To interrupt his dramatic narrative by
rehearsing
an earlier
and rather unlikely association between Cycnus and Phaethon, would
have been an obvious mistake.
and rather unlikely association between Cycnus and Phaethon, would
have been an obvious mistake.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v1
In his mad career, said
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
the Alexandrian, Phaethon at first drove too high, scorching the
heavens and forming the Milky Way; then he drove top low and set
the earth afire. This conflagration was put out by the Deluge. The
tradition that Phaethon caused the Milky Way became popular with
later mythographers and passed from them to Dante, Chaucer, and
Spenser. Phaethon's association with the Deluge proved less interest-
ing than the older myth of Lycaon (Bk. 1), but it was mentioned
again by Lucretius.
Phanocles told at greater length of Cycnus and Phaethon, describ-
ing the former as a suitor of his kinsman. Apollonius recorded that
the Argonauts voyaging up the Po were troubled by the stench of
Phaethon's body still burning under the water and by the shrill lament
of the sisters. And Alexandrian sculptors often carved the tale of
Phaethon on sarcophagi to suggest the transitory nature of human
life.
Nicander retold the entire story. He repeated the idea that Phae-
thon caused the Milky Way and probably added that by driving too
low he occasioned the Cyclad Isles, the Sahara Desert, and the dark
skin of the Ethiopians. And he seems to have related the story to
a problem which had begun to interest the ancients, the mysterious
origin of the Nile. Dismayed by the excessive heat, he said, the Nile
took refuge in unknown regions far to the south, where he still has
his source. Nicander retained the metamorphosis of Phaethon into
the constellation of the Charioteer; but he rejected all other trans-
formation to stars. Many centuries after this, Nicander's version
inspired the late Greek poet Nonnus.
For Ovid the myth of Phaethon had great interest. He mentioned
it frequently and in the Tristia compared the fall of Phaethon to
his own exile by the Emperor Augustus.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid passed from the myth of Io to that of
Phaethon by declaring that Io's child, Epaphus, had been the one who
questioned the divine parentage of Phaethon. Ovid then proceeded to
elaborate and improve on the version of Nicander. With him he
showed Phaethon appealing to his mother and by her advice making on
foot a rather short journey eastward from Ethiopia, across the adjoin-
ing country of India, to the palace of the Sun. For the majority of
Romans this strange idea of geography in the east would have seemed
entirely credible. Although the ancient Egyptians and Persians knew
something of an Indian Ocean lying between Africa and India, such
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
knowledge had passed very slowly to the Greeks. For Aeschylus and
his audience the mainland of Asia was an almost inaccessible region
inhabited by fabulous peoples and extending southwards to the Nile
in its upper course. More than a century later, the victorious
Alexander, arriving at a branch of the Indus, believed that he
was close to the source of the Nile. And, although subsequent war
and commerce dispelled many illusions, the East was even in
Augustan times a distant, marvellous region rarely visited and little
known.
The Sun's palace Ovid described brilliantly, perhaps with some
recollection of the actual mansions in Roman times. It was built, he
said, by Vulcan, the great artificer of the gods. Following the exam-
ple of the Iliad and the Aeneid, he imagined elaborate sculpture on the
palace doors. But he seems also to have recalled an actual work of
art, for he pictured the world as the Mediterranean Sea enclosed by a
circle of land and both encircled by Ocean--an archaic conception
quite unlike the geography elsewhere in his poem. In portraying the
appearance of the Sun god on his throne, Ovid followed the rather
common epic practice of having a god attended by various personified
abstractions of an appropriate nature. This epic practice suggested
Ovid's personification of the Hours, Days, and Months. But for the
Seasons he again used a work of art. His description here was vague,
probably because the work was familiar to his contemporaries. In
the lore of Pythagoras (Bk. 15) he again treated the same idea, imply-
ing that the Seasons were represented by male figures of appropriately
varied age.
Following Nicander, Ovid recorded Phaethon's request for proof
of his origin and Apollo's rash promise to give whatever proof he
might wish, confirmed with an oath by the river Styx. This famous
oath had begun with a custom followed by many savage peoples of con-
firming an oath with a draught of water believed to have magic powers.
In ancient Greece the very cold waters of the Arcadian river Styx were
regarded as poisonous to any man who was not protected by the gods
--an idea which Ovid was to mention in the lore of Pythagoras. Ac-
cordingly, men wishing to give a solemn pledge would sometimes drink
water of the Styx, in order to show that their intentions were honor-
able and had divine approval. A similar custom was attributed to the
deities themselves. But this oath was associated with the Styx of
the Lower World, which the gods hoped never to visit, so for them
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
the draught of water was omitted. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey
recorded a pledge by the river Styx as the strongest oath that
could be taken by the gods. The Theogony added that any violation
was to be punished by nine years of suffering and exile from Olympus.
And other ancient authors in general made the Styx the most power-
ful sanction which a god could invoke. Following tradition, Ovid
made it clear that, when Phaethon asked unexpectedly for a chance to
drive the Sun's car, Apollo could not withdraw the pledge; but he
imagined that it would have been possible for Phaethon to free him
by withdrawing the request. Therefore, he showed Apollo trying
vainly to dissuade his son in two long and dramatic speeches of
warning.
After the first of these speeches, Ovid showed Apollo leading Phae-
thon to the car, which now was harnessed and ready for the beginning
of day. A description of Juno's chariot in the Iliad may have sug-
gested Ovid's brilliant account of the Sun's car made by Vulcan. But
Ovid described with a different purpose and more opulent effect. He
added also a splendid and beautiful account of the dawn. In these
two descriptions Ovid found unusual opportunity to profit by his
vivid imagination and his eager feeling for color.
According to the mythology of Egypt and many other partly
civilized countries, the sun rose from the east in the morning; tra-
versed the heavens to the west during the day; and returned during
the night through the Lower World to his rising in the east. On the
assumption that the world was flat, this theory explained his move-
ments quite plausibly. But it does not seem to have affected the myth-
ology of the Greeks. They imagined that the sun rose from the ocean
in the east and set in the ocean to the west; but at first they did not
trouble themselves about his method for returning They implied
clearly, however, that he did not pass through Hades, which they re-
garded as a region of gloom never visited by the sun. And later the
more thoughtful Greeks gave up their mythological ideas for the scien-
tific theory that the earth was a sphere and the sun a luminary moving
round it daily with the motion of the heavens. Greek mythology re-
mained illogical regarding the motion of the sun. It felt an incongru-
ity, however, in the conception of the sun's having contact with the
sea and invented the picturesque idea that Tethys, goddess of Ocean,
allowed him to rise from her boat in the east and met him again with
her boat as he came down to the western waves. This idea Ovid
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
accepted for his tale of Phaethon, and he did full justice to the meet-
ing in the west. But in order to describe the Sun's palace, he imag-
ined that the chariot rose in the morning from high ground. Under
these circumstances he could give Tethys only the incongruous duty of
lowering the stable bars.
