Chapter XXIII: Book THE TENTH: Fable I. X.1-85 (9)

“The space of a year detained us there; and, as {I was} present for such a length of time, I saw many things; and many things I heard with my ears. This, too, among many other things {I heard}, which one of the four handmaids appointed for such rites, privately informed me of. For while Circe was passing her time apart with my chief, she pointed out to me a youthful statue made of snow-white marble, carrying a woodpecker on its head, erected in the hallowed temple, and bedecked with many a chaplet. When I asked, and desired to know who he was, and why he was venerated in the sacred temple, and why he carried that bird; she said:-- ‘Listen, Macareus, learn hence, too, what is the power of my mistress, and give attention to what I say.’”

[Footnote 23: _Too much addicted._--Ver. 252. He alludes to the
fate of Elpenor, who afterwards, in a fit of intoxication, fell
down stairs, and broke his neck.]

[Footnote 24: _Twice nine._--Ver. 253. Homer mentions Eurylochus
and twenty-two others as the number, being one more than the
number here given by Ovid.]

[Footnote 25: _As weighed._--Ver. 270. Of course drugs and simples
would require to be weighed before being mixed in their due
proportions.]

[Footnote 26: _Call it ‘Moly.’_--Ver. 292. Homer, in the tenth
Book of the Odyssey, says that this plant had a black root, and a
flower like milk.]

[Footnote 27: _Become attached._--Ver. 304-5. ‘Subjecta lacertis
Brachia sunt,’ Clarke has not a very lucid translation of these
words. His version is, ‘Brachia are put under our lacerti.’ The
‘brachium’ was the forearm, or part, from the wrist to the elbow;
while the ‘lacertus’ was the muscular part, between the elbow and
the shoulder.]

EXPLANATION.

Ulysses having stayed some time at the court of Circe, where all
were immersed in luxury and indolence, begins to reflect on the
degraded state to which he is reduced, and resolutely abandons so
unworthy a mode of life. This resolution is here typified by the
herb moly, the symbol of wisdom. His companions, changed into swine,
are emblems of the condition to which a life of sensuality reduces
its votaries; while the wolves, lions, and horses show that man in
such a condition fails not to exhibit the various bad propensities
of the brute creation. Thus was the prodigal son, mentioned in the
New Testament, reduced to a level with the brutes, ‘and fain would
have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.’

It is not improbable that Circe was the original from which the
Eastern romancer depicted the enchantress queen Labè in the story of
Beder and Giauhare in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. They were
both ladies of light reputation, both fond of exercising their
magical power on strangers, and in exactly the same manner: and as
Ulysses successfully resisted the charms of Circe, so Beder thwarted
the designs of Labè; but here the parallel ends.

FABLE VI. [XIV.320-440]

Circe, being enamoured of Picus, and being unable to shake his
constancy to his wife Canens, transforms him into a woodpecker, and
his retinue into various kinds of animals. Canens pines away with
grief at the loss of her husband, and the place where she disappears
afterwards bears her name.

“‘Picus, the son of Saturn, was a king in the regions of Ausonia, an admirer of horses useful in warfare. The form of this person was such as thou beholdest. Thou thyself {here} mayst view his comeliness, and thou mayst approve of his real form from this feigned resemblance of it. His disposition was equal to his beauty; and not yet, in his age, could he have beheld four times the {Olympic} contest celebrated each fifth year in the Grecian Elis. He had attracted, by his {good} looks, the Dryads, born in the hills of Latium; the Naiads, the fountain Deities, wooed him; {Nymphs}, which Albula,[28] and which the waters of Numicus, and which those of Anio, and Almo but very short[29] in its course, and the rapid Nar,[30] and Farfarus,[31] with its delightful shades, produced, and those which haunt the forest realms of the Scythian[32] Diana, and the neighbouring streams.

“‘Yet, slighting all these, he was attached to one Nymph, whom, on the Palatine hill, Venilia is said once to have borne to the Ionian Janus.[33] Soon as she was ripe with marriageable years, she was presented to Laurentine Picus, preferred {by her} before all others; wondrous, indeed, was she in her beauty, but more wondrous still, through her skill in singing; thence she was called Canens.[34] She was wont, with her voice, to move the woods and the rocks, and to tame the wild beasts, and to stop {the course of} the long rivers, and to detain the fleeting birds. While she was singing her songs with her feminine voice, Picus had gone from his dwelling into the Laurentine fields, to pierce the wild boars there bred; and he was pressing the back of his spirited horse, and was carrying two javelins in his left hand, having a purple cloak fastened with yellow gold. The daughter of the Sun, too, had come into the same wood; and that she might pluck fresh plants on the fruitful hills, she had left behind the Circæan fields, {so} called after her own name.

