The Metamorphoses of Ovid Part 5

"O Nymph, daughter of Peneus, stay, I entreat thee! I am not an enemy following thee. In this way the lamb {flies} from the wolf; thus the deer {flies} from the lion; thus the dove flies from the eagle with trembling wing; {in this way} each {creature flies from} its enemy: love is the cause of my following thee. Ah! wretched me! shouldst thou fall on thy face, or should the brambles tear thy legs, that deserve not to be injured, and should I prove the cause of pain to thee. The places are rugged, through which thou art {thus} hastening; run more leisurely, I entreat thee, and restrain thy flight; I myself will follow more leisurely. And yet, inquire whom thou dost please; I am not an inhabitant of the mountains, I am not a shepherd; I am not here, in rude guise,[77] watching the herds or the flocks. Thou knowest not, rash girl, thou knowest not from whom thou art flying, and therefore it is that thou dost fly. The Delphian land, Claros and Tenedos,[78] and the Pataraean palace pays service to me. Jupiter is my sire; by me, what shall be, what has been, and what is, is disclosed; through me, songs harmonize with the strings. My own {arrow}, indeed, is unerring; yet one there is still more unerring than my own, which has made this wound in my heart, {before} unscathed. The healing art is my discovery, and throughout the world I am honored as the bearer of help, and the properties of simples are[79] subjected to me. Ah, wretched me![80] that love is not to be cured by any herbs; and that those arts which afford relief to all, are of no avail for their master."

The daughter of Peneus flies from him, about to say still more, with timid step, and together with him she leaves his unfinished address.

Then, too, she appeared lovely; the winds exposed her form to view, and the gusts meeting her fluttered about her garments, as they came in contact, and the light breeze spread behind her her careless locks; and {thus}, by her flight, was her beauty increased. But the youthful G.o.d[81] has not patience any longer to waste his blandishments; and as love urges him on, he follows her steps with hastening pace. As when the greyhound[82] has seen the hare in the open field, and the one by {the speed of} his legs pursues his prey, the other {seeks} her safety; the one is like as if just about to fasten {on the other}, and now, even now, hopes to catch her, and with nose outstretched plies upon the footsteps {of the hare}. The other is in doubt whether she is caught {already}, and is delivered from his very bite, and leaves behind the mouth {just} touching her. {And} so is the G.o.d, and {so} is the virgin;[83] he swift with hopes, she with fear.

Yet he that follows, aided by the wings of love, is the swifter, and denies her {any} rest; and is {now} just at her back as she flies, and is breathing upon her hair scattered upon her neck. Her strength being {now} spent, she grows pale, and being quite faint, with the fatigue of so swift a flight, looking upon the waters of Peneus, she says, "Give me, my father, thy aid, if you rivers have divine power. Oh Earth, either yawn {to swallow me}, or by changing it, destroy that form, by which I have pleased too much, and which causes me to be injured."

Hardly had she ended her prayer, {when} a heavy torpor seizes her limbs; {and} her soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s are covered with a thin bark. Her hair grows into green leaves, her arms into branches; her feet, the moment before so swift, adhere by sluggish roots; a {leafy} canopy overspreads her features; her elegance alone[84] remains in her. This, too, Phbus admires, and placing his right hand upon the stock, he perceives that the breast still throbs beneath the new bark; and {then}, embracing the branches as though limbs in his arms, he gives kisses to the wood, {and} yet the wood shrinks from his kisses. To her the G.o.d said: "But since thou canst not be my wife, at least thou shalt be my tree; my hair, my lyre,[85] my quiver shall always have thee, oh laurel! Thou shalt be presented to the Latian chieftains, when the joyous voice of the soldiers shall sing the song of triumph,[86] and the long procession shall resort to the Capitol. Thou, the same, shalt stand as a most faithful guardian at the gate-posts of Augustus before his doors,[87]

and shalt protect the oak placed in the centre; and as my head is {ever} youthful with unshorn locks, do thou, too, always wear the lasting honors of thy foliage."

Paean had ended {his speech}; the laurel nodded a.s.sent with its new-made boughs, and seemed to shake its top just like a head.

[Footnote 73: _The Delian G.o.d._--Ver. 454. Apollo is so called, from having been born in the Isle of Delos, in the aegean Sea. The Peneus was a river of Thessaly.]