To the speeches of Apollo and the narrative of Phaethon's ride,
Ovid gave added interest by drawing on the astronomy of his own time.
Such material was of later origin than the myth and not easy to recon-
cile with it. Moreover, Ovid did not understand the scientific prin-
ciples of the astronomy which he was using. Yet he realized that
there were many chances for picturesque detail and on the whole he
gained much by the attempt. His educated readers have been willing
to ignore his mistakes and all his readers have enjoyed the spirited
narrative and graphic detail.
Ovid's use of astronomy is a matter of extraordinary interest. It
showed his desire to enliven ancient myth by relating it unexpectedly
with advanced scientific ideas. For this reason alone it would be inter-
esting to observe his methods. But the conception of the universe
which Ovid was trying to suggest was not peculiar to his own age.
With minor changes, it was accepted by the, majority of well informed
men until the sixteenth century. And much of its doctrine reappeared
even a century later in Milton's Paradise Lost. It is worth while to
explain briefly a system which prevailed so widely and so long and to
show how Ovid applied and misapplied it in his myth.
The system of astronomy which was to become orthodox in Augustan
times had originated in ancient Chaldea. From there it passed to the
Greeks. It was improved by a number of Alexandrian scientists; and,
about a century and a half before Ovid's time, the great astronomer
Hipparchus had brought the science forward to a point where it
agreed in the main with the system later made famous by Ptolemy.
According to this view, an unmoving, spherical Earth was the center of
the universe. Enveloping the Earth closely on all sides was a hollow,
transparent sphere. The Earth resembled, in shape and position, the
yolk of an uncooked egg, and the hollow, transparent sphere resembled
the enveloping white. But in this transparent sphere there floated
a luminous body, the Moon, and from this body the sphere took its
name. Inclosing the sphere of the Moon, was another transparent
sphere, containing the planet Mercury. And this was inclosed suc-
cessively by the spheres of Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
and the stars. 1 Thus, as Ovid pointed out, the proper route for the
Sun would lie in a middle distance, about equally removed from the
stars above and the Earth below, and it should be much higher than the
route of the Moon. But Ovid was wrong in declaring that this course
would take Phaethon among fear inspiring constellations.
Hipparchus believed further that all the successive spheres which
inclosed the Earth moved continually from east to west, carrying
with them the stars, planets, Sun, and Moon. This caused the appar-
ent westward movement of all heavenly bodies during every day and
night. But the Sun, Moon, and planets did not merely revolve in a
westerly direction with their spheres. Each of them at the same time
was moving slowly in a contrary direction through the yielding ma-
terial of the sphere and progressing from west to east. This independ-
ent motion altered their positions with respect to the fixed stars
above and in a year it allowed the Sun to make a complete circuit of
the heavens. Ovid said, therefore, that the Sun must move counter
to the rushing sky. For the year this would be true. But in a single
day his independent movement would be so slight that he would ap-
pear merely to be swept westward with the heavens.
Ancient astronomers had observed that in the course of a year the
Sun would pass through twelve successive regions of the sky called the
zodiac. In each region he would spend a month. This would cause
him to pass successively in front of the constellations occupying each
region. According to the Babylonians and the earlier Alexandrian
astronomers, these constellations were eleven in number and they were
identified in a rather arbitrary manner with eleven mythological crea-
tures. One of the eleven constellations, the Scorpion, extended over
two regions of the zodiac. The later Alexandrians restricted it to one
region and designated the stars remaining in the other as a twelfth
constellation, the Scales. But in early Augustan times the older view
still prevailed. Hence Vergil could inform the young Emperor
graciously that the Scorpion then occupied two regions but in time
would retire and leave room for the constellation of the deified
Augustus. Accepting the newer system, Ovid declared that Vulcan
had carved on the doors ot the Sun's Palace the twelve constellations
of the zodiac. But later he reverted inconsistently to the older sys-
1 The same idea of a central Earth enveloped by successive spheres was implied
in Dante's ParadUo. Dante, too, showed the Moon in the lowest sphere, the Sun
in the fourth or middle sphere, and the stars in the highest. . ,
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
tem, declaring that Phaethon met the Scorpion extending fearfully
over the space of two signs.
According to ancient astronomy, the Sun would pass in front of the
groups known as the Bull, the Archer, and others which Ovid men-
tions. But, to pass all these in his legitimate course, Phaethon would
have had to drive for a period of eight months. In a single day he
would move only part of the distance across a single group.
In describing the surface of the earth, ancient scientists had recog-
nized the five zones which we know today. They sometimes made a
corresponding division of the heavens. When this was done, they
observed that the Sun moved always within the portion of the sky
belonging to the Torrid Zone. And at the two periods, known as the
Vernal Equinox (March 21st. ) and the Autumnal Equinox (September
21st. ), his course lay exactly in the middle of this Torrid belt. But
after the Vernal Equinox, his course left the middle and appeared
every day a little farther north, until at Midsummer (June 21st. ) he
followed the border of the North Temperate Zone. Then he slowly
returned and was again in the middle of the Torrid Zone by the Autum-
nal Equinox. But immediately after, his course left the middle a second
time and now ran daily farther south, until at Midwinter (December
21st. ) it followed the rim of the South Temperate Zone. Accordingly,
Ovid showed Apollo warning Phaethon that the Sun must keep within
the three middle zones, shunning either pole. If Apollo had been ex-
plaining the course of the Sun for the entire year, this statement
would be true. But during a single day the Sun would have only a
restricted course within a single zone.
Despite these scientific blunders, Ovid's use of astronomy added
much to the interest of the story and helped him to emphasize the
essential point. He made it clear that Phaethon was rashly under-
taking an enterprise fraught with peril and Apollo was remonstrating
with fatherly solicitude.
