Metamorphoses, by Ovid

That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.

Re: Metamorphoses, by Ovid

Postby admin » Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:58 pm

Book 8

• Bk 8:1-80 Scylla decides to betray her city of Megara.
• Bk 8:81-151 Scylla, deserted, is changed to a bird.
• Bk 8:152-182 The Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne.
• Bk 8:183-235 Daedalus and Icarus.
• Bk 8:236-259 The death of Talos.
• Bk 8:260-328 The Calydonian Boar Hunt – the cause.
• Bk 8:329-375 The Calydonian Boar Hunt – the boar is roused.
• Bk 8:376-424 The Calydonian Boar Hunt – the kill
• Bk 8:425-450 The Calydonian Boar Hunt – the spoils.
• Bk 8:451-514 Althaea and the burning brand.
• Bk 8:515-546 The death of Meleager
• Bk 8:547-610 Acheloüs tells Theseus and his friends of Perimele.
• Bk 8:611-678 Lelex tells of Philemon and Baucis.
• Bk 8:679-724 The transformation of Philemon and Baucis.
• Bk 8:725-776 Erysichthon fells Ceres’s sacred oak tree.
• Bk 8:777-842 Ceres sends Famine to Erysichthon.
• Bk 8:843-884 The fate of Erysichthon and his daughter Mestra.

Bk 8:1-80 Scylla decides to betray her city of Megara

Now Lucifer dispelling night, and unveiling shining day, the east wind dropped, and rain clouds gathered. The mild south wind, gave Cephalus and the Aeacides safe return, bringing them, more quickly than they expected, to the harbour they steered for, by its favourable action. Meanwhile Minos was laying waste the coast of Megara, and testing his military strength against the city of Alcathoüs, where Nisus ruled, who had a bright lock of purple hair, on the crown of his head, amongst his distinguished grey tresses, that guaranteed the safety of his kingdom.

The horns of a new moon had risen six times and the fortunes of war still hung in the balance, so protractedly did Victory hover between the two, on hesitant wings. There was a tower of the king, added to walls of singing stone, where Apollo, Latona’s son, once rested his golden lyre, and the sound resonated in the rock. In days of peace, Scylla, the daughter of King Nisus, often used to climb up there, and make the stones ring using small pebbles. In wartime also she would often watch the unyielding armed conflicts from there, and now, as the war dragged on, she had come to know the names of the hostile princes, their weapons, horses, armour and Cretan quivers. Above all she came to know the face of their leader, Europa’s son, more than was fitting.

If he covered his head with a plumed helmet, she thought him handsome in a helmet. If he carried his shining bronze shield, a shield became him well. When he hurled his heavy spear, with taut limbs, the girl admired his strength combined with skill. When he bent the broad arc of his bow, with a flight notched in it, she swore that it was Phoebus Apollo, standing there, with his arrow ready. But when he exposed his face, free of the bronze, and when, clothed in purple, he took to horseback, his white horse conspicuous with its embroidered trappings, and he controlled its foaming bit, Nisus’s daughter was scarcely in control of herself, scarcely in a rational frame of mind. Happy the spear he held, she said, and happy the reins he lifted in his hand. Her impulse was to run, though only a girl, and if it had been allowed, through the enemy lines; her impulse was to throw herself from the top of the tower into the Cretan camp, to open the bronze gates to their army, or anything else Minos might wish.

As she sat gazing at the white tents of the Dictaean king, she said ‘I am not sure whether I should show joy or grief at this miserable war. I grieve because Minos is the enemy of one who loves him, but if there had been no war, he would never have been known to me! If he accepted me as a hostage he could abandon the war: he would have me as his companion, me as a pledge of peace. If she, who gave birth to you, most handsome of kings, was as beautiful as you are, no wonder the god was on fire for her. O I would be three times happy if I could take wing, through the air, and stand in the camp of the Cretan king, and reveal myself, and my love, and ask what dowry he would need to win me: so long as he does not demand my country’s stronghold! Rather let my hopes of marriage die, than that I be capable of betrayal! - Though often many have found it better to be defeated, if a peace-loving conqueror showed clemency. Indeed he wages a just war because of his murdered son: his cause is powerful, and the arms that support his cause. Then, I think we will be conquered. And if that is the end that awaits the city, why should his strength breach these walls of mine, rather than my love?

It would be better for him to win, without slaughter, or delay, and without the shedding of his own blood. At least I would not be afraid lest someone inadvertently wound your breast, Minos: for who would be so cruel as to venture to aim his throw at you, unless he was careless? The idea pleases me, and I am firm in my decision to deliver myself to you, with my country as my dowry, and so put an end to war. But, it is not enough merely to want it! There is a guard watching the entrance, and my father holds the keys of the gate. I only fear through him I might be unlucky: only he hinders my wishes. Would that the gods had devised things so that I had no father! Surely everyone is their own god: Fortune rejects idle wishes. Another girl, fired with as great a passion as mine, would, long ago, have destroyed anything that stood in the way of her love. And why should another be braver than I am? I would dare to go through fire and sword: but there is no need here to brave fire or sword: I need one lock of my father’s hair. That is more precious than gold to me, that purple lock of hair will bless me, and let me achieve my desire.

Bk 8:81-151 Scylla, deserted, is changed to a bird

As she was speaking, Night, most powerful healer of our cares, darkened, and, with the shadows, her boldness grew. The first hours of quiet had come, when sleep soothes hearts that the day’s anxieties have wearied: the daughter steals silently into her father’s room, and (alas, the evil!) robs him of the fateful lock of hair. Through the middle of the enemy camp she goes (so certain of her worth to them) with the impious prize she has gained, straight to the king: who is startled by her speech to him. ‘Love drove me to crime! I, Scylla, daughter of King Nisus, deliver, to you, the gods of my house, and my country. I ask no gift but yourself. Take this purple lock of hair as the pledge of my love, and know that I do not deliver merely a lock of his hair to you, but his head!’ And she held out her gift in her sinful hand. Minos recoiled from what she offered him, and shaken by the thought of this unnatural act, answered ‘May the gods banish you from their world, O you who disgrace this age, and may land and sea be denied you! Be certain I will never allow Crete, which is my world, and the cradle of Jove, to give sanctuary to such a monstrous child.’

He spoke: and after establishing laws for his defeated enemies, this most just of legislators, ordered the cables to be loosed from his fleet, and the oars of the bronze-beaked ships to be set in motion. When Scylla saw that the ships were drawing away over the sea, and that their master had refused her the reward for her wickedness, exhausting prayer, she succumbed to violent anger, and, her hair streaming, shouted in her fury, stretching our her hands. ‘Where are you running to, deserting the creator of your success, O you whom I have set above my father, set above my country? Where are you running to, cruel one, whose victory was my crime, and my kindness? Does neither the gift I gave, nor my love, move you, nor the knowledge that all my hopes are contained in you alone? Where shall I go, deserted like this? To my country? It is defeated! Even if it were not, it is closed to me through my treachery! To my father’s presence? Whom I betrayed to you? The citizens hate me, with reason, and their neighbours fear my example. I am exposed to the world, so that Crete alone might be open to me. If you deny me Crete, also, and leave me here, in your ingratitude, your mother was not Europa, but the sandbanks of hostile Syrtis, or the Armenian tigress, or Charybdis’s whirlpool, stirred by the south wind. Nor are you Jupiter’s son, nor was your mother deceived by the image of a bull. That tale of your birth is a lie! Truly a bull begot you: a wild one, never captive of a heifer’s love.

Nisus, father, punish me! Joy in my pain, walls, that I have betrayed! Now, I confess it, I deserve to be hated, and to die. But let one of those whom I have impiously wounded destroy me! Why should you attack me for my crime, who gained victory through that crime? My sin against my father, and my country, was a kindness to you! Pasiphaë is truly a fit mate for you: that adulteress who fooled the fierce bull with that wooden frame, and carried a hybrid foetus in her womb. Does my speech penetrate your ears, monster of ingratitude, or do the same winds that blow your ships on, blow my words away to nothingness? Now, Now, it is no wonder to me, that Pasiphaë preferred that bull to you, you have more savagery in you than he had. Oh, he is ordering them to run! And the waves resound to the beat of the oars, and I and my land recede. No matter. Oh, in vain, you forget my kindnesses: I shall follow you against your will, clinging to the curved sternpost, dragged over the wide ocean.’

She had scarcely finished speaking when she leapt into the sea, and swam after the fleet, her passion lending her strength, and clung to the Cretan boat. Her father, who had been newly changed into a sea eagle, soaring through the air on tawny wings, saw her, and dived towards her, as she clung there, to tear at her with his hooked beak. In fear she let go of the sternpost, but as she fell the light breeze seemed to hold her, not letting her touch the water. Feathers spring from her arms: changed into a bird, the rock dove, with its red legs and purple throat, she is called Ciris, ‘Cutter’, and acquired that name from her cutting of the lock of hair.

Bk 8:152-182 The Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne

When Minos reached Cretan soil he paid his dues to Jove, with the sacrifice of a hundred bulls, and hung up his war trophies to adorn the palace. The scandal concerning his family grew, and the queen’s unnatural adultery was evident from the birth of a strange hybrid monster. Minos resolved to remove this shame, the Minotaur, from his house, and hide it away in a labyrinth with blind passageways. Daedalus, celebrated for his skill in architecture, laid out the design, and confused the clues to direction, and led the eye into a tortuous maze, by the windings of alternating paths. No differently from the way in which the watery Maeander deludes the sight, flowing backwards and forwards in its changeable course, through the meadows of Phrygia, facing the running waves advancing to meet it, now directing its uncertain waters towards its source, now towards the open sea: so Daedalus made the endless pathways of the maze, and was scarcely able to recover the entrance himself: the building was as deceptive as that.

In there, Minos walled up the twin form of bull and man, and twice nourished it on Athenian blood, but the third repetition of the nine-year tribute by lot, caused the monster’s downfall. When, through the help of the virgin princess, Ariadne, by rewinding the thread, Theseus, son of Aegeus, won his way back to the elusive threshold, that no one had previously regained, he immediately set sail for Dia, stealing the daughter of Minos away with him, then cruelly abandoned his companion on that shore. Deserted and weeping bitterly, as she was, Bacchus-Liber brought her help and comfort. So that she might shine among the eternal stars, he took the crown from her forehead, and set it in the sky. It soared through the rarified air, and as it soared its jewels changed to bright fires, and took their place, retaining the appearance of a crown, as the Corona Borealis, between the kneeling Hercules and the head of the serpent that Ophiuchus holds.

Bk 8:183-235 Daedalus and Icarus

Meanwhile Daedalus, hating Crete, and his long exile, and filled with a desire to stand on his native soil, was imprisoned by the waves. ‘He may thwart our escape by land or sea’ he said ‘but the sky is surely open to us: we will go that way: Minos rules everything but he does not rule the heavens’. So saying he applied his thought to new invention and altered the natural order of things. He laid down lines of feathers, beginning with the smallest, following the shorter with longer ones, so that you might think they had grown like that, on a slant. In that way, long ago, the rustic pan-pipes were graduated, with lengthening reeds. Then he fastened them together with thread at the middle, and bees’-wax at the base, and, when he had arranged them, he flexed each one into a gentle curve, so that they imitated real bird’s wings. His son, Icarus, stood next to him, and, not realising that he was handling things that would endanger him, caught laughingly at the down that blew in the passing breeze, and softened the yellow bees’-wax with his thumb, and, in his play, hindered his father’s marvellous work.

When he had put the last touches to what he had begun, the artificer balanced his own body between the two wings and hovered in the moving air. He instructed the boy as well, saying ‘Let me warn you, Icarus, to take the middle way, in case the moisture weighs down your wings, if you fly too low, or if you go too high, the sun scorches them. Travel between the extremes. And I order you not to aim towards Bootes, the Herdsman, or Helice, the Great Bear, or towards the drawn sword of Orion: take the course I show you!’ At the same time as he laid down the rules of flight, he fitted the newly created wings on the boy’s shoulders. While he worked and issued his warnings the ageing man’s cheeks were wet with tears: the father’s hands trembled.

He gave a never to be repeated kiss to his son, and lifting upwards on his wings, flew ahead, anxious for his companion, like a bird, leading her fledglings out of a nest above, into the empty air. He urged the boy to follow, and showed him the dangerous art of flying, moving his own wings, and then looking back at his son. Some angler catching fish with a quivering rod, or a shepherd leaning on his crook, or a ploughman resting on the handles of his plough, saw them, perhaps, and stood there amazed, believing them to be gods able to travel the sky.

And now Samos, sacred to Juno, lay ahead to the left (Delos and Paros were behind them), Lebinthos, and Calymne, rich in honey, to the right, when the boy began to delight in his daring flight, and abandoning his guide, drawn by desire for the heavens, soared higher. His nearness to the devouring sun softened the fragrant wax that held the wings: and the wax melted: he flailed with bare arms, but losing his oar-like wings, could not ride the air. Even as his mouth was crying his father’s name, it vanished into the dark blue sea, the Icarian Sea, called after him. The unhappy father, now no longer a father, shouted ‘Icarus, Icarus where are you? Which way should I be looking, to see you?’ ‘Icarus’ he called again. Then he caught sight of the feathers on the waves, and cursed his inventions. He laid the body to rest, in a tomb, and the island was named Icaria after his buried child.

Bk 8:236-259 The death of Talos

As he was consigning his unfortunate son to the grave, a noisy partridge poked its head out from a muddy ditch, and, called, cackling joyfully, with whirring wings. It was the only one of its kind, not seen in previous years, and only recently made a bird, as a lasting reproach to you, Daedalus. Your sister, Perdix, oblivious to the fates, sent you her son, Talus, to be taught: twelve years old, his mind ready for knowledge. Indeed, the child, studying the spine of a fish, took it as a model, and cut continuous teeth out of sharp metal, inventing the use of the saw. He was also the first to pivot two iron arms on a pin, so that, with the arms at a set distance, one part could be fixed, and the other sweep out a circle. Daedalus was jealous, and hurled the boy headlong from Minerva’s sacred citadel, claiming that he had fallen. But Pallas Minerva, who favours those with quick minds, caught him, and turned him into the partridge, masking him with feathers in mid-air. His inborn energy was transferred to swift wings and feet, and he kept his mother’s name, Perdix, from before. But the bird does not perch above the ground, and does not make its nest on branches or on high points, but flies low on whirring wings over the soil, and lays its eggs in a sheltered place.

Bk 8:260-328 The Calydonian Boar Hunt – the cause

Now Sicily, the land of Mount Etna, held the weary Daedalus, and King Cocalus, regarded as peacable, had taken up arms, against Minos, in defence of the suppliant: and thanks to Theseus, Athens now had ceased to pay Crete the sorrowful levy. The temple was wreathed with flowers, and the Athenians called out to warlike Minerva, to Jupiter and to the other gods, honouring them with gifts, and the blood of sacrificial offerings, and the contents of their incense-boxes. Far-wandering fame had spread the name of Theseus through all the cities of the Argolis, and the peoples inhabiting wealthy Achaia begged for his help in their great trouble, and Calydon, as a suppliant, despite having Meleager, asked his help, with anxious prayers.

The reason for their asking was a wild boar, servant and avenging power of Diana’s aggression. King Oeneus of Calydon, they say, made offerings, from the successful harvests of a full year, of the first fruits of the crops to Ceres, of wine to Bacchus, ‘the deliverer from care’, of libations of flowing oil, from the olives, to golden Minerva. The honour they desire was paid to all the gods, beginning with the rural deities: only the daughter of Latona’s altar was passed by: neglected, it is said, and left without its incense. Anger even touches the gods. ‘I shall not suffer this without exacting punishment’ she cried ‘and, though not honoured, it will not be said that I was unavenged.’ And the goddess, spurned, sent an avenging wild boar, over the Aetolian fields: grassy Epirus had none greater than it, and those of the island of Sicily were smaller. Its eyes glowed with bloodshot fire: its neck was stiff with bristles, and the hairs, on its hide, bristled stiffly like spear-shafts: just as a palisade stands, so the hairs stood like tall spears. Hot foam flecked the broad shoulders, from its hoarse grunting. Its tusks were the size of an Indian elephant’s: lightning came from its mouth: and the leaves were scorched, by its breath. Now it trampled the young shoots of the growing crops, now cut short the ripeness, longed-for by the mournful farmer, and scythed down the corn in ear. The granaries and threshing floors waited for the promised harvest in vain. Heavy clusters of grapes were brought down along with the trailing vines, and fruit and branch of the evergreen olives. It rages among the cattle too. Neither the herdsmen and dogs, nor their own fierce bulls can defend the herds. The people scatter, and only count themselves safe behind city walls.

At last Meleager and a handpicked group of men gather, longing for glory: Castor and Polydeuces, the Dioscuri, twin sons of Tyndareus and Leda, one son famous for boxing, the other for horsemanship: Jason who built the first ship: Theseus and Pirithoüs, fortunate in friendship: Plexippus and Toxeus, the two sons of Thestius, uncles of Meleager: Lynceus and swift Idas, sons of Aphareus: Caeneus, once a woman: warlike Leucippus: Acastus, famed for his javelin: Hippothoüs: Dryas: Phoenix, Amyntor’s son: Eurytus and Cleatus, the sons of Actor: and Phyleus, sent by Elis.

Telamon was there, and Peleus, father of the great Achilles: with Admetus, the son of Pheres, and Iolaüs from Boeotia were Eurytion, energetic in action, and Echion unbeaten at running: and Lelex from Locria, Panopeus, Hyleus, and daring Hippasus: Nestor, still in the prime of life: and those that Hippocoön sent, with Enaesimus, from ancient Amyclae: Laërtes, Penelope’s father-in-law with Ancaeus of Arcady: Mopsus, the shrewd son of Ampyx: and Amphiaraüs, son of Oecleus, not yet betrayed by his wife, Eriphyle.

And Atalanta, the warrior girl of Tegea, the glory of Arcadia’s woods, with a polished brooch clasping the neck of her garment, and her hair simply done, caught in a single knot. An ivory quiver, holding her arrows, that rattled as she moved, hung from her left shoulder, and her left hand held the bow. So she was dressed: as for her face, you might truly say, the virgin was there, in a boy, and a boy, in the girl. The moment he saw her, that moment, Meleager, the hero of Calydon, desired her, though the gods might refuse it, devoured by secret fires. ‘O, happy the man, whom she might think worthy!’ he said. Neither time nor honour allowed him further words: the greater task of the greater conflict urged him on.

Bk 8:329-375 The Calydonian Boar Hunt – the boar is roused

A forest thick with trees, that had never been cut, at any time, began above the plain, and overlooked the sloping fields. When the heroes reached it, some spread out hunting nets, others loosed the dogs from their leashes, while others again followed the deeply-marked trail, keen to discover their quarry. There was a deep valley that collected streams of rainwater, falling near it: and it held, in its depths, pliant willows, smooth sedges, and marsh grasses, and osiers and tall bulrushes, above the lowly reeds. The boar was roused from there, and made a violent charge into the midst of its enemies, like lightning forced from colliding clouds. Trees were flattened by its impact, and the woods crashed as it drove into them. The warriors shouted, and held their spears spread outward, with firm hands, waving their broad blades. The boar rushed them, scattering the dogs, as they obstructed it in its fury, putting the baying pack to flight with sidelong swipes of its tusks. The first spear, delivered by Echion’s arm, was ineffectual, and gave the trunk of a maple a glancing blow. The next, if it had not been thrown with too great a force, aimed at the creature’s back, seemed certain to stick there, but the throw was too long. Jason of Pagasae hurled the spear.

Then Mopsus, son of Ampyx, cried out ‘Phoebus, if I have worshipped you, and do so now, grant what I ask, that my spear strikes surely!’ The god did what he could, to fulfil the prayer: the boar was hit, but without being wounded. Diana had stolen the iron point of the javelin, in flight: what arrived was the wooden shaft without its tip. The wild beast’s anger was aroused, and blazed out no more gently than lightning. Flame burned in its eyes, and was breathed from its chest. With dangerous and unerring momentum, the boar hurtled towards the young men, as a stone flies from a taut catapult, aimed at walls or battlements full of soldiers. Hippalmus and Pelagon, holding the right flank, were knocked to the ground: their friends caught them up as they lay there. But Enaesimus, son of Hippocoön, did not escape the fatal blow: about to turn his back, in alarm, he sank down, as the sinews of his knee gave way. And King Nestor of Pylos, might perhaps have perished before his time at Troy, but, using the leverage of his firmly planted spear, he vaulted into a tree, that stood close by, and looked down, from a place of safety, on the quarry he had escaped.

The fierce creature, sharpening its tusks on the trunk of an oak, threatened them with destruction, and confident in its freshly renewed weapons, ripped open mighty Hippasus’s thigh, with one curving edge. But now the Gemini, Castor and Pollux, not yet changed into stars in the sky, twin brothers, conspicuous among the rest, both rode up, on horses whiter than snow, and brandishing their javelins in the air as one, hurled them, the points quivering with the motion.

Bk 8:376-424 The Calydonian Boar Hunt – the kill

They would have wounded the beast, had not the bristling creature retreated into the dense woods where no horse or spear could penetrate. Telamon did follow, and careless where he was placing his feet, in his enthusiasm, fell flat on the ground, tripping over the root of a tree. While Peleus was lifting him, the girl from Tegea strung a swift arrow, and sent it speeding from the curved bow. The shaft just grazed the top of the boar’s back, and fixing itself below one ear, reddened the bristles with a thin stream of blood. Nor did she praise her own successful shot more than Meleager did. He was supposed to have been the first to see the blood, and first, having seen it, to point it out to his friends, saying: ‘You will be honoured for the value of this service.’ The warriors flushed with their shame, urged each other on, gaining courage from their clamour, hurling their spears without sense of order. The jostling spoilt their throw, and prevented the strike they intended. Then Ancaeus of Arcady, with his twin-headed axe, rushing to meet his fate, cried: ‘O warriors, learn how much better a man’s weapons are than a girl’s, and leave the work to me! Though Latona’s daughter herself protects this creature, in her own way, in spite of Diana, my right arm will destroy it.’ Swollen with pride, like this, with boastful words, he spoke, and, lifting the double axe in both hands, he stood on tiptoe, poised for the downward blow. The boar anticipated this daring enemy, and struck at the upper groin, the quickest way to kill, with his twin tusks. Ancaeus collapsed, and the slippery mass of his inner organs fell away in a pool of blood: the ground was soaked with the red fluid.

Then Pirithoüs, son of Ixion, went against the quarry, brandishing his hunting-spear in his strong right-hand. Theseus, Aegeus’s son, called out ‘Stay, farther away, my soul’s other half, O dearer to me than myself! It is fine to be brave at a distance, also: Ancaeus’s rash courage only did him harm.’ He spoke, and threw his heavy spear, of cornelian cherry-wood, with its bronze blade. Though well aimed and capable of reaching its mark, it was deflected by the leafy branch of an oak. Jason, Aeson’s son, hurled his javelin, which swerved by accident, and the fatal throw transfixing the flanks of an innocent hound, pinned it to the ground.

But Meleager’s hand made the difference, and of the two spears he threw, though one stuck in the earth, the other fixed itself in the boar’s back. Now, while it raged, and twisted its body round, and spouted out hissing foam and fresh blood, the author of its wound came at it, pricked his quarry to fury, and buried his shining hunting-spear in his enemy’s shoulder. Then the companions give proof of their joy, shouting, and crowding around him to grasp his hand in theirs. They gaze, wonderingly, at the huge creature covering so much of the earth it lies on, and still think it unsafe to touch the beast, but nevertheless each wets his spear in its blood.

Bk 8:425-450 The Calydonian Boar Hunt – the spoils

Meleager, himself, pressed his foot down on the head of the deadly creature, and said to Atalanta ‘Girl from Nonacria, take the prize that is mine by right, and let my glory be shared with you.’ Then he gave her the spoils, the hide bristling with hair, and the head remarkable for its magnificent tusks. She delighted in the giver no less than the gift, but the others were envious, and a murmur ran through the whole company. Of these, Plexippus, and Toxeus, the sons of Thestius, Meleager’s uncles, stretching their arms out, shouted loudly: ‘Come on, girl, leave them alone: do not steal our titles to honour, and do not let too much faith in your beauty deceive you, lest your love-sick friend turns out to be no help to you.’ And they took the gifts away from her, and denied him the right to give them. The descendant of Mars could not bear this, and bursting with anger, gnashing his teeth, he said: ‘Learn, you thieves of other men’s rights, the difference between threats and actions’, and plunged his iron point into Plexippus’s chest, he expecting nothing of that kind. Meleager gave Toxeus, who stood in doubt, wanting to avenge his brother, but fearing his brother’s fate, scant time for doubt, and while his spear was still warm from the first brother’s murder, he warmed it again with the second brother’s blood.

Althaea was carrying thanksgiving offerings, for her son’s victory, to the temple of the gods, when she saw them bringing back her dead brothers. She filled the city with the clamour of wailing, beat her breasts, and replaced her golden robes with black. But when she heard who the murderer was, she forgot her mourning, and her longing changed from tears to revenge.

Bk 8:451-514 Althaea and the burning brand

There was a piece of wood that the Three Sisters placed in the fire, when Althaea, the daughter of Thestius, was in the throes of childbirth. As they spun the threads of fate firmly under their thumbs, they said: ‘We assign an equal span of time to you, O new born child, and to this brand.’ When the goddesses vanished, after speaking the prophecy, the mother snatched the burning branch from the fire, and doused it with water. It had long been hidden away in the depths of the inner rooms, and preserved, had preserved your years, youth. Your mother now brought it out, and called for pinewood and kindling: and, once that was in position, she lit the hostile flames. Then she tried, four times, to throw the brand in the fire, and four times, held back. The mother fought the sister in her, and the two tugged at the one heart. Often her cheeks grew pale at imminent wickedness. Often fierce anger filled her eyes with blood. One moment she seemed like someone threatening some cruelty: the next you would think her full of compassion. When her heart’s fierce passion dried up her tears, the tears welled up again. As a ship, that the wind, and the tide opposing the wind, both seize, feels the twin forces and obeys the two, uncertainly, so the daughter of Thestius, was swayed by her emotions, and her anger alternately calmed, and then flared again.

However, the sister in her begins to outweigh the mother, and to appease the shades of her own blood, with blood, she escapes guilt by incurring it. Now, as the baleful fire strengthens, she cries ‘Let this be the funeral pyre that cremates my child.’ As she held the fatal brand in her deadly hand, and stood, wretched woman, in front of the funeral altars, she said ‘Eumenides, Triple Goddesses of Retribution, turn your faces towards these fearful rites! I take revenge, and I do a wicked thing: death must be atoned for by death: crime must be heaped on crime, ruin on ruin. Let this impious house end in a flood of mourning! Shall, Oeneus, fortunate, rejoice in his victorious child, while Thestius is bereaved of his sons? Better for both to grieve. Only, my brother’s spirits, new-made ghosts, recognise my sense of duty to you, and accept the sacrifice I prepare, so great its cost to me, the evil child of my womb! Ah me! What conclusion do I rush towards? My brothers, forgive a mother! The hand is unequal to what it began: I acknowledge he deserves to die, but I do not desire to be the cause of his death. Shall he go unpunished? Shall he live, victorious, proud of his success, and be king in Calydon, while you lie there, the scant ashes of chill shadows? For my part I cannot suffer that to be: let the wicked die, and pull down his father’s hopes, his kingship, and the ruins of his country! Where are my maternal feelings? Where are the sacred allegiances of a parent? Where are the anxieties I suffered over those ten months? O, I wish, when you were an infant burning in those first flames, I had allowed it to be! By my gift, you lived: now for your own fault, you die! Suffer the consequences of what you have done, and give me back the life I twice gave you, once at your birth, once when I snatched at the brand, or let me join my brothers in the tomb!

I yearn to do it, and I cannot do it. What shall I do? Now my brothers’ wounds are before my eyes and the image of all that blood: and now heart’s love, and the word mother move me. Woe to me! Evil is in your victory, my brothers: but victory you shall have: only let me follow you, and the comfort I bring you!’ She spoke, and turning her face away, with trembling hands, threw the fatal brand, into the midst of the fire. The piece of wood itself gave, or seemed to give, a sigh, as it was attacked, and burned, by the reluctant flames.

Bk 8:515-546 The death of Meleager

Far off, and unaware, Meleager is alight with that fire, and feels his inner organs invisibly seared. He controls the fierce agonies, with courage. Nevertheless he is sad that he must die a bloodless, cowardly death, and calls Ancaeus fortunate in his wounds. At the last, groaning with pain, he names his aged father, his brothers, his loving sisters, the companion of his bed, and, it may be, his mother. The fire and the suffering flare up, and die away, again, and both are extinguished together. Gradually his breath vanishes into the light breeze: gradually white ashes veil the glowing embers.

Noble Calydon lies dead. Young men and old lament, people and princes moan, and the women of Calydon, by the River Euenus, tear at their hair, and beat their breasts. His father, prone on the ground, mars his aged features and white hair with dust, and rebukes himself for his long years. As for his mother, conscious of her dreadful action, she has exacted punishment on herself, with her own hand driving the weapon into her body. Not though the god had given me a hundred mouths speaking with tongues, the necessary genius, and all Helicon as my domain, could I describe the sad fate of his poor sisters. Forgetting what is seemly, they strike their bruised chests, and while there is something left of the body, the body is caressed again and again, as they kiss it and kiss the bier on which it lies.

Once he is ashes; the ashes are gathered, and they press them to their breasts, throw themselves down on his tomb, and clasping the stone carved with his name, they drown the name with tears. At last, Diana, satiated with her destruction of the house of Parthaon, lifted them up, all except Gorge, and Deianira, the daughter-in-law of noble Alcmena, and, making feathers spring from their bodies, and stretching long wings over their arms, she gave them beaks, and, changed to guinea-hens, the Meleagrides, launched them into the air.

Bk 8:547-610 Acheloüs tells Theseus and his friends of Perimele

Meanwhile, Theseus, having played his part in the united effort, turned back towards Athens, Tritonia’s city, where Erectheus once ruled. But the River Acheloüs, swollen with rain, blocked his immediate path, and stalled his journey. ‘Come under my roof, famous scion of Cecrops,’ the river-god said, ‘and do not commit yourself to my devouring waters. They are liable to carry solid tree-trunks along, in their roaring, and roll great boulders over on their sides. I have seen whole byres, near the bank, swept away, with all their livestock: and neither the cattle’s strength nor the horses’ speed was of any use. Many a strong man has been lost in the whirling vortices, when the torrent was loosed, after mountain snows. You will be safer to stay till my river runs in its normal channel, when its bed holds only a slender stream.’

Aegeus’s son nodded, and replied: ‘I will make use of your house, and your counsel, Acheloüs.’ And so he did. He entered the dark building, made of spongy pumice, and rough tufa. The floor was moist with soft moss, and the ceiling banded with freshwater mussel and oyster shells.

Now Hyperion, the sun, had measured out two thirds of his path of light, when Theseus and his companions of the hunt seated themselves on couches. Here was Pirithoüs, Ixion’s son, and there, Lelex, Troezen’s hero, his temples already streaked with thinning grey hair, and there were others whom the Acarnanian river-god, greatly delighted to have such a guest, judged worthy of equal honour. Quickly the barefoot nymphs set out dishes of food on the nearby tables, and when they had been cleared again, poured wine in jewelled cups. Then the greatest of heroes looking out over the waters below, asked: ‘What is that place?’ (He pointed with his finger.) ‘Tell me what name the island has, though it seems more than an island!’

The river-god replied ‘What you see is not one island: five pieces of land lie together, but the distance conceals their distinctiveness. This will make you less astonished at what Diana did to Calydon when she was slighted. Those islands were once nymphs, who, though they had slaughtered ten bullocks and invited the rural gods to the festival, forgot me as they led the festal dance. I swelled with anger, as fierce as when my flood is at its fullest, and terrible in wind and wave, I tore forest from forest and field from field, and swept the nymphs, who then, at last, remembered me, along with the place they trod, into the sea. There the ocean and my waters separated what had been continuous ground, and split it into as many parts as you see islands, the Echinades, there in the midst of the waves.

But as you can see for yourself, far off, far off one island vanishes, dear to me: the sailors call it Perimele. I loved her and stole her virginity. At which her father, unable to accept it, threw his daughter from the cliffs into the deep, intending to destroy her. I caught her, and holding her as she swam, I cried: ‘O God of the Trident, to whom rule over the restless waves, closest to earth, fell by lot, give your aid I beg, and grant a place to one whom a father’s anger drowns, or allow her to be that place herself!’ While I spoke, new earth clasped her body, as she swam, and a solid island rose, round her changed limbs.

Bk 8:611-678 Lelex tells of Philemon and Baucis

At this, the river-god fell silent. The wonder of the thing had gripped them all. But that daring spirit, Pirithoüs, son of Ixion, scornful of the gods, laughed at their credulity. ‘These are fictions you tell of, Acheloüs, and you credit the gods with too much power, if you think they can give and take away the forms of things.’ The others were startled, and disapproved of his words, Lelex above all, experienced in mind and years, who said: ‘The power of the gods is great and knows no limit, and whatever heaven decrees comes to pass. To help convince you, in the hills of Phrygia, an oak and a lime tree stand side by side, surrounded by a low wall. I have seen the place, since Pittheus, king of Troezen, sent me into that country, where his father Pelops once ruled.

There is a swamp not far from there, once habitable land but now the haunt of diving-birds and marsh-loving coots. Jupiter went there, disguised as a mortal, and Mercury, the descendant of Atlas, setting aside his wings, went with his father, carrying the caduceus. A thousand houses they approached, looking for a place to rest: a thousand houses were locked and bolted. But one received them: it was humble it is true, roofed with reeds and stems from the marsh, but godly Baucis and the equally aged Philemon, had been wedded in that cottage in their younger years, and there had grown old together. They made light of poverty by acknowledging it, and bearing it without discontent of mind. It was no matter if you asked for owner or servant there: those two were the whole household: they gave orders and carried them out equally.

So when the gods from heaven met the humble household gods, and stooping down, passed the low doorway, the old man pulled out a bench, and requested them to rest their limbs, while over the bench Baucis threw a rough blanket. Then she raked over the warm ashes in the hearth, and brought yesterday’s fire to life, feeding it with leaves and dried bark, nursing the flames with her aged breath. She pulled down finely divided twigs and dry stems from the roof, and, breaking them further, pushed them under a small bronze pot. Next she stripped the leaves from vegetables that her husband had gathered from his well-watered garden. He used a two-pronged stick to lift down a wretched-looking chine of meat, hanging from a blackened beam, and, cutting a meagre piece from the carefully saved chine, put what had been cut, to seethe, in boiling water.

In the meantime they made conversation to pass the time, and prevent their guests being conscious of the delay. There was a beech wood tub, suspended by its handle from a crude peg: this had been filled with warm water, and allowed their visitors to refresh their limbs. In the middle of the floor there was a mattress of soft sedges. Placed on a frame and legs of willow it made a couch. They covered it with cloths, that they only used to bring out for the times of sacred festivals, but even these were old and worn, not unworthy of the couch. The gods were seated.

The old woman, her skirts tucked up, her hands trembling, placed a table there, but a table with one of the three legs unequal: a piece of broken pot made them equal. Pushed underneath, it countered the slope, and she wiped the level surface with fresh mint. On it she put the black and green olives that belong to pure Minerva, and the cornelian cherries of autumn, preserved in wine lees; radishes and endives; a lump of cheese; and lightly roasted eggs, untouched by the hot ashes; all in clay dishes. After this she set out a carved mixing bowl for wine, just as costly, with cups made of beech wood, hollowed out, and lined with yellow bees’ wax. There was little delay, before the fire provided its hot food, and the wine, of no great age, circulated, and then, removed again, made a little room for the second course. There were nuts, and a mix of dried figs and wrinkled dates; plums, and sweet-smelling apples in open wicker baskets; and grapes gathered from the purple vines. In the centre was a gleaming honeycomb. Above all, there was the additional presence of well-meaning faces, and no unwillingness, or poverty of spirit.’

Bk 8:679-724 The transformation of Philemon and Baucis.

‘Meanwhile the old couple noticed that, as soon as the mixing bowl was empty, it refilled itself, unaided, and the wine appeared of its own accord. They were fearful at this strange and astonishing sight, and timidly Baucis and Philemon murmured a prayer, their palms upwards, and begged the gods’ forgiveness for the meal, and their unpreparedness. They had a goose, the guard for their tiny cottage: as hosts they prepared to sacrifice it for their divine guests. But, quick-winged, it wore the old people out and, for a long time, escaped them, at last appearing to take refuge with the gods themselves. Then the heaven-born ones told them not to kill it. “We are gods,” they said, “and this neighbourhood will receive just punishment for its impiety, but to you we grant exemption from that evil. Just leave your house, and accompany our steps, as we climb that steep mountainside together.”

They both obeyed, and leaning on their sticks to ease their climb, they set foot on the long slope. When they were as far from the summit as a bowshot might carry, they looked back, and saw everywhere else vanished in the swamp: only their own roof was visible. And while they stood amazed at this, mourning their neighbours’ fate, their old cottage, tiny even for the two of them, turned into a temple. Wooden poles became pillars, and the reed thatch grew yellow, until a golden roof appeared, richly carved doors, and a marble pavement covering the ground. Then the son of Saturn spoke, calmly, to them: “Ask of us, virtuous old man, and you, wife, worthy of a virtuous husband, what you wish.”

When he had spoken briefly with Baucis, Philemon revealed their joint request to the gods. “We ask to be priests and watch over your temple, and, since we have lived out harmonious years together, let the same hour take the two of us, so that I never have to see my wife’s grave, nor she have to bury me.” The gods’ assurance followed the prayer. They had charge of the temple while they lived: and when they were released by old age, and by the years, as they chanced to be standing by the sacred steps, discussing the subject of their deaths, Baucis saw Philomen put out leaves, and old Philemon saw Baucis put out leaves, and as the tops of the trees grew over their two faces, they exchanged words, while they still could, saying, in the same breath: “Farewell, O dear companion”, as, in the same breath, the bark covered them, concealing their mouths.

The people of Bithynia still show the neighbouring trees, there, that sprang from their two bodies. Trustworthy old men related these things to me (there was no reason why they should wish to lie). For my part, I saw garlands hanging from the branches, and placing fresh ones there said: “Let those who love the gods become gods: let those who have honoured them, be honoured.” ’

Bk 8:725-776 Erysichthon fells Ceres’s sacred oak tree

Lelex finished, and the tale and the teller of it had moved them all, Theseus particularly. He wished to hear more of the marvellous acts of the gods. Acheloüs, the river-god of Calydon, leaning on his elbow, said: ‘Hero, there are those who, once changed in form, retain that transformation: there are others who are allowed to transmute into many shapes: you, for instance, Proteus, inhabitant of the earth-encircling sea. A moment ago they saw you as a young man, then as a lion: now as a raging boar, then as a serpent, they fear to touch: and, in a moment, horns revealed you as a bull. Often you might have appeared as a stone, often, also, as a tree: sometimes, you formed the likeness of running water, and became a river: sometimes fire, water’s opposite.

Mestra, Erysichthon’s daughter, the wife of Autolycus, had no less power. Her father was a man scornful of the gods, who burnt no incense on their altars. Erysichthon, it is said, once violated the grove of Ceres with an axe, and desecrated the ancient woods with iron. Within them stood a great oak, massive with the years, a sacred grove in itself: strands of wool, wreaths of flowers and votive tablets surrounded it, evidence of prayers granted. Often beneath it the Dryads held their festive dances: often, also, linking hands, in line, they circled its trunk’s circumference, its massive girth measuring fifteen arm’s-lengths round. The other trees were not less far below it than the grass was far below all of them. Triopas’s son would not hold back the blade, even for those reasons, commanding his servants to fell the sacred oak.

When he saw them hesitating at the order, the wretched man snatched the axe from one of them, saying: “Though this be, itself, the goddess, not just what the goddess loves, now its leafy crown will meet the earth.” As he spoke, while he balanced the blade, for the slanting stroke, Ceres’s oak-tree trembled all over and gave a sigh, and at the same time its acorns and its leaves began to whiten, and its long branches grew pale. And, when his impious hand made a gash in the trunk, blood poured out of its damaged bark, like the crimson tide from its severed neck, when the mighty bull falls, in sacrifice, before the altar.

All stood astonished, and one of them tried bravely to prevent the evil, and hinder the barbarous double-edged weapon. But the Thessalian glared at him, saying: “Here’s the prize for your pious thought!” and swinging his blade at the man not the tree, struck his head from his trunk. He was hewing at the oak-tree repeatedly, when the sound of a voice came from inside the oak, chanting these words:

“I am a nymph, most dear to Ceres,
under the surface of this wood,
who prophesy to you, as I die,
that punishment will follow blood:
out of my ruin, the only good.”

But he pursued his course of evil, and at last, weakened by innumerable blows, and dragged down by ropes, the tree fell, its weight cutting a swathe through the wood.’

Bk 8:777-842 Ceres sends Famine to Erysichthon

‘All her sister Dryads, mourning and dressed in black, horrified at the forest’s loss and their own, went to Ceres, and begged her to punish Erysichthon. She assented, and, with a motion of her head, that most beautiful of goddesses stirred the fields, heavy with ripened grain. She devised a punishment to rouse men’s pity, if his actions had deserved any pity: to torment him with baleful Hunger. But since the goddess herself could not approach her (for fate does not allow Famine and Ceres to meet) she called for one of the mountain spirits, an Oread of wild places, and said to her: “There is a place at the furthest bounds of icy Scythia, with sombre, sterile ground, a land without crops or trees. Torpid Cold inhabits it, Fear and Trembling and barren Hunger. Order Famine to immure herself in the belly of that sacrilegious wretch, and let no plenty oust her, and let her overcome me in any trial of strength. So that the length of the journey does not worry you, take my chariot, take my winged dragons, and govern their bridles on high.” And she gave her the reins. The nymph came to Scythia, carried through the air, in the chariot she was given. On the summit of a frozen mountain chain (they call the Caucasus) she loosed the dragons’ necks, and, searching for Famine, saw her in a field of stones, picking at the sparse grass with her nails and teeth. Her hair was matted, her eyes sunken, her face pallid: her lips were grey with mould, her throat with scabrous sores: through the hardened skin, her inner organs could be seen: dry bones stuck out beneath her hollow loins: her belly was only the excuse for a belly: her breastbone seemed to hang loosely, only held by the frame of her spine. Emaciation made the joints look large: the curve of her knees seemed swollen: and the ankles appeared as extravagant lumps.

When the Oread saw her, she relayed the goddess’s command, from a distance (since she did not dare to approach her), and though she only delayed an instant, and stayed far off, though she had only arrived there a moment before, she still seemed to feel the hunger. Changing course, high in the air, she directed the dragons towards Haemonia.

Famine carried out Ceres’s orders, though their tasks are ever opposed, and flew down through the eye of the wind to the appointed house. Straight away she entered the bedroom of the sacrilegious man, who was sunk in profound sleep (since it was night), and breathed herself into him, covering his throat, and chest, and lips, with her exhalations, and causing a lack of nourishment in his hollow veins. Completing her mission, she left the fertile lands, returning to the houses of poverty, and her customary caves.

Gentle Sleep still lulls Erysichthon, with his peaceful wings. He, in sleep, in imagination, dreams of feasts, closes his mouth on vacancy, grinds tooth on tooth, exercises his gluttony on insubstantial food, and, instead of a banquet, fruitlessly eats the empty air. But when indeed peace departs, a desperate desire to eat possesses his famished jaws and burning belly. Without a moment’s delay he calls out for whatever earth, air and sea produce, and at table complains of hunger, and in the midst of eating demands to eat. What would feed a city, or satisfy a people, is not enough for one. The more he puts away inside, the greater his desire. As the ocean receives the rivers of all the earth, and unfilled by the waters, swallows every wandering stream: as the devouring flames never refuse more fuel, burn endless timber, and look for more, the greater the piles they are given, more voracious themselves by being fed: so Erysichthon’s profane lips accept and demand all foods, in the same breath. All nourishment in him is a reason for nourishment, and always by eating he creates an empty void.’

Bk 8:843-884 The fate of Erysichthon and his daughter Mestra

‘Now hunger, and the deep pit of his gut had consumed his wealth, but even so, Famine worked unabated and his burning appetite was unappeased. Eventually, when all he owned was inside him, only his daughter, Mestra, was left, a girl whom the father was not worthy of. Having nothing, he tried to sell her too. The honourable child refused to accept a possessor, and stretching her hands out over the waves of the shore, she cried: “You god, who stole away the prize of my virginity”, for Neptune had stolen it, “save me from slavery.” He did not scorn her prayer. Although the buyer had been following her, and had seen her a moment ago, the god altered her shape, giving her a man’s features, and clothes appropriate to a fisherman.

Her purchaser looked at her, and said: “O, you who control the rod, and hide your bronze hook in a little bait, may you have calm sea, and gullible fish, that feel nothing of the hook until they bite. Tell me where she is, the girl with shabby clothes and straggling hair, who stood here on this beach a moment ago (since I saw her, standing on the beach): there are no footprints further on!” She sensed the god’s gift was working well for her, and delighted that he was asking her for news of herself, replied to his question: “Forgive me, whoever you are: I have had no eyes for anything except this pool: I have been occupied taking pains over my fishing. To convince you, and may the sea god help me in these arts of mine, no man has been on this beach, except myself, for a long time, and no woman either.”

He believed her, and turning round on the sand, having been outplayed, departed. Then her true shape was restored. When her father realised that she could change her shape, he often surrendered Mestra to others, so that she, escaping in the form of a mare, or a bird, or again as a heifer or a hind, repeatedly obtained her price, dishonestly, for her gluttonous father.

In the end when the evil had consumed everything they had, and his grave disease needed ever more food, Erysichthon began to tear at his limbs and gnaw them with his teeth, and the unhappy man fed, little by little, on his own body.’

‘But why do I entertain you with stories of others?’ said Acheloüs, ‘Indeed, young man, I have often changed shape myself, though the number of shapes I can achieve is limited. Sometimes I am seen as I am now: sometimes I become a snake: or, again, the lead bull of the herd, my power in my horns – horns, when I still had two. Now one side of my brow has lost its weapon, as you can see for yourself.’ His words were followed by a sigh.
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Re: Metamorphoses, by Ovid

Postby admin » Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:58 pm

Book 9

• Bk 9:1-88 Acheloüs wrestles with Hercules.
• Bk 9:89-158 The shirt of Nessus.
• Bk 9:159-210 The agony of Hercules.
• Bk 9:211-272 The death and transformation of Hercules.
• Bk 9:273-323 Alcmena tells of Hercules’s birth and of Galanthis.
• Bk 9:324-393 Iole tells the story of her half-sister Dryope.
• Bk 9:394-417 The prophecies of Themis.
• Bk 9:418-438 Jupiter acknowledges the power of Fate.
• Bk 9:439-516 Byblis falls in love with her twin brother Caunus.
• Bk 9:517-594 The fatal letter
• Bk 9:595-665 The transformation of Byblis.
• Bk 9:666-713 The birth of Iphis.
• Bk 9:714-763 Iphis and Ianthe.
• Bk 9:764-797 Isis transforms Iphis.

Bk 9:1-88 Acheloüs wrestles with Hercules

Theseus, the hero, reputed son of Neptune, asked Acheloüs why he had sighed, and the reason for his damaged forehead: to which the Calydonian river-god, his uncut hair wreathed with reeds, replied: ‘You ask something painful of me. Who wants to recall the battles he has lost? But, I will tell it as it happened: since the shame of being beaten is no less than the honour of having fought. It is a great consolation to me that the victor was so famous.

If her name has ever come to your notice, Deianira was once the most beautiful girl, and the jealous hope of many suitors. When, with them, I entered Oeneus’s house, her father, and the man I sought as my father-in-law, I said: “Accept me as your son-in-law, son of Parthaon.” Hercules, scion of Alceus, said the same. The others gave way before the two of us. Hercules declared that he could offer Jove as his bride’s father-in-law, spoke of his famous labours, and of how he had survived what his stepmother, Juno, had prescribed for him. On my side I said: “It would be shameful for a god to concede to a mortal” – He was not yet a god – “In me you see the lord of the waters, that flow in winding rivers, through your kingdom. As your son-in-law I would not be a stranger sent from a foreign shore, but a native, and wedded to your own interests. Only don’t let it harm my case that Queen Juno does not hate me, and all the punishment of the labours, she demanded, passed me by!”

“Now, listen, Hercules, you, son of Alcmena: Jupiter, whose child you boast of being, is either wrongly called your father, or is truly a wrongdoer. You seek your father in a mother’s adultery. Choose whether you prefer this fiction of Jove as a father, or to be born the son of shame.” As I spoke, he gazed at me fiercely, all the while, and unable to act like a man and control his blazing anger, he merely replied in these words: “My right hand is more powerful than my tongue. As long as I beat you at wrestling, you can win the talking”, and he came at me ferociously. I was ashamed to retreat, after my words: I took off my green robes; put up my arms; held my hands, fingers curved, in front of my chest in fighting stance; and readied my limbs for the match. He caught up dust in the hollow of his hands and threw it over me, and, in turn, was, himself, gilded by the yellow sand. Now he caught at my neck, or you might think he caught me, now at my legs, now at my loins: and attacked me from every side. My weight protected me, and his attempts were useless. I was like a massive pile that the roaring flood assaults with all its might: it remains, secure in its own bulk.

We pulled away for a moment, returned to the conflict, and stood firm, determined not to concede. Foot was set against foot, and I pushed at him, with my chest full forward, fingers locked with fingers, and head to head. I have seen two strong bulls come together like that, when they try for the sleekest heifer in the pasture as their prize in the contest. The herd watches in fear, not sure to which one victory will grant overriding supremacy. Three times without success Hercules tried to push my gleaming chest away from him. At the fourth attempt, he broke my grip, loosed himself from my constricting arms, and with a blow of his hand – Certainly, I myself confess it is the truth – he turned me about, and clung, with all his weight, to my back.

If you can believe it - I am not seeking to gain false credit by saying it – I seemed to have a mountain pressing on top of me. With difficulty I thrust my arms, pouring with sweat from the great effort it took, under him, and, with difficulty, freed his firm hold on my body. He pressed me hard, as I gasped for breath, prevented me from gathering my strength, and gripped my neck. Then, at last, my knee touched the ground, and my mouth tasted sand. Inferior to him in strength, I turned to my magic arts, and slipped from his grasp in the shape of a long snake. But when I had wound my body in sinuous coils, and, hissing fiercely, darted my forked tongue at him, Tiryns’s hero laughed, and mocking my magic arts, said: “My task in the cradle was to defeat snakes, and, though you are greater than other reptiles, Acheloüs, how big a slice of the Lernean Hydra would your one serpent be? It was made fecund by its wounds, and not one of its hundred heads was safely cut off without its neck generating two more. I overcame it, and having overcome it, disembowelled that monster, with branching snake-heads, that grew from their own destruction, thriving on evil. What do you think will happen to you, who are only a false snake, using unfamiliar weapons, whom a shifting form hides?”

He spoke and knotted his fingers round my throat. I was suffocating, as if my throat was gripped by a vice, and struggled to tear his thumbs away from my windpipe. Overpowered in this form, only my third, fierce, bull-shape remained. So I fought on, my limbs those of a bull. From the left he threw his arms round my bulging neck; and followed me as I charged off; dragging at me, my horns piercing the hard ground as he pulled me down; and toppling me into the deep sand. As if that was not enough, holding the tough horn in his cruel hand, he broke it and tore it away from my mutilated brow. The Naiades took it, filling it with fruit and scented flowers, and made it sacred: the Goddess of Abundance is rich now because of my horn of plenty.”

Bk 9:89-158 The shirt of Nessus

He spoke: and a nymph, one of his attendants, dressed like Diana, her hair streaming over her shoulders, came to them, bringing all of autumn’s harvest in an overflowing horn, and, for an aftertaste, delicious fruits. Light gathered, and as the first rays struck the mountain summits, the warriors left, not waiting for the river to flow calmly and placidly or for the falling waters to subside. Acheloüs hid his wild features and his head, marred by its broken horn, in the depths of the waves.

Nevertheless he only had the loss of that adornment, which had been taken from him, to lament: he was otherwise unhurt. Also he hid his loss with a wreath of willow leaves or reeds. But you, fierce Nessus, the centaur, a passion for that same virgin girl destroyed you, hit in the back by a flying arrow.

Hercules, son of Jupiter, on his way to his native city with Deianira, his new bride, came to the swift waters of the River Euenus. The flood was higher than normal, increased by winter rains, with frequent whirlpools, and impassable. He had no fear of going on himself, but was anxious for his bride, when Nessus approached, strong of limb, and knowing the fords. ‘With my help, Alcides,” he said, “she will be set down on the far bank. Use your strength to swim!” The Theban handed over the Calydonian girl, she, pale with fear, frightened of the river and of the centaur himself.

Straight away, weighed down as he was by his quiver and his lion’s skin - he had thrown his club and his curved bow across to the other bank – the hero said: ‘Let me endure the river since I have started to cross.’ He did not hesitate, and did not search for where the river was calmest, scorning to claim the water’s allegiance. He had gained the bank, and was picking up the bow he had thrown, when he heard his wife’s voice, and shouted to Nessus, who was preparing to betray his trust: ‘Where are you carrying her off to, you rapist, trusting in vain to your swiftness of foot? I am speaking to you, Nessus, the twice-formed. Listen: do not steal what is mine. If you have no respect for me, the thought of your father, Ixion, on his whirling wheel might prevent this illicit union. However much you trust in your horse-craft, you will not escape. With wounds, not feet, I will follow you.’ He made good his last words with his actions, shooting the arrow he fired, across, at the fleeing back. The barbed tip jutted from the centaur’s chest. When the shaft was pulled out, blood, mixed with the deadly arrow-poison of the Lernean Hydra, gushed out simultaneously from the entry and exit wounds. Nessus trapped this, and murmured, to himself of course: ‘I will not die without revenge’ and gave his tunic soaked with warm blood to Deianira, whom he had abducted, presenting it to her as if it were a gift for reviving a waning love.

A long space of intervening time passed by, and the tales of mighty Hercules had filled the world, and overcome his stepmother’s hatred. As the victor at Oechalia, in Euboea (where he had avenged an insult offered him by King Eurytus) he was preparing to sacrifice to Jupiter at Cenaeum, when loquacious Rumour, who loves to add lies to fact, and expands from the tiniest truth by her falsehoods, brought her tale on ahead, to your ears, Deianira. She claimed that Hercules, reputed son of Amphitryon, was filled with passion for Iole, daughter of Eurytus.

The loving wife believes it, and terrified at first by the rumour of this new affair, she indulges in tears, and the poor girl vents her misery in weeping. But she soon says ‘Why do I weep? That adulteress will laugh at my tears. Since she is coming here, I must plan quickly, while I can, while another has not yet taken my place. Should I complain, or keep silent? Return to Calydon or stay? Should I leave my house? Or, if I can do nothing else, should I at least stand in their way? What if, remembering I am your sister, Meleager, I prepare, boldly, to commit a crime, and, by cutting that adulteress’s throat, show what revenge and a woman’s grief can do?’

Her thought traced various courses. Of all of them she preferred that of sending the shirt, imbued with Nessus’s blood, to restore her husband’s waning love. Unwittingly, she entrusted what became her future grief, to the servant, Lichas, he not knowing what he had been entrusted with: and the unfortunate woman, ordered him, with persuasive words, to give the present to her husband. Hercules, the hero, took it, without a thought, and put on the shirt of Nessus, soaked in the poison of the Lernean Hydra.

Bk 9:159-210 The agony of Hercules

He was making offerings of incense and reciting prayers over the first flames, and pouring a libation bowl of wine on to the marble altar. The power of the venom, warmed and released by the flames, dissolved, dispersing widely through the limbs of Hercules. With his usual courage, he repressed his groans while he could. When his strength to endure the venom was exhausted, he overturned the altar, and filled woody Oeta with his shouts.

