The Metamorphoses of Ovid Part 12

[Footnote 3: _Castalian cave._--Ver. 14. Castalius was a fountain at the foot of Mount Parna.s.sus, and in the vicinity of Delphi. It was sacred to the Muses.]

[Footnote 4: _Sacred to Mars._--Ver. 32. Euripides says, that the dragon had been set there by Mars to watch the spot and the neighboring stream. Other writers say that it was a son of Mars, Dercyllus by name, and that a Fury, named Tilphosa, was its mother. Ancient history abounds with stories of enormous serpents.

The army of Regulus is said by Pliny the Elder, to have killed a serpent of enormous size, which obstructed the pa.s.sage of the river Bagrada, in Africa. It was 120 feet in length.]

EXPLANATION.

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

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

FABLE II. [III.35-130]

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

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

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

The sun, now at its height, had made the shadows {but} small: the son of Agenor wonders what has detained his companion and goes to seek his men.

His garment was a skin torn from a lion; his weapon was a lance with s.h.i.+ning steel, and a javelin; and a courage superior to any weapon. When he entered the grove, and beheld the lifeless bodies, and the victorious enemy of immense size upon them, licking the horrid wounds with bloodstained tongue, he said, "Either I will be the avenger of your death, bodies {of my} faithful {companions}, or {I will be} a sharer {in it}." {Thus} he said; and with his right hand he raised a huge stone,[8]

and hurled the vast {weight} with a tremendous effort. {And} although high walls with lofty towers would have been shaken with the shock of it, {yet} the dragon remained without a wound; and, being defended by his scales as though with a coat of mail, and the hardness of his black hide, he repelled the mighty stroke with his skin. But he did not overcome the javelin as well with the same hardness; which stood fast, fixed in the middle joint of his yielding spine, and sank with the entire {point of} steel into his entrails. Fierce with pain, he turned his head towards his back, and beheld his wounds, and bit the javelin fixed there. And after he had twisted it on every side with all his might, with difficulty he wrenched it from his back; yet the steel stuck fast in his bones. But then, when this newly inflicted wound has increased his wonted fury, his throat swelled with gorged veins, and white foam flowed around his pestilential jaws. The Earth, too, sc.r.a.ped with the scales, sounds again, and the livid steam that issues from his infernal mouth,[9] infects the tainted air. One while he is enrolled in spires making enormous rings; sometimes he unfolds himself straighter than a long beam. Now with a vast impulse, like a torrent swelled with rain, he is borne along, and bears down the obstructing forests with his breast. The son of Agenor gives way a little; and by the spoil of the lion he sustains the shock, and with his lance extended before him, pushes back his mouth, as it advances. The dragon rages, and vainly inflicts wounds on the hard steel, and fixes his teeth upon the point.

And now the blood began to flow from his poisonous palate, and had dyed the green gra.s.s with its spray. But the wound was slight; because he recoiled from the stroke, and drew back his wounded throat, and by shrinking prevented the blow from sinking deep, and did not suffer it to go very far. At length, the son of Agenor, still pursuing, pressed the spear lodged in his throat, until an oak stood in his way as he retreated, and his neck was pierced, together with the trunk. The tree was bent with the weight of the serpent, and groaned at having its trunk lashed with the extremity of its tail.

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

The Sidonian stranger had these as a.s.sociates in his task, when he built the city that was ordered by the oracle of Phbus.

[Footnote 5: _As large a size._--Ver. 44. This description of the enormous size of the dragon or serpent is inconsistent with what the Poet says in line 91, where we find Cadmus enabled to pin his enemy against an oak.]

[Footnote 6: _With his sting._--Ver. 48. He enumerates in this one instance the various modes by which serpents put their prey to death, either by means of their sting, or, in the case of the larger kinds of serpent, by twisting round it, and suffocating it in their folds.]

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

[Footnote 8: _A huge stone._--Ver. 59. 'Molaris' here means a stone as large as a mill-stone, and not a mill-stone itself, for we must remember that this was an uninhabited country, and consequently a stranger to the industry of man.]

[Footnote 9: _His infernal mouth._--Ver. 76. 'Stygio' means 'pestilential as the exhalations of the marshes of Styx.']