“‘Hidden by the shrubs, soon as she beheld the youth, she was astounded; the plants which she had gathered fell from her bosom, and a flame seemed to pervade her entire marrow. As soon as she regained her presence of mind from {so} powerful a shock, she was about to confess what she desired; the speed of his horse, and the surrounding guards, caused that she could not approach. ‘And yet thou shalt not escape me,’ she said, ‘even shouldst thou be borne on the winds, if I only know myself, if all potency in herbs has not vanished, and if my charms do not deceive me.’ {Thus} she said; and she formed the phantom of a fictitious wild boar, with no substance, and commanded it to run past the eyes of the king, and to seem to go into a forest, thick set with trees, where the wood is most dense, and where the spot is inaccessible to a horse. There is no delay; Picus, forthwith, unconsciously follows the phantom of the prey; hastily too, he leaves the reeking back of his steed, and, in pursuit of a vain hope, wanders on foot in the lofty forest. She repeats prayers to herself, and utters magical incantations, and adores strange Gods in strange verses, with which she is wont both to darken the disk of the snow-white moon, and to draw the clouds that suck up the moisture, over the head of her father. Then does the sky become lowering at the repeating of the incantation, and the ground exhales its vapours; and his companions wander along the darkened paths, and his guards are separated from the king.

“‘She, having now gained a {favourable} place and opportunity, says, ‘O, most beauteous {youth}! by thy eyes, which have captivated mine, and by this graceful person, which makes me, though a Goddess, to be thy suppliant, favour my passion, and receive the Sun, that beholds all things, as thy father-in-law, and do not in thy cruelty despise Circe, the daughter of Titan.’ {Thus} she says. He roughly repels her and her entreaties: and he says, ‘Whoever thou art, I am not for thee; another female holds me enthralled, and for a long space of time, I pray, may she so hold me. I will not pollute the conjugal ties with the love of a stranger, while the Fates shall preserve for me Canens, the daughter of Janus.’ The daughter of Titan, having often repeated her entreaties in vain, says, ‘Thou shalt not depart with impunity, nor shalt thou return to Canens; and by experience shalt thou learn what one slighted, what one in love, what a woman, can do; but that one in love, and slighted, and a woman, is Circe.’

“‘Then twice did she turn herself to the West, and twice to the East; thrice did she touch the youth with her wand; three charms did she repeat. He fled; wondering that he sped more swiftly than usual, he beheld wings on his body; and indignant that he was added suddenly as a strange bird to the Latian woods, he struck the wild oaks with his hard beak, and, in his anger, inflicted wounds[35] on the long branches. His wings took the purple colour of his robe. The piece of gold that had formed a buckle, and had fastened his garment, became feathers, and his neck was encompassed with {the colour of} yellow gold; and nothing {now} remained to Picus of his former {self}, beyond the name.

“‘In the meantime his attendants, having, often in vain, called on Picus throughout the fields, and, having found him in no direction, meet with Circe, (for now she has cleared the air, and has allowed the clouds to be dispersed by the woods and the sun); and they charge her with just accusations, and demand back their king, and are using violence, and are preparing to attack her with ruthless weapons. She scatters noxious venom and poisonous extracts; and she summons together Night, and the Gods of Night, from Erebus and from Chaos, and she invokes Hecate in magic howlings. Wondrous to tell, the woods leap from their spot; the ground utters groans, the neighbouring trees become pallid, the grass becomes moist, besprinkled with drops of blood; the stones seem to send forth harsh lowings, the dogs {seem} to bark, and the ground to grow loathsome with black serpents, and unsubstantial ghosts of the departed {appear} to flit about. The multitude trembles, astonished at these prodigies; she touches their astonished faces, as they tremble, with her enchanted wand. From the touch of this, the monstrous forms of various wild beasts come upon the young men; his own form remains to no one of them.

“‘The setting Sun has {now} borne down upon the Tartessian shores;[36] and in vain is her husband expected, both by the eyes and the longings of Canens. Her servants and the people run about through all the woods, and carry lights to meet him. Nor is it enough for the Nymph to weep, and to tear her hair, and to beat her breast; though all this she does, she rushes forth, and, in her distraction, she wanders through the Latian fields. Six nights, and as many returning lights of the Sun, beheld her, destitute of sleep and of food, going over hills and valleys, wherever chance led her. Tiber, last {of all}, beheld her, worn out with weeping and wandering, and reposing her body on his cold banks. There, with tears, she poured forth words attuned, lamenting, in a low voice, her very woes, as when the swan, now about to die, sings his own funereal dirge.

