Chapter XXV: Book IV: line 43 (2)

“And if there is any wondrous novelty in these things, {still more} may we be surprised that the hyæna changes its sex,[45] and that the one which has just now, as a female, submitted to the embrace of the male, is now become a male itself. That animal, too, which feeds upon[46] the winds and the air, immediately assumes, from its contact, any colour whatever. Conquered India presented her lynxes to Bacchus crowned with clusters; {and}, as they tell, whatever the bladder of these discharges is changed into stone,[47] and hardens by contact with the air. So coral, too, as soon as it has come up to the air becomes hard; beneath the waves it was a soft plant.[48] “The day will fail me, and Phœbus will bathe his panting steeds in the deep sea, before I can embrace in my discourse all things that are changed into new forms. So in lapse of time, we see nations change, and these gaining strength, {while} those are falling. So Troy was great, both in her riches and her men, and for ten years could afford so much blood; {whereas}, now laid low, she only shows her ancient ruins, and, instead of her wealth, {she points at} the tombs of her ancestors. Sparta was famed;[49] great Mycenæ flourished; so, too, the citadel of Cecrops, and that of Amphion. {Now} Sparta is a contemptible spot; lofty Mycenæ is laid low. What now is Thebes, the city of Œdipus, but a {mere} story? What remains of Athens, the city of Pandion, but its name?

“Now, too, there is a report that Dardanian Rome is rising; which, close to the waters of Tiber that rises in the Apennines, is laying the foundations of her greatness beneath a vast structure. She then, in her growth, is changing her form, and will one day be the mistress of the boundless earth. So they say that the soothsayers, and the oracles, revealers of destiny, declare; and, so far as I recollect, Helenus, the son of Priam, said to Æneas, as he was lamenting, and in doubt as to his safety, when {now} the Trojan state was sinking, ‘Son of a Goddess, if thou dost thyself well understand the presentiment of my mind, Troy shall not, thou being preserved, entirely fall. The flames and the sword shall afford thee a passage. Thou shalt go, and, together with thee, thou shalt bear ruined Pergamus; until a foreign soil, more friendly than thy native land, shall be the lot of Troy and thyself. Even now do I see that our Phrygian posterity are destined {to build} a city, so great as neither now exists, nor will exist, nor has been seen in former times. Through a long lapse of ages, other distinguished men shall make it powerful, but one born[50] of the blood of Iülus shall make it the mistress of the world. After the earth shall have enjoyed his presence, the æthereal abodes shall gain him, and heaven shall be his destination.’ Remembering it, I call to mind that Helenus prophesied this to Æneas, who bore the Penates {from Troy}; and I rejoice that my kindred walls are rising apace, and that to such good purpose for the Phrygians the Pelasgians conquered.

“But that we may not range afar with steeds that forget to hasten to the goal; the heavens, and whatever there is beneath them, and the earth, and whatever is upon it, change their form. We too, {who are} a portion of the universe, (since we are not only bodies, but are fleeting souls as well, and can enter into beasts {as our} abode, and be hidden within the breasts of the cattle), should allow those bodies which may contain the souls of our parents, or of our brothers, or of those allied with us by some tie, or of men at all events, to be safe and unmolested; and we ought not to fill[51] our entrails with victuals fit for Thyestes. How greatly he disgraces himself, how in his impiety does he prepare himself for shedding human blood, who cuts the throat of the calf with the knife, and gives a deaf ear to its lowings! or who can kill the kid as it sends forth cries like those of a child; or who can feed upon the bird to which he himself has given food. How much is there wanting in these instances for downright criminality? A {short} step {only} is there thence {to it}!

“Let the bull plough, or let it owe its death to aged years; let the sheep furnish us a defence against the shivering Boreas; let the well-fed she-goats afford their udders to be pressed by the hand. Away with your nets, and your springes and snares and treacherous contrivances; deceive not the bird with the bird-limed twig; deceive not the deer with the dreaded feather foils;[52] and do not conceal the barbed hooks in the deceitful bait. If any thing is noxious, destroy it, but even then only destroy it. Let your appetites abstain from it for food, and let them consume {a more} befitting sustenance.”

[Footnote 8: _And its rulers._--Ver. 61. Pythagoras is said to
have fled from the tyranny of Polycrates, the king of Samos.]

[Footnote 9: _No good adviser._--Ver. 103. Clarke translates ‘Non
utilis auctor,’ ‘Some good-for-nothing introducer.’]

[Footnote 10: _The goat is led._--Ver 114. See the Fasti, Book I.
l. 361.]

[Footnote 11: _Was Euphorbus._--Ver. 161. Diogenes Laërtius, in
the life of Pythagoras, says that Pythagoras affirmed, that he
was, first, Æthalides; secondly, Euphorbus, which he proved by
recognizing his shield hung up among the spoil in the temple of
Juno, at Argos; next, Hermotimus; then, Pyrrhus and fifthly,
Pythagoras.]

[Footnote 12: _Flowing onward._--Ver. 178. ‘Cuncta fluunt’ is
translated by Clarke, ‘All things are in a flux.’]

[Footnote 13: _Milo._--Ver. 229. Milo, of Crotona, was an athlete
of such strength that he was said to be able to kill a bull with a
blow of his fist, and then to carry it with ease on his shoulders,
and afterwards to devour it. His hands being caught within the
portions of the trunk of a tree, which he was trying to cleave
asunder, he became a prey to wild beasts.]

[Footnote 14: _Lycus._--Ver. 273. There were several rivers of
this name. The one here referred to was also called by the name of
Marsyas, and flowed past the city of Laodicea, in Lydia.]

[Footnote 15: _Erasinus._--Ver. 276. This was a river of Arcadia,
which running out of the Stymphalian marsh, under the name of
Stymphalus, disappeared in the earth, and rose again in the Argive
territory, under the name of Erasinus.]

