The Metamorphoses of Ovid Part 14

"And what good have I done by railing so often?" said she. "She herself must be attacked {by me}. If I am properly called the supreme Juno, I will destroy her; if it becomes me to hold the sparkling sceptre in my right hand; if I am the queen, and both the sister and wife of Jupiter.

The sister {I am}, no doubt. But I suppose she is content with a stolen embrace, and the injury to my bed is but trifling. She is {now} pregnant; that {alone} was wanting; and she bears the evidence of his crime in her swelling womb, and wishes to be made a mother by Jupiter, a thing which hardly fell to my lot alone. So great is her confidence in her beauty. I will take care[61] he shall deceive her; and may I be no daughter of Saturn, if she does not descend to the Stygian waves, sunk {there} by her own {dear} Jupiter."

Upon this she rises from her throne, and, hidden in a cloud of fiery hue, she approaches the threshold of Semele. Nor did she remove the clouds before she counterfeited an old woman, and planted gray hair on her temples; and furrowed her skin with wrinkles, and moved her bending limbs with palsied step, and made her voice that of an old woman. She became Beroe[62] herself, the Epidaurian[63] nurse of Semele. When, therefore, upon engaging in discourse with her, and {after} long talking, they came to the name of Jupiter, she sighed, and said, "I {only} wish it may be Jupiter; yet I {am apt to} fear everything.

Many a one under the name of a G.o.d has invaded a chaste bed. Nor yet is it enough that he is Jupiter; let him, if, indeed, he is the real one, give some pledge of his affection; and beg of him to bestow his caresses on thee, just in the greatness and form in which he is received by the stately Juno; and let him first a.s.sume his ensigns {of royalty}." With such words did Juno tutor the unsuspecting daughter of Cadmus. She requested of Jupiter a favor, without naming it. To her the G.o.d said, "Make thy choice, thou shalt suffer no denial; and that thou mayst believe it the more, let the majesty of the Stygian stream bear witness.

He {is} the dread and the G.o.d of the G.o.ds."

Overjoyed at {what was} her misfortune, and too {easily} prevailing, as now about to perish by the complaisance of her lover, Semele said, "Present thyself to me, just such as the daughter of Saturn is wont to embrace thee, when ye honor the ties of Venus." The G.o.d wished to shut her mouth as she spoke, {but} the hasty words had now escaped into air.

He groaned; for neither was it {now} possible for her not to have wished, nor for him not to have sworn. Therefore, in extreme sadness, he mounted the lofty skies, and with his nod drew along the attendant clouds; to which he added showers and lightnings mingled with winds, and thunders, and the inevitable thunderbolt.

[Footnote 61: _I will take care._--Ver. 271. 'Faxo,' 'I will make,' is sometimes used by the best authors for 'fecero;' and 'faxim' for 'faciam,' or 'fecerim.']

[Footnote 62: _Beroe._--Ver. 278. Iris, in the fifth book of the aeneid (l. 620), a.s.sumes the form of another Beroe; and a third person of that name is mentioned in the fourth book of the Georgics, l. 34.]

[Footnote 63: _Epidaurian._--Ver. 278. Epidaurus was a famous city of Argolis, in Peloponnesus, famous for its temple, dedicated to the wors.h.i.+p of aesculapius, who was the tutelary Divinity of that city.]

EXPLANATION.

It is most probable, that an intrigue between a female named Semele and one of the princes called Jupiter having had a tragical end, gave occasion to this Fable. Pausanias, in his Laconica, tells us, that Cadmus, exasperated against his daughter Semele, caused her and her son to be thrown into the sea; and that being thrown ash.o.r.e at Oreate, an ancient town of Laconia, Semele was buried there.

Semele, according to Apollodorus, was, after her death, ranked among the G.o.ddesses by the name of Thyone. He says that her son Bacchus going down to h.e.l.l, brought her thence, and carried her up to heaven; where, according to Nonnus, she conversed with Pallas and Diana, and ate at the same table with Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and Venus. The author, known by the name of Orpheus, gives Semele the t.i.tle of G.o.ddess, and ?a?as??e?a, or 'Queen of the Universe.'