“‘At last, melting with grief, {even} to her thin marrow, she pined away, and by degrees vanished into light air. Yet the Fame of it became attached to the spot, which the ancient Muses have properly called Canens, after the name of the Nymph.’ During that long year, many such things as these were told me and were seen {by me}. Sluggish and inactive through idleness, we were ordered again to embark on the deep, again to set our sails. The daughter of Titan had said that dangerous paths, and a protracted voyage, and the perils of the raging sea were awaiting us. I was alarmed, I confess; and having reached these shores, {here} I remained.”

[Footnote 28: _Albula._--Ver. 328. The ancient name of the river
Tiber was Albula. It was so called from the whiteness of its
water.]

[Footnote 29: _But very short._--Ver. 329. The Almo falls in the
Tiber, close to its own source, whence its present epithet.]

[Footnote 30: _Rapid Nar._--Ver. 330. The ‘Nar’ was a river of
Umbria, which fell into the Tiber.]

[Footnote 31: _Farfarus._--Ver. 330. This river, flowing slowly
through the valleys of the country of the Sabines, received a
pleasant shade from the trees with which its banks were lined.]

[Footnote 32: _Scythian._--Ver. 331. He alludes to the statue of
the Goddess Diana, which, with her worship, Orestes was said to
have brought from the Tauric Chersonesus, and to have established
at Aricia, in Latium. See the Fasti, Book III. l. 263, and Note.]

[Footnote 33: _Ionian Janus._--Ver. 334. Janus was so called
because he was thought to have come from Thessaly, and to have
crossed the Ionian Sea.]

[Footnote 34: _Canens._--Ver. 338. This name literally means
‘singing,’ being the present participle of the Latin verb ‘cano,’
‘to sing.’]

[Footnote 35: _Inflicted wounds._--Ver. 392. The woodpecker is
supposed to tap the bark of the tree with his beak, to ascertain,
from the sound, if it is hollow, and if there are any insects
beneath it.]

[Footnote 36: _Tartessian shores._--Ver. 416. ‘Tartessia’ is here
used as a general term for Western, as Tartessus was a city of the
Western coast of Spain. It afterwards had the name of Carteia, and
is thought to have been situated not far from the site of the
present Cadiz, at the mouth of the Bætis, now called the
Guadalquivir. Some suppose this name to be the same with the
Tarshish of Scripture.]

EXPLANATION.

When names occur in the ancient Mythology, of Oriental origin, we
may conclude that they were imported into Greece and Italy from
Egypt or Phœnicia; and that their stories were derived from the same
sources; such as those of Adonis, Arethusa, Arachne, and Isis. Those
that are derived from the Greek languages are attached to fictions
of purely Greek origin, such as the fables of Daphne, Galantis,
Cygnus, and the Myrmidons; and where the names are of Latin
original, we may conclude that their stories originated in Italy:
such, for instance, as those of Canens, Picus, Anna Perenna, Flora,
Quirinus, and others.

To this rule there are certain exceptions; for both Greece and Italy
occasionally appropriated each other’s traditions, by substituting
the names of one language for those of the other. Thus it would not
be safe to affirm positively that the story of Portumnus and Matuta
is of Latin origin, since Greece lays an equal claim to it under the
names of Leucothoë and Palæmon, while, probably, Cadmus originally
introduced it from Phœnicia, under the names of Ino and Melicerta.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, on the authority of Cato the Censor and
Asellius Sempronius, says that the original inhabitants of Italy
were a Greek colony. Cato and Sempronius state that they were from
Achaia, while Dionysius says that they came from Arcadia, under the
command of Œnotrius. Picus is generally supposed to have been one of
the aboriginal kings of Italy, who was afterwards Deified. Servius,
in his Commentary on the seventh Book of the Æneid, informs us that
Picus pretended to know future events, and made use of a woodpecker,
which he had tamed, for the purpose of his auguries. On this ground,
after his death, it was generally reported that he had been
transformed into that bird, and he was ranked among the Dii
Indigetes of Latium. Dying in his youth, his wife Canens retired to
a solitary spot, where she ended her life, and the intensity of her
grief gave rise to the fable that she had pined away into a sound.