[Footnote 16: _Amenanus._--Ver. 279. This was a little river of
Sicily, rising in Mount Ætna, and falling into the sea near the
city of Catania.]

[Footnote 17: _Anigros._--Ver. 282. The Anigros, flowing from the
mountain of Lapitha, in Arcadia, had waters of a fetid smell, in
which no fish could exist. Pausanias thinks that this smell
proceeded from the soil, and not the water. He adds, that some
said that Chiron, others that Polenor, when wounded by the arrow
of Hercules, washed the wound in the water of this river, which
became impure from its contact with the venom of the Hydra.]

[Footnote 18: _Hypanis._--Ver. 285. Now the Bog. It falls into the
Black Sea.]

[Footnote 19: _Antissa._--Ver. 287. This island, in the Ægean Sea,
was said to have been formerly united to Lesbos.]

[Footnote 20: _Pharos._--Ver. 287. According to Herodotus, this
island was once a whole day’s sail from the main land of Egypt.
In later times, having been increased by the mud discharged by the
Nile, it was united to the shore by a bridge.]

[Footnote 21: _Tyre._--Ver. 288. Tyre once stood on an island,
separated from the shore by a strait, seven hundred paces in
width. Alexander the Great, when besieging it, united it to the
main land by a causeway. This, however, does not aid the argument
of Pythagoras, who intends to recount the changes wrought by
nature, and not by the hand of man. Besides, it is not easy to see
how Pythagoras could refer to a fact which took place several
hundred years after his death.]

[Footnote 22: _Leucas._--Ver. 289. The island of Leucas was
formerly a peninsula, on the coast of Acarnania.]

[Footnote 23: _Zancle._--Ver. 290. Under this name he means the
whole of the isle of Sicily, which was supposed to have once
joined the shores of Italy.]

[Footnote 24: _Helice and Buris._--Ver. 293. We learn from Pliny
the Elder and Orosius, that Helice and Buris, cities of Achaia at
the mouth of the Corinthian gulf, were swallowed up by an
earthquake, and that their remains could be seen in the sea.
A similar fate attended Port Royal, in the island of Jamaica, in
the year 1692. Its houses are said to be still visible beneath the
waves.]

[Footnote 25: _The raging power._--Ver. 299. Pausanias tells us,
that in the time of Antigonus, king of Macedonia, warm waters
burst from the earth, through the action of subterranean fires,
near the city of Trœzen. Perhaps the ‘tumulus’ here mentioned
sprang up at the same time.]

[Footnote 26: _Or the hide._--Ver. 305. He alludes to the
goat-skins, which formed the ‘utres,’ or leathern bottles, for
wine and oil.]

[Footnote 27: _Horned Ammon._--Ver. 309. The lake of Ammon, in
Libya, which is here referred to, is thus described by Quintius
Curtius (Book IV. c. 7)-- ‘There is also another grove at Ammon;
in the middle it contains a fountain, which they call ‘the water
of the Sun.’ At daybreak it is tepid; at mid-day, when the heat is
intense, it is ice cold. As the evening approaches, it grows
warmer; at midnight, it boils and bubbles; and as the morning
approaches, its midnight heat goes off.’ Jupiter was worshipped in
its vicinity, under the form of a ram.]

[Footnote 28: _Athamanis._--Ver. 311. This wonderful fountain was
said to be in Dodona, the grove sacred to Jupiter.]

[Footnote 29: _Have a river._--Ver. 313. Possibly the Hebrus is
here meant. The petrifying qualities of some streams is a fact
well known to naturalists.]

[Footnote 30: _The Crathis._--Ver. 315. Crathis and Sybaris were
streams of Calabria, flowing into the sea, near Crotona. Euripides
and Strabo tell the same story of the river Crathis. Pliny the
Elder, in his thirty-second Book, says-- ‘Theophrastus tells us
that Crathis, a river of the Thurians, produces whiteness, whereas
the Sybaris causes blackness, in sheep and cattle. Men, too, are
sensible of this difference; for those who drink of the Sybaris,
become more swarthy and hardy, with the hair curling; while those
who drink of the Crathis become fairer, and more effeminate with
the hair straight.’]

[Footnote 31: _Salmacis._--Ver. 319. See Book IV. l. 285.]

[Footnote 32: _Lake of Æthiopia._--Ver. 320. Possibly these may be
the waters of trial, mentioned by Porphyry, as being used among
the Indians. He says, that, according to their influence on the
person accused, when drunk of by him, he was acquitted or
condemned.]

[Footnote 33: _Clitorian spring._--Ver. 322. Clitorium was a town
of Arcadia. Pliny the Elder, quoting from Varro, mentions the
quality here referred to.]

[Footnote 34: _Son of Amithaon._--Ver. 325. Melampus, the
physician, the son of Amithaon, cured Mera, Euryale, Lysippe, and
Iphianassa, the daughters of Prœtus, king of Argos, of madness,
which Venus was said to have inflicted on them for boasting of
their superior beauty. Their derangement consisted in the fancy
that they were changed into cows. Melampus afterwards married
Iphianassa. He was said to have employed the herb hellebore in the
cure, which thence obtained the name of ‘melampodium.’]

[Footnote 35: _Lyncestis._--Ver. 329. The Lyncesti were the people
of the town of Lyncus, in Epirus. This stream flowed past that
place.]

[Footnote 36: _Pheneos._--Ver. 332. Pheneos was the name of a town
of Arcadia, afterwards called ‘Nonacris.’ In its neighbourhood,
according to Pausanias, was a rock, from which water oozed drop by
drop, which the Greeks called ‘the water of Styx.’ At certain
periods it was said to be fatal to men and cattle, to break
vessels with which it came in contact, and to melt all metals.
Ovid is the only author that mentions the difference in its
qualities by day and by night.]

