Shakespeare
alluded to the story at many periods of his liter-
ary career.
ary career.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v1
Finding their parents opposed to their marriage,
they planned to flee covertly. The plan miscarried and both perished.
Pyramus became a large river coursing southward to the coast of
Cilicia, Thisbe a neighboring spring. This version was mentioned
long after by Nonnus.
An unknown Alexandrian author contemporary with Nicander
transferred the myth northeastward to Babylon and gave it a different
ending. Blood of the dying Pyramus, he said, darkened the fruit of a
mulberry tree, and Thisbe prayed that the berries might retain their
new color as a perpetual reminder of the event. She herself did not
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? PYRAMUS AND THISBE
experience a metamorphosis. This version appeared in a Pompeian
fresco of Thisbe's death.
Ovid retold the tale with admirable brevity and beauty. In a few
words he named the lovers; indicated the setting; and mentioned their
affection, which was occasioned by proximity and grew stronger with
parental opposition. Then he recorded the discovery of a hidden
fissure in the wall dividing their houses and the naive converse of the
lovers until nightfall. Indicating with a few poetic touches the return
of day, he outlined their plan to escape that night and meet under a
tall mulberry tree by the tomb of Ninus. Although concise, he de-
scribed the scene graphically.
Thisbe, he said, arrived safely at the tree but fled at the approach
of a lioness, leaving behind her cloak. The lioness, fresh from devour-
ing cattle, rent and stained it with her bloody jaws. The incident
was probable and effective, but Ovid made it less credible by adding
that first the lioness drank abundantly from a nearby spring.
Pyramus, arriving soon after, discovered the bloody cloak and the
tracks of the beast. Imagining that Thisbe had perished, he held him-
self to blame and imprudently resolved to kill himself at once. Fatally
wounded by his sword, he lay struggling under the mulberry tree, and
his blood soaking into the earth passed upwards through the roots to
darken the snow white berries overhead. The idea was plausible and
striking. But for more graphic effect, Ovid added that the blood
spurted also, like water from a lead pipe, and shot high enough to
sprinkle the fruit of the tall tree? a detail which was neither probable
nor happy. If
Thisbe returned timidly and was at first doubtful whether this
could really be the appointed place. In the uncertain moonlight and
at a time of great agitation, her doubt was very natural. But Ovid
imagined that she was perplexed by the altered color of the mulberries.
For the conclusion of the tale, it was essential that Thisbe should
notice the change. Yet Ovid introduced the discovery under improb-
able circumstances. Thisbe would have neither light nor leisure for
so nice an observation. Ovid then described effectively her terror at
seeing her dying lover and her frantic efforts to rouse him. And he
added that on hearing her loved name, Pyramus opened his eyes;
recognized her; and sank to death. Ovid recorded effectively the final
request of Thisbe; her death on her lover's sword; and the burial of the
unfortunate lovers in a common urn.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
In this tale Ovid found a theme of perennial interest. His treat-
ment was good, not only in the main incidents but in many beautiful
details. The faults were confined to non-essentials. And Ovid's was
the only lengthy account which still survived in medieval and modern
times.
The Roman mythographer Hyginus repeated the tale briefly, fol-
lowing Ovid's version.
In medieval Latin the story soon attracted attention. A German
named Wibert, writing near the middle of the eleventh century, quoted
in his Life of Leo Ovid's words to the effect that the more a fire is
covered the hotter it burns. Two unknown Latin poets retold the
story in the thirteenth century. And Gower repeated it in his Con-
fessio Amantis.
Meanwhile the tale of Pyramus had attracted vernacular poets of
northern France. About the middle of the twelfth century an un-
known author made a free translation of it. Chretien de Troyes used
the tale repeatedly. In his Erec he showed the hero believing mis-
takenly that his lady was dead and planning suicide; in his Lancelot
he showed both hero and heroine making the mistake and preparing
to die. But in both cases Chretien avoided a tragic ending. For his
Yvain Chretien adapted many of Ovid's incidents in the following
curious form: Yvain arrived at a certain large tree, shading a spring
and not far from a small building. Fainting with grief and weariness,
he accidentally wounded himself. His tame lion, coming upon him,
believed him dead and ran on the sword. Yvain, reviving, guessed the
cause of the faithful creature's death and would have killed himself
for grief. But Lunete, calling from the building, diverted his atten-
tion. He discovered that she was imprisoned but he was able to con-
verse with her through a fissure in the wall. ^
Not long after Chretien's time, Jean Bonnard retold Ovid's myth
while translating the tale of Susanna. A lost Book of Pyramus re-
peated the story at some length and probably in the manner of con-
temporary Arthurian romance. Towards the middle of the thirteenth
century an unknown poet told the story again, with needless elabora-
tion of incident and much supersubtle analysis of love. He gave
special attention to the converse of the lovers through the wall, ex-
panding twenty-eight lines of Ovid to six hundred of his own! And
the incident of the dying Pyramus opening his eyes to look on Thisbe
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? PYRAMUS AND THISBE
inspired a similar incident in a fourteenth century treatment of Nar-
cissus.
The tale of Pyramus was popular also outside France. Lesser
poets repeated it in German and Dutch. In all countries of western
Europe, the story was taught in the schools and became a theme for
rhetorical exercises of the clergy. It was repeated orally by unedu-
cated and spread slowly eastward until at length de Remusat found
it circulating even in China.
Dante shared the interest of his time. In his treatise on Monarchy
he went quite out of his way to cite the lines where Ovid mentioned
Ninus and Semiramis. He returned to the myth twice in his Purgatorio.
When Vergil reminded him that beyond the flames was Beatrice,
Dante responded to her dear name as promptly as the dying Pyramus
fo that of Thisbe. And a few cantos later Beatrice explained to
Dante that he failed to discern the meaning of a sacred tree because
vain thoughts darkened his mind as the blood of Pyramus darkened
the mulberries. Boccacio told of Pyramus in his Fiametta and again
in his treatise, Famous Women. Petrarch mentioned Pyramus and
Thisbe in his Triumph of Love.
Chaucer found the subject of special interest. In the Merchant's
Tale he cited the discovery of the hidden fissure in the wall and com-
mended Ovid for observing how skilfully lovers find a way. The
Parliament of Fowls referred to the story as painted on the walls of a
temple of Venus. And in the Legend of Good Women Chaucer named
Thisbe among famous beauties of old and later retold the story in full.
