THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO

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FABULA X.
REPARATIO GENERIS HUMANI.
Deucalion and Pyrrha having consulted tho oracle of Themis, relative to the
repeopling of the earth, are ordered to cast behind their backs the banes
of their great mother. After revolving the words of tho oracle, Deucalion
comes to the conclusion that their great mother is tho Earth, and that the
stones of the earth are the bones intended by the response. They cast
these behind their backs, and by degrees, the stones lay aside their rigar,
are mollified, increase in size, assume the forms of men and women, and
tscomc animated,
EXPLICATIO.
I.v attempting to explain this fable, some have vainly imagined that
Deucalion collected the rude people who survived the flood, and refined
their manners, and that, as xoo; signifies, at once, a stone and the people,
hence the myth arose of his making people out of stones. They forget,
however, that he and his wife alone survived the dslugc. I think, if \v<
will consult the Bible, we will find the true solution of the fable. The
impiety of mankind had caused the depopulation of the world, by the
Flood; piety was now to be the chief instrument in its speedy repeopling.
Accordingly, we find, GENESIS viii. 20, when he came forth from the ark,
" Noah buildcd an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast,
and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And
the Lord smelled a sweet savor. And God blessed Noah and his sons,
and said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth."
That a miraculous fruitfulness is intended, we may readily infer from a
repetition of the blessing a few verses after, while God still converses
with Noah and his offspring: " And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply;
bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein." How exceed
ingly rapid the increase of the population of the world was, we learn in
the succeeding chapter, where it is said of Nimrod, the great-grandson
of Noah, " He began to be a mighty one in the earth. And the beginning
of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the
land of Shinar," no less than four great cities. As Noah " builded" the
altar, it is evident that the altar was constructed of stones, sinre we find
altars similarly made, on different occasions, as recorded in the Bible ;
and the great fruitfulness with which God blessed Noah and his seed,
being in consequence of his pious offerings upon this stone altar, it is not
a very bold figure to represent the human race as reproduced thus from
stones. As Deucalion and Noah were the same individuals, the relevancy
is apparent. Besides this event, which may have given rise to the myth
of the poet, there is another in JOSHUA iv., where, after the miraculous
passage of the Jordan, the tribes took up stones upon their shoulders, ann
set them up as a memorial. It is not a little remarkable, that, in after
ages, standing by the Jordan, at Bethnbara, the house of passage, and
pointing probably to these very memorials, the Saviour used the remark
able language, " God is able of these stones to raise up children unto
Abraham." It is probably an obscure tradition of Noah's sacrifice, and
the consequent rapid repeopling of the earth, that Sanchoniatho, in Euso
bins, gives when he says, " When the god Uranus wished to animate
stones, he invented Jiaithiili." I have shown, in Fable IV., that these
Baithuli are stone alturs. 82
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ULLA mora est; adeunt pariter Cephisidas undas,
Ut nondum liquidas, sic jam vada nota secantes.
Inde ubi libatos irroravere liquores
Vestibus et capiti, flectunt vestigia sanctes
, Ad delubra Dese : quorum fastigia turpi 5
NOT^E.
1. Ctphisidas iindas: the waters of the Cephisus. The Cephisus
flows from Mount Parnassus, end passes by Delphi.
2. Vada nolo: the well-known channel. It was now contained
within its banks.
3. Lilatos liyuores: the consecrated waters.
3. Irroratcre: they sprinkled. It was the custom of the heathens,
when about to offer sacrifice, or enter their temples, to sprinkle them
selves with water, in token of purification.
, ,._. 4. Flectunl vestigia: bend their footsteps.
Tlien, with a rushing sound, the assembly bend
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Diverse their footsteps.—POPE.
'fc. 5. Delulira Deal: the clia- from which arose a hurmn body as n cen-
(~, pel of the goddess Themis, taur, with four heads, the head of a bull,
It is not a little remark- of a lion, of an eagle, and of a man, with
nblc that we find the Cherubim which were wings and hands full of eyes; and we a'c
placed at the entrance of the garden of cordingly find these forms in various com-
Eden, and subsequently upon the mercy- binations. The cloudy vapour said to arise
eeat of the ark, together with the ark it- in the temple at Delphi, through the tripod,
self, and the cloud of glory resting between which was anciently an imitation of the
the Cherubims, copied in the emblems and ark, was, no doubt, copied after the Sche
ceremonies of the Egyptians and Greeks, chinah of the Cherubim. In the temple o)
BS well as the other heathens. The sacred the Syrian goddess at Hierapolis, said to
Baris of Osiris, with nil its ceremonies, be built by Deucalion, the emblem " comwas
a commemoration of the deluge. The pounded of several divine forms," was
form of the Cherubim was that of a bull, doubtless the Cherubim; «na the moreflo,
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