[Footnote 37: _Ortygia._--Ver. 337. Ortygia, or Deloe, was said to
have floated till it was made fast by Jupiter as a resting-place
for Latona, when pregnant with Apollo and Diana. The Symplegades,
or Cyanean Islands, were also said to have formerly floated.]

[Footnote 38: _Far Northern Pallene._--Ver. 356. Pallene was the
name of a mountain and a city of Thrace. Tritonis was a lake in
the neighbourhood. Vibius Sequester says, ‘When a person has nine
times bathed himself in the Tritonian lake, in Thrace, he is
changed into a bird.’ The continuous fall of fleecy snow in that
neighbourhood is supposed by some to have given rise to the
story.]

[Footnote 39: _Give any credit._--Ver. 361. This was a very common
notion among the ancients. See the story of Aristæus and the
recovery of his bees, in the Fourth Book of Virgil’s Georgics,
I. 281-314. It is also told by Ovid in the Fasti, Book I. l. 377.]

[Footnote 40: _The warlike steed._--Ver. 368. Pliny the Elder,
Nicander, and Varro state that bees and hornets are produced from
the carcase of the horse. Pliny also says, that beetles are
generated by the putrefying carcase of the ass.]

[Footnote 41: _Deadly moth._--Ver. 374. Pliny, in the
twenty-eighth Book of his History, says, ‘The moth, too, that
flies at the flame of the lamp, is numbered among the bad
potions,’ evidently alluding to their being used in philtres or
incantations. There is a kind called the death’s head moth; but it
is so called simply from the figure of a skull, which appears very
exactly represented on its body, and not on account of any noxious
qualities known to be inherent in it.]

[Footnote 42: _Deprived of feet._--Ver. 376. He alludes to frogs
when in the tadpole state.]

[Footnote 43: _Not a cub._--Ver. 379. This was long the common
belief. Pliny says, speaking of the cub of the bear, ‘These are
white and shapeless lumps of flesh, a little bigger than mice,
without eyes, and without hair; the claws, however, are prominent.
These the dams by degrees reduce to shape.’]

[Footnote 44: _Into a serpent._--Ver. 390. Pliny tells the same
story; and Antigonus (on Miracles, ch. 96) goes still further, and
says, that the persons to whom this happens, after death, are able
to smell the snakes while they are yet alive. The fiction, very
probably, was invented with the praiseworthy object of securing
freedom from molestation for the bones of the dead.]

[Footnote 45: _Changes its sex._--Ver. 408. Pliny mentions it as a
vulgar belief that the hyæna is male and female in alternate
years. Aristotle took the pains to confute this silly notion.]

[Footnote 46: _Which feeds upon._--Ver. 411. The idea that the
chameleon subsists on wind and air, arose from the circumstance of
its sitting with its mouth continually open, that it may catch
flies and small insects, its prey. That it changes colour
according to the hue of the surrounding objects, is a fact well
known. It receives its name from the Greek χάμαι λέων, ‘The lion
on the ground.’]

[Footnote 47: _Changed into stone._--Ver. 415. Pliny says, that
this becomes hard, and turns into gems, like the carbuncle, being
of a fiery tint, and that the stone has the name of ‘lyncurium.’
Beckmann (Hist. Inventions) thinks that this was probably the
jacinth, or hyacinth, while others suppose it to have been the
tourmaline, or transparent amber.]

[Footnote 48: _A soft plant._--Ver. 417. Modern improvement in
knowledge has shown that coral is not a plant, but an animal
substance.]

[Footnote 49: _Sparta was famed._--Ver. 426-30. These lines are
looked upon by many Commentators as spurious, as they are omitted
in most MSS. Besides, all these cities were flourishing in the
time of Pythagoras. If they are genuine, Ovid is here guilty of a
series of anachronisms.]

[Footnote 50: _But one born._--Ver. 447. This was Octavius, the
adopted son of Julius Cæsar. According to Suetonius, he traced his
descent, through his mother, from Ascanius or Iülus.]

[Footnote 51: _Ought not to fill._--Ver. 462. Clarke’s quaint
translation is, ‘And let us not cram our g--ts with Thyestian
victuals.’]

[Footnote 52: _Feather foils._--Ver. 475. He alludes to the
‘formido;’ which was made of coloured feathers, and was used to
scare the deer into the toils.]

EXPLANATION.

The Poet having now exhausted nearly all the transformations which
ancient history afforded him, proceeds to enlist in the number some
of the real phenomena of nature, together with some imaginary ones.
As Pythagoras was considered to have pursued metaphysical studies
more deeply, perhaps, than any other of the ancient philosophers,
Ovid could not have introduced a personage more fitted to discuss
these subjects. Having travelled through Asia, it is supposed that
Pythagoras passed into Italy, and settled at Crotona, to promulgate
there the philosophical principles which he had acquired in his
travels through Egypt and Asia Minor.

The Pythagorean philosophy was well-suited for the purpose of
mingling its doctrines with the fabulous narratives of the Poet, as
it consisted, in great part, of the doctrine of an endless series of
transformations. Its main features may be reduced to two general
heads; the first of which was the doctrine of the Metempsychosis,
or continual transmigration of souls from one body into another.
Pythagoras is supposed not to have originated this doctrine, but to
have received it from the Egyptians, by whose priesthood there is
little doubt that it was generally promulgated. Some writers have
suggested that this transmigration was only taught by Pythagoras in
a metaphorical sense; as, for instance, when he said that the souls
of men were transferred to beasts, it was only to teach us that
irregular passions render us brutes; on examination, however, we
shall find that there is no ground to doubt that he intended his
doctrines to be understood according to the literal meaning of his
words; indeed, the more strongly to enforce his doctrine by a
personal illustration, he was in the habit of promulgating that he
remembered to have been Euphorbus, at the time of the siege of Troy,
and that his soul, after several other transmigrations, had at last
entered the body which it then inhabited, under the name of
Pythagoras. In consequence of this doctrine, it was a favourite
tenet of his followers to abstain from eating the flesh of animals,
for fear of unconsciously devouring some friend or kinsman.

