Among the Deities borrowed by the Romans from the people of Etruria, were Vertumnus and Pomona, who presided over gardens and fruits. Propertius represents Vertumnus as rejoicing at having left Tusculum for the Roman Forum. According to Varro and Festus, the Romans offered sacrifices to these Deities, and they had their respective temples and altars at Rome, the priest of Pomona being called ‘Flamen Pomonalis.’ It is probable that this story originated in the fancy of the Poet.The name of Vertumnus, from ‘verto,’ ‘to change,’ perhaps relates to the vicissitudes of the seasons; and if this story refers to any tradition, its meaning may have been, that in his taking various forms, to please Pomona, the change of seasons requisite for bringing the fruits to ripeness was symbolized. It is possible that in the disguises of a labourer, a reaper, and an old woman, the Poet may intend to pourtray the spring, the harvest, and the winter.There was a market at Rome, near the temple of this God, who was regarded as one of the tutelary Deities of the traders. Horace alludes to his temple which was in the Vicus Tuscus, or Etrurian Street, which led to the Circus Maximus. According to some authors, he was an ancient king of Etruria, who paid great attention to his gardens, and, after his death, was considered to have the tutelage of them.FABLES XII.ANDXIII.Vertumnus relates to Pomona how Anaxarete was changed into a rock after her disdain of his advances had forced her lover Iphis to hang himself. After the death of Amulius and Numitor, Romulus builds Rome, and becomes the first king of it. Tatius declares war against him, and is favoured by Juno, while Venus protects the Romans.xiv. 698-726.Romulus and Hersilia are added to the number of the Deities, under the names of Quirinus and Ora.Iphis, born of an humble family, had beheld the noble Anaxarete, sprung from the race of the ancient Teucer;56he had seen her, and had felt the flame in all his bones; and struggling a long time, when he could not subdue his passion by reason, he came suppliantly to her doors. And now having confessed to her nurse his unfortunate passion, he besought her, by the hopesshe reposedin her nursling, not to be hard-hearted to him; and at another time, complimenting each of the numerous servants, he besought their kind interest with an anxious voice. He often gave his words to be borne on the flattering tablets; sometimes he fastened garlands, wet with the dew of his tears, upon the door-posts, and laid his tender side upon the hard threshold, and uttered reproaches against the obdurate bolt.She, more deaf than the sea, swelling whenthe Constellation ofthe Kids is setting, and harder than the iron which the Norican fire57refines, and than the rock which in its native state is yet held fast by the firm roots, despises, and laughs at him; and to her cruel deeds, in her pride, she adds boastful words, and deprives her lover of even hope. Iphis, unable to endure this prolonged pain, endured his torments nolonger; and before her doors he spoke these words as his last: “Thou art the conquerer, Anaxarete; and no more annoyances wilt thou have to bear from me. Prepare the joyous triumph, invoke the God Pæan, and crown thyself with the shining laurel. For thou art the conqueror, and of my own will I die; do thou,womanof iron, rejoice. At least, thou wilt be obliged to commend something in me, and there will be one point in which I shall be pleasing to thee, and thou wilt confess my merits. Yet remember that my affection for thee has not ended sooner than my life; and that at the same moment I am about to be deprived of a twofold light. And report shall not come to thee as thexiv. 726-753.messenger of my death; I myself will come, doubt it not; and I myself will be seen in person, that thou mayst satiate thy cruel eyes with my lifeless body. But if, ye Gods above, you take cognizance of the fortunes of mortals, be mindful of me; beyond this, my tongue is unable to pray; and cause me to be remembered in times far distant; and give those hours to Fame which you have taken away from my existence.”Thushe said; and raising his swimming eyes and his pallid arms to the door-posts, so often adorned by him with wreaths, when he had fastened a noose at the end of a halter upon the door; he said,— “Are these the garlands that delight thee, cruel and unnaturalwoman?” And he placed his head within it; but even then he was turned towards her; and he hung a hapless burden, by his strangled throat. The door, struck by the motion of his feet as they quivered, seemed to utter a sound, asof onegroaning much, and flying open, it discovered the deed; the servants cried aloud, and after lifting him up in vain, they carried him to the house of his mother (for his father was dead). She received him into her bosom; and embracing the cold limbs of her child, after she had uttered the words that arenaturalto wretched mothers, and had performed theusualactions of wretched mothers, she was preceding58the tearful funeral through the midst of the city, and was carrying his ghastly corpse on the bier, to be committed to the flames.By chance, her house was near the road where the mournful procession was passing, and the sound of lamentation came to the ears of the hardhearted Anaxarete, whom now an avenging Deity pursued. Moved, however, she said:— “Let us behold these sad obsequies;” and she ascended to an upper room59with wide windows. And scarce had she wellxiv. 753-785.seen Iphis laid out on the bier,whenher eyes became stiffened, and a paleness coming on, the warm blood fled from her body. And as she endeavoured to turn her steps back again, she stood fixedthere; and as she endeavoured to turn away her face, this too she was unable to do; and by degrees the stone, which already existed in her cruel breast, took possession of her limbs.“And, that thou mayst not think this a fiction, Salamis still keeps the statue under the form of the maiden; it has also a temple under the name of ‘Venus, the looker-out.’ Remembering these things, O Nymph, lay aside this prolonged disdain, and unite thyself to one who loves thee. Then, may neither cold in the spring nip thy fruit in the bud, nor may the rude winds strike them off in blossom.” When the God, fitted for every shape, had in vain uttered these words, he returned to his youthful form,60and took off from himself the garb of the old woman. And such did he appear to her, as, when the form of the sun, in all his brilliancy, has dispelled the opposing clouds, and has shone forth, no cloud interceptinghis rays. And henowpurposed violence, but there was no need for force, and the Nymph was captivated by the form of the God, and was sensible of a reciprocal wound.Next, the soldiery of the wicked Amulius held sway over the realms of Ausonia; and by the aid of his grandsons, the aged Numitor gained the kingdom that he had lost; and on the festival of Pales, the walls of the City were founded. Tatius and the Sabine fathers waged war; andthen, the way to the citadel being laid open, by a just retribution, Tarpeia lost her life, the arms being heapedupon her. On this, they, sprung fromthe town ofCures, just like silent wolves, suppressed their voices with their lips, and fell upon the bodiesnowoverpowered by sleep, and rushed to the gates, which the son of Ilia had shut with a strong bolt. ButJuno, the daughter of Saturn, herself opened one, and made not a sound at the turning of the hinge. Venus alone perceived that the bars of the gate had fallen down; and she would have shut it, were it not, that it isxiv. 785-820.never allowed for a Deity to annul the acts of theotherGods. The Naiads of Ausonia occupied a spot nearthe temple ofJanus,a placebesprinkled by a cold fountain; of these she implored aid. Nor did the Nymphs resist, the Goddess making so fair a request; and they gave vent to the springs and the streams of the fountain. But not yet were the paths closed to the opentemple ofJanus, and the water had not stopped the way. They placed sulphur, with its faint blue light, beneath the plenteous fountain, and they applied fire to the hollowed channels, with smoking pitch.By these and other violent means, the vapour penetrated to the very sources of the fountain; andyou, ye waters, which, so lately, were able to rival the coldness of the Alps, yielded notin heatto the flames themselves. The two door-posts smoked with the flaming spray; and the gate, which was in vain left open for the fierce Sabines, was rendered impassable by this new-made fountain, until the warlike soldiers had assumed their arms. After Romulus had readily led them onward, and the Roman ground was covered with Sabine bodies, and was covered with its ownpeople,and the accursed sword had mingled the blood of the son-in-law with the gore of the father-in-law; they determined that the war should end in peace, and that they would not contend with weapons to the last extremity, and that Tatius should share in the sovereignty.Tatius wasnowdead, and thou, Romulus, wast giving laws in common to both peoples; when Mavors,61his helmet laid aside, in such words as these addressed the Parent of both Gods and men: “The time isnowcome, O father, (since the Roman state is established on a strong foundation, and is no longer dependent on the guardianship of but one), for thee to give the reward which was promised to me, and to thy grandsonsodeserving of it, and, removed from earth, to admit him to heaven. Thou saidst to me once, a council of the Gods being present, (for I remember it, and with grateful mind I remarked the affectionate speech), he shall be one, whom thou shalt raise to the azure heaven. Let the tenor of thy words benowperformed.”The all-powerfulGodnodded in assent, and he obscured the air with thick clouds, and alarmed the City with thunder and lightning. Gradivus knew that this was a signal given toxiv. 820-848.him for the promised removal; and, leaning on his lance, he boldly mountedbehindhis steeds, laden with the blood-stained poleof the chariot, and urged them on with the lash of the whip; and descending along the steep air, he stood on the summit of the hill of the woody Palatium; and he took away the son of Ilia, that moment giving out his royal ordinances to his own Quirites. His mortal body glided through the yielding air; just as the leaden plummet, discharged from the broad sling, is wont to dissolve itself62in mid air. A beauteous appearance succeeded, one more suitable to the lofty couches63of heaven, and a form, such as that of Quirinus arrayed in his regal robe. His wife was lamenting him as lost; when the royal Juno commanded Iris to descend to Hersilia, along her bending path; and thus to convey to the bereftwifeher commands:—“O matron, the especial glory of the Latian and of the Sabine race; thou woman, most worthy to have been before the wife of a hero so great,andnow of Quirinus; cease thy weeping, and if thou hast a wish to see thy husband, under my guidance repair to the grove which flourishes on the hill of Quirinus, and overshadows the temple of the Roman king.” Iris obeys, and gliding down to earth along her tinted bow, she addressed Hersilia in the words enjoined. She, with a modest countenance, hardly raising her eyes, replies, “O Goddess, (forthoughit is not in my power to say who thou art,yet, still it is clear that thou art a Goddess), lead me, O lead me on, and present to me the features of my husband. If the Fates should but allow me to be enabled once to behold these, I will confess that I have beheld Heaven.”There was no delay; with the virgin daughter of Thaumas she ascended the hill of Romulus. There, a star falling from the skies, fell upon the earth; the hair of Hersilia set on fire from the blaze of this, ascended with the star to the skies.xiv.849-851.The founder of the Roman city received her with his well-known hands; and, together with her body, he changed her former name; and he called her Ora; which Goddess is still united to Quirmus.EXPLANATION.We are not informed that the story of Iphis, hanging himself for love of Anaxarete, is based upon any actual occurrence, though probably it was, as Salamis is mentioned as the scene of it. The transformation of Anaxarete into a stone, seems only to be the usual metaphor employed by the poets to denote extreme insensibility.Following the example of Homer, who represents the Gods as divided into the favourers of the Greeks and of the Trojans, he represents the Sabines as entering Rome, while Juno opens the gates for them; on which the Nymphs of the spot pour forth streams of flame, which oblige them to return. He tells the same story in the first Book of the Fasti, where Janus is introduced as taking credit to himself for doing what the Nymphs are here said to have effected.As Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives some account of these transactions, on the authority of the ancient Roman historians, it will be sufficient here to give the substance thereof. Jealous of the increasing power of Romulus, the Sabines collected an army, and marched to attack his city. A virgin named Tarpeia, whose father commanded the guard, perceiving the golden bracelets which the Sabines wore on their arms, offered Tatius to open the gate to him, if he would give her these jewels. This condition being assented to, the enemy was admitted into the town; and Tarpeia, who is said by some writers only to have intended to disarm the Sabines, by demanding their bucklers, which she pretended were included in the original agreement, was killed on the spot, by the violence of the blows; Tatius having ordered that they should be thrown on her head.The same historian says, that opinions were divided as to the death of Romulus, and that many writers had written, that as he was haranguing his army, the sky became overcast, and a thick darkness coming on, it was followed by a violent tempest, in which he disappeared; on which it was believed that Mars had taken him up to heaven. Others assert that he was killed by the citizens, for having sent back the hostages of the Veientes without their consent, and for assuming an air of superiority, which their lawless spirits could ill brook. For these reasons, his officers assassinated him, and cut his body in pieces; each of them carrying off some portion, that it might be privately interred. According to Livy, great consternation was the consequence of his death; and the people beginning to suspect that the senators had committed the crime, Julius Proculus asserted that Romulus had appeared to him, and assured him of the fact of his having been Deified. His speech on the occasion is given by Livy, and Ovid relates the same story in the second Book of the Fasti. On this, the Roman people paid him divine honours as a God, under the name of Quirinus, one of the epithets of Mars. He had a chief priest, who was called ‘Flamen Quirinalis.’His wife, Hersilia, also had divine honours paid to her, jointly with him, under the name of Ora, or ‘Horta.’ According to Plutarch, she had the latter name from the exhortation which she had given to the youths to distinguish themselves by courage.1.Rhegium.]—Ver. 5. Rhegium was a city of Calabria, opposite to the coast of Sicily.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.3.Shalt be courted.]—Ver. 31. She means that he shall be courted, but by herself.4.Of strange words.]—Ver. 57. ‘Obscurum verborum ambage novorum’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Darkened with a long rabble of new words.’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.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.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.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.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 fromπίθος, an earthern cask, or vessel, as there were many potteries there.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 verbπροχέω, which means ‘to pour forth.’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.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.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,Σιὸςwas ‘a God,’ andβουλὴwas the Greek for ‘will.’ According to other writers, they were so called fromΣίου βύλλη, ‘full of the Deity.’14.Juno of Avernus.]—Ver. 114. The Infernal, or Avernian Juno, is a title sometimes given by the poets to Proserpine.15.Eubœan city.]—Ver. 155. ‘Cumæ’ was said to have been founded by a colony from Chalcis, in Eubœa.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.17.Barbarian.]—Ver. 163. That is, Trojan; to the Greeks all people but themselves wereβαρβαροὶ.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.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 wasοὔτις, ‘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.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.’21.The ancient city.]—Ver. 233. This city was afterwards known as Formiæ, in Campania.22.An island.]—Ver. 245. Macareus here points towards the promontory of Circæum, which was supposed to have formerly been an island.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.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.25.As weighed.]—Ver. 270. Of course drugs and simples would require to be weighed before being mixed in their due proportions.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.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.28.Albula.]—Ver. 328. The ancient name of the river Tiber was Albula. It was so called fromthewhiteness of its water.29.But very short.]—Ver. 329. The Almo falls in the Tiber, close to its own source, whence its present epithet.30.Rapid Nar.]—Ver. 330. The ‘Nar’ was a river of Umbria, which fell into the Tiber.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.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.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.34.Canens.]—Ver. 338. This name literally means ‘singing,’ being the present participle of the Latin verb ‘cano,’ ‘to sing.’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.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.37.Son of Faunus.]—Ver. 449. The parents of Latinus were Faunus and Marica.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.39.Evander.]—Ver. 456. His history is given by Ovid in the first Book of the Fasti.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.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.42.Pleuronian.]—Ver. 494. Pleuron was a town of Ætolia, adjoining to Epirus.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.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.45.Messapian.]—Ver. 513. Messapia was a name given to a part of Calabria, from its king Messapus, who aided Turnus against Æneas.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.47.Its own Deities.]—Ver. 568. The Trojans were aided by Venus, while Juno favoured the Rutulians.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.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,’ andγείνω(forγίνομαι), ‘to be born.’ Some would derive the word from ‘in,’ negative, and ‘ago,’ to speak, as signifying Deities, whose names were not be mentioned.50.The two names.]—Ver. 609. The other name of Ascanius was Iülus. Alba Longa was built by Ascanius.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, Book IV. line 43.52.By the stroke.]—Ver. 618. Possibly both Remulus (if there ever was such a person) and Tullus Hostilius may have fallen victims to some electrical experiments which they were making; this may have given rise to the story that they had been struck with lightning for imitating the prerogative of Jupiter.53.A coloured cap.]—Ver. 654. ‘Pictâ redimitus tempora mitrâ,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Having his temples wrapped up in a painted bonnet.’ The ‘mitra,’ which was worn on the head by females, was a broad cloth band of various colours. The use of it was derived from the Eastern nations, and, probably, it was very similar to our turban. It was much used by the Phrygians, and in later times among the Greeks and Romans. It is supposed that it was worn in a broad fillet round the head, and was tied under the chin with bands. When Clodius went disguised in female apparel to the rites of Bona Dea, he wore a ‘mitra.’54.Stood unwedded.]—Ver. 663. Ovid probably derived this notion from the language of the Roman husbandmen. Columella and other writers on agricultural matters often make mention of a ‘maritus ulmus,’ and a ‘nupta vitis,’ in contradistinction to those trees which stood by themselves.55.Her of Rhamnus.]—Ver. 694. See Book III. l. 406.56.Ancient Teucer.]—Ver. 698. When Teucer returned home after the Trojan war, his father Telamon banished him, for not having revenged the death of his brother Ajax, which was imputed to Ulysses, as having been the occasion of it, by depriving him of the armour of Achilles. Thus exiled, he fled to Cyprus, where he founded the city of Salamis.57.Norican fire.]—Ver. 712. Noricum was a district of Germany, between the Danube and the Alps. It is still famous for its excellent steel; the goodness of which, Pliny attributes partly to the superior quality of the ore, and partly to the temperature of the climate.58.She was preceding.]—Ver. 746. It was customary for the relations, both male and female, to attend the body to the tomb or the funeral pile. Among the Greeks, the male relatives walked in front of the body, preceded by the head mourners, while the female relations walked behind. Among the Romans, all the relations walked behind the corpse; the males having their heads veiled, and the females with their heads bare and hair dishevelled, contrary to the usual practice of each sex.59.An upper room.]—Ver. 752. Anaxarete went to an upper room, to look out into the street, as the apartments on thegroundfloor were rarely lighted with windows. The principal apartments on the ground floor received their light from above, and the smaller rooms there, usually derived their light from the larger ones; while on the other hand, the rooms on the upper floor were usually lighted with windows. The conduct of Anaxarete reminds us of that of Marcella, the hardhearted shepherdess, which so aroused the indignation of the amiable, but unfortunate, Don Quixotte.60.His youthful form.]—Ver. 766-7. ‘In juvenem rediit: et anilia demit Instrumenta sibi.’ These words are thus translated by Clarke: ‘He returned into a young fellow, and takes off his old woman’s accoutrements from him.’ We hear of the accoutrements of a cavalry officer much more frequently than we do those of an old woman.61.Mavors.]—Ver. 806. Mavors, which is often used by the poets as a name of Mars, probably gave rise to the latter name as a contracted form of it.62.To dissolve itself.]—Ver. 826. Not only, as we have already remarked, was it a notion among the ancients that the leaden plummet thrown from the sling grew red hot; but they occasionally went still further, and asserted that, from the rapidity of the motion, it melted and disappeared altogether. See note to Book II. l. 727.63.Lofty couches.]—Ver. 827. The ‘pulvinaria’ were the cushions, or couches, placed in the temples of the Gods, for the use of the Divinities; which probably their priests (like their brethren who administered to Bel) did not omit to enjoy. At the festivals of the ‘lectisternia,’ the statues of the Gods were placed upon these cushions. The images of the Deities in the Roman Circus, were also placed on a ‘pulvinar.’BOOK THE FIFTEENTH.FABLE I.Myscelosis warned, in a dream, to leave Argos, and to settle in Italy. When on the point of departing, he is seized under a law which forbids the Argives to leave the city without the permission of the magistrates. Being brought up for judgment, through a miracle he is acquitted. He retires to Italy, where he builds the city of Crotona.Meanwhile, one is being sought who can bear a weight of such magnitude, and can succeed a king so great. Fame, the harbinger of truth, destines the illustrious Numa for the sovereign power. He does not deem it sufficient to be acquainted with the ceremonials of the Sabine nation; in his expansive mind he conceives greater views, and inquires into the nature of things. ’Twas love of this pursuit, his country and cares left behind, that caused him to penetrate to the city of the stranger Hercules. To him, making the inquiry what founder it was that had erected a Grecian city on the Italian shores, one of the more aged natives, who was not unacquainted withthe history ofthe past, thus replied:“The son of Jove, enriched with the oxen of Iberia, is said to have reached the Lacinian shores,1from the ocean, after a prosperous voyage, and, while his herd was straying along the soft pastures, himself to have entered the abode of the great Croton, no inhospitable dwelling, and to have rested in repose after his prolonged labours, and to have said thus at departing: ‘In the time of thy grandsons this shall be the site of a city;’ and his promise was fulfilled. For there was a certain Myscelos, the son of Alemon, an Argive, most favoured by the Gods in those times. Lying upon him, as he is overwhelmed with the drowsiness of sleep, the club-bearer,Hercules, addresses him: ‘Come,now, desert thy native abodes; go,andrepair to the pebbly streams of the distant Æsar.’2And he uttersxv. 24-52.threats, many and fearful, if he does not obey: after that, at once both sleep and the God depart. The son of Alemon arises, and ponders his recent vision in his thoughtful mind; and for a long time his opinions are divided among themselves. The Deity orders him to depart; the laws forbid his going; and death has been awarded as the punishment of him who attempts to leave his country.“The brilliant Sun hadnowhidden his shining head in the ocean, and darkest Night had put forth her starry face,whenthe same God seemed to be present, and to give the same commands, and to utter threats, more numerous and more severe, if he does not obey. He was alarmed; andnowhe was also preparing to transfer his country’s home to a new settlement,whena rumour arose in the city, and he was accused of holding the laws in contempt. And, when the accusation had first been made, and his crime was evident, proved without a witness, the accused, in neglected garb, raising his face and his hands towards the Gods above, says, ‘Oh thou! for whom the twice six labours have created the privilege of the heavens, aid me, I pray; for thou wast the cause of my offence.’ It was the ancient custom, by means of white and black pebbles, with the one to condemn the accused, with the other to acquit them of the charge; and on this occasion thus was the sad sentence passed, and every black pebble was cast into the ruthless urn. Soon as it, being inverted, poured forth the pebbles to be counted, the colour of them all was changed from black to white, and the sentence, changed to a favourable one by the aid of Hercules, acquitted the son of Alemon.“He gives thanks to the parent, the son of Amphitryon,3and with favouring gales sails over the Ionian sea, and passes by the Lacedæmonian Tarentum,4and Sybaris, and the Salentine Neæthus,5and the bay of Thurium,6and Temesa, and thexv. 