Metamorphoses

FABLE I. [X.1-85]

  Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, while sporting in the fields, with
  other Nymphs, is bitten by a serpent, which causes her death. After
  having mourned for her, Orpheus resolves to go down to the Infernal
  Regions in quest of her. Pluto and the Fates consent to her return,
  on condition that Orpheus shall not look on her till he is out of
  their dominions. His curiosity prevailing, he neglects this
  injunction, on which she is immediately snatched away from him,
  beyond the possibility of recovery. Upon this occasion, the Poet
  relates the story of a shepherd, who was turned into a rock by a
  look of Cerberus; and that of Olenus and Lethæa, who were
  transformed into stones.

Thence Hymenæus, clad in a saffron-coloured[1] robe, passed through the
unmeasured tract of air, and directed his course to the regions of the
Ciconians[2], and, in vain, was invoked by the voice of Orpheus. He
presented himself indeed, but he brought with him neither auspicious
words, nor joyful looks, nor {yet} a happy omen. The torch, too, which
he held, was hissing with a smoke that brought tears to the eyes, and as
it was, it found no flames amid its waving. The issue was more
disastrous than the omens; for the newmade bride, while she was
strolling along the grass, attended by a train of Naiads, was killed,
having received the sting of a serpent on her ancle.

After the Rhodopeïan bard had sufficiently bewailed her in the upper
{realms of} air, that he might try the shades below as well, he dared to
descend to Styx by the Tænarian gate, and amid the phantom inhabitants
and ghosts that had enjoyed the tomb, he went to Persephone, and him
that held these unpleasing realms, the Ruler of the shades; and touching
his strings in concert with his words, he thus said, “O ye Deities of
the world that lies beneath the earth, to which we {all} come {at last},
each that is born to mortality; if I may be allowed, and you suffer me
to speak the truth, laying aside[3] the artful expressions of a
deceitful tongue; I have not descended hither {from curiosity} to see
dark Tartarus, nor to bind the threefold throat of the Medusæan monster,
bristling with serpents. {But} my wife was the cause of my coming; into
whom a serpent, trodden upon {by her}, diffused its poison, and cut
short her growing years. I was wishful to be able to endure {this}, and
I will not deny that I have endeavoured {to do so}. Love has proved the
stronger. That God is well known in the regions above. Whether he be so
here, too, I am uncertain; but yet I imagine that even here he is; and
if the story of the rape of former days is not untrue, ’twas love that
united you {two} together. By these places filled with horrors, by this
vast Chaos, and by the silence of these boundless realms, I entreat you,
weave over again the quick-spun thread {of the life} of Eurydice.

“To you we all belong; and having staid but a little while {above},
sooner or later we {all} hasten to one abode. Hither are we all
hastening. This is our last home; and you possess the most lasting
dominion over the human race. She, too, when, in due season she shall
have completed her allotted {number of} years, will be under your sway.
The enjoyment {of her} I beg as a favour. But if the Fates deny me this
privilege in behalf of my wife, I have determined that I will not
return. Triumph in the death of us both.”

As he said such things, and touched the strings to his words, the
bloodless spirits wept. Tantalus did not catch at the retreating water,
and the wheel of Ixion stood still, {as though} in amazement; the birds
did not tear the liver {of Tityus}; and the granddaughters of Belus
paused at their urns; thou, too, Sisyphus, didst seat thyself on thy
stone. The story is, that then, for the first time, the cheeks of the
Eumenides, overcome by his music, were wet with tears; nor could the
royal consort, nor he who rules the infernal regions, endure to deny him
his request; and they called for Eurydice. She was among the shades
newly arrived, and she advanced with a slow pace, by reason of her
wound.

The Rhodopeïan hero receives her, and, at the same time, {this}
condition, that he turn not back his eyes until he has passed the
Avernian vallies, or else that the grant will be revoked. The ascending
path is mounted in deep silence, steep, dark, and enveloped in deepening
gloom. And {now} they were not far from the verge of the upper earth.
He, enamoured, fearing lest she should flag, and impatient to behold
her, turned his eyes; and immediately she sank back again. She, hapless
one! both stretching out her arms, and struggling to be grasped, and to
grasp him, caught nothing but the fleeting air. And now, dying a second
time, she did not at all complain of her husband; for why should she
complain of being beloved? And now she pronounced the last farewell,
which scarcely did he catch with his ears; and again was she hurried
back to the same place.

No otherwise was Orpheus amazed at this twofold death of his wife, than
he who, trembling, beheld the three necks[4] of the dog, the middle one
supporting chains; whom fear did not forsake, before his former nature
{deserted him}, as stone gathered over his body: and {than} Olenus,[5]
who took on himself the crime {of another}, and was willing to appear
guilty; and {than} thou, unhappy Lethæa, confiding in thy beauty;
breasts, once most united, now rocks, which the watery Ida supports. The
ferryman drove him away entreating, and, in vain, desiring again to
cross {the stream}. Still, for seven days, in squalid guise[6] did he
sit on the banks without the gifts of Ceres. Vexation, and sorrow of
mind, and tears were his sustenance. Complaining that the Deities of
Erebus[7] were cruel, he betook himself to lofty Rhodope, and Hæmus,[8]
buffeted by the North winds. The third Titan had {now} ended the year
bounded by the Fishes of the ocean;[9] and Orpheus had avoided all
intercourse with woman, either because it had ended in misfortune to
him, or because he had given a promise {to that effect}. Yet a passion
possessed many a female to unite herself to the bard, {and} many a one
grieved when repulsed. He also was the {first} adviser of the people of
Thrace to transfer their affections to tender youths; and, on this side
of manhood, to enjoy the short spring of life, and its early flowers.

    [Footnote 1: _Saffron-coloured._--Ver. 1. This was in order to be
    dressed in a colour similar to that of the ‘flammeum,’ which was a
    veil of a bright yellow colour, worn by the bride. This custom
    prevailed among the Romans, among whom the shoes worn by the bride
    were of the same colour with the veil.]

    [Footnote 2: _Ciconians._--Ver. 2. These were a people of Thrace,
    near the river Hebrus and the Bistonian Lake.]

    [Footnote 3: _Laying aside._--Ver. 19. ‘Falsi positis ambagibus
    oris,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Laying aside all the long-winded
    fetches of a false tongue.’]

    [Footnote 4: _The three necks._--Ver. 65. There was a story among
    the ancients, that when Cerberus was dragged by Hercules from the
    Infernal Regions, a certain man, through fear of Hercules, hid
    himself in a cave; and that on peeping out, and beholding
    Cerberus, he was changed into a stone by his fright. Suidas says,
    that in his time the stone was still to be seen, and that the
    story gave rise to a proverb.]

    [Footnote 5: _Olenus._--Ver. 69. Olenus, who was supposed to be
    the son of Vulcan, had a beautiful wife, whose name was Lethæa.
    When about to be punished for comparing her own beauty to that of
    the Goddesses, Olenus offered to submit to the penalty in her
    stead, on which they were both changed into stones.]

    [Footnote 6: _In squalid guise._--Ver. 74. ‘Squallidus in
    ripa--sedit,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘He sat in a sorry pickle on
    the bank.’]

    [Footnote 7: _Erebus._--Ver. 76. Erebus was the son of Chaos and
    Darkness; but his name is often used to signify the Infernal
    Regions.]

    [Footnote 8: _Hæmus._--Ver. 77. This was a mountain of Thrace,
    which was much exposed to the North winds.]

    [Footnote 9: _Fishes of the ocean._--Ver. 78. ‘Pisces,’ ‘the
    Fishes,’ being the last sign of the Zodiac, when the sun has
    passed through it, the year is completed.]


EXPLANATION.

  Though Ovid has separated the adventures of Orpheus, whose death he
  does not relate till the beginning of the eleventh Book, we will
  here shortly enter upon an examination of some of the more important
  points of his history.

  As, in his time, Poetry and Music were in a very low state of
  perfection, and as he excelled in both of those arts, it was said
  that he was the son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope; and it was
  added, that he charmed lions and tigers, and made even the trees
  sensible of the melodious tones of his lyre. These were mere
  hyperbolical expressions, which signified the wondrous charms of his
  eloquence and of his music combined, which he employed in
  cultivating the genius of a savage and uncouth people. Some
  conjecture that this personage originally came from Asia into
  Thrace, and suppose that he, together with Linus and Eumolpus,
  brought poetry and music into Greece, the use of which, till then,
  was unknown in that country; and that they introduced, at the same
  time, the worship of Ceres, Mars, and the orgies of Bacchus, which,
  from him who instituted them, received their name of ‘Orphica.’
  Orpheus, too, is supposed to have united the office of high priest
  with that of king. Horace styles him the interpreter of the Gods;
  and he was said to have interposed with the Deities for the
  deliverance of the Argonauts from a dangerous tempest. It is thought
  that he passed some part of his life in Egypt, and became acquainted
  with many particulars of the ancient religion of the Egyptians,
  which he introduced into the theology of Greece. Some modern writers
  even go so far as to suggest that he learned from the Hebrews, who
  were then sojourning in Egypt, the knowledge of the true God.

  His wife, Eurydice, dying very young, he was inconsolable for her
  loss. To alleviate his grief, he went to Thesprotia, in Epirus, the
  natives of which region were said to possess incantations, for the
  purpose of raising the ghosts of the departed. Here, according to
  some accounts, being deceived by a phantom, which was made to appear
  before him, he died of sorrow; but, according to other writers,
  he renounced the society of mankind for ever and retired to the
  mountains of Thrace. His journey to that distant country gave
  occasion to say, that he descended to the Infernal Regions. This is
  the more likely, as he is supposed to have there promulgated his
  notions of the infernal world, which, according to Diodorus Siculus,
  he had learned among the Egyptians.

  Tzetzes, however, assures us that this part of his history is
  founded on the circumstance, that Orpheus cured his wife of the bite
  of a serpent, which had till then been considered to be mortal; and
  that the poets gave an hyperbolical version of the story, in saying
  that he had rescued her from Hell. He says, too, that he had learned
  in Egypt the art of magic, which was much cultivated there, and
  especially the method of charming serpents.

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

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

  After his death, Orpheus was reckoned in the number of Heroes or
  Demigods; and we are informed by Philostratus that his head was
  preserved at Lesbos, where it gave oracular responses. Orpheus is
  not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod. The learned scholar Lobeck, in his
  Aglaophamus, has entered very deeply into an investigation of the
  real nature of the discoveries and institutions ascribed to him.


