Chapter X: Book THE FIRST: The Argument. I.1-4 (1)

My design leads me to speak of forms changed into new bodies.[1] Ye Gods, (for you it was who changed them,) favor my attempts,[2] and bring down the lengthened narrative from the very beginning of the world, {even} to my own times.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Forms changed into new bodies._--Ver. 1. Some
commentators cite these words as an instance of Hypallage as being
used for ‘corpora mutata in novas formas,’ ‘bodies changed into
new forms;’ and they fancy that there is a certain beauty in the
circumstance that the proposition of a subject which treats of the
changes and variations of bodies should be framed with a
transposition of words. This supposition is perhaps based rather
on the exuberance of a fanciful imagination than on solid grounds,
as if it is an instance of Hypallage, it is most probably quite
accidental; while the passage may be explained without any
reference to Hypallage, as the word ‘forma’ is sometimes used to
signify the thing itself; thus the words ‘formæ deorum’ and
‘ferarum’ are used to signify ‘the Gods,’ or ‘the wild beasts’
themselves.]

[Footnote 2: _Favor my attempts._--Ver. 3. This use of the word
‘adspirate’ is a metaphor taken from the winds, which, while they
fill the ship’s sails, were properly said ‘adspirare.’ It has been
remarked, with some justice, that this invocation is not
sufficiently long or elaborate for a work of so grave and
dignified a nature as the Metamorphoses.]

[Footnote 3: _To my own times._--Ver. 4. That is, to the days of
Augustus Cæsar.]

FABLE I. [I.5-31]

God reduces Chaos into order. He separates the four elements, and
disposes the several bodies, of which the universe is formed, into
their proper situations.

At first, the sea, the earth, and the heaven, which covers all things, were the only face of nature throughout the whole universe, which men have named Chaos; a rude and undigested mass,[4] and nothing {more} than an inert weight, and the discordant atoms of things not harmonizing, heaped together in the same spot. No Sun[5] as yet gave light to the world; nor did the Moon,[6] by increasing, recover her horns anew. The Earth did not {as yet} hang in the surrounding air, balanced by its own weight, nor had Amphitrite[7] stretched out her arms along the lengthened margin of the coasts. Wherever, too, was the land, there also was the sea and the air; {and} thus was the earth without firmness, the sea unnavigable, the air void of light; in no one {of them} did its {present} form exist. And one was {ever} obstructing the other; because in the same body the cold was striving with the hot, the moist with the dry, the soft with the hard, things having weight with {those} devoid of weight.

To this discord God and bounteous Nature[8] put an end; for he separated the earth from the heavens, and the waters from the earth, and distinguished the clear heavens from the gross atmosphere. And after he had unravelled these {elements}, and released them from {that} confused heap, he combined them, {thus} disjoined, in harmonious unison, {each} in {its proper} place. The element of the vaulted heaven,[9] fiery and without weight, shone forth, and selected a place for itself in the highest region; next after it, {both} in lightness and in place, was the air; the Earth was more weighty than these, and drew {with it} the more ponderous atoms, and was pressed together by its own gravity. The encircling waters sank to the lowermost place,[10] and surrounded the solid globe.

[Footnote 4: _A rude and undigested mass._--Ver. 7. This is very
similar to the words of the Scriptures, ‘And the earth was without
form and void,’ Genesis, ch. i. ver. 2.]

[Footnote 5: _No Sun._--Ver. 10. Titan. The Sun is so called, on
account of his supposed father, Hyperion, who was one of the
Titans. Hyperion is thought to have been the first who, by
assiduous observation, discovered the course of the Sun, Moon, and
other luminaries. By them he regulated the time for the seasons,
and imparted this knowledge to others. Being thus, as it were, the
father of astronomy, he has been feigned by the poets to have been
the father of the Sun and the Moon.]

[Footnote 6: _The Moon._--Ver. 11. Phœbe. The Moon is so called
from the Greek φοῖβος, ‘shining,’ and as being the sister of
Phœbus, Apollo, or the Sun.]

[Footnote 7: _Amphitrite._--Ver. 14. She was the daughter of
Oceanus and Doris, and the wife of Neptune, God of the Sea. Being
the Goddess of the Ocean, her name is here used to signify the
ocean itself.]

[Footnote 8: _Nature._--Ver. 21. ‘Natura’ is a word often used by
the Poet without any determinate signification, and to its
operations are ascribed all those phenomena which it is found
difficult or impossible to explain upon known and established
principles. In the present instance it may be considered to mean
the invisible agency of the Deity in reducing Chaos into a form of
order and consistency. ‘Et’ is therefore here, as grammarians term
it, an expositive particle; as if the Poet had said, ‘Deus sive
natura,’ ‘God, or in other words, nature.’]

