Summary
In this final chapter, Ovid brings his epic to a close with Pythagoras delivering profound teachings about the nature of change and transformation. The philosopher explains that everything in the universe is in constant flux—nothing truly dies, only changes form. Through examples ranging from the seasons to human aging, from rivers changing course to cities rising and falling, he demonstrates that transformation is the fundamental law of existence. This wisdom leads to practical guidance about diet and ethics, as Pythagoras argues against eating meat since souls transmigrate between bodies. The chapter then shifts to Roman history, telling stories of divine intervention and miraculous transformations that shaped the empire. Ovid concludes by transforming Julius Caesar into a star after his assassination, with Venus ensuring her descendant receives divine honors. The poet ends with a bold declaration of his own immortality through his work—while his body will perish, his poetry will live forever, reaching readers across the Roman world and through all ages. This final transformation from mortal poet to immortal voice captures the book's central theme: change is not loss but renewal, and through understanding transformation, we find meaning in impermanence.
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An excerpt from the original text.(complete · 21867 words)
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
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Intelligence Amplifier™ Analysis
The Road of Embracing Impermanence
The tendency to fight natural change and cling to current circumstances, creating suffering through resistance to life's inevitable transformations.
Why This Matters
Connect literature to life
This chapter teaches how to distinguish between temporary disruption and permanent transformation by observing the underlying forces at work.
Practice This Today
This week, notice when you're fighting a change that's already happening—then ask what this transformation is trying to teach you instead of how to stop it.
Now let's explore the literary elements.
Terms to Know
Transmigration of souls
The belief that when someone dies, their soul moves into a new body - human or animal. Pythagoras taught that souls are immortal and cycle through different forms of life. This explains why he argued against eating meat, since you might be consuming a former human soul.
Modern Usage:
We see this in concepts like reincarnation, or when people say 'what goes around comes around' - the idea that energy and consequences cycle through life.
Divine intervention
When gods directly interfere in human affairs to change the outcome of events. In Roman culture, this explained how ordinary people could overcome impossible odds or how natural disasters occurred. It showed the gods were actively involved in daily life.
Modern Usage:
We invoke this when we say 'it was meant to be' or 'someone upstairs was looking out for me' after unexpected good fortune.
Apotheosis
The transformation of a human into a god or divine being. Romans believed exceptional leaders like Julius Caesar could become stars or gods after death. This process elevated mortals to immortal status through divine recognition.
Modern Usage:
We see this in how we treat celebrities as godlike figures, or when we say someone 'became a legend' after death.
Philosophical exile
Leaving your homeland to seek wisdom and knowledge from foreign teachers. Numa travels from Rome to learn from Greek philosophers, showing that true education requires stepping outside your comfort zone.
Modern Usage:
This happens when people move across the country for college, study abroad, or relocate to learn new skills and perspectives.
Eternal flux
Pythagoras's teaching that everything in the universe is constantly changing - nothing stays the same forever. Rivers change course, cities rise and fall, people age, seasons cycle. Change is the only constant in existence.
Modern Usage:
We reference this when we say 'this too shall pass' or 'the only constant is change' during difficult times.
Poetic immortality
The belief that while a poet's body will die, their written works will live forever and reach future generations. Ovid claims his poetry will outlast marble monuments and make him immortal through his words.
Modern Usage:
We see this when artists create 'timeless' works, or when we say someone 'lives on' through their music, books, or films.
Characters in This Chapter
Pythagoras
Wise teacher and philosopher
Delivers the chapter's central teachings about transformation and change. He explains that everything in nature is constantly changing form, and uses this wisdom to argue for vegetarianism and ethical living. His philosophy provides the intellectual framework for understanding all the transformations in the epic.
Modern Equivalent:
The life coach who helps you see the big picture
Numa
Seeking king and student
The future Roman king who travels to learn from Pythagoras, showing that even powerful leaders need wisdom from others. His journey demonstrates that true leadership requires humility and continuous learning, not just political ambition.
Modern Equivalent:
The CEO who goes back to school or seeks mentorship
Julius Caesar
Tragic hero transformed
The great Roman leader whose assassination becomes the catalyst for his transformation into a divine star. His death shows how even the most powerful mortals are subject to change, but his deification proves that some legacies transcend death.
Modern Equivalent:
The beloved public figure whose death creates a lasting legend
Venus
Protective divine mother
Caesar's divine ancestor who intervenes to save him from assassination and later ensures his transformation into a star. She represents the protective force that looks after family, even when she cannot prevent all suffering.
