THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
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90 P. <strong>NASO</strong>NIS<br />
Nilus, et antique sua flumina reddidit alveo,<br />
^Ethereoque recens exarsit sidere limus ;<br />
Plurima cuJlores versis animalia glebis 10<br />
Inveniunt: et in his quoedam mode coepta sub ipsum<br />
Nascendi spatium: qusedam imperfecta, suisque<br />
Trunca vident numeris: et eodem in corpore ssepe<br />
Altera pars vivit, rudis est pars altera tellus.<br />
Quippe ubi temperiem sumsere humorque calorque, 15<br />
Concipiunt: et ab his oriuntur cuncta duobus.<br />
Cumque sit ignis aquse pugnax, vapor humidus omnes<br />
Res creat, et discors concordia fetibus apta est.<br />
Ergo ubi diluvio teJlus lutulenta recenti<br />
Solibus cethereis, altoque recanduit EEstu; 20<br />
Edidit innumeras species : partimque figuras<br />
empties into the Mediterranean. Of the<br />
seven mouths, but two remain, the Ro-<br />
eetta branch, (Ostium Canopicum,) and the<br />
Damietta branch, (Oslium Phatmeticum,)<br />
which, together with the Mediterranean<br />
Sea, form the Delta of Egypt. The pe<br />
riodical rains in Abyssinia, which occur<br />
when the sun is vertical there, cause the<br />
Nile to overflow its banks about the first<br />
of June. The inundation continues till<br />
September, or even October, and fertilizes<br />
the country by a rich deposit of alluvian.<br />
The river Nile:<br />
See vhere it flows, disgorging at seven mouths,<br />
Into the sea. MU.TOX.<br />
9. JEthereo sidere : the ethereal planet;<br />
the sun.<br />
9. Recens limus: the fresh mud.<br />
9. Eicarsit: lias become heated.<br />
10. Cultores: the husbandmen.<br />
10. Versis elefiis: on the sod being turned<br />
tip; viz. by the plough.<br />
11. Inveniunt: they find many animals.<br />
Certain insects and worms may be pro<br />
duced from corruption, but by no means<br />
animals, as related by the poet. He seems<br />
to have copied after Diodorus Siculus and<br />
Pliny.<br />
11. Sub ipsum spatium: at the very time<br />
of being formed.<br />
13. Trunca numeris: destitute of their<br />
parts.<br />
The grassy clods now calved; now half ap<br />
peared<br />
The tawny lion, pawing to get free<br />
His himler parts; then springs, as hroke from<br />
bonds.<br />
And rampant shakes his brindled mane. MILTOX.<br />
14. A ltera pars vivit: one part is alive ;<br />
ia quickened.<br />
By the movements of the atmosphere, the ig<br />
neous parts rose, which gave tc the sun and<br />
other heavenly bodies their rotatory inovt-ment:<br />
and a solid matlcr was precipitated to form the<br />
sea and earth, from which fish and animals were<br />
produced, nearly in the same manner as \vestill<br />
see in Egypt, where an infinity of insects and<br />
NOTjE.<br />
LlBEK I.<br />
7. Sic ubi scptcm-<br />
fluus Nilus deseruit<br />
madidos agros, et red<br />
didit sua ftumiua anti-<br />
quo alveo, que recens<br />
limus exarsit sethereo<br />
sidere; cultores iiivc-<br />
niunt plurima anima<br />
lia versis glebis: et<br />
qusedam in his moJtk<br />
ccepta sub ipsum<br />
15. Quippe ubi hn<br />
morque calorque<br />
sumsere tempericm,<br />
concipiuiit: et cuncta<br />
oriuntur ab his duo-<br />
bus. Cumque ignis<br />
sit pugnax aqua;,<br />
19. Ergo ubi tellus,<br />
lutulenta recenti dilu<br />
vio, recanduit cethe-<br />
leis solibus altoque<br />
other creatures come forth from the mud, after<br />
it has been inundated by the waters of the Nile.<br />
DIODORUS SICULUS, Lib. ii. 7.<br />
But the inundation of the Nile hrings a cre<br />
dence to these things that surpasses all won<br />
ders, for when it retires, little mice are formed,<br />
the work of the genital \vuter and earth haying<br />
just commenced, being already quickened in a<br />
