THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
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il<br />
254 P. OVIDII <strong>NASO</strong>NIS LIBER 111.<br />
Purus ab arboribus, spectabilis undique campus.<br />
Hie oculis ilium cernentem sacra profanis<br />
Prima videt, prima est insane concita motu,<br />
Prima suum misso violavit Penthca thyrso<br />
Mater: 16 geminse, clamavit, adeste sorores.<br />
Ille aper, in nostris errat qui maximus agris,<br />
Ille mihi feriendus aper. Ruit omnis in unum<br />
Turba furens: cunctas coe ^«it, cunctreque sequuntur,<br />
Jam trepidum, jam verba minus violenta loquentem,<br />
also compared the roused energies of man Nor listened to his prayers; but his left hand<br />
to an excited war-steed:<br />
She seized, and pressing*on his side, tore off<br />
His shoulder, with a force not hers, the deed<br />
Over the mounlains, and far down Ihe valleys, Made easy by the god. On the other side<br />
Their voices cheer me like a bugle, now, Ino assisted in the dreadful work,<br />
And my worn spiril. like a war-horse, rallies, Rending his flesh: Autcnoe* hung upon him,<br />
And my first day-dreams flash upon my brow. And all the Bacchse: every voice was raised<br />
F. W. THOMAS. At once ; his dying breath was s[ eat in groans.<br />
7. Eecanduit ira: his anger glowed<br />
BACCH.M<br />
again. This is a strong and beautiful 13. A deste sorores. Agave calls on her<br />
metaphor.<br />
sisters Ino and Autonoe to come and as<br />
y. Purus ab arboribus: free from trees. sist her.<br />
'0. Oculis profanis: with unhallowed 14. Aper. Inspired by fury, Agave mis<br />
eyes.<br />
takes Pentheus for a wild boar, and pur<br />
BAC. Thou who wouldst see what to thy sues hjm. Euripides says she mistook him<br />
curious eye<br />
for a lion ; Valerius Flaerus, a bull; Mar<br />
Is not pcrmitled; ihou who wouldsl allempt<br />
Things not lo be attempted, Penlheus, ho! tial and others, a calf. Thus Euripides:<br />
To Ihee I call; come fprlh; appear in sighl, AOAV. I caught him without toils, with a troop<br />
In female vesiraenls, like the Mmnades: Of hunters, this young lion: tliou mayest see him.<br />
Accoutred, on Ihy mother and her Irain<br />
CHO. In what lone wild ?<br />
To be n spy, Hiy graceful figure show:<br />
AOAV. Cithteron.<br />
A dnughler sure of Cadmus meets our eye. Cno. Of Cithaeron<br />
BACCH.G. What?<br />
11. Prima videt. The mother of Pen AOAV. Killed him.<br />
Cno. But whose hand first wounded him ?<br />
theus was the first one that beheld Pen AOAV. 'Tis mine, it is my prize.<br />
theus profaning the rites of the deity. So Cno. Happy Agave!<br />
Euripides:<br />
AGAV. My name amid the Bacchic train u<br />
Him from CiHKcron's rocky head,<br />
famed:<br />
Or some enclosure rs rising mound,<br />
What other dame from Cadmus<br />
His molher first shall view in ambush laid. CHO. What of Cadmus!<br />
Then shouting call Ihe Mrenades around :<br />
AOAV. Who sprung from Cadmus, save my<br />
u These heights, these heights, ye Bacchre,<br />
self, myself,<br />
who<br />
Once touched this savage ?<br />
Ascends, our inouninin-ranging train to view? CHO. Happy in thy prize !<br />
Whence is his lineage traced ?<br />
AOAV. Share then the feast.<br />
His birlh he lo no woman owes;<br />
Clio. Alas! what should I share ?<br />
But from some tigress in the howling wasle, AGAV. 'Tis but a whelp: benealh his shaggy<br />
