Metamorphoses

FABLE I. [XV.1-59]

  Myscelos is warned, in a dream, to leave Argos, and to settle in
  Italy. When on the point of departing, he is seized under a law
  which forbids the Argives to leave the city without the permission
  of the magistrates. Being brought up for judgment, through a miracle
  he is acquitted. He retires to Italy, where he builds the city of
  Crotona.

Meanwhile, one is being sought who can bear a weight of such magnitude,
and can succeed a king so great. Fame, the harbinger of truth, destines
the illustrious Numa for the sovereign power. He does not deem it
sufficient to be acquainted with the ceremonials of the Sabine nation;
in his expansive mind he conceives greater views, and inquires into the
nature of things. ’Twas love of this pursuit, his country and cares left
behind, that caused him to penetrate to the city of the stranger
Hercules. To him, making the inquiry what founder it was that had
erected a Grecian city on the Italian shores, one of the more aged
natives, who was not unacquainted with {the history of} the past, thus
replied:

“The son of Jove, enriched with the oxen of Iberia, is said to have
reached the Lacinian shores,[1] from the ocean, after a prosperous
voyage, and, while his herd was straying along the soft pastures,
himself to have entered the abode of the great Croton, no inhospitable
dwelling, and to have rested in repose after his prolonged labours, and
to have said thus at departing: ‘In the time of thy grandsons this shall
be the site of a city;’ and his promise was fulfilled. For there was a
certain Myscelos, the son of Alemon, an Argive, most favoured by the
Gods in those times. Lying upon him, as he is overwhelmed with the
drowsiness of sleep, the club-bearer, {Hercules}, addresses him: ‘Come,
{now}, desert thy native abodes; go, {and} repair to the pebbly streams
of the distant Æsar.’[2] And he utters threats, many and fearful, if he
does not obey: after that, at once both sleep and the God depart. The
son of Alemon arises, and ponders his recent vision in his thoughtful
mind; and for a long time his opinions are divided among themselves. The
Deity orders him to depart; the laws forbid his going; and death has
been awarded as the punishment of him who attempts to leave his country.

“The brilliant Sun had {now} hidden his shining head in the ocean, and
darkest Night had put forth her starry face, {when} the same God seemed
to be present, and to give the same commands, and to utter threats, more
numerous and more severe, if he does not obey. He was alarmed; and {now}
he was also preparing to transfer his country’s home to a new
settlement, {when} a rumour arose in the city, and he was accused of
holding the laws in contempt. And, when the accusation had first been
made, and his crime was evident, proved without a witness, the accused,
in neglected garb, raising his face and his hands towards the Gods
above, says, ‘Oh thou! for whom the twice six labours have created the
privilege of the heavens, aid me, I pray; for thou wast the cause of my
offence.’ It was the ancient custom, by means of white and black
pebbles, with the one to condemn the accused, with the other to acquit
them of the charge; and on this occasion thus was the sad sentence
passed, and every black pebble was cast into the ruthless urn. Soon as
it, being inverted, poured forth the pebbles to be counted, the colour
of them all was changed from black to white, and the sentence, changed
to a favourable one by the aid of Hercules, acquitted the son of Alemon.

“He gives thanks to the parent, the son of Amphitryon,[3] and with
favouring gales sails over the Ionian sea, and passes by the
Lacedæmonian Tarentum,[4] and Sybaris, and the Salentine Neæthus,[5] and
the bay of Thurium,[6] and Temesa, and the fields of Iapyx;[7] and
having with difficulty coasted along the spots which skirt these shores,
he finds the destined mouth of the river Æsar; and, not far thence,
a mound, beneath which the ground was covering the sacred bones of
Croton. And there, on the appointed land, did he found his walls, and he
transferred the name of him that was {there} entombed to his city. By
established tradition, it was known that such was the original of that
place, and of the city built on the Italian coasts.”

    [Footnote 1: _Lacinian shores._--Ver. 13. Lacinium was a
    promontory of Italy, not far from Crotona.]

    [Footnote 2: _Distant Æsar._--Ver. 23. The Æsar was a little
    stream of Calabria, which flowed into the sea, near the city of
    Crotona.]

    [Footnote 3: _Son of Amphitryon._--Ver. 49. Hercules was the
    putative son of Amphitryon, king of Thebes, who was the husband of
    his mother Alcmena.]

    [Footnote 4: _Tarentum._--Ver. 50. Tarentum was a famous city of
    Calabria, said to have been founded by Taras, the son of Neptune.
    It was afterwards enlarged by Phalanthus, a Lacedæmonian, whence
    its present epithet.]

    [Footnote 5: _Neæthus._--Ver. 51. This was a river of the
    Salentine territory, near Crotona.]

    [Footnote 6: _Thurium._--Ver. 52. Thurium was a city of Calabria,
    which received its name from a fountain in its vicinity. It was
    also called Thuria and Thurion.]

    [Footnote 7: _Fields of Iapyx._--Ver. 52. Iapygia was a name which
    Calabria received from Iapyx, the son of Dædalus. There was also a
    city of Calabria, named Iapygia, and a promontory, called
    Iapygium.]


EXPLANATION.

  To the story here told of Micylus, or Myscelus, as most of the
  ancient writers call him, another one was superadded. Suidas, on the
  authority of the Scholiast of Aristophanes, says that Myscelus,
  having consulted the oracle, concerning the colony which he was
  about to lead into a foreign country, was told that he must settle
  at the place where he should meet with rain in a clear sky, ἐξ
  αἰθρίας. His faith surmounting the apparent impossibility of having
  both fair and foul weather at the same moment, he obeyed the oracle,
  and put to sea; and, after experiencing many dangers, he landed in
  Italy. Being full of uncertainty where to fix his colony, he was
  reduced to great distress; on which his wife, whose name was
  Aithrias, with the view of comforting him, embraced him, and bedewed
  his face with her tears. He immediately adopted the presage, and
  understood the spot where he then was to be the site of his intended
  city.

  Strabo says that Myscelus, who was so called from the smallness of
  his legs, designing to found a colony in a foreign land, arrived on
  the coast of Italy. Observing that the spot which the oracle had
  pointed out enjoyed a healthy climate, though the soil was not so
  fertile as in the adjacent plains, he went once more to consult the
  oracle; but was answered that he must not refuse what was offered
  him; an answer which was afterwards turned into a proverb. On this,
  he founded the city of Crotona, and another colony founded the city
  of Sybaris on the spot which he had preferred; a place which
  afterwards became infamous for its voluptuousness and profligacy.


FABLES II. AND III. [XV.60-478]

  Pythagoras comes to the city of Crotona, and teaches the principles
  of his philosophy. His reputation draws Numa Pompilius to hear his
  discourses; on which he expounds his principles, and, more
  especially, enlarges on the transmigration of the soul, and the
  practice of eating animal food.

There was a man, a Samian by birth; but he had fled from both Samos and
its rulers,[8] and, through hatred of tyranny, he was a voluntary exile.
He too, mentally, held converse with the Gods, although far distant in
the region of the heavens; and what nature refused to human vision, he
viewed with the eyes of his mind. And when he had examined all things
with his mind, and with watchful study, he gave them to be learned by
the public; and he sought the crowds of people {as they sat} in silence,
and wondered at the revealed origin of the vast universe, and the cause
of things, and what nature {meant}, and what was God; whence {came} the
snow, what was the cause of lightning; {whether it was} Jupiter, or
whether the winds that thundered when the cloud was rent asunder; what
it was that shook the earth; by what laws the stars took their course;
and whatever {besides} lay concealed {from mortals}.

He, too, was the first to forbid animals to be served up at table, and
he was the first that opened his lips, learned indeed, but still not
obtaining credit, in such words as these: “Forbear, mortals, to pollute
your bodies with {such} abominable food. There is the corn; there are
the apples that bear down the branches by their weight, and {there are}
the grapes swelling upon the vines; there are the herbs that are
pleasant; there are some that can become tender, and be softened by {the
action of} fire. The flowing milk, too, is not denied you, nor honey
redolent of the bloom of the thyme. The lavish Earth yields her riches,
and her agreable food, and affords dainties without slaughter and
bloodshed. The beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh; and yet not all
of them; for the horse, and the sheep, and the herds subsist on grass.
But those whose disposition is cruel and fierce, the Armenian tigers,
and the raging lions, and the bears together with the wolves, revel in
their diet with blood. Alas! what a crime is it, for entrails to be
buried in entrails, and for one ravening body to grow fat on {other}
carcases crammed {into} it; and for one living creature to exist through
the death of another living creature! And does, forsooth! amid so great
an abundance, which the earth, that best of mothers, produces, nothing
delight you but to gnaw with savage teeth the sad {produce of your}
wounds, and to revive the habits of the Cyclops? And can you not appease
the hunger of a voracious and ill-regulated stomach unless you first
destroy another? But that age of old, to which we have given the name of
‘Golden,’ was blest in the produce of the trees, and in the herbs which
the earth produces, and it did not pollute the mouth with blood.

“Then, both did the birds move their wings in safety in the air, and the
hare without fear wander in the midst of the fields; then its own
credulity had not suspended the fish from the hook; every place was
without treachery, and in dread of no injury, and was full of peace.
Afterwards, {some one}, no good adviser[9] (whoever among mortals he
might have been), envied this simple food, and engulphed in his greedy
paunch victuals made from a carcase; ’twas he that opened the path to
wickedness; and I can believe that the steel, {since} stained with
blood, first grew warm from the slaughter of wild beasts. And that had
been sufficient. I confess that the bodies {of animals} that seek our
destruction are put to death with no breach of the sacred laws; but,
although they might be put to death, yet they were not to be eaten as
well. Then this wickedness proceeded still further; and the swine is
believed to have deserved death as the first victim, because it grubbed
up the seeds with its turned-up snout, and cut short the hopes of the
year. Having gnawed the vine, the goat was led[10] for slaughter to the
altars of the avenging Bacchus. Their own faults were the ruin of the
two. But why have you deserved this, ye sheep? a harmless breed, and
born for the service of man; who carry the nectar in your full udders;
who afford your wool as soft coverings for us, and who assist us more by
your life than by your death. Why have the oxen deserved this, an animal
without guile and deceit, innocent, harmless, born to endure labour? In
fact, the man is ungrateful, and not worthy of the gifts of the harvest,
who could, just after taking off the weight of the curving plough,
slaughter the tiller of his fields; who could strike, with the axe, that
neck worn bare with labour, through which he had so oft turned up the
hard ground, {and} had afforded so many a harvest.

“And it is not enough for such wickedness to be committed; they have
imputed to the Gods themselves this abomination; and they believe that a
Deity in the heavens can rejoice in the slaughter of the laborious ox.
A victim free from a blemish, and most beauteous in form (for ’tis being
sightly that brings destruction), adorned with garlands and gold, is
placed upon the altars, and, in its ignorance, it hears one praying, and
sees the corn, which it has helped to produce, placed on its forehead
between its horns; and, felled, it stains with its blood the knives
perhaps before seen by it in the limpid water. Immediately, they examine
the entrails snatched from its throbbing breast, and in them they seek
out the intentions of the Deities. Whence comes it that men have so
great a hankering for forbidden food? Do you presume to feed {on flesh},
O race of mortals? Do it not, I beseech you; and give attention to my
exhortations. And when you shall be presenting the limbs of slaughtered
oxen to your palates, know and consider that you are devouring your
{tillers of the ground}. And since a God impels me to speak, I will duly
obey the God that {so} prompts me to speak; and I will pronounce my own
Delphic {warnings}, and disclose the heavens themselves; and I will
reveal the oracles of the Divine will. I will sing of wondrous things,
never investigated by the intellects of the ancients, and {things} which
have long lain concealed. It delights me to range among the lofty stars;
it delights me, having left the earth and this sluggish spot {far
behind}, to be borne amid the clouds, and to be supported on the
shoulders of the mighty Atlas; and to look down from afar on minds
wandering {in uncertainty}, and devoid of reason; and so to advise them
alarmed and dreading extinction, and to unfold the range of things
ordained by fate.

