Chapter XXII: Book THE TENTH: Fable I. X.1-85 (8)

Galatea ceases[77] speaking, and the company breaking up, they depart; and the Nereids swim in the becalmed waves. Scylla returns, (for, in truth, she does not trust herself in the midst of the ocean) and either wanders about without garments on the thirsty sand, or, when she is tired, having lighted upon some lonely recess of the sea, cools her limbs in the enclosed waves. {When}, lo! cleaving the deep, Glaucus comes, a new-made inhabitant of the deep sea, his limbs having been lately transformed at Anthedon,[78] near Eubœa; and he lingers from passion for the maiden {now} seen, and utters whatever words he thinks may detain her as she flies. Yet still she flies, and, swift through fear, she arrives at the top of a mountain, situate near the shore.

In front of the sea, there is a huge ridge, terminating in one summit, bending for a long distance over the waves, {and} without trees. Here she stands, and secured by the place, ignorant whether he is a monster or a God, she both admires his colour, and his flowing hair that covers his shoulders and his back, and how a wreathed fish closes the extremity of his groin. {This} he perceives; and leaning upon a rock that stands hard by, he says, “Maiden, I am no monster, no savage beast; I am a God of the waters: nor have Proteus, and Triton, and Palæmon, the son of Athamas, a more uncontrolled reign over the deep. Yet formerly I was a mortal; but, still, devoted to the deep sea, even then was I employed in it. For, at one time, I used to drag the nets that swept up the fish; at another time, seated on a rock, I managed the line with the rod. The shore was adjacent to a verdant meadow, one part of which was surrounded with water, the other with grass, which, neither the horned heifers had hurt with their browsing, nor had you, ye harmless sheep, nor {you}, ye shaggy goats, {ever} cropped it. No industrious bee took {thence} the collected blossoms, no festive garlands were gathered thence for the head; and no mower’s hands had ever cut it. I was the first to be seated on that turf, while I was drying the dripping nets. And that I might count in their order the fish that I had taken; I laid out those upon it which either chance had driven to my nets, or their own credulity to my barbed hooks.

“The thing is like a fiction (but of what use is it to me to coin fictions?); on touching the grass my prey began to move, and to shift their sides, and to skip about on the land, as though in the sea. And while I both paused and wondered, the whole batch flew off to the waves, and left behind their new master and the shore. I was amazed, and, in doubt for a long time, I considered what could be the cause; whether some Divinity had done this, or whether the juice of {some} herb. ‘And yet,’ said I, ‘what herb has these properties?’ and with my hand I plucked the grass, and I chewed it, {so} plucked, with my teeth. Hardly had my throat well swallowed the unknown juices, when I suddenly felt my entrails inwardly throb, and my mind taken possession of by the passions of another nature. Nor could I stay in {that} place; and I exclaimed, ‘Farewell, land, never more to be revisited;’ and plunged my body beneath the deep. The Gods of the sea vouchsafed me, on being received by them, kindred honours, and they entreated Oceanus and Tethys to take away from me whatever mortality I bore. By them was I purified; and a charm being repeated over me nine times, that washes away {all} guilt, I was commanded to put my breast beneath a hundred streams.

“There was no delay; rivers issuing from different springs, and whole seas, were poured over my head. Thus far I can relate to thee what happened worthy to be related, and thus far do I remember; but my understanding was not conscious of the rest. When it returned {to me}, I found myself different throughout all my body from what I was before, and not the same in mind. Then, for the first time, did I behold this beard, green with its deep colour, and my flowing hair, which I sweep along the spacious seas, and my huge shoulders, and my azurecoloured arms, and the extremities of my legs tapering in {the form of} a finny fish. But still, what does this form avail me, what to have pleased the ocean Deities, {and} what to be a God, if thou art not moved by these things?”

As he was saying such things as these, and about to say still more, Scylla left the God. He was enraged, and, provoked at the repulse, he repaired to the marvellous court of Circe, the daughter of Titan.

[Footnote 77: _Ceases._--Ver. 898. ‘Desierat Galatea loqui,’ is
translated by Clarke, ‘Galatea gave over talking.’]

[Footnote 78: _Anthedon._--Ver. 905. Anthedon was a maritime city
of Bœotia, only separated from the Island of Eubœa, by the narrow
strait of the Euripus.]

EXPLANATION.

The ancient writers mention three persons of the name of Glaucus:
one was the son of Minos, the second of Hippolochus, and the third
is the one here mentioned. Strabo calls him the son of Polybus,
while other writers make him to have been the son of Phorbas, and
others of Neptune. Being drowned, perhaps by accident, to do honour
to his memory, it was promulgated that he had become a sea God, and
the city of Anthedon, of which he was a native, worshipped him as
such.

Athenæus says that he carried off Ariadne from the isle of Naxos,
where Theseus had left her; on which Bacchus punished him by binding
him to a vine. According to Diodorus Siculus, he appeared to the
Argonauts, when overtaken by a storm. From Apollonius Rhodius we
learn that he foretold to them that Hercules, and Castor and Pollux,
would be received into the number of the Gods. It was also said,
that in the battle which took place between Jason and the
Tyrrhenians, he was the only person that escaped unwounded.
Euripides, who is followed by Pausanias, says that he was the
interpreter of Nereus, and was skilled in prophecy; and Nicander
even says that it was from him that Apollo learned the art of
prediction. Strabo and Philostratus say that he was metamorphosed
into a Triton, which is a-kin to the description of his appearance
here given by Ovid.

The place where he leaped into the sea was long remembered; and in
the days of Pausanias ‘Glaucus’ Leap’ was still pointed out by the
people of Anthedon. It is not improbable that he drowned himself for
some reason which tradition failed to hand down to posterity.