FABLE II. [X.86-105]

  Orpheus, retiring to Mount Rhodope, by the charms of his music,
  attracts to himself all kinds of creatures, rocks, and trees; among
  the latter is the pine tree, only known since the transformation of
  Attis.

There was a hill, and upon the hill a most level space of a plain, which
the blades of grass made green: {all} shade was wanting in the spot.
After the bard, sprung from the Gods, had seated himself in this place,
and touched his tuneful strings, a shade came over the spot. The tree of
Chaonia[10] was not absent, nor the grove of the Heliades,[11] nor the
mast-tree with its lofty branches, nor the tender lime-trees, nor yet
the beech, and the virgin laurel,[12] and the brittle hazels, and the
oak, adapted for making spears, and the fir without knots, and the holm
bending beneath its acorns, and the genial plane-tree,[13] and the
parti-coloured maple,[14] and, together with them, the willows growing
by the rivers, and the watery lotus, and the evergreen box, and the
slender tamarisks, and the two-coloured myrtle, and the tine-tree,[15]
with its azure berries.

You, too, the ivy-trees, with your creeping tendrils, came, and
together, the branching vines, and the elms clothed with vines; the
ashes, too, and the pitch-trees, and the arbute, laden with its blushing
fruit, and the bending palm,[16] the reward of the conqueror; the pine,
too, with its tufted foliage,[17] and bristling at the top, pleasing to
the Mother of the Gods; since for this the Cybeleïan Attis put off the
human form, and hardened into that trunk.

    [Footnote 10: _Tree of Chaonia._--Ver. 90. This was the oak, for
    the growth of which Chaonia, a province of Epirus, was famous.]

    [Footnote 11: _Grove of the Heliades._--Ver. 91. He alludes to the
    poplars, into which tree, as we have already seen, the Heliades,
    or daughters of the sun, were changed after the death of Phaëton.]

    [Footnote 12: _Virgin laurel._--Ver. 92. The laurel is so styled
    from the Virgin Daphne, who refused to listen to the solicitations
    of Apollo.]

    [Footnote 13: _Genial plane-tree._--Ver. 95. The plane tree was
    much valued by the ancients, as affording, by its extending
    branches, a pleasant shade to festive parties. Virgil says, in the
    Fourth Book of the Georgics, line 146, ‘Atque ministrantem
    platanum potantibus umbram,’ ‘And the plane-tree that gives its
    shade for those that carouse.’]

    [Footnote 14: _Parti-coloured maple._--Ver. 95. The grain of the
    maple being of a varying colour, it was much valued by the
    ancients, for the purpose of making articles of furniture.]

    [Footnote 15: _The tine tree._--Ver. 98. The ‘tinus,’ or ‘tine
    tree,’ according to Pliny the Elder, was a wild laurel, with green
    berries.]

    [Footnote 16: _The bending palm._--Ver. 102. The branches of the
    palm were remarkable for their flexibility, while no
    superincumbent weight could break them. On this account they were
    considered as emblematical of victory.]

    [Footnote 17: _Tufted foliage._--Ver. 103. The pine is called
    ‘succincta,’ because it sends forth its branches from the top, and
    not from the sides.]


EXPLANATION.

  The story of Attis, or Athis, here briefly referred to, is related
  by the ancient writers in many different ways; so much so, that it
  is not possible to reconcile the discrepancy that exists between
  them. From Diodorus Siculus we learn that Cybele, the daughter of
  Mæon, King of Phrygia, falling in love with a young shepherd named
  Attis, her father ordered him to be put to death. In despair, at the
  loss of her lover, Cybele left her father’s abode, and, accompanied
  by Marsyas, crossed the mountains of Phrygia. Apollo, (or, as
  Vossius supposes, some priest of that God,) touched with the
  misfortunes of the damsel, took her to the country of the
  Hyperboreans in Scythia, where she died. Some time after, the plague
  ravaging Phrygia, and the oracle being consulted, an answer was
  returned, that, to ensure the ceasing of the contagion, they must
  look for the body of Attis, and give it funeral rites, and render to
  Cybele the same honour which they were wont to pay to the Gods: all
  which was done with such scrupulous care, that in time she became
  one of the most esteemed Divinities.

  Arnobius, says that Attis was a shepherd, with whom Cybele fell in
  love in her old age. Unmoved by her rank, and repelled by her faded
  charms, he despised her advances. Midas, King of Pessinus, on seeing
  this, destined his own daughter, Agdistis, for the young Attis.
  Fearing the resentment of Cybele, he caused the gates of the city to
  be shut on the day on which the marriage was to be solemnized.
  Cybele being informed of this, hastened to Pessinus, and, destroying
  the gates, met with Attis, who had concealed himself behind a pine
  tree, and caused him to be emasculated; on which Agdistis committed
  self-destruction in a fit of sorrow.

  Servius, Lactantius, and St. Augustine, give another version of the
  story, which it is not necessary here to enlarge upon, any farther
  than to say, that it depicts the love of a powerful queen for a
  young man who repulsed her advances. Ovid, also, gives a similar
  account in the fourth Book of the Fasti, line 220. Other authors,
  quoted by Arnobius, have given some additional circumstances, the
  origin of which it is almost impossible to guess at. They say that a
  female called Nana, by touching a pomegranate or an almond tree,
  which grew from the blood of Agdistis whom Bacchus had slain,
  conceived Attis, who afterwards became very dear to Cybele.

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


FABLE III. [X.106-142]

  Cyparissus is about to kill himself for having slain, by accident,
  a favourite deer; but, before he is able to execute his design,
  Apollo transforms him into a Cypress.

Amid this throng was present the cypress, resembling the cone,[18] now a
tree, {but} once a youth, beloved by that God who fits the lyre with the
strings, and the bow with strings. For there was a large stag, sacred to
the Nymphs who inhabit the Carthæan fields; and, with his horns
extending afar, he himself afforded an ample shade to his own head. His
horns were shining with gold, and a necklace studded with gems,[19]
falling upon his shoulders, hung down from his smooth round neck;
a silver ball,[20] fastened with little straps, played upon his
forehead; and pendants of brass,[21] of equal size, shone on either ear
around his hollow temples. He, too, void of fear, and laying aside his
natural timorousness, used to frequent the houses, and to offer his neck
to be patted by any hands, even though unknown {to him}.

But yet, above all others, he was pleasing to thee, Cyparissus, most
beauteous of the nation of Cea.[22] Thou wast wont to lead the stag to
new pastures, and to the streams of running waters; sometimes thou didst
wreathe flowers of various colours about his horns, and at other times,
seated on his back, {like} a horseman, {first} in this direction and
{then} in that, thou didst guide his easy mouth with the purple bridle.
’Twas summer and the middle of the day, and the bending arms of the
Crab, that loves the sea-shore, were glowing with the heat of the sun;
the stag, fatigued, was reclining his body on the grassy earth, and was
enjoying the coolness from the shade of a tree. By inadvertence the boy
Cyparissus pierced him with a sharp javelin; and, when he saw him dying
from the cruel wound, he resolved to attempt to die {as well}. What
consolations did not Phœbus apply? and he advised him to grieve with
moderation, and according to the occasion. Still did he lament, and as a
last favour, he requested this of the Gods above, that he might mourn
for ever. And now, his blood quite exhausted by incessant weeping, his
limbs began to be changed into a green colour, and the hair, which but
lately hung from his snow-white forehead, to become a rough bush, and,
a stiffness being assumed, to point to the starry heavens with a
tapering top. The God {Phœbus} lamented deeply, and in his sorrow he
said, “Thou shalt be mourned by me, and shalt mourn for others, and
shalt {ever} attend upon those who are sorrowing[23] {for the dead}.”

    [Footnote 18: _Resembling the cone._--Ver. 106. In the Roman
    Circus for the chariot races, a low wall ran lengthways down the
    course, which, from its resemblance in position to the spinal
    bone, was called by the name of ‘spina.’ At each extremity of this
    ‘spina,’ there were placed upon a base, three large cones, or
    pyramids of wood, in shape very much like cypress trees, to which
    fact allusion is here made. They were called ‘metæ,’ ‘goals.’]

    [Footnote 19: _Studded with gems._--Ver. 113. Necklaces were much
    worn in ancient times by the Indians, Persians, and Egyptians.
    They were more especially used by the Greek and Roman females as
    bridal ornaments. The ‘monile baccatum,’ or ‘bead necklace,’ was
    the most common, being made of berries, glass, or other materials,
    strung together. They were so strung with thread, silk, or wire,
    and links of gold. Emeralds seem to have been much used for this
    purpose, and amber was also similarly employed. Thus Ovid says,
    in the second Book of the Metamorphoses, line 366, that the amber
    distilled from the trees, into which the sisters of Phaëton were
    changed, was sent to be worn by the Latian matrons. Horses and
    favourite animals, as in the present instance, were decked with
    ‘monilia,’ or necklaces.]

    [Footnote 20: _A silver ball._--Ver. 114. The ‘bulla’ was a ball
    of metal, so called from its resemblance in shape to a bubble of
    water. These were especially worn by the Roman children, suspended
    from the neck, and were mostly made of thin plates of gold, being
    of about the size of a walnut. The use of these ornaments was
    derived from the people of Etruria; and though originally worn
    only by the children of the Patricians, they were subsequently
    used by all of free birth. The children of the Libertini, or
    ‘freedmen,’ indeed wore ‘bullæ,’ but they were only made of
    leather. The ‘bulla’ was laid aside at the same time as the ‘toga
    prætexta,’ and was on that occasion consecrated to the Lares. The
    bulls of the Popes of Rome, received their names from this word;
    the ornament which was pendent from the rescript or decree being
    used to signify the document itself.]

    [Footnote 21: _Pendants of brass._--Ver. 116. The ear-ring was
    called among the Greeks ἐνώτιον, and by the Romans ‘inauris.’ The
    Greeks also called it ἐλλόβιον, from its being inserted in the
    lobe of the ear. Earrings were worn by both sexes among the
    Lydians, Persians, Libyans, Carthaginians, and other nations.
    Among the Greeks and Romans, the females alone were in the habit
    of wearing them. As with us, the ear-ring consisted of a ring and
    drop, the ring being generally of gold, though bronze was
    sometimes used by the common people. Pearls, especially those of
    elongated form, which were called ‘elenchi,’ were very much valued
    for pendants.]

    [Footnote 22: _Nation of Cea._--Ver. 120. Cea was one of the
    Cyclades, and Carthæa was one of its four cities.]