“O race! stricken by the alarms of icy death, why do you dread Styx? why
the shades, why empty names, the stock subjects of the poets, and the
atonements of an imaginary world? Whether the funeral pile consumes your
bodies with flames, or old age with gradual dissolution, believe that
they cannot suffer any injury. Souls are not subject to death; and
having left their former abode, they ever inhabit new dwellings, and,
{there} received, live on.

“I, myself, for I remember it, in the days of the Trojan war, was
Euphorbus,[11] the son of Panthoüs, in whose opposing breast once was
planted the heavy spear of the younger son of Atreus. I lately
recognised the shield, {once} the burden of my left arm, in the temple
of Juno, at Argos, the realm of Abas. All things are {ever} changing;
nothing perishes. The soul wanders about and comes from that spot to
this, from this to that, and takes possession of any limbs whatever; it
both passes from the beasts to human bodies, and {so does} our {soul}
into the beasts; and in no {lapse} of time does it perish. And as the
pliable wax is moulded into new forms, and no {longer} abides as it was
{before}, nor preserves the same shape, but yet is still the same {wax},
so I tell you that the soul is ever the same, but passes into different
forms. Therefore, that natural affection may not be vanquished by the
craving of the appetite, cease, I warn you, to expel the souls of your
kindred {from their bodies} by this dreadful slaughter; and let not
blood be nourished with blood.

“And, since I am {now} borne over the wide ocean, and I have given my
full sails to the winds, there is nothing in all the world that
continues in the same state. All things are flowing {onward},[12] and
every shape is assumed in a fleeting course. Even time itself glides on
with a constant progress, no otherwise than a river. For neither can the
river, nor the fleeting hour stop in its course; but, as wave is
impelled by wave, and the one before is pressed on by that which
follows, and {itself} presses on that before it; so do the moments
similarly fly on, and similarly do they follow, and they are ever
renewed. For the moment which was before, is past; and that which was
not, {now} exists; and every minute is replaced. You see, too, the night
emerge and proceed onward to the dawn, and this brilliant light of the
day succeed the dark night. Nor is there the same appearance in the
heavens, when all things in their weariness lie in the midst of repose,
and when Lucifer is coming forth on his white steed; and, again, there
is another appearance, when {Aurora}, the daughter of Pallas, preceding
the day, tints the world about to be delivered to Phœbus. The disk
itself of {that} God, when it is rising from beneath the earth, is of
ruddy colour in the morning, and when it is hiding beneath the earth it
is of a ruddy colour. At its height it is of brilliant whiteness,
because there the nature of the æther is purer, and far away, he avoids
{all} infection from the earth. Nor can there ever be the same or a
similar appearance of the nocturnal Diana; and always that of the
present day is less than on the morrow, if she is on the increase; {but}
greater if she is contracting her orb.

“And further. Do you not see the year, affording a resemblance of our
life, assume four {different} appearances? for, in early Spring, it is
mild, and {like} a nursling, and greatly resembling the age of youth.
Then, the blade is shooting, and void of strength, it swells, and is
flaccid, and delights the husbandman in his expectations. Then, all
things are in blossom, and the genial meadow smiles with the tints of
its flowers; and not as yet is there any vigour in the leaves. The year
{now} waxing stronger, after the Spring, passes into the Summer; and in
its youth it becomes robust. And indeed no season is there more
vigorous, or more fruitful, or which glows with greater warmth. Autumn
follows, the ardour of youth {now} removed, ripe, and placed between
youth and old age, moderate in his temperature, with a {few} white hairs
sprinkled over his temples. Then comes aged Winter, repulsive with his
tremulous steps, either stript of his locks, or white with those which
he has.

“Our own bodies too are changing always and without any intermission,
and to-morrow we shall not be what we were or what we {now} are. The
time was, when only as embryos, and the earliest hope of human beings,
we lived in the womb of the mother. Nature applied her skilful hands,
and willed not that our bodies should be tortured {by} being shut up
within the entrails of the distended parent, and brought us forth from
our dwelling into the vacant air. Brought to light, the infant lies
without {any} strength; soon, {like} a quadruped, it uses its limbs
after the manner of the brutes; and by degrees it stands upright,
shaking, and with knees still unsteady, the sinews being supported by
some assistance. Then he becomes strong and swift, and passes over the
hours of youth; and the years of middle age, too, now past, he glides
adown the steep path of declining age. This undermines and destroys the
robustness of former years; and Milo,[13] {now} grown old, weeps when he
sees the arms, which equalled those of Hercules in the massiveness of
the solid muscles, hang weak and exhausted. The daughter of Tyndarus
weeps, too, as she beholds in her mirror the wrinkles of old age, and
enquires of herself why it is that she was twice ravished. Thou, Time,
the consumer of {all} things, and thou, hateful Old Age, {together}
destroy all things; and, by degrees ye consume each thing, decayed by
the teeth of age, with a slow death.

“These things too, which we call elements, are not of unchanging
duration; pay attention, and I will teach you what changes they undergo.

“The everlasting universe contains four elementary bodies. Two of these,
{namely}, earth and water, are heavy, and are borne downwards by their
weight; and as many are devoid of weight, and air, and fire still purer
than air, nothing pressing them, seek the higher regions. Although these
are separated in space, yet all things are made from them, and are
resolved into them. Both the earth dissolving distils into flowing
water; the water, too, evaporating, departs in the breezes and the air;
its weight being removed again, the most subtle air shoots upwards into
the fires {of the æther} on high. Thence do they return back again, and
the same order is unravelled; for fire becoming gross, passes into dense
air; this {changes} into water, and earth is formed of the water made
dense. Nor does its own form remain to each; and nature, the renewer of
{all} things, re-forms one shape from another. And, believe me, in this
universe so vast, nothing perishes; but it varies and changes its
appearance; and to begin to be something different from what it was
before, is called being born; and to cease to be the same thing, {is to
be said} to die. Whereas, perhaps, those things are transferred hither,
and these things thither; yet, in the whole, all things {ever} exist.

“For my part, I cannot believe that anything lasts long under the same
form. ’Twas thus, ye ages, that ye came down to the iron from the gold;
’tis thus, that thou hast so often changed the lot of {various} places.
I have beheld that {as} sea, which once had been the most solid earth.
I have seen land made from the sea; and far away from the ocean the
sea-shells lay, and old anchors were found {there} on the tops of the
mountains. That which was a plain, a current of water has made into a
valley, and by a flood the mountain has been levelled into a plain; the
ground that was swampy is parched with dry sand; and places which have
endured drought, are wet with standing pools. Here nature has opened
fresh springs, but there she has shut them up; and rivers have burst
forth, aroused by ancient earthquakes; or, vanishing, they have
subsided.

“Thus, after the Lycus[14] has been swallowed up by a chasm in the
earth, it burst forth far thence, and springs up afresh at another
mouth. Thus the great Erasinus[15] is at one time swallowed up, and then
flowing with its stream concealed, is cast up again on the Argive
plains. They say, too, that the Mysus, tired of its spring and of its
former banks, now flows in another direction, {as} the Caicus. The
Amenanus,[16] too, at one time flows, rolling along the Sicilian sands,
{and} at another is dry, its springs being stopped up. Formerly, {the
water of} the Anigros[17] was used for drinking; it now pours out water
which you would decline to touch; since, (unless all credit must be
denied to the poets), the {Centaurs}, the double-limbed mortals, there
washed the wounds which the bow of the club-bearing Hercules had made.
And what besides? Does not the Hypanis[18] too, which before was sweet,
rising from the Scythian mountains, become impregnated with bitter
salts? Antissa,[19] Pharos,[20] and Phœnician Tyre,[21] were once
surrounded by waves; no one of these is now an island. The ancient
inhabitants had Leucas[22] annexed to the continent; now the sea
surrounds it. Zancle,[23] too, is said to have been united to Italy,
until the sea cut off the neighbouring region, and repelled the land
with its waves {flowing} between.

“Should you seek Helice and Buris,[24] cities of Achaia, you will find
them beneath the waves, and the sailors are still wont to point out
{these} levelled towns, with their walls buried under water.

“There is a high hill near Trœzen of Pittheus, without any trees, once a
very level surface of a plain, {but} now a hill; for (frightful to tell)
the raging power[25] of the winds, pent up in dark caverns, desiring to
find some vent and having long struggled in vain to enjoy a freer air,
as there was no opening in all their prison and it was not pervious to
their blasts, swelled out the extended earth, just as the breath of the
mouth is wont to inflate a bladder, or the hide[26] stripped from the
two-horned goat. That swelling remained on the spot, and {still}
preserves the appearance of a high hill, and has grown hard in length of
time. Though many other {instances} may occur, either heard of by, or
known to, yourselves, {yet} I will mention a few more. And besides, does
not water, as well, both produce and receive new forms? In the middle of
the day, thy waters, horned Ammon,[27] are frozen, at the rising and at
the setting {of the sun} they are warm. On applying its waters,
Athamanis[28] is said to kindle wood when the waning moon has shrunk
into her smallest orb. The Ciconians have a river,[29] which when drunk
of, turns the entrails into stone, and lays {a covering of} marble on
things that are touched by it. The Crathis[30] and the Sybaris adjacent
to it, in our own country, make the hair similar {in hue} to amber and
gold.

“And, what is still more wonderful, there are some streams which are
able to change, not only bodies, but even the mind. By whom has not
Salmacis,[31] with its obscene waters, been heard of? {Who has not
heard}, too, of that lake of Æthiopia,[32] of which, if any body drinks
with his mouth, he either becomes mad, or falls into a sleep wondrous
for its heaviness? Whoever quenches his thirst from the Clitorian
spring[33] hates wine, and in his sobriety takes pleasure in pure water.
Whether it is that there is a virtue in the water, the opposite of
heating wine, or whether, as the natives tell us, after the son of
Amithaon,[34] by his charms and his herbs, had delivered the raving
daughters of Prœtus from the Furies, he threw the medicines for the mind
in that stream; and a hatred of wine remained in those waters.

“The river Lyncestis[35] flows unlike that {stream} in its effect; for
as soon as any one has drunk of it with immoderate throat, he reels,
just as if he had been drinking unmixed wine. There is a place in
Arcadia, (the ancients called it Pheneos,)[36] suspicious for the
twofold nature of its water. Stand in dread of it at night; if drunk of
in the night time, it is injurious; in the daytime, it is drunk of
without any ill effects. So lakes and rivers have, some, one property,
and some another. There was a time when Ortygia[37] was floating on the
waves, now it is fixed. The Argo dreaded the Symplegades tossed by the
assaults of the waves dashing against them; they now stand immoveable,
and resist {the attacks of} the winds.

“Nor will Ætna, which burns with its sulphureous furnaces, always be a
fiery {mountain}; nor yet was it always fiery. For, if the earth is an
animal, and is alive, and has lungs that breathe forth flames in many a
place, it may change the passages for its breathing, and oft as it is
moved, may close these caverns {and} open others; or if the light winds
are shut up in its lowermost caverns, and strike rocks against rocks,
and matter that contains the elements of flame, {and} it takes fire at
the concussion, the winds {once} calmed, the caverns will become cool;
or, if the bituminous qualities take fire, or yellow sulphur is being
dried up with a smouldering smoke, still, when the earth shall no longer
give food and unctuous fuel to the flame, its energies being exhausted
in length of time, and when nutriment shall be wanting to its devouring
nature, it will not {be able to} endure hunger, and left destitute, it
will desert its flames.

“The story is, that in the far Northern Pallene[38] there are persons,
who are wont to have their bodies covered with light feathers, when they
have nine times entered the Tritonian lake. For my part I do not believe
it; {but} the Scythian women, as well, having their limbs sprinkled with
poison, are said to employ the same arts. But if we are to give any
credit[39] to things proved {by experience}, do you not see that
whatever bodies are consumed by length of time, or by dissolving heat,
are changed into small animals? Come too, bury some choice bullocks
{just} slain, it is a thing well ascertained by experience, {that}
flower-gathering bees are produced promiscuously from the putrefying
entrails. These, after the manner of their producers, inhabit the
fields, delight in toil, and labour in hope. The warlike steed,[40]
buried in the ground, is the source of the hornet. If you take off the
bending claws from the crab of the sea-shore, {and} bury the rest in the
earth, a scorpion will come forth from the part {so} buried, and will
threaten with its crooked tail.