BOOK THE FOURTEENTH.

FABLE I. [XIV.1-74]

Circe becomes enamoured of Glaucus, who complains to her of his
repulse by Scylla. She endeavours, without success, to make him
desert Scylla for herself. In revenge, she poisons the fountain
where the Nymph is wont to bathe, and communicates to her a hideous
form; which is so insupportable to Scylla, that she throws herself
into the sea, and is transformed into a rock.

And now {Glaucus}, the Eubœan plougher of the swelling waves, had left behind Ætna, placed upon the jaws of the Giant, and the fields of the Cyclops, that had never experienced the harrow or the use of the plough, and that were never indebted to the yoked oxen; he had left Zancle, too, behind, and the opposite walls of Rhegium,[1] and the sea, abundant cause of shipwreck, which, confined by the two shores, bounds the Ausonian and the Sicilian lands. Thence, swimming with his huge hands through the Etrurian seas, Glaucus arrived at the grass-clad hills, and the halls of Circe, the daughter of the Sun, filled with various wild beasts. Soon as he beheld her, after salutations were given and received, he said, “Do thou, a Goddess, have compassion on me a God; for thou alone (should I only seem deserving of it,) art able to relieve this passion {of mine}. Daughter of Titan, by none is it better known how great is the power of herbs, than by me, who have been transformed by their agency; and, that the cause of my passion may not be unknown to thee, Scylla has been beheld by me on the Italian shores, opposite the Messenian walls. I am ashamed to recount my promises, my entreaties, my caresses, and my rejected suit. But, do thou, if there is any power in incantations, utter the incantation with thy holy lips; or, if {any} herb is more efficacious, make use of the proved virtues of powerful herbs. But I do not request thee to cure me, and to heal these wounds; and there is no necessity for an end {to them; but} let her share in the flame.” But Circe, (for no one has a temper more susceptible of such a passion, whether it is that the cause of it originates in herself, or whether it is that Venus, offended[2] by her father’s discovery, causes this,) utters such words as these:--

“Thou wilt more successfully court her who is willing, and who entertains similar desires, and who is captivated with an equal passion. Thou art worthy of it, and assuredly thou oughtst to be courted spontaneously; and, if thou givest any hopes, believe me, thou shalt be courted[3] spontaneously. That thou mayst entertain no doubts, or lest confidence in thy own beauty may not exist, behold! I who am both a Goddess, and the daughter of the radiant Sun, and am so potent with my charms, and so potent with my herbs, wish to be thine. Despise her who despises thee; her, who is attached to thee, repay by like attachment, and, by one act, take vengeance on two individuals.”

Glaucus answered her, making such attempts as these,-- “Sooner shall foliage grow in the ocean, and {sooner} shall sea-weed spring up on the tops of the mountains, than my affections shall change, while Scylla is alive.” The Goddess is indignant; and since she is not able to injure him, and as she loves him she does not wish {to do so}, she is enraged against her, who has been preferred to herself; and, offended with these crosses in love, she immediately bruises herbs, infamous for their horrid juices, and, when bruised, she mingles with them the incantations of Hecate. She puts on azure vestments too, and through the troop of fawning wild beasts she issues from the midst of her hall; and making for Rhegium, opposite to the rocks of Zancle, she enters the waves boiling with the tides; on these, as though on the firm shore, she impresses her footsteps, and with dry feet she skims along the surface of the waves.

There was a little bay, curving in {the shape of} a bent bow, a favourite retreat of Scylla, whither she used to retire from the influence both of the sea and of the weather, when the sun was at its height in his mid career, and made the smallest shadow from the head {downwards}. This the Goddess infects beforehand, and pollutes it with monster-breeding drugs; on it she sprinkles the juices distilled from the noxious root, and thrice nine times, with her magic lips, she mutters over the mysterious charm, {enwrapt} in the dubious language of strange words.[4] Scylla comes; and she has {now} gone in up to the middle of her stomach, when she beholds her loins grow hideous with barking monsters; and, at first believing that they are no part of her own body, she flies from them and drives them off, and is in dread of the annoying mouths of the dogs; but those that she flies from, she carries along with {herself}; and as she examines the substance of her thighs, her legs, and her feet, she meets with Cerberean jaws in place of those parts. The fury of the dogs {still} continues, and the backs of savage {monsters} lying beneath her groin, cut short, and her prominent stomach, {still} adhere to them.

Glaucus, {still} in love, bewailed {her}, and fled from an alliance with Circe, who had {thus} too hostilely employed the potency of herbs. Scylla remained on that spot; and, at the first moment that an opportunity was given, in her hatred of Circe, she deprived Ulysses of his companions. Soon after, the same {Scylla} would have overwhelmed the Trojan ships, had she not been first transformed into a rock, which even now is prominent with its crags; {this} rock the sailor, too, avoids.

[Footnote 1: _Rhegium._--Ver. 5. Rhegium was a city of Calabria,
opposite to the coast of Sicily.]

[Footnote 2: _Venus offended._--Ver. 27. The Sun, or Apollo, the
father of Circe, as the Poet has already related in his fourth
Book, betrayed the intrigues of Mars with Venus.]

[Footnote 3: _Shalt be courted._--Ver. 31. She means that he shall
be courted, but by herself.]

[Footnote 4: _Of strange words._--Ver. 57. ‘Obscurum verborum
ambage novorum’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Darkened with a long
rabble of new words.’]

EXPLANATION.

