manners. For the wild olive, by itsbitter berries, indicates the infamy of his tongue; the coarseness ofhis words passed into them.

EXPLANATION.

Latinus having been told by an oracle that a foreign prince should comeinto his country and marry his daughter Lavinia, received Æneashospitably, and formed an alliance with him, promising him his daughterin marriage; on which Turnus, who was the nephew of Amata, his wife, andto whom Lavinia was betrothed, declared war against Æneas.

The ancient historians tell us, that, on returning from the siege ofTroy, Diomedes found that his throne had been usurped by Cyllabarus, whohad married his wife Ægiale. Not having sufficient forces to dispossessthe intruder, he sought a retreat in Italy, where he built the city ofArgyripa, or Argos Hippium. Diomedes having married the daughter ofDaunus, quarrelled with his father-in-law, and was killed in fight; onwhich his companions fled to an adjacent island, which, from his name,was called Diomedea. It was afterwards reported, that on their flightthey were changed into birds, and that Venus inflicted this punishment,in consequence of Diomedes having wounded her at the siege of Troy. Ofthis story a confused version is here presented by Ovid, who makes thetransformation to take place in the lifetime of Diomedes. It is supposedthat the fact of the island being the favourite resort of swans andherons, facilitated this story of their transformation. Pliny andSolinus add to this marvellous account by stating, that these birdsfawned upon all Greeks who entered the island, and fled from the peopleof all other nations. Ovid says that the birds resembled swans, whileother writers thought them to be herons, storks, or falcons.

The ancient authors are utterly silent as to the rude shepherd who waschanged into a wild olive, but the story was probably derived by Ovidfrom some local tradition.

FABLES IX. ANDX.

Turnus sets fire to the fleet of Æneas:but Cybele transforms the ships into sea Nymphs. After the death ofTurnus, his capital, Ardea, is burnt, and a bird arises out of theflames. Venus obtains of Jupiter that her son, after so many heroicdeeds, shall be received into the number of the Gods.

When the ambassador had returned thence, bringing word that theÆtolian arms had been refused them, the Rutulians carried on the warfareprepared for, without their forces; and much blood was shed on eitherside. Lo! Turnus bears the devouring torches against theships,fabrics of pine; and those, whom the waves have spared, arenowin 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 thesails, and the benches of the curved ships were smoking; when the holyMother of the Gods, remembering that these pines were cut down on theheights of Ida, filled the air with the tinkling of the clashing cymbal,and with the noise of the blown boxwoodpipe. Borne through theyielding air by her harnessed lions, she said: “Turnus, in vain dostthou hurl the flames with thy sacrilegious right hand; I will savethe ships, and the devouring flames shall not, with mypermission, burn a portion, and thevery limbs of my groves.”

As the Goddess speaks, it thunders; and following the thunder, heavyshowers fall, together with bounding hailstones; the brothers, sons ofAstræus, arouse both the air and the swelling waves with suddenconflicts, and rush to the battle. The genial Mother, using the strengthof one of these, first bursts the hempen cables of the Phrygian fleet,and carries the ships headlong, and buries them beneath the ocean. Theirhardness being now softened, and their wood being changed into flesh,the crooked sterns are changed into the features of the head; the oarstaper off in fingers and swimming feet; that which has been so before,isstill the side; and the keel, laid below in the middle of theship, is changed, for the purposes of the back bone. The cordage becomessoft hair, the yardsbecome arms. Their colour is azure, as itwas before. As Naiads of the ocean, with their virgin sports theyagitate those waves, which before they dreaded; and, born on the ruggedmountains, they inhabit the flowing sea; their origin505xiv. 558-589.influences them not. And yet, not forgetting how many dangers theyendured on the boisterous ocean, often do they give a helping hand tothe tossed ships; unless any one is carrying men of the Grecianrace.

Still keeping in mind the Phrygian catastrophe, they hated thePelasgians; and, with joyful countenances, they looked upon thefragments of the ship of him of Neritos; and with pleasure did they seethe ship of Alcinoüs46 become hard upon the breakers, and stonegrowing over the wood.

There is a hope that, the fleet having received life in the form ofsea Nymphs, the Rutulian may desist from the war through fear, onaccount of this prodigy. He persists,however, and each side hasits own Deities;47 and they have courage, equal tothe Gods. And now they do not seek kingdoms as a dower, nor the sceptreof a father-in-law, nor thee, virgin Lavinia, butonly toconquer; and they wage the war through shame at desisting. At length,Venus sees the arms of her son victorious, and Turnus falls; Ardeafalls, which, while Turnus lived, was called ‘the mighty.’ Afterruthless flames consumed it, and its houses sank down amid the heatedembers, a bird, then known for the first time, flew aloft from themidst of the heap, and beat the ashes with the flapping of its wings.The voice, the leanness, the paleness, and every thing that befits acaptured city, and the very name of the city, remain in thatbird; and Ardea itself is bewailed bythe beating of itswings.

And now the merit of Æneas had obliged all the Deities, and Junoherself, to put an end to their former resentment; when, the power ofthe rising Iülus being now well established, the hero, the son ofCytherea, was ripe for heaven, Venus, too, had solicited the Gods above;and hanging round the neck of her parent had said: “My father,whohast neverproved unkind to me at any time, I beseechthee now to be most indulgentto me; and to grant, dearestfather, to my Æneas, who,born of my blood, has made theea grandsire,506xiv. 589-608.a godhead,even though of the lowest class; so that thouonly grant him one. It is enough to have once beheld the unsightlyrealms,enough to have once passed over the Stygian streams.” TheGods assented; nor did his royal wife keep her countenance unmoved;but, with pleased countenance, she nodded assent. Then her fathersaid; “You are worthy of the gift of heaven; both thou who askest, andhe, 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 atthe Laurentine shores; where Numicius,48 covered with reeds, winds tothe neighbouring sea with the waters of his stream. Him she bids to washoff from Æneas whatever is subject to death, and to bear it beneath theocean in his silent course.

The hornedriver performed the commands of Venus; and with hiswaters washed away from Æneas whatever was mortal, and sprinkled him.His superior essence remained. His mother anointed his bodythuspurified with divine odours, and touched his face with ambrosia, mingledwith sweet nectar, and made him a God. Him the people of Quirinus,called Indiges,49 and endowed with a temple and with altars.

EXPLANATION.

It is asserted by some writers, that when the ships of Æneas were set onfire by Turnus, a tempest arose, which extinguished the flames; onwhich circumstance the story here related by Ovid was founded. PerhapsVirgil was the author of the fiction, as he is the first known to haverelated it, and is closely followed by Ovid in the account of thedelivery of the ships.

Thestory of theheron arising out of the flames of Ardea seems to be507xiv. 609-624.founded on a very simple fact. It is merely a poetical method ofaccounting for the Latin name of that bird, which was very plentiful inthe vicinity of the city of Ardea, and, perhaps, thence derived its nameof ‘ardea.’ The story may have been the more readily suggested to thepunning 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 marryingLavinia, Æneas was killed in battle with Mezentius, after a reign ofthree years, leaving his wife pregnant with a son, afterwards known bythe name of Sylvius. His body not being found after the battle, it wasgiven out that his Goddess mother had translated him to heaven, and hewas thenceforth honoured by the name of Jupiter Indiges.

FABLE XI.

Vertumnus, enamoured of Pomona, assumesseveral shapes for the purpose of gaining her favour; and havingtransformed himself into an old woman, succeeds in effecting hisobject.

From that time Alba and the Latin state were under the sway ofAscanius with the two names;50 Sylvius51 succeeded him;sprung of whom, Latinus had a renewed name, together with the ancientsceptre. Alba succeeded the illustrious Latinus; Epitossprangfrom him;and next to himwere Capetus, and Capys; butCapys was the firstof these. Tiberinus received the sovereigntyafter them; and, drowned in the waves of the Etrurian river, he gave hisname 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 stroke52 of a thunder-bolt. Acrota, more moderate thanhis brotherin his views, handed down the sceptre to the valiantAventinus, 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 thePalatine nation.

Under this king Pomona lived; than her, no one among508xiv. 624-656.the Hamadryads of Latium more skilfully tended her gardens, and no onewas more attentive to the produce of the trees; thence she derives hername. Shecares notfor woods, or streams;but sheloves the country, and the boughs that bear the thriving fruit. Herright hand is not weighed down with a javelin, but with a curvedpruning-knife, with which, at one time she crops thetooluxuriant shoots, and reduces the branches that straggle without order;at another time, she is engrafting the sucker in the divided bark, andisso finding nourishment for a stranger nursling. Nor does shesuffer them to endure thirst; she waters, too, the winding fibres of thetwisting root with the flowing waters. This is her delight, this herpursuit; and no desire has she for love. But fearing the violence of therustics, she closes her orchard withina wall, and bothforbids and flies from the approach of males.

What did not the Satyrs do, a youthful crew expert at the dance, andthe Pans with their brows wreathed with pine, and Sylvanus, ever moreyouthful than his years, and the God who scares the thieves either withhis 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 morefortunate than the rest. O! how often did he carry the ears of corn in abasket, under the guise of a hardy reaper; and he was the very pictureof a reaper! Many a time, having his temples bound with fresh bay, hewould appear to have been turning over the mowed grass. He often bore awhip in his sturdy hand, so that you would have sworn that he had thatinstant been unyoking the wearied oxen. A pruning-knife being givenhim, he was a woodman, and the pruner of the vine.Now he wascarrying a ladder,and you would suppose he was going to gatherfruit.Sometimes he was a soldier, with a sword,andsometimes a fisherman, taking up the rod; in fact, by means of manya shape, he often obtained access for himself, that he might enjoy thepleasure of gazing on her beauty.

He, too, having bound his brows with a coloured cap,53 leaning ona stick, with white hair placed around his temples, assumed the shape ofan old woman, and entered the well-cultivated509xiv. 656-687.gardens, and admired the fruit; and he said, “So much better offartthou!” andthen he gave her, thus commended, a fewkisses, such as no real old womanever could have given; andstooping, seated himself upon the grass, looking up at the branchesbending under the load of autumn. There was an elm opposite, widelyspread with swelling grapes; after he had praised it, together with thevine unitedto it, he said, “Aye, but if this trunk stoodunwedded,54 without the vine, it would have nothing to attractbeyond 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 theground;and yet thou art not influenced by the example of thistree, and thou dost avoid marriage, and dost not care to be united.I only wish that thou wouldst desire it: Helen would notthen be wooed by more suitors, nor she who caused the battles ofthe Lapithæ, nor the wife of Ulysses,so bold against thecowards. Even now, while thou dost avoid them courting thee, and dostturn away in disgust, a thousand suitors desire thee; both Demigodand Gods, and the Deities which inhabit the mountains of Alba.