    [Footnote 23: _Who are sorrowing._--Ver. 142. The Poet in this
    manner accounts for the Roman custom of placing branches of
    Cypress before the doors of houses in which a dead body lay. Pliny
    the Elder says, that the Cypress was sacred to Pluto, and that for
    that reason it was used at funerals, and was placed upon the pile.
    Varro says, that it was used for the purpose of removing, by its
    own strong scent, the bad smell of the spot where the bodies were
    burnt, and also of the bodies themselves. It was also said to be
    so used, because, when once its bark is cut, it withers, and is
    consequently emblematical of the frail tenure of human life.]


EXPLANATION.

  Cyparissus, who, according to Ovid was born at Carthæa, a town in
  the isle of Cea, was probably a youth of considerable poetical
  talent and proficiency in the polite arts, which caused him to be
  deemed the favourite of Apollo. His transformation into a Cypress is
  founded on the resemblance between their names, that tree being
  called by the Greeks κυπάρισσος. The conclusion of the story is that
  Apollo, to console himself, enjoined that the Cypress tree should be
  the symbol of sorrow, or in other words that it should be used at
  funerals and be planted near graves and sepulchres; which fiction
  was most likely founded on the fact, that the tree was employed for
  those purposes; perhaps because its branches, almost destitute of
  leaves, have a somewhat melancholy aspect.

  Some ancient writers also tell us that Cyparissus was a youth
  beloved by the God Sylvanus, for which reason that God is often
  represented with branches of Cypress in his hand.


FABLE IV. [X.143-161]

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

Such a grove {of trees} had the bard attracted {round him}, and he sat
in the midst of an assembly of wild beasts, and of a multitude of birds.
When he had sufficiently tried the strings struck with his thumb, and
perceived that the various tones, though they gave different sounds,
{still} harmonize, in this song he raised his voice: “Begin, my parent
Muse, my song from Jove, all things submit to the sway of Jove. By me,
often before has the power of Jove been sung. In loftier strains have I
sung of the Giants, and the victorious thunderbolts scattered over the
Phlegræan plains.[24] Now is there occasion for a softer lyre; and let
us sing of youths beloved by the Gods above, and of girls surprised by
unlawful flames, who, by their wanton desires, have been deserving of
punishment.

“The king of the Gods above was once inflamed with a passion for
Ganymede, and something was found that Jupiter preferred to be, rather
than what he was. Yet into no bird does he vouchsafe to be transformed,
but that which can carry his bolts.[25] And no delay {is there}.
Striking the air with his fictitious wings, he carries off the youth of
Ilium; who even now mingles his cups {for him}, and, much against the
will of Juno, serves nectar to Jove.”

    [Footnote 24: _Phlegræan plains._--Ver. 151. Some authors place
    the Phlegræan {plains} near Cumæ, in Italy, and say that in a spot
    near there, much impregnated with sulphur, Jupiter, aided by
    Hercules and the other Deities, conquered the Giants with his
    lightnings. Others say that their locality was in that part of
    Macedonia which was afterwards called Pallene; others again,
    in Thessaly, or Thrace.]

    [Footnote 25: _Carry his bolts._--Ver. 158. The eagle was feigned
    to be the attendant bird of Jove, among other reasons, because it
    was supposed to fly higher than any other bird, to be able to fix
    its gaze on the sun without being dazzled, and never to receive
    injury from lightning. It was also said to have been the
    armour-bearer of Jupiter in his wars against the Titans, and to
    have carried his thunderbolts.]


EXPLANATION.

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

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

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


FABLE V. [X.162-219]

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

“Phœbus would have placed thee too, descendant of Amycla,[26] in the
heavens, if the stern Fates had given him time to place thee there.
Still, so far as is possible, thou art immortal; and as oft as the
spring drives away the winter, and the Ram succeeds the watery Fish, so
often dost thou spring up and blossom upon the green turf. Thee, beyond
{all} others, did my father love, and Delphi, situate in the middle[27]
of the earth, was without its guardian {Deity}, while the God was
frequenting the Eurotas, and the unfortified Sparta;[28] and neither his
lyre nor his arrows were {held} in esteem {by him}.

“Unmindful of his own dignity, he did not refuse to carry the nets, or
to hold the dogs, or to go, as his companion, over the ridges of the
rugged mountains; and by lengthened intimacy he augmented his flame. And
now Titan was almost in his mid course between the approaching and the
past night, and was at an equal distance from them both; {when} they
stripped their bodies of their garments, and shone with the juice of the
oily olive, and engaged in the game of the broad quoit.[29] First,
Phœbus tossed it, well poised, into the airy breeze, and clove the
opposite clouds with its weight. After a long pause, the heavy mass fell
on the hard ground, and showed skill united with strength. Immediately
the Tænarian youth,[30] in his thoughtlessness, and urged on by
eagerness for the sport, hastened to take up the circlet; but the hard
ground sent it back into the air with a rebound against thy face,
Hyacinthus.

“Equally as pale as the youth does the Divinity himself turn; and he
bears up thy sinking limbs; and at one moment he cherishes thee, at
another, he stanches thy sad wound; {and} now he stops the fleeting life
by the application of herbs. His skill is of no avail. The wound is
incurable. As if, in a well-watered garden, any one should break down
violets, or poppies, and lilies, as they adhere to their yellow stalks;
drooping, they would suddenly hang down their languid heads, and could
not support themselves; and would look towards the ground with their
tops. So sink his dying features; and, forsaken by its vigour, the neck
is a burden to itself, and reclines upon the shoulder. ‘Son of Œbalus,’
says Phœbus, ‘thou fallest, deprived of thy early youth; and I look on
thy wound as my own condemnation. Thou art {the object of} my grief, and
{the cause of} my crime. With thy death is my right hand to be charged;
I am the author of thy destruction. Yet what is my fault? unless to
engage in sport can be termed a fault; unless it can be called a fault,
too, to have loved thee. And oh! that I could give my life for thee, or
together with thee; but since I am restrained by the decrees of destiny,
thou shalt ever be with me, and shalt dwell on my mindful lips. The lyre
struck with my hand, my songs, too, shall celebrate thee; and,
{becoming} a new flower, by the inscription {on thee}, thou shalt
imitate[31] my lamentations. The time, too, shall come, at which a most
valiant hero[32] shall add his {name} to this flower, and it shall be
read upon the same leaves.’

“While such things are being uttered by the prophetic lips of Apollo,
behold! the blood which, poured on the ground, has stained the grass,
ceases to be blood, and a flower springs up, more bright than the Tyrian
purple, and it assumes the appearance which lilies {have}, were there
not in this a purple hue, {and} in them that of silver. This was not
enough for Phœbus, for ’twas he that was the author of this honour. He
himself inscribed his own lamentations on the leaves, and the flower has
‘ai, ai,’ inscribed {thereon}; and the mournful characters[33] {there}
are traced. Nor is Sparta ashamed to have given birth to Hyacinthus; and
his honours continue to the present time; the Hyacinthian festival[34]
returns, too, each year, to be celebrated with the prescribed
ceremonials, after the manner of former {celebrations}.”

    [Footnote 26: _Descendant of Amycla._--Ver. 162. Hyacinthus is
    here called Amyclides, as though being the son of Amycla, whereas,
    in line 196 he is called ‘Œbalides,’ as though the son of Œbalus.
    Pausamas and Apollodorus (in one instance) say that he was the son
    of Amycla, the Lacedæmonian, who founded the city of Amyclæ;
    though, in another place, Apollodorus says that Piërus was his
    father. On the other hand, Hyginus, Lucian, and Servius say that
    he was the son of Œbalus. Some explain ‘Amyclide,’ as meaning
    ‘born at Amyclæ;’ and, indeed, Claudian says that he was born
    there. Others, again, would have Œbalide to signify ‘born at
    Œbalia.’ But, if he was the son of Amycla, this could not be the
    signification, as Œbalia was founded by Œbalus, who was the
    grandson of Amycla. The poet, most probably, meant to style him
    the descendant of Amycla, as being his great grandson, and the son
    of Œbalus. Again, in the 217th line of this Book, the Poet says
    that he was born at Sparta; but, in the fifth Book of the Fasti,
    line 223, he mentions Therapnæ, a town of Laconia, as having been
    his birthplace. Perizonius thinks that Ovid has here inadvertently
    confounded the different versions of the story of Hyacinthus.]

    [Footnote 27: _In the middle._--Ver. 168. Delphi, situated on a
    ridge of Parnassus, was styled the navel of the world, as it was
    supposed to be situate in the middle of the earth. The story was,
    that Jupiter, having let go two eagles, or pigeons, at the
    opposite extremities of the earth, with the view of ascertaining
    the central spot of it, they met in their flight at this place.]

    [Footnote 28: _Unfortified Sparta._--Ver. 169. Sparta was not
    fortified, because Lycurgus considered that it ought to trust for
    its defence to nothing but the valour and patriotism of its
    citizens.]

    [Footnote 29: _The broad quoit._--Ver. 177. The ‘discus,’ or
    quoit, of the ancients, was made of brass, iron, stone, or wood,
    and was about ten or twelve inches in diameter. Sometimes, a heavy
    mass of iron, of spherical form, was thrown instead of the
    ‘discus.’ It was perforated in the middle, and a rope or thong
    being passed through, was used in throwing it.]

    [Footnote 30: _The Tænarian youth._--Ver. 183. Hyacinthus is so
    called, not as having been born there, but because Tænarus was a
    famous headland or promontory of Laconia, his native country.]

    [Footnote 31: _Thou shalt imitate._--Ver. 206. The blood of
    Hyacinthus, changing into a flower, according to the ideas of the
    poets, the words Αἰ, Αἰ, expressive, in the Greek language, of
    lamentation, were said to be impressed on its leaves.]

    [Footnote 32: _Most valiant hero._--Ver. 207. He alludes to Ajax,
    the son of Telamon, from whose blood, when he slew himself,
    a similar flower was said to have arisen, with the letters Αἰ, Αἰ,
    on its leaves, expressive either of grief, or denoting the first
    two letters of his name, Αἴας. See Book xiii. line 397. The
    hyacinth was the emblem of death, among the ancient Greeks.]

    [Footnote 33: _Mournful characters._--Ver. 216. The letters are
    called ‘funesta,’ because the words αἰ, αἰ were the expressions of
    lamentation at funerals.]