FABLE V. [III.302-338]

Semele is visited by Jupiter, according to the promise she had obliged him to make; but, being unable to support the effulgence of his lightning, she is burnt to ashes in his presence. Bacchus, with whom she is pregnant, is preserved; and Tiresias decided the dispute between Jupiter and Juno, concerning the s.e.xes.

And yet, as much as possible, he tries to mitigate his powers. Nor is he now armed with those flames with which he had overthrown the hundred-handed Typhus; in those, {there is} too much fury. There is another thunder, less baneful, to which the right hand of the Cyclops gave less ferocity and flames, {and} less anger. The G.o.ds above call this second-rate thunder; it he a.s.sumes, and he enters the house of Agenor. Her mortal body could not endure[64] the aethereal shock, and she was burned amid her nuptial presents. The infant, as yet unformed, is taken out of the womb of his mother, and prematurely (if we can believe it) is inserted in the thigh of the father, and completes the time that he should have spent in the womb. His aunt, Ino, nurses him privately in his early cradle. After that, the Nyseian Nymphs[65] conceal him, entrusted {to them}, in their caves, and give him the nourishment of milk.

And while these things are transacted on earth by the law of destiny, and the cradle of Bacchus, twice born,[66] is secured; they tell that Jupiter, by chance, well drenched with nectar, laid aside {all} weighty cares, and engaged in some free jokes with Juno, in her idle moments, and said: "Decidedly the pleasure of you, {females}, is greater than that which falls to the lot of {us} males." She denied it. It was agreed {between them}, to ask what was the opinion of the experienced Tiresias.

To him both pleasures were well known. For he had separated with a blow of his staff two bodies of large serpents, as they were coupling in a green wood; and (pa.s.sing strange) become a woman from a man, he had spent seven autumns. In the eighth, he again saw the same {serpents}, and said, "If the power of a stroke given you is so great as to change the condition of the giver into the opposite one, I will now strike you again." Having struck the same snakes, his former s.e.x returned, and his original shape came {again}. He, therefore, being chosen as umpire in this sportive contest, confirmed the words of Jove. The daughter of Saturn is said to have grieved more than was fit, and not in proportion to the subject; and she condemned the eyes of the umpire to eternal darkness.

But the omnipotent father (for it is not allowed any G.o.d to cancel the acts of {another} Deity) gave him the knowledge of things to come, in recompense for his loss of sight, and alleviated his punishment by this honor.

[Footnote 64: _Could not endure._--Ver. 308. 'Corpus mortale tumultus Non tulit aethereos,' is rendered by Clarke, 'her mortal body could not bear this aethereal bustle.']

[Footnote 65: _The Nyseian Nymphs._--Ver. 314. Nysa was the name of a city and mountain of Arabia, or India. The tradition was, that there the Nyseian Nymphs, whose names were Cysseis, Nysa, Erato, Eryphia, Bromia, and Polyhymnia, brought up Bacchus. The cave where he was concealed from the fury of Juno, was said to have had two entrances, from which circ.u.mstance Bacchus received the epithet of Dithyrites. Servius, in his commentary on the sixth Eclogue of Virgil (l. 15), says that Nysa was the name of the female that nursed Bacchus. Hyginus also speaks of her as being the daughter of Ocea.n.u.s. From the name 'Nysa,' Bacchus received, in part, his Greek name 'Dionysus.']

[Footnote 66: _Twice born._--Ver. 318. Clarke thus translates and explains this line--'They tell you, that Jupiter well drenched;'

_i.e._ 'fuddled with nectar,' etc.]

FABLE VI. [III.339-401]

Echo, having often amused Juno with her stories, to give time to Jupiter's mistresses to make their escape, the G.o.ddess, at last, punishes her for the deception. She is slighted and despised by Narcissus, with whom she falls in love.

He, much celebrated by fame throughout the cities of Aonia,[67] gave unerring answers to the people consulting him. The azure Liriope[68] was the first to make essay and experiment of his infallible voice; whom once Cephisus encircled in his winding stream, and offered violence to, {when} enclosed by his waters. The most beauteous Nymph produced an infant from her teeming womb, which even then might have been beloved, and she called him Narcissus. Being consulted concerning him, whether he was destined to see the distant season of mature old age; the prophet, expounding destiny, said, "If he never recognizes himself." Long did the words of the soothsayer appear frivolous; {but} the event, the thing {itself}, the manner of his death, and the novel nature of his frenzy, confirmed it.