[Footnote 9: _The element of the vaulted heaven._--Ver. 26. This
is a periphrasis, signifying the regions of the firmament or upper
air, in which the sun and stars move; which was supposed to be of
the purest fire and the source of all flame. The heavens are
called ‘convex,’ from being supposed to assume the same shape as
the terrestrial globe which they surround.]

[Footnote 10: _The lowermost place._--Ver. 31. ‘Ultima’ must not
be here understood in the presence of ‘infima,’ or as signifying
‘last,’ or ‘lowest,’ in a strict philosophical sense, for that
would contradict the account of the formation of the world given
by Hesiod, and which is here closely followed by Ovid; indeed, it
would contradict his own words,--‘Circumfluus humor coercuit
solidum orbem.’ The meaning seems to be, that the waters possess
the lowest place only in respect to the earth whereon we tread,
and not relatively to the terrestrial globe, the supposed centre
of the system, inasmuch as the external surface of the earth in
some places rises considerably, and leaves the water to subside in
channels.]

EXPLANATION.

The ancient philosophers, unable to comprehend how something could be
produced out of nothing, supposed a matter pre-existent to the Earth
in its present shape, which afterwards received form and order from
some powerful cause. According to them, God was not the Creator, but
the Architect of the universe, in ranging and disposing the elements
in situations most suitable to their respective qualities. This is the
Chaos so often sung of by the poets, and which Hesiod was the first to
mention.

It is clear that this system was but a confused and disfigured
tradition of the creation of the world, as mentioned by Moses; and
thus, beneath these fictions, there lies some faint glimmering of
truth. The first two chapters of the book of Genesis will be found to
throw considerable light on the foundation of this Mythological system
of the world’s formation.

Hesiod, the most ancient of the heathen writers who have enlarged upon
this subject, seems to have derived much of his information from the
works of Sanchoniatho, who is supposed to have borrowed his ideas
concerning Chaos from that passage in the second verse of the first
Chapter of Genesis, which mentions the darkness that was spread over
the whole universe--‘and darkness was upon the face of the deep’--for
he expresses himself almost in those words. Sanchoniatho lived before
the Trojan war, and professed to have received his information
respecting the original construction of the world from a priest of
‘Jehovah,’ named Jerombaal. He wrote in the Phœnician language; but we
have only a translation of his works, by Philo Judæus, which is by
many supposed to be spurious. It is, however, very probable, that from
him the Greeks borrowed their notions regarding Chaos, which they
mingled with fables of their own invention.

FABLE II. [I.32-88]

After the separation of matter, God gives form and regularity to the
universe; and all other living creatures being produced, Prometheus
moulds earth tempered with water, into a human form, which is animated
by Minerva.

When thus he, whoever of the Gods he was,[11] had divided the mass {so} separated, and reduced it, so divided, into {distinct} members; in the first place, that it might not be unequal on any side, he gathered it up into the form of a vast globe; then he commanded the sea to be poured around it, and to grow boisterous with the raging winds, and to surround the shores of the Earth, encompassed {by it}; he added also springs, and numerous pools and lakes, and he bounded the rivers as they flowed downwards, with slanting banks. These, different in {different} places, are some of them swallowed up[12] by {the Earth} itself; some of them reach the ocean, and, received in the expanse of waters that take a freer range, beat against shores instead of banks.

He commanded the plains,[13] too, to be extended, the valleys to sink down, the woods to be clothed with green leaves, the craggy mountains to arise; and, as on the right-hand side,[14] two Zones intersect the heavens, and as many on the left; {and as} there is a fifth hotter than these, so did the care of the Deity distinguish this enclosed mass {of the Earth} by the same number, and as many climates are marked out upon the Earth. Of these, that which is the middle one[15] is not habitable on account of the heat; deep snow covers two[16] {of them}. Between either these he placed as many more,[17] and gave them a temperate climate, heat being mingled with cold.

Over these hangs the air, which is heavier than fire, in the same degree that the weight of water is lighter than the weight of the earth. Here he ordered vapors, here too, the clouds to take their station; the thunder, too, to terrify the minds of mortals, and with the lightnings, the winds that bring on cold. The Contriver of the World did not allow these indiscriminately to take possession of the sky. Even now, (although they each of them govern their own blasts in a distinct tract) they are with great difficulty prevented from rending the world asunder, so great is the discord of the brothers.[18] Eurus took his way[19] towards {the rising of} Aurora and the realms of Nabath[20] and Persia, and the mountain ridges exposed to the rays of the morning. The Evening star, and the shores which are warm with the setting sun, are bordering upon Zephyrus.[21] The terrible Boreas invaded Scythia,[22] and the regions of the North. The opposite quarter is wet with continual clouds, and the drizzling South Wind.[23] Over these he placed the firmament, clear and devoid of gravity, and not containing anything of the dregs of earth.