For Phaethon's disastrous ride, Ovid followed Nicander except in
the derivation of the Milky Way, which he had explained elsewhere as
the thoroughfare of the gods (see Lycaon, Bk. 1). But he added
many vivid details and he gladly introduced names of rivers and moun-
tains which had especial interest for the Romans. He tried also to
heighten the effect of terror, confusion, and conflagration. In this
he did not show his usual regard for consistency, for he mentioned the
alarm of the Bears, which did not exist before the later transformation
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
of Callisto, and the suffering of the swans in Cayster, which (accord-
ing to the Latin) did not exist hefore the transformation of Cycnus.
And, what was more unfortunate, he showed not only the scorching
of the Sahara and the Ethiopians but a universal conflagration after
which it would seem impossible for any life to survive.
After introducing an eloquent appeal of Earth, Ovid came to the
hurling of the thunderbolt. Here again he sacrificed probability for
sensational effect. Early tradition implied, and Lucretius had stated
clearly, that Jupiter struck down Phaethon, in order that Apollo
might redirect the chariot into the proper course. Ovid showed him
demolishing the chariot and allowing the frightened horses to strew
it far and wide. Yet later he recorded without explanation that it was
whole and ready in the east, when Apollo was persuaded to resume his
task.
In the Amores Ovid had mentioned Phaethon's becoming the con-
stellation of the Charioteer. In the Metamorphoses he omitted this
event entirely. The explanation seems to be that he reserved it, as he
had reserved the transformation of Io into the constellation of the
Bull (Bk. 1), for an appropriate passage of the Fasti.
The burial of Phaethon by his mother and sisters Ovid rejected as
improbable and he transferred this duty to the Naiads. He followed
the outline of Nicander's story about the transformation of the sisters.
But he added from Vergil's famous account of Polydorous the details
of their bleeding and crying out when their mother tore their poplar
bark. And he adapted the description of amber appropriately to its
use at Rome.
Vergil in the Aeneid had mentioned the traditional love of Cycnus
for Phaethon and added that Cycnus became a white bird, which left
the earth and followed the stars with his voice. Though Ovid greatly
admired this beautiful passage, he could not follow the more striking
details.
To interrupt his dramatic narrative by rehearsing an earlier
and rather unlikely association between Cycnus and Phaethon, would
have been an obvious mistake. And to show the swan following the
stars was hardly effective, unless his beloved Phaethon had become
a constellation. But Ovid could agree with Vergil that Cycnus wan-
dered lamenting among the new poplar trees of the river bank and
follow Vergil's description of the change itself, and this he gladly did.
He then added the ingenious conclusion that Cycnus, remembering
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
Lthe fate of his kinsman, shunned the upper air and chose the water for
his home.
In telling of Apollo's grief, Ovid left the reader uncertain whether
the god refrained from driving for a day or until after the mutation of
Phaethon's sisters, a period of four months. The god's complaint
that he had driven the chariot since the beginning of the world was
needlessly inconsistent with other parts of the poem and was unfor-
tunately querulous in tone. And, after omitting the metamorphosis
of Phaethon, Ovid found no good means of reconciling the god to the
death of his son.
While the myth of Phaethon was far from being one of Ovid's most
successful tales, it had great merit and for the Middle Ages and the
modern period it was the only complete version accessible. It was a
favorite source of reference for later times.
Dante used the tale effectively to illustrate his accounts of the con-
versation with Cacciaguida, the glorious car of the church, and the
terror of descending on the back of the monster Geryon. In the House
of Fame the eagle retold the story to Chaucer at some length. Ariosto
predicted that Azzo should rule Ferrara,' near the stream where
Phoebus lamented
The son ill trusted with his father's beams;
Where Cycnus spread his pinions; and the scented
Amber was wept, as fabling poet dreams.
Tasso remembered the Sun's car while describing the chariot of
Armida. Camoens mentioned Phaethon as darkening the Africans and
as affording an example of foolish ambition. So great was Spenser's
enjoyment of the myth that he referred to it--always at great length
--in The Tears of the Muses and in three remarkable passages of
The Farie Queen--the description of Pride, the adventure in the House
of Busyrane, and the defeat of the Soldan. He was inclined, however,
to vary from Ovid's details with unusual freedom. Ovid's myth guided
Spenser also in a remarkable story of Mutability's obtaining the car
of the Moon and threatening the order of the world.
Shakespeare alluded to Phaethon briefly in Two Gentlemen of
Verona, in Richard Second, and twice in the Third Part of Henry
Sixth. Milton in his Eikonoclastes declared that the whole reign of
Charles the First was like that of Phaethon. Calderon wrote a dra-
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? CALLISTO AND JUPITER
matic pageant The Child of the Sun. Byron recalled Phaethon's fall
in both the Vision of Judgment and The Deformed Transformed.
Goethe's Egmont compared himself to the bold Phaethon, swept on
irresistibly by the eagerness of his steeds, dodging now this peril and
now that, and so occupied with the present as to have no thought
whence he came and no fear of his approaching ruin. In Gerard de
Lairesse Browning described a painting of Phaethon's tomb. And
Blackmore's John Bidd was able to enter the Doone Valley because he
remembered Ovid's precept that the middle way is safest.
The circumstance that Phaethon did not drive at the normal speed
suggested opposite inferences to later poets. Chaucer's Troilus,
awaiting the return of Cressid, found the days so long that he fancied
that Phaethon was again driving the chariot amiss. Shakespeare's
Juliet, impatient for the night, imagined that, if Phaethon were driv-
ing the chariot, he would hasten the end of day.
Ovid's description of the Sun's palace proved unusually interesting.
Jean de Meun borrowed the account of the sea gods carved on the
doors. Boiardo recalled Ovid while describing the Palazzo Gioioso. In
the opera Psyche, Corneille remembered that Ovid had made Vulcan
the builder of the Sun's Palace and attributed to him also a palace for
the God of Love. And Milton made Vulcan the architect of Satan's
great residence, Pandemonium.
Dante recalled the names which Ovid gave the Sun's horses for both
his Convivio and his Second Eclogue. And Chaucer mentioned them in
the Troilus.
Petrarch, imitating much of Ovid's detail, recounted his own grief
when repulsed by Laura and his metamorphosis to a swan.
Ovid's myth inspired paintings by Piombo, Bubens, and Moreau.
Primaticcio treated both the borrowing of the car and the fall of
Phaethon. And Ovid's lines of the dawn suggested Guido Beni's great
masterpiece of Aurora preceding the chariot of the Sun.
