THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
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276 P. OVIDII HASONIS LIBER IV.<br />
Ac super ostendit. Cur non stimuletur, eatque<br />
Per cognata suis excmpk furoribus Ino ?<br />
Est via declivis funesta nubila taxo :<br />
Ducit ad infcrnas per muta silentia sedcs.<br />
Styx nebulas exhalat iners : uinbreeque recentes<br />
Descendunt iliac, simulacraque functa sepulcris.<br />
Pallor, Hyemsque tencnt late loca senta : novique<br />
Q,ua fit her, manes, Stygiam quod ducit ad urbeni,<br />
Ignorant: ubi sit nigri fera regia Ditis.<br />
Mille capax aditus, et apertas undique portas<br />
Urbs habet: utque fretum de tola flumina terra,<br />
Sic omnes animas locus accipit ille ; nee ulli<br />
Exiguus populo est, turbamve accedere sentit.<br />
Errant exsangues sine corpore et ossibus umbra?:<br />
Parsque forum celebrant, pars ima tecta tyranni;<br />
Pars alias artes, antiquas imitamina vita?<br />
Exercent: aliam partem sua pcena coercet.<br />
Sustinet ire illuc coelesti sede relicta,<br />
(Tantum odiis ineque dabat), Saturnia Juno.<br />
Gudsimul intravit, sacroque a corpore pressum<br />
17. Est via. The construction of this<br />
line is very similar to that of Lib. I., Fab.<br />
VII., line 6.<br />
Est via sublimis, ccelo mftnifesta sereno.<br />
17. Taxo. The ancienta believed that<br />
the juice of the yew-tree was poisonous,<br />
and ihat it would cause death to slumber<br />
under it. Hence it is represented as sha<br />
ding the path to the infernal regions. Vir<br />
gil describes the descent to the Shades aa<br />
steep, and shaded .with gloomy trees :<br />
These rites performed, the prince, without delay,<br />
Hastes, to llie nether world, his destined way.<br />
Deep was the cave ; and, downward as it went<br />
From the wide mouth, a rocky rough descent ;<br />
And here th' access a gloomy grove defends.<br />
JEirelD vi. 238.<br />
20. Functa sepulcris : having enjoyed<br />
sepulcral rites ; having been buried. The<br />
unhappy souls that had not received the<br />
riles of burial, were forced to wander a<br />
hundred years on the hanks of the Styx.<br />
Hence, Virgil :<br />
The ghosts rejected are th1 unhappy crew<br />
Deprived of sepulcres and funeral due :<br />
The boatman, Charon : those, the buried host,<br />
He ferries over lo the farther coast ;<br />
Nor dares his transport vessel cross the waves<br />
Wiir> such whose bones are not composed ia<br />
graves.<br />
A hundred years they wander on the shore ;<br />
At length, their penance done, are wafted o'er.<br />
vi. 325.<br />
21. Pallor, Hyemi. Paleness, coldness,<br />
silence, torpidity, and the like symptoms<br />
of death, are happily represented as dwell<br />
ing here. Virgil gives a more extended<br />
description of the inhabiiaiits, which are<br />
NOTJE.<br />
15<br />
20<br />
25<br />
30<br />
33. Saturnia Juno<br />
ede ccelesti rclictft,<br />
ftustinet ire illuc.<br />
personificaiions of human passions, affec<br />
tions, and vices:<br />
Just in the gate, and in the jaws of hell,<br />
Revengeful Cares and sullen Sorrows dwell,<br />
And pale Diseases, and repining Age,<br />
Want. Fear, and Famine's unresisted rage;<br />
Here Toils, and Death, and Death's half-brother,<br />
Sleep,<br />
Forms terrible to view, their sentry keep;<br />
'With anxious pleasures of a guilty mind,<br />
Deep Frauds before, and open Force behind;<br />
The Furies' iron beds; and Strife, that shake*<br />
Her hissing tresses, and unfolds her snakes.<br />
-A:\EID vi. 273.<br />
23. Ignorant. The ghosts are described<br />
as wandering about, unacquainted with the<br />
way. So Virgil:<br />
Obscure they went through dreary shades that<br />
led<br />
Along the waste dominions of the dead:<br />
Thus wander travellers in woods by night,<br />
By the moon's doubtful and malignant light.<br />
JEraiD vi. 208.<br />
25. Utque fretum. This is a beautiful<br />
resemblance.<br />
26. Ulli populo: to any people, viz. to<br />
any multitude of people.<br />
29. Forum celebrant: frequent the forum.<br />
The ghosts are represented as still delight<br />
ing in what had interested them in life.<br />
31. Sua pcena: their proper punishment.<br />
34. Ingemuit limen. The threshold<br />
groaned with the weight of the goddess.<br />
It had been accustomed to feel the weight<br />
of ghosts only. So Virgil, in describing<br />
the effect of the body of TEneag on the<br />
boat of Charon:<br />
He clears the deck, receives the mighty freight,<br />
The leaky vessel groans beneath the weight.<br />
JENIID vi. 413<br />
FAEULA III. METAMORPHOSED N. 277<br />
Ingemuit limen; tria Cerberus extulit ora ; 35<br />
Et tres latratus simul edidit. Ilia sorores<br />
Nocte vocat genitas, grave et implacabile numen,<br />
Careen's ante fores clausas adamante sedebant;<br />
Deque suis atros pectebant crinibus angues.<br />
Q.uam simul agnorunt inter caliginis umbras, 40<br />