    [Footnote 34: _Hyacinthian festival._--Ver. 219. The Hyacinthia
    was a festival celebrated every year at Amyclæ, in Laconia, by the
    people of that town and of Sparta. Some writers say that it was
    held solely in honour of Apollo; others, of Hyacinthus; but it is
    much more probable, that it was intended to be in honour of both
    Apollo and Hyacinthus. The festival lasted for three days, and
    began on the longest day of the Spartan month, Hecatombæus. On the
    first and last day, sacrifices were offered to the dead, and the
    fate of Hyacinthus was lamented. Garlands were forbidden to be
    worn on those days, bread was not allowed to be eaten, and no
    songs were recited in praise of Apollo. On the second day,
    rejoicing and amusements prevailed; the praises of Apollo were
    sung, and horse races were celebrated; after which, females,
    riding in chariots made of wicker-work, and splendidly adorned,
    formed a beautiful procession. On this day, sacrifices were
    offered, and the citizens kept open houses for their friends and
    relations. Athenæus mentions a favourite meal of the Laconians on
    this occasion, which was called κοπίς, and consisted of cakes,
    bread, meat, broth, raw herbs, figs, and other fruits, with the
    seeds of the lupine. Macrobius says, that chaplets of ivy were
    worn at the Hyacinthia; but, of course, that remark can only apply
    to the second day. Even when they had taken the field against an
    enemy, the people of Amyclæ were in the habit of returning home on
    the approach of the Hyacinthia, to celebrate that festival.]


EXPLANATION.

  Hyacinthus, as Pausanias relates, was a youth of Laconia. His father
  educated him with so much care, that he was looked upon as the
  favourite of Apollo, and of the Muses. As he was one day playing
  with his companions, he unfortunately received a blow on the head
  from a quoit, from the effects of which he died soon after. Some
  funeral verses were probably composed on the occasion; in which it
  was said, with the view of comforting his relations, that Boreas,
  jealous of the affection which Apollo had evinced for the youth, had
  turned aside the quoit with which they played; and thus, by degrees,
  in length of time the name of Apollo became inseparably connected
  with the story.

  The Lacedæmonians each year celebrated a solemn festival near his
  tomb, where they offered sacrifices to him; and we are told by
  Athenæus, that they instituted games in his honour, which were
  called after his name. Pausanias makes mention of his tomb, upon
  which he says was engraved the figure of Apollo. His alleged change
  into the flower of the same name is probably solely owing to the
  similarity of their names. It is not very clear what flower it is
  that was known to the ancients under the name of Hyacinthus.
  Dioscorides believes it to be that called ‘vaccinium’ by the Romans,
  which is of a purple colour, and on which can be traced, though
  imperfectly, the letters αἰ (alas!) mentioned by Ovid. The
  lamentations of Apollo, on the death of Hyacinthus, formed the
  subject of bitter, and, indeed, deserved raillery, for several of
  the satirical writers among the ancients.


FABLE VI. [X.220-242]

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

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

“While she is hesitating into what she shall change them, she turns her
eyes towards their horns, and is put in mind that those may be left to
them; and {then} she transforms their huge limbs into {those of} fierce
bulls.

“And yet the obscene Propœtides presumed to deny that Venus is a
Goddess; for which they are reported the first {of all women} to have
prostituted their bodies,[39] with their beauty, through the anger of
the Goddess. And when their shame was gone, and the blood of their face
was hardened, they were, by a slight transition, changed into hard
rocks.”

    [Footnote 35: _Amathus._--Ver. 220. Amathus was a city of Cyprus,
    sacred to Venus, and famous for the mines in its neighbourhood.]

    [Footnote 36: _Jupiter Hospes._--Ver. 224. Jupiter, in his
    character of Ζεῦς ξένιος, was the guardian and protector of
    travellers and wayfarers.]

    [Footnote 37: _Amathusian sheep._--Ver. 227. Amathusia was one of
    the names of the island of Cyprus.]

    [Footnote 38: _Ophiusian lands._--Ver. 229. Cyprus was anciently
    called Ophiusia, on account of the number of serpents that
    infested it; ὄφις being the Greek for a serpent.]

    [Footnote 39: _Their bodies._--Ver. 240. The women of Cyprus were
    notorious for the levity of their character. We learn from
    Herodotus that they had recourse to prostitution to raise their
    marriage portions.]


EXPLANATION.

  The Cerastæ, a people of the island of Cyprus, were, perhaps, said
  to have been changed into bulls, to show the barbarous nature and
  rustic manners of those islanders, who stained their altars with the
  blood of strangers, in sacrifice to the Gods.

  An equivocation of names also, probably, aided in originating the
  story. The island of Cyprus is surrounded with promontories which
  rise out of the sea, and whose pointed rocks appear at a distance
  like horns, from which it had the name of Cerastis, the Greek word
  κέρας, signifying a ‘horn.’ Thus, the inhabitants having the name of
  Cerastæ, it was most easy to invent a fiction of their having been
  once turned into oxen, to account the more readily for their bearing
  that name.

  The Propœtides, who inhabited the same island, were females of very
  dissolute character. Justin, and other writers, mention a singular
  and horrible custom in that island, of prostituting young girls in
  the very temple of Venus. It was most probably the utter disregard
  of these women for common decency, that occasioned the poets to say
  that they were transformed into rocks.


FABLE VII. [X.243-297]

  Pygmalion, shocked by the dissolute lives of the Propœtides, throws
  off all fondness for the female sex, and resolves on leading a life
  of perpetual celibacy. Falling in love with a statue which he has
  made, Venus animates it; on which he marries this new object of his
  affections, and has a son by her, who gives his name to the island.

“When Pygmalion saw these women spending their lives in criminal
pursuits, shocked at the vices which Nature had {so} plentifully
imparted to the female disposition, he lived a single life without a
wife, and for a long time was without a partner of his bed. In the
meantime, he ingeniously carved {a statue of} snow-white ivory with
wondrous skill; and gave it a beauty with which no woman can be born;
and {then} conceived a passion for his own workmanship. The appearance
was that of a real virgin, whom you might suppose to be alive, and if
modesty did not hinder her, to be desirous to move; so much did art lie
concealed under his skill. Pygmalion admires it; and entertains, within
his breast, a flame for this fictitious body.

“Often does he apply his hands to the work, to try whether it is a
{human} body, or whether it is ivory; and yet he does not own it to be
ivory. He gives it kisses, and fancies that they are returned, and
speaks to it, and takes hold of it, and thinks that his fingers make an
impression on the limbs which they touch, and is fearful lest a livid
mark should come on her limbs {when} pressed. And one while he employs
soft expressions, at another time he brings her presents that are
agreeable to maidens, {such as} shells, and smooth pebbles, and little
birds, and flowers of a thousand tints, and lilies, and painted balls,
and tears of the Heliades, that have fallen from the trees. He decks her
limbs, too, with clothing, and puts jewels on her fingers; he puts,
{too}, a long necklace on her neck. Smooth pendants hang from her ears,
and bows from her breast.[40] All things are becoming {to her}; and she
does not seem less beautiful than when naked. He places her on coverings
dyed with the Sidonian shell, and calls her the companion of his bed,
and lays down her reclining neck upon soft feathers, as though it were
sensible.

“A festival of Venus, much celebrated throughout all Cyprus, had {now}
come; and heifers, with snow-white necks, having their spreading horns
tipped with gold, fell, struck {by the axe}. Frankincense, too, was
smoking, when, having made his offering, Pygmalion stood before the
altar, and timorously said, ‘If ye Gods can grant all things, let my
wife be, I pray,’ {and} he did not dare to say ‘this ivory maid,’ {but}
‘like to this {statue} of ivory.’ The golden Venus, as she herself was
present at her own festival, understood what that prayer meant; and as
an omen of the Divinity being favourable, thrice was the flame kindled
up, and it sent up a tapering flame into the air. Soon as he returned,
he repaired to the image of his maiden, and, lying along the couch, he
gave her kisses. She seems to grow warm. Again he applies his mouth;
with his hands, too, he feels her breast. The pressed ivory becomes
soft, and losing its hardness, yields to the fingers, and gives way,
just as Hymettian wax[41] grows soft in the sun, and being worked with
the fingers is turned into many shapes, and becomes pliable by the very
handling. While he is amazed, and is rejoicing, {though} with
apprehension, and is fearing that he is deceived; the lover again and
again touches the object of his desires with his hand. It is a {real}
body; the veins throb, when touched with the thumb.

“Then, indeed, the Paphian hero conceives {in his mind} the most lavish
expressions, with which to give thanks to Venus, and at length presses
lips, no {longer} fictitious, with his own lips. The maiden, too, feels
the kisses given her, and blushes; and raising her timorous eyes towards
the light {of day}, she sees at once her lover and the heavens. The
Goddess was present at the marriage which she {thus} effected. And now,
the horns of the moon having been nine times gathered into a full orb,
she brought forth Paphos; from whom the island derived its name.”

    [Footnote 40: _Bows from her breast._--Ver. 265. The ‘Redimiculum’
    was a sort of fillet, or head band, worn by females. Passing over
    the shoulders, it hung on each side, over the breast. In the
    statues of Venus, it was often imitated in gold. Clarke translates
    it by the word ‘solitaire.’]

    [Footnote 41: _Hymettian wax._--Ver. 284. Hymettus was a mountain
    of Attica, much famed for its honey.]


EXPLANATION.

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


FABLE VIII. [X.298-518]

  Myrrha, the daughter of Cinyras and Cenchris, having conceived an
  incestuous passion for her own father, and despairing of satisfying
  it, attempts to hang herself. Her nurse surprises her in the act,
  and prevents her death. Myrrha, after repeated entreaties and
  assurances of assistance, discloses to her the cause of her despair.
  The nurse, by means of a stratagem, procures her the object of her
  desires, which being discovered by her father, he pursues his
  daughter with the intention of killing her. Myrrha flies from her
  father’s dominions and being delivered of Adonis, is transformed
  into a tree.

“Of him was that Cinyras sprung, who, if he had been without issue,
might have been reckoned among the happy. Of horrible events shall I
{now} sing. Daughters, be far hence; far hence be parents, {too}; or, if
my verse shall charm your minds, let credit not be given to me in this
part {of my song}, and do not believe that it happened; or, if you will
believe, believe as well in the punishment of the deed.

“Yet, if Nature allows this crime to appear to have been committed,
I congratulate the Ismarian matrons, and my own {division of the} globe.
I congratulate this land, that it is afar from those regions which
produced so great an abomination. Let the Panchæan land[42] be rich in
amomum, and let it produce cinnamon, and its zedoary,[43] and
frankincense distilling from its tree, and its other flowers, so long as
it produces the myrrh-tree, as well. The new tree was not of so much
worth {as to be a recompense for the crime to which it owed its origin}.
Cupid himself denies, Myrrha, that it was his arrows that injured thee;
and he defends his torches from that imputation; one of the three
Sisters kindled {this flame} within thee, with a Stygian firebrand and
with swelling vipers. It is a crime to hate a parent; {but} this love is
a greater degree of wickedness than hatred. On every side worthy nobles
are desiring thee {in marriage}, and throughout the whole East the
youths come to the contest for thy bed. Choose out of all these one for
thyself, Myrrha, so that, in all that number, there be not one person,
{namely, thy father}.