“The silkworms, too, that are wont to cover the leaves with their white
threads, a thing observable by husbandmen, change their forms into that
of the deadly moth.[41] Mud contains seed that generate green frogs; and
it produces them deprived of feet;[42] soon it gives them legs adapted
for swimming; and that the same may be fitted for long leaps, the length
of the hinder ones exceeds {that of} the fore legs. And it is not a
cub[43] which the bear produces at the moment of birth, but a mass of
flesh hardly alive. By licking, the mother forms it into limbs, and
brings it into a shape, such as she herself has. Do you not see, that
the offspring of the honey bees, which the hexagonal cell conceals, are
produced without limbs, and that they assume both feet and wings {only}
after a time. Unless he knew it was the case, could any one suppose it
possible that the bird of Juno, which carries stars on its tail, and the
{eagle}, the armour-bearer of Jove, and the doves of Cytherea, and all
the race of birds, are produced from the middle portion of an egg? There
are some who believe that human marrow changes into a serpent,[44] when
the spine has putrefied in the enclosed sepulchre.

“But these {which I have named} derive their origin from other
particulars; there is one bird which renews and reproduces itself. The
Assyrians call it the Phœnix. It lives not on corn or grass, but on
drops of frankincense, and the juices of the amomum. This {bird}, when
it has completed the five ages of its life, with its talons and its
crooked beak constructs for itself a nest in the branches of a holm-oak,
or on the top of a quivering palm. As soon as it has strewed in this
cassia and ears of sweet spikenard and bruised cinnamon with yellow
myrrh, it lays itself down on it, and finishes its life in the midst of
odours. They say that thence, from the body of its parent, is reproduced
a little Phœnix, which is destined to live as many years. When time has
given it strength, and it is able to bear the weight, it lightens the
branches of the lofty tree of the burden of the nest, and dutifully
carries both its own cradle and the sepulchre of its parent; and, having
reached the city of Hyperion through the yielding air, it lays it down
before the sacred doors in the temple of Hyperion.

“And if there is any wondrous novelty in these things, {still more} may
we be surprised that the hyæna changes its sex,[45] and that the one
which has just now, as a female, submitted to the embrace of the male,
is now become a male itself. That animal, too, which feeds upon[46] the
winds and the air, immediately assumes, from its contact, any colour
whatever. Conquered India presented her lynxes to Bacchus crowned with
clusters; {and}, as they tell, whatever the bladder of these discharges
is changed into stone,[47] and hardens by contact with the air. So
coral, too, as soon as it has come up to the air becomes hard; beneath
the waves it was a soft plant.[48] “The day will fail me, and Phœbus
will bathe his panting steeds in the deep sea, before I can embrace in
my discourse all things that are changed into new forms. So in lapse of
time, we see nations change, and these gaining strength, {while} those
are falling. So Troy was great, both in her riches and her men, and for
ten years could afford so much blood; {whereas}, now laid low, she only
shows her ancient ruins, and, instead of her wealth, {she points at} the
tombs of her ancestors. Sparta was famed;[49] great Mycenæ flourished;
so, too, the citadel of Cecrops, and that of Amphion. {Now} Sparta is a
contemptible spot; lofty Mycenæ is laid low. What now is Thebes, the
city of Œdipus, but a {mere} story? What remains of Athens, the city of
Pandion, but its name?

“Now, too, there is a report that Dardanian Rome is rising; which, close
to the waters of Tiber that rises in the Apennines, is laying the
foundations of her greatness beneath a vast structure. She then, in her
growth, is changing her form, and will one day be the mistress of the
boundless earth. So they say that the soothsayers, and the oracles,
revealers of destiny, declare; and, so far as I recollect, Helenus, the
son of Priam, said to Æneas, as he was lamenting, and in doubt as to his
safety, when {now} the Trojan state was sinking, ‘Son of a Goddess, if
thou dost thyself well understand the presentiment of my mind, Troy
shall not, thou being preserved, entirely fall. The flames and the sword
shall afford thee a passage. Thou shalt go, and, together with thee,
thou shalt bear ruined Pergamus; until a foreign soil, more friendly
than thy native land, shall be the lot of Troy and thyself. Even now do
I see that our Phrygian posterity are destined {to build} a city, so
great as neither now exists, nor will exist, nor has been seen in former
times. Through a long lapse of ages, other distinguished men shall make
it powerful, but one born[50] of the blood of Iülus shall make it the
mistress of the world. After the earth shall have enjoyed his presence,
the æthereal abodes shall gain him, and heaven shall be his
destination.’ Remembering it, I call to mind that Helenus prophesied
this to Æneas, who bore the Penates {from Troy}; and I rejoice that my
kindred walls are rising apace, and that to such good purpose for the
Phrygians the Pelasgians conquered.

“But that we may not range afar with steeds that forget to hasten to the
goal; the heavens, and whatever there is beneath them, and the earth,
and whatever is upon it, change their form. We too, {who are} a portion
of the universe, (since we are not only bodies, but are fleeting souls
as well, and can enter into beasts {as our} abode, and be hidden within
the breasts of the cattle), should allow those bodies which may contain
the souls of our parents, or of our brothers, or of those allied with us
by some tie, or of men at all events, to be safe and unmolested; and we
ought not to fill[51] our entrails with victuals fit for Thyestes. How
greatly he disgraces himself, how in his impiety does he prepare himself
for shedding human blood, who cuts the throat of the calf with the
knife, and gives a deaf ear to its lowings! or who can kill the kid as
it sends forth cries like those of a child; or who can feed upon the
bird to which he himself has given food. How much is there wanting in
these instances for downright criminality? A {short} step {only} is
there thence {to it}!

“Let the bull plough, or let it owe its death to aged years; let the
sheep furnish us a defence against the shivering Boreas; let the
well-fed she-goats afford their udders to be pressed by the hand. Away
with your nets, and your springes and snares and treacherous
contrivances; deceive not the bird with the bird-limed twig; deceive not
the deer with the dreaded feather foils;[52] and do not conceal the
barbed hooks in the deceitful bait. If any thing is noxious, destroy it,
but even then only destroy it. Let your appetites abstain from it for
food, and let them consume {a more} befitting sustenance.”

    [Footnote 8: _And its rulers._--Ver. 61. Pythagoras is said to
    have fled from the tyranny of Polycrates, the king of Samos.]

    [Footnote 9: _No good adviser._--Ver. 103. Clarke translates ‘Non
    utilis auctor,’ ‘Some good-for-nothing introducer.’]

    [Footnote 10: _The goat is led._--Ver 114. See the Fasti, Book I.
    l. 361.]

    [Footnote 11: _Was Euphorbus._--Ver. 161. Diogenes Laërtius, in
    the life of Pythagoras, says that Pythagoras affirmed, that he
    was, first, Æthalides; secondly, Euphorbus, which he proved by
    recognizing his shield hung up among the spoil in the temple of
    Juno, at Argos; next, Hermotimus; then, Pyrrhus and fifthly,
    Pythagoras.]

    [Footnote 12: _Flowing onward._--Ver. 178. ‘Cuncta fluunt’ is
    translated by Clarke, ‘All things are in a flux.’]

    [Footnote 13: _Milo._--Ver. 229. Milo, of Crotona, was an athlete
    of such strength that he was said to be able to kill a bull with a
    blow of his fist, and then to carry it with ease on his shoulders,
    and afterwards to devour it. His hands being caught within the
    portions of the trunk of a tree, which he was trying to cleave
    asunder, he became a prey to wild beasts.]

    [Footnote 14: _Lycus._--Ver. 273. There were several rivers of
    this name. The one here referred to was also called by the name of
    Marsyas, and flowed past the city of Laodicea, in Lydia.]

    [Footnote 15: _Erasinus._--Ver. 276. This was a river of Arcadia,
    which running out of the Stymphalian marsh, under the name of
    Stymphalus, disappeared in the earth, and rose again in the Argive
    territory, under the name of Erasinus.]

    [Footnote 16: _Amenanus._--Ver. 279. This was a little river of
    Sicily, rising in Mount Ætna, and falling into the sea near the
    city of Catania.]

    [Footnote 17: _Anigros._--Ver. 282. The Anigros, flowing from the
    mountain of Lapitha, in Arcadia, had waters of a fetid smell, in
    which no fish could exist. Pausanias thinks that this smell
    proceeded from the soil, and not the water. He adds, that some
    said that Chiron, others that Polenor, when wounded by the arrow
    of Hercules, washed the wound in the water of this river, which
    became impure from its contact with the venom of the Hydra.]

    [Footnote 18: _Hypanis._--Ver. 285. Now the Bog. It falls into the
    Black Sea.]

    [Footnote 19: _Antissa._--Ver. 287. This island, in the Ægean Sea,
    was said to have been formerly united to Lesbos.]

    [Footnote 20: _Pharos._--Ver. 287. According to Herodotus, this
    island was once a whole day’s sail from the main land of Egypt.
    In later times, having been increased by the mud discharged by the
    Nile, it was united to the shore by a bridge.]

    [Footnote 21: _Tyre._--Ver. 288. Tyre once stood on an island,
    separated from the shore by a strait, seven hundred paces in
    width. Alexander the Great, when besieging it, united it to the
    main land by a causeway. This, however, does not aid the argument
    of Pythagoras, who intends to recount the changes wrought by
    nature, and not by the hand of man. Besides, it is not easy to see
    how Pythagoras could refer to a fact which took place several
    hundred years after his death.]

    [Footnote 22: _Leucas._--Ver. 289. The island of Leucas was
    formerly a peninsula, on the coast of Acarnania.]

    [Footnote 23: _Zancle._--Ver. 290. Under this name he means the
    whole of the isle of Sicily, which was supposed to have once
    joined the shores of Italy.]

    [Footnote 24: _Helice and Buris._--Ver. 293. We learn from Pliny
    the Elder and Orosius, that Helice and Buris, cities of Achaia at
    the mouth of the Corinthian gulf, were swallowed up by an
    earthquake, and that their remains could be seen in the sea.
    A similar fate attended Port Royal, in the island of Jamaica, in
    the year 1692. Its houses are said to be still visible beneath the
    waves.]

    [Footnote 25: _The raging power._--Ver. 299. Pausanias tells us,
    that in the time of Antigonus, king of Macedonia, warm waters
    burst from the earth, through the action of subterranean fires,
    near the city of Trœzen. Perhaps the ‘tumulus’ here mentioned
    sprang up at the same time.]

    [Footnote 26: _Or the hide._--Ver. 305. He alludes to the
    goat-skins, which formed the ‘utres,’ or leathern bottles, for
    wine and oil.]

    [Footnote 27: _Horned Ammon._--Ver. 309. The lake of Ammon, in
    Libya, which is here referred to, is thus described by Quintius
    Curtius (Book IV. c. 7)-- ‘There is also another grove at Ammon;
    in the middle it contains a fountain, which they call ‘the water
    of the Sun.’ At daybreak it is tepid; at mid-day, when the heat is
    intense, it is ice cold. As the evening approaches, it grows
    warmer; at midnight, it boils and bubbles; and as the morning
    approaches, its midnight heat goes off.’ Jupiter was worshipped in
    its vicinity, under the form of a ram.]

    [Footnote 28: _Athamanis._--Ver. 311. This wonderful fountain was
    said to be in Dodona, the grove sacred to Jupiter.]

    [Footnote 29: _Have a river._--Ver. 313. Possibly the Hebrus is
    here meant. The petrifying qualities of some streams is a fact
    well known to naturalists.]

    [Footnote 30: _The Crathis._--Ver. 315. Crathis and Sybaris were
    streams of Calabria, flowing into the sea, near Crotona. Euripides
    and Strabo tell the same story of the river Crathis. Pliny the
    Elder, in his thirty-second Book, says-- ‘Theophrastus tells us
    that Crathis, a river of the Thurians, produces whiteness, whereas
    the Sybaris causes blackness, in sheep and cattle. Men, too, are
    sensible of this difference; for those who drink of the Sybaris,
    become more swarthy and hardy, with the hair curling; while those
    who drink of the Crathis become fairer, and more effeminate with
    the hair straight.’]