Scarcely had he separated all these by fixed limits, when the stars, which had long lain hid, concealed beneath that mass {of Chaos}, began to glow through the range of the heavens. And that no region might be destitute of its own {peculiar} animated beings, the stars and the forms of the Gods[24] possess the tract of heaven; the waters fell to be inhabited by the smooth fishes;[25] the Earth received the wild beasts, {and} the yielding air the birds.

{But} an animated being, more holy than these, more fitted to receive higher faculties, and which could rule over the rest,[26] was still wanting. {Then} Man was formed. Whether it was that the Artificer of all things, the original of the world in its improved state, framed him from divine elements;[27] or whether, the Earth, being newly made, and but lately divided from the lofty æther, still retained some atoms of its kindred heaven, which, tempered with the waters of the stream, the son of Iapetus fashioned after the image of the Gods, who rule over all things. And, whereas other animals bend their looks downwards upon the Earth, to Man he gave a countenance to look on high and to behold the heavens, and to raise his face erect to the stars. Thus, that which had been lately rude earth, and without any regular shape, being changed, assumed the form of Man, {till then} unknown.

[Footnote 11: _Whoever of the Gods he was._--Ver. 32. By this
expression the Poet perhaps may intend to intimate that the God
who created the world was some more mighty Divinity than those who
were commonly accounted Deities.]

[Footnote 12: _Are some of them swallowed up._--Ver. 40. He here
refers to those rivers which, at some distance from their sources,
disappear and continue their course under ground. Such was the
stream of Arethusa, the Lycus in Asia, the Erasinus in Argolis,
the Alpheus in Peloponnesus, the Arcas in Spain, and the Rhone in
France. Most of these, however, after descending into the earth,
appear again and discharge their waters into the sea.]

[Footnote 13: _He commanded the plains._--Ver. 43. The use here of
the word ‘jussit,’ signifying ‘ordered,’ or ‘commanded,’ is
considered as being remarkably sublime and appropriate, and
serving well to express the ease wherewith an infinitely powerful
Being accomplishes the most difficult works. There is the same
beauty here that was long since remarked by Longinus, one of the
most celebrated critics among the ancients, in the words used by
Moses, ‘And God said, Let there be light, and there was light,’
Genesis, ch. i. ver. 3.]

[Footnote 14: _On the right-hand side._--Ver. 45. The “right hand”
here refers to the northern part of the globe, and the “left hand”
to the southern. He here speaks of the zones. Astronomers have
divided the heavens into five parallel circles. First, the
equinoctial, which lies in the middle, between the poles of the
earth, and obtains its name from the equality of days and nights
on the earth while the sun is in its plane. On each side are the
two tropics, at the distance of 23 deg. 30 min., and described by
the sun when in his greatest declination north and south, or at
the summer and winter solstices. That on the north side of the
equinoctial is called the tropic of Cancer, because the sun
describes it when in that sign of the ecliptic; and that on the
south side is, for a similar reason, called the tropic of
Capricorn. Again, at the distance of 23½ degrees from the poles
are two other parallels called the polar circles, either because
they are near to the poles, or because, if we suppose the whole
frame of the heavens to turn round on the plane of the
equinoctial, these circles are marked out by the poles of the
ecliptic. By means of these parallels, astronomers have divided
the heavens into four zones or tracks. The whole space between the
two tropics is the middle or torrid zone, which the equinoctial
divides into two equal parts. On each side of this are the
temperate zones, which extend from the tropics to the two polar
circles. And lastly, the portions enclosed by the polar circles
make up the frigid zones. As the planes of these circles produced
till they reached the earth, would also impress similar parallels
upon it, and divide it in the same manner as they divide the
heavens, astronomers have conceived five zones upon the earth,
corresponding to those in the heavens, and bounded by the same
circles.]

