THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO

FABULA V.
CALLISTO IN URSAM MUTATA.
Diana and her nymphs bathe in a fountain, when the unchastity of Callisto
is apparent. Diana drives her from her retinue, when shortly after she
gives birth to Areas. Juno, enraged at the injury of her bed, changes
Callisto into a bear.
EXPLICATIO.
THE name of the Parrhasian maiden who is the suhject of this fahle,
according to some, was Helice. It is most probable, then, that she was
called Callisto, which signifies most beautiful, because she received the
prize of beauty in the Callisteia, a festival observed among the Parrha-
sians, during which all the women presented themselves in the temple
of Juno, and the prize was assigned to the fairest. The story of her
being driven from the train of Diana, who is the goddess of chastity, is
merely intended to express the loss of character which she sustained as
soon as her immodesty became known. As she had received the prize
of beauty in the temple of Juno, it is possible, that after the loss of her
modesty, she was excluded from the religious ceremonies of the Callisteia
in the temple of that goddess, and that, under a sense of shame and de
gradation, she may have given herself up exclusively to the solitary pur
suits of hunting, and that hence, from her wild and savage life, and pro
bably the circumstance of her being clothed in the skins of beasts, the
story may have arisen of her being changed into a bear. As the Lycsean
prince who bore the name of Jupiter was the one who seduced her from
propriety, it was a poetic license to attribute her transformation into a
bear, otherwise her exclusion from the ceremonies of the Callisteia, which
took place in the temple of Juno, to the jealousy which that goddess is
reported to have entertained in all cases of aberration from marital pro
priety, upon the part of her liege lord.
Again, as the bear lives solitary, it may be regarded as an emblem of
that virginity which is best preserved when retired from the world.
Hence the fable may have arisen from the corruption of a virgin by a
priest of Jupiter. The following justifies this conclusion: Eustathius, a
scholiast on Homer, says: " A young bear born under the altar of the
temple of Diana, was taken by the Athenians and put to death, for which
"the goddess sent a famine upon the city. 'That bear,' says the scholiast,
'was certainly a young maid, who had consecrated her virginity to
Diana, and who wished to live retired from the world, from under the
shade of whose altars she was taken by force, to be given in marriage.'"
Others suppose that Callisto, entering a cavern, was eaten up by a
bear, and that afterwards the bear emerging from the cave, was said to
be the metamorphosed maiden. The metamorphosis of Callisto into a
bear, after the loss of her virtue, contains a good moral, for it shows, that
unchastity transforms even the most beautiful maid into a beast the most
unsightly and destructive.
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resurgebant lunaria comua nono;
Cum Dea venatrix fraternis languida flammis,
Nacta nemus gelidum, de quo cum munnure labens
Ibat, et attritas versabat rivus arenas.
Ut loca laudavit; suminas pede contigit undas ;
His quoque laudatis : Procul est, ait, arbiter omnis :
Kuda superfusis tingamus corpora lymphis.
Parrhasis erubuit: cunctro velamina ponunt:
Una moras qiiEcrit: dubitanti vestis adempta est:
Qua posita nudo patuit cum corpore crimen.
NOT^E.
1. Orbenono: in her ninth orb; in the ninth month. The moon
renews her orb every month.
Oh. swear not h> the rnoon. the inconstant rnoon
That monthly rhinites in lit-r circled orb. SIIAKSPKADE.
2. Vtnalrix Dea: t he huntress goddess, viz. Diena.
2. Fraleruis flammis: by the heat of her brother; by the rays'of the
sun, her brother.
3. Cum murmure: with a murmur. 5. Pede contigit: patted with her foot.
The silvery glf aming rills
C. Prorulest: is ufar. There is no wit
Lure with soft nmrmurx from the glassy lea. ness nenr ns.
w. J . PABODIE. 7. Tingamus corpora: let us lave our
The streamlet, gurgling through its rorky glen. bodies.
FIERPOIST. 6. c. Parrhasis: j-utiiutsis; the uiu Parrhasian, x iinnusian, viz. Cal-
5. Ut loca laudavit : after she praised listo, who was born in Parrhasia.
the «; place. ij>i«^.. y. 9. uuviianii Dulitanliadnnpta: aatmpie.: is is tnKen tnken irorn from ner her
5. Siimmas undas: t he surface of the as she delays. This was-probably done in
water.
sportive playfulness.
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