    [Footnote 31: _Salmacis._--Ver. 319. See Book IV. l. 285.]

    [Footnote 32: _Lake of Æthiopia._--Ver. 320. Possibly these may be
    the waters of trial, mentioned by Porphyry, as being used among
    the Indians. He says, that, according to their influence on the
    person accused, when drunk of by him, he was acquitted or
    condemned.]

    [Footnote 33: _Clitorian spring._--Ver. 322. Clitorium was a town
    of Arcadia. Pliny the Elder, quoting from Varro, mentions the
    quality here referred to.]

    [Footnote 34: _Son of Amithaon._--Ver. 325. Melampus, the
    physician, the son of Amithaon, cured Mera, Euryale, Lysippe, and
    Iphianassa, the daughters of Prœtus, king of Argos, of madness,
    which Venus was said to have inflicted on them for boasting of
    their superior beauty. Their derangement consisted in the fancy
    that they were changed into cows. Melampus afterwards married
    Iphianassa. He was said to have employed the herb hellebore in the
    cure, which thence obtained the name of ‘melampodium.’]

    [Footnote 35: _Lyncestis._--Ver. 329. The Lyncesti were the people
    of the town of Lyncus, in Epirus. This stream flowed past that
    place.]

    [Footnote 36: _Pheneos._--Ver. 332. Pheneos was the name of a town
    of Arcadia, afterwards called ‘Nonacris.’ In its neighbourhood,
    according to Pausanias, was a rock, from which water oozed drop by
    drop, which the Greeks called ‘the water of Styx.’ At certain
    periods it was said to be fatal to men and cattle, to break
    vessels with which it came in contact, and to melt all metals.
    Ovid is the only author that mentions the difference in its
    qualities by day and by night.]

    [Footnote 37: _Ortygia._--Ver. 337. Ortygia, or Deloe, was said to
    have floated till it was made fast by Jupiter as a resting-place
    for Latona, when pregnant with Apollo and Diana. The Symplegades,
    or Cyanean Islands, were also said to have formerly floated.]

    [Footnote 38: _Far Northern Pallene._--Ver. 356. Pallene was the
    name of a mountain and a city of Thrace. Tritonis was a lake in
    the neighbourhood. Vibius Sequester says, ‘When a person has nine
    times bathed himself in the Tritonian lake, in Thrace, he is
    changed into a bird.’ The continuous fall of fleecy snow in that
    neighbourhood is supposed by some to have given rise to the
    story.]

    [Footnote 39: _Give any credit._--Ver. 361. This was a very common
    notion among the ancients. See the story of Aristæus and the
    recovery of his bees, in the Fourth Book of Virgil’s Georgics,
    I. 281-314. It is also told by Ovid in the Fasti, Book I. l. 377.]

    [Footnote 40: _The warlike steed._--Ver. 368. Pliny the Elder,
    Nicander, and Varro state that bees and hornets are produced from
    the carcase of the horse. Pliny also says, that beetles are
    generated by the putrefying carcase of the ass.]

    [Footnote 41: _Deadly moth._--Ver. 374. Pliny, in the
    twenty-eighth Book of his History, says, ‘The moth, too, that
    flies at the flame of the lamp, is numbered among the bad
    potions,’ evidently alluding to their being used in philtres or
    incantations. There is a kind called the death’s head moth; but it
    is so called simply from the figure of a skull, which appears very
    exactly represented on its body, and not on account of any noxious
    qualities known to be inherent in it.]

    [Footnote 42: _Deprived of feet._--Ver. 376. He alludes to frogs
    when in the tadpole state.]

    [Footnote 43: _Not a cub._--Ver. 379. This was long the common
    belief. Pliny says, speaking of the cub of the bear, ‘These are
    white and shapeless lumps of flesh, a little bigger than mice,
    without eyes, and without hair; the claws, however, are prominent.
    These the dams by degrees reduce to shape.’]

    [Footnote 44: _Into a serpent._--Ver. 390. Pliny tells the same
    story; and Antigonus (on Miracles, ch. 96) goes still further, and
    says, that the persons to whom this happens, after death, are able
    to smell the snakes while they are yet alive. The fiction, very
    probably, was invented with the praiseworthy object of securing
    freedom from molestation for the bones of the dead.]

    [Footnote 45: _Changes its sex._--Ver. 408. Pliny mentions it as a
    vulgar belief that the hyæna is male and female in alternate
    years. Aristotle took the pains to confute this silly notion.]

    [Footnote 46: _Which feeds upon._--Ver. 411. The idea that the
    chameleon subsists on wind and air, arose from the circumstance of
    its sitting with its mouth continually open, that it may catch
    flies and small insects, its prey. That it changes colour
    according to the hue of the surrounding objects, is a fact well
    known. It receives its name from the Greek χάμαι λέων, ‘The lion
    on the ground.’]

    [Footnote 47: _Changed into stone._--Ver. 415. Pliny says, that
    this becomes hard, and turns into gems, like the carbuncle, being
    of a fiery tint, and that the stone has the name of ‘lyncurium.’
    Beckmann (Hist. Inventions) thinks that this was probably the
    jacinth, or hyacinth, while others suppose it to have been the
    tourmaline, or transparent amber.]

    [Footnote 48: _A soft plant._--Ver. 417. Modern improvement in
    knowledge has shown that coral is not a plant, but an animal
    substance.]

    [Footnote 49: _Sparta was famed._--Ver. 426-30. These lines are
    looked upon by many Commentators as spurious, as they are omitted
    in most MSS. Besides, all these cities were flourishing in the
    time of Pythagoras. If they are genuine, Ovid is here guilty of a
    series of anachronisms.]

    [Footnote 50: _But one born._--Ver. 447. This was Octavius, the
    adopted son of Julius Cæsar. According to Suetonius, he traced his
    descent, through his mother, from Ascanius or Iülus.]

    [Footnote 51: _Ought not to fill._--Ver. 462. Clarke’s quaint
    translation is, ‘And let us not cram our g--ts with Thyestian
    victuals.’]

    [Footnote 52: _Feather foils._--Ver. 475. He alludes to the
    ‘formido;’ which was made of coloured feathers, and was used to
    scare the deer into the toils.]


EXPLANATION.

  The Poet having now exhausted nearly all the transformations which
  ancient history afforded him, proceeds to enlist in the number some
  of the real phenomena of nature, together with some imaginary ones.
  As Pythagoras was considered to have pursued metaphysical studies
  more deeply, perhaps, than any other of the ancient philosophers,
  Ovid could not have introduced a personage more fitted to discuss
  these subjects. Having travelled through Asia, it is supposed that
  Pythagoras passed into Italy, and settled at Crotona, to promulgate
  there the philosophical principles which he had acquired in his
  travels through Egypt and Asia Minor.

  The Pythagorean philosophy was well-suited for the purpose of
  mingling its doctrines with the fabulous narratives of the Poet, as
  it consisted, in great part, of the doctrine of an endless series of
  transformations. Its main features may be reduced to two general
  heads; the first of which was the doctrine of the Metempsychosis,
  or continual transmigration of souls from one body into another.
  Pythagoras is supposed not to have originated this doctrine, but to
  have received it from the Egyptians, by whose priesthood there is
  little doubt that it was generally promulgated. Some writers have
  suggested that this transmigration was only taught by Pythagoras in
  a metaphorical sense; as, for instance, when he said that the souls
  of men were transferred to beasts, it was only to teach us that
  irregular passions render us brutes; on examination, however, we
  shall find that there is no ground to doubt that he intended his
  doctrines to be understood according to the literal meaning of his
  words; indeed, the more strongly to enforce his doctrine by a
  personal illustration, he was in the habit of promulgating that he
  remembered to have been Euphorbus, at the time of the siege of Troy,
  and that his soul, after several other transmigrations, had at last
  entered the body which it then inhabited, under the name of
  Pythagoras. In consequence of this doctrine, it was a favourite
  tenet of his followers to abstain from eating the flesh of animals,
  for fear of unconsciously devouring some friend or kinsman.

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


FABLES IV. V. AND VI. [XV.479-621]

  Egeria, the wife of Numa, is inconsolable after his death, and is
  changed into a fountain. The horses of Hippolytus being frightened
  by a sea-monster, he is killed by being thrown from his chariot, and
  becomes a God, under the name of Virbius. Tages, the Diviner, arises
  out of a clod of earth. The lance of Romulus is changed into a
  cornel-tree. Cippus becomes horned, and goes into voluntary
  banishment, rather than his country should be deprived of its
  liberty by his means.

With his mind cultivated with precepts such as these and others, they
say that Numa returned to his country, and, being voluntarily
invited,[53] received the sovereignty of the Roman people. Blest with a
Nymph for his wife, and the Muses for his guides, he taught the rites of
sacrifice, and brought over to the arts of peace a race inured to savage
warfare. After, full of years, he had finished his reign and his life,
the Latian matrons and the people and the Senators lamented Numa at his
death. But his wife, leaving the city, lay hid, concealed in the thick
groves of the valley of Aricia, and by her groans and lamentations
disturbed the sacred rites of Diana, brought thither by Orestes. Ah! how
oft did the Nymphs of the grove and of the lake entreat her not to do
so, and utter soothing words. Ah! how often did the hero, the son of
Theseus, say to her as she wept, “Put an end to it; for thy lot is not
the only one to be lamented. Consider the like calamities of others,
thou wilt {then} bear thine own better. And would that an example, not
my own, could lighten thy grief! yet even my own can do so.”

“I suppose, in discourse it has reached thy ears that a certain
Hippolytus met with his death through the credulity of his father, by
the deceit of his wicked step-mother. Thou wilt wonder, and I shall
hardly be able to prove it; but yet I am he. In former times, the
daughter of Pasiphaë, having tempted me in vain, pretended that I wished
to defile the couch of my father, a thing that she herself wished to do;
and having turned the accusation {against me}, (whether it was more
through dread of discovery, or through mortification at her repulse) she
charged me. And my father expelled me, {thus} innocent, from the city,
and as I went he uttered imprecations against my head, with ruthless
prayers. I was going to Trœzen, {the city} of Pittheus,[54] in my flying
chariot, and I was now proceeding along the shores of the Corinthian
gulf, when the sea was aroused, and an enormous mass of waters seemed to
bend and to grow in the form of a mountain, and to send forth a roaring
noise, and to burst asunder at its very summit. Thence, the waves being
divided, a horned bull was sent forth, and erect in the light air as far
as his breast, he vomited forth a quantity of sea-water from his
nostrils and his open mouth. The hearts of my attendants quailed; my
mind remained without fear, intent {only} on my exile, when the fierce
horses turned their necks towards the sea, and were terrified, with ears
erect; and they were alarmed with dread of the monster, and precipitated
the chariot over the lofty rocks. I struggled, with unavailing hand,
to guide the bridle covered with white foam, and, throwing myself
backwards, I pulled back the loosened reins. And, indeed, the madness of
my steeds would not have exceeded that strength {of mine}, had not the
wheel, by running against a stump, been broken and disjoined just where
it turns round on the long axle-tree.

“I was hurled from my chariot; and, the reins entwined around my limbs,
you might have seen my palpitating entrails dragged, my sinews fasten
upon the stump, my limbs partly torn to pieces and partly left behind,
being caught by {various obstacles}, my bones in their breaking emit a
loud noise, and my exhausted breath become exhaled, and not a part in my
body which you could recognize; and the whole of {me} formed {but} one
{continued} wound. And canst thou, Nymph, or dost thou venture to
compare thy misfortune to mine? I have visited, too, the realms deprived
of light, and I have bathed my lacerated body in the waves of
Phlegethon.[55] Nor could life have been restored me, but through the
powerful remedies of the son of Apollo. After I had received it, through
potent herbs and the Pæonian aid,[56] much against the will of Pluto,
then Cynthia threw around me thick clouds, that I might not, by my
presence, increase his anger at this favour; and that I might be safe,
and be seen in security, she gave me a {more} aged appearance, and left
me no features that could be recognized. For a long time she was
doubtful whether she should give me Crete or Delos for me to possess.
Delos and Crete being abandoned, she placed me here, and, at the same
time, she ordered me to lay aside my name, which might have reminded me
of my steeds, and she said, ‘Thou, the same who wast Hippolytus, be thou
now Virbius.’[57] From that time I have inhabited this grove; and,
as one of the lower Gods, I lie concealed under the protection of my
mistress, and to her am I devoted.”[58]

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

But this new circumstance surprised the Nymphs; and the son of the
Amazon[59] was astonished, in no other manner than as when the Etrurian
ploughman beheld the fate-revealing clod in the midst of the fields move
at first of its own accord and no one touching it, and afterwards assume
a human form, and lose {that} of earth, and open its new-made mouth with
{the decrees of} future destiny. The natives called him Tages. He was
the first to teach the Etrurian nation to foretell future events.