According to Hesiod, Circe was the daughter of the Sun and of the
Nymph Perse, and the sister of Pasiphaë, the wife of Minos. Homer
makes her the sister of Æetes, the king of Colchis, while other
authors represent her as the daughter of that monarch, and the
sister of Medea. Being acquainted with the properties of simples,
and having used her art in mixing poisonous draughts, she was
generally looked upon as a sorceress. Apollonius Rhodius says that
she poisoned her husband, the king of the Sarmatians, and that her
father Apollo rescued her from the rage of her subjects, by
transporting her in his chariot into Italy. Virgil and Ovid say that
she inhabited one of the promontories of Italy, which afterwards
bore her name, and which at the present day is known by the name of
Monte Circello.

It is not improbable that the person who went by the name of Circe
was never in Colchis or Thrace, and that she was styled the sister
of Medea, merely on account of the similarity of their characters;
that they both were called daughters of the Sun, because they
understood the properties of simples; and that their pretended
enchantments were only a poetical mode of describing the effect of
their beauty, which drew many suitors after them, who lost
themselves in the dissipation of a voluptuous life. Indeed, Strabo
says, and very judiciously, as it would seem, that Homer having
heard persons mention the expedition of Jason to Colchis, and
hearing the stories of Medea and Circe, he took occasion to say,
from the resemblance of their characters, that they were sisters.

According to some authors, Scylla was the daughter of Phorcys and
Hecate; but as other writers say, of Typhon. Homer describes her in
the following terms:-- ‘She had a voice like that of a young whelp;
no man, not even a God, could behold her without horror. She had
twelve feet, six long necks, and at the end of each a monstrous
head, whose mouth was provided with a triple row of teeth.’ Another
ancient writer says, that these heads were those of an insect,
a dog, a lion, a whale, a Gorgon, and a human being. Virgil has in a
great measure followed the description given by Homer. Between
Messina and Reggio there is a narrow strait, where high crags
project into the sea on each side. The part on the Sicilian side was
called Charybdis, and that on the Italian shore was named Scylla.
This spot has ever been famous for its dangerous whirlpools, and the
extreme difficulty of its navigation. Several rapid currents meeting
there, and the tide running through the strait with great
impetuosity, the sea sends forth a dismal noise, not unlike that of
the howling or barking of dogs, as Virgil has expressed it, in the
words, ‘Multis circum latrantibus undis.’

Palæphatus and Fusebius, not satisfied with the story being based on
such simple facts, assert that Scylla was a ship that belonged to
certain Etrurian pirates, who used to infest the coasts of Sicily,
and that it had the figure of a woman carved on its head, whose
lower parts were surrounded with dogs. According to these writers,
Ulysses escaped them; and then, using the privileges of a traveller,
told the story to the credulous Phæacians in the marvellous terms in
which Homer has related it. Bochart, however, says that the two
names were derived from the Phœnician language, in which ‘Scol,’ the
root of Scylla, signified ‘a ruin,’ and Charybdis, ‘a gulf.’

FABLE II. [XIV.75-100]

Dido entertains Æneas in her palace, and falls in love with him.
He afterwards abandons her, on which she stabs herself in despair.
Jupiter transforms the Cercopes into apes; and the islands which
they inhabit are afterwards called ‘Pithecusæ,’ from the Greek word
signifying ‘an ape.’

After the Trojan ships, with their oars, had passed by her and the ravening Charybdis; when now they had approached near the Ausonian shores, they were carried back by the winds[5] to the Libyan coasts. The Sidonian {Dido}, she who was doomed not easily to endure the loss of her Phrygian husband, received Æneas, both in her home and her affection; on the pile, too, erected under the pretext of sacred rites, she fell upon the sword; and, {herself} deceived, she deceived all. Again, flying from the newly erected walls of the sandy regions, and being carried back to the seat of Eryx and the attached Acestes, he performs sacrifice, and pays honour[6] to the tomb of his father. He now loosens {from shore} the ships which Iris, the minister of Juno, has almost burned; and passes by the realms of the son of Hippotas, and the regions that smoke with the heated sulphur, and leaves behind him the rocks of the Sirens,[7] daughters of Acheloüs; and the ship, deprived of its pilot,[8] coasts along Inarime[9] and Prochyta,[10] and Pithecusæ, situate on a barren hill, so called from the name of its inhabitants.

For the father of the Gods, once abhorring the frauds and perjuries of the Cercopians, and the crimes of the fraudulent race, changed these men into ugly animals; that these same beings might be able to appear unlike men, and yet like them. He both contracted their limbs, and flattened their noses; bent back from their foreheads; and he furrowed their faces with the wrinkles of old age. And he sent them into this spot, with the whole of their bodies covered with long yellow hair. Moreover, he first took away from them the use of language, and of their tongues, made for dreadful perjury; he only allowed them to be able to complain with a harsh jabbering.

[Footnote 5: _By the winds._--Ver. 77. The storm in which Æneas is
cast upon the shores of Africa forms the subject of part of the
first Book of the Æneid.]

[Footnote 6: _And pays honour._--Ver. 84. The annual games which
Æneas instituted at the tomb of his father, in Sicily, are fully
described in the fifth Book of the Æneid.]

[Footnote 7: _The Sirens._--Ver. 87. The Sirens were said to have
been the daughters of the river Acheloüs. Their names are
Parthenope, Lysia, and Leucosia.]

[Footnote 8: _Deprived of its pilot._--Ver. 88. This was
Palinurus, who, when asleep, fell overboard, and was drowned. See
the end of the fifth Book of the Æneid.]

[Footnote 9: _Inarime._--Ver. 89. This was an island not far from
the coast of Campania, which was also called Ischia and Ænaria.
The word ‘Inarime’ is thought to have been coined by Virgil, from
the expression of Homer, εῖν Ἀρίμοις, when speaking of it, as that
writer is the first who is found to use it, and is followed by
Ovid, Lucan, and others. Strabo tells us, that ‘aremus’ was the
Etrurian name for an ape; if so, the name of this spot may account
for the name of Pithecusæ, the adjoining islands, if the tradition
here related by the Poet really existed. Pliny the Elder, however,
says that Pithecusæ were so called from πίθος, an earthern cask,
or vessel, as there were many potteries there.]

