The Metamorphoses of Ovid Part 3

All shouted their a.s.sent aloud, and with ardent zeal they called for vengeance on one who dared such {crimes}. Thus, when an impious band[43]

{madly} raged to extinguish the Roman name in the blood of Caesar, the human race was astonished with sudden terror at ruin so universal, and the whole earth shook with horror. Nor was the affectionate regard, Augustus, of thy subjects less grateful to thee, than that was to Jupiter. Who, after he had, by means of his voice and his hand, suppressed their murmurs, all of them kept silence. Soon as the clamor had ceased, checked by the authority of their ruler, Jupiter again broke silence in these words:

"He, indeed, (dismiss your cares) has suffered {dire} punishment; but what was the offence and what the retribution, I will inform you. The report of the iniquity of the age had reached my ears; wis.h.i.+ng to find this not to be the truth, I descended from the top of Olympus, and, a G.o.d in a human shape, I surveyed the earth. 'Twere an endless task to enumerate how great an amount of guilt was everywhere discovered; the report itself was below the truth."

[Footnote 37: _There is a way on high._--Ver. 168. The Poet here gives a description of the court of heaven; and supposing the galaxy, or Milky Way, to be the great road to the palace of Jupiter, places the habitations of the G.o.ds on each side of it, and adjoining the palace itself. The mythologists also invented a story, that the Milky Way was a track left in the heavens by the milk of Juno flowing from the mouth of Hercules, when suckled by her. Aristotle, however, suspected what has been since confirmed by the investigations of modern science, that it was formed by the light of innumerable stars.]

[Footnote 38: _The enn.o.bled Deities._--Ver. 172. These were the superior Deities, who formed the privy councillors of Jupiter, and were called 'Di majorum gentium,' or, 'Di consentes.' Reckoning Jupiter as one, they were twelve in number, and are enumerated by Ennius in two limping hexameter lines:--

'Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars, Mercurius, Jovis, Neptunus, Vulca.n.u.s, Apollo.']

[Footnote 39: _The G.o.ds of lower rank._--Ver. 173. These were the 'Dii minorum gentium,' or inferior Deities.]

[Footnote 40: _Shook the awful locks._--Ver. 179. This awful nod of Jupiter, the sanction by which he confirms his decrees, is an idea taken from Homer; by whom it is so vividly depicted at the end of the first book of the Iliad, that Phidias, in his statue of that G.o.d, admired for the awful majesty of its looks, is said to have derived his conception of the features from that description.

Virgil has the same idea in the aeneid, book x; 'Annuit, et totum metu tremefecit Olympum.']

[Footnote 41: _Nereus._--Ver. 187. He was one of the most ancient of the Deities of the sea, and was the son of Ocea.n.u.s and Tethys.]

[Footnote 42: _The Nymphs._--Ver. 192. The terrestrial Nymphs were the Dryads and Hamadryads, who haunting the woods, and the duration of their existence depending upon the life of particular trees, derived their name from the Greek word d???, 'an oak.' The Oreades were nymphs who frequented the mountains, while the Napeae lived in the groves and valleys. There were also Nymphs of the sea and of the rivers; of which, the Nereids were so called from their father Nereus, and the Oceanitides, from Ocea.n.u.s. There were also the Naiads, or nymphs of the fountains, and many others.]

[Footnote 43: _Thus when an impious band._--Ver. 200. It is a matter of doubt whether he here refers to the conspiracies of Brutus and Ca.s.sius against Julius Caesar, or whether to that against Augustus, which is mentioned by Suetonius, in the nineteenth chapter of his History. As Augustus survived the latter conspiracy, and the parallel is thereby rendered more complete, probably this is the circ.u.mstance here alluded to.]

EXPLANATION.

