Chapter XXI: Book THE TENTH: Fable I. X.1-85 (7)

She, mindful of herself, after she was brought to the cruel altar, and had perceived that the savage rites were preparing for her; and when she saw Neoptolemus standing {by}, and wielding his sword, and fixing his eyes upon her countenance, said-- “Quickly make use of this noble blood: {in me} there is no resistance: and do thou bury thy weapons either in my throat or in my breast!” and, at the same time she laid bare her throat and her breast; “should I, Polyxena, forsooth,[52] either endure to be the slave of any person, or will any sacred Deity be appeased by such a sacrifice. I only wish that my death could be concealed from my mother. My mother is the impediment; and she lessens my joys at death. Yet it is not my death, but her own life, that should be lamented by her. Only, stand ye off, lest I should go to the Stygian shades not a free woman: if {in this} I demand what is just; and withhold the hands of males from the contact of a virgin. My blood will be the more acceptable to him, whoever it is that you are preparing to appease by my slaughter. Yet, if the last prayers of my lips move any of you,--’tis the daughter of king Priam, {and} not a captive that entreats--return my body unconsumed to my mother, and let her not purchase for me with gold, but with tears, the sad privilege of a sepulchre. When {in former times} she could, then used she to purchase with gold.”

{Thus} she said; but the people did not restrain those tears which she restrained. Even the priest himself, weeping and reluctant, divided her presented breast with the piercing steel. She, sinking to the earth on her failing knees, maintained an undaunted countenance to the last moment of her life. Even then was it her care, when she fell, to cover the features that ought to be concealed, and to preserve the honour of her chaste modesty. The Trojan matrons received her, and reckoned the children of Priam whom they had had to deplore; and how much blood one house had expended. And they lament thee, Oh virgin! and thee, Oh thou! so lately called a royal wife {and} a royal mother, {once} the resemblance of flourishing Asia, but now a worthless prey amid the plunder {of Troy}; which the conquering Ulysses would have declined as his, but that thou hadst brought Hector forth. {And} scarce did Hector find an owner for his mother. She, embracing the body bereft of a soul so brave, gave to that as well, those tears which so oft she had given for her country, her children, and her husband; {and} her tears she poured in his wounds. And she impressed kisses with her lips, and beat her breast {now} accustomed to it; and trailing her grey hairs in the clotted blood, many things indeed did she say, but these as well, as she tore her breast:

“My daughter, the last affliction (for what now remains?) to thy mother: my daughter, thou liest prostrate, and I behold thy wound {as} my own wounds. Lo! lest I should have lost any one of my children without bloodshed, thou, too, dost receive thy wound. Still, because {thou wast} a woman, I supposed thee safe from the sword; and {yet}, a woman, thou hast fallen by the sword. The same Achilles, the ruin of Troy, and the bereaver of myself, the same has destroyed thus many of thy brothers, {and} thyself. But, after he had fallen by the arrows of Paris and of Phœbus, ‘Now, at least,’ I said, ‘Achilles is no {longer} to be dreaded;’ and yet even now, was he to be dreaded by me. The very ashes of him, as he lies buried, rage against this family; and {even} in the tomb have we found him an enemy. For the descendant of Æacus have I been {thus} prolific. Great Ilion lies prostrate, and the public calamity is completed by a dreadful catastrophe; if indeed, it is completed. Pergamus alone remains for me: and my sorrow is still in its career. So lately the greatest woman in the world, powerful in so many sons-in-law, and children[53], and daughters-in-law, and in my husband, now I am dragged into exile, destitute, {and} torn away from the tombs of my kindred, as a present to Penelope. She, pointing me out to the matrons of Ithaca, as I tease my allotted task, will say, ‘This is that famous mother of Hector; this is the wife of Priam.’ And, now thou, who after the loss of so many {children}, alone didst alleviate the sorrows of thy mother, hast made the atonement at the tomb of the enemy. Atoning sacrifices for an enemy have I brought forth. For what purpose, lasting like iron, am I reserved? and why do I linger {here}? To what end dost thou, pernicious age, detain me? Why, ye cruel Deities, unless to the end that I may see fresh deaths, do ye reprieve an aged woman of years so prolonged? Who could have supposed, that after the fall of Troy, Priam could have been pronounced happy? Blessed in his death, he has not beheld thee, my daughter, {thus} cut off; and at the same moment, he lost his life and his kingdom.

“But, I suppose, thou, a maiden of royal birth, wilt be honoured with funeral rites, and thy body will be deposited in the tombs of thy ancestors. This is not the fortune of thy house; tears and a handful of foreign sand will be thy lot, the {only} gifts of a mother. We have lost all; a child most dear to his mother, now alone remains as a reason for me to endure to live yet for a short time, once the youngest of {all} my male issue, Polydorus, entrusted on these coasts to the Ismarian king. Why, in the mean time, am I delaying to bathe her cruel wounds with the stream, her features, too, besmeared with dreadful blood?”

{Thus} she spoke; and with aged step she proceeded towards the shore, tearing her grey locks. “Give me an urn, ye Trojan women,” the unhappy {mother} had just said, in order that she might take up the flowing waters, {when} she beheld[54] the body of Polydorus thrown up on the shore, and the great wounds made by the Thracian weapons. The Trojan women cried out aloud; with grief she was struck dumb; and very grief consumed both her voice and the tears that arose within; and much resembling a hard rock she became benumbed. And at one moment she fixed her eyes on the ground before her; {and} sometimes she raised her haggard features towards the skies; {and} now she viewed the features, now the wounds of her son, as he lay; the wounds especially; and she armed and prepared herself for vengeance by rage. Soon as she was inflamed by it, as though she {still} remained a queen, she determined to be revenged, and was wholly {employed} in {devising} a {fitting} form of punishment. And as the lioness rages when bereft of her sucking whelp, and having found the tracks of his feet, follows the enemy that she sees not; so Hecuba, after she had mingled rage with mourning, not forgetful of her spirit, {but} forgetful of her years, went to Polymnestor, the contriver of this dreadful murder, and demanded an interview; for that it was her wish to show him a concealed treasure left for him to give to her son.