It has been suggested that the story took its rise from the oracles
of Mars among the Sabines, when a woodpecker was said to give the
responses. According to Bochart, it arose from the confusion of the
meaning of the Phœnician word ‘picea,’ which signified a ‘diviner.’
It is the exuberant fancy of Ovid alone which connects Picus with
the story of Circe.

FABLES VII. AND VIII. [XIV.441-526]

Turnus having demanded succour from Diomedes against Æneas, the
Grecian prince, fearing the resentment of Venus, refuses to send him
assistance; and relates how some of his followers have been
transformed by Venus into birds. An Apulian shepherd surprising some
Nymphs, insults them, on which he is changed into a wild olive tree.

Macareus had concluded. And the nurse of Æneas, {now} buried in a marble urn, had {this} short inscription on her tomb:-- “My foster-child, of proved piety, here burned me, Caieta, preserved from the Argive flames, with that fire which was my due.” The fastened cable is loosened from the grassy bank, and they leave far behind the wiles and the dwelling of the Goddess, of whom so ill a report has been given, and seek the groves where the Tiber, darkened with the shade {of trees}, breaks into the sea with his yellow sands. {Æneas}, too, gains the house and the daughter of Latinus, the {son of} Faunus;[37] but not without warfare. A war is waged with a fierce nation, and Turnus is indignant on account of the wife that had been betrothed to him.[38] All Etruria meets {in battle} with Latium, and long is doubtful victory struggled for with ardent arms. Each side increases his strength with foreign forces, and many take the part of the Rutulians, many that of the Trojan side. Nor {had} Æneas {arrived} in vain at the thresholds of Evander,[39] but Venulus came {in vain} to the great city, of the exiled Diomedes. He, indeed, had founded a very great city under the Iapygian Daunus, and held the lands given to him in dower.

But after Venulus had executed the commands of Turnus, and had asked for aid, the Ætolian hero pleaded his resources as an excuse: that he was not wishful to commit the subjects of his father-in-law to a war, and that he had no men to arm of the nation of his own countrymen; “And that ye may not think this a pretext, although my grief be renewed at the bitter recollection, yet I will endure the recital {of it}. After lofty Ilion was burnt, and Pergamus had fed the Grecian flames, and the Narycian hero,[40] having ravished the virgin, distributed that vengeance upon all, which he alone merited, on account of the virgin; we were dispersed and driven by the winds over the hostile seas; we Greeks had to endure lightning, darkness, rain, and the wrath both of the heavens and of the sea, and Caphareus, the completion of our misery. And not to detain you by relating these sad events in their order, Greece might then have appeared even to Priam, worthy of a tear. Yet the care of the armed universe preserved me, rescued from the waves.

“But again was I driven from Argos, {the land} of my fathers; and genial Venus exacted satisfaction in vengeance for her former wound: and so great hardships did I endure on the deep ocean, so great amid arms on shore, that many a time were they pronounced {happy} by me, whom the storm, common {to all}, and Caphareus, swallowed up in the threatening[41] waves; and I wished that I had been one of them. My companions having now endured the utmost extremities, both in war and on the ocean, lost courage, and demanded an end of their wanderings. But Agmon, of impetuous temper, and then embittered as well by misfortunes, said, ‘What does there remain now, ye men, for your patience to refuse to endure? What has Cytherea, (supposing her to desire it), that she can do beyond this? For so long as greater evils are dreaded, there is room for prayers; but where one’s lot is the most wretched possible, fear is {trampled} under foot, and the extremity {of misfortune} is free from apprehensions. Let {Venus} herself hear it, if she likes; let her hate, as she does {hate}, all the men under the rule of Diomedes. Yet all of us despise her hate, and this our great power is bought by us at great price.’

“With such expressions does the Pleuronian[42] Agmon provoke Venus against her will, and revive her former anger. His words are approved of by a few. We, the greater number of his friends, rebuke Agmon: and as he is preparing to answer, his voice and the passage of his voice together become diminished; his hair changes into feathers; his neck newly formed, his breast and his back are covered with down; his arms assume longer feathers; and his elbows curve out into light wings. A great part of his foot receives toes; his mouth becomes stiff and hardened with horn, and has its end in a point. Lycus and Idas, and Nycteus, together with Rhetenor, and Abas, are {all} astounded at him; and while they are astounded, they assume a similar form; and the greater portion of my company fly off, and resound around the oars with the flapping of their wings. Shouldst thou inquire what was the form of these birds so suddenly made; although it was not that of swans, yet it was approaching to that of white swans. With difficulty, for my part, do I, the son-in-law of the Iapygian Daunus, possess these abodes and the parched fields with a very small remnant of my companions.”