And now the son of Cephisus had added one to three times five years, and he might seem to be a boy and a young man as well. Many a youth,[69] and many a damsel, courted him; but there was so stubborn a pride in his youthful beauty, {that} no youths, no damsels made any impression on him. The noisy Nymph, who has neither learned to hold her tongue after another speaking, nor to speak first herself, resounding Echo, espied him, as he was driving the timid stags into his nets. Echo was then a body, not a voice; and yet the babbler had no other use of her speech than she now has, to be able to repeat the last words out of many. Juno had done this; because when often she might have been able to detect the Nymphs in the mountains in the embrace of her {husband}, Jupiter, she purposely used to detain[70] the G.o.ddess with a long story, until the Nymphs had escaped. After the daughter of Saturn perceived {this}, she said, "But small exercise of this tongue, with which I have been deluded, shall be allowed thee, and a very short use of thy voice." And she confirmed her threats by the event. Still, in the end of one's speaking she redoubles the voice, and returns the words she hears. When, therefore, she beheld Narcissus[71] wandering through the pathless forests, and fell in love with him, she stealthily followed his steps; and the more she followed him, with the nearer flame did she burn. In no other manner than as when the native sulphur, spread around[72] the tops of torches, catches the flame applied {to it}. Ah! how often did she desire to accost him in soft accents, and to employ soft entreaties!

Nature resists, and suffers her not to begin; but what {Nature} does permit, that she is ready for; to await his voice, to which to return her own words.

By chance, the youth, being separated from the trusty company of his attendants, cries out, "Is there any one here?" and Echo answers "Here!"

He is amazed; and when he has cast his eyes on every side, he cries out with a loud voice, "Come!" {Whereon} she calls {the youth} who calls. He looks back; and again, as no one comes, he says, "Why dost thou avoid me?" and just as many words as he spoke, he receives. He persists; and being deceived by the imitation of an alternate voice, he says, "Let us come together here;" and Echo, that could never more willingly answer any sound whatever, replies, "Let us come together here!" and she follows up her own words, and rus.h.i.+ng from the woods,[73] is going to throw her arms around the neck she has {so} longed for. He flies; and as he flies, he exclaims, "Remove thy hands from thus embracing me; I will die first, before thou shalt have the enjoyment of me." She answers nothing but "Have the enjoyment of me." {Thus} rejected, she lies hid in the woods, and hides her blus.h.i.+ng face with green leaves, and from that time lives in lonely caves; but yet her love remains, and increases from the mortification of her refusal. Watchful cares waste away her miserable body; leanness shrivels her skin, and all the juices of her body fly off in air. Her voice and her bones alone are left.

Her voice {still} continues, {but} they say that her bones received the form of stones. Since then, she lies concealed in the woods, and is never seen on the mountains: {but} is heard in all {of them}. It is her voice {alone} which remains alive in her.

[Footnote 67: _Aonia._--Ver. 339. Aonia was a mountainous district of Botia, so called from Aon, the son of Neptune, who reigned there. The name is often used to signify the whole of Botia.]

[Footnote 68: _Liriope._--Ver. 342. She was the daughter of Ocea.n.u.s and Tethys, and was the mother of the youth Narcissus, by the river Cephisus. Her name is derived from the Greek ?e?????, 'a lily.']

[Footnote 69: _Many a youth._--Ver. 353. Clarke translates 'multi juvenes,' 'many young fellows.']

[Footnote 70: _Used to detain._--Ver. 364. Clarke translates 'Illa Deam longo prudens sermone tenebat Dum fugerent Nymphae,' 'She designedly detained the G.o.ddess with some long-winded discourse or other till the Nymphs ran away.' He translates 'garrula,' in line 360, 'the prattling hussy.']

[Footnote 71: _Narcissus._--Ver. 370. This name is from the Greek word ?a????, 'to fade away,' which was characteristic of the youth's career, and of the duration of the flower.]

[Footnote 72: _Sulphur spread around._--Ver. 372. These lines show, that it was the custom of the ancients to place sulphur on the ends of their torches, to make them ignite the more readily, in the same manner as the matches of the present day are tipped with that mineral.]