. ,
Callisto and Jupiter
.
After the destruction caused by Phaethon, Ovid showed Jupiter
making a careful inspection of the earth and restoring its former
order. Callimachus had declared Arcadia the birthplace of Jove and
so Ovid supposed that Jupiter gave this region Ipecial attention and
hence discovered Callisto, the beautiful daughter of Lycaon. The
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
success of this introduction caused him to invent a similar inspection
of Sicily as introduction to the myth of Proserpina (Bk. 5).
The myth of Lycaon and his daughter Callisto had taken form
before Lycaon was associated with the Deluge (cf. Bk. 1) and it had
continued to grow independently. Thus Ovid found the adjustment
of the two myths rather difficult. Presumably Lycaon and his daugh-
ter should have perished in the flood. Ovid left the reader to imagine
that in some unexplained way they escaped; but he made the difficulty
less apparent by allowing other tales to intervene. This remedy had
a disadvantage, for Callisto would have been much older than most
of Ovid's heroines, if she had waited until both Io and her son had
reached maturity. But the delay was possible and allowed Ovid to
preserve an appearance of succession in order of time.
The myth of Callisto was of early origin and in time assumed
various forms. It had many resemblances to another early Arcadian
myth, the story of Io. Callisto was worshipped originally as a
goddess, who appeared nightly in the constellation that we still know
as the Great Bear. And often she was referred to as the Curver
(Helice) because instead of setting, her constellation moved always in a
curving path round the northern pole. At the same time Callisto was
also a goddess appearing on earth in the form of a bear, and her son
Arcas was reputed to be the founder of the Arcadian tribes. Such de-
scent from a divine animal has been recorded in the tradition of many
peoples and notably in royal genealogies of Egypt. Later, worship of
Diana, a goddess in human form, superseded that of Callisto. Some-
times the two were regarded as the same. But usually Callisto became
Lycaon's daughter, a human attendant of Diana who offended her and
suffered metamorphosis. The myth then became similar to many popu-
lar tales, especially common in northern Europe, in which a human
being is compelled to suffer the hardships of transformation into a
bear. But in the Arcadian tradition there was unusual emphasis on
the fact that a huntress was now in dread of death from her former
'companions and their hounds. In this the tale resembled that of
Actaeon (Bk. 3). The likeness was most clear in the earliest version
but still remained in that of Ovid.
Before entering literature, the tradition seems to have taken the
following form: Jupiter ravished Callisto and, in order to avoid dis-
covery by Juno, turned the nymph into a bear. In time she became
the mother of the boy Arcas. Juno, learning the bear's identity,
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? CALL1ST0 AND JUPITER
caused Diana to hunt and kill her, and her grave was long pointed
out by the Arcadians. But Jupiter made her the constellation of the
Bear, the star first used as a guide by Greek mariners. This tradition
was known to the poets of the Iliad and the Odyssey, for both allude
to the unsetting Bear. It may have been known also to Ovid; but he
would have avoided it as too like his accounts of Io and Actaeon.
In the Astronomy, the tale assumed a different form. Here Jupiter
allowed the nymph to continue as a follower of Diana. While bathing,
Callisto revealed her pregnancy, and the maiden goddess indignantly
metamorphosed her to a she bear. After the birth of Arcas, goatherds
captured both the bear and her infant child and gave them to her
father, Lycaon. Informed in some way of his daughter's misfortune,
Lycaon plotted revenge. He contrived to have Arcas killed and served
to Jupiter at a banquet. But the god detected the plot; punished
Lycaon; and restored Arcas to life. In time the boy grew up and
became father of the Arcadians. But one day Callisto entered a for-
bidden precinct of Jupiter, an offense punishable by death. Pursuing
her, Arcas incurred the same penalty. To save them, Jupiter trans-
lated both to the skies. Arcas became the constellation of the Bear
Ward (Arctophylax or Arcturus) so called because it appeared to
follow the Bear round the northern heavens. A later form of this ver-
sion Ovid used for the translation of Callisto and Arcas which he
recorded in his Fasti; but he did not follow it in the Metamorphoses.
Meanwhile the Phoenicians had long since learned to steer by a con-
stellation much nearer the pole than the Great Bear. This knowledge
passed finally to the Greeks. Of several names which they gave the
new constellation, one was that of the Lesser Bear. The fact that the
group had a similar form to that of the Great Bear would suggest a
likeness in the name, and Aratus implies that the two signs were asso-
ciated at first with a Cretan myth of two bears who nurtured the infant
Jupiter and were rewarded by a place in the sky. But the Great
Bear continued to be related with Callisto and in time the Lesser Bear
was associated with Arcas, although this was illogical, for he had not
lost his human form. This myth Ovid mentioned in his Epistle of
Leander.
For the Alexandrians the tale of Callisto had great interest; Calli-
machus, Eratosthenes, and Nicander retold it in works which are now
lost. What details may have been peculiar to any of these three ver-
sions, it seems impossible to determine. But by the end of the Alex-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
andrian period the story had become much more plausible. It was
recorded that Callisto had sworn perpetual virginity and in return
had become the favorite attendant of Diana. Hence the goddess pun-
ished her in a summary manner. But Diana had been content with
dismissing Callisto from her company. The nymph returned to her
father, Lycaon, and bore a son. Aware that Arcas was a child of
Jove, Juno transformed the mother into a she bear. The bear, return-
ing to the forest, avoided the sight of human beings but contrived to
watch the growth of her son. Arcas, when about fifteen, suddenly
came face to face with his mother. She recognized him; but he sup-
posed her merely a dangerous animal and was about to kill her, when
Jupiter interfered and transformed both mother and son to the con-
stellations of the Great and Lesser Bear. But the story did not end
here. Juno, dreading1 banishment from heaven, resolved to assure
herself of a refuge in the ocean. Visiting Oceanus and Tethys, whom
the Iliad had made her foster parents, she persuaded them to exclude
her rival from the waters.
This account, taken probably from Nicander, Ovid used for the
Metamorphoses. To the Romans Callisto appears to have been well
known, for Ovid did not mention her name. He omitted the oath of
perpetual virginity, perhaps in order to vary from the account in his
Fasti.