part of the body, the extreme part of their form<br />
being still earth. PLINIUS, Lib. ix. 53.<br />
14. Sudis tellus: rude earth; mere<br />
earth. This statement is utterly prepos<br />
terous.<br />
15. Sumsere temperiem : have assumed<br />
temperateriess.<br />
16. Concipiunt. The poet shows that the<br />
principle of generation depends on a dtte<br />
mixture of heat and moisture.<br />
17. Aqwe pugnax: opposed, repugnant<br />
to water.<br />
17. Humidus vapor: humid vapor; moist<br />
heat; a proper mixture of heat and moist<br />
ure.<br />
From hence we may conclude, that, as all<br />
parts of the world are sustained by heat, tho<br />
world itself lias so long subsisted from the same<br />
cause; and the ralher, becanse it is observable<br />
that it communicales a generative virtue, to<br />
which all animals and vegetables must neces<br />
sarily owe their birth and increase. CICERO OS<br />
<strong>THE</strong> GODS.<br />
18. Discors concordia: discordant con<br />
cord ; the union of the opposite principles,<br />
heat and moisture. These words consti<br />
tute the figure called Oxymoron, which, in<br />
a seeming contradiction, unites contraries.<br />
Grammar, p. 210.<br />
When the logos composed the Universe, it<br />
made one concord out of many discords. Pa-<br />
TAKCII ON ISIS AND OsiaiS.<br />
18 Ftetibus: for birth ; for reproduction.<br />
20 Recanduit: became heated again.<br />
21 Figuras antiqitas -• the ancient forms;<br />
viz. ihe" animals that existed before the<br />
deluge.<br />
21. Partimane rettulit •• partly restored.<br />
Many antediluvian animals are believed<br />
not to have been reproduced. There is a<br />
peculiarity in the words jiguras antiqual<br />
FABCLA XI. METAMORPHOSED N.<br />
Rettulit antiquas, partim nova monstra creavit.<br />
Ilia quidem nollet, sed te quoque, maxime Python,<br />
Turn genuit; populisque novis, incognito serpens,<br />
Terror eras : tantum spatii de monte tenebas.<br />
Hunc Deus arcitenens, et nunquam talibus armis<br />
Ante, nisi in damis, capreisque fugacibus, usus,<br />
Mille gravem telis, exhausta pene pharetra,<br />
NOTjE.<br />
that would indicate something of great<br />
bulk, huge and gigantic. Many of the ex<br />
tinct animals were of vast dimensions, aa<br />
the mastodon, megatherium, paUeothe-<br />
lium, cheropotamus, iguanadon, and the<br />
different gigantic sauria.<br />
22. -ZVoun monstra: new monsters. The<br />
production, in part, of new monsters,<br />
would antithetically indicate as monsters<br />
the antiquas Jiguras that had been partially<br />
restored.<br />
23. Ilia : she ; viz. the earth.<br />
23. Nollet: might be unwilling; might<br />
shudder at the idea.<br />
23. Python. A serpent sprung from the<br />
mud and stagnant waters of the deluge,<br />
and slain by Apollo. Some mythologists<br />
suppose it was produced from the earth,<br />
by Juno, and sent to persecute Lalona,<br />
\vhen about to give birth to Apollo and<br />
Diana; and that Apollo, as soon as born,<br />
destroyed it with his arrows.<br />
This ineffectual effort of the Evil-being,<br />
in the form of n serpent or dragon, to de<br />
stroy the Mediator at his birth, and the<br />
discomfiture of the dragon by ihc Mediator,<br />
has a beautiful connection with the Egyp<br />
tian myth, and the passages in Isaiah,<br />
quoted tn the explicatio of the fable; and<br />
reminds one forcibly of the efforts of the<br />
dragon in the Apocalypse. In this latter,<br />
. there is an evident adumbration of the<br />
destruction at the flood, and of the binh<br />
of the Mediator, as well as the after-pre<br />
servation of the Christian church.<br />
And there appeared a great wonder in hea<br />
ven ; a worn on clothed with the sun, and the<br />
moon under her feel, and upon her head a<br />