The Odrysian {king} believes her, and, inured to the love of gain, comes to a secret spot. Then with soothing lips, he craftily says, “Away with delays, Hecuba, {and} give the present to thy son; all that thou givest, and what thou hast already given, I swear by the Gods above, shall be his.” Sternly she eyes him as he speaks, and falsely swears; and she boils with heaving rage; and so flies on him, seized by a throng of the captive matrons, and thrusts her fingers into his perfidious eyes; and of their sight she despoils his cheeks, and plunges her hands {into the sockets}, (’tis rage that makes her strong); and, defiled with his guilty blood, she tears not his eyes, for they are not left, {but} the places for his eyes.

Provoked by the death of their king, the Thracian people begin to attack the Trojan {matron} with the hurling of darts and of stones. But she attacks the stones thrown at her with a hoarse noise, and with bites; and attempting to speak, her mouth just ready for the words, she barks aloud. The place {still} exists, and derives its name[55] from the circumstance; and long remembering her ancient misfortunes, even then did she howl dismally through the Sithonian plains. Her {sad} fortune moved both her own Trojans, and her Pelasgian foes, and all the Gods as well; so much so, that even the wife and sister of Jove herself denied that Hecuba had deserved that fate.

Although she has favoured those same arms, there is not leisure for Aurora to be moved by the calamities and the fall of Troy. A nearer care and grief at home for her lost Memnon is afflicting her. Him his rosy-coloured mother saw perish by the spear of Achilles on the Phrygian plains. {This} she saw; and that colour with which the hours of the morning grow ruddy, turned pale, and the æther lay hid in clouds. But the parent could not endure to behold his limbs laid on the closing flames. But with loose hair, just as she was, she disdained not to fall down at the knees of great Jove, and to add these words to her tears: “Inferior to all {the Goddesses} which the golden æther does sustain, (for throughout all the world are my temples the fewest), still, a Goddess, I am come; not that thou shouldst grant me temples and days of sacrifice, and altars to be heated with fires. But if thou considerest how much I, a female, perform for thee, at the time when, with the early dawn, I keep the confines of the night, thou wouldst think that some reward ought to be given to me. But that is not my care, nor is such now the condition of Aurora such that she should demand the honours deserved by her. Bereft of my Memnon am I come; {of him} who, in vain, wielded valiant arms for his uncle, and who in his early years (’twas thus ye willed it,) was slain by the brave Achilles. Give him, I pray, supreme ruler of the Gods, some honour, as a solace for his death, and ease the wounds of a mother.”

Jove nods his assent; when {suddenly} the lofty pile of Memnon sinks with its towering fires, and volumes of black smoke darken the {light of} day. Just as when the rivers exhale the rising fogs, and the sun is not admitted below them. The black embers fly, and rolling into one body, they thicken, and take a form, and assume heat and life from the flames. Their own lightness gives them wings; and first, like birds, {and} then real birds, they flutter with their wings. At once innumerable sisters are fluttering, whose natal origin is the same. And thrice do they go around the pile, and thrice does their clamour rise in concert into the air. In the fourth flight they separate their company. Then two fierce tribes wage war from opposite sides, and with their beaks and crooked claws expend their rage, and weary their wings and opposing breasts; and down their kindred bodies fall, a sacrifice to the entombed ashes, and they remember that from a great man they have received their birth. Their progenitor gives a name to these birds so suddenly formed, called Memnonides after him; when the Sun has run through the twelve signs {of the Zodiac}, they fight, doomed to perish in battle, in honour of their parent.[56]

To others, therefore, it seemed a sad thing, that the daughter of Dymas was {now} barking; {but} Aurora was intent on her own sorrows; and even now she sheds the tears of affection, and sprinkles them in dew over all the world.

[Footnote 52: _Forsooth._--460. Clarke translates ‘scilicet,’
‘I warrant ye.’]

[Footnote 53: _And children._--Ver. 509. Hyginus names fifty-four
children of Priam, of whom seventeen were by Hecuba.]

[Footnote 54: _She beheld._--Ver. 536. Euripides represents, in
his tragedy of Hecuba, that a female servant, sent by Hecuba to
bring water from the sea shore for the purpose of washing the body
of Polyxena, was the first to see the corpse of Polydorus.]

[Footnote 55: _Derives its name._--Ver. 569. Strabo places it near
Sestos, in the Thracian Chersonesus, and calls it κυνὸς σῆμα, ‘The
bitches’ tomb.’]

[Footnote 56: _Of their parent._--Ver. 619. He perhaps alludes to
the fights of the Gladiators, on the occasion of the funerals of
the Roman patricians. ‘Parentali perituræ Marte,’ is rendered by
Clarke, ‘to fall in the fight of parentation.’]

EXPLANATION.

The particulars which Ovid here gives of the misfortunes that befell
the family of Priam, with the exception of a few circumstances,
agree perfectly with the narratives of the ancient historians.