“She, indeed, is sensible {of her criminality}, and struggles hard
against her infamous passion, and says to herself, ‘Whither am I being
carried away by my feelings? What am I attempting? I beseech you, O ye
Gods, and natural affection, and ye sacred ties of parents, forbid this
guilt: defend me from a crime so great! if, indeed, this be a crime. But
yet the ties of parent and child are said not to forbid this {kind of}
union; and other animals couple with no distinction. It is not
considered shameful for the heifer to mate with her sire; his own
daughter becomes the mate of the horse; the he-goat, too, consorts with
the flocks of which he is the father; and the bird conceives by him,
from whose seed she herself was conceived. Happy they, to whom these
things are allowed! The care of man has provided harsh laws, and what
Nature permits, malignant ordinances forbid. {And} yet there are said to
be nations[44] in which both the mother is united to the son, and the
daughter to the father, and natural affection is increased by a twofold
passion. Ah, wretched me! that it was not my chance to be born there,
{and that} I am injured by my lot {being cast} in this place! {but} why
do I ruminate on these things? Forbidden hopes, begone! He is deserving
to be beloved, but as a father {only}. Were I not, therefore, the
daughter of the great Cinyras, with Cinyras I might be united. Now,
because he is so much mine, he is not mine, and his very nearness {of
relationship} is my misfortune.

“‘A stranger, I were more likely to succeed. I could wish to go far away
hence, and to leave my native country, so I might {but} escape this
crime. A fatal delusion detains me {thus} in love; that being present,
I may look at Cinyras, and touch him, and talk with him, and give him
kisses, if nothing more is allowed me. But canst thou hope for anything
more, impious maid? and dost thou not perceive both how many laws, and
{how many} names thou art confounding? Wilt thou be both the rival of
thy mother, and the harlot of thy father? Wilt thou be called the sister
of thy son, and the mother of thy brother? and wilt thou not dread the
Sisters that have black snakes for their hair, whom guilty minds see
threatening their eyes and their faces with their relentless torches?
But do not thou conceive criminality in thy mind, so long as thou hast
suffered none in body, and violate not the laws of all-powerful Nature
by forbidden embraces. Suppose he were to be compliant, the action
itself forbids {thee; but} he is virtuous, and regardful of what is
right. And {yet}, O that there were a like infatuation in him!’

“{Thus} she says; but Cinyras, whom an honourable crowd of suitors is
causing to be in doubt what he is to do, inquires of herself, as he
repeats their names, of which husband she would wish {to be the wife}.
At first she is silent; and, fixing her eyes upon her father’s
countenance, she is in confusion, and fills her eyes with the warm
tears. Cinyras, supposing this to be {the effect} of virgin bashfulness,
bids her not weep, and dries her cheeks, and gives her kisses. On these
being given, Myrrha is too much delighted; and, being questioned what
sort of a husband she would have, she says, ‘One like thyself.’ But he
praises the answer not {really}[45] understood by him, and says, ‘Ever
be thus affectionate.’ On mention being made of affection, the maiden,
conscious of her guilt, fixed her eyes on the ground.

“It is {now} midnight, and sleep has dispelled the cares, and {has
eased} the minds {of mortals}. But the virgin daughter of Cinyras, kept
awake, is preyed upon by an unconquerable flame, and ruminates upon her
wild desires. And one while she despairs, and at another she resolves to
try; and is both ashamed, and {yet} is desirous, and is not certain what
she is to do; and, just as a huge tree, wounded by the axe, when the
last stroke {now} remains, is in doubt, {as it were}, on which side it
is to fall, and is dreaded in each direction; so does her mind, shaken
by varying passions, waver in uncertainty, this way and that, and
receives an impulse in either direction; {and} no limit or repose is
found for her love, but death: ’tis death that pleases her. She raises
herself upright, and determines to insert her neck[46] in a halter; and
tying her girdle to the top of the door-post, she says, ‘Farewell, dear
Cinyras, and understand the cause of my death;’ and {then} fits the
noose to her pale neck.

“They say that the sound of her words reached the attentive ears of her
nurse,[47] as she was guarding the door of her foster-child. The old
woman rises, and opens the door; and, seeing the instruments of the
death she has contemplated, at the same moment she cries aloud, and
smites herself, and rends her bosom, and snatching the girdle from her
neck, tears it to pieces. {And} then, at last, she has time to weep,
then to give her embraces, and to inquire into the occasion for the
halter. The maid is silent, {as} {though} dumb, and, without moving,
looks upon the earth; and {thus} detected, is sorry for her attempt at
death in this slow manner. The old woman {still} urges her; and laying
bare her grey hair, and her withered breasts, begs her, by her cradle
and by her first nourishment, to entrust her with that which is causing
her grief. She, turning from her as she asks, heaves a sigh. The nurse
is determined to find it out, and not to promise her fidelity only.
‘Tell me,’ says she, ‘and allow me to give thee assistance; my old age
is not an inactive one. If it is a frantic passion, I have the means of
curing it with charms and herbs; if any one has hurt thee by spells, by
magic rites shalt thou be cured; or if it is the anger of the Gods, that
anger can be appeased by sacrifice. What more {than these} can I think
of? No doubt thy fortunes and thy family are prosperous, and in the way
of continuing so; thy mother and thy father are {still} surviving.’
Myrrha, on hearing her father’s {name}, heaves a sigh from the bottom of
her heart. Nor, even yet, does her nurse apprehend in her mind any
unlawful passion; {and} still she has a presentiment that it is
something {connected with} love. Persisting in her purpose, she entreats
her, whatever it is, to disclose it to her, and takes her, as she weeps,
in her aged lap; and so embracing her in her feeble arms, she says,
‘Daughter, I understand it; thou art in love, and in this case (lay
aside thy fears) my assiduity will be of service to thee; nor shall thy
father ever be aware of it.’

“Furious, she sprang away from her bosom; and pressing the bed with her
face, she said, ‘Depart, I entreat thee, and spare my wretched shame.’
Upon the other insisting, she said, ‘Either depart, or cease to inquire
why it is I grieve; that which thou art striving to know, is impious.’
The old woman is struck with horror, and stretches forth her hands
palsied both with years and with fear, and suppliantly falls before the
feet of her foster-child. And one while she soothes her, sometimes she
terrifies her {with the consequences}, if she is not made acquainted
with it; and {then} she threatens her with the discovery of the halter,
{and} of her attempted destruction, and promises her good offices, if
the passion is confided to her. She lifts up her head, and fills the
breast of her nurse with tears bursting forth; and often endeavouring to
confess, as often does she check her voice; and she covers her blushing
face with her garments, and says, ‘O, mother, happy in thy husband!’
Thus much {she says}; and {then} she sighs. A trembling shoots through
the chilled limbs and the bones of her nurse, for she understands her;
and her white hoariness stands bristling with stiff hair all over her
head; and she adds many a word to drive away a passion so dreadful, if
{only} she can. But the maiden is well aware that she is not advised to
a false step; still she is resolved to die, if she does not enjoy him
whom she loves. ‘Live {then},’ says {the nurse}, ‘thou shalt enjoy
thy----’ and, not daring to say ‘parent,’ she is silent; and {then} she
confirms her promise with an oath.

“The pious matrons were {now} celebrating the annual festival of
Ceres,[48] on which, having their bodies clothed with snow-white robes,
they offer garlands made of ears of corn, as the first fruits of the
harvest; and for nine nights they reckon embraces, and the contact of a
husband, among the things forbidden. Cenchreïs, the king’s wife, is
absent in that company, and attends the mysterious rites. Therefore,
while his bed is without his lawful wife, the nurse, wickedly
industrious, having found Cinyras overcome with wine, discloses to him a
real passion, {but} under a feigned name, and praises the beauty {of the
damsel}. On his enquiring the age of the maiden, she says, ‘She is of
the same age as Myrrha.’ After she is commanded to bring her, and as
soon as she has returned home, she says, ‘Rejoice, my fosterling, we
have prevailed.’ The unhappy maid does not feel joy throughout her
entire body, and her boding breast is sad. And still she does rejoice:
so great is the discord in her mind.

“’Twas the time when all things are silent, and Boötes had turned his
wain with the pole obliquely directed among the Triones.[49] She
approaches to {perpetrate} her enormity. The golden moon flies from the
heavens; black clouds conceal the hiding stars; the night is deprived of
its fires. Thou, Icarus, dost conceal thy rising countenance; and
{thou}, Erigone, raised to the heavens through thy affectionate love for
thy father. Three times was she recalled by the presage of her foot
stumbling; thrice did the funereal owl give an omen by its dismal cry.
Yet {onward} she goes, and the gloom and the dark night lessen her
shame. In her left hand she holds that of her nurse, the other, by
groping, explores the secret road. {And} now she is arrived at the door
of the chamber; and now she opens the door; now she is led in; but her
knees tremble beneath her sinking hams, her colour and her blood vanish;
and her courage deserts her as she moves along. The nearer she is to
{the commission of} her crime, the more she dreads it, and she repents
of her attempt, and could wish to be able to return unknown. The old
woman leads her on by the hand as she lingers, and when she has
delivered her up on her approach to the lofty bed, she says, ‘Take her,
Cinyras, she is thy own,’ and {so} unites their doomed bodies. The
father receives his own bowels into the polluted bed, and allays her
virgin fears, and encourages her as she trembles. Perhaps, too, he may
have called her by a name {suited to} her age, and she may have called
him ‘father,’ that the {appropriate} names might not be wanting in this
deed of horror. Pregnant by her father, she departs from the chamber,
and, in her impiety, bears his seed in her incestuous womb, and carries
{with her}, criminality in her conception. The ensuing night repeats the
guilty deed; nor on that {night} is there an end. At last, Cinyras,
after so many embraces, longing to know who is his paramour, on lights
being brought in, discovers both the crime and his own daughter.

