THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO

FABULA I.
REGIA SOLIS; SOLARIS CURRUS.
A description of the Palace of the Sun. Phaethon arrives at the Palace, and
while admiring every thing that he sees, is discovered by his father, and
acknowledged as his son. As a public proof of his descent, he demands
and obtains the guidance of the solar chariot. Description of the chariot.
EXPLICATIO.
THE description which the poet gives of the Palace of the Sun, is con
ceived with much ingenuity, and embellished with great art. The ideas
he has introduced, like the gems and precious stones employed in the
structure of the palace, are not merely splendid and magnificent in
themselves, but are wrought up with skill so consummate, that it may be
said of the production of the poet, as of the architect, " the workmanship
surpassed the material." The temple which Augustus erected to
Apollo, and the Pakce of the Sun, described by Ovid, is a pictorial
representation of the Universe, in which the sea, the earth, and the hea
vens are given with their appurtenances and inhabitants. The Sun him
self, as the great ruler of the system, is appropriately placed upon a
throne in the centre, and surrounded by allegorical personages, denoting
the different portions of time, the hours, days, months, years, seasons, and
ages, determined by his motions and revolutions. It is not a little remark
able, that Josephus considers the tabernacle of the Jews, in like manner,
an " imitation and representation of the UNIVERSE." The two divisions
of the tabernacle, accessible and common, he regarded as denoting the
earth and the sea, which were common to all; the third division, or holy
of holies, as representing heaven, which was inaccessible to men. The
seven lamps he considered the seven planets, and the twelve loaves of
bread, the twelve months of the year. The vails, of four different mate
rials, denoted the four elements; the linen signified the earth, from which
it grew; the purple, the sea, because from the blood of a marine shell
fish ; the blue denoted the air, and the scarlet, fire. The linen of the
high priest's vesture typified the earth; the blue, the sky; its pomegra
nates resembled lightning; its bells imitated thunder. The breast-plate
in the middle of the ephod was the earth; the blue girdle of the priest
vas the ocean that surrounded the earth. The sardonyxes on the priest's
shoulders denoted the sun and mocn; the twelve stones were the twelve
signs of the zodiac. The blue mitre, with the name of God upon it, was
heaven; and the crown of gold denoted the light and splendor in which
God dwelt.
The poet has sustained himself well in the description of the chariot of
the Sun, and of the fiery-footed coursers that wheel it through the immense
of heaven; nor has he succeeded less happily in portraying the fiery
energy and daring of the adventurous youth, and the anxiety and grief
that afflicts the sorrowing father, as he commits tc the hands of his child
the chariot which is to prove his destruction.
126
;EGIA Sotis erat sublimibus alta columnis,
£ Clara micante auro, flammasque imitante pyropo :
Cujus ebur nitidum fastigia summa tegebat :
Argenti bifores radiabant lumine valvse.
M:iteriem superabat opus : nam Mulciber illic
^Equora crelarat medias cingentia terras,
Terrarumque orbem, coslumque quod imminet orbi.
1. fiegia. Some suppose that Ovid, in giving nn account of the
Palace of the Sun, described the temple which was dedicated to Apollo
by Augustus, but it is more agreeable to truth, to suppose, that the
poet, like Phaeihon, " concipit trthtro mente," and drew upon his own
imagination for the principtil part ot the description.
1. Sublimitus columnis: on lofty columns.
2. Alicante auro : with burnished gold. To denote the splendor of
the sun, all the materials of the palace are of the most glittering kind.
2. Pyo/ie. Pliny, in Lib. x\iv. Cap. 8, describes the pyrope as a
mixed metal, composed of three parts of brass and one part of gold.
Propcrtius, also, Lib. iv. Elcg. 11, describes it as a metal:
By others it is considered a gem. The
etymology is tip, fre, and