[Footnote 73: _Rus.h.i.+ng from the woods._--Ver. 388. 'Egressaque sylvis.' Clarke renders, 'and bouncing out of the wood.']

EXPLANATION.

It appears much more reasonable to attempt the explanation of this story on the grounds of natural philosophy than of history. The poets, in their fondness for basing every subject upon fiction, probably invented the fable, to explain what to them appeared an extraordinary phenomenon. By way of embellis.h.i.+ng their story, they tell us that Echo was the daughter of the Air and the Tongue, and that the G.o.d Pan fell in love with her; by which, probably, the simple fact is meant, that some person, represented under the name of that G.o.d, endeavored to trace the cause of this phenomenon.

If, however, we should endeavor to base the story upon purely historical grounds, we may suppose that it took its rise from some Nymph, who wandered so far into the woods as to be unable to find her way out again; and from the fact that those who went to seek her, hearing nothing but the echo of their own voices, brought back the strange but unsatisfactory intelligence that the Nymph had been changed into a voice.

FABLE VII. [III.402-510]

Narcissus falls in love with his own shadow, which he sees in a fountain; and, pining to death, the G.o.ds change him into a flower, which still bears his name.

Thus had he deceived her, thus, too, other Nymphs that sprung from the water or the mountains, thus the throng of youths before {them}.

Some one, therefore, who had been despised {by him}, lifting up his hands towards heaven, said, "Thus, though he should love, let him not enjoy what he loves!" Rhamnusia[74] a.s.sented to a prayer so reasonable.

There was a clear spring, like silver, with its unsullied waters, which neither shepherds, nor she-goats feeding on the mountains, nor any other cattle, had touched; which neither bird nor wild beast had disturbed, nor bough falling from a tree. There was gra.s.s around it, which the neighboring water nourished, and a wood, that suffered the stream to become warm with no {rays of the} sun. Here the youth, fatigued both with the labor of hunting and the heat, lay down, attracted by the appearance of the spot, and the spring; and, while he was endeavoring to quench his thirst, another thirst grew {upon him}.

While he is drinking, being attracted with the reflection of his own form, seen {in the water}, he falls in love with a thing that has no substance; {and} he thinks that to be a body, which is {but} a shadow.

He is astonished at himself, and remains unmoved with the same countenance, like a statue formed of Parian marble.[75] Lying on the ground, he gazes on his eyes {like} two stars, and fingers worthy of Bacchus, and hair worthy of Apollo, and his youthful cheeks and ivory neck, and the comeliness of his mouth, and his blus.h.i.+ng complexion mingled with the whiteness of snow; and everything he admires, for which he himself is worthy to be admired. In his ignorance, he covets himself; and he that approves, is himself {the thing} approved. While he pursues he is pursued, and at the same moment he inflames and burns. How often does he give vain kisses to the deceitful spring; how often does he thrust his arms, catching at the neck he sees, into the middle of the water, and yet he does not catch himself in them. He knows not what he sees, but what he sees, by it is he inflamed; and the same mistake that deceives his eyes, provokes them. Why, credulous {youth}, dost thou vainly catch at the flying image? What thou art seeking is nowhere; what thou art in love with, turn but away {and} thou shalt lose it; what thou seest, the same is {but} the shadow of a reflected form; it has nothing of its own. It comes and stays with thee; with thee it will depart, if thou canst {but} depart thence.

