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