He expanded Ovid's account pleasantly, treating with even more deli-
cacy the terror and laments of the unhappy lovers; but he was unduly
anxious to show that women are the more loyal. The darkening of
the mulberries he carefully omitted.
Boiardo and Camoens both associated the mulberry with Ovid's
tragic story. Tasso remembered that nearness and early association
caused the love of Pyramus and Thisbe and attributed the same ex-
perience to his Aminta and Silvia. In his Jerusalem Delivered the inci-
dent of Pyramus opening his eyes reappeared effectively when Erminia
met with the wounded and unconscious Tancred. And Tasso retold
Ovid's entire story more than once in his minor writings.
Castillejo treated the myth of Pyramus in narrative verse. Monte-
mayor treated it in prose. Gongora used it for an unsuccessful bur-
lesque. And many lesser dramatists of Spain and other countries
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
made either serious or comic versions during the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries.
Shakespeare alluded to the tale gracefully, first in Titus Andronicus
and then in The Merchant of Venice. His Midsummer Night's Dream
presented the story at some length as a farcical play within the play.
Milton recalled Ovid's statement that the night went forth from
the same waves which had received the setting sun. In Comus the Lady
says
They left me then when the greyhooded Even,
Like a sad Votarist in palmer's weeds,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.
Nicholas Manuel painted Pyramus. Burne Jones depicted sepa-
rately both Pyramus and Thisbe. Gliick used the story for an opera,
which though unsuccessful gave valuable training for his subsequent
triumphs.
Until the sixteenth century, Ovid's Pyramus and Thisbe continued
without rival as the master tale of star crossed love. But the myth
had lingered on in its native Asia Minor. During the middle ages
another version with different names for the two lovers passed west-
ward into Italy and by the time of Dante had been localized in Verona.
Gradually the new story attracted more and more attention. It inter-
ested all western Europe during the sixteenth century and culminated
in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare, too, showed the
young lovers meeting parental opposition, the attempted escape and
seeming death of the heroine, the resulting tragedy. But he endowed
the story with a more intense and varied interest and a still greater
wealth of poetry. The new masterpiece proved even better and more
popular than the old. Thereafter Romeo and Juliet displaced its
older rival, and Pyramus and Thisbe was known chiefly from the bur-
lesque in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Mars and Venus
To Leuconoe, the second narrator, Ovid gave first a brief tale of
Mars and Venus. The story did not itself include a metamorphosis,
but it prepared the way for a longer story about the origin of frank-
incense.
Both Mars and Venus were deities acquired by the Greeks from
neighboring peoples. Mars came from Thrace; Venus from the Semitic
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? MARS AND VENUS
nations of Asia Minor. Before historic times they joined the Greek
deities on Olympus. The Iliad presented Mars as the son of Jupiter
and Juno, Venus as the daughter of Jupiter and the goddess Dione.
And, although Mars was uncongenial to Greece, both Mars and Venus
were honored later as if they had been native deities. Often they were
said to have an honorable affection for each other. This may have
been implied even in the Iliad. The Theogony made them husband and
wife and parents of Harmonia, the bride of Cadmus. The same tra-
dition inspired those beautiful lines in which Lucretius prayed that
Venus might persuade her lover to end the Roman civil wars. And
Ovid, following the Manual, implied in his tale of Cadmus (Bk. 3)
that Mars and Venus were lawful parents of Harmonia.
But neither Mars nor Venus obtained full honor at once. The
Greeks thought of them, for a considerable period, as alien deities
belonging chiefly to rude Thrace and self-indulgent Asia. The Iliad
showed them overthrown and ridiculed by the Greek Athena and often
referred to Mars as vanquished in battle or in other ways ignomini-
ously treated.
In a similar spirit the Odyssey narrated their love for each other.
Vulcan in this account was the lawful husband of Venus. Mars was
an adulterer who incurred a memorable disgrace. The story, sung
by a bard named Demodocus, was to the following effect: Mars, finding
Venus in Vulcan's palace, won her by many gifts. The Sun observed
them and informed Vulcan. To punish the lovers, Vulcan made a
great number of chains, fine as threads of the spider and invisible even
to the gods, yet so strong that they could not be loosed or broken.
With these he contrived a net over his couch and chamber. Then he
pretended to depart on a journey. Mars entered immediately; found
Venus; and persuaded her to lie down with him on the couch. At
once they were trammeled so firmly that they could not move a limb.
* Vulcan then summoned the gods and denounced the guilty pair. All
'the gods came and laughed infinitely at the cleverness of the trap.
Apollo and Mercury suggested that the ignominy would be quite
tolerable, with Venus as a partner. But Neptune, thinking that the
jest had gone too far, persuaded Vulcan to set the lovers free.
The famous scandal was recalled often in Greek literature and art.
Some writers declared that Mars and Venus were the parents of at
least three illegitimate children. A Pompeian mural naively repre-
sented them as employing a dog to guard against surprise.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
Ovid had retold the story already in his Art of Love. A lover, he
said, should beware of exposing the infidelity of his 'mistress. Let him
remember the experience of Vulcan. Accepting the courtship of Mars,
Venus often delighted him by ridiculing the lameness and hard hands
of Vulcan. Yet at first the guilty lovers acted with caution and
reserve. Ovid then repeated briefly the story in the Odyssey. After
that, he said, Mars and Venus had nothing to lose by further dis-
covery, and Vulcan often wished that he had allowed them to conceal
their guilt.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid used the tale as cause of hostility be-
tween Venus and the Sun. Again he followed briefly the incidents given
by the Odyssey, toning down its irreverent humor. But he added the
dismay of Vulcan when he learned the evil news and he elaborated in-
terestingly the account of the marvellous chains. In this passage
Ovid did not imply that the guilty courtship continued after the dis-
grace.
The Art of Love and the Metamorphoses afforded the best known,
and for many centuries the only, accounts of Mars and Venus. Dur-
ing both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the tale enjoyed great
popularity.
Jean de Meun repeated Ovid's account in the Romance of the Rose.
Petrarch saw Mars and Venus led captive in the triumph of Love.
Chaucer used the tale for a display of wit and metrical skill: in' the
Complaint of Mars he showed the god lamenting the cruel manner in
which the Sun had parted him from his loved Venus. Chaucer repre-
sented the three deities as the heavenly luminaries which bear their
names and showed them acting in accord with medieval astronomy.