[Footnote 15: _That which is the middle one._--Ver. 49. The
ecliptic in which the sun moves, cuts the equator in two opposite
points, at an angle of 23½ degrees; and runs obliquely from one
tropic to another, and returns again in a corresponding direction.
Hence, the sun, which in the space of a year, performs the
revolution of this circle, must in that time be twice vertical to
every place in the torrid zone, except directly under the tropics,
and his greatest distance from their zenith at noon, cannot exceed
47 degrees. Thus his rays being often perpendicular, or nearly so,
and never very oblique, must strike more forcibly, and cause more
intense heat in that spot. Being little acquainted with the extent
and situation of the earth, the ancients believed it
uninhabitable. Modern discovery has shown that this is not the
case as to a considerable part of the torrid zone, though with
some parts of it our acquaintance is still very limited.]

[Footnote 16: _Deep snow covers two._--Ver. 50. The two polar or
frigid zones. For as the sun never approaches these nearer than
the tropic on that side, and is, during one part of the year,
removed by the additional extent of the whole torrid zone, his
rays must be very oblique and faint, so as to leave these tracts
exposed to almost perpetual cold.]

[Footnote 17: _He placed as many more._--Ver. 51. The temperate
zones, lying between the torrid and the frigid, partake of the
character of each in a modified degree, and are of a middle
temperature between hot and cold. Here, too, the distinction of
the seasons is manifest. For in either temperate zone, when the
sun is in that tropic, which borders upon it, being nearly
vertical, the heat must be considerable, and produce summer; but
when he is removed to the other tropic by a distance of 47
degrees, his rays will strike but faintly, and winter will be the
consequence. The intermediate spaces, while he is moving from one
tropic to the other, make spring and autumn.]

[Footnote 18: _The brothers._--Ver. 60. That is, the winds, who,
according to the Theogony of Hesiod, were the sons of Astreus, the
giant, and Aurora.]

[Footnote 19: _Eurus took his way._--Ver. 61. The Poet, after
remarking that the air is the proper region of the winds, proceeds
to take notice that God, to prevent them from making havoc of the
creation, subjected them to particular laws, and assigned to each
the quarter whence to direct his blasts. Eurus is the east wind,
being so called from its name, because it blows from the east. As
Aurora, or the morning, was always ushered in by the sun, who
rises eastward, she was supposed to have her habitation in the
eastern quarter of the world; and often, in the language of
ancient poetry, her name signifies the east.]

[Footnote 20: _The realms of Nabath._--Ver. 61. From Josephus we
learn that Nabath, the son of Ishmael, with his eleven brothers,
took possession of all the country from the river Euphrates to the
Red Sea, and called it Nabathæa. Pliny the Elder and Strabo speak
of the Nabatæi as situated between Babylon and Arabia Felix, and
call their capital Petra. Tacitus, in his Annals (Book ii.
ch. 57), speaks of them as having a king. Perhaps the term
‘Nabathæa regna’ implies here, generally, the whole of Arabia.]

[Footnote 21: _Are bordering upon Zephyrus._--Ver. 63. The region
where the sun sets, that is to say, the western part of the world,
was assigned by the ancients to the Zephyrs, or west winds, so
called by a Greek derivation because they cherish and enliven
nature.]

[Footnote 22: _Boreas invaded Scythia._--Ver. 34. Under the name
of Scythia, the ancients generally comprehended all the countries
situate in the extreme northern regions. ‘Septem trio,’ meaning
the northern region of the world, is so called from the ‘Triones,’
a constellation of seven stars, near the North Pole, known also as
the Ursa Major, or Greater Bear, and among the country people of
our time by the name of Charles’s Wain. Boreas, one of the names
of ‘Aquilo,’ or the ‘north wind,’ is derived from a Greek word,
signifying ‘an eddy.’ This name was probably given to it from its
causing whirlwinds occasionally by its violence.]

[Footnote 23: _The drizzling South Wind._--Ver. 66. The South Wind
is especially called rainy, because, blowing from the
Mediterranean sea on the coast of France and Italy, it generally
brings with it clouds and rain.]

[Footnote 24: _The forms of the Gods._--Ver. 73. There is some
doubt what the Poet here means by the ‘forms of the Gods.’ Some
think that the stars are meant, as if it were to be understood
that they are forms of the Gods. But it is most probably only a
poetical expression for the Gods themselves, and he here assigns
the heavens as the habitation of the Gods and the stars; these
last, according to the notion of the Platonic philosophers being
either intelligent beings, or guided and actuated by such.]

[Footnote 25: _Inhabited by the smooth fishes._--Ver. 74.
‘Cesserunt nitidis habitandæ piscibus;’ Clarke translates ‘fell
to the neat fishes to inhabit.’]