He tries at once to tear off the fatal clothing: where it is pulled away, it pulls skin away with it, and, revolting to tell, it either sticks to the limbs from which he tries in vain to remove it, or reveals the lacerated limbs and his massive bones. His blood itself hisses and boils, with the virulence of the poison, like incandescent metal, dipped in a cold pool. There is no end to it: the consuming fires suck at the air in his chest: dark sweat pours from his whole body: his scorched sinews crackle. His marrow liquefying with the secret corruption, he raises his hands to the heavens, crying: ‘Juno, Saturnia, feed on my ruin: feed, cruel one: gaze, from the heights, at this destruction, and sate your savage heart! Or if this suffering seems pitiable even to an enemy, even to you, take away this sorrowful and hateful life, with its fearful torments, that was only made for toil. Death would be a gift to me, a fitting offering from a stepmother.

Was it for this I overcame Busiris who defiled the temples with the blood of sacrificed strangers? For this that I lifted fierce Antaeus, robbing him of the strength of his mother Earth? For this, that I was unmoved, by Geryon’s triple form, the herdsman of Spain, or your triple form, Cerberus? For this, you hands of mine, that you dragged down the horns of the strong Cretan bull: that the stables of King Augeas of Elis know of your efforts: the Stymphalian Lake: and the woods of Mount Parthenius, with its golden-antlered stag? For this, that, by your virtue, the gold engraved girdle of Hippolyte of Thermodon was taken, and the apples of the Hesperides, guarded by the sleepless dragon? Was it for this, that the Centaurs could not withstand me, nor the Erymanthian Boar that laid Arcady waste? For this, that it did not help the Hydra to thrive on destruction and gain redoubled strength? What of the time when I saw Thracian Diomede’s horses, fed on human blood, their stalls filled with broken bodies, and, seeing them, overthrew them, and finished off them, and their master? The Nemean Lion lies crushed by these massive arms: and for Atlas these shoulders of mine held up the sky. Jupiter’s cruel consort is tired of giving commands: I am not tired of performing them.

But now a strange disease affects me that I cannot withstand by courage, weapons or strength. Deep in my lungs a devouring fire wanders, feeding on my whole body. But Eurystheus, my enemy is well! Are there those then who can believe that the gods exist?’ So saying he roamed, in his illness, over the heights of Oeta, as a bull carries around a hunting spear embedded in its body, though the hunter who threw it has long gone. Picture him there, in the mountains, in his anger, often groaning, often shouting out, often attempting, again and again, to rid himself of the last of the garment, overturning trees, or stretching his arms out to his native skies.

Bk 9:211-272 The death and transformation of Hercules

Then he caught sight of the terrified Lichas, cowering in a hollow of the cliff, and pain concentrated all his fury. ‘Was it not you, Lichas,’ he said, ‘who gave me this fatal gift? Are you not the agent of my death?’ The man trembled, grew pale with fear, and, timidly, made excuses. While he was speaking, and trying to clasp the hero’s knees, Alcides seized him, and, swinging him round three or four times, hurled him, more violently than a catapult bolt, into the Euboean waters. Hanging in the air, he hardened with the wind. As rain freezes in the icy blasts and becomes snow; whirling snowflakes bind together in a soft mass; and they, in turn, accumulate as a body of solid hailstones: so he, the ancient tradition says, flung by strong arms through the void, bloodless with fright, and devoid of moisture, turned to hard flint. Now, in the Euboean Gulf, a low rock rises out of the depths, and keeps the semblance of a human shape. This sailors are afraid to set foot on, as though it could sense them, and they call it, Lichas.

But you, famous son of Jove, felled the trees that grew on steep Oeta, and made a funeral pyre, and commanded Philoctetes, son of Poeas, who supplied the flame that was plunged into it, to take your bow, your ample quiver, and the arrows, that were fated to see, once more, the kingdom of Troy (as they did when you rescued Hesione.) As the mass caught light from the eager fire, you spread the Nemean Lion’s pelt on the summit of the pile of logs, and lay down, your neck resting on your club, and with an aspect no different from that of a guest, reclining amongst the full wine cups, crowned with garlands.

Now the fierce flames, spreading on every side, were crackling loudly, and licking at his body, he unconcerned and scornful of them. The gods were fearful for earth’s champion. Saturnian Jupiter spoke to them, gladly, since he understood their feelings. ‘O divine beings, your fear for him delights me, and I willingly congratulate myself, with all my heart, that I am called father and ruler of a thoughtful race, and that my offspring is protected by your favour also. Though this tribute is paid to his great deeds, I am obliged to you, also. But do not allow your loyal hearts to feel groundless fears. Forget Oeta’s flames! He, who has defeated all things, will defeat the fires you see, nor will he feel Vulcan’s power, except in the mortal part that he owes to his mother, Alcmene. What he has from me is immortal, deathless and eternal: and that, no flame can destroy. When it is done with the earth, I will accept it into the celestial regions, and I trust my action will please all the gods. But if there is anyone, anyone at all, who is unhappy at Hercules’s deification, and would not wish to grant this gift, he or she should know that it was given for merit, and should approve it, though unwillingly.’ The gods agreed. Juno, also, appeared to accept the rest of his words with compliance, but not the last ones, upset that she was being censored.

Meanwhile, Mulciber had consumed whatever the flames could destroy, and no recognisable form of Hercules remained, no semblance of what came to him from his mother: he only retained his inheritance from Jove. As a snake enjoys its newness, sloughing old age with its skin, gleaming with fresh scales; so, when the Tirynthian hero had shed his mortal body, he became his better part, beginning to appear greater, and more to be revered, in his high majesty. The all-powerful father of the gods carrying him upwards, in his four-horse chariot, through the substanceless clouds, set him among the shining stars.

Bk 9:273-323 Alcmena tells of Hercules’s birth and of Galanthis

Atlas felt the weight of the new constellation. But even now the anger of Eurystheus, son of Sthenelus, was not appeased, and he pursued his unyielding hatred of the father through the children. Argive Alcmena, troubled by endless cares, had Iole, as one to whom she could confide an old woman’s miseries, to whom she could relate her son’s labours, known to all the world, and her own misfortunes. At Hercules request, Hyllus, his son by Deianira, had taken Iole to his marriage-bed, and his heart, and had planted a child of that noble race in her womb. Alcmena said to her: ‘Let the gods at least favour you, and shorten that time when, in childbirth, you call on Ilithyia, that Lucina who watches over frightened women, who, thanks to Juno’s influence, made things hard for me.

When the time for Hercules’s difficult birth came, and Capricorn, the tenth sign, was hidden by the sun, the weight of the child stretched my womb: what I carried was so great, you could tell that Jove was the father of my hidden burden. I could not bear my labour pains much longer. Even now, as I speak, a cold horror grips my body, and part of me remembers it with pain. Tortured for seven nights and as many days, worn out with agony, stretching my arms to heaven, with a great cry, I called out to Lucina, and her companion gods of birth, the Nixi. Indeed, she came, but committed in advance, determined to surrender my life to unjust Juno. She sat on the altar, in front of the door, and listened to my groans. With her right knee crossed over her left, and clasped with interlocking fingers, she held back the birth, She murmured spells, too, in a low voice, and the spells halted the birth once it began. I laboured, and, maddened, made useless outcries against ungrateful Jove. I wanted to die, and my moans would have moved the flinty rocks. The Theban women who were there, took up my prayers, and gave me encouragement in my pain.

Tawny-haired, Galanthis, one of my servant-girls, was there, humbly born but faithful in carrying out orders, loved by me for the services she rendered. She sensed that unjust Juno was up to something, and, as she was often in and out of the house, she saw the goddess, Lucina, squatting on the altar, arms linked by her fingers, clasping her knees, and said ‘Whoever you are, congratulate the mistress. Alcmena of Argolis is eased, and the prayers to aid childbirth have been answered.’

The goddess with power over the womb leapt up in consternation, releasing her clasped hands: by releasing the bonds, herself, easing the birth. They say Galanthis laughed at the duped goddess. As she laughed, the heaven-born one, in her anger, caught her by the hair, and dragged her down, and as she tried to lift her body from the ground, she arched her over, and changed her arms into forelegs. Her old energy remained, and the hair on her back did not lose her hair’s previous colour: but her former shape was changed to that of a weasel. And because her lying mouth helped in childbirth, she gives birth through her mouth, and frequents my house, as before.’

Bk 9:324-393 Iole tells the story of her half-sister Dryope

She finished speaking, and sighed, her feelings stirred by the memory of her former servant. While she grieved, her daughter-in-law, Iole, said: ‘Mother, this is still the altered form of someone not of our blood that affects you. What if I were to relate to you my sister’s strange fate? Though sadness and tears hold me back, and hinder me from talking. Dryope was her mother’s only child – I was my father’s by another wife – and she was known as the most beautiful girl in Oechalia. Suffering the assault of Apollo, that god who holds Delphi and Delos; her virginity lost; Andraemon married her; and was considered fortunate to have her as his wife.

There is a lake, whose sloping shoreline is formed by steep banks, their summits crowned with myrtle. Dryope went there, unaware of any restrictions, and, to make what happened more unacceptable, bringing garlands for the nymphs. At her breast she carried a sweet burden, her son, not yet a year old, whom she was suckling with her warm milk. Not far away, a water-loving lotus tree flowered from the swamp, with the promise of fruits to come, its colours imitating Tyrian purples. Dryope picked some of these blossoms, to offer the child as playthings, and I was looking to do the same - I was with her - when I saw drops of blood fall from the flowers, and the branches move with a shiver of fear. It appears, as the locals now tell us, at last, but too late, that Lotis, a nymph, running from obscene Priapus, turned into the tree, altering her features, keeping her name.

My sister had known nothing of this. When she wished to retreat, in fear, from the place, and escape by praying to the nymphs, her feet clung like roots. She struggled to tear them away, but nothing moved except her torso. Slowly, thick bark grew upward from her feet, hiding all her groin. When she saw this, and tried to tear at her hair, with her hands, her hands filled with leaves: leaves covered her whole head. But the child, Amphissos (so his grandfather, Eurytus, King of Oechalia, had named him) felt his mother’s breast harden, and the milky liquid failed when he sucked. I was there, a spectator of your cruel destiny, sister, and could bring you no help at all. Only, as far as I could, I held back the developing trunk and branches with my embrace, and I bear witness that I longed to be sheathed in that same bark.

Then her husband, Andraemon, and her luckless father, Eurytus, came, asking for Dryope: the Dryope they searched for I revealed as the lotus. They kissed the living wood, and prostrate on the ground clung to the roots of their tree. You, my dear sister, displayed nothing but your face that was not already tree. Your tears rained on the leaves of your poor body, and while your mouth left a path for your voice, while you still could, you poured out your lament like this into the air: “If there is truth in suffering, I swear by the gods I do not deserve this wrong. I am being punished without guilt. I lived in innocence. If I lie, let me lose the leaves I have through drought, be levelled with the axe, and burned. Take this child from these maternal branches, and find him a nurse, and have him often drink his milk under this tree of mine, and play under this tree. And when he learns to talk, have him greet his mother and say, sadly, ‘My mother is revealed in this tree.’ Let him still fear lakes, and pick no flowers from the trees, and think all shrubs are the body of the goddess.

Dear husband, farewell, and you, sister; father! If you love me, defend me from the sharp knife, and my leaves from the browsing herd. And since I am not allowed to bend to you, reach up with your arms, and find my lips, while I can still feel, and lift my little son up to me! I can speak no more. Now the soft sapwood spreads slowly over my white neck: I am imprisoned in its highest reaches. Take your hands from my eyes. Without trying to help me, allow the enveloping bark to mask the fading light!” At the moment her mouth ceased speaking, at that moment it ceased to be. For a long time, the freshly created branches glowed with warmth, from her altered body.’

Bk 9:394-417 The prophecies of Themis

While Eurytus’s daughter was relating this marvellous happening, and Alcmena was wiping away Iole’s tears (still weeping herself) a wonderful thing suspended all sadness. There, on the steep threshold, stood Iolaüs, Hercules’s nephew and companion, alive again, with the look of his early years, a hint of down on his cheeks, almost, again, a child. Overwhelmed by the prayers of her husband, Hercules, Juno’s daughter, Hebe, had granted him this gift. When she was about to swear that, after this, she would never allow any further such favour, Themis would not allow it.

She prophesied. ‘Thebes is now moving towards civil war, and, of the Seven against her, Capaneus will not be overcome, except by Jupiter himself. Two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, will die of mutually inflicted wounds. Amphiaraüs, the seer, swallowed by the earth, still living, will gaze on the ghosts of his own dead. His son, Alcmaeon, shall avenge him, with his mother Eriphyle’s death, filial and sinful in the same act. Terrified at his own evil, exiled from home and sanity, he will be pursued by the faces of the Eumenides, and by his mother’s shade, until his wife, Callirhoë demands the fatal necklace, that Venus gave Harmonia, and until the sword, of his first father-in-law, Phegeus, in the hands of Phegeus’s sons, shall drain his son-in-law’s blood. Then at last, Callirhoë, the daughter of Acheloüs, as a suppliant, will ask of mighty Jupiter, to add years to her infant sons, and not allow the avenger’s murder to be unavenged. In anticipation of being moved by her prayers, Jupiter claims for them this gift that you, his stepdaughter and daughter-in-law, possess, and will make them men, in their childhood years.’

Bk 9:418-438 Jupiter acknowledges the power of Fate

When Themis spoke these words, out of her prophetic mouth, prescient of what was to come, the gods complained in various mutterings, and there was a murmur as to why they were not able to grant the same gift to other mortals. Aurora, daughter of the Titan Pallas, lamented the old age of her husband, Tithonus. Gentle Ceres lamented the greying hair of her former lover Iasion. Mulciber demanded another lifetime for his son, Erichthonius: and Venus, also, touched by fears for the future, wanted to bargain for the renewal of her lover Anchises’s years. Each god had someone whose cause they supported: and the troublesome mutiny, over their favourites, grew, until Jupiter opened his mouth and said: ‘O, if you have any respect for me, where do you think all this talk is heading? Do any of you think you can overcome fate as well? Through fate Iolaüs’s past years were restored. Through fate Callirhoë’s children must prematurely become men, not through ambition or warfare. Even you, and I, too, fate rules, if that also makes you feel better. If I had power to alter fate, these late years would not bow down my pious Aeacus. Just Rhadamanthus would always possess youth’s flower, and my Minos, who is scorned because of the bitter weight of old age, and no longer orders the kingdom in the way he did before.’

Bk 9:439-516 Byblis falls in love with her twin brother Caunus

Jupiter’s words swayed the gods: and no one could sustain their objection when they saw Rhadamanthos, Aeacus and Minos wearied with the years. When he was in his prime, Minos had made great nations tremble at his very name: now he was weak, and feared Miletus, who was proud of his strength and parentage, the son of Phoebus Apollo and the nymph Deione. Though Minos believed Miletus might plot an insurrection, he still did not dare to deny him his home. On your own initiative, Miletus, you left, cutting the waters of the Aegean in your swift ship, and built a city on the soil of Asia, that still carries its founder’s name.

There you knew Cyanee, the daughter of Maeander, whose stream so often curves back on itself, when she was following her father’s winding shores. Twin children were born to her, of outstanding beauty of body, Byblis and her brother Caunus.

Byblis, seized by a passion, for her brother, scion of Apollo; that Byblis serves for a warning to girls, against illicit love. She loved, not as a sister loves a brother, nor as she should. At first, it is true, she did not understand the fires of passion, or think it wrong, to kiss, together, often, or throw her arms round her brother’s neck. For a long time she was deceived by the misleading likeness to sisterly affection. Gradually the nature of her love went astray, and she came looking for her brother carefully dressed, and over-anxious to look beautiful. If anyone seemed more beautiful to him, she was jealous. But her own feelings were not clear to her, and though she had no inner longing for passion, nevertheless it burned. And now she called him her lord, now she hated the name that made them related, now she wrongly wished him to call her Byblis, rather than sister. While she is awake she still dare not allow her mind its illicit hope, but, deep in peaceful dreams, she often sees what she loves, and is also seen, held in her brother’s arms, and she blushes, though lost in sleep.

When sleep has vanished, she lies there for a long time, recalling, to herself, the imagery of her dream, and at last utters these inner doubts: ‘Alas for me! What does it mean, this vision out of the night’s silence? How I would hate it to be true! Why do I see these things in sleep? He is truly handsome, even to unfriendly eyes, and is pleasing, and if he were not my brother I could love him, and he would be worthy of me. Being his sister is the reality that harms me. Let sleep often return with similar visions, as long as I am not tempted to do any such thing while awake! A dream lacks witnesses, but does not lack pleasure’s counterpart. By winged Cupid, and Venus, his tender mother, how great the joy I had! How clearly passion touched me! How my whole heart melted where I lay! What joy in remembrance! Though its pleasure was short-lived, and night rushed onwards, envious of my imaginings.

O if I could have been joined to you, with another’s name, Caunus, how good a daughter-in-law I could have been to your father! O Caunus, how good a son-in-law you could have been to my father! We would have had everything shared between us, except our grandparents: I would have wanted you to be nobler than me! You, most beautiful one, will make someone else the mother of your children, but to me, whom evil luck has given the same parents, you will be nothing but a brother. What separates us: that we will share as one. What does my vision signify to me? What weight indeed do dreams have? Or perhaps - the gods forbid - dreams do have weight? Certainly, the gods have possessed their sisters. So, Saturn led Ops, his blood-kin, to join with him, and Oceanus, Tethys, and the ruler of Olympus, Juno. The gods have their own laws! Why try to relate human affairs to other, divine, behaviour? Either my forbidden passion will be driven from my heart, or if I cannot achieve that, I pray to be loved, before I am laid out on my deathbed, and my brother kisses me there. Yet that needs both our wills! Suppose it pleases me: it may seem a sin to him.

Still, the sons of Aeolus, god of the winds, were not afraid to marry their sisters! Where did I learn that? Why do I have such ready examples? Where is this leading? Vanish, far off, illicit flames, and let my brother not be loved, except as a sister may love him! Yet, if he himself were first captured by love of me, I might perhaps be able to indulge this madness. Then let me woo him, whom I would not reject, if he were wooing! - Can you say it? Can you acknowledge it? - Love compels me: I can! Or if shame closes my lips, a secret letter will confess my hidden passions.’

Bk 9:517-594 The fatal letter

This idea pleases her, and this decision overcomes the doubt in her mind. Turning on one side and leaning on her left elbow, she says to herself: ‘Let him know: let me acknowledge my insane desires! Alas, where am I heading? What fire has my heart conceived?’ And, with a trembling hand, she begins to set down the words she has contemplated. She holds the pen in her right hand, and a blank wax tablet in her left. She begins, then hesitates; writes and condemns the writing; scribbles and smoothes it out; alters, blames and approves; in turn lays down what she has lifted, and lifts what she has laid down. She does not know what to do, displeased with whatever she is about to do. In her expression, shame is mixed with boldness.

She had written ‘sister’, but decided to efface the name of sister, and inscribed these words on the corrected tablet: ‘That wish, for long life, that she will not have, unless you grant it, one who loves you, sends to you. She is ashamed, oh, ashamed to tell her name. And if you ask what I desire, I would have wished to plead my cause, namelessly, and not to have been identified, until the expectation of what I desired was certain, as Byblis.

True, you might have seen signs of my wounded heart in my pallor, thinness, features, eyes full of tears, sighs with no apparent cause, frequent embraces, kisses, which, if you had chanced to notice, might not have felt like a sister’s. Yet, though my soul was deeply stricken, though the mad fire is in me, I have done everything I can (the gods are my witnesses) to become calmer. For a long time I have struggled, unhappily, to escape Cupid’s onslaught, and I have suffered more hardship than you would think a girl could suffer. I am compelled to confess, I have lost, and to beg your help, with humble prayers. You alone can save your lover, you alone destroy her. Choose what you will. It is not your enemy who prays to you, but one who, though closest to you, seeks to be closer still, and bound to you with a tighter bond.

Let old people know what is right, and what is allowed, and what is virtue and what is sin, and preserve the fine balance of the law. At our age Love is what is fitting, that takes no heed. We do not know yet what is permitted, and we consider all things permitted, and follow the example of the great gods. We have no harsh father, no regard for reputation, and no fear to impede us. Even if there were cause for fear, we can hide sweet theft under the names of brother and sister. I am free to speak to you in private, and we can embrace and kiss in front of others. How important is what is still lacking? Pity the one who confesses her love, and would not confess if extreme desire did not force her, and do not you be the reason for the writing on my tomb.’

Her handwriting filled the wax, with these fruitless words, the last line close to the edge. Immediately she put her seal on the sinful message, dampening it with her tears (moisture failed her tongue), stamping it with her signet ring. Shamefacedly, she called one of her servants, and shyly and coaxingly said: ‘You are most faithful. Take these to my..........brother’ she added after a long silence. As she let them go, the tablets slipped and fell from her hand. She still sent the letter, troubled by the omen. Finding a suitable time, the messenger went, and delivered the hidden words. Horrified, Maeander’s grandson, suddenly enraged, hurled away the tablets, he had accepted, and partly read, and, scarcely able to keep his hands from the trembling servant’s throat, cried: ‘Run while you can, you rascally aide to forbidden lust! I would deal you death, as a punishment, if your fate would not also drag our honour down with it.’ The servant fled in fear, and reported Caunus’s fierce words, to Byblis.

She grew pale, hearing that she had been rejected, and her body shook, gripped by an icy chill. But, when consciousness returned, so did the passion, and, she let out these words, her lips scarcely moving: ‘I deserve it! Well, why did I rashly reveal my wound? Why was I in such a hurry to commit things, which were secret, to a hasty letter? I should have tested his mind’s judgment before by ambiguous words. I should have observed how the winds blew; used other lesser sails, in case those breezes were not to be followed; and crossed the sea in safety, not as now, under full canvas, caught by uncertain gusts. So I am carried onto the rocks, swamped, overwhelmed by the whole ocean, and my sails have no means of retreat.’

Bk 9:595-665 The transformation of Byblis

‘Why, as far as that is concerned, everything, unerringly, warned me not to give way to my desire, at the moment when the tablets fell, as I was giving orders for them to be taken to him, meaning that my hopes would also fall away. Should not, perhaps, the day, or my whole intention, more so the day, have been altered? The god himself issued a warning, and gave a clear sign, if I had not been crazed with love. Also I should have told him myself, and revealed my passion to him in person, and not committed myself in writing. He would have seen the tears, and seen a lover’s face. I could have said more than any letter can contain. I could have thrown my arms around his unwilling neck, and if I had been rejected, I could have seemed on the point of dying, embraced his feet, and lying there begged for life. I should have done all those things that, if not singly, all together, might have persuaded his stubborn mind. Maybe the messenger who was sent was at fault: did not approach him properly, I think, or choose a suitable moment, or discover when he and the time were free.

It has all harmed me. Truly, my brother is not born of the tigress. He does not have a heart of unyielding flint, solid iron, or steel. He was not suckled on the milk of a lioness. He will be won! I will try again, and not suffer any weariness in my attempts, while breath is left to me. Since I cannot undo my actions, it would have been best not to begin: but, having begun, the next best is to win through. In fact if I relinquished my longing, he could still not fail to remember what I have dared, and by desisting I will be seen to have been shallow in my desires, or to have been trying to tempt and snare him. He will even believe, I am sure, that I have not been conquered by the god, who, above all, impels and inflames our hearts, but by lust. In short, I cannot but be guilty of impiety, of writing, of wooing: my wishes are revealed. Though I add nothing to them, I cannot be said to be innocent. There is little left to be accused of, but much to long for.’

So she argues, and (so great is the undecided conflict in her mind) while she repented of the attempt, she delights in attempting. Going beyond all moderation, and unsuccessful in what she tries, she is endlessly rejected. Finally, when there seems no end to it, he flees from this wickedness and from his home, and founds a new city in a foreign place: Caunus, in Caria.

Then, indeed, grief made Miletus’s daughter lose her mind completely. Then, indeed, she tore the clothes from her breast, and beat her arms in frenzy. Her madness was now public, and she confessed her hope of illicit union, by leaving the country she hated, and her household gods, and following the footsteps of her fleeing brother. The women of Bubasos saw Byblis, howling in the open fields, as your Thracians, son of Semele, pricked by your thyrsus, keep your triennial festival.

Leaving them behind she wandered through Caria, through the lands of the armed Leleges, and on through Lycia. Now she was beyond Lycian Cragus, and Limyre, and the waters of the Xanthian plain, and the ridge of Mount Chimaera near Phaleris, where the fire-breathing monster lived, joining a lion’s head and chest to a serpent’s tail. Above the woods, when, wearied, you were weak from following, you fell, Byblis, your hair spread on the hard earth, and your face pressing the fallen leaves.

The Lelegeian nymphs often try to lift her in their tender arms, and often they teach her how she might remedy her love, and they offer comfort to her silent heart. She lies there, mute, clutching at the green stems with her fingers, and watering the grass with her flowing tears. They say the naiads created a spring from them, beneath her, which could never run dry. Well, what more could they offer her? There and then, Byblis, Phoebus’s granddaughter, consumed by her own tears, is changed into a fountain: just as drops of resin ooze from a cut pine, or sticky bitumen from heavy soil, or as water, that has been frozen by the cold, melts in the sun, at the coming of the west wind’s gentle breath: and even now in those valleys it retains its mistress’s name, and flows from underneath a dark holm oak.

Bk 9:666-713 The birth of Iphis

Perhaps, the story of this new marvel would have filled Crete’s hundred cities, if Crete had not recently known a miracle nearer home, in the metamorphosis of Iphis. In the Phaestos region, near royal Cnossos, there once lived a man named Ligdus, undistinguished, a native of the place, his wealth no greater than his fame, but living a blameless and honourable life. When his pregnant wife, Telethusa, was near to her time, he spoke these words of warning in her ear: ‘There are two things I wish for: that you are delivered with the least pain, and that you produce a male child. A girl is a heavier burden, and misfortune denies them strength. So, though I hate this, if, by chance, you give birth to a female infant, reluctantly, I order - let my impiety be forgiven! – that it be put to death.’ He spoke, and tears flooded their cheeks, he who commanded, and she to whom the command was given. Nevertheless, Telethusa, urged her husband, with vain prayers, not to confine hope itself. Ligdus remained fixed in his determination.

Now, her pregnant belly could scarcely bear to carry her fully-grown burden, when Io, the daughter of Inachus, at midnight, in sleep’s imagining, stood, or seemed to stand, by her bed: Isis, accompanied by her holy procession. The moon’s crescent horns were on her forehead, and the shining gold of yellow ears of corn, and royal splendour belonged to her. With her were the jackal-headed Anubis, the hallowed cat-headed Bast, the dappled bull Apis, and Harpocrates, the god who holds his tongue, and urges silence, thumb in mouth. The sacred rattle, the sistrum, was there; and Osiris, for whom her search never ends; and the strange serpent she fashioned, swollen with sleep-inducing venom, that poisoned the sun-god Ra. Then, as if Telethusa had shaken off sleep, and was seeing clearly, the goddess spoke to her, saying: ‘O, you who belong to me, forget your heavy cares, and do not obey your husband. When Lucina has eased the birth, whatever sex the child has, do not hesitate to raise it. I am the goddess, who, when prevailed upon, brings help and strength: you will have no cause to complain, that the divinity, you worshipped, lacks gratitude.’ Having given her command, she left the room. Joyfully, the Cretan woman rose, and, lifting her innocent hands to the stars, she prayed, in all humility, that her dream might prove true.

When the pains grew, and her burden pushed its own way into the world, and a girl was born, the mother ordered it to be reared, deceitfully, as a boy, without the father realising. She had all that she needed, and no one but the nurse knew of the fraud. The father made good his vows, and gave it the name of the grandfather: he was Iphis. The mother was delighted with the name, since it was appropriate for either gender, and no one was cheated by it. From that moment, the deception, begun with a sacred lie, went undetected. The child was dressed as a boy, and its features would have been beautiful whether they were given to a girl or a boy.

Bk 9:714-763 Iphis and Ianthe

Thirteen years passed by, meanwhile, and then, Iphis, your father betrothed you to golden-haired Ianthe, whose dowry was her beauty, the girl most praised amongst the women of Phaestos, the daughter of Telestes of Dicte. The two were equal in age, and equal in looks, and had received their first instruction, in the knowledge of life, from the same teachers. From this beginning, love had touched both their innocent hearts, and wounded them equally, but with unequal expectations. Ianthe anticipated her wedding day, and the promised marriage, believing he, whom she thought to be a man, would be her man. Iphis loved one whom she despaired of being able to have, and this itself increased her passion, a girl on fire for a girl.

Hardly restraining her tears, she said ‘What way out is there left, for me, possessed by the pain of a strange and monstrous love, that no one ever knew before? If the gods wanted to spare me they should have spared me, but if they wanted to destroy me, they might at least have visited on me a natural, and normal, misfortune. Mares do not burn with love for mares, or heifers for heifers: the ram inflames the ewe: its hind follows the stag. So, birds mate, and among all animals, not one female is attacked by lust for a female. I wish I were not one! Yet that Crete might not fail to bear every monstrosity, Pasiphaë, Sol’s daughter, loved a bull, though still that was a female and a male. My love, truth be told, is more extreme than that. She at least chased after the hope of fulfilment, though the bull had her because of her deceit, and in the likeness of a cow, and the one who was deceived was a male adulterer. Though all of the world’s cleverness were concentrated here, though Daedalus were to return on waxen wings, what use would it be? Surely even his cunning arts could not make a boy out of a girl? Surely even he could not transform you, Ianthe?

Rather be firm-minded, Iphis, and pull yourself together, and, with wisdom, shake off this foolish, useless passion. Look at what you have been, from birth, if you don’t want to cheat yourself, and seek out what is right for you, and love as a woman should! It is hope that creates love, and hope that nourishes it. Everything robs you of that. No guardian keeps you from her dear arms, no wary husband’s care, no cruel father, nor does she deny your wooing herself. Yet you can never have her, or be happy, whatever is accomplished, whatever men or gods attempt.

Even now, no part of my prayers has been denied. The gods have readily given whatever they were able, and my father, her father, and she herself, want what I want to happen. But Nature does not want it, the only one who harms me, more powerful than them all. See, the longed-for time has come, the wedding torch is at hand, and Ianthe will become mine – yet not be had by me. I will thirst in the midst of the waters. Juno, goddess of brides, and Hymen, why do you come to these marriage rites, where the bridegroom is absent, and both are brides?’

Bk 9:764-797 Isis transforms Iphis

With these words, she stopped speaking. The other girl was no less on fire, and prayed, Hymen, that you would come quickly. Telethusa, afraid of what she sought, merely put off the day: now lengthening the delay through pretended illness, now, frequently, using omens and dreams as an excuse. But eventually every pretext was exhausted, the date for the delayed marriage ceremony was set, and only a day remained. Then Telethusa took the sacred ribbons from her own and her daughter Iphis’s head, so that their hair streamed down, and clinging to the altar, cried: ‘Isis, you who protect Paraetonium, Pharos, the Mareotic fields, and Nile, divided in its seven streams, I pray you, bring help, and relieve our fears! Goddess, I saw you once, you, and those symbols of you, and I knew them all, accompanied by the jingling bronze of the sistrum, and imprinted your commands on my remembering mind. That my daughter looks on the light, that I have not been punished, behold, it was your purpose, and your gift. Gladden us with your aid. Have pity on us both!’

Tears followed words. The goddess seemed to make the altar tremble (it did tremble), and the doors of the temple shook, her horns, shaped like the moon’s crescents, shone, and the sistrum rattled loudly. Not yet reassured, but gladdened by the auspicious omen, the mother left the temple. Iphis, her companion, followed, taking larger paces than before; with no whiteness left in her complexion; with additional strength, and sharper features, and shorter, less elegant hair; showing more vigour than women have. Take your gifts to the temple, Iphis: rejoice, with confidence, not fear! You, who were lately a girl, are now a boy!

They take their gifts to the temple, and add a votive tablet: the tablet has this brief line:

IPHIS PERFORMS AS A BOY, WHAT HE PROMISED, AS A GIRL.

The next day’s sun reveals the wide world in its rays, when Venus, and Juno, joined with Hymen, come, to the marriage torches, and Iphis, the boy, gains possession of his Ianthe.
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Re: Metamorphoses, by Ovid

Postby admin » Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:59 pm

Book 10

• Bk 10:1-85 Orpheus and Eurydice.
• Bk 10:86-105 The gathering of the trees.
• Bk 10:106-142 The death of Cyparissus.
• Bk 10:143-219 Orpheus sings: Ganymede; Hyacinthus.
• Bk 10:220-242 Orpheus sings: The Propoetides.
• Bk 10:243-297 Orpheus sings: Pygmalion and the statue.
• Bk 10:298-355 Orpheus sings: Myrrha’s incestuous love for Cinyras.
• Bk 10:356-430 Orpheus sings: Myrrha and her nurse.
• Bk 10:431-502 Orpheus sings: Myrrha’s crime and punishment
• Bk 10:503-559 Orpheus sings: Venus and Adonis.
• Bk 10:560-637 Venus tells her story: Atalanta and Hippomenes.
• Bk 10:638-680 Venus tells her story: The foot-race.
• Bk 10:681-707 Venus tells her story: The transformation.
• Bk 10:708-739 Orpheus sings: The death of Adonis.

Bk 10:1-85 Orpheus and Eurydice

Hymen, called by the voice of Orpheus, departed, and, dressed in his saffron robes, made his way through the vast skies to the Ciconian coast: but in vain. He was present at Orpheus’s marriage, true, but he did not speak the usual words, display a joyful expression, or bring good luck. The torch, too, that he held, sputtered continually, with tear-provoking fumes, and no amount of shaking contrived to light it properly. The result was worse than any omens. While the newly wedded bride, Eurydice, was walking through the grass, with a crowd of naiads as her companions, she was killed, by a bite on her ankle, from a snake, sheltering there. When Thracian Orpheus, the poet of Rhodope, had mourned for her, greatly, in the upper world, he dared to go down to Styx, through the gate of Taenarus, also, to see if he might not move the dead.

Through the weightless throng, and the ghosts that had received proper burial, he came to Persephone, and the lord of the shadows, he who rules the joyless kingdom. Then striking the lyre-strings to accompany his words, he sang: ‘O gods of this world, placed below the earth, to which, all, who are created mortal, descend; if you allow me, and it is lawful, to set aside the fictions of idle tongues, and speak the truth, I have not come here to see dark Tartarus, nor to bind Cerberus, Medusa’s child, with his three necks, and snaky hair. My wife is the cause of my journey. A viper, she trod on, diffused its venom into her body, and robbed her of her best years. I longed to be able to accept it, and I do not say I have not tried: Love won.

He is a god well known in the world above, though I do not know if that is so here: though I imagine him to be here, as well, and if the story of that rape in ancient times is not a lie, you also were wedded by Amor. I beg you, by these fearful places, by this immense abyss, and the silence of your vast realms, reverse Eurydice’s swift death. All things are destined to be yours, and though we delay a while, sooner or later, we hasten home. Here we are all bound, this is our final abode, and you hold the longest reign over the human race. Eurydice, too, will be yours to command, when she has lived out her fair span of years, to maturity. I ask this benefit as a gift; but, if the fates refuse my wife this kindness, I am determined not to return: you can delight in both our deaths.’

The bloodless spirits wept as he spoke, accompanying his words with the music. Tantalus did not reach for the ever-retreating water: Ixion’s wheel was stilled: the vultures did not pluck at Tityus’s liver: the Belides, the daughters of Danaüs, left their water jars: and you, Sisyphus, perched there, on your rock. Then they say, for the first time, the faces of the Furies were wet with tears, won over by his song: the king of the deep, and his royal bride, could not bear to refuse his prayer, and called for Eurydice.

She was among the recent ghosts, and walked haltingly from her wound. The poet of Rhodope received her, and, at the same time, accepted this condition, that he must not turn his eyes behind him, until he emerged from the vale of Avernus, or the gift would be null and void.

They took the upward path, through the still silence, steep and dark, shadowy with dense fog, drawing near to the threshold of the upper world. Afraid she was no longer there, and eager to see her, the lover turned his eyes. In an instant she dropped back, and he, unhappy man, stretching out his arms to hold her and be held, clutched at nothing but the receding air. Dying a second time, now, there was no complaint to her husband (what, then, could she complain of, except that she had been loved?). She spoke a last ‘farewell’ that, now, scarcely reached his ears, and turned again towards that same place.

Stunned by the double loss of his wife, Orpheus was like that coward who saw Cerberus, the three-headed dog, chained by the central neck, and whose fear vanished with his nature, as stone transformed his body. Or like Olenos, and you, his Lethaea, too proud of your beauty: he wished to be charged with your crime, and seem guilty himself: once wedded hearts, you are now rocks set on moist Mount Ida.

Orpheus wished and prayed, in vain, to cross the Styx again, but the ferryman fended him off. Still, for seven days, he sat there by the shore, neglecting himself and not taking nourishment. Sorrow, troubled thought, and tears were his food. He took himself to lofty Mount Rhodope, and Haemus, swept by the winds, complaining that the gods of Erebus were cruel.

Three times the sun had ended the year, in watery Pisces, and Orpheus had abstained from the love of women, either because things ended badly for him, or because he had sworn to do so. Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection. Indeed, he was the first of the Thracian people to transfer his love to young boys, and enjoy their brief springtime, and early flowering, this side of manhood.

Bk 10:86-105 The gathering of the trees

There was a hill, and, on the hill, a wide area of level ground, turfed with fresh blades of grass: shade was absent there: but when the poet, born of the god, sounded the strings of his lyre, shade gathered there. Jupiter’s Chaonian oak-tree came; and Phaethon’s sisters, the Heliades, the poplars; the durmast oak with its deep foliage; the soft lime-tree; the beech; the virgin sweet-bay, laurel; the hazel, frail; the ash-tree, used for spears; the sweeping silver-fir: holm-oak, heavy with acorns; pleasant plane-tree; the many-coloured maple; with the river-haunting willow; lotus, water-lover; boxwood ever-verdant; the slender tamarisk; the myrtle, with, over and under its leaves, the two shades of green; and the blue-berried wild-bay, laurus tinus. You came, also, twining ivy, together with shooting vines; the vine-supporting elms; the flowering ‘manna’ ash; the spruce; the strawberry tree, weighed down with its red fruit; the pliant palms, the winner’s prize; and you, the shaggy-topped pine tree, armed with needles, sacred to Cybele, mother of the gods, since Attis exchanged his human form for you, and hardened in your trunk.

Bk 10:106-142 The death of Cyparissus

Among the crowd came the cypress, formed like the cone-shaped meta, that marks the turning point in the race-course: once a boy, but now a tree: loved by the god who tunes the lyre, and strings the bow.

There was a giant stag, sacred to the nymphs that haunt the Carthaean country, which cast deep shadows, around its head, from his wide-branching antlers. The antlers shone with gold, and the gems of a jewelled collar, around his polished neck, hung down onto his shoulders. A bulla, a silver charm, fastened with small strips of leather, quivered on his forehead, and on either side of his hollow temples matching pearls of bronze gleamed from both ears. Free from fear, and forgetting his natural shyness, he used to visit people’s houses, and offer his neck to be stroked by strangers’ hands. Yet, above all others, he was dear to you, Cyparissus, loveliest of the Cean boys. You led the stag to fresh pastures, and the waters of the clear spring. Now you would weave diverse flowers through his horns, and then, astride his back like a horseman, delight in tugging his soft mouth one way or the other by means of a purple muzzle.

It was noon of a summer’s day, when the curving claws of shore-loving Cancer were burning in the hot sun. Tired, the stag had settled its body on the grassy turf and was enjoying the cool of the woodland shade. The boy, without intention, transfixed it with his sharp spear, and when he saw it dying from the cruel wound, he wished to die himself. What was there Phoebus did not say, in solace, advising a moderate grief matching the cause! He only sighed, and begged, as the last gift of the gods, that he might mourn forever. Then, his blood discharged among endless tears, his limbs began to turn to a shade of green, and his hair that a moment ago hung over his pale forehead, became a bristling crown, and he stiffened to a graceful point gazing at the starry heavens. The god sighed for him, and said, sadly: ‘I will mourn for you: you will mourn for others, and enter into sorrows’.

Bk 10:143-219 Orpheus sings: Ganymede; Hyacinthus

Such was the grove of trees the poet gathered round him, and he sat in the midst of a crowd, of animals and birds. When he had tried a few chords, stroking the lyre with his thumb, and felt that the various notes were in tune, regardless of their pitch, he raised his voice to sing: ‘Begin my song with Jupiter, Calliope, O Muse, my mother (all things bow to Jupiter’s might)! I have often sung the power of Jove before: I have sung of the Giants, in an epic strain, and the victorious lightning bolts, hurled at the Phlegraean field. Now there is gentler work for the lyre, and I sing of boys loved by the gods, and girls stricken with forbidden fires, deserving punishment for their lust.

‘The king of the gods once burned with love for Phrygian Ganymede, and to win him Jupiter chose to be something other than he was. Yet he did not deign to transform himself into any other bird, than that eagle, that could carry his lightning bolts. Straightaway, he beat the air with deceitful wings, and stole the Trojan boy, who still handles the mixing cups, and against Juno’s will pours out Jove’s nectar.

‘You too, Hyacinthus, of Amyclae, Phoebus would have placed in heaven, if sad fate had given him time to do so. Still, as it is, you are immortal, and whenever spring drives winter away, and Aries follows watery Pisces, you also rise, and flower in the green turf. My father, Phoebus, loved you above all others: and Delphi, at the centre of the world, lost its presiding deity, while the god frequented Eurotas, and Sparta without its walls, doing no honour to the zither or the bow. Forgetting his usual pursuits, he did not object to carrying the nets, handling the dogs, or travelling as a companion, over the rough mountain ridges, and by constant partnership feeding the flames.

‘Now, the sun was midway between the vanished and the future night, equally far from either extreme: they stripped off their clothes, and gleaming with the rich olive oil, they had rubbed themselves with, they began a contest with the broad discus. Phoebus went first, balancing it, and hurling it high into the air, scattering the clouds with its weight. Its mass took a long time to fall back to the hard ground, showing strength and skill combined. Immediately the Taenarian boy, without thinking, ran forward to pick up the disc, prompted by his eagerness to throw, but the solid earth threw it back, hitting you in the face, with the rebound, Hyacinthus.

‘The god is as white as the boy, and cradles the fallen body. Now he tries to revive you, now to staunch your dreadful wound, and now applies herbs to hold back your departing spirit. His arts are useless: the wound is incurable. Just as if, when someone, in a garden, breaks violets, stiff poppies, or the lilies, with their bristling yellow stamens, and, suddenly, they droop, bowing their weakened heads, unable to support themselves, and their tops gaze at the soil: so his dying head drops, and, with failing strength, the neck is overburdened, and sinks onto the shoulder.

‘"You slip away, Spartan, robbed of the flower of youth,” Phoebus sighed, “and I see my guilt, in your wound. You are my grief and my reproach: your death must be ascribed to my hand. I am the agent of your destruction. Yet, how was it my fault, unless taking part in a game can be called a fault, unless it can be called a fault to have loved you? If only I might die with you, and pay with my life! But since the laws of fate bind us, you shall always be with me, and cling to my remembering lips. My songs; the lyre my hand touches; will celebrate you. As a new-formed flower, you shall denote my woe, by your markings. And the time will come, when Ajax, bravest of heroes, will associate himself with this same flower, and be identified by its petals.”

‘While the truthful mouth of Apollo uttered these words, look, the blood that had spilt on the ground staining the grass was no longer blood, and a flower sprang up, brighter than Tyrian dye, and took the shape of a lily, though it was purple in colour, where the other is silvery white. Not satisfied with this alone, Phoebus (he, indeed, was the giver of the honour) himself marked his grief on the petals, and the flower bore the letters AI AI, the letters of woe traced there. Nor was Sparta ashamed of producing Hyacinthus: his honour has lasted to this day, and by ancient custom the Hyacinthia is celebrated, at its annual return, by displaying the flower in procession.

Bk 10:220-242 Orpheus sings: The Propoetides

‘But if you should ask the Cyprian city of Amathus, rich in mines, whether it would have wished to have produced those girls, the Propoetides, it would repudiate them, and equally those men, whose foreheads were once marred by two horns, from which they took their name, Cerastae. An altar, to Jove the Hospitable, used to stand in front of the gates: if any stranger, ignorant of their wickedness, had seen it, stained with blood, they would have thought that calves or sheep, from Amathus, were sacrificed there: it was their guests they killed! Kindly Venus was preparing to abandon her cities, and the Cyprian fields, outraged by their abominable rites, but ‘How,’ she said, ‘have my cities, or this dear place, sinned? What is their crime? Instead, let this impious race pay the penalty of death or exile, or some punishment between execution and banishment, and what might that be but the penalty of being transformed?’ While she is deciding how to alter them, she turns her eyes towards their horns, and this suggests that she might leave them those, and she changed them into wild bullocks.

‘Nevertheless, the immoral Propoetides dared to deny that Venus was the goddess. For this, because of her divine anger, they are said to have been the first to prostitute their bodies and their reputations in public, and, losing all sense of shame, they lost the power to blush, as the blood hardened in their cheeks, and only a small change turned them into hard flints.

Bk 10:243-297 Orpheus sings: Pygmalion and the statue

‘Pygmalion had seen them, spending their lives in wickedness, and, offended by the failings that nature gave the female heart, he lived as a bachelor, without a wife or partner for his bed. But, with wonderful skill, he carved a figure, brilliantly, out of snow-white ivory, no mortal woman, and fell in love with his own creation. The features are those of a real girl, who, you might think, lived, and wished to move, if modesty did not forbid it. Indeed, art hides his art. He marvels: and passion, for this bodily image, consumes his heart. Often, he runs his hands over the work, tempted as to whether it is flesh or ivory, not admitting it to be ivory. he kisses it and thinks his kisses are returned; and speaks to it; and holds it, and imagines that his fingers press into the limbs, and is afraid lest bruises appear from the pressure. Now he addresses it with compliments, now brings it gifts that please girls, shells and polished pebbles, little birds, and many-coloured flowers, lilies and tinted beads, and the Heliades’s amber tears, that drip from the trees. He dresses the body, also, in clothing; places rings on the fingers; places a long necklace round its neck; pearls hang from the ears, and cinctures round the breasts. All are fitting: but it appears no less lovely, naked. He arranges the statue on a bed on which cloths dyed with Tyrian murex are spread, and calls it his bedfellow, and rests its neck against soft down, as if it could feel.

‘The day of Venus’s festival came, celebrated throughout Cyprus, and heifers, their curved horns gilded, fell, to the blow on their snowy neck. The incense was smoking, when Pygmalion, having made his offering, stood by the altar, and said, shyly: “If you can grant all things, you gods, I wish as a bride to have...” and not daring to say “the girl of ivory” he said “one like my ivory girl.” Golden Venus, for she herself was present at the festival, knew what the prayer meant, and as a sign of the gods’ fondness for him, the flame flared three times, and shook its crown in the air. When he returned, he sought out the image of his girl, and leaning over the couch, kissed her. She felt warm: he pressed his lips to her again, and also touched her breast with his hand. The ivory yielded to his touch, and lost its hardness, altering under his fingers, as the bees’ wax of Hymettus softens in the sun, and is moulded, under the thumb, into many forms, made usable by use. The lover is stupefied, and joyful, but uncertain, and afraid he is wrong, reaffirms the fulfilment of his wishes, with his hand, again, and again.

‘It was flesh! The pulse throbbed under his thumb. Then the hero, of Paphos, was indeed overfull of words with which to thank Venus, and still pressed his mouth against a mouth that was not merely a likeness. The girl felt the kisses he gave, blushed, and, raising her bashful eyes to the light, saw both her lover and the sky. The goddess attended the marriage that she had brought about, and when the moon’s horns had nine times met at the full, the woman bore a son, Paphos, from whom the island takes its name.

Bk 10:298-355 Orpheus sings: Myrrha’s incestuous love for Cinyras

‘Cinyras was the son of Paphos, and he might have been counted amongst the fortunate, if he, in turn, had been childless. I speak of terrible things. Fathers and daughters, keep away: or if your mind takes pleasure in my song, put no faith in this story of mine, and imagine it did not happen. Or, if you do believe it, believe in the punishment also, that it brought. If nature, however, allows such crimes to be visible, then I give thanks that the people of Thrace, this city, and this land, are far from the regions where such sin is born. Let the land of Panchaia, beyond Araby, produce its balsam, cinnamon, costmary; its incense, exuded from the trees; its flowers different from ours; if it produces myrrh: a strange tree is not worth such a price.

‘Cupid denies that his arrows hurt you, Myrrha, and clears his fires of blame for your crime. One of the three sisters, the Furies, with her swollen snakes, and firebrand from the Styx, breathed on you. It is wrong to hate your father, but that love was a greater wrong than hatred. The pick of the princes, from everywhere, desire you: young men, from the whole of the East, come to win you in marriage. Out of the many, choose one, for your husband, Myrrha, but let one man not be amongst the many.

‘Indeed, she knows it, and fights against her disgraceful passion, and says, to herself: “Where is my thought leading? What am I creating? You gods, I pray, and the duty and sacred laws respecting parents, prevent this wickedness, and oppose my sin, indeed, if sin it is. But it can be said that duty declines to condemn such love. Other creatures mate indiscriminately: it is no disgrace for a heifer to have her sire mount her, for his filly to be a stallion’s mate: the goat goes with the flocks he has made, and the birds themselves conceive, by him whose seed conceived them. Happy the creatures who are allowed to do so! Human concern has made malign laws, and what nature allows, jealous duty forbids.

‘“Yet they say there are races where mother and son, and father and daughter, pair off, and affection is increased by a double bond. Alas for me, that I did not happen to be born there, and that I am made to suffer by an accident of place! – Why do I repeat these things? Forbidden hopes, vanish! He is worth loving, but only as a father. – I could lie with Cinyras, if I were not Cinyras’s already. Now, he is not mine, because he is already mine, and the nearness of our relationship damns me: I would be better off as a stranger. I would be happy to go far away, and leave the borders of my homeland behind me, if I might run from evil: but even if nothing more is permitted, a wicked desire to see Cinyras, touch him, speak to him, and kiss him, face to face, prevents my leaving. But then, what more might you look to have, impious girl? Do you realise how many names and ties you are throwing into confusion? Would you be, then, your mother’s rival, and your father’s mistress? Would you be known, then, as your son’s sister, your brother’s mother? Do you not fear the three sisters, with black snaky hair, that those with guilty hearts see, their eyes and mouths attacked with cruel torches? Since you have still not committed sin in the flesh, do not conceive it in your mind, or disregard the prohibitions, of mighty nature, in vile congress! Grant that you want it: the reality itself forbids it. He is a good man, and mindful of the moral law – but, O, how I wish the same passion were in him!”

Bk 10:356-430 Orpheus sings: Myrrha and her nurse

‘She spoke: Cinyras, however, who was made doubtful of what to do, by the crowd of noble suitors, naming them, asked her whom she wanted, as a husband.

‘At first she is silent, and staring at her father’s face, hesitates, her eyes filling with warm tears. Cinyras thinking this to be virgin shyness, forbids her to cry, dries her cheeks, and kisses her on the lips. Myrrha is overjoyed at this gift, and, being consulted as to what kind of husband she might choose, says: “Someone like you”. Not understanding this, however, he praises her, saying: “Always be so loving.” At the word “loving”, the girl, lowers her glance, conscious of her sin.

‘It was midnight, and sleep had released mortal flesh from worldly cares, but Cinyras’s daughter, wakeful, stirring the embers, reawakens her ungovernable desires, one moment despairing, at another willing to try, ashamed and eager, not yet discovering what to do. As a tall tree, struck by the axe, the last blow remaining, uncertain how it will fall, causes fear on all sides, so her fickle mind, swayed this way and that, her thought taking both directions, seeing no rest for, or end to, her passion, but death. She felt ready to die. She got up, determined, to fix a noose round her throat, and, fastening a cord to the doorway’s crossbeam, she said: “Goodbye, dear Cinyras, and realize the reason for my death!” And she tied the rope around her bloodless neck. They say that the murmured words came to the ears of her loyal nurse, who watched at her foster-child’s threshold.

‘The old woman gets up, and opens the door, and, seeing the equipment of death, cries out, and in the same moment, strikes her breast, snatches at the folds of her robe, and tearing the noose from the girl’s neck, pulls it apart. Then, finally, she has time to cry, to embrace her, and demand the reason for the rope. The girl is mute and still, looking, fixedly, at the ground, and unhappy that her belated attempt at death has been discovered. The old woman insists on knowing, baring her white hair and withered breasts, and begs her to say what grieves her, invoking her infant cradle, and first nurturing.

‘The girl turns away from her pleading, with a sigh. The nurse is determined to know, and promises more than loyalty. “Tell me,” she says, “and let me bring you some help: age does not slow me. If it is some frenzy, I have herbs and charms that heal: if someone is seeking your harm, I will purify you with magic rites: if the gods are angry, anger is appeased by sacrifice. What else could it be? The destiny of your house is fortunate, and on course: they are well, your mother and father.”

‘Hearing the word “father”, Myrrha sighed deeply. Even then the nurse had no idea of the sin in her mind, though she guessed it might be some love affair. She begged her, tenaciously, to tell her what it was, and took the weeping girl to her aged breast, and holding her with trembling arms she said: “I know, you are in love! And in this matter (have no fear) my diligence can serve you, your father will never know.” The frenzied girl leapt from her arms, and burying her face in the bed, said, urgently: “Go, I beg you, and forgo the knowledge of my wretched shame! Go, or stop asking why I am grieving. What you are striving to know, is wickedness.” The old woman shuddered, and stretching out her hands that trembled with age and fear, she fell at her foster-child’s feet, pleading, then coaxing, then frightening her, into making her party to it. She threatens her with the evidence of the noose, and the attempt on her life, and promises her help in her love affair. The girl raises her head, and her welling tears rain on her nurse’s breast. She often tries to confess, and often stops herself, and hides her face, in shame, in her clothing: then gets as far as “Mother, you are happy in your husband!” and sighs.

‘A shudder of cold penetrated the nurse’s flesh and bone (now she understood) and her white hair stiffened all over her head. She told her at length, to banish, if she could, this fatal passion. Though the girl knew she was being advised rightly, she was still determined to die, if she could not possess her love. “Live,” said the nurse, “possess your....” - and did not dare say: “father”. She was silent, and confirmed her promise in the sight of heaven.

Bk 10:431-502 Orpheus sings: Myrrha’s crime and punishment

‘The married women were celebrating that annual festival of Ceres, when, with their bodies veiled in white robes, they offer the first fruits of the harvest, wreathes of corn, and, for nine nights, treat sexual union, and the touch of a man, as forbidden. Cenchreis, the king’s wife was among the crowd, frequenting the sacred rites. Finding Cinyras drunk with wine, the king’s bed empty of his lawful partner, the nurse, wrongly diligent, told him of one who truly loved him, giving him a fictitious name, and praised her beauty. He, asking the girl’s age, she said: “Myrrha’s is the same.” After she had been ordered to bring her, and had reached home, she said: “Be happy, my child, we have won!” The unhappy girl felt no joy at all in her heart, and her heart prophetically mourned, yet she was still glad: such was her confusion of mind.

‘It was the hour, when all is silent, and Boötes, between the Bears, had turned his wagon, with downward-pointing shaft: She approached the sinful act. The golden moon fled the sky; black clouds covered the hidden stars; night lacked its fires. You, Icarius, and you, Erigone, his daughter, immortalised for your pious love of your father, hid your faces first. Myrrha was checked by an omen, three times, when her foot stumbled: three times, the gloomy screech owl gave her warning, with its fatal cry: she still went on, her shame made less by blindness and black night. With her left hand, she kept tight hold of her nurse, groping with the other she found a way through the dark.