52-60.fields of Iapyx;7and having with difficulty coasted along the spots which skirt these shores, he finds the destined mouth of the river Æsar; and, not far thence, a mound, beneath which the ground was covering the sacred bones of Croton. And there, on the appointed land, did he found his walls, and he transferred the name of him that wasthereentombed to his city. By established tradition, it was known that such was the original of that place, and of the city built on the Italian coasts.”EXPLANATION.To the story here told of Micylus, or Myscelus, as most of the ancient writers call him, another one was superadded. Suidas, on the authority of the Scholiast of Aristophanes, says that Myscelus, having consulted the oracle, concerning the colony which he was about to lead into a foreign country, was told that he must settle at the place where he should meet with rain in a clear sky,ἐξ αἰθρίας. His faith surmounting the apparent impossibility of having both fair and foul weather at the same moment, he obeyed the oracle, and put to sea; and, after experiencing many dangers, he landed in Italy. Being full of uncertainty where to fix his colony, he was reduced to great distress; on which his wife, whose name was Aithrias, with the view of comforting him, embraced him, and bedewed his face with her tears. He immediately adopted the presage, and understood the spot where he then was to be the site of his intended city.Strabo says that Myscelus, who was so called from the smallness of his legs, designing to found a colony in a foreign land, arrived on the coast of Italy. Observing that the spot which the oracle had pointed out enjoyed a healthy climate, though the soil was not so fertile as in the adjacent plains, he went once more to consult the oracle; but was answered that he must not refuse what was offered him; an answer which was afterwards turned into a proverb. On this, he founded the city of Crotona, and another colony founded the city of Sybaris on the spot which he had preferred; a place which afterwards became infamous for its voluptuousness and profligacy.FABLES II.ANDIII.Pythagorascomes to the city of Crotona, and teaches the principles of his philosophy. His reputation draws Numa Pompilius to hear his discourses; on which he expounds his principles, and, more especially, enlarges on the transmigration of the soul, and the practice of eating animal food.There was a man, a Samian by birth; but he had fled from both Samos and its rulers,8and, through hatred of tyranny,xv. 60-98.he was a voluntary exile. He too, mentally, held converse with the Gods, although far distant in the region of the heavens; and what nature refused to human vision, he viewed with the eyes of his mind. And when he had examined all things with his mind, and with watchful study, he gave them to be learned by the public; and he sought the crowds of peopleas they satin silence, and wondered at the revealed origin of the vast universe, and the cause of things, and what naturemeant, and what was God; whencecamethe snow, what was the cause of lightning;whether it wasJupiter, or whether the winds that thundered when the cloud was rent asunder; what it was that shook the earth; by what laws the stars took their course; and whateverbesideslay concealedfrom mortals.He, too, was the first to forbid animals to be served up at table, and he was the first that opened his lips, learned indeed, but still not obtaining credit, in such words as these: “Forbear, mortals, to pollute your bodies withsuchabominable food. There is the corn; there are the apples that bear down the branches by their weight, andthere arethe grapes swelling upon the vines; there are the herbs that are pleasant; there are some that can become tender, and be softened bythe action offire. The flowing milk, too, is not denied you, nor honey redolent of the bloom of the thyme. The lavish Earth yields her riches, and heragreablefood, and affords dainties without slaughter and bloodshed. The beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh; and yet not all of them; for the horse, and the sheep, and the herds subsist on grass. But those whose disposition is cruel and fierce, the Armenian tigers, and the raging lions, and the bears together with the wolves, revel in their diet with blood. Alas! what a crime is it, for entrails to be buried in entrails, and for one ravening body to grow fat onothercarcases crammedintoit; and for one living creature to exist through the death of another living creature! And does, forsooth! amid so great an abundance, which the earth, that best of mothers, produces, nothing delight you but to gnaw with savage teeth the sadproduce of yourwounds, and to revive the habits of the Cyclops? And can you not appease the hunger of a voracious and ill-regulated stomach unless you first destroy another? But that age of old, to which we have given the name of ‘Golden,’ was blest in thexv. 98-131.produce of the trees, and in the herbs which the earth produces, and it did not pollute the mouth with blood.“Then, both did the birds move their wings in safety in the air, and the hare without fear wander in the midst of the fields; then its own credulity had not suspended the fish from the hook; every place was without treachery, and in dread of no injury, and was full of peace. Afterwards,some one, no good adviser9(whoever among mortals he might have been), envied this simple food, and engulphed in his greedy paunch victuals made from a carcase; ’twas he that opened the path to wickedness; and I can believe that the steel,sincestained with blood, first grew warm from the slaughter of wild beasts. And that had been sufficient. I confess that the bodiesof animalsthat seek our destruction are put to death with no breach of the sacred laws; but, although they might be put to death, yet they were not to be eaten as well. Then this wickedness proceeded still further; and the swine is believed to have deserved death as the first victim, because it grubbed up the seeds with its turned-up snout, and cut short the hopes of the year. Having gnawed the vine, the goat was led10for slaughter to the altars of the avenging Bacchus. Their own faults were the ruin of the two. But why have you deserved this, ye sheep? a harmless breed, and born for the service of man; who carry the nectar in your full udders; who afford your wool as soft coverings for us, and who assist us more by your life than by your death. Why have the oxen deserved this, an animal without guile and deceit, innocent, harmless, born to endure labour? In fact, the man is ungrateful, and not worthy of the gifts of the harvest, who could, just after taking off the weight of the curving plough, slaughter the tiller of his fields; who could strike, with the axe, that neck worn bare with labour, through which he had so oft turned up the hard ground,andhad afforded so many a harvest.“And it is not enough for such wickedness to be committed; they have imputed to the Gods themselves this abomination; and they believe that a Deity in the heavens can rejoice in the slaughter of the laborious ox. A victim free from a blemish, and most beauteous in form (for ’tis being sightly thatxv. 131-162.brings destruction), adorned with garlands and gold, is placed upon the altars, and, in its ignorance, it hears one praying, and sees the corn, which it has helped to produce, placed on its forehead between its horns; and, felled, it stains with its blood the knives perhaps before seen by it in the limpid water. Immediately, they examine the entrails snatched from its throbbing breast, and in them they seek out the intentions of the Deities. Whence comes it that men have so great a hankering for forbidden food? Do you presume to feedon flesh, O race of mortals? Do it not, I beseech you; and give attention to my exhortations. And when you shall be presenting the limbs of slaughtered oxen to your palates, know and consider that you are devouring yourtillers of the ground. And since a God impels me to speak, I will duly obey the God thatsoprompts me to speak; and I will pronounce my own Delphicwarnings, and disclose the heavens themselves; and I will reveal the oracles of the Divine will. I will sing of wondrous things, never investigated by the intellects of the ancients, andthingswhich have long lain concealed. It delights me to range among the lofty stars; it delights me, having left the earth and this sluggish spotfar behind, to be borne amid the clouds, and to be supported on the shoulders of the mighty Atlas; and to look down from afar on minds wanderingin uncertainty, and devoid of reason; and so to advise them alarmed and dreading extinction, and to unfold the range of things ordained by fate.“O race! stricken by the alarms of icy death, why do you dread Styx? why the shades, why empty names, the stock subjects of the poets, and the atonements of an imaginary world? Whether the funeral pile consumes your bodies with flames, or old age with gradual dissolution, believe that they cannot suffer any injury. Souls are not subject to death; and having left their former abode, they ever inhabit new dwellings, and,therereceived, live on.“I, myself, for I remember it, in the days of the Trojan war, was Euphorbus,11the son of Panthoüs, in whose opposingxv. 162-195.breast once was planted the heavy spear of the younger son of Atreus. I lately recognised the shield,oncethe burden of my left arm, in the temple of Juno, at Argos, the realm of Abas. All things areeverchanging; nothing perishes. The soul wanders about and comes from that spot to this, from this to that, and takes possession of any limbs whatever; it both passes from the beasts to human bodies, andso doesoursoulinto the beasts; and in nolapseof time does it perish. And as the pliable wax is moulded into new forms, and nolongerabides as it wasbefore, nor preserves the same shape, but yet is still the samewax, so I tell you that the soul is ever the same, but passes into different forms. Therefore, that natural affection may not be vanquished by the craving of the appetite, cease, I warn you, to expel the souls of your kindredfrom their bodiesby this dreadful slaughter; and let not blood be nourished with blood.“And, since I amnowborne over the wide ocean, and I have given my full sails to the winds, there is nothing in all the world that continues in the same state. All things are flowingonward,12and every shape is assumed in a fleeting course. Even time itself glides on with a constant progress, no otherwise than a river. For neither can the river, nor the fleeting hour stop in its course; but, as wave is impelled by wave, and the one before is pressed on by that which follows, anditselfpresses on that before it; so do the moments similarly fly on, and similarly do they follow, and they are ever renewed. For the moment which was before, is past; and that which was not,nowexists; and every minute is replaced. You see, too, the night emerge and proceed onward to the dawn, and this brilliant light of the day succeed the dark night. Nor is there the same appearance in the heavens, when all things in their weariness lie in the midst of repose, and when Lucifer is coming forth on his white steed; and, again, there is another appearance, whenAurora, the daughter of Pallas, preceding the day, tints the world about to be delivered to Phœbus. The disk itself ofthatGod, when it is rising from beneath the earth, is of ruddy colour in the morning, and when it is hiding beneath the earth it is of a ruddy colour. At its height it is of brilliant whiteness, because there the nature of the ætherxv. 195-229.is purer, and far away, he avoidsallinfection from the earth. Nor can there ever be the same or a similar appearance of the nocturnal Diana; and always that of the present day is less than on the morrow, if she is on the increase;butgreater if she is contracting her orb.“And further. Do you not see the year, affording a resemblance of our life, assume fourdifferentappearances? for, in early Spring, it is mild, andlikea nursling, and greatly resembling the age of youth. Then, the blade is shooting, and void of strength, it swells, and is flaccid, and delights the husbandman in his expectations. Then, all things are in blossom, and the genial meadow smiles with the tints of its flowers; and not as yet is there any vigour in the leaves. The yearnowwaxing stronger, after the Spring, passes into the Summer; and in its youth it becomes robust. And indeed no season is there more vigorous, or more fruitful, or which glows with greater warmth. Autumn follows, the ardour of youthnowremoved, ripe, and placed between youth and old age, moderate in his temperature, with afewwhite hairs sprinkled over his temples. Then comes aged Winter, repulsive with his tremulous steps, either stript of his locks, or white with those which he has.“Our own bodies too are changing always and without any intermission, and to-morrow we shall not be what we were or what wenoware. The time was, when only as embryos, and the earliest hope of human beings, we lived in the womb of the mother. Nature applied her skilful hands, and willed not that our bodies should be torturedbybeing shut up within the entrails of the distended parent, and brought us forth from our dwelling into the vacant air. Brought to light, the infant lies withoutanystrength; soon,likea quadruped, it uses its limbs after the manner of the brutes; and by degrees it stands upright, shaking, and with knees still unsteady, the sinews being supported by some assistance. Then he becomes strong and swift, and passes over the hours of youth; and the years of middle age, too, now past, he glides adown the steep path of declining age. This undermines and destroys the robustness of former years; and Milo,13nowgrown old, weepsxv. 229-264.when he sees the arms, which equalled those of Hercules in the massiveness of the solid muscles, hang weak and exhausted. The daughter of Tyndarus weeps, too, as she beholds in her mirror the wrinkles of old age, and enquires of herself why it is that she was twice ravished. Thou, Time, the consumer ofallthings, and thou, hateful Old Age,togetherdestroy all things; and, by degrees ye consume each thing, decayed by the teeth of age, with a slow death.“These things too, which we call elements, are not of unchanging duration; pay attention, and I will teach you what changes they undergo.“The everlasting universe contains four elementary bodies. Two of these,namely, earth and water, are heavy, and are borne downwards by their weight; and as many are devoid of weight, and air, and fire still purer than air, nothing pressing them, seek the higher regions. Although these are separated in space, yet all things are made from them, and are resolved into them. Both the earth dissolving distils into flowing water; the water, too, evaporating, departs in the breezes and the air; its weight being removed again, the most subtle air shoots upwards into the firesof the ætheron high. Thence do they return back again, and the same order is unravelled; for fire becoming gross, passes into dense air; thischangesinto water, and earth is formed of the water made dense. Nor does its own form remain to each; and nature, the renewer ofallthings, re-forms one shape from another. And, believe me, in this universe so vast, nothing perishes; but it varies and changes its appearance; and to begin to be something different from what it was before, is called being born; and to cease to be the same thing,is to be saidto die. Whereas, perhaps, those things are transferred hither, and these things thither; yet, in the whole, all thingseverexist.