“His words checked through grief, he draws his shining sword from the
scabbard as it hangs. Myrrha flies, rescued from death by the gloom and
the favour of a dark night; and wandering along the wide fields, she
leaves the Arabians famed for their palms, and the Panchæan fields. And
she wanders during nine horns of the returning moon; when, at length,
being weary, she rests in the Sabæan country,[50] and with difficulty
she supports the burden of her womb. Then, uncertain what to wish, and
between the fear of death and weariness of life, she uttered such a
prayer {as this}: ‘O ye Deities, if any of you favour those who are
penitent; I have deserved severe punishment, and I do not shrink from
it. But that, neither existing, I may pollute the living, nor dead,
those who are departed, expel me from both these realms; and
transforming me, deny me both life and death.’ {Some} Divinity {ever}
regards the penitent; at least, the last of her prayers found its Gods
{to execute it}. For the earth closes over her legs as she speaks, and a
root shoots forth obliquely through her bursting nails, {as} a firm
support to her tall trunk. Her bones, too, become hard wood, and her
marrow continuing in the middle, her blood changes into sap, her arms
into great branches, her fingers into smaller ones; her skin grows hard
with bark. And now the growing tree has run over her heavy womb, and has
covered her breast, and is ready to enclose her neck. She cannot endure
delay, and sinks down to meet the approaching wood, and hides her
features within the bark. Though she has lost her former senses together
with her {human} shape, she still weeps on, and warm drops distil[51]
from the tree. There is a value even in her tears, and the myrrh
distilling from the bark, retains the name of its mistress, and will be
unheard-of in no {future} age.

“But the infant conceived in guilt grows beneath the wood, and seeks out
a passage, by which he may extricate himself, having left his mother.
Her pregnant womb swells in the middle of the tree. The burden distends
the mother, nor have her pangs words of their own {whereby to express
themselves}; nor can Lucina be invoked by her voice {while} bringing
forth. Yet she is like one struggling {to be delivered}; and the bending
tree utters frequent groans, and is moistened with falling tears. Gentle
Lucina stands by the moaning boughs, and applies her hands, and utters
words that promote delivery. The tree gapes open, in chinks, and through
the cleft bark it discharges the living burden. The child cries; the
Naiads, laying him on the soft grass, anoint him with the tears of his
mother.

“Even Envy {herself} would have commended his face; for just as the
bodies of naked Cupids are painted in a picture, such was he. But that
their dress may not make any difference, either give to him or take away
from them, the polished quivers.”

    [Footnote 42: _The Panchæan land._--Ver. 309. Panchæa was a region
    of Arabia Felix, abounding in the choicest wines and frankincense.
    Here, the Phœnix was said to find the materials for making its
    nest.]

    [Footnote 43: _Its zedoary._--Ver. 308. ‘Costus,’ or ‘costum,’ was
    an Indian shrub, which yielded a fragrant ointment, much esteemed
    by the ancients. Clarke translates it ‘Coysts,’ a word apparently
    of his own coining.]

    [Footnote 44: _Said to be nations._--Ver. 331. We do not read of
    any such nations, except the fabulous Troglodytes of Ethiopia, who
    were supposed to live promiscuously, like the brutes. Attica, king
    of the Huns, long after Ovid’s time, married his own daughter,
    amid the rejoicings of his subjects.]

    [Footnote 45: _Not really._--Ver. 365. That is to say, not
    understood by him in the sense in which Myrrha meant it.]

    [Footnote 46: _To insert her neck._--Ver. 378. ‘Laqueoque
    innectere fauces Destinat,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘And resolves
    to stitch up her neck in a halter.’]

    [Footnote 47: _Of her nurse._--Ver. 382. Antoninus Liberalis gives
    this hag the name of Hippolyte.]

    [Footnote 48: _Festival of Ceres._--Ver. 431. Commentators, in
    general, suppose that he here alludes to the festival of the
    Thesmophoria, which was celebrated in honour of Demeter, or Ceres,
    in various parts of Greece; in general, by the married women,
    though the virgins joined in some of the ceremonies. Demosthenes,
    Diodorus Siculus, and Plutarch, say that it was first celebrated
    by Orpheus; while Herodotus states, that it was introduced from
    Egypt by the daughters of Danaüs; and that, after the Dorian
    conquest, it fell into disuse, being retained only by the people
    of Arcadia. It was intended to commemorate the introduction of
    laws and the regulations of civilized life, which were generally
    ascribed to Demeter. It is not known whether the festival lasted
    four or five days with the Athenians. Many days were spent by the
    matrons in preparing for its celebration. The solemnity was
    commenced by the women walking in procession from Athens to
    Eleusis. In this procession they carried on their heads
    representations of the laws which had been introduced by Ceres,
    and other symbols of civilized life. They then spent the night at
    Eleusis, in celebrating the mysteries of the Goddess. The second
    day was one of mourning, during which the women sat on the ground
    around the statues of Ceres, taking no food but cakes made of
    sesame and honey. On it no meetings of the people were held.
    Probably it was in the afternoon of this day that there was a
    procession at Athens, in which the women walked bare-footed behind
    a waggon, upon which were baskets, with sacred symbols. The third
    day was one of merriment and festivity among the women, in
    commemoration of Iämbe, who was said to have amused the Goddess
    during her grief at the loss of Proserpine. An atoning sacrifice,
    called ζήμια, was probably offered to the Goddess, at the end of
    this day. It is most probable that the ceremonial lasted but three
    days. The women wore white dresses during the period of its
    performance, and they adopted the same colour during the
    celebration of the Cerealia at Rome. Burmann thinks, that an
    Eastern festival, in honour of Ceres, is here referred to. If so,
    no accounts of it whatever have come down to us.]

    [Footnote 49: _Among the Triones._--Ver. 446. ‘Triones’. This
    word, which is applied to the stars of the Ursa Major, or
    Charles’s Wain, literally means ‘oxen;’ and is by some thought to
    come from ‘tero,’ ‘to bruise,’ because oxen were used for the
    purpose of threshing corn; but it is more likely to have its
    origin from ‘terra,’ ‘the earth,’ because oxen were used for
    ploughing. The Poet employs this periphrasis, to signify the
    middle of the night.]

    [Footnote 50: _Sabæan country._--Ver. 480. Sabæa, or Saba, was a
    region of Arabia Felix, now called ‘Yemen.’ It was famed for its
    myrrh, frankincense, and spices. In the Scriptures it is called
    Sheba, and it was the queen of this region, who came to listen to
    the wisdom of Solomon.]

    [Footnote 51: _Warm drops distil._--Ver. 500. He alludes to the
    manner in which frankincense is produced, it exuding from the bark
    of the tree in drops; this gum, Pliny the Elder and Lucretius call
    by the name of ‘stacta,’ or ‘stacte.’ The ancients flavoured their
    wines with myrrh.]


EXPLANATION.

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

  Loaded with the execrations of her father, Myrrha retired into
  Arabia, where she remained some time; and because Adonis passed some
  portion of his youth there, the poets feigned that Myrrha was
  delivered of him in that country. Her transformation into a tree was
  only invented on account of the equivocal character of her name,
  ‘Mor,’ which meant in the Arabic language ‘Myrrh.’ It is very
  probable that the story was founded on a tradition among the
  Phœnicians of the history of Noah, and of the malediction which Ham
  drew on himself by his undutiful conduct towards his father.


FABLE IX. [X.519-707]

  Adonis is educated by the Naiads. His beauty makes a strong
  impression on the Goddess Venus, and, in her passion, she traverses
  the same wilds in pursuit of the youth, which his mother did, when
  flying from the wrath of her father. After chasing the wild beasts,
  she invites Adonis to a poplar shade, where she warns him of his
  danger in hunting lions, wild boars, and such formidable animals.
  On this occasion, too, she relates the adventures of Hippomenes and
  Atalanta. The beauty of the latter was such, that her charms daily
  attracted crowds of suitors. Having consulted the oracle, whether
  she shall marry, she is answered that a husband will certainly prove
  her destruction. On this, to avoid marrying, she makes it a rule to
  offer to run with her suitors, promising that she herself will be
  the prize of the victor, but only on condition that immediate death
  shall be the fate of those who are vanquished by her. As she excels
  in running, her design succeeds, and several suitors die in the
  attempt to win her. Hippomenes, smitten with her charms, is not
  daunted at their ill success; but boldly enters the lists, after
  imploring the aid of Venus. Atalanta is struck with his beauty, and
  is much embarrassed, whether she shall yield to the charms of the
  youth, or to the dissuasions of the oracle. Hippomenes attracts her
  attention in the race, by throwing down some golden apples which
  Venus has given him, and then, reaching the goal before her, he
  carries off the reward of victory. Venus, to punish his subsequent
  ingratitude towards her, raises his desires to such a pitch, that he
  incurs the resentment of Cybele, by defiling her shrine with the
  embraces of his mistress; on which they are both transformed into
  lions, and thenceforth draw the chariot of the Goddess.

“Winged time glides on insensibly and deceives us; and there is nothing
more fleeting than years. He, born of his own sister and of his
grandfather, who, so lately enclosed in a tree, was so lately born, and
but just now a most beauteous infant, is now a youth, now a man, {and}
now more beauteous than he {was before}. {And} now he pleases even
Venus,[52] and revenges the flames of his mother, {kindled by her}. For,
while the boy that wears the quiver is giving kisses to his mother, he
unconsciously grazes her breast with a protruding arrow. The Goddess,
wounded, pushed away her son with her hand. The wound was inflicted more
deeply than it seemed to be, and at first had deceived {even} herself.
Charmed with the beauty of the youth, she does not now care for the
Cytherian shores, nor does she revisit Paphos, surrounded with the deep
sea, and Cnidos,[53] abounding in fish, or Amathus, rich in metals.

“She abandons even the skies; him she {ever} attends; and she who has
been always accustomed to indulge in the shade, and to improve her
beauty, by taking care of it, wanders over the tops of mountains,
through the woods, and over bushy rocks, bare to the knee and with her
robes tucked up after the manner of Diana, and she cheers on the dogs,
and hunts animals that are harmless prey, either the fleet hares, or the
stag with its lofty horns, or the hinds; she keeps afar from the fierce
boars, and avoids the ravening wolves, and the bears armed with claws,
and the lions glutted with the slaughter of the herds. Thee, too,
Adonis, she counsels to fear them, if she can aught avail by advising
thee. And she says, “Be brave against those {animals} that fly; boldness
is not safe against those that are bold. Forbear, youth, to be rash at
my hazard, and attack not the wild beasts to which nature has granted
arms, lest thy {thirst for} glory should cost me dear. Neither thy age,
nor thy beauty, nor {other} things which have made an impression on
Venus, make any impression on lions and bristly boars, and the eyes and
the tempers of wild beasts. The fierce boars carry lightning[54] in
their curving tusks; there is rage and fury unlimited in the tawny
lions; and the {whole} race is odious to me.”

