The Metamorphoses of Ovid Part 27

After the wrath of the cruel tyrant was aroused by such words, and his fear was not less than it, urged on by either cause, he drew the sword, with which he was girt, from the sheath, and seizing her by the hair, her arms being bent behind her back, he compelled her to submit to chains. Philomela was preparing her throat, and, on seeing the sword, had conceived hopes of her death. He cut away, with his cruel weapon, her tongue seized with pincers, while giving vent to her indignation, and constantly calling on the name of her father, and struggling to speak. The extreme root of the tongue {still} quivers. {The tongue} itself lies, and faintly murmurs, quivering upon the black earth; and as the tail of a mangled snake is wont to writhe about, {so} does it throb, and, as it dies, seeks the feet of its owner. It is said, too, that often after this crime (I could hardly dare believe it) he satisfied his l.u.s.t upon her mutilated body.

He has the effrontery, after such deeds, to return to Progne, who, on seeing her husband, inquires for her sister; but he heaves feigned sighs, and tells a fict.i.tious story of her death; and his tears procure him credit. Progne tears from her shoulders her robes, shining with broad gold, and puts on black garments, and erects an honorary sepulchre, and offers expiation to an imaginary shade; and laments the death of a sister not thus to be lamented.

The G.o.d {Apollo}, the year being completed, had run through the twice six signs {of the Zodiac}. What can Philomela do? A guard prevents her flight; the walls of the house are hard, built of solid stone: her speechless mouth is deprived of the means of discovering the crime. But in grief there is extreme ingenuity, and inventive skill arises in misfortunes. She skilfully suspends the warp in a web of Barbarian design,[61] and interweaves purple marks with white, as a mode of discovering the villany {of Tereus}; and delivers it, when finished, to one {of her attendants}, and begs her, by signs, to carry it to her mistress. As desired, she carries it to Progne, and does not know what she is delivering in it. The wife of the savage tyrant unfolds the web, and reads the mournful tale[62] of her sister, and (wondrous that she can be so!) she is silent. 'Tis grief that stops her utterance, and words sufficiently indignant fail her tongue, in want of them; nor is there room for weeping. But she rushes onward, about to confound both right and wrong, and is wholly {occupied} in the contrivance of revenge.

[Footnote 51: _Calydon._--Ver. 415. This was a city of aetolia, which derived its name from Calydon, the son of Endymion. Diana, being incensed against neus, its king, because he omitted her when offering the first fruits to the other Deities, sent an immense boar to ravage its fields, which was slain by Meleager.

Ovid recounts these circ.u.mstances in the eighth book of the Metamorphoses. Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae, are also included in one line, by Homer, as having been under the particular tutelage of Juno.]

[Footnote 52: _Famous for its bra.s.s._--Ver. 416. According to some writers, the Corinthian bra.s.s became famous after the fall of Corinth, when it was taken and burnt by the Consul Mummius. On that occasion, they say, that from the immense number of statues melted in the conflagration, a stream of metal poured through the streets, consisting of melted gold, silver, and copper; in which, of course, the latter would be predominant. If that was the ground on which the Corinthian bra.s.s was so much commended, Ovid is here guilty of an anachronism.]

[Footnote 53: _Cleonae._--Ver. 417. This was a little town, situate between Argos and Corinth. It is called 'humilis,' not from its situation, but from the small number of its inhabitants. Patrae was a city of Achaia.]

[Footnote 54: _Pittheus._--Ver. 418. He was the uncle of Theseus; and was (after the time here mentioned) the king of Trzen, in Peloponnesus.]

[Footnote 55: _Barbarous troops._--Ver. 423. Some suggest that it is here meant that Attica was invaded by the Amazons at this time; and they rely on a pa.s.sage of Justin in support of the position.

The story is, however, very improbable.]

[Footnote 56: _The Graces._--Ver. 429. The Graces, who were the attendants of Venus, were three in number, Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne.]

[Footnote 57: _To be launched._--Ver. 445. The ships were launched into the sea by means of rollers placed beneath them, from which circ.u.mstance they were said 'deduci,' 'to be led down.']

[Footnote 58: _Sh.o.r.es of the Piraeus._--Ver. 446. The Piraeus was the a.r.s.enal and the harbor of the Athenians, and owed its magnificence to the vast conceptions of Themistocles.]

[Footnote 59: _The Odrysian king._--Ver. 490. Tereus is thus called, from the Odrysae, a people of Thrace.]

[Footnote 60: _With difficulty._--Ver. 510. Clarke translates 'vix,' 'with much ado.']

[Footnote 61: _Barbarian design._--Ver. 576. Probably of a Phrygian design.]