[Footnote 26: _Could rule over the rest._--Ver. 77. This strongly
brings to mind the words of the Creator, described in the first
chapter of Genesis, ver. 28. ‘And God said unto them--_have
dominion_ over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’]

[Footnote 27: _Framed him from divine elements._--Ver. 78. We have
here strong grounds for contending that the ancient philosophers,
and after them the poets, in their account of the creation of the
world followed a tradition that had been copied from the Books of
Moses. The formation of man, in Ovid, as well as in the Book of
Genesis, is the last work of the Creator, and was, for the same
purpose, that man might have dominion over the other animated
works of the creation.]

EXPLANATION.

According to Ovid, as in the book of Genesis, man is the last work of
the Creator. The information derived from Holy Writ is here presented
to us, in a disfigured form. Prometheus, who tempers the earth, and
Minerva, who animates his workmanship, is God, who formed man, and
‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.’

Some writers have labored to prove that this Prometheus, of the
heathen Mythology, was a Scriptural character. Bochart believes him to
have been the same with Magog, mentioned in the book of Genesis.
Prometheus was the son of Iapetus, and Magog was the son of Japhet,
who, according to that learned writer, was identical with Iapetus. He
says, that as Magog went to settle in Scythia, so did Prometheus; as
Magog either invented, or improved, the art of founding metals, and
forging iron, so, according to the heathen poets, did Prometheus.
Diodorus Siculus asserts that Prometheus was the first to teach
mankind how to produce fire from the flint and steel.

The fable of Prometheus being devoured by an eagle, according to some,
is founded on the name of Magog, which signifies ‘a man devoured by
sorrow.’ Le Clerc, in his notes on Hesiod, says, that Epimetheus, the
brother of Prometheus, was the same with the Gog of Scripture, the
brother of Magog. Some writers, again, have exerted their ingenuity to
prove that Prometheus is identical with the patriarch Noah.

FABLE III. [I.89-112]

The formation of man is followed by a succession of the four ages of
the world. The first is the Golden Age, during which Innocence and
Justice alone govern the world.

The Golden Age was first founded, which, without any avenger, of its own accord, without laws, practised both faith and rectitude. Punishment, and the fear {of it}, did not exist, and threatening decrees were not read upon the brazen {tables},[28] fixed up {to view}, nor {yet} did the suppliant multitude dread the countenance of its judge; but {all} were in safety without any avenger. The pine-tree, cut from its {native} mountains, had not yet descended to the flowing waves, that it might visit a foreign region; and mortals were acquainted with no shores beyond their own. Not as yet did deep ditches surround the towns; no trumpets of straightened, or clarions of crooked brass,[29] no helmets, no swords {then} existed. Without occasion for soldiers, the minds {of men}, free from care, enjoyed an easy tranquillity.

The Earth itself, too, in freedom, untouched by the harrow, and wounded by no ploughshares, of its own accord produced everything; and men, contented with the food created under no compulsion, gathered the fruit of the arbute-tree, and the strawberries of the mountain, and cornels, and blackberries adhering to the prickly bramble-bushes, and acorns which had fallen from the wide-spreading tree of Jove. {Then} it was an eternal spring; and the gentle Zephyrs, with their soothing breezes, cherished the flowers produced without any seed. Soon, too, the Earth unploughed yielded crops of grain, and the land, without being renewed, was whitened with the heavy ears of corn. Then, rivers of milk, then, rivers of nectar were flowing, and the yellow honey was distilled from the green holm oak.

[Footnote 28: _Read upon the brazen tables._--Ver. 91. It was the
custom among the Romans to engrave their laws on tables of brass,
and fix them in the Capitol, or some other conspicuous place, that
they might be open to the view of all.]

[Footnote 29: _Clarions of crooked brass._--Ver. 98. ‘Cornu’ seems
to have been a general name for the horn or trumpet; whereas the
“tuba” was a straight trumpet, while the ‘lituus’ was bent into a
spiral shape. Lydus says that the ‘lituus’ was the sacerdotal
trumpet, and that it was employed by Romulus when he proclaimed
the title of his newly-founded city. Acro says that it was
peculiar to the cavalry, while the ‘tuba’ belonged to the
infantry. The notes of the ‘lituus’ are usually described as harsh
and shrill.]

EXPLANATION.

The heathen poets had learned, most probably from tradition, that our
first parents lived for some time in peaceful innocence; that, without
tillage, the garden of Eden furnished them with fruit and food in
abundance; and that the animals were submissive to their commands:
that after the fall the ground became unfruitful, and yielded nothing
without labor; and that nature no longer spontaneously acknowledged
man for its master. The more happy days of our first parents they seem
to have styled the Golden Age, each writer being desirous to make his
own country the scene of those times of innocence. The Latin writers,
for instance, have placed in Italy, and under the reign of Saturn and
Janus, events, which, as they really happened, the Scriptures relate
in the histories of Adam and of Noah.