“But thou, if thou art wise,and if thou dost wish to make agood match, and to listen to an old woman, (who loves thee more thanthem all, and more than thou dost believe) despise a common alliance,and choose for thyself Vertumnus, as the partner of thy couch; and takeme as a suretyfor 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 doesnot, like a great part of thy wooers, fall in love with her whom he seeslast. Thou wilt be his first and his last love, and to thee alone doeshe devote his life. Besides, he is young, he has naturally the gift ofgracefulness, he can readily change himself into every shape, and hewill become whatever he shall be bidden, even shouldst thou bid him beeverything.And510xiv. 687-698.besides, have younot both the same tastes? Isnot he thefirst to have the fruits which are thy delight? and does henothold thy gifts in his joyous right hand? But now he neither longs forthe fruit plucked from the tree, nor the herbs that the garden produces,with their pleasant juices, nor anything else, but thyself. Have pity onhis passion! and fancy that he who wooes thee is here present, pleadingwith my lips; fear, too, the avenging Deities, and the IdalianGoddess, who abhors cruel hearts, and the vengeful anger of herof Rhamnus.55

“And that thou mayst the more stand in awe of them, (for old age hasgiven me the opportunity of knowing many things) I will relate somefacts very well known throughout all Cyprus, by which thou mayst themore easily be persuaded and relent.”

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 forthe Roman Forum. According to Varro and Festus, the Romans offeredsacrifices to these Deities, and they had their respective temples andaltars at Rome, the priest of Pomona being called ‘Flamen Pomonalis.’ Itis probable that this story originated in the fancy of the Poet.

The name of Vertumnus, from ‘verto,’ ‘to change,’ perhaps relates to thevicissitudes of the seasons; and if this story refers to any tradition,its meaning may have been, that in his taking various forms, to pleasePomona, the change of seasons requisite for bringing the fruits toripeness was symbolized. It is possible that in the disguises of alabourer, a reaper, and an old woman, the Poet may intend topourtray the spring, the harvest, and the winter.

There was a market at Rome, near the temple of this God, who wasregarded as one of the tutelary Deities of the traders. Horace alludesto his temple which was in the Vicus Tuscus, or Etrurian Street, whichled to the Circus Maximus. According to some authors, he was an ancientking of Etruria, who paid great attention to his gardens, and, after hisdeath, was considered to have the tutelage of them.

FABLES XII. ANDXIII.

Vertumnus relates to Pomona how Anaxarete waschanged into a rock after her disdain of his advances had forced herlover Iphis to hang himself. After the death of Amulius and Numitor,Romulus builds Rome, and becomes the first king of it. Tatius declareswar against him, and is favoured by Juno, while Venus protects theRomans.511xiv. 698-726.Romulus and Hersilia are added to the number of the Deities, under thenames 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 toher doors. And now having confessed to her nurse his unfortunatepassion, he besought her, by the hopesshe reposed in hernursling, not to be hard-hearted to him; and at another time,complimenting each of the numerous servants, he besought their kindinterest with an anxious voice. He often gave his words to be borne onthe flattering tablets; sometimes he fastened garlands, wet with the dewof his tears, upon the door-posts, and laid his tender side upon thehard threshold, and uttered reproaches against the obdurate bolt.

She, more deaf than the sea, swelling whenthe Constellationof the Kids is setting, and harder than the iron which the Noricanfire57 refines, and than the rock which in its native stateis yet held fast by the firm roots, despises, and laughs at him; and toher cruel deeds, in her pride, she adds boastful words, and deprives herlover of even hope. Iphis, unable to endure this prolonged pain, enduredhis torments nolonger; and before her doors he spoke these wordsas his last: “Thou art the conquerer, Anaxarete; and no more annoyanceswilt thou have to bear from me. Prepare the joyous triumph, invoke theGod Pæan, and crown thyself with the shining laurel. For thou art theconqueror, and of my own will I die; do thou,woman of iron,rejoice. At least, thou wilt be obliged to commend something in me, andthere will be one point in which I shall be pleasing to thee, and thouwilt confess my merits. Yet remember that my affection for thee has notended sooner than my life; and that at the same moment I am about to bedeprived of a twofold light. And report shall not come to thee as the512xiv. 726-753.messenger of my death; I myself will come, doubt it not; and Imyself will be seen in person, that thou mayst satiate thy cruel eyeswith my lifeless body. But if, ye Gods above, you take cognizance of thefortunes of mortals, be mindful of me; beyond this, my tongue is unableto pray; and cause me to be remembered in times far distant; and givethose hours to Fame which you have taken away from my existence.”

Thus he said; and raising his swimming eyes and his pallidarms to the door-posts, so often adorned by him with wreaths, when hehad fastened a noose at the end of a halter upon the door; hesaid,— “Are these the garlands that delight thee, cruel andunnaturalwoman?” And he placed his head within it; but even thenhe was turned towards her; and he hung a hapless burden, by hisstrangled throat. The door, struck by the motion of his feet as theyquivered, seemed to utter a sound, asof one groaning much, andflying open, it discovered the deed; the servants cried aloud, and afterlifting him up in vain, they carried him to the house of his mother (forhis father was dead). She received him into her bosom; and embracing thecold limbs of her child, after she had uttered the words that arenatural to wretched mothers, and had performed theusualactions of wretched mothers, she was preceding58 the tearfulfuneral through the midst of the city, and was carrying his ghastlycorpse on the bier, to be committed to the flames.

By chance, her house was near the road where the mournful processionwas passing, and the sound of lamentation came to the ears of thehardhearted Anaxarete, whom now an avenging Deity pursued. Moved,however, she said:— “Let us behold these sad obsequies;” and sheascended to an upper room59 with wide windows. And scarce hadshe well513xiv. 753-785.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 sheendeavoured to turn her steps back again, she stood fixedthere;and as she endeavoured to turn away her face, this too she was unable todo; 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 keepsthe statue under the form of the maiden; it has also a temple under thename of ‘Venus, the looker-out.’ Remembering these things, O Nymph,lay aside this prolonged disdain, and unite thyself to one who lovesthee. Then, may neither cold in the spring nip thy fruit in the bud, normay the rude winds strike them off in blossom.” When the God, fitted forevery shape, had in vain uttered these words, he returned to hisyouthful 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 hisbrilliancy, has dispelled the opposing clouds, and has shone forth, nocloud interceptinghis rays. And henow purposed violence,but there was no need for force, and the Nymph was captivated by theform of the God, and was sensible of a reciprocal wound.

Next, the soldiery of the wicked Amulius held sway over the realms ofAusonia; and by the aid of his grandsons, the aged Numitor gained thekingdom that he had lost; and on the festival of Pales, the walls of theCity were founded. Tatius and the Sabine fathers waged war; andthen, the way to the citadel being laid open, by a justretribution, Tarpeia lost her life, the arms being heapeduponher. On this, they, sprung fromthe town of Cures, just likesilent wolves, suppressed their voices with their lips, and fell uponthe bodiesnow overpowered by sleep, and rushed to the gates,which the son of Ilia had shut with a strong bolt. ButJuno, thedaughter of Saturn, herself opened one, and made not a sound at theturning of the hinge. Venus alone perceived that the bars of the gatehad fallen down; and she would have shut it, were it not, that it is514xiv. 785-820.never allowed for a Deity to annul the acts of theother Gods.The Naiads of Ausonia occupied a spot nearthe temple of Janus,a place besprinkled by a cold fountain; of these sheimplored aid. Nor did the Nymphs resist, the Goddess making so fair arequest; and they gave vent to the springs and the streams of thefountain. But not yet were the paths closed to the opentemple ofJanus, and the water had not stopped the way. They placed sulphur, withits faint blue light, beneath the plenteous fountain, and they appliedfire to the hollowed channels, with smoking pitch.

By these and other violent means, the vapour penetrated to the verysources of the fountain; andyou, ye waters, which, so lately,were able to rival the coldness of the Alps, yielded notin heatto the flames themselves. The two door-posts smoked with the flamingspray; and the gate, which was in vain left open for the fierce Sabines,was rendered impassable by this new-made fountain, until the warlikesoldiers had assumed their arms. After Romulus had readily led themonward, and the Roman ground was covered with Sabine bodies, and wascovered with its ownpeople, and the accursed sword had mingledthe blood of the son-in-law with the gore of the father-in-law; theydetermined that the war should end in peace, and that they would notcontend with weapons to the last extremity, and that Tatius should sharein the sovereignty.

Tatius wasnow dead, and thou, Romulus, wast giving laws incommon to both peoples; when Mavors,61 his helmet laid aside, insuch words as these addressed the Parent of both Gods and men: “The timeisnow come, O father, (since the Roman state is establishedon a strong foundation, and is no longer dependent on the guardianshipof but one), for thee to give the reward which was promised to me, andto thy grandsonso deserving of it, and, removed from earth, toadmit him to heaven. Thou saidst to me once, a council of the Godsbeing present, (for I remember it, and with grateful mind I remarked theaffectionate speech), he shall be one, whom thou shalt raise to theazure heaven. Let the tenor of thy words benow performed.”

The all-powerfulGod nodded in assent, and he obscured the airwith thick clouds, and alarmed the City with thunder and lightning.Gradivus knew that this was a signal given to515xiv. 820-848.him for the promised removal; and, leaning on his lance, he boldlymountedbehind his steeds, laden with the blood-stained poleof the chariot, and urged them on with the lash of the whip; anddescending along the steep air, he stood on the summit of the hill ofthe woody Palatium; and he took away the son of Ilia, that moment givingout his royal ordinances to his own Quirites. His mortal body glidedthrough the yielding air; just as the leaden plummet, discharged fromthe broad sling, is wont to dissolve itself62 in mid air.A beauteous appearance succeeded, one more suitable to the loftycouches63 of heaven, and a form, such as that of Quirinusarrayed in his regal robe. His wife was lamenting him as lost; when theroyal Juno commanded Iris to descend to Hersilia, along her bendingpath; and thus to convey to the bereftwife hercommands:—

“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 wishto see thy husband, under my guidance repair to the grove whichflourishes on the hill of Quirinus, and overshadows the temple of theRoman king.” Iris obeys, and gliding down to earth along her tinted bow,she addressed Hersilia in the words enjoined. She, with a modestcountenance, hardly raising her eyes, replies, “O Goddess, (forthough 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 butallow me to be enabled once to behold these, I will confess that Ihave beheld Heaven.”

There was no delay; with the virgin daughter of Thaumas she ascendedthe hill of Romulus. There, a star falling from the skies, fellupon the earth; the hair of Hersilia set on fire from the blaze of this,ascended with the star to the skies.516xiv.849-851.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 calledher Ora; which Goddess is still united to Quirmus.

EXPLANATION.

We are not informed that the story of Iphis, hanging himself for love ofAnaxarete, is based upon any actual occurrence, though probably it was,as Salamis is mentioned as the scene of it. The transformation ofAnaxarete into a stone, seems only to be the usual metaphor employed bythe poets to denote extreme insensibility.

Following the example of Homer, who represents the Gods as divided intothe favourers of the Greeks and of the Trojans, he represents theSabines as entering Rome, while Juno opens the gates for them; on whichthe Nymphs of the spot pour forth streams of flame, which oblige them toreturn. He tells the same story in the first Book of the Fasti, whereJanus is introduced as taking credit to himself for doing what theNymphs 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 sufficienthere to give the substance thereof. Jealous of the increasing power ofRomulus, 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 thesejewels. This condition being assented to, the enemy was admitted intothe town; and Tarpeia, who is said by some writers only to have intendedto disarm the Sabines, by demanding their bucklers, which she pretendedwere included in the original agreement, was killed on the spot, by theviolence of the blows; Tatius having ordered that they should be thrownon her head.