Thus far the grandson of Œneus. Venulus leaves the Calydonian[43] realms and the Peucetian[44] bays, and the Messapian[45] fields. In these he beholds a cavern, which, overshadowed by a dense grove, and trickling with a smooth stream, the God Pan, the half goat, occupies; but once on a time the Nymphs possessed it. An Apulian shepherd alarmed them, scared away from that spot; and, at first, he terrified them with a sudden fear; afterwards, when their presence of mind returned, and they despised him as he followed, they formed dances, moving their feet to time. The shepherd abused them; and imitating them with grotesque capers, he added rustic abuse in filthy language. Nor was he silent, before the {growing} tree closed his throat. But from this tree and its sap you may understand {what} were his manners. For the wild olive, by its bitter berries, indicates the infamy of his tongue; the coarseness of his words passed into them.

[Footnote 37: _Son of Faunus._--Ver. 449. The parents of Latinus
were Faunus and Marica.]

[Footnote 38: _Betrothed to him._--Ver. 451. Amata, the mother of
Lavinia, had promised her to Turnus, in spite of the oracle of
Faunus, which had declared that she was destined for a foreign
husband.]

[Footnote 39: _Evander._--Ver. 456. His history is given by Ovid
in the first Book of the Fasti.]

[Footnote 40: _Narycian hero._--Ver. 468. Naryx, which was also
called Narycium and Naryce, was a city of Locris. He alludes to
the divine vengeance which punished Ajax Oïleus, who had ravished
Cassandra in the temple of Minerva. For this reason the Greeks
were said to have been afflicted with shipwreck, on their return
after the destruction of Troy.]

[Footnote 41: _Threatening._--Ver. 481. ‘Importunis’ is translated
by Clarke, ‘plaguy.’ For some account of Caphareus, see the
Tristia, or Lament, Book I. El. 1. l. 83. and note.]

[Footnote 42: _Pleuronian._--Ver. 494. Pleuron was a town of
Ætolia, adjoining to Epirus.]

[Footnote 43: _Calydonian._--Ver. 512. That part of Apulia, which
Diomedes received from Daunus, as a dower with his wife, was
called Calydon, from the city of Calydon, in his native Ætolia.]

[Footnote 44: _Peucetian._--Ver. 513. Apulia was divided by the
river Aufidus into two parts, Peucetia and Daunia. Peucetia was to
the East, and Daunia lay to the West. According to Antoninus
Liberalis, Daunus, Iapyx, and Peucetius, the sons of Lycaon, were
the first to colonize these parts.]

[Footnote 45: _Messapian._--Ver. 513. Messapia was a name given to
a part of Calabria, from its king Messapus, who aided Turnus
against Æneas.]

EXPLANATION.

Latinus having been told by an oracle that a foreign prince should
come into his country and marry his daughter Lavinia, received Æneas
hospitably, and formed an alliance with him, promising him his
daughter in marriage; on which Turnus, who was the nephew of Amata,
his wife, and to whom Lavinia was betrothed, declared war against
Æneas.

The ancient historians tell us, that, on returning from the siege of
Troy, Diomedes found that his throne had been usurped by Cyllabarus,
who had married his wife Ægiale. Not having sufficient forces to
dispossess the intruder, he sought a retreat in Italy, where he
built the city of Argyripa, or Argos Hippium. Diomedes having
married the daughter of Daunus, quarrelled with his father-in-law,
and was killed in fight; on which his companions fled to an adjacent
island, which, from his name, was called Diomedea. It was afterwards
reported, that on their flight they were changed into birds, and
that Venus inflicted this punishment, in consequence of Diomedes
having wounded her at the siege of Troy. Of this story a confused
version is here presented by Ovid, who makes the transformation to
take place in the lifetime of Diomedes. It is supposed that the fact
of the island being the favourite resort of swans and herons,
facilitated this story of their transformation. Pliny and Solinus
add to this marvellous account by stating, that these birds fawned
upon all Greeks who entered the island, and fled from the people of
all other nations. Ovid says that the birds resembled swans, while
other writers thought them to be herons, storks, or falcons.

The ancient authors are utterly silent as to the rude shepherd who
was changed into a wild olive, but the story was probably derived by
Ovid from some local tradition.

