THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO

FABULA II.
DRACONIS DENTES IN MILITES MUTATI.
By the direction of M'nerva, Cadmus sows the teeth of the Dragon in the
earth, whence spring armed men. These turn their arms against each other,
and fall by mutual slaughter, till one of them throws down his arms, and
addresses his brethren, when the battle ceases. The survivors, five in
number, assist Cadmus to build Thebes.
EXPLICATIO.
FOLLOWING the interpretation of the preceding Fable, we are to con
sider the Dragon as the ruler or chieftain that held sway in Bcpolia. As
the power of the dragon consists in his teeth, and that of a chief in his
soldiery, we must understand by the dragon's teeth the troops of the
country. Pallas, the goddess of Wisdom, then, that is, prudence, directs
Cadmus to repair the loss of his men, which he had sustained, by sowing
the dragon's teeth, and thus raising from the soil a crop of men; in other
words, to recruit his army by soldiers of the country drawn over to his
service. The destruction of their chieftain and many of his soldiers by
Cadmus, would show the Boeotians that they had to contend with a supe
rior enemy, and this consideration would induce many of them to accept
the advances, and follow the fortunes of Cadmus; whence the soldiers
may be said to spring from the buried teeth of the slain Dragon. Another
view: the Boeotian states held their deliberations in the temple of Minerva
Itonis, and may have determined to raise an army, which afterwards fell
into dissensions; hence Minerva may be said to advise the sowing of the
Dragon's teeth.
Again, the myth may be founded on the burial of the slain Boeotians
by Cadmus, and the raising of a new army to avenge their death. If
these new troops were first seen by the Phoenician leader while they were
ascending an eminence, they would justify the highly poetical fiction of
their gradual emerging from the earth ; while dissensions among them
afterwards would verify the concluding part of the Fable. Some mytho-
logists say Cadmus threw a stone among these earthborn brothers, and
thus caused them to slay one another. As the same word, xaoj, signifies
both a stone and people, the explanation is, he sent his peojile among the-
Boeotian troops, and excited them to a civil battle, in which many were
slain. By the five soldiers that remained, we are to understand either
five leaders, or five divisions of the people.
There is another interpretation of this Fable, which turns upon its
verbal peculiarities. In the Phoenician language, the same word signi
fies either serpent's-tecth. or brass-pointed juvelins; and the word which
signifies Jive, signifies also an army. Hence, the Greeks, in following
the Phoenician annals, represent the Boeotian troops mustered into service
by Cadmus, and armed with brass-pointed javelins, ajs sprung from the
teeth of a serpent: and the army drawn to his interest, as five men
assisting him to build Thebes.
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CCE viri fautnx, superas delapsa per auras,
Pallas adest: moteque jubet supponere terras
Vipereos denies, populi incrementa futuri.
Paret; et, ut presso sulcum patefecit aratro,
Spargit humi jussos, mortalia semina, denies: 5
Inde, fide majus, gleboe coepere moveri;
Primaque de sulcis acics apparuit haslffi.
Tegmina inox capitum picto nulantia cono;
Mox humeri pectusque, oneralaque brachia telis
NOTJE.
1. Viri fuiitrix. As Minerva was not only the goddess of wisdom,
but of valor too, she is properly styled the favorer of man. These
virtues enable men to overcome all difficulties.
2. Matte terra:: the ploughed earth.
Tlieii. at the maniul maid's command,
Wiili his deep ploughshare turns llie land.
Tlie tlrngon's teeth \\ jde scattering round;
When sudden, from the furrowed ground
3. Iwrrementa: the seed of a future pco,
pie. Cadmus now needed men to repair
his loss of troops.
5. JJortaHa stmina: human seed. Seed
to produce men, not corn. A modern
writer, in a spirited poem entitled Seventy-
Six, in like manner describes the blood of
patriots as producing warriors:
For though a patriot be o'erthrown,
The blood that fnlleth then,
Embattled hosts arise EURIPIDES.
Springs up like teeth tiy C.idmus sown-
A host of armed men. W. 11. CARI-ESTE*
6. Fide majus: greater than belief; be
yond belief.
8. Teymina capitum: the coverings of
their heads, viz. their helmets.
8. Ficto cono: with pointed rrest. The
crest was the upper part ot the helmet,
where the plume was set.
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