[Footnote 10: _Prochyta._--Ver. 89. This island was said to have
been torn away from the isle of Inarime by an earthquake; for
which reason it received its name from the Greek verb προχέω,
which means ‘to pour forth.’]

EXPLANATION.

Although Ovid passes over the particulars of the visit of Æneas to
Dido, and only mentions her death incidentally, we may give a few
words to a story which has been rendered memorable by the beautiful
poem of Virgil. Elisa, or Dido, was the daughter of Belus, king of
Tyre. According to Justin, at his death he left his crown to his son
Pygmalion jointly with Dido, who was a woman of extraordinary
beauty. She was afterwards married to her uncle Sicharbas, who is
called Sichæus by Virgil. Being priest of Hercules, an office next
in rank to that of king, he was possessed of immense treasures,
which the known avarice of Pygmalion caused him to conceal in the
earth. Pygmalion having caused him to be assassinated, at which Dido
first expressed great resentment, she afterwards pretended a
reconciliation, the better to cover the design which she had formed
to escape from the kingdom.

Having secured the cooperation of several of the discontented
Tyrians, she requested permission to visit Tyre, and to leave her
melancholy retreat, where every thing contributed to increase her
misery by recalling the remembrance of her deceased husband. Hoping
to seize her treasures, Pygmalion granted her request. Putting her
wealth on board ship, she mixed some bags filled with sand among
those that contained gold, for the purpose of deceiving those whom
the king had sent to observe her and to escort her to Tyre. When out
at sea, she threw the bags overboard, to appease the spirit of her
husband, as she pretended, by sacrificing those treasures that had
cost him his life. Then addressing the officers that accompanied
her, she assured them that they would meet with but a bad reception
from the king for having permitted so much wealth to be wasted, and
that it would be more advantageous for them to fly from his
resentment. The officers embarking in her design, after they had
taken on board some Tyrian nobles, who were privy to the plan, she
offered sacrifice to Hercules, and again set sail. Landing in
Cyprus, they carried off eighty young women, who were married to her
companions. On discovering her flight, Pygmalion at first intended
to pursue her; but the intreaties of his mother, and the
remonstrances of the priests, caused him to abandon his design.

Having arrived on the coast of Africa, Dido bargained with the
inhabitants of the coast for as much ground as she could encompass
with a bull’s hide. This being granted, she cut the hide into as
many thongs as enclosed ground sufficient to build a fort upon;
which was in consequence called ‘Byrsa.’ In making the foundation,
an ox’s head was dug up, which being supposed to portend slavery to
the city, if built there, they removed to another spot, where, in
digging, they found a horse’s head, which was considered to be a
more favourable omen. The story of the citadel being named from the
bull’s hide was very probably invented by the Greeks; who, finding
in the Phœnician narrative of the foundation of Carthage, the
citadel mentioned by the Tyrian name of ‘Bostra,’ which had that
signification, and fancying, from its resemblance to their word
βυρσὰ, that it was derived from it, invented the fable of the hide.

Being pressed by Iarbas, king of Mauritania, to marry him, she asked
for three months to come to a determination. The time expiring, she
ordered a sacrifice to be made as an expiation to her husband’s
shade, and caused a pile to be erected, avowedly for the purpose of
burning all that belonged to him. Ascending it, she pretended to
expedite the sacrifice, and then despatched herself with a poniard.
Virgil, wishing to deduce the hatred of the Romans and Carthaginians
from the very time of Æneas, invented the story of the visit of
Æneas to Dido; though he was perhaps guilty of a great anachronism
in so doing, as the taking of Troy most probably preceded the
foundation of Carthage by at least two centuries. Ovid has also
related her story at length in the third book of the Fasti, and has
followed Virgil’s account of the treacherous conduct of Æneas, while
he represents Iarbas as capturing her city after her death, and
driving her sister Anna into exile. In the Phœnician language the
word ‘Dido’ signified ‘the bold woman,’ and it is probable that
Elisa only received that name after her death. Bochart has taken
considerable pains to prove that she was the aunt of Jezebel, the
famous, or rather infamous, wife of King Ahab.

The Poet then proceeds to say that Æneas saw the islands of the
Cercopians on his way, whom Jupiter had transformed into apes.
Æschines and Suidas say that there were two notorious robbers,
inhabitants of an island adjacent to Sicily, named Candulus and
Atlas, who committed outrages on all who approached the island.
Being about to insult Jupiter himself, he transformed them into
apes, from which circumstance the island received its name of
Pithecusa. Sabinus says that they were called Cercopes, because in
their treachery they were like monkeys, who fawn with their tails,
when they design nothing but mischief. Zenobius places the Cercopes
in Libya; and says that they were changed into rocks, for having
offered to fight with Hercules.

FABLE III. [XIV.101-153]

Apollo is enamoured of the Sibyl, and, to engage her affection,
offers her as many years as she can grasp grains of sand. She
forgets to ask that she may always continue in the bloom of youth,
and consequently becomes gray and decrepit.