According to Dictys, Philostratus, and Hyginus, after Achilles was
slain by the treachery of Paris, on the eve of his marriage with
Polyxena, she became inconsolable at his death, and returning to the
Grecian camp, she was kindly received by Agamemnon; but being unable
to get the better of her despair, she stole out of the camp at
night, and stabbed herself at the tomb of Achilles. Philostratus
adds, that the ghost of Achilles appeared to Apollonius Tyanæus, the
hero of his story, and gave him permission to ask him any questions
he pleased, assuring him, that he would give him full information on
the subject of them. Among other things, Apollonius desired to know
if it was the truth that the Greeks had sacrificed Polyxena on his
tomb; to which the ghost replied, that her grief made her take the
resolution not to survive her intended husband, and that she had
killed herself.

Other writers, agreeing with Ovid as to the manner of her death,
tell us that it was Pyrrhus who sacrificed Polyxena to his father’s
shade, to revenge his death, of which, though innocently, she had
been the cause. Pausanias, who says that this was the general
opinion, avers, on what ground it is difficult to conceive, that
Homer designedly omitted this fact, because it was so dishonourable
to the Greeks; and in his description of the paintings at Delphi,
by Polygnotus, of the destruction of Troy, he says that Polyxena was
there represented as being led out to the tomb of Achilles, where
she was sacrificed by the Greeks. He also says, that he had seen her
story painted in the same manner at Pergamus, Athens, and other
places. Many of the poets, and Virgil in the number, affirm that
Polyxena was sacrificed in Phrygia, near Troy, on the tomb of
Achilles, he having desired it at his death; while Euripides says
that it was in the Thracian Chersonesus, on a cenotaph, which was
erected there in honour of Achilles: and that his ghost appearing,
Calchas was consulted, who answered, that it was necessary to
sacrifice Polyxena, which was accordingly done by Pyrrhus.

The ancient writers are divided as to the descent of Hecuba. Homer,
who has been followed by his Scholiast, and by Ovid and Suidas, says
that she was the daughter of Dymas, King of Phrygia. Euripides says
that she was the daughter of Cisscus, and with him Virgil and
Servius agree. Apollodorus, again, makes her to be descended from
Sangar and Merope. In the distribution of spoil after the siege of
Troy, Hecuba fell to the share of Ulysses, and became his slave; but
died soon after, in Thrace. Plautus and Servius allege that the
Greeks themselves circulated the story of her transformation into a
bitch, because she was perpetually railing at them, to provoke them
to put her to death, rather than condemn her to pass her life as a
slave. According to Strabo and Pomponius Mela, in their time, the
place of her burial was still to be seen in Thrace. Euripides, in
his Hecuba, has not followed this tradition, but represents her as
complaining that the Greeks had chained her to the door of Agamemnon
like a dog. Perhaps she became the slave of Agamemnon after Ulysses
had left the army, on his return to Ithaca; and it is possible that
the story of her transformation may have been solely founded on this
tradition. She bore to Priam ten sons and seven daughters, and
survived them all except Helenus; most of her sons having fallen by
the hand of Achilles.

Many ancient writers, with whom Ovid here agrees, affirm that Memnon
was the son of Tithonus, the brother of Priam, and Aurora, or Eos,
the Goddess of the morn. They also say that he came to assist the
Trojans with ten thousand Persians, and as many Æthiopians. Diodorus
Siculus asserts that Memnon was said to have been the son of Aurora,
because he left Phrygia, and went to settle in the East. It is not
clear in what country he fixed his residence. Some say that it was
at Susa, in Persia; others that it was in Egypt, or in Æthiopia,
which perhaps amounts to the same, as Æthiopia was not in general
distinguished from the Higher or Upper Egypt. Marsham is of opinion
that Memnon was the same with Amenophis, one of the kings of Egypt:
while Le Clerc considers him to have been the same person as Ham,
the son of Noah; and Vossius identifies him with Boalcis, a God of
the Syrians. It seems probable that he was an Egyptian, who had
perhaps formed an alliance with the reigning family of Troy.

FABLES V. AND VI. [XIII.623-718]

After the taking of Troy, Æneas escapes with his father and his son,
and goes to Delos. Anius, the priest of Apollo, recounts to him how
his daughters have been transformed into doves, and at parting they
exchange presents. The Poet here introduces the story of the
daughters of Orion, who, having sacrificed their lives for the
safety of Thebes, when ravaged by a plague, two young men arise out
of their ashes.

But yet the Fates do not allow the hope of Troy to be ruined even with its walls. The Cytherean hero bears on his shoulders the sacred relics and his father, another sacred relic, a venerable burden. In his affection, out of wealth so great, he selects that prize, and his own Ascanius, and with his flying fleet is borne through the seas from Antandros,[57] and leaves the accursed thresholds of the Thracians, and the earth streaming with the blood of Polydorus; and, with good winds and favouring tide, he enters the city of Apollo, his companions attending him.

Anius, by whom, as king, men were, {and} by whom, as priest, Phœbus was duly provided for, received him both into his temple and his house, and showed him the city and the dedicated temples, and the two trunks of trees once grasped[58] by Latona in her labour. Frankincense being given to the flames, and wine poured forth on the frankincense, and the entrails of slain oxen[59] being duly burnt, they repair to the royal palace, and reclining on lofty couches, with flowing wine, they take the gifts of Ceres. Then the pious Anchises {says}, “O chosen priest of Phœbus, am I deceived? or didst thou not have a son, also, when first I beheld these walls, and twice two daughters, so far as I remember?” To him Anius replies, shaking his temples wreathed with snow-white fillets, and says, “Thou art not mistaken, greatest hero; thou didst see me the parent of five children, whom now (so great a vicissitude of fortune affects mankind) thou seest almost bereft {of all}. For what assistance is my absent son to me, whom Andros, a land {so} called after his name, possesses, holding that place and kingdom on behalf of his father?