FABLES IX. AND X. [XIV.527-608]

Turnus sets fire to the fleet of Æneas: but Cybele transforms the
ships into sea Nymphs. After the death of Turnus, his capital,
Ardea, is burnt, and a bird arises out of the flames. Venus obtains
of Jupiter that her son, after so many heroic deeds, shall be
received into the number of the Gods.

When the ambassador had returned thence, bringing word that the Ætolian arms had been refused them, the Rutulians carried on the warfare prepared for, without their forces; and much blood was shed on either side. Lo! Turnus bears the devouring torches against the {ships}, fabrics of pine; and those, whom the waves have spared, are {now} in dread of fire. And now the flames were burning the pitch and the wax, and the other elements of flame, and were mounting the lofty mast to the sails, and the benches of the curved ships were smoking; when the holy Mother of the Gods, remembering that these pines were cut down on the heights of Ida, filled the air with the tinkling of the clashing cymbal, and with the noise of the blown boxwood {pipe}. Borne through the yielding air by her harnessed lions, she said: “Turnus, in vain dost thou hurl the flames with thy sacrilegious right hand; I will save {the ships}, and the devouring flames shall not, with my permission, burn a portion, and the {very} limbs of my groves.”

As the Goddess speaks, it thunders; and following the thunder, heavy showers fall, together with bounding hailstones; the brothers, sons of Astræus, arouse both the air and the swelling waves with sudden conflicts, and rush to the battle. The genial Mother, using the strength of one of these, first bursts the hempen cables of the Phrygian fleet, and carries the ships headlong, and buries them beneath the ocean. Their hardness being now softened, and their wood being changed into flesh, the crooked sterns are changed into the features of the head; the oars taper off in fingers and swimming feet; that which has been so before, is {still} the side; and the keel, laid below in the middle of the ship, is changed, for the purposes of the back bone. The cordage becomes soft hair, the yards {become} arms. Their colour is azure, as it was before. As Naiads of the ocean, with their virgin sports they agitate those waves, which before they dreaded; and, born on the rugged mountains, they inhabit the flowing sea; their origin influences them not. And yet, not forgetting how many dangers they endured on the boisterous ocean, often do they give a helping hand to the tossed ships; unless any one is carrying men of the Grecian race.

Still keeping in mind the Phrygian catastrophe, they hated the Pelasgians; and, with joyful countenances, they looked upon the fragments of the ship of him of Neritos; and with pleasure did they see the ship of Alcinoüs[46] become hard upon the breakers, and stone growing over the wood.

There is a hope that, the fleet having received life in the form of sea Nymphs, the Rutulian may desist from the war through fear, on account of this prodigy. He persists, {however}, and each side has {its own} Deities;[47] and they have courage, equal to the Gods. And now they do not seek kingdoms as a dower, nor the sceptre of a father-in-law, nor thee, virgin Lavinia, but {only} to conquer; and they wage the war through shame at desisting. At length, Venus sees the arms of her son victorious, and Turnus falls; Ardea falls, which, while Turnus lived, was called ‘the mighty.’ After ruthless flames consumed it, and its houses sank down amid the heated embers, a bird, then known for the first time, flew aloft from the midst of the heap, and beat the ashes with the flapping of its wings. The voice, the leanness, the paleness, and every thing that befits a captured city, and the very name of the city, remain in that {bird}; and Ardea itself is bewailed by {the beating of} its wings.

And now the merit of Æneas had obliged all the Deities, and Juno herself, to put an end to their former resentment; when, the power of the rising Iülus being now well established, the hero, the son of Cytherea, was ripe for heaven, Venus, too, had solicited the Gods above; and hanging round the neck of her parent had said: “My father, {who hast} never {proved} unkind to me at any time, I beseech thee now to be most indulgent {to me}; and to grant, dearest {father}, to my Æneas, who, {born} of my blood, has made thee a grandsire, a godhead, {even} though of the lowest class; so that thou only grant him one. It is enough to have once beheld the unsightly realms, {enough} to have once passed over the Stygian streams.” The Gods assented; nor did his royal wife keep her countenance unmoved; {but}, with pleased countenance, she nodded assent. Then her father said; “You are worthy of the gift of heaven; both thou who askest, and he, for whom thou askest: receive, my daughter, what thou dost desire.” {Thus} he decrees. She rejoices, and gives thanks to her parent; and, borne by her harnessed doves through the light air, she arrives at the Laurentine shores; where Numicius,[48] covered with reeds, winds to the neighbouring sea with the waters of his stream. Him she bids to wash off from Æneas whatever is subject to death, and to bear it beneath the ocean in his silent course.