“For my part, I cannot believe that anything lasts long under the same form. ’Twas thus, ye ages, that ye came down to the iron from the gold; ’tis thus, that thou hast so often changed the lot ofvariousplaces. I have beheld thatassea, which once had been the most solid earth. I have seen land made from the sea; and far away from the ocean the sea-shells lay,xv. 264-285.and old anchors were foundthereon the tops of the mountains. That which was a plain, a current of water has made into a valley, and by a flood the mountain has been levelled into a plain; the ground that was swampy is parched with dry sand; and places which have endured drought, are wet with standing pools. Here nature has opened fresh springs, but there she has shut them up; and rivers have burst forth, aroused by ancient earthquakes; or, vanishing, they have subsided.“Thus, after the Lycus14has been swallowed up by a chasm in the earth, it burst forth far thence, and springs up afresh at another mouth. Thus the great Erasinus15is at one time swallowed up, and then flowing with its stream concealed, is cast up again on the Argive plains. They say, too, that the Mysus, tired of its spring and of its former banks, now flows in another direction,asthe Caicus. The Amenanus,16too, at one time flows, rolling along the Sicilian sands,andat another is dry, its springs being stopped up. Formerly,the water ofthe Anigros17was used for drinking; it now pours out water which you would decline to touch; since, (unless all credit must be denied to the poets), theCentaurs, the double-limbed mortals, there washed the wounds which the bow of the club-bearing Hercules had made. And what besides? Does not the Hypanis18too, which before was sweet, rising from the Scythian mountains, become impregnatedxv. 285-303.with bitter salts? Antissa,19Pharos,20and Phœnician Tyre,21were once surrounded by waves; no one of these is now an island. The ancient inhabitants had Leucas22annexed to the continent; now the sea surrounds it. Zancle,23too, is said to have been united to Italy, until the sea cut off the neighbouring region, and repelled the land with its wavesflowingbetween.“Should you seek Helice and Buris,24cities of Achaia, you will find them beneath the waves, and the sailors are still wont to point outtheselevelled towns, with their walls buried under water.“There is a high hill near Trœzen of Pittheus, without any trees, once a very level surface of a plain,butnow a hill; for (frightful to tell) the raging power25of the winds, pent up in dark caverns, desiring to find some vent and having long struggled in vain to enjoy a freer air, as there was no opening in all their prison and it was not pervious to their blasts, swelled out thexv. 303-319.extended earth, just as the breath of the mouth is wont to inflate a bladder, or the hide26stripped from the two-horned goat. That swelling remained on the spot, andstillpreserves the appearance of a high hill, and has grown hard in length of time. Though many otherinstancesmay occur, either heard of by, or known to, yourselves,yetI will mention a few more. And besides, does not water, as well, both produce and receive new forms? In the middle of the day, thy waters, horned Ammon,27are frozen, at the rising and at the settingof the sunthey are warm. On applying its waters, Athamanis28is said to kindle wood when the waning moon has shrunk into her smallest orb. The Ciconians have a river,29which when drunk of, turns the entrails into stone, and laysa covering ofmarble on things that are touched by it. The Crathis30and the Sybaris adjacent to it, in our own country, make the hair similarin hueto amber and gold.“And, what is still more wonderful, there are some streams which are able to change, not only bodies, but even the mind. By whom has not Salmacis,31with its obscene waters, beenxv. 319-337.heard of?Who has not heard, too, of that lake of Æthiopia,32of which, if any body drinks with his mouth, he either becomes mad, or falls into a sleep wondrous for its heaviness? Whoever quenches his thirst from the Clitorian spring33hates wine, and in his sobriety takes pleasure in pure water. Whether it is that there is a virtue in the water, the opposite of heating wine, or whether, as the natives tell us, after the son of Amithaon,34by his charms and his herbs, had delivered the raving daughters of Prœtus from the Furies, he threw the medicines for the mind in that stream; and a hatred of wine remained in those waters.“The river Lyncestis35flows unlike thatstreamin its effect; for as soon as any one has drunk of it with immoderate throat, he reels, just as if he had been drinking unmixed wine. There is a place in Arcadia, (the ancients called it Pheneos,)36suspicious for the twofold nature of its water. Stand in dread of it at night; if drunk of in the night time, it is injurious; in the daytime, it is drunk of without any ill effects. So lakes and rivers have, some, one property, and some another. There was a time when Ortygia37was floating on the waves,xv. 337-366.now it is fixed. The Argo dreaded the Symplegades tossed by the assaults of the waves dashing against them; they now stand immoveable, and resistthe attacks ofthe winds.“Nor will Ætna, which burns with its sulphureous furnaces, always be a fierymountain; nor yet was it always fiery. For, if the earth is an animal, and is alive, and has lungs that breathe forth flames in many a place, it may change the passages for its breathing, and oft as it is moved, may close these cavernsandopen others; or if the light winds are shut up in its lowermost caverns, and strike rocks against rocks, and matter that contains the elements of flame,andit takes fire at the concussion, the windsoncecalmed, the caverns will become cool; or, if the bituminous qualities take fire, or yellow sulphur is being dried up with a smouldering smoke, still, when the earth shall no longer give food and unctuous fuel to the flame, its energies being exhausted in length of time, and when nutriment shall be wanting to its devouring nature, it will notbe able toendure hunger, and left destitute, it will desert its flames.“The story is, that in the far Northern Pallene38there are persons, who are wont to have their bodies covered with light feathers, when they have nine times entered the Tritonian lake. For my part I do not believe it;butthe Scythian women, as well, having their limbs sprinkled with poison, are said to employ the same arts. But if we are to give any credit39to things provedby experience, do you not see that whatever bodies are consumed by length of time, or by dissolving heat, are changed into small animals? Come too, bury some choice bullocksjustslain, it is a thing well ascertained by experience,thatflower-gathering bees are producedxv. 366-389.promiscuously from the putrefying entrails. These, after the manner of their producers, inhabit the fields, delight in toil, and labour in hope. The warlike steed,40buried in the ground, is the source of the hornet. If you take off the bending claws from the crab of the sea-shore,andbury the rest in the earth, a scorpion will come forth from the partsoburied, and will threaten with its crooked tail.“The silkworms, too, that are wont to cover the leaves with their white threads, a thing observable by husbandmen, change their forms into that of the deadly moth.41Mud contains seed that generate green frogs; and it produces them deprived of feet;42soon it gives them legs adapted for swimming; and that the same may be fitted for long leaps, the length of the hinder ones exceedsthat ofthe fore legs. And it is not a cub43which the bear produces at the moment of birth, but a mass of flesh hardly alive. By licking, the mother forms it into limbs, and brings it into a shape, such as she herself has. Do you not see, that the offspring of the honey bees, which the hexagonal cell conceals, are produced without limbs, and that they assume both feet and wingsonlyafter a time. Unless he knew it was the case, could any one suppose it possible that the bird of Juno, which carries stars on its tail, and theeagle, the armour-bearer of Jove, and the doves of Cytherea, and all the race of birds, are produced from the middle portion of an egg? There arexv. 389-414.some who believe that human marrow changes into a serpent,44when the spine has putrefied in the enclosed sepulchre.“But thesewhich I have namedderive their origin from other particulars; there is one bird which renews and reproduces itself. The Assyrians call it the Phœnix. It lives not on corn or grass, but on drops of frankincense, and the juices of the amomum. Thisbird, when it has completed the five ages of its life, with its talons and its crooked beak constructs for itself a nest in the branches of a holm-oak, or on the top of a quivering palm. As soon as it has strewed in this cassia and ears of sweet spikenard and bruised cinnamon with yellow myrrh, it lays itself down on it, and finishes its life in the midst of odours. They say that thence, from the body of its parent, is reproduced a little Phœnix, which is destined to live as many years. When time has given it strength, and it is able to bear the weight, it lightens the branches of the lofty tree of the burden of the nest, and dutifully carries both its own cradle and the sepulchre of its parent; and, having reached the city of Hyperion through the yielding air, it lays it down before the sacred doors in the temple of Hyperion.
Among the Deities borrowed by the Romans from the people of Etruria, were Vertumnus and Pomona, who presided over gardens and fruits. Propertius represents Vertumnus as rejoicing at having left Tusculum for the Roman Forum. According to Varro and Festus, the Romans offered sacrifices to these Deities, and they had their respective temples and altars at Rome, the priest of Pomona being called ‘Flamen Pomonalis.’ It is probable that this story originated in the fancy of the Poet.
The name of Vertumnus, from ‘verto,’ ‘to change,’ perhaps relates to the vicissitudes of the seasons; and if this story refers to any tradition, its meaning may have been, that in his taking various forms, to please Pomona, the change of seasons requisite for bringing the fruits to ripeness was symbolized. It is possible that in the disguises of a labourer, a reaper, and an old woman, the Poet may intend to pourtray the spring, the harvest, and the winter.
There was a market at Rome, near the temple of this God, who was regarded as one of the tutelary Deities of the traders. Horace alludes to his temple which was in the Vicus Tuscus, or Etrurian Street, which led to the Circus Maximus. According to some authors, he was an ancient king of Etruria, who paid great attention to his gardens, and, after his death, was considered to have the tutelage of them.
Vertumnus relates to Pomona how Anaxarete was changed into a rock after her disdain of his advances had forced her lover Iphis to hang himself. After the death of Amulius and Numitor, Romulus builds Rome, and becomes the first king of it. Tatius declares war against him, and is favoured by Juno, while Venus protects the Romans.xiv. 698-726.Romulus and Hersilia are added to the number of the Deities, under the names of Quirinus and Ora.
Iphis, born of an humble family, had beheld the noble Anaxarete, sprung from the race of the ancient Teucer;56he had seen her, and had felt the flame in all his bones; and struggling a long time, when he could not subdue his passion by reason, he came suppliantly to her doors. And now having confessed to her nurse his unfortunate passion, he besought her, by the hopesshe reposedin her nursling, not to be hard-hearted to him; and at another time, complimenting each of the numerous servants, he besought their kind interest with an anxious voice. He often gave his words to be borne on the flattering tablets; sometimes he fastened garlands, wet with the dew of his tears, upon the door-posts, and laid his tender side upon the hard threshold, and uttered reproaches against the obdurate bolt.
She, more deaf than the sea, swelling whenthe Constellation ofthe Kids is setting, and harder than the iron which the Norican fire57refines, and than the rock which in its native state is yet held fast by the firm roots, despises, and laughs at him; and to her cruel deeds, in her pride, she adds boastful words, and deprives her lover of even hope. Iphis, unable to endure this prolonged pain, endured his torments nolonger; and before her doors he spoke these words as his last: “Thou art the conquerer, Anaxarete; and no more annoyances wilt thou have to bear from me. Prepare the joyous triumph, invoke the God Pæan, and crown thyself with the shining laurel. For thou art the conqueror, and of my own will I die; do thou,womanof iron, rejoice. At least, thou wilt be obliged to commend something in me, and there will be one point in which I shall be pleasing to thee, and thou wilt confess my merits. Yet remember that my affection for thee has not ended sooner than my life; and that at the same moment I am about to be deprived of a twofold light. And report shall not come to thee as thexiv. 726-753.messenger of my death; I myself will come, doubt it not; and I myself will be seen in person, that thou mayst satiate thy cruel eyes with my lifeless body. But if, ye Gods above, you take cognizance of the fortunes of mortals, be mindful of me; beyond this, my tongue is unable to pray; and cause me to be remembered in times far distant; and give those hours to Fame which you have taken away from my existence.”