Or, as when Romulus once saw his lance, fixed in the Palatine hill,
suddenly shoot forth; which {now} stood there with a root newly-formed,
{and} not with the iron {point} driven in; and, now no longer as a dart,
but as a tree with limber twigs, it sent forth, for the admiring
{spectators}, a shade that was not looked for.

Or, {as} when Cippus beheld his horns in the water of the stream, (for
he did see them) and, believing that there was a false representation in
the reflection, often returning his fingers to his forehead, he touched
what he saw. And now, no {longer} condemning his own eyesight, he stood
still, as he was returning victorious from the conquest of the enemy;
and raising his eyes towards heaven, and his hands in the same
direction, he exclaimed, “Ye Gods above! whatever is portended by this
prodigy, if it is auspicious, then be it auspicious to my country and to
the people of Quirinus; but if unfortunate, be it {so} for myself.” And
{then} he made atonement at the grassy altars built of green turf, with
odoriferous fires, and presented wine in bowls, and consulted the
panting entrails of slaughtered sheep what the meaning of it was. Soon
as the soothsayer of the Etrurian nation had inspected them, he beheld
in them the great beginnings of {future} events, but still not clearly.
But when he raised his searching eyes from the entrails of the sheep, to
the horns of Cippus, he said, “Hail, O king! for thee, Cippus, thee and
thy horns shall this place and the Latian towers obey. Only do thou lay
aside all delay; hasten to enter the gates wide open; thus the fates
command thee. For, {once} received within the City, thou shalt be king,
and thou shalt safely enjoy a lasting sceptre.” He retreated backwards,
and turning his stern visage away from the walls of the City, he
exclaimed, “Far, O far away may the Gods drive such omens! Much more
righteously shall I pass my life in exile, than if the Capitol were to
see me a king.”

{Thus} he says; and forthwith he convokes the people and the dignified
Senate; but first, he veils his horns with laurel that betokens peace,
and he stands upon a mound raised by his brave soldiers; and praying to
the Gods after the ancient manner, “Behold!” says he, “one is here who
will be king, if you do not expel him from the City. I will tell you who
he is by a sign, {and} not by name. He wears horns on his forehead; the
augur predicts to you, that if he enters the City, he shall give you
laws as his slaves. He, indeed, was able to enter the open gates, but I
have opposed him; although no one is more nearly allied with him than
myself. Forbid your City to this man, ye Romans, or, if he shall deserve
it, bind him with heavy fetters; or else end your fears by the death of
the destined tyrant.”

As the murmur which arises among the groves of the slender pine,[60]
when the furious East wind whistles among them, or as that which the
waves of the ocean produce, if any one hears them from afar, such is the
noise of the crowd. But yet amid the confused words of the shouting
multitude, one cry is distinguished, “Which is he?” And then they
examine the foreheads, and seek the predicted horns. Cippus again
addresses them: “Him whom you require, ye {now} have;” and, despite of
the people, throwing the chaplet from his head, he exhibits his temples,
remarkable for two horns. All cast down their eyes, and utter groans,
and (who would have supposed it?) they unwillingly look upon that head
famed for its merits. And no longer suffering it to be deprived of its
honours, they place upon it the festive chaplet. But the nobles, Cippus,
since thou art forbidden to enter the city, give thee as much land, as a
mark of honour, as thou canst, with the oxen yoked to the pressed
plough, make the circuit of from the rising of the sun to its setting.
They carve, too, the horns, imitating their wondrous form, on the
door-posts adorned with brass, {there} to remain for long ages.

    [Footnote 53: _Voluntarily invited._--Ver. 481. He was living at
    the Sabine town of Cures, when the throne was pressed upon him by
    the desire of both the Roman and the Sabine nations.]

    [Footnote 54: _City of Pittheus._--Ver. 506. Pittheus was the son
    of Pelops, and the father of Æthra, the mother of Theseus;
    consequently he was the great-grandfather of Hippolytus.]

    [Footnote 55: _Phlegethon._--Ver. 532. This was said to be one of
    the rivers of the Infernal Regions, and to be flowing with fire
    and brimstone.]

    [Footnote 56: _Pæonian aid._--Ver. 536. Pæon was a skilful
    physician, mentioned by Homer, in the Fifth Book of the Iliad.
    Eustathius thinks that Apollo is meant under that name.]

    [Footnote 57: _Virbius._--Ver. 544. This name is formed from the
    words ‘vir’ and ‘bis,’ twice a man.]

    [Footnote 58: _Am I devoted._--Ver. 546. In the same relation to
    her as Adonis was to Venus, Ericthonius to Minerva, and Atys to
    Cybele.]

    [Footnote 59: _Son of the Amazon._--Ver. 552. Hippolytus was the
    son either of the Amazon Hippolyta, or Antiope.]

    [Footnote 60: _Slender pine._--Ver. 603-4. The words ‘succinctis
    pinetis’ are rendered by Clarke, ‘the neat pine-groves.’]


EXPLANATION.

  Ovid, following the notion that was generally entertained of the
  wisdom of Numa, pretends that before he was elected to the
  sovereignty he went to Crotona, for the purpose of studying under
  Pythagoras; but he is guilty of a considerable anachronism in this
  instance, as Pythagoras was not born till very many years after the
  time of Numa. According to Livy, Pythagoras flourished in the time
  of Servius Tullius, the sixth Roman king, about one hundred and
  fifty years after Numa. Modern authors are of opinion that upwards
  of two hundred years intervened between the days of Numa and
  Pythagoras. Besides, Dionysius of Halicarnassus distinctly asserts
  that the city of Crotona was only built in the fourth year of the
  reign of Numa Pompilius.

  Numa is said to have been in the habit of retiring to the Arician
  grove, to consult the Nymph Egeria upon the laws which he was about
  to promulgate for the benefit of his subjects. It is probable, that
  to ensure their observance the more effectually, he wished the
  people to believe that his enactments were compiled under the
  inspection of one who partook of the immortal nature, and that in so
  doing he followed the example of previous lawgivers. Zamolxis
  pretended that the laws which he gave to the Scythians were dictated
  to him by his attendant genius or spirit. The first Minos affirmed
  that Jupiter was the author of the ordinances which he gave to the
  people of Crete, while Lycurgus attributed his to Apollo. It is not
  improbable that in this they imitated the example of Moses,
  a tradition of whose reception of the laws on Mount Sinai they may
  have received from the people of Phœnicia.

  Dionysius of Halicarnassus has an interesting passage relative to
  Numa, which throws some light upon his alleged intercourse with the
  Nymph Egeria. His words are-- ‘The Romans affirm that Numa was never
  engaged in any warlike expedition; but that he passed his whole
  reign in profound peace: that his first care was to encourage piety
  and justice in his dominions, and to civilize his people by good and
  wholesome laws. His profound skill in governing made him pass for
  being inspired, and gave rise to many fabulous stories. Some have
  said that he had secret interviews with the Nymph Egeria; others,
  that he frequently consulted one of the Muses, and was instructed by
  her in the art of government. Numa was desirous to confirm the
  people in this opinion; but because some hesitated to believe his
  bare affirmation, and others went so far as to call his alleged
  converse with the Deities a fiction, he took an opportunity to give
  them such proofs of it, that the most sceptical among them should
  have no room left for suspicion. This he effected in the following
  manner. He one day invited several of the nobles to his palace, and
  showed them the plainness of the apartments, where no rich furniture
  was to be seen, nor any thing like an attempt at splendour; and how
  even the most ordinary necessaries were wanting for anything like a
  great entertainment; after which, he dismissed them with an
  invitation to come to sup with him on the same night. At the
  appointed hour his guests arrived; they were received on stately
  couches; the tables were decked with a variety of plate, and were
  loaded with the most exquisite dainties. The guests were struck with
  the sumptuousness and profusion of the entertainment, and
  considering how impossible it was for any man to have made such
  preparations in so short a time, were persuaded that his
  communication with heaven was not a fiction, and that he must have
  had the aid of the celestial powers to do things of a nature so
  extraordinary. ‘But,’ as the same author says, ‘those who were not
  so ready at adopting fabulous narratives as a part of history, say
  that it was the policy of Numa which led him to feign a conversation
  with the Nymph Egeria, to make his laws respected by his people, and
  that he thence followed the example of the Greek sages, who adopted
  the same method of enforcing the authority of their laws with the
  people.’

  The Romans were so persuaded of the fact of Numa’s conferences with
  the Nymph Egeria, that they went into the grove of Aricia to seek
  her; but finding nothing but a fountain in the spot which he used to
  frequent, they promulgated the story of the transformation of the
  Nymph. St. Augustin, speaking on this subject, says that Numa made
  use of the waters of that fountain in the divination which was
  performed by the aid of water, and was called Hydromancy.

  Theseus having left Ariadne in the isle of Naxos, flattered himself
  with the hopes of marrying her sister Phædra. Deucalion, succeeding
  Minos in Crete immediately after his death, sent Phædra to Athens.
  On arriving there, she fell in love with Hippolytus, the son of
  Theseus, who had been brought up at Trœzen by Pittheus. As she did
  not dare to request of Theseus that his son might be brought from
  the court of Pittheus, she built a temple to Venus near Trœzen, that
  she might the more frequently have the opportunity of seeing
  Hippolytus, and called it by the name of Hippolyteum. According to
  Euripides, this youth was wise, chaste, and an enemy to all
  voluptuousness. He spent his time in hunting and chariot racing,
  with other exercises which formed the pursuits of youths of high
  station. According to Plutarch, it was at the time when Theseus was
  a prisoner in Epirus, that Phædra took the opportunity of disclosing
  to Hippolytus the violence of her passion for him. Her declaration
  being but ill received, she grew desperate on his refusal to comply
  with her desires, and was about to commit self-destruction, when her
  nurse suggested the necessity of revenging the virtuous disdain of
  the youth.

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

  Seneca also differs from the other writers, in saying that Phædra
  did not put herself to death till she had heard of the catastrophe
  of Hippolytus, on which she stabbed herself. The people of Trœzen,
  regretting his loss, decreed him divine honours, built a temple, and
  appointed a priest to offer yearly sacrifices to him. Euripides
  says, that the young women of Trœzen, when about to be married, cut
  off their hair and carried it to the temple of Hippolytus. It was
  also promulgated that the Gods had translated him to the heavens,
  where he was changed into the Constellation, called by the Latins
  ‘Auriga,’ or ‘the Charioteer.’ Later authors, whom Ovid here
  follows, added, that Æsculapius restored him to life, and that he
  afterwards appeared in Italy under the name of Virbius. This story
  was probably invented as a source of profit by the priesthood, who
  were desirous to find some good reason for introducing his worship
  into the Arician grove near Rome. This story is mentioned by
  Apollodorus, who quotes the author of the Naupactan verses in favour
  of it, and by the Scholiasts of Euripides and Pindar.

  The ancient Etrurians were great adepts in the art of divination;
  their favourite method of exercising which was by the inspection of
  the entrails of beasts, and the observation of the flight of birds;
  and from them, as we learn from Cicero in his book on Divination,
  the system spread over the whole of Italy. Tages is supposed to have
  been the first who taught this art, and he wrote treatises upon it,
  which, according to Plutarch, were quoted by ancient authors. It not
  being known whence he came, or who were his parents, he was called,
  in the language of the poets, a son of the earth. Ammianus
  Marcellinus speaks of him as being said to have sprung out of the
  earth in Etruria.