Or Libyan Gorgon rose."<br />
head<br />
Venpeance, in all Ihy lerrors clad, appear;<br />
The hair yet soft begins to clothe his cheeks:<br />
High Ihy laundering falchion rear;<br />
This brindcd mane is the rough grace that marks<br />
Slain il in IHS nurighleous, impious gore, The mountain savage. Bacchus to this chase,<br />
And ruin on Ihis earth-born tyranl pour. The hunter Bacchus, roused the Mffinaues,<br />
BACCHJE.<br />
Showing his skill. BACCH.S.<br />
Et raptum vitulo caput ablatura superbo<br />
12. Prima violavit. Agave was also the Bassaris. FEBSIUS, Sat. i. 100.<br />
first to wound her son, Pentheus. Thus<br />
Euripides:<br />
17. Jam trrpidum. There is a regular<br />
gradation in the change of sentiment here,<br />
Agave, as the priestess of the riles,<br />
Began ihe murderous work, and rushes on him: concisely and beautifully expressed. What<br />
The milre from his hair he rent, Ihnl, known, is here affirmed of one who was infidel in<br />
His molher might not kill him ; on her cheek the case of the Bacchic rites, may be weil<br />
He placed his soothing hand, and suppliant said, predicated of modern infidels. When<br />
' 'Tis I'cnthcus, O my mother ! 'lis Ihy son, trouble comes upon them, but especially<br />
Thine and Echion's son, who sues lo Ihee :<br />
Have pily on me, molher; do nol kill when death is approaching, they generally<br />
Thy son lor his ofience."' She foamed wilh rage, evince cowardice, abate their impiety, con<br />
Rolling her eyes askance, nor harbored thoughts demn their course of wickedness, and re<br />
She ought to harbor, frantic with It e god, cant their infidelity. Altumont, Spire, and<br />
10<br />
14. Ille aper qni er-<br />
IK ratmaximusinnoltria<br />
10 Qgris; ille nper e«<br />
feriendus mihi.<br />
FABULA IX. METAMORPHOSED N. 255<br />
Jam se damnantem, jam se peccasse fatentem.<br />
Saucius ille tamen, Fer opem, matertera, dixit,<br />
Autonoe: moveant animos Acteonis umbra?.<br />
Ilia quid Actffion nescit; dextramque precanti<br />
Abstnlit; Inoo lacerata est altera raptu.<br />
Non habet infelix quce matri brachia tendat:<br />
Trunca sed ostendens disjectis corpora membris;<br />
Adspice, mater, ait. Visis ululavit Agave ;<br />
Collaque jactavit, movitque per ae'ra crinem.<br />
Avulsumque caput digitis complexa cruentis<br />
Clamat, 16 comites, opus hrec victoria nostrum est.<br />
Non citius frondes autumno frigore tactas,<br />
Jamque male hocrentes alta rapit arbore ventus ;<br />
Q.uam sunt membra viri manibus dircpta nefandis.<br />
NOTJE.<br />
Voltaire are illustrious examples of the<br />
kind.<br />
20. Actteonit umbra:. He conjures his<br />
aunt, Autonoe, by the remembrnnee ot<br />
the awful deaili of her son, Aciscon. to<br />
rescue him Iroin the tuiy ot the Mtenades.<br />
21. Dextmm. W hile he extends his<br />
hands to her in entreaty, she teal's his right<br />
hand from his body.<br />
22. Alterce: t he other, viz. the left hand.<br />
This arm, according to Euripides, was torn<br />
off by the mother of Aetreon. See note<br />
on prima violavit, line 12.<br />
27. Cnput. His mother, Agave, tore off<br />
his head, and held it up in her bloody<br />
hands. Euripides enhances the horror of<br />
the scene by the circumstances:<br />
The miserable head<br />
His mother, as she caught it in her hands,<br />
Fixed on her thyrsus; o'er Cilhceron bears<br />
High litled, as some mountain lion's spoils.<br />