[Footnote 62: _The mournful tale._--Ver. 582. This line is translated by Clarke, 'And reads the miserable ditty of her sister.']

EXPLANATION.

The gravest authors among the ancients, such as Strabo and Pausanias, speaking of this tragical story, agree that the narrative, divested of its poetical ornaments, is strictly conformable to truth; though, of course, the sequel bears evident marks of embellishment either by the fancy of the Poet, or the superst.i.tion of the vulgar.

FABLE VI. [VI.587-676]

Progne delivers her sister Philomela from captivity, and brings her to the court of Tereus, where she revolves in her mind her different projects of revenge. Her son Itys, in the meantime, comes into her apartment, and is murdered by his mother and aunt. Progne afterwards serves him up at a feast, which she prepares for her husband; on which, being obliged to fly from the fury of the enraged king, she is changed into a swallow, Philomela into a nightingale, and Tereus himself into a lapwing.

It is {now} the time[63] when the Sithonian[64] matrons are wont to celebrate the triennial festival of Bacchus. Night is conscious of their rites; by night Rhodope resounds with the tinklings of the shrill cymbal. By night the queen goes out of her house, and is arrayed according to the rites of the G.o.d, and carries the arms of the frantic solemnity. Her head is covered with vine leaves; from her left side hang down the skins of a deer;[65] upon her shoulder rests a light spear.

{Then} the terrible Progne rushing through the woods, a mult.i.tude of her followers attending her, and agitated by the fury of her resentment, pretends, Bacchus, that it is {inspired} by thee.

She comes at length to the lonely dwelling, and howls aloud, and cries "Evoe!" and breaks open the gates, and seizes her sister, and puts upon her, {so} seized, the badges of Bacchus, and conceals her countenance under the foliage of ivy; and dragging her along, full of amazement, leads her within her threshold. When Philomela perceives that she has arrived at that accursed house,[66] the wretched woman shudders, and paleness spreads over her whole face. Progne having {now} got a {fitting} place {for so doing}, takes away the symbols of the rites,[67]

and unveils the blushing face of her wretched sister; and holds her in her embraces. But she, on the other hand, cannot endure to lift up her eyes; seeming to herself the supplanter of her sister, and fixing her looks on the ground, her hand is in the place of voice to her, as she desires to swear and to call the G.o.ds to witness that this disgrace has been brought upon her by violence. Progne burns {with rage}, and contains not her anger; and checking the grief of her sister, she says, "We must not act in this matter with tears, but with the sword, {and even} with anything, if {such} thou hast, that can possibly outdo the sword. I have, sister, prepared myself for every crime! Either, when I shall have set fire to the royal palace with torches, I will throw the artful Tereus into the midst of the flames, or with the steel will I cut away his tongue or his eyes, or the members that have deprived thee of thy chast.i.ty, or by a thousand wounds will I expel his guilty soul {from his body}. Something tremendous am I prepared for; what it is, I am still in doubt."

While Progne was uttering such expressions, Itys came to his mother. By him she was put in mind of what she might do; and looking at him with vengeful eyes, she said, "Ah! how like thou art to thy father!" And saying no more, she prepared for a horrible deed, and burned with silent rage. Yet when her son came to her, and saluted his mother and drew her neck {towards him} with his little arms, and added kisses mingled with childish endearments, the mother, in truth, was moved, and her anger abated, and her eyes, in spite of her, became wet with tears {thus} forced {from her}. But soon as she found the mother {in her} shrinking from excess of affection, from him again did she turn towards the features of her sister; and looking at them both by turns, she said, "Why does the one employ endearments, {while} the other is silent with her tongue torn from her? Why does she not call her sister, whom he calls mother? Consider to what kind of husband thou art married, daughter of Pandion. Thou dost grow degenerate. Tenderness in the wife of Tereus is criminality." No {more} delay {is there}; she drags Itys along, just as the tigress of the banks of the Ganges {does} the suckling offspring of the hind, through the shady forests. And when they are come to a remote part of the lofty house, Progne strikes[68] him with the sword, extending his hands, and as he beholds his fate, crying now "Alas!" and now "My mother!" and clinging to her neck, where his breast joins his side; nor does she turn away her face. Even one wound {alone} is sufficient for his death; Philomela cuts his throat with the sword; and they mangle his limbs, still quivering and retaining somewhat of life. Part of them boils,[69] in the hollow cauldrons; part hisses on spits; the inmost recesses stream with gore. His wife sets Tereus, in his unconsciousness, before this banquet; and falsely pretending rites after the manner of her country, at which it is allowed one man only to be present, she removes his attendants and servants. Tereus himself, sitting aloft on the throne of his forefathers, eats and heaps his own entrails into his own stomach. And so great is the blindness of his mind, {that} he says, "Send for Itys." Progne is unable to conceal her cruel joy; and now, desirous to be the discoverer of her having murdered him, she says, "Thou hast within {thee}, that for which thou art asking." He looks around, and inquires where he is; as he inquires, and calls him again, Philomela springs forth, just as she is, with her hair disordered by the infernal murder, and throws the b.l.o.o.d.y head of Itys in the face of his father; nor at any time has she more longed to be able to speak, and to testify her joy by words such as are deserved.