It is to be presumed, that Ovid here follows the prevailing tradition of his time; and it is surprising how closely that tradition adheres to the words of Scripture, relative to the determination of the Almighty to punish the earth by a deluge, as disclosed in the sixth chapter of Genesis. The Poet tells us, that the King of heaven calls the G.o.ds to a grand council, to deliberate upon the punishment of mankind, in retribution for their wickedness. The words of Scripture are, "And G.o.d saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, 'I will destroy man, whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air: for it repenteth me that I have made them.'" --Genesis, ch. vi. ver. 5, 6, 7.

Tradition seems to have faithfully carried down the fact, that, amid this universal corruption, there was still at least one just man, and here it attributes to Deucalion the merit that belonged to Noah.

FABLE VII. [I.216-243]

Lycaon, king of Arcadia, in order to discover if it is Jupiter himself who has come to lodge in his palace, orders the body of an hostage, who had been sent to him, to be dressed and served up at a feast. The G.o.d, as a punishment, changes him into a wolf.

I had {now} pa.s.sed Maenalus, to be dreaded for its dens of beasts of prey, and the pine-groves of cold Lycaeus, together with Cyllene.[44]

After this, I entered the realms and the inhospitable abode of the Arcadian tyrant, just as the late twilight was bringing on the night.

I gave a signal that a G.o.d had come, and the people commenced to pay their adorations. In the first place, Lycaon derided their pious supplications. Afterwards, he said, I will make trial, by a plain proof, whether this is a G.o.d, or whether he is a mortal; nor shall the truth remain a matter of doubt. He then makes preparations to destroy me, when sunk in sleep, by an unexpected death; this mode of testing the truth pleases him. And not content with that, with the sword he cuts the throat of an hostage that had been sent from the nation of the Molossians,[45] and then softens part of the quivering limbs, in boiling water, and part he roasts with fire placed beneath. Soon as he had placed these on the table, I, with avenging flames, overthrew the house upon the household G.o.ds,[46] worthy of their master. Alarmed, he himself takes to flight, and having reached the solitude of the country, he howls aloud, and in vain attempts to speak; his mouth gathers rage from himself, and through its {usual} desire for slaughter, it is directed against the sheep, and even still delights in blood. His garments are changed into hair, his arms into legs; he becomes a wolf, and he still retains vestiges of his ancient form. His h.o.a.riness is still the same, the same violence {appears} in his features; his eyes are bright as before; {he is still} the same image of ferocity.

"Thus fell one house; but one house alone did not deserve to perish; wherever the earth extends, the savage Erinnys[47] reigns. You would suppose that men had conspired to be wicked; let all men speedily feel that vengeance which they deserve to endure, for such is my determination."

[Footnote 44: _Together with Cyllene._--Ver. 217. Cyllenus, or Cyllene, was a mountain of Arcadia, sacred to Mercury, who was hence called by the poets Cyllenius. Lycaeus was also a mountain of Arcadia, sacred to Pan, and was covered with groves of pine-trees.]

[Footnote 45: _Of the Molossians._--Ver. 226. The Molossi were a people of Epirus, on the eastern side of the Ambracian gulf. Ovid here commits a slight anachronism, as the name was derived from Molossus, the son of Neoptolemus, long after the time of Lycaon.

Besides, as Burmann observes, who could believe that 'wars could be waged at such an early period between nations so distant as the Molossi and the Arcadians?' Apollodorus says, that it was a child of the same country, whose flesh Lycaon set before Jupiter. Other writers say that it was Nyctimus, the son of Lycaon, or Arcas, his grandson, that was slain by him.]

[Footnote 46: _Upon the household G.o.ds._--Ver. 231. This punishment was awarded to the Penates, or household G.o.ds of Lycaon, for taking such a miscreant under their protection.]

[Footnote 47: _The savage Erinnys._--Ver. 241. Erinnys was a general name given to the Furies by the Greeks. They were three in number--Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera. These were so called, either from the Greek ???? ???, 'the discord of the mind,' or from ?? t? ??a ?a?e??, 'their inhabiting the earth,' watching the actions of men.]

EXPLANATION.