Surrexere Deee. Sedcs Scelerata vocatur.<br />
Viscera prabebat Tityos lanianda ; novemque<br />
Jugeribus distentus erat. Tibi, Tantale, nullse<br />
Deprenduntur aquai; quasque imimnet, enugit arbor:<br />
Aut petis, aut urges ruiturum, Sisyphe, saxum. 45<br />
35. Cerberus. Cerberus was the guar<br />
dian of Hell, a dog with three heads, one<br />
of a lion, another of a wolf, nnd the third<br />
of a dog. Horace describes him as having<br />
a hundred heads:<br />
Demitiit atras bellim centiceps<br />
Aures. LIB. ii. Ob. xiii. 34.<br />
Hesiod describes Cerberus as having<br />
fifty heads :<br />
And next n monstrous birili, the dog of Hell :<br />
Blood-fed and brazen- voiced, and bold, and<br />
strong,<br />
The fifty-headed Cerberus. <strong>THE</strong>OGONY.<br />
36. Tres latratus. Cerberus uttered<br />
three different barkings from as many dif<br />
ferent heads. So Virgil:<br />
Cerberus hiec ingens latratu regna trifauci<br />
Personal. JEKEID vi. 417.<br />
37. Nocte zenitas. The Furies Alecto,<br />
Mcgaera, and Tisiphone, were said to be<br />
the daughters of Acheron and Nox.<br />
38. Jk-ores adamante. The doors are said<br />
to be of adamant, as tnat is of the most<br />
solid character. Milton, in his description<br />
of Hell, far exceeds our poet :<br />
At last appear<br />
Hell-bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof;<br />
And thrice threefold the gates: three folds were<br />
brass.<br />
Three iron, three of adamantine rock,<br />
Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,<br />
Yet uncousumed. PARADISE LOST.<br />
38. Sedebant .- were Fitting. Virgil, in<br />
like manner describes the Fury, Tisiphone,<br />
as keeping guard at the gates of Hell :<br />
Wide ie the fronting gate, and, raised on high<br />
With adamantine columns, threat the sky.<br />
Vain ie the force of man, find heaven's as vain,<br />
To rru«h the pillars which the pile sustain.<br />
Puli lime on these a tower of steel is reared ;<br />
And dire T .iphoue there keeps the ward. Vi. 552.<br />
41. Suricxere Detp.. The Furies arose.<br />
41. Kedts Scflernta: the habitation of ihe<br />
wicked. So Virgil :<br />
Tie here in different paths, the way divides:<br />
The rislit to Fluid's golden palace guides,<br />
The lefl to thai unhappy region tends<br />
Which to the dtpth of Tartarus extends<br />
The seat of night profound, and punished fiends.<br />
vi. 540.<br />
43. Belidesque ausse<br />
moliri lelum suis pa-<br />
truclibus assidure re-<br />
42. Tityos. Tilyus was the son of<br />
Terra, a giant of prodigious size, whose<br />
body covered nine acres of land. He of<br />
fered insult to Latonn, for which he was<br />
confined in the Infernal Regions, with a<br />
vullure preying upon his bowels as they<br />
grew. The ficiion probably has reference<br />
to some volcano. Homer cives a descrip<br />
tion of this monster, which is again imi<br />
tated by Virgil:<br />
There Tilyus, large and long, in fetters bound,<br />
OVrspreail nine acres of infernal ground ;<br />
Two ravenous vuliures, furious for their food,<br />
Scream o'er the fiend, and riot in his blood,<br />
Incessant gore the liver in his breast,<br />
The immortal liver grows and gives the immor<br />
tal feast. ODYSSEY xi.<br />
There Tityns was to see, who took his birth<br />
From heaven, his nursing from the foodful earth<br />
Here his gigantic limbs, with large embrace,<br />
Infold nine acres of infernal space.<br />
A ravenous vullure in his opened side,<br />
Her crooked beak and cruel talons tried;<br />
Pate for the growing liver, digged his breast:<br />
The growing liver still supplied the feast.<br />
jErfEiD vi. 595.<br />
43. Tantale. Tantalus was the son of<br />
Jupiter, and a king of Phrygia. Admitted<br />
to the table of the gods, he betrayed their<br />
secreis. For this crime, or, according to<br />
some, for killing his son, and serving him<br />
up to the gods, he was condemned in ihe<br />
Infernal Regions to suffer perpetual thirst,<br />
though immersed in water up to the chin.<br />
He was doomed to perpetual hunger also,<br />
though food was temptingly spread before<br />
him, which always fled his touch. Homer<br />
gives a vigorous description of this:<br />
There Tantalus along the Stygian bounds<br />
Fours onl deep groans: wilh groans all Hell<br />
resounds;<br />
E'en in Ihe circling floods refreshmenl craves,<br />
And pines witli thirst umidpi a sea of waves:<br />
When to the water he his lip applies,<br />
Hack from his lip the treacherous water flies.<br />
Ahove, beneath, around his hnpless head.<br />
Trees of all kinds delicious fruitage spread ;<br />
There fig*, sky-dyed, a purple hue disrlose,<br />
Green looks the olive, the pomegranate glows,<br />
There dangling pears exalted scents unfold,<br />
And yellow apples ripen into gold;<br />
The fruit he strives to seize, hut blasts arise,<br />
Toss it on high, and whirl it to the skies.<br />
ODYSSEY n<br />
2 A