  Ovid next makes a passing allusion to the spear of Romulus, which,
  when thrown by him from the Mount Aventine towards the Capitol,
  sticking in the ground was converted into a tree, which immediately
  put forth leaves. This prodigy was taken for a presage of the future
  greatness of Rome: and Plutarch, in his life of Romulus, says that
  so long as this tree stood, the Republic flourished. It began to
  wither in the time of the first civil war; and Julius Cæsar having
  afterwards ordered a building to be erected near where it stood, the
  workmen cutting some of its roots in sinking the foundations, it
  soon after died. It is hardly probable that a cornel tree would
  stand in a thronged city for nearly seven hundred years; and it is,
  therefore, most likely, that care was taken to renovate it from time
  to time, by planting slips from the former tree.

  The story of Genucius Cippus is one of those strange fables with
  which the Roman history is diversified. Valerius Maximus gives the
  following account of it. He says that Cippus, going one day out of
  Rome, suddenly found that something which resembled horns was
  growing out of his forehead. Surprised at an event so extraordinary,
  he consulted the augurs, who said that he would be chosen king, if
  he ever entered the city again. As the royal power was abhorred in
  Rome, he preferred a voluntary banishment to revisiting Rome on
  those terms. Struck with this heroism, the Romans erected a brazen
  statue with horns over the gate by which he departed, and it was
  afterwards called ‘Porta raudusculana,’ because the ancient Latin
  name of brass was ‘raudus,’ ‘rodus,’ or ‘rudus.’ The fact is,
  however, as Ovid represents it, that Cippus was not going out of
  Rome, but returning to it, when the prodigy happened; he having been
  to convey assistance to the Consul Valerius. The Senate also
  conferred certain lands on Cippus, as a reward for his patriotism.
  He lived about two hundred and forty years before the Christian era.
  Pliny the Elder considers the story of the horns of Cippus as much a
  fable as that of Actæon. It appears, however, that the account of
  the horns may have possibly been founded on fact, as excrescences
  resembling them have appeared on the bodies of individuals. Bayle
  makes mention of a girl of Palermo, who had little horns all over
  her body, like those of a young calf. In the Ashmolean museum at
  Oxford, a substance much resembling the horn of a goat is shown,
  which is said to have sprung from the forehead of a female named
  Mary Davis, whose likeness is there shown. The excrescence was most
  probably produced by a deranged secretion of the hair, and something
  of a similar nature may perhaps have befallen Genucius Cippus,
  which, of course, would be made the most of in those ages of
  superstition. Valerius Maximus, with all his credulity, does not say
  that they were real horns that made their appearance, but that they
  were ‘just like horns.’

  It is not improbable that the story originally was, that Cippus, on
  his return to Rome, dreamt that he had horns on his head, and that
  having consulted the augurs, and received the answer mentioned by
  Ovid, he preferred to suffer exile, rather than enslave his country;
  and that, in length of time, the more wonderful part of the story
  was added to it.


FABLE VII. [XV.622-744]

  Rome being wasted by a pestilence, the Delphian oracle is consulted;
  and the answer is given, that to cause it to cease Æsculapius must
  be brought to Rome. On this, ambassadors are sent to Epidaurus to
  demand the God. The people refuse to part with him; but he appears
  to one of the Romans in a dream, and consents to go. On his arrival
  at Rome the contagion ceases, and a Temple is built in his honour.

Relate, now, ye Muses, the guardian Deities of poets (for you know, and
remote antiquity conceals it not from you), whence {it is that} the
Island surrounded by the channel of the Tiber introduced the son of
Coronis into the sacred rites of the City of Romulus. A dire contagion
had once infected the Latian air, and the pale bodies were deformed by a
consumption that dried up the blood. When, wearied with {so many}
deaths, they found that mortal endeavours availed nothing, and that the
skill of physicians had no effect, they sought the aid of heaven, and
they repaired to Delphi which occupies the centre spot of the world, the
oracle of Phœbus, and entreated that he would aid their distressed
circumstances by a response productive of health, and put an end to the
woes of a City so great. Both the spot, and the laurels, and the quivers
which it has, shook at the same moment, and the tripod[61] gave this
answer from the recesses of the shrine, and struck {with awe} their
astonished breasts:-- “What here thou dost seek, O Roman, thou mightst
have sought in a nearer spot: and now seek it in a nearer spot; thou
hast no need of Apollo to diminish thy grief, but of the son of Apollo.
Go with a good omen, and invite my son.”

After the prudent Senate had received the commands of the Deity, they
enquired what city the youthful son of Phœbus inhabited; and they sent
some to reach the coasts of Epidaurus[62] with the winds. Soon as those
sent had reached them in the curving ship, they repaired to the council
and the Grecian elders, and besought them to grant them the Divinity,
who by his presence could put an end to the mortality of the Ausonian
nation; {for} that so the unerring response had directed. Their opinions
were divided, and differed; and some thought that aid ought not to be
refused. Many refused it, and advised them not to part with their own
protector, and to give up their own guardian Deity. While they were
deliberating, twilight had {now} expelled the waning day, and the shadow
of the earth had brought darkness over the world; when, in thy sleep,
the saving God seemed, O Roman, to be standing before thy couch; but
just as he is wont to be in his temple; and, holding a rustic staff in
his left hand, {he seemed} to be stroking the long hair of his beard
with his right, and to utter such words as these from his kindly
breast-- “Lay aside thy fears; I will come, and I will leave these {my}
statues. Only observe {now} this serpent, which with its folds entwines
around this staff, and accurately mark it with thine eyes, that thou
mayst be able to know it again. Into this shall I be changed; but I
shall be greater, and I shall appear to be of a size as great as that
into which heavenly bodies ought to be transformed.”

Forthwith, with {these} words, the God departs; and with his words and
the God sleep {departs}, and genial light follows upon the departure of
sleep. The following morn has {now} dispersed the starry fires;
uncertain what to do, the nobles meet together in the sumptuous temple
of the God {then} sought, and beseech him to indicate, by celestial
tokens, in what spot he would wish to abide. Hardly have they well
ceased, when the God, all glittering with gold, in {the form of} a
serpent, with crest erect, sends forth a hissing, as a notice of his
approach; and in his coming, he shakes both his statue, the altars, the
doors, the marble pavement, and the gilded roof, and as far as the
breast he stands erect in the midst of the temple, and rolls around his
eyes that sparkle with fire. The frightened multitude is alarmed; the
priest, having his chaste hair bound with a white fillet, recognizes the
Deity and exclaims, “The God! Behold the God! Whoever you are that are
present, be of good omen, both with your words and your feelings. Mayst
thou, most beauteous one, be beheld to our advantage; and mayst thou aid
the nations that perform thy sacred rites.” Whoever are present, adore
the Deity as bidden; and all repeat the words of the priest over again;
and the descendants of Æneas give a pious omen, both with their
feelings, and in their words. To these the God shows favour; and with
crest erected, he gives a hiss, a sure token, repeated thrice with his
vibrating tongue. Then he glides down the polished steps,[63] and turns
back his head, and, about to depart, he looks back upon his ancient
altars, and salutes his wonted abode and the temple that {so long} he
has inhabited. Then, with his vast bulk, he glides along the ground
covered with the strewn flowers, and coils his folds, and through the
midst of the city repairs to the harbour protected by its winding quay.

Here he stops; and seeming to dismiss his train, and the dutiful
attendance of the accompanying crowd, with a placid countenance, he
places his body in the Ausonian ship. It is sensible of the weight of
the God; and the ship {now} laden with the Divinity for its freight, the
descendants of Æneas rejoice; and a bull having first been slain on the
sea-shore, they loosen the twisted cables of the bark bedecked with
garlands. A gentle breeze has {now} impelled the ship. The God is
conspicuous aloft,[64] and pressing upon the crooked stern with his neck
laid upon it, he looks down upon the azure waters; and with the gentle
Zephyrs along the Ionian sea, on the sixth rising of the daughter of
Pallas, he makes Italy, and is borne along the Lacinian shores, ennobled
by the temple of the Goddess {Juno}, and the Scylacean[65] coasts. He
leaves Iapygia behind, and flies from the Amphissian[66] rocks with the
oars on the left side; on the right side he passes by the steep
Ceraunia, and Romechium, and Caulon,[67] and Narycia, and he crosses the
sea and the straits of the Sicilian Pelorus, and the abodes of the king
the grandson of Hippotas, and the mines of Temesa; and then he makes for
Leucosia,[68] and the rose-beds of the warm Pæstum. Then he coasts by
Capreæ,[69] and the promontory of Minerva, and the hills ennobled with
the Surrentine[70] vines, and the city of Hercules,[71] and Stabiæ,[72]
and Parthenope made for retirement, and after it the temple of the
Cumæan Sibyl. Next, the warm springs[73] are passed by, and
Linternum,[74] that bears mastick trees; and {then} Vulturnus,[75] that
carries much sand along with its tide, and Sinuessa, that abounds with
snow-white snakes,[76] and the pestilential Minturnæ,[77] and she for
whom[78] her foster-child erected the tomb, and the abode of
Antiphates,[79] and Trachas,[80] surrounded by the marsh, and the land
of Circe, and Antium,[81] with its rocky coast.

After the sailors have steered the sail-bearing ship hither (for now the
sea is aroused), the Deity unfolds his coils, and gliding with many a
fold and in vast coils, he enters the temple of his parent, that skirts
the yellow shore. The sea {now} becalmed, the {God} of Epidaurus leaves
the altars of his sire; and having enjoyed the hospitality of the Deity,
{thus} related to him, he furrows the sands of the sea-shore with the
dragging of his rattling scales, and reclining against the helm of the
ship, he places his head upon the lofty stern; until he comes to
Castrum,[82] and the sacred abodes of Lavinium, and the mouths of the
Tiber. Hither, all the people indiscriminately, a crowd both of matrons
and of men, rush to meet him; they, too, Vesta! who tend thy fires; and
with joyous shouts they welcome the God. And where the swift ship is
steered through the tide running out, altars being erected in a line,
the frankincense crackles along {the banks} on either side, and perfumes
the air with its smoke; the felled victim too, {with its blood} makes
warm the knives thrust {into it}.

And now he has entered Rome, the sovereign of the world. The serpent
rises erect, and lifts his neck that reclines against the top of the
mast, and looks around for a habitation suited for himself. {There is a
spot, where} the river flowing around, is divided into two parts; it is
called “the Island.” {The river} in the direction of each side extends
its arms of equal length, the dry land {lying} in the middle. Hither,
the serpent, son of Phœbus, betakes himself from the Latian ship; and he
puts an end to the mourning, having resumed his celestial form. And
{thus} did he come, the restorer of health, to the City.

    [Footnote 61: _The tripod._--Ver. 635. The tripod on which the
    priestess of Apollo or ‘Pythia,’ sat when inspired, was called
    ‘Cortina,’ from the skin, ‘corium,’ of the serpent Python, which,
    when it had been killed by Apollo was used to cover it.]

    [Footnote 62: _Epidaurus._--Ver. 643. There were several towns of
    this name. The one here mentioned was in the state of Argolis.]

    [Footnote 63: _Polished steps._--Ver. 685. Clarke translates
    ‘Gradibus nitidis,’ ‘the neat steps.’]

    [Footnote 64: _Is conspicuous aloft._--Ver. 697. ‘Deus eminet
    alte.’ This is rendered by Clarke, ‘The God rears up to a good
    height.’]

    [Footnote 65: _Scylacean._--Ver. 702. Scylace was a town on the
    Calabrian coast; it was said to have been founded by an Athenian
    colony.]

    [Footnote 66: _Amphissian._--Ver. 703. Amphissia was the name of a
    city of Locris; but that cannot be the place here alluded to on
    the coast of Italy. It is most probably a corrupt reading.]

    [Footnote 67: _Caulon._--Ver. 705. Caulon was a colony of the
    Achæa on the coast of Calabria. Narycia, or Naritium, or Naricia,
    was also a town on the Calabrian coast. The localities of Ceraunia
    and Romechium are not known.]