[Footnote 74: _A fillet tied together._--Ver. 477. The 'vitta' was a band encircling the head, and served to confine the tresses of the hair. It was worn by maidens and by married women also; but the 'vitta' a.s.sumed on the day of marriage was of a different form from that used by virgins. It was not worn by women of light character, or even by the 'libertinae,' or female slaves who had been liberated; so that it was not only deemed an emblem of chast.i.ty, but of freedom also. It was of various colors: white and purple are mentioned. In the later ages the 'vitta' was sometimes set with pearls.]

[Footnote 75: _Hymen._--Ver. 480. Hymen, or Hymenaeus, was one of the G.o.ds of Marriage; hence the name 'Hymen' was given to the union of two persons in marriage.]

[Footnote 76: _The nuptial torch._--Ver. 483. Plutarch tells us, that it was the custom in the bridal procession to carry five torches before the bride, on her way to the house of her husband.

Among the Romans, the nuptial torch was lighted at the parental hearth of the bride, and was borne before her by a boy, whose parents were alive. The torch was also used at funerals, for the purpose of lighting the pile, and because funerals were often nocturnal ceremonies. Hence the expression of Propertius,-- 'Vivimus inter utramque facem,' 'We are living between the two torches.' Originally, the 'taedae' seem to have been slips or lengths of resinous pine wood: while the 'fax' was formed of a bundle of wooden staves, either bound by a rope drawn round them in a spiral form, or surrounded by circular bands at equal distances. They were used by travellers and others, who were forced to be abroad after sunset; whence the reference in line 493 to the hedge ignited through the carelessness of the traveller, who has thrown his torch there on the approach of morning.]

[Footnote 77: _Here in rude guise._--Ver. 514. 'Non hic armenta gregesve Horridus observo' is quaintly translated by Clarke, 'I do not here in a rude pickle watch herds or flocks.']

[Footnote 78: _Claros and Tenedos._--Ver. 516. Claros was a city of Ionia, famed for a temple and oracle of Apollo, and near which there was a mountain and a grove sacred to him. There was an island in the Myrtoan Sea of that name, to which some suppose that reference is here made. Tenedos was an island of the aegean Sea, in the neighborhood of Troy. Patara was a city of Lycia, where Apollo gave oracular responses during six months of the year. It was from Patara that St. Paul took s.h.i.+p for Phnicia, Acts, xxi. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 79: _The properties of simples._--Ver. 522. The first cultivators of the medical art pretended to nothing beyond an acquaintance with the medicinal qualities of herbs and simples; it is not improbable that inasmuch as the vegetable world is nourished and raised to the surface of the earth in a great degree by the heat of the sun, a ground was thereby afforded for allegorically saying that Apollo, or the Sun, was the discoverer of the healing art.]

[Footnote 80: _Ah! wretched me!_--Ver. 523. A similar expression occurs in the Heroides, v. 149, 'Me miseram, quod amor non est medicabilis herbis.']

[Footnote 81: _The youthful G.o.d._--Ver. 531. Apollo was always represented as a youth, and was supposed never to grow old. The Scholiast on the Thebais of Statius, b. i., v. 694, says, 'The reason is, because Apollo is the Sun; and because the Sun is fire, which never grows old.' Perhaps the youthfulness of the Deity is here mentioned, to account for his ardent pursuit of the flying damsel.]

[Footnote 82: _As when the greyhound._--Ver. 533. The comparison here of the flight of Apollo after Daphne, to that of the greyhound after the hare, is considered to be very beautifully drawn, and to give an admirable ill.u.s.tration of the eagerness with which the G.o.d pursues on the one hand, and the anxiety with which the Nymph endeavors to escape on the other. Pope, in his Windsor Forest, has evidently imitated this pa.s.sage, where he describes the Nymph Lodona pursued by Pan, and transformed into a river. His words are--

'Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly, When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky; Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves, When through the clouds he drives the trembling doves; As from the G.o.d she flew with furious pace, Or as the G.o.d more furious urged the chase.

Now fainting, sinking, pale, the nymph appears; Now close behind, his sounding steps she hears; And now his shadow reach'd her as she run, His shadow lengthened by the setting sun; And now his shorter breath, with sultry air, Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.'

The greyhound was probably called 'canis Gallicus,' from having been originally introduced into Italy from Gaul. 'Vertagus' was their Gallic name, which we find used by Martial, and Gratian in his Cynegeticon, ver. 203.]