“Upon his asking, what is the reason, she says, ‘I will tell thee, and
thou wilt be surprised at the prodigious result of a fault long since
committed. But {this} toil to which I am unaccustomed has now fatigued
me, and see! a convenient poplar invites us, by its shade, and the turf
furnishes a couch. Here I am desirous to repose myself, together with
thee;’ and {forthwith} she rests herself on the ground, and presses at
once the grass and himself. And with her neck reclining on the bosom of
the youth, smiling, she thus says, and she mingles kisses in the midst
of her words:--

“Perhaps thou mayst have heard how a certain damsel excelled the
swiftest men in the contest of speed. That report was no idle tale; for
she did excel them. Nor couldst thou have said, whether she was more
distinguished in the merit of her swiftness, or in the excellence of her
beauty. Upon her consulting the oracle about a husband, the God said to
her, ‘Thou hast no need, Atalanta, of a husband; avoid obtaining a
husband. And yet thou wilt not avoid it, and, while {still} living, thou
wilt lose thyself.’ Alarmed with the response of the God, she lives a
single life in the shady woods, and determinedly repulses the pressing
multitude of her suitors with these conditions. ‘I am not,’ says she,
‘to be gained, unless first surpassed in speed. Engage with me in
running. Both a wife and a wedding shall be given as the reward of the
swift; death {shall be} the recompense of the slow. Let that be the
condition of the contest.’ She, indeed, was cruel {in this proposal};
but (so great is the power of beauty) a rash multitude of suitors agreed
to these terms. Hippomenes had sat, as a spectator, of this unreasonable
race, and said, ‘Is a wife sought by any one, amid dangers so great?’
And {thus} he condemned the excessive ardour of the youths. {But} when
he beheld her face, and her body with her clothes laid aside, such as
mine is, or such as thine would be, {Adonis}, if thou wast to become a
woman, he was astonished, and raising his hands, he said, ‘Pardon me, ye
whom I was just now censuring; the reward which you contended for was
not yet known to me.’

“In commending her, he kindles the flame, and wishes that none of the
young men may run more swiftly than she, and, in his envy, is
apprehensive of it. ‘But why,’ says he, ‘is my chance in this contest
left untried? The Divinity himself assists the daring.’ While Hippomenes
is pondering such things within himself, the virgin flies with winged
pace. Although she appears to the Aonian youth to go no less swiftly
than the Scythian arrow, he admires her still more in her beauty, and
the very speed makes her beauteous. The breeze that meets her bears back
her pinions on her swift feet, and her hair is thrown over her ivory
shoulders and the leggings which are below her knees with their
variegated border, and upon her virgin whiteness her body has contracted
a blush; no otherwise than as when purple hangings[55] over a whitened
hall tint it with a shade of a similar colour. While the stranger is
observing these things, the last course is run,[56] and the victorious
Atalanta is adorned with a festive crown. The vanquished utter sighs,
and pay the penalty, according to the stipulation. Still, not awed by
the end of these young men, he stands up in the midst; and fixing his
eyes on the maiden, he says, ‘Why dost thou seek an easy victory by
conquering the inactive? Contend {now} with me. If fortune shall render
me victorious, thou wilt not take it ill to be conquered by one so
illustrious. For my father was Megareus, Onchestius his;[57] Neptune was
his grandsire; I am the great grandson of the king of the waves. Nor is
my merit inferior to my extraction. Or if I shall be conquered, in the
conquest of Hippomenes thou wilt have a great and honourable name.’

“As he utters such words as these, the daughter of Schœneus regards him
with a benign countenance, and is in doubt whether she shall wish to be
overcome or to conquer; and thus she says: ‘What Deity, a foe to the
beauteous, wishes to undo this {youth}? and commands him, at the risk of
a life {so} dear, to seek this alliance? In my own opinion, I am not of
so great value. Nor {yet} am I moved by his beauty. Still, by this, too,
I could be moved. But, {’tis} because he is still a boy; ’tis not
himself that affects me, but his age. And is it not, too, because he has
courage and a mind undismayed by death? And is it not, besides, because
he is reckoned fourth in descent from the {monarch} of the sea? And is
it not, because he loves me, and thinks a marriage with me of so much
worth as to perish {for it}, if cruel fortune should deny me to him?
Stranger, while {still} thou mayst, begone, and abandon an alliance
stained with blood. A match with me is cruelly hazardous. No woman will
be unwilling to be married to thee; and thou mayst be desired {even} by
a prudent maid. But why have I any concern for thee, when so many have
already perished? Let him look to it; {and} let him die, since he is not
warned by the fate of so many of my wooers, and is impelled onwards to
weariness of life.

“‘Shall he then die because he was desirous with me to live? And shall
he suffer an undeserved death, the reward of his love? My victory will
not be able to support the odium {of the deed}. But it is no fault of
mine. I wish thou wouldst desist! or since thou art {thus} mad, would
that thou wast more fleet {than I!} But what a feminine look[58] there
is in his youthful face! Ah, wretched Hippomenes, I would that I had not
been seen by thee! Thou wast worthy to have lived! And if I had been
more fortunate; and if the vexatious Divinities had not denied me {the
blessings of} marriage, thou wast one with whom I could have shared my
bed.’ Thus she said; and as one inexperienced, and smitten by Cupid for
the first time, not knowing what she is doing, she is in love, and {yet}
does not know that she is in love.

“{And} now, both the people and her father, demanded the usual race,
when Hippomenes, the descendant of Neptune, invoked me with anxious
voice; ‘I entreat that Cytherea may favour my undertaking, and aid the
passion that she has inspired {in me}.’ The breeze, not envious, wafted
to me this tender prayer; I was moved, I confess it; nor was any long
delay made in {giving} aid. There is a field, the natives call it by
name the Tamasenian {field},[59] the choicest spot in the Cyprian land;
this the elders of former days consecrated to me, and ordered to be
added as an endowment for my temple. In the middle of this field a tree
flourishes, with yellow foliage, {and} with branches tinkling with
yellow gold. Hence, by chance as I was coming, I carried three golden
apples, that I had plucked, in my hand; and being visible to none but
him, I approached Hippomenes, and I showed him what {was to be} the use
of them. The trumpets have {now} given the signal, when each {of them}
darts precipitately from the starting place, and skims the surface of
the sand with nimble feet. You might have thought them able to pace the
sea with dry feet, and to run along the ears of white standing corn
{while} erect. The shouts and the applause of the populace give courage
to the youth, and the words of those who exclaim, ‘Now, now, Hippomenes,
is the moment to speed onward! make haste. Now use all thy strength!
Away with delay! thou shalt be conqueror.’ It is doubtful whether the
Megarean hero, or the virgin daughter of Schœneus rejoiced the most at
these sayings. O how often when she could have passed by him, did she
slacken her speed, and {then} unwillingly left behind the features that
long she had gazed upon.

“A parched panting is coming from his faint mouth, and the goal is
{still} a great way off. Then, at length, the descendant of Neptune
throws one of the three products of the tree. The virgin is amazed, and
from a desire for the shining fruit, she turns from her course, and
picks up the rolling gold. Hippomenes passes her. The theatres ring[60]
with applause. She makes amends for her delay, and the time that she has
lost, with a swift pace, and again she leaves the youth behind. And,
retarded by the throwing of a second apple, again she overtakes the
{young} man, and passes by him. The last part of the race {now}
remained. ‘{And} now,’ said he, ‘O Goddess, giver of this present, aid
me;’ and {then} with youthful might, he threw the shining gold, in an
oblique direction, on one side of the plain, in order that she might
return the more slowly. The maiden seemed to be in doubt, whether she
should fetch it; I forced her to take it up, and added weight to the
apple, when she had taken it up, and I impeded her, both by the
heaviness of the burden, and the delay in reaching it. And that my
narrative may not be more tedious than that race, the virgin was outrun,
and the conqueror obtained the prize.

“And was I not, Adonis, deserving that he should return thanks to me,
and the tribute of frankincense? but, in his ingratitude, he gave me
neither thanks nor frankincense. I was thrown into a sudden passion; and
provoked at being slighted, I provided by {making} an example, that I
should not be despised in future times, and I aroused myself against
them both. They were passing by a temple, concealed within a shady wood,
which the famous Echion had formerly built for the Mother of the Gods,
according to his vow; and the length of their journey moved them to take
rest {there}. There, an unseasonable desire of caressing {his wife}
seized Hippomenes, excited by my agency. Near the temple was a recess,
with {but} little light, like a cave, covered with native pumice stone,
{one} sacred from ancient religious observance; where the priest had
conveyed many a wooden image of the ancient Gods. This he entered, and
he defiled the sanctuary by a forbidden crime. The sacred images turned
away their eyes, and the Mother {of the Gods}, crowned with turrets,[61]
was in doubt whether she should plunge these guilty ones in the Stygian
stream. That seemed {too} light a punishment. Wherefore yellow manes
cover their necks so lately smooth; their fingers are bent into claws,
of their shoulders are made fore-legs;[62] their whole weight passes
into their breasts. The surface of the sand is swept by their tails.[63]
Their look has anger {in it}; instead of words they utter growls;
instead of chambers they haunt the woods; and dreadful to others, {as}
lions, they champ the bits of Cybele with subdued jaws. Do thou, beloved
by me, avoid these, and together with these, all kinds of wild beasts
which turn not their backs in flight, but their breasts to the fight;
lest thy courage should be fatal to us both.”

    [Footnote 52: _Pleases even Venus._--Ver. 524. According to
    Apollodorus, Venus had caused Myrrha to imbibe her infamous
    passion, because she had treated the worship of that Goddess with
    contempt.]

    [Footnote 53: _Cnidos._--Ver. 531. This was a city of Caria,
    situate on a promontory. Strangers resorted thither, to behold a
    statue of Venus there, which was made by Praxiteles.]

    [Footnote 54: _Carry lightning._--Ver. 551. The lightning shock
    seems to be attributed to the wild boar, from the vehemence with
    which he strikes down every impediment in his way.]

    [Footnote 55: _Purple hangings._--Ver. 595. Curtains, or hangings,
    called ‘aulæa,’ were used by the ancients to ornament their halls,
    sitting rooms, and bed chambers. In private houses they were also
    sometimes hung as coverings over doors, and in the interior, as
    substitutes for them. In the palace of the Roman emperors,
    a slave, called ‘velarius,’ was posted at each of the principal
    doors, to raise the curtain when any one passed through. Window
    curtains were also used by the Romans, while they were employed in
    the temples, to veil the statue of the Divinity. Ovid here speaks
    of them as being of purple colour; while Lucretius mentions them
    as being of yellow, red, and rusty hue.]