Probably following his original, Ovid recorded that Jupiter found
Callisto sleeping towards the hour of noon. In the hot dry countries
bordering the Mediterranean, men would naturally engage in hunting
or other active pursuits during the early morning hours and then
withdraw to spend the middle of the day quietly in a shady place and
often to bathe in a cooling stream. In actual life this was apt to
occasion unexpected meetings and give leisure for important events.
In Alexandrian literature the hour of noon seems to have been men-
tioned regularly as the time for tragic happenings. Ovid followed
the custom repeatedly in his Metamorphoses and Milton seems to have
been influenced by it when he made noon the time of Satan's arrival
in Eden and later of his successfully tempting Eve.
Ovid invented the frivolous reflection of Jupiter that he could either
escape the notice of his wife or bear complacently with her reproof.
When Callisto was alone and asleep, it would have been easy for Jove
to approach her. But, recalling a Greek comedy of the third century
B. C. , Ovid added that Jupiter assumed the appearance of Diana. - Thus
. >>
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? CALLISTO AND JUPITER
he was able to introduce not only an additional metamorphosis but
the whimsical circumstance of Jupiter amused to hear Callisto prefer
him to himself.
The ensuing struggle Ovid vivified by suddenly addressing one of
his characters. As if he were actually looking on at the events, he
exclaimed, "Juno, would that you might see, you would be more merci-
ful! " The same effective method he was to repeat in the tale of
Narcissus and in many other stories throughout his poem. Ovid added
also the very natural circumstances that, even when the real Diana
appeared, Callisto feared deception until she saw the attendant
nymphs. And he imagined that Callisto would have betrayed herself,
if the maiden goddess had not been entirely unacquainted with such
guilt.
After the transformation of Lycaon (Bk. 1), it was no longer pos-
sible to imagine that Callisto returned to her father's house. Ovid
omitted this detail and did not explain how Arcas could survive the
transformation of his mother or how after an interval of fifteen years
she was able to recognize him. The Romans may have been sufficiently
familiar with tradition to take these matters for granted.
That Juno should seize the nymph by the hair and throw her to
the ground was in accord with the general literary practice of both
the Alexandrians and Ovid. They brought the gods down almost to
the ordinary human level. But in this case Ovid could have found
precedent in a passage of the Iliad, where Juno beat Diana cruelly
with a bow.
The interesting elaboration of Io's hardships after she became a
heifer probably suggested to Ovid a similar treatment of Callisto's
hardships after she became a bear. And the situation differed enough
to permit originality and contrast.
After Callisto and Arcas had entered the sky, Ovid made two ad-
ditions to the incident of Juno's visiting Oceanus and Tethys. In
soliloquies at the beginning of the First and Seventh Books of the
Aeneid, Vergil had shown the goddess grieving at her ill success, dread-
ing more serious wrong, and planning a new attack on her enemies.
Drawing on this material, Ovid invented Juno's indignant plea to her
foster parents. The same passages of Vergil were to help him again
in the tales of Semele (Bk. 3), and Ino (Bk. 4). Ovid added also, as a
transition to the following story, Juno's departure in a car drawn
by peacocks, whose tails were bright with the eyes of Argus,
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
Ovid's myth of Callisto occasioned some interesting allusions by
later poets. Dante on the mount of Purgatory heard those guilty of
normal lust recall Diana's banishment of the nymph as an example of
the severe chastity to which they aspire. An early sonnet of Petrarch
described the Great Bear as that beautiful northern constellation
which causes Juno to be jealous. Chaucer in the Parliament of Fowls
mentioned the tale of Callisto as painted in the temple of Venus.
Camoens observed, in a fine account of Gama crossing the equator,
We now disprove the faith of ancient lore;
Bootes' shining car appears no more.
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
the Alexandrian, Phaethon at first drove too high, scorching the
heavens and forming the Milky Way; then he drove top low and set
the earth afire. This conflagration was put out by the Deluge. The
tradition that Phaethon caused the Milky Way became popular with
later mythographers and passed from them to Dante, Chaucer, and
Spenser. Phaethon's association with the Deluge proved less interest-
ing than the older myth of Lycaon (Bk. 1), but it was mentioned
again by Lucretius.
Phanocles told at greater length of Cycnus and Phaethon, describ-
ing the former as a suitor of his kinsman. Apollonius recorded that
the Argonauts voyaging up the Po were troubled by the stench of
Phaethon's body still burning under the water and by the shrill lament
of the sisters. And Alexandrian sculptors often carved the tale of
Phaethon on sarcophagi to suggest the transitory nature of human
life.
Nicander retold the entire story. He repeated the idea that Phae-
thon caused the Milky Way and probably added that by driving too
low he occasioned the Cyclad Isles, the Sahara Desert, and the dark
skin of the Ethiopians. And he seems to have related the story to
a problem which had begun to interest the ancients, the mysterious
origin of the Nile. Dismayed by the excessive heat, he said, the Nile
took refuge in unknown regions far to the south, where he still has
his source. Nicander retained the metamorphosis of Phaethon into
the constellation of the Charioteer; but he rejected all other trans-
formation to stars. Many centuries after this, Nicander's version
inspired the late Greek poet Nonnus.
For Ovid the myth of Phaethon had great interest. He mentioned
it frequently and in the Tristia compared the fall of Phaethon to
his own exile by the Emperor Augustus.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid passed from the myth of Io to that of
Phaethon by declaring that Io's child, Epaphus, had been the one who
questioned the divine parentage of Phaethon. Ovid then proceeded to
elaborate and improve on the version of Nicander. With him he
showed Phaethon appealing to his mother and by her advice making on
foot a rather short journey eastward from Ethiopia, across the adjoin-
ing country of India, to the palace of the Sun. For the majority of
Romans this strange idea of geography in the east would have seemed
entirely credible. Although the ancient Egyptians and Persians knew
something of an Indian Ocean lying between Africa and India, such
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
knowledge had passed very slowly to the Greeks. For Aeschylus and
his audience the mainland of Asia was an almost inaccessible region
inhabited by fabulous peoples and extending southwards to the Nile
in its upper course. More than a century later, the victorious
Alexander, arriving at a branch of the Indus, believed that he
was close to the source of the Nile. And, although subsequent war
and commerce dispelled many illusions, the East was even in
Augustan times a distant, marvellous region rarely visited and little
known.