The Thracian pushes from him the table with a loud cry, and summons the Viperous sisters[70] from the Stygian valley; and at one moment he desires, if he {only} can, by opening his breast to discharge thence the horrid repast, and the half-digested entrails. And then he weeps, and p.r.o.nounces himself the wretched sepulchre of his own son; and then he follows the daughters of Pandion with his drawn sword. You would have thought the bodies of the Cecropian[71] Nymphs were supported by wings; {and} they were supported by wings. The one of them makes for the woods, the other takes her place beneath the roofs {of houses}. Nor {even} as yet have the marks of murder withdrawn from her breast; and her feathers are {still} stained with blood. He, made swift by his grief, and his desire for revenge, is turned into a bird, upon whose head stands a crested {plume}; a prolonged bill projects in place of the long spear.

The name of the bird is 'epops' [{lapwing}]; its face appears to be armed. This affliction dispatched Pandion to the shades of Tartarus before his day, and the late period of protracted old age.

[Footnote 63: _Now the time._--Ver. 587. This was the festival of Bacchus, before mentioned as being celebrated every three years, in memory of his Indian expedition.]

[Footnote 64: _Sithonian._--Ver. 588. Sithonia was a region of Thrace, which lay between Mount Haemus and the Euxine sea. The word, however, is often used to signify the whole of Thrace.]

[Footnote 65: _Skins of a deer._--Ver. 593. These were the 'nebrides,' or skins of fawns and deer, which the Baccha.n.a.ls wore when celebrating the orgies. The lance mentioned here was, no doubt, the thyrsus.]

[Footnote 66: _That accursed house._--Ver. 601. Clarke translates this line, 'As soon as Philomela perceived she had got into the wicked rogue's house.']

[Footnote 67: _Symbols of the rites._--Ver. 603. These were the ivy, the deer-skins, and the thyrsus.]

[Footnote 68: _Progne strikes._--Ver. 641. 'Ense ferit Progne' is translated by Clarke, 'Progne strikes with the sword poor Itys.']

[Footnote 69: _Part of them boils._--Ver. 645-6. Clarke gives this comical translation: 'Then part of them bounces about in hollow kettles; part hisses upon spits; the parlor runs down with gore.']

[Footnote 70: _Viperous sisters._--Ver. 662. Tereus invokes the Furies, who are thus called from having their hair wreathed with serpents. Clarke translates, 'ingenti clamore,' in line 661, 'with a huge cry.']

[Footnote 71: _Cecropian._--Ver. 667. The Cecropian or Athenian Nymphs are Progne and Philomela, the daughters of Pandion, king of Athens.]

EXPLANATION.

By the symbolical changes of Philomela, Progne, and Tereus, those who framed this termination of the story intended to depict the different characters of the persons whose actions are there represented. As the lapwing delights in filth and impurity, the ancients thereby portrayed the unscrupulous character of Tereus; and, as the flight of that bird is but slow, it shows that he was not able to overtake his wife and her sister. The nightingale, concealed in the woods and thickets, seems there to be concealing her misfortunes and sorrows; and the swallow, which frequents the abodes of man, shows the restlessness of Progne, who seeks in vain for her son, whom, in her frantic fit, she has so barbarously murdered.

Anacreon and Apollodorus, however, reverse the story, saying that Philomela was changed into a swallow, and Progne into a nightingale.

This event is said by some writers to have happened not in Thrace, but at Daulis, a town of Phocis, where Tereus is supposed to have gone to settle. Pausanias tells us, that the tomb of Tereus was to be seen near Athens, so that it is probable that he died at a distance from Thrace, his native country. Homer alludes to the story of Philomela in somewhat different terms; speaking of the grounds of the grief of Penelope, he says, that 'she made her complaints to be heard like the inconsolable Philomela, the daughter of Pandarus, always hidden among the leaves and branches of trees. When the Spring arrives, she makes her voice echo through the woods, and laments her dear Itylus, whom she killed by an unhappy mistake; varying, in her continued plaints, the mournful melody of her notes.' By this, Homer seems to have known nothing of Tereus or of Progne, and to have followed a tradition, which was to the following effect:--Pandarus had three daughters, aedon, Mecrope, and Cleothera. aedon, the eldest, was married to Zethus, the brother of Amphion, by whom she had one son, who was named Itylus.