The same historian says, that opinions were divided as to the death ofRomulus, and that many writers had written, that as he was haranguinghis army, the sky became overcast, and a thick darkness coming on, itwas followed by a violent tempest, in which he disappeared; on which itwas believed that Mars had taken him up to heaven. Others assert that hewas killed by the citizens, for having sent back the hostages of theVeientes without their consent, and for assuming an air of superiority,which their lawless spirits could ill brook. For these reasons, hisofficers assassinated him, and cut his body in pieces; each of themcarrying 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 thecrime, Julius Proculus asserted that Romulus had appeared to him, andassured him of the fact of his having been Deified. His speech on theoccasion is given by Livy, and Ovid relates the same story in the secondBook of the Fasti. On this, the Roman people paid him divine honours asa God, under the name of Quirinus, one of the epithets of Mars. He had achief priest, who was called ‘Flamen Quirinalis.’

His wife, Hersilia, also had divine honours paid to her, jointly withhim, under the name of Ora, or ‘Horta.’ According to Plutarch, she hadthe latter name from the exhortation which she had given to the youthsto distinguish themselves by courage.

BOOK THE FIFTEENTH.

FABLE I.

Myscelos is warned, in a dream, toleave Argos, and to settle in Italy. When on the point of departing, heis seized under a law which forbids the Argives to leave the citywithout the permission of the magistrates. Being brought up forjudgment, through a miracle he is acquitted. He retires to Italy, wherehe builds the city of Crotona.

Meanwhile, one is being sought who can bear a weight of suchmagnitude, and can succeed a king so great. Fame, the harbinger oftruth, destines the illustrious Numa for the sovereign power. He doesnot deem it sufficient to be acquainted with the ceremonials of theSabine nation; in his expansive mind he conceives greater views, andinquires into the nature of things. ’Twas love of this pursuit, hiscountry and cares left behind, that caused him to penetrate to the cityof the stranger Hercules. To him, making the inquiry what founder it wasthat had erected a Grecian city on the Italian shores, one of the moreaged natives, who was not unacquainted withthe history of thepast, thus replied:

“The son of Jove, enriched with the oxen of Iberia, is said to havereached the Lacinian shores,1 from the ocean, after a prosperousvoyage, and, while his herd was straying along the soft pastures,himself to have entered the abode of the great Croton, no inhospitabledwelling, and to have rested in repose after his prolonged labours, andto have said thus at departing: ‘In the time of thy grandsons this shallbe the site of a city;’ and his promise was fulfilled. For there was acertain Myscelos, the son of Alemon, an Argive, most favoured by theGods in those times. Lying upon him, as he is overwhelmed with thedrowsiness of sleep, the club-bearer,Hercules, addresses him:‘Come,now, desert thy native abodes; go,and repair tothe pebbly streams of the distant Æsar.’2 And he utters518xv. 24-52.threats, many and fearful, if he does not obey: after that, at once bothsleep and the God depart. The son of Alemon arises, and ponders hisrecent vision in his thoughtful mind; and for a long time his opinionsare divided among themselves. The Deity orders him to depart; the lawsforbid his going; and death has been awarded as the punishment of himwho attempts to leave his country.

“The brilliant Sun hadnow hidden his shining head in theocean, and darkest Night had put forth her starry face,when thesame God seemed to be present, and to give the same commands, and toutter threats, more numerous and more severe, if he does not obey. Hewas alarmed; andnow he was also preparing to transfer hiscountry’s home to a new settlement,when a rumour arose in thecity, and he was accused of holding the laws in contempt. And, when theaccusation had first been made, and his crime was evident, provedwithout a witness, the accused, in neglected garb, raising his face andhis hands towards the Gods above, says, ‘Oh thou! for whom the twice sixlabours have created the privilege of the heavens, aid me, I pray;for thou wast the cause of my offence.’ It was the ancient custom, bymeans 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 thuswas the sad sentence passed, and every black pebble was cast into theruthless urn. Soon as it, being inverted, poured forth the pebbles to becounted, the colour of them all was changed from black to white, and thesentence, changed to a favourable one by the aid of Hercules, acquittedthe son of Alemon.

“He gives thanks to the parent, the son of Amphitryon,3 and withfavouring gales sails over the Ionian sea, and passes by theLacedæmonian Tarentum,4 and Sybaris, and the Salentine Neæthus,5 and thebay of Thurium,6 and Temesa, and the519xv. 52-60.fields of Iapyx;7 and having with difficulty coasted along the spotswhich skirt these shores, he finds the destined mouth of the river Æsar;and, not far thence, a mound, beneath which the ground was coveringthe sacred bones of Croton. And there, on the appointed land, did hefound his walls, and he transferred the name of him that wasthere entombed to his city. By established tradition, it wasknown that such was the original of that place, and of the city built onthe Italian coasts.”

EXPLANATION.

To the story here told of Micylus, or Myscelus, as most of the ancientwriters call him, another one was superadded. Suidas, on the authorityof the Scholiast of Aristophanes, says that Myscelus, having consultedthe oracle, concerning the colony which he was about to lead into aforeign country, was told that he must settle at the place where heshould meet with rain in a clear sky,ἐξ αἰθρίας. His faith surmounting the apparentimpossibility of having both fair and foul weather at the same moment,he obeyed the oracle, and put to sea; and, after experiencing manydangers, he landed in Italy. Being full of uncertainty where to fix hiscolony, he was reduced to great distress; on which his wife, whose namewas Aithrias, with the view of comforting him, embraced him, and bedewedhis face with her tears. He immediately adopted the presage, andunderstood the spot where he then was to be the site of his intendedcity.

Strabo says that Myscelus, who was so called from the smallness of hislegs, designing to found a colony in a foreign land, arrived on thecoast of Italy. Observing that the spot which the oracle had pointed outenjoyed a healthy climate, though the soil was not so fertile as in theadjacent plains, he went once more to consult the oracle; but wasanswered that he must not refuse what was offered him; an answer whichwas afterwards turned into a proverb. On this, he founded the city ofCrotona, and another colony founded the city of Sybaris on the spotwhich he had preferred; a place which afterwards became infamousfor its voluptuousness and profligacy.

FABLES II. ANDIII.

Pythagoras comes to the city ofCrotona, and teaches the principles of his philosophy. His reputationdraws Numa Pompilius to hear his discourses; on which he expounds hisprinciples, and, more especially, enlarges on the transmigration of thesoul, and the practice of eating animal food.

There was a man, a Samian by birth; but he had fled from both Samosand its rulers,8 and, through hatred of tyranny,520xv. 60-98.he was a voluntary exile. He too, mentally, held converse with the Gods,although far distant in the region of the heavens; and what naturerefused to human vision, he viewed with the eyes of his mind. And whenhe had examined all things with his mind, and with watchful study, hegave them to be learned by the public; and he sought the crowds ofpeopleas they sat in silence, and wondered at the revealedorigin of the vast universe, and the cause of things, and what naturemeant, and what was God; whencecame the snow, what wasthe cause of lightning;whether it was Jupiter, or whether thewinds that thundered when the cloud was rent asunder; what it was thatshook the earth; by what laws the stars took their course; and whateverbesides lay concealedfrom 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 notobtaining credit, in such words as these: “Forbear, mortals, to polluteyour bodies withsuch abominable food. There is the corn; thereare the apples that bear down the branches by their weight, andthereare the grapes swelling upon the vines; there are the herbs that arepleasant; there are some that can become tender, and be softened bythe action of fire. The flowing milk, too, is not denied you, norhoney redolent of the bloom of the thyme. The lavish Earth yields herriches, and heragreable food, and affords dainties without slaughterand bloodshed. The beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh; and yet notall of them; for the horse, and the sheep, and the herds subsist ongrass. But those whose disposition is cruel and fierce, the Armeniantigers, and the raging lions, and the bears together with the wolves,revel in their diet with blood. Alas! what a crime is it, for entrailsto be buried in entrails, and for one ravening body to grow fat onother carcases crammedinto it; and for one livingcreature to exist through the death of another living creature! Anddoes, forsooth! amid so great an abundance, which the earth, that bestof mothers, produces, nothing delight you but to gnaw with savage teeththe sadproduce of your wounds, and to revive the habits of theCyclops? And can you not appease the hunger of a voracious andill-regulated stomach unless you first destroy another? But that age ofold, to which we have given the name of ‘Golden,’ was blest in the521xv. 98-131.produce of the trees, and in the herbs which the earth produces, and itdid not pollute the mouth with blood.

“Then, both did the birds move their wings in safety in the air, andthe hare without fear wander in the midst of the fields; then its owncredulity had not suspended the fish from the hook; every place waswithout treachery, and in dread of no injury, and was full of peace.Afterwards,some one, no good adviser9 (whoever among mortalshe might have been), envied this simple food, and engulphed in hisgreedy paunch victuals made from a carcase; ’twas he that opened thepath to wickedness; and I can believe that the steel,sincestained with blood, first grew warm from the slaughter of wild beasts.And that had been sufficient. I confess that the bodiesofanimals that seek our destruction are put to death with no breach ofthe sacred laws; but, although they might be put to death, yet they werenot 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 shortthe hopes of the year. Having gnawed the vine, the goat was led10 forslaughter to the altars of the avenging Bacchus. Their own faults werethe ruin of the two. But why have you deserved this, ye sheep?a harmless breed, and born for the service of man; who carry thenectar in your full udders; who afford your wool as soft coverings forus, and who assist us more by your life than by your death. Why have theoxen deserved this, an animal without guile and deceit, innocent,harmless, born to endure labour? In fact, the man is ungrateful, and notworthy of the gifts of the harvest, who could, just after taking off theweight of the curving plough, slaughter the tiller of his fields; whocould strike, with the axe, that neck worn bare with labour, throughwhich he had so oft turned up the hard ground,and had affordedso many a harvest.

“And it is not enough for such wickedness to be committed; they haveimputed to the Gods themselves this abomination; and they believe that aDeity in the heavens can rejoice in the slaughter of the laborious ox.A victim free from a blemish, and most beauteous in form (for ’tisbeing sightly that522xv. 131-162.brings destruction), adorned with garlands and gold, is placed upon thealtars, and, in its ignorance, it hears one praying, and sees the corn,which it has helped to produce, placed on its forehead between itshorns; and, felled, it stains with its blood the knives perhaps beforeseen by it in the limpid water. Immediately, they examine the entrailssnatched from its throbbing breast, and in them they seek out theintentions of the Deities. Whence comes it that men have so great ahankering for forbidden food? Do you presume to feedon flesh,O race of mortals? Do it not, I beseech you; and giveattention to my exhortations. And when you shall be presenting the limbsof slaughtered oxen to your palates, know and consider that you aredevouring yourtillers of the ground. And since a God impels meto speak, I will duly obey the God thatso prompts me tospeak; and I will pronounce my own Delphicwarnings, and disclosethe heavens themselves; and I will reveal the oracles of the Divinewill. I will sing of wondrous things, never investigated by theintellects of the ancients, andthings which have long lainconcealed. It delights me to range among the lofty stars; it delightsme, having left the earth and this sluggish spotfar behind, tobe borne amid the clouds, and to be supported on the shoulders of themighty Atlas; and to look down from afar on minds wanderinginuncertainty, and devoid of reason; and so to advise them alarmed anddreading extinction, and to unfold the range of things ordained byfate.