After he has passed by these, and has left the walls of Parthenope[11] on the right hand, on the left side he {approaches} the tomb of the tuneful son of Æolus[12]; and he enters the shores of Cumæ, regions abounding in the sedge of the swamp, and the cavern of the long-lived Sibyl[13], and entreats {her}, that through Avernus, he may visit the shade of his father. But she raises her countenance, a long time fixed on the ground; and at length, inspired by the influence of the God, she says, “Thou dost request a great thing, O hero, most renowned by thy achievements, whose right hand has been proved by the sword, whose affection {has been proved} by the flames. Yet, Trojan, lay aside {all} apprehension, thou shalt obtain thy request; and under my guidance thou shalt visit the abodes of Elysium, the most distant realms of the universe, and the beloved shade of thy parent. To virtue, no path is inaccessible.”

{Thus} she spoke, and she pointed out a branch refulgent with gold, in the woods of the Juno of Avernus[14], and commanded him to pluck it from its stem. Æneas obeyed; and he beheld the power of the dread Orcus, and his own ancestors, and the aged ghost of the magnanimous Anchises; he learned, too, the ordinances of {those} regions, and what dangers would have to be undergone by him in his future wars. Tracing back thence his weary steps along the path, he beguiled his labour in discourse with his Cumæan guide. And while he was pursuing his frightful journey along darkening shades, he said, “Whether thou art a Goddess personally, or whether {thou art but a woman} most favoured by the Deities, to me shalt thou always be equal to a Divinity; I will confess, too, that I exist through thy kindness, who hast willed that I should visit the abodes of death, and that I should escape those abodes of death {when} beheld {by me}. For this kindness, when I have emerged into the breezes of the air, I will erect a temple to thee, {and} I will give thee the honours of frankincense.”

The prophetess looks upon him, and, with heaving sighs, she says, “Neither am I a Goddess, nor do thou honour a human being with the tribute of the holy frankincense. And, that thou mayst not err in ignorance, life eternal and without end was offered me, had my virginity but yielded to Phœbus, in love {with me}. But while he was hoping for this, while he was desiring to bribe me beforehand with gifts, he said: ‘Maiden of Cumæ, choose whatever thou mayst wish, thou shalt gain thy wish.’ I, pointing to a heap of collected dust, inconsiderately asked that as many birth-days might be my lot, as the dust contained particles. It escaped me to desire as well, at the same time, years vigorous with youth. But yet he offered me these, and eternal youth, had I submitted to his desires. Having rejected the offers of Phœbus, I remain unmarried. But now my more vigorous years have passed by, and crazy old age approaches with its trembling step, and this must I long endure.

“For thou beholdest me, having now lived seven ages; it remains for me to equal the number of particles of the dust; {yet} to behold three hundred harvests, {and} three hundred vintages. The time will come, when length of days will make me diminutive from a person so large; and when my limbs, wasted by old age, will be reduced to the most trifling weight. {Then} I shall not seem to have {once} been beloved, nor {once} to have pleased a God. Even Phœbus himself will, perhaps, not recognize me; or, {perhaps}, he will deny that he loved me. To that degree shall I be said to be changed; and though perceived by none, I shall still be recognized by my voice. My voice the Destinies will leave me.”

[Footnote 11: _Parthenope._--Ver. 101. The city of Naples, or
Neapolis, was called Parthenope from the Siren of that name, who
was said to have been buried there.]

[Footnote 12: _Son of Æolus._--Ver. 103. Misenus, the trumpeter,
was said to have been the son of Æolus. From him the promontory
Misenum received its name.]

[Footnote 13: _Long-lived Sibyl._--Ver. 104. The Sibyls were said
by some to have their name from the fact of their revealing the
will of the Deities, as in the Æolian dialect, Σιὸς was ‘a God,’
and βουλὴ was the Greek for ‘will.’ According to other writers,
they were so called from Σίου βύλλη, ‘full of the Deity.’]

[Footnote 14: _Juno of Avernus._--Ver. 114. The Infernal, or
Avernian Juno, is a title sometimes given by the poets to
Proserpine.]

EXPLANATION.

The early fathers of the church, and particularly Justin, in their
works in defence of Christianity, made use of the Sibylline verses
of the ancients. The Emperor Constantine, too, in his harangue
before the Nicene Council, quoted them, as redounding to the
advantage of Christianity; although he then stated that many persons
did not believe that the Sibyls were the authors of them. St.
Augustin, too, employs several of their alleged predictions to
enforce the truths of the Christian religion.

Sebastian Castalio has warmly maintained the truth of the oracles
contained in these verses, though he admits that they have been very
much interpolated. Other writers, however, having carefully examined
them, have pronounced them to be spurious, and so many pious frauds;
which, perhaps, may be pronounced to be the general opinion at the
present day. We will, however, shortly enquire how many Sibyls of
antiquity there were, and when they lived; whether any of their
works were ever promulgated for the perusal of the public, and
whether the verses which still exist under their name have any
ground to be considered genuine.

There is no doubt but that in ancient times there existed certain
women, who, led by a frenzied enthusiasm, uttered obscure sentences,
which passed for predictions with the credulous people who went to
consult them. Virgil and Ovid represent Æneas as going to the cave
of the Cumæan Sibyl, to learn from her the success of the wars he
should be engaged in. Plato, Strabo, Plutarch, Pliny, Solinus, and
Pausanias, with many other writers, have mentioned the Sibyls; and
it would be absurd, with Faustus Socinus, to affirm that no Sibyls
ever existed. Indeed, Plato and other authors of antiquity go so far
as to say, that by their productions they were essentially the
benefactors of mankind. Some mention but one Sibyl, who was born
either at Babylon or at Erythræ, in Phrygia. Diodorus Siculus
mentions one only, and assigns Delphi as her locality, calling her
by the name of Daphne. Strabo and Stephanus Byzantinus mention two,
the one of Gergæ, a little town near Troy, and the other of
Mermessus, in the same country. Solinus reckons three; the Delphian,
named Herophile, the Erythræan, and the Cumæan. According to Varro,
their number amounted to ten, whose names, in the order of time
which Pausanias assigns them, were as follows:

The first and the most ancient was the Delphian, who lived before
the Trojan war. The second was the Erythræan, who was said to have
been the first composer of acrostic verses, and who also lived
before the Trojan war. The third was the Cumæan, who was mentioned
by Nævius in his book on the first Punic war, and by Piso in his
annals. She is the Sibyl spoken of in the Æneid, and her name was
Deïphobe. The fourth was the Samian, called Pitho, though Eusebius
calls her Herophile, and he makes her to have lived about the time
of Numa Pompilius. The fifth, whose name was Amalthea, or Demophile,
lived at Cumæ, in Asia Minor. The sixth was the Hellespontine Sibyl,
born at Mermessus, near Troy. The seventh was the Libyan, mentioned
by Euripides. Some suppose that she was the first who had the name
of Sibyl, which was given to her by the people of Africa. The eighth
was the Persian or Babylonian Sibyl, whom Suidas names Sambetha. The
ninth was the Phrygian, who delivered her oracles at Ancyra, in
Phrygia. The tenth was the Tiburtine, who was called Albunea, and
prophesied near Tibur, or Tivoli, on the banks of the Anio. In the
present story Ovid evidently intends to represent these various
Sibyls as being the same person; and to account for her prolonged
existence, by representing that Apollo had granted her a life to
last for many ages.

Several ages before the Christian era, the Romans had a collection
of verses, which were commonly attributed to the Sibyls. These they
often consulted; and in the time of Tarquinius Superbus, two
officers were appointed for the purpose of keeping the Sibylline
books, whose business it was to look in them on the occasion of any
public calamity, in order to see whether it had been foretold and to
make their report to the Senate. The books were kept in a stone
chest, beneath the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. These Duumvirs
continued until the year of Rome 388, when eight others being added,
they formed the College of the Decemvirs. About eighty-three years
before the Christian era five other keepers of these books were
added, who thus formed the body called the Quindecimvirs.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Aulus Gellius, Servius, and many other
writers, state the following as the origin of the Sibylline books.
An aged woman presented to Tarquinius Superbus three books that
contained the oracles of the Sibyls, and demanded a large sum for
them. The king refusing to buy them, she went and burned them; and
returning, asked the same price for the remaining six, as she had
done for the original number. Being again repulsed, she burnt three
more, and coming back again, demanded the original price for the
three that remained. Astonished at the circumstance, the king bought
the books. Pliny and Solinus vary the story a little, in saying that
the woman at first presented but three books, and that she destroyed
two of them.

It is generally supposed, that on the burning of the Capitol, about
eighty-three years before the Christian era, the Sibylline books of
Tarquinius Superbus were destroyed in the flames. To repair the
loss, the Romans despatched officers to various cities of Italy, and
even to Asia and Africa, to collect whatever they could find, under
the name of Sibylline oracles. P. Gabinius, M. Ottacilius, and L.
Valerius brought back a large collection, of which the greater part
was rejected, and the rest committed to the care of the
Quindecimvirs. Augustus ordered a second revision of them; and,
after a severe scrutiny, those which were deemed to be genuine, were
deposited in a box, under a statue of Apollo Palatinus. Tiberius
again had them examined, and some portion of them was then rejected.
Finally, about the year A.D. 399, Stilcho, according to Rutilius
Numatianus, or rather, the Emperor Honorius himself, ordered them to
be burnt.

The so-called collection of Sibylline verses which now exists is
generally looked upon as spurious; or if any part is genuine, it
bears so small a proportion to the fictitious portion, that it has
shared in the condemnation. Indeed, their very distinctness stamps
them as forgeries; for they speak of the mysteries of Christianity
in undisguised language, and the names of our Saviour and the Virgin
Mary occur as openly as they do in the Holy Scriptures.

It is a singular assertion of St. Jerome, that the gift of prophecy
was a reward to the Sibyls for their chastity. If such was the
condition, we have a right to consider that the Deities were very
partial in the distribution of their rewards, and in withholding
them from the multitudes who, we are bound in charity to believe,
were as deserving as the Sibyls themselves of the gift of
vaticination.

FABLE IV. [XIV.154-247]

Æneas arrives at Caieta, in Italy. Achæmenides, an Ithacan, who is
on board his ship, meets his former companion Macareus there; and
relates to him his escape from being devoured by Polyphemus.
Macareus afterwards tells him how Ulysses had received winds from
Æolus in a hide, and by that means had a prosperous voyage; till,
on the bag being opened by the sailors in their curiosity, the winds
rushed out, and raised a storm that drove them back to Æolia, and
afterwards upon the coast of the Læstrygons.

While the Sibyl was relating such things as these, during the steep ascent, the Trojan Æneas emerged from the Stygian abodes to the Eubœan city,[15] and the sacrifice being performed, after the usual manner, he approached the shores that not yet bore the name of his nurse;[16] here, too, Macareus of Neritos, the companion of the experienced Ulysses, had rested, after the prolonged weariness of his toils. He recognized Achæmenides, once deserted in the midst of the crags of Ætna; and astonished that, thus unexpectedly found again, he was yet alive, he said, “What chance, or what God, Achæmenides, preserves thee? why is a barbarian[17] vessel carrying {thee}, a Greek? What land is sought by thy bark?”