Envying the more numerous family of Niobe, her sister-in-law, she resolved to despatch the eldest of her nephews; and, as her son was brought up with his cousin, and was his bedfellow, she bade him change his place in the bed, on the night on which she intended to commit the crime. Itylus forgot her commands, and consequently his mother killed him by mistake for her nephew.

FABLE VII. [VI.677-721]

Boreas, not obtaining the consent of Erectheus, king of Athens, for the marriage of his daughter, Orithya, takes that princess in his arms, and carries her away into Thrace. By her he has two sons, Calas and Zethes, who have wings, like their father, and afterwards embark with Jason in search of the Golden Fleece.

Erectheus[72] received the sceptre of {that} country, and the government of the state; it is a matter of doubt whether he was more powerful through his justice, or by his mighty arms. He had, indeed, begotten four sons, and as many of the female s.e.x: but the beauty of two {of them} was equal. Of these, Cephalus,[73] the son of aeolus, was blessed with thee, Procris, for his wife; Tereus and the Thracians were an obstacle to Boreas; and long was {that} G.o.d without his much-loved Orithya, while he was entreating, and choosing rather to use prayers than force. But when nothing was effected by blandishments, terrible with that rage which is his wont, and but too natural with that wind, he said, "And {this is} deservedly {done}; for why did I relinquish my own weapons, my violence, my strength, my anger, and my threatening spirit, and turn to prayers, the employment of which ill becomes me? Violence is suitable for me; by violence do I dispel the lowering clouds, by violence do I arouse the seas, and overthrow the knotted oaks, and harden the snow, and beat the earth with hail. I too, when I have met with my brothers in the open air (for that is {peculiarly} my field), struggle with efforts so great, that the intermediate sky thunders again with our onset, and fires flash, struck forth from the hollow clouds.

I too, when I have descended into the hollow recesses of the earth, and in my rage have placed my back against its lowest depths, disturb the shades below, and the whole globe with earthquakes. By these means should I have sought this alliance; and Erectheus ought not to have been entreated {to be} my father-in-law, but made so by force."

Boreas, having said these words, or some not less high-sounding than these, shakes his wings, by the motion of which all the earth is fanned, and the wide sea becomes ruffled; and the lover, drawing his dusty mantle over the high tops {of mountains}, sweeps the ground, and, wrapt in darkness, embraces with his tawny wings Orithya, as she trembles with fear. As she flies, his flame, being agitated, burns more fiercely.

Nor does the ravisher check the reins of his airy course, before he reaches the people and the walls of the Ciconians.[74] There, too, is the Actaean damsel made the wife of the cold sovereign, and {afterwards} a mother, bringing forth twins at a birth, who have the wings of their father, the rest {like} their mother. Yet they say that these {wings} were not produced together with their bodies; and while their long beard, with its yellow hair, was away, the boys Calas and Zethes were without feathers. {But} soon after, at once wings began to enclose both their sides, after the manner of birds, and at once their cheeks {began} to grow yellow {with down}. When, therefore, the boyish season of youth was pa.s.sed, they sought,[75] with the Minyae, along the sea {before} unmoved,[76] in the first ship {that existed}, the fleece that glittered with shining hair {of gold}.

[Footnote 72: _Erectheus._--Ver. 677. This personage really was king of Athens before Pandion, the father of Progne and Philomela, and not after him, as Ovid here states; at least, such is the account given by Pausanias and Eusebius: the order of succession being Actaeus, Cecrops, Cranaus, Amphictyon, Erecthonius, Pandion, Erectheus, Cecrops II., Pandion II., aegeus, Theseus.]

[Footnote 73: _Cephalus._--Ver. 681. He was the son of Deioneus, and the grandson of aeolus. According to some writers, he was the son of Mercury; in and the Art of Love (Book iii. l. 725) he is called 'Cyllenia proles.' Strabo says that he was the son-in-law of Deioneus. His story is related at length in the next Book.]

[Footnote 74: _The Ciconians._--Ver. 710. The Cicones were a people of Thrace, living near Mount Ismarus, and the Bistonian lake.]

[Footnote 75: _They sought._--Ver. 720. This was the fleece of the ram that carried Phryxus along the h.e.l.lespont to Colchis, which is mentioned again in the next Book.]