    [Footnote 56: _Last course is run._--Ver. 597. Among the Romans,
    the race consisted of seven rounds of the Circus, or rather
    circuits of the ‘spina,’ or wall, in the midst of it, at each end
    of which was the ‘meta,’ or goal. Livy and Dio Cassius speak of
    seven conical balls, resembling eggs, which were called ‘ova,’ and
    were placed upon the ‘spina.’ Their use was to enable the
    spectators to count the number of rounds which had been run, for
    which reason they were seven in number; and as each round was run,
    one of the ‘ova’ was put up, or, according to Varro, taken down.
    The form of the egg was adopted in honour of Castor and Pollux,
    who were said to have been produced from eggs. The words
    ‘novissima meta’ here mean either ‘the last part of the course,’
    or, possibly, ‘the last time round the course.’]

    [Footnote 57: _Onchestius his._--Ver. 605. But Hyginus says that
    Neptune was the father of Megareus, or Macareus, as the Scholiast
    of Sophocles calls him. Neptune being the father of Onchestius,
    Hippomenes was the fourth from Neptune, inclusively. Onchestius
    founded a city of that name in Bœotia, in honour of Neptune, who
    had a temple there; in the time of Pausanias the place was in
    ruins. That author tells us that Megareus aided Nisus against
    Minos, and was slain in that war.]

    [Footnote 58: _A feminine look._--Ver. 631. Clarke renders this
    line-- ‘But what a lady-like countenance there is in his boyish
    face!’]

    [Footnote 59: _Tamasenian field._--Ver. 644. Tamasis, or Tamaseus,
    is mentioned by Pliny as a city of Cyprus.]

    [Footnote 60: _The theatres ring._--Ver. 668. ‘Spectacula’ may
    mean either the seats, or benches, on which the spectators sat,
    or an amphitheatre. The former is most probably the meaning in the
    present instance.]

    [Footnote 61: _Crowned with turrets._--Ver. 696. Cybele, the
    Goddess of the Earth, was usually represented as crowned with
    turrets, and drawn in a chariot by lions.]

    [Footnote 62: _Are made fore-legs._--Ver. 700. ‘Armus’ is
    generally the shoulder of a brute; while ‘humerus’ is that of a
    man. ‘Armus’ is sometimes used to signify the human shoulder.]

    [Footnote 63: _By their tails._--Ver. 701. Pliny the Elder remarks
    that the temper of the lion is signified by his tail, in the same
    way as that of the horse by his ears. When in motion, it shows
    that he is angry; when quiet, that he is in a good temper.]


EXPLANATION.

  The Atalanta who is mentioned in this story was the daughter of
  Schœneus, and the granddaughter of Athamas, whose misfortunes
  obliged him to retire into Bœotia, where he built a little town,
  which was called after his name, as we learn from Pausanias and
  Eustathius. Ovid omits to say that it was one of the conditions of
  the agreement, that the lover was to have the start in the race.
  According to some writers, the golden apples were from the gardens
  of the Hesperides; while, according to others, they were plucked by
  Venus in the isle of Cyprus. The story seems to be founded merely on
  the fact, that Hippomenes contrived by means of bribes to find the
  way to the favour of his mistress.

  Apollodorus, however, relates the story in a different manner;
  he says that the father of Atalanta desiring to have sons, but no
  daughters, exposed her, on her birth, in a desert, that she might
  perish. A she-bear found the infant, and nourished it, until it was
  discovered by some hunters. As the damsel grew up, she made hunting
  her favourite pursuit, and slew two Centaurs, who offered her
  violence, with her arrows. On her parents pressing her to marry, she
  consented to be the wife of that man only who could outrun her, on
  condition that those who were conquered by her in the race should be
  put to death. Several of her suitors having failed in the attempt,
  one of the name of Melanion, by using a similar stratagem to that
  attributed by Ovid to Hippomenes, conquered her in the race, and
  became her husband. Having profaned the temple of Jupiter, they were
  transformed, Melanion into a lion, and Atalanta into a lioness.
  According to Apollodorus, her father’s name was Iasius, though in
  his first book he says she was the daughter of Schœneus. He also
  says that she was the same person that was present at the hunt of
  the Calydonian boar, though other writers represent them to have
  been different personages. Euripides makes Mænalus to have been the
  name of her father.

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


FABLE X. [X.708-739]

  Adonis being too ardent in the pursuit of a wild boar, the beast
  kills him, on which Venus changes his blood into a flower of crimson
  colour.


“She, indeed, {thus} warned him; and, harnessing her swans, winged her
way through the air; but his courage stood in opposition to her advice.
By chance, his dogs having followed its sure track, roused a boar, and
the son of Cinyras pierced him, endeavouring to escape from the wood,
with a wound from the side. Immediately the fierce boar, with his
crooked snout, struck out the hunting-spear, stained with his blood, and
{then} pursued him, trembling and seeking a safe retreat, and lodged his
entire tusks in his groin, and stretched him expiring on the yellow
sand.

“Cytherea, borne in her light chariot[64] through the middle of the air,
had not yet arrived at Cyprus upon the wings of her swans. She
recognized afar his groans, as he was dying, and turned her white birds
in that direction. And when, from the lofty sky, she beheld him half
dead, and bathing his body in his own blood, she rapidly descended, and
rent both her garments and her hair, and she smote her breast with her
distracted hands. And complaining of the Fates, she says, ‘But, however,
all things shall not be in your power; the memorials of my sorrow,
Adonis, shall ever remain; and the representation of thy death, repeated
yearly, shall exhibit an imitation of my mourning. But thy blood shall
be changed into a flower. Was it formerly allowed thee, Persephone, to
change the limbs[65] of a female into fragrant mint; and shall the hero,
the son of Cinyras, {if} changed, be a cause of displeasure against me?’
Having thus said, she sprinkles his blood with odoriferous nectar,
which, touched by it, effervesces, just as the transparent bubbles are
wont to rise in rainy weather. Nor was there a pause longer than a full
hour, when a flower sprang up from the blood, of the same colour {with
it}, such as the pomegranates are wont to bear, which conceal their
seeds beneath their tough rind. Yet the enjoyment of it is but
short-lived; for the same winds[66] which give it a name, beat it down,
as it has but a slender hold, and is apt to fall by reason of its
extreme slenderness.”

    [Footnote 64: _In her light chariot._--Ver. 717. ‘Vecta levi curru
    Cytherea,’ Clarke quaintly renders, ‘The Cytherean Goddess riding
    in her light chair.’]

    [Footnote 65: _To change the limbs._--Ver. 729. Proserpine was
    said to have changed the Nymph, ‘Mentha,’ into a plant of that
    name, which we call ‘mint.’ Some writers say that she found her
    intriguing with Pluto while, according to other writers, she was
    the mistress of Pollux.]

    [Footnote 66: _The same winds._--Ver. 739. The flower which sprang
    from the blood of Adonis was the anemone, or wind-flower, of which
    Pliny the Elder says-- ‘This flower never opens but when the wind
    is blowing, from which too, it receives its name, as ἄνεμος means
    the wind.’ --(Book i. c. 23).]


EXPLANATION.

  Theocritus, Bion, Hyginus, and Antoninus Liberalis, beside several
  other authors, relate the history of the loves of Venus and Adonis.
  They inform us of many particulars which Ovid has here neglected to
  remark. They say that Mars, jealous of the passion which Venus had
  for Adonis, implored the aid of Diana, who, to gratify his revenge,
  sent the boar that destroyed the youth. According to some writers,
  it was Apollo himself that took the form of that animal; and they
  say that Adonis descending to the Infernal Regions, Proserpine fell
  in love with him, and refused to allow him to return,
  notwithstanding the orders of Jupiter. On this, the king of heaven
  fearing to displease both the Goddesses, referred the dispute to the
  Muse Calliope, who directed that Adonis should pass one half of his
  time with Venus on earth, and the other half in the Infernal
  Regions. They also tell us that it took up a year before the dispute
  could be determined, and that the Hours brought Adonis at last to
  the upper world, on which, Venus being dissatisfied with the
  decision of Calliope, instigated the women of Thrace to kill her son
  Orpheus.

  The mythologists have considered this story to be based on grounds
  either historical or physical. Cicero, in his Discourse on the
  Nature of the Gods, says, that there were several persons who had
  the name of Venus, and that the fourth, surnamed Astarte, was a
  Syrian, who married Adonis, the son of Cinyras, king of Cyprus.
  Hunting in the forests of Mount Libanus, or Lebanon, he was wounded
  in the groin by a wild boar, which accident ultimately caused his
  death. Astarte caused the city of Byblos and all Syria to mourn for
  his loss; and, to keep his name and his sad fate in remembrance,
  established feasts in his honour, to be celebrated each year. Going
  still further, if we suppose the story to have originated in
  historical facts, it seems not improbable that Adonis did not die of
  his wound, and that, contrary to all expectation, he was cured; as
  the Syrians, after having mourned for several days during his
  festival, rejoiced as though he had been raised from the dead, at a
  second festival called ‘The Return.’ The worship both of Venus and
  Adonis probably originated in Syria, and was spread through Asia
  Minor into Greece; while the Carthaginians, a Phœnician colony
  introduced it into Sicily. The festival of Adonis is most amusingly
  described by Theocritus the Sicilian poet, in his ‘Adoniazusæ.’ Some
  authors have suggested that Adonis was the same with the Egyptian
  God Osiris, and that the affliction of Venus represented that of
  Isis at the death of her husband. According to Hesiod, Adonis was
  the son of Phœnix and Alphesibœa, while Panyasis says that he was
  son of Theias, the king of the Assyrians.

  In support of the view which some commentators take of the story of
  Adonis having been founded on physical circumstance, we cannot do
  better than quote the able remarks of Mr. Keightley on the subject.
  He says (Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, p. 109)-- “The tale
  of Adonis is apparently an Eastern mythus. His very name is Semitic
  (Hebrew ‘Adon,’ ‘Lord’), and those of his parents also refer to that
  part of the world. He appears to be the same with the Thammuz,
  mentioned by the prophet Ezekiel, and to be a Phœnician
  personification of the sun who, during a part of the year is absent,
  or, as the legend expresses it, with the Goddess of the under world:
  during the remainder with Astarte, the regent of heaven. It is
  uncertain when the Adonia were first celebrated in Greece; but we
  find Plato alluding to the gardens of Adonis, as boxes of flowers
  used in them were called; and the ill fortune of the Athenian
  expedition to Sicily was in part ascribed to the circumstance of the
  fleet having sailed during that festival.”

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