But at the same time he presented Mars and Venus as a medieval
knight and lady guided by the rules of Courtly Love. Vulcan, who
had no place in astronomy, he carefully omitted. In the Knight's
Tale Chaucer recalled Ovid briefly more than once. Spenser associated
the story of Mars and Venus with that of Daphne. Venus, he said,
avenged herself by causing the Sun god to love the unresponsive
nymph.
Shakespeare alluded to the story at many periods of his liter-
ary career. In Venus and Adonis he gave a quite long and charming
description of the courtship. And he referred to Ovid briefly in Titus
Andronicus, Troilus and Cressida, Antony and Cleopatra, and The
Tempest.
The myth of Mars and Venus attracted the painters Botticelli,
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? LEUCOTHOE AND CLYTIE
Cosimo, Paris Bordone, Vanloo, Mignard, Lagrene, Hubert, and
Boucher.
Leucothoe and Clytie
In the tale of Mars and Venus, Ovid had shown why the goddess was
angry with the informing Sun. The story of Leucothoe and Clytie
showed how she avenged herself by making him unhappy in love. This
story, like its predecessor, was told by Leuconoe to the other daugh-
ters of Minyas.
Hesiod appears to have been the earliest author who recorded the
myth. He showed Venus resenting the Sun's disclosure of her adultery
and punishing him with an ill starred affection. In his account
Leucothoe (the Swift White One) was the Moon, who was attended
by her twelve handmaidens, the Months. The rest of the tale has been
lost.
*
An unknown Alexandrian author retold the story with many
changes. He made it one of several tales localized in the distant and
marvellous East. Leucothoe became an oriental princess. Her father
was Orchamus (Ruler) and her mother Eurynome (Wide Ruling).
Her father governed the famous empire of Persia, but he may have
resided in the far southern province of Arabia Sabaea. In this region
Leucothoe was born and grew up, the most beautiful of eastern maid-
ens. The Sun loved her. Taking the form of her mother, Eurynome,
he visited her one night; revealed himself; and made known his affec-
tion. Flattered by the courtship of so glorious a suitor, Leucothoe
accepted him. But another maiden, Clytie (the Praised One), had
loved the Sun without avail. Displeased that he should prefer
Leucothoe, Clytie informed the savage father Orchamus. In vain
Leucothoe pretended that she had been overcome by violence. Deaf
to all excuses, Orchamus caused her to be buried alive under a great
heap of sand. The Sun exhumed, but could not revive, her. In com-
pensation he transformed her to the shrub frankincense, which the
Greeks thought of as native to the sunlit deserts of Arabia, although
in fact it grew chiefly on the opposite coast of Africa. Then the god
inflicted on Orchamus the same cruel death to which he had sentenced
his daughter.
By the destruction of Leucothoe, Clytie hoped to become in her
turn the beloved of the Sun. But he still ignored her. Nine days she
sat observing his course through the heavens, languishing and fasting.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
Then she changed into the heliotrope, a purple flower which was
thought always to turn in the direction of the Sun. This flower the
Alexandrian author compared to a purple violet. Similar compari-
son of a new flower to another supposedly familiar flower occurred
in Alexandrian accounts of Hyacinthus and Adonis (cf. Bk. 10) and
in all three tales Ovid retained the comparison. For the modern
reader it tends to confuse the effect.
To the Alexandrian version Ovid referred in his Ibis. Orchamus,
he observed, buried his daughter in lowest Tartarus, and the Sun did
the same to him.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid followed his Alexandrian predecessor
by pointing out first that Venus caused the passion of the Sun. By
the example of the Theogony and the Manual, he made the god a child
of Hyperion and, in accord with many Alexandrian and Roman
authors, he identified him with Apollo.
Then Ovid dwelt at some length on the extraordinary effect of the
Sun's violent love. Eager to behold Leucothoe, he declared, the Sun
rose earlier than his appointed time and lingered after he should have
set. Thus he gave undue length to the hours of the winter day. To
Ovid's Roman audience the expression would have appeared wonder-
fully exact. An "hour" in their system of reckoning was not a fixed
interval of time: it was an interval which lengthened or shortened
according to the season. Between dawn and dusk, the sun would pass
invariably over the same area of their sun dials, and this area they
divided into twelve equal sections called "hours. " Throughout the
year, therefore, the Sun would always record twelve "hours" of day-
light, but he would record them slowly in the long days of summer and
quickly in the brief days of winter. Hence the "hours" of summer
should be long intervals of time, and those of winter should be short.
But this law the Sun was too much in love to remember.
In other ways, Ovid continued, the Sun revealed his unusual agita-
tion. Often he grew faint and lost his normal brilliance. And this
was no ordinary eclipse from the intervention of the moon. The Sun
even forgot his sweethearts of an earlier time. Of these Ovid men-
tioned three. One was Clymene, the mother of Phaethon (Bk. 2) ; an-
other was Persis, whom the Odyssey made parent of Aeetes and Circe;
and the last was Rhodes, a nymph personifying the well known Medi-
terranean island. Pindar had recorded that Jupiter, dividing the
earth among his divine followers, forgot the Sun but afterwards
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? SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITUS
created for him Rhodes, the island nymph, who bore him seven
sons.
Thus Ovid emphasized this part of the tale effectively for his coun-
trymen, giving it a new relation not only to contemporary science but
also to other myths of the famous past. He then identified briefly the
maiden Leucothoe, who had been the occasion for these remarkable
changes. Following the example of Horace, he declared that
Leucothoe excelled in beauty even her beautiful mother and he referred
to Persia "as the cities of Achaemenes," their mythical founder.
Before returning to the Alexandrian version, Ovid added the pic-
turesque idea that after the toilsome day the Sun allowed his horses
to feed on ambrosia in pastures below the western sky. This was not
easily reconciled with their being ready in the east at dawn. Ovid
retold effectively the incident of the Sun's disguise and courtship.
But he was careful to show that at first Leucothoe was terrified and
to leave the reader uncertain whether she yielded willingly or was
overcome by force. He made it seem more justifiable for her to tell
Orchamus that the Sun had acted against her wish. He repeated the
Alexandrian author's account of Leucothoe's death and transforma-
tion. The punishment of Orchamus, he wisely omitted. The fate of
Clytie Ovid took from his predecessor, but he described her trans-
formation with a wealth of effective detail.