FABLE IV. [I.113-150]

In the Silver Age, men begin not to be so just, nor, consequently, so
happy, as in the Golden Age. In the Brazen Age, which succeeds, they
become yet less virtuous; but their wickedness does not rise to its
highest pitch until the Iron Age, when it makes its appearance in all
its deformity.

Afterwards (Saturn being driven into the shady realms of Tartarus), the world was under the sway of Jupiter; {then} the Silver Age succeeded, inferior to {that of} gold, but more precious than {that of} yellow brass. Jupiter shortened the duration of the former spring, and divided the year into four periods by means of winters, and summers, and unsteady autumns, and short springs. Then, for the first time, did the parched air glow with sultry heat, and the ice, bound up by the winds, was pendant. Then, for the first time, did men enter houses; {those} houses were caverns, and thick shrubs, and twigs fastened together with bark. Then, for the first time, were the seeds of Ceres buried in long furrows, and the oxen groaned, pressed by the yoke {of the ploughshare}.

The Age of Brass succeeded, as the third {in order}, after these; fiercer in disposition, and more prone to horrible warfare, but yet free from impiety. The last {Age} was of hard iron. Immediately every species of crime burst forth, in this age of degenerated tendencies;[30] modesty, truth, and honor took flight; in their place succeeded fraud, deceit, treachery, violence, and the cursed hankering for acquisition. The sailor now spread his sails to the winds, and with these, as yet, he was but little acquainted; and {the trees}, which had long stood on the lofty mountains, now, {as} ships bounded[31] through the unknown waves. The ground, too, hitherto common as the light of the sun and the breezes, the cautious measurer marked out with his lengthened boundary.

And not only was the rich soil required to furnish corn and due sustenance, but men even descended into the entrails of the Earth; and riches were dug up, the incentives to vice, which the Earth had hidden, and had removed to the Stygian shades.[32] Then destructive iron came forth, and gold, more destructive than iron; then War came forth, that fights through the means of both,[33] and that brandishes in his blood-stained hands the clattering arms. Men live by rapine; the guest is not safe from his entertainer, nor the father-in-law from the son-in-law; good feeling, too, between brothers is a rarity. The husband is eager for the death of the wife, she {for that} of her husband. Horrible stepmothers {then} mingle the ghastly wolfsbane; the son prematurely makes inquiry[34] into the years of his father. Piety lies vanquished, and the virgin Astræa[35] is the last of the heavenly {Deities} to abandon the Earth, {now} drenched in slaughter.

[Footnote 30: _Age of degenerated tendencies._--Ver. 128. ‘Vena’
signifies among other things, a vein or track of metal as it lies
in the mine. Literally, ‘venæ pejoris’ signifies ‘of inferior
metal.’]

[Footnote 31: _Now as ships bounded._--Ver. 134. ‘Insultavere
carinæ.’ This line is translated by Clarke, ‘The keel-pieces
bounced over unknown waves.’]

[Footnote 32: _To the Stygian shades._--Ver. 139. That is, in deep
caverns, and towards the centre of the earth; for Styx was feigned
to be a river of the Infernal Regions, situate in the depths of
the earth.]

[Footnote 33: _Through the means of both._--Ver. 142. Gold forms,
perhaps, more properly the sinews of war than iron. The history of
Philip of Macedon gives a proof of this, as he conquered Greece
more by bribes than the sword, and used to say, that he deemed no
fortress impregnable, where there was a gate large enough to admit
a camel laden with gold.]

[Footnote 34: _Prematurely makes inquiry._--Ver. 148. Namely, by
inquiring of the magicians and astrologers, that by their skill in
casting nativities, they might inform them the time when their
parents were likely to die, and to leave them their property.]

[Footnote 35: _Astræa._--Ver. 150. She was the daughter of Astræus
and Aurora, or of Jupiter and Themis, and was the Goddess of
Justice. On leaving the earth, she was supposed to have taken her
place among the stars as the Constellation of the Virgin.]

EXPLANATION.

The Poet here informs us, that during the Golden Age, a perpetual
spring reigned on the earth, and that the division of the year into
seasons was not known until the Silver Age. This allusion to Eden is
very generally to be found in the works of the heathen poets. The
Silver Age is succeeded by the Brazen, and that is followed by the
Iron Age, which still continues. The meaning is, that man gradually
degenerated from his primeval innocence, and arrived at that state of
wickedness and impiety, of which the history of all ages, ancient and
modern, presents us with so many lamentable examples.

