THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO

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FABULA VI.
ARCAS ET CALLISTO IN SIDERA MUTATI.
Areas, while hunting in the Erymanthian woods, meets with his mother Cal
listo, who had been changed into a bear, and not knowing who she is,
attempts to shoot her, when Jupiter int rposes to prevent the matricide,
and translates both Areas and his mother to the heavens, where they
form the constellation of the Two Bears.
EXPLICATIO.
ACCORDING to some, Callisto, after being changed to a bear, had entered
the sacred enclosure of the Lycffian Jupiter, which it was unlawful to
enter, and was about to be slaughtered by her son Areas and others,
when Jupiter interposed and transferred her to the skies. In this inter
pretation, we are given to understand, that after her departure from
female propriety, and leading, in consequence of shame, a solitary and
savage life, she entered the sacred temenus of the Lyccean Jove, which
was punishable with death, but escaped in some manner, probably
through the compassion of the priest of Jove, and was thus fabled to be
changed into the constellation known as the Bear.
Others, again, regarding the Lyctean Jupiter as a temporal prince, who
had assumed the name of a deity, to give dignity to his character, sup
pose, that in the wild state in which Areas and his mother lived, the for
mer attempted her life, and that the prince, by taking them to his palace
upon Mount Olympus, was fabled to translate them to heaven. Others,
again, suppose, that on account of her having been a noted huntress, she
was said to have been changed into a constellation, and that her son, in
like manner devoted to hunting, having died while he was young, was
fabled to have undergone a like transformation.
The poet has succeeded in his delineation of the passions of Juno, in
the most admirable manner; wounded pride, a sense of conjugal injury
and insulted majesty wrath, and a desire of revenge, appear in all that
she utters. The Queen of the celestials, leaving her throne and sceptre
to become a supplicant for justice against the injury of her bed and royal
majesty, is a sight full of humiliation, and well calculated to interest
Oceanus and Tethys for their foster-child. There is great poetical beauty
in calling Juno their foster-child; for Juno is said by Cicero to be the
lower air, which is formed by the evaporation of water.
The request that the Bears may n t be permitted to \\ash in the ocean,
is assumed by the poet, from the astronomical circumstance that the Bears
move ever around the pole, without descending into the sea, or setting.
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CCE Lycaonise proles ignara parenti
Areas adest, ter quinque fere natalibus nctis:
Dumque feras sequitur; dum saltus eligit aptos,
Nexilibusque plagis sylvas Erymanthidas ambit;
Incidit in matrem, quse restitit Arcade viso; 5
Et cognoscenti similis fuit. Ille refugit;
Immotosque oculos in se sine fine tenentem
Nescius extimuit; propriusque accedere aventi
Vulnifico fuerat fixurus pectora telo.
Arcuit omnipotens; pariterque ipsosque, nefasque 10
Sustulit; et celeri raptos per inania vento
NOTJE.
1. Js/caonia. Of Callisto, the daughter of Lycaon.
2. Ter quinque: fifteen birthdays being nearly past. He was now
nearly fifteen years of age.
4. fiexihbtts plagi : with plaited nets.
4. Sylvas Erymanihidas: the woods of Erymanthus, a mountain in
Arcadia, where the celebrated wild-boar was taken by Hercules.
5. Incidit in matrem: fell upon his mo- 11. Sustulit: took away; removed,
ther; met with his mother. 11. Haptos vento: rapt by a swift wind.
5. Qua rcslitit: who stopped; who In sublimity, how infinitely does this transstood
still. lation of a frail being fall beneath that of
6. Cognoscenti similis : like one know- Enoch or Elijah, removed in a chariot of
ing him; as if she knew him. flame, on account of spotless purity of life.
8. Nescius: ignorant that she was his And it came to pag9j as they ,liu wem on>
mother. _ an,l talked, that behold, there appeared a chn-
8. Aventi : of her desiring the dative not of fire, and horses of fire, and purled them
for the genitive. b * asunder; and Elijah went up by a wliirl-
9. Vulnijico tdo: with a wounding wind into heaven. _ *„,,.
j f J & And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father,
in 10. Arcatt: A • forbade; r u j prevented j i.- him from r T men father, thereof! the chariot And he of saw Israel, him no and more, the horseshooting
his mother. 2 KINGS, chap. >i.
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