Despite many improvements, Ovid allowed the interest to be divided
over much between Leucothoe and Clytie. And he made rather fre-
quent reference to matters with which readers of later times were not
familiar.
Statius in his Thebaiad recalled the western pastures of the Sun,
identifying them with the fabulous Isles of the Blest. In The Legend
of Good Women Chaucer took suggestions from the transformation
of Clytie for his charming myth of Alcestis, who became a daisy. And
Camoens hoped that neither Leucothoe nor Clytie would rival his
patroness Calliope in the affection of Apollo.
To Alcithoe, the third daughter of Minyas, Ovid gave the last group
of tales. These were six in number, all dealing with adventures near
the western shores of Asia Minor and almost all localized near Mt.
Salmacis and Hebmaphroditus
Five of these tales Ovid dismissed briefly as well
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
known to the daughters of Minyas. Two of them probably were well
known also to the Romans. The other three Ovid thought unsuitable
for lengthy treatment.
The first tale related the tragic fate of Daphnis. This famous
shepherd had entered literature in a lost work of Stesichorus. In his
account, the story ran as follows: Daphnis was a child of the shep-
herd god Mercury and a Sicilian nymph. His mother left him to die
in a beautiful grove of laurels. But other nymphs found the infant
and named him Daphnis, from the sheltering trees. They reared him
as a shepherd. Pan taught him to play the syrinx, and Daphnis him-
self invented the art of pastoral poetry. While pasturing his flock
on the sides of Mt. Aetna, he courted a young nymph called Nais.
Before she became his wife, Nais required him to swear that he would
never yield to the love of any other and warned him that blind-
ness should be the punishment for breaking this oath. For a long
while he resisted all temptation. At last he fell victim to the wiles of
a certain Xenia. Unable by shepherd music to relieve the misery of
his blindness, Daphnis appealed to his father, Mercury, and the god
transported him to heaven. Both Timaeus and Parthenius repeated
this story in prose.
A number of Alexandrian poets became interested in the Sicilian
myth and gave Daphnis adventures in other pastoral regions.
Hermesianax brought him to the island of Euboea. Two lesser poets
gave him adventures in Phrygia and even made him teacher of the un-
fortunate Marsyas (Bk. 6). "Nicander retold the love story, calling
Daphnis a native of Mt. Ida and changing his punishment from blind-
ness to petrifaction.
Undoubtedly Ovid was familiar with more than one version of the
famous myth; but he showed Alcithoe referring clearly to Nicander. 1
The second tale to be mentioned and dismissed related} adventures
of Sithon, who was sometimes a man and at other times* a woman.
Parthenius and Horace had associated the name with TUirace. The
story we know only from Ovid. He probably avoided a l'onger treat-
i
1 Theocritus recorded a still different form of the story. With. Stesichorus he
agreed that Daphnis and Nais lived near Mt. Aetna in Sicily. Ifjut he declared
that Daphnis, not content with swearing loyalty, boasted that Cun,id should never
induce him to break his promise. The god inflamed him with love c4f Xenia. Faith-
ful to his vow, Daphnis refused to yield, but languished in hopeless passion and
died. This fine version does not seem to have been followed by r jther writers; but
it made the subject widely known and gave it lasting fame. << ,
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? SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITUS
ment because it was over similar to the famous myth of Caeneus, which
he planned to tell in full (Bk. 12).
Celmis (the Smelter) was the hero of another myth of transforma-
tion. He was one of the three Dactyls, who lived on Mt. Ida in
Phrygia and were credited with the discovery of iron. Nicander
seems to have reported that originally Celmis helped in the care of the
infant Jupiter but that afterwards he declared that Jupiter was only
a mortal. For this he was punished by transformation to adamant.
The Curetes had been the subject of a fourth tale. In the Iliad they
were primitive inhabitants of Aetolia, a region of northwestern Greece.
Callimachus transferred them to Mt. Ida in Crete. Here they pro-
tected the infant Jupiter, clashing their cymbals loudly whenever there
was danger that his cries might reach the jealous ears of Saturn.
Some later Alexandrian writer appears to have recorded their origin
from rain and transferred them to the Mt. Ida in Phrygia. This
account we know only from Ovid.
A fifth tale recorded the metamorphoses of Crocus and Smilax.
Nicander seems to have told it as follows: Crocus was a young man of
Lydia, inhabiting the upper valley of the river Hermus. He loved a
girl named Smilax and was loved by her. The youth was killed acci-
dentally, perhaps by the god Mercury, and his blood became the
flower which bears his name. Smilax lamented him and became the
green briar, a plant sometimes used for mourning. With this tale
the Romans and the later Greeks appear to have been familiar. Ovid
himself was to mention it again in the Fasti. Probably he thought it
less interesting than the transformations^ of Hyacinthus to a flower
and Cyparissus to the funereal tree (Bk. 10).
The last myth dealt with Salmacis and Hermaphroditus. This tale
Ovid caused Alcithoe to recount in full.
In the region of Caria near the southwestern shores of Asia Minor,
a certain pool became quite famous. Any man bathing here, it was
said, would feel ^ mysterious enervation. Among the learned men
of Alexandrian Greece the supposed peculiarity attracted much atten-
tion; and later the Roman scholar, Varro, seems to have mentioned it
as one of the marvels known to science. Ovid repeated Varro's account
in the speech of Pythagoras (Bk. 15).
The Greek inhabitants of Caria attributed the phenomenon to
action of a strange water spirit, which was at once male and female
and attempted to bestow a like nature on any man coming under its
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
influence. The circumstance they explained by the following myth:
Mercury and Venus at one time became parents of a son, who was
called Hermaphroditus from Hermes and Aphrodite, the Greek names
of his father and mother. He grew up to be a youth of extraordinary
beauty. Happening to bathe in the pool, he was loved by the water
nymph Salmacis. She seized him and endeavored to drag him down
to the bottom. But Hermaphroditus resisted obstinately. Unable to
subdue, him, the nymph called on the gods and by their help fused
with the youth in a single preternatural body. Dismayed by the
change, Hermaphroditus asked that his misfortune might not be
unique but that others bathing in this water might also lose the quali-
ties distinguishing a man.
The idea that a local spirit might be at once male and female could
originate from malformations in nature. Among the higher animals
and human beings an individual is always of only one sex. But occa-
sionally there is born an animal or a human being so ill formed that
only careful examination will show whether it is male or female. Such
examples could suggest an ambiguous being of dual nature.
they planned to flee covertly. The plan miscarried and both perished.