“The Delian {God} granted him {the art of} augury; to my female progeny Liber gave other gifts, exceeding {both} wishes and belief. For, at the touch of my daughters, all things were transformed into corn, and the stream of wine, and the berry of Minerva; and in these were there rich advantages. When the son of Atreus, the destroyer of Troy, learned this (that thou mayst not suppose that we, too, did not in some degree feel your storms) using the force of arms, he dragged them reluctantly from the bosom of their father, and commanded them to feed, with their heavenly gifts, the Argive fleet. Whither each of them could, they made their escape. Eubœa was sought by two; and by as many of my daughters, was Andros, their brother’s {island}, sought. The forces came, and threatened war if they were not given up. Natural affection, subdued by fear, surrendered to punishment those kindred breasts; and, that thou mayst be able to forgive a timid brother, there was no Æneas, no Hector to defend Andros, through whom you {Trojans} held out to the tenth year. And now chains were being provided for their captive arms. Lifting up towards heaven their arms still free, they said, ‘Father Bacchus, give us thy aid!’ and the author of their gift did give them aid; if destroying them, in a wondrous manner, be called giving aid. By what means they lost their shape, neither could I learn, nor can I now tell. The sum of their calamity is known {to me}: they assumed wings, and were changed into birds of thy consort,[60] the snow-white doves.”

With such and other discourse, after they have passed the {time of} feasting, the table being removed, they seek sleep. And they rise with the day, and repair to the oracle of Phœbus, who bids them seek the ancient mother and the kindred shores. The king attends, and presents them with gifts when about to depart; a sceptre to Anchises, a scarf and a quiver to his grandson, {and} a goblet to Æneas, which formerly Therses, his Ismenian guest, had sent him from the Aonian shores; this Therses had sent to him, {but} the Mylean Alcon had made it, and had carved it with this long device:

There was a city, and you might point out {its} seven gates: these were in place of[61] a name, and showed what {city} it was. Before the city was a funeral, and tombs, and fires, and funeral piles; and matrons, with hair dishevelled and naked breasts, expressed their grief; the Nymphs, too, seem to be weeping, and to mourn their springs dried up. Without foliage the bared tree runs straight up; the goats are gnawing the dried stones. Lo! he represents the daughters of Orion in the middle of Thebes; the one, as presenting her breast, more than woman’s, with her bared throat; the other, thrusting a sword in her valorous wounds, as dying for her people, and as being borne, with an honoured funeral, through the city, and as being burnt in a conspicuous part {of it}; {and} then from the virgin embers, lest the race should fail, twin youths arising, whom Fame calls ‘Coronæ,’[62] and for their mothers’ ashes leading the {funeral} procession.

Thus far for the figures that shine on the ancient brass; the summit of the goblet is rough with gilded acanthus. Nor do the Trojans return gifts of less value than those given; and to the priest they give an incense-box, to keep the frankincense; they give a bowl, {too}, and a crown, brilliant with gold and gems. Then recollecting that the {Trojans}, {as} Teucrians, derived their origin from the blood of Teucer, they make for Crete, and cannot long endure the air of that place;[63] and, having left behind the hundred cities, they desire to reach the Ausonian harbours. A storm rages, and tosses the men to and fro; and winged Aëllo frightens them, when received in the unsafe harbours of the Strophades.[64] And now, borne along, they have passed the Dulichian harbours, and Ithaca, and Same,[65] and the Neritian abodes, the kingdom of the deceitful Ulysses; and they behold Ambracia,[66] contended for in a dispute of the Deities, which now is renowned for the Actian Apollo,[67] and the stone in the shape of the transformed judge, and the land of Dodona, vocal with its oaks; and the Chaonian bays, where the sons of the Molossian king escaped the unavailing flames, with wings attached {to them}.

[Footnote 57: _Antandros._--Ver. 628. This was a city of Phrygia,
at the foot of Mount Ida, where the fleet of Æneas was built.]

[Footnote 58: _Trees once grasped._--Ver. 635. These were a palm
and an olive tree, which were pointed out by the people of Delos,
as having been held by Latona, when in the pangs of labour.]

[Footnote 59: _Of slain oxen._--Ver. 637. This, however, was
contrary to the usual practice; for if we credit Macrobius, no
victim was slain on the altars of Apollo, in the island of Delos.]

[Footnote 60: _Of thy consort._--Ver. 673. It must be remembered,
that he is addressing Anchises, who was said to have enjoyed the
favour of Venus; to which Goddess the dove was consecrated.]

[Footnote 61: _In place of._--Ver. 686. For the seven gates, would
at once lead to the conclusion that it represented the city of
Thebes, in Bœotia. Myla, before referred to, was a town of
Sicily.]

[Footnote 62: _Calls ‘Coronæ’._--Ver. 698. The word ‘Coronas’ is
here employed as the plural of a female name ‘Corona;’ in Greek
Κώρωνις.]

[Footnote 63: _Of that place._--Ver. 707. Æneas and his followers
founded in Crete the city of Pergamea; but the pestilence which
raged there, and a continued drought, combined with the density of
the atmosphere, obliged them to leave the island.]

[Footnote 64: _The Strophades._--Ver. 709. These were two islands
in the Ionian Sea, on the western side of Peloponnesus. They
received their name from the Greek work στροφὴ, ‘a return,’
because Calais and Zethes pursued the Harpies, which persecuted
Phineus so far, and then returned home by the command of Jupiter.]

[Footnote 65: _Same._--Ver. 711. This island was also called
Cephalenia. It was in the Ionian Sea, and formed part of the
kingdom of Ulysses.]

[Footnote 66: _Ambracia._--Ver. 714. This was a famous city of
Epirus, which gave its name to the gulf of Ambracia.]

