THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO

FABULA VI.
GIGANTOMACHIA.
The Giants make war upon Heaven, and piling up mountains, attempt to
scale its ramparts. Jupiter destroys them with thunderbolta Their blood
is changed into men, who are noted for violence and impiety.
EXPLICATIO.
This Fable will admit of different interpretations, according as it 13
considered in an allegorical, philosophical, or historical point of view.
Regarding the Giants as physical forces employed when God cursed the
ground, to produce those convulsions of which we see traces all over our
planet, they may be considered as making- war against Jupiter, who cor
responds to the Saviour, whose mediatorial reign commen.ced after the
golden age, as I have shown in Fable V. Since mountains are formed by
subterranean fires and forces which press the crust of the earth upwards,
the Giants may be fabled thus to threaten Heaven, by piling Ossa upon
Pelion. A strong force may, at some time, have thrown down a part of
these mountains, and separated them, as Hesiod would seem to intimate,
or their appearance may have caused the fiction of their former superin-
cumbency.
Considered historically, the fable may refer to the Fall of the Angels,
to a tradition of some important occurrence at the garden of Eden, in
which the Giants of Scripture were discomfited ; or to the Tower of Babel.
The Fall of the Angels was known to the ancients. Porphyry states,
there was a common belief in the existence of evil (lemons, hostile to God
and man. Hesiod gives an account of similar demons. Plutarch men
tions, on the authority of Empedocles, impure spirits, banished by the
gods from Heaven ; and Pherecydes, the Syrian, styles the prince of cer
tain evil spirits that contended with SaJurn (Jehovah), Ophioneus, the
serpent-deity, evidently " that old serpent, which is called the devil."
" The presence of God," spoken of in the 4th chapter of Genesis, was
the Schechinah of the first altar at the gate of Eden, and rested after
wards in the tabernacle, and subsequently dwelt between the cherubim
of the Temple. Traditional accounts would indicate that the wicked had
offered some impious violence to it. which God signally punished by fire,
like that which struck Heliodorus in the temple, or the workmen who
were sent by Julian impiously to rebuild Jerusalem. Montgomery has
introduced the tradition in his "World before the Flood."
The destruction of the Giants may refer to this event; or it may adum
brate the Tower of Babel, of which they had some knowledge. The
confusion of tongues, and the consequent division of the nations, in con
junction with the building of a city, is mentioned by Hyginus. Josephus
quotes the same from one of the Sibyls ; and Abydenus. speaking1 of it,
says: "When its top nearly reached the heavens, the winds, assisting
the gods, overturned the immense fabric upon the heads of the builders."
The anachronism of the event, as it occurred after the flood, and its con
nection with Olympus, are attributable to the chronological errors of tra
dition, and the natural pride of the Greeks, who would make their coun
try the theatre of all great events
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EYE ioret terns secunor arduus aetner, t
Affectasse ferunt regnurn cooleste Gigantas,
Altaque congestos struxisse ad sidera monies.
a Tum pater ornnipotens misso perfregit Olympum
NOTJE.
1. Neve. As the poet has been detailing the wicked
ness of men, the transition is easy and natural to the
attempt of the giants upon heaven.
1. Anluus (ether: the lofty sky.
2. Affectasse. By syncope for affectavi sc, affected ,
aimed at.
Wise are Ihy words, and (rlad I \iould obey, ,
Bul this proud man averts imperial sway.
2. Fnunl: they report; they say.
2. Eepnum caleste: t he celestial empire.
Ccclum irsum pelimus stnllitia. HORACE.
2. d lsanlaf. The giants were the sons of Tartarus
and Terra, or of Coalus and Terra, according toothers.
They were said to be of irightful appearance, of prodi
gious stature, and of inconceivable strength. They
were represented as having many heads and arms, and
the feet of serpents.
Grim forms, ami strong with force
Resistless: arms of hundred-handed gripe,
Burst from their shoulders; filly heads upgrew
From all tlieir shoulders o'er their nervy limbs. HESIOD.
When east down by Jupiter, many of them were re
ported to be buried under mountains, and by their
wrilhir-p to cause earthquakes. As Tartarus has been
located in the centre of the earth, where every thing is
supposed to he in a liquid state, on account of the heat,
their being the sons of Tartarus and Terra would seem
to designate them as the powerful forces of nature,
which give rise to earthquakes and volcanoes.