The horned {river} performed the commands of Venus; and with his waters washed away from Æneas whatever was mortal, and sprinkled him. His superior essence remained. His mother anointed his body {thus} purified with divine odours, and touched his face with ambrosia, mingled with sweet nectar, and made him a God. Him the people of Quirinus, called Indiges,[49] and endowed with a temple and with altars.

[Footnote 46: _Ship of Alcinoüs._--Ver. 565. Alcinoüs, the king of
the Phæacians, having saved Ulysses from shipwreck, gave him a
ship in which to return to Ithaca. Neptune, to revenge the
injuries of his son Polyphemus, changed the ship into a rock.]

[Footnote 47: _Its own Deities._--Ver. 568. The Trojans were aided
by Venus, while Juno favoured the Rutulians.]

[Footnote 48: _Numicius._--Ver. 599. Livy, in the first Book of
his History, seems to say that Æneas lost his life in a battle,
fought near the Numicius, a river of Latium. He is generally
supposed to have been drowned there.]

[Footnote 49: _Indiges._--Ver. 608. Cicero says, that ‘those, who
for their merits were reckoned in the number of the Gods, and who
formerly living on earth, and afterwards lived among the Gods (in
Diis agerent), were called Indigetes;’ thus implying that the word
‘Indiges’ came from ‘in Diis ago;’ ‘to live among the Gods.’ This
seems a rather far-fetched derivation. The true meaning of the
word seems to be ‘native,’ or ‘indigenous;’ and it applies to a
person Deified, and considered as a tutelary Deity of his native
country. Most probably, it is derived from ‘in,’ or ‘indu,’ the
old Latin form of ‘in,’ and γείνω (for γίνομαι), ‘to be born.’
Some would derive the word from ‘in,’ negative, and ‘ago,’ to
speak, as signifying Deities, whose names were not be mentioned.]

EXPLANATION.

It is asserted by some writers, that when the ships of Æneas were
set on fire by Turnus, a tempest arose, which extinguished the
flames; on which circumstance the story here related by Ovid was
founded. Perhaps Virgil was the author of the fiction, as he is the
first known to have related it, and is closely followed by Ovid in
the account of the delivery of the ships.

The story of the heron arising out of the flames of Ardea seems to
be founded on a very simple fact. It is merely a poetical method of
accounting for the Latin name of that bird, which was very plentiful
in the vicinity of the city of Ardea, and, perhaps, thence derived
its name of ‘ardea.’ The story may have been the more readily
suggested to the punning mind of Ovid, from the resemblance of the
Latin verb ‘ardeo,’ signifying ‘to burn,’ to that name.

Some of the ancient authors say, that after killing Turnus and
marrying Lavinia, Æneas was killed in battle with Mezentius, after a
reign of three years, leaving his wife pregnant with a son,
afterwards known by the name of Sylvius. His body not being found
after the battle, it was given out that his Goddess mother had
translated him to heaven, and he was thenceforth honoured by the
name of Jupiter Indiges.

FABLE XI. [XIV.609-697]

Vertumnus, enamoured of Pomona, assumes several shapes for the
purpose of gaining her favour; and having transformed himself into
an old woman, succeeds in effecting his object.

From that time Alba and the Latin state were under the sway of Ascanius with the two names;[50] Sylvius[51] succeeded him; sprung of whom, Latinus had a renewed name, together with the ancient sceptre. Alba succeeded the illustrious Latinus; Epitos {sprang} from him; {and} next to him {were} Capetus, and Capys; but Capys was the first {of these}. Tiberinus received the sovereignty after them; and, drowned in the waves of the Etrurian river, he gave his name to the stream. By him Remulus and the fierce Acrota were begotten; Remulus, {who was} the elder, an imitator of the lightnings, perished by the stroke[52] of a thunder-bolt. Acrota, more moderate than his brother {in his views}, handed down the sceptre to the valiant Aventinus, who lies buried on the same mount over which he had reigned; and to that mountain he gave his name. And now Proca held sway over the Palatine nation.