No regard for food,[76] no regard for repose, can draw him away thence; but, lying along upon the overshadowed gra.s.s, he gazes upon the fallacious image with unsatiated eyes, and by his own sight he himself is undone. Raising himself a little {while}, extending his arms to the woods that stand around him, he says, "Was ever, O, ye woods! any one more fatally in love? For {this} ye know, and have been a convenient shelter for many a one. And do you remember any one, who {ever} thus pined away, during so long a time, though so many ages of your life has been spent? It both pleases me and I see it; but what I see, and what pleases me, yet I cannot obtain; so great a mistake possesses one in love; and to make me grieve the more, neither a vast sea separates us, nor a {long} way, nor mountains, nor a city with its gates closed; we are kept asunder by a little water. He himself wishes to be embraced; for as often as I extend my lips to the limpid stream, so often does he struggle towards me with his face held up; you would think he might be touched. It is a very little that stands in the way of lovers. Whoever thou art, come up hither. Why, {dear} boy, the choice one, dost thou deceive me? or whither dost thou retire, when pursued? Surely, neither my form nor my age is such as thou shouldst shun; the Nymphs, too, have courted me. Thou encouragest I know not what hopes in me with that friendly look, and when I extend my arms to thee, thou willingly extendest thine; when I smile, thou smilest in return; often, too, have I observed thy tears, when I was weeping; my signs, too, thou returnest by thy nods, and, as I guess by the motion of thy beauteous mouth, thou returnest words that come not to my ears. In thee 'tis I, I {now} perceive; nor does my form deceive me. I burn with the love of myself, and both raise the flames and endure them. What shall I do? Should I be entreated, or should I entreat? What, then, shall I entreat? What I desire is in my power; plenty has made me poor. Oh! would that I could depart from my own body! a new wish, {indeed}, in a lover; I could wish that what I am in love with was away. And now grief is taking away my strength, and no long period of my life remains; and in my early days am I cut off; nor is death grievous to me, now about to get rid of my sorrows by death. I wish that he who is beloved could enjoy a longer life. Now we two, of one mind, shall die in {the extinction of} one life."

{Thus} he said, and, with his mind {but} ill at ease, he returned to the same reflection, and disturbed the water with his tears; and the form was rendered defaced by the moving of the stream; when he saw it {beginning} to disappear, he cried aloud, "Whither dost thou fly? Stay, I beseech thee! and do not in thy cruelty abandon thy lover; let it be allowed me to behold that which I may not touch, and to give nourishment to my wretched frenzy." And, while he was grieving, he tore his garment from the upper border, and beat his naked breast with his palms, white as marble. His breast, when struck, received a little redness, no otherwise than as apples are wont, which are partly white {and} partly red; or as a grape, not yet ripe, in the parti-colored cl.u.s.ters, is wont to a.s.sume a purple tint. Soon as he beheld this again in the water, when clear, he could not endure it any longer; but, as yellow wax with the fire, or the h.o.a.r frost of the morning, is wont to waste away with the warmth of the sun, so he, consumed by love, pined away, and wasted by degrees with a hidden flame. And now, no longer was his complexion of white mixed with red; neither his vigor nor his strength, nor {the points} which had charmed when seen so lately, nor {even} his body, which formerly Echo had been in love with, now remained. Yet, when she saw these things, although angry, and mindful {of his usage of her}, she was grieved, and, as often as the unhappy youth said, "Alas!" she repeated, "Alas!" with re-echoing voice; and when he struck his arms with his hands, she, too, returned the like sound of a blow.

His last accents, as he looked into the water, as usual, were these: "Ah, youth, beloved in vain!" and the spot returned just as many words; and after he had said, "Farewell!" Echo, too, said, "Farewell!" He laid down his wearied head upon the green gra.s.s, {when} night closed the eyes that admired the beauty of their master; and even then, after he had been received into the infernal abodes, he used to look at himself in the Stygian waters. His Naiad sisters lamented him, and laid their hair,[77] cut off, over their brother; the Dryads, too, lamented him, {and} Echo resounded to their lamentations. And now they were preparing the funeral pile, and the shaken torches, and the bier. The body was nowhere {to be found}. Instead of his body, they found a yellow flower, with white leaves encompa.s.sing it in the middle.

[Footnote 74: _Rhamnusia._--Ver. 406. Nemesis, the G.o.ddess of Retribution, and the avenger of crime, was the daughter of Jupiter. She had a famous temple at Rhamnus, one of the 'pagi,' or boroughs of Athens. Her statue was there, carved by Phidias out of the marble which the Persians brought into Greece for the purpose of making a statue of Victory out of it, and which was thus appropriately devoted to the G.o.ddess of Retribution. This statue wore a crown, and had wings, and holding a spear of ash in the right hand, it was seated on a stag.]

[Footnote 75: _Parian marble._--Ver. 419. Paros was an island in the aegean sea, one of the Cyclades; it was famous for the valuable quality of its marble, which was especially used for the purpose of making statues of the G.o.ds.]