No longer ragged in his clothing, {but} now his own {master},[18] and wearing clothes tacked together with no thorns, Achæmenides says, “Again may I behold Polyphemus, and those jaws streaming with human blood, if my home and Ithaca be more delightful to me than this bark; if I venerate Æneas any less than my own father. And, though I were to do everything {possible}, I could never be sufficiently grateful. ’Tis he that has caused that I speak, and breathe, and behold the heavens and the luminary of the sun; and can I be ungrateful, and forgetful of this? {’Tis through him} that this life of mine did not fall into the jaws of the Cyclop; and though I were, even now, to leave the light of life, I should either be buried in a tomb, or, at least, not in that paunch {of his}. What were my feelings at that moment (unless, indeed, terror deprived me of all sense and feeling), when, left behind, I saw you making for the open sea? I wished to shout aloud, but I was fearful of betraying myself to the enemy; the shouts of Ulysses were very nearly causing[19] the destruction of even your ship. I beheld him when, having torn up a mountain, he hurled the immense rock in the midst of the waves; again I beheld him hurling huge stones, with his giant arms, just as though impelled by the powers of the engine of war. And, forgetful that I was not in it, I was now struck with horror lest the waves or the stones might overwhelm the ship.

“But when your flight had saved you from a cruel death, he, indeed, roaring with rage, paced about all Ætna, and groped out the woods with his hands, and, deprived of his eye, stumbled against the rocks; and stretching out his arms, stained with gore, into the sea, he cursed the Grecian race, and he said, ‘Oh! that any accident would bring back Ulysses to me, or any one of his companions, against whom my anger might find vent, whose entrails I might devour, whose living limbs I might mangle with my right hand, whose blood might drench my throat, whose crushed members might quiver beneath my teeth: how insignificant, or how trifling, {then}, would be the loss of my sight, that has been taken from me!’ This, and more, he said in his rage. Ghastly horror took possession of me, as I beheld his features, streaming even yet with blood, and the ruthless hands, and the round space deprived of the eye, and his limbs, and his beard matted with human blood. Death was before my eyes, {and} yet that was the least of my woes. I imagined that[20] now he was about to seize hold of me, and that now he was on the very point of swallowing my vitals within his own; in my mind was fixed the impress of that time when I beheld two bodies of my companions three or four times dashed against the ground. Throwing himself on the top of them, just like a shaggy lion, he stowed away their entrails, their flesh, their bones with the white marrow, and their quivering limbs, in his ravenous paunch. A trembling seized me; in my alarm I stood without blood {in my features}, as I beheld him both chewing and belching out his bloody banquet from his mouth, and vomiting pieces mingled with wine; {and} I fancied that such a doom was in readiness for wretched me.

“Concealing myself for many a day, and trembling at every sound, and both fearing death and {yet} desirous to die, satisfying hunger with acorns, and with grass mixed with leaves, alone, destitute, desponding, abandoned to death and destruction, after a length of time, I beheld a ship not far off; by signs I prayed for deliverance, and I ran down to the shore; I prevailed; and a Trojan ship received me, a Greek. Do thou too, dearest of my companions, relate thy adventures, and those of thy chief, and of the company, which, together with thee, entrusted {themselves} to the ocean.”

The other relates how that Æolus rules over the Etrurian seas; Æolus, the grandson of Hippotas, who confines the winds in their prison, which the Dulichean chief had received, shut up in a leather {bag}, a wondrous gift; how, with a favouring breeze, he had proceeded for nine days, and had beheld the land he was bound for; {and how}, when the first morning after the ninth had arrived, his companions, influenced by envy and a desire for booty, supposing it to be gold, had cut the fastenings of the winds; {and how}, through these, the ship had gone back along the waves through which it had just come, and had returned to the harbour of the Æolian king.

“Thence,” said he, “we came to the ancient city[21] of Lamus, the Læstrygon. Antiphates was reigning in that land. I was sent to him, two in number accompanying me; and with difficulty was safety procured by me and one companion, by flight; the third of us stained the accursed jaws of the Læstrygon with his blood. Antiphates pursued us as we fled, and called together his followers; they flocked together, and, without intermission, they showered both stones and beams, and they overwhelmed men, and ships, too, did they overwhelm; yet one, which carried us and Ulysses himself, escaped. A part of our companions {thus} lost, grieving and lamenting much we arrived at those regions which thou perceivest afar hence. Look! afar hence thou mayst perceive an island,[22] that has been seen by me; and do thou, most righteous of the Trojans, thou son of a Goddess, (for, since the war is ended, thou art not, Æneas, to be called an enemy) I warn thee--avoid the shores of Circe.”

[Footnote 15: _Eubœan city._--Ver. 155. ‘Cumæ’ was said to have
been founded by a colony from Chalcis, in Eubœa.]

[Footnote 16: _Of his nurse._--Ver. 157. Caieta was the name of
the nurse of Æneas, who was said to have been buried there by
him.]

[Footnote 17: _Barbarian._--Ver. 163. That is, Trojan; to the
Greeks all people but themselves were βαρβαροὶ.]

[Footnote 18: _His own master._--Ver. 166. ‘Now his own master,’
in contradistinction to the time when Macareus looked on himself
as the devoted victim of Polyphemus.]

[Footnote 19: _Nearly causing._--Ver. 181. Homer, in the Ninth
Book of the Odyssey, recounts how Ulysses, after having put out
the eye of Polyphemus, fled to his own ship, and when the Giant
followed, called out to him, disclosing his real name; whereas, he
had before told the Cyclop that his name was οὔτις, ‘nobody.’ By
this indiscreet action, the Cyclop was able to ascertain the
locality of the ship, and nearly sank it with a mass of rock which
he hurled in that direction.]

[Footnote 20: _I imagined that._--Ver. 203-4. ‘Et jam prensurum,
jam, jam mea viscera rebar In sua mersurum.’ Clarke thus renders
these words; ‘And now I thought he would presently whip me up, and
cram my bowels within his own.’]