‘Now she reaches the threshold of the room, now she opens the door, now is led inside. But her trembling knees give way, her colour flees with her blood, and thought vanishes as she goes forward. The closer she is to her sin, the more she shudders at it, repents of her audacity, and wants to be able to turn back, unrecognised. When she hesitated, the old woman took her by the hand, and, leading her to the high bed, delivered her up, saying: “Take her Cinyras, she is yours”, uniting their accursed flesh. The father admitted his own child into the incestuous bed, calmed her virgin fears, and encouraged her timidity. Perhaps he also said the name, “daughter”, in accordance with her age, and she said, “father”, so that their names were not absent from their sin.

‘She left the room impregnated by her father, bearing impious seed in her fatal womb, carrying the guilt she had conceived. The next night the crime was repeated: nor did it finish there. Eventually, Cinyras, eager to discover his lover after so many couplings, fetching a light, saw his daughter and his guilt, and speechless from grief, he snatched his bright sword out of the sheath it hung in. Myrrha ran, escaping death, by the gift of darkness and secret night. Wandering the wide fields, she left the land of Panchaea, and palm-bearing Arabia, behind, and after roaming through nine returns of the crescent moon, weary, she rested at last in the land of the Sabaeans.

‘Now she could scarcely bear the weight of her womb. Tired of living, and scared of dying, not knowing what to pray for, she composed these words of entreaty: “O, if there are any gods who hear my prayer, I do not plead against my well deserved punishment, but lest, by being, I offend the living, or, by dying, offend the dead, banish me from both realms, and change me, and deny me life and death!” Some god listened to her prayer: certainly the last request found its path to the heavens. While she was still speaking, the soil covered her shins; roots, breaking from her toes, spread sideways, supporting a tall trunk; her bones strengthened, and in the midst of the remaining marrow, the blood became sap; her arms became long branches; her fingers, twigs; her skin, solid bark. And now the growing tree had drawn together over her ponderous belly, buried her breasts, and was beginning to encase her neck: she could not bear the wait, and she sank down against the wood, to meet it, and plunged her face into the bark.

‘Though she has lost her former senses with her body, she still weeps, and the warm drops trickle down from the tree. There is merit, also, in the tears: and the myrrh that drips from the bark keeps its mistress’s name, and, about it, no age will be silent.

Bk 10:503-559 Orpheus sings: Venus and Adonis

‘The child, conceived in sin, had grown within the tree, and was now searching for a way to leave its mother, and reveal itself. The pregnant womb swells within the tree trunk, the burden stretching the mother. The pain cannot form words, nor can Lucina be called on, in the voice of a woman in labour. Nevertheless the tree bends, like one straining, and groans constantly, and is wet with falling tears. Gentle Lucina stood by the suffering branches, and laid her hands on them, speaking words that aid childbirth. At this the tree split open, and, from the torn bark, gave up its living burden, and the child cried. The naiads laid him on the soft grass, and anointed him with his mother’s tears. Even Envy would praise his beauty, being so like one of the torsos of naked Amor painted on boards. But to stop them differing in attributes, you must add a light quiver, for him, or take theirs away from them.

‘Transient time slips by us unnoticed, betrays us, and nothing outpaces the years. That son of his grandfather, sister, now hid in a tree, and now born, then a most beautiful child, then a boy, now a man, now more beautiful than he was before, now interests Venus herself, and avenges his mother’s desire. For while the boy, Cupid, with quiver on shoulder, was kissing his mother, he innocently scratched her breast with a loose arrow. The injured goddess pushed her son away: but the wound he had given was deeper than it seemed, and deceived her at first. Now captured by mortal beauty, she cares no more for Cythera’s shores, nor revisits Paphos, surrounded by its deep waters, nor Cnidos, the haunt of fish, nor Amathus, rich in mines: she even forgoes the heavens: preferring Adonis to heaven.

‘She holds him, and is his companion, and though she is used to always idling in the shade, and, by cultivating it, enhancing her beauty, she roams mountain ridges, and forests, and thorny cliff-sides, her clothing caught up to the knee, like Diana. And she cheers on the hounds, chasing things safe to hunt, hares flying headlong, stags with deep horns, or their hinds. She avoids the strong wild boars, the ravening wolves, and shuns the bears armed with claws, and the lions glutted with the slaughter of cattle. She warns you Adonis, as if it were ever effective to warn, to fear them too, saying: “Be bold when they run, but bravery is unsafe when faced with the brave. Do not be foolish, beware of endangering me, and do not provoke the creatures nature has armed, lest your glory is to my great cost. Neither youth nor beauty, nor the charms that affect Venus, affect lions or bristling boars or the eyes and minds of other wild creatures. Boars have the force of a fierce lightning bolt in their curving tusks, and so does the attack of tawny lions, in their huge anger: the whole tribe are hateful to me.”

‘When he asks her why, she says: “I will tell, and you will wonder, at the monstrous result of an ancient crime. But now the unaccustomed effort tires me, and, look, a poplar tree entices us with its welcome shade, and the turf yields a bed. I should like to rest here on the ground,” (and she rested) “with you.” She hugged the grass, and him, and leaning her head against the breast of the reclining youth, she spoke these words, interspersing them with kisses:

Bk 10:560-637 Venus tells her story: Atalanta and Hippomenes

‘“Perhaps you have heard of a girl who beat the fastest men at running: that was no idle tale, she did win. Nor could you say whether her speed or her beauty was more deserving of high praise. Enquiring of the god, about a husband, the god replied: ‘You don’t need a husband, Atalanta: run from the necessity for a husband. Nevertheless, you will not escape, and, still living, you will not be yourself.’ Afraid of the god’s oracle, she lived in the dark forests, unmarried, and fled from the crowd of insistent suitors, setting harsh conditions: ‘I will not be won, till I am beaten in running. Compete in the foot-race with me. Wife and bed will be given as prizes to the swift, death to the tardy: let those be the rules.’

‘“Truly she was pitiless, but (such was the power of her beauty) a rash crowd of suitors came, despite the rules. Hippomenes had taken his seat as a spectator at the unjust contest, and said ‘Who would try for a wife at such a risk?’ condemning the young men for their excess of passion. But when he saw her face and her unclothed body, one like mine, Adonis, or like yours if you were a woman, he was stunned. Stretching out his hands, he said: ‘Forgive me, you, that I just blamed! I had not yet realised what the prize was you were after.’ Praising her, he falls in love with her, and hopes none of the youths run faster, afraid, through jealousy. ‘But why, in this competition, is my luck left untested?’ he says. The god himself favours the bold!’

‘“While Hippomenes was debating with himself like this, the virgin girl sped by on winged feet. To the Aonian youth she flew like a Scythian arrow, yet it made him admire her beauty all the more. The race gave her a beauty of its own. The breeze blew the streaming feathers on her speeding sandals behind her, and her hair was thrown back from her ivory shoulders. Ribbons with embroidered edges fluttered at her knees, and a blush spread over the girlish whiteness of her body, just as when a red awning over a white courtyard stains it with borrowed shadows. While the stranger was watching this, the last marker was passed, and the victorious Atalanta was crowned with a festive garland, while the losers, groaning, paid the penalty according to their bond.

‘“Undeterred by the youths’ fate, Hippomenes stepped forward and, fixing his gaze on the girl, said ‘Why seek an easy win beating the lazy? Race me. If fortune makes me the master, it will be no shame for you to be outpaced by such a man as me, since Megareus of Onchestus is my father, and his grandfather was Neptune, so I am the great-grandson of the king of the ocean, and my courage is no less than my birth. Or if I am beaten, you will have a great and renowned name for defeating Hippomenes.’ As he spoke Schoeneus’s daughter looked at him with a softening expression, uncertain whether she wanted to win or lose, and said to herself: ‘What god, envious of handsome youths, wants to destroy this one and send him in search of marriage, at the risk of his own dear life? I am not worth that much, I think. Nor is it his beauty that moves me (yet I could be touched by that too) but that he is still only a boy. He does not move me himself: it is his youth. What if he does have courage, and a spirit unafraid of dying? What if he is fourth in line from the ruler of the seas? What if he does love, and thinks so much of marriage with me, that he would die, if a harsh fate denies me to him? While you can, stranger, leave this blood-soaked marrying. Wedding me is a cruel thing. No one will refuse to have you, and you may be chosen by a wiser girl. – Yet why this concern when so many have already died before you?

‘“‘Let him look out for himself! Let him perish, since he has not been warned off by the death of so many suitors, and shows himself tired of life. – Should he die, then, because he wants to live with me, and suffer an unjust death as the penalty for loving? My victory would not avoid incurring hatred. But it is not my fault! I wish you would desist, or if you are set on it, I wish you might be the faster! How the virginal expression of a boy clings to his face! O! Poor Hippomenes, I wish you had never seen me! You were so fitted to live. But if I were luckier, if the harsh fates did not prevent my marriage, you would be the one I would want to share my bed with.’ She spoke: and inexperienced, feeling the touch of desire for the first time, not knowing what she does, she loves and does not realise she loves.

Bk 10:638-680 Venus tells her story: The foot-race

‘“Now her father and the people were calling out for the usual foot-race, when Hippomenes, Neptune’s descendant invoked my aid, as a suppliant: ‘Cytherea, I beg you to assist my daring, and encourage the fire of love you lit.’ A kindly breeze brought me the flattering prayer, and I confess it stirred me, though there was scant time to give him my help. There is a field, the people there call it the field of Tamasus, the richest earth in the island of Cyprus, which the men of old made sacred to me, and ordered it to be added to my temples, as a gift. A tree gleams in the middle of the field, with rustling golden leaves, and golden branches. Come from there, by chance, I was carrying three golden apples, I had picked, in my hands, and I approached Hippomenes, showing myself only to him, and told him how to use them.

‘“The trumpets gave the signal, and, leaning forward, they flashed from the starting line, and skimmed the surface of the sand, with flying feet. You would think them capable of running along the waves without wetting them, and passing over the ripened heads of the standing corn. The young man’s spirit was cheered by shouts and words of encouragement: ‘Run, Hippomenes! Now, now is the time to sprint! Use your full power, now! Don’t wait: you’ll win!’

‘“Who knows whether Megareus’s heroic son, or Schoeneus’s daughter, was more pleased with these words? O how often, when she could have overtaken him, she lingered, and watching his face for a while, left him behind against her will! Panting breath came from his weary throat, and the winning post was far off. Only then did Neptune’s scion throw away one of the fruits from the tree. The girl was astonished, and, eager for the shining apple, she ran off the course, and picked up the spinning gold. Hippomenes passed her: the stands resounded with the applause. She made up for the delay and the lost time by a burst of speed, and left the youth behind once more. Again she delayed when a second apple was thrown, followed, and passed the man. The last section of track was left. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘be near me, goddess who made me this gift!’ He threw the shining gold vigorously, sideways, into the deep field, from where she would take longer to get back. The girl seemed to hesitate as to whether she should chase it: I made her pick it up, and added weight to the fruit she held, and obstructed her equally with the heaviness of the burden and the delay. And lest my story be longer than the race itself, the virgin was overtaken: the winner led away his prize.

Bk 10:681-707 Venus tells her story: The transformation

‘“Adonis, did I deserve to be thanked, to have incense brought me? Unthinking, he neither gave thanks, nor offered incense to me. I was provoked to sudden anger, and pained by his contempt, so as not to be slighted in future, I decreed an example would be made of them, and I roused myself against them both.

‘“They were passing a temple, hidden in the deep woods, of Cybele mother of the gods, that noble Echion had built in former times fulfilling a vow, and the length of their journey persuaded them to rest. There, stirred by my divine power, an untimely desire to make love seized Hippomenes. Near the temple was a poorly lit hollow, like a cave, roofed with the natural pumice-stone, sacred to the old religion, where the priests had gathered together wooden figures of the ancient gods. They entered it, and desecrated the sanctuary, with forbidden intercourse. The sacred images averted their gaze, and the Great Mother, with the turreted crown, hesitated as to whether to plunge the guilty pair beneath the waters of the Styx: but the punishment seemed too light. So tawny manes spread over their necks, that, a moment ago, were smooth; their fingers curved into claws; forelegs were formed from arms; all their weight was in their breast; and their tails swept the surface of the sand. They had a fierce expression, roared instead of speaking, and frequented the woods for a marriage-bed. As lions, fearful to others, they tamely bite on Cybele’s bit. You must avoid, them, my love, and with them all the species of wild creature, that do not turn and run, but offer their breasts to the fight, lest your courage be the ruin of us both!”

Bk 10:708-739 Orpheus sings: The death of Adonis

‘She warned him, and made her way through the air, drawn by harnessed swans, but his courage defied the warning. By chance, his dogs, following a well-marked trail, roused a wild boar from its lair, and as it prepared to rush from the trees, Cinyras’s grandson caught it a glancing blow. Immediately the fierce boar dislodged the blood-stained spear, with its crooked snout, and chased the youth, who was scared and running hard. It sank its tusk into his groin, and flung him, dying, on the yellow sand.

‘Cytherea, carried in her light chariot through the midst of the heavens, by her swans’ swiftness, had not yet reached Cyprus: she heard from afar the groans of the dying boy, and turned the white birds towards him. When, from the heights, she saw the lifeless body, lying in its own blood, she leapt down, tearing her clothes, and tearing at her hair, as well, and beat at her breasts with fierce hands, complaining to the fates. “And yet not everything is in your power” she said. “Adonis, there shall be an everlasting token of my grief, and every year an imitation of your death will complete a re-enactment of my mourning. But your blood will be changed into a flower. Persephone, you were allowed to alter a woman’s body, Menthe’s, to fragrant mint: shall the transformation of my hero, of the blood of Cinyras, be grudged to me?” So saying, she sprinkled the blood with odorous nectar: and, at the touch, it swelled up, as bubbles emerge in yellow mud. In less than an hour, a flower, of the colour of blood, was created such as pomegranates carry, that hide their seeds under a tough rind. But enjoyment of it is brief; for, lightly clinging, and too easily fallen, the winds deflower it, which are likewise responsible for its name, windflower: anemone.’
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Re: Metamorphoses, by Ovid

Postby admin » Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:59 pm

Book 11

• Bk 11:1-66 The death of Orpheus.
• Bk 11:67-84 The transformation of the Maenads.
• Bk 11:85-145 Midas and the golden touch.
• Bk 11:146-171 Pan and Apollo compete before Tmolus.
• Bk 11:172-193 Midas and the ass’s ears.
• Bk 11:194-220 Laomedon and the walls of Troy.
• Bk 11:221-265 Peleus and Thetis.
• Bk 11:266-345 Ceyx tells the story of Daedalion.
• Bk 11:346-409 Peleus and the wolf
• Bk 11:410-473 The separation of Ceyx and Alcyone.
• Bk 11:474-572 The Tempest
• Bk 11:573-649 The House of Sleep.
• Bk 11:650-709 Morpheus goes to Alcyone in the form of Ceyx.
• Bk 11:710-748 They are turned into birds.
• Bk 11:749-795 The transformation of Aesacus.

Bk 11:1-66 The death of Orpheus

While the poet of Thrace, with songs like these, drew to himself the trees, the souls of wild beasts, and the stones that followed him, see, how the frenzied Ciconian women, their breasts covered with animal skins, spy Orpheus from a hilltop, as he matches songs to the sounding strings. One of them, her hair scattered to the light breeze, called: ‘Behold, behold, this is the one who scorns us!’ and hurled her spear at the face of Apollo’s poet, as he was singing. Tipped with leaves, it marked him, without wounding. The next missile was a stone, that, thrown through the air, was itself overpowered by the harmony of voice and lyre, and fell at his feet, as though it were begging forgiveness for its mad audacity. But in fact the mindless attack mounted, without restraint, and mad fury ruled. All their missiles would have been frustrated by his song, but the huge clamour of the Berecyntian flutes of broken horn, the drums, and the breast-beating and howls of the Bacchantes, drowned the sound of the lyre. Then, finally, the stones grew red, with the blood of the poet, to whom they were deaf.

First, the innumerable birds, the snakes, and the procession of wild animals, still entranced by the voice of the singer, a mark of Orpheus’s triumph, were torn apart by the Maenads. Then they set their bloody hands on Orpheus, and gathered, like birds that spy the owl, the bird of night, wandering in the daylight, or as in the amphitheatre, on the morning of the staged events, on either side, a doomed stag, in the arena, is prey to the hounds. They rushed at the poet, and hurled their green-leaved thyrsi, made for a different use. Some threw clods of earth, some branches torn from the trees, and others flints. And so that their madness did not lack true weapons, by chance, oxen were turning the soil under the ploughshare, and, not far away from them, brawny farm workers were digging the solid earth, sweating hard to prepare it for use, who fled when they saw the throng, leaving their work tools behind. Hoes, heavy mattocks, and long rakes lay scattered through the empty fields. After catching these up, and ripping apart the oxen, that threatened them with their horns, the fierce women rushed back to kill the poet. As he stretched out his hands, speaking ineffectually for the first time ever, not affecting them in any way with his voice, the impious ones murdered him: and the spirit, breathed out through that mouth to which stones listened, and which was understood by the senses of wild creatures – O, God! – vanished down the wind.

The birds, lamenting, cried for you, Orpheus; the crowd of wild creatures; the hard flints; the trees that often gathered to your song, shedding their leaves, mourned you with bared crowns. They say the rivers, also, were swollen with their own tears, and the naiads and dryads, with dishevelled hair, put on sombre clothes. The poet’s limbs were strewn in different places: the head and the lyre you, Hebrus, received, and (a miracle!) floating in midstream, the lyre lamented mournfully; mournfully the lifeless tongue murmured; mournfully the banks echoed in reply. And now, carried onward to the sea, they left their native river-mouth and reached the shores of Lesbos, at Methymna. Here, as the head lay exposed on the alien sand, its moist hair dripping brine, a fierce snake attacked it. But at last Phoebus came, and prevented it, as it was about to bite, and turned the serpent’s gaping jaws to stone, and froze the mouth, wide open, as it was.

The ghost of Orpheus sank under the earth, and recognised all those places it had seen before; and, searching the fields of the Blessed, he found his wife again and held her eagerly in his arms. There they walk together side by side; now she goes in front, and he follows her; now he leads, and looks back as he can do, in safety now, at his Eurydice.’

Bk 11:67-84 The transformation of the Maenads

However, the god, Lyaeus, did not allow such wickedness by his followers to go unpunished. Grieved by the loss of the poet of his sacred rites, he immediately fastened down, with twisted roots, all the Thracian women who had seen the sin, since the path, that each one was on, at that moment, gripped their toes and forced the tips into the solid ground. As a bird, when it is caught in a snare, set by a cunning wild-fowler, and feels itself held, tightens the knot by its movement, beating and flapping; so each of the women, planted, stuck fast, terrified, tried uselessly to run. But the pliant roots held her, and checked her, struggling. When she looked for where her toenails, toes and feet were, she saw the wood spreading over the curve of her leg, and, trying to strike her thighs with grieving hands, she beat on oak: her breasts turned to oak: her shoulders were oak. You would have thought the jointed arms were real branches, and your thought would not have been wrong.

Bk 11:85-145 Midas and the golden touch

This did not satisfy Bacchus. He left the fields themselves, and with a worthier band of followers sought out the vineyards of his own Mount Tmolus, and the River Pactolus, though at that time it was not a golden stream, nor envied for its valuable sands. His familiar cohorts, the satyrs and bacchantes accompanied him, but Silenus was absent. The Phrygian countrymen had taken him captive, stumbling with age and wine, bound him with garlands, and led him to King Midas, to whom, with Athenian Eumolpus, Orpheus of Thrace had taught the Bacchic rites.

When the king recognised him as a friend and companion of his worship, he joyfully led a celebration of the guest’s arrival, lasting ten days and nights on end. And now, on the eleventh day, Lucifer had seen off the train of distant stars, and the king with gladness came to the fields of Lydia, and restored Silenus to his young foster-child.

Then the god, happy at his foster-father’s return, gave Midas control over the choice of a gift, which was pleasing, but futile, since he was doomed to make poor use of his reward. ‘Make it so that whatever I touch with my body, turns to yellow gold.’ he said. Bacchus accepted his choice, and gave him the harmful gift, sad that he had not asked for anything better. The Berecyntian king departed happily, rejoicing in his bane, and testing his faith in its powers by touching things, and scarcely believing it, when he broke off a green twig from the low foliage of the holm-oak: the twig was turned to gold. He picked up a stone from the ground: the stone also was pale gold. He touched a clod of earth, and by the power of touch, the clod became a nugget. He gathered the dry husks of corn: it was a golden harvest. He held an apple he had picked from a tree: you would think the Hesperides had given it to him. If he placed his fingers on the tall door-pillars, the pillars were seen to shine. When he washed his hands in clear water, the water flowing over his hands would have deceived Danaë.

His own mind could scarcely contain his expectations, dreaming of all things golden. As he was exulting, his servants set a table before him, heaped with cooked food, and loaves were not lacking. Then, indeed, if he touched the gift of Ceres with his hand, her gift hardened. If he tried, with eager bites, to tear the food, the food was covered with a yellow surface where his teeth touched. He mixed pure water with wine, the other gift of his benefactor, but molten gold could be seen trickling through his lips.

Dismayed by this strange misfortune, rich and unhappy, he tries to flee his riches, and hates what he wished for a moment ago. No abundance can relieve his famine: his throat is parched with burning thirst, and, justly, he is tortured by the hateful gold. Lifting his shining hands and arms to heaven, he cries out: ‘Father, Bacchus, forgive me! I have sinned. But have pity on me, I beg you, and save me from this costly evil!’ The will of the gods is kindly. Bacchus, when he confessed his fault restored him, and took back what he had given in fulfilment of his promise. ‘So you do not remain coated with the gold you wished for so foolishly,’ he said, ‘go to the river by great Sardis, make your way up the bright ridge against the falling waters, till you come to the source of the stream, and plunge your head and body at the same moment into the foaming fountain, where it gushes out, and at the same time wash away your sin.’ The king went to the river as he was ordered: the golden virtue coloured the waters, and passed from his human body into the stream. Even now, gathering the grains of gold from the ancient vein, the fields harden, their soil soaked by the pale yellow waters.

Bk 11:146-171 Pan and Apollo compete before Tmolus

Hating wealth, Midas lived among woods and fields, and the mountain caves Pan always inhabits. But he remained dull-witted, and, as before, his foolish mind was destined once again to hurt its owner. Mount Tmolus, stands steep and high, commanding a wide view of the distant sea, its sloping sides extending to Sardis on the one side, and as far as tiny Hypaepae on the other. While Pan was there, playing light airs on his reeds glued together with wax, he boasted of his pipings, to the gentle nymphs, and dared to speak slightingly of Apollo’s song compared with his own, and entered an unequal contest with Tmolus, the god of the mountain, as judge.

The aged judge was seated on his mountain-top and shook his ears free of the trees. Only an oak-wreath circled his dark hair, and acorns brushed against his hollow temples. Looking at the god of the flocks he said: ‘There is nothing to prevent my judging.’ Pan sounded the rustic reeds, and entranced Midas (who chanced to be near the playing) with wild pipings. Following this, sacred Tmolus turned his face towards that of Phoebus: his forests followed.

Phoebus’s golden hair was wreathed with laurel from Parnassus, and his robes dyed with Tyrian purple, swept the earth. He held his lyre, inlaid with gems and Indian ivory, in his left hand, and the plectrum in the other. His attitude was that of a true artist. Then with skilled fingers, he plucked the strings, and Tmolus, captivated by their sweetness, ordered Pan to lower his pipes in submission to the lyre.

Bk 11:172-193 Midas and the ass’s ears

The judgment of the sacred mountain-god satisfied all opinions, and yet Midas’s voice alone challenged it and called it unjust. The god of Delos did not allow such undiscriminating ears to keep their human form, but drew them out and covered them with shaggy grey hair, and made them flexible at the base, and gave them powers of movement. Though the rest was human, he was punished in that sole aspect: he wore the ears of a slow-moving ass. He was anxious to conceal them, and tried to detract from the shameful ugliness of his head with a purple turban. But the servant who used to trim his long hair with a blade, found it out, who, since he dare not reveal the disgrace he had seen, but eager to broadcast it to the four winds, and unable to keep it to himself, went off quietly and dug a hole in the soil. In a tiny voice, he whispered to the hollow earth, and buried his spoken evidence under the infill, and stole away having closed up the hidden trench. But a thick bed of quivering reeds began to shoot up there, and as soon as they had grown, at the end of the year, they gave the burrower away: stirred gently, then, by the wind they repeated the buried words, and testified against his master.

Bk 11:194-220 Laomedon and the walls of Troy

Having punished him, Latona’s son left Mount Tmolus and, flying through the clear air, he came to earth in the country of Laomedon, this side of the narrows of the Hellespont, named from Helle, daughter of Nephele. To the right of the deeps of Sigeum, and to the left of those of Rhoeteum, there was an ancient altar of Jupiter the Thunderer, ‘source of all oracles’. There, Apollo saw Laomedon building the foundations of the new city of Troy. The great undertaking prospering with difficulty, and demanding no little resources, he, and Neptune, trident-bearing father of the swelling sea, put on mortal form, and built the walls of the city for the Phrygian king for an agreed amount in gold. The edifice stood there.

But the king denied them payment, and as a crowning treachery, perjured himself by claiming they were lying. The ruler of the ocean said: ‘You will not go unpunished’, and he turned all his waters against the shores of tight-fisted Troy. He flooded the land to form a strait, swept away the farmers’ crops, and buried the fields beneath the waves. Even this was insufficient punishment: He demanded also that Hesione, the king’s daughter, be given to a sea-monster, whom Hercules freed, as she was chained to the solid rock. Hercules demanded the payment promised, an agreed number of horses. But the reward for all his work being refused, he seized the twice-perjured walls of conquered Troy. Telamon, his companion, did not go without honour, and Hesione was given to him in marriage.

Peleus, Telamon’s brother, was already distinguished by having a goddess as his wife, and was not more proud of being Jupiter’s grandson (his father Aeacus being the son of Jove by Aegina) as his son-in-law (by marrying Thetis), since he was not the only brother to be Jove’s grandson, but he was the only one to marry a goddess.

Bk 11:221-265 Peleus and Thetis

For aged Proteus had said to Thetis: ‘Goddess of the waves, conceive: you will be the mother of a warrior who will surpass his father’s deeds when he reaches manhood, and will be more famous than him.’ So Jupiter, lest earth produce someone greater than himself, fled from union with ocean-dwelling Thetis, though he had felt the hot fire of passion in his heart, and ordered his grandson, Peleus, son of Aeacus, to fulfil his promise, on his behalf, and enter the arms of the sea-maiden.

There is a bay, shaped like a scythe, in Haemonia, its arms projecting in a curved arc, which would provide a harbour, if the waves were deeper: the waters cover the surface of the sand: the shore is solid earth, that takes no footprints, does not hinder a passage, and has no seaweed covering it. A myrtle grove grows nearby, dense with its red and black berries. There is a cave in the centre, whether fashioned by art or nature is uncertain, but probably by art. Often, Thetis you used to come there, naked, seated on a bridled dolphin. There Peleus found you, as you lay, overcome by sleep, and when, though influenced by his entreaties, you refused him, he prepared to use force, winding both arms round your neck.

He would have taken you then, if you had not, by your well-known arts, frequently changed your form. But when you became a bird, he still held you as a bird; now as a tree, Peleus clung fast to the tree. Your third guise was a striped tigress: in fear of that the son of Aeacus loosed his arms from your body. Then he entreated the gods of the sea, with wine poured over the waters, with sheep’s entrails, and the smoke of incense, until Proteus, the Carpathian seer spoke from his deep gulfs: ‘Son of Aeacus, you will have the bride you desire, if you bind her, unawares, with nooses and tight cords, while she is lulled asleep in the rocky cave. Though she deceives you with a hundred counterfeit shapes, hold her to you, whatever she becomes, until she is again what she was before.’ So he spoke, and hid his face below the waves, letting the waters flow in upon his final words.

Now Titan was low in the sky, and, his chariot pointed downwards, was close to the western ocean, when the lovely Nereid left the waves, and came to her accustomed bed. Peleus had scarcely taken a good grip of her virgin body, when she took on new forms, until she realised her limbs were tightly bound, and her arms spread wide apart. Then at length she sighed, saying: ‘Not without some god’s help have you won,’ and she showed herself as Thetis. When she acknowledged herself, the hero embraced her, achieved his wish, and conceived with her the mighty Achilles.

Bk 11:266-345 Ceyx tells the story of Daedalion

Peleus was happy in his wife and son, and was a man for whom all things were successful, if you exclude the crime of killing his brother Phocus. Guilty of shedding his brother’s blood, exiled from his father’s country, the soil of Trachin gave him sanctuary. Here Ceyx, son of Lucifer, the morning star, ruled, without force or shedding blood, his face filled with his father’s radiance. At that time he was sad and unlike his normal self, mourning the loss of his brother, Daedalion. The son of Aeacus came to him, weary with cares and travel, and entered the city with a few companions. He left the flocks of sheep and cattle he had brought with him in a shady valley not far from the city walls. When he was first allowed to meet the king, he held out the draped olive branch of the suppliant, and told him whose son he was, concealed his crime, and lied about the cause of his flight. He begged to be allowed to support himself in the city or the fields. The king of Trachis replied with these kind words: ‘Peleus, the opportunities in our kingdom are open even to the lower ranks, and I do not rule an inhospitable realm. Add to this willingness, the powerful influence of a noble name, and your being the grandson of Jove. So waste no time in supplication! You will receive all that you wish. Take a share of everything you see, and call it yours! I wish what you see was better than it is!’

And he wept. Peleus and his companions asked what the cause was of so much grief, to which he replied: ‘Perhaps you think that bird, the hawk, that lives on prey, and terrifies other winged creatures, always had feathers. He was once a man (and – inner nature is so consistent – even then he was fierce, warlike and equipped for violence): his name, Daedalion. We were the sons of Lucifer, who summons the dawn, and is last to leave the sky. I care for peace; preserving peace, I care for; and my wife: savage warfare pleased my brother. His power subdued kings and nations, that now, transformed, flutters the doves of Boeotia. He had a daughter, Chione, endowed with great beauty, who at fourteen, and ready for marriage, had a thousand suitors. It chanced that Phoebus-Apollo, and Mercury, son of Maia, one returning from his sacred Delphi, the other from the summit of Cyllene, saw her at the same instant, and, at the same instant, flushed with desire. Apollo deferred his hope of union with her till the night, but Mercury could not wait, and touched the virgin’s face with his sleep-inducing wand. She lay beneath that potent touch, and suffered the assault of the god. Night scattered the heavens with stars: Phoebus, having gained access disguised as an old woman, enjoyed the delight that had been forestalled. When Chione came to full term she bore the wing-footed god a son, Autolycus, crafty, talented in all intrigue, who could make black seem white, and white black, not unworthy of his father; and to Phoebus (it was a twin birth) she bore Philammon, famous for tuneful song and the lyre.

But what is the benefit in having produced two sons, in having pleased two gods, in being the child of a powerful father, and grandchild of the shining one? Is glory not harmful also to many? It certainly harmed her! She set herself above Diana, and criticized the goddess’s beauty. But, the goddess, moved by violent anger, said to her: “Then I must satisfy you with action.” Without hesitating, she bent her bow, sent an arrow from the string, and pierced the tongue, that was at fault, with the shaft. The tongue was silent, neither sound nor attempts at words followed: and as she tried to speak, her life ended in blood.

I embraced her, in my misery, feeling a father’s grief in my heart, and spoke words of comfort to my dear brother. Her father heard them no more than the cliffs hear the murmuring of the sea, mourning his lost one, bitterly. But when he saw the burning of her body, four times he made as if to throw himself into the blazing pyre; four times was thrust back; fled madly; and ran where there were no tracks, like a bullock whose neck is tender from the yoke, tormented by hornets’ stings. Even then to me he seemed to run faster than humanly possible, and you would have thought he had winged feet.

He escaped us all, swift with desire for death, and gained the summit of Parnassus. When Daedalion hurled himself from the high cliffs, Apollo, pitying him, turned him into a bird, and lifted him, pendent on suddenly-formed wings, giving him a hooked beak, and curved talons, his former courage, and greater strength of body. Now, as a hawk, he rages against all birds, is merciful to none, and, suffering, is a cause of suffering.’

Bk 11:346-409 Peleus and the wolf

While Lucifer’s son was telling the strange story of his brother, Peleus’s herdsman, Onetor the Phocian, came racing up, breathing hard with the pace, shouting: ‘Peleus! Peleus! I bring you news of grave trouble.’ Peleus ordered him to tell it, whatever it was, the Trachinian king himself waiting with anxious face. The herdsman said: ‘When the sun was at the zenith, seeing as much of the track left as he had already run, I had driven the tired oxen down to the bay. Some of the bullocks were kneeling on the yellow sand, lying there gazing out at the wide expanse of ocean; some were wandering slowly here and there; while others had waded out and stood up their necks in the water. There is a temple near the sea, not gleaming with gold and marble, but made of heavy timber, and shaded by an ancient grove. Nereus and the Nereids haunt it (a sailor, drying his nets on the shore, told me they were the gods of those waters). Close to it, there is a swamp, choked with dense willows, which the salt flood has turned into marshland. From it, a wolf, a huge beast, terrifies the places round about with its heavy crashing noises. It came out of the marsh reeds, its deadly jaws smeared with foam and clots of blood, and its eyes filled with red flame. It was savage with rage and hunger, more with rage; since though hungry it did not bother with the dead cattle, or with satisfying its deadly appetite, but wounded the whole herd, slaughtering them all in its hostility. Some of our men were wounded by its fatal jaws while protecting them, and given up as dead. The shore and the shallows were red with blood, and the marshes full of bellowing. But delay is fatal: the thing allows no hesitation. While there are some of us left, let us encounter it in armour, and, seizing our weapons, meet with it carrying spears!’

So the countryman spoke: the losses did not stir Peleus: conscious of his guilt he concluded that Psamathe, the bereaved Nereid, was sending a funeral offering to her murdered son Phocus, by means of those same losses. Oetean King Ceyx ordered his men to put on their armour, and take their deadly spears, while he was himself preparing to go with them. But Alcyone, his wife, disturbed by the shouting, scattering her hair that she had not yet quite arranged, flung herself on her husband’s neck, begging him, with words and tears, to send help, but not to go himself, and protect both their lives, by protecting his own. Peleus, the son of Aeacus, said: ‘Queen Alcyone, forget these loving fears that so become you! I am grateful for your husband’s offer of help, but I have no wish for arms to be used against the creature on my behalf. I must pray, instead, to the goddess of the ocean!’

There was a high tower; a beacon on top of the citadel; a welcome sight for labouring vessels. They climbed up, and looked out, with murmuring sighs, at the cattle lying on the shore, seeing their rampaging killer with bloody jaws, its shaggy pelt dripping gore. There, stretching his hands out towards the shores of the open sea, Peleus prayed to sea-born Psamathe to forget her anger, and to aid him. She was unmoved by the prayers of the son of Aeacus, but Thetis, as a suppliant for her husband, obtained her forgiveness.

The wolf persisted even when ordered away from the savage slaughter, maddened by the taste of blood, until the goddess changed it to marble, as it was clinging to the wounded neck of a heifer. The body remained completely the same, except for its colour: the colour of the stone showed it no longer wolf, no longer to be feared. But the fates did not allow the exiled Peleus to remain in that country. The wandering fugitive reached Magnesia, and there was absolved of the murder by Haemonian King Acastus.

Bk 11:410-473 The separation of Ceyx and Alcyone

Meanwhile Ceyx, troubled by heart’s anxiety, concerning his brother, and what had followed his brother’s strange fate, was preparing to go and consult the sacred oracle of Apollo, at Claros, that reveals human affairs. The infamous Phorbas, leader of the Phlegyans, had made Delphi inaccessible. Nevertheless, before he set out, he discussed it with you, faithful Alcyone.

She felt a chill, immediately, deep in her marrow, her face grew boxwood-pale, and her cheeks were drenched in flowing tears. Three times she tried to speak, three times her face was wet with weeping, and sobs interrupting her loving reproaches, she said: ‘What sin of mine has turned your mind to this, dear one? Where is that care for me that used to come first? Can you now leave Alcyone behind, without a thought? Does it please you now to travel far? Am I dearer to you, away from you? But I suppose your way is overland, and I shall only grieve, not fear, for you. My anxieties will be free from terror.

The waters scare me, and the sombre face of the deep: and lately I saw wrecked timbers on the shore, and I have often read the names on empty tombs. Do not allow your mind to acquire false confidence, because Aeolus, son of Hippotas, is your father-in-law, who keeps the strong winds imprisoned, and, when he wishes, calms the sea. When once the winds are released and hold sway over the waters, nothing can oppose them: every country, every ocean is exposed to them. They vex the clouds in the sky, and create the red lightning-flashes from their fierce collisions. The more I know of them (I do know them, often seeing them as a child in my father’s house) the more I consider them to be feared. But if no prayers can alter your purpose, dear one, husband, if you are so fixed on going, take me with you, also! Then we shall be storm-tossed together, and at least I shall know what I fear, together we shall bear whatever comes, together we shall be borne over the waters.’

The star-born husband was moved by the daughter of Aeolus’s words and tears: there was no less love in himself. But he would not relinquish his planned sea-journey, nor did he want to put Alcyone in peril. His anxious heart tried to comfort her, with many words, yet, despite that, he could not win his case. He added this further solace, the only one that moved his lover: ‘Every delay will seem long to us indeed, but I swear to you by my father’s light, to return to you as long as the fates allow it, before the moon has twice completed her circle.’

When her hopes had been revived by these promises of return, he immediately ordered the ship to be dragged down the slipway, launched into the sea, and fitted out with her gear. Alcyone, seeing this, as if she foresaw what was to come, shuddered again, and she gave way to a flood of tears. She hugged him, and, in wretched misery, said a last ‘Farewell’ and her whole body gave way beneath her. With Ceyx still seeking reasons for delay, the young crew, double-ranked, pulled on the oars, with deep-chested strokes, and cut the water with their rhythmic blows.

She raised her wet eyes, and leaning forward could see her husband standing on the curved afterdeck, waving his hand, and she returned the signal. When he was further from shore, and she could no longer recognise his features, she followed the fleeting ship with her gaze, while she could. When even that was too far off to be seen, she still could see the topsails unfurling from the masthead. When no sails could be seen, with heavy heart, she sought out the empty bedroom, and threw herself on the bed. The room and the bed provoked more tears and reminded her of her absent half.

Bk 11:474-572 The Tempest

They had left the harbour, and the breeze was stirring the rigging: the captain shipped the oars, ran the yard up to the top of the mast, and put on all sail to catch the freshening breeze. The ship was cutting through the waves, no more than mid-way across, maybe less, far from either shore, when, at nightfall, the sea began to whiten with swelling waves, and the east wind to blow with greater strength.

The captain shouts: ‘Lower the yards, now, and close reef all sails.’ He shouts the order but the adverse wind drowns it, and his voice cannot be heard above the breaking seas. Yet, some of the crew, on their own initiative, remove the oars, some protect the bulwarks, some deny the wind canvas-room. Here one bails water back into the water, another secures the spars. While these things are being done, randomly, the storm increases its severity, and the roaring winds attack from every quarter, stirring the angry waves. The captain himself is fearful, and admits he does not know how things stand, what to order, what to prevent: such is the weight of destruction, so much more powerful than his skill.

There is uproar: men shouting, the rigging straining, the sound of the breaking sea from a weight of sea, and the crash of thunder. The waves rise up and seem to form the sky, and their spray touches the lowering clouds. Now the water is tainted yellow, with sand churned from the depths, now blacker than the Styx, while the waves break white with hissing foam. The Trachinian ship is driven in the grip of fate, now lifted on high, as if looking down on the valleys from a mountain summit, into the depths of Acheron: now sinking, caught in the trough of the wave, staring at heaven from the infernal pool. Again and again the force of the flood strikes the sides with a huge crash, sounding no lighter a blow than when, sometime, an iron ram, or a ballista, strikes a damaged fortress. As fierce lions, on the attack, drive themselves onto the armoured chests and extended spears of the hunters, so the waves drove forward in the rising winds, reaching the height of the ship, and higher, above it.

And now the wooden wedges give way, and, stripped of their wax covering, cracks appear, offering the lethal waves a passage. Look how the heavy rain falls from the melting clouds, and you would think the whole heaven was emptying into the sea, and the sea was filling the heavenly zones. The sails are soaked with spray, and the seawater mingles with water from the heavens. The sky is starless, and the murky night is full of its own and the storm’s gloom. Flashes of lightning cleave it, and give light: the rain is illuminated by the lightning flares.

Now the sea pours into the ship’s hollow hull, as well. As a soldier, more outstanding than the rest, who has often tried to scale the battlement of a besieged city, succeeds at last, and fired with a love of glory, takes the wall, one man in a thousand; so when the waves have battered nine times against the steep sides, the tenth wave surging with greater impetus rushes on, and does not cease its assault on the beleaguered craft, until it breaches the conquered vessel’s defences. So one part of the sea is still trying to take the ship, and part is already inside.

All is confusion, as a city is confused when some are undermining the walls from outside, while others hold them from within. Skill fails, and courage ebbs, and as may separate deaths as advancing waves seem to rush upon them and burst over them. One cannot hold his tears, another is stupefied, and one cries out that they are fortunate whom proper burial rites await. One worships the gods in prayer, and, lifting his arms in vain to the sky, he cannot see, begs for help. Some think of fathers and brothers, some of home and children, or whatever they have left behind. But Alcyone is what moves Ceyx: nothing but Alcyone is on Ceyx’s lips, and though he only longs for her, he rejoices that she is not there.

How he would like to see his native shores again, and turn his last gaze towards his home, but he knows not where it is: the sea swirls in such vortices, and the covering shadows of pitch-black clouds so hide the sky, that it mirrors the aspect of night. The mast is shattered by the onset of a storm-driven whirlwind, and the rudder is shattered. One ultimate wave, like a conqueror delighting in his spoils, rears up gazing down at the other waves, and, as if one tore Pindus, and Athos, from their base, and threw them utterly into the open sea, it fell headlong, and the weight and the impulse together, drove the ship to the bottom. The majority of the crew met their fate with the ship, driven down by the mass of water, never to return to the light. The rest clung to broken pieces of the vessel.

Ceyx himself, held on to a fragment of the wreck, with a hand more used to holding a sceptre, and called on his father, Lucifer, and his father-in-law, Aeolus, but alas, in vain. Mostly it is his wife’s, Alcyone’s, name on his lips.

He thinks of her, and speaks to her, and prays that the waves might carry his body to her sight, and that, lifeless, he might be entombed by her dear hands. While he can swim, and as often as the waves allow him to open his mouth, he speaks the name of Alcyone, far off, until the waves themselves murmur it, See, a black arc of water breaks over the heart of the sea, and the bursting wave buries his drowning head.

Lucifer was indistinct, and not to be known, that dawn, and since he was not allowed to leave the sky, he covered his face in dense cloud.

Bk 11:573-649 The House of Sleep

Meanwhile, Alcyone, Aeolus’s daughter, counts the nights, unaware of this great misfortune, quickly weaving clothes for him to wear, and for herself, for when he returns, and she promises herself the homecoming that will not be. She piously offers incense to all the gods, but worships mostly at Juno’s temple, coming to the altars for a man who is no more, hoping her husband is safe, and returning to her, preferring her above any other woman. Of all her prayers, only this could be granted.

The goddess could no longer bear these appeals for one who was dead, and, to free her altar from those inauspicious hands, she said: ‘Iris, most faithful carrier of my words, go quickly to the heavy halls of Sleep, and order him to send Alcyone a dream-figure in the shape of her dead Ceyx, to tell her his true fate.’ As she spoke, Iris donned her thousand-coloured robe, and, tracing her watery bow on the sky, she searched out, as ordered, the palace of that king, hid under cloud.

There is a deeply cut cave, a hollow mountain, near the Cimmerian country, the house and sanctuary of drowsy Sleep. Phoebus can never reach it with his dawn, mid-day or sunset rays. Clouds mixed with fog, and shadows of the half-light, are exhaled from the ground. No waking cockerel summons Aurora with his crowing: no dog disturbs the silence with its anxious barking, or goose, cackling, more alert than a dog. No beasts, or cattle, or branches in the breeze, no clamour of human tongues. There still silence dwells. But out of the stony depths flows Lethe’s stream, whose waves, sliding over the loose pebbles, with their murmur, induce drowsiness. In front of the cave mouth a wealth of poppies flourish, and innumerable herbs, from whose juices dew-wet Night gathers sleep, and scatters it over the darkened earth. There are no doors in the palace, lest a turning hinge lets out a creak, and no guard at the threshold. But in the cave’s centre there is a tall bed made of ebony, downy, black-hued, spread with a dark-grey sheet, where the god himself lies, his limbs relaxed in slumber. Around him, here and there, lie uncertain dreams, taking different forms, as many as the ears of corn at harvest, as the trees bear leaves, or grains of sand are thrown onshore.

When the nymph entered and, with her hands, brushed aside the dreams in her way, the sacred place shone with the light of her robes. The god, hardly able to lift his eyes heavy with sleep, again and again, falling back, striking his nodding chin on his chest, at last shook himself free of his own influence, and resting on an elbow asked her (for he knew her) why she had come, and she replied:

‘Sleep, all things’ rest: Sleep, gentlest of the gods, the spirit’s peace, care flies from: who soothes the body wearied with toil, and readies it for fresh labours: Sleep, order a likeness, that mirrors his true form, and let it go, the image of King Ceyx, to Alcyone, in Trachin of Hercules, and depict a phantasm of the wreck. This, Juno commands.’

After she had completed her commission, Iris departed no longer able to withstand the power of sleep, and, feeling the drowsiness steal over her body, she fled, and recrossed the arch by which she had lately come.

From a throng of a thousand sons, his father roused Morpheus, a master craftsman and simulator of human forms. No one else is as clever at expressing the movement, the features, and the sound of speech. He depicts the clothes and the usual accents. He alone imitates human beings. A second son becomes beast, or bird, or long snake’s body. The gods call him Icelos, the mortal crowd Phobetor. The third, of diverse artistry, is Phantasos: he takes illusory shapes of all inanimate things, earth, stones, rivers, trees. These are the ones that show themselves by night to kings and generals, the rest wander among citizens and commoners. Old Somnus passed them by, choosing one of all these brothers, Morpheus, to carry out the command of Iris, daughter of Thaumas, and relaxing again into sweet drowsiness, his head drooped, and he settled into his deep bed.

Bk 11:650-709 Morpheus goes to Alcyone in the form of Ceyx

Flying through the shadows on noiseless wings, Morpheus, after a short delay, comes to the Haemonian city. Shedding his wings, he takes the shape of Ceyx, pallid like the dead, and naked, and stands before his unfortunate wife’s bed. He appears with sodden beard, and seawater dripping from his matted hair. Then he bends over her pillow, with tears streaming down his face, and says: ‘My poor wife, do you know your Ceyx, or has my face altered in death? Look at me: you will recognise me, and find for a husband, a husband’s shade! Your prayers have brought me no help, Alcyone! I am dead! Do not hold out false hopes of my return! Storm-laden Auster, the south wind, caught the ship in Aegean waters, and tossed in tempestuous blasts, wrecked her there. My lips, calling helplessly on your name, drank the waves. No dubious author announces this news to you, nor do you hear it as a vague report: I myself, drowned, as you see me before you, tell my fate. Get up, act, shed tears, wear mourning: do not let me go down unwept to Tartarus’s void.’

Morpheus spoke these words in a voice she would believe to be her husband’s (the tears that he wept also seemed real tears) and his hands revealed Ceyx’s gestures. Alcyone groaned, tearfully, stirring her arms in sleep, and seeking his body, grasped only air, and cried out: ‘Wait for me! Where do you vanish? We will go together.’ Roused by her own voice, and her husband’s image, she started up out of sleep. First she gazed round to see if he was still there, the one she had just seen. At the sound of her cry the servants had brought a lamp. Not finding him anywhere, she struck her face with her hands, tore her clothes from her breasts, and beat at the breasts themselves. She did not wait to loosen her hair, but tore at it, and shouted at her nurse, who asked the cause of her grief: ‘Alcyone is nothing, is nothing: she has died together with her Ceyx. Be done with soothing words! He is wrecked: I saw him, I knew him, I stretched out my hands towards him as he vanished, eager to hold him back. It was a shadow, yet it was my husband’s true shadow, made manifest. True, he did not have his accustomed features, if you ask me, nor did his face shine as before. But pallid and naked, with dripping hair, I, the unfortunate one, saw him. Look, my poor husband stood on that very spot,’ and she tried to find a trace of his footprints. ‘This is what I feared, with my divining mind, this: and I begged you not to leave me, chasing the winds. But, for certain, I should have desired you to take me with you, since you were going to your death. How good it would have been to have gone with you: then no part of my life would have lacked your presence, nor would we be separated by death. Now I have died absent from myself, and am thrown through the waves, absently, and the sea takes me, without me.

My mind would treat me more cruelly than the sea, if I should try to live on, and fight to overcome my sorrow! But I shall not fight, nor leave you, my poor husband, and at least now I shall come as your companion. If not the sepulchral urn the lettered stone will join us: if I shall not touch you, bone to my bone, still I will touch you, name to name.’ Grief choked further words, and lamentation took their place wholly, and sighs drawn from a stricken heart.

Bk 11:710-748 They are turned into birds

Morning had broken. She went out of the house towards the shore, sadly seeking the place where she had watched him depart. And while she stayed there, and while she was saying: ‘Here he loosed the rope, on this strand he kissed me as he left,’ and while she recalled the significant actions by their locations, and looked seawards, she saw in the flowing waves what looked like a body, unsure at first what it was: after the tide had brought it a little nearer, though it was some way off, it was clearly a body. She did not know whose it was, but was moved by the omen of this shipwrecked man, and as if she wept for the unknown dead, she cried out: ‘Alas for you, poor soul, whoever you may be, and your wife, if you have one!’ The body had been washed nearer by the sea, and the more she gazed at it, the smaller and smaller shrank her courage: woe! Now it was close to land, now she could see who it was: it was her husband! She cried out: ‘It’s him!’ and together tearing at cheeks, and hair, and clothes she stretched out her trembling hands to Ceyx, saying: ‘O, is it like this, dear husband, is it like this, wretched one, you return to me?

A breakwater built by the waves, broke the initial force of the sea, and weakened the onrush of the tide. Though it was amazing that she could do so, she leapt onto it: she flew, and, beating the soft air on new-found wings, a sorrowing bird, she skimmed the surface of the waves. As she flew, her plaintive voice came from a slender beak, like someone grieving and full of sorrows. When she reached the mute and bloodless corpse, she clasped the dear limbs with her new wings and kissed the cold lips in vain with her hard beak.

People doubted whether Ceyx felt this, or merely seemed to raise his face by a movement of the waves, but he did feel it: and at last through the gods’ pity, both were changed to birds, the halcyons. Though they suffered the same fate, their love remained as well: and their bonds were not weakened, by their feathered form. They mate and rear their young, and Alcyone broods on her nest, for seven calm days in the wintertime, floating on the water’s surface. Then the waves are stilled: Aeolus imprisons the winds and forbids their roaming, and controls his grandsons’ waves.

Bk 11:749-795 The transformation of Aesacus

Seeing these birds flying together over the wide sea, some old man praised those affections maintained till the end. Someone near by, or the same man (pointing to a long-necked diving bird) said: ‘That bird also, skimming over the ocean, trailing his slender legs, is a descendant of kings. If you want to trace his ancestry in unbroken line to himself, its source was Ilus the younger, the son of Tros, and his brothers Assaracus, and Ganymede, whom Jove snatched, Ilus’s son, old Laomedon, and his son Priam, whom fate assigned to Troy’s last days. That bird was Hector’s brother, Aesacus, who, if he had not met his strange fate in youth, would perhaps have had no less a name than Hector, though Hecuba, daughter of Dymas, bore Priam the first, the other Aesacus, is said to have been born to Alexirrhoë, daughter of two-horned Granicus, the river-god, in secret, under the shadow of Mount Ida.

He hated cities, and lived in the remote mountains, and insignificant country places, far away from the glittering court, and rarely visited crowded Ilium. Yet he did not have an uncultured heart, or one averse to love, and he often pursued Hesperie, the River Cebren’s daughter, through all the woodland glades, whom he had caught sight of, drying her flowing hair, in the sun, on her father’s shore. The nymph fled on sight, as a frightened hind flees the tawny wolf, or a wild duck, caught far from the pool she left, the hawk. But the Trojan hero, driven by swift love, followed her, driven by swift fear. Behold, a serpent, hidden in the grass, bit her foot with his curving fang, as she fled by, and left his poison in her body. Her flight ended with her life. The lover clasped her unbreathing body and cried: ‘I regret, I regret I followed you! But I did not expect this, and it was not worth this to attempt to win you. We two have destroyed you, poor girl: the wound given by a snake, the cause of it all myself! Let me be the more accursed, if I do not send you solace by my death.’

He spoke, and threw himself from a cliff, eroded below by the rough waves, into the sea. Tethys, pitying him, caught him gently as he fell, clothed him with feathers as he floated on the water, and denied him the opportunity to choose his death. The lover was angered, that he was forced to live, against his will, and that his spirit was thwarted, wishing to leave its unhappy residence. When he had gained the new wings on his shoulders, he flew up and threw his body again into the sea. His feathers broke his fall. In a rage, Aesacus dived headlong into the deep and tried endlessly to find a path to death. His love made him lean: his legs are long between the joints: his neck remained long: his head is far from his body. He loves seawater, and from diving there he takes his name, mergus, the diver.
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Re: Metamorphoses, by Ovid

Postby admin » Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:00 am

Book 12

• Bk 12:1-38 Iphigenia at Aulis.
• Bk 12:39-63 The House of Rumour
• Bk 12:64-145 The death and transformation of Cycnus.
• Bk 12:146-209 Nestor tells the story of Caeneus-Caenis.
• Bk 12:210-244 Nestor tells of the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs.
• Bk 12:245-289 The deaths of Amycus, Gryneus, Cometes.
• Bk 12:290-326 The deaths of Corythus, Aphidas and others.
• Bk 12:327-392 Pirithoüs, Theseus and Peleus join the fight
• Bk 12:393-428 Cyllarus and Hylonome.
• Bk 12:429-535 The transformation of Caeneus.
• Bk 12:536-579 Nestor tells of the death of Periclymenus.
• Bk 12:579-628 The death of Achilles.

Bk 12:1-38 Iphigenia at Aulis

The father, Priam, mourned for the son, Aesacus, not knowing that he was still alive in winged form. Hector with his brothers had also, inappropriately, offered sacrifices at a tomb inscribed with his name. Paris was not present at this sad ritual, he, who presently brought extended war on his country because of the wife he had stolen. The whole Pelasgian race, joined together to pursue him, in a thousand ships, and vengeance would not have been long in coming had not fierce winds made the seas un-navigable, and the land of Boeotia detained the waiting ships in the fishing-grounds of Aulis. After they had prepared a sacrifice to Jupiter there, after the customs of their country, and when the ancient altar was alive with the kindled flames, The Greeks saw a dark-green snake sliding into a plane tree that stood near to where they had begun the sacrifice. There was a nest with eight young birds in the crown of the tree, and these the serpent seized and swallowed in its eager jaws, together with the mother bird, who circled her doomed fledglings.

They looked at it wonderingly, but Calchas, the seer, son of Thestor, interpreted the truth, saying: ‘We will conquer, Greeks, rejoice! Troy will fall, though our efforts will be of long duration,’ and he divined nine years of war from the nine birds. The snake, was turned to stone, exactly as it was, twined around the green branches, and stamped in the stone its serpent shape.