“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, andthe atonements of an imaginary world? Whether the funeral pile consumesyour bodies with flames, or old age with gradual dissolution, believethat they cannot suffer any injury. Souls are not subject to death; andhaving 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, wasEuphorbus,11 the son of Panthoüs, in whose opposing523xv. 162-195.breast once was planted the heavy spear of the younger son of Atreus.I lately recognised the shield,once the burden of my leftarm, in the temple of Juno, at Argos, the realm of Abas. All things areever changing; nothing perishes. The soul wanders about and comesfrom that spot to this, from this to that, and takes possession of anylimbs whatever; it both passes from the beasts to human bodies, andso does oursoul into the beasts; and in nolapseof time does it perish. And as the pliable wax is moulded into newforms, and nolonger abides as it wasbefore, norpreserves the same shape, but yet is still the samewax, so Itell you that the soul is ever the same, but passes into differentforms. Therefore, that natural affection may not be vanquished by thecraving of the appetite, cease, I warn you, to expel the souls ofyour kindredfrom their bodies by this dreadful slaughter; andlet not blood be nourished with blood.

“And, since I amnow borne over the wide ocean, and I havegiven my full sails to the winds, there is nothing in all the world thatcontinues in the same state. All things are flowingonward,12 and every shape is assumed in a fleeting course.Even time itself glides on with a constant progress, no otherwise than ariver. For neither can the river, nor the fleeting hour stop in itscourse; but, as wave is impelled by wave, and the one before is pressedon by that which follows, anditself presses on that before it;so do the moments similarly fly on, and similarly do they follow, andthey are ever renewed. For the moment which was before, is past; andthat which was not,now exists; and every minute is replaced. Yousee, too, the night emerge and proceed onward to the dawn, and thisbrilliant light of the day succeed the dark night. Nor is there the sameappearance in the heavens, when all things in their weariness lie in themidst of repose, and when Lucifer is coming forth on his white steed;and, again, there is another appearance, whenAurora, thedaughter of Pallas, preceding the day, tints the world about to bedelivered to Phœbus. The disk itself ofthat God, when it isrising from beneath the earth, is of ruddy colour in the morning, andwhen it is hiding beneath the earth it is of a ruddy colour. At itsheight it is of brilliant whiteness, because there the nature of theæther524xv. 195-229.is purer, and far away, he avoidsall infection from the earth.Nor can there ever be the same or a similar appearance of the nocturnalDiana; and always that of the present day is less than on the morrow, ifshe is on the increase;but greater if she is contracting herorb.

“And further. Do you not see the year, affording a resemblance of ourlife, assume fourdifferent appearances? for, in early Spring, itis mild, andlike a nursling, and greatly resembling the age ofyouth. Then, the blade is shooting, and void of strength, it swells, andis flaccid, and delights the husbandman in his expectations. Then, allthings are in blossom, and the genial meadow smiles with the tints ofits flowers; and not as yet is there any vigour in the leaves. The yearnow waxing stronger, after the Spring, passes into the Summer;and in its youth it becomes robust. And indeed no season is there morevigorous, or more fruitful, or which glows with greater warmth. Autumnfollows, the ardour of youthnow removed, ripe, and placedbetween youth and old age, moderate in his temperature, with afew white hairs sprinkled over his temples. Then comes agedWinter, 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 wenow are.The time was, when only as embryos, and the earliest hope of humanbeings, we lived in the womb of the mother. Nature applied her skilfulhands, and willed not that our bodies should be torturedby beingshut up within the entrails of the distended parent, and brought usforth from our dwelling into the vacant air. Brought to light, theinfant lies withoutany strength; soon,like a quadruped,it uses its limbs after the manner of the brutes; and by degrees itstands upright, shaking, and with knees still unsteady, the sinews beingsupported by some assistance. Then he becomes strong and swift, andpasses over the hours of youth; and the years of middle age, too, nowpast, he glides adown the steep path of declining age. This underminesand destroys the robustness of former years; and Milo,13nowgrown old, weeps525xv. 229-264.when he sees the arms, which equalled those of Hercules in themassiveness of the solid muscles, hang weak and exhausted. The daughterof Tyndarus weeps, too, as she beholds in her mirror the wrinkles of oldage, and enquires of herself why it is that she was twice ravished.Thou, Time, the consumer ofall things, and thou, hateful OldAge,together destroy all things; and, by degrees ye consume eachthing, decayed by the teeth of age, with a slow death.

“These things too, which we call elements, are not of unchangingduration; pay attention, and I will teach you what changes theyundergo.

“The everlasting universe contains four elementary bodies. Two ofthese,namely, earth and water, are heavy, and are bornedownwards by their weight; and as many are devoid of weight, and air,and fire still purer than air, nothing pressing them, seek the higherregions. Although these are separated in space, yet all things are madefrom them, and are resolved into them. Both the earth dissolving distilsinto flowing water; the water, too, evaporating, departs in the breezesand the air; its weight being removed again, the most subtle air shootsupwards into the firesof the æther on high. Thence do theyreturn back again, and the same order is unravelled; for fire becominggross, passes into dense air; thischanges into water, and earthis formed of the water made dense. Nor does its own form remain to each;and nature, the renewer ofall things, re-forms one shape fromanother. And, believe me, in this universe so vast, nothing perishes;but it varies and changes its appearance; and to begin to be somethingdifferent from what it was before, is called being born; and to cease tobe the same thing,is to be said to die. Whereas, perhaps, thosethings are transferred hither, and these things thither; yet, in thewhole, all thingsever exist.

“For my part, I cannot believe that anything lasts long under thesame form. ’Twas thus, ye ages, that ye came down to the iron from thegold; ’tis thus, that thou hast so often changed the lot ofvarious places. I have beheld thatas sea, which oncehad been the most solid earth. I have seen land made from the sea;and far away from the ocean the sea-shells lay,526xv. 264-285.and old anchors were foundthere 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 groundthat was swampy is parched with dry sand; and places which have endureddrought, are wet with standing pools. Here nature has opened freshsprings, but there she has shut them up; and rivers have burst forth,aroused by ancient earthquakes; or, vanishing, they have subsided.

“Thus, after the Lycus14 has been swallowed up by a chasmin the earth, it burst forth far thence, and springs up afresh atanother mouth. Thus the great Erasinus15 is at one time swallowed up,and then flowing with its stream concealed, is cast up again on theArgive plains. They say, too, that the Mysus, tired of its spring and ofits former banks, now flows in another direction,as the Caicus.The Amenanus,16 too, at one time flows, rolling along the Siciliansands,and at another is dry, its springs being stopped up.Formerly,the water of the Anigros17 was used fordrinking; it now pours out water which you would decline to touch;since, (unless all credit must be denied to the poets), theCentaurs, the double-limbed mortals, there washed the woundswhich the bow of the club-bearing Hercules had made. And what besides?Does not the Hypanis18 too, which before was sweet, rising from theScythian mountains, become impregnated527xv. 285-303.with bitter salts? Antissa,19 Pharos,20 and PhœnicianTyre,21 were once surrounded by waves; no one of these isnow an island. The ancient inhabitants had Leucas22 annexed to thecontinent; now the sea surrounds it. Zancle,23 too, is said tohave been united to Italy, until the sea cut off the neighbouringregion, and repelled the land with its wavesflowing between.

“Should you seek Helice and Buris,24 cities of Achaia, you willfind them beneath the waves, and the sailors are still wont to point outthese 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 power25 of the winds, pent up in darkcaverns, desiring to find some vent and having long struggled in vain toenjoy a freer air, as there was no opening in all their prison and itwas not pervious to their blasts, swelled out the528xv. 303-319.extended earth, just as the breath of the mouth is wont to inflate abladder, or the hide26 stripped from the two-horned goat. Thatswelling remained on the spot, andstill preserves the appearanceof a high hill, and has grown hard in length of time. Though many otherinstances may occur, either heard of by, or known to, yourselves,yet I will mention a few more. And besides, does not water, aswell, both produce and receive new forms? In the middle of the day, thywaters, horned Ammon,27 are frozen, at the rising and at the settingof the sun they are warm. On applying its waters, Athamanis28 is said to kindle wood when the waning moon hasshrunk into her smallest orb. The Ciconians have a river,29 whichwhen drunk of, turns the entrails into stone, and laysa covering of marble on things that are touched by it. TheCrathis30 and the Sybaris adjacent to it, in our own country,make the hair similarin hue to amber and gold.

“And, what is still more wonderful, there are some streams which areable to change, not only bodies, but even the mind. By whom has notSalmacis,31 with its obscene waters, been529xv. 319-337.heard of?Who has not heard, too, of that lake of Æthiopia,32 of which, if any body drinks with his mouth, heeither becomes mad, or falls into a sleep wondrous for its heaviness?Whoever quenches his thirst from the Clitorian spring33 hates wine,and in his sobriety takes pleasure in pure water. Whether it is thatthere is a virtue in the water, the opposite of heating wine, orwhether, as the natives tell us, after the son of Amithaon,34 byhis charms and his herbs, had delivered the raving daughters of Prœtusfrom the Furies, he threw the medicines for the mind in that stream; anda hatred of wine remained in those waters.

“The river Lyncestis35 flows unlike thatstream inits effect; for as soon as any one has drunk of it with immoderatethroat, he reels, just as if he had been drinking unmixed wine. There isa place in Arcadia, (the ancients called it Pheneos,)36 suspiciousfor the twofold nature of its water. Stand in dread of it at night; ifdrunk of in the night time, it is injurious; in the daytime, it is drunkof without any ill effects. So lakes and rivers have, some, oneproperty, and some another. There was a time when Ortygia37 wasfloating on the waves,530xv. 337-366.now it is fixed. The Argo dreaded the Symplegades tossed by the assaultsof the waves dashing against them; they now stand immoveable, and resistthe attacks of the winds.

“Nor will Ætna, which burns with its sulphureous furnaces, always bea fierymountain; nor yet was it always fiery. For, if the earthis an animal, and is alive, and has lungs that breathe forth flames inmany a place, it may change the passages for its breathing, and oft asit is moved, may close these cavernsand open others; or if thelight winds are shut up in its lowermost caverns, and strike rocksagainst rocks, and matter that contains the elements of flame,and it takes fire at the concussion, the windsoncecalmed, the caverns will become cool; or, if the bituminous qualitiestake 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 theflame, its energies being exhausted in length of time, and whennutriment shall be wanting to its devouring nature, it will notbeable to endure hunger, and left destitute, it will desert itsflames.

“The story is, that in the far Northern Pallene38 there arepersons, who are wont to have their bodies covered with light feathers,when they have nine times entered the Tritonian lake. For my part I donot believe it;but the Scythian women, as well, having theirlimbs sprinkled with poison, are said to employ the same arts. But if weare to give any credit39 to things provedby experience, do younot see that whatever bodies are consumed by length of time, or bydissolving heat, are changed into small animals? Come too, bury somechoice bullocksjust slain, it is a thing well ascertained byexperience,that flower-gathering bees are produced531xv. 366-389.promiscuously from the putrefying entrails. These, after the manner oftheir producers, inhabit the fields, delight in toil, and labour inhope. The warlike steed,40 buried in the ground, is thesource of the hornet. If you take off the bending claws from the crab ofthe sea-shore,and bury the rest in the earth, a scorpionwill come forth from the partso buried, and will threaten withits crooked tail.