The Sun's palace Ovid described brilliantly, perhaps with some
recollection of the actual mansions in Roman times. It was built, he
said, by Vulcan, the great artificer of the gods. Following the exam-
ple of the Iliad and the Aeneid, he imagined elaborate sculpture on the
palace doors. But he seems also to have recalled an actual work of
art, for he pictured the world as the Mediterranean Sea enclosed by a
circle of land and both encircled by Ocean--an archaic conception
quite unlike the geography elsewhere in his poem. In portraying the
appearance of the Sun god on his throne, Ovid followed the rather
common epic practice of having a god attended by various personified
abstractions of an appropriate nature. This epic practice suggested
Ovid's personification of the Hours, Days, and Months. But for the
Seasons he again used a work of art. His description here was vague,
probably because the work was familiar to his contemporaries. In
the lore of Pythagoras (Bk. 15) he again treated the same idea, imply-
ing that the Seasons were represented by male figures of appropriately
varied age.
Following Nicander, Ovid recorded Phaethon's request for proof
of his origin and Apollo's rash promise to give whatever proof he
might wish, confirmed with an oath by the river Styx. This famous
oath had begun with a custom followed by many savage peoples of con-
firming an oath with a draught of water believed to have magic powers.
In ancient Greece the very cold waters of the Arcadian river Styx were
regarded as poisonous to any man who was not protected by the gods
--an idea which Ovid was to mention in the lore of Pythagoras. Ac-
cordingly, men wishing to give a solemn pledge would sometimes drink
water of the Styx, in order to show that their intentions were honor-
able and had divine approval. A similar custom was attributed to the
deities themselves. But this oath was associated with the Styx of
the Lower World, which the gods hoped never to visit, so for them
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
the draught of water was omitted. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey
recorded a pledge by the river Styx as the strongest oath that
could be taken by the gods. The Theogony added that any violation
was to be punished by nine years of suffering and exile from Olympus.
And other ancient authors in general made the Styx the most power-
ful sanction which a god could invoke. Following tradition, Ovid
made it clear that, when Phaethon asked unexpectedly for a chance to
drive the Sun's car, Apollo could not withdraw the pledge; but he
imagined that it would have been possible for Phaethon to free him
by withdrawing the request. Therefore, he showed Apollo trying
vainly to dissuade his son in two long and dramatic speeches of
warning.
After the first of these speeches, Ovid showed Apollo leading Phae-
thon to the car, which now was harnessed and ready for the beginning
of day. A description of Juno's chariot in the Iliad may have sug-
gested Ovid's brilliant account of the Sun's car made by Vulcan. But
Ovid described with a different purpose and more opulent effect. He
added also a splendid and beautiful account of the dawn. In these
two descriptions Ovid found unusual opportunity to profit by his
vivid imagination and his eager feeling for color.
According to the mythology of Egypt and many other partly
civilized countries, the sun rose from the east in the morning; tra-
versed the heavens to the west during the day; and returned during
the night through the Lower World to his rising in the east. On the
assumption that the world was flat, this theory explained his move-
ments quite plausibly. But it does not seem to have affected the myth-
ology of the Greeks. They imagined that the sun rose from the ocean
in the east and set in the ocean to the west; but at first they did not
trouble themselves about his method for returning They implied
clearly, however, that he did not pass through Hades, which they re-
garded as a region of gloom never visited by the sun. And later the
more thoughtful Greeks gave up their mythological ideas for the scien-
tific theory that the earth was a sphere and the sun a luminary moving
round it daily with the motion of the heavens. Greek mythology re-
mained illogical regarding the motion of the sun. It felt an incongru-
ity, however, in the conception of the sun's having contact with the
sea and invented the picturesque idea that Tethys, goddess of Ocean,
allowed him to rise from her boat in the east and met him again with
her boat as he came down to the western waves. This idea Ovid
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
accepted for his tale of Phaethon, and he did full justice to the meet-
ing in the west. But in order to describe the Sun's palace, he imag-
ined that the chariot rose in the morning from high ground. Under
these circumstances he could give Tethys only the incongruous duty of
lowering the stable bars.
To the speeches of Apollo and the narrative of Phaethon's ride,
Ovid gave added interest by drawing on the astronomy of his own time.
Such material was of later origin than the myth and not easy to recon-
cile with it. Moreover, Ovid did not understand the scientific prin-
ciples of the astronomy which he was using. Yet he realized that
there were many chances for picturesque detail and on the whole he
gained much by the attempt. His educated readers have been willing
to ignore his mistakes and all his readers have enjoyed the spirited
narrative and graphic detail.
Ovid's use of astronomy is a matter of extraordinary interest. It
showed his desire to enliven ancient myth by relating it unexpectedly
with advanced scientific ideas. For this reason alone it would be inter-
esting to observe his methods. But the conception of the universe
which Ovid was trying to suggest was not peculiar to his own age.
With minor changes, it was accepted by the, majority of well informed
men until the sixteenth century. And much of its doctrine reappeared
even a century later in Milton's Paradise Lost. It is worth while to
explain briefly a system which prevailed so widely and so long and to
show how Ovid applied and misapplied it in his myth.
The system of astronomy which was to become orthodox in Augustan
times had originated in ancient Chaldea. From there it passed to the
Greeks. It was improved by a number of Alexandrian scientists; and,
about a century and a half before Ovid's time, the great astronomer
Hipparchus had brought the science forward to a point where it
agreed in the main with the system later made famous by Ptolemy.
According to this view, an unmoving, spherical Earth was the center of
the universe. Enveloping the Earth closely on all sides was a hollow,
transparent sphere. The Earth resembled, in shape and position, the
yolk of an uncooked egg, and the hollow, transparent sphere resembled
the enveloping white. But in this transparent sphere there floated
a luminous body, the Moon, and from this body the sphere took its
name. Inclosing the sphere of the Moon, was another transparent
sphere, containing the planet Mercury. And this was inclosed suc-
cessively by the spheres of Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
and the stars. 1 Thus, as Ovid pointed out, the proper route for the
Sun would lie in a middle distance, about equally removed from the
stars above and the Earth below, and it should be much higher than the
route of the Moon. But Ovid was wrong in declaring that this course
would take Phaethon among fear inspiring constellations.