Boreas, the north-wind, continued to stir the waves violently, and would not grant the warships a crossing, and some thought Neptune was sparing Troy, because he had built its walls. But not Calchas. He knew and did not withhold from them, that a virgin’s blood would appease the wrath of Diana, the virgin goddess. When consideration of the common cause had conquered affection, and the king had suppressed the father, and as Iphigenia stood, among her weeping attendants, before the altar, to surrender her innocent blood, the goddess was vanquished, and veiled their eyes in mist, and, in the midst of the rites and confusion of the sacrifice, and the cries of the suppliants, they say she substituted a hind for the Mycenean girl. When, therefore, Diana had been appeased, by the required victim, and the sea’s anger had subsided simultaneously with that of Phoebe, the thousand ships, driven by a tail wind, reached the shores of Phrygia, after many adventures.

Bk 12:39-63 The House of Rumour

There is a place at the centre of the World, between the zones of earth, sea, and sky, at the boundary of the three worlds. From here, whatever exists is seen, however far away, and every voice reaches listening ears. Rumour lives there, choosing a house for herself on a high mountain summit, adding innumerable entrances, a thousand openings, and no doors to bar the threshold. It is open night and day: and is all of sounding bronze. All rustles with noise, echoes voices, and repeats what is heard. There is no peace within: no silence anywhere. Yet there is no clamour, only the subdued murmur of voices, like the waves of the sea, if you hear them far off, or like the sound of distant thunder when Jupiter makes the dark clouds rumble.

Crowds fill the hallways: a fickle populace comes and goes, and, mingling truth randomly with fiction, a thousand rumours wander, and confused words circulate. Of these, some fill idle ears with chatter, others carry tales, and the author adds something new to what is heard. Here is Credulity, here is rash Error, empty Delight, and alarming Fear, sudden Sedition, and Murmurings of doubtful origin. Rumour herself sees everything that happens in the heavens, throughout the ocean, and on land, and inquires about everything on earth.

Bk 12:64-145 The death and transformation of Cycnus

She had spread the news that the Greek fleet was nearing, filled with brave warriors, and so the arrival of the armed host was no surprise. The Trojans opposed the landing, and defended their coast. You, Protesilaüs, were the first to fall beneath Hector’s deadly spear, and joining in battle cost the Greeks dearly, and they knew mighty Hector’s spirit by the slaughter. The Phrygians learnt at no small expense of blood, the power of an Achaian hand. Now the Sigean shores ran red: now Cycnus, a son of Neptune, had consigned a thousand men to death: now Achilles pursued in his chariot, and laid whole columns of men low with a blow of his spear from Pelion. Searching the battlelines for Cycnus or for Hector, he came upon Cycnus (His meeting with Hector postponed till the tenth year of the war).

Then Achilles, urging on his horses, their snowy necks straining against the harness, he drove his chariot straight at the enemy, striking out, with the quivering spear, with all his strength, saying: ‘O youth, whoever you may be, take death’s comfort in being killed by Achilles of Haemonia!’ So Aeacides spoke: His heavy spear followed the words, but although there was certainly no error in the flight of the spear, still the sharp point of the flying blade had no effect, and only bruised Cycnus’s chest, like a blunted weapon. ‘O son of the goddess,’ Cycnus said, ‘fame has made you known to me, why are you amazed I have no wound? (He was indeed amazed) Neither this helmet you see, with its yellow horsehair crest, nor the hollow shield weighing down my left arm, is to protect me: they only look to serve as ornament. Mars too wears his armour for this reason! Take away the use of this protective covering: I will still escape unharmed. It is worth something to be the son, not of Nereus’s daughter, but of him who rules Nereus and his daughters, and the whole ocean as well.’

He spoke, and hurled his spear at Achilles, but it stuck fast in his round bronze shield. It tore through the bronze and nine layers of bull’s hide, but was stopped by a tenth. Shaking it off, the Greek hero once more threw a quivering spear from his mighty hand. Again his enemy’s body was whole and unharmed. A third spear could not even graze Cycnus though he laid himself open to it. Achilles flared up, like a bull in the arena, when it charges with its deadly horns at the Carthaginian cloak, and finds it escapes damage. He examined the spear to see if the iron point had been loosened: it was fixed to the shaft. ‘Is my hand enfeebled,’ he said, ‘so that the power it had is lacking against this man?’ Certainly it was strong enough when I led the overthrow of Lyrnessus’s walls, or when I drenched the island of Tenedos, and Mysian Thebes, Eetion’s city, in their own blood, when the River Caïcus ran red with the slaughter of those around it, and Telephus twice felt the touch of my spear. Here also, my right hand has prevailed, and will prevail, striking so many, the heaps of corpses I made and see on the shore.’

He spoke, and as if not believing the results of his previous actions, he threw the spear straight at Menoetes, one of the Lycian men, simultaneously piercing his breastplate and the breast beneath. As the dying man beat his head against the solid earth, Achilles pulled the spear from the hot wound, and cried: ‘This is the hand, and this is the spear with which I have just been victorious: I shall use it on this enemy, and I pray his end may be the same.’ Thus he pursued the death of Cycnus again, and the ashen shaft did not err, thudding unavoidably into the left shoulder, from which it recoiled as if from a wall or a solid rock. Achilles saw that Cycnus was stained with blood where it struck, and exulted, but in vain: there was no wound: it was Menoetes’s blood! Then truly maddened, he leapt headlong from his high chariot, and seeking out his charmed enemy, at close quarters, with glittering sword, saw shield and helmet carved through, but still the iron blunted on the impenetrable body. He could stand it no longer, and he beat at the face and hollow temples of his enemy three or four times with his raised shield and sword-hilt.

One presses as the other gives way: he rushes and harries him, allowing no respite from the shock. Fear grips Cycnus, shadows swim in front of his eyes, and, as he steps backwards, his retreating step is blocked, by a boulder, on the open ground. As he is trapped with his body bent against it, Achilles turns him over with great force, and dashes him to the ground. Then pressing his hard knees and shield into Cycnus’s chest, he pulls on the helmet straps, which, tightening under the chin, squeeze the throat and windpipe, and stop the passage of breath. He prepares to strip his defeated enemy: he sees empty armour: the god of the sea has changed the body into that of a white bird, whose name is the one he bore, but a moment ago.

Bk 12:146-209 Nestor tells the story of Caeneus-Caenis

This battle brought about that truce, of many days duration, when both sides grounded their weapons and rested. While alert sentries patrolled the Trojan walls and alert sentries patrolled the Greek trenches, a feast day arrived, on which Achilles, the victor over Cycnus, was propitiating Pallas with the blood of a sacrificial cow. When its entrails had been placed on the blazing altars, and the perfume the gods love had climbed to the heavens, part was put aside for their holy rites, and the rest set out on the tables. The leaders reclined on couches, and ate their fill of the roasted meat, while they quenched their thirst, and drowned their cares, with wine. The zither, the sound of singing, the long boxwood flute pierced with many holes, was not their entertainment, rather they lengthened the night with talk, and courage was their theme. They talked of their enemies’ battles, and of their own, and delighted in recounting, in turn, the dangers they had encountered and survived. What else should Achilles speak of, and what else should be spoken of in great Achilles’s presence?

The foremost talk was of his latest victory, the overthrow of Cycnus. It seemed wondrous to all of them that a warrior should have a body no spear could penetrate, impervious to wounds, and that blunted iron swords. Achilles himself and the Greeks were marvelling at it, when Nestor said: ‘Cycnus has been the only one among your generation who ignored swords, and whom no blow could pierce. But, long ago, I myself saw one Caeneus of Thessaly, who could take a thousand strokes with unwounded body: Thessalian Caeneus, I say, who, famous for his exploits, lived on Mount Othrys, and what made it more remarkable in him, he had been born a woman.’ All who there were interested by this strange wonder, and asked him to tell the story.

Achilles, among the rest, said: ‘Say on, old one! O ancient eloquence, wisdom of our age, all of us equally desire to hear, who Caeneus was, why he was changed to his opposite, what campaign you met him in, fighting against whom, by whom he was overcome, if anyone overcame him.’ Then the old warrior said: ‘Though the slowness of age hampers me, and many things I once saw have slipped from me, I can still remember many. Nothing sticks more firmly in my mind than this, amongst all those acts, in battle and at home, and if length of years alone enabled a man to report many deeds, I have lived two hundred years: now I live in my third century.

‘Elatus’s daughter, Caenis, loveliest of the virgins of Thessaly, was famous for her beauty, a girl longed for in vain, the object of many suitors throughout the neighbouring cities and your own (since she was one of your people, Achilles). Perhaps Peleus also would have tried to wed her, but he had already taken your mother in marriage, or she was promised to your father. Caenis would not agree to any marriage, but (so rumour has it) she was walking along a lonely beach, and the god took her by force. When Neptune had enjoyed his new love he said: “Make your wish, without fear of refusal. Ask for what you most want!” (The same rumour mentioned this.)

‘“This injury evokes the great desire never to be able to suffer any such again. Grant I might not be a woman: you will have given me everything,” Caenis said. She spoke the last words in a deeper tone, that might have been the sound of a man’s voice. So it was: the god of the deep ocean had already accepted her wish, and had granted, over and above it, that as a man Caeneus would be protected from all wounds, and never fall to the sword. Caeneus, the Atracides, left, happy with his gifts, and spent his time in manly pastimes, roaming the Thessalian fields.

Bk 12:210-244 Nestor tells of the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs

‘Pirithoüs, the daring son of Ixion, married Hippodame, and invited the cloud-born centaurs to take their place at tables, set in lines, in a tree-shaded cave. Caeneus, and the other Thessalian princes were there, and I was there myself. The festive palace echoed with the noisy crowd. See, they were singing the marriage song, and the great hall smoked with fires, and in came the virgin surrounded by a throng of young wives and mothers, conspicuous, in her beauty. We declared Pirithoüs to be blessed in his bride, which almost betrayed his good fortune. For your heart was heated by the sight of the girl as much as by wine, Eurytus, most savage of the savage Centaurs: and drunkenness twinned with lust ruled it.

‘At once the tables were overturned and the banquet in turmoil, and the new bride was grabbed by the hair and dragged off by force. Eurytus seized Hippodame: the others whosoever they wished to, or could, and it looked like the rape of a city. The palace sounded with women’s cries. We all leaped up quickly, and Theseus, first, shouted out: ‘What foolishness drives you to this, Eurytus, that you challenge Pirithoüs in my presence, and unknowingly attack two in one? Lest his words were in vain, the brave hero pushed aside those threatening him, and rescued the girl from the madmen. The other made no reply (since he could not defend his actions with words) but attacked her champion, with violent hands, striking at his face and noble chest.

‘There chanced to be an ancient mixing-bowl nearby, embossed with raised designs, and Theseus raised the huge thing, he himself being huger, and threw it straight at Eurytus’s face. He fell backwards, drumming his feet on the blood-soaked earth, gouts of blood spurting from mouth and wound equally, along with brain-matter and wine. His twin-natured brothers, taking fire at his death, emulated each other, in shouting: ‘To arms! To arms!’ with a single voice. Wine gave them courage, and, in the first battle, cups, fragile jars, and round basins were sent flying, things intended for feasting, now used for fighting and killing.

Bk 12:245-289 The deaths of Amycus, Gryneus, Cometes

‘First, Amycus, son of Ophion, did not fear to despoil the inner shrine of its offerings, and snatched, first, from the sanctuary, a chandelier, thickly hung with gleaming lamps, and raising it on high, as one wields a sacrificial axe to break the bull’s snowy neck, he dashed it against the forehead of Celadon, the Lapith, leaving him with the bones of his face crushed past recognition. His eyes leapt from their sockets, and his nose, pushed in, as the bones of his face shattered, was driven into his palate. At this, Pelates of Pella, wrenching a leg from a maple-wood table, knocked Amycus to the ground, his chin driven into his chest: and his enemy sent him to the shadows of Tartarus with a second wound, as he spat out teeth, mixed with dark blood.

‘Then Gryneus, standing near the smoking altar, gazing at it with wild eyes, shouted: “Why not put this to use?” and lifting the huge altar with its flames, he threw it into the midst of the crowd of Lapiths, crushing two of them, Broteas and Orios: Orios’s mother was Mycale, who was often known to draw down the horned moon by her incantations despite its struggles. “You will not escape with impunity, if I can find a weapon.” said Exadius, who found the equivalent of a spear in a stag’s antlers that hung on a tall pine tree, as a votive offering. Gryneus was pierced in the eyes by the twin branches, and his eyeballs gouged out, one of which stuck to the horn, and the other slipped down onto his beard, and hung there in a clot of blood.

‘Then Rhoetus snatched up a burning brand from the altar, wood from a plum tree, and swinging it down from the right hand side, broke Charaxus’s temples protected by yellow hair. The hair flared like a dry cornfield, set alight by the quick flames, and the blood seared in the wound gave out a terrible sizzling noise, as a bar of iron is prone to do, when the smith takes it, red-hot, from the fire, with curved tongs, and plunges it into a bath of water: it whistles and hisses immersed in the bubbling liquid.

‘The wounded man shook the rapacious flames from his shaggy hair, and tearing a stone sill from the ground lifted it on his shoulders, a load for oxen, its very weight preventing him from hurling it as far as his enemy: but the mass of stone crushed his friend Cometes, who was standing nearer. Rhoetus could not contain his delight, saying: “May the rest of the crowd on your side be as formidable as that!” and he renewed his attack with the half-burned branch, and with three or four heavy blows broke through the joints of his skull until the bones sank into the fluid brain.

Bk 12:290-326 The deaths of Corythus, Aphidas and others

‘The victor turned his attention to Euagrus, Corythus and Dryas. When Corythus, one of these, fell, whose first downy hair covered his cheeks, Euagrus cried: “What glory is there on your part in shedding the blood of a boy?” Rhoetus stopped him from speaking, thrusting the fiery flames into the man’s open mouth, and down his throat. He pursued you, also, savage Dryas, whirling the branch round his head, but with a different result. As Rhoetus came on exulting in the succession of killings, you ran him through with a charred stake, where neck and shoulder meet. Rhoetus groaned and with an effort wrenched the stake out of the solid bone: then he ran, drenched in his own blood. Orneus and Lycabas, also ran; Medon, wounded in the right shoulder; Thaumas and Pisenor; and Mermeros who had recently overcome everyone by his fleetness of foot, and now ran more slowly from the wound he had suffered. Pholus, Melaneus, and Abas the boar-hunter also fled, and Asbolus, the augur, who had vainly tried to dissuade them from fighting. To Nessus, who also ran with him, fearful of being wounded, he said: “Do not flee! You are fated to be preserved for Hercules’s bow.” But Eurynomus, and Lycidas, Areos and Imbreus did not escape death: all these Dryas’s hand killed as they fronted him. You also received a wound in front, Crenaeus, though you had turned your back in flight: as you looked back the heavy blade took you between the eyes, where nose and forehead meet.

‘Aphidas lay amongst the intense noise, without waking, all his strength sunk in endless sleep, still holding a cup of mixed wine, in his limp hand, stretched out on the shaggy skin of a bear from Mount Ossa. Phorbas caught sight of him at a distance, uselessly idle in the fight, and fitting his fingers into the strap of his javelin said: “Go drink your wine mixed with the waters of Styx.” Without hesitating he hurled his spear at the youth, and the ash shaft tipped with iron was driven through his neck, as he chanced to be lying with his head thrown back. He did not feel death, and the black blood flowed from his welling throat, onto the couch and into the wine-cup itself.’

Bk 12:327-392 Pirithoüs, Theseus and Peleus join the fight

‘I saw Petraeus trying to tear an oak-tree full of acorns from the ground. While he had his arms round it, bending it this way and that, and shaking the loosened trunk, Pirithoüs sent a lance through his ribs, and pinned his writhing body to the hard wood. They say that Lycus fell by Pirithoüs’s might, and Chromis by Pirithoüs’s might, but Dictys and Helops gave the victor a greater title to fame. Helops was transfixed by a javelin that passed through both temples; hurled from the right and piercing the left ear. Dictys, fleeing in desperate panic, pressed hard by Ixion’s son, stumbled on a mountain height, and fell headlong, breaking a huge flowering ash with the weight of his body, and entangling his entrails in the shattered tree.

‘Aphareus was there, his avenger, who tried to hurl a rock torn from the mountainside: but as he tried Theseus, the son of Aegeus, caught him with his oaken club and broke the massive bones of his elbow. Having neither time nor desire to inflict further injury on his worthless body, he leaped onto tall Bienor’s back, unused to carrying anything but its owner, and, pressing his knees into the centaur’s flanks, and clutching the mane with his left hand, he shattered the face, the mouth uttering threats, and the solid temples, with his knotted club. With the club he overthrew Nedymnus, and Lycopes the javelin-thrower; Hippasos, his chest protected by a flowing beard, and Ripheus, who towered above the treetops; Thereus, also, who used to take bears on the mountain slopes of Thessaly, and carry them home angry and alive.

‘Demoleon could no longer stand the success Theseus was enjoying: he had been trying, with great effort, to tear up the solid trunk of an ancient pine. Unable to do it, he broke it off and hurled it at the enemy. But Theseus drew well away from the oncoming missile, warned by Pallas, or so he would have us believe. The tree trunk did not fall without effect, since it severed tall Crantor’s chest and left shoulder from the neck. He was your father’s armour bearer, Achilles, whom Amyntor king of the Dolopians, having been defeated in battle, gave to Peleus, the Aeacides, as a true pledge of peace.

‘When Peleus, some distance away, saw him torn apart by the frightful wound he shouted: “Accept this tribute to the dead, at least, Crantor, dearest of youths, ” and with his powerful arm, he hurled his ash spear, at full strength, at Demoleon. It ruptured the ribcage, and stuck quivering in the bone. The centaur pulled out the shaft minus its head (he tried with difficulty to reach that also) but the head was caught in his lung. The pain itself strengthened his will: wounded, he reared up at his enemy and beat the hero down with his hooves. Peleus received the resounding blows on helmet and shield, and defending his upper arms, and controlling the weapon he held out, with one blow through the arm he pierced the bi-formed breast.

‘Peleus had already, before this, killed Phlegraeos and Hyles, from a distance, and Iphinoüs and Clanis in close conflict. He added Dorylas to these, who wore a wolfskin cap on his head, and instead of a deadly spear, carried a magnificent pair of crooked bull’s horns, dyed red with copious blood.

‘I shouted to him (my courage giving me strength) “See how your horns give way before my spear” and I threw my javelin. Since he could not evade it, he blocked a wound to his forehead with his right hand, and his hand was pinned to his forehead. He screamed, but Peleus (as he stood near him) struck him with his sword in mid-stomach, as he came to a halt there, overcome by the harsh wound. Dorylas leapt forward fiercely, dragging his guts on the ground, and as he dragged he trampled them, and as he trampled he tore them, entangled his legs in them, and fell, with emptied belly.

Bk 12:393-428 Cyllarus and Hylonome

‘Nor did your beauty, Cyllarus, if indeed we attribute beauty to your centaur race, save you in the fighting.

‘His beard was beginning to show; a beard the colour of gold; and a golden mane fell from his shoulders half way down his flanks. He had a liveliness of expression that was pleasing; his neck and shoulders, chest and hands, and all his human parts, you would praise as almost sculpted by an artist. Nor was the equine part below marred, or inferior to the human: give him a horse’s head and neck and he would be worthy of a Castor, the back so fit for a rider, the deep chest so muscular. He was blacker than pitch all over, except for a white tail, and legs also snow-white.

‘Many females of his race courted him, but one, Hylonome, won him, none lovelier, among the female centaurs, in the deep forests. She alone held Cyllarus’s affections, by endearments, by loving and admitting love; and by her appearance, as far as those limbs allow its cultivation: now she would smooth her mane with a comb, now entwine it with rosemary, now violets or roses: or else she wore bright lilies. She bathed her face twice a day in the spring that fell from the woods, on the heights near Pagasae, twice dipped her body in the stream. She would wear only selected skins of wild beasts that became her, over her shoulder or across her left flank. Their love was equally shared. They wandered the mountainsides together, rested at the same time in caves: and now they had both come to the palace of the Lapiths, and both fought fiercely.

‘A javelin (who threw it is unknown) came from the left and took you, Cyllarus, below the place where the chest swells to the neck. When the weapon was withdrawn the heart, though only slightly pierced, grew cold with the whole body. Immediately Hylonome clasped the dying limbs, sealed the wound with her hand, placed her mouth on his, and tried to prevent the passage of his spirit. Seeing he was dead, with words that the noise prevented from reaching my ears, she threw herself onto the spear that had pierced him, embracing her husband in dying.’

Bk 12:429-535 The transformation of Caeneus

‘Still Phaeocomes stands before my eyes, he, who had tied six lion skins together with knotted cords, as a covering, protecting both man and horse. Hurling a log, that two teams of oxen could hardly move, he crushed the skull-bone of Tectaphos, son of Olenus. The broad dome of his head was shattered, and the soft brain matter oozed out through the hollow nostrils, eyes and ears, like curdled milk through the oak lattice, or as liquid trickles through a coarse sieve, under the weight, and squeezes thickly through the close mesh. But even as Phaecomes prepared to strip the arms from the fallen man (your father knows this), I thrust my sword deep into the despoiler’s thigh. Chthonius and Teleboas also fell to my sword: the first carried a forked branch, the other a spear: he gave me a wound with the spear - see, the scar! - the mark of the old wound is still visible. In those days I would have been sent to capture Troy’s citadel; then, I could have entertained Hector greatly with my weapons, if not overcome him. But Hector at that time was a child or not yet born, now my age has weakened me.

‘What need to tell you how Periphas conquered dual-shaped Pyraethus? Why tell of Ampyx who drove his cornel-wood spear that had lost its tip into the opposing face of four-footed Echeclus? Macareus threw a crowbar at the chest of Pelethronian Erigdupus, killing him: and I remember how a hunting spear, from the hand of Nessus, buried itself in Cymelus’s groin. Nor would you have thought Mopsus, Ampycus’s son, only prophesied the future: bi-formed Hodites fell to Mopsus’s throw, trying in vain to speak, his tongue fixed to the floor of his mouth, the floor of his mouth to his throat.

‘Caeneus had killed five: Styphelos, Bromus, Antimachus, Elymus; and Pyracmos, who was armed with a battle-axe. I do not recall their wounds, but I noted their number, and their names. Then Latreus rushed forward, massive in body and limbs, armed with the spoils of Emathian Halesus whom he had killed. He was between youth and age, but had the strength of youth, his hair greying on his temples. Prancing in a circle, turning to face each of the battle-lines in turn, and conspicuous for his Macedonian lance, helmet and shield, he clashed his weapons, pouring out many proud words, into the empty air. “Do I have to put up with you, Caenis? For you will always be a woman, Caenis, to me. Does your natal origin not remind you; does not the act you were rewarded for come to mind, at what cost you gained this false aspect of a man? Consider what you were born as, or what you experienced, go, pick up your distaff and basket of wool and twist the spun thread with your thumb: leave war to men.”

‘At this Caeneus threw his spear, ploughing a furrow in the centaur’s side, where man and horse joined, as he was stretched out in the act of galloping. Maddened with pain, Latreus struck the Phylleian youth in his unprotected face, with the lance: but it bounced off like a hailstone from a rooftop, or a small pebble from a hollow drum. Then he closed up on him, and tried to thrust his sword into his impenetrable side: the sword found no way in. The centaur shouted: “You will still not escape! I will kill you with the sword’s edge if the point is blunt.” Turning his blade sideways he reached out for his enemy’s loins with his long right arm. The blow resounded, as if it struck a body of marble, and the weapon fractured in pieces as it hit the firm flesh.

‘When he had exposed his unwounded limbs for long enough to his wondering enemy, Caeneus said: “Now let me try your body with my blade!” and he drove his fatal weapon into the other’s side, turning and twisting his hand, buried in the guts, causing wound on wound. See, the centaurs maddened, rushed on him with a great shout, and all aimed and threw their spears at the one man. The spears fell, blunted: and Caeneus, son of Elatus, remained unpierced and unbloodied by all their efforts. This marvel astonished them.

‘“Oh, what overwhelming shame!” Monychus exclaimed. “A people defeated by one who is scarcely a man: yet he is the man, and we, with our half-hearted attempts are what he once was. What use are our huge limbs? What use our twin powers, and that double nature uniting the strongest living things in us? We are not sons of a divine mother: nor of Ixion who was such as aspired to captivate great Juno: we are overcome by an enemy, who is half a man! Roll down rocks and tree trunks on him, and whole mountainsides, and crush that stubborn spirit with the forests we hurl! Let their mass constrict his throat, and let weight work instead of wounds.”

‘He spoke, and finding a chance tree-trunk toppled by a furious southerly wind, he threw it at his powerful enemy. He served as the example, and in a little while Mount Othrys was bare of trees, and Pelion had lost its shade. Buried under the huge pile, Caeneus strained against the weight of trees, and propped up the mass of oak on his strong shoulders, but as it mounted above his mouth and face, he had no breath of the air that he breathed, and lacking it, often, he tried in vain to raise himself into the air, and throw off the forest piled on him, and often heaved, as if steep Mount Ida, that we see there, look, was shaken by an earthquake.

‘His fate is doubtful: some said his body was thrust down to empty Tartarus, by the mass of forest: but Mopsus, the son of Ampycus denied this. He saw a bird with tawny wings fly into the clear air from the midst of the pile, which I saw also, then, for the first and last time ever. As Mopsus watched him smoothly circling his camp in flight, making a great noise, he pursued him with mind and vision, saying “Hail to you, Caeneus, glory of the race of Lapiths, once a great hero, but now a bird alone!” The thing was believed because of its author: grief was added to anger, and we could barely accept one man being conquered by so many enemies. Nor did we cease to work off our pain with the sword until half were dead, and half, fleeing, were swallowed by the night.’

Bk 12:536-579 Nestor tells of the death of Periclymenus

As the hero from Pylos told of this battle between the Lapiths and the half-human Centaurs, Tlepolemus, son of Hercules, leader of the Rhodians, could not keep his mouth silent in his indignation at Hercules, the descendant of Alceus, being overlooked. He said ‘Old man, it is amazing that your recital forgot to praise Hercules: certainly my father often used to tell me of the cloud-born centaurs he defeated.’ Nestor answered him, sternly. ‘Why do you force me to remember wrongs, to re-open wounds healed by the years, and to reveal hatred for your father and the injuries he did me? He has done deeds beyond belief, the gods know, and filled the earth with his praises: that, I wish I could deny. But we do not praise Deïphobus, or Polydamas, or Hector: who praises an enemy indeed?

‘That father of yours razed Messene’s walls; destroyed the innocent cities of Elis and Pylos, and overthrew my household gods with fire and sword. I say nothing of the others he killed: there were twelve of us, sons of Neleus, outstanding young men, all except myself fell to Hercules’s strength. We must accept that the others could be defeated: the death of Periclymenus was strange, whom Neptune, founder of Neleus’s bloodline, had granted the power to assume any form he wished and reverse that which he had assumed. Now, after he had changed to every form in turn, he reverted to the shape of a bird, the eagle that carries the lightning bolts in its curved talons, beloved by the king of the gods. He tore at the hero’s face with all the power of his wings, his hooked beak, and crooked claws. Then, as he soared among the clouds, and hung poised there, the Tirynthian fired his unerring bow at him, and pierced him where the wing meets the side.

‘The wound was not fatal, but the sinews, severed by the wound, failed, devoid of movement or power of flight. He fell to earth, his weakened pinions not mastering the air, and the arrow, clinging lightly to the wing, was driven upwards with the body’s weight, and forced through the top of the breast into the left side of the throat.

‘Now, O most glorious leader of the Rhodian fleet, do you think I should cry out your Hercules’s praises? Yet I look for no other revenge for my brothers than to be silent about his mighty deeds: there is unbroken friendship between you and me.’

When Nestor had told his tale in a pleasant voice, passing from the old man’s story to the gifts of Bacchus again, they rose from the couches: the rest of the night was given to sleep.

Bk 12:579-628 The death of Achilles

But the god of the trident, who rules the ocean waters, grieved, with a father’s feelings, for the son changed into a swan, the bird of Phaethon, and, hating fierce Achilles, he nursed an excessive anger in his memory.

And now, when the war against Troy had lasted for almost ten years, he called to Sminthean Apollo, the unshorn, in these words: ‘O, by far the best loved of my brother’s sons, who built the walls of Troy with me, to no purpose, do you sigh at all to see these battlements at the moment of their destruction? Do you grieve at all that so many thousands died defending her walls? Not to name all of them, does not the shade come before you of Hector, dragged round his own citadel, Pergama? But savage Achilles, more cruel than war itself, is still alive, ravager of our creation. Let him be given up to me. I would let him feel what I can do with my three-pronged spear: but since I am not allowed to meet face to face with the enemy, destroy him unexpectedly with a hidden arrow!’

The Delian god nodded, and satisfying his own and his uncle’s desire, he came to the Trojan lines, wrapped in a cloud, and there, among human massacre, he saw Paris firing infrequent shafts at unknown Greeks. Showing himself as a god, he said: ‘Why waste your arrows on the blood of the rank and file? If you care for your own, aim at Achilles, grandson of Aeacus, and avenge your dead brothers!’ He spoke, and, pointing to Pelides, who, with his weapon, was strewing the ground with Trojan bodies, he turned Paris’s bow towards him, and guided the unerring shaft with deadly hand. This was the one thing that could delight old Priam since Hector’s death.

So, Achilles, conqueror of so much greatness, you are conquered, by the cowardly thief of the wife of a Greek! If your death had to be by a woman’s hand, in war, you would rather have fallen to an Amazon’s two-edged axe.

Now Achilles, grandson of Aeacus, the terror of the Phrygians, the glory and defence of the Pelasgian name, the invincible captain in battle, was burned: one god, Vulcan, armed him, and that same god consumed him. Now he is ash, and little if anything remains of Achilles, once so mighty, hardly enough to fill an urn. But his fame lives, enough to fill a world. That equals the measure of the man, and, in that, the son of Peleus is truly himself, and does not know the void of Tartarus.

So that you might know whose it was, even his shield makes war: and arms, for his arms, are raised. Diomede, son of Tydeus, and the lesser Ajax, Oileus’s son, dare not claim them, nor the younger son of Atreus, Menelaüs, nor the elder, Agamemnon, greater in warfare, nor the rest. Only Ajax, the son of Telamon, and Ulysses, Laërtes’s son, were confident enough for such glory. Agamemnon, the descendant of Tantalus, in order to escape the invidious burden of choosing between them, ordered the leaders of the Greeks to meet in the middle of the camp, and he transferred judgment of the dispute to them all.
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Re: Metamorphoses, by Ovid

Postby admin » Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:01 am

Book 13

• Bk 13:1-122 The debate over the arms: Ajax speaks.
• Bk 13:123-381 The debate over the arms: Ulysses speaks.
• Bk 13:382-398 The death of Ajax.
• Bk 13:399-428 The fall of Troy.
• Bk 13:429-480 The deaths of Polydorus and Polyxena.
• Bk 13:481-575 Hecuba’s lament and transformation.
• Bk 13:576-622 Aurora and the Memnonides.
• Bk 13:623-639 Aeneas begins his wanderings.
• Bk 13:640-674 The transformation of Anius’s daughters.
• Bk 13:675-704 The cup of Alcon.
• Bk 13:705-737 Aeneas’s journey to Sicily.
• Bk 13:738-788 Acis and Galatea.
• Bk 13:789-869 The song of Polyphemus.
• Bk 13:870-897 Acis is turned into a river-god.
• Bk 13:898-968 Glaucus tells Scylla of his transformation.

Bk 13:1-122 The debate over the arms: Ajax speaks

When the captains were seated, and the rank and file were standing, in a circle, around them, Ajax, master of the seven-layered shield, leapt up, and, fired with indignation, he looked back fiercely at the Sigean shore, and the ships beached on the shore, and, pointing to them, he said: ‘It is in front of these vessels I plead my cause, and Ulysses opposes me, by Jupiter! Yet he did not hesitate to give way before Hector’s blazing torches, which I resisted, which I drove away from the boats. But then, it is less risky to battle using lying words, than to fight with fists, and I am not prompt to speak, as he is not to act. I am as powerful in the fierce conflicts of the battle, as that man is in talk. I do not think however that I need to mention my deeds to you, Pelasgians, since you have seen them: let Ulysses tell you of his that are conducted without witness, in which night is the only sharer! I confess the prize I seek is great: but my rival detracts from the honour of it. There is nothing magnificent for Ajax in it, however great the thing is, if Ulysses has aspired to it. He has already won the prize in this contest, since when he is defeated he can say he fought it out with me.

‘As for me, if my courage were in doubt, my noble birth is a powerful argument, a son of Telamon, he who, under brave Hercules, captured the walls of Troy, and sailed in the ship from Pagasae, with the Argonauts, to Colchis. Telamon’s father was Aeacus, who judges there, among the silent dead, where Sisyphus, son of Aeolus rolls his heavy stone. Lofty Jupiter acknowledges Aeacus and confesses him to be his son: so Ajax is third in descent from Jove. Yet even this ancestry would not further my cause, if I did not share it with great Achilles. Our fathers, Peleus and Aeacus, were brothers: Achilles was my cousin, I ask for my cousin’s weapons! Why are you, Ulysses, the son of Sisyphus, and similar to him in your capability for fraud and trickery, involving an alien race in the affairs of the Aeacidae?

‘Are the arms denied me because I took up arms first, and without being rooted out, and shall he seem the better man who seized his weapons last, and shirked the fight with a pretence of madness, until Palamades, son of Nauplius, the shrewder man, uncovered this cowardly spirit’s deceit, and dragged him to the weapons he shunned? Shall he own all, who wanted none: shall I, who was the first to put myself at risk, be denied honour, and my cousin’s gifts? if only his madness had been real, or been believed, and this exhorter to crime had never been our companion against the Phrygian fortresses! Then Lemnos would not hold you, to our shame, Philoctetes, son of Poeas, of whom they say that, hidden in the woodland caves, you move the stones, now, with your laments, calling down on Laërtes’s son, the curses that he deserves, and, if there are gods, do not curse in vain! Now, alas, he who was sworn to the same conflict as ourselves, one of our captains, heir to Hercules’s arrows, weakened by sickness and hunger, clothed and fed by the birds, employs the arrows, that fate intended for Troy, in firing at birds! Still, he is alive, because he did not accompany Ulysses further: luckless Palamades would have preferred to be left behind also: he would have been alive, or at least have died an irreproachable death: that man there, remembering all too well the exposure of his own supposed madness, accused him of betraying the Greek cause, and uncovered gold, he had previously hidden, as evidence of the fabricated charge. So, by abandonment or death, he has drawn the strength of Achaea: that is how Ulysses fights, that is why he is to be feared!

‘Though he be greater than Nestor, the true, in eloquence, I will never believe that his desertion of Nestor in battle was anything but a crime. When Nestor implored Ulysses’s help, weary as he was with old age, and slowed by a wound to his horse, he was abandoned by his companion. Diomede, son of Tydeus, is well aware that I am not inventing the charge: he called Ulysses repeatedly, by name, and reproached his cowardly friend for running away.

‘The gods look down, with the eyes of the just, at human dealings! Look, he who gave no help needs it: and as he had abandoned Nestor, so he would have been abandoned: he himself had established his own precedent. He shouted to his companions. I approached, and saw him, trembling and pale, and shaking with fear of impending death. I thrust out the mass of my shield, and covered him as he lay there, and (small cause for praise in that) I saved his cowardly life. If you go through with this contest, let us revisit that spot: revisit the enemy, your wound, and your usual cowardice, hide behind my shield, and contend with me under it! Yet, after I had snatched him up, he who was granted no strength to stand, because of his wounds, ran for it, not slowed by his wounds at all.

‘Hector approaches, and, with him, leads the gods to battle, and brave men as well as you are terrified, Ulysses, when he rushes onwards, such is the fear he brings. I felled him to the ground with a huge rock hurled from a distance, as he was exulting in the success of his bloodthirsty slaughter. When he challenged one warrior to meet him, I withstood him. You wished the lot would fall to me, Achaeans, and your prayers were answered. If you ask what the outcome of that conflict was I was not beaten by Hector. See, the Trojans bring fire and sword, and Jupiter himself, against the Greek ships: where now is the eloquent Ulysses? Surely I, with my own breast, shielded the thousand ships, your hope of return: grant me the arms for all that fleet.

‘Yet, if I may speak the truth, the arms search for greater honour than I do, to be linked to my glory, and the arms seek out Ajax, not Ajax the arms. Let the Ithacan compare with these things his killing of Rhesus, and of cowardly Dolon, his taking captive Helenus, Priam’s son, and his theft of Pallas’s image, the Palladium: nothing performed in daylight, nothing without Diomede present. If ever you grant the armour for such worthless service, divide it, and let Diomede have the greater share of it. Nevertheless why give them to the Ithacan, who carries things out secretly, and always unarmed, deceiving the unsuspecting enemy with his tricks? The gleam of the helmet, radiant with shining gold, will reveal his scheming, and show where he hides. The Dulichian’s head beneath Achilles’s helmet, will not bear so great a weight, and the spear-shaft, from Pelion, cannot be anything but heavy and burdensome for his arm, unsuited to war, and the shield, with its engraved design of the vast world, will not be fit for that cowardly left hand born for stealing. Perverse man, why do you go after a prize that will cripple you, one that, if it is given you in error by the Achaean people, will be a reason for being despoiled by the enemy, not feared by them? And running away, in which you surpass everyone, you master-coward, will turn out to be a slow game for you, if you are carrying such a weight. Add to that your shield that is rarely used in battle, and uninjured, and mine split in a thousand places from fending off spear-thrusts, that needs a new successor.

‘Finally (what is the use of words?) let us be seen together in action! Send out the brave hero’s arms into the middle of the enemy ranks: order them to be recovered from there, and let the retriever be equipped with what he retrieves.’

Bk 13:123-381 The debate over the arms: Ulysses speaks

The son of Telamon finished, and the crowd’s applause followed his closing words. Until the hero, son of Laërtes, stood. He gazed at the ground for a while and then raised his eyes to look at the captains, and opened his lips for the speech they anticipated: his eloquent words did not lack grace in their delivery.

‘If my wishes and yours, Pelasgians, had been worth anything, there would be no question as to who should inherit the arms in this great contest: you, Achilles, would have your armour, and we would have you. But since unequal fate has denied his presence to me and to you, (and he made as if to wipe a tear from his eye), who better to take Achilles’s place than the man through whom mighty Achilles took his place among the Greeks? Only do not let it help him that he is slow-witted, as he seems to be, nor harm my case that my ability has always profited you Greeks. And let this eloquence of mine, if it exists, that often spoke for you, and now speaks for its master, escape envy: no man should refuse to employ his talents.

‘Now, as to race, and ancestry, and whatever we have not personally achieved; I hardly call those things ours. But since Ajax has recalled that he is Jove’s great grandson, Jupiter is the founder of my bloodline also, and I am the same distance from him. Laërtes is my father, Arcesius was Laërtes’s father, and he was the son of Jupiter: and there are no exiled criminals, like Peleus and Telamon, amongst them. Also there is the addition to my nobility of Cyllenian Mercury through my mother, Anticleia. The gods are in both my parents. But I do not claim the arms lying there, because I am nobler on my mother’s side, nor because my father is innocent of a brother’s blood. Judge the case on its merits. Provided that it is not regarded as Ajax’s merit that Telamon and Peleus were brothers, and that what is considered in this award is respect for ability not the claims of blood! Or, if you are asking who is the next of kin, and the lawful heir, well Peleus is Achilles’s father, and Pyrrhus is Achilles’s son: where is Ajax’s claim? Take the arms to Peleus’s Phthia, or Pyrrhus’s Scyros! Teucer is no less Achilles’s cousin than Ajax, yet does he ask for the arms, and if he did, would he gain them? So, since it is a contest about naked achievements, I have done more than I can recount in glib words, but I will take things in their proper order.

‘Thetis, Achilles’s Nereid mother, foreseeing her son’s death, disguised his appearance, and wearing women’s clothes he deceived everyone, including Ajax. But, among the things women buy, I placed arms to stir a man’s spirit. Before the hero had abandoned the clothes of a girl, while he held the shield and spear, I said: ‘Pergama the citadel doomed to be destroyed, waits for you, son of the goddess! Why do you hesitate to overthrow mighty Troy?’ And I took him in hand, and sent the brave out to do brave things. So his deeds are mine: I overcame warring Telephus with my spear, and healed him with it, when he was defeated and begging for help. It is down to me that Mysian Thebes fell: credit the capture of Lesbos to me, Tenedos to me, Chryse and Cilla the cities of Apollo, and Phrygian Scyros as well. Imagine that my right hand razed Lyrnesus’s walls to the ground. I gave you the man who could destroy fierce Hector, not to speak of those other Trojans: through me glorious Hector lies low! I seek these arms for the arms that revealed Achilles: I gave to the living, I claim from the dead.

‘When one man’s sorrow fell on all the Greeks, and a thousand ships gathered at Euboean Aulis, though they waited for a long time, there were adverse winds or no wind. Then a cruel oracle ordered Agamemnon to sacrifice his innocent daughter, Iphigenia, to pitiless Diana. The father said no, angered with the gods themselves: and there is still a father even in a king. I with my skill in words turned him away from a parent’s fondness and towards the common good. I had a difficult case indeed to plead, before (I confess, and may Atrides pardon the confession) a prejudiced judge, but given the needs of his brother and the expedition, and the high command vested in him, he balanced glory against blood. Then I was sent to the mother, Clytaemnestra, who was not to be persuaded, but deceived by cunning. If Telamon’s son had gone, our sails would still be waiting for the winds.

‘Also, as an ambassador, I was sent to Troy’s citadel, and saw and entered the senate house of lofty Ilium, still full of heroes. As I was charged to do by Greece, for the common good, undaunted, I accused Paris, demanded the return of Helen and what Paris had plundered, and stirred Priam, and Antenor, at one with Priam. But Paris, and his brothers, and those who plundered with him, could scarcely keep their sinful hands off me (you know it, Menelaüs) and that first day of danger to me was shared with you.

‘It would take a long time to tell what I have achieved that has been useful, by stratagem and deed, in the long space of this conflict. After the first onslaught the enemy kept inside the city walls for a long time, and there was no chance for open warfare. Finally in the tenth year we fought it out. What were you doing meanwhile, Ajax, you who only know about battles? What use were you then? If you ask what I was doing, I laid ambushes for the enemy; surrounded the defences with a ditch; encouraged our allies so that they might bear the weariness of a long campaign with patience of mind; advised on how we should be fed and armed; was sent wherever benefit required it.

‘See, deceived by a dream in sleep, Agamemnon, the king, commanded by Jupiter, orders us to give up all concern with the war we have begun. He can justify his words by this dream’s authority. Let Ajax prevent it, and demand that the citadel, Pergama, be destroyed, let him do what he can do, fight! Why does he not restrain those who are for returning home? Why does he not take up arms, and give a lead for the fickle mob to follow?

‘That was not too much to ask of one who never speaks without boasting: but what of the fact that he fled as well?

‘I saw you, Ajax, and was ashamed to see it, when, turning your back, you readied your dishonourable sails. Instantly I shouted: ‘What are you doing? What madness is urging you to abandon captured Troy? What are you taking home with you, except disgrace? With these words, and others, in which my anguish made me eloquent, I turned men from their flight, and led them back. Atrides assembled the allies who were quaking with fear: even then the son of Telamon did not dare utter a thing, but even Thersites dared to attack the kings with insolent words, though not without punishment from me! I rose to my feet and urged on my frightened countrymen against the enemy, and by my voice restored their lost courage. From that time on, whatever bravery this man can be seen to have shown, is mine, who dragged him back when he was given to flight.

‘Next, which of the Greeks praises you or seeks you out, Ajax? Yet Diomede shares what he does with me, supports me, and always trusts Ulysses as his companion. That is something, to be singled out by Diomede from so many thousand Greeks! No drawing of lots forced me to go: yet, disregarding the dangers of night and the enemy, I killed Dolon, the Phrygian, out on the same errand as we were, but not before I had forced him to tell what he knew, and had learned what perfidious Troy was planning. I had discovered everything, and had no need to spy further, and could now return with the glory I sought: yet not content with that, I searched out Rhesus’s tents, and I killed him and his comrades in their camp. And so, a victor, with what I prayed for achieved, as if it were a triumph, I rode his captured chariot. Deny me the arms of Achilles, whose horses my enemy, Dolon, asked of Hector, for his night’s work, and let Ajax be more generous than you.

‘Why should I have to mention the ranks of Sarpedon of Lycia cut to pieces by my sword? With bloody slaughter I killed Coeranos, Iphitus’s son; Alastor and Chromius; Alcander, Halius, Noëmon and Prytanis; and I dealt destruction to Thoön, Chersidamas, Charopes, and Ennomos driven by inexorable fate; and others less well known fell to my hand under the walls of the city. I have wounds, friends, honourable ones, as their position shows: do not believe empty words, look!’ and he pulled his tunic open with his hand, ‘here is my breast that has always been employed in your actions! But the son of Telamon has shed no blood for his companions, in all these years, and his flesh is unwounded!

‘What relevance is it that he declares he took up arms against the Trojans and against Jove? I agree, he did (since I do not maliciously disparage beneficial actions) but do not let him seize the honour that is shared, and let him grant you some respect also. It was Patroclus, son of Actor, protected by being disguised in Achilles’s armour, who pushed back the Trojans from the ships that would have gone up in flames, with Ajax, their defender. He thinks that he is the only one who dared to face Hector’s spear, forgetting the captains and the king, and myself: he was the ninth to volunteer, and selected by the luck of the draw. But what was the result of your struggle, strongest of men? Hector retreated without receiving a single wound.

‘Alas, with what sadness I am forced to recall that time when Achilles, the defence of Achaia, fell! Yet tears, grief, fear did not prevent my lifting his body from the earth: I carried the body of Achilles over these shoulders, these very shoulders, along with the weapons, that now also I am anxious to carry. I have strength enough for such a burden, and a mind that can surely appreciate the honour. Was it for this that his mother, the sea-goddess, was so ambitious for her son, that the gifts of heaven, the works of such artistry, should adorn an ignorant and thoughtless soldier? He understands nothing of the shield’s engraving, Ocean, or earth, or high starry sky; the Pleiades and the Hyades, the Bear that is always clear of the waters, and opposite, beyond the Milky Way, Orion, with his glittering sword. He demands to bear armour that he does not comprehend!

‘What of the fact that he accuses me of shirking the harsh duties of war, and of coming late to a labour already begun? Does he not see that he is speaking ill of great Achilles? If you call it a crime to dissimulate, we both dissimulated: if delay is a fault, I was the earlier to arrive. A loving wife detained me, a loving mother Achilles. Our priority was given to them, the rest to you. I hardly fear an accusation, even if I cannot defend myself against it, shared with such a man: he was revealed by Ulysses’s cunning, but not Ulysses by Ajax’s.

‘Let us not be astonished that he pours out against me the invective from his foolish tongue, since he reproaches you shamefully. Was it a disgrace for me to accuse Palamades on an erroneous charge, but proper for you to condemn him? But then the son of Nauplias could not defend himself against so great a crime, and one so clearly proven: nor did you merely hear of the crime: you saw it, revealed by the gold I exposed.

‘Nor do I merit being called a criminal because Lemnos, Vulcan’s isle, holds the son of Poeas, Philoctetes, (defend your own actions, since you agreed to it!) but I will not deny that I persuaded him to withdraw from the hardships of war and the journey, and to try and relieve his terrible agonies in rest. He agreed – and he still lives! Not only was my opinion offered in good faith, though it is enough that it was in good faith, but it turned out well. Now since our seers demand his presence for the destruction of Troy, do not commission me! Telamon’s son, with his eloquence, had better go and soothe that man, maddened by pain and fury, or bring him by some cunning trick! If my mind were idle on your behalf, the River Simoïs would flow backwards, and Mount Ida stand there leafless, and Achaia help Pergama, before the skill, of foolish Ajax, would benefit the Greeks.

‘I would go to you, harsh Philoctetes, and try to bring you back with me, though you are aggressive towards king and countrymen, and myself; though you execrate me, and pour curses endlessly on my head; and, in your pain, long for me to be given into your power, to drink my blood, and to have your chance at me, as I did at you. And I would gain possession of your arrows (by Fortune’s favour), as I took possession of the Dardanian seer, Helenus, whom I captured; as I revealed the gods’ oracles and the fate of Troy; as I stole the image of Phrygian Minerva from the inner sanctuary, from the midst of the enemy. Does Ajax compare himself to me? The fates surely denied our capturing Troy without it.

‘Where is brave Ajax now? Where are the great hero’s mighty words? What do you fear then? Why does Ulysses dare to go through the sentries and commit himself to night; to enter not only the walls of Troy but also the heights of the citadel, past the sharp swords; and to snatch the goddess from her temple, and carry her captive through the enemy ranks? If I had not done it, the son of Telamon would have carried the seven-layered bull’s-hide shield on his left arm in vain. That night the victory over Troy was established: I defeated Pergama then, when I secured the possibility of her defeat.

‘You can stop pointing out with your murmurs and looks, Ajax, that Diomede was my partner: he has his share of praise in this! Nor were you alone, when you held your shield in defence of the allied ships: you had a crowd of companions: I had only one. If he did not know that a fighter is worth less than a thinker, and that the prize is not owed merely because of an indomitable right hand, he would also claim it; so would the lesser Ajax, fierce Eurypylus, and Thoas, the son of famous Andraemon, and no less surely would Idomeneus, and Meriones born of the same nation, and Menelaüs, the brother of Agamemnon.

‘In fact, they accept my counsel, these strong right hands, not second to me in battle. Your right hand, useful in war, needs the guidance of my intellect. You have power without mind, mine is the care for the future. You can fight, but Atrides, with me, chooses the time to fight. You only display the flesh, I the spirit. By as much as he who steers the ship is superior to him who rows, by as much as the general exceeds the soldier, by that much I surpass you. No less is the head more powerful than the hand, in our body: the energy of the whole is within it.

‘O princes, grant the prize to your sentry, for the many years I have spent in anxious care, grant me the judgement, this honour for my services. Now my labour is done: I have removed fate’s obstacles, and by making it possible to take high Pergama, have taken her. Now, by our common expectation; by Troy’s doomed walls; by the gods I recently took from the enemy; by whatever else remains that needs to be done wisely; I pray, that if there is still some bold and dangerous thing to attempt, if you think that anything is yet in store involving Troy’s fate, remember me! And if you do not give me the arms, give them to her!’ and he pointed towards Minerva’s fatal statue.

Bk 13:382-398 The death of Ajax

The council of princes was swayed, and it shows what eloquence can do: the gifted speaker carried away the arms of the brave hero. But Ajax, who had so often stood alone against Hector, against sword and flame, against Jove himself, could not stand against mere passion, and indignation conquered the unconquerable hero. Drawing his sword he shouted: ‘This is mine, at least! Or does Ulysses demand it for himself? This I will use myself, on myself, and the iron so often drenched in Phrygian blood, will now be drenched in its master’s, so that none can defeat Ajax but himself.’ He spoke, and drove the lethal weapon to its full extent into his chest, that, till then, had never felt a wound. No hand was strong enough to draw out the implanted weapon: it was the blood itself expelled it, and the bloodstained ground bore a purple flower from the green turf, that had first sprung from the wound of the Spartan, Hyacinthus. In the centre of the petals letters are inscribed, shared by the hero and the boy, one reading of them being a name, ΑΙΑΣ, and the other one, ΑΙ ΑΙ, a cry of woe.

Bk 13:399-428 The fall of Troy

Ulysses, the winner, set sail for Lemnos, the island of Queen Hypsipyle and her father the famous Thoas, a country notorious in ancient times for the murder by its women of their men, to bring back the arrows of Tyrinthian Hercules. When he had brought them back to the Greeks, with Philoctetes their master, the last hand was dealt in the long drawn-out war. Troy fell, and Priam also. Hecuba, Priam’s unhappy wife, when all else was lost, lost her human form, and filled the air of an alien country, where the long Hellespont narrows to a strait, with strange barking.

Ilium burned; the flames had not yet died down; Jove’s altar was soaking up old Priam’s meagre stream of blood; and Cassandra, the head priestess of Apollo, dragged along by her hair, stretched out her arms uselessly to the heavens. The Dardanian women, embracing the statues of their nation’s gods while they still could, and thronging the burning temples, were snatched away by the victorious Greeks as enviable prizes. Astyanax, was thrown down from that tower, from which he used to see his father, Hector, whom Andromache his mother pointed out to him, as Hector fought for him, and protected the ancestral kingdom. Now Boreas, the north wind, urged the Greeks on their way, and the sails flapped in a favourable breeze.

The sailers are ordered to take advantage of the wind. The Trojan women wail, kissing their native earth, abandoning the burning houses: ‘Troy, farewell! We are taken against our will.’

The last to embark – pitiable sight! – was Hecuba, found among the tombs of her sons. There as she clung to their graves, trying to kiss their relics, the hands of Dulichian Ulysses dragged her away. Yet she emptied one sepulchre, and carried away with her, at her breast, Hector’s ashes from the emptied urn. And on Hector’s grave she left a scant offering to the dead, shreds of her grey hair, hair and tears.

Bk 13:429-480 The deaths of Polydorus and Polyxena

There is a country opposite Phrygia, where Troy stood, that the Bistones inhabit: Polymestor’s wealthy court was there, to whom Priam your father secretly sent you, Polydorus, to be reared away from the Phrygian war: a wise plan if he had not sent great riches with you, a reward for the criminal, a temptation to the greedy spirit. When Phrygia’s fortunes waned, the impious king of Thrace took his sword and stabbed his young foster child in the throat, and threw the body from a cliff into the sea, as if murder could be eliminated with the corpse.

Agamemnon had moored his fleet on a Thracian beach until the sea calmed, and the winds were kinder. Here, suddenly the ghost of Achilles appeared from a broad fissure in the earth, as large as he used to be in life. He appeared as on the day when, with threatening face, and sword in hand, he fiercely challenged Agamemnon’s injustice. ‘You depart, then, Achaeans, forgetting me, and gratitude for my courage is buried with me!’ he cried, ‘Do not let it be so! Let Polyxena be sacrificed, so that my tomb is not without its honours. Appease Achilles’s shade!’

He spoke, and, his countrymen obeyed the pitiless ghost. Now, she was torn from her mother’s arms, and the girl, almost Hecuba’s only comfort, ill-fated, but with more than a woman’s courage, was led to the burial mound and became a victim of the dread grave. She remembered who she was, set before the brutal altar, knowing the savage rite was readied for her, and when she saw Neoptolemus standing, gripping his sword, his eyes gazing at her face, she said: ‘Now, shed noble blood, nothing prevents you: but sheathe your sword in my throat or in my breast,’ and she uncovered both her throat and her breast, ‘Polyxena, for certain, has no desire to be slave to any man! No god will be appeased by such a rite as this! I only wish my death could be unknown to my mother: my mother weakens and lessens my joy in death, though it is not my dying but her living that is terrible. Now, move away, you, so that if my request is lawful, I may not be hindered in going to the Stygian shades: and take the hands of man from virgin flesh! My free blood will be more acceptable to him, whoever he is, whom you are trying to appease with my murder. If my last words still move any of you (The daughter of Priam asks it, not a prisoner) return my body to my mother without ransom: let her pay for the sad privilege of burying me, not with gold, but with tears! When she could, then she paid in gold as well’

She spoke, and the crowd could not restrain its tears, that she restrained. Then the priest, also weeping, and against his will, driving his sword home, pierced the breast she offered up. Her knees gave way, and she sank to the ground, keeping her look of fearless courage to the end. Even then, as she fell, she was careful to hide the parts that should be hidden, and to protect the honour of her chaste modesty.