“The silkworms, too, that are wont to cover the leaves with theirwhite threads, a thing observable by husbandmen, change their formsinto that of the deadly moth.41 Mud contains seed that generategreen frogs; and it produces them deprived of feet;42 soon it givesthem legs adapted for swimming; and that the same may be fitted for longleaps, the length of the hinder ones exceedsthat of the forelegs. And it is not a cub43 which the bear produces at themoment of birth, but a mass of flesh hardly alive. By licking, themother forms it into limbs, and brings it into a shape, such as sheherself has. Do you not see, that the offspring of the honey bees, whichthe hexagonal cell conceals, are produced without limbs, and that theyassume both feet and wingsonly after a time. Unless he knew itwas the case, could any one suppose it possible that the bird of Juno,which carries stars on its tail, and theeagle, the armour-bearerof Jove, and the doves of Cytherea, and all the race of birds, areproduced from the middle portion of an egg? There are532xv. 389-414.some who believe that human marrow changes into a serpent,44 whenthe spine has putrefied in the enclosed sepulchre.

“But thesewhich I have named derive their origin from otherparticulars; there is one bird which renews and reproduces itself. TheAssyrians call it the Phœnix. It lives not on corn or grass, but ondrops of frankincense, and the juices of the amomum. Thisbird,when it has completed the five ages of its life, with its talons and itscrooked 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 thiscassia and ears of sweet spikenard and bruised cinnamon with yellowmyrrh, it lays itself down on it, and finishes its life in the midst ofodours. They say that thence, from the body of its parent, is reproduceda little Phœnix, which is destined to live as many years. When time hasgiven it strength, and it is able to bear the weight, it lightens thebranches of the lofty tree of the burden of the nest, and dutifullycarries both its own cradle and the sepulchre of its parent; and, havingreached the city of Hyperion through the yielding air, it lays it downbefore the sacred doors in the temple of Hyperion.

“And if there is any wondrous novelty in these things,stillmore may we be surprised that the hyæna changes its sex,45 andthat the one which has just now, as a female, submitted to the embraceof the male, is now become a male itself. That animal, too, which feedsupon46 the winds and the air, immediately assumes, from itscontact, any colour whatever. Conquered India presented her lynxes toBacchus crowned with clusters;and, as they tell, whatever thebladder of these discharges533xv. 414-444.is changed into stone,47 and hardens by contact with the air. Socoral, too, as soon as it has come up to the air becomes hard; beneaththe waves it was a soft plant.48 “The day will fail me, and Phœbuswill bathe his panting steeds in the deep sea, before I can embrace inmy discourse all things that are changed into new forms. So in lapse oftime, we see nations change, and these gaining strength,whilethose are falling. So Troy was great, both in her riches and her men,and for ten years could afford so much blood;whereas, now laidlow, 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 ofCecrops, and that of Amphion.Now Sparta is a contemptible spot;lofty Mycenæ is laid low. What now is Thebes, the city of Œdipus, but amere story? What remains of Athens, the city of Pandion, but itsname?

“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 thefoundations of her greatness beneath a vast structure. She then, in hergrowth, is changing her form, and will one day be the mistress of theboundless earth. So they say that the soothsayers, and the oracles,revealers of destiny, declare; and, so far as I recollect, Helenus, theson of Priam, said to Æneas, as he was lamenting, and in doubt as to hissafety, whennow the Trojan state was sinking, ‘Son of a Goddess,if thou dost thyself well understand the presentiment of my mind, Troyshall not, thou being preserved, entirely fall. The flames and the swordshall afford thee a passage. Thou shalt go, and, together with thee,thou shalt bear ruined Pergamus; until a foreign soil, more friendlythan thy native land, shall be the lot of Troy and thyself. Even now doI see that our Phrygian534xv. 444-475.posterity are destinedto build a city, so great as neither nowexists, nor will exist, nor has been seen in former times. Through along lapse of ages, other distinguished men shall make it powerful, butone born50 of the blood of Iülus shall make it the mistress ofthe world. After the earth shall have enjoyed his presence, the ætherealabodes shall gain him, and heaven shall be his destination.’ Rememberingit, I call to mind that Helenus prophesied this to Æneas, who borethe Penatesfrom Troy; and I rejoice that my kindred walls arerising apace, and that to such good purpose for the Phrygians thePelasgians conquered.

“But that we may not range afar with steeds that forget to hasten tothe goal; the heavens, and whatever there is beneath them, and theearth, and whatever is upon it, change their form. We too,whoare a portion of the universe, (since we are not only bodies, butare fleeting souls as well, and can enter into beastsas ourabode, and be hidden within the breasts of the cattle), should allowthose bodies which may contain the souls of our parents, or of ourbrothers, or of those allied with us by some tie, or of men at allevents, to be safe and unmolested; and we ought not to fill51 ourentrails with victuals fit for Thyestes. How greatly he disgraceshimself, how in his impiety does he prepare himself for shedding humanblood, who cuts the throat of the calf with the knife, and gives a deafear to its lowings! or who can kill the kid as it sends forth cries likethose of a child; or who can feed upon the bird to which he himself hasgiven food. How much is there wanting in these instances for downrightcriminality? A short steponly is there thencetoit!

“Let the bull plough, or let it owe its death to aged years; let thesheep furnish us a defence against the shivering Boreas; let thewell-fed she-goats afford their udders to be pressed by the hand. Awaywith your nets, and your springes and snares and treacherouscontrivances; deceive not the bird with the bird-limed twig; deceive notthe deer with the dreaded feather535xv. 475-478.foils;52 and do not conceal the barbed hooks in the deceitfulbait. IfA any thing is noxious, destroy it, but even then onlydestroy it. Let your appetites abstain from it for food, and let themconsumea more befitting sustenance.”

EXPLANATION.

The Poet having now exhausted nearly all the transformations whichancient history afforded him, proceeds to enlist in the number some ofthe real phenomena of nature, together with some imaginary ones. AsPythagoras was considered to have pursued metaphysical studies moredeeply, perhaps, than any other of the ancient philosophers, Ovid couldnot have introduced a personage more fitted to discuss these subjects.Having travelled through Asia, it is supposed that Pythagoras passedinto Italy, and settled at Crotona, to promulgate there thephilosophical principles which he had acquired in his travels throughEgypt and Asia Minor.

The Pythagorean philosophy was well-suited for the purpose of minglingits 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 ofwhich was the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, or continualtransmigration of souls from one body into another. Pythagoras issupposed not to have originated this doctrine, but to have received itfrom the Egyptians, by whose priesthood there is little doubt that itwas generally promulgated. Some writers have suggested that thistransmigration was only taught by Pythagoras in a metaphorical sense;as, for instance, when he said that the souls of men were transferred tobeasts, it was only to teach us that irregular passions render usbrutes; on examination, however, we shall find that there is no groundto doubt that he intended his doctrines to be understood according tothe literal meaning of his words; indeed, the more strongly to enforcehis doctrine by a personal illustration, he was in the habit ofpromulgating that he remembered to have been Euphorbus, at the time ofthe siege of Troy, and that his soul, after several othertransmigrations, had at last entered the body which it then inhabited,under the name of Pythagoras. In consequence of this doctrine, it was afavourite tenet of his followers to abstain from eating the flesh ofanimals, for fear of unconsciously devouring some friend or kinsman.

The second feature of this philosophy consisted in the elucidation ofthe changes that happen in the physical world, a long series ofwhich is here set forth by the Poet; truth being mingled at random withfiction. While some of his facts are based upon truth, others seem tohave only emanated from the fertile invention of the travellers of thosedays; of the latter kind are the stories of the river of Thrace, whosewaters petrified those who drank of it; the fountains that kindled wood,that caused a change of sex, that created an aversion to wine, thattransformed men into birds, and fables of a similar nature; such, too,are those stories which were generally believed by even the educated menof antiquity,536xv. 478-499.but which the wisdom of modern times has long since shown to be utterlybaseless, as, for instance, that bees grew from the entrails of the ox,and hornets from those of the horse. The principle of Pythagoras, thateverything is continually changing and that nothing perishes, is true toa certain extent; but in his times, and even in those of Ovid,philosophy was not sufficiently advanced to speak with precision on thesubject, and to discover the true boundary between truth andfiction.

FABLES IV.V. ANDVI.

Egeria, the wife of Numa, isinconsolable after his death, and is changed into a fountain. The horsesof Hippolytus being frightened by a sea-monster, he is killed by beingthrown 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 Romulusis changed into a cornel-tree. Cippus becomes horned, and goes intovoluntary banishment, rather than his country should be deprived of itsliberty by his means.

With his mind cultivated with precepts such as these and others, theysay that Numa returned to his country, and, being voluntarily invited,53 received the sovereignty of the Roman people. Blestwith a Nymph for his wife, and the Muses for his guides, he taught therites of sacrifice, and brought over to the arts of peace a race inuredto savage warfare. After, full of years, he had finished his reign andhis life, the Latian matrons and the people and the Senators lamentedNuma at his death. But his wife, leaving the city, lay hid, concealed inthe thick groves of the valley of Aricia, and by her groans andlamentations disturbed the sacred rites of Diana, brought thither byOrestes. Ah! how oft did the Nymphs of the grove and of the lake entreather 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 thylot is not the only one to be lamented. Consider the like calamities ofothers, thou wiltthen bear thine own better. And would that anexample, not my own, could lighten thy grief! yet even my own cando so.”

“I suppose, in discourse it has reached thy ears that a certainHippolytus met with his death through the credulity of his father, bythe deceit of his wicked step-mother. Thou wilt537xv. 499-531.wonder, and I shall hardly be able to prove it; but yet I am he. Informer times, the daughter of Pasiphaë, having tempted me in vain,pretended that I wished to defile the couch of my father, a thingthat she herself wished to do; and having turned the accusationagainst me, (whether it was more through dread of discovery, orthrough mortification at her repulse) she charged me. And my fatherexpelled me,thus innocent, from the city, and as I went heuttered imprecations against my head, with ruthless prayers. I wasgoing to Trœzen,the city of Pittheus,54 in my flyingchariot, and I was now proceeding along the shores of the Corinthiangulf, when the sea was aroused, and an enormous mass of waters seemed tobend and to grow in the form of a mountain, and to send forth a roaringnoise, and to burst asunder at its very summit. Thence, the waves beingdivided, a horned bull was sent forth, and erect in the light airas far as his breast, he vomited forth a quantity of sea-water from hisnostrils and his open mouth. The hearts of my attendants quailed; mymind remained without fear, intentonly on my exile, when thefierce horses turned their necks towards the sea, and were terrified,with ears erect; and they were alarmed with dread of the monster, andprecipitated the chariot over the lofty rocks. I struggled, withunavailing 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 strengthof mine, had not the wheel, by running against a stump, beenbroken and disjoined just where it turns round on the longaxle-tree.