Modern Equivalent:
The fierce mother who fights for her child's legacy
Ovid (as narrator)
Self-aware storyteller
The poet himself appears in the final lines, claiming that his work will make him immortal even after his body dies. He transforms from hidden narrator to confident artist, asserting his place in literary history.
Modern Equivalent:
The artist who knows their work will outlast them
Key Quotes & Analysis
"Nothing in the world keeps the same form; all things are in flux, and every shape is made to pass away."
Context: Teaching Numa about the fundamental nature of existence and change
This captures the entire theme of Metamorphoses - that transformation is not the exception but the rule of life. Pythagoras uses this principle to explain everything from aging to the seasons, showing that accepting change leads to wisdom rather than suffering.
In Today's Words:
Everything changes - nothing stays the same forever, and that's just how life works.
"The soul is always the same, but migrates into different forms."
Context: Explaining why people shouldn't eat animals
This philosophical insight connects individual transformation to universal ethics. If souls move between human and animal bodies, then all life deserves respect. It's Ovid's way of suggesting that understanding change leads to compassion.
In Today's Words:
We're all basically the same on the inside, just in different packages.
"And now my work is done, which neither Jupiter's anger, nor fire, nor sword can destroy, nor devouring time."
Context: The poet's final declaration about his literary legacy
Ovid boldly claims his poetry will outlast empires and natural disasters, achieving the same immortality he's written about throughout the epic. He transforms himself from mortal poet to eternal voice, embodying his own theme of metamorphosis.
In Today's Words:
I've created something that will outlast me, no matter what tries to destroy it.
Thematic Threads
Identity
In This Chapter
Ovid declares his immortal identity through his work, transcending physical death through artistic transformation
Development
Evolved from external transformations to internal identity transformation—the ultimate metamorphosis
In Your Life:
Your sense of self may need to transform as you grow, and that's not loss—it's evolution
Class
In This Chapter
Caesar's transformation from mortal ruler to divine star shows how power structures can be transcended through change
Development
Throughout the book, social positions have been fluid and changeable rather than fixed
In Your Life:
Your current economic or social position isn't permanent—transformation can elevate or humble anyone
Personal Growth
In This Chapter
Pythagoras teaches that wisdom comes from accepting and understanding change rather than fighting it
Development
Culmination of the book's message that growth requires embracing transformation
In Your Life:
Real personal development means learning to flow with life's changes rather than rigidly resisting them
Human Relationships
In This Chapter
The philosopher's teachings about souls transmigrating between bodies suggests all beings are connected through transformation
Development
Relationships throughout the book have been transformed by change—love, loss, and renewal
In Your Life:
Your relationships will change over time, and that evolution can deepen rather than diminish connection
Social Expectations
In This Chapter
Ovid boldly claims his poetry will outlast emperors and monuments, defying expectations about what creates lasting legacy
Development
Characters have consistently challenged or been challenged by social norms through transformation
In Your Life:
Society's expectations for your life path aren't fixed—you can transform beyond what others expect of you
You now have the context. Time to form your own thoughts.
Discussion Questions
- 1
According to Pythagoras, what's the one constant in the universe, and how does he prove this through examples from nature?
analysis • surface - 2
Why does Pythagoras argue against eating meat, and what does this reveal about his understanding of life and death?
analysis • medium - 3
Think about someone you know who's struggling with a major life change—job loss, divorce, health issue, or aging parent. How are they fighting the transformation instead of flowing with it?
application • medium - 4
Ovid claims his poetry will make him immortal while his body dies. What parts of yourself do you think will outlast your physical existence, and how does this change how you approach daily challenges?
application • deep - 5
If you truly believed that 'nothing dies, everything transforms,' how would you handle your biggest current fear about the future?
reflection • deep
Critical Thinking Exercise
Track Your Resistance Points
List three changes happening in your life right now—big or small. For each one, write down exactly how you're resisting it and what you're afraid of losing. Then reframe each change as information rather than threat. What is this transformation trying to teach you?
Consider:
- •Notice which changes feel most threatening and why
- •Identify what you're trying to preserve that might already be evolving
- •Consider how fighting the change might be creating more stress than the change itself
Journaling Prompt
Write about a major change you resisted in the past that turned out to be positive. What did you learn about your own patterns of resistance, and how can you apply that wisdom to current transformations?