Bk 13:481-575 Hecuba’s lament and transformation

The Trojan women lift her body, counting over the lamented children of Priam, and recounting how much blood one house has surrendered. They weep for you, girl, and for you, Hecuba, who were lately called the royal wife, the royal parent, the image of bright Asia, now in evil circumstances, even for a prisoner, whom victorious Ulysses would not have wanted, except for the fact that you had given birth to Hector: a partner for his mother that Hector would scarcely have imagined!

Embracing the body of Polyxena, now empty of that brave spirit, she sheds the tears for her that she has shed so often for her husband, sons and country. She pours her tears over her daughter’s wound, covers her lips with kisses, and beats at her own bruised breast.

Then, tearing at her white hair caked with blood, and plucking at her breast, she said this amongst other things: ‘Child – since, what else is left me? – your mother’s last grief, Child, you lie there, and I see your wound, that is my wound. Look, you also have your wound, so that I might lose none of my children without bloodshed. Because you were a woman, I thought you safe from the sword: yet, a woman, you have died by the sword: and that same Achilles who has ruined Troy and made me childless, who has destroyed so many of your brothers, has killed you in the same way.

Yet when he fell to the arrow of Paris, and Phoebus, I said: “Now surely, Achilles is no longer to be feared.” Yet even then I still needed to fear him. His very ashes in the tomb are hostile to our race: even in the grave we feel his enmity: I gave birth for the Aeacidae! Mighty Ilium is in the dust, and, in a grievous outcome, our ruined State is ended. But still, it ended: in me, only, Pergama remains. My grief still takes it course. A moment ago I was endowed with the greatest things, so many sons and daughters, sons-in-law, and daughters-in-law, and my husband. Now, exiled, destitute, torn from the tombs of my loved ones, I am dragged off as a prize, to serve Penelope. She will point me out to the women of Ithaca, as I spin the wool she gives me, and say: “This is the famous mother of Hector, this is Priam’s queen.” Now you, Polyxena, after so many have been lost, you, who were the only one left to comfort your mother’s grief, have been sacrificed on an enemy tomb! I have borne offerings for the enemy dead!

Why do I remain, unyielding? Why do I linger here? Why do you preserve me, wrinkled old age? Why prolong an old woman’s life, cruel gods, unless it is for me to view more funerals? Who would have thought Priam could be happy when Pergama has fallen? Yet he is happy, in death! He did not see you killed, daughter, but left his kingdom and his life together. Do I imagine you will be endowed with funereal splendour, and your body laid to rest in the ancestral tomb? That is not our house’s fate! Your mother’s tears will be your funeral gift, and the wastes of foreign sand. I have lost everything: now an only child is left, once the youngest son of my family, his mother’s dearest, a reason to endure life for a brief space of time, Polydorus, sent to these shores, to the Ismarian king.

But why do I delay, meanwhile, the cleansing of your cruel wound with water, your face spattered with drops of blood?’

She spoke, and went to the shore, with the stumbling steps of an old woman, tearing at her white hair. ‘Give me an urn, women of Troy!’ said the unhappy mother, wanting to draw water from the sea. There, she saw Polydorus’s body, thrown on the beach, covered with open wounds made by Thracian spears. The Trojan women cried out, but she was dumb with grief. The grief itself obliterated both her powers of speech and the tears welling inside, and she stood unmoving like solid rock, at one moment with her gaze fixed on the ground, the next lifting her face grimly towards the sky. Now she looked at her dead son’s face, now at his wounds, mostly at his wounds, awakening a growing anger in herself. Then it blazed out, and she, as if she were still a queen, determined on vengeance, her whole mind filled with thoughts of punishment.

Hecuba, her grief mixed with anger, forgetting her age, but not forgetting her rage, like a lioness maddened by the theft of her unweaned cub, that, though she cannot see her enemy, follows the traces she finds of his footsteps, found her way to the author of the dreadful crime, Polymestor. She made out that she wanted to show him a secret hoard of gold, to be given to her son. The Thracian believed her, and with his usual desire for gain, came with her secretly. Then with smooth and cunning words, he said: ‘Do not delay, Hecuba: give me your gift to your son! It will all be for him, both what you give and what was given before, I swear by the gods.’

She gazed at him, grimly, as he spoke and swore his lying oath, until, her seething anger boiling over, she called on her train of captive women to attack the man, and drove her nails into his deceitful eyes, and (made strong by anger) tore the eyeballs from their sockets, and dipped her hand, and drank, stained with his sinful blood, not from his eyes (nothing of them remained) but from the holes that were his eyes.

The Thracians, enraged by the murder of their king, attacked the Trojan woman, hurling stones and missiles, but she chased the stones they threw, snapping at them with a harsh growling, and, readying her jaws for words, barked when she tried to speak. The place is still there, and takes its name, Cynossema, the Monument of the Bitch, from this, and she still howls mournfully amongst the Sithonian fields, remembering endlessly her ancient suffering.

Her fate moved the Trojans and her enemies the Greeks, and it moved all the gods as well, yes, all, so that even Juno, Jove’s sister-wife, said that Hecuba did not merit such misfortune.

Bk 13:576-622 Aurora and the Memnonides

But Aurora had no time for being moved by the fall and ruin of Hecuba and Troy, though she had aided its defence. A closer sorrow, and a private grief tormented her, the loss of her son Memnon, whom she, his bright mother, had seen wasted by Achilles’s spear on the Phrygian plain. She saw it, and that colour, that reddens the dawn, paled, and the sky was covered with cloud. His mother could not bear to look at his body laid on the summit of the funeral pyre, but with dishevelled hair, just as she was, she did not scorn to fall at the feet of mighty Jove, adding tears to these words: ‘I am the least of all, whom the golden heavens hold (since temples to me are the rarest in all the world), yet I come as a goddess: though not that you might give me sanctuaries, or sacred days, or altars to flame with sacrificial fires. Yet if you considered what I, as a woman, do for you, when each new dawn I keep the borders of night, you would think to give me some reward. But that is not my care, nor Aurora’s errand, to ask for well-merited honours.

I come bereft of my Memnon, who bore arms bravely, but in vain, for his uncle Priam, and in his youth has fallen to mighty Achilles (so you willed). I beg you to grant him some honour, as a solace for his death, great king of the gods, and lessen a mother’s wound!’ Jupiter nodded, while Memnon’s steep pyre collapsed in leaping flames, and the daylight was stained with columns of black smoke, like the river-fog the naiad breathes out, that does not admit the light beneath it. Dark ashes flew upwards, and gathering into a ball and solidifying, they formed a shape, and it drew life and heat from the fire (its own lightness giving it wings). At first resembling a bird, then a true bird, it clapped its wings, and innumerable sisters, sprung from the same natal source, sounded too. Three times they circled the pyre, and three times their clamour rose in the air in consonance, on the fourth flight the flock divided. Then in two separate fierce bands they made war, wielding beaks and hooked talons in rage, wearying wing and breast in the struggle.

Remembering they were sprung from a brave hero, they fell as offerings to the buried ashes of their kinsman’s body. The source of these suddenly created birds gave them his name: from him they were called the Memnonides: and when the sun has transited his twelve signs, they war and die again in ritual festival.

And so, while others wept to witness Hecuba’s baying, Aurora was intent on her own grief, and even now she sheds tears, and wets the whole world with dew.

Bk 13:623-639 Aeneas begins his wanderings

Yet the fates did not allow Troy’s destiny, also, to be overthrown with her walls. Aeneas, Cytherean Venus’s heroic son, carried away on his shoulders her sacred icons, and bore his father, another sacred and venerable burden. He dutifully chose that prize from all his riches, and his son Ascanius, and carried over the sea in his exiled fleet, he left Antandros’s harbour, and the sinful thresholds of Thrace, and the soil drenched in Polydorus’s blood, and riding the favourable winds and tides, he came with his company of friends, to the city of Apollo on Delos.

Anius, who ruled the people, and worshipped Phoebus, with the proper ritual, as high priest, received him in palace and temple. He showed him the city, the famous sanctuary, and the two trees to which Latona clung when she gave birth. They gave incense to the flames, poured wine onto the incense, and, in accord with custom, burned the entrails of slaughtered oxen, and then sought out the royal palace, where reclining on high couches, they ate the gifts of Ceres, and drank the wine of Bacchus.

Bk 13:640-674 The transformation of Anius’s daughters.

Then virtuous Anchises said: ‘O chosen priest of Phoebus, am I wrong, or do I not remember that you had a son and four daughters, when I first saw your city?’ Shaking his head, bound with its white sacrificial fillets, Anius replied sadly: ‘Mightiest of heroes, you are not wrong: you saw me the father of five children, whom now you see almost bereft. What is the use of my absent son, who holds the island of Andros, that takes its name from him, and rules it in his father’s place? Delian Apollo gave him the power of prophecy. Bacchus Liber gave my female offspring other gifts, greater than those they hoped or prayed for. All that my daughter’s touched turned into corn or wine or the grey-green olives of Minerva, and employing them was profitable.

When Agamemnon, son of Atreus, ravager of Troy, learned of this (so that you do not think we escaped all knowledge of your destructive storm) he used armed force to snatch my unwilling daughters from a father’s arms, and ordered them to feed the Greek fleet, using their gift from heaven. Each escaped where they could. Two made for Euboea, and two for their brother’s island of Andros. The army landed and threatened war unless they were given up. Fear overcame brotherly affection, and he surrendered his blood-kin. It is possible to forgive the cowardly brother, since Aeneas and Hector, thanks to whom you held out till the tenth year, were not here to defend Andros.

Now they were readying the chains for the prisoners’ arms. They, while their arms were free, stretched them out to the sky, saying: “Bacchus, father, bring your aid!” and he, who granted their gifts, helped them – if you call it help for them to lose in some strange way their human form, for I could not discover by what process they lost it, nor can I describe it. The end of this misfortune I did observe: they took wing, and became snow-white doves, the birds of your goddess-wife Anchises, Venus.’

Bk 13:675-704 The cup of Alcon

After they had filled the time with these and other matters, they left the table and retired to sleep, and rising with the dawn, they went to the oracle of Phoebus, who ordered them to seek their ancient mother, and their ancestral shores.

The king gave them parting gifts and escorted them on their way: a sceptre for Anchises, a cloak and quiver for his grandson, Ascanius, and a drinking-bowl for Aeneas, that Therses of Thebes, a friend, had sent, from the Aonian coast, to the king: Therses had given it, but it was made by Alcon of Hyle, who had engraved it with a complete story.

There was a city, and you could see its seven gates: these served to name it, and tell you that it was Thebes. In front of the city funeral rites, sepulchres, funeral pyres, and fires, and women with naked breasts and streaming hair, depicted mourning. Nymphs, also, appeared weeping, and lamenting their dried-up fountains: the trees stood bare and leafless: goats nibbled the dry gravel.

See here, in the midst of Thebes he portrays Orion’s daughters, the one, more than a woman, slashing her unprotected throat, the other stabbing a weapon into her valiant breast, falling on behalf of their people, then carried in glorious funeral procession through the city, and burned among crowds of mourners. Then two youths, famous as the Coroni, spring from the virgin ashes, so that the race will not die, and lead the cortège containing their mother’s remains.

Such was the ancient bronze with its gleaming designs: round the rim gilded acanthus leaves were embossed. The Trojans gave gifts in return, worth no less: an incense-box for the priest, a libation-saucer, and a crown shining with gold and jewels.

Bk 13:705-737 Aeneas’s journey to Sicily

From there, remembering that they, the Teucrians, came originally from the blood of Teucer, they made for his Crete. But, unable to endure Jove’s plague, they left Crete with its hundred cities, hoping to reach the harbours of Ausonian Italy. Tempests raged, and tossed the heroes on stormy seas, and taking refuge in the treacherous harbour of the Strophades, they were terrified by the harpy, Aëllo.

Now they were carried past Dulichium’s anchorage; past Same, and the houses of Neritos; and Ithaca, cunning Ulysses’s kingdom. They saw Ambracia, famous now for its Apollo of Actium, once contended over by quarreling gods; and saw the image of the judge who was turned to stone; Dodona’s land with its oracular oaks; and Chaonia’s bay, where the sons of Munichus, the Molossian king, escaped the impious flames on new-found wings.

Next they headed for the country of the Phaeacians, set with rich orchards, and touched at Buthrotus in Epirus, a miniature Troy, ruled by Helenus, the Trojan seer. From there, certain of their future, all of which Helenus, Priam’s son predicted, with reliable warnings, they entered Sicilian waters. Three tongues of this land run down into the sea. Of these Pachynos faces the rainy south, Lilybaeon fronts the soft western breeze, and Peloros looks to the northern Bears that never touch the waves. Here the Teucrians came, and rowing, with a favourable tide, their fleet reached the sandy beach of Zancle, as night fell.

Scylla attacks from the right-hand coast, restless Charybdis from the left. The latter sucks down and spits out ships she has caught: the former has a girdle of savage dogs round her dark belly. She has a girl’s face, and if the tales of poets are not all false, she was once a girl also. Many suitors wooed her, whom she rejected, and she would go and tell the ocean nymphs, being well loved by the ocean nymphs, of the thwarted desires of young men.

Bk 13:738-788 Acis and Galatea

Once while Galatea let Scylla comb her hair, she addressed these words to her, sighing often: ‘At least, O virgin Scylla, you are not wooed by a relentless breed of men: and you can reject them without fear, as you do. But I, whose father is Nereus, and whose mother is sea-green Doris, I, though protected by a crowd of sisters, was not allowed to flee the love of Polyphemus, the Cyclops, except through sorrow’, and tears stopped the sound of her voice. When the girl had wiped away the tears with her white fingers, and the goddess was comforted, she said: ‘Tell me, O dearest one: do not hide the cause of your sadness (I can be so trusted)’ The Nereid answered Crateis’s daughter in these words: ‘Acis was the son of Faunus and the nymph Symaethis, a great delight to his father and mother, but more so even to me, since he and I alone were united. He was handsome, and having marked his sixteenth birthday, a faint down covered his tender cheeks. I sought him, the Cyclops sought me, endlessly. If you asked, I could not say which was stronger in me, hatred of Cyclops, or love of Acis, both of them were equally strong.

Oh! Gentle Venus, how powerful your rule is over us! How that ruthless creature, terrifying even to the woods themselves, whom no stranger has ever seen with impunity, who scorns mighty Olympus and its gods, how he feels what love is, and, on fire, captured by powerful desire, forgets his flocks and caves. Now Polyphemus, you care for your appearance, and are anxious to please, now you comb your bristling hair with a rake, and are pleased to cut your shaggy beard with a reaping hook, and to gaze at your savage face in the water and compose its expression. Your love of killing, your fierceness, and your huge thirst for blood, end, and the ships come and go in safety.

Meanwhile, Telemus the augur, Telemus, the son of Eurymus, whom no flight of birds could deceive, came to Sicilian Mount Aetna, addressed grim Polyphemus, and said: “Ulysses will take from you, that single eye in the middle of your forehead.” He laughed, and answered: “O most foolish of seers, you are wrong, another, a girl, has already taken it.” So he scorned the true warning, given in vain, and weighed the coast down, walking with giant tread, or returned weary to his dark cave.

A wedge-shaped hillside, ending in a long spur, projects into the sea (the waves of the ocean wash round it on both sides). The fierce Cyclops climbed to it, and sat at its apex, and his woolly flocks, shepherd-less, followed. Then laying at his feet the pine trunk he used as a staff, fit to carry a ship’s rigging, he lifted his panpipes made of a hundred reeds. The whole mountain felt the pastoral notes, and the waves felt them too. Hidden by a rock, I was lying in my Acis’s arms, and my ears caught these words, and, having heard them, I remembered:’

Bk 13:789-869 The song of Polyphemus

‘Galatea, whiter than the snowy privet petals,
taller than slim alder, more flowery than the meadows,
friskier than a tender kid, more radiant than crystal,
smoother than shells, polished, by the endless tides;
more welcome than the summer shade, or the sun in winter,
showier than the tall plane-tree, fleeter than the hind;
more than ice sparkling, sweeter than grapes ripening,
softer than the swan’s-down, or the milk when curdled,
lovelier, if you did not flee, than a watered garden.
Galatea, likewise, wilder than an untamed heifer,
harder than an ancient oak, trickier than the sea;
tougher than the willow-twigs, or the white vine branches,
firmer than these cliffs, more turbulent than a river,
vainer than the vaunted peacock, fiercer than the fire;
more truculent than a pregnant bear, pricklier than thistles,
deafer than the waters, crueller than a trodden snake;
and, what I wish I could alter in you, most of all, is this:
that you are swifter than the deer, driven by loud barking,
swifter even than the winds, and the passing breeze.

But if you knew me well, you would regret your flight, and you would condemn your own efforts yourself, and hold to me: half of the mountain is mine, and the deep caves in the natural rock, where winter is not felt nor the midsummer sun. There are apples that weigh down the branches, golden and purple grapes on the trailing vines. Those, and these, I keep for you. You will pick ripe strawberries born in the woodland shadows, in autumn cherries and plums, not just the juicy blue-purples, but also the large yellow ones, the colour of fresh bees’-wax. There will be no lack of fruit from the wild strawberry trees, nor from the tall chestnuts: every tree will be there to serve you.

This whole flock is mine, and many are wandering the valleys as well, many hidden by the woods, many penned in the caves. If you asked me I could not tell you how many there are: a poor man counts his flocks. You can see, you need not merely believe me, how they can hardly move their legs with their full udders. There are newborn lambs in the warn sheepfolds, and kids too, of the same age, in other pens, and I always have snow-white milk: some of it kept for drinking, and some with rennet added to curdle it.

You will not have vulgar gifts or easily found pleasures, such as leverets, or does, or kids, or paired doves, or a nest from the treetops. I came upon twin cubs of a shaggy bear that you can play with: so alike you can hardly separate them. I came upon them and I said: “I shall keep these for my mistress.”

Now Galatea, only lift your shining head from the dark blue sea: come, do not scorn my gifts. Lately, I examined myself, it’s true, and looked at my reflection in the clear water, and, seeing my self, it pleased me. Look how large I am: Jupiter, in the sky, since you are accustomed to saying some Jove or other rules there, has no bigger a body. Luxuriant hair hangs over my face, and shades my shoulders like a grove. And do not consider it ugly for my whole body to be bristling with thick prickly hair. A tree is ugly without its leaves: a horse is ugly unless a golden mane covers its neck: feathers hide the birds: their wool becomes the sheep: a beard and shaggy hair befits a man’s body. I only have one eye in the middle of my forehead, but it is as big as a large shield. Well? Does great Sol not see all this from the sky? Yet Sol’s orb is unique.

Added to that my father, Neptune, rules over your waters: I give you him as a father-in-law. Only have pity, and listen to my humble prayers! I, who scorn Jove and his heaven and his piercing lightning bolt, submit to you alone: I fear you, Nereid: your anger is fiercer than lightning. And I could bear this contempt of yours more patiently, if you fled from everyone. But why, rejecting Cyclops, love Acis, and prefer Acis’s embrace to mine? Though he is pleased with himself, and, what I dislike, pleases you too, Galatea, let me just have a chance at him. Then he will know I am as strong as I am big! I’ll tear out his entrails while he lives, rend his limbs and scatter them over the fields, and over your ocean, (so he can join you!) For I am on fire, and, wounded, I burn with a fiercer flame, and I seem to bear Aetna with all his violent powers sunk in my breast, yet you, Galatea, are unmoved.’

Bk 13:870-897 Acis is turned into a river-god

‘With such useless complaints he rose (for I saw it all) and as a bull that cannot stay still, furious when the cow is taken from it, he wanders through the woods and glades. Not anticipating such a thing, without my knowing, he saw me, and saw Acis. “I see you,” he cried, “and I’ll make this the last celebration of your love.” His voice was as loud as an angry Cyclops’s voice must be: Aetna shook with the noise. And I, terrified, plunged into the nearby waters. My hero, son of Symaethis, had turned his back, and ran, crying: “Help me, I beg you, Galatea! Forefathers, help me, admit me to your kingdom or I die!”

Cyclops followed him and hurled a rock wrenched from the mountain, and though only the farthest corner of the stone reached him, it still completely buried Acis. Then I, doing the only thing that fate allowed me, caused Acis to assume his ancestral powers. From the rock, crimson blood seeped out, and in a little while its redness began to fade, became the colour of a river at first swollen by rain, gradually clearing. Then the rock, that Polyphemus had hurled, cracked open, and a tall green reed sprang from the fissure, and the mouth of a chamber in the rock echoed with leaping waters, and (a marvel) suddenly a youth stood, waist-deep in the water, his fresh horns wreathed with rushes. It was Acis, except that he was larger, and his face dark blue: yet it was still Acis, changed to a river-god, and his waters still retain his former name.

Bk 13:898-968 Glaucus tells Scylla of his transformation

Galatea finished speaking and the group of Nereids went away, swimming through the placid waves. Scylla returned to the beach, not daring to trust herself to mid-ocean, and either wandered naked along the parched sand, or, when she was tired, found a remote, sheltered pool, and cooled her limbs in its enclosed waters.

See, Glaucus comes, skimming the water, a new inhabitant of the sea, his form recently altered, at Anthedon opposite Euboea. Seeing the girl, he stood still, desiring her, and said whatever he thought might stop her running away. Nevertheless she ran, and, with the swiftness of fear, came to the top of a mountain standing near the shore. It faced the wide sea, rising to a single peak, its wooded summit leaning far out over the water. Here she stopped, and from a place of safety, marvelled at his colour; the hair that hid his shoulders and covered his back; and his groin below that merged into a winding fish’s tail; she not knowing whether he was god or monster.

He saw her, and, leaning on a rock that stood nearby, he said: ‘Girl, I am no freak or wild creature, but a god of the sea. Proteus, Triton, or Palaemon son of Athamas, have no greater power in the ocean. Mortal once, but no doubt destined for the deep, even then I worked the waves: now drawing in the drag nets full of fish, now sitting on a rock, casting, with rod and line.

There is a beach, bounded by a green field, one side bordered by sea, the other by grass, that horned cattle have not damaged by grazing, that placid sheep or shaggy goats have not cropped. No bees intent on gathering pollen plundered the flowers there; no garlands came from there for the heads of revellers; no one had ever mown it, scythe in hand. I was the first to sit there on the turf, drying my sea-soaked lines, and laying out in order the fish I had caught, to count them, that either chance or innocence had brought to my curved hook. This will sound like a tale, but what would I get from lying? Touching the grass, my catch began to stir, and shift about, and swim over land as if they were in the sea. While I hesitated and wondered, the complete shoal fled into their native waters, leaving behind their new master, their new land.

I stood dumbfounded, for a while not believing it, searching for the cause. Had some god done it, or the juice of some herb? “Yet what herb has such power?” I asked, and gathering some herbage in my hand, I bit what I had gathered with my teeth. My throat had scarcely swallowed the strange juice, when suddenly I felt my heart trembling inside me, my breast seized with yearning for that other element. Unable to hold out for long, crying out: “Land, I will never return to, goodbye!” I immersed my body in the sea.

The gods of the sea received me, thinking me worth the honour of their company, and asked Oceanus and Tethys to purge what was mortal in me. I was purified by them, and, cleansed of sin by an incantation nine times repeated, they ordered me to bathe my body in a hundred rivers. Immediately streams from every side poured their waters over my head. So much I can tell of you of those marvellous things, so much of them I remember: then my mind knew no more. When later I came to, my whole body was altered from what I was before, and my mind was not the same.

Then I saw, for the first time, this dark green beard, my hair that sweeps the wide sea, these giant shoulders and dusky arms, these legs that curve below into a fish’s fins. Yet what use is this shape, or that I was pleasing to the ocean gods? What use is it to be a god, if these things do not move you?’

As the god spoke these words, looking to say more, Scylla abandoned him. Then Glaucus, maddened, and angered by her rejection, sought the wondrous halls of Circe, daughter of the Sun.
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Re: Metamorphoses, by Ovid

Postby admin » Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:01 am

Book 14

• Bk 14:1-74 The transformation of Scylla.
• Bk 14:75-100 Aeneas journeys to Cumae.
• Bk 14:101-153 Aeneas and the Sybil of Cumae.
• Bk 14:154-222 Macareus meets Achaemenides again.
• Bk 14:223-319 Ulysses and Circe.
• Bk 14:320-396 The transformation of Picus.
• Bk 14:397-434 The fate of Canens.
• Bk 14:435-444 Caieta’s epitaph.
• Bk 14:445-482 War in Latium: Turnus asks Diomede’s help.
• Bk 14:483-511 Acmon and others are changed into birds.
• Bk 14:512-526 The creation of the wild olive.
• Bk 14:527-565 The transformation of Aeneas’s ships.
• Bk 14:566-580 The heron is born from Ardea’s ruins.
• Bk 14:581-608 The deification of Aeneas.
• Bk 14:609-622 The line of Alban kings.
• Bk 14:623-697 Vertumnus woos Pomona.
• Bk 14:698-771 Anaxarete and Iphis.
• Bk 14:772-804 War and reconciliation with the Sabines.
• Bk 14:805-828 The deification of Romulus.
• Bk 14:829-851 The deification of his wife Hersilia.

Bk 14:1-74 The transformation of Scylla

Glaucus, the fisher of the swollen Euboean waters, soon left Aetna behind, that mountain piled on Typhoeus’s giant head, and the Cyclops’s fields, that know nothing of the plough’s use or the harrow, and owe nothing to the yoked oxen. Zancle was left behind as well, and the walls of Rhegium opposite, and the dangerous strait, hemmed in between twin coastlines, that marks the boundary between Sicily and Italian Ausonia. From there, swimming with mighty strokes, across the Tyrrhenian Sea, he came to the grassy hills and the halls of Circe, daughter of the Sun, filled with transformed beasts.

As soon as he saw her, and words of welcome had been exchanged, he said: ‘Goddess, I beg you, take pity on a god! You alone can help this love of mine, if I seem worthy of help. No one knows better than I, Titaness, what power herbs have, since I was transmuted by them. So that the cause of my passion is not unknown to you, I saw Scylla, on the Italian coast, opposite Messene’s walls. I am ashamed to tell of the prayers and promises, the blandishments I used, words that were scorned. If there is any power in charms, utter a charm from your sacred lips: or, if herbs are more potent, use the proven strength of active herbs. I trust you not to cure me, or heal me, of these wounds: my love cannot end: only let her feel this heat.

No one has a nature more susceptible to such fires than Circe, whether the root of it is in herself, or whether Venus, offended by Sol her father’s tale-bearing, made her that way, so she replied: ‘You would do better to chase after someone whose wishes and purposes were yours, and who was captured by equal desire. Besides, you were worth courting (and certainly could be courted), and if you offer any hope, believe me you will be too. If you doubt it, and have no faith in your attractions, well, I, though I am a goddess, daughter of shining Sol, though I possess such powers of herbs and charms, I promise to be yours. Spurn the spurner, repay the admirer, and, in one act, be twice revenged.’

To such temptations as these Glaucus replied: ‘Sooner than my love will change, Scylla unchanged, leaves will grow on the waters, and sea-weed will grow on the hills.’ The goddess was angered, and since she could not harm him (nor, loving him, wished to do so) she was furious with the girl, who was preferred to her. Offended at his rejection of her passion, she at once ground noxious herbs with foul juices, and joined the spells of Hecate to their grinding. Wrapping herself in a dusky cloak, she made her way from the palace, through the crowd of fawning beasts, and sought out Rhegium opposite Zancle’s cliffs, travelling over the seething tidal waters, as if she trod on solid ground, crossing dry-footed over the surface of the sea.

There was a little pool, curved in a smooth arc, dear to Scylla for its peacefulness. When the sun was strongest, at the zenith, and from its heights made shortest shadows, she retreated there from the heat of sky and sea. This, the goddess tainted in advance and contaminated with her monstrous poison. She sprinkled the liquid squeezed from harmful roots, and muttered a mysterious incantation, dark with strange words, thrice nine times, in magical utterance.

Scylla comes, wading waist deep into the pool, only to find the water around her groin erupt with yelping monsters. At first, not thinking them part of her own body, she retreats from their cruel muzzles, fears them, and pushes them away: but, what she flees from, she pulls along with her, and, seeking her thighs, her legs, her feet, in place of them finds jaws like Cerberus’s. She stands among raging dogs, and is encircled by beasts, below the surface, from which her truncated thighs and belly emerge.

Her lover Glaucus wept, and fled Circe’s embrace, she, who had made too hostile a use of her herbs’ powers. Scylla remained where she was, and, at the first opportunity, in her hatred of Circe, robbed Ulysses of his companions. Later she would have overwhelmed the Trojan ships, if she had not previously been transformed into a rock, whose stone is visible even now: a rock that sailors still avoid.

Bk 14:75-100 Aeneas journeys to Cumae

When the oarsmen of the Trojan ships had escaped Scylla, and rapacious Charybdis, when they had almost reached the Ausonian shore, the wind carried them to the coast of Libya. There Sidonian Queen Dido took Aeneas into her heart and home, she, who was fated not to endure her Phrygian husband’s departure. She stabbed herself with his sword, on a blazing pyre, that was built as if it were intended for sacred rites, deceiving, as she had been deceived.

Fleeing from the new city, Carthage, and its sandy shores, and carried back to the home of his loyal half-brother Acestes, son of Venus of Eryx, Aeneas sacrificed there, and paid honours at his dead father’s, Anchises’s, tomb. Then he loosed the ships, that Iris almost destroyed by fire, at Juno’s command, and passed the Aeolian Islands, smoking with clouds of hot sulphur, the kingdom of Aeolus, son of Hippotes, and passed the rocky isle of the Sirens, the daughters of Acheloüs.

Bereft of its pilot, Palinurus, he follows the coast by Inarime, Prochyte, and Pithecusae, on its barren hill, named after its inhabitants, from pithecium, a little ape. For the father of the gods, Jupiter, hating the lying and deceit of the Cercopes, and the crimes of that treacherous people, changed them into disgraceful creatures, so that, though unlike men, they should seem like them. He contracted their limbs, turned up and blunted their noses, and furrowed their faces with the wrinkles of old age. Their bodies completely covered by yellow hair, he sent them, as monkeys, to this place, but not before he had robbed them of the power of speech, and those tongues born for dreadful deceit, leaving them only the power to complain in raucous shrieks.

Bk 14:101-153 Aeneas and the Sybil of Cumae

When he had passed those islands, and left the walls of Parthenope behind him to starboard, the tomb of Misenus, the trumpeter, the son of Aeolus, was to larboard, and the shore of Cumae, a place filled with marshy sedges. He entered the cave of the Sibyl, and asked to go down to Avernus, to find his father’s ghost. Then the Sibyl after remaining, for a long time, with her eyes gazing at the earth, lifted them, at last, filled with the frenzy of the god, and cried: ‘You ask great things, man of great achievements, whose hand has been tested by the sword, whose faith has been tested by the fire. But have no fear, Trojan, you will have what you desire, and, with me as your guide, you will know the halls of Elysium, and earth’s strangest realm, and the likeness of your dear father. To virtue, no way is barred.’

She spoke, and pointed out to him a gleaming golden bough, in the woods of Proserpine, the Juno of Avernus, and ordered him to break it from the tree. Aeneas obeyed, and saw the power of dread Dis, and he saw his own ancestors, and the ancient shade of great-souled Anchises. He learned also the laws of those regions, and the trials he must undergo in fresh wars.

Then taking the return path, with weary paces, he eased the labour by talking with his Cumean guide. As he travelled the fearful road through the shadowy twilight, he said: ‘Whether you are truly a goddess, or only most beloved by the gods, you will always be like a goddess to me, and I will acknowledge myself in your debt, who have allowed me to enter the place of the dead, and having seen that place of the dead, escape it. When I reach the upper air, I will build a temple to you, for this service, and burn incense in your honour.’

The priestess gazed at him and with a deep sigh, said: ‘I am not a goddess: and do not assume any human being is worth the honour of holy incense, or err out of ignorance. I was offered eternal life without end, if I would surrender my virginity to Phoebus my lover. While he still hoped for it, while he desired to bribe me beforehand with gifts, he said: “Virgin of Cumae, choose what you wish, and what you wish you shall have.” Pointing to a pile of dust, that had collected, I foolishly begged to have as many anniversaries of my birth, as were represented by the dust. But I forgot to ask that the years should be accompanied by youth. He gave me the years, and lasting youth, as well, if I would surrender: I rejected Phoebus’s gift, and never married.

‘But now my more fruitful time has turned its back on me, and old age comes, with tottering step, that must be long endured. Though I have now lived seven centuries, three hundred harvests, three hundred vintages, still remain to be seen, to equal the content of the dust. The time will come when the passage of days will render such body as I have tiny, and my limbs, consumed with age, will reduce to the slightest of burdens. I will be thought never to have loved, and never to have delighted a god. Phoebus too perhaps will either not know me, or will deny that he loved me. I will go as far as having to suffer transformation, and I will be viewed as non-existent, but still known as a voice: the fates will bequeath me a voice.’

Bk 14:154-222 Macareus meets Achaemenides again

As the Sibyl spoke these words, they emerged, by the rising path, from the Stygian regions, into the city of Cumae of the Euboeans. Trojan Aeneas came to the shore that was later named after his nurse Caieta, where he carried out her funeral rites, as accepted, according to custom. This was also the place where Macareus of Neritos, a companion of sorely tried Ulysses, had settled, after the interminable weariness of hardship.

Macareus now recognised Achaemenides, among the Trojans, he, who had been given up as lost, by Ulysses, long ago, among the rocks of Aetna. Astonished to discover him, unexpectedly, still alive, he asked: ‘What god or chance preserved you, Achaemenides? Why does a Trojan vessel now carry a Greek? What land is your ship bound for? Achaemenides, no longer clothed in rags, his shreds of clothing held together with thorns, but himself again, replied to his questions, in these words: ‘If this ship is not more to me than Ithaca and my home, if I revere Aeneas less than my father, let me gaze at Polyphemus once more, with his gaping mouth dripping human blood. I can never thank Aeneas enough, even if I offered my all. Could I forget, or be ungrateful for, the fact that I speak and breathe and see the sky and the sun’s glory? Aeneas granted that my life did not end in the monster’s jaws, and when I leave the light of day, now, I shall be buried in the tomb, not, indeed, in its belly.

‘What were my feelings, then (if fear had not robbed me of all sense and feeling), abandoned, seeing you making for the open sea? I wanted to shout to you, but feared to reveal myself to the enemy. Indeed, Ulysses’s shout nearly wrecked your vessel. I watched as Cyclops tore an enormous boulder from the mountainside, and threw it into the midst of the waves. I watched again as he hurled huge stones, as if from a catapult, using the power of his gigantic arms, and, forgetting I was not on board the ship, I was terrified that the waves and air they displaced would sink her.

‘When you escaped by flight from certain death, Polyphemus roamed over the whole of Aetna, groaning, and groping through the woods with his hands, stumbling, bereft of his sight, among the rocks. Stretching out his arms, spattered with blood, to the sea, he cursed the Greek race like the plague, saying: “O, if only chance would return Ulysses to me, or one of his companions, on whom I could vent my wrath, whose entrails I could eat, whose living body I could tear with my hands, whose blood could fill my gullet, and whose torn limbs could quiver between my teeth: the damage to me of my lost sight would count little or nothing then!”

‘Fiercely he shouted, this and more. I was pale with fear, looking at his face still dripping with gore, his cruel hands, the empty eye-socket, his limbs and beard coated with human blood. Death was in front of my eyes, but that was still the least of evils. Now he’ll catch me, I thought, now he’ll merge my innards with his own, and the image stuck in my mind of the moment when I saw him hurl two of my friends against the ground, three, four times, and crouching over them like a shaggy lion, he filled his greedy jaws with flesh and entrails, bones full of white marrow, and warm limbs.

‘Trembling seized me: I stood there, pale and downcast, watching him chew and spit out his bloody feast, vomiting up lumps of matter, mixed with wine. I imagined a like fate was being prepared for my wretched self. I hid for many days, trembling at every sound, scared of dying but longing to be dead, staving off hunger with acorns, and a mixture of leaves and grasses, alone, without help or hope, left to torture and death.

After a long stretch of time, I spied this ship far off, begging them by gestures to rescue me, and ran to the shore and moved their pity: a Trojan ship received a Greek!

Now, dearest of comrades, tell me of your fortunes too, and of your leader, and the company that has entrusted itself to the sea with you.’

Bk 14:223-319 Ulysses and Circe

Macareus spoke of how Aeolus ruled the Tuscan deep, Aeolus son of Hippotes, imprisoning the winds. Ulysses, the Dulichian leader, had received them from him, an amazing gift, fastened up, in a bull’s hide bag. Sailing for nine days, with a favourable wind, Ulysses and his crew spied the homelands they sought, but when the tenth morning came, his comrades were conquered by greed and desire for their share: thinking the bag contained gold, they loosened the strings that tied up the winds. The ship was blown back over the waters, through which they had come, and, once more, entered King Aeolus’s harbour.

‘From there,’ Macareus said, ‘we came to the ancient city of Lamus, of the Laestrygonians: Antiphates was now king in that land. I was sent to him with two companions. One of my friends and myself, fleeing, barely reached safety. The third reddened the Laestrygonians’ evil mouths with his blood. Antiphates chased us as we ran for it, urging his men on. They rushed us, hurling rocks and tree-trunks, drowning the men, and sinking the ships. The one which Ulysses himself, and I sailed in, escaped.

‘Mourning our lost companions, lamenting greatly, we came to that land you see, in the distance, (believe me the island I saw is best seen from a distance!) and I warn you, O most virtuous of Trojans, son of the goddess, (since the war is over now, I will not treat you as an enemy, Aeneas) shun the shores of Circe! We, likewise, beaching our vessel, refused to go on, remembering Antiphates, and savage Cyclops: but we were chosen by lot to explore the unknown place. I, and the loyal Polites, and also Eurylochus, and Elpenor, too fond of wine, and eighteen others of my comrades, were sent within Circe’s walls.

‘We had no sooner arrived, and were standing on the threshold of her courts, when a thousand wolves, and. mixed with the wolves. she-bears and lionesses rushed at us, filling us with terror. But there was nothing to be afraid of: none of them gave our bodies a single scratch. Why they even wagged their tails in the air with affection, and fawned on us, as they followed our footsteps, until female servants received us, and led us, through halls covered with marble, to their mistress.

‘She sat in a lovely inner room on her sacred throne, wearing a shining robe, covered over with a gold-embroidered veil. Nereids and nymphs were with her, who do not work wool with nimble fingers, nor, then, spin the thread: they arrange herbs, scattered without order, separating flowers and grasses of various colours, into baskets. She herself directs the work they do: she herself knows the use of each leaf, which kinds mix in harmony, examines them, and pays attention to the weighings of the herbs.

‘When she saw us, and words of welcome had been received, she smiled at us, and seemed to give a blessing to our desires. Without delay she ordered a drink to be blended, of malted barley, honey, strong wine, and curdled milk, to which she secretly added juices, that its sweetness would hide. We took the cup offered by her sacred hand. As soon as we had drained it, thirstily, with parched lips, the dread goddess touched the top of our hair with her wand, and then (I am ashamed, but I will tell you) I began to bristle with hair, unable to speak now, giving out hoarse grunts instead of words, and to fall forward, completely facing the ground.

‘I felt my mouth stiffening into a long snout, my neck swelling with brawn, and I made tracks on the ground, with the parts that had just now lifted the cup to my mouth. I was shut in a sty with the others in the same state (so much can magic drugs achieve!) We saw that only Eurylochus had escaped the transformation: the only one to avoid the proffered cup. If he had not refused, I would even now be one of the bristly herd, since Ulysses would not have heard of our plight from him, or come to Circe, as our avenger.

‘Peace-loving Cyllenian Mercury had given him the white flower, the gods call moly, that springs from a black root. With this, and divine warnings, he entered Circe’s house in safety, and, when he was asked to drink from the fateful cup, he struck aside the wand, with which she tried to stroke his hair, and scared off the frightened goddess, with drawn sword. Then they gave their right hands to each other, as a pledge of good faith, and after being received into her bed as her husband, he asked for his friends true bodies to be restored, as a wedding gift.

‘We were sprinkled with the more virtuous juices of unknown herbs, our heads were stroked with the wand reversed, and the words, she had said, were pronounced, with the words said backwards. The more words she spoke, the more we stood erect, lifted from the ground. Our bristles fell away, our cloven hoofs lost their cleft, our shoulders reappeared, and below them were our upper and lower arms. Weeping we embraced him, as he wept himself, and clung to our leader’s neck, and nothing was said until we had testified to our gratitude.

‘We stayed there for a year, and, in that length of time, I saw and heard many things. Here is one told me, in secret, by one of the four female servants, dedicated to those earlier tasks. While Circe was tarrying alone with our leader, the girl showed me the statue of a young man, carved out of snow-white marble, with a woodpecker’s head on top. It stood in a holy temple, distinguished by many wreaths. I asked, as I wished to know, who it was, and why he was worshipped in a holy temple, and why he bore a bird’s head. She said “Listen, Macareus, and learn, as well, how great is my mistress’s power: keep your mind on my words!

Bk 14:320-396 The transformation of Picus

‘“Picus, the son of Saturn, was king in the land of Ausonia, and loved horses trained for war. The hero’s appearance was as you see it there. Though, if you looked at his beauty itself, you would approve the true and not the imaginary form. His spirit equalled his looks. In age, he had not yet seen four of the five-yearly Games at Elis in Greece. He had turned the heads of the dryads born on the hills of Latium: the nymphs of the fountains pursued him, and the naiads; those that live in the Tiber; and in the River Numicius; in Anio’s streams; and the brief course of the Almo; the rushing Nar; and Farfar of dense shadows; and those who haunt the wooded pool of Scythian Diana, and its neighbouring lakes.

‘“But, spurning them all, he loved one nymph alone, whom, it is said, Venilia once bore, on the Palatine hill, to two-faced Janus. She, when she had grown to marriageable age, was given to Picus of Laurentum, preferred of all her suitors. She was of rare beauty, but rarer her gift of song, so that she was called Canens. She could move the rocks and trees with her singing, make wild beasts gentle, halt wide rivers, and detain the wandering birds. One day when she was singing her song, with a girl’s expressiveness, Picus left home to hunt the native wild boar, in the Laurentian fields. Astride the back of an eager mount, he carried two hunting spears in his left hand, and wore a Greek military cloak, dyed crimson, fastened with a golden brooch.

‘“Sol’s daughter had come to those same woods, leaving the fields, called Circean from her name, to cull fresh herbs in the fertile hills. As soon as she saw the youth from the cover of a thicket, she was stunned: the herbs she had culled fell from her hand, and flames seemed to reach to her very marrow. As soon as she had recovered rational thought after the wave of passion, she wanted to own to her desires, but she could not reach him, because of his horse’s speed, and his crowd of companions. ‘Though the wind take you, you will not escape,’ she cried, ‘if I know my skill, if the power of herbs has not completely vanished, and my incantations do not fail.’ Saying this, she conjured up a bodiless phantom boar, and commanded it to cross under the king’s very eyes, and seem to enter a dense grove of trees, where the woods were thickest, and the place was impenetrable to horses. Instantly, and unwittingly, without a moment’s delay, Picus, followed his shadowy prey, and, quickly leaping from the back of his foaming mount, he roamed, on foot, through the deep wood, chasing an empty promise.

‘“Circe recited curses, and spoke magic words, worshipping unknown gods, with unknown incantations, by which she used to dim the face of the bright moon, and veil her father’s orb, with moisture-loving cloud.

‘“Now, also, by her song, the sky is darkened, and the earth breathes out fog, and his companions wander on blind trails, and the king’s protection is lost. Having made the time and place, she says: ‘O, by those eyes, that have captured mine, and by that beauty, most handsome of youths, that has made a goddess suppliant to you, think of my passion, and accept the sun, who sees all things, as your father-in-law. Do not, unfeelingly, despise Circe, daughter of Titan.’

‘“She spoke: he fiercely rejected her and her entreaties, and said: ‘Whoever you may be, I am not for you. Another has captured my love and holds me, and I hope she will hold me forever. While the fates guard Canens, Janus’s daughter, for me, I will not harm our bond of affection by an alien love. Repeating her entreaties, time and again, in vain, Circe cried: ‘You will not go unpunished, or return to your Canens, and you will learn the truth of what the wounded; a lover; a woman, can do: and Circe is a lover; is wounded; is a woman!’

‘“Then twice to the west, twice to the east, she turned; thrice touched the youth with her wand, thrice spoke an incantation. He ran, but was surprised to find himself running faster than before: he saw wings appear on his body. Angered at his sudden transformation to a strange bird in the woods of Latium, he pecked at the rough oak wood with his hard beak, and in fury wounded the long branches. The feathers of his crown and nape took on the colour of his crimson cloak, and what had been a golden brooch, pinning his clothes, became plumage, and his neck was surrounded behind by green-gold. Nothing was left to Picus of his former being, except his name.

Bk 14:397-434 The fate of Canens

‘“Meanwhile, his companions came upon Circe, after calling for Picus through the fields, often, and uselessly (she had now thinned the mist, and dispersed the clouds with winds, and revealed the sun). They pressed true charges against her; demanded the king; showed force; and prepared to attack her with deadly spears. She sprinkled them with harmful drugs and poisonous juices, summoning Night and the gods of Night, from Erebus and Chaos, and calling on Hecate with long wailing cries.

‘“Marvellous to say, the trees tore from their roots, the earth rumbled, the surrounding woods turned white, and the grass she sprinkled was wet with drops of blood. And the stones seemed to emit harsh groans, and dogs to bark, and the ground to crawl with black snakes, and the ghostly shades of the dead to hover. The terrified band shuddered at these monstrosities. She touched the fearful, stunned, faces with her wand, and, at its contact, the monstrous forms of various wild beasts appeared, as the warriors were transformed: none of them retained his human form.

‘“Now Phoebus, setting, dyed the shores of Spain, and Canens was looking, in vain, for her husband, with her eyes and in her thoughts. Her servants, and her people, ran through the woods to meet him, carrying torches. The nymph was not satisfied with weeping, and tearing at her hair, and beating her breast (though she did all those things) and she rushed out herself, and roamed madly through the fields of Latium. Six nights, and as many returns of the sun’s light, found her wandering, without food or sleep, through valleys and hills, wherever chance lead her.

‘“Tiber was last to see her, as she lay down, weary with grief and journeying, on his wide banks. There, she poured out her words of grief, tearfully, in faint tones, in harmony with sadness, just as the swan sings once, in dying, its own funeral song. At the last she melted away, wasted by grief, liquefied to the marrow, little by little vanishing into thin air. But her story is signified by the place, that the Muses of old, fittingly, called Canens, from the nymph’s name.”

Bk 14:435-444 Caieta’s epitaph

‘I heard many such stories, and saw many things throughout that long year. Sluggish and torpid, through inactivity, we were commanded to spread the sails and travel the seas again. Circe, the Titan’s daughter, had told us of the fierce dangers of the seas to come, the dangerous channels, and the vast reaches: I confess I was afraid, and finding this shore, I clung to it.’ Macareus had done.

Aeneas’s nurse, Caieta, was interred in a marble urn, having a brief epitaph carved on her tomb:

HERE HE WHOM I, CAIETA, NURSED, WHO, NOTED FOR HIS PIETY,
SAVED ME FROM ACHAEAN FIRE, AS IS RIGHT, CREMATED ME.

Bk 14:445-482 War in Latium: Turnus asks Diomede’s help

Freeing their cables from the grassy shore, and keeping far away from the treacherous island and the home of the infamous goddess, the Trojans sought the groves where dark-shadowed Tiber, rushes, yellow with sand, to the sea. There, Aeneas won the daughter, Lavinia, and the kingdom of Latinus, son of Faunus, but not without a battle.

Turnus fights with fury for his promised bride, and war is waged with a fierce people. All Etruria clashes with Latium, and for a long time, with anxious struggle, hard-fought victory is looked for. Both sides add to their strength with outside aid, and many support the Rutuli, many others the Trojan camp.

Aeneas did not seek help from Evander in vain, but Venulus, sent by Turnus, had no profit from the city of exiled Diomede. He had founded a major city, Arpi, in Daunus’s kingdom of Iapygia, and held the country given him as a dowry. When Venulus had done as Turnus commanded and asked for help, Diomede, Aetolia’s hero, pleaded lack of resources as an excuse: he did not wish to commit himself or his father-in-law’s people, nor had he any men of his own race he could arm. ‘So that you do not think that these are lies,’ he said, ‘I will endure the telling of my story patiently, though its mention renews my bitter grief.

When high Ilium had been burned, and Pergama had fed the Greek fires, and when Ajax, hero of Naryx, had brought down, on us all, the virgin goddess Minerva’s punishment, that he alone deserved, for the rape of virgin Cassandra, we Greeks were taken, and scattered by storms, over the hostile seas. We suffered lightning, darkness, and storms, the anger of sea and sky, and Cape Caphereus, the culminating disaster. Not to waste time by telling you our sad misfortunes one by one, the Greeks then might even have appeared to warrant Priam’s tears. Warrior Minerva’s saving care for me, however, rescued me from the waves. But I was driven from my native country again, for gentle Venus, remembering the wound I had once given her, exacted punishment. I suffered such great toils in the deep sea, such conflicts on land, that I often called those happy whom the storm, that we shared, and the troubled waters, of Caphereus, drowned, and I longed to have been one of them.’

Bk 14:483-511 Acmon and others are changed into birds

‘Now my friends lost heart, having endured ultimate misery in war and on the sea, and begged me to end our wanderings. But fiery-natured Acmon, truly exasperated by our disasters, said: “What is left, indeed, men, that your patience would not bear? What more could Cytherean Venus do, do you think, if she wished to? When we fear the worst there is a place for prayer, but when our lot is worst, fear is under our feet, and at the height of misfortune we are unconcerned. Though she herself should hear me, though she should hate, as she does, all those under Diomede’s command, yet we all scorn her hatred. Great powers hardly count as great to us.”

Acmon of Pleuron goaded Venus with these insulting words, and rekindled her former anger. Few of us approved of what he said: the majority of his friends reproved him, and when he tried to answer, his voice and throat grew attenuated; his hair turned to plumage; and plumage covered his newly formed neck, chest and back. His arms received large feathers, and his elbows twisted to form swift wings; his toes took up most of his feet, and his face hardened and stiffened like horn, and ended in a pointed beak. Lycus, and Idas, Rhexenor, Nycteus and Abas, marvelled at him, and while they marvelled, they took the same form. The larger number of the flock rose, and circled the oarsmen on beating wings. If you ask the shape of these suddenly created birds, they were like white swans, though they were not swans. Now I can scarcely hold this house, and its parched fields, as Daunus of Iapygia’s son-in-law, with this tiny remnant of my friends.’

Bk 14:512-526 The creation of the wild olive

So said Diomede, grandson of Oeneus of Calydon. Venulus left that kingdom passing the Peucetian valleys, and the fields of Messapia. Here he came across a cave, dark with trees, and masked by slender reeds, that now is held by the goat-god Pan, but once was held by the nymphs. A shepherd from that region of Apulia scared them to flight, at first, suddenly inspiring terror in them. When they had collected their wits, scornful of their pursuer, they returned to their dancing, feet skipping to the measure.

The shepherd mocked them, leaping wildly in imitation, and adding foul language, with coarse abuse. Nor was his mouth silent till tree-bark imprisoned his throat: he is indeed a tree: you may know its character, by the taste of its fruit that bears the mark of his speech in the wild olives’ bitterness. The sharpness of his words has entered them.

Bk 14:527-565 The transformation of Aeneas’s ships

When the ambassadors returned, saying that Aetolia’s arms were denied them, the Rutuli pursued war without their help, and much blood was spilled on both sides. Turnus attacked the pinewood ships, with devouring fire, and the Trojans feared to lose by fire what the sea had spared. Now Mulciber’s flames burned the pitch and wax, and other fuel, and climbed the tall masts to the sails, and the thwarts across the curved hulls were smouldering, when Cybele, the sacred mother of the gods, remembering that these pines were felled on Mount Ida’s summit, filled the air with the clashing throb of bronze cymbals, and the shrilling of boxwood flutes. Carried through the clear air by tame lions, she cried out: ‘Turnus, you hurl those firebrands, with sacrilegious hands, in vain! I will save: I will not allow the devouring fire to burn what was part of my woods and belongs to me.’

As the goddess spoke it thundered, and, after the thunder, heavy rain, and leaping hail, fell, and the winds, the brothers, sons of Astraeus the Titan by Aurora, troubled the air and the sea, swollen by the sudden onrush, and joined the conflict. The all-sustaining mother goddess, used the force of one of them, and broke the hempen cables of the Trojan ships, drove them headlong, and sank them in the deep ocean.

Their rigidity softened, and their wood turned to flesh; the curved sternposts turned into heads; the oars into fingers and legs, swimming; the sides of each vessel became flanks, and the submerged keel down the ship’s middle turned into a spine; the cordage became soft hair, the yards were arms; and their dusky colour was as before. Naiads of the waters, they play, in the waves they used to fear, and born on the hills they frequent the gentle sea, and their origin does not affect them. Yet not forgetting how many dangers they have often endured on the ocean, they often place their hands beneath storm-tossed boats, unless they have carried Greeks. Remembering, as yet, the Trojan disaster, they hate the Pelasgians and with joyful faces they saw the wreckage of Ulysses’s ship, and with joyful faces they saw King Alcinous’s vessel become a rock, its wood turning to stone.

Bk 14:566-580 The heron is born from Ardea’s ruins

There was hope that the Rutuli, in awe of the wonder of the Trojan fleet being turned into sea-nymphs, would abandon the war. It continued, and both sides had gods to help them, and courage that is worth as much as the gods’ assistance. Now they were not seeking a kingdom as a dowry, nor a father-in-law’s sceptre, nor you, virgin Lavinia, but to win: and they waged war because they were ashamed to surrender. At length Turnus fell, and Venus saw her son’s weapons victorious. Ardea fell, spoken of as a power while Turnus lived. After the savage fires had destroyed it, and warm ashes buried its houses, a bird flew from the ruins, one now seen for the first time, and beat at the embers with flapping wings. Its cry, its leanness, its pallor, everything that fitted the captured city, even its name, ardea, the heron, survived in the bird: and in the beating of its wings, Ardea mourns itself.

Bk 14:581-608 The deification of Aeneas

Aeneas’s virtues had compelled all the gods, even Juno herself, to bring to an end their ancient feud, and since his young son Julus’s fortunes were firmly founded, Cytherea’s heroic son was ripe for heaven. Venus had sought the opinion of the gods, and throwing her arms round her father’s neck, had said ‘You have never been harsh to me, father, now be kindest of all, I beg you. Grant my Aeneas, who claims you as his grandfather through my bloodline, some divinity, however little - you choose - so long as you grant him something! It is enough that he once gazed on the hateful kingdom, once crossed the steams of Styx.’ The gods agreed, and Juno, the royal consort, did not display her severe expression, but consented peacefully. Then Jupiter said: ‘You are worthy of this divine gift, you who ask, as is he for whom you ask it: my daughter, possess what you desire!’

The word was spoken: with joy she thanked her father, and drawn by her team of doves through the clear air, she came to the coast of Laurentum, where the waters of the River Numicius, hidden by reeds, wind down to the neighbouring sea. She ordered the river-god to cleanse Aeneas, of whatever was subject to death, and bear it away, in his silent course, into the depths of the ocean. The horned god executed Venus’s orders, and purged Aeneas of whatever was mortal, and dispersed it on the water: what was best in him remained. Once purified, his mother anointed his body with divine perfume, touched his lips with a mixture of sweet nectar and ambrosia, and made him a god, whom the Romans named Indiges, admitting him to their temples and altars.