[Footnote 67: _Actian Apollo._--Ver. 715. Augustus built a temple
to Apollo, at Actium, in Epirus, near which he had defeated the
fleet of Antony and Cleopatra. He also instituted games, to be
celebrated there every fifth year in honour of his victory.]

EXPLANATION.

Virgil describes Anius as the king of Delos, and the priest of
Apollo at the same time. ‘Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique
sacerdos.’ Æneid, Book III. He was descended from Cadmus, through
his mother Rhea, the daughter of Staphilus. Having engaged in some
intrigue, as Diodorus Siculus conjectures, her father exposed her on
the sea in an open boat, which drove to Delos, and she was there
delivered of Anius, who afterwards became the king of the island. By
his wife Dorippe he had three daughters, who were extremely frugal,
and by means of the offerings and presents that were brought to the
temple of Apollo, amassed a large store of provisions. During the
siege of Troy, the Greeks sent Palamedes to Delos, to demand food
for the army; and, as a security for his compliance with these
demands, they exacted the daughters of Anius as hostages. The
damsels soon afterwards finding means to escape, it was said that
Bacchus, who was their kinsman through Cadmus, had transformed them
into doves. Probably the story of their transforming every thing
they touched, into wine, corn, and oil, was founded solely on their
thriftiness and parsimony. Bochart, however, explains the story from
the circumstance of their names being, as he conjectures, Oëno,
Spermo, and Elaï, which, in the old Phœnician dialect, signified
wine, corn, and oil; and he thinks that the story was confirmed in
general belief by the fact that large quantities of corn, wine, and
oil were supplied from Delos to the Grecian army when before Troy.

In the reign of Orion, Thebes being devastated by a plague, the
oracles were consulted, and the Thebans were told that the contagion
would cease as soon as the daughters of the king should be
sacrificed to the wrath of heaven. The two maidens immediately
presented themselves at the altar; and on their immolation, the Gods
were appeased, and the plague ceased. This example of patriotism and
fortitude filled the more youthful Thebans with so much emulation,
that they shook off their former inactivity, and soon became
conspicuous for their bravery: which sudden change gave occasion to
the saying, that the ashes of these maidens had been transformed
into men.

The Poet follows Æneas on his voyage, to gain an opportunity of
referring to several other current stories. Among other places, he
passes the city of Ambracia, about which the Gods had contended, and
sees the rock into which the umpire of their dispute, who had
decided in favour of Hercules, was changed. Ambracia was on the
coast of Epirus, and gave its name to an adjacent inlet of the sea,
called the Ambracian Gulf. Antoninus Liberalis tells us, on the
authority of Nicander, that Apollo, Diana, and Hercules disputed
about this city, and left the decision to Cragaleus, who gave it in
favour of Hercules; on which, Apollo transformed him into a rock.
Very possibly the meaning of this may be, that when the people of
Ambracia were considering to which of these Deities they should
dedicate their city, Cragaleus preferred Hercules to the other two,
or, in other words, the feats of war to the cultivation of the arts
and sciences. Apollo was said to have turned him into a stone,
either because he met with his death near the promontory where a
temple of Apollo stood, or to show the stupidity of his decision.
Antoninus Liberalis is the only writer besides Ovid that makes
mention of the adventure of the sons of the Molossian king; he tells
us that Munychus, king of the Molossi, had three sons, Alcander,
Megaletor, and Philæus, and a daughter named Hyperippe. Some robbers
setting fire to their father’s house, they were transformed by
Jupiter into birds. This, in all probability, is a poetical way of
saying that the youths escaped from the flames, contrary to
universal expectation.

The opinions of writers have been very conflicting as to the origin
of the oracle of Dodona. Silius Italicus says that two pigeons flew
from Thebes in Egypt, one of which went to Libya, and occasioned the
founding of the oracle of Jupiter Ammon; while the other settled
upon an oak in Chaonia, and signified thereby to the inhabitants,
that it was the will of heaven that there should be an oracle in
that place. Herodotus says that two priestesses of Egyptian Thebes
being carried off by some Phœnician merchants, one of them was sold
to the Greeks, after which she settled in the forest of Dodona,
where a little chapel was founded by her in honour of Jupiter, in
which she gave responses. He adds, that they called her ‘the dove,’
because being a foreigner they did not understand her language. At
length, having learned the language of the Pelasgians, it was said
that the dove had spoken. On that foundation grew the tradition that
the oaks themselves uttered oracular responses.

Notwithstanding this plausible account of Herodotus, it is not
impossible that some equivocal expressions in the Hebrew and Arabian
languages may have given rise to the story. ‘Himan,’ in the one
language, signified ‘a priest;’ and ‘Heman,’ in the other, was the
name for ‘a pigeon.’ Possibly those who found the former word in the
history of ancient Greece, written in the dialect of the original
Phœnician settlers, did not understand it, and by their mistake,
caused it to be asserted that a dove had founded the oracle of
Dodona. Bochart tells us that the same word, in the Phœnician
tongue, signifies either ‘pigeons,’ or ‘women;’ but the Abbè Sallier
has gone still further, and has shown that, in the language of the
ancient inhabitants of Epirus, the same word had the two
significations mentioned by Bochart.

