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