Bk 14:609-622 The line of Alban kings

After that the Alban and Latin kingdom had both names under Ascanius. Silvius succeeded him, whose son claimed the name Latinus, with the sceptre. The famous Alba followed Latinus, and then Epytus inherited. After him came first Capys, and then Capetus. Tiberinus inherited the kingdom from them, who, drowning in the waters of that Tuscan stream, gave his name to the River Tiber. His sons were Acrota the warrior, and Remulus. The elder Remulus was killed by a lightning-bolt, when trying to portray the lightning. Acrota, more restrained than his brother, passed the sceptre to brave Aventinus, who lies buried on the very hill where he reigned, and has given his name to it, the Aventine hill. And then Proca had the rule of the Palatine people.

Bk 14:623-697 Vertumnus woos Pomona

Pomona lived in this king’s reign. No other hamadryad, of the wood nymphs of Latium, tended the gardens more skilfully or was more devoted to the orchards’ care, hence her name. She loved the fields and the branches loaded with ripe apples, not the woods and rivers. She carried a curved pruning knife, not a javelin, with which she cut back the luxuriant growth, and lopped the branches spreading out here and there, now splitting the bark and inserting a graft, providing sap from a different stock for the nursling. She would not allow them to suffer from being parched, watering, in trickling streams, the twining tendrils of thirsty root. This was her love, and her passion, and she had no longing for desire. Still fearing boorish aggression, she enclosed herself in an orchard, and denied an entrance, and shunned men.

What did the Satyrs, fitted by their youth for dancing, not do to possess her, and the Pans with pine-wreathed horns, and Silvanus, always younger than his years, and Priapus, the god who scares off thieves, with his pruning hook or his phallus? But Vertumnus surpassed them all, even, in his love, though he was no more fortunate than them. O how often, disguised as an uncouth reaper, he would bring her a basket filled with ears of barley, and he was the perfect image of a reaper! Often he would display his forehead bound with freshly cut hay, and might seem to have been tossing the new-mown grass. Often he would be carrying an ox-goad in his stiff hand, so that you would swear he had just unyoked his weary team. Given a knife he was a dresser and pruner of vines: he would carry a ladder: you would think he’d be picking apples. He was a soldier with a sword, or a fisherman taking up his rod.

In short, by his many disguises, he frequently gained admittance, and found joy, gazing at her beauty. Once, he even covered his head with a coloured scarf, and leaning on a staff, with a wig of grey hair, imitated an old woman. He entered the well-tended garden, and admiring the fruit, said: ‘You are so much more lovely’, and gave her a few congratulatory kisses, as no true old woman would have done. He sat on the flattened grass, looking at the branches bending, weighed down with autumn fruit. There was a specimen elm opposite, covered with gleaming bunches of grapes. After he had praised it, and its companion vine, he said: ‘But if that tree stood there, unmated, without its vine, it would not be sought after for more than its leaves, and the vine also, which is joined to and rests on the elm, would lie on the ground, if it were not married to it, and leaning on it.

But you are not moved by this tree’s example, and you shun marriage, and do not care to be wed. I wish that you did! Helen would not have had more suitors to trouble her, or Hippodamia, who caused the Lapithae problems, or Penelope, wife of that Ulysses, who was delayed too long at the war. Even now a thousand men want you, and the demi-gods and the gods, and the divinities that haunt the Alban hills, though you shun them and turn away from their wooing. But if you are wise, if you want to marry well, and listen to this old woman, that loves you more than you think, more than them all, reject their vulgar offers, and choose Vertumnus to share your bed! You have my assurance as well: he is not better known to himself than he is to me: he does not wander here and there in the wide world: he lives on his own in this place: and he does not love the latest girl he has seen, as most of your suitors do.

You will be his first love, and you will be his last, and he will devote his life only to you. And then he is young, is blessed with natural charm, can take on a fitting appearance, and whatever is ordered, though you ask all, he will do. Besides, that which you love the same, those apples you cherish, he is the first to have, and with joy holds your gifts in his hand! But he does not desire now the fruit of your trees, or the sweet juice of your herbs: he desires nothing but you. Take pity on his ardour, and believe that he, who seeks you, is begging you, in person, through my mouth. Fear the vengeful gods, and Idalian Venus, who hates the hard-hearted, and Rhamnusian Nemesis, her inexorable wrath! That you may fear them more (since my long life has given me knowledge of many tales) I will tell you a story, famous through all of Cyprus, by which you might easily be swayed and softened.’

Bk 14:698-771 Anaxarete and Iphis

‘Once, Iphis, a youth, born of humble stock, saw noble Anaxarete, of the blood of Teucer, saw her, and felt the fire of passion in every bone. He fought it for a long time, but when he could not conquer his madness by reason, he came begging at her threshold. Now he would confess his sorry love to her nurse, asking her not to be hard on him, by the hopes she had for her darling. At other times he flattered each of her many attendants, with enticing words, seeking their favourable disposition. Often he gave them messages to carry to her, in the form of fawning letters. Sometimes he hung garlands on her doorpost wet with his tears, and lay with his soft flank on the hard threshold, complaining at the pitiless bolts barring the way.

But she spurned, and mocked, him, crueler than the surging sea, when the Kids set; harder than steel tempered in the fires of Noricum; or natural rock still rooted to its bed. And she added proud, insolent words to harsh actions, robbing her lover of hope, as well. Unable to endure the pain of his long torment, Iphis spoke these last words before her door. “You have conquered, Anaxarete, and you will not have to suffer any tedium on my account. Devise glad triumphs, and sing the Paean of victory, and wreathe your brow with shining laurel! You have conquered, and I die gladly: now, heart of steel, rejoice! Now you will have something to praise about my love, something that pleases you. Remember that my love for you did not end before life itself, and that I lose twin lights in one.

No mere rumour will come to you to announce my death: have no doubt, I myself will be there, visibly present, so you can feast your savage eyes on my lifeless corpse. Yet, if you, O gods, see what mortals do, let me be remembered (my tongue can bear to ask for nothing more), and suffer my tale to be told, in future ages, and grant, to my fame, the years, you have taken from my life.”

He spoke, and lifted his tear-filled eyes to the doorposts he had often crowned with flowery garlands, and, raising his pale arms to them, tied a rope to the cross-beam, saying: “This wreath will please you, cruel and wicked, as you are!” Then he thrust his head in the noose, though, as he hung there, a pitiful burden, his windpipe crushed, even then he turned towards her. The drumming of his feet seemed to sound a request to enter, and when the door was opened it revealed what he had done.

The servants shrieked, and lifted him down, but in vain. Then they carried his body to his mother’s house (since his father was dead). She took him to her breast, and embraced her son’s cold limbs, and when she had said all the words a distraught father could say, and done the things distraught mothers do, weeping, she led his funeral procession through the heart of the city, carrying the pallid corpse, on a bier, to the pyre.

The sound of mourning rose to the ears of stony-hearted Anaxarete, her house chancing to be near the street, where the sad procession passed. Now a vengeful god roused her. Still, she was roused, and said: “Let us see this miserable funeral” and went to a rooftop room with open windows. She had barely looked at Iphis, lying on the bier, when her eyes grew fixed, and the warm blood left her pallid body. Trying to step backwards she was rooted: trying to turn her face away, also, she could not. Gradually the stone that had long existed in her heart possessed her body. If you think this is only a tale, Salamis still preserves the image of the lady as a statue, and also possesses a temple of Gazing Venus.

Remember all this, O nymph of mine: put aside, I beg you, reluctant pride, and yield to your lover. Then the frost will not sear your apples in the bud, nor the storm winds scatter them in flower.’

When Vertumnus, the god, disguised in the shape of the old woman, had spoken, but to no effect, he went back to being a youth, and threw off the dress of an old woman, and appeared to Pomona, in the glowing likeness of the sun, when it overcomes contending clouds, and shines out, unopposed. He was ready to force her: but no force was needed, and the nymph captivated by the form of the god, felt a mutual passion.

Bk 14:772-804 War and reconciliation with the Sabines

Now unjust Amulius rules Ausonia, by means of military power, and old Numitor, with his grandson Romulus’s help, captures the kingdom he has lost, and the city of Rome is founded, on the day of the Palilia.

The Sabine leaders, and their king Tatius, wage war, and Tarpeia who gives them access to the citadel, is punished as she deserves, stripped of her life, crushed by a heap of weapons.

Then the men of Cures, with hushed voices, silently, like wolves, overcome the Romans, whose bodies are lost in sleep, and attempt the gates that Romulus, son of Ilia, has closed, and firmly barred.

Saturnian Juno herself unbarred a gate, opening it silently on its hinges. Only Venus saw that the gate’s bars had dropped, and would have closed it, except that one god is never allowed to reverse the actions of another.

The Ausonian Naiads, owned a spot, adjoining the temple of Janus, moistened by a cold spring. Venus asked them for help: the nymphs did not refuse her just request, and elicited the aid of the streams, and watercourses, belonging to their fountain. But the pass of Janus was still not blocked, and the water did not bar the way: they placed yellow sulphur under their copious spring, and heated the hollow channels with burning pitch. By these and other means the vapour penetrated the depths of the spring, and you waters that a moment ago dared to compete with Alpine coldness, now did not concede to fire itself!

The twin gateposts smouldered under a fiery spray, and the gate, that vainly promised an entrance to the tough Sabines, was blocked by the new waters, while the Roman soldiers took up their weapons of war.

After this Romulus sallied out, and the Roman soil was strewn with the Sabine dead, and with Rome’s own, and the impious sword mixed the blood of son-in-law with the blood of father-in-law. Yet it was decided not to fight it out to the end, to let peace end war, and that Tatius should share the rule of Rome.

Bk 14:805-828 The deification of Romulus

Tatius died, and you, Romulus, gave orders equally to both peoples. Mars, removing his helmet, addressed the father of gods and men in these words: ‘The time has come, lord, to grant the reward (that you promised to me and your deserving grandson), since the Roman state is strong, on firm foundations, and does not depend on a single champion: free his spirit, and raising him from earth set him in the heavens. You once said to me, in person, at a council of the gods (since I am mindful of the gracious words I noted in my retentive mind), ‘There will be one who you will raise to azure heaven.’ Let your words be ratified in full!’

Omnipotent Jupiter nodded, and, veiling the sky with dark clouds, he terrified men on earth with thunder and lightning. Mars knew this as a sign that ratified the promised ascension, and leaning on his spear, he vaulted, fearlessly, into his chariot, the horses straining at the blood-wet pole, and cracked the loud whip. Dropping headlong through the air, he landed on the summit of the wooded Palatine. There he caught up Romulus, son of Ilia, as he was dealing royal justice to his people. The king’s mortal body dissolved in the clear atmosphere, like the lead bullet, that often melts in mid-air, hurled by the broad thong of a catapult. Now he has beauty of form, and he is Quirinus, clothed in ceremonial robes, such a form as is worthier of the sacred high seats of the gods.

Bk 14:829-851 The deification of his wife Hersilia

His wife, Hersilia, was mourning him as lost, when royal Juno ordered Iris to descend to her, by her rainbow path, and carry these commands, to the widowed queen: ‘O lady, glory of the Latin and Sabine peoples, worthy before to have been the wife of so great a hero, and now of Quirinus, dry your tears, and if it is your desire to see your husband, follow me and seek the grove, that flourishes on the Quirinal hill and shades the temple of Rome’s king.’

Iris obeyed, and gliding to earth along her many-coloured arch addressed Hersilia as she had been ordered. She, hardly raising her eyes, replied, modestly: ‘O goddess (since it is not easy for me to say who you are, but it is clear you are a goddess), lead on: O, lead on, and show me my husband’s face. If only the fates allow me to see him once, I shall declare I have been received in heaven.’

Without delay, she climbed to Romulus’s hill, with Iris, the virgin daughter of Thaumas. There a star fell, gliding from sky to earth, and Hersilia, hair set alight by its fire, vanishes with the star in the air. The founder of the Roman city receives her in his familiar embrace, and alters her former body and her name, and calls her Hora, who, a goddess now, is one with her Quirinus.
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Re: Metamorphoses, by Ovid

Postby admin » Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:02 am

Book 15

• Bk 15:1-59 Myscelus: the founding of Crotona.
• Bk 15:60-142 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Vegetarianism..
• Bk 15:143-175 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Metempsychosis.
• Bk 15:176-198 Pythagoras’s Teachings: The Eternal Flux.
• Bk 15:199-236 Pythagoras’s Teachings: The Four Ages of Man.
• Bk 15:237-258 Pythagoras’s Teachings: The Elements.
• Bk 15:259-306 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Geological changes.
• Bk 15:307-360 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Physical changes.
• Bk 15:361-390 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Autogenesis.
• Bk 15:391-417 Pythagoras’s Teachings: The Phoenix.
• Bk 15:418-452 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Transfers of Power
• Bk 15:453-478 Pythagoras’s Teachings: The Sanctity of Life.
• Bk 15:479-546 The transformation of Hippolytus.
• Bk 15:552-621 Cipus acquires horns.
• Bk 15:622-745 Aesculapius, the god, saves Rome from plague.
• Bk 15:745-842 The deification of Julius Caesar
• Bk 15:843-870 Ovid’s celebration of Augustus.
• Bk 15:871-879 Ovid’s Envoi

Bk 15:1-59 Myscelus: the founding of Crotona

Meanwhile the Romans looked for a leader, to bear the weight of such responsibility, and follow so great a king: Fame, the true harbinger, determined on the illustrious Numa for the throne. Not content with knowing the rituals of the Sabine people, with his capable mind he conceived a wider project, and delved into the nature of things. His love of these enquiries led him to leave his native Cures, and visit the city of Crotona, to which Hercules was friendly. When Numa asked who was the founder of this Greek city on Italian soil, one of the older inhabitants, not ignorant of the past, replied: ‘They say that Hercules, Jupiter’s son, back from the sea with the rich herds of Spain, happily came to the shore of Lacinium, and while his cattle strayed through the tender grass, he entered the house of the great Croton, a not inhospitable roof, and refreshed himself with rest, after his long labours, and, in leaving, said: ‘At a future time, there will be a city here, of your descendants.’

And the promise proved true, since there was one Myscelus, the son of Alemon of Argos, dearest to the gods of all his generation. Hercules, the club-bearer, leaning over him, spoke to him as he lay in a deep sleep: ‘Rise now, leave your native country: go, find the pebble-filled waves of Aesar!’ and he threatened him with many and fearful things if he did not obey. Then the god and sleep vanished together. Alemon’s son rose, and, in silence, thought over the vision, fresh in his mind. He struggled in himself for a long time over the decision: the god ordered him to go: the law prohibited his going. Death was the penalty for the man who wished to change his nationality.

Bright Sol had hidden his shining face in Ocean’s stream, and Night had lifted her starriest face: the same god seemed to appear to him, to admonish him in the same way, and warn of worse and greater punishment if he did not obey. He was afraid, and prepared, at once, to transfer the sanctuary of his ancestors to a new place. There was talk in the city, and he was brought to trial, for showing contempt for the law. When the case against him had been presented, and it was evident the charge was proven, without needing witnesses, the wretched defendant, lifting his face and hands to heaven, cried: ‘O you, whose twelve labours gave you the right to heaven, help me, I beg you! Since you are the reason for my crime.’

The ancient custom was to vote using black and white pebbles: the black to condemn: the white to absolve from punishment. Now, also, the harsh verdict was determined in this way, and every pebble dropped into the pitiless urn was black: but when the urn was tipped over and the pebbles poured out for the count, their colour had changed from black to white, and, acquitted through the divine power of Hercules, Alemon’s son was freed.

He first gave thanks to that son of Amphitryon, his patron, and with favouring winds set sail on the Ionian Sea. He sailed by Neretum, of the Sallentines, Sybaris, and the Spartan colony of Tarentum, the bay of Siris, Crimisa, and the Iapygian fields. He had barely passed the lands that overlook those seas, when he came, by destiny, to the mouth of the river Aesar, and near it the tumulus beneath which the earth covered the sacred bones of Croton. He founded the city of Crotona there, in the land commanded by the god, and derived the name of the city from him, whom the tumulus held. Such were the established beginnings, according to reliable tradition, of that place, and the cause of the city’s being sited on Italian soil.

Bk 15:60-142 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Vegetarianism

There was a man here, Pythagoras, a Samian by birth, who had fled Samos and its rulers, and, hating their tyranny, was living in voluntary exile. Though the gods were far away, he visited their region of the sky, in his mind, and what nature denied to human vision he enjoyed with his inner eye. When he had considered every subject, through concentrated thought, he communicated it widely in public, teaching the silent crowds, who listened in wonder to his words, concerning the origin of the vast universe, and of the causes of things; and what the physical world is; what the gods are; where the snows arise; what the origin of lightning is; whether Jupiter, or the storm-winds, thunder from colliding clouds; what shakes the earth; by what laws the stars move; and whatever else is hidden; and he was the first to denounce the serving of animal flesh at table; the first voice, wise but not believed in, to say, for example, in words like these:

‘Human beings, stop desecrating your bodies with impious foodstuffs. There are crops; there are apples weighing down the branches; and ripening grapes on the vines; there are flavoursome herbs; and those that can be rendered mild and gentle over the flames; and you do not lack flowing milk; or honey fragrant from the flowering thyme. The earth, prodigal of its wealth, supplies you with gentle sustenance, and offers you food without killing or shedding blood.

‘Flesh satisfies the wild beast’s hunger, though not all of them, since horses, sheep and cattle live on grasses, but those that are wild and savage: Armenian tigers, raging lions, and wolves and bears, enjoy food wet with blood. Oh, how wrong it is for flesh to be made from flesh; for a greedy body to fatten, by swallowing another body; for one creature to live by the death of another creature! So amongst such riches, that earth, the greatest of mothers, yields, you are not happy unless you tear, with cruel teeth, at pitiful wounds, recalling Cyclops’s practice, and you cannot satisfy your voracious appetite, and your restless hunger, unless you destroy other life!

‘But that former age, that we call golden, was happy with the fruit from the trees, and the herbs the earth produced, and did not defile its lips with blood. Then birds winged their way through the air in safety, and hares wandered, unafraid, among the fields, and its own gullibility did not hook the fish: all was free from trickery, and fearless of any guile, and filled with peace. But once someone, whoever he was, the author of something unfitting, envied the lion’s prey, and stuffed his greedy belly with fleshy food, he paved the way for crime. It may be that, from the first, weapons were warm and bloodstained from the killing of wild beasts, but that would have been enough: I admit that creatures that seek our destruction may be killed without it being a sin, but while they may be killed, they still should not be eaten.

‘From that, the wickedness spread further, and it is thought that the pig was first considered to merit slaughter because it rooted up the seeds with its broad snout, and destroyed all hope of harvest. The goat was led to death, at the avenging altar, for browsing the vines of Bacchus. These two suffered for their crimes! What did you sheep do, tranquil flocks, born to serve man, who bring us sweet milk in full udders, who give us your wool to make soft clothing, who give us more by your life than you grant us by dying? What have the oxen done, without guile or deceit, harmless, simple, born to endure labour?

‘He is truly thankless, and not worthy of the gift of corn, who could, in a moment, remove the weight of the curved plough, and kill his labourer, striking that work-worn neck with his axe, that has helped turn the hard earth as many times as the earth yielded harvest. It is not enough to have committed such wickedness: they involve the gods in crime, and believe that the gods above delight in the slaughter of suffering oxen! A victim of outstanding beauty, and without blemish (since to be pleasing is harmful), distinguished by sacrificial ribbons and gold, is positioned in front of the altar, and listens, unknowingly, to the prayers, and sees the corn it has laboured to produce, scattered between its horns, and, struck down, stains with blood those knives that it has already caught sight of, perhaps, reflected in the clear water.

‘Immediately they inspect the lungs, ripped from the still-living chest, and from them find out the will of the gods. On this (so great is man’s hunger for forbidden food) you feed, O human race! Do not, I beg you, and concentrate your minds on my admonitions! When you place the flesh of slaughtered cattle in your mouths, know and feel, that you are devouring your fellow-creature.

Bk 15:143-175 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Metempsychosis

‘Now, since a god moves my lips, I will follow, with due rite, the god who moves those lips, and reveal my beloved Delphi and the heavens themselves, and unlock the oracles of that sublime mind. I will speak of mighty matters, not fathomed by earlier greatness, things long hidden. I delight in journeying among the distant stars: I delight in leaving earth and its dull spaces, to ride the clouds; to stand on the shoulders of mighty Atlas, looking down from far off on men, wandering here and there, devoid of knowledge, anxious, fearing death; to read the book of fate, and to give them this encouragement!

‘O species, stunned by your terror of chill death, why fear the Styx, why fear the ghosts and empty names, the stuff of poets, the spectres of a phantom world? Do not imagine you can suffer any evil, whether your bodies are consumed by the flames of the funeral pyre, or by wasting age! Souls are free from death, and always, when they have left their previous being, they live in new dwelling-places, and inhabit what received them. I myself (for I remember) was Euphorbus, son of Panthoüs, at the time of the Trojan War, in whose chest was pinned the heavy spear of the lesser Atrides, Menelaüs. I recognised the shield I used to carry on my left arm, recently, in the temple of Juno at Argos, city of Abas!

‘Everything changes, nothing dies: the spirit wanders, arriving here or there, and occupying whatever body it pleases, passing from a wild beast into a human being, from our body into a beast, but is never destroyed. As pliable wax, stamped with new designs, is no longer what it was; does not keep the same form; but is still one and the same; I teach that the soul is always the same, but migrates into different forms. So, I say as a seer, cease to make kindred spirits homeless, by wicked slaughter: do not let blood be nourished by blood!

Bk 15:176-198 Pythagoras’s Teachings: The Eternal Flux

‘Since I have embarked on the wide ocean, and given full sails to the wind, I say there is nothing in the whole universe that persists. Everything flows, and is formed as a fleeting image. Time itself, also, glides, in its continual motion, no differently than a river. For neither the river, nor the swift hour can stop: but as wave impels wave, and as the prior wave is chased by the coming wave, and chases the one before, so time flees equally, and, equally, follows, and is always new. For what was before is left behind: and what was not comes to be: and each moment is renewed.

‘You see the nights’ traverses tend towards day, and brilliant light follow the dark of night. The sky has a different colour when all weary things are at rest, at midnight, than when bright Lucifer appears on his white charger, and alters again when Aurora, herald of the dawn, stains the world she bequeaths to Phoebus. The shield of the god himself is red, when it rises from beneath the earth, and still red, when it is hidden below the earth, again: but is white at the zenith, because there the atmosphere is purer, and it escapes far from the contagion of earth. And Diana, the moon, can never have the same or similar form, and is always less today than tomorrow if her orb is waxing, greater if it is waning.

Bk 15:199-236 Pythagoras’s Teachings: The Four Ages of Man

‘Do you not see that the year displays four aspects, passing through them, in a semblance of our life? For spring, in its new life, is tender and sap-filled, and like a child: then the shoots are fresh and growing, delicate, without substance, quickening the farmer’s hopes. Then everything blossoms, the kindly land is a riot of brightly coloured flowers, but the leaves are still not strong. From spring, the year, grown stronger, moves to summer, and becomes a powerful man: no season is sturdier, or more expansive, than this, or shines more richly. Autumn comes, when the ardour of youth has gone, ripe and mellow, between youth and age, a scattering of grey on its forehead. Then trembling winter, with faltering steps, its hair despoiled, or, what it has, turned white.

‘And our bodies themselves are always, restlessly, changing: we shall not be, tomorrow, what we were, or what we are. There was a time when we were hidden in our first mother’s womb, only the seed and promise of a human being: nature applied her skilful hands, and, unwilling for our bodies to be buried, cramped in our mother’s swollen belly, expelled us from our home, into the empty air. Born into the light, the infant lay there, powerless: but soon it scrambled on all fours like a wild creature, then, gradually, helped by a supporting harness, it stood, uncertainly, on shaky legs. From that point, it grew strong and swift, and passed through its span of youth.

‘When the middle years are also done, life takes the downward path of declining age. Milon, the athlete, grown old, cries when he looks at those weak and flabby arms, that were once, like those of Hercules, a solid mass of muscle. Helen, the daughter of Tyndareus, also weeps, when she sees an old woman’s wrinkles in the glass, and asks why she has been twice ravaged. Devouring Time, and you, jealous Age, consume everything, and slowly gnawing at them, with your teeth, little by little, consign all things to eternal death!

Bk 15:237-258 Pythagoras’s Teachings: The Elements

‘Even the things we call elements do not persist. Apply your concentration, and I will teach the changes, they pass through. The everlasting universe contains four generative states of matter. Of these, two, earth and water, are heavy, and sink lower, under their own weight. The other two lack heaviness, and, if not held down, they seek height: that is air, and fire, purer than air. Though they are distinct in space, nevertheless they are all derived from one another, and resolve into one another. Earth, melting, is dilated to clear water: the moisture, rarified, changes to wind and air: then air, losing further weight, in the highest regions shines out as fire, the most rarified of all. Then they return, in reverse, revealing the same series of changes. Since fire, condenses, turns into denser air, and this to water, and water, contracted, solidifies as earth.

‘Nothing keeps its own form, and Nature, the renewer of things, refreshes one shape from another. Believe me, nothing dies in the universe as a whole, but it varies and changes its aspect, and what we call ‘being born’ is a beginning to be, of something other, than what was before, and ‘dying’ is, likewise, ending a former state. Though, ‘that’ perhaps is transferred here, and ‘this’, there, the total sum is constant.

Bk 15:259-306 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Geological changes

‘For my part, I would have thought that nothing lasts for long with the same appearance. So the ages changed from gold to iron, and so the fortunes of places have altered. I have seen myself what was once firm land, become the sea: I have seen earth made from the waters: and seashells lie far away from the ocean, and an ancient anchor has been found on a mountaintop. The down rush of waters has made what was once a plain into a valley, and hills, by the deluge have been washed to the sea. Marshy land has drained to parched sand, and what was once thirsty ground filled with a marshy pool.

‘Here, Nature generates fresh springs, and there seals them up, and rivers, released by deep earthquakes, burst out or dry up, and sink. So when the Lycus is swallowed by a chasm in the earth, it emerges far off, reborn, from a different source. So, engulfed, flowing as a hidden stream, the mighty Erasinus emerges again, in the fields of Argos. And they say that Mysus, ashamed of its origin and its former banks, now flows elsewhere, as Caicus. Amenanus flows sometimes churning Sicilian sands, at other times dried up, its fountains blocked. Anigrus, once drinkable, now flows with water you would not wish to touch, since, unless we deny all credence to the poets, the bi-formed centaurs washed their wounds there, dealt by the bow of club-bearing Hercules. Is the Hypanis, born in the Scythian mountains, not ruined by bitter saltwater, that once was sweet?

‘Antissa, and Pharos, and Phoenician Tyre, were surrounded by sea: of which not one, now, is an island. The former settlers of Leucas lived on a peninsula: now the waves encircle it. Zancle also is said to have been joined to Italy, till the waves washed away the boundary, and the deep sea pushed back the land. If you look for Helice and Buris, cities of Achaia, you will find them under the waters, and sailors are accustomed, even now, to point out the submerged towns with their sunken walls.

‘There is a mound near Troezen, where Pittheus ruled, steep and treeless, that once was the flattest open space on the plain, and now is a mound. For (strange to relate) the wild strength of the winds, imprisoned in dark caves, longing for somewhere to breathe, and struggling in vain to enjoy the freer expanses of sky, since there was no gap at all in their prison, as an exit for their breath, extended and swelled the ground, just as a man inflates a bladder, or a goatskin taken from a twin-horned goat. The swelling remained there, and has the look of a high hill, solidified by long centuries.

Bk 15:307-360 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Physical changes

‘Though many instances, I have heard and known of, come to mind, I shall relate only a few more. Does not water, also, offer and receive new forms? Your stream, horned Ammon, is chill at mid-day, and warm in the morning and evening, and they tell of the Athamanians setting fire to wood, by pouring your waters over it, when the moon wanes to her smallest crescent.

‘The Cicones have a river, whose waters when drunk turn the vital organs to stone, and that change things to marble when touched. The Crathis, and the Sybaris, here, near our own country, make hair like amber or gold: and what is more amazing, there are streams that have power to change not merely the body but the mind as well. Who has not heard of the disgusting waves of Salmacis, and the Aethiopian lakes? Whoever wets his throat with these, is either maddened, or falls into a strange, deep sleep.

‘Whoever slakes his thirst at Clitor’s fountain, shuns wine, and only enjoys pure water, whether it is due to a power in the water that counteracts hot wine, or whether, as the natives claim, Melampus, Amythaon’s son, when he had saved the demented daughters of Proetus from madness, by herbs and incantations, threw the remnants, of what had purged their minds, into its springs, and the antipathy to wine was left behind in its waters. The flow of the River Lyncestius has the opposite effect, so that whoever drinks even moderately of it, stumbles about, as if they had drunk pure wine. There is a place in Arcadia, the ancients called Pheneus, mistrusted for its dual-natured waters: beware of them at night, drunk at night they are harmful: in the day they can be drunk without harm. So, rivers and lakes can harbour some power or other.

‘There was a time when Ortygia floated on the waves, now it is fixed, and the Argo’s crew feared the Symphlegades’ collisions, and the spray of their crashing waves, islands that now stand there motionless, and resist the winds.

‘And Aetna that glows, with its sulphurous furnaces, was not always on fire, and will not always be on fire. For if the earth is a creature, that lives, and, in many places, has vents that breathe out flame, she can alter her air passages, and as frequently as she shifts, she can close these caverns and open others. Or, if swift winds are confined in the deep caves, and strike rock against rock, or against material containing the seeds of fire, and Aetna catches alight from the friction, the caves will be left cold when the wind dies. Or, if it is bituminous substances that take fire, and yellow sulphur, burning with little smoke, then, when the ground no longer provides rich fuel, or nourishment for the flames, and their strength fails after long centuries, earth herself will lack the support of devouring nature, and will not withstand that famine, and forsaken, will forsake her fires.

‘There is a tale of men in Hyperborean Pallene, who are used to clothing their bodies in soft plumage, by plunging nine times in Minerva’s pool: for my part, I can scarcely believe it: also the women of Scythia are said to practise the same arts, sprinkling their bodies with magic liquids.

Bk 15:361-390 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Autogenesis

‘However if trust is only placed in proven things, do you not see that whenever corpses putrefy, due to time or melting heat, they generate tiny creatures? Bury the carcases of sacrificed bulls (it is a known experiment) in the ditch where you have thrown them, and flower-sipping bees, will be born, here and there, from the putrid entrails. After the custom of their parent bodies, they frequent the fields, are devoted to work, and labour in hope of harvest.

‘A war-horse dug into the earth is the source of hornets: If you remove the hollow claws of land-crabs, and put the rest under the soil, a scorpion, with its curved and threatening tail, will emerge from the parts interred: and the caterpillars that are accustomed to weave their white cocoons, on uncultivated leaves (a thing observed by farmers) change to a butterfly’s form, symbol of the soul.

‘Mud contains the generative seeds of green frogs, and generates them without legs, soon giving them legs for swimming, and, at the same time, with hind legs longer than their forelegs, so that they are fit to take long leaps. The cub that a she-bear has just produced is not a cub but a scarcely living lump of flesh: the mother gives it a body, by licking it, and shapes it into a form like that she has herself. Do you not see how the larvae of the honey-carrying bees, protected by the hexagonal waxen cells, are born as limbless bodies, and later acquire legs, and later still wings?

‘Who would believe, if he did not know, that Juno’s bird, the peacock, that bears eyes, like stars, on its tail; and Jupiter’s eagle, carrying his lightning-bolt; and Cytherea’s doves; all the bird species; are born from the inside of an egg? There are those who believe that when the spine decomposes, interred in the tomb, human marrow forms a snake.

Bk 15:391-417 Pythagoras’s Teachings: The Phoenix

‘Yet these creatures receive their start in life from others: there is one, a bird, which renews itself, and reproduces from itself. The Assyrians call it the phoenix. It does not live on seeds and herbs, but on drops of incense, and the sap of the cardamom plant. When it has lived for five centuries, it then builds a nest for itself in the topmost branches of a swaying palm tree, using only its beak and talons. As soon as it has lined it with cassia bark, and smooth spikes of nard, cinnamon fragments and yellow myrrh, it settles on top, and ends its life among the perfumes.

‘They say that, from the father’s body, a young phoenix is reborn, destined to live the same number of years. When age has given it strength, and it can carry burdens, it lightens the branches of the tall palm of the heavy nest, and piously carries its own cradle, that was its father’s tomb, and, reaching the city of Hyperion, the sun-god, through the clear air, lays it down in front of the sacred doors of Hyperion’s temple.

‘If there is anything to marvel at, however, in these novelties, we might marvel at how the hyena changes function, and a moment ago a female, taken from behind by a male, is now a male. Also that animal, the chameleon, fed by wind and air, instantly adopts the colour of whatever it touches.

‘Vanquished India gave lynxes to Bacchus of the clustered vines, and, they say that, whatever their bladder emits, changes to stone, and solidifies on contact with air. So coral, also, hardens the first time air touches it: it was a soft plant under the waves.

Bk 15:418-452 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Transfers of Power

‘The day will end, and Phoebus will bathe his weary horses in the deep, before my words can do justice to all that has been translated into new forms. So we see times change, and these nations acquiring power and those declining. So Troy, that was so great in men and riches, and for ten years of war could give so freely of her blood, is humbled, and only reveals ancient ruins now, and, for wealth, ancestral tombs. Sparta was famous, great Mycenae flourished, and Cecrops’s citadel of Athens, and Amphion’s Thebes. Sparta is worthless land, proud Mycenae is fallen, and what is the Thebes of Oedipus but a name, what is left of the Athens of Pandion, but a name?

‘Even now, there is a rumour that Rome, of the Dardanians, is rising, by Tiber’s waters, born in the Apennines, and laying, beneath its mass, the foundation of great things. So, growing, it changes form, and one day will be the capital of a whole world! So, it is said, the seers predict, and the oracles that tell our fate. As I remember also, when the Trojan State was falling, Helenus, son of Priam, said to a weeping Aeneas, who was unsure of his future: “Son of the goddess, if you take careful heed, of what my mind prophesies, Troy will not wholly perish while you live! Fire and sword will give way before you: you will go, as one man, catching up, and bearing away Pergama, till you find a foreign land, kinder to you and Troy, than your fatherland. I see, even now, a city, destined for Phrygian descendants, than which none is greater, or shall be, or has been, in past ages.

‘Other leaders will make her powerful, through the long centuries, but one, born of the blood of Iülus, will make her mistress of the world. When earth has benefited from him, the celestial regions will enjoy him, and heaven will be his goal.”

‘These things, I remember well, Helenus prophesied for Aeneas, as Aeneas carried the ancestral gods, and I am glad that the walls, of his descendants, are rising, and that the Greeks conquered to a Trojan’s gain.

Bk 15:453-478 Pythagoras’s Teachings: The Sanctity of Life

‘Now (lest I stray too far off course, my horses forgetting to aim towards their goal), the heavens, and whatever is under them, change their form, and the earth, and whatever is within it. We, as well, who are a part of the universe, because we are not merely flesh, but in truth, winged spirits, and can enter into the family of wild creatures, and be imprisoned in the minds of animals.

‘We should allow those beings to live in safety, and honour, that the spirits of our parents, or brothers, or those joined to us by some other bond, certainly human, might have inhabited: and not fill our bellies as if at a Thyestean feast! What evil they contrive, how impiously they prepare to shed human blood itself, who rip at a calf’s throat with the knife, and listen unmoved to its bleating, or can kill a kid to eat, that cries like a child, or feed on a bird, that they themselves have fed! How far does that fall short of actual murder? Where does the way lead on from there?

‘Let the ox plough, or owe his death to old age: let the sheep yield wool, to protect against the chill north wind: let the she-goats give you full udders for milking! Have done with nets and traps, snares and the arts of deception! Do not trick the birds with limed twigs, or imprison the deer, scaring them with feathered ropes, or hide barbed hooks in treacherous bait. Kill them, if they harm you, but even then let killing be enough. Let your mouth be free of their blood, enjoy milder food!’

Bk 15:479-546 The transformation of Hippolytus

His mind versed in these and other teachings, it is said that Numa returned to his native country, and took control of Latium, at the people’s request. Blessed with a nymph, Egeria, for wife, and guided by the Muses, he taught the sacred rituals, and educated a savage, warlike, race in the arts of peace.

When, in old age, he relinquished his sceptre, with his life, the women of Latium, the populace, and the senators wept for the dead Numa: but Egeria, his wife, left the city, and lived in retirement, concealed by dense woods, in the valley of Aricia, and her sighs and lamentations prevented the worship of Oresteian Diana. O! How often the nymphs of the lakes and groves admonished her to stop, and spoke words of consolation to her!

How often Hippolytus, Theseus’s heroic son, said, to the weeping nymph: ‘Make an end to this, since yours is not the only fate to be lamented: think of others’ like misfortunes: you will endure your own more calmly. I wish my own case had no power to lighten your sorrow! But even mine can. If your ears have heard anything of Hippolytus, of how, through his father’s credulity, and the deceits of his accursed stepmother, he met his death, though you will be amazed, and I will prove it with difficulty, nevertheless, I am he.

‘Phaedra, Pasiphaë’s daughter, having tried, vainly, to tempt me to dishonour my father’s bed, deflected guilt, and, (more through fear than anger at being rejected?), made out I had wanted, what she wished, and so accused me. Not in the least deserving it, my father banished me from the city, and called down hostile curses on my head.

‘Exiled, I headed my chariot towards Troezen, Pittheus’s city, and was travelling the Isthmus, near Corinth, when the sea rose, and a huge mass of water shaped itself into a mountain, and seemed to grow, and give out bellowings, splitting at the summit: from it, a horned bull, emerged, out of the bursting waters, standing up to his chest in the gentle breeze, expelling quantities of seawater from his nostrils and gaping mouth. My companions’ hearts were troubled, but my mind stayed unshaken, preoccupied with thoughts of exile, when my fiery horses turned their necks towards the sea, and trembled, with ears pricked, disturbed by fear of the monster, and dragged the chariot, headlong, down the steep cliff.

‘I struggled, in vain, to control them with the foam-flecked reins, and leaning backwards, strained at the resistant thongs. Even then, the horses’ madness would not have exhausted my strength, if a wheel had not broken, and been wrenched off, as the axle hub, round which it revolves, struck a tree. I was thrown from the chariot, and, my body entangled in the reins, my sinews caught by the tree, you might have seen my living entrails dragged along, my limbs partly torn away, partly held fast, my bones snapped with a loud crack, and my weary spirit expiring: no part of my body recognisable: but all one wound. Now can you compare your tragedy, or dare you, nymph, with mine?

‘I saw, also, the kingdom without light, and bathed my lacerated body in Phlegethon’s waves: there still, if Apollo’s son, Aesculapius, had not restored me to life with his powerful cures. When, despite Dis’s anger, I regained it, by the power of herbs and Paean’s help, Cynthia, created a dense mist round me, so that I might not be seen and increase envy at the gift. And she added a look of age, and left me unrecognisable, so that I would be safe, and might be seen with impunity. She considered, for a while, whether to give me Crete or Delos to live in: abandoning Delos and Crete, she set me down here, and ordered me to discard my name that might remind me of horses, and said: “You, who were Hippolytus, be also, now, Virbius!” Since then I have lived in this grove, one of the minor deities, and sheltering in the divinity of Diana, my mistress, I am coupled with her.’

Egeria’s grief could not be lessened, even by the sufferings of others: prostrate, at the foot of a mountain, she melted away in tears, till Phoebus’s sister, out of pity for her true sorrow, made a cool fountain from her body, and reduced her limbs to unfailing waters.

Bk 15:552-621 Cipus acquires horns

This strange event amazed the nymphs, and the Amazon’s son was no less astounded, than the Tyrrhenian ploughman when he saw a fateful clod of earth in the middle of his fields, first move by itself with no one touching it, then assume the form of a man, losing its earthy nature, and open its newly acquired mouth, to utter things to come. The native people called him Tages, he who first taught the Etruscan race to reveal future events. No less astounded than Romulus, when he saw his spear, that had once grown on the Palatine Hill, suddenly put out leaves, and stand there, not with its point driven in, but with fresh roots: now not a weapon but a tough willow-tree, giving unexpected shade to those who wondered at it.

No less astounded than Cipus, the praetor, when he saw his horns in the river’s water (truly he saw them) and, thinking it a false likeness of his true form, lifting his hands repeatedly to his forehead, touched what he saw. Unable now to resist the evidence of his eyes, he raised his eyes and arms to the sky, like a victor returning from a beaten enemy, and cried: ‘You gods, whatever this unnatural thing portends, if it is happiness, let it be the happiness of my country, and the race of Quirinus: if it is a threat, let it be towards me.’

Making a grassy altar of green turf, he appeased the gods with burning incense, and made a libation of wine, and inspected the quivering entrails of sacrificed sheep, as to what they portended for him. As soon as the Tyrrhenian seer, there, saw them, he recognised the signs of great happenings, not yet manifest, and when indeed he raised his keen eyes from the sheep’s entrails to Cipus’s forehead, he cried: ‘Hail! O King! You, even you, Cipus, and your horns, this place, and Latium’s citadels, shall obey. Only no delay: hurry and enter the open gates! So fate commands: and received in the city, you will be king, and safely possess the eternal sceptre.’

Cipus drew back, and grimly turning his face away from the city’s walls, he said: ‘Oh, let the gods keep all such things, far, far away, from me! Far better for me to spend my life in exile, than for the Capitol to see me crowned! He spoke, and immediately called together the people and the grave senators. First however he hid his horns with the laurels of peace, then standing on a mound raised by resolute soldiers, and praying to the ancient gods as customary, he said: ‘There is a man here who shall be king, unless you drive him from the city. I will show you who he is, not by name, but by a sign: he wears horns on his forehead! The augur declares that if he enters Rome, he will grant you only the rights of slaves. He could have forced his way in, through the open gates, but I opposed it, though no one is more closely connected to him than me. Quirites, keep the man out of your city, and, if he deserves it, load him with heavy chains, or end all fear, with the death of this fated tyrant!’

There was a sound from the crowd, like the murmur from the pine-trees when the wild East wind whistles through them, or like the waves of the sea, heard from far off: but among the confused cries of the noisy throng, one rang out: ‘Who is he?’ They looked at each other’s forehead looking for the horns foretold. Cipus spoke to them again: ‘You have here, whom you seek,’ and, taking the wreath from his head, the people trying to prevent him, he showed them his temples, conspicuous by their twin horns. They all sighed, and lowered their eyes (who could believe it?) and were reluctant to look at that distinguished head. Not allowing him any longer to be dishonoured, they replaced the festal wreath.

But since you were forbidden to enter the city, Cipus, they gave you, as an honour, as much land as you could enclose, with a team of oxen, harnessed to the plough, between dawn and sunset. And they engraved horns on the bronze gateposts, recalling their marvellous nature, to remain there through the centuries.

Bk 15:622-745 Aesculapius, the god, saves Rome from plague

You Muses, goddesses present to poets, reveal, now (since you know, and spacious time cannot betray you) where Aesculapius, son of Coronis, came from, to be joined to the gods of Romulus’s city, that the deep Tiber flows around.

Once, plague tainted the air of Latium, and people’s bodies were ravaged by disease, pallid and bloodless. When they saw that their efforts were useless, and medical skill was useless, wearied with funeral rites, they sought help from the heavens, and travelled to Delphi, set at the centre of the earth, to the oracle of Phoebus, and prayed that he would aid them, in their misery, by a health-giving prophecy, and end their great city’s evil. The ground, the laurel-tree, and the quiver he holds himself, trembled together, and the tripod responded with these words, from the innermost sanctuary, troubling their fearful minds: ‘You should have looked in a nearer place, Romans, for what you seek here: even now, look for it from that nearer place: your help is not from Apollo, to lessen your pain, but Apollo’s son. Go, with good omens, and fetch my child.’

When the senate, in its wisdom, heard the god’s command, it made enquiries as to the city where Phoebus’s son lived, and sent an embassy to sail to the coast of Epidaurus. As soon as the curved ship touched shore, the embassy went to the council of Greek elders, and begged them to give up the god, who, by his presence, might prevent the death of the Ausonian race: so the oracle truly commanded. They disagreed, and were of various minds: some thought that help could not be refused: the majority recommended the god should be kept, and their own wealth not released, or surrendered.

While they wavered, as dusk dispelled the lingering light, and darkness covered the countries of the earth with shadow, then, in your dreams, Aesculapius, god of healing, seemed to stand before your bed, Roman, just as he is seen in his temple, holding a rustic staff in his left hand, and stroking his long beard with his right, and with a calm voice, speaking these words: ‘Have no fear! I will come, and I will leave a statue of myself behind. Take a good look at this snake, that winds, in knots, round my staff, and keep it in your sight continually, until you know it! I will change into this, but greater in size, seeming as great as a celestial body should be when it changes.’ The god vanished with the voice, at once: and sleep, with the voice, and the god: and as sleep fled, kind day dawned.

When morning had put the bright stars to flight, the leaders, still unsure what to do, gathered at the temple complex of that god whom the Romans sought, and begged him to show them by some divine token where he himself wanted to live. They had hardly ceased speaking, when the golden god, in the likeness of a serpent with a tall crest, gave out a hiss as a harbinger of his presence, and by his coming, rocked the statue, the doors, the marble pavement, and the gilded roof. Then he stopped, in the middle of the temple, raising himself breast-high, and gazed round, with eyes flashing fire.

The terrified crowd trembled, but the priest, his sacred locks tied with a white band, knew the divine one, and cried: ‘The god, behold, it is the god! Restrain your minds and tongues, whoever is here! Let the sight of you, O most beautiful one, work for us, and help the people worshipping at your shrine!’ Whoever was there, worshipped the god, as they were told, and all re-echoed the priest’s words, and the Romans gave dutiful support, with mind and voice.

The god nodded, and shook his crest, confirming his favour, by hissing three times in succession, with his flickering tongue. Then he glided down the gleaming steps, and turning his head backwards, gazed at the ancient altars he was abandoning, and saluted his accustomed house, and the temple where he had lived. From there the vast serpent slid over the flower-strewn ground, flexing his body, and made his way through the city centre to the harbour, protected by its curved embankment. He halted there, and, appearing to dismiss the dutiful throng, with a calm expression, settled his body down in the Ausonian ship. It felt the divine burden, and the keel sank under the god’s weight. The Romans were joyful, and, sacrificing a bull on the shore, they loosed the twisted cables of their wreath-crowned ship. A gentle breeze drove the vessel: the god arching skyward, rested his neck heavily on the curving sternpost, and gazed at the dark blue waters.

With gentle breezes he reached Italy, over the Ionian Sea, on the sixth morning. He passed the shores of Lacinium, famous for Juno’s temple, and Scylaceum; he left Iapygia, and avoided the rocks of Amphrisia to larboard, the cliffs of Cocinthia to starboard; he coasted by Romethium, by Caulon and Narycia: he passed the narrow strait of Sicilian Pelorus, and the home of King Aeolus, and the mines of Temese, and headed for Leucosia and the rose-gardens of gentle Paestum.

From there he skirted Capri, and Minerva’s promontory, and Surrentum’s hills well-stocked with vines, Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Parthenope, born for idleness, and headed for the temple of the Cumean Sibyl. By Baiae’s hot pools; and Liternum’s lentisk trees; and the River Volturnus, dragging quantities of sand along in its floodwaters; and Sinuessa, frequented by white doves; and unhealthy Minturnae; and Caïeta, named after her whom Aeneas her foster-son buried; and the home of Antiphates; and marsh-surrounded Trachas; and Circe’s land; and Antium’s firm shore.

When the sailors steered their ship, under sail, to the place (since the sea was now rough) the god unwound his coils, and gliding along, fold after fold, in giant curves, entered his father Apollo’s temple, bordering the yellow strand. When the sea was calm, the Epidaurian left the paternal altars, and having enjoyed the hospitality of his divine father, furrowed the sandy shore as he dragged his rasping scales along, and climbing the rudder, rested his head on the ship’s high sternpost, until he came to Castrum, the sacred city of Lavinium, and the Tiber’s mouths.

All the people, men and women alike, had come thronging from every side, in a crowd, to meet him, along with those who serve your flames, Trojan Vesta, and they hailed the god with joyful cries. As the swift ship sailed up-stream, incense burned with a crackling sound on a series of altars on either bank, and the fumes perfumed the air, and the slaughtered victims bled heat on the sacrificial knives.

Now it entered Rome, the capital of the world. The snake stood erect, and resting his neck on the mast’s summit, turned, and looked for places fit for him to live. The river splits here into two branches, flowing round what is named the Island, stretching its two arms out equally on both sides, with the land between. There the serpent-child of Phoebus landed, and, resuming his divine form, made an end to grief, and came as a health-giver to the city.

Bk 15:745-842 The deification of Julius Caesar

Though Aesculapius came as a stranger to our temples, Caesar is a god in his own city. Outstanding in war or peace, it was not so much his wars that ended in great victories, or his actions at home, or his swiftly won fame, that set him among the stars, a fiery comet, as his descendant. There is no greater achievement among Caesar’s actions than that he stood father to our emperor. Is it a greater thing to have conquered the sea-going Britons; to have lead his victorious ships up the seven-mouthed flood of the papyrus-bearing Nile; to have brought the rebellious Numidians, under Juba of Cinyps, and Pontus, swollen with the name of Mithridates, under the people of Quirinus; to have earned many triumphs and celebrated few; than to have sponsored such a man, with whom, as ruler of all, you gods have richly favoured the human race? Therefore, in order for the emperor not to have been born of mortal seed, Caesar needed to be made a god.

When Venus, the golden mother of Aeneas, saw this, and also saw that a grim death was being readied for Caesar, her high-priest, and an armed conspiracy was under way, she grew pale and said to every god in turn: ‘See the nest of tricks being prepared against me, and with what treachery that life is being attacked, all that is left to me of Trojan Iülus. Will I be the only one always to be troubled by well-founded anxiety: now Diomede’s Calydonian spear wounds me: now the ill-defended walls of Troy confound me, seeing my son Aeneas driven to endless wandering, storm-tossed, entering the silent house of shadows, waging war against Turnus, or, if we speak the truth, with Juno, rather? Why do I recall, now, the ancient sufferings of my race? This present fear inhibits memory of the past: look at those evil knives being sharpened. Prevent them, I beg you, thwart this attempt, and do not allow Vesta’s flames to be quenched by the blood of her priest!’

Venus in her anxiety voiced her fears throughout the heavens, but in vain, troubling the gods, who though they could not break the iron rules of the ancient sisters, nevertheless gave no uncertain omens of imminent disaster. They say weapons, clashing among black clouds, and terrifying trumpets and horns, foretelling crime, were heard from the sky: and that the face of the sun, darkened, gave out a lurid light, over the troubled earth. Often, firebrands were seen, burning in the midst of the stars: often drops of blood rained from the clouds: Lucifer, the morning star, was dulled, with rust-black spots on his disc, and the moon’s chariot was spattered with blood.

The Stygian owl sounded its sad omens in a thousand places: in a thousand places ivory statues wept: and incantations, and warning words, were said to have been heard in the sacred groves. No sacrifice was favourable, and the livers were found with cleft lobes, among the entrails, warning of great and impending civil conflict. In the forum, and around men’s houses, and the temples of the gods, dogs howled at night, and they say the silent dead walked, and earthquakes shook the city. Still the gods’ warnings could not prevent the conspiracy, or fate’s fulfillment.

Drawn swords were carried into the curia, the sacred senate house: no place in the city would satisfy them, as scene for the act of evil murder, but this. Then in truth Cytherean Venus struck her breast with both hands, and tried to hide Caesar in a cloud, as Paris was once snatched from the attack of Atrides, and Aeneas escaped Diomede’s sword.

Then Jupiter, the father, spoke: ‘Alone, do you think you will move the immoveable fates, daughter? You are allowed yourself to enter the house of the three: there you will see all things written, a vast labour, in bronze and solid iron, that, eternal and secure, does not fear the clashing of the skies, the lightning’s anger, or any forces of destruction. There you will find the fate of your descendants cut in everlasting adamant. I have read them myself, and taken note of them in my mind, and I will tell you, so that you are no longer blind to the future.

This descendant of yours you suffer over, Cytherean, has fulfilled his time, and the years he owes to earth are done. You, and Augustus, his ‘son’, will ensure that he ascends to heaven as a god, and is worshipped in the temples. Augustus, as heir to his name, will carry the burden placed upon him alone, and will have us with him, in battle, as the most courageous avenger of his father’s murder. Under his command, the conquered walls of besieged Mutina will sue for peace; Pharsalia will know him; Macedonian Philippi twice flow with blood; and the one who holds Pompey’s great name, will be defeated in Sicilian waters; and a Roman general’s Egyptian consort, trusting, to her cost, in their marriage, will fall, her threat that our Capitol would bow to her city of Canopus, proved vain.

Why enumerate foreign countries, for you, or the nations living on either ocean shore? Wherever earth contains habitable land, it will be his: and even the sea will serve him!

When the world is at peace, he will turn his mind to the civil code, and, as the most just of legislators, make law. He will direct morality by his own example, and, looking to the future ages and coming generations, he will order a son, Tiberius, born of his virtuous wife, to take his name, and his responsibilities. He will not attain his heavenly home, and the stars, his kindred, until he is old, and his years equal his merits. Meanwhile take up Caesar’s spirit from his murdered corpse, and change it into a star, so that the deified Julius may always look down from his high temple on our Capitol and forum.’

Bk 15:843-870 Ovid’s celebration of Augustus

He had barely finished, when gentle Venus stood in the midst of the senate, seen by no one, and took up the newly freed spirit of her Caesar from his body, and preventing it from vanishing into the air, carried it towards the glorious stars. As she carried it, she felt it glow and take fire, and loosed it from her breast: it climbed higher than the moon, and drawing behind it a fiery tail, shone as a star.

Seeing his son’s good works, Caesar acknowledges they are greater than his own, and delights in being surpassed by him. Though the son forbids his own actions being honoured above his father’s, nevertheless fame, free and obedient to no one’s orders, exalts him, despite himself, and denies him in this one thing. So great Atreus cedes the title to Agamemnon: so Theseus outdoes Aegeus, and Achilles his father Peleus: and lastly, to quote an example worthy of these two, so Saturn is less than Jove.

Jupiter commands the heavenly citadels, and the kingdoms of the threefold universe. Earth is ruled by Augustus. Each is a father and a master. You gods, the friends of Aeneas, to whom fire and sword gave way; you deities of Italy; and Romulus, founder of our city; and Mars, father of Romulus; Vesta, Diana, sacred among Caesar’s ancestral gods, and you, Phoebus, sharing the temple with Caesar’s Vesta; you, Jupiter who hold the high Tarpeian citadel; and all you other gods, whom it is fitting and holy for a poet to invoke, I beg that the day be slow to arrive, and beyond our own lifetime, when Augustus shall rise to heaven, leaving the world he rules, and there, far off, shall listen, with favour, to our prayers!

Bk 15:871-879 Ovid’s Envoi

And now the work is done, that Jupiter’s anger, fire or sword cannot erase, nor the gnawing tooth of time. Let that day, that only has power over my body, end, when it will, my uncertain span of years: yet the best part of me will be borne, immortal, beyond the distant stars. Wherever Rome’s influence extends, over the lands it has civilised, I will be spoken, on people’s lips: and, famous through all the ages, if there is truth in poet’s prophecies, –vivam - I shall live.
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Re: Metamorphoses, by Ovid

Postby admin » Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:04 am

Part 1 of 9

Index

Abanteus
Of Abas, King of Argos. Argive.

Abantiades
Bk 5:107-148. Bk 5:200-249. An epithet of Perseus, as the great-grandson of Abas.

Abaris
Bk 5:74-106. A Caucasian. A companion of Phineus killed by Perseus.

Abas(1)
Bk 4:604-662. BkXV:143-175. King of Argos, father of Acrisius, great grandfather of Perseus.

Abas(2)
Bk 14:483-511. A companion of Diomede. Venus transforms him into a bird.

Abas(3)
Bk 12:290-326. A centaur.

Abas(4)
Bk 5:107-148. A warrior friend of Perseus.