The second feature of this philosophy consisted in the elucidation
of the changes that happen in the physical world, a long series of
which is here set forth by the Poet; truth being mingled at random
with fiction. While some of his facts are based upon truth, others
seem to have only emanated from the fertile invention of the
travellers of those days; of the latter kind are the stories of the
river of Thrace, whose waters petrified those who drank of it; the
fountains that kindled wood, that caused a change of sex, that
created an aversion to wine, that transformed men into birds, and
fables of a similar nature; such, too, are those stories which were
generally believed by even the educated men of antiquity, but which
the wisdom of modern times has long since shown to be utterly
baseless, as, for instance, that bees grew from the entrails of the
ox, and hornets from those of the horse. The principle of
Pythagoras, that everything is continually changing and that nothing
perishes, is true to a certain extent; but in his times, and even in
those of Ovid, philosophy was not sufficiently advanced to speak
with precision on the subject, and to discover the true boundary
between truth and fiction.

FABLES IV. V. AND VI. [XV.479-621]

Egeria, the wife of Numa, is inconsolable after his death, and is
changed into a fountain. The horses of Hippolytus being frightened
by a sea-monster, he is killed by being thrown from his chariot, and
becomes a God, under the name of Virbius. Tages, the Diviner, arises
out of a clod of earth. The lance of Romulus is changed into a
cornel-tree. Cippus becomes horned, and goes into voluntary
banishment, rather than his country should be deprived of its
liberty by his means.

With his mind cultivated with precepts such as these and others, they say that Numa returned to his country, and, being voluntarily invited,[53] received the sovereignty of the Roman people. Blest with a Nymph for his wife, and the Muses for his guides, he taught the rites of sacrifice, and brought over to the arts of peace a race inured to savage warfare. After, full of years, he had finished his reign and his life, the Latian matrons and the people and the Senators lamented Numa at his death. But his wife, leaving the city, lay hid, concealed in the thick groves of the valley of Aricia, and by her groans and lamentations disturbed the sacred rites of Diana, brought thither by Orestes. Ah! how oft did the Nymphs of the grove and of the lake entreat her not to do so, and utter soothing words. Ah! how often did the hero, the son of Theseus, say to her as she wept, “Put an end to it; for thy lot is not the only one to be lamented. Consider the like calamities of others, thou wilt {then} bear thine own better. And would that an example, not my own, could lighten thy grief! yet even my own can do so.”

“I suppose, in discourse it has reached thy ears that a certain Hippolytus met with his death through the credulity of his father, by the deceit of his wicked step-mother. Thou wilt wonder, and I shall hardly be able to prove it; but yet I am he. In former times, the daughter of Pasiphaë, having tempted me in vain, pretended that I wished to defile the couch of my father, a thing that she herself wished to do; and having turned the accusation {against me}, (whether it was more through dread of discovery, or through mortification at her repulse) she charged me. And my father expelled me, {thus} innocent, from the city, and as I went he uttered imprecations against my head, with ruthless prayers. I was going to Trœzen, {the city} of Pittheus,[54] in my flying chariot, and I was now proceeding along the shores of the Corinthian gulf, when the sea was aroused, and an enormous mass of waters seemed to bend and to grow in the form of a mountain, and to send forth a roaring noise, and to burst asunder at its very summit. Thence, the waves being divided, a horned bull was sent forth, and erect in the light air as far as his breast, he vomited forth a quantity of sea-water from his nostrils and his open mouth. The hearts of my attendants quailed; my mind remained without fear, intent {only} on my exile, when the fierce horses turned their necks towards the sea, and were terrified, with ears erect; and they were alarmed with dread of the monster, and precipitated the chariot over the lofty rocks. I struggled, with unavailing hand, to guide the bridle covered with white foam, and, throwing myself backwards, I pulled back the loosened reins. And, indeed, the madness of my steeds would not have exceeded that strength {of mine}, had not the wheel, by running against a stump, been broken and disjoined just where it turns round on the long axle-tree.

“I was hurled from my chariot; and, the reins entwined around my limbs, you might have seen my palpitating entrails dragged, my sinews fasten upon the stump, my limbs partly torn to pieces and partly left behind, being caught by {various obstacles}, my bones in their breaking emit a loud noise, and my exhausted breath become exhaled, and not a part in my body which you could recognize; and the whole of {me} formed {but} one {continued} wound. And canst thou, Nymph, or dost thou venture to compare thy misfortune to mine? I have visited, too, the realms deprived of light, and I have bathed my lacerated body in the waves of Phlegethon.[55] Nor could life have been restored me, but through the powerful remedies of the son of Apollo. After I had received it, through potent herbs and the Pæonian aid,[56] much against the will of Pluto, then Cynthia threw around me thick clouds, that I might not, by my presence, increase his anger at this favour; and that I might be safe, and be seen in security, she gave me a {more} aged appearance, and left me no features that could be recognized. For a long time she was doubtful whether she should give me Crete or Delos for me to possess. Delos and Crete being abandoned, she placed me here, and, at the same time, she ordered me to lay aside my name, which might have reminded me of my steeds, and she said, ‘Thou, the same who wast Hippolytus, be thou now Virbius.’[57] From that time I have inhabited this grove; and, as one of the lower Gods, I lie concealed under the protection of my mistress, and to her am I devoted.”[58]

But yet the misfortunes of others were not able to alleviate the grief of Egeria; and, throwing herself down at the base of the hill, she dissolved into tears; until, moved by her affection as she grieved, the sister of Phœbus formed a cool fountain from her body, and dissolved her limbs in ever-flowing waters.