[Footnote 10: _Form of a dragon._--Ver. 98. This came to pa.s.s when, having been expelled from his dominions by Zethus and Amphion, he retired to Illyria, and was there transformed into a serpent, a fate which was shared by his wife Hermione.]

[Footnote 11: _With painted cones._--Ver. 108. The 'conus' was the conical part of the helmet into which the crest of variegated feathers was inserted.]

[Footnote 12: _When the curtains._--Ver. 111. The 'Siparium' was a piece of tapestry stretched on a frame, and, rising before the stage, answered the same purpose as the curtain or drop-scene with us, in concealing the stage till the actors appeared. Instead of drawing up this curtain to discover the stage and actors, according to our present practice, it was depressed when the play began, and fell beneath the level of the stage; whence 'aulaea premuntur,' 'the curtain is dropped,' meant that the play had commenced. When the performance was finished, this was raised again gradually from the foot of the stage; therefore 'aulaea tolluntur,' 'the curtain is raised,' would mean that the play had finished. From the present pa.s.sage we learn, that in drawing it up from the stage, the curtain was gradually displayed, the unfolding taking place, perhaps, below the boards, so that the heads of the figures rose first, until the whole form appeared in full with the feet resting on the stage, when the 'siparium' was fully drawn up.

From a pa.s.sage in Virgil's Georgics (book iii. l. 25), we learn that the figures of Britons (whose country had then lately been the scene of new conquests) were woven on the canvas of the 'siparium,' having their arms in the att.i.tude of lifting the curtain.]

[Footnote 13: _Echion._--Ver. 126. The names of the others were Udeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelor, according to Apollodorus.

To these some added Creon, as a sixth.]

EXPLANATION.

Agenor, on losing his daughter, commands his sons to go in search of her, and not to return till they have found her. The young princes, either unable to learn what was become of her, or, perhaps, being too weak to recover her out of the hands of the king of Crete, did not return to their father, but established themselves in different countries; Cadmus settling in Botia, Cilix in Cilicia, to which he gave his name, and Phnix, as Hyginus tells us, remaining in Africa.

Photius, quoting from Conon, the historian, informs us, that the hope of conquering some country in Europe, and establis.h.i.+ng a colony there, was the true ground of the voyage of Cadmus.

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

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

FABLE III. [III.131-252]

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

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

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

After she had entered there, she handed to one of the Nymphs, her armor-bearer, her javelin, her quiver, and her unstrung bow. Another Nymph put her arms under her mantle, when taken off: two removed the sandals from her feet. But Crocale,[19] the daughter of Ismenus, more skilled than they, gathered her hair, which lay scattered over her neck, into a knot, although she herself was with {her hair} loose.

Nephele,[20] and Hyale,[21] and Rhanis,[22] fetch water, Psecas[23] and Phyale[24] {do the same}, and pour it from their large urns. And while the t.i.tanian {G.o.ddess} was there bathing in the wonted stream, behold!

the grandson of Cadmus, having deferred the remainder of his sport till {next day}, came into the grove, wandering through the unknown wood, with uncertain steps; thus did his fate direct him.

Soon as he entered the grotto, dropping with its springs, the Nymphs, naked as they were, on seeing a man, smote their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and filled all the woods with sudden shrieks, and gathering round Diana, covered her with their bodies. Yet the G.o.ddess herself was higher than they, and was taller than them all by the neck. The color that is wont to be in clouds, tinted by the rays of the sun {when} opposite, or that of the ruddy morning, was on the features of Diana, when seen without her garments. She, although surrounded with the crowd of her attendants, stood sideways, and turned her face back; and how did she wish that she had her arrows at hand; {and} so she took up water,[25] which she did have {at hand}, and threw it over the face of the man, and sprinkling his hair with the avenging stream, she added these words, the presages of his future woe: "Now thou mayst tell, if tell thou canst, how that I was seen by thee without my garments." Threatening no more, she places on his sprinkled head the horns of a lively stag; she adds length to his neck, and sharpens the tops of his ears; and she changes his hands into feet, and his arms into long legs, and covers his body with a spotted coat of hair; fear, too is added. The Autonoeian[26] hero took to flight, and wondered that he was so swift in his speed; but when he beheld his own horns in the wonted stream, he was about to say, "Ah, wretched me!" {when} no voice followed. He groaned; that was {all} his voice, and his tears trickled down a face not his own, {but that of a stag}. His former understanding alone remained. What should he do?