Hipparchus believed further that all the successive spheres which
inclosed the Earth moved continually from east to west, carrying
with them the stars, planets, Sun, and Moon. This caused the appar-
ent westward movement of all heavenly bodies during every day and
night. But the Sun, Moon, and planets did not merely revolve in a
westerly direction with their spheres. Each of them at the same time
was moving slowly in a contrary direction through the yielding ma-
terial of the sphere and progressing from west to east. This independ-
ent motion altered their positions with respect to the fixed stars
above and in a year it allowed the Sun to make a complete circuit of
the heavens. Ovid said, therefore, that the Sun must move counter
to the rushing sky. For the year this would be true. But in a single
day his independent movement would be so slight that he would ap-
pear merely to be swept westward with the heavens.
Ancient astronomers had observed that in the course of a year the
Sun would pass through twelve successive regions of the sky called the
zodiac. In each region he would spend a month. This would cause
him to pass successively in front of the constellations occupying each
region. According to the Babylonians and the earlier Alexandrian
astronomers, these constellations were eleven in number and they were
identified in a rather arbitrary manner with eleven mythological crea-
tures. One of the eleven constellations, the Scorpion, extended over
two regions of the zodiac. The later Alexandrians restricted it to one
region and designated the stars remaining in the other as a twelfth
constellation, the Scales. But in early Augustan times the older view
still prevailed. Hence Vergil could inform the young Emperor
graciously that the Scorpion then occupied two regions but in time
would retire and leave room for the constellation of the deified
Augustus. Accepting the newer system, Ovid declared that Vulcan
had carved on the doors ot the Sun's Palace the twelve constellations
of the zodiac. But later he reverted inconsistently to the older sys-
1 The same idea of a central Earth enveloped by successive spheres was implied
in Dante's ParadUo. Dante, too, showed the Moon in the lowest sphere, the Sun
in the fourth or middle sphere, and the stars in the highest. . ,
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
tem, declaring that Phaethon met the Scorpion extending fearfully
over the space of two signs.
According to ancient astronomy, the Sun would pass in front of the
groups known as the Bull, the Archer, and others which Ovid men-
tions. But, to pass all these in his legitimate course, Phaethon would
have had to drive for a period of eight months. In a single day he
would move only part of the distance across a single group.
In describing the surface of the earth, ancient scientists had recog-
nized the five zones which we know today. They sometimes made a
corresponding division of the heavens. When this was done, they
observed that the Sun moved always within the portion of the sky
belonging to the Torrid Zone. And at the two periods, known as the
Vernal Equinox (March 21st. ) and the Autumnal Equinox (September
21st. ), his course lay exactly in the middle of this Torrid belt. But
after the Vernal Equinox, his course left the middle and appeared
every day a little farther north, until at Midsummer (June 21st. ) he
followed the border of the North Temperate Zone. Then he slowly
returned and was again in the middle of the Torrid Zone by the Autum-
nal Equinox. But immediately after, his course left the middle a second
time and now ran daily farther south, until at Midwinter (December
21st. ) it followed the rim of the South Temperate Zone. Accordingly,
Ovid showed Apollo warning Phaethon that the Sun must keep within
the three middle zones, shunning either pole. If Apollo had been ex-
plaining the course of the Sun for the entire year, this statement
would be true. But during a single day the Sun would have only a
restricted course within a single zone.
Despite these scientific blunders, Ovid's use of astronomy added
much to the interest of the story and helped him to emphasize the
essential point. He made it clear that Phaethon was rashly under-
taking an enterprise fraught with peril and Apollo was remonstrating
with fatherly solicitude.
For Phaethon's disastrous ride, Ovid followed Nicander except in
the derivation of the Milky Way, which he had explained elsewhere as
the thoroughfare of the gods (see Lycaon, Bk. 1). But he added
many vivid details and he gladly introduced names of rivers and moun-
tains which had especial interest for the Romans. He tried also to
heighten the effect of terror, confusion, and conflagration. In this
he did not show his usual regard for consistency, for he mentioned the
alarm of the Bears, which did not exist before the later transformation
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
of Callisto, and the suffering of the swans in Cayster, which (accord-
ing to the Latin) did not exist hefore the transformation of Cycnus.
And, what was more unfortunate, he showed not only the scorching
of the Sahara and the Ethiopians but a universal conflagration after
which it would seem impossible for any life to survive.
After introducing an eloquent appeal of Earth, Ovid came to the
hurling of the thunderbolt. Here again he sacrificed probability for
sensational effect. Early tradition implied, and Lucretius had stated
clearly, that Jupiter struck down Phaethon, in order that Apollo
might redirect the chariot into the proper course. Ovid showed him
demolishing the chariot and allowing the frightened horses to strew
it far and wide. Yet later he recorded without explanation that it was
whole and ready in the east, when Apollo was persuaded to resume his
task.
In the Amores Ovid had mentioned Phaethon's becoming the con-
stellation of the Charioteer. In the Metamorphoses he omitted this
event entirely. The explanation seems to be that he reserved it, as he
had reserved the transformation of Io into the constellation of the
Bull (Bk. 1), for an appropriate passage of the Fasti.
The burial of Phaethon by his mother and sisters Ovid rejected as
improbable and he transferred this duty to the Naiads. He followed
the outline of Nicander's story about the transformation of the sisters.
But he added from Vergil's famous account of Polydorous the details
of their bleeding and crying out when their mother tore their poplar
bark. And he adapted the description of amber appropriately to its
use at Rome.
Vergil in the Aeneid had mentioned the traditional love of Cycnus
for Phaethon and added that Cycnus became a white bird, which left
the earth and followed the stars with his voice. Though Ovid greatly
admired this beautiful passage, he could not follow the more striking
details.
To interrupt his dramatic narrative by rehearsing an earlier
and rather unlikely association between Cycnus and Phaethon, would
have been an obvious mistake. And to show the swan following the
stars was hardly effective, unless his beloved Phaethon had become
a constellation. But Ovid could agree with Vergil that Cycnus wan-
dered lamenting among the new poplar trees of the river bank and
follow Vergil's description of the change itself, and this he gladly did.
He then added the ingenious conclusion that Cycnus, remembering
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
Lthe fate of his kinsman, shunned the upper air and chose the water for
his home.
In telling of Apollo's grief, Ovid left the reader uncertain whether
the god refrained from driving for a day or until after the mutation of
Phaethon's sisters, a period of four months. The god's complaint
that he had driven the chariot since the beginning of the world was
needlessly inconsistent with other parts of the poem and was unfor-
tunately querulous in tone. And, after omitting the metamorphosis
of Phaethon, Ovid found no good means of reconciling the god to the
death of his son.