[Footnote 83: _And so is the virgin._--Ver. 539. 'Sic Deus et virgo est' is translated by Clarke, 'So is the G.o.d and the young lady;' indeed, he mostly translates 'virgo,' 'young lady.']

[Footnote 84: _Her elegance alone._--Ver. 552. Clarke translates 'Remanet nitor unus in illa,' 'her neatness alone continues in her.']

[Footnote 85: _My lyre._--Ver. 559. The players of the cithara, the instrument of Apollo, were crowned with laurel, in the scenic representations of the stage.]

[Footnote 86: _The song of triumph._--Ver. 560. The Poet here pays a compliment to Augustus and the Roman people. The laurel was the emblem of victory among the Romans. On such occasions the 'fasces'

of the general and the spears and javelins of the soldiers were wreathed with laurel; and after the time of Julius Caesar, the Roman general, when triumphing, wore a laurel wreath on his head, and held a branch of laurel in his hand.]

[Footnote 87: _Before his doors._--Ver. 562. He here alludes to the civic crown of oak leaves which, by order of the Senate, was placed before the gate of the Palatium, where Augustus Caesar resided, with branches of laurel on either side of it.]

EXPLANATION.

To explain this Fable, it must be laid down as a principle that there were originally many Jupiters, and Apollos, and Mercuries, whose intrigues being, in lapse of time, attributed to but one individual, that fact accounts for the great number of children which claimed those respective G.o.ds for their fathers.

Some prince probably, for whom his love of learning had acquired the name of Apollo, falling in love with Daphne, pursued her to the brink of the river Peneus, into which, being accidentally precipitated, she perished in her lover's sight. Some laurels growing near the spot, perhaps gave rise to the story of her transformation; or possibly the etymology of the word 'Daphne,' which in Greek signifies a laurel, was the foundation of the Fable. Pausanias, however, in his Arcadia, gives another version of this story. He says that Leucippus, son of nomaus, king of Pisa, falling in love with Daphne, disguised himself in female apparel, and devoted himself to her service. He soon procured her friends.h.i.+p and confidence; but Apollo, who was his rival, having discovered his fraud, one day redoubled the heat of the sun. Daphne and her companions going to bathe, obliged Leucippus to follow their example, on which, having discovered his stratagem, they killed him with the arrows which they carried for the purposes of hunting.

Diodorus Siculus tells us that Daphne was the same with Manto, the daughter of Tiresias, who was banished to Delphi, where she delivered oracles, of the language of which Homer availed himself in the composition of his poems. The inhabitants of Antioch a.s.serted that the adventure here narrated happened in the suburbs of their city, which thence derived its name of Daphne.

FABLE XIII. [I.568-600]

Jupiter, pursuing Io, the daughter of Inachus, covers the earth with darkness, and ravishes the Nymph.

There is a grove of Haemonia,[88] which a wood, placed on a craggy rock, encloses on every side. They call it Tempe;[89] through this the river Peneus, flowing from the bottom of {mount} Pindus,[90] rolls along with its foaming waves, and in its mighty fall, gathers clouds that scatter {a vapor like} thin smoke,[91] and with its spray besprinkles the tops of the woods, and wearies places, far from near to it, with its noise.

This is the home, this the abode, these are the retreats of the great river; residing here in a cavern formed by rocks, he gives law to the waters, and to the Nymphs that inhabit those waters. The rivers of that country first repair thither, not knowing whether they should congratulate, or whether console the parent; the poplar-bearing Spercheus,[92] and the restless Enipeus,[93] the aged Apida.n.u.s,[94] the gentle Amphrysus,[95] and aeas,[96] and, soon after, the other rivers, which, as their current leads them, carry down into the sea their waves, wearied by wanderings. Inachus[97] alone is absent, and, hidden in his deepest cavern, increases his waters with his tears, and in extreme wretchedness bewails his daughter Io as lost; he knows not whether she {now} enjoys life, or whether she is among the shades below; but her, whom he does not find anywhere, he believes to be nowhere, and in his mind he dreads the worst.