But this new circumstance surprised the Nymphs; and the son of the Amazon[59] was astonished, in no other manner than as when the Etrurian ploughman beheld the fate-revealing clod in the midst of the fields move at first of its own accord and no one touching it, and afterwards assume a human form, and lose {that} of earth, and open its new-made mouth with {the decrees of} future destiny. The natives called him Tages. He was the first to teach the Etrurian nation to foretell future events.

Or, as when Romulus once saw his lance, fixed in the Palatine hill, suddenly shoot forth; which {now} stood there with a root newly-formed, {and} not with the iron {point} driven in; and, now no longer as a dart, but as a tree with limber twigs, it sent forth, for the admiring {spectators}, a shade that was not looked for.

Or, {as} when Cippus beheld his horns in the water of the stream, (for he did see them) and, believing that there was a false representation in the reflection, often returning his fingers to his forehead, he touched what he saw. And now, no {longer} condemning his own eyesight, he stood still, as he was returning victorious from the conquest of the enemy; and raising his eyes towards heaven, and his hands in the same direction, he exclaimed, “Ye Gods above! whatever is portended by this prodigy, if it is auspicious, then be it auspicious to my country and to the people of Quirinus; but if unfortunate, be it {so} for myself.” And {then} he made atonement at the grassy altars built of green turf, with odoriferous fires, and presented wine in bowls, and consulted the panting entrails of slaughtered sheep what the meaning of it was. Soon as the soothsayer of the Etrurian nation had inspected them, he beheld in them the great beginnings of {future} events, but still not clearly. But when he raised his searching eyes from the entrails of the sheep, to the horns of Cippus, he said, “Hail, O king! for thee, Cippus, thee and thy horns shall this place and the Latian towers obey. Only do thou lay aside all delay; hasten to enter the gates wide open; thus the fates command thee. For, {once} received within the City, thou shalt be king, and thou shalt safely enjoy a lasting sceptre.” He retreated backwards, and turning his stern visage away from the walls of the City, he exclaimed, “Far, O far away may the Gods drive such omens! Much more righteously shall I pass my life in exile, than if the Capitol were to see me a king.”

{Thus} he says; and forthwith he convokes the people and the dignified Senate; but first, he veils his horns with laurel that betokens peace, and he stands upon a mound raised by his brave soldiers; and praying to the Gods after the ancient manner, “Behold!” says he, “one is here who will be king, if you do not expel him from the City. I will tell you who he is by a sign, {and} not by name. He wears horns on his forehead; the augur predicts to you, that if he enters the City, he shall give you laws as his slaves. He, indeed, was able to enter the open gates, but I have opposed him; although no one is more nearly allied with him than myself. Forbid your City to this man, ye Romans, or, if he shall deserve it, bind him with heavy fetters; or else end your fears by the death of the destined tyrant.”

As the murmur which arises among the groves of the slender pine,[60] when the furious East wind whistles among them, or as that which the waves of the ocean produce, if any one hears them from afar, such is the noise of the crowd. But yet amid the confused words of the shouting multitude, one cry is distinguished, “Which is he?” And then they examine the foreheads, and seek the predicted horns. Cippus again addresses them: “Him whom you require, ye {now} have;” and, despite of the people, throwing the chaplet from his head, he exhibits his temples, remarkable for two horns. All cast down their eyes, and utter groans, and (who would have supposed it?) they unwillingly look upon that head famed for its merits. And no longer suffering it to be deprived of its honours, they place upon it the festive chaplet. But the nobles, Cippus, since thou art forbidden to enter the city, give thee as much land, as a mark of honour, as thou canst, with the oxen yoked to the pressed plough, make the circuit of from the rising of the sun to its setting. They carve, too, the horns, imitating their wondrous form, on the door-posts adorned with brass, {there} to remain for long ages.

[Footnote 53: _Voluntarily invited._--Ver. 481. He was living at
the Sabine town of Cures, when the throne was pressed upon him by
the desire of both the Roman and the Sabine nations.]

[Footnote 54: _City of Pittheus._--Ver. 506. Pittheus was the son
of Pelops, and the father of Æthra, the mother of Theseus;
consequently he was the great-grandfather of Hippolytus.]

[Footnote 55: _Phlegethon._--Ver. 532. This was said to be one of
the rivers of the Infernal Regions, and to be flowing with fire
and brimstone.]

[Footnote 56: _Pæonian aid._--Ver. 536. Pæon was a skilful
physician, mentioned by Homer, in the Fifth Book of the Iliad.
Eustathius thinks that Apollo is meant under that name.]

[Footnote 57: _Virbius._--Ver. 544. This name is formed from the
words ‘vir’ and ‘bis,’ twice a man.]

[Footnote 58: _Am I devoted._--Ver. 546. In the same relation to
her as Adonis was to Venus, Ericthonius to Minerva, and Atys to
Cybele.]

[Footnote 59: _Son of the Amazon._--Ver. 552. Hippolytus was the
son either of the Amazon Hippolyta, or Antiope.]

[Footnote 60: _Slender pine._--Ver. 603-4. The words ‘succinctis
pinetis’ are rendered by Clarke, ‘the neat pine-groves.’]

EXPLANATION.

Ovid, following the notion that was generally entertained of the
wisdom of Numa, pretends that before he was elected to the
sovereignty he went to Crotona, for the purpose of studying under
Pythagoras; but he is guilty of a considerable anachronism in this
instance, as Pythagoras was not born till very many years after the
time of Numa. According to Livy, Pythagoras flourished in the time
of Servius Tullius, the sixth Roman king, about one hundred and
fifty years after Numa. Modern authors are of opinion that upwards
of two hundred years intervened between the days of Numa and
Pythagoras. Besides, Dionysius of Halicarnassus distinctly asserts
that the city of Crotona was only built in the fourth year of the
reign of Numa Pompilius.