Thushe said; and raising his swimming eyes and his pallid arms to the door-posts, so often adorned by him with wreaths, when he had fastened a noose at the end of a halter upon the door; he said,— “Are these the garlands that delight thee, cruel and unnaturalwoman?” And he placed his head within it; but even then he was turned towards her; and he hung a hapless burden, by his strangled throat. The door, struck by the motion of his feet as they quivered, seemed to utter a sound, asof onegroaning much, and flying open, it discovered the deed; the servants cried aloud, and after lifting him up in vain, they carried him to the house of his mother (for his father was dead). She received him into her bosom; and embracing the cold limbs of her child, after she had uttered the words that arenaturalto wretched mothers, and had performed theusualactions of wretched mothers, she was preceding58the tearful funeral through the midst of the city, and was carrying his ghastly corpse on the bier, to be committed to the flames.
By chance, her house was near the road where the mournful procession was passing, and the sound of lamentation came to the ears of the hardhearted Anaxarete, whom now an avenging Deity pursued. Moved, however, she said:— “Let us behold these sad obsequies;” and she ascended to an upper room59with wide windows. And scarce had she wellxiv. 753-785.seen Iphis laid out on the bier,whenher eyes became stiffened, and a paleness coming on, the warm blood fled from her body. And as she endeavoured to turn her steps back again, she stood fixedthere; and as she endeavoured to turn away her face, this too she was unable to do; and by degrees the stone, which already existed in her cruel breast, took possession of her limbs.
“And, that thou mayst not think this a fiction, Salamis still keeps the statue under the form of the maiden; it has also a temple under the name of ‘Venus, the looker-out.’ Remembering these things, O Nymph, lay aside this prolonged disdain, and unite thyself to one who loves thee. Then, may neither cold in the spring nip thy fruit in the bud, nor may the rude winds strike them off in blossom.” When the God, fitted for every shape, had in vain uttered these words, he returned to his youthful form,60and took off from himself the garb of the old woman. And such did he appear to her, as, when the form of the sun, in all his brilliancy, has dispelled the opposing clouds, and has shone forth, no cloud interceptinghis rays. And henowpurposed violence, but there was no need for force, and the Nymph was captivated by the form of the God, and was sensible of a reciprocal wound.
Next, the soldiery of the wicked Amulius held sway over the realms of Ausonia; and by the aid of his grandsons, the aged Numitor gained the kingdom that he had lost; and on the festival of Pales, the walls of the City were founded. Tatius and the Sabine fathers waged war; andthen, the way to the citadel being laid open, by a just retribution, Tarpeia lost her life, the arms being heapedupon her. On this, they, sprung fromthe town ofCures, just like silent wolves, suppressed their voices with their lips, and fell upon the bodiesnowoverpowered by sleep, and rushed to the gates, which the son of Ilia had shut with a strong bolt. ButJuno, the daughter of Saturn, herself opened one, and made not a sound at the turning of the hinge. Venus alone perceived that the bars of the gate had fallen down; and she would have shut it, were it not, that it isxiv. 785-820.never allowed for a Deity to annul the acts of theotherGods. The Naiads of Ausonia occupied a spot nearthe temple ofJanus,a placebesprinkled by a cold fountain; of these she implored aid. Nor did the Nymphs resist, the Goddess making so fair a request; and they gave vent to the springs and the streams of the fountain. But not yet were the paths closed to the opentemple ofJanus, and the water had not stopped the way. They placed sulphur, with its faint blue light, beneath the plenteous fountain, and they applied fire to the hollowed channels, with smoking pitch.
By these and other violent means, the vapour penetrated to the very sources of the fountain; andyou, ye waters, which, so lately, were able to rival the coldness of the Alps, yielded notin heatto the flames themselves. The two door-posts smoked with the flaming spray; and the gate, which was in vain left open for the fierce Sabines, was rendered impassable by this new-made fountain, until the warlike soldiers had assumed their arms. After Romulus had readily led them onward, and the Roman ground was covered with Sabine bodies, and was covered with its ownpeople,and the accursed sword had mingled the blood of the son-in-law with the gore of the father-in-law; they determined that the war should end in peace, and that they would not contend with weapons to the last extremity, and that Tatius should share in the sovereignty.
Tatius wasnowdead, and thou, Romulus, wast giving laws in common to both peoples; when Mavors,61his helmet laid aside, in such words as these addressed the Parent of both Gods and men: “The time isnowcome, O father, (since the Roman state is established on a strong foundation, and is no longer dependent on the guardianship of but one), for thee to give the reward which was promised to me, and to thy grandsonsodeserving of it, and, removed from earth, to admit him to heaven. Thou saidst to me once, a council of the Gods being present, (for I remember it, and with grateful mind I remarked the affectionate speech), he shall be one, whom thou shalt raise to the azure heaven. Let the tenor of thy words benowperformed.”
The all-powerfulGodnodded in assent, and he obscured the air with thick clouds, and alarmed the City with thunder and lightning. Gradivus knew that this was a signal given toxiv. 820-848.him for the promised removal; and, leaning on his lance, he boldly mountedbehindhis steeds, laden with the blood-stained poleof the chariot, and urged them on with the lash of the whip; and descending along the steep air, he stood on the summit of the hill of the woody Palatium; and he took away the son of Ilia, that moment giving out his royal ordinances to his own Quirites. His mortal body glided through the yielding air; just as the leaden plummet, discharged from the broad sling, is wont to dissolve itself62in mid air. A beauteous appearance succeeded, one more suitable to the lofty couches63of heaven, and a form, such as that of Quirinus arrayed in his regal robe. His wife was lamenting him as lost; when the royal Juno commanded Iris to descend to Hersilia, along her bending path; and thus to convey to the bereftwifeher commands:—
“O matron, the especial glory of the Latian and of the Sabine race; thou woman, most worthy to have been before the wife of a hero so great,andnow of Quirinus; cease thy weeping, and if thou hast a wish to see thy husband, under my guidance repair to the grove which flourishes on the hill of Quirinus, and overshadows the temple of the Roman king.” Iris obeys, and gliding down to earth along her tinted bow, she addressed Hersilia in the words enjoined. She, with a modest countenance, hardly raising her eyes, replies, “O Goddess, (forthoughit is not in my power to say who thou art,yet, still it is clear that thou art a Goddess), lead me, O lead me on, and present to me the features of my husband. If the Fates should but allow me to be enabled once to behold these, I will confess that I have beheld Heaven.”
There was no delay; with the virgin daughter of Thaumas she ascended the hill of Romulus. There, a star falling from the skies, fell upon the earth; the hair of Hersilia set on fire from the blaze of this, ascended with the star to the skies.xiv.849-851.The founder of the Roman city received her with his well-known hands; and, together with her body, he changed her former name; and he called her Ora; which Goddess is still united to Quirmus.
We are not informed that the story of Iphis, hanging himself for love of Anaxarete, is based upon any actual occurrence, though probably it was, as Salamis is mentioned as the scene of it. The transformation of Anaxarete into a stone, seems only to be the usual metaphor employed by the poets to denote extreme insensibility.
Following the example of Homer, who represents the Gods as divided into the favourers of the Greeks and of the Trojans, he represents the Sabines as entering Rome, while Juno opens the gates for them; on which the Nymphs of the spot pour forth streams of flame, which oblige them to return. He tells the same story in the first Book of the Fasti, where Janus is introduced as taking credit to himself for doing what the Nymphs are here said to have effected.
As Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives some account of these transactions, on the authority of the ancient Roman historians, it will be sufficient here to give the substance thereof. Jealous of the increasing power of Romulus, the Sabines collected an army, and marched to attack his city. A virgin named Tarpeia, whose father commanded the guard, perceiving the golden bracelets which the Sabines wore on their arms, offered Tatius to open the gate to him, if he would give her these jewels. This condition being assented to, the enemy was admitted into the town; and Tarpeia, who is said by some writers only to have intended to disarm the Sabines, by demanding their bucklers, which she pretended were included in the original agreement, was killed on the spot, by the violence of the blows; Tatius having ordered that they should be thrown on her head.
The same historian says, that opinions were divided as to the death of Romulus, and that many writers had written, that as he was haranguing his army, the sky became overcast, and a thick darkness coming on, it was followed by a violent tempest, in which he disappeared; on which it was believed that Mars had taken him up to heaven. Others assert that he was killed by the citizens, for having sent back the hostages of the Veientes without their consent, and for assuming an air of superiority, which their lawless spirits could ill brook. For these reasons, his officers assassinated him, and cut his body in pieces; each of them carrying off some portion, that it might be privately interred. According to Livy, great consternation was the consequence of his death; and the people beginning to suspect that the senators had committed the crime, Julius Proculus asserted that Romulus had appeared to him, and assured him of the fact of his having been Deified. His speech on the occasion is given by Livy, and Ovid relates the same story in the second Book of the Fasti. On this, the Roman people paid him divine honours as a God, under the name of Quirinus, one of the epithets of Mars. He had a chief priest, who was called ‘Flamen Quirinalis.’
His wife, Hersilia, also had divine honours paid to her, jointly with him, under the name of Ora, or ‘Horta.’ According to Plutarch, she had the latter name from the exhortation which she had given to the youths to distinguish themselves by courage.