Absyrtus
Bk 7:1-74. Medea's young brother.

Acarnania
Bk 8:547-610. A coastal region of western central Greece, bordering the Ionian Sea, bounded to the south-east by the River Achelous, and scene of the Calydonian Boar Hunt.

Acastus
King of Iolchos in Thessaly, son of Pelias.
Bk 8:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk 11:346-409. He absolves Peleus of blood-guilt.

Acestes
Bk 14:75-100. A Trojan, a friend of Aeneas, living at Eryx on Sicily. Aeneas visits him, and sacrifices, and pays honour at his father, Anchises's tomb, who had previously died there. (See Virgil, The Aeneid III 700, and V)

Achaemenides
Bk 14:154-222. A companion of Ulysses, wrongly believed lost near Aetna.

Achaia
Bk 3:511-527. Bk 5:294-331. Bk 7:501-613. A name for the Greek mainland, derived from a region in the northern Peloponnese. Hence the Acheans, for the name of the people who fought against Troy in Homer's Iliad.
Bk 4:604-662. Its peoples accept the worship of Bacchus.
Bk 5:572-641. Arethusa's country.
Bk 7:100-158. The Argonauts are Achaeans.
Bk 8:260-328. It is threatened by Diana's avenging wild boar.
Bk 12:64-145. The country of the Greeks, who attack Troy.
Bk 15:259-306. It contained the destroyed cities of Helice and Buris.

Acheloia
Bk 9:394-417. Callirhoe, daughter of Achelous.

Acheloides
Bk 5:533-571. The Sirens, the daughters of Achelous.

Achelous
Bk 8:547-610. A river and river god, whose waters separated Acarnania and Aetolia. He offers hospitality to Theseus and his companions and tells the story of Perimele.
Bk 8:611-678. Pirithous accuses him of too much credulity concerning the power of the gods to alter human forms.
Bk 8:725-776. He tells of Proteus, and of Erysichthon.
Bk 8:843-884. He tells of Mestra.
Bk 9:1-88. He tells the story of how he wrestled with Hercules and lost one of his horns.
Bk 9:89-158. He is fortunate compared to Nessus.
Bk 14:75-100. The Sirens are his daughters.

Acheron
A river of the underworld, the underworld itself.
Bk 5:533-571. The god of the river, father of Ascalaphus by the nymph Orphne.
Bk 11:474-572. It is in the deepest pit of the infernal regions.

Achilles
The Greek hero of the Trojan War. The son of Peleus, king of Thessaly, and the sea-goddess Thetis, (See Homer's Iliad).
Bk 8:260-328. His father is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk 11:221-265. He is conceived when Peleus holds the shape-changing Thetis, and forces her to adopt her true form.
Bk 12:64-145. He is a Greek hero at Troy, and defeats the seemingly invulnerable Cycnus(3).
Bk 12:146-209. He sacrifices to Pallas, and asks Nestor to tell the story of Caeneus.
Bk 12:290-326. Nestor tells him of his father's armour bearer.
Bk 12:579-628. Bk 13:481-575. He is killed by Paris's arrow, at Apollo's instigation. The Greeks dispute over the ownership of his armour.
Bk 13:123-381. Victim of an unequal fate. (He famously wished for a short and glorious life, rather than a long, inglorious one.) Dolon was promised his horses for spying on the Greeks.
Bk 13:429-480. He appears as a ghost demanding the sacrifice of Polyxena.
Bk 13:576-622. He had killed Memnon in battle.
Bk 15:843-870. His achievements surpass those of his father Peleus.

Acis
The lover of Galatea. The son of Faunus and Symaethis.
(See Claude Lorrain's painting - Landscape with Acis and Galatea - Gemäldegalerie, Dresden)
Bk 13:738-788. Galatea loves him.
Bk 13:789-869. Polyphemus threatens him.
Bk 13:870-897. Polyphemus kills him with a rock and he is changed by Galatea into his ancestral form of a river.

Acmon
Bk 14:483-511. A companion of Diomede. He insults Venus and is transformed into a bird.

Acoetes
Bk 3:572-596. A Tyrrhenian from Maeonia, a ship's captain and priest of Bacchus, captured by Pentheus. There is the suggestion later that Acoetes is a manifestation of Bacchus himself ( 'nec enim praesentior illo est deus'). (See Euripides: The Bacchae)
Bk 3:597-637. He tells of them finding Bacchus on Chios, and how he knew that the boy was a god, and tried to avoid sacrilege.
Bk 3:638-691. He escapes the transformation of the ship and crew by Bacchus.
Bk 3:692-733. He vanishes from Pentheus's prison mysteriously.

Aconteus
Bk 5:200-249. A companion of Perseus, inadvertently turned to stone.

Acrisioniades
Bk 5:30-73. Perseus, as the grandson of Acrisius.

Acrisius
Bk 3:528-571. King of Argos, the son of Abas, father of Danae, and grandfather of Perseus. He opposed the worship of Bacchus-Dionysus.
Bk 4:604-662. He rejects the divine origin of Bacchus and Perseus, but will live to regret it. He is kin to Cadmus and to Bacchus son of Semele, Cadmus's daughter, because Danaus is his ancestor whose line runs back to Belus, brother of Agenor, who is father of Cadmus. Both Belus and Agenor are sons of Neptune.
Bk 5:200-249. He is ousted by his brother Proetus, but has his kingdom restored to him, though little deserving it, by Perseus.

Acropolis
Confused with Areopagus.

Acrota
Bk 14:609-622. A mythical Alban king.

Actaeon
Bk 3:138-164. Grandson of Cadmus, son of Autonoe, called Hyantius from an ancient name for Boeotia.
Bk 3:165-205. He sees Diana bathing naked and is turned into a stag.
Bk 3:206-231. He is pursued by his hounds. The dogs are named.
Bk 3:232-252. He is torn to pieces by his own pack. (See the Metope of Temple E at Selinus - the Death of Actaeon - Palermo, National Museum: and Titian's painting - the Death of Actaeon - National Gallery, London.)

Actaeus
Bk 2:531-565. Atticus, belonging to Attica in Greece.
Bk 2:708-736. The Actaean hill, referring to the Athenian Acropolis.
Book VI:675-721. Used of Orithyia of Athens.
Bk 8:152-182. Minos demands a tribute of young men and girls selected by lot every nine years from Athens to feed the Minotaur.
Actium
The promontory in Epirus site of the famous naval battle in the bay between Octavian (later Augustus Caesar) and Antony in 31BC. (It lies opposite the modern port of Préveza on the Gulf of Amvrakia.)
Antony was defeated by Octavians' admiral, Agrippa and the outcome led to Cleopatra's downfall.
Bk 13:705-737. Passed by Aeneas. Associated with Apollo.

Actorides
A descendant of Actor.
Bk 5:74-106. Of Eurytus.
Bk 8:260-328. Eurytus and Cleatus present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.

Admetus, see Pheretiades
Bk 8:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.

Adonis
The son of Myrrha by her father Cinyras, born after her transformation into a myrrh-tree. (As such he is a vegetation god born from the heart of the wood.)
Bk 10:503-559. Venus falls in love with him.
Bk 10:560-637. She tells him the story of Atalanta and Hippomenes.
Bk 10:681-707. She warns him to avoid savage creatures.
Bk 10:708-739. He ignores her warning and is killed by a wild boar that gashes his thigh. His blood becomes the windflower, the anemone.

Aeacides
Bk 7:453-500. The descendants of Aeacus.
Bk 7:796-865. Phocus as a son of Aeacus.
Bk 8:1-80. The troops mustered on Aegina to fight Minos.
Bk 11:221-265. Bk 11:266-345. Bk 11:346-409. Bk 12:290-326. Peleus son of Aeacus.
Bk 12:64-145. Bk 12:579-628. Bk 13:481-575. Achilles as the son of Peleus.
Bk 13:1-122. Ajax and Achilles whose fathers were the brothers Peleus and Telamon.

Aeacus
Bk 7:453-500. The son of Jupiter and Aegina, grandson of Asopus, the river-god of the north-eastern Peloponnese. He names his island, in the Saronic gulf, Aegina after his mother. Its ancient name was Oenopia. He refuses to ally himself with Minos against Athens.
Bk 7:501-613. He recounts the history of the plague at Aegina.
Bk 7:796-865. He provides Cephalus with men and weapons.
Bk 9:418-438. Bk 9:439-516. Jupiter recognising his piety wishes that he could remove the burden of old age from him.
Bk 11:194-220. The father of Telamon and Peleus.
Bk 11:221-265. The father of Peleus.
Bk 13:1-122. The father of Telamon, and grandfather of Ajax. The acknowledged son of Jupiter by Aegina.

Aeas
Bk 1:568-587. A river in Epirus.

Aeetes
King of Colchis, son of Sol and the Oceanid Perse, brother of Circe, and father of Medea.
Bk 7:1-73. The Argonauts reach his court, and request the return of the Golden Fleece. This fleece was that of the divine ram on which Phrixus had fled from Orchemonos, to avoid being sacrificed. Iolcus could never prosper until it was brought back to Thessaly. King Aeetes is reluctant and sets Jason demanding tasks as a pre-condition for its return.
Bk 7:159-178. Medea regrets her betrayal of her father and country.

Aeetias
Medea, as the daughter of Aeetes.

Aegaeon
Bk 2:1-30. Briareus, one of the hundred-handed giants. A name also for the earliest Heracles. He is depicted on the palace of the Sun.

Aegaeus, Aegean
The Aegean Sea between Greece and Asia Minor.
Bk 9:439-516. Miletus crosses it to found the city of that name in Asia Minor.
Bk 11:650-709. Ceyx is drowned there in a southerly gale.

Aegeus
Bk 7:350-403. The father of Theseus, a king of Athens, and son of Pandion. He gives refuge to Medea and marries her.
Bk 7:404-424. His son Theseus by Aethra, daughter of Pittheus of Troezen, is unknown to him, but comes to Athens. Aegeus recognises a sword he has left under a stone, as a trial, successfully attained by Theseus, in time to dash Medea's poisoned cup from Theseus's lips.
Bk 7:425-452. He gives thanks for Theseus's escape.
Bk 7:453-500. He prepares for war with Minos of Crete.
Bk 15:843-870. He is surpassed by his son Theseus.

Aegides
Bk 8:152-182. Bk 8:376-424. Bk 12:290-326. Theseus, son of Aegeus.

Aegina(1)
The daughter of the river god Asopus (of the north-eastern Peloponnese) , hence called Asopis.
Bk 6:103-128 . Arachne depicts her rape by Jupiter in the form of a flame.
Bk 7:453-500. Aeacus her son names the island of Aegina(2) after her.
Bk 7:614-660. Aeacus invokes her in his plea to Jupiter.
Bk 11:194-220. Her grandsons are Telamon and Peleus allowing them to claim Jupiter as their grandfather.

Aegina(2)
Bk 7:453-500. An island in the Saronic Sea between Attica and Argolis. Named by Aeacus after his mother. Once called Oenopia.
It refuses to aid Minos in his war on Attica. (The later conflict with Athens compelled the surrender of the island in 459BC and its destruction as an economic power.)

Aegyptius
Of Egypt, the north African country.
Bk 5:294-331. Pretended by the Emathides to have given refuge to the gods in their war with the giants.
Bk 15:745-842. Ruled by Cleopatra.

Aello
Bk 13:705-737. A harpy on the islands of the Strophades encountered by Aeneas.

Aeneades
Bk 15:622-745. A descendant of Aeneas. The Romans.

Aeneas
Bk 15:745-842. A Trojan prince, the son of Venus and Anchises, and the hero of Virgil's Aeneid.
(See Turner's etching and painting, The Golden Bough- British Museum and Tate Gallery)
Bk 13:623-639. He leaves ruined Troy carrying his father, and the sacred icons of Venus, and, with his son Ascanius also, sails to Delos where he sacrifices to the Delian gods.
Bk 13:640-674. Bk 13:675-704. He consults the oracle of Apollo and is told to seek out his ancient mother and ancestral shores. He receives the gift of a cup of Alcon's design from King Anius of Delos.
Bk 13:705-737. He reaches Crete, and then sails to Sicily. (See Virgil, The Aneid III)
Bk 14:75-100. He reaches Carthage, deserts Dido, and reaches Cumae. (See Virgil, The Aeneid I, IV, and V)
Bk 14:101-153. He visits the Sibyl, who conducts him to the Underworld, having plucked the golden bough. He sees his father's shade in the fields of Elysium. ( See Virgil, The Aeneid VI)
Bk 14:154-222. Bk 15:622-745. He returns from the Underworld, and sails from Cumae north, along the western Italian coast, to Caieta (modern Gaeta) where he marks the funeral of Caieta his old nurse, who gives her name to the place. (See Virgil's Aeneid, the opening lines of book VII.)
Bk 14:435-444. He sets up Caieta's tomb and inscribes an epitaph.
Bk 14:445-482. He wins the throne of Latinus, and marries his daughter, Lavinia. He wages war with the Rutulians under Turnus, and is supported by Evander.
Bk 14:566-580. He is deified as Indiges.
Bk 15:418-452. Helenus prophesied that Aeneas carried the destiny of Troy and its descendant city, Rome.
Bk 15:745-842. Venus once saved him from Diomede, by veiling him in a cloud.
Bk 15:843-870. Ovid calls on the gods friendly to Aeneas.

Aeolia virgo
Bk 6:103-128. Canace, the daughter of Aeolus. Her rape by Neptune in the form of a bull is depicted by Arachne.

Aeolides
A descendant of Aeolus.
Book IV:512-542. Applied to his son Athamas.
Book VI:675-721. Applied to his grandson Cephalus.
Bk 9:439-516. The six sons of Aeolus by his wife Enarete, who married their six sisters. Robert Graves suggests they were all Titans, and not bound by the rules of incest, and that the parents and six pairs of children represented the seven planetary deities.
Bk 13:1-122. Applied to Sisyphus.
Bk 14:101-153. Applied to Misenus.

Aeolis
Bk 11:573-649. Alcyone, the daughter of Aeolus.

Aeolius
Bk 7:350-403. Of Aeolis in Asia Minor.

Aeolus
Bk 1:244-273. Bk 14:75-100. The king of the winds. His cave is on the islands of Lipari (the Aeolian Islands) that include Stromboli, off Sicily.
Bk 4:464-511. Juno is angry at his son Athamas, and contemplates his other son, Sisyphus in Hades.
Bk 4:663-705. He imprisons the winds in the cave below Etna.
Bk 6:103-128. He is the father of Canace.
Bk 7:350-403. Bk 11:410-473. The father of Alcyone.
Bk 11:474-572. Ceyx calls to him, as his father-in-law, in extremis.
Bk 11:710-748. Aeolus calms the sea for seven days in winter, 'the halcyon days', while the transformed Alcyone rears his grandsons.
Bk 14:223-319. He rules the Tuscan deep. He gives Ulysses the winds imprisoned in a bull's hide bag.
Aesacus
Bk 11:749-795. The son of Priam and Alexirrhoe, a prince of Troy, and half-brother to Hector.
Bk 11:749-795. He chases Hesperie who is killed by a snake. In penance he tries to kill himself, but is turned by Tethys into a diving bird, probably the merganser, mergus serrator, from mergus, a diver.
Bk 12:1-38. His father Priam mourns for him thinking him dead.

Aesar
Bk 15:1-59. A river in Lower Italy. The site of Crotona.

Aesculapius
Bk 2:612-632. The son of Coronis and Apollo. He is saved by Apollo from his mother's body and given to Chiron the Centaur to rear. He is represented in the sky by the constellation Ophiucus near Scorpius, depicting a man entwined in the coils of a serpent, consisting of the split constellation, Serpens Cauda and Serpens Caput, which contains Barnard's star, having the greatest proper motion of any star and being the second nearest to the sun.
Bk 2:633-675. His fate is foretold by Ocyrhoe.
Bk 15:479-546. He restores Hippolytus to life.
Bk 15:622-745. He saves Rome from the plague, and becomes a resident god. (His cult centre was Epidaurus where there was a statue of the god with a golden beard. Cicero mentions that Dionysius the Elder, Tyrant of Syracuse wrenched off the gold. ('On the Nature of the Gods, Bk III 82)

Aeson
A Thessalian prince of Iolchos, father of Iason. His half-brother Pelias usurped his throne.
Bk 7:74-99. Bk 7:100-158 . Jason is his son.
Bk 7:159-178. He is near death, so Jason asks Medea to renew his life.
Bk 7:234-293. Medea restores his youth.

Aesonides, Aesonius heros
Bk 7:1-73. Bk 7:74-99. Bk 7:159-178. Bk 7:234-293.
Bk 8:376-424. Jason, the son of Aeson.

Aethalion
Bk 3:638-691. A seaman, companion of Acoetes.

Aethion
Bk 5:107-148. An Ethiopian prophet, killed in the fight between Perseus and Phineus.

Aethiopia, Aethiops
Bk 2:227-271. The country Ethiopia in north-east Africa bordering the Red Sea, containing the Mountains of the Moon. During Phaethon's fatal chariot ride the sun burnt the skins of its peoples black. Aethiops, means Ethiopian.
Bk 5:107-148. Culmination of the fight at Cepheus's court. He is an Ethiopian king.
Bk 15:307-360. The country has lakes with waters that cause delerium.

Aethon
Bk 2:150-177. One of the four horses of the Sun.

Aetna
Bk 2:201-226. A volcanic mountain in Sicily.
Bk 4:663-705. Aeolus imprisons the winds there.
Bk 5:332-384. Bk 14:1-74. It covers the head of the giant, Typhoeus.
Bk 5:425-486. Ceres lights her torches at Etna's fires in her search for Persephone in the night.
Bk 8:260-328. It is a distinguishing feature of Sicily.
Bk 13:738-788. Telemus the seer arrives there.
Bk 13:789-869. Polyphemus compares the fire of love to having Aetna's fires inside his breast.
Bk 13:870-897. His voice shakes Aetna.
Bk 14:1-74. Glaucus leaves it behind.
Bk 14:154-222. Achaemenides was wrongly believed lost there.
Bk 15:307-360. Volcanic action.

Aetola arma
Bk 14:527-565. The assistance of Diomede.

Aetolia
Bk 14:445-482. The region of eastern mid-Greece containing Calydon and Chalcis. Diomede is its hero.
Bk 14:527-565. He refuses help to the Rutuli.

Aetolius heros
Bk 14:445-482. Diomede.

Agamemnon
The king of Mycenae, son of Atreus, brother of Menelaus, husband of Clytaemnestra, father of Orestes, Iphigenia, and Electra. The leader of the Greek army in the Trojan War. See Homer's Iliad, and Aeschylus's Oresteian tragedies.
Bk 12:579-628. He dares not compete for the arms of Achilles and passes the responsibility for choosing between Aiax and Ulysses to the assembled captains.
Bk 12:1-38. Bk 13:123-381. He sacrificed Iphigenia at Aulis.
Bk 13:123-381.Prompted by a dream he was prepared to abandon the war.
Bk 13:429-480. He moors the fleet on a Thracian beach returning from Troy, and there Achilles's ghost appears demanding the sacrifice of Polyxena.
Bk 13:640-674. He snatches the daughters of Anius.
Bk 15:843-870. He surpasses his father Atreus.

Aganippe
Bk 5:294-331. A famous fountain of the Muses on Mount Helicon. Pausanias says (Bk 9:xxix, Boeotia) that Aganippe was a daughter of Termessos, another stream on the mountain

Agave
A daughter of Cadmus, who married Echion and was the mother of Pentheus.
Bk 3:692-733. A Maenad, she destroys her son Pentheus, not recognising him in the madness of the sacred mysteries.

Agenor
Bk 2:833-875. Europa's father. King of Phoenicia, son of Neptune, father of Cadmus and brother of Belus. His capital cities are Sidon and Tyre in the Lebanon.
Bk 3:1-49. His son is Cadmus whom he sends to find Europa.
Bk 3:50-94. His son Cadmus kills the Serpent.
Bk 3:95-114. Cadmus sows the Dragon's teeth.

Agenorides
A descendant of Agenor.
Bk 4:563-603. Cadmus.
Bk 4:753-803. Perseus.

Aglauros, Cecropides
Bk 2:531-565. One of the three daughters of King Cecrops.
Bk 2:737-751. Mercury elicits her help.
Bk 2:787-811. Envy poisons her heart.
BkII:812-832. She is turned to stone by Mercury.

Agyrtes
Bk 5:107-148. An Ethiopian killed in the fight between Perseus and Phineus.

Aiax(1)
A hero of the Trojan War, the son of Telamon and grandson of Aeacus.
Bk 10:143-219. Bk 13:382-398. He shares with Hyacinthus the flower (hyacinthos grapta - the blue larkspur) that bears the marks of woe, AI AI, and that spells his name, ΑΙΑΣ.
Bk 12:579-628. He competes for the arms of Achilles.
Bk 13:1-122. He speaks in his own cause, attacking Ulysses. He fought in single combat with Hector and was undefeated, rescued Ulysses, and saved the ships.
Bk 13:123-381. Ulysses responds with a speech extolling intelligence above mere brawn and courage, and arguing that a man should be judged on his abilities not his ancestry. He was deceived by Achilles's female disguise. He was ready to turn tail when Agamemnon gave the order to abandon the war.
Bk 13:382-398. Defeated in the contest for the arms, he kills himself in his rage. From his blood a flower grows, see above.
Bk 14:445-482. His rape of Cassandra brought the wrath of Minerva on the Greeks.

Aiax(2)
Bk 12:579-628. Bk 13:1-122. Aiax moderatior 'the lesser'. The son of Oileus. He dare not compete for the arms of Achilles.

Alastor
Bk 13:123-381. A Lycian, killed by Ulysses.

Alba
Bk 14:609-622. Bk 14:623-697. Of the early Latin kingdom. Also the king who succeeded Latinus.

Albula
Bk 14:320-396. The Tiber. An ancient name for the river of Rome.

Alcander
Bk 13:123-381. A Lycian, killed by Ulysses.

Alcathous
Bk 7:425-452. The son of Pelops, founder of the city of Megara, hence Megara is called urbs Alcathoi. Near Megara is the place where Theseus killed Sciron.
Bk 8:1-80. A term for the city of Megara on the Isthmus.

Alcidamas
Bk 7:350-403. The father of Ctesylla. An inhabitant of Carthaea. His daughter gave birth to a dove.

Alcimedon
Bk 3:597-637. A seaman, companion of Acoetes.

Alcides
A descendant of Alceus, father of Amphitryon, usually applied to Hercules his reputed son.
Bk 9:1-88. Bk 9:89-158. Bk 9:211-272. Bk 11:194-220.
Bk 12:536-579. Of Hercules.

Alcinous
Bk 14:527-565. The king of the Phaeacians (Phaeacia is probably Corcyra, =Corfu), on whose coast Ulysses was washed ashore. One of his ships was turned to stone. See Homer, The Odyssey XIII.

Alcithoe, Minyeias
Bk 4:1-30. The daughter of Minyas, who opposed the worship of Bacchus.
Bk 4:274-316. She tells the story of Salmacis.

Alcmaeon
Bk 9:394-417. The son of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle. He avenges his father's death, and is in turn murdered in the chain of revenge following the war of the Seven against Thebes. Themis prophesies the events.

Alcmena, Alcmene
The daughter of Electryon king of Tiryns, wife of Amphitryon, and mother of Hercules by the god Jupiter.
Bk 6:103-128. Arachne depicts her rape by Jupiter disguised as Amphitryon.
Bk 8:515-546. Deianira, wife of Hercules, sister of Meleager, is her daughter-in-law.
Bk 9:1-88. The mother of Hercules.
Bk 9:211-272. His funeral pyre attacks only the mortal part of him inherited from Alcmene.
Bk 9:273-323. She tells of Hercules's birth and the transformation of her servant Galanthis.
Bk 9:394-417. She comforts Iole. Iolaus, her grandson, appears to them, his youth renewed. (He is the grandson of Alcmene, since his father Iphicles is her son by Amphitryon, and Hercules mortal half-brother, the twin or tanist of the sun-god. Iolaus's renewal and appearance at the threshold may indicate his cult as a representative of the risen sun of the new year. His cult was celebrated in Sardinia where he was linked to Daedalus.)

Alcon
Bk 13:675-704. A Boeotian, and a famous engraver.

Alcyone
Bk 7:350-403. The daughter of Aeolus, granddaughter of Polypemon, and wife of Ceyx, changed into a kingfisher or halcyon. They foolishly compared themselves to Juno and Jupiter, for which the gods drowned Ceyx in a storm. Alcyone leapt into the sea to join him, and both were transformed into kingfishers. In antiquity it was believed that the hen-kingfisher layed her eggs in a floating nest in the Halcyon Days around the winter solstice, when the sea is made calm by Aeolus, Alcyone's father. (The kingfisher actually lays its eggs in a hole, normally in a riverbank, by freshwater and not by seawater.)
Bk 11:346-409. She begs Ceyx not to fight the wolf from the marsh.
Bk 11:410-473. She reproaches him for leaving her in order to visit the oracle.
Bk 11:474-572. Ceyx calls to her as he is drowning.
Bk 11:573-649. She prays for his return at Juno's shrine.
Bk 11:650-709. In a dream Morpheus reveals himself in the form of Ceyx and tells her of his death.
Bk 11:710-748. His body returns to her on the tide, and they are transformed into halcyons.

Alemon
Bk 15:1-59.The father of Myscelos, and founder of Crotona in Italy.

Alemonides
Bk 15:1-59. Myscelos, son of Alemon.

Alexiroe, Alexirrhoe
Bk 11:749-795. A nymph, the daughter of the river god Granicus, and the mother of Aesacus by Priam.

Almo
Bk 14:320-396. A tributary of the Tiber.

Aloidae
The sons of Aloeus, namely Otus and Ephialtes, who are actually the children of Neptune by Iphimeida wife of Aloeus.
Bk 6:103-128. Arachne depicts the rape by Neptune.

Alpes
Bk 2:201-226. Bk 14:772-804. The Alps mountain chain in northern Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France etc.

Alpheias
Bk 5:487-532. Arethusa, loved by Alpheus the river god.

Alphenor
Bk 6:204-266. One of Niobe's seven sons killed by Apollo and Diana.

Alpheus
Bk 2:227-271. A river and river-god of Elis in western Greece. Olympia is near the lower reaches of the river. (The idea for Coleridge's 'Alph, the sacred river' in Kubla Khan?)
Bk 5:487-532. He loves Arethusa.
Bk 5:572-641. He merges with Arethusa after she has turned to water.

Althaea
Bk 8:425-450. The mother of Meleager, and wife of Oeneus, king of Calydon. The sister of the Thestiadae, Plexippus and Toxeus. She seeks revenge for their deaths at the hands of her own son, Meleager.
Bk 8:451-514. She throws into the fire the piece of wood that is linked to Meleager's life, and which she once rescued from the flames, at the time of the Fates prophecy to her.

Amathus
Bk 10:220-242. Bk 10:503-559.A city of Cyprus, sacred to Venus. A place with rich mineral deposits, famous for its mines.

Amazon
Bk 15:552-621. One of the Amazons, a race of warlike women living by the River Thermodon, probably based on the Scythian warrior princesses of the Black Sea area (See Herodotus). In particular Hippolyte the mother of Hippolytus by Theseus.

Ambracia
Bk 13:705-737. A city of Epirus in north western Greece. The land there one fought over by the gods. The judge in the contest was turned to stone. Aeneas passes it.

Amenanus
Bk 15:259-306. A river of Sicily, subject to variable flow.

Ammon(1)
Bk 4:663-705. Bk 5:1-29. An Egyptian and Lybian god, worshipped in the form of a Ram-headed deity, identified by the Romans and Greeks with Jupiter and Zeus.

Ammon(2)
Bk 5:107-148. A famous boxer, friend of Perseus, brother of Broteas, killed by Phineus.

Amor, Cupid
Bk 1:473-503. God of love.
Bk 1:601-621. Opposes Shame (Pudor) in Jupiter's mind over the sacrifice of Io as a gift to Juno.
Bk 4:753-803. He waves the marriage torch with Hymen at Perseus's marriage to Andromeda.
Bk 5:332-384. His power is linked to that of Venus Aphrodite.
Bk 10:1-85. He has power even in Hades.
Bk 10:503-559. He is often portrayed naked with his quiver, and is compared to Adonis.

Amphiaraus
A Greek seer, one of the heroes, the Oeclides, at the Calydonian Boar Hunt. The son of Oecleus, father of Alcmaeon, and husband of Eriphyle.
Bk 8:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk 9:394-417. Fighting in the war of the Seven against Thebes he is swallowed up alive by the earth.

Amphimedon
Bk 5:74-106. A Libyan follower of Phineus, killed by Perseus.

Amphion
Bk 15:418-452. The husband of Niobe, and son of Jupiter and Antiope. The King of Thebes.
Bk 6:146-203. His art is mentioned, that is his magical use of the lyre. His music enabled him to build the walls of Thebes.
Bk 6:204-266. The death of his seven sons.
Bk 6:267-312. He kills himself in grief.
Bk 6:401-438. He and his children are mourned, and Niobe blamed.

Amphissos
Bk 9:324-393. The son of Apollo and Dryope. He founded the city of Oeta and built a temple of Apollo there

Amphitrite
Bk 1:1-30. A sea-goddess, daughter of Nereus and wife of Neptune. The Nereid whom Poseidon married, here representing the sea. He had courted Thetis another of the Nereids but desisted when it was prophesied that any son born to her would be greater than his father. Thetis bore Achilles.

Amphitryon
The son of Alceus, and king of Thebes, husband of Alcmena and supposed father of Hercules.
Bk 6:103-128. Arachne depicts how Jupiter disguised as Amphitryon raped Alcmene.
Bk 9:89-158. Bk 15:1-59. Hercules is his reputed son.

Amphitryoniades
Bk 15:1-59. Hercules, as the supposed son of Amphitryon.

Amphrisia saxa
Bk 15:622-745. Unknown rocks in lower Italy, near to the cliffs of Cocinthus.

Amphrysus
Bk 1:568-587. A river in Thessaly.
Bk 7:179-233. Medea gathers magic herbs there.

Ampycides
Mopsus, son of Ampyx.
Bk 8:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk 8:329-375. He strikes the boar, but Diana has stolen his spear point in flight.
Bk 12:429-535. He is present at the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs.

Ampycus
Bk 5:107-148. A priest of Ceres, killed by Phineus.

Ampyx(1)
Bk 5:149-199. A follower of Phineus, turned to stone by the Gorgon's head.
Bk 8:260-328. His son Mopsus is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.

Ampyx(2)
Bk 12:429-535. One of the Lapithae.

Amulius
Bk 14:772-804.The younger son of the Alban king Proca. He usurped his elder brother Numitor, but was dethroned by Romulus and Remus the grandsons of Numitor.

Amyclae
A town in Laconia.
Bk 8:260-328. Home of Hippocoön, and of his sons who are present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk 10:143-219. The home of Hyacinthus.

Amyclides
An epithet of Hyacinthus as the descendant of Amyclas, builder of Amyclae.

Amycus
Bk 12:245-289. A centaur. He kills Celadon and is killed by Pelates at the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs.

Amymone
Bk 2:227-271. A famous spring at Argos.

Amyntor
Bk 8:260-328. King of the Dolopians of Thessaly, father of Phoenix.
Bk 12:290-326. Gives Crantor to Peleus to be his armour-bearer, as a peace-pledge after defeat in battle.

Amythaon
Bk 15:307-360. The son of Cretheus, and father of Melampus, noted for wisdom.

Anaphe
An island in the Cyclades.
Bk 7:453-500. Allied to Crete.

Anapis
Bk 5:385-424. A river and river god of Sicily, who loves Cyane.

Anaxarete
Bk 14:698-771. A maiden of Cyprus. She rejects Iphis, and is turned to stone.

Ancaeus
An Arcadian.
Bk 8:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk 8:376-424. He is killed by the boar.
Bk 8:515-546. Meleager envies him his honourable death.

Anchises
The son of Capys and father of Aeneas by the goddess Venus.
Bk 9:418-438. Venus wishes to ward off old age from him.
Bk 13:640-674. He asks after Anius's children.
Bk 13:675-704. Anius gives him the parting gift of a sceptre.
Bk 14:75-100. Aeneas pays honour at his tomb, he having died at Drepanum (Trapani) in Sicily. (Note: Trapani was the site of the naval battle of 241BC when the Roman fleet defeated the Carthaginians ending the first Punic War)
Bk 14:101-153. Aeneas meets his ghost in Avernus.

Andraemon(1)
Bk 9:324-393. The father of Amphissus, and husband of Dryope.

Andraemon(2)
Bk 13:1-122. An Aetolian king, father of Thoas.

Androgeos
Bk 7:453-500. A son of Minos, King of Crete. Killed while visiting Attica, Minos sets out to avenge him.

Andromeda
The daughter of Cepheus and Cassiope who was chained to a rock and exposed to a sea-monster Cetus because of her mother's sin. She is represented by the constellation Andromeda which contains the Andromeda galaxy M31 a spiral like our own, the most distant object visible to the naked eye. Cetus is represented by the constellation of Cetus, the Whale, between Pisces and Eridanus which contains the variable star, Mira.
Bk 4:663-705. She is chained to a rock for her mother's fault and Perseus offers to rescue her. (See Burne-Jones's oil paintings and gouaches in the Perseus series, particularly The Rock of Doom)
Bk 4:753-803. He kills the sea serpent and claims her as his bride.

Andros
Son of Anius, ruler of one of the Cycladic islands named after him.
Bk 7:453-500. The island is not allied to Crete.
Bk 13:640-674. He holds the kingship of the island in his father's place, has the power of prophecy, and surrenders two of his sisters to Agamemnon.

Anemone
Bk 10:708-739. The flower that sprang from the blood of Adonis. The windflower.

Anguis, The Serpent
Bk 2:111-149. The constellation of the Serpent, near the constellation Scorpius, and above the ecliptic (right of it, as the sun travels annually along it) in the northern hemisphere. It is separated into two parts, Serpens Cauda, and Serpens Caput, the tail and the head.

Anigrus
Bk 15:259-306. A river of Elis in south-western Greece. Its waters were said to be poisoned by the centaur Pylenor, shot by Hercules with a poisoned arrow. Pausanias gives the background and confrims the chemical foulness of the water. (See Pausanias V 5)

Anio
Bk 14:320-396. A river in Latium.

Anius
Bk 13:623-639. The king, and high priest of Apollo, on Delos. He welcomes Aeneas.
Bk 13:640-674. He tells of his son and daughters.

Antaeus
Bk 9:159-210. A Libyan giant killed by Hercules.

Antandrus
Bk 13:623-639. A seaport in the Troad from which Aeneas leaves.

Antenor
Bk 13:123-381. One of the older Trojan leaders. He sided with Priam when Ulysses addressed the senate.

Anthedon
A town in Boeotia on the Euboean Gulf.
Bk 7:179-233. Medea gathers magic herbs there.
Bk 13:898-968. Glaucus is transformed there.

Antigone
Bk 6:70-102. The daughter of Laomedon of Troy (Ilium), who was turned into a stork by Juno for challenging her.

Antimachus
Bk 12:429-535. A centaur.

Antiope
The daughter of king Nycteus, so known as Nycteis, the mother by Jupiter of Amphion and Zethus.
Bk 6:103-128. Her rape by Jupiter disguised as a Satyr, is depicted by Arachne. (See Hans von Aachen's - Jupiter embracing Antiope - Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)

Antiphates
Bk 14:223-319. Bk 15:622-745. The king of the Laestrygonians. He incites his people, who are cannibals, to attack Ulysses and his crew.

Antissa
Bk 15:259-306. A town on the northern coast of Lesbos. Once an island harbour, subsequently a peninsula. (Near modern Skalakhorió).

Antium
Bk 15:622-745. A town in Latium.

Antonius
Bk 15:745-842. Antony, the Roman general, who seized the inheritance at Caesar's death, despite his will, and who was defeated by Octavius at Mutina in Cialpine Gaul, and Octavian's naval commander, Vispanius Agrippa, at the naval battle of Actium in 31 BC. Lover of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.

Anubis
Bk 9:666-713. The jackal-headed god Anpu of Egypt, identified with Mercury, and 'opener of the roads of the dead'. He accompanies Isis.

Aonia
Bk 1:313-347. Part of Boetia containing Mount Helicon.
Bk 3:339-358. The region of Tiresias's fame as a prophet.
Bk 7:759-795. It contains Thebes.
Bk 9:89-158. The country of Hercules.
Bk 10:560-637. The country of Hippomenes.
Bk 13:675-704. The country of Therses.

Aonides
BkVI:1-25. An epithet of the Muses from Mount Helicon in Aonia, an earlier name for Boeotia.

Aphareia proles
Lynceus and Idas, the sons of Aphareus, a king of the Messenians.
Bk 8:260-328. They are present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.

Aphareus
Bk 12:290-326. A centaur.

Aphidas
Bk 12:290-326. A centaur.

Apidanus
Bk 1:568-587. A river in Thessaly.
Bk 7:179-233. Medea gathers magic herbs there.

Apis
Hapi, 'the Bull Apis', the Egyptian sacred animal, a reincarnation of the god Ptah. The Apis bull was tended and worshipped at Memphis where a visit to see the animal in his courtyard was a tourist attraction of the Graeco-Roman world. The mummified sacred bulls were entombed at the vast subterranean complex of Saqqarah. The temple above was the Serapeum. Worshipped as Osiris, Apis was later confused with Serapis and worshipped in the Serapeum at Alexandria.
Bk 9:666-713. He accompanies Isis.

Apollineus
Bk 11:1-145. Orpheus, as the son of Apollo.
Bk 15:622-745. Aesculapius as the son of Apollo.

Apollo, Phoebus, Delius
Bk 1:438-473. Son of Jupiter and Latona (Leto), brother of Diana (Artemis), born on Delos. See also the extensive entry under Phoebus. (See the Apollo Belvedere, sculpted by Leochares?, Vatican: the Piombino Apollo, Paris Louvre: the Tiber Apollo, Rome, National Museum of the Terme: the fountain sculpture by Tuby at Versailles - The Chariot of Apollo: and the sculpture by Girardon and Regnaudin at Versailles - Apollo Tended by the Nymphs - derived from the Apollo Belvedere, and once part of the now demolished Grotto of Thetis )
Bk 7:350-403. Responsible for changing Cephisus's grandson into a seal.
Bk 9:324-393. Raped Dryope. Rules at Delphi and Delos.
Bk 11:1-66. Orpheus is his poet.
Bk 11:146-171. He competes with Pan's reed-pipe on the lyre.
Bk 11:194-220. He helps Laomedon build the walls of Troy, with Neptune.
Bk 11:410-473. He has an oracular temple at Claros.
Bk 12:579-628. Neptune prompts him to help Troy. He encourages Paris to fire an arrow at Achilles and guides the bow. He is worshipped as Smintheus at Troy.
Bk 13:123-381. Chryse and Cilla, captured by Achilles, are cities of his in Asia Minor.
Bk 13:399-428. Cassandra is his head priestess at Troy.
Bk 13:623-639. Aeneas sacrifices to him on Delos.
Bk 13:640-674. He gave Andros the power of prophecy.
Bk 13:705-737. He is associated with Actium.
Bk 15:479-546. Bk 15:622-745. Aesculapius is his son.

Appeninus
Bk 2:201-226. The mountain chain in northern Italy.
Bk 15:418-452. The source of the river Tiber.

Aquilo
Bk 1:244-273. The north wind. As a god he is Boreas.
Bk 7:1-73. His two winged sons are Calais and Zetes.

Ara
Bk 2:111-149. The constellation, the Altar, in the Milky Way south of the constellation Scorpius, and below the ecliptic (left of it, as the sun travels annually along it) in the northern hemisphere. Ara represents the altar on which the gods swore an oath of allegiance before defeating the Titans.

Arabes
Bk 10:431-502. The Arabians. Arabia.

Arachne
BkVI:1-25. The daughter of Idmon, skilled in weaving. She rejects the claim that she has been taught by Minerva.
Bk 6:26-69. She foolishly challenges Pallas Minerva to a contest in weaving.
Bk 6:103-128. She depicts the rapes perpetrated by the disguised gods. (See Velázquez's painting - The Fable of Arachne, or Las Hilanderas, the Weavers - Prado, Madrid. The tapestry, that Velázquez shows Arachne weaving in the painting, is a copy of Titian's painting of the Rape of Europa in the Gardner Museum, Boston, done for Philip II of Spain, the painting therefore revealing as Ovid does, a myth within a myth.)
Bk 6:129-145. Her work is so good, and so revealing, that Pallas destroys it and strikes the girl, who tries to hang herself. In pity Pallas Minerva turns her into a spider, and rules that her descendants shall hang and spin forever.
Bk 6:146-203. Niobe had known her.

Arcadia
Bk 1:689-721. A region in the centre of the Peloponnese, the archetypal rural paradise. ['Et in Arcadia ego', 'and I too (Death) am here in paradise'. See the paintings by Nicholas Poussin, Paris, Louvre; and Chatsworth, England]
Bk 8:376-424. Ancaeus comes from there.
Bk 9:159-210. Land of the Erymanthian boar.
Bk 15:307-360. Pheneus is a plain and city there, where the river Olbios ran.

Arcas
Bk 2:466-495. The son of Jupiter and Callisto.
Bk 2:496-507. Set in the heavens by Jupiter as the Little Bear.

Arcesius
Bk 13:123-381. The grandfather of Ulysses. The son of Jupiter and the father of Laertes.

Arctos
Bk 2:111-149, Bk 3:1-49, Bk 3:572-596. Bk 4:604-662.
Bk 13:705-737. The twin constellations of the Great and Little Bear, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, individually or together.
Bk 13:123-381. The stars are engraved on Achilles's shield.

Ardea
A city of the Rutulians, of Latium. (Its site was near modern Anzio, south of Rome.) It was the centre of a cult of Venus and Cicero mentions the procession around the sacred enclosure ('On the Nature of the Gods' BkIII 46)
Bk 14:566-580. It is destroyed in the war, and the grey heron, ardea cinerea, is born from its ashes.

Areopagus
Bk 6:70-103. The hill of Mars at Athens, confused with the Acropolis.

Areos
Bk 12:290-326. A centaur.

Arestor, Arestorides
Bk 1:622-641. Father of Argus, the hundred-eyed.

Arethusa
Bk 5:385-424. A nymph of Elis, and attendant of Diana.
Bk 5:487-532. She tells Ceres of having seen Persephone and promises to tell her own story later.
Bk 5:572-641. She tells the story of her pursuit by Alpheus and her transformation into the waters of Syracusan Ortygia.

Argo
Bk 15:307-360. The ship of the Argonauts. They had to avoid the clashing islands of the Symphlegades.

Argolis
Bk 1:722-746. A region in the Peloponnese.
Bk 8:260-328. It is threatened by Diana's avenging wild boar.
Bk 9:273-323. The country of Alcmena.
Bk 12:146-209. The land of the Greeks who attack Troy.

Argonauts
The band of heroes, lead by Iason, who sailed from Greece to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece. (See Gustave Moreau's painting - The Return of the Argonauts - in the Gustave Moreau Museum Paris)
Book VI:675-721. Called Minyans since they sailed from Iolchos in Thessaly ruled at one time by Minyas of Orchomenus. Calais and Zetes are two of their number.
Bk 13:1-122. Hercules was one of their number.

Argos
Bk 1:601-621. The capital of Argolis in the Peloponnese.
Bk 2:508-530. Argive, of Argos, as an epithet of Io.
Bk 4:604-662. Acrisius closes its gates against Bacchus.
Bk 5:200-249. The ancestral city of Abas, and Perseus.
Bk 6:401-438. Its ruler goes to Thebes to show sympathy for the death of Amphion and his children.
Bk 15:1-59. The city of Alemon.
BkXV:143-175. It has a temple of Juno containing the shield of Euphorbus, a previous incarnation of Pythagoras.
Bk 15:259-306. The river Erasinus reappears there.

Argus
Bk 1:622-641. A creature with a thousand eyes, the son of Arestor, set to guard Io by Juno.
Bk 1:689-721. Killed by Mercury. (For an echo of the last lines here see Rilke's poem and epitaph 'Rose, oh reiner Widerspruch, Lust, Niemandes Schlaf zu sein unter soviel Lidern.')
Bk 1:722-746. After his death, Juno sets his eyes in the peacock's tail.

Ariadne
A daughter of Minos. Half-sister of the Minotaur, and sister of Phaedra who helps Theseus on Crete.
Bk 8:152-183. She flees to Dia with Theseus and is abandoned there, but rescued by Bacchus, and her crown is set among the stars as the Corona Borealis. (See Titian's painting - Bacchus and Ariadne - National Gallery, London: and Annibale Carracci's fresco - The triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne - Farnese Palace, Rome)). The Northern Crown, the Corona Borealis, is a constellation between Hercules and Serpens Caput, consisting of an arc of seven stars, its central jewel being the blue-white star Gemma.

Aricia
Bk 15:479-546. A town in Latium, (the modern La Riccia), at the foot of the Alban Mountain, three miles from Nemi. The lake and the sacred grove at Nemi were sometimes known as the lake and grove of Aricia, and were the sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis, Diana of the Wood. (See Turner's etching and painting, The Golden Bough- British Museum and Tate Gallery). Worship there was instituted by Orestes, who fled to Italy, after killing Thoas, king of the Tauric Chersonese, taking with him the image of Tauric Diana. The rites practised there are the starting point for J.G.Frazer's monumental study in magic and religion, 'The Golden Bough'. (See Chapter I, et seq.)

Aries
Bk 10:143-219. The constellation of the Ram, between Taurus and Andromeda. It represents the ram whose Golden Fleece was sought by Jason and the Argonauts. In ancient times it contained the point of the spring equinox (The First Point of Aries) that has now moved into Pisces due to precession.

Arne
Bk 7:453-500. She betrayed her country, the island of Siphnos to Minos for gold, and was changed by the gods into a jackdaw.

Arsippe
Bk 4:31-54. One of the three daughters of Minyas who rejected the worship of Bacchus and was changed into a bat.
Bk 4:55-92. She tells the story of Pyramus and Thisbe.

Asbolus
Bk 12:290-326. A centaur with the power of prophecy. He tells Nessus that he will die at the hand of Hercules.

Ascalaphus
Bk 5:533-571. The son of Orphne and the River Acheron. He sees Persephone eat the pomegranate seeds, informs on her, and is turned into a screech-owl.

Ascanius
Bk 13:623-639. The son of Aeneas. He leaves Troy with his father and grandfather.
Bk 13:675-704. King Anius gives him a cloak and quiver.
Bk 14:566-580. He survives his father.
Bk 14:609-622. He rules the Latin and Alban kingdom.

Asia
The Asian continent.
Bk 9:439-516. Asia Minor.
Bk 13:481-575. Hecuba embodies bright Asia.

Asopiades
Bk 7:453-500. Aeacus, as the grandson of the river god Asopus.

Asopis
Bk 6:103-128. Bk 7:614-660. Aegina, as the daughter of Asopus.

Assaracus
Bk 11:749-795. King of Phrygia, son of Tros, brother of Ilus the younger and Ganymede, father of Capys, and grandfather of Anchises.

Assyrius
Bk 15:391-417. An Assyrian. From the ancient kingdom of Mesopotamia and the Upper Tigris River.

Asterie
Bk 6:103-128. The sister of Latona, and daughter of Coeus, raped by Jupiter disguised as an eagle.

Astraea
Bk 1:125-150. Goddess of Justice, last of the immortals to abandon earth because of human wickedness. She is represented in the sky as the constellation and zodiacal sign of Virgo, which alternatively depicts Ceres-Demeter. Nearby are her scales of justice, the constellation and zodiacal sign of Libra.

Astraeus
Bk 14:527-565. The Titan, husband of Aurora, and father of the winds, the Astraean brothers.

Astreus
Bk 5:107-148. A companion of Phineus, killed in the fight with Perseus.

Astyages
Bk 5:200-249. A companion of Phineus, turned to stone.

Astyanax
Bk 13:399-428. The son of Hector and Andromache, killed by the Greeks at the sack of Troy.

Astypaleius
Of the island of Astypalea, on of the Sporades.
Bk 7:453-500. Allied to Crete.

Atalanta(1)
The daughter of Iasos of Arcadia and Clymene, loved by Meleager. She joined in the Calydonian Boar Hunt, wounded the boar first and was awarded the spoils by Meleager. She is called Tegeaea, and Nonacria.
Bk 8:260-328. She is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt. Meleager falls in love with her.
Bk 8:376-424. She wounds the boar.
Bk 8:425-450. Meleager gives her the spoils, which causes conflict.

Atalanta(2)
The daughter of King Schoeneus of Boeotia, famous for her swift running.
Bk 10:560-637. Warned against marriage by the oracle, her suitors are forced to race against her on penalty of death for losing. She falls in love with Hippomenes.
Bk 10:638-680. He races with her, and by use of the golden apples, wins the race and her.
Bk 10:681-707. She, and Hippomenes, descrate Cybele's sacred cave and are turned into lions.
(See Guido Reni's painting - Atalanta and Hippomenes - Naples, Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte)

Athamantiades
Bk 13:898-968. Palaemon, as the son of Athamas.

Athamas
The son of Aeolus, and husband of Ino. The uncle of Pentheus.
Bk 3:528-571. He reproves Pentheus for attempting to capture the god Bacchus.
Bk 4:512-542. Maddened by Tisiphone he kills his child Learchus.

Athens, Athenae
Bk 2:787-811. The chief city of Attica, sacred to Minerva( Pallas Athene).
Bk 2:708-736. The Actaean hill, referring to the Athenian Acropolis.
Bk 5:642-678. Minerva's city and the home of Triptolemus.
Bk 6:401-438. Attacked by a Barbarian army fails to send a delegate to Thebes. Described as the city of Mopsopius.
Bk 6:70-102. Pallas lays claim to the city.
Bk 7:350-403. Medea flees there. Aegeus the king marries her.
Bk 7:404-424. Theseus is Aegeus's son and comes to Athens to find his father.
Bk 7:453-500. The city is allied to Aegina by treaty.
Bk 7:501-613. Cephalus goes to Aegina as its ambassador.
Bk 7:661-758. Cephalus tempts Procris there, in disguise.
Bk 8:260-328. It ceases to pay tribute to Crete thanks to Theseus.
Bk 15:418-452. A symbol of vanished power.

Athis
Bk 5:30-73. An Indian youth, a companion of Phineus, killed by Perseus along with his friend and lover Lycabas.

Athos
Bk 2:201-226. Bk 11:474-572. A high mountain in Macedonia on a peninsula in the northern Aegean.

Atlantiades
Bk 1:689-721. Bk 2:676-701. Bk 8:611-678. An epithet of Mercury as descendant of Atlas through his mother Maia.
Bk 4:346-388. And to Hermaphroditus as Mercury's son.

Atlantis
Bk 2:676-701. Maia, the Pleiad, daughter of Atlas and mother of Mercury.

Atlas
Bk 2:272-300. The Titan who rules the Moon with Phoebe the Titaness. Leader of the Titans in their war with the gods. The son of Iapetus by the nymph Clymene. His brothers were Prometheus, Epimetheus and Menoetius. Represented as Mount Atlas in North-western Africa, holding up the heavens. Father of the Pleiades, Hyades and Hesperides. He struggles to support the sky when Phaethon loses control of the sun chariot.
Bk 4:604-662. He is turned to stone by Perseus wielding the Gorgon's head.
Bk 4:753-803. The cave of the Graeae lies beneath his frozen slopes.
Bk 6:146-203. He is the grandfather of Niobe, since her mother Dione is one of the Pleiades, the daughters of Atlas.
Bk 9:159-210. Hercules bribed him into bringing the apples of the Hesperides by offering to hold up the sky. On his return Hercules deceived him into taking back its weight.
BkXV:143-175. Pythagoras compares philosophy to standing on Atlas's shoulders.

Atracides
Bk 12:146-209. Caeneus, from his home town of Atrax in Thessaly.

Atreus
Bk 15:843-870. King of Mycenae, the son of Pelops. The father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. His son Agamemnon surpasses him.

Atrides
Son of Atreus.
Bk 12:579-628. Menelaus and Agamemnon.
Bk 13:123-381. Bk 13:429-480. Bk 13:640-674. Agamemnon.
BkXV:143-175. Bk 15:745-842. Menelaus, the younger brother.

Attica, Atticus
Bk 7:453-500. The region of southern Greece containing Athens.

Attis
A Phrygian shepherd, loved by Cybele. An incarnation of the vegetation god, the consort of the Great Goddess.
Bk 10:86-105. He is embodied by the sacred pine, one of the trees that gather to hear Orpheus sing.

Augustus Caesar
Bk 15:745-842. Julius Caesar's grand-nephew, whom he adopted and declared as his heir, Octavius Caesar (Octavian). (The honorary title Augustus was bestowed by the Senate 16th Jan 27 BC). His wife was Livia. Jupiter prophesies his future glory: his defeat of Antony, who had seized the inheritance, at Mutina: his defeat of the conspirators Cassius and Brutus at the twin battles of Philippi: his (Agrippa's) defeat of Antony at Actium: and his (Agrippa's) defeat of Pompey's son at Mylae and Naulochus off Sicily. (See the sculpture of Augustus, from Primaporta, in the Vatican)
He exiled Ovid to the Black Sea region for 'a poem and a mistake'. The poem probably the Ars Amatoria, the mistake probably something to do with the notorious Julia's set, that Ovid knew of and repeated. He seems to refer to it in a number of the stories, for example that of Coronis, where the talebearer is punished. As Naso, 'the beaky one', he may have personified himself as the garrulous bird.
Bk 15:843-870. Ovid prays that Augustus will outlive him, and being deified, grant entreaties from afar (! A subtle cry from exile -Augustus in fact died in 14 AD, and Ovid in 17 AD, and Ovid was nerver pardoned.)

Aulis
Bk 12:1-38. Bk 13:123-381. The Boeotian harbour where the Greek fleet massed prior to setting out for Troy and where Iphigenia was sacrificed. The area was a rich fishing-ground.

Aura
Bk 7:796-865. A breeze, invoked by Cephalus.

Aurora, Pallantias
Bk 1:52-68. Bk 5:425-486. Bk 7:796-865. Goddess of the Morning, and wife of Tithonus, daughter of the Titan Pallas, hence called Pallantias or Pallantis, who fathered Zelus (zeal), Cratus (strength), Bia (force) and Nice (victory) on the River Styx.
Bk 2:111-149. Brings the dawn as Phaethon begins his ride.
Bk 3:138-164. Actaeon talks of her 'saffron car' bringing back the light. (See Guido Reni's fresco -Aurora and the Chariot of the Sun - Casino Rospigliosi, Rome)
Bk 3:165-205. Bk 6:26-69. The radiant red of her dawn light referred to.
Bk 4:604-662. Bk 11:266-345. Lucifer wakes her fires to begin the day, and she summons the chariot of the dawn.
Bk 7:179-233. Pales at the sight of Medea's poisons.
Bk 7:661-758. She seduces Cephalus and is angered by him. She foresees disaster for him. She changes his appearance to assist his testing of Procris's loyalty.
Bk 9:418-438. Longs to renew the youth of her mortal husband Tithonus. She had gained eternal life for him but not eternal youth.
Bk 11:573-649. Bk 15:176-198. The dawn.
Bk 13:576-622. She sees her son Memnon killed by Achilles, and begs Jupiter to grant him honours. He creates the Memnonides, a flight of warring birds from the ashes.
Bk 14:527-565. She is the mother by Astraeus, the Titan, of the four winds, the Astraean brothers.