Numa is said to have been in the habit of retiring to the Arician
grove, to consult the Nymph Egeria upon the laws which he was about
to promulgate for the benefit of his subjects. It is probable, that
to ensure their observance the more effectually, he wished the
people to believe that his enactments were compiled under the
inspection of one who partook of the immortal nature, and that in so
doing he followed the example of previous lawgivers. Zamolxis
pretended that the laws which he gave to the Scythians were dictated
to him by his attendant genius or spirit. The first Minos affirmed
that Jupiter was the author of the ordinances which he gave to the
people of Crete, while Lycurgus attributed his to Apollo. It is not
improbable that in this they imitated the example of Moses,
a tradition of whose reception of the laws on Mount Sinai they may
have received from the people of Phœnicia.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus has an interesting passage relative to
Numa, which throws some light upon his alleged intercourse with the
Nymph Egeria. His words are-- ‘The Romans affirm that Numa was never
engaged in any warlike expedition; but that he passed his whole
reign in profound peace: that his first care was to encourage piety
and justice in his dominions, and to civilize his people by good and
wholesome laws. His profound skill in governing made him pass for
being inspired, and gave rise to many fabulous stories. Some have
said that he had secret interviews with the Nymph Egeria; others,
that he frequently consulted one of the Muses, and was instructed by
her in the art of government. Numa was desirous to confirm the
people in this opinion; but because some hesitated to believe his
bare affirmation, and others went so far as to call his alleged
converse with the Deities a fiction, he took an opportunity to give
them such proofs of it, that the most sceptical among them should
have no room left for suspicion. This he effected in the following
manner. He one day invited several of the nobles to his palace, and
showed them the plainness of the apartments, where no rich furniture
was to be seen, nor any thing like an attempt at splendour; and how
even the most ordinary necessaries were wanting for anything like a
great entertainment; after which, he dismissed them with an
invitation to come to sup with him on the same night. At the
appointed hour his guests arrived; they were received on stately
couches; the tables were decked with a variety of plate, and were
loaded with the most exquisite dainties. The guests were struck with
the sumptuousness and profusion of the entertainment, and
considering how impossible it was for any man to have made such
preparations in so short a time, were persuaded that his
communication with heaven was not a fiction, and that he must have
had the aid of the celestial powers to do things of a nature so
extraordinary. ‘But,’ as the same author says, ‘those who were not
so ready at adopting fabulous narratives as a part of history, say
that it was the policy of Numa which led him to feign a conversation
with the Nymph Egeria, to make his laws respected by his people, and
that he thence followed the example of the Greek sages, who adopted
the same method of enforcing the authority of their laws with the
people.’

The Romans were so persuaded of the fact of Numa’s conferences with
the Nymph Egeria, that they went into the grove of Aricia to seek
her; but finding nothing but a fountain in the spot which he used to
frequent, they promulgated the story of the transformation of the
Nymph. St. Augustin, speaking on this subject, says that Numa made
use of the waters of that fountain in the divination which was
performed by the aid of water, and was called Hydromancy.

Theseus having left Ariadne in the isle of Naxos, flattered himself
with the hopes of marrying her sister Phædra. Deucalion, succeeding
Minos in Crete immediately after his death, sent Phædra to Athens.
On arriving there, she fell in love with Hippolytus, the son of
Theseus, who had been brought up at Trœzen by Pittheus. As she did
not dare to request of Theseus that his son might be brought from
the court of Pittheus, she built a temple to Venus near Trœzen, that
she might the more frequently have the opportunity of seeing
Hippolytus, and called it by the name of Hippolyteum. According to
Euripides, this youth was wise, chaste, and an enemy to all
voluptuousness. He spent his time in hunting and chariot racing,
with other exercises which formed the pursuits of youths of high
station. According to Plutarch, it was at the time when Theseus was
a prisoner in Epirus, that Phædra took the opportunity of disclosing
to Hippolytus the violence of her passion for him. Her declaration
being but ill received, she grew desperate on his refusal to comply
with her desires, and was about to commit self-destruction, when her
nurse suggested the necessity of revenging the virtuous disdain of
the youth.

Theseus having been liberated by Hercules, Phædra, being fearful
lest the intrigue should come to his knowledge, hanged herself,
having first written a letter to inform him that she could not
survive an attempt which Hippolytus had made on her virtue.
Plutarch, Servius and Hyginus, following Euripides, give this
account of her death. But Seneca, in his Hippolytus, says that she
only appeared before her husband in extreme grief, holding a sword
in her hand to signify the violence which Hippolytus had offered
her. On this, Theseus implored the assistance of Neptune, who sent a
monster out of the sea, to frighten his horses, as he was driving
along the sea-shore: on which, they took fright, and throwing him
from his chariot, he was killed. It has been suggested that the true
meaning of this is, that Theseus having ordered his son to come and
justify himself, he made so much haste that his horses ran away with
him; and his chariot being dashed over the rocks, he was killed.

Seneca also differs from the other writers, in saying that Phædra
did not put herself to death till she had heard of the catastrophe
of Hippolytus, on which she stabbed herself. The people of Trœzen,
regretting his loss, decreed him divine honours, built a temple, and
appointed a priest to offer yearly sacrifices to him. Euripides
says, that the young women of Trœzen, when about to be married, cut
off their hair and carried it to the temple of Hippolytus. It was
also promulgated that the Gods had translated him to the heavens,
where he was changed into the Constellation, called by the Latins
‘Auriga,’ or ‘the Charioteer.’ Later authors, whom Ovid here
follows, added, that Æsculapius restored him to life, and that he
afterwards appeared in Italy under the name of Virbius. This story
was probably invented as a source of profit by the priesthood, who
were desirous to find some good reason for introducing his worship
into the Arician grove near Rome. This story is mentioned by
Apollodorus, who quotes the author of the Naupactan verses in favour
of it, and by the Scholiasts of Euripides and Pindar.