“I was hurled from my chariot; and, the reins entwined around mylimbs, you might have seen my palpitating entrails dragged, my sinewsfasten upon the stump, my limbs partly torn to pieces and partly leftbehind, being caught byvarious obstacles, my bones in theirbreaking emit a loud noise, and my exhausted breath become exhaled, andnot a part in my body which you could recognize; and the whole ofme formedbut onecontinued 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 havebathed my lacerated body in538xv. 531-561.the waves of Phlegethon.55 Nor could life have been restoredme, but through the powerful remedies of the son of Apollo. After I hadreceived it, through potent herbs and the Pæonian aid,56 muchagainst the will of Pluto, then Cynthia threw around me thick clouds,that I might not, by my presence, increase his anger at this favour; andthat I might be safe, and be seen in security, she gave me amoreaged appearance, and left me no features that could be recognized. For along time she was doubtful whether she should give me Crete or Delos forme 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 havereminded me of my steeds, and she said, ‘Thou, the same who wastHippolytus, be thou now Virbius.’57 From that time I have inhabitedthis grove; and, as one of the lower Gods, I lie concealed underthe protection of my mistress, and to her am I devoted.”58

But yet the misfortunes of others were not able to alleviate thegrief of Egeria; and, throwing herself down at the base of the hill, shedissolved into tears; until, moved by her affection as she grieved, thesister of Phœbus formed a cool fountain from her body, and dissolved herlimbs in ever-flowing waters.

But this new circumstance surprised the Nymphs; and the son of theAmazon59 was astonished, in no other manner than as when theEtrurian ploughman beheld the fate-revealing clod in the midst of thefields move at first of its own accord and no one touching it, andafterwards assume a human form, and losethat of earth, and openits new-made mouth withthe decrees of future destiny. Thenatives called him Tages. He was the first to teach the Etrurian nationto foretell future events.

Or, as when Romulus once saw his lance, fixed in the539xv. 561-598.Palatine hill, suddenly shoot forth; whichnow stood there with aroot newly-formed,and not with the ironpoint driven in;and, now no longer as a dart, but as a tree with limber twigs, it sentforth, for the admiringspectators, a shade that was notlooked for.

Or,as when Cippus beheld his horns in the water of thestream, (for he did see them) and, believing that there was a falserepresentation in the reflection, often returning his fingers to hisforehead, he touched what he saw. And now, nolonger condemninghis own eyesight, he stood still, as he was returning victorious fromthe conquest of the enemy; and raising his eyes towards heaven, and hishands in the same direction, he exclaimed, “Ye Gods above! whatever isportended by this prodigy, if it is auspicious, then be it auspicious tomy country and to the people of Quirinus; but if unfortunate, be itso for myself.” Andthen he made atonement at the grassyaltars built of green turf, with odoriferous fires, and presented winein bowls, and consulted the panting entrails of slaughtered sheep whatthe meaning of it was. Soon as the soothsayer of the Etrurian nation hadinspected them, he beheld in them the great beginnings offutureevents, but still not clearly. But when he raised his searching eyesfrom 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 andthe Latian towers obey. Only do thou lay aside all delay; hasten toenter the gates wide open; thus the fates command thee. For,oncereceived within the City, thou shalt be king, and thou shalt safelyenjoy a lasting sceptre.” He retreated backwards, and turning his sternvisage away from the walls of the City, he exclaimed, “Far, O faraway may the Gods drive such omens! Much more righteously shall I passmy life in exile, than if the Capitol were to see me a king.”

Thus he says; and forthwith he convokes the people and thedignified Senate; but first, he veils his horns with laurel thatbetokens 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. Hewears horns on his forehead; the augur predicts to you, that if heenters the City, he shall give you laws as his slaves. He, indeed, wasable to540xv. 598-621.enter the open gates, but I have opposed him; although no one is morenearly allied with him than myself. Forbid your City to this man, yeRomans, or, if he shall deserve it, bind him with heavy fetters; or elseend 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, oras that which the waves of the ocean produce, if any one hears them fromafar, such is the noise of the crowd. But yet amid the confused words ofthe shouting multitude, one cry is distinguished, “Which is he?” Andthen they examine the foreheads, and seek the predicted horns. Cippusagain addresses them: “Him whom you require, yenow have;” and,despite of the people, throwing the chaplet from his head, he exhibitshis temples, remarkable for two horns. All cast down their eyes, andutter groans, and (who would have supposed it?) they unwillingly lookupon that head famed for its merits. And no longer suffering it to bedeprived of its honours, they place upon it the festive chaplet. But thenobles, Cippus, since thou art forbidden to enter the city, give thee asmuch land, as a mark of honour, as thou canst, with the oxen yoked tothe pressed plough, make the circuit of from the rising of the sun toits setting. They carve, too, the horns, imitating their wondrous form,on the door-posts adorned with brass,there to remain for longages.

EXPLANATION.

Ovid, following the notion that was generally entertained of the wisdomof Numa, pretends that before he was elected to the sovereignty he wentto Crotona, for the purpose of studying under Pythagoras; but he isguilty of a considerable anachronism in this instance, as Pythagoras wasnot born till very many years after the time of Numa. According to Livy,Pythagoras flourished in the time of Servius Tullius, the sixth Romanking, about one hundred and fifty years after Numa. Modern authors areof opinion that upwards of two hundred years intervened between the daysof Numa and Pythagoras. Besides, Dionysius of Halicarnassus distinctlyasserts that the city of Crotona was only built in the fourth year ofthe 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 topromulgate for the benefit of his subjects. It is probable, that toensure541their observance the more effectually, he wished the people to believethat his enactments were compiled under the inspection of one whopartook of the immortal nature, and that in so doing he followed theexample of previous lawgivers. Zamolxis pretended that the laws which hegave to the Scythians were dictated to him by his attendant genius orspirit. The first Minos affirmed that Jupiter was the author of theordinances which he gave to the people of Crete, while Lycurgusattributed his to Apollo. It is not improbable that in this theyimitated the example of Moses, a tradition of whose reception ofthe laws on Mount Sinai they may have received from the people ofPhœnicia.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus has an interesting passage relative to Numa,which throws some light upon his alleged intercourse with the NymphEgeria. His words are— ‘The Romans affirm that Numa was neverengaged in any warlike expedition; but that he passed his whole reign inprofound peace: that his first care was to encourage piety and justicein his dominions, and to civilize his people by good and wholesome laws.His profound skill in governing made him pass for being inspired, andgave rise to many fabulous stories. Some have said that he had secretinterviews with the Nymph Egeria; others, that he frequently consultedone of the Muses, and was instructed by her in the art of government.Numa was desirous to confirm the people in this opinion; but becausesome hesitated to believe his bare affirmation, and others went so faras to call his alleged converse with the Deities a fiction, he took anopportunity to give them such proofs of it, that the most scepticalamong them should have no room left for suspicion. This he effected inthe following manner. He one day invited several of the nobles to hispalace, and showed them the plainness of the apartments, where no richfurniture was to be seen, nor any thing like an attempt at splendour;and how even the most ordinary necessaries were wanting for anythinglike a great entertainment; after which, he dismissed them with aninvitation to come to sup with him on the same night. At the appointedhour his guests arrived; they were received on stately couches; thetables were decked with a variety of plate, and were loaded with themost exquisite dainties. The guests were struck with the sumptuousnessand profusion of the entertainment, and considering how impossible itwas for any man to have made such preparations in so short a time, werepersuaded that his communication with heaven was not a fiction, and thathe must have had the aid of the celestial powers to do things of anature so extraordinary.‘But,’ as the same author says, ‘those who were not so ready atadopting fabulous narratives as a part of history, say that it was thepolicy of Numa which led him to feign a conversation with the NymphEgeria, to make his laws respected by his people, and that he thencefollowed the example of the Greek sages, who adopted the same method ofenforcing the authority of their laws with the people.’

The Romans were so persuaded of the fact of Numa’s conferences with theNymph Egeria, that they went into the grove of Aricia to seek her; butfinding 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 use542of the waters of that fountain in the divination which was performed bythe aid of water, and was called Hydromancy.

Theseus having left Ariadne in the isle of Naxos, flattered himself withthe hopes of marrying her sister Phædra. Deucalion, succeeding Minos inCrete immediately after his death, sent Phædra to Athens. On arrivingthere, she fell in love with Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, who hadbeen brought up at Trœzen by Pittheus. As she did not dare to request ofTheseus that his son might be brought from the court of Pittheus, shebuilt a temple to Venus near Trœzen, that she might the more frequentlyhave the opportunity of seeing Hippolytus, and called it by the name ofHippolyteum.According to Euripides, this youth was wise, chaste,and an enemy to all voluptuousness. He spent his time in hunting andchariot racing, with other exercises which formed the pursuits of youthsof high station. According to Plutarch, it was at the time when Theseuswas a prisoner in Epirus, that Phædra took the opportunity of disclosingto Hippolytus the violence of her passion for him. Her declaration beingbut ill received, she grew desperate on his refusal to comply with herdesires, and was about to commit self-destruction, when her nursesuggested the necessity of revenging the virtuous disdain of theyouth.

Theseus having been liberated by Hercules, Phædra, being fearful lestthe intrigue should come to his knowledge, hanged herself, having firstwritten a letter to inform him that she could not survive an attemptwhich Hippolytus had made on her virtue. Plutarch, Servius and Hyginus,following Euripides, give this account of her death. But Seneca, in hisHippolytus, says that she only appeared before her husband in extremegrief, holding a sword in her hand to signify the violence whichHippolytus had offered her. On this, Theseus implored the assistance ofNeptune, who sent a monster out of the sea, to frighten his horses, ashe was driving along the sea-shore: on which, they took fright, andthrowing him from his chariot, he was killed. It has been suggested thatthe true meaning of this is, that Theseus having ordered his son to comeand justify himself, he made so much haste that his horses ran away withhim; and his chariot being dashed over the rocks, he was killed.

Seneca also differs from the other writers, in saying that Phædra didnot put herself to death till she had heard of the catastrophe ofHippolytus, on which she stabbed herself. The people of Trœzen,regretting his loss, decreed him divine honours, built a temple, andappointed a priest to offer yearly sacrifices to him. Euripides says,that the young women of Trœzen, when about to be married, cut off theirhair and carried it to the temple of Hippolytus. It was also promulgatedthat the Gods had translated him to the heavens, where he was changedinto the Constellation, called by the Latins ‘Auriga,’ or ‘theCharioteer.’ Later authors, whom Ovid here follows, added, thatÆsculapius restored him to life, and that he afterwards appeared inItaly under the name of Virbius. This story was probably invented as asource of profit by the priesthood, who were desirous to find some goodreason for introducing his worship into the Arician grove near Rome.This story is mentioned by Apollodorus, who quotes the author of theNaupactan verses in favour of it, and by the Scholiasts of Euripides andPindar.

The ancient Etrurians were great adepts in the art of divination; theirfavourite method of exercising which was by the inspection of theentrails of beasts, and the observation of the flight of birds; and fromthem, as we learn from Cicero in his book on Divination, the systemspread over the whole of Italy. Tages is supposed to have been the firstwho taught this art, and he wrote treatises upon it, which, according toPlutarch, were quoted by ancient authors. It not being known whence hecame, or who were his parents, he was called, in the language of thepoets, a son of the earth. Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of him asbeing said to have sprung out of the earth in Etruria.

Ovid next makes a passing allusion to the spear of Romulus, which, whenthrown by him from the Mount Aventine towards the Capitol, sticking inthe ground was converted into a tree, which immediately put forthleaves. This prodigy was taken for a presage of the future greatness ofRome: and Plutarch, in his life of Romulus, says that so long as thistree stood, the Republic flourished. It began to wither in the time ofthe first civil war; and Julius Cæsar having afterwards ordered abuilding to be erected near where it stood, the workmen cutting some ofits roots in sinking the foundations, it soon after died. It is hardlyprobable that a cornel tree would stand in a thronged city for nearlyseven hundred years; and it is, therefore, most likely, that care wastaken to renovate it from time to time, by planting slips from theformer tree.