1.Rhegium.]—Ver. 5. Rhegium was a city of Calabria, opposite to the coast of Sicily.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.3.Shalt be courted.]—Ver. 31. She means that he shall be courted, but by herself.4.Of strange words.]—Ver. 57. ‘Obscurum verborum ambage novorum’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Darkened with a long rabble of new words.’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.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.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.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.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 fromπίθος, an earthern cask, or vessel, as there were many potteries there.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 verbπροχέω, which means ‘to pour forth.’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.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.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,Σιὸςwas ‘a God,’ andβουλὴwas the Greek for ‘will.’ According to other writers, they were so called fromΣίου βύλλη, ‘full of the Deity.’14.Juno of Avernus.]—Ver. 114. The Infernal, or Avernian Juno, is a title sometimes given by the poets to Proserpine.15.Eubœan city.]—Ver. 155. ‘Cumæ’ was said to have been founded by a colony from Chalcis, in Eubœa.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.17.Barbarian.]—Ver. 163. That is, Trojan; to the Greeks all people but themselves wereβαρβαροὶ.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.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 wasοὔτις, ‘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.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.’21.The ancient city.]—Ver. 233. This city was afterwards known as Formiæ, in Campania.22.An island.]—Ver. 245. Macareus here points towards the promontory of Circæum, which was supposed to have formerly been an island.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.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.25.As weighed.]—Ver. 270. Of course drugs and simples would require to be weighed before being mixed in their due proportions.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.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.28.Albula.]—Ver. 328. The ancient name of the river Tiber was Albula. It was so called fromthewhiteness of its water.29.But very short.]—Ver. 329. The Almo falls in the Tiber, close to its own source, whence its present epithet.30.Rapid Nar.]—Ver. 330. The ‘Nar’ was a river of Umbria, which fell into the Tiber.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.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.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.34.Canens.]—Ver. 338. This name literally means ‘singing,’ being the present participle of the Latin verb ‘cano,’ ‘to sing.’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.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.37.Son of Faunus.]—Ver. 449. The parents of Latinus were Faunus and Marica.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.39.Evander.]—Ver. 456. His history is given by Ovid in the first Book of the Fasti.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.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.42.Pleuronian.]—Ver. 494. Pleuron was a town of Ætolia, adjoining to Epirus.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.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.45.Messapian.]—Ver. 513. Messapia was a name given to a part of Calabria, from its king Messapus, who aided Turnus against Æneas.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.47.Its own Deities.]—Ver. 568. The Trojans were aided by Venus, while Juno favoured the Rutulians.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.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,’ andγείνω(forγίνομαι), ‘to be born.’ Some would derive the word from ‘in,’ negative, and ‘ago,’ to speak, as signifying Deities, whose names were not be mentioned.50.The two names.]—Ver. 609. The other name of Ascanius was Iülus. Alba Longa was built by Ascanius.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, Book IV. line 43.52.By the stroke.]—Ver. 618. Possibly both Remulus (if there ever was such a person) and Tullus Hostilius may have fallen victims to some electrical experiments which they were making; this may have given rise to the story that they had been struck with lightning for imitating the prerogative of Jupiter.53.A coloured cap.]—Ver. 654. ‘Pictâ redimitus tempora mitrâ,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Having his temples wrapped up in a painted bonnet.’ The ‘mitra,’ which was worn on the head by females, was a broad cloth band of various colours. The use of it was derived from the Eastern nations, and, probably, it was very similar to our turban. It was much used by the Phrygians, and in later times among the Greeks and Romans. It is supposed that it was worn in a broad fillet round the head, and was tied under the chin with bands. When Clodius went disguised in female apparel to the rites of Bona Dea, he wore a ‘mitra.’54.Stood unwedded.]—Ver. 663. Ovid probably derived this notion from the language of the Roman husbandmen. Columella and other writers on agricultural matters often make mention of a ‘maritus ulmus,’ and a ‘nupta vitis,’ in contradistinction to those trees which stood by themselves.55.Her of Rhamnus.]—Ver. 694. See Book III. l. 406.56.Ancient Teucer.]—Ver. 698. When Teucer returned home after the Trojan war, his father Telamon banished him, for not having revenged the death of his brother Ajax, which was imputed to Ulysses, as having been the occasion of it, by depriving him of the armour of Achilles. Thus exiled, he fled to Cyprus, where he founded the city of Salamis.57.Norican fire.]—Ver. 712. Noricum was a district of Germany, between the Danube and the Alps. It is still famous for its excellent steel; the goodness of which, Pliny attributes partly to the superior quality of the ore, and partly to the temperature of the climate.58.She was preceding.]—Ver. 746. It was customary for the relations, both male and female, to attend the body to the tomb or the funeral pile. Among the Greeks, the male relatives walked in front of the body, preceded by the head mourners, while the female relations walked behind. Among the Romans, all the relations walked behind the corpse; the males having their heads veiled, and the females with their heads bare and hair dishevelled, contrary to the usual practice of each sex.59.An upper room.]—Ver. 752. Anaxarete went to an upper room, to look out into the street, as the apartments on thegroundfloor were rarely lighted with windows. The principal apartments on the ground floor received their light from above, and the smaller rooms there, usually derived their light from the larger ones; while on the other hand, the rooms on the upper floor were usually lighted with windows. The conduct of Anaxarete reminds us of that of Marcella, the hardhearted shepherdess, which so aroused the indignation of the amiable, but unfortunate, Don Quixotte.60.His youthful form.]—Ver. 766-7. ‘In juvenem rediit: et anilia demit Instrumenta sibi.’ These words are thus translated by Clarke: ‘He returned into a young fellow, and takes off his old woman’s accoutrements from him.’ We hear of the accoutrements of a cavalry officer much more frequently than we do those of an old woman.61.Mavors.]—Ver. 806. Mavors, which is often used by the poets as a name of Mars, probably gave rise to the latter name as a contracted form of it.62.To dissolve itself.]—Ver. 826. Not only, as we have already remarked, was it a notion among the ancients that the leaden plummet thrown from the sling grew red hot; but they occasionally went still further, and asserted that, from the rapidity of the motion, it melted and disappeared altogether. See note to Book II. l. 727.63.Lofty couches.]—Ver. 827. The ‘pulvinaria’ were the cushions, or couches, placed in the temples of the Gods, for the use of the Divinities; which probably their priests (like their brethren who administered to Bel) did not omit to enjoy. At the festivals of the ‘lectisternia,’ the statues of the Gods were placed upon these cushions. The images of the Deities in the Roman Circus, were also placed on a ‘pulvinar.’
1.Rhegium.]—Ver. 5. Rhegium was a city of Calabria, opposite to the coast of Sicily.
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.
3.Shalt be courted.]—Ver. 31. She means that he shall be courted, but by herself.
4.Of strange words.]—Ver. 57. ‘Obscurum verborum ambage novorum’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Darkened with a long rabble of new words.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 fromπίθος, an earthern cask, or vessel, as there were many potteries there.
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 verbπροχέω, which means ‘to pour forth.’
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.
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.
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,Σιὸςwas ‘a God,’ andβουλὴwas the Greek for ‘will.’ According to other writers, they were so called fromΣίου βύλλη, ‘full of the Deity.’
14.Juno of Avernus.]—Ver. 114. The Infernal, or Avernian Juno, is a title sometimes given by the poets to Proserpine.
15.Eubœan city.]—Ver. 155. ‘Cumæ’ was said to have been founded by a colony from Chalcis, in Eubœa.
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.
17.Barbarian.]—Ver. 163. That is, Trojan; to the Greeks all people but themselves wereβαρβαροὶ.
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.
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 wasοὔτις, ‘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.
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.’
21.The ancient city.]—Ver. 233. This city was afterwards known as Formiæ, in Campania.
22.An island.]—Ver. 245. Macareus here points towards the promontory of Circæum, which was supposed to have formerly been an island.
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.
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.
25.As weighed.]—Ver. 270. Of course drugs and simples would require to be weighed before being mixed in their due proportions.
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.
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.
28.Albula.]—Ver. 328. The ancient name of the river Tiber was Albula. It was so called fromthewhiteness of its water.
29.But very short.]—Ver. 329. The Almo falls in the Tiber, close to its own source, whence its present epithet.
30.Rapid Nar.]—Ver. 330. The ‘Nar’ was a river of Umbria, which fell into the Tiber.
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.
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.
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.
34.Canens.]—Ver. 338. This name literally means ‘singing,’ being the present participle of the Latin verb ‘cano,’ ‘to sing.’
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.
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.
37.Son of Faunus.]—Ver. 449. The parents of Latinus were Faunus and Marica.
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.
39.Evander.]—Ver. 456. His history is given by Ovid in the first Book of the Fasti.
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.
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.
42.Pleuronian.]—Ver. 494. Pleuron was a town of Ætolia, adjoining to Epirus.
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.
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.
45.Messapian.]—Ver. 513. Messapia was a name given to a part of Calabria, from its king Messapus, who aided Turnus against Æneas.
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.
47.Its own Deities.]—Ver. 568. The Trojans were aided by Venus, while Juno favoured the Rutulians.
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.
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,’ andγείνω(forγίνομαι), ‘to be born.’ Some would derive the word from ‘in,’ negative, and ‘ago,’ to speak, as signifying Deities, whose names were not be mentioned.
50.The two names.]—Ver. 609. The other name of Ascanius was Iülus. Alba Longa was built by Ascanius.
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, Book IV. line 43.
52.By the stroke.]—Ver. 618. Possibly both Remulus (if there ever was such a person) and Tullus Hostilius may have fallen victims to some electrical experiments which they were making; this may have given rise to the story that they had been struck with lightning for imitating the prerogative of Jupiter.
53.A coloured cap.]—Ver. 654. ‘Pictâ redimitus tempora mitrâ,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘Having his temples wrapped up in a painted bonnet.’ The ‘mitra,’ which was worn on the head by females, was a broad cloth band of various colours. The use of it was derived from the Eastern nations, and, probably, it was very similar to our turban. It was much used by the Phrygians, and in later times among the Greeks and Romans. It is supposed that it was worn in a broad fillet round the head, and was tied under the chin with bands. When Clodius went disguised in female apparel to the rites of Bona Dea, he wore a ‘mitra.’
54.Stood unwedded.]—Ver. 663. Ovid probably derived this notion from the language of the Roman husbandmen. Columella and other writers on agricultural matters often make mention of a ‘maritus ulmus,’ and a ‘nupta vitis,’ in contradistinction to those trees which stood by themselves.
55.Her of Rhamnus.]—Ver. 694. See Book III. l. 406.
56.Ancient Teucer.]—Ver. 698. When Teucer returned home after the Trojan war, his father Telamon banished him, for not having revenged the death of his brother Ajax, which was imputed to Ulysses, as having been the occasion of it, by depriving him of the armour of Achilles. Thus exiled, he fled to Cyprus, where he founded the city of Salamis.
57.Norican fire.]—Ver. 712. Noricum was a district of Germany, between the Danube and the Alps. It is still famous for its excellent steel; the goodness of which, Pliny attributes partly to the superior quality of the ore, and partly to the temperature of the climate.
58.She was preceding.]—Ver. 746. It was customary for the relations, both male and female, to attend the body to the tomb or the funeral pile. Among the Greeks, the male relatives walked in front of the body, preceded by the head mourners, while the female relations walked behind. Among the Romans, all the relations walked behind the corpse; the males having their heads veiled, and the females with their heads bare and hair dishevelled, contrary to the usual practice of each sex.
59.An upper room.]—Ver. 752. Anaxarete went to an upper room, to look out into the street, as the apartments on thegroundfloor were rarely lighted with windows. The principal apartments on the ground floor received their light from above, and the smaller rooms there, usually derived their light from the larger ones; while on the other hand, the rooms on the upper floor were usually lighted with windows. The conduct of Anaxarete reminds us of that of Marcella, the hardhearted shepherdess, which so aroused the indignation of the amiable, but unfortunate, Don Quixotte.
60.His youthful form.]—Ver. 766-7. ‘In juvenem rediit: et anilia demit Instrumenta sibi.’ These words are thus translated by Clarke: ‘He returned into a young fellow, and takes off his old woman’s accoutrements from him.’ We hear of the accoutrements of a cavalry officer much more frequently than we do those of an old woman.
61.Mavors.]—Ver. 806. Mavors, which is often used by the poets as a name of Mars, probably gave rise to the latter name as a contracted form of it.
62.To dissolve itself.]—Ver. 826. Not only, as we have already remarked, was it a notion among the ancients that the leaden plummet thrown from the sling grew red hot; but they occasionally went still further, and asserted that, from the rapidity of the motion, it melted and disappeared altogether. See note to Book II. l. 727.
63.Lofty couches.]—Ver. 827. The ‘pulvinaria’ were the cushions, or couches, placed in the temples of the Gods, for the use of the Divinities; which probably their priests (like their brethren who administered to Bel) did not omit to enjoy. At the festivals of the ‘lectisternia,’ the statues of the Gods were placed upon these cushions. The images of the Deities in the Roman Circus, were also placed on a ‘pulvinar.’
Myscelosis warned, in a dream, to leave Argos, and to settle in Italy. When on the point of departing, he is seized under a law which forbids the Argives to leave the city without the permission of the magistrates. Being brought up for judgment, through a miracle he is acquitted. He retires to Italy, where he builds the city of Crotona.