Pyramus became a large river coursing southward to the coast of
Cilicia, Thisbe a neighboring spring. This version was mentioned
long after by Nonnus.
An unknown Alexandrian author contemporary with Nicander
transferred the myth northeastward to Babylon and gave it a different
ending. Blood of the dying Pyramus, he said, darkened the fruit of a
mulberry tree, and Thisbe prayed that the berries might retain their
new color as a perpetual reminder of the event. She herself did not
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? PYRAMUS AND THISBE
experience a metamorphosis. This version appeared in a Pompeian
fresco of Thisbe's death.
Ovid retold the tale with admirable brevity and beauty. In a few
words he named the lovers; indicated the setting; and mentioned their
affection, which was occasioned by proximity and grew stronger with
parental opposition. Then he recorded the discovery of a hidden
fissure in the wall dividing their houses and the naive converse of the
lovers until nightfall. Indicating with a few poetic touches the return
of day, he outlined their plan to escape that night and meet under a
tall mulberry tree by the tomb of Ninus. Although concise, he de-
scribed the scene graphically.
Thisbe, he said, arrived safely at the tree but fled at the approach
of a lioness, leaving behind her cloak. The lioness, fresh from devour-
ing cattle, rent and stained it with her bloody jaws. The incident
was probable and effective, but Ovid made it less credible by adding
that first the lioness drank abundantly from a nearby spring.
Pyramus, arriving soon after, discovered the bloody cloak and the
tracks of the beast. Imagining that Thisbe had perished, he held him-
self to blame and imprudently resolved to kill himself at once. Fatally
wounded by his sword, he lay struggling under the mulberry tree, and
his blood soaking into the earth passed upwards through the roots to
darken the snow white berries overhead. The idea was plausible and
striking. But for more graphic effect, Ovid added that the blood
spurted also, like water from a lead pipe, and shot high enough to
sprinkle the fruit of the tall tree? a detail which was neither probable
nor happy. If
Thisbe returned timidly and was at first doubtful whether this
could really be the appointed place. In the uncertain moonlight and
at a time of great agitation, her doubt was very natural. But Ovid
imagined that she was perplexed by the altered color of the mulberries.
For the conclusion of the tale, it was essential that Thisbe should
notice the change. Yet Ovid introduced the discovery under improb-
able circumstances. Thisbe would have neither light nor leisure for
so nice an observation. Ovid then described effectively her terror at
seeing her dying lover and her frantic efforts to rouse him. And he
added that on hearing her loved name, Pyramus opened his eyes;
recognized her; and sank to death. Ovid recorded effectively the final
request of Thisbe; her death on her lover's sword; and the burial of the
unfortunate lovers in a common urn.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
In this tale Ovid found a theme of perennial interest. His treat-
ment was good, not only in the main incidents but in many beautiful
details. The faults were confined to non-essentials. And Ovid's was
the only lengthy account which still survived in medieval and modern
times.
The Roman mythographer Hyginus repeated the tale briefly, fol-
lowing Ovid's version.
In medieval Latin the story soon attracted attention. A German
named Wibert, writing near the middle of the eleventh century, quoted
in his Life of Leo Ovid's words to the effect that the more a fire is
covered the hotter it burns. Two unknown Latin poets retold the
story in the thirteenth century. And Gower repeated it in his Con-
fessio Amantis.
Meanwhile the tale of Pyramus had attracted vernacular poets of
northern France. About the middle of the twelfth century an un-
known author made a free translation of it. Chretien de Troyes used
the tale repeatedly. In his Erec he showed the hero believing mis-
takenly that his lady was dead and planning suicide; in his Lancelot
he showed both hero and heroine making the mistake and preparing
to die. But in both cases Chretien avoided a tragic ending. For his
Yvain Chretien adapted many of Ovid's incidents in the following
curious form: Yvain arrived at a certain large tree, shading a spring
and not far from a small building. Fainting with grief and weariness,
he accidentally wounded himself. His tame lion, coming upon him,
believed him dead and ran on the sword. Yvain, reviving, guessed the
cause of the faithful creature's death and would have killed himself
for grief. But Lunete, calling from the building, diverted his atten-
tion. He discovered that she was imprisoned but he was able to con-
verse with her through a fissure in the wall. ^
Not long after Chretien's time, Jean Bonnard retold Ovid's myth
while translating the tale of Susanna. A lost Book of Pyramus re-
peated the story at some length and probably in the manner of con-
temporary Arthurian romance. Towards the middle of the thirteenth
century an unknown poet told the story again, with needless elabora-
tion of incident and much supersubtle analysis of love. He gave
special attention to the converse of the lovers through the wall, ex-
panding twenty-eight lines of Ovid to six hundred of his own! And
the incident of the dying Pyramus opening his eyes to look on Thisbe
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? PYRAMUS AND THISBE
inspired a similar incident in a fourteenth century treatment of Nar-
cissus.
The tale of Pyramus was popular also outside France. Lesser
poets repeated it in German and Dutch. In all countries of western
Europe, the story was taught in the schools and became a theme for
rhetorical exercises of the clergy. It was repeated orally by unedu-
cated and spread slowly eastward until at length de Remusat found
it circulating even in China.
Dante shared the interest of his time. In his treatise on Monarchy
he went quite out of his way to cite the lines where Ovid mentioned
Ninus and Semiramis. He returned to the myth twice in his Purgatorio.
When Vergil reminded him that beyond the flames was Beatrice,
Dante responded to her dear name as promptly as the dying Pyramus
fo that of Thisbe. And a few cantos later Beatrice explained to
Dante that he failed to discern the meaning of a sacred tree because
vain thoughts darkened his mind as the blood of Pyramus darkened
the mulberries. Boccacio told of Pyramus in his Fiametta and again
in his treatise, Famous Women. Petrarch mentioned Pyramus and
Thisbe in his Triumph of Love.
Chaucer found the subject of special interest. In the Merchant's
Tale he cited the discovery of the hidden fissure in the wall and com-
mended Ovid for observing how skilfully lovers find a way. The
Parliament of Fowls referred to the story as painted on the walls of a
temple of Venus. And in the Legend of Good Women Chaucer named
Thisbe among famous beauties of old and later retold the story in full.