The story of Genucius Cippus is one of those strange fables with whichthe Roman history is diversified. Valerius Maximus gives the followingaccount of it. He says that Cippus, going one day out of Rome, suddenlyfound that something which resembled horns was growing out of hisforehead. Surprised at an event so extraordinary, he consulted theaugurs, who said that he would be chosen king, if he ever entered thecity again. As the royal power was abhorred in Rome, he preferred avoluntary banishment to revisiting Rome on those terms. Struck with thisheroism, the Romans erected a brazen statue with horns over the gate bywhich 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 wasnot going out of Rome, but returning to it, when the prodigy happened;he having been to convey assistance to the Consul Valerius. The Senatealso 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 afable as that of Actæon. It appears, however, that the account of thehorns may have possibly been founded on fact, as excrescences resemblingthem have appeared on the bodies of individuals. Bayle makes mention ofa girl of Palermo, who had little horns all over her body, like those ofa young calf. In the Ashmolean museum at Oxford, a substance muchresembling the horn of a goat is shown, which is said to have sprungfrom the forehead of a female named Mary Davis, whose likeness is thereshown. The excrescence was most probably produced by a derangedsecretion of the hair, and something of a similar nature may perhapshave befallen Genucius Cippus, which, of course, would be made the544xv. 622-641.most of in those ages of superstition. Valerius Maximus, with all hiscredulity, does not say that they were real horns that made theirappearance, but that they were ‘just like horns.’

It is not improbable that the story originally was, that Cippus, on hisreturn to Rome, dreamt that he had horns on his head, and that havingconsulted the augurs, and received the answer mentioned by Ovid, hepreferred to suffer exile, rather than enslave his country; and that, inlength of time, the more wonderful part of the story was addedto it.

FABLE VII.

Rome being wasted by a pestilence, theDelphian oracle is consulted; and the answer is given, that to cause itto cease Æsculapius must be brought to Rome. On this, ambassadors aresent 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. Onhis arrival at Rome the contagion ceases, and a Temple is built in hishonour.

Relate, now, ye Muses, the guardian Deities of poets (for you know,and remote antiquity conceals it not from you), whenceit is thatthe Island surrounded by the channel of the Tiber introduced the son ofCoronis into the sacred rites of the City of Romulus. A direcontagion had once infected the Latian air, and the pale bodies weredeformed by a consumption that dried up the blood. When, wearied withso many deaths, they found that mortal endeavours availednothing, and that the skill of physicians had no effect, they sought theaid of heaven, and they repaired to Delphi which occupies the centrespot of the world, the oracle of Phœbus, and entreated that he would aidtheir distressed circumstances by a response productive of health, andput an end to the woes of a City so great. Both the spot, and thelaurels, and the quivers which it has, shook at the same moment, and thetripod61 gave this answer from the recesses of the shrine,and struckwith awe their astonished breasts:— “What herethou 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 todiminish thy grief, but of the son of Apollo. Go with a good omen, andinvite my son.”

After the prudent Senate had received the commands of the545xv. 641-677.Deity, they enquired what city the youthful son of Phœbus inhabited; andthey sent some to reach the coasts of Epidaurus62 with the winds.Soon as those sent had reached them in the curving ship, they repairedto the council and the Grecian elders, and besought them to grant themthe Divinity, who by his presence could put an end to the mortality ofthe Ausonian nation;for that so the unerring response haddirected. Their opinions were divided, and differed; and some thoughtthat aid ought not to be refused. Many refused it, and advised them notto part with their own protector, and to give up their own guardianDeity. While they were deliberating, twilight hadnow expelledthe waning day, and the shadow of the earth had brought darkness overthe world; when, in thy sleep, the saving God seemed, O Roman, tobe standing before thy couch; but just as he is wont to be in histemple; and, holding a rustic staff in his left hand,he seemedto be stroking the long hair of his beard with his right, and to uttersuch words as these from his kindly breast— “Lay aside thy fears;I will come, and I will leave thesemy statues. Only observenow this serpent, which with its folds entwines around thisstaff, and accurately mark it with thine eyes, that thou mayst be ableto 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 heavenlybodies ought to be transformed.”

Forthwith, withthese words, the God departs; and with hiswords and the God sleepdeparts, and genial light follows uponthe departure of sleep. The following morn hasnow dispersed thestarry fires; uncertain what to do, the nobles meet together in thesumptuous temple of the Godthen sought, and beseech him toindicate, by celestial tokens, in what spot he would wish to abide.Hardly have they well ceased, when the God, all glittering with gold, inthe form of a serpent, with crest erect, sends forth a hissing,as a notice of his approach; and in his coming, he shakes both hisstatue, 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, androlls around his eyes that sparkle with fire. The frightened multitudeis alarmed; the priest, having his chaste hair bound with a whitefillet, recognizes the Deity and exclaims, “The God!546xv. 677-706.Behold the God! Whoever you are that are present, be of good omen, bothwith your words and your feelings. Mayst thou, most beauteous one, bebeheld to our advantage; and mayst thou aid the nations that perform thysacred rites.” Whoever are present, adore the Deity as bidden; and allrepeat the words of the priest over again; and the descendants of Æneasgive a pious omen, both with their feelings, and in their words. Tothese the God shows favour; and with crest erected, he gives a hiss,a sure token, repeated thrice with his vibrating tongue. Then heglides down the polished steps,63 and turns back his head, and,about to depart, he looks back upon his ancient altars, and salutes hiswonted abode and the temple thatso long he has inhabited. Then,with his vast bulk, he glides along the ground covered with the strewnflowers, and coils his folds, and through the midst of the city repairsto the harbour protected by its winding quay.

Here he stops; and seeming to dismiss his train, and the dutifulattendance of the accompanying crowd, with a placid countenance, heplaces his body in the Ausonian ship. It is sensible of the weight ofthe God; and the shipnow laden with the Divinity for itsfreight, the descendants of Æneas rejoice; and a bull having first beenslain on the sea-shore, they loosen the twisted cables of the barkbedecked with garlands. A gentle breeze hasnow impelled theship. The God is conspicuous aloft,64 and pressing upon the crookedstern 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 ofthe daughter of Pallas, he makes Italy, and is borne along the Lacinianshores, ennobled by the temple of the GoddessJuno, and theScylacean65 coasts. He leaves Iapygia behind, and flies from theAmphissian66 rocks with the oars on the left side; on the rightside he passes by the steep Ceraunia, and Romechium, and Caulon,67 andNarycia, and he crosses547xv. 706-718.the sea and the straits of the Sicilian Pelorus, and the abodes of theking the grandson of Hippotas, and the mines of Temesa; and then hemakes for Leucosia,68 and the rose-beds of the warm Pæstum. Then hecoasts by Capreæ,69 and the promontory of Minerva, and the hillsennobled with the Surrentine70 vines, and the city of Hercules,71 and Stabiæ,72 and Parthenope made forretirement, and after it the temple of the Cumæan Sibyl. Next, the warmsprings73 are passed by, and Linternum,74 that bears masticktrees; andthen Vulturnus,75 that carries much sand along withits tide, and Sinuessa, that abounds with snow-white snakes,76 andthe pestilential Minturnæ,77 and she for whom78 herfoster-child erected the tomb, and the abode of Antiphates,79 andTrachas,80 surrounded by the marsh, and the land of Circe, andAntium,81 with its rocky coast.

After the sailors have steered the sail-bearing ship hither (for nowthe sea is aroused), the Deity unfolds his coils, and gliding with manya fold and in vast coils, he enters the temple of his parent, thatskirts the yellow shore. The seanow becalmed, theGod ofEpidaurus leaves the altars of his sire; and having enjoyed thehospitality of the Deity,thus related to him, he furrows thesands of the sea-shore with the dragging of his rattling scales, andreclining against the helm of the ship, he places his head upon thelofty stern; until he comes to Castrum,82 and the sacredabodes of Lavinium, and the mouths of the Tiber. Hither, all the peopleindiscriminately, a crowd both of matrons and of men, rush to meethim; they, too, Vesta! who tend thy fires; and with joyous shouts theywelcome the God. And where the swift ship is steered through the tiderunning out, altars being erected in a line, the frankincense cracklesalongthe banks on either side, and perfumes the air with itssmoke; the felled victim too,with its blood makes warm theknives thrustinto it.

And now he has entered Rome, the sovereign of the world. The serpentrises erect, and lifts his neck that reclines against the top of themast, and looks around for a habitation suited for himself.There isa spot, where the river flowing around, is divided into two parts;it is called “the Island.”The river in the direction of eachside extends its arms of equal length, the dry landlying in themiddle. Hither, the serpent, son of Phœbus, betakes himself from theLatian ship; and he puts an end to the mourning, having resumed hiscelestial form. Andthus did he come, the restorer of health, tothe City.

EXPLANATION.

The story here narrated by Ovid is derived from the Roman history, towhich we will shortly refer for an explanation.

Under the consulate of Quintus Fabius Gurges, and Decimus Junius BrutusScæva, Rome was ravaged by a frightful pestilence. The resources ofphysic having been exhausted, the Sibylline books were consulted toascertain by what expedient the calamity might be put an end to, andthey found that the plague would not cease till they had broughtÆsculapius from Epidaurus to Rome. Being then engaged in war, theypostponed their application to the Epidaurians for a year, at the end ofwhich time they despatched an embassy to Epidaurus; on which a serpentwas delivered to them, which the priests of the Deity549xv. 745-762.assured them was the God himself. Taking it on board their ship, thedelegates set sail. When near Antium, they were obliged to put in thereby stress of weather, and the serpent, escaping from the ship, remainedthree days on shore; after which it came on board of its own accord, andthey continued their voyage. On arriving at the Island of the Tiber theserpent escaped, and concealed itself amid the reeds; and as they, intheir credulity, fancied that the God had chosen the place for hishabitation, they built a temple there in his honour. From this period,which was about the year of Rome 462, the worship of Æsculapius wasintroduced in the city, and to him recourse was had in cases of disease,and especially in times of pestilence.

FABLE VIII.

Julius Cæsar is assassinated in theSenate-house, and by the intercession of Venus, his ancestor, he ischanged into a star. The Poet concludes his work with a compliment toAugustus, and a promise of immortality to himself.