Meanwhile, one is being sought who can bear a weight of such magnitude, and can succeed a king so great. Fame, the harbinger of truth, destines the illustrious Numa for the sovereign power. He does not deem it sufficient to be acquainted with the ceremonials of the Sabine nation; in his expansive mind he conceives greater views, and inquires into the nature of things. ’Twas love of this pursuit, his country and cares left behind, that caused him to penetrate to the city of the stranger Hercules. To him, making the inquiry what founder it was that had erected a Grecian city on the Italian shores, one of the more aged natives, who was not unacquainted withthe history ofthe past, thus replied:
“The son of Jove, enriched with the oxen of Iberia, is said to have reached the Lacinian shores,1from the ocean, after a prosperous voyage, and, while his herd was straying along the soft pastures, himself to have entered the abode of the great Croton, no inhospitable dwelling, and to have rested in repose after his prolonged labours, and to have said thus at departing: ‘In the time of thy grandsons this shall be the site of a city;’ and his promise was fulfilled. For there was a certain Myscelos, the son of Alemon, an Argive, most favoured by the Gods in those times. Lying upon him, as he is overwhelmed with the drowsiness of sleep, the club-bearer,Hercules, addresses him: ‘Come,now, desert thy native abodes; go,andrepair to the pebbly streams of the distant Æsar.’2And he uttersxv. 24-52.threats, many and fearful, if he does not obey: after that, at once both sleep and the God depart. The son of Alemon arises, and ponders his recent vision in his thoughtful mind; and for a long time his opinions are divided among themselves. The Deity orders him to depart; the laws forbid his going; and death has been awarded as the punishment of him who attempts to leave his country.
“The brilliant Sun hadnowhidden his shining head in the ocean, and darkest Night had put forth her starry face,whenthe same God seemed to be present, and to give the same commands, and to utter threats, more numerous and more severe, if he does not obey. He was alarmed; andnowhe was also preparing to transfer his country’s home to a new settlement,whena rumour arose in the city, and he was accused of holding the laws in contempt. And, when the accusation had first been made, and his crime was evident, proved without a witness, the accused, in neglected garb, raising his face and his hands towards the Gods above, says, ‘Oh thou! for whom the twice six labours have created the privilege of the heavens, aid me, I pray; for thou wast the cause of my offence.’ It was the ancient custom, by means of white and black pebbles, with the one to condemn the accused, with the other to acquit them of the charge; and on this occasion thus was the sad sentence passed, and every black pebble was cast into the ruthless urn. Soon as it, being inverted, poured forth the pebbles to be counted, the colour of them all was changed from black to white, and the sentence, changed to a favourable one by the aid of Hercules, acquitted the son of Alemon.
“He gives thanks to the parent, the son of Amphitryon,3and with favouring gales sails over the Ionian sea, and passes by the Lacedæmonian Tarentum,4and Sybaris, and the Salentine Neæthus,5and the bay of Thurium,6and Temesa, and thexv. 52-60.fields of Iapyx;7and having with difficulty coasted along the spots which skirt these shores, he finds the destined mouth of the river Æsar; and, not far thence, a mound, beneath which the ground was covering the sacred bones of Croton. And there, on the appointed land, did he found his walls, and he transferred the name of him that wasthereentombed to his city. By established tradition, it was known that such was the original of that place, and of the city built on the Italian coasts.”
To the story here told of Micylus, or Myscelus, as most of the ancient writers call him, another one was superadded. Suidas, on the authority of the Scholiast of Aristophanes, says that Myscelus, having consulted the oracle, concerning the colony which he was about to lead into a foreign country, was told that he must settle at the place where he should meet with rain in a clear sky,ἐξ αἰθρίας. His faith surmounting the apparent impossibility of having both fair and foul weather at the same moment, he obeyed the oracle, and put to sea; and, after experiencing many dangers, he landed in Italy. Being full of uncertainty where to fix his colony, he was reduced to great distress; on which his wife, whose name was Aithrias, with the view of comforting him, embraced him, and bedewed his face with her tears. He immediately adopted the presage, and understood the spot where he then was to be the site of his intended city.
Strabo says that Myscelus, who was so called from the smallness of his legs, designing to found a colony in a foreign land, arrived on the coast of Italy. Observing that the spot which the oracle had pointed out enjoyed a healthy climate, though the soil was not so fertile as in the adjacent plains, he went once more to consult the oracle; but was answered that he must not refuse what was offered him; an answer which was afterwards turned into a proverb. On this, he founded the city of Crotona, and another colony founded the city of Sybaris on the spot which he had preferred; a place which afterwards became infamous for its voluptuousness and profligacy.
Pythagorascomes to the city of Crotona, and teaches the principles of his philosophy. His reputation draws Numa Pompilius to hear his discourses; on which he expounds his principles, and, more especially, enlarges on the transmigration of the soul, and the practice of eating animal food.
There was a man, a Samian by birth; but he had fled from both Samos and its rulers,8and, through hatred of tyranny,xv. 60-98.he was a voluntary exile. He too, mentally, held converse with the Gods, although far distant in the region of the heavens; and what nature refused to human vision, he viewed with the eyes of his mind. And when he had examined all things with his mind, and with watchful study, he gave them to be learned by the public; and he sought the crowds of peopleas they satin silence, and wondered at the revealed origin of the vast universe, and the cause of things, and what naturemeant, and what was God; whencecamethe snow, what was the cause of lightning;whether it wasJupiter, or whether the winds that thundered when the cloud was rent asunder; what it was that shook the earth; by what laws the stars took their course; and whateverbesideslay concealedfrom mortals.
He, too, was the first to forbid animals to be served up at table, and he was the first that opened his lips, learned indeed, but still not obtaining credit, in such words as these: “Forbear, mortals, to pollute your bodies withsuchabominable food. There is the corn; there are the apples that bear down the branches by their weight, andthere arethe grapes swelling upon the vines; there are the herbs that are pleasant; there are some that can become tender, and be softened bythe action offire. The flowing milk, too, is not denied you, nor honey redolent of the bloom of the thyme. The lavish Earth yields her riches, and heragreablefood, and affords dainties without slaughter and bloodshed. The beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh; and yet not all of them; for the horse, and the sheep, and the herds subsist on grass. But those whose disposition is cruel and fierce, the Armenian tigers, and the raging lions, and the bears together with the wolves, revel in their diet with blood. Alas! what a crime is it, for entrails to be buried in entrails, and for one ravening body to grow fat onothercarcases crammedintoit; and for one living creature to exist through the death of another living creature! And does, forsooth! amid so great an abundance, which the earth, that best of mothers, produces, nothing delight you but to gnaw with savage teeth the sadproduce of yourwounds, and to revive the habits of the Cyclops? And can you not appease the hunger of a voracious and ill-regulated stomach unless you first destroy another? But that age of old, to which we have given the name of ‘Golden,’ was blest in thexv. 98-131.produce of the trees, and in the herbs which the earth produces, and it did not pollute the mouth with blood.
“Then, both did the birds move their wings in safety in the air, and the hare without fear wander in the midst of the fields; then its own credulity had not suspended the fish from the hook; every place was without treachery, and in dread of no injury, and was full of peace. Afterwards,some one, no good adviser9(whoever among mortals he might have been), envied this simple food, and engulphed in his greedy paunch victuals made from a carcase; ’twas he that opened the path to wickedness; and I can believe that the steel,sincestained with blood, first grew warm from the slaughter of wild beasts. And that had been sufficient. I confess that the bodiesof animalsthat seek our destruction are put to death with no breach of the sacred laws; but, although they might be put to death, yet they were not to be eaten as well. Then this wickedness proceeded still further; and the swine is believed to have deserved death as the first victim, because it grubbed up the seeds with its turned-up snout, and cut short the hopes of the year. Having gnawed the vine, the goat was led10for slaughter to the altars of the avenging Bacchus. Their own faults were the ruin of the two. But why have you deserved this, ye sheep? a harmless breed, and born for the service of man; who carry the nectar in your full udders; who afford your wool as soft coverings for us, and who assist us more by your life than by your death. Why have the oxen deserved this, an animal without guile and deceit, innocent, harmless, born to endure labour? In fact, the man is ungrateful, and not worthy of the gifts of the harvest, who could, just after taking off the weight of the curving plough, slaughter the tiller of his fields; who could strike, with the axe, that neck worn bare with labour, through which he had so oft turned up the hard ground,andhad afforded so many a harvest.
“And it is not enough for such wickedness to be committed; they have imputed to the Gods themselves this abomination; and they believe that a Deity in the heavens can rejoice in the slaughter of the laborious ox. A victim free from a blemish, and most beauteous in form (for ’tis being sightly thatxv. 131-162.brings destruction), adorned with garlands and gold, is placed upon the altars, and, in its ignorance, it hears one praying, and sees the corn, which it has helped to produce, placed on its forehead between its horns; and, felled, it stains with its blood the knives perhaps before seen by it in the limpid water. Immediately, they examine the entrails snatched from its throbbing breast, and in them they seek out the intentions of the Deities. Whence comes it that men have so great a hankering for forbidden food? Do you presume to feedon flesh, O race of mortals? Do it not, I beseech you; and give attention to my exhortations. And when you shall be presenting the limbs of slaughtered oxen to your palates, know and consider that you are devouring yourtillers of the ground. And since a God impels me to speak, I will duly obey the God thatsoprompts me to speak; and I will pronounce my own Delphicwarnings, and disclose the heavens themselves; and I will reveal the oracles of the Divine will. I will sing of wondrous things, never investigated by the intellects of the ancients, andthingswhich have long lain concealed. It delights me to range among the lofty stars; it delights me, having left the earth and this sluggish spotfar behind, to be borne amid the clouds, and to be supported on the shoulders of the mighty Atlas; and to look down from afar on minds wanderingin uncertainty, and devoid of reason; and so to advise them alarmed and dreading extinction, and to unfold the range of things ordained by fate.
“O race! stricken by the alarms of icy death, why do you dread Styx? why the shades, why empty names, the stock subjects of the poets, and the atonements of an imaginary world? Whether the funeral pile consumes your bodies with flames, or old age with gradual dissolution, believe that they cannot suffer any injury. Souls are not subject to death; and having left their former abode, they ever inhabit new dwellings, and,therereceived, live on.
“I, myself, for I remember it, in the days of the Trojan war, was Euphorbus,11the son of Panthoüs, in whose opposingxv. 162-195.breast once was planted the heavy spear of the younger son of Atreus. I lately recognised the shield,oncethe burden of my left arm, in the temple of Juno, at Argos, the realm of Abas. All things areeverchanging; nothing perishes. The soul wanders about and comes from that spot to this, from this to that, and takes possession of any limbs whatever; it both passes from the beasts to human bodies, andso doesoursoulinto the beasts; and in nolapseof time does it perish. And as the pliable wax is moulded into new forms, and nolongerabides as it wasbefore, nor preserves the same shape, but yet is still the samewax, so I tell you that the soul is ever the same, but passes into different forms. Therefore, that natural affection may not be vanquished by the craving of the appetite, cease, I warn you, to expel the souls of your kindredfrom their bodiesby this dreadful slaughter; and let not blood be nourished with blood.
“And, since I amnowborne over the wide ocean, and I have given my full sails to the winds, there is nothing in all the world that continues in the same state. All things are flowingonward,12and every shape is assumed in a fleeting course. Even time itself glides on with a constant progress, no otherwise than a river. For neither can the river, nor the fleeting hour stop in its course; but, as wave is impelled by wave, and the one before is pressed on by that which follows, anditselfpresses on that before it; so do the moments similarly fly on, and similarly do they follow, and they are ever renewed. For the moment which was before, is past; and that which was not,nowexists; and every minute is replaced. You see, too, the night emerge and proceed onward to the dawn, and this brilliant light of the day succeed the dark night. Nor is there the same appearance in the heavens, when all things in their weariness lie in the midst of repose, and when Lucifer is coming forth on his white steed; and, again, there is another appearance, whenAurora, the daughter of Pallas, preceding the day, tints the world about to be delivered to Phœbus. The disk itself ofthatGod, when it is rising from beneath the earth, is of ruddy colour in the morning, and when it is hiding beneath the earth it is of a ruddy colour. At its height it is of brilliant whiteness, because there the nature of the ætherxv. 195-229.is purer, and far away, he avoidsallinfection from the earth. Nor can there ever be the same or a similar appearance of the nocturnal Diana; and always that of the present day is less than on the morrow, if she is on the increase;butgreater if she is contracting her orb.