If Ovid is not here committing an anachronism, and making Jupiter, before the deluge, relate the story of a historical personage, who existed long after it, the origin of the story of Lycaon must be sought in the antediluvian narrative. It is just possible that the guilty Cain may have been the original of Lycaon. The names are not very dissimilar: they are each mentioned as the first murderer; and the fact, that Cain murdered Abel at the moment when he was offering sacrifice to the Almighty, may have given rise to the tradition that Lycaon had set human flesh before the king of heaven. The Scripture, too, tells us, that Cain was personally called to account by the Almighty for his deed of blood.

The punishment here inflicted on Lycaon was not very dissimilar to that with which Cain was visited. Cain was sentenced to be a fugitive and a wanderer on the face of the earth; and such is essentially the character of the wolf, shunned by both men and animals. Of course, there are many points to which it is not possible to extend the parallel. Some of the ancient writers tell us, that there were two Lycaons, the first of whom was the son of Phoroneus, who reigned in Arcadia about the time of the patriarch Jacob; and the second, who succeeded him, polluted the festivals of the G.o.ds by the sacrifice of the human race; for, having erected an altar to Jupiter, at the city of Lycosura, he slew human victims on it, whence arose the story related by the Poet. This solution is given by Pausanias, in his Arcadica. We are also told by that historian, and by Suidas, that Lycaon was, notwithstanding, a virtuous prince, the benefactor of his people, and the promoter of improvement.

FABLE VIII. [I.244-312]

Jupiter, not thinking the punishment of Lycaon sufficient to strike terror into the rest of mankind, resolves, on account of the universal corruption, to extirpate them by a universal deluge.

Some, by their words approve the speech of Jupiter, and give spur to him, {indignantly} exclaiming; others, by {silent} a.s.sent fulfil their parts. Yet the {entire} destruction of the human race is a cause of grief to them all, and they inquire what is to be the form of the earth in future, when dest.i.tute of mankind? who is to place frankincense[48]

on the altars? and whether it is his design to give up the nations for a prey to the wild beasts? The ruler of the G.o.ds forbids them making these enquiries, to be alarmed (for that the rest should be his care); and he promises, {that} from a wondrous source {he will raise} a generation unlike the preceding race.

And now he was about to scatter his thunder over all lands; but he was afraid lest, perchance, the sacred aether might catch fire, from so many flames, and the extended sky might become inflamed. He remembers, too, that it was in the {decrees of} Fate, that a time should come,[49] at which the sea, the earth, and the palace of heaven, seized {by the flames}, should be burned, and the laboriously-wrought fabric of the universe should be in danger of peris.h.i.+ng. The weapons forged by the hands of the Cyclops are laid aside; a different {mode of} punishment pleases him: to destroy mankind beneath the waves, and to let loose the rains from the whole tract of Heaven. At once he shuts the North Wind in the caverns of aeolus, and {all} those blasts which dispel the clouds drawn over {the Earth}; and {then} he sends forth the South Wind. With soaking wings the South Wind flies abroad, having his terrible face covered with pitchy darkness; his beard {is} loaded with showers, the water streams down from his h.o.a.ry locks, clouds gather upon his forehead, his wings and the folds of his robe[50] drip with wet; and, as with his broad hand he squeezes the hanging clouds, a crash arises, and thence showers are poured in torrents from the sky. Iris,[51] the messenger of Juno, clothed in various colors, collects the waters, and bears a supply {upwards} to the clouds.