    [Footnote 68: _Leucosia._--Ver. 708. Leucosia was a little island
    off the town of Pæstum, which was in Lucania; it was famous for
    its mild climate, and the beauty of its roses, which are
    celebrated by Virgil.]

    [Footnote 69: _Capreæ._--Ver. 709. Capreæ was an island near the
    coast of Naples.]

    [Footnote 70: _Surrentine._--Ver. 710. Surrentum was a city of
    Campania, famed for its wines.]

    [Footnote 71: _City of Hercules._--Ver. 711. This was Herculaneum,
    at the foot of Vesuvius; the place which shared so disastrous a
    fate from the eruption of that mountain.]

    [Footnote 72: _Stabiæ._--Ver. 711. This was a town of Campania,
    which was destroyed by Sylla in the Social war. It was afterwards
    rebuilt.]

    [Footnote 73: _The warm springs._--Ver. 711. He alludes to the
    city of Baiæ, famed for its warm springs and baths.]

    [Footnote 74: _Linternum._--Ver. 714. This place was in Campania.
    It was famous as the place of retirement of the elder Scipio; he
    was buried there.]

    [Footnote 75: _Vulturnus._--Ver. 715. This was a river of
    Campania, which flowed past the city of Capua.]

    [Footnote 76: _Snow-white snakes._--Ver. 715. Sinuessa was a town
    of Campania; Heinsius very properly suggests ‘columbis,’ ‘doves;’
    for ‘colubris,’ ‘snakes.’ We are told by Pliny the Elder, that
    Campania was famed for its doves.]

    [Footnote 77: _Minturnæ._--Ver. 716. This was a town of Latium;
    the marshes in its neighbourhood produced pestilential
    exhalations.]

    [Footnote 78: _She for whom._--Ver. 716. This was Caieta, who,
    being buried there by her foster-child Æneas, gave her name to the
    spot.]

    [Footnote 79: _Abode of Antiphates._--Ver. 717. Formiæ.]

    [Footnote 80: _Trachas._--Ver. 717. This place was also called
    ‘Anxur.’ Its present name is Terracina. Livy mentions it as lying
    in the marshes.]

    [Footnote 81: _Antium._--Ver. 718. This was the capital of the
    ancient Volscians.]

    [Footnote 82: _Castrum._--Ver. 727. This was ‘Castrum Inui,’ or
    ‘the tents of Pan;’ an old town of the Rutulians.]


EXPLANATION.

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

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


FABLE VIII. [XV.745-879]

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

And still, he came a stranger to our temples; Cæsar is a Deity in his
own city; whom, {alike} distinguished both in war and peace, wars ending
with triumphs, his government at home, and the rapid glory of his
exploits, did not more {tend to} change into a new planet, and a star
with brilliant train, than did his own progeny. For of {all} the acts of
Cæsar, there is not one more ennobling than that he was the father of
this {our Cæsar}. Was it, forsooth, a greater thing to have conquered
the Britons surrounded by the ocean, and to have steered his victorious
ships along the seven-mouthed streams of the Nile that bears the
papyrus, and to have added to the people of Quirinus the rebellious
Numidians[83] and the Cinyphian Juba, and Pontus[84] proud of the fame
of Mithridates, and to have deserved many a triumph, {and} to have
enjoyed some, than it was to have been the father of a personage so
great, under whose tutelage over the world, you, ye Gods above, have
shewn excessive care for the human race? That he {then} might not be
sprung from mortal seed, {’twas fit that Julius} should be made a
Divinity. When the resplendent mother of Æneas was sensible of this; and
{when} she saw that a sad death was in preparation for the Pontiff, and
that the arms of the conspirators were brandished; she turned pale, and
said to each of the Deities, as she met them:--

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

Such expressions as these did Venus, full of anxiety, vainly let fall
throughout the heavens, and she moved the Gods above. Although they were
not able to frustrate the iron decrees of the aged sisters, yet they
afforded no unerring tokens of approaching woe. They say, that arms
resounding amid the black clouds, and dreadful {blasts of} the trumpet,
and clarions heard through the heavens, forewarned men of the crime. The
sad face too of the sun gave a livid light to the alarmed earth. Often
did torches seem to be burning in the midst of the stars; often did
drops of blood fall in the showers. The azure-coloured Lucifer had his
light tinted with a dark iron colour; the chariot of the moon was
besprinkled with blood. The Stygian owl gave omens of ill in a thousand
places; in a thousand places did the ivory statues shed tears; dirges,
too, are said to have been heard, and threatening expressions in the
sacred groves. No victim gave an omen of good; the entrails, too, showed
that great tumults were imminent; and the extremity {of the liver} was
found cut off among the entrails. They say, too, that in the Forum, and
around the houses and the temples of the Gods, the dogs were howling by
night; and that the ghosts of the departed were walking, and that the
City was shaken by earthquakes. But still the warnings of the Gods could
not avert treachery and the approach of Fate, and drawn swords were
carried into a temple; and no other place in the {whole} City than the
Senate-house pleased them for this crime and this atrocious murder.

But then did Cytherea beat her breast with both her hands, and attempt
to hide the descendant of Æneas in a cloud, in which, long since, Paris
was conveyed from the hostile son of Atreus,[85] and Æneas had escaped
from the sword of Diomedes. In such words as these {did} her father
{Jove address her}: “Dost thou, my daughter, unaided, attempt to change
the insuperable {decrees} of Fate? Thou, thyself, mayst enter the abode
of the three sisters, {and} there thou wilt behold the register of
{future} events, {wrought} with vast labour, of brass and of solid iron;
these, safe and destined for eternity, fear neither the {thundering}
shock of the heavens, nor the rage of the lightnings, nor any {source
of} destruction. There wilt thou find the destinies of thy descendants
engraved in everlasting adamant. I myself have read them, and I have
marked them in my mind; I will repeat them, that thou mayst not still be
ignorant of the future. He (on whose account, Cytherea, thou art {thus}
anxious), has completed his time, those years being ended which he owed
to the earth. Thou, with his son, who, as the heir to his glory, will
bear the burden of government devolving {on him}, wilt cause him, as a
Deity, to reach the heavens, and to be worshipped in temples; and he, as
a most valiant avenger of his murdered parent, will have us to aid him
in his battles. The conquered walls of Mutina,[86] besieged under his
auspices, shall sue for peace; Pharsalia shall be sensible of him, and
Philippi,[87] again drenched with Emathian gore; and the name {of one
renowned as} Great, shall be subdued in the Sicilian waves; the Egyptian
dame too, the wife[88] of the Roman general, shall fall, vainly trusting
in that alliance; and in vain shall she threaten, that our own Capitol
shall be obedient to her Canopus.[89] Why should I recount to thee the
regions of barbarism, {and} nations situate in either ocean? Whatever
the habitable world contains, shall be his; the sea, too, shall be
subject to him. Peace being granted to the earth, he will turn his
attention to civil rights, and, as a most upright legislator, he will
enact laws. After his own example, too, will he regulate manners; and,
looking forward to the days of future time, and of his coming posterity,
he will order the offspring born of his hallowed wife[90] to assume both
his own name and his cares. Nor shall he, until as an aged man he shall
have equalled {his glories with} like years,[91] arrive at the abodes of
heaven and his kindred stars. Meanwhile, change this soul, snatched from
the murdered body, into a beam of light, that eternally the Deified
Julius may look down from his lofty abode upon our Capitol and Forum.”

Hardly had he uttered these words, when the genial Venus, perceived by
none, stood in the very midst of the Senate-house, and snatched the
soul, just liberated {from the body}, away from the limbs of her own
Cæsar, and, not suffering it to dissolve in air, she bore it amid the
stars of heaven. And as she bore it, she perceived it assume a {train
of} light and become inflamed; and she dropped it from her bosom. Above
the moon it takes its flight, and, as a star, it glitters, carrying a
flaming train with a lengthened track; and, as he beholds the
illustrious deeds of his son, he confesses that they are superior to his
own, and rejoices that he is surpassed by him. Although {Augustus}
forbids his own actions to be lauded before those of his father, still
Fame, in her freedom and subject to no commands, prefers him against his
will; and, in {this} one point, she disobeys him. Thus does Atreus yield
to the glories of the great Agamemnon; thus does Theseus excel Ægeus,
{and} thus Achilles Peleus. In fine, that I may use examples that equal
themselves, thus too, is Saturn inferior to Jove. Jupiter rules the
abodes of heaven and the realms of the threefold world:[92] the earth is
under Augustus: each of them is a father and a ruler. Ye Gods, the
companions of Æneas,[93] for whom both the sword and the flames made a
way; and you, ye native Deities, and thou, Quirinus, the father of the
City, and thou, Gradivus, the son of the invincible Quirinus, and thou,
Vesta, held sacred among the Penates of Cæsar; and, with the Vesta of
Cæsar, thou, Phœbus, enshrined in thy abode, and thou, Jupiter, who
aloft dost possess the Tarpeian heights, and whatever other {Deities} it
is lawful and righteous for a Poet to invoke; late, I pray, may be that
day, and protracted beyond my life, on which the person of Augustus,
leaving that world which he rules, shall approach the heavens: and
{when} gone, may he propitiously listen to those who invoke him.


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

    [Footnote 83: _Numidians._--Ver. 754. The Numidians under Syphax,
    together with Juba, King of Mauritania, aided Cato, Scipio, and
    Petreius, who had been partizans of Pompey, against Julius Cæsar,
    and were conquered by him.]

    [Footnote 84: _Pontus._--Ver. 756. Cæsar conquered Pharnaces, the
    son of Mithridates, king of Pontus, in one battle. It was on this
    occasion, according to Suetonius, that his despatch was in the
    words, ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici,’ ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’]

    [Footnote 85: _Son of Atreus._--Ver. 805. This was Menelaüs, from
    whom Paris was saved by Venus. See the Iliad, book III.]

    [Footnote 86: _Mutina._--Ver. 823. This was a place in Cisalpine
    Gaul, where Augustus defeated Antony, and took his camp.]

    [Footnote 87: _Philippi._--Ver. 824. Pharsalia was in Thessaly,
    and Philippi was in Thrace. He uses a poet’s license, in treating
    them as being the same battle-field, as they both formed part of
    the former kingdom of Macedonia. Pompey was defeated by Julius
    Cæsar at Pharsalia, while Brutus and Cassius were defeated by
    Augustus and Antony at Philippi. The fleet of the younger Pompey
    was totally destroyed off the Sicilian coast.]

    [Footnote 88: _The wife._--Ver. 826. Mark Antony was so
    infatuated as to divorce his wife, Octavia, that he might be
    enabled to marry Cleopatra.]

    [Footnote 89: _Canopus._--Ver. 828. This was a city of Egypt,
    situate on the Western mouth of the river Nile.]

    [Footnote 90: _His hallowed wife._--Ver. 836. Augustus took Livia
    Drusilla, while pregnant, from her husband, Tiberius Nero, and
    married her. He adopted her son Tiberius, and constituted him his
    successor.]

    [Footnote 91: _With like years._--Ver. 838. Julius Cæsar was
    slain when he was fifty-six years old. Augustus died in his
    seventy-sixth year.]

    [Footnote 92: _Threefold world._--Ver. 859. This is explained as
    meaning the realms of the heavens, the æther and the air; but it
    is difficult to guess exactly what is the Poet’s meaning here.]

    [Footnote 93: _Companions of Æneas._--Ver. 861. He probably
    refers to the Penates which Æneas brought into Latium. Dionysius
    of Halicarnassus says that he had seen them in a temple at Rome,
    and that they bore the figures of two youths seated and holding
    spears.]


EXPLANATION.

  The Poet having fulfilled his promise, and having brought down his
  work from the beginning of the world to his own times, concludes it
  with the apotheosis of Julius Cæsar. He here takes an opportunity of
  complimenting Augustus, as being more worthy of divine honours than
  even his predecessor, while he promises him a long and glorious
  reign. Augustus, however, had not to wait for death to receive
  divine honours, as he enjoyed the glory of seeing himself worshipped
  as a Deity and adored at altars erected to him, even in his
  lifetime. According to Appian, he was but twenty-eight years of age
  when he was ranked among the tutelar Divinities by all the cities of
  the empire.