The limited nature of their views, and the fact that their exuberant
fancy was the source from which they derived many of their alleged
events, naturally betrayed the ancient writers into great
inconsistencies. For in the Golden Age of Saturn, we find wars waged,
and crimes committed. Saturn expelled his father, and seized his
throne; Jupiter, his son, treated Saturn as he had done his father
Uranus; and Jupiter, in his turn, had to wage war against the Giants,
in their attempt to dispossess him of the heavens.

FABLE V. [I.151-162]

The Giants having attempted to render themselves masters of heaven,
Jupiter buries them under the mountains which they have heaped
together to facilitate their assault; and the Earth, animating their
blood, forms out of it a cruel and fierce generation of men.

And that the lofty {realms of} æther might not be more safe than the Earth, they say that the Giants aspired to the sovereignty of Heaven, and piled the mountains, heaped together, even to the lofty stars. Then the omnipotent Father, hurling his lightnings, broke through Olympus,[36] and struck Ossa away from Pelion, that lay beneath it. While the dreadful carcasses lay overwhelmed beneath their own structure, they say that the Earth was wet, drenched with the plenteous blood of her sons, and that she gave life to the warm gore; and that, lest no memorial of this ruthless race should be surviving, she shaped them into the form of men. But that generation, too, was a despiser of the Gods above, and most greedy of ruthless slaughter, and full of violence: you might see that they derived their origin from blood.

[Footnote 36: _Olympus._--Ver. 154. Olympus was a mountain between
Thessaly and Macedonia. Pelion was a mountain of Thessaly, towards
the Pelasgic gulf; and Ossa was a mountain between Olympus and
Pelion. These the Giants are said to have heaped one on another,
in order to scale heaven.]

EXPLANATION.

The war of the giants, which is here mentioned, is not to be
confounded with that between Jupiter and the Titans, who were
inhabitants of heaven. The fall of the angels, as conveyed by
tradition, probably gave rise to the story of the Titans; while,
perhaps, the building of the tower of Babel may have laid the
foundation of that of the attempt by the giants to reach heaven.
Perhaps, too, the descendants of Cain, who are probably the persons
mentioned in Scripture as the children ‘of men’ and ‘giants,’ were the
race depicted under the form of the Giants, and the generation that
sprung from their blood. See Genesis, ch. vi. ver. 2, 4.

FABLE VI. [I.163-215]

Jupiter, having seen the crimes of this impious race of men, calls a
council of the Gods, and determines to destroy the world.

When the Father {of the Gods}, the son of Saturn, beheld this from his loftiest height, he groaned aloud; and recalling to memory the polluted banquet on the table of Lycaon, not yet publicly known, from the crime being but lately committed, he conceives in his mind vast wrath, and such as is worthy of Jove, and calls together a council; no delay detains them, thus summoned.

There is a way on high,[37] easily seen in a clear sky, and which, remarkable for its very whiteness, receives the name of the Milky {Way}. Along this is the way for the Gods above to the abode of the great Thunderer and his royal palace. On the right and on the left side the courts of the ennobled Deities[38] are thronged, with open gates. The {Gods of} lower rank[39] inhabit various places; in front {of the Way}, the powerful and illustrious inhabitants of Heaven have established their residence. This is the place which, if boldness may be allowed to my expression, I should not hesitate to style the palatial residence of Heaven. When, therefore, the Gods above had taken their seats in the marble hall of assembly; he himself, elevated on his seat, and leaning on his sceptre of ivory, three or four times shook the awful locks[40] of his head, with which he makes the Earth, the Seas, and the Stars to tremble. Then, after such manner as this, did he open his indignant lips:--

“Not {even} at that time was I more concerned for the empire of the universe, when each of the snake-footed monsters was endeavoring to lay his hundred arms on the captured skies. For although that was a dangerous enemy, yet that war was with but one stock, and sprang from a single origin. Now must the race of mortals be cut off by me, wherever Nereus[41] roars on all sides of the earth; {this} I swear by the Rivers of Hell, that glide in the Stygian grove beneath the earth. All methods have been already tried; but a wound that admits of no cure, must be cut away with the knife, that the sound parts may not be corrupted. I have {as subjects}, Demigods, and I have the rustic Deities, the Nymphs,[42] and the Fauns, and the Satyrs, and the Sylvans, the inhabitants of the mountains; these, though as yet, we have not thought them worthy of the honor of Heaven, let us, at least, permit to inhabit the earth which we have granted them. And do you, ye Gods of Heaven, believe that they will be in proper safety, when Lycaon remarkable for his cruelty, has formed a plot against {even} me, who own and hold sway over the thunder and yourselves?”