The standing corn is beaten down, and the expectations of the husbandman, {now} lamented by him, are ruined, and the labors of a long year prematurely perish. Nor is the wrath of Jove satisfied with his own heaven; but {Neptune}, his azure brother, aids him with his auxiliary waves. He calls together the rivers, which, soon as they had entered the abode of their ruler, he says, "I must not now employ a lengthened exhortation; pour forth {all} your might, so the occasion requires. Open your abodes, and, {each} obstacle removed, give full rein to your streams." {Thus} he commanded; they return, and open the mouths of their fountains,[52] and roll on into the ocean with un.o.bstructed course. He himself struck the Earth with his trident, {on which} it shook, and with a tremor laid open the sources of its waters. The rivers, breaking out, rush through the open plains, and bear away, together with the standing corn, the groves, flocks, men, houses, and temples, together with their sacred {utensils}. If any house remained, and, not thrown down, was able to resist ruin so vast, yet the waves, {rising} aloft, covered the roof of that {house}, and the towers tottered, overwhelmed beneath the stream. And now sea and land had no mark of distinction; everything now was ocean; and to that ocean sh.o.r.es were wanting. One man takes possession of a hill, another sits in a curved boat, and plies the oars there where he had lately ploughed; another sails over the standing corn, or the roof of his country-house under water; another catches a fish on the top of an elm-tree. An anchor (if chance so directs) is fastened in a green meadow, or the curving keels come in contact with the vineyards, {now} below them; and where of late the slender goats had cropped the gra.s.s, there unsightly sea-calves are now reposing their bodies.

The Nereids wonder at the groves, the cities, and the houses under water; dolphins get into the woods, and run against the lofty branches, and beat against the tossed oaks. The wolf swims[53] among the sheep; the wave carries along the tawny lions; the wave carries along the tigers. Neither does the powers of his lightning-shock avail the wild boar, nor his swift legs the stag, {now} borne away. The wandering bird, too, having long sought for land, where it may be allowed to light, its wings failing, falls down into the sea. The boundless range of the sea had overwhelmed the hills, and the stranger waves beat against the heights of the mountains. The greatest part is carried off by the water: those whom the water spares, long fastings overcome, through scantiness of food.

[Footnote 48: _To place frankincense._--Ver. 249. In those early ages, corn or wheaten flour, was the customary offering to the Deities, and not frankincense, which was introduced among the luxuries of more refined times. Ovid is consequently guilty of an anachronism here.]

[Footnote 49: _That a time should come._--Ver. 256. Lactantius informs us that the Sibyls predicted that the world should perish by fire. Seneca also, in his consolation to Marcia, and in his Quaestiones Naturales, mentions the same destined termination of the present state of the universe. It was a doctrine of the Stoic philosophers, that the stars were nurtured with moisture, and that on the cessation of this nourishment the conflagration of the universe would ensue.]

[Footnote 50: _The folds of his robe._--Ver. 267. 'Rorant pennae sinusque,' is quaintly translated by Clarke, 'his wings and the plaits of his coat drop.']

[Footnote 51: _Iris._--Ver. 271. The mention of Iris, the G.o.ddess of the rainbow, in connection with the flood of Deucalion, cannot fail to remind us of the 'bow set in the cloud, for a token of the covenant between G.o.d and the earth,' on the termination of Noah's flood.--Gen. x. 14.]

[Footnote 52: _The mouths of their fountains._--Ver. 281. The expressions in this line and in line 283, are not unlike the words of the 11th verse of the 7th chapter of Genesis, 'The fountains of the great deep were broken up.']

[Footnote 53: _The wolf swims._--Ver. 304. One commentator remarks here, that there was nothing very wonderful in a dead wolf swimming among the sheep without devouring them. Seneca is, however, too severe upon our author in saying that he is trifling here, in troubling himself on so serious an occasion with what sheep and wolves are doing: for he gravely means to say, that the beasts of prey are terrified to that degree that they forget their carnivorous propensities.]

EXPLANATION.

Pausanias makes mention of five deluges. The two most celebrated happened in the time of Ogyges, and in that of Deucalion. Of the last Ovid here speaks; and though that deluge was generally said to have overflowed Thessaly only, he has evidently adopted in his narrative the tradition of the universal deluge, which all nations seem to have preserved. He says, that the sea joined its waters to those falling from heaven. The words of Scripture are (Genesis, vii. 11), 'All the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.' In speaking of the top of Parna.s.sus alone being left uncovered, the tradition here followed by Ovid probably referred to Mount Ararat, where Noah's ark rested. Noah and his family are represented by Deucalion and Pyrrha. Both Noah and Deucalion were saved for their virtuous conduct; when Noah went out of the ark, he offered solemn sacrifices to G.o.d; and Pausanias tells us that Deucalion, when saved, raised an altar to Jupiter the Liberator. The Poet tells us, that Deucalion's deluge was to be the last: G.o.d promised the same thing to Noah. Josephus, in his Antiquities, Book i., tells us, that the history of the universal deluge was written by Nicolas of Damascus, Berosus, Mnaseas, and other ancient writers, from whom the Greeks and Romans received it.