  The Romans, who deduced their origin from Æneas, were flattered at
  the idea of Venus interesting herself in behalf of her posterity,
  and securing the honours of an apotheosis for Julius Cæsar. The
  historical circumstances which Ovid here refers to were the
  following:--After Julius Cæsar had been murdered in the Senate
  house, Augustus ordered public games to be instituted in his honour.
  We learn from Suetonius, that during their celebration a new star,
  or rather a comet, made its appearance, on which it was promulgated
  that the soul of the deified Julius had taken its place among the
  stars, and that Venus had procured him that honour. It was then
  remembered, that the light of the Sun had been unusually pallid the
  whole year following the death of Cæsar; this which is generally
  supposed to have been caused by some spots which then appeared on
  the disk of the sun, was ascribed to the grief of Apollo. Various
  persons were found to assert various prodigies. Some said that it
  had rained blood, others that the moon and stars had been obscured;
  while others, still more imaginative, asserted that beasts had
  uttered words, and that the dead had risen from their graves.

  The sorrow of the Gods and of nature at the untimely death of Julius
  being thus manifested, Augustus proceeded to found a temple in his
  honour, established priests for his service, and erected a statue of
  him with a star on its forehead. He was afterwards represented in
  the attitude of ascending to the heavens, and wielding a sceptre in
  his hand. While flatterers complimented Augustus upon the care which
  he had taken to enrol his predecessor among the Deities, there were
  some, the poet Manilius being of the number, who considered that
  heaven was almost over-peopled by him. Augustus, however, was not
  the sole author of the story of the apotheosis of Julius Cæsar. The
  people had previously attempted to deify him, though opposed by
  Cicero and Dolabella. In the funeral oration which was delivered
  over Julius Cæsar by Antony, he spoke of him as a God, and the
  populace, moved by his eloquence, and struck at his blood-stained
  garments and his body covered with wounds, were filled with
  indignation against the conspirators, and were about to take the
  corpse to the Capitol, there to be buried; but the priests would not
  permit it, and had it brought back to the Forum, where it was burnt.
  Dio Cassius says, that the Roman people raised an altar on the spot
  where the body had been burnt, and endeavoured to make libations and
  to offer sacrifices there, as to a Divinity, but that the Consuls
  overthrew the altar. Suetonius says, that a pillar was also erected
  to him, of about twenty feet in height, with the inscription,
  ‘parenti patriæ,’ ‘To the father of his country,’ and that for some
  time persons resorted to that spot to offer sacrifices and to make
  vows. He adds, that he was made a Divinity by a public decree, but
  he does not say at what time.


THE END.




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


       *       *       *       *       *
           *       *       *       *
       *       *       *       *       *

_Errors and Anomalies noted by transcriber_

Abbreviations in the form “II.XIV Exp.” mean “Book II, Fable XIV,
Explanation” (appended to most Fables).

Hyphenization is inconsistent--for example, the forms “sea monster”
and “sea-monster” both occur--and is not marked unless one form is
clearly anomalous. Errors and omissions in Greek diacritical marks
have been silently corrected.

  VIII.I
    he ordered the halsers of the fleet to be loosened
    [_variant spelling of “hawsers”_]
  VIII.II
    FABLE II.  [FABLE VI.]
    They immediately sent ambassadors  [ambasssadors]
  VIII.V
    and do not trust thyself  [_invisible h_]
  IX.II
    Fn. 22: _Branching holm oak._  [_body text has “holm-oak”_]
  IX.V
    (if I could {only} recall what has been destined)  [recal]
  X.I
    for the newmade bride  [_elsewhere “new-made” with hyphen_]
    Exp.: Orpheus, too, is supposed to have  [to]
  X.VIII
    Fn. 43: Clarke translates it ‘Coysts,’
      [_Clarke (1752) has “costys”, but this is hardly less obscure._]
    Fn. 48: whether the festival  [_invisible e in “the”_]
  X.IX
    FABLE IX.  [FABLE VI.]
  XI.III
    with the steel {scissars},  [_attested variant spelling_]
  XI.VI
    Fn. 31: _The Magnetes._   [Magnete]
  XII.III, IV
    Fn. 38: the two-fold form of the Centaurs
      [_elsewhere “twofold” without hyphen_]
  XII.V, VI
    thou shouldst have a forgetfulness  [forgetfuless]
  XIII.I
    FABLE I.  [_error for “FABLES I. AND II.”?_]
    who could better succeed the great Achilles  [succed]
  XIII.III, IV Exp.
    Le Clerc considers him  [consideres]
  XIII.V, VII
    Fn. 64: from the Greek word  [work]
  XIII.VII
    the hatred of the Cyclop  [Cylop]
  XIV.II Exp.
    An aged woman presented to Tarquinius Superbus three books
      [_text unchanged: error for “nine books”_]
  XIV.V
    they attended our footsteps  [foosteps]
  XIV.VI
    Fn. 28: so called from the whiteness  [ths]
  XIV.X Exp.
     The story of the heron  [_invisible y_]
  XIV.XII, XIII
    Fn. 59: the apartments on the ground floor  [grouud]
  XV.II, III
    If any thing is noxious,
      [_word “If” missing at line-beginning (Latin “siqua nocent”)_]
  XV.II, III
    and her agreable food  [_spelling unchanged_]
    Fn. 10: _The goat is led._  [_body text has “was led”_]
    Fn. 13:
    _The line-endings of this footnote are missing, apparently through
    printing error. Reconstructed words are shown in {braces}. The word
    given as “then” might be “also” or any word of similar length:_
      ... was an athlete of such stren{gth}
      ... with a blow of his fist, and {then}
      ... and afterwards to devour it. {His}
      [_page break in footnote: remainder is clear_]
    Fn. 31: ... See Book IV. l. 285  [_invisible l_]
    Fn. 49: flourishing in the time of Pythagoras
      [_invisible t in “time”_]
  XV.IV, V, VI Exp
    According to Euripides  [Acccording]


_Variant Names_

This is not intended to be a complete list.

Dieresis is unpredictable; forms such as “Alcathöe” and “Pirithöus”
are common, and have been silently corrected. Since the ligatures “æ”
and “œ” are used consistently, dieresis in “oe” and “ae” can be assumed
even when not explicitly indicated.

Treatment of names in Ia- (pronounced as two syllables) is inconsistent.
“Iäsion” and “Iänthe” are regularly written with dieresis, while
“Iarbas”, “Iapyx”, “Iapygia” are written without.

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

The “Lilybœus” of Books I-VII is now correctly written “Lilybæus”,
but Erysichthon (with y or upsilon) is written “Erisicthon”.

As in Books I-VII, spellings in “-cth-” (Erisicthon, Erectheus) are
used consistently in place of “-chth-” (-χθ-). Similarly, Phaëthon
is written “Phaëton”.


_Punctuation_

_Invisible periods (full stops) at line-end have been silently supplied.
Unless otherwise noted, items in the following list were missing the
closing quotation mark, either single or double._

  Introduction:
    published by Joseph Davidson,  [. for ,]
  VIII.II Exp.
    ...the one resembled Minos, and the other Taurus.  [invisible .]
  VIII.IV
    brandished with their broad points.  [, for .]
    Fn. 33: ... the sons of Aphareus.  [invisible .]
  VIII.V
    “Come,” said he, “famous Cecropian  [second , invisible]
  VIII.VII
    nor has any woman been standing {here}.’  [” for ’]
    Fn. 100: Ver. 846.  [invisible . in “Ver.”]
    ----: ‘Tandem, demisso in viscera censu;’  [invisible ;]
    ----: swallowed down all his estate into his g--ts.’
      [_Clarke writes out “guts”_]
  X.IV
    serves nectar to Jove.”
  X.VI
    changed into hard rocks.”
  X.VIII
    or take away from them, the polished quivers.”
  X.IX
    Fn. 58: ‘... in his boyish face!’
  X.X
    Fn. 64: ‘... riding in her light chair.  [missing ’]
    Exp.: during that festival.” / This notion of the mourning
      [_open quote at beginning of final paragraph instead of close
      quote at end of previous paragraph_]
  XI.I
    After they, in their rage  [superfluous “ at beginning]
  XI.VII
    Fn. 39: ... ‘The ends or points of the sail-yards,  [missing ‘]
    Fn. 42: ’tis the dreadful kind of death  [invisible ’ in ’tis]
    Fn. 51: they lost all recollection  [invisible -coll-]
    Fn. 54: ... Ver. 663.  [, for . in “Ver.”]
  XII.I, II
    Fn. 16: ‘He overset him ...’  [invisible ‘]
  XII.III, IV
    Fn. 21: a people of Thessaly, who,   [invisible ,]
    Fn. 22: Clarke renders these lines, ‘Come, tell us... by any one?’
    ... the old blade replied.’  [_mismatched quotes as shown_]
    Fn. 27: Clarke renders ... ‘goblets of blood.’
      [_if this is an error for “gobbets”, it is Clarke’s error_]
  XII.V, VI
    of the dispute to them all.  [superfluous ” at end]
  XIII.I
    Fn. 40: ... Helenus, the son of Priam.  [invisible ,]
  XIII.VII
    “‘But didst thou {but} know me well  [missing inner ‘]
    ... retained that ancient name.”
    Exp.: Elpe, the daughter of the king, carried her off.  [, for .]
  XIV.II
    Exp.: which was in consequence called ‘Byrsa.’  [missing ‘]
  XIV.VI
    ‘And yet thou shalt not escape me,’ she said
    he sped more swiftly than usual,  [invisible ,]
    “‘The setting Sun  [missing inner ‘]
  XV.II, III
    Fn. 9: Clarke translates ‘Non utilis auctor,’
  XV.IV, V, VI Exp
    ‘But,’ as the same author says  [missing ‘]
  XV.VII
    Fn. 76: for ‘colubris,’ ‘snakes.’  [missing ‘ in “‘snakes’”]
  XV.VIII
    Fn. 84: ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici,’  [invisible ,’]


_Footnote Numbers_

Numbers begin from 1 in each Book. Almost all Books had duplications in
the sequence, usually in the form “17*”; some had omissions. In this
e-text, footnotes have been renumbered consecutively within each Book,
without duplication.

  Bk. VIII:
    Note 6: tag missing in text
    ... that thou dost desert me?: extraneous footnote tag 7, no note
    Notes 39-79: printed as 38*, 39-78
    Notes 80-101: printed as 78*, 79-99
  Bk. IX:
    Notes 49-80: printed as 48*, 49-79
  Bk. X:
    Note 47: tag misprinted as 74
    Note 50-65: 50 omitted, printed as 51-66
    Note 66: 67 omitted, printed as 68
  Bk. XI:
    Notes 36-63: printed as 35*, 36-62
    Note 51: tag (50) missing in text
  Bk. XII:
    Notes 49-55: 49 omitted, printed as 50-56
    Note 56: misprinted as 59 (for 57)
  Bk. XIII:
    Notes 31-41: 31 omitted, printed as 32-42
    Notes 42-51: printed as 42*, 43-51
    Notes 52-78: 52 omitted, printed as 53-79
  Bk. XIV:
    Note 6: tag missing in text
    Note 19: footnote and tag misprinted as 17
    Notes 20-27: printed as 18-25
    Notes 28-32: 26 omitted, printed as 27-31
    Notes 33-41: 32 omitted, printed as 33-41
    Notes 42-63: 42 omitted, printed as 43-64
  Bk. XV:
    Notes 9-11: 9 omitted, printed as 10-12
    Note 10: tag (11) missing in text
    Notes 12-33: 13 omitted, printed as 14-35
    Notes 34-63: printed as 35*, 36-64
    Notes 64-84: printed as 64*, 65-84
    Notes 85-93: 85 omitted, printed as 86-94






*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE METAMORPHOSES OF OVID, BOOKS VIII-XV ***


    

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.


START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
    at www.gutenberg.org. If you
    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
  
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

    • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
        Literary Archive Foundation.”
    
    • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
        works.
    
    • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
        receipt of the work.
    
    • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
    

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.