“And further. Do you not see the year, affording a resemblance of our life, assume fourdifferentappearances? for, in early Spring, it is mild, andlikea nursling, and greatly resembling the age of youth. Then, the blade is shooting, and void of strength, it swells, and is flaccid, and delights the husbandman in his expectations. Then, all things are in blossom, and the genial meadow smiles with the tints of its flowers; and not as yet is there any vigour in the leaves. The yearnowwaxing stronger, after the Spring, passes into the Summer; and in its youth it becomes robust. And indeed no season is there more vigorous, or more fruitful, or which glows with greater warmth. Autumn follows, the ardour of youthnowremoved, ripe, and placed between youth and old age, moderate in his temperature, with afewwhite hairs sprinkled over his temples. Then comes aged Winter, repulsive with his tremulous steps, either stript of his locks, or white with those which he has.
“Our own bodies too are changing always and without any intermission, and to-morrow we shall not be what we were or what wenoware. The time was, when only as embryos, and the earliest hope of human beings, we lived in the womb of the mother. Nature applied her skilful hands, and willed not that our bodies should be torturedbybeing shut up within the entrails of the distended parent, and brought us forth from our dwelling into the vacant air. Brought to light, the infant lies withoutanystrength; soon,likea quadruped, it uses its limbs after the manner of the brutes; and by degrees it stands upright, shaking, and with knees still unsteady, the sinews being supported by some assistance. Then he becomes strong and swift, and passes over the hours of youth; and the years of middle age, too, now past, he glides adown the steep path of declining age. This undermines and destroys the robustness of former years; and Milo,13nowgrown old, weepsxv. 229-264.when he sees the arms, which equalled those of Hercules in the massiveness of the solid muscles, hang weak and exhausted. The daughter of Tyndarus weeps, too, as she beholds in her mirror the wrinkles of old age, and enquires of herself why it is that she was twice ravished. Thou, Time, the consumer ofallthings, and thou, hateful Old Age,togetherdestroy all things; and, by degrees ye consume each thing, decayed by the teeth of age, with a slow death.
“These things too, which we call elements, are not of unchanging duration; pay attention, and I will teach you what changes they undergo.
“The everlasting universe contains four elementary bodies. Two of these,namely, earth and water, are heavy, and are borne downwards by their weight; and as many are devoid of weight, and air, and fire still purer than air, nothing pressing them, seek the higher regions. Although these are separated in space, yet all things are made from them, and are resolved into them. Both the earth dissolving distils into flowing water; the water, too, evaporating, departs in the breezes and the air; its weight being removed again, the most subtle air shoots upwards into the firesof the ætheron high. Thence do they return back again, and the same order is unravelled; for fire becoming gross, passes into dense air; thischangesinto water, and earth is formed of the water made dense. Nor does its own form remain to each; and nature, the renewer ofallthings, re-forms one shape from another. And, believe me, in this universe so vast, nothing perishes; but it varies and changes its appearance; and to begin to be something different from what it was before, is called being born; and to cease to be the same thing,is to be saidto die. Whereas, perhaps, those things are transferred hither, and these things thither; yet, in the whole, all thingseverexist.
“For my part, I cannot believe that anything lasts long under the same form. ’Twas thus, ye ages, that ye came down to the iron from the gold; ’tis thus, that thou hast so often changed the lot ofvariousplaces. I have beheld thatassea, which once had been the most solid earth. I have seen land made from the sea; and far away from the ocean the sea-shells lay,xv. 264-285.and old anchors were foundthereon the tops of the mountains. That which was a plain, a current of water has made into a valley, and by a flood the mountain has been levelled into a plain; the ground that was swampy is parched with dry sand; and places which have endured drought, are wet with standing pools. Here nature has opened fresh springs, but there she has shut them up; and rivers have burst forth, aroused by ancient earthquakes; or, vanishing, they have subsided.
“Thus, after the Lycus14has been swallowed up by a chasm in the earth, it burst forth far thence, and springs up afresh at another mouth. Thus the great Erasinus15is at one time swallowed up, and then flowing with its stream concealed, is cast up again on the Argive plains. They say, too, that the Mysus, tired of its spring and of its former banks, now flows in another direction,asthe Caicus. The Amenanus,16too, at one time flows, rolling along the Sicilian sands,andat another is dry, its springs being stopped up. Formerly,the water ofthe Anigros17was used for drinking; it now pours out water which you would decline to touch; since, (unless all credit must be denied to the poets), theCentaurs, the double-limbed mortals, there washed the wounds which the bow of the club-bearing Hercules had made. And what besides? Does not the Hypanis18too, which before was sweet, rising from the Scythian mountains, become impregnatedxv. 285-303.with bitter salts? Antissa,19Pharos,20and Phœnician Tyre,21were once surrounded by waves; no one of these is now an island. The ancient inhabitants had Leucas22annexed to the continent; now the sea surrounds it. Zancle,23too, is said to have been united to Italy, until the sea cut off the neighbouring region, and repelled the land with its wavesflowingbetween.
“Should you seek Helice and Buris,24cities of Achaia, you will find them beneath the waves, and the sailors are still wont to point outtheselevelled towns, with their walls buried under water.
“There is a high hill near Trœzen of Pittheus, without any trees, once a very level surface of a plain,butnow a hill; for (frightful to tell) the raging power25of the winds, pent up in dark caverns, desiring to find some vent and having long struggled in vain to enjoy a freer air, as there was no opening in all their prison and it was not pervious to their blasts, swelled out thexv. 303-319.extended earth, just as the breath of the mouth is wont to inflate a bladder, or the hide26stripped from the two-horned goat. That swelling remained on the spot, andstillpreserves the appearance of a high hill, and has grown hard in length of time. Though many otherinstancesmay occur, either heard of by, or known to, yourselves,yetI will mention a few more. And besides, does not water, as well, both produce and receive new forms? In the middle of the day, thy waters, horned Ammon,27are frozen, at the rising and at the settingof the sunthey are warm. On applying its waters, Athamanis28is said to kindle wood when the waning moon has shrunk into her smallest orb. The Ciconians have a river,29which when drunk of, turns the entrails into stone, and laysa covering ofmarble on things that are touched by it. The Crathis30and the Sybaris adjacent to it, in our own country, make the hair similarin hueto amber and gold.
“And, what is still more wonderful, there are some streams which are able to change, not only bodies, but even the mind. By whom has not Salmacis,31with its obscene waters, beenxv. 319-337.heard of?Who has not heard, too, of that lake of Æthiopia,32of which, if any body drinks with his mouth, he either becomes mad, or falls into a sleep wondrous for its heaviness? Whoever quenches his thirst from the Clitorian spring33hates wine, and in his sobriety takes pleasure in pure water. Whether it is that there is a virtue in the water, the opposite of heating wine, or whether, as the natives tell us, after the son of Amithaon,34by his charms and his herbs, had delivered the raving daughters of Prœtus from the Furies, he threw the medicines for the mind in that stream; and a hatred of wine remained in those waters.
“The river Lyncestis35flows unlike thatstreamin its effect; for as soon as any one has drunk of it with immoderate throat, he reels, just as if he had been drinking unmixed wine. There is a place in Arcadia, (the ancients called it Pheneos,)36suspicious for the twofold nature of its water. Stand in dread of it at night; if drunk of in the night time, it is injurious; in the daytime, it is drunk of without any ill effects. So lakes and rivers have, some, one property, and some another. There was a time when Ortygia37was floating on the waves,xv. 337-366.now it is fixed. The Argo dreaded the Symplegades tossed by the assaults of the waves dashing against them; they now stand immoveable, and resistthe attacks ofthe winds.
“Nor will Ætna, which burns with its sulphureous furnaces, always be a fierymountain; nor yet was it always fiery. For, if the earth is an animal, and is alive, and has lungs that breathe forth flames in many a place, it may change the passages for its breathing, and oft as it is moved, may close these cavernsandopen others; or if the light winds are shut up in its lowermost caverns, and strike rocks against rocks, and matter that contains the elements of flame,andit takes fire at the concussion, the windsoncecalmed, the caverns will become cool; or, if the bituminous qualities take fire, or yellow sulphur is being dried up with a smouldering smoke, still, when the earth shall no longer give food and unctuous fuel to the flame, its energies being exhausted in length of time, and when nutriment shall be wanting to its devouring nature, it will notbe able toendure hunger, and left destitute, it will desert its flames.
“The story is, that in the far Northern Pallene38there are persons, who are wont to have their bodies covered with light feathers, when they have nine times entered the Tritonian lake. For my part I do not believe it;butthe Scythian women, as well, having their limbs sprinkled with poison, are said to employ the same arts. But if we are to give any credit39to things provedby experience, do you not see that whatever bodies are consumed by length of time, or by dissolving heat, are changed into small animals? Come too, bury some choice bullocksjustslain, it is a thing well ascertained by experience,thatflower-gathering bees are producedxv. 366-389.promiscuously from the putrefying entrails. These, after the manner of their producers, inhabit the fields, delight in toil, and labour in hope. The warlike steed,40buried in the ground, is the source of the hornet. If you take off the bending claws from the crab of the sea-shore,andbury the rest in the earth, a scorpion will come forth from the partsoburied, and will threaten with its crooked tail.
“The silkworms, too, that are wont to cover the leaves with their white threads, a thing observable by husbandmen, change their forms into that of the deadly moth.41Mud contains seed that generate green frogs; and it produces them deprived of feet;42soon it gives them legs adapted for swimming; and that the same may be fitted for long leaps, the length of the hinder ones exceedsthat ofthe fore legs. And it is not a cub43which the bear produces at the moment of birth, but a mass of flesh hardly alive. By licking, the mother forms it into limbs, and brings it into a shape, such as she herself has. Do you not see, that the offspring of the honey bees, which the hexagonal cell conceals, are produced without limbs, and that they assume both feet and wingsonlyafter a time. Unless he knew it was the case, could any one suppose it possible that the bird of Juno, which carries stars on its tail, and theeagle, the armour-bearer of Jove, and the doves of Cytherea, and all the race of birds, are produced from the middle portion of an egg? There arexv. 389-414.some who believe that human marrow changes into a serpent,44when the spine has putrefied in the enclosed sepulchre.
“But thesewhich I have namedderive their origin from other particulars; there is one bird which renews and reproduces itself. The Assyrians call it the Phœnix. It lives not on corn or grass, but on drops of frankincense, and the juices of the amomum. Thisbird, when it has completed the five ages of its life, with its talons and its crooked beak constructs for itself a nest in the branches of a holm-oak, or on the top of a quivering palm. As soon as it has strewed in this cassia and ears of sweet spikenard and bruised cinnamon with yellow myrrh, it lays itself down on it, and finishes its life in the midst of odours. They say that thence, from the body of its parent, is reproduced a little Phœnix, which is destined to live as many years. When time has given it strength, and it is able to bear the weight, it lightens the branches of the lofty tree of the burden of the nest, and dutifully carries both its own cradle and the sepulchre of its parent; and, having reached the city of Hyperion through the yielding air, it lays it down before the sacred doors in the temple of Hyperion.