FABLE IX. [I.313-366]

Neptune appeases the angry waves; and he commands Triton to sound his sh.e.l.l, that the sea may retire within its sh.o.r.es, and the rivers within their banks. Deucalion and Pyrrha are the only persons saved from the deluge.

Phocis separates the Aonian[54] from the Actaean region; a fruitful land while it was a land; but at that time {it had become} a part of the sea, and a wide plain of sudden waters. There a lofty mountain rises towards the stars, with two tops, by name Parna.s.sus,[55] and advances beyond the clouds with its summit. When here Deucalion (for the sea had covered all other places), borne in a little s.h.i.+p, with the partner of his couch, {first} rested; they adored the Corycian Nymphs,[56] and the Deities of the mountain, and the prophetic Themis,[57] who at that time used to give out oracular responses. No man was there more upright than he, nor a greater lover of justice, nor was any woman more regardful of the Deities than she.

Soon as Jupiter {beholds} the world overflowed by liquid waters, and sees that but one man remains out of so many thousands of late, and sees that but one woman remains out of so many thousands of late, both guiltless, and both wors.h.i.+ppers of the G.o.ds, he disperses the clouds; and the showers being removed by the North Wind, he both lays open the earth to the heavens, and the heavens to the earth. The rage, too, of the sea does not continue; and his three-forked trident {now} laid aside, the ruler of the deep a.s.suages the waters, and calls upon the azure Triton standing above the deep, and having his shoulders covered with the native purple sh.e.l.ls;[58] and he bids him blow[59] his resounding trumpet, and, the signal being given, to call back the waves and the streams. The hollow-wreathed trumpet[60] is taken up by him, which grows to a {great} width from its lowest twist; the trumpet, which, soon as it receives the air in the middle of the sea, fills with its notes the sh.o.r.es lying under either sun. Then, too, as soon as it touched the lips of the G.o.d dripping with his wet beard, and being blown, sounded the bidden retreat;[61] it was heard by all the waters both of earth and sea, and stopped all those waters by which it was heard. Now the sea[62] {again} has a sh.o.r.e; their channels receive the full rivers; the rivers subside; the hills are seen to come forth. The ground rises, places increase {in extent} as the waters decrease; and after a length of time, the woods show their naked tops, and retain the mud left upon their branches.

The world was restored; which when Deucalion beheld to be empty, and how the desolate Earth kept a profound silence, he thus addressed Pyrrha, with tears bursting forth:--"O sister, O wife, O thou, the only woman surviving, whom a common origin,[63] and a kindred descent, and afterwards the marriage tie has united to me, and {whom} now dangers themselves unite to me; we two are the whole people of the earth, whatever {both} the East and the West behold; of all the rest, the sea has taken possession. And even now there is no certain a.s.surance of our lives; even yet do the clouds terrify my mind. What would now have been thy feelings, if without me thou hadst been rescued from destruction, O thou deserving of compa.s.sion? In what manner couldst thou have been able alone to support {this} terror? With whom for a consoler, {to endure} these sorrows? For I, believe me, my wife, if the sea had only carried thee off, should have followed thee, and the sea should have carried me off as well. Oh that I could replace the people {that are lost} by the arts of my father,[64] and infuse the soul into the moulded earth! Now the mortal race exists in us two {alone}. Thus it has seemed good to the G.o.ds, and we remain as {mere} samples of mankind."

[Footnote 54: _The Aonian._--Ver. 313. Aonia was a mountainous region of Botia; and Actaea was an ancient name of Attica, from ??t?, the sea-sh.o.r.e.]