The Metamorphoses of Ovid Part 8

[Footnote 16: _Haemus._--Ver. 219. This, which is now called the Balkan range, was a lofty chain of mountains running through Thrace. Orpheus, the son of agrus and Calliope, was there torn in pieces by the Maenades, or Baccha.n.a.lian women, whence the mountain obtained the epithet of 'agrian.']

[Footnote 17: _aetna._--Ver. 220. This is the volcanic mountain of Sicily; the flames caused by the fall of Phaeton, added to its own, caused them to be redoubled.]

[Footnote 18: _Eryx._--Ver. 221. This was a mountain of Sicily, now called San Juliano. On it, a magnificent temple was erected, in honor of Venus.]

[Footnote 19: _Cynthus._--Ver. 221. This was a mountain of Delos, on which Apollo and Diana were said to have been born.]

[Footnote 20: _Rhodope._--Ver. 222. It was a high mountain, capped with perpetual snows, in the northern part of Thrace.]

[Footnote 21: _Mimas._--Ver. 222. A mountain of Ionia, near the Ionian Sea. It was of very great height; whence Homer calls it ?????????.]

[Footnote 22: _Dindyma._--Ver. 223. This was a mountain of Phrygia, near Troy, sacred to Cybele, the mother of the G.o.ds.]

[Footnote 23: _Mycale._--Ver. 223. A mountain of Caria, opposite to the Isle of Samos.]

[Footnote 24: _Cithaeron._--Ver. 223. This was a mountain of Botia, famous for the orgies of Bacchus, there celebrated. In its neighborhood, Pentheus was torn to pieces by the Maenades, for slighting the wors.h.i.+p of Bacchus.]

[Footnote 25: _Caucasus._--Ver. 224. This was a mountain chain in Asia, between the Euxine and Caspian Seas.]

[Footnote 26: _Alps._--Ver. 226. This mountain range divides France from Italy.]

[Footnote 27: _Apennines._--Ver. 226. This range of mountains runs down the centre of Italy.]

[Footnote 28: _Their black hue._--Ver. 235. The notion that the blackness of the African tribes was produced by the heat of the sun, is borrowed by the Poet from Hesiod. Hyginus, too, says, 'the Indians, because, by the proximity of the fire, their blood was turned black by the heat thereof, became of black appearance themselves.' Notwithstanding the learned and minute investigations of physiologists on the subject, this question is still involved in considerable obscurity.]

[Footnote 29: _Libya._--Ver. 237. This was a region between Mauritania and Cyrene. The Greek writers, however, often use the word to signify the whole of Africa. Servius gives a trifling derivation for the name, in saying that Libya was so called, because ?e?pe? ? ?et??, 'it is without rain.']

[Footnote 30: _Dirce._--Ver. 239. Dirce was a celebrated fountain of Botia, into which it was said that Dirce, the wife of Lycus, king of Thebes, was transformed.]

[Footnote 31: _Amymone._--Ver. 240. It was a fountain of Argos, near Lerna, into which the Nymph, Amymone, the daughter of Lycus, king of the Argives, was said to have been transformed.]

[Footnote 32: _Ephyre._--Ver. 240. It was the most ancient name of Corinth, in the citadel of which, or the Acrocorinthus, was the spring Pyrene, of extreme brightness and purity and sacred to the Muses.]

[Footnote 33: _Tanais._--Ver. 242. This river, now the Don, after a long winding course, discharges itself into the 'Palus Maeotis,'

now the sea of 'Azof.']

[Footnote 34: _Cacus._--Ver. 243. This is a river of Mysia, here called 'Teuthrantian,' from Mount Teuthras, in its vicinity.]

[Footnote 35: _Ismenus._--Ver. 244. Ismenus was a river of Botia, that flowed past Thebes into the Euripus.]

[Footnote 36: _Erymanthus._--Ver. 245. This was a river of Arcadia, which, rising in a mountain of that name, fell into the Alpheus.]

[Footnote 37: _Xanthus._--Ver. 245. This was a river of Troy; here spoken of as destined to behold flames a second time, in the conflagration of that city.]

[Footnote 38: _Lycormas._--Ver. 245. This was a rapid river of aetolia, which was afterwards known by the name of Evenus.]

[Footnote 39: _Maeander._--Ver. 246. This was a river of Phrygia, flowing between Lydia and Caria; it was said to have 600 windings in its course.]

[Footnote 40: _Melas._--Ver. 247. This name was given to many rivers of Thrace, Thessaly, and Asia, on account of the darkness of the color of their waters; the name was derived from the Greek word ??a?, 'black.']

[Footnote 41: _Taenarian Eurotas._--Ver. 247. The Eurotas was a river of Laconia, which flowed under the walls of the city of Sparta, and discharged itself into the sea near the promontory of Taenarus, now called Cape Matapan. The Eurotas is now called 'Basilipotamo,' or 'king of streams.']

[Footnote 42: _Orontes._--Ver. 248. The Orontes was a river of Asia Minor, which flowed near Antioch.]

[Footnote 43: _Thermodon._--Ver. 249. This was a river of Cappadocia, near which the Amazons were said to dwell.]

[Footnote 44: _Ganges._--Ver. 249. This is one of the largest rivers in Asia, and discharges itself into the Persian Gulf; and not, as Gierig says, in his note on this pa.s.sage, in the Red Sea.]