He expanded Ovid's account pleasantly, treating with even more deli-
cacy the terror and laments of the unhappy lovers; but he was unduly
anxious to show that women are the more loyal. The darkening of
the mulberries he carefully omitted.
Boiardo and Camoens both associated the mulberry with Ovid's
tragic story. Tasso remembered that nearness and early association
caused the love of Pyramus and Thisbe and attributed the same ex-
perience to his Aminta and Silvia. In his Jerusalem Delivered the inci-
dent of Pyramus opening his eyes reappeared effectively when Erminia
met with the wounded and unconscious Tancred. And Tasso retold
Ovid's entire story more than once in his minor writings.
Castillejo treated the myth of Pyramus in narrative verse. Monte-
mayor treated it in prose. Gongora used it for an unsuccessful bur-
lesque. And many lesser dramatists of Spain and other countries
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
made either serious or comic versions during the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries.
Shakespeare alluded to the tale gracefully, first in Titus Andronicus
and then in The Merchant of Venice. His Midsummer Night's Dream
presented the story at some length as a farcical play within the play.
Milton recalled Ovid's statement that the night went forth from
the same waves which had received the setting sun. In Comus the Lady
says
They left me then when the greyhooded Even,
Like a sad Votarist in palmer's weeds,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.
Nicholas Manuel painted Pyramus. Burne Jones depicted sepa-
rately both Pyramus and Thisbe. Gliick used the story for an opera,
which though unsuccessful gave valuable training for his subsequent
triumphs.
Until the sixteenth century, Ovid's Pyramus and Thisbe continued
without rival as the master tale of star crossed love. But the myth
had lingered on in its native Asia Minor. During the middle ages
another version with different names for the two lovers passed west-
ward into Italy and by the time of Dante had been localized in Verona.
Gradually the new story attracted more and more attention. It inter-
ested all western Europe during the sixteenth century and culminated
in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare, too, showed the
young lovers meeting parental opposition, the attempted escape and
seeming death of the heroine, the resulting tragedy. But he endowed
the story with a more intense and varied interest and a still greater
wealth of poetry. The new masterpiece proved even better and more
popular than the old. Thereafter Romeo and Juliet displaced its
older rival, and Pyramus and Thisbe was known chiefly from the bur-
lesque in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Mars and Venus
To Leuconoe, the second narrator, Ovid gave first a brief tale of
Mars and Venus. The story did not itself include a metamorphosis,
but it prepared the way for a longer story about the origin of frank-
incense.
Both Mars and Venus were deities acquired by the Greeks from
neighboring peoples. Mars came from Thrace; Venus from the Semitic
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? MARS AND VENUS
nations of Asia Minor. Before historic times they joined the Greek
deities on Olympus. The Iliad presented Mars as the son of Jupiter
and Juno, Venus as the daughter of Jupiter and the goddess Dione.
And, although Mars was uncongenial to Greece, both Mars and Venus
were honored later as if they had been native deities. Often they were
said to have an honorable affection for each other. This may have
been implied even in the Iliad. The Theogony made them husband and
wife and parents of Harmonia, the bride of Cadmus. The same tra-
dition inspired those beautiful lines in which Lucretius prayed that
Venus might persuade her lover to end the Roman civil wars. And
Ovid, following the Manual, implied in his tale of Cadmus (Bk. 3)
that Mars and Venus were lawful parents of Harmonia.
But neither Mars nor Venus obtained full honor at once. The
Greeks thought of them, for a considerable period, as alien deities
belonging chiefly to rude Thrace and self-indulgent Asia. The Iliad
showed them overthrown and ridiculed by the Greek Athena and often
referred to Mars as vanquished in battle or in other ways ignomini-
ously treated.
In a similar spirit the Odyssey narrated their love for each other.
Vulcan in this account was the lawful husband of Venus. Mars was
an adulterer who incurred a memorable disgrace. The story, sung
by a bard named Demodocus, was to the following effect: Mars, finding
Venus in Vulcan's palace, won her by many gifts. The Sun observed
them and informed Vulcan. To punish the lovers, Vulcan made a
great number of chains, fine as threads of the spider and invisible even
to the gods, yet so strong that they could not be loosed or broken.
With these he contrived a net over his couch and chamber. Then he
pretended to depart on a journey. Mars entered immediately; found
Venus; and persuaded her to lie down with him on the couch. At
once they were trammeled so firmly that they could not move a limb.
* Vulcan then summoned the gods and denounced the guilty pair. All
'the gods came and laughed infinitely at the cleverness of the trap.
Apollo and Mercury suggested that the ignominy would be quite
tolerable, with Venus as a partner. But Neptune, thinking that the
jest had gone too far, persuaded Vulcan to set the lovers free.
The famous scandal was recalled often in Greek literature and art.
Some writers declared that Mars and Venus were the parents of at
least three illegitimate children. A Pompeian mural naively repre-
sented them as employing a dog to guard against surprise.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
Ovid had retold the story already in his Art of Love. A lover, he
said, should beware of exposing the infidelity of his 'mistress. Let him
remember the experience of Vulcan. Accepting the courtship of Mars,
Venus often delighted him by ridiculing the lameness and hard hands
of Vulcan. Yet at first the guilty lovers acted with caution and
reserve. Ovid then repeated briefly the story in the Odyssey. After
that, he said, Mars and Venus had nothing to lose by further dis-
covery, and Vulcan often wished that he had allowed them to conceal
their guilt.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid used the tale as cause of hostility be-
tween Venus and the Sun. Again he followed briefly the incidents given
by the Odyssey, toning down its irreverent humor. But he added the
dismay of Vulcan when he learned the evil news and he elaborated in-
terestingly the account of the marvellous chains. In this passage
Ovid did not imply that the guilty courtship continued after the dis-
grace.
The Art of Love and the Metamorphoses afforded the best known,
and for many centuries the only, accounts of Mars and Venus. Dur-
ing both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the tale enjoyed great
popularity.
Jean de Meun repeated Ovid's account in the Romance of the Rose.
Petrarch saw Mars and Venus led captive in the triumph of Love.
Chaucer used the tale for a display of wit and metrical skill: in' the
Complaint of Mars he showed the god lamenting the cruel manner in
which the Sun had parted him from his loved Venus. Chaucer repre-
sented the three deities as the heavenly luminaries which bear their
names and showed them acting in accord with medieval astronomy.