crown of twelve stars;<br />
And she being with child, cried, travailing in<br />
birth, and pained to be delivered.<br />
And there appeared another wonder in hea<br />
ven; and behold n great red dragon, having<br />
seven heads mid ten horns, and seven crowns<br />
upon his heads.<br />
And the dragon stood before the woman<br />
which was ready to be delivered, for to devour<br />
her child as soon as it was born.<br />
And the serpent cast out of his mouth water<br />
as a flood after the woman, Hint he might cause<br />
her to he curried away of the flood.<br />
And the enrth lielped the womnn. and the<br />
earth opened her mouth, nnd swallowed up the<br />
flood which the d ragon cast out of his mouth.<br />
REVELATION, xii.<br />
By Python in this fable, is meant the<br />
darkness of the deluge, and the poisonous<br />
exhalations that followed it. It is the Ty-<br />
phori of the Egyptians.<br />
91<br />
aestu; edidit nnumc-<br />
ras species: partim<br />
que rettulit amiquat<br />
figuras, partim crea-<br />
vit nova monstra.<br />
Illaquidemnollet.sed<br />
turn genuit te quoque.<br />
20. Deus arcitenens,<br />
et nunquam ante usui<br />
talibus armis, nisi in<br />
damis. fugacibusque<br />
It (Typhon or Python) becomes, in the earth,<br />
the cause of concussions and shakings, and, in<br />
the air, of parching droughts and tempestuous<br />
winds, as also of hurricanes and thunders. It<br />
likewise infects both waters and winds with<br />
pestilential diseases, and runs up and insolently<br />
rages, and, as the Egyptians believe, one while<br />
smote Horus's eye. PLUTARCH'S Isis AND<br />
OSIRIS.<br />
The furious Typhon, who 'gainst all the gods<br />
Made wnr; his horrid jaws, with serpent hiss,<br />
Breathed slaughter; from his eyes the gorgon<br />
glare<br />
Of baleful lightnings flashed, as his proud force<br />
Would rend from Jove his empire of the sky.<br />
Turn tellus gravis imbre et adhuc stagnantibus<br />
undis<br />
Humida. anhela, vagos tollebat ad Eethera tortus,<br />
Involvens ccelum nube, et caligine opaca;<br />
lime ilie imiiianis Python. PONT. MELA.<br />
Ner {Ibe Ocean) produced, out of the number<br />
of vipers, one huge viper, with excess of wmd-<br />
iugs. CYNDDELW <strong>THE</strong> DRUID.<br />
24. Incognite serpens: serpent unknown<br />
before; or a kind with which they were<br />
not acquainted.<br />
Nor unknown<br />
The serpent, subtlest beast of all the field,<br />
Of hugt: extent, sometimes with brazeu eyes<br />
And hairy mane terrific. MILTON.<br />
25. Tantum spatii : so great a space of<br />
the mountain you occupied.<br />
26. Deus arcilenens: the bow-bearing<br />
god; viz. Apollo. This epithet is bor<br />
rowed from Homer's ro^fpos, in the hymn<br />
to Apollo.<br />
In the Egyptian mythology, Horus, or<br />
Apollo, \e the second person of the Triad,<br />
and corresponds to our second person in<br />
the Trinity. He is the same as the Per<br />
sian Mithras, (Mediator,) who was re<br />
garded as the sun, and as light; the same<br />
as the Indian Vishnoo, who, in the avatar<br />
of Crishna, slays the serpent Caliya, who<br />
is biting his heel; and is also the same as<br />
the Gothic Thor, whom the Edda styles<br />
"a middle divinity, a mediator between<br />
God and man," and who bruises the head<br />
of the great serpent with his mace.<br />
When the deluge hnd ceased, Vishnoo »lcw the<br />
demon and recovered the Vcdas; instructed<br />
Satyavrala in divine knowledge, and appointed<br />
him the seventh Menu. IKDIAK BHAGAVAT.<br />
26. Talibus armis: such arms; viz. ar<br />
rows.<br />
27. flisi in damis: unless in the case ol<br />
the deer; in the character of a hunter.<br />
28. Gravem: loaded ; weighed down.<br />
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