Jupiter had seen Io as she was returning from her father's stream, and had said, "O maid, worthy of Jove, and destined to make I know not whom happy in thy marriage, repair to the shades of this lofty grove (and he pointed at the shade of the grove) while it is warm, and {while} the Sun is at his height, in the midst of his course. But if thou art afraid to enter the lonely abodes of the wild beasts alone, thou shalt enter the recesses of the groves, safe under the protection of a G.o.d, and {that} a G.o.d of no common sort; but {with me}, who hold the sceptre of heaven in my powerful hand; {me}, who hurl the wandering lightnings--Do not fly from me;" for {now} she was flying. And now she had left behind the pastures of Lerna,[98] and the Lircaean plains planted with trees, when the G.o.d covered the earth far and wide with darkness overspreading, and arrested her flight, and forced her modesty.

[Footnote 88: _A grove of Haemonia._--Ver. 568. Haemonia was an ancient name of Thessaly, so called from its king, Haemon, a son of Pelasgus, and father of Thessalus, from which it received its later name.]

[Footnote 89: _Call it Tempe._--Ver. 569. Tempe was a valley of Thessaly, proverbial for its pleasantness and the beauty of its scenery. The river Peneus ran through it, but not with the violence which Ovid here depicts; for aelian tells us that it runs with a gentle sluggish stream, more like oil than water.]

[Footnote 90: _Mount Pindus._--Ver. 570. Pindus was a mountain situate on the confines of Thessaly.]

[Footnote 91: _Like thin smoke._--Ver. 571. He speaks of the spray, which in the fineness of its particles resembles smoke.]

[Footnote 92: _Spercheus._--Ver. 579. The Spercheus was a rapid stream, flowing at the foot of Mount aeta into the Malian Gulf, and on whose banks many poplars grew.]

[Footnote 93: _Enipeus._--Ver. 579. The Enipeus rises in Mount Othrys, and runs through Thessaly. Virgil (Georgics, iv. 468) calls it 'Altus Enipeus,' the deep Enipeus.]

[Footnote 94: _Apida.n.u.s._--Ver. 580. The Apida.n.u.s, receiving the stream of the Enipeus at Pharsalia, flows into the Peneus. It is supposed by some commentators to be here called 'senex,' aged, from the slowness of its tide. But where it unites the Enipeus it flows with violence, so that it is probably called 'senex,' as having been known and celebrated by the poets from of old.]

[Footnote 95: _Amphrysus._--Ver. 580. This river ran through that part of Thessaly known by the name of Phthiotis.]

[Footnote 96: _aeas._--Ver. 580. Pliny the Elder (Book iii, ch. 23) calls this river Aous. It was a small limpid stream, running through Epirus and Thessaly, and discharging itself into the Ionian sea.]

[Footnote 97: _Inachus._--Ver. 583. This was a river of Argolis, now known as the Naio. It took its rise either in Lycaeus or Artemisium, mountains of Arcadia. Stephens, however, thinks that Lycaeus was a mountain of Argolis.]

[Footnote 98: _Lerna._--Ver. 597. This was a swampy spot on the Argive territory, where the poets say that the dragon with seven heads, called Hydra, which was slain by Hercules, had made his haunt. It is not improbable that the pestilential vapors of this spot were got rid of by means of its being drained under the superintendence of Hercules, on which fact the story was founded.

Some commentators, however, suppose the Lerna to have been a flowing stream.]

EXPLANATION.

The Greeks frequently embellished their mythology with narratives of Phnician or Egyptian origin. The story of Io probably came from Egypt. Isis was one of the chief divinities of that country, and her wors.h.i.+p naturally pa.s.sed, with their colonies, into foreign countries.

Greece received it when Inachus went to settle there, and in lapse of time Isis, under the name of Io, was supposed to have been his daughter, and the fable was invented which is here narrated by Ovid.

The Greek authors, Apollodorus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Pausanias, say that Io was the daughter of Inachus, the first king of Argos; that Jupiter carried her away to Crete; and that by her he had a son named Epaphus, who went to reign in Egypt, whither his mother accompanied him. They also tell us that she married Apis, or Osiris, who, after his death, was numbered among the Deities of Egypt by the name of Serapis. From them we also learn that Juno, being actuated by jealousy, on the discovery of the intrigue, put Io under the care of her uncle Argus, a man of great vigilance, but that Jupiter having slain him, placed his mistress on board of a vessel which had the figure of a cow at its head; from which circ.u.mstance arose the story of the transformation of Io. The Greek writers also state, that the Bosphorus, a part of the aegean sea, derived its name from the pa.s.sage of Io in the shape of a cow.