But at the same time he presented Mars and Venus as a medieval
knight and lady guided by the rules of Courtly Love. Vulcan, who
had no place in astronomy, he carefully omitted. In the Knight's
Tale Chaucer recalled Ovid briefly more than once. Spenser associated
the story of Mars and Venus with that of Daphne. Venus, he said,
avenged herself by causing the Sun god to love the unresponsive
nymph.
Shakespeare alluded to the story at many periods of his liter-
ary career. In Venus and Adonis he gave a quite long and charming
description of the courtship. And he referred to Ovid briefly in Titus
Andronicus, Troilus and Cressida, Antony and Cleopatra, and The
Tempest.
The myth of Mars and Venus attracted the painters Botticelli,
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? LEUCOTHOE AND CLYTIE
Cosimo, Paris Bordone, Vanloo, Mignard, Lagrene, Hubert, and
Boucher.
Leucothoe and Clytie
In the tale of Mars and Venus, Ovid had shown why the goddess was
angry with the informing Sun. The story of Leucothoe and Clytie
showed how she avenged herself by making him unhappy in love. This
story, like its predecessor, was told by Leuconoe to the other daugh-
ters of Minyas.
Hesiod appears to have been the earliest author who recorded the
myth. He showed Venus resenting the Sun's disclosure of her adultery
and punishing him with an ill starred affection. In his account
Leucothoe (the Swift White One) was the Moon, who was attended
by her twelve handmaidens, the Months. The rest of the tale has been
lost.
*
An unknown Alexandrian author retold the story with many
changes. He made it one of several tales localized in the distant and
marvellous East. Leucothoe became an oriental princess. Her father
was Orchamus (Ruler) and her mother Eurynome (Wide Ruling).
Her father governed the famous empire of Persia, but he may have
resided in the far southern province of Arabia Sabaea. In this region
Leucothoe was born and grew up, the most beautiful of eastern maid-
ens. The Sun loved her. Taking the form of her mother, Eurynome,
he visited her one night; revealed himself; and made known his affec-
tion. Flattered by the courtship of so glorious a suitor, Leucothoe
accepted him. But another maiden, Clytie (the Praised One), had
loved the Sun without avail. Displeased that he should prefer
Leucothoe, Clytie informed the savage father Orchamus. In vain
Leucothoe pretended that she had been overcome by violence. Deaf
to all excuses, Orchamus caused her to be buried alive under a great
heap of sand. The Sun exhumed, but could not revive, her. In com-
pensation he transformed her to the shrub frankincense, which the
Greeks thought of as native to the sunlit deserts of Arabia, although
in fact it grew chiefly on the opposite coast of Africa. Then the god
inflicted on Orchamus the same cruel death to which he had sentenced
his daughter.
By the destruction of Leucothoe, Clytie hoped to become in her
turn the beloved of the Sun. But he still ignored her. Nine days she
sat observing his course through the heavens, languishing and fasting.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
Then she changed into the heliotrope, a purple flower which was
thought always to turn in the direction of the Sun. This flower the
Alexandrian author compared to a purple violet. Similar compari-
son of a new flower to another supposedly familiar flower occurred
in Alexandrian accounts of Hyacinthus and Adonis (cf. Bk. 10) and
in all three tales Ovid retained the comparison. For the modern
reader it tends to confuse the effect.
To the Alexandrian version Ovid referred in his Ibis. Orchamus,
he observed, buried his daughter in lowest Tartarus, and the Sun did
the same to him.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid followed his Alexandrian predecessor
by pointing out first that Venus caused the passion of the Sun. By
the example of the Theogony and the Manual, he made the god a child
of Hyperion and, in accord with many Alexandrian and Roman
authors, he identified him with Apollo.
Then Ovid dwelt at some length on the extraordinary effect of the
Sun's violent love. Eager to behold Leucothoe, he declared, the Sun
rose earlier than his appointed time and lingered after he should have
set. Thus he gave undue length to the hours of the winter day. To
Ovid's Roman audience the expression would have appeared wonder-
fully exact. An "hour" in their system of reckoning was not a fixed
interval of time: it was an interval which lengthened or shortened
according to the season. Between dawn and dusk, the sun would pass
invariably over the same area of their sun dials, and this area they
divided into twelve equal sections called "hours. " Throughout the
year, therefore, the Sun would always record twelve "hours" of day-
light, but he would record them slowly in the long days of summer and
quickly in the brief days of winter. Hence the "hours" of summer
should be long intervals of time, and those of winter should be short.
But this law the Sun was too much in love to remember.
In other ways, Ovid continued, the Sun revealed his unusual agita-
tion. Often he grew faint and lost his normal brilliance. And this
was no ordinary eclipse from the intervention of the moon. The Sun
even forgot his sweethearts of an earlier time. Of these Ovid men-
tioned three. One was Clymene, the mother of Phaethon (Bk. 2) ; an-
other was Persis, whom the Odyssey made parent of Aeetes and Circe;
and the last was Rhodes, a nymph personifying the well known Medi-
terranean island. Pindar had recorded that Jupiter, dividing the
earth among his divine followers, forgot the Sun but afterwards
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? SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITUS
created for him Rhodes, the island nymph, who bore him seven
sons.
Thus Ovid emphasized this part of the tale effectively for his coun-
trymen, giving it a new relation not only to contemporary science but
also to other myths of the famous past. He then identified briefly the
maiden Leucothoe, who had been the occasion for these remarkable
changes. Following the example of Horace, he declared that
Leucothoe excelled in beauty even her beautiful mother and he referred
to Persia "as the cities of Achaemenes," their mythical founder.
Before returning to the Alexandrian version, Ovid added the pic-
turesque idea that after the toilsome day the Sun allowed his horses
to feed on ambrosia in pastures below the western sky. This was not
easily reconciled with their being ready in the east at dawn. Ovid
retold effectively the incident of the Sun's disguise and courtship.
But he was careful to show that at first Leucothoe was terrified and
to leave the reader uncertain whether she yielded willingly or was
overcome by force. He made it seem more justifiable for her to tell
Orchamus that the Sun had acted against her wish. He repeated the
Alexandrian author's account of Leucothoe's death and transforma-
tion. The punishment of Orchamus, he wisely omitted. The fate of
Clytie Ovid took from his predecessor, but he described her trans-
formation with a wealth of effective detail.