Should he return home, and to the royal abode? or should he lie hid in the woods? Fear hinders the one {step}, shame the other. While he was hesitating, the dogs espied him, and first Melampus,[27] and the good-nosed Ichn.o.bates gave the signal, in full cry. Ichn.o.bates,[28] was a Gnossian {dog}; Melampus was of Spartan breed. Then the rest rush on, swifter than the rapid winds; Pamphagus,[29] and Dorcaeus,[30] and Oribasus,[31] all Arcadian {dogs}; and able Nebrophonus,[32] and with Laelaps,[33] fierce Theron,[34] and Pterelas,[35] excelling in speed, Agre[36] in her scent, and Hylaeus,[37] lately wounded by a fierce boar, and Nape,[38] begotten by a wolf, and Pmenis,[39] that had tended cattle, and Harpyia,[40] followed by her two whelps, and the Sicyonian Ladon,[41] having a slender girth; Dromas,[42] too, and Canace,[43]

Sticte,[44] and Tigris, and Alce,[45] and Leucon,[46] with snow-white hair, and Asbolus,[47] with black, and the able-bodied Lacon,[48] and Aello,[49] good at running, and Thous,[50] and swift Lycisca,[51] with her Cyprian brother, Harpalus,[52] too, having his black face marked with white down the middle, and Melaneus,[53] and Lachne,[54] with a wire-haired body, and Labros,[55] and Agriodos,[56] bred of a Dictaean sire, but of a Laconian dam, and Hylactor,[57] with his shrill note; and others which it were tedious to recount.

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

But his companions, in their ignorance, urge on the eager pack with their usual cries, and seek Actaeon with their eyes; and cry out "Actaeon"

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

[Footnote 14: _Mars and Venus._--Ver. 132. The wife of Cadmus was Hermione, or Harmonia, who was said to have been the daughter of Mars and Venus. The Deities honored the nuptials with their presence, and presented marriage gifts, while the Muses and the Graces celebrated the festivity with hymns of their own composition.]

[Footnote 15: _So many sons._--Ver. 134. Apollodorus, Hyginus, and others, say that Cadmus had but one son, Polydorus. If so, 'tot,'

'so many,' must here refer to the number of his daughters and grandchildren. His daughters were four in number, Autonoe, Ino, Semele, and Agave. Ino married Athamas, Autonoe Aristaeus, Agave Echion, while Semele captivated Jupiter. The most famous of the grandsons of Cadmus were Bacchus, Melicerta, Pentheus, and Actaeon.]

[Footnote 16: _Before his death._--Ver. 135. This was the famous remark of Solon to Crsus, when he was the master of the opulent and flouris.h.i.+ng kingdom of Lydia, and seemed so firmly settled on his throne, that there was no probability of any interruption of his happiness. Falling into the hands of Cyrus the Persian, and being condemned to be burnt alive, he recollected this wise saying of Solon, and by that means saved his life, as we are told by Herodotus, who relates the story at length. Euripides has a similar pa.s.sage in his Troades, line 510.]

[Footnote 17: _The Hyantian youth._--Ver. 147. Actaeon is thus called, as being a Botian. The Hyantes were the ancient or aboriginal inhabitants of Botia.]

[Footnote 18: _Gargaphie._--Ver. 156. Gargaphie, or Gargaphia, was a valley situate near Plataea, having a fountain of the same name.]

[Footnote 19: _Crocale._--Ver. 169. So called, perhaps, from ?e???fa???, an ornament for the head, being a coif, band, or fillet of network for the hair called in Latin 'reticulum,' by which name her office is denoted. The handmaid, whose duty it was to attend to the hair, held the highest rank in ancient times among the domestics.]

[Footnote 20: _Nephele._--Ver. 171. From the Greek word ?ef???, 'a cloud.']

[Footnote 21: _Hyale._--Ver. 171. This is from ?a???, 'gla.s.s,' the name signifying 'gla.s.sy,' 'pellucid.' The very name calls to mind Milton's line in his Comus-- 'Under the gla.s.sy, cool, translucent wave.']

[Footnote 22: _Rhanis._--Ver. 171. This name is adapted from the Greek verb ?a???, 'to sprinkle.']