This oracle afterwards grew famous for its responses, and the
priests used considerable ingenuity in the delivery of their
answers. They cautiously kept all who came to consult them at a
distance from the dark recess where the shrine was situated; and
took care to deliver their responses in a manner so ambiguous, as to
make people believe whatever they pleased. In this circumstance
originates the variation in the descriptions of the oracle which the
ancients have left us. According to some, it was the oaks that
spoke; according to others, the beeches; while a third account was
that pigeons gave the answers; and, lastly, it was said that the
ringing of certain cauldrons there suspended, divulged the will of
heaven. Stephanus Byzantinus has left a curious account of this
contrivance of the cauldrons; he says that in that part of the
forest of Dodona, where the oracle stood, there were two pillars
erected, at a small distance from each other. On one there was
placed a brazen vessel, about the size of an ordinary cauldron: and
on the other a little boy, which was most probably a piece of
mechanism, who held a brazen whip with several thongs which hung
loose, and were easily moved. When the wind blew, the lashes struck
against the vessel, and occasioned a noise while the wind continued.
It was from them, he says, that the forest took the name of Dodona;
‘dodo,’ in the ancient language, signifying ‘a cauldron.’

Strabo says that the responses were originally given by three
priestesses: and he gives the reason why two priests were afterwards
added to them. The Bœotians having been treacherously attacked by
the people of Thrace during a truce which they had made, went to
consult the oracle of Dodona; and the priestess answering them that
if they would act impiously their design would succeed to their
wish, the envoys suspected that this response had been suggested by
the enemy, and burned her in revenge; after which they vindicated
their cruelty by saying that if the priestess designed to deceive
them, she well deserved her punishment; and that if she spoke with
truthfulness, they had only followed the advice of the oracle. This
argument not satisfying the people of the district, the Bœotian
envoys were seized; but as they pleaded that it was unjust that two
women already prejudiced against them should be their judges, two
priests were added to decide the matter. These, in return for their
being the occasion of putting them in an office so honourable and
lucrative, acquitted the Bœotians; whose fellow countrymen were
always in the habit from that time of addressing the priests when
they consulted the oracle. These priests were called by the name of
‘Selli.’

FABLE VII. [XIII.719-897]

Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, jealous of Acis, who is in love with
Galatea, kills the youth with a rock which he hurls at him; on
which, his blood is changed into a river which bears his name.

They make for the neighbouring land of the Phæacians,[68] planted with beauteous fruit. After this, Epirus and Buthrotos,[69] ruled over by the Phrygian prophet, and a fictitious Troy, are reached. Thence, acquainted with the future, all which, Helenus, the son of Priam, in his faithful instructions has forewarned them of, they enter Sicania. With three points this projects into the sea. Of these, Pachynos is turned towards the showery South: Lilybæum is exposed to the soft Zephyrs: but Peloros looks towards the Bear, free from the sea, and towards Boreas. By this {part} the Trojans enter; and with oars and favouring tide, at nightfall the fleet makes the Zanclæan sands. Scylla infests the right hand side, the restless Charybdis the left. This swallows and vomits forth again ships taken down; the other, having the face of a maiden, has her swarthy stomach surrounded with fierce dogs; and (if the poets have not left the whole a fiction) once on a time, too, {she was} a maiden. Many suitors courted her; who being repulsed, she, most beloved by the Nymphs of the ocean, went to the ocean Nymphs, and used to relate the eluded loves of the youths.

While Galatea[70] was giving her hair be to combed, heaving sighs, she addressed her in such words as these: “{And} yet, O maiden, no ungentle race of men does woo thee; and as thou dost, thou art able to deny them with impunity. But I, whose sire is Nereus, whom the azure Doris bore, who am guarded, too, by a crowd of sisters, was not able, but through the waves, to escape the passion of the Cyclop;” and as she spoke, the tears choked her utterance. When, with her fingers like marble, the maiden had wiped these away, and had comforted the Goddess, “Tell me, dearest,” said she, “and conceal not {from me} ({for} I am true to thee) the cause of thy grief.” In these words did the Nereid reply to the daughter of Cratæis:[71] “Acis was the son of Faunus and of the Nymph Symæthis, a great delight, indeed, to his father and his mother, yet a still greater to me. For the charming {youth} had attached me to himself alone, and eight birth-days having a second time been passed, he had {now} marked his tender cheeks with the dubious down. Him I {pursued}; incessantly did the Cyclop me pursue. Nor can I, shouldst thou enquire, declare whether the hatred of the Cylops, or the love of Acis, was the stronger in me. They were equal. O genial Venus! how great is the power of thy sway. For that savage, and one to be dreaded by the very woods, and beheld with impunity by no stranger, the contemner of great Olympus with the Gods {themselves}, {now} feels what love is; and, captivated with passion for me, he burns, forgetting his cattle and his caves.

“And now, Polyphemus, thou hast a care for thy looks, and now for {the art of} pleasing; now thou combest out thy stiffened hair with rakes, {and} now it pleases thee to cut thy shaggy beard with the sickle, and to look at thy fierce features in the water, and {so} to compose them. Thy love for carnage, and thy fierceness, and thy insatiate thirst for blood, {now} cease; and the ships both come and go in safety. Telemus, in the mean time arriving at the Sicilian Ætna, Telemus, the son of Eurymus, whom no omen had {ever} deceived, accosts the dreadful Polyphemus, and says, ‘The single eye that thou dost carry in the midst of thy forehead, Ulysses shall take away from thee.’ He laughed, and said, ‘O most silly of the prophets, thou art mistaken, {for} another has already taken it away.’ Thus does he slight him, in vain warning him of the truth; and he either burdens the shore, stalking along with huge strides, or, wearied, he returns to his shaded cave.