[Footnote 21: _The ancient city._--Ver. 233. This city was
afterwards known as Formiæ, in Campania.]

[Footnote 22: _An island._--Ver. 245. Macareus here points towards
the promontory of Circæum, which was supposed to have formerly
been an island.]

EXPLANATION.

Æolus, according to Servius and Varro, was the son of Hippotas, and
about the time of the Trojan war reigned in those islands, which
were formerly called ‘Vulcaniæ,’ but were afterwards entitled
‘Æoliæ,’ and are now known as the Lipari Islands. Homer mentions
only one of these islands, which were seven in number. He calls it
by the name of Æolia, and probably means the one which was called
Lipara, and gave its name to the group, and which is now known as
Strombolo. Æolus seems to have been a humane prince, who received
with hospitality those who had the misfortune to be cast on his
island. Diodorus Siculus says that he was especially careful to warn
strangers of the shoals and dangerous places in the neighbouring
seas. Pliny adds, that he applied himself to the study of the winds,
by observing the direction of the smoke of the volcanos, with which
the isles abounded.

Being considered as an authority on that subject, at a time when
navigation was so little reduced to an art, the poets readily
feigned that he was the master of the winds, and kept them pent up
in caverns, under his control. The story of the winds being
entrusted to Ulysses, which Ovid here copies from Homer, is merely a
poetical method of saying, that Ulysses disregarded the advice of
Æolus, and staying out at sea beyond the time he had been
recommended, was caught in a violent tempest. It is possible that
Homer may allude to some custom which prevailed among the ancients,
similar to that of the Lapland witches in modern times, who pretend
to sell a favourable wind, enclosed in a bag, to mariners. Homer
speaks of the six sons and six daughters of Æolus; perhaps they were
the twelve principal winds, upon which he had expended much pains in
making accurate observations.

Bochart suggests that the isle of Lipara was called by the
Phœnicians ‘Nibara,’ on account of its volcano, (that word
signifying ‘a torch,’) which name was afterwards corrupted to
Lipara.

FABLE V. [XIV.248-319]

Achæmenides lands in the isle of Circe, and is sent to her palace
with some of his companions. Giving them a favourable reception, she
makes them drink of a certain liquor; and, on her touching them with
a wand, they are immediately transformed into swine. Eurylochus, who
has refused to drink, informs Ulysses, who immediately repairs to
the palace, and obliges Circe to restore to his companions their
former shape.

“We, too, having fastened our ships to the shores of Circe, remembering Antiphates and the cruel Cyclop, refused to go and enter her unknown abode. By lot were we chosen; that lot sent both me and the faithful Polytes, and Eurylochus, and Elpenor, too much addicted[23] to wine, and twice nine[24] companions, to the walls of Circe. Soon as we reached them, and stood at the threshold of her abode; a thousand wolves, and bears and lionesses mixed with the wolves, created fear through meeting them; but not one {of them} needed to be feared, and not one was there to make a wound on our bodies. They wagged their caressing tails in the air, and fawning, they attended our footsteps, until the female servants received us, and led us, through halls roofed with marble, to their mistress.

“She is sitting in a beautiful alcove, on her wonted throne, and clad in a splendid robe; over it she is arrayed in a garment of gold tissue. The Nereids and the Nymphs, together, who tease no fleeces with the motion of their fingers nor draw out the ductile threads, are placing the plants in due order, and arranging in baskets the flowers confusedly scattered, and the shrubs variegated in their hues. She herself prescribes the tasks that they perform; she herself is aware what is the use of every leaf; what combined virtue there is in them when mixed; and giving attention, she examines {each} herb as weighed.[25] When she beheld us, having given and received a salutation, she gladdened her countenance, and granted every thing to our wishes. And without delay, she ordered the grains of parched barley to be mingled, and honey, and the strength of wine, and curds with pressed milk. Secretly, she added drugs to be concealed beneath this sweetness. We received the cups presented by her sacred right hand. Soon as, in our thirst, we quaffed them with parching mouth, and the ruthless Goddess, with her wand, touched the extremity of our hair (I am both ashamed, and {yet} I will tell of it), I began to grow rough with bristles, and no longer to be able to speak; and, instead of words, to utter a harsh noise, and to grovel on the ground with all my face. I felt, too, my mouth receive a hard skin, with its crooked snout, and my neck swell with muscles; and with the member with which, the moment before, I had received the cup, with the same did I impress my footsteps.

“With the rest who had suffered the same treatment (so powerful are enchanted potions) I was shut up in a pig-sty; and we perceived that Eurylochus, alone, had not the form of a swine; he, alone, escaped the proffered draught. And had he not escaped it, I should even, at this moment, have still been one of the bristle-clad animals; nor would Ulysses, having been informed by him of so direful a disaster, have come to Circe as {our} avenger. The Cyllenian peace-bearer had given him a white flower; the Gods above call it ‘Moly;’[26] it is supported by a black root. Protected by that, and at the same time by the instruction of the inhabitants of heaven, he entered the dwelling of Circe, and being invited to the treacherous draughts, he repelled her, while endeavouring to stroke his hair with her wand, and prevented her, in her terror, with his drawn sword. Upon that, her promise {was given}, and right hands were exchanged; and, being received into her couch, he required the bodies of his companions as his marriage gift.

“We are {then} sprinkled with the more favouring juices of harmless plants, and are smitten on the head with a blow from her inverted wand; and charms are repeated, the converse of the charms that had been uttered. The longer she chaunts them, the more erect are we raised from the ground; and the bristles fall off, and the fissure leaves our cloven feet; our shoulders return; our arms become attached[27] to their upper parts. In tears, we embrace him {also} in tears; and we cling to the neck of our chief; nor do we utter any words before those that testify that we are grateful.