Leaving her sisters with the Macnades,<br />
And proud of her ill-fated prize, her steps<br />
She this way bends, on Bacchus calling loud,<br />
The partner of the chase and of the pri/e,<br />
The glorious conqueror, who this conquest<br />
guined<br />
Of tears to her. BACCHJE.<br />
28. Victoria. It is an aggravation of<br />
this horrid catastrophe, that the mother,<br />
as she cluiehes the head of her murdered<br />
son in her blood-stained hands, is oil un<br />
conscious of lier crime, and rejoices in it<br />
as a victory:<br />
Do Heaven's rich stores, does Wisdom know<br />
A incetl more glorious, than wiih conquering<br />
hand<br />
To crrnsp the proud head of a foe ?<br />
Raptures still rise where Glory takes her stand.<br />
UACCHJE<br />
30. Male luzreia.es: ill adhering.<br />
31. Virepta sunt: were torn in pieces.<br />
They shouted wild: one snatched an arm, an<br />
one<br />
A sandalled foot: dismemhered hy their force<br />
Lay the bare trunk ; in their ensanguined hands<br />
Each hurled the flesh ol I'enllieiM lo and fro;<br />
His limbs were scattered ; on the craggy rocks<br />
$ome, on llic close-entwined thickets some.<br />
Ho easv search. BACCH.B.<br />
20<br />
25<br />
20. Non ventus rapit<br />
citius ab aim arbore,<br />
30 frondes taclas aulumno<br />
frigoie. jamqae<br />
]ia?renles mule, quam<br />
32. Sucra. To commemorate ihe history<br />
if the Flood, riles were esiablished, in<br />
vhich rctercnce is made 10 Noah, ihe<br />
tbyss, ihe ark, ihcdove, ihe rainbow, &.C.,<br />
iraces of which were lo be found among<br />
all ancient people, even the niosi rude<br />
L ''Oine of these rites, according to Lucian,<br />
11 his treaiise De Syria Dea, were esia-<br />
ulished by Deucalion (Noah) himself.<br />
Now, ihe ark which God ordered Noah 10<br />
make, was called nan, Theba; and as<br />
Thebes, in Egypt, was a prominent seat<br />
of the Arkite worship, there is no doubt<br />
that it took its name from Theba, t he ark<br />
in which Noah and his family were pre<br />
served. In fact, Nonnus, in his Diony<br />
siacs, expressly says, that Thebes, on the<br />
southern part of the Nile, was named after<br />
the original Theba, or ark:<br />
vorit-i itapa NciXu<br />
The Arkite worship was introduced into<br />
Bceotia and the adjacent regions, and<br />
names were given to the places around,<br />
corresponding to the things commemorated.<br />
Arcadia signifies the land of the ark. Deu<br />
calion's (Noah's) ark %vas said 10 have<br />
rested on Parnassus, anciently Larnassus,<br />
so called Irom Xapm{, an arl. Polion,<br />
is named of ircXcfa, a dove. N ysa, at the<br />
toot of Parnassus, is the city of Nus<br />
.rtis), the husliandman (Noah). Thebes<br />
s called of Theba, the arls; and Bceotia it-<br />
self signifies, alike, the land of the ark, and<br />
the land cf the ox, or heifer; for we are<br />
e.xprcssly told by the Scholiast on Lyco-<br />
plnon, that with the Syrians (Irom whom<br />
the Arkite worship came), the ark is ihe<br />
same as heifer or bull: OfilSa yap fi /3oi( Kara<br />
£t>/jouf. Now, as 6^/M, an ark, and Bo'V, or<br />
TuBpcij, a bull, are synonymous, the epithet<br />
Toupoyti/nj, ox-born, applied to Bacchus, is<br />
the same as 6i)/3uiy«'Jis, ark-born; but this<br />
laticr may be rendered also b-irn at Thebes,<br />
and from this may have arisen tiie mistake<br />
that Bacchus (Noah, who was born ol the