And still, he came a stranger to our temples; Cæsar is a Deity in hisown city; whom,alike distinguished both in war and peace, warsending with triumphs, his government at home, and the rapid glory of hisexploits, did not moretend to change into a new planet, and astar with brilliant train, than did his own progeny. For ofallthe acts of Cæsar, there is not one more ennobling than that he was thefather of thisour Cæsar. Was it, forsooth, a greater thingto have conquered the Britons surrounded by the ocean, and to havesteered his victorious ships along the seven-mouthed streams of the Nilethat bears the papyrus, and to have added to the people of Quirinus therebellious Numidians83 and the Cinyphian Juba, and Pontus84 proudof the fame of Mithridates, and to have deserved many a triumph,and to have enjoyed some, than it was to have been the father ofa personage so great, under whose tutelage over the world, you, ye Godsabove, have shewn excessive care for the human race? That hethenmight not be sprung from mortal seed,’twas fit that Juliusshould be made a Divinity. When the resplendent mother of550xv. 762-798.Æneas was sensible of this; andwhen she saw that a sad death wasin preparation for the Pontiff, and that the arms of the conspiratorswere brandished; she turned pale, and said to each of the Deities, asshe met them:—

“Behold, on how vast a scale treason is plotted against me, and withhow great perfidy that life is sought, which alone remains for me fromthe Dardanian Iülus. Shall I alone be everlastingly harassed byjustified anxieties? I, whom one while the Calydonian lance of the sonof Tydeus is wounding,and at another time the walls of Troy,defended in vain, are grieving? I, who have seen my son driven about inprotracted wanderings, tossed on the ocean, entering the abodes of thedeparted, and waging war with Turnus; or, if we confess the truth, withJuno rather?But, why am I now calling to mind the ancientmisfortunes of my own offspring? Present apprehensions do not allow meto remember things of former days. Against me, you behold how theimpious swords arenow being whetted. Avert them, I entreat;hinder this crime, and do not, by the murder of the priest, extinguishthe flames of Vesta.”

Such expressions as these did Venus, full of anxiety, vainly let fallthroughout the heavens, and she moved the Gods above. Although they werenot able to frustrate the iron decrees of the aged sisters, yet theyafforded no unerring tokens of approaching woe. They say, that armsresounding amid the black clouds, and dreadfulblasts of thetrumpet, and clarions heard through the heavens, forewarned men of thecrime. The sad face too of the sun gave a livid light to the alarmedearth. 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 Luciferhad his light tinted with a dark iron colour; the chariot of the moonwas besprinkled with blood. The Stygian owl gave omens of ill in athousand places; in a thousand places did the ivory statues shed tears;dirges, too, are said to have been heard, and threatening expressions inthe sacred groves. No victim gave an omen of good; the entrails, too,showed that great tumults were imminent; and the extremityof theliver was found cut off among the entrails. They say, too, that inthe Forum, and around the houses and the temples of the Gods, the dogswere howling by night; and that the ghosts of the departed were walking,and that the City was551xv. 798-826.shaken by earthquakes. But still the warnings of the Gods could notavert treachery and the approach of Fate, and drawn swords were carriedinto a temple; and no other place in thewhole City than theSenate-house pleased them for this crime and this atrocious murder.

But then did Cytherea beat her breast with both her hands, andattempt to hide the descendant of Æneas in a cloud, in which, longsince, Paris was conveyed from the hostile son of Atreus,85 andÆneas had escaped from the sword of Diomedes. In such words as thesedid her fatherJove address her: “Dost thou, my daughter,unaided, attempt to change the insuperabledecrees of Fate? Thou,thyself, mayst enter the abode of the three sisters,and therethou wilt behold the register offuture events,wroughtwith vast labour, of brass and of solid iron; these, safe and destinedfor eternity, fear neither thethundering shock of the heavens,nor the rage of the lightnings, nor anysource of destruction.There wilt thou find the destinies of thy descendants engraved ineverlasting adamant. I myself have read them, and I have markedthem in my mind; I will repeat them, that thou mayst not still beignorant of the future. He (on whose account, Cytherea, thou artthus anxious), has completed his time, those years being endedwhich he owed to the earth. Thou, with his son, who, as the heir to hisglory, will bear the burden of government devolvingon him, wiltcause him, as a Deity, to reach the heavens, and to be worshipped intemples; and he, as a most valiant avenger of his murdered parent, willhave 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 drenchedwith Emathian gore; and the nameof one renowned as Great, shallbe subdued in the Sicilian waves; the Egyptian dame too, the wife88 of the Roman552xv. 826-858.general, shall fall, vainly trusting in that alliance; and in vain shallshe threaten, that our own Capitol shall be obedient to her Canopus.89 Why should I recount to thee the regions ofbarbarism,and nations situate in either ocean? Whatever thehabitable world contains, shall be his; the sea, too, shall be subjectto him. Peace being granted to the earth, he will turn his attention tocivil rights, and, as a most upright legislator, he will enact laws.After his own example, too, will he regulate manners; and, lookingforward to the days of future time, and of his coming posterity, he willorder the offspring born of his hallowed wife90 to assume both hisown name and his cares. Nor shall he, until as an aged man he shall haveequalledhis glories with like years,91 arrive at theabodes of heaven and his kindred stars. Meanwhile, change this soul,snatched from the murdered body, into a beam of light, that eternallythe Deified Julius may look down from his lofty abode upon our Capitoland Forum.”

Hardly had he uttered these words, when the genial Venus, perceivedby none, stood in the very midst of the Senate-house, and snatched thesoul, just liberatedfrom the body, away from the limbs of herown Cæsar, and, not suffering it to dissolve in air, she bore it amidthe stars of heaven. And as she bore it, she perceived it assume atrain of light and become inflamed; and she dropped it from herbosom. 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 theillustrious deeds of his son, he confesses that they are superior to hisown, and rejoices that he is surpassed by him. AlthoughAugustusforbids his own actions to be lauded before those of his father, stillFame, in her freedom and subject to no commands, prefers him against hiswill; and, inthis one point, she disobeys him. Thus does Atreusyield to the glories of the great Agamemnon; thus does Theseus excelÆgeus,and thus Achilles Peleus. In fine, that I may use examplesthat equal themselves, thus too, is Saturn inferior to553xv. 858-879.Jove. Jupiter rules the abodes of heaven and the realms of the threefoldworld:92 the earth is under Augustus: each of them is afather and a ruler. Ye Gods, the companions of Æneas,93 for whomboth 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 sonof the invincible Quirinus, and thou, Vesta, held sacred among thePenates of Cæsar; and, with the Vesta of Cæsar, thou, Phœbus, enshrinedin thy abode, and thou, Jupiter, who aloft dost possess the Tarpeianheights, and whatever otherDeities it is lawful and righteousfor a Poet to invoke; late, I pray, may be that day, and protractedbeyond my life, on which the person of Augustus, leaving that worldwhich he rules, shall approach the heavens: andwhen gone, may hepropitiously listen to those who invoke him.

And now I have completed a work, which neither the anger of Jove, norfire, nor steel, nor consuming time will be able to destroy! Let thatday, which has no power but over this bodyof mine, put an end tothe term of my uncertain life, when it will. Yet, in my better part,I shall be raised immortal above the lofty stars, and indelibleshall be my name. And wherever the Roman power is extended throughoutthe vanquished earth, I shall be read by the lips of nations, and(if the presages of Poets have aught of truth) throughout all ages shallI survive in fame.

EXPLANATION.

The Poet having fulfilled his promise, and having brought down his workfrom the beginning of the world to his own times, concludes it with theapotheosis of Julius Cæsar. He here takes an opportunity ofcomplimenting Augustus, as being more worthy of divine honours than evenhis 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 andadored at altars erected to him, even in his lifetime. According to554Appian, he was but twenty-eight years of age when he was ranked amongthe tutelar Divinities by all the cities of the empire.

The Romans, who deduced their origin from Æneas, were flattered at theidea of Venus interesting herself in behalf of her posterity, andsecuring the honours of an apotheosis for Julius Cæsar. The historicalcircumstances which Ovid here refers to were the following:—AfterJulius Cæsar had been murdered in the Senate house, Augustus orderedpublic games to be instituted in his honour. We learn from Suetonius,that during their celebration a new star, or rather a comet, made itsappearance, on which it was promulgated that the soul of the deifiedJulius had taken its place among the stars, and that Venus had procuredhim that honour. It was then remembered, that the light of the Sun hadbeen unusually pallid the whole year following the death of Cæsar; thiswhich is generally supposed to have been caused by some spots which thenappeared on the disk of the sun, was ascribed to the grief of Apollo.Various persons were found to assert various prodigies. Some said thatit had rained blood, others that the moon and stars had been obscured;while others, still more imaginative, asserted that beasts had utteredwords, and that the dead had risen from their graves.

The sorrow of the Gods and of nature at the untimely death of Juliusbeing thus manifested, Augustus proceeded to found a temple in hishonour, established priests for his service, and erected a statue of himwith a star on its forehead. He was afterwards represented in theattitude of ascending to the heavens, and wielding a sceptre in hishand. While flatterers complimented Augustus upon the care which he hadtaken to enrol his predecessor among the Deities, there were some, thepoet Manilius being of the number, who considered that heaven was almostover-peopled by him. Augustus, however, was not the sole author of thestory of the apotheosis of Julius Cæsar. The people had previouslyattempted to deify him, though opposed by Cicero and Dolabella. In thefuneral oration which was delivered over Julius Cæsar by Antony, hespoke of him as a God, and the populace, moved by his eloquence, andstruck at his blood-stained garments and his body covered with wounds,were filled with indignation against the conspirators, and were about totake the corpse to the Capitol, there to be buried; but the priestswould not permit it, and had it brought back to the Forum, where it wasburnt. Dio Cassius says, that the Roman people raised an altar on thespot where the body had been burnt, and endeavoured to make libationsand to offer sacrifices there, as to a Divinity, but that the Consulsoverthrew the altar. Suetonius says, that a pillar was also erected tohim, of about twenty feet in height, with the inscription, ‘parentipatriæ,’ ‘To the father of his country,’ and that for some time personsresorted 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 atwhat time.

THE END.

London: Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Limited,
Stamford Street and Charing Cross.

More about the text

Ovid’sMetamorphoses, translated by Henry Thomas Riley(1816-1878, B.A. 1840, M.A. 1859), was originally published in 1851 aspart of Bohn’s Classical Library. This e-text, covering Books VIII-XV,isbased on the 1893 George Bell reprint (London, 1893, one volume). Theedition describes itself as “reprinted from the stereotype plates”.These may have been the original 1851 plates; theClassicalLibrary was sold to Bell & Daldy, later George Bell.

Line Numbers

Line numbers from the Latin poem—not its prosetranslation—were printed as headnotes on each page. In thise-text, line numbers appear in the left margin, across from the pagenumbers. Line numbers used in footnotes are retained from the originaltext; these, too, refer to the Latin poem and are independent of linedivisions in the translation.

Errors and Inconsistencies

Typographical errors have been marked withmouse-hover popups, with a few exceptions:

Hyphenization is inconsistent—for example, the forms “seamonster” and “sea-monster” both occur—and is not marked unless oneform is clearly anomalous. Errors and omissions in Greek diacriticalmarks have been silently corrected.

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 assumedeven when not explicitly indicated.

Treatment of names inIa- (pronounced as two syllables) isinconsistent.Iäsion andIänthe are regularly written withdieresis, whileIarbas,Iapyx,Iapygia are writtenwithout.

The forms “Lapithean” and “Lapithæan” both occur.

The “Lilybœus” of Books I-VII is now correctly written “Lilybæus”,butErysichthon (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, Phaëthonis written “Phaëton”.

Footnote Numbering

Numbers begin from 1 in each Book. Almost all Books had duplicationsin the sequence, usually in the form “17*”; some had omissions. In thise-text, footnotes have been renumbered consecutively within each Book,without duplication. Simple printing errors, such as missing orincorrect tags, have been marked where they occur in the text, and arenot listed here.