[Footnote 45: _Phasis._--Ver. 249. This was a river of Colchis, falling into the Euxine Sea.]

[Footnote 46: _Ister._--Ver. 249. The Danube had that name from its source to the confines of Germany; and thence, in its course through Scythia to the sea, it was called by the name of 'Ister.']

[Footnote 47: _Alpheus._--Ver. 250. It was a river of Arcadia, in Peloponnesus.]

[Footnote 48: _Tagus._--Ver. 251. This was a river of Spain, which was said to bring down from the mountains great quant.i.ties of golden sand. The Poet here feigns this to be melted by the heat of the sun, and in that manner to be carried along by the current of the river.]

[Footnote 49: _Maeonian._--Ver. 252. Maeonia was so called from the river Maeon, and was another name of Lydia. The Caster, famous for its swans, flowed through Lydia.]

[Footnote 50: _Strymon._--Ver. 257. The Hebrus and the Strymon were rivers of Thrace. Ismarus was a mountain of that country, famous for its vines.]

[Footnote 51: _Hesperian._--Ver. 258. Hesperia, or 'the western country,' was a general name of not only Spain and Gaul, but even Italy. The Rhine is a river of France and Germany, the Rhone of France. The Padus, or Po, and the Tiber, are rivers of Italy.]

[Footnote 52: _Cyclades._--Ver. 264. The Cyclades were a cl.u.s.ter of islands in the aegean Sea, surrounding Delos as though with a circle, whence their name.]

[Footnote 53: _Her all-productive face._--Ver. 275. The earth was similarly called by the Greeks pa?t??, 'the mother of all things.' So Virgil calls it 'omniparens.']

[Footnote 54: _Atlas._--Ver. 296. This was a mountain of Mauritania, which, by reason of its height, was said to support the heavens.]

[Footnote 55: _We are thrown._--Ver. 299. Clarke translates, 'In chaos antiquum confundimur,' 'We are then jumbled into the old chaos again.']

EXPLANATION.

If we were to regard this fable solely as an allegory intended to convey a moral, we should at once perceive that the adventure of Phaeton represents the wilful folly of a rash young man, who consults his own inclination, rather than the dictates of wisdom and prudence.

Some ancient writers tell us that Phaeton was the son of Phbus and Clymene, while others make the nymph Rhoda to have been his mother.

Apollodorus, following Hesiod, says that Herse, the daughter of Cecrops, king of Athens, was the mother of Cephalus, who was carried away by Aurora; which probably means that he left Greece for the purpose of settling in the East. Cephalus had a son named t.i.thonus, the father of Phaeton. Thus Phaeton was the fourth in lineal descent from Cecrops, who reigned at Athens about 1580, B.C. The story is most probably based upon the fact of some excessive heat that happened in his time. Aristotle supposes that at that period flames fell from heaven, which ravaged several countries. Possibly the burning of the cities of the plain, or the stay of the sun in his course at the command of Joshua, may have been the foundation of the story. St.

Chrysostom suggests that it is based upon an imperfect version of the ascent of Elijah in a chariot of fire; that name, or rather 'Elias,'

the Greek form of it, bearing a strong resemblance to ?????, the Greek name of the sun. Vossius suggests that this is an Egyptian history, and considers the story of the grief of Phbus for the loss of his son to be another version of the sorrows of the Egyptians for the death of Osiris. The tears of the Heliades, or sisters of Phaeton, he conceives to be identical with the lamentations of the women who wept for the death of Thammuz. The Poet, when he tells us that Phaeton abandoned his chariot on seeing The Scorpion, probably intends to show that the event of which he treats happened in the month in which the sun enters that sign.

Plutarch and Tzetzes tell us that Phaeton was a king of the Molossians, who drowned himself in the Po; that he was a student of astronomy, and foretold an excessive heat which happened in his reign, and laid waste his kingdom. Lucian, also, in his Discourse on Astronomy, gives a similar explanation of the story, and says that this prince dying very young, left his observations imperfect, which gave rise to the fable that he did not know how to drive the chariot of the sun to the end of its course.

FABLE II. [II.305-324]

Jupiter, to save the universe from being consumed, hurls his thunder at Phaeton, on which he falls headlong into the river Erida.n.u.s.

But the omnipotent father, having called the G.o.ds above to witness, and him, too, who had given the chariot {to Phaeton}, that unless he gives a.s.sistance, all things will perish in direful ruin, mounts aloft to the highest eminence, from which he is wont to spread the clouds over the s.p.a.cious earth; from which he moves his thunders, and hurls the brandished lightnings. But then, he had neither clouds that he could draw over the earth, nor showers that he could pour down from the sky.

He thundered aloud, and darted the poised lightning from his right ear against the charioteer, and at the same moment deprived him both of his life and his seat, and by his ruthless fires restrained the flames. The horses are affrighted, and, making a bound in an opposite direction, they shake the yoke from off their necks, and disengage themselves from the torn harness. In one place lie the reins; in another, the axle-tree wrenched away from the pole; in another part {are} the spokes of the broken wheels; and the fragments of the chariot torn in pieces are scattered far and wide. But Phaeton, the flames consuming his yellow hair, is hurled headlong, and is borne in a long tract through the air; as sometimes a star from the serene sky may appear to fall, although it {really} has not fallen. Him the great Erida.n.u.s receives, in a part of the world far distant from his country, and bathes his foaming face.