The ancient Etrurians were great adepts in the art of divination;
their favourite method of exercising which was by the inspection of
the entrails of beasts, and the observation of the flight of birds;
and from them, as we learn from Cicero in his book on Divination,
the system spread over the whole of Italy. Tages is supposed to have
been the first who taught this art, and he wrote treatises upon it,
which, according to Plutarch, were quoted by ancient authors. It not
being known whence he came, or who were his parents, he was called,
in the language of the poets, a son of the earth. Ammianus
Marcellinus speaks of him as being said to have sprung out of the
earth in Etruria.

Ovid next makes a passing allusion to the spear of Romulus, which,
when thrown by him from the Mount Aventine towards the Capitol,
sticking in the ground was converted into a tree, which immediately
put forth leaves. This prodigy was taken for a presage of the future
greatness of Rome: and Plutarch, in his life of Romulus, says that
so long as this tree stood, the Republic flourished. It began to
wither in the time of the first civil war; and Julius Cæsar having
afterwards ordered a building to be erected near where it stood, the
workmen cutting some of its roots in sinking the foundations, it
soon after died. It is hardly probable that a cornel tree would
stand in a thronged city for nearly seven hundred years; and it is,
therefore, most likely, that care was taken to renovate it from time
to time, by planting slips from the former tree.

The story of Genucius Cippus is one of those strange fables with
which the Roman history is diversified. Valerius Maximus gives the
following account of it. He says that Cippus, going one day out of
Rome, suddenly found that something which resembled horns was
growing out of his forehead. Surprised at an event so extraordinary,
he consulted the augurs, who said that he would be chosen king, if
he ever entered the city again. As the royal power was abhorred in
Rome, he preferred a voluntary banishment to revisiting Rome on
those terms. Struck with this heroism, the Romans erected a brazen
statue with horns over the gate by which he departed, and it was
afterwards called ‘Porta raudusculana,’ because the ancient Latin
name of brass was ‘raudus,’ ‘rodus,’ or ‘rudus.’ The fact is,
however, as Ovid represents it, that Cippus was not going out of
Rome, but returning to it, when the prodigy happened; he having been
to convey assistance to the Consul Valerius. The Senate also
conferred certain lands on Cippus, as a reward for his patriotism.
He lived about two hundred and forty years before the Christian era.
Pliny the Elder considers the story of the horns of Cippus as much a
fable as that of Actæon. It appears, however, that the account of
the horns may have possibly been founded on fact, as excrescences
resembling them have appeared on the bodies of individuals. Bayle
makes mention of a girl of Palermo, who had little horns all over
her body, like those of a young calf. In the Ashmolean museum at
Oxford, a substance much resembling the horn of a goat is shown,
which is said to have sprung from the forehead of a female named
Mary Davis, whose likeness is there shown. The excrescence was most
probably produced by a deranged secretion of the hair, and something
of a similar nature may perhaps have befallen Genucius Cippus,
which, of course, would be made the most of in those ages of
superstition. Valerius Maximus, with all his credulity, does not say
that they were real horns that made their appearance, but that they
were ‘just like horns.’

It is not improbable that the story originally was, that Cippus, on
his return to Rome, dreamt that he had horns on his head, and that
having consulted the augurs, and received the answer mentioned by
Ovid, he preferred to suffer exile, rather than enslave his country;
and that, in length of time, the more wonderful part of the story
was added to it.

FABLE VII. [XV.622-744]

Rome being wasted by a pestilence, the Delphian oracle is consulted;
and the answer is given, that to cause it to cease Æsculapius must
be brought to Rome. On this, ambassadors are sent to Epidaurus to
demand the God. The people refuse to part with him; but he appears
to one of the Romans in a dream, and consents to go. On his arrival
at Rome the contagion ceases, and a Temple is built in his honour.

Relate, now, ye Muses, the guardian Deities of poets (for you know, and remote antiquity conceals it not from you), whence {it is that} the Island surrounded by the channel of the Tiber introduced the son of Coronis into the sacred rites of the City of Romulus. A dire contagion had once infected the Latian air, and the pale bodies were deformed by a consumption that dried up the blood. When, wearied with {so many} deaths, they found that mortal endeavours availed nothing, and that the skill of physicians had no effect, they sought the aid of heaven, and they repaired to Delphi which occupies the centre spot of the world, the oracle of Phœbus, and entreated that he would aid their distressed circumstances by a response productive of health, and put an end to the woes of a City so great. Both the spot, and the laurels, and the quivers which it has, shook at the same moment, and the tripod[61] gave this answer from the recesses of the shrine, and struck {with awe} their astonished breasts:-- “What here thou dost seek, O Roman, thou mightst have sought in a nearer spot: and now seek it in a nearer spot; thou hast no need of Apollo to diminish thy grief, but of the son of Apollo. Go with a good omen, and invite my son.”

After the prudent Senate had received the commands of the Deity, they enquired what city the youthful son of Phœbus inhabited; and they sent some to reach the coasts of Epidaurus[62] with the winds. Soon as those sent had reached them in the curving ship, they repaired to the council and the Grecian elders, and besought them to grant them the Divinity, who by his presence could put an end to the mortality of the Ausonian nation; {for} that so the unerring response had directed. Their opinions were divided, and differed; and some thought that aid ought not to be refused. Many refused it, and advised them not to part with their own protector, and to give up their own guardian Deity. While they were deliberating, twilight had {now} expelled the waning day, and the shadow of the earth had brought darkness over the world; when, in thy sleep, the saving God seemed, O Roman, to be standing before thy couch; but just as he is wont to be in his temple; and, holding a rustic staff in his left hand, {he seemed} to be stroking the long hair of his beard with his right, and to utter such words as these from his kindly breast-- “Lay aside thy fears; I will come, and I will leave these {my} statues. Only observe {now} this serpent, which with its folds entwines around this staff, and accurately mark it with thine eyes, that thou mayst be able to know it again. Into this shall I be changed; but I shall be greater, and I shall appear to be of a size as great as that into which heavenly bodies ought to be transformed.”