All shouted their assent aloud, and with ardent zeal they called for vengeance on one who dared such {crimes}. Thus, when an impious band[43] {madly} raged to extinguish the Roman name in the blood of Cæsar, the human race was astonished with sudden terror at ruin so universal, and the whole earth shook with horror. Nor was the affectionate regard, Augustus, of thy subjects less grateful to thee, than that was to Jupiter. Who, after he had, by means of his voice and his hand, suppressed their murmurs, all of them kept silence. Soon as the clamor had ceased, checked by the authority of their ruler, Jupiter again broke silence in these words:

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

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

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

‘Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars,
Mercurius, Jovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo.’]

[Footnote 39: _The Gods of lower rank._--Ver. 173. These were the
‘Dii minorum gentium,’ or inferior Deities.]

[Footnote 40: _Shook the awful locks._--Ver. 179. This awful nod
of Jupiter, the sanction by which he confirms his decrees, is an
idea taken from Homer; by whom it is so vividly depicted at the
end of the first book of the Iliad, that Phidias, in his statue of
that God, admired for the awful majesty of its looks, is said to
have derived his conception of the features from that description.
Virgil has the same idea in the Æneid, book x; ‘Annuit, et totum
metu tremefecit Olympum.’]

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

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

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

EXPLANATION.

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

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

FABLE VII. [I.216-243]

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

I had {now} passed Mænalus, to be dreaded for its dens of beasts of prey, and the pine-groves of cold Lycæus, together with Cyllene.[44] After this, I entered the realms and the inhospitable abode of the Arcadian tyrant, just as the late twilight was bringing on the night. I gave a signal that a God had come, and the people commenced to pay their adorations. In the first place, Lycaon derided their pious supplications. Afterwards, he said, I will make trial, by a plain proof, whether this is a God, or whether he is a mortal; nor shall the truth remain a matter of doubt. He then makes preparations to destroy me, when sunk in sleep, by an unexpected death; this mode of testing the truth pleases him. And not content with that, with the sword he cuts the throat of an hostage that had been sent from the nation of the Molossians,[45] and then softens part of the quivering limbs, in boiling water, and part he roasts with fire placed beneath. Soon as he had placed these on the table, I, with avenging flames, overthrew the house upon the household Gods,[46] worthy of their master. Alarmed, he himself takes to flight, and having reached the solitude of the country, he howls aloud, and in vain attempts to speak; his mouth gathers rage from himself, and through its {usual} desire for slaughter, it is directed against the sheep, and even still delights in blood. His garments are changed into hair, his arms into legs; he becomes a wolf, and he still retains vestiges of his ancient form. His hoariness is still the same, the same violence {appears} in his features; his eyes are bright as before; {he is still} the same image of ferocity.

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

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

[Footnote 45: _Of the Molossians._--Ver. 226. The Molossi were a
people of Epirus, on the eastern side of the Ambracian gulf. Ovid
here commits a slight anachronism, as the name was derived from
Molossus, the son of Neoptolemus, long after the time of Lycaon.
Besides, as Burmann observes, who could believe that ‘wars could
be waged at such an early period between nations so distant as the
Molossi and the Arcadians?’ Apollodorus says, that it was a child
of the same country, whose flesh Lycaon set before Jupiter. Other
writers say that it was Nyctimus, the son of Lycaon, or Arcas, his
grandson, that was slain by him.]

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

[Footnote 47: _The savage Erinnys._--Ver. 241. Erinnys was a
general name given to the Furies by the Greeks. They were three in
number--Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra. These were so called,
either from the Greek ἔρις νοῦ, ‘the discord of the mind,’ or from
ἐν τῇ ἔρα ναίειν, ‘their inhabiting the earth,’ watching the
actions of men.]

EXPLANATION.

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

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

FABLE VIII. [I.244-312]

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

Some, by their words approve the speech of Jupiter, and give spur to him, {indignantly} exclaiming; others, by {silent} assent fulfil their parts. Yet the {entire} destruction of the human race is a cause of grief to them all, and they inquire what is to be the form of the earth in future, when destitute of mankind? who is to place frankincense[48] on the altars? and whether it is his design to give up the nations for a prey to the wild beasts? The ruler of the Gods forbids them making these enquiries, to be alarmed (for that the rest should be his care); and he promises, {that} from a wondrous source {he will raise} a generation unlike the preceding race.

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

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

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

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

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

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