“A hill, in form of a wedge, runs out with a long projection into the sea: {and} the waves of the ocean flow round either side. Hither the fierce Cyclop ascended, and sat down in the middle. His woolly flocks followed, there being no one to guide them. After the pine tree,[72] which afforded him the service of a staff, {but more} fitted for sail-yards, was laid before his feet, and his pipe was taken up, formed of a hundred reeds; all the mountains were sensible of the piping of the shepherd: the waves, {too}, were sensible. I, lying hid within a rock, and reclining on the bosom of my own Acis, from afar caught such words as these with my ears, and marked them {so} heard in my mind: ‘O Galatea, fairer than[73] the leaf of the snow-white privet,[74] more blooming than the meadows, more slender than the tall alder, brighter than glass, more wanton than the tender kid, smoother than the shells worn by continual floods, more pleasing than the winter’s sun, {or} than the summer’s shade, more beauteous than the apples, more sightly than the lofty plane tree, clearer than ice, sweeter than the ripened grape, softer than both the down of the swan, and than curdled milk, and, didst thou not fly me, more beauteous than a watered garden. {And yet} thou, the same Galatea, {art} wilder than the untamed bullocks, harder than the aged oak, more unstable than the waters, tougher than both the twigs of osier and than the white vines, more immoveable than these rocks, more violent than the torrent, prouder than the bepraised peacock, fiercer than the fire, rougher than the thistles, more cruel than the pregnant she-bear, more deaf than the ocean waves, more savage than the trodden water-snake: and, what I could especially wish to deprive thee of, fleeter not only than the deer when pursued by the loud barkings, but even than the winds and the fleeting air.

“‘But didst thou {but} know me well, thou wouldst repine at having fled, and thou thyself wouldst blame thy own hesitation, and wouldst strive to retain me. I have a part of the mountain for my cave, pendent with the native rock; in which the sun is not felt in the middle of the heat, nor is the winter felt: there are apples that load the boughs; there are grapes on the lengthening vines, resembling gold; and there are purple ones {as well}; both the one and the other do I reserve for thee. With thine own hands thou shalt thyself gather the soft strawberries growing beneath the woodland shade; thou thyself {shalt pluck} the cornels of autumn, and plums not only darkened with their black juice, but even of the choicest kinds, and resembling new wax. Nor, I being thy husband, will there be wanting to thee chesnuts, nor the fruit of the arbute tree:[75] every tree shall be at thy service. All this cattle is my own: many, too, are wandering in the valleys: many the wood conceals: many {more} are penned in my caves. Nor, shouldst thou ask me perchance, could I tell thee, how many there are; ’tis for the poor man to count his cattle. For the praises of these trust not me at all; in person thou thyself mayst see how they can hardly support with their legs their distended udders. Lambs, too, a smaller breed, are in the warm folds: there are kids, too, of equal age {to them} in other folds. Snow-white milk I always have: a part of it is kept for drinking, {another} part the liquified rennet hardens. Nor will common delights, and ordinary enjoyments alone fall to thy lot, {such as} does, and hares, and she-goats, or a pair of doves, or a nest taken from the tree top. I have found on the mountain summit the twin cubs of a shaggy she-bear, which can play with thee, so like each other that thou couldst scarce distinguish them. {These} I found, and I said, ‘These for my mistress will I keep.’

“‘Do now but raise thy beauteous head from out of the azure sea; now, Galatea, come, and do not scorn my presents. Surely I know myself, and myself but lately I beheld in the reflection of the limpid water; and my figure[76] pleased me as I saw it. See how huge I am. Not Jove, in heaven, is greater than this body; for thou art wont to tell how one Jupiter reigns, who he is I know not. Plenty of hair hangs over my grisly features, and, like a grove, overshadows my shoulders; nor think it uncomely that my body is rough, thick set with stiff bristles. A tree without leaves is unseemly; a horse is unseemly, unless a mane covers his tawny neck. Feathers cover the birds; their wool is an ornament to the sheep; a beard and rough hair upon their body is becoming to men. I have but one eye in the middle of my forehead, but it is like a large buckler. Well! and does not the Sun from the heavens behold all these things? and yet the Sun has but one eye. And, besides, in your seas does my father reign. Him do I offer thee for a father-in-law; only do take pity on a suppliant, and hear his prayer, for to thee alone do I give way. And I, who despise Jove, and the heavens, and the piercing lightnings, dread thee, daughter of Nereus; than the lightnings is thy wrath more dreadful to me. But I should be more patient under these slights, if thou didst avoid all men. For why, rejecting the Cyclop, dost thou love Acis? And why prefer Acis to my embraces? Yet, let him please himself, and let him please thee, too, Galatea, {though} I wish he could not; if only the opportunity is given, he shall find that I have strength proportioned to a body so vast. I will pull out his palpitating entrails; and I will scatter his torn limbs about the fields, and throughout thy waves, {and} thus let him be united to thee. For I burn: and my passion, {thus} slighted, rages with the greater fury; and I seem to be carrying in my breast Ætna, transferred there with {all} its flames; and yet, Galatea, thou art unmoved.’

“Having in vain uttered such complaints (for all this I saw), he rises; and like an enraged bull, when the heifer is taken away from him, he could not stand still, and he wandered in the wood, and the well known forests. When the savage {monster} espied me, and Acis unsuspecting and apprehensive of no such thing; and he exclaimed:-- ‘I see you, and I shall cause this to be the last union for your affection.’ And that voice was as loud as an enraged Cyclop ought, {for his size}, to have. Ætna trembled at the noise; but I, struck with horror, plunged into the adjoining sea. The hero, son of Symæthis, turned his back and fled, and cried,-- ‘Help me, Galatea, I entreat thee; help me, ye parents {of hers}; and admit me, {now} on the point of destruction, within your realms.’ The Cyclop pursued, and hurled a fragment, torn from the mountain; and though the extreme angle only of the rock reached him, yet it entirely crushed Acis. But I did the only thing that was allowed by the Fates to be done, that Acis might assume the properties of his grandsire. The purple blood flowed from beneath the rock, and in a little time the redness began to vanish; and at first it became the colour of a stream muddied by a shower; and, in time, it became clear. Then the rock, that had been thrown, opened, and through the chinks, a reed vigorous and stately arose, and the hollow mouth of the rock resounded with the waters gushing forth. And, wondrous event! a youth suddenly emerged, as far as the midriff, having his new-made horns encircled with twining reeds. And he, but that he was of larger stature, and azure in all his features, was Acis {still}. But, even then, still it was Acis, changed into a river; and the stream has since retained that ancient name.”