Ausonia
Bk 14:772-804. Bk 15:622-745. Bk 15:622-745. A country in lower Italy, or used for Italy itself. (Broadly modern Campania, occupying the Tyrrhenian coast and the western slopes of the Apennines, colonised by Greeks and Etruscans, and Calabria the 'toe' of the Italian 'boot' between the Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas, colonised by the Greeks, and part of Magna Graecia)
Bk 5:332-384. Referring to Pelorus on the north-east coast of Sicily nearest to Italy.
Bk 13:705-737. Bk 14:75-100. The destination of Aeneas.
Bk 14:1-74. Separated from Sicily by the Straits of Messina (Zancle).
Bk 14:320-396. Picus is king there.
Bk 14:772-804. Amulius rules by force of arms but is deposed by Romulus, reinstating Numitor.

Auster
Bk 1:52-68. Bk 8:1-80.The South Wind. Eurus is the East Wind, Zephyrus the West Wind, and Boreas is the North Wind.
Bk 11:650-709. A storm-wind.

Autolycus
The grandfather of Ulysses. He is the master trickster and thief, son of Mercury and Chione, father of Anticlea, Ulysses's mother.
Bk 8:725-776. His wife, the daughter of Erysichthon, had the power to change her shape at will.
Bk 11:266-345. Chione bore him to Mercury.

Autonoe
Bk 3:165-205. The daughter of Cadmus and mother of Actaeon.
Bk 3:692-733. Pentheus calls on her to help him, invoking the shade of her dead Actaeon, but she helps the other Maenads to tear him apart.

Autoneius heros
Bk 3:165-205. Actaeon, son of Autonoe.

Aventinus
Bk 14:609-622. A mythical Alban king who gave his name to the Aventine hill from which he ruled.

Avernus, Averna
Bk 5:533-571. A name for the Underworld. Averna is its entrance.
Bk 14:101-153. Aeneas enters it. Proserpina is its queen, and Dis (Orcus) its king.
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Re: Metamorphoses, by Ovid

Postby admin » Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:05 am

Part 2 of 9

Babylonius
Bk 2:227-271. Of Babylon, the ancient Mesopotamian capital of the Babylonians, in modern Iraq.

Bacchantes, Maenades, Maenads, Bassarids
Bk 11:85-145. The female followers of Bacchus-Dionysus, noted for their ecstatic worship of the god.
Bk 3:692-733. They celebrate the rites on Mount Cithaeron.
Bk 7:234-293. Medea has the appearance of a Bacchante.
Bk 11:1-66. They kill Orpheus.

Bacchiadae
Bk 5:385-424. An ancient royal family of Corinth, descended from Bacchis, one of the Heraclidae, founder of Syracuse.

Bacchus, Bacheus (=Bacchic)
The god Dionysus, the ‘twice-born’, the god of the vine. The son of Jupiter and Semele. His worship was celebrated with orgiastic rites borrowed from Phrygia. His female followers are the Maenades. He carries the thyrsus, a wand tipped with a pine-cone, the Maenads and Satyrs following him carrying ivy-twined fir branches as thyrsi. (See Caravaggio’s painting –Bacchus – Uffizi, Florence)
Bk 3:273-315. Snatched from his mother Semele’s womb when she is destroyed by Jupiter’s fire, he is sewn into Jupiter’s thigh, reared by Ino and hidden by the nymphs of Mount Nysa. (See Charles Shannon’s painting – The Childhood (or Education) of Bacchus – Private Collection)
Bk 3:528-571. His worship comes to Thebes and is opposed there by Pentheus and at Argos by Acrisius.
Bk 3:597-637. Acoetes tells how Bacchus was discovered on Chios. Bacchus asks to be put ashore on Naxos his home. Acoetes may be a manifestation of Bacchus himself.
Bk 3:638-691. Bacchus transforms the ship and crew.
Bk 3:692-733. His Maenads destroy Pentheus.
Bk 4:1-30. His names, features, deeds and rites. He is Dionysus Sabazius, the barley-god of Thrace and Phrygia, ‘formosissimus alto conspiceris caelo’ the morning and evening star, the star-son, identified by the Jews with Adonis, consort of the Great Goddess Venus Aphrodite or Astarte, and therefore manifested with her in the planet Venus. Later he is the horned Lucifer, ‘son of the morning’.
Bk 4:389-415. He turns the daughters of Minyas into bats.
Bk 4:512-542. Juno mocks at Ino his foster-mother, invoking his name.
Bk 4:604-662. He is worshipped in India and by all of Greece.
Bk 4:753-803. Bk 6:486-548. Bk 7:425-452,
Bk 12:536-579. Bk 13:623-639. Wine at the marriage feast or banquet is his gift. (See Velázquez’s painting – The Drinkers, or the Triumph of Bacchus – Prado, Madrid) (Note: Wine in Ancient Greece contained honey, aloes, thyme, myrtle berries etc. to form a thick sweet syrup which was diluted when drinking, hence the mixing bowls etc. at the banquets.)
Bk 6:571-619. His triennial festival, the trietericus, is celebrated on Mount Rhodope by the young Thracian women.
Bk 8:152-182. He rescues Ariadne on Dia, and sets her crown among the stars as the Corona Borealis.
Bk 8:260-328. He receives libations of wine from the harvest.
Bk 11:85-145. He grants Midas a gift, and takes it away when Midas is plagued by his golden touch.
Bk 13:640-674. He gave Anius’s daughters the power to change everything into corn, wine and olives, and ultimately rescued them by turning them into doves.
Bk 15:391-417. His worship conquered India, and from there he took the lynxes that follow him.

Bactrius
Of the city of Bactria in Persia.
Bk 5:107-148. The native place of Halcyoneus.

Baiae
Bk 15:622-745. The modern Baia, opposite Pozzuoli on the Bay of Pozzuoli, once the fashionable bathing place of the Romans, owing its name, in legend, to Baios, the navigator of Odysseus. The Emperors built magnificent palaces there. Part now lies beneath the sea due to subsidence.

Balearic, Balearicus
Bk 2:708-736. Bk 4:706-752 . Of the Balearic islands between Africa and Spain.

Battus
Bk 2:676-701. A countryman changed by Mercury into a flint (touchstone, the ‘informer’)

Baucis
Bk 8:611-678. The wife of Philemon. They are visited by the gods, Jupiter and Mercury, disguised as mortals.
Bk 8:679-724. They are both turned into trees, she into a lime tree and he into an oak. (See the painting by Rubens – Landscape with Philemon and Baucis – Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)

Belides, Danaides
The fifty daughters of Danaus, granddaughters of Belus, king of Egypt.
Bk 4:416-463. They were forced to marry their cousins, the fifty sons of Aegyptus, and, with one exception, Hypermnestra, who saved the life of Lynceus, because he preserved her virginity, killed them on their wedding night. The others were punished in Hades by having to fill a bottomless cistern with water carried in leaking sieves.
Bk 10:1-85. Their punishment in the underworld ceases for a time at the sound of Orpheus’s song.

Bellona
Bk 5:149-199. The goddess of war, and sister of Mars.

Belus
Bk 4:190-213. Founder of the line of Achaemenian Kings of Persia. Not the ancestor of the Belides.
Bk 4:604-662. Ancestor of the Belides, King of Egypt, brother of Agenor, and son of Neptune. Acrisius is his descendant through Danaus.

Berecyntius heros
Bk 11:85-145. Midas, son of Cybele, from Mount Berecyntus (Bk 11:1-66.) in Phrygia.

Beroe
Bk 3:273-315. Semele’s nurse.

Bienor
Bk 12:290-326. A centaur.

Bisaltis
Bk 6:103-128. Theophane, daughter of Bilsaltes, loved by Neptune, and depicted by Arachne.

Bistonius
Bk 13:123-381. Of the Bistones, a people of Thrace.

Boebe
A lake in Thessaly.
Bk 7:179-233. Medea gathers magic herbs there by its reedy shores.

Boeotia
Bk 2:227-271. A country in mid-Greece containing Thebes.
Bk 3:1-49. Cadmus is instructed to found Thebes.
Bk 12:1-38. The Greek ships assemble there at Aulis.

Bona Copia
Bk 9:1-88. The goddess of plenty. The Naiades give her the horn of plenty lost by Achelous in his fight with Hercules.

Bootes
Bk 2:150-177. The constellation of the Waggoner, or Herdsman, or Bear Herd. The nearby constellation of Ursa Major is the Waggon, or Plough, or Great Bear. He holds the leash of the constellation of the hunting dogs, Canes Venatici. He is sometimes identified with Arcas son of Jupiter and Callisto. Arcas may alternatively be the Little Bear.
Bk 8:183-235. Icarus is warned not to fly too near the constellation.
Bk 10:431-502. Identified with Icarius the father of Erigone. Led to his grave by his dog Maera, she committed suicide by hanging, and was set in the sky as the constellation Virgo. The Latin text says Icarus, a valid alternative, but I have translated it as Icarius to avoid confusion with Daedalus’s son.

Boreas
Bk 1:52-68. The North Wind. Eurus is the East Wind, Zephyrus is the West Wind, and Auster is the South Wind.
Book VI:675-721. He is identified with Thrace and the north. He steals Orithyia, daughter of Erectheus of Athens, and marries her. She bears him the two Argonauts, Calais and Zetes. (See Evelyn de Morgan’s painting–Boreas and Orithyia– Cragside, Northumberland)
Bk 12:1-38. He prevents the Greeks sailing from Aulis.
Bk 13:399-428. He blows the Greeks home from Troy. (These are the Meltemi or Etesian winds that blow over the northen Aegean in the summer months. On their reliability the Northern Aegean civilisation was based. See Ernle Bradford’s ‘Ulysses Found’ Ch.4)

Botres
Bk 7:350-403. The son of Eumelus, killed by his father for desecrating the sacrifice to Apollo. Apollo pitied the father and changed the boy into a bird, the bee-eater, merops apiaster.

Britanni
Bk 15:745-842. The peoples of ancient Britain. Julius Caesar had two campaigns in Britain in 55 and 54 BC.

Bromius
Bk 4:1-30. An epithet of Bacchus meaning ‘The noisy one’.

Bromus
Bk 12:429-535. A centaur.

Broteas(1)
Bk 5:107-148. A famous boxer. A twin brother of Ammon, killed by Phineus.

Broteas(2)
Bk 12:245-289 One of the Lapithae. Killed by Gryneus at the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs.

Bruttium
A region of southern Italy, in modern Calabria. The ancient capital of the Bruttians was at Cosentia, modern Cosenza, and was taken by the Romans in 204 BC. It was an important halt on the Via Popilia linking Rome with Reggio and Sicily. (Ovid does not mention it directly in the text)

Bubasis
Bk 9:595-665. Of Bubasos, a town in Caria passed by Byblis.

Bubastis
Bk 9:666-713.A town in Egypt. The lioness, later cat goddess (Bast, Bastet) worshipped there, equated with Diana.

Buris
Bk 15:259-306. A city near the coast of Achaia, on the Coronthian Gulf destroyed by earthquake. Possibly Pausanias’s Boura, see Pausanias VII 25, though it was not on the coast, its destruction was linked with the destruction of Helice.

Busiris
Bk 9:159-210. A king of Egypt who sacrificed strangers. See the entry for Hercules.

Butes
Bk 7:453-500.A son of Pallas, an Athenian prince. Goes with Cephalus on an embassy to Aegina. Brother of Clytos.

Buthrotos, Buthrotum
Bk 13:705-737. A city in Epirus. There Helenus, the Trojan seer, built a replica of Troy. (See Virgil Aeneid III:290-350). Aeneas lands there and Helenus foretells his future.

Byblis
The daughter of Miletus, and Cyanee, twin sister of Caunus.
Bk 9:439-516. The twins are noted for their beauty. Byblis falls in love with Caunus and decides to woo him incestuously.
Bk 9:517-594. She declares her love in a letter to Caunus, and is rejected.
Bk 9:595-665. She follows him as he flees her, and, on Mount Chimaera in Lycia, is turned into an ever-weeping fountain.

Cadmeis
Bk 3:273-315. Semele, daughter of Cadmus.

Cadmus
Bk 3:1-49. The son of the Phoenician king Agenor who searches for his sister Europa stolen by Jupiter. The founder of Thebes.
Bk 3:50-94. He kills the serpent sacred to Mars.
Bk 3:115-137. He founds Thebes.
Bk 3:528-571. He reproves his grandson Pentheus, son of his daughter Agave, for his attempt to lay hands on the god Bacchus.
Bk 4:464-511. His son-in-law is Athamas, husband of his daughter Ino, who are both maddened by the Fury.
Bk 4:563-603. Cadmus and Harmonia are turned into serpents. There is a tradition that this happened in a cave on the coast of Dalmatia near Dubrovnik (Ragusa), see Rebecca West ‘Black Lamb and Grey Falcon’ p251. It was ten miles north of an ancient Dalmatian Epidaurus (now Tsavtat) founded by Greek colonists.
Bk 6:204-266. Amphion is his descendant.
Bk 9:273-323. The Theban women are ‘of Cadmus’

Caeneus
A youth of Thessaly, called Atracides from the city of Atrax. He was born a girl, Caenis, but changed to a youth by Neptune as a gift and made invulnerable. He became a king of the Lapithae.
Bk 8:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk 12:146-209. Nestor tells his story.
Bk 12:210-244. He is present at the battle of the Lapithae and the Centaurs.
Bk 12:429-535. He is killed, despite his invulnerability to wounds, by being buried under a weight of trees, and is turned into a unique bird with tawny wings.

Caenis
Bk 12:146-209. The daughter of Elatus of Thessaly, raped by Neptune, and changed into the youth and invulnerable warrior Caeneus at her request.
Bk 12:429-535. Latreus taunts Caeneus calling him Caenis.

Caesar, Julius
Bk 15:745-842. The Roman general and Tribune. His deeds, death and deification. (As ‘king of Rome’ he was also the high-priest of Vesta, ‘marrying’ her, the incarnation of Tauric Diana, as described by Fraser in ‘The Golden Bough’ – Ch.1 et.seq.)
Bk 1:199-243. His assassination mentioned.
Bk 15:843-870. He confesses that Augustus has surpassed him. Venus sets him among the stars.

Caicus
Bk 2:227-271. Bk 15:259-306. A river in Mysia in Asia Minor near Pergamum.
Bk 12:64-145. Achilles slaughtered the surrounding peoples.

Caieta
Bk 14:154-222. Bk 15:622-745. The old nurse of Aeneas. The place in Italy where she died and was buried (modern Gaeta).
Bk 14:435-444. Her epitaph.

Calais
Book VI:675-721. One of the winged sons of Boreas and Orithyia. One of the Argonauts.
Bk 7:1-73. Drives away the Harpies.

Calaurea
Bk 7:350-403. An island off the coast of Argolis.

Calchas
A seer and priest, the son of Thestor, who accompanied the Greeks to Troy.
Bk 12:1-38. He foresees the long duration of the war and the ultimate Greek victory, and that the sacrifice of Iphigenia to Diana at Aulis will bring the Greeks favourable winds.

Calliope
The Muse of epic poetry. The mother of Orpheus.
Bk 5:332-384. She sings the song that defeats the Emathides.
Bk 5:642-678. The Muses through her efforts defeat the Emathides and then change them into magpies.
Bk 10:143-219. Orpheus asks his mother for inspiration.

Callirhoe
Bk 9:394-417. The daughter of Achelous. Themis prophesies the events following the war of the Seven against Thebes, when as Alcmaeon’s second wife, she unwittingly unleashes a chain of events involving the fatal necklace of Harmonia, and the murder of Alcmaeon. She begs Jupiter to age her infant sons so that they can avenge the murder.
Bk 9:418-438. Jupiter explains to the gods that he can grant this only because fate wills it also.

Callisto
Bk 2:401-416. A nymph of Nonacris in Arcadia, a favourite of Phoebe-Diana. The daughter of Lycaon.
Bk 2:417-440. Jupiter rapes her.
Bk 2:441-465. Pregnant by Jupiter she is expelled from the band of Diana’s virgin followers by Diana as Cynthia, in her Moon goddess mode. Gives birth to a son Arcas.
Bk 2:466-495. She is turned into a bear by Juno.

Calydon
An ancient city in Aetolia on the River Euenus.
Bk 6:401-438. Its ruler goes to Thebes to show sympathy for the death of Amphion and his children.
Bk 8:260-328. Bk 14:512-526. Its King is Oeneus. The people ask Theseus’s help against Diana’s avenging wild boar.
Bk 8:451-514. Althaea brings down vengeance on Calydon.
Bk 8:515-546. Meleager’s action brings down the house of Parthaon.
Bk 8:547-610. The victim of Diana’s vengeance.
Bk 8:725-776. Bk 9:1-88. Achelous is a river-god of Calydon.
Bk 9:89-158. Deianira is from Calydon.
Bk 15:745-842. Diomede’s spear is Calydonian.

Calydonian Boar-Hunt
Bk 8:260-328. A famous hunt attended by all the heroes of Greece, caused by Diana, seeking revenge for being slighted. She sent a fierce wild boar against Calydon.

Calymne
An island in the Aegean Sea near Ionia.
Bk 8:183-235. Daedalus and Icarus fly towards it after leaving Crete.

Camenae
Bk 15:479-546. Ancient Italian nymphs, with the gift of prophecy, later identified with the Muses.

Canace, see Aeolia virgo
Bk 6:103-128. Depicted by Arachne.

Cancer
Bk 2:63-89. The constellation of the Crab, and the zodiacal sun sign. It represents the crab that attacked Hercules while he was fighting the multi-headed Hydra and was crushed underfoot but subsequently raised to the stars. The sun in ancient times was in this constellation when furthest north of the equator at the summer solstice (June 21st). Hence the latitude where the sun appeared overhead at noon on that day was called the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees north).
Bk 4:604-662. Seen three times by the storm-driven Perseus.
Bk 10:106-142. The sun is in Cancer when Cyparissus kills the stag.

Canens
Bk 14:320-396. The daughter of Janus and Venilia, and wife of Picus, noted for her singing.
Bk 14:397-434. She wastes away with grief at the loss of Picus.

Canopus
Bk 15:745-842. A city in Egypt in the Nile delta, from where, Cleopatra ruled.

Capaneus
Bk 9:394-417. An Argive leader, one of the Seven against Thebes.
A synonym for pride in the Middle Ages.

Capella
Bk 3:572-596. The ‘she-goat’, the sixth brightest star in the sky, now part of the constellation Auriga the Charioteer, but once part of the Olenian Goat, representing Aege daughter of Olenos.

Capetus
Bk 14:609-622. One of the Alban kings.

Caphereus
Bk 14:445-482. A rocky promontory on the coast of Euboea where the returning Greek fleet came to grief.

Capitolium
Bk 1:553-567. Bk 2:531-565. Bk 15:552-621.
Bk 15:745-842. The hill in Rome, the Tarpeian citadel, on which stood a temple of Jupiter.

Capreae
Bk 15:622-745. An island in the Bay of Naples. The isle of Capri, mountainous, with an inaccessible, precipitous coast, abounding in caves and fantastic rocks. It has perennial sunshine, pure air, and almost tropical vegetation. Tiberius Caesar retired there in 27 AD. See Suetonius ‘The Twelve Caesars’, and Tacitus.

Capys
Bk 14:609-622. An Alban king.

Caria, Cares
The country in Asia Minor bordering the southern Aegean containing Miletus and Halicarnassus. Its inhabitants the Cares or Carians.
Bk 9:595-665. The country of Byblis and Caunus.

Carpathius
Bk 11:221-265. Of the island of Carpathos in the Aegean Sea. An epithet for Proteus.

Cartheius
Bk 7:350-403. From Carthaea, a town on the island of Ceos in the Aegean.
Bk 10:106-142. The home of Cyparissus.

Cassandra
The daughter of Priam and Hecuba, gifted with prophecy by Apollo, but cursed to tell the truth and not be believed. Taken back to Greece by Agamemnon. (See Aeschylus: The Agamemnon)
Bk 13:399-428. Dragged from the burning temple by her hair as Troy falls.
Bk 14:445-482. Her rape by Ajax causes Minerva’s anger to fall on the returning Greeks.

Cassiopeia, Cassiope
The mother of Andromeda and wife of Cepheus. The queen of Ethiopia. She is represented by the constellation Cassiopeia between Cepheus and Andromeda, and is depicted sitting in a chair. The constellation is identifiable by its distinctive W shape.
Bk 4:663-705. She foolishly boasted that she and her daughter were more beautiful than the Nereids, who complained to Neptune who sent a sea monster to devastate Cepheus’s kingdom. The Oracle of Jupiter Ammon told Cepheus to sacrifice his daughter Andromeda. Cassiope and Cepheus accepted Perseus’s offer to rescue Andromeda on condition that she became his wife. For breaking faith with Perseus, Neptune set Cepheus and Cassiopeia as a warning among the stars.
Bk 4:706-752. She rejoices at Perseus’s defeat of the sea-serpent.

Castalius, Castalian
Bk 3:1-49. Of the spring of Castalia and cave on Mount Parnassus and the oracle of Apollo there. The spring is sacred to the Muses.

Castor
The son of Tyndareus of Sparta and Leda, and twin brother of Pollux.
Bk 8:260-328. He joins the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk 8:329-375. The brothers hurl their spears.
Bk 12:393-428. Noted for his horses and horsemanship.

Castrum Inui
Bk 15:622-745. An ancient city of the Rutuli.

Caucasus
Bk 2:201-226. The mountain range in Asia.
Bk 5:74-106. The native place of Abaris.
Bk 8:777-842. The haunt of Famine.

Caulon
Bk 15:622-745. A city in Bruttium. (Near the modern Monastarece Marina on the Ionian Sea, ancient Caulonia, the original Achaean colony was destroyed by Syracuse in 389 BC. What is now modern Caulonia, inland, was founded by the survivors.)

Caunus
The son of Miletus and the nymph Cyanee, daughter of the river god Maeander, hence called Maeandrius.
Bk 9:439-516. His twin sister Byblis falls incestuously in love with him, and decides to declare her love in a letter.
Bk 9:517-594. He is horrifed and rejects her.
Bk 9:595-665. Fleeing his sister he founds the city of Caunus in Caria.

Caÿstros, Caÿster
Bk 2:227-271. Bk 5:385-424. A river famous for its swans in Lydia in Asia Minor. Ephesus is near its mouth.

Cea, Ceos
Bk 7:350-403. An island of the Cyclades, off Cape Sunium. Its ancient city was Carthaea.
Bk 10:106-142. Cyparissus was a beautiful boy of the island.

Cebrenis
Bk 11:749-795. Hesperie, daughter of Cebren a river god of the Troad.

Cecropides
Bk 7:453-500. Theseus, as a descendant of Cecrops. The Cecropidae, are therefore the Athenians.
Bk 8:547-610. Theseus in Acarnania.

Cecropis, Cecropides
Bk 2:812-832. Aglauros as daughter of Cecrops. The Cecropides, are the daughters of Pandion, that is Procne and Philomela, as Athenians.

Cecropius
Bk 6:70-103. Bk 6:438-485. Bk 11:85-145. Athenian. From Cecrops the founder of Athens.

Cecrops
Bk 2:531-565. Bk 15:418-452. The mythical founder of Athens. He was a son of mother Earth like Erechthonius (who some think was his father). He was part man and part serpent. His three daughters were Aglauros, Herse and Pandrosus who were goddesses of the Acropolis in Athens.

Celadon(1)
Bk 5:107-148. An adversary of Perseus, killed in the fight with Phineus.

Celadon(2)
Bk 12:245-289. One of the Lapithae. He is killed by Amycus at the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs.

Celmis
Bk 4:274-316. One of the Dactyls (‘fingers’), born when Rhea pressed her fingers into the earth as she was bearing Jupiter. They were ironsmiths who guarded the infant Jupiter’s cradle. Their sisters taught the mysteries on the island of Samothrace. Celmis was turned into adamantine steel as a punishment for insulting Rhea.

Cenaeus
Bk 9:89-158.An epithet of Jupiter worshipped by Hercules at Cenaeum, the north western point of Euboea.

Cenchreis
Bk 10:431-502. The mother of Myrrha, and wife of Cinyras. Her absence from Cinyras’s bed during the festival of Ceres allows Myrrha to commit her incest.

Centaurs
Creatures, half-man and half-horse living in the mountains of Thessaly, hence called biformes, duplex natura, semihomines, bimembres.
They were the sons of Ixion, and a cloud, in the form of Juno.
Bk 2:633-676. Chiron the centaur and Ocyrhoe his daughter.
Bk 9:89-158. The story of Nessus the centaur and Hercules.
Bk 9:159-210. Hercules fought with Pholus and the Centaurs and wounded Chiron with an arrow poisoned with the Hydra’s venom. Chiron’s agony was ended when he exchanged his immortality for Prometheus’s mortal fate.
Bk 12:210-244. Invited to the marriage feast of Pirithous and Hippdamia, Eurytus precipitates a fight with the Lapithae.
Bk 12:536-579. Nestor finishes telling the story of the battle.

Cephalus
An Athenian prince, the grandson of Aeolus, hence Aeolides.
Book VI:675-721. Married happily to Procris, daughter of Erectheus King of Athens.
Bk 7:453-500. Goes to Aegina to seek help from an ally.
Bk 7:501-613. He hears the history of the plague from Aeacus.
Bk 7:661-758. He is unfaithful to his wife Procris and then tempts her into disloyalty. They are reconciled. She gives him a magic hound and a magic javelin, gifts of Diana.
Bk 7:759-795. He recounts the story of Laelaps the hound.
Bk 7:796-865. He tells how through an error he was led to kill Procris, unwittingly, with the magic spear that was her gift.
Bk 8:1-80. He returns to Athens with the Aeacides.

Cephenes
Bk 4:753-803. Bk 5:1-29. Bk 5:74-106. A name for the Ethiopians from their king Cepheus.

Cepheus
The king of Ethiopia, husband of Cassiope, and father of Andromeda. He is represented by the constellation Cepheus near Cassiopeia which includes the prototype of the Cepheid variable stars used as standard light sources for measurement of distances in space.
Bk 4:663-705. He accepts Perseus’s offer to rescue Andromeda.
Bk 4:706-752. He promises Perseus a kingdom as dowry for defeating the sea serpent and winning Andromeda.

Cephisius
Narcissus, as the son of the river god Cephisus.

Cephisus
Bk 1:348-380. A river in Phocis.
Bk 3:1-49. Cadmus passes by it, following the heifer.
Bk 3:339-358. Father of Narcissus, by the nymph Liriope.
Bk 7:350-403. Mourns for his grandson changed into a seal by Apollo.
Bk 7:425-452. The location where Theseus defeated Procrustes.

Cerambus
Bk 7:350-403.A mythical character, whose home was near Mount Othrys, who escaped Deucalion’s flood. He was saved by the nymphs, who changed him to a scarabeus, and he flew to the summit of Mount Parnassus.

Cerastae
Bk 10:220-242. A horned people of Cyprus turned into wild bullocks by Venus, for the crime of sacrificing strangers and guests on their altars.

Cerberus
Bk 4:416-463. The three-headed watchdog of the Underworld. He bays at Juno entering the city of Dis.
Bk 4:464-511. The foam from his jaws forms part of Tisiphone’s venom of the Furies.
Bk 7:404-424. It also produces the plant wolfsbane, or monkshood, the aconite used by Medea as a poison.
Bk 9:159-210. In the Twelfth Labour he is captured by Hercules and dragged out of the Underworld.
Bk 10:1-85. Mentioned by Orpheus. He has snaky hair.
Bk 14:1-74. Scylla is surrounded by jaws, like Cerberus’s, below the waist.

Cercopes
Bk 14:75-100. A Lydian people. Jupiter changed them into monkeys, because of their trickery and deceit, and sent them to Pithecusae which took its name from them. (pithecium, a little ape)

Cercyon
Bk 7:425-452. A king of Eleusin, who required all travellers to wrestle with him, and killed them when they were defeated. He was defeated by Theseus. The wrestling-ground was on the road to Megara.

Ceres
Bk 1:113-124. The Corn Goddess. The daughter of Saturn and Rhea, and Jupiter’s sister. As Demeter she is represented in the sky by the constellation and zodiacal sign of Virgo, holding an ear of wheat, the star Spica. It contains the brightest quasar, 3C 273. The constellation alternatively depicts Astraea. The worship of her and her daughter Persephone, as the Mother and the Maiden, was central to the Eleusinian mysteries, where the ritual of the rebirth of the world from winter was enacted. Ceres was there a representation of the Great Goddess of Neolithic times, and her daughter her incarnation, in the underworld and on earth.
Bk 5:107-148. Ampycus is one of her priests.
Bk 5:332-384. The Muse Calliope sings of her.
Bk 5:385-424. Her daughter Proserpine (Persephone) is raped and abducted by Dis.
Bk 5:425-486. She searches for her throughout the world. Cyane gives evidence of the abduction, in Sicily, and Ceres blights that land. (On the way she drinks the mixture of water and meal known as the kykeion, the partaking of which was an element of the ritual surrounding the Eleusinian Mysteries.)
Bk 5:487-532. She finds that Persephone is in Hades, and asks Jupiter to intercede. He agrees so long as Persephone has not eaten while in the underworld, a decree made by the Fates.
Bk 5:533-571. She is allowed her daughter for six months of each year.
Bk 5:572-641. She asks Arethusa to tell her story.
Bk 5:642-678. She sends Triptolemus, of Eleusis, with her gift of the crops to the barbarian king of Scythia, Lyncus. He attacks Triptolemus and she changes Lyncus into a lynx.
Bk 6:103-128. Neptune lay with her in the form of a horse.
Bk 7:425-452. Eleusis is sacred to her.
Bk 8:260-328. She is offered the first fruits of the crops.
Bk 8:260-328. A synonym for the harvest.
Bk 8:725-776. Erysichthon violates her sacred oak grove.
Bk 8:777-842. She asks Famine to torment him to death.
Bk 9:418-438. She wishes she could win renewed youthfulness for Iasion, whom she fell in love with at the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia, and lay with in the thrice-ploughed field.
Bk 10:1-85. A synonym for nourishment.
Bk 10:431-502. The festival of the first fruits (in Attica, the Thesmophoria) held annually in her honour, where married women dressed in white brought corn garlands as offerings, and sexual union and the touch of a man were forbidden for nine nights.
Bk 11:85-145. Bk 13:623-639. Bread is her gift.

Ceyx
Bk 7:350-403. The son of Lucifer. The husband of Alcyone, turned into a kingfisher with her.
Bk 11:266-345. He gives sanctuary to Peleus in his kingdom of Trachin, and tells the story of his brother Daedalion.
Bk 11:346-409. His wife Alcyone begs him not to fight against the wolf from the marshes.
Bk 11:410-473. He goes to consult the oracle of Apollo at Claros.
Bk 11:474-572. He is drowned in the tempest.
Bk 11:573-649. Morpheus is sent to Alcyone, taking on his form.
Bk 11:650-709. Morpheus tells Alcyone of his death.
Bk 11:710-748. His body returns on the tide and he is transformed with her into a halcyon.

Chalciope
Bk 7:1-73.The sister of Medea whom Aeetes had given in marriage to Phrixus.

Chaonian oaks
The sacred oak grove of Chaonia at Dodona in Epirus, the site of an ancient oracle of Jupiter (Zeus).
Bk 10:86-105. The oracular oak is among the gathering of trees when Orpheus sings.

Chaonis, Chaonius
Of Chaonia, the region in Epirus.
Bk 5:149-199. The native country of Molpeus.
Bk 13:705-737. Passed by Aeneas.

Charaxus
Bk 12:245-289. One of the Lapithae. He was killed by Rhoetus at the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs.

Chariclo
Bk 2:633-675. A water nymph, the mother of Ocyroe by Chiron the Centaur.

Charon
Bk 10:1-85. The ferryman who carries the dead across the River Styx in the underworld, whose tributary is the Acheron. (See Dante’s Inferno). He prevents Orpheus crossing the Styx for a second time.

Charops
Bk 13:123-381. A Lycian, killed by Ulysses.

Charybdis
Bk 7:1-73. Bk 8:81-151. The whirlpool between Italy and Sicily in the Messenian straits. Charybdis was the voracious daughter of Mother Earth and Neptune, hurled into the sea, and thrice, daily, drawing in and spewing out a huge volume of water.
Bk 13:705-737. Bk 14:75-100. Aeneas passes by it.

Chersidamas
Bk 13:123-381. A Lycian, killed by Ulysses.

Chimaera
A fire-breathing monster with a lion’s head, goat’s body and serpent’s tail.
Bk 6:313-381. Its native country is Lycia in Asia Minor.
Bk 9:595-665. Byblis travels to Mount Chimeara there and becomes a fountain.

Chione
Bk 11:266-345. The daughter of Daedalion, loved by Apollo and Mercury. She bore twin sons, Philammon to Apollo, and Autolycus to Mercury. She was killed by Diana for criticising the goddess’s beauty and boasting of her own.

Chios, Chius (of Chios)
Bk 3:597-637. The island in the north-eastern Aegean off the coast of Ionia where Acoetes lands and finds Bacchus.

Chiron
Bk 2:612-632. One of the Centaurs, half-man and half-horse. He was the son of Philyra and Saturn. Phoebus Apollo took his new born son Aesculapius to his cave for protection. He is represented in the sky by the constellation Centaurus, which contains the nearest star to the sun, Alpha Centauri.
Bk 2:633-675. Father of Ocyroe, by Chariclo the water-nymph.
Bk 6:103-128. Begot by Saturn disguised as a horse.
Bk 7:350-403. His home is on Mount Pelion.

Chromis(1)
Bk 5:74-106. A companion of Phineus who kills the old man Emathion in the fight with Perseus.

Chromis(2)
Bk 12:290-326. A centaur.

Chromius
Bk 13:123-381. A Lycian, killed by Ulysses.

Chrysaor
Bk 4:753-803. The brother of Pegasus the winged horse, the warrior born from the blood of Medusa, and clasping a golden falchion. A son of Neptune. The father of Geryon.

Chryse, Chrysa
A coastal city in the Troad near Mount Ida.
Bk 13:123-381. Captured by Achilles.

Chthonius
Bk 12:429-535. A centaur.

Cicones
Book VI:675-721. A Thracian people.
Bk 10:1-85. The country of Orpheus.
Bk 11:1-66. The crazed Ciconian women are the Maenads who murder Orpheus.
Bk 15:307-360. Their river with strange properties.

Cilix
Bk 2:201-226. Of Cilicia in Asia Minor.

Cilla
A city of the Troad.
Bk 13:123-381. Captured by Achilles.

Cimmerians
A fabled people, said to live in caves in perpetual darkness, ‘beyond the north Wind.’
Bk 11:573-649. Their country is the home of Somnus, Sleep.

Cimolus
An island in the Cyclades. Described as chalky-soiled.
Bk 7:453-500. Allied to Crete.

Cinyphius
Of the River Cinyps in Africa.
Bk 5:107-148. Pelates comes from there.
Bk 7:234-293. Medea uses one of its water snakes as an ingredient for her magic potion.
Bk 15:745-842. Juba’s place of origin.

Cinyras(1)
Bk 6:70-102. An Assyrian King. His daughters were changed into the stone steps of the temple, for their presumption.

Cinyras(2)
The son of Paphos, and the father of Myrrha, and by her incestuously of Adonis. Bk 10:708-739. Adonis is therefore called Cinyreius.
Bk 10:298-355. Myrrha conceives a passion for him.
Bk 10:356-430. He, innocently, asks her to choose a husband.
Bk 10:431-502. He is deceived into admitting her to his bed, and impregnating her, driving her out when he realises what has happened.

Cipus
Bk 15:552-621. A fabled Roman praetor. He grows horns and is prophesied as a king who will enslave Rome if he enters the city, but declares himself instead, and is rewarded with honours.

Circe
Bk 4:190-213. Bk 15:622-745. The sea-nymph, daughter of Sol and Perse, and the granddaughter of Oceanus. (Kirke or Circe means a small falcon)She was famed for her beauty and magic arts and lived on the ‘island’ of Aeaea, which is the promontory of Circeii. (Cape Circeo between Anzio and Gaeta, on the west coast of Italy, now part of the magnificent Parco Nazionale del Circeo extending to Capo Portiere in the north, and providing a reminder of the ancient Pontine Marshes before they were drained, rich in wildfowl and varied tree species.) Cicero mentions that Circe was worshipped religiously by the colonists at Circei. (‘On the Nature of the Gods’, Bk III 47)
(See John Melhuish Strudwick’s painting – Circe and Scylla – Walker Art Gallery, Sudley, Merseyside, England: See Dosso Dossi’s painting - Circe and her Lovers in a Landscape- National gallery of Art, Washington)
Bk 13:898-968. Glaucus seeks her home.
Bk 14:1-74. She refuses him a love potion to make Scylla love him, and instead transforms Scylla into a monster.
Bk 14:223-319. She transforms Ulysses’s men into beasts. Mercury gives him the plant moly to enable him to approach her. He marries her and frees his men, staying for a year on her island. (Moly has been variously identified as ‘wild rue’, wild cyclamen, and a sort of garlic, allium moly. John Gerard’s Herbal of 1633 Ch.100 gives seven plants under this heading, of which the third, Moly Homericum, is he suggests the Moly of Theophrastus, Pliny and Homer – Odyssey XX- and he describes it as a wild garlic.
Bk 14:320-396. She loves Picus, but, thwarted in her love, turns him into the green woodpecker, picus viridis.
Bk 14:397-434. She turns Picus’s companions into wild beasts.
Bk 14:435-444. She had warned Ulysses’s and his crew of the dangers they must still face.

Ciris
Bk 8:81-151. The bird into which Scylla, daughter of Nisus was changed. Nisus was changed into the sea eagle. Elsewhere, and interpolated in this translation, the bird is described as having a purple breast and red legs. From the habits of the sea eagle, that preys on it, from its description, and the sacredness of the dove to Cer, the Cretan Bee-Goddess, this translator takes it to be the rock dove, columba livia. The followers of Cer, the Curetes, shaved their locks. Megara was said to have been founded by Car or Ker, a follower of the goddess. See the entry for Scylla.

Cithaeron
Bk 2:201-226. A mountain in Boeotia, near Thebes.
Bk 3:692-733. The place chosen for the worship of Bacchus.

Clanis(1)
Bk 5:107-148. The brother of Clytius. A companion of Phineus, killed by Perseus.

Clanis(2)
Bk 12:290-326. A centaur.

Clarius
Bk 11:410-473. An epithet of Apollo from Claros (Clarus) a city in Ionia, where there was an oracle and temple of the god.

Claros
Bk 1:504-524. A town in Ionia between Smyrna and Ephesus. See Clarius.

Cleatus
The son of Actor, and brother of Eurytus.
Bk 8:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.

Cleonae
A town in the Argolis.
Bk 6:401-438. Its ruler goes to Thebes to show sympathy for the death of Amphion and his children.

Cleopatra
Bk 15:745-842. Queen of Egypt, mistress of Julius Caesar and Antony. She fell from power and committed suicide when she and Antony were defeated at the battle of Actium. (See Suetonius ‘The Twelve Caesars’ and, of course, Shakespeare.)

Clitorius
Bk 15:307-360. Of the city of Clitor (Kleitor) in Arcadia, in the fork of the Kleitor and Karnesi rivers. See Pausanias VIII 21.

Clymene
Bk 1:747-764. Daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, wife of the Ethiopian king Merops, mother of Phaethon by Phoebus (Sol)
Bk 2:329-343. She mourns for her dead son.

Clymeneius
Bk 2:1-30. An epithet of Phaethon from his mother Clymene.

Clymenus
Bk 5:74-106. A companion of Phineus.

Clytaemnestra
The wife of Agamemnon, daughter of Tyndareus of Sparta, and Leda. Sister or half-sister of Helen, and of the Dioscuri. Mother of Orestes, Electra (Laodice), and Iphigenia.
Bk 13:123-381. Tricked by Ulysses into yielding up Iphigenia for sacrifice.

Clytie
Bk 4:190-213. One of the daughters of Oceanus, who loves Sol.
(See the painting by Lord Leighton – Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, on loan to Leighton House, London).
Bk 4:214-255. She tells Leucothoe’s father about her and Sol.
Bk 4:256-273. Sol disdains her and she wastes away, becoming a plant, the heliotrope, that follows the sun.

Clytius
Bk 5:107-148. The brother of Clanis. A companion of Phineus, killed by Perseus.

Clytus(1)
Bk 5:74-106. A companion of Phineus, killed by Perseus.

Clytus(2)
Bk 7:453-500.A son of Pallas, an Athenian prince. Goes with Cephalus on an embassy to Aegina. The brother of Butes.

Cnidos
Bk 10:503-559. A city in Caria. A haunt of Venus, and famous for its fish, associated with the goddess.

Cnosiacus
Bk 3:206-231. Bk 7: 453-500. Bk 8:1-80. Bk 8:81-151. Cnosius, from Cnosos (Cnossos), a city in Crete, therefore Cretan.
Bk 9:666-713. The royal city of Crete.

Coae matres
Bk 7:350-403. The women of the island of Cos in the Sporades in the Eastern Aegean off Halicarnassus, angered by Hercules because he dressed in women’s clothes to escape detection. They abused him, and were given horns like cows, by Juno.

Cocalus
The mythical king of Sicily whom Daedalus sought refuge with. Daedalus threaded a spiral Triton shell for him, using an ant to pull the thread, lured by honey.
Bk 8:260-328. He defends Daedalus against Minos of Crete.

Cocinthius
Bk 15:622-745. Of the promontory of Cocinthus in Bruttium, somewhere between Croton and Caulon.

Coeranus
Bk 13:123-381. A Lycian, killed by Ulysses.

Coeus
Bk 6:146-203. Bk 6:313-381. A Titan, father of Latona and Asterie.

Colchis, Colchus
Bk 7:100-158. Bk 13:1-122. A country in Asia south east of the Black Sea.The destination of the Argonauts and home of Medea.
Bk 7:294-349. Bk 7:294-349. Bk 7:350-403. Medea as the witch of Colchis.

Colophonius
BkVI:1-25. Of Colophon a city in Asia Minor, near the coast, north-west of Ephesus and the mouth of the River Caÿster. The home city of Idmon.

Combe
Bk 7:350-403. The daughter of Ophius, mother of the Aetolian Curetes, changed into a bird.

Cometes
Bk 12:245-289. One of the Lapithae. He was killed by Rhoetus at the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs.

Corinth, Ephyre, Corinthus
Bk 2:227-271. Bk 15:479-546. The city north of Mycenae, on the Isthmus between Attica and the Argolis. (Built on the hill of Acrocorinth it and Ithome were ‘the horns of the Greek bull’, whoever held them held the Peloponnese. It was destroyed by the Roman general Mummius in 146 BC and rebuilt by Julius Caesar in 44 BC.)
Bk 5:385-424. Origin of the Bacchiadae who founded Syracuse.
Bk 6:401-438. Its ruler goes to Thebes to show sympathy for the death of Amphion and his children. It is famous for bronze.
Bk 7:350-403. Jason having claimed the throne is king there. Its ancient name is Ephyre. It is famous for the spring of Pirene on the citadel (rebuilt in marble by Herodes Atticus in the 2nd c. AD).

Cornix
Bk 2:566-595. The daughter of Coroneus king of Phocis. She was turned into a Crow by Minerva.

Coronae, Coroni
Bk 13:675-704. Two youths who sprang from the ashes of the daughters of Orion.

Coroneus
Bk 2:566-595. A king of Phocis. The father of Cornix who was turned into a Crow by Minerva.

Coronides
Bk 15:622-745. An epithet of Aesculapius as the son of Coronis and Apollo.

Coronis
Bk 2:531-565. The daughter of Phlegyas of Larissa, King of the Lapiths and Ixion’s brother. She lived on the shores of Lake Beobis in Thessaly. She was loved by Apollo.
Bk 2:566-595. She is unfaithful to Apollo and killed by him. Bk 2:612-632. Apollo saves their unborn child Aesculapius and gives him into the care of Chiron the Centaur.

Corvus
Bk 2:531-565. The Raven, whose feathers are turned from white to black by Apollo for bringing him the news of Coronis’s unfaithfulness.

Corycides
Bk 1:313-347. Nymphs of the Corycian cave on Parnassus.

Corythus(1)
Bk 5:107-148. A warrior from Marmarica, friend to Perseus.

Corythus(2)
Bk 7:350-403. The son of Paris and Oenone, the fountain-nymph daughter of the river Oeneus. He was sent by Oenone, in jealousy of Helen, to guide the avenging Greeks to Troy.

Corythus(3)
Bk 12:290-326. One of the Lapithae.

Cous
Bk 7:350-403. From the island of Cos.

Cragos
Bk 9:595-665. A mountain in Lycia.

Crantor
Bk 12:290-326. The armour bearer of Peleus.

Crataeis
Bk 13:738-788. A nymph, the mother of Scylla.

Crathis
Bk 15:307-360. A river in Arcadia, into which the corrosive waters of the Arcadian Styx flow. Aegae is at its mouth. Pausanias describes the complex of rivers and towns near Mount Cyllene and Mount Chelmos: Clitor (Kleitor), and Nonacris, the Crathis, and the Arcadian Styx that is its tributary, in Pausanias VIII 17 and 18. He does not confirm Ovid’s comments about hair being turned to gold, but does elaborate on the marvellous properties of the Styx. (Robert Graves has an interesting digression on this, and the Proetides, in ‘The White Goddess’ p353 and p354.)
Alternatively, and since Crathis seems to be coupled here with Sybaris, Ovid is referring to properties of the Italian river Crathis (modern Crati) which may have been what Ovid calls the Sybaris, on which the ancient town of Sybaris probably stood. These properties of the river may have been transferred in legend by Greek colonists from the Greek Crathis.

Crenaeus
Bk 12:290-326. A centaur.

Cressa, Telethusa
Bk 9:666-713. A Cretan woman. Telethusa.

Crete
Bk 3:1-49. The island in the Mediterranean Sea. Dictaean from Mount Dicte.
Bk 7:425-452. Famous for its bull-worship in Minoan times. Hercules lets a white bull of Crete loose on the plains of Marathon which Theseus overcomes.
Bk 8:81-151. The kingdom of Minos.
Bk 8:183-235. Daedalus, kept there by Minos, plans to escape.
Bk 8:260-328. Athens ceases to pay it tribute.
Bk 9:159-210. In the Seventh Labour Hercules killed a bull that was ravaging the island.
Bk 9:666-713. The country of Ligdus and Telethusa.
Bk 9:714-763. The country of monstrosities.
Bk 13:705-737. The country of Teucer, an ancient king of Troy, and its people the Teucri.
Bk 15:479-546. Sacred to Diana.

Crimese
Bk 15:1-59. A town in Lucania.

Crocale
Bk 3:165-205. One of the nymphs of Diana, daughter of the river-god Ismenus, and therefore called Ismenis.

Crocus
Bk 4:274-316. A youth who pined away from love of the nymph Smilax, and was changed into the crocus flower. Smilax became the flowering bindweed.

Cromyon
Bk 7:425-452. A village near Corinth, where Theseus destroyed a fierce and monstrous white sow, that killed the farmers and prevented them ploughing their fields. It was said to be the offspring of Typhon and Echidne.

Croton
A mythical hero who entertained Hercules at his home in Sicily.
Bk 15:1-59. Myscelus founds Crotona, taking the name from its proximity to Croton’s tomb. (This is the modern Crotone, the only harbour between Taranto and Reggio. The ancient town was founded in 710 BC by settlers, sent, according to legend, by the Delphic oracle. It was an important city of the Bruttians, and with Sybaris it conrolled Magna Graecia and included colonies on the Ionian and Tyrrhenian coasts. Pythagoras made it the chief centre of his school but was later expelled from the city, when his supporters fell from power. It conquered the Sybarites in 510 BC, and became subject to Syracuse in 299 BC. Hannibal embarked there after his retreat from Rome.)

Ctesylla
Bk 7:350-403. The daughter of Alcidamas of Ceos. She gave birth to a dove.

Cumae
The site of an oracle of Apollo, and its prophetess, the Sibyl. A legendary entrance to the underworld. Daedalus rested there after his flight from Crete, and built a temple to Apollo, before going on to Sicily, where he made the golden honeycomb, for the goddess at Eryx. An ancient Euboean colony on the sea coast of Campania. (See Michael Ayrton’s drawings and paintings of the site.)
Bk 14:101-153. The site of the Sibyl’s cave, the oracular priestess of Apollo. She guides Aeneas through the underworld, showing him the golden bough that he must pluck from the tree.
Bk 14:154-222. The Sibyl guides Aeneas back to the city.

Cumaea
Bk 14:101-153. Bk 15:622-745.An epithet of the Sibyl of Cumae who guided Aeneas to the Underworld.

Cupid, Cupido, Amor
Bk 1:438-473. The god of love, son of Venus (Aphrodite). He is portrayed as a blind winged child armed with a bow and arrows, and he carries a flaming torch. He causes Apollo to fall in love with Daphne.
Bk 4:317-344. Hermaphroditus is compared with him, for beauty, by Salmacis.
Bk 5:332-384. Venus asks him to make Dis fall in love with Proserpine.
Bk 7:1-73. As love, or passion affects Medea.
Bk 9:439-516. Bk 9:517-594. Byblis names him.
Bk 10:298-355. He is not responsible for Myrrha’s incestuous passion.
Bk 10:503-559. He accidentally wounds his mother Venus with a loose arrow in his quiver, and she falls in love with Adonis.

Cures
Bk 14:772-804. The chief city of the Sabines.
Bk 15:1-59. Numa’s native city.

Curetes
Bk 4:274-316. They or the Dactyls guarded the infant Jupiter. They were the sons of Rhea, and stood around the golden cradle, hung on a tree, clashing their spears and shouting, to drown the noise of his wailing (like the sound of heavy rain?). They seem to have been associated with rain-making ceremonies.

Curetis
Bk 8:152-182. Of Crete. From Cer, the Cretan Great Goddess. See her followers the Curetes.

Cyane
Bk 5:385-424 A fountain nymph of Sicily whose stream flowed into the River Anapis, near Syracuse. She was loved by Anapis and wedded him. She obstructs Dis in his abduction of Proserpine and Dis opens up a way to Tartarus from the depths of her pool.
Bk 5:425-486. She wastes away from grief and the desecration of her pool, but shows Ceres a sign of Persephone’s rape.

Cyaneae, Symplegades
Bk 8:1-80. Two small rocky islands at the entrance to the Euxine Sea, that clashed together when anything approached them.

Cyanee
Bk 9:439-516. A nymph, the daughter of Maeander, and mother of Caunus and Byblis by Miletus.

Cybele
The Phrygian great goddess, personifying the earth in its savage state, worshipped in caves and on mountaintops. Merged with Rhea, the mother of the gods. Her consort was Attis, slain by a wild boar like Adonis. His festival was celebrated by the followers of Cybele, the Galli, or Corybantes, who were noted for convulsive dances to the music of flutes, drums and cymbals, and self-mutilation in an orgiastic fury.
Bk 10:86-105. The pine tree is sacred to her, since it embodies the transformed Attis. It is one of the trees that gather to hear Orpheus.
Bk 10:681-707. Hippomenes and Atalanta desecrate her sacred cave, with its wooden images of the elder gods. She is adorned with a turreted crown. The two sinners are turned into the lions that pull her chariot.
Bk 14:527-565. She transforms Aeneas’s fleet of ships into Naiads, since their timbers were cut on her sacred Mount Ida.

Cyclades
Bk 2:227-271. The scattered islands of the southern Aegean off the coast of the Greece, forming a broken circle.

Cyclopes
Bk 1:244-273. A race of giants living on the coast of Sicily of whom Polyphemus was one. They had a single eye in the centre of their foreheads. They forged Jupiter’s lightning-bolts.
Bk 13:738-788. Bk 13:789-869. Bk 13:870-897.
Bk 14:1-74. Bk 14:154-222. Polyphemus, who loves Galatea and is blinded by Ulysses.
Bk 15:60-142. Pythagoras compares meat-eating to the practices of Polyphemus.

Cycnus(1)
Bk 2:367-380. Son of Sthenelus King of Liguria, mourns Phaethon and is changed into a swan.

Cycnus(2)
Bk 7:350-403. The son of Apollo and Hyrie, a great hunter of Tempe. He is turned into a swan when he attempts suicide to spite Phylius.

Cycnus(3)
Bk 12:64-145. The son of Neptune, deemed invulnerable. He is defeated by Achilles, who chokes him to death, and turned by his father Neptune into a white swan.
Bk 12:146-209. He is unique in his invulnerability to weapons in his generation.

Cydonaeus
Bk 8:1-80. Of Cydonia, a town in northern Crete. Hence used to mean Cretan.

Cyllarus
Bk 12:393-428. A centaur, loved by Hylonome. Inseparable in life they died together.

Cyllene
Bk 1:199-243. A mountain in Arcadia, Mercury’s birthplace, hence Cyllenius, an epithet of Mercury. (Pausanias, VIII, xvii, noting it as the highest mountain in Arcadia mentions the ruined shrine of Hermes-Mercury on its summit, and says it got its name from Cyllen son of Elatus. Mercury’s statue was of juniper (thuon) and stood eight feet tall. Pausanias says that Cyllene was famous for its white (albino?) blackbirds.)
Bk 1:689-721. Mercury lulls Argus to sleep and kills him.
BkII:812-832. Mercury turns Aglauros to stone.
Bk 5:572-641. Passed by Arethusa in her flight.
Bk 7:350-403. The place where Menephron committed incest with his mother.
Bk 11:266-345. Mercury’s sacred mountain.

Cyllenius
Bk 5:149-199. Bk 13:123-381. Bk 14:223-319. An epithet of Mercury from Mount Cyllene.
Bk 5:294-331. The Emathides pretend that he fled to Egypt in the war between the giants and the gods, and there he hid in the form of a winged ibis.

Cymelus
Bk 12:429-535. One of the Lapithae.

Cynthia
Bk 2:441-465. Bk 15:479-546. An epithet of Diana as the Moon goddess, derived from Mount Cynthus on Delos her birthplace. She expels Callisto from her band of virgin followers because Callisto is pregnant by Jupiter.
Bk 7:661-758. Procris is her follower.
Bk 15:479-546. She hides Hippolytus and sets him down at Nemi.

Cynthus
Bk 2:201-226. A mountain on the island of Delos sacred to Apollo and Artemis(Diana).
Bk 6:204-266. Latona speaks to her two children Apollo and Diana there.

Cyparissus
Bk 10:106-142.A youth loved by Apollo. He accidentally killed a beloved stag, sacred to the nymphs, and begged to mourn forever. Phoebus turned him into a cypress tree.

Cyprus
Bk 14:623-697. The Island off the south coast of Asia Minor sacred to Venus.
Bk 10:220-242. The city of Amathus was there.
Bk 10:243-297. The whole island celebrates the festival of Venus.
It is called Paphos, after Pygmalion’s daughter.
Bk 10:638-680. It contains the sacred field with the golden tree at Tamasus.
Bk 10:708-739. Venus’s destination prior to the death of Adonis.

Cytherea, Cythereias, Cythereis, Cythereius, Venus, Aphrodite
Bk 4:190-213. Of Cythera, the Aegean island, sacred to Venus- Aphrodite who rose from the sea there. (See Botticelli’s the Birth of Venus: see Baudelaire’s poem ‘Voyage to Cytherea’.).
Bk 4:274-316. An epithet for Venus-Aphrodite. She is the mother of Hermaphroditus by Mercury-Hermes.
Bk 10:503-559. Sacred to Venus.
Bk 10:638-680. Bk 10:708-739. Bk 13:623-639.
Bk 14:483-511. Bk 15:745-842. Venus.
Bk 14:566-580. She obtains deification for her son Aeneas.
Bk 15:361-390. Doves are her sacred birds.

Cythereius heros
Bk 13:623-639. Applied to Aeneas as the son of Venus.

Cythnus
Bk 5:250-293. An island of the Cyclades.

Cytoriacus
Bk 4:274-316. Of Cytorus, a mountain in Paphlagonia, with abundant boxwood. Salmacis’s comb is made from it.
Bk 6:129-145. Minerva’s shuttle is made of it.
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