Forthwith, with {these} words, the God departs; and with his words and the God sleep {departs}, and genial light follows upon the departure of sleep. The following morn has {now} dispersed the starry fires; uncertain what to do, the nobles meet together in the sumptuous temple of the God {then} sought, and beseech him to indicate, by celestial tokens, in what spot he would wish to abide. Hardly have they well ceased, when the God, all glittering with gold, in {the form of} a serpent, with crest erect, sends forth a hissing, as a notice of his approach; and in his coming, he shakes both his statue, the altars, the doors, the marble pavement, and the gilded roof, and as far as the breast he stands erect in the midst of the temple, and rolls around his eyes that sparkle with fire. The frightened multitude is alarmed; the priest, having his chaste hair bound with a white fillet, recognizes the Deity and exclaims, “The God! Behold the God! Whoever you are that are present, be of good omen, both with your words and your feelings. Mayst thou, most beauteous one, be beheld to our advantage; and mayst thou aid the nations that perform thy sacred rites.” Whoever are present, adore the Deity as bidden; and all repeat the words of the priest over again; and the descendants of Æneas give a pious omen, both with their feelings, and in their words. To these the God shows favour; and with crest erected, he gives a hiss, a sure token, repeated thrice with his vibrating tongue. Then he glides down the polished steps,[63] and turns back his head, and, about to depart, he looks back upon his ancient altars, and salutes his wonted abode and the temple that {so long} he has inhabited. Then, with his vast bulk, he glides along the ground covered with the strewn flowers, and coils his folds, and through the midst of the city repairs to the harbour protected by its winding quay.

Here he stops; and seeming to dismiss his train, and the dutiful attendance of the accompanying crowd, with a placid countenance, he places his body in the Ausonian ship. It is sensible of the weight of the God; and the ship {now} laden with the Divinity for its freight, the descendants of Æneas rejoice; and a bull having first been slain on the sea-shore, they loosen the twisted cables of the bark bedecked with garlands. A gentle breeze has {now} impelled the ship. The God is conspicuous aloft,[64] and pressing upon the crooked stern with his neck laid upon it, he looks down upon the azure waters; and with the gentle Zephyrs along the Ionian sea, on the sixth rising of the daughter of Pallas, he makes Italy, and is borne along the Lacinian shores, ennobled by the temple of the Goddess {Juno}, and the Scylacean[65] coasts. He leaves Iapygia behind, and flies from the Amphissian[66] rocks with the oars on the left side; on the right side he passes by the steep Ceraunia, and Romechium, and Caulon,[67] and Narycia, and he crosses the sea and the straits of the Sicilian Pelorus, and the abodes of the king the grandson of Hippotas, and the mines of Temesa; and then he makes for Leucosia,[68] and the rose-beds of the warm Pæstum. Then he coasts by Capreæ,[69] and the promontory of Minerva, and the hills ennobled with the Surrentine[70] vines, and the city of Hercules,[71] and Stabiæ,[72] and Parthenope made for retirement, and after it the temple of the Cumæan Sibyl. Next, the warm springs[73] are passed by, and Linternum,[74] that bears mastick trees; and {then} Vulturnus,[75] that carries much sand along with its tide, and Sinuessa, that abounds with snow-white snakes,[76] and the pestilential Minturnæ,[77] and she for whom[78] her foster-child erected the tomb, and the abode of Antiphates,[79] and Trachas,[80] surrounded by the marsh, and the land of Circe, and Antium,[81] with its rocky coast.

After the sailors have steered the sail-bearing ship hither (for now the sea is aroused), the Deity unfolds his coils, and gliding with many a fold and in vast coils, he enters the temple of his parent, that skirts the yellow shore. The sea {now} becalmed, the {God} of Epidaurus leaves the altars of his sire; and having enjoyed the hospitality of the Deity, {thus} related to him, he furrows the sands of the sea-shore with the dragging of his rattling scales, and reclining against the helm of the ship, he places his head upon the lofty stern; until he comes to Castrum,[82] and the sacred abodes of Lavinium, and the mouths of the Tiber. Hither, all the people indiscriminately, a crowd both of matrons and of men, rush to meet him; they, too, Vesta! who tend thy fires; and with joyous shouts they welcome the God. And where the swift ship is steered through the tide running out, altars being erected in a line, the frankincense crackles along {the banks} on either side, and perfumes the air with its smoke; the felled victim too, {with its blood} makes warm the knives thrust {into it}.

And now he has entered Rome, the sovereign of the world. The serpent rises erect, and lifts his neck that reclines against the top of the mast, and looks around for a habitation suited for himself. {There is a spot, where} the river flowing around, is divided into two parts; it is called “the Island.” {The river} in the direction of each side extends its arms of equal length, the dry land {lying} in the middle. Hither, the serpent, son of Phœbus, betakes himself from the Latian ship; and he puts an end to the mourning, having resumed his celestial form. And {thus} did he come, the restorer of health, to the City.

[Footnote 61: _The tripod._--Ver. 635. The tripod on which the
priestess of Apollo or ‘Pythia,’ sat when inspired, was called
‘Cortina,’ from the skin, ‘corium,’ of the serpent Python, which,
when it had been killed by Apollo was used to cover it.]

[Footnote 62: _Epidaurus._--Ver. 643. There were several towns of
this name. The one here mentioned was in the state of Argolis.]

[Footnote 63: _Polished steps._--Ver. 685. Clarke translates
‘Gradibus nitidis,’ ‘the neat steps.’]