[Footnote 68: _The Phæacians._--Ver. 719. The Phæacians were the
people of the Island of Corcyra (now Corfu), who were so called
from Phæax, the son of Neptune. This island was famous for the
gardens of Alcinoüs, which are mentioned in the Odyssey. The
Corcyrans were the originators of the disastrous Peloponnesian
war.]

[Footnote 69: _Buthrotos._--Ver. 721. This was a city of Epirus,
not far from Corcyra. It received its name from its founder.]

[Footnote 70: _Galatea._--Ver. 738. She was a sea Nymph, the
daughter of Nereus and Doris.]

[Footnote 71: _Daughter of Cratæis._--Ver. 749. Cratæis was a
river of Calabria, in Italy. Symæthis was a stream of Sicily,
opposite to Calabria.]

[Footnote 72: _The pine tree._--Ver. 782. By way of corroborating
this assertion, Boccaccio tells us, that the body of Polyphemus
was found in Sicily, his left hand grasping a walking-stick longer
than the mast of a ship.]

[Footnote 73: _Fairer than._--Ver. 789. This song of Polyphemus
is, in some measure, imitated from that of the Cyclop, in the
Eleventh Idyll of Theocritus.]

[Footnote 74: _Snow-white privet._--Ver. 789. Hesiod says, that
Galatea had her name from her extreme fairness; γάλα being the
Greek word for milk. To this the Poet here alludes.]

[Footnote 75: _Arbute tree._--Ver. 820. The fruit of the arbutus,
or strawberry tree, were so extremely sour, that they were called,
as Pliny the Elder tells us, ‘unedones;’ because people could not
eat more than one. The tree itself was valued for the beauty and
pleasing shade of its foliage.]

[Footnote 76: _My figure._--Ver. 841. Virgil and Theocritus also
represent Polyphemus as boasting of his good looks.]

EXPLANATION.

Homer, who, in the ninth Book of the Odyssey, has entered fully into
the subject of Polyphemus and the other Cyclops, does not recount
this adventure, which Ovid has borrowed from Theocritus, the
Sicilian poet. Some writers have suggested that Acis was a Sicilian
youth, who, having met with a repulse from Galatea, threw himself
into the river, which was afterwards called by his name. It is,
however, more probable that this river was so called from the
rapidity of its course. Indeed, the scholiast on Theocritus and
Eustathius distinctly say that the stream was called Acis, because
the swiftness of its course resembled that of an arrow, which was
called ἀκὶς, in the Greek language.

Homer, in describing the Cyclops, informs us that they were a
lawless race, who, neglecting husbandry, lived on the spontaneous
produce of a rich soil, and dwelling in mountain caves, devoted
themselves entirely to the pleasures of a pastoral life. He says
that they were men of monstrous stature, and had but one eye, in the
middle of their forehead. Thucydides supposes them to have been the
original inhabitants of Sicily. As their origin was unknown, it was
said that they were the offspring of Neptune, or, in other words,
that they had come by sea, to settle in Sicily. According to Justin,
they retained possession of the island till the time of Cocalus; but
in that point he disagrees with Homer, who represents them as being
in the island after the time of Cocalus, who was a contemporary of
Minos, and lived long before the Trojan war.

They inhabited the western parts of Sicily, near the promontories of
Lilybæum and Drepanum; and from that circumstance, according to
Bochart, they received their name. He supposes that the Cyclopes
were so called from the Phœnician compound word Chek-lub, contracted
for Chek-le-lub, which, according to him, was the name of the Gulf
of Lilybæum. Because, in the Greek language κυκλὸς signified ‘a
circle,’ and ὤπς, ‘an eye,’ it was given out that the name of
Cyclops was given to them, because they had but one round eye in the
middle of the forehead. It is possible that they may have acquired
their character of being cannibals on true grounds, or, perhaps,
only because they were noted for their extreme cruelty. Living near
the volcanic mountain of Ætna, they were called the workmen of
Vulcan; and Virgil describes them as forging the thunderbolts of
Jupiter. Some writers represent them as having armed the three
Deities, who divided the empire of the world: Jupiter with thunder;
Pluto with his helmet; and Neptune with his trident. Statius
represents them as the builders of the walls of Argos and Virgil as
the founders of the gates of the Elysian fields. Aristotle supposes
that they were the first builders of towers.

Diodorus Siculus and Tzetzes say that Polyphemus was king of a part
of Sicily, when Ulysses landed there; who, falling in love with
Elpe, the daughter of the king, carried her off. The Læstrygons, the
neighbours of Polyphemus, pursued him, and obliged him to give up
the damsel, who was brought back to her father. Ulysses, in relating
the story to the Phæacians, artfully concealed circumstances so
little to his credit, and with impunity invented the absurdities
which he related concerning a country to which his audience were
utter strangers.

FABLE VIII. [XIII.898-968]

Glaucus having observed some fishes which he has laid upon the grass
revive and leap again into the water, is desirous to try the
influence of the grass on himself. Putting some of it into his
mouth, he immediately becomes mad, and leaping into the sea, is
transformed into a sea God.