Despite many improvements, Ovid allowed the interest to be divided
over much between Leucothoe and Clytie. And he made rather fre-
quent reference to matters with which readers of later times were not
familiar.
Statius in his Thebaiad recalled the western pastures of the Sun,
identifying them with the fabulous Isles of the Blest. In The Legend
of Good Women Chaucer took suggestions from the transformation
of Clytie for his charming myth of Alcestis, who became a daisy. And
Camoens hoped that neither Leucothoe nor Clytie would rival his
patroness Calliope in the affection of Apollo.
To Alcithoe, the third daughter of Minyas, Ovid gave the last group
of tales. These were six in number, all dealing with adventures near
the western shores of Asia Minor and almost all localized near Mt.
Salmacis and Hebmaphroditus
Five of these tales Ovid dismissed briefly as well
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
known to the daughters of Minyas. Two of them probably were well
known also to the Romans. The other three Ovid thought unsuitable
for lengthy treatment.
The first tale related the tragic fate of Daphnis. This famous
shepherd had entered literature in a lost work of Stesichorus. In his
account, the story ran as follows: Daphnis was a child of the shep-
herd god Mercury and a Sicilian nymph. His mother left him to die
in a beautiful grove of laurels. But other nymphs found the infant
and named him Daphnis, from the sheltering trees. They reared him
as a shepherd. Pan taught him to play the syrinx, and Daphnis him-
self invented the art of pastoral poetry. While pasturing his flock
on the sides of Mt. Aetna, he courted a young nymph called Nais.
Before she became his wife, Nais required him to swear that he would
never yield to the love of any other and warned him that blind-
ness should be the punishment for breaking this oath. For a long
while he resisted all temptation. At last he fell victim to the wiles of
a certain Xenia. Unable by shepherd music to relieve the misery of
his blindness, Daphnis appealed to his father, Mercury, and the god
transported him to heaven. Both Timaeus and Parthenius repeated
this story in prose.
A number of Alexandrian poets became interested in the Sicilian
myth and gave Daphnis adventures in other pastoral regions.
Hermesianax brought him to the island of Euboea. Two lesser poets
gave him adventures in Phrygia and even made him teacher of the un-
fortunate Marsyas (Bk. 6). "Nicander retold the love story, calling
Daphnis a native of Mt. Ida and changing his punishment from blind-
ness to petrifaction.
Undoubtedly Ovid was familiar with more than one version of the
famous myth; but he showed Alcithoe referring clearly to Nicander. 1
The second tale to be mentioned and dismissed related} adventures
of Sithon, who was sometimes a man and at other times* a woman.
Parthenius and Horace had associated the name with TUirace. The
story we know only from Ovid. He probably avoided a l'onger treat-
i
1 Theocritus recorded a still different form of the story. With. Stesichorus he
agreed that Daphnis and Nais lived near Mt. Aetna in Sicily. Ifjut he declared
that Daphnis, not content with swearing loyalty, boasted that Cun,id should never
induce him to break his promise. The god inflamed him with love c4f Xenia. Faith-
ful to his vow, Daphnis refused to yield, but languished in hopeless passion and
died. This fine version does not seem to have been followed by r jther writers; but
it made the subject widely known and gave it lasting fame. << ,
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? SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITUS
ment because it was over similar to the famous myth of Caeneus, which
he planned to tell in full (Bk. 12).
Celmis (the Smelter) was the hero of another myth of transforma-
tion. He was one of the three Dactyls, who lived on Mt. Ida in
Phrygia and were credited with the discovery of iron. Nicander
seems to have reported that originally Celmis helped in the care of the
infant Jupiter but that afterwards he declared that Jupiter was only
a mortal. For this he was punished by transformation to adamant.
The Curetes had been the subject of a fourth tale. In the Iliad they
were primitive inhabitants of Aetolia, a region of northwestern Greece.
Callimachus transferred them to Mt. Ida in Crete. Here they pro-
tected the infant Jupiter, clashing their cymbals loudly whenever there
was danger that his cries might reach the jealous ears of Saturn.
Some later Alexandrian writer appears to have recorded their origin
from rain and transferred them to the Mt. Ida in Phrygia. This
account we know only from Ovid.
A fifth tale recorded the metamorphoses of Crocus and Smilax.
Nicander seems to have told it as follows: Crocus was a young man of
Lydia, inhabiting the upper valley of the river Hermus. He loved a
girl named Smilax and was loved by her. The youth was killed acci-
dentally, perhaps by the god Mercury, and his blood became the
flower which bears his name. Smilax lamented him and became the
green briar, a plant sometimes used for mourning. With this tale
the Romans and the later Greeks appear to have been familiar. Ovid
himself was to mention it again in the Fasti. Probably he thought it
less interesting than the transformations^ of Hyacinthus to a flower
and Cyparissus to the funereal tree (Bk. 10).
The last myth dealt with Salmacis and Hermaphroditus. This tale
Ovid caused Alcithoe to recount in full.
In the region of Caria near the southwestern shores of Asia Minor,
a certain pool became quite famous. Any man bathing here, it was
said, would feel ^ mysterious enervation. Among the learned men
of Alexandrian Greece the supposed peculiarity attracted much atten-
tion; and later the Roman scholar, Varro, seems to have mentioned it
as one of the marvels known to science. Ovid repeated Varro's account
in the speech of Pythagoras (Bk. 15).
The Greek inhabitants of Caria attributed the phenomenon to
action of a strange water spirit, which was at once male and female
and attempted to bestow a like nature on any man coming under its
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
influence. The circumstance they explained by the following myth:
Mercury and Venus at one time became parents of a son, who was
called Hermaphroditus from Hermes and Aphrodite, the Greek names
of his father and mother. He grew up to be a youth of extraordinary
beauty. Happening to bathe in the pool, he was loved by the water
nymph Salmacis. She seized him and endeavored to drag him down
to the bottom. But Hermaphroditus resisted obstinately. Unable to
subdue, him, the nymph called on the gods and by their help fused
with the youth in a single preternatural body. Dismayed by the
change, Hermaphroditus asked that his misfortune might not be
unique but that others bathing in this water might also lose the quali-
ties distinguishing a man.
The idea that a local spirit might be at once male and female could
originate from malformations in nature. Among the higher animals
and human beings an individual is always of only one sex. But occa-
sionally there is born an animal or a human being so ill formed that
only careful examination will show whether it is male or female. Such
examples could suggest an ambiguous being of dual nature.