Under this king Pomona lived; than her, no one among the Hamadryads of Latium more skilfully tended her gardens, and no one was more attentive to the produce of the trees; thence she derives her name. She {cares} not {for} woods, or streams; {but} she loves the country, and the boughs that bear the thriving fruit. Her right hand is not weighed down with a javelin, but with a curved pruning-knife, with which, at one time she crops the {too} luxuriant shoots, and reduces the branches that straggle without order; at another time, she is engrafting the sucker in the divided bark, and is {so} finding nourishment for a stranger nursling. Nor does she suffer them to endure thirst; she waters, too, the winding fibres of the twisting root with the flowing waters. This is her delight, this her pursuit; and no desire has she for love. But fearing the violence of the rustics, she closes her orchard within {a wall}, and both forbids and flies from the approach of males.

What did not the Satyrs do, a youthful crew expert at the dance, and the Pans with their brows wreathed with pine, and Sylvanus, ever more youthful than his years, and the God who scares the thieves either with his pruning-hook or with his groin, in order that they might gain her? But yet Vertumnus exceeded even these in his love, nor was he more fortunate than the rest. O! how often did he carry the ears of corn in a basket, under the guise of a hardy reaper; and he was the very picture of a reaper! Many a time, having his temples bound with fresh bay, he would appear to have been turning over the mowed grass. He often bore a whip in his sturdy hand, so that you would have sworn that he had that instant been unyoking the wearied oxen. A pruning-knife being given him, he was a woodman, and the pruner of the vine. {Now} he was carrying a ladder, {and} you would suppose he was going to gather fruit. {Sometimes} he was a soldier, with a sword, {and sometimes} a fisherman, taking up the rod; in fact, by means of many a shape, he often obtained access for himself, that he might enjoy the pleasure of gazing on her beauty.

He, too, having bound his brows with a coloured cap,[53] leaning on a stick, with white hair placed around his temples, assumed the shape of an old woman, and entered the well-cultivated gardens, and admired the fruit; and he said, “So much better off {art thou}!” and {then} he gave her, thus commended, a few kisses, such as no real old woman {ever} could have given; and stooping, seated himself upon the grass, looking up at the branches bending under the load of autumn. There was an elm opposite, widely spread with swelling grapes; after he had praised it, together with the vine united {to it}, he said, “{Aye}, but if this trunk stood unwedded,[54] without the vine, it would have nothing to attract beyond its leaves; this vine, too, while it finds rest against the elm, joined to it, if it were not united to it, would lie prostrate on the ground; {and} yet thou art not influenced by the example of this tree, and thou dost avoid marriage, and dost not care to be united. I {only} wish that thou wouldst desire it: Helen would not {then} be wooed by more suitors, nor she who caused the battles of the Lapithæ, nor the wife of Ulysses, {so} bold against the cowards. Even now, while thou dost avoid them courting thee, and dost turn away in disgust, a thousand suitors desire thee; both Demigod and Gods, and the Deities which inhabit the mountains of Alba.

“But thou, if thou art wise, {and} if thou dost wish to make a good match, and to listen to an old woman, (who loves thee more than them all, and more than thou dost believe) despise a common alliance, and choose for thyself Vertumnus, as the partner of thy couch; and take me as a surety {for him}. He is not better known, even to himself, than he is to me. He is not wandering about, straying here and there, throughout all the world; these spots only does he frequent; and he does not, like a great part of thy wooers, fall in love with her whom he sees last. Thou wilt be his first and his last love, and to thee alone does he devote his life. Besides, he is young, he has naturally the gift of gracefulness, he can readily change himself into every shape, and he will become whatever he shall be bidden, even shouldst thou bid him be everything. {And} besides, have you {not both} the same tastes? Is {not} he the first to have the fruits which are thy delight? and does he {not} hold thy gifts in his joyous right hand? But now he neither longs for the fruit plucked from the tree, nor the herbs that the garden produces, with their pleasant juices, nor anything else, but thyself. Have pity on his passion! and fancy that he who wooes thee is here present, pleading with my lips; fear, too, the avenging Deities, and the Idalian {Goddess}, who abhors cruel hearts, and the vengeful anger of her of Rhamnus.[55]

“And that thou mayst the more stand in awe of them, (for old age has given me the opportunity of knowing many things) I will relate some facts very well known throughout all Cyprus, by which thou mayst the more easily be persuaded and relent.”

[Footnote 50: _The two names._--Ver. 609. The other name of
Ascanius was Iülus. Alba Longa was built by Ascanius.]

[Footnote 51: _Sylvius._--Ver. 610. See the lists of the Alban
kings, as given by Ovid, Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and
Eusebius, compared in the notes to the Translation of the Fasti,