While the myth of Phaethon was far from being one of Ovid's most
successful tales, it had great merit and for the Middle Ages and the
modern period it was the only complete version accessible. It was a
favorite source of reference for later times.
Dante used the tale effectively to illustrate his accounts of the con-
versation with Cacciaguida, the glorious car of the church, and the
terror of descending on the back of the monster Geryon. In the House
of Fame the eagle retold the story to Chaucer at some length. Ariosto
predicted that Azzo should rule Ferrara,' near the stream where
Phoebus lamented
The son ill trusted with his father's beams;
Where Cycnus spread his pinions; and the scented
Amber was wept, as fabling poet dreams.
Tasso remembered the Sun's car while describing the chariot of
Armida. Camoens mentioned Phaethon as darkening the Africans and
as affording an example of foolish ambition. So great was Spenser's
enjoyment of the myth that he referred to it--always at great length
--in The Tears of the Muses and in three remarkable passages of
The Farie Queen--the description of Pride, the adventure in the House
of Busyrane, and the defeat of the Soldan. He was inclined, however,
to vary from Ovid's details with unusual freedom. Ovid's myth guided
Spenser also in a remarkable story of Mutability's obtaining the car
of the Moon and threatening the order of the world.
Shakespeare alluded to Phaethon briefly in Two Gentlemen of
Verona, in Richard Second, and twice in the Third Part of Henry
Sixth. Milton in his Eikonoclastes declared that the whole reign of
Charles the First was like that of Phaethon. Calderon wrote a dra-
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? CALLISTO AND JUPITER
matic pageant The Child of the Sun. Byron recalled Phaethon's fall
in both the Vision of Judgment and The Deformed Transformed.
Goethe's Egmont compared himself to the bold Phaethon, swept on
irresistibly by the eagerness of his steeds, dodging now this peril and
now that, and so occupied with the present as to have no thought
whence he came and no fear of his approaching ruin. In Gerard de
Lairesse Browning described a painting of Phaethon's tomb. And
Blackmore's John Bidd was able to enter the Doone Valley because he
remembered Ovid's precept that the middle way is safest.
The circumstance that Phaethon did not drive at the normal speed
suggested opposite inferences to later poets. Chaucer's Troilus,
awaiting the return of Cressid, found the days so long that he fancied
that Phaethon was again driving the chariot amiss. Shakespeare's
Juliet, impatient for the night, imagined that, if Phaethon were driv-
ing the chariot, he would hasten the end of day.
Ovid's description of the Sun's palace proved unusually interesting.
Jean de Meun borrowed the account of the sea gods carved on the
doors. Boiardo recalled Ovid while describing the Palazzo Gioioso. In
the opera Psyche, Corneille remembered that Ovid had made Vulcan
the builder of the Sun's Palace and attributed to him also a palace for
the God of Love. And Milton made Vulcan the architect of Satan's
great residence, Pandemonium.
Dante recalled the names which Ovid gave the Sun's horses for both
his Convivio and his Second Eclogue. And Chaucer mentioned them in
the Troilus.
Petrarch, imitating much of Ovid's detail, recounted his own grief
when repulsed by Laura and his metamorphosis to a swan.
Ovid's myth inspired paintings by Piombo, Bubens, and Moreau.
Primaticcio treated both the borrowing of the car and the fall of
Phaethon. And Ovid's lines of the dawn suggested Guido Beni's great
masterpiece of Aurora preceding the chariot of the Sun.
. ,
Callisto and Jupiter
.
After the destruction caused by Phaethon, Ovid showed Jupiter
making a careful inspection of the earth and restoring its former
order. Callimachus had declared Arcadia the birthplace of Jove and
so Ovid supposed that Jupiter gave this region Ipecial attention and
hence discovered Callisto, the beautiful daughter of Lycaon. The
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
success of this introduction caused him to invent a similar inspection
of Sicily as introduction to the myth of Proserpina (Bk. 5).
The myth of Lycaon and his daughter Callisto had taken form
before Lycaon was associated with the Deluge (cf. Bk. 1) and it had
continued to grow independently. Thus Ovid found the adjustment
of the two myths rather difficult. Presumably Lycaon and his daugh-
ter should have perished in the flood. Ovid left the reader to imagine
that in some unexplained way they escaped; but he made the difficulty
less apparent by allowing other tales to intervene. This remedy had
a disadvantage, for Callisto would have been much older than most
of Ovid's heroines, if she had waited until both Io and her son had
reached maturity. But the delay was possible and allowed Ovid to
preserve an appearance of succession in order of time.
The myth of Callisto was of early origin and in time assumed
various forms. It had many resemblances to another early Arcadian
myth, the story of Io. Callisto was worshipped originally as a
goddess, who appeared nightly in the constellation that we still know
as the Great Bear. And often she was referred to as the Curver
(Helice) because instead of setting, her constellation moved always in a
curving path round the northern pole. At the same time Callisto was
also a goddess appearing on earth in the form of a bear, and her son
Arcas was reputed to be the founder of the Arcadian tribes. Such de-
scent from a divine animal has been recorded in the tradition of many
peoples and notably in royal genealogies of Egypt. Later, worship of
Diana, a goddess in human form, superseded that of Callisto. Some-
times the two were regarded as the same. But usually Callisto became
Lycaon's daughter, a human attendant of Diana who offended her and
suffered metamorphosis. The myth then became similar to many popu-
lar tales, especially common in northern Europe, in which a human
being is compelled to suffer the hardships of transformation into a
bear. But in the Arcadian tradition there was unusual emphasis on
the fact that a huntress was now in dread of death from her former
'companions and their hounds. In this the tale resembled that of
Actaeon (Bk. 3). The likeness was most clear in the earliest version
but still remained in that of Ovid.
Before entering literature, the tradition seems to have taken the
following form: Jupiter ravished Callisto and, in order to avoid dis-
covery by Juno, turned the nymph into a bear. In time she became
the mother of the boy Arcas. Juno, learning the bear's identity,
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? CALL1ST0 AND JUPITER
caused Diana to hunt and kill her, and her grave was long pointed
out by the Arcadians. But Jupiter made her the constellation of the
Bear, the star first used as a guide by Greek mariners. This tradition
was known to the poets of the Iliad and the Odyssey, for both allude
to the unsetting Bear. It may have been known also to Ovid; but he
would have avoided it as too like his accounts of Io and Actaeon.
In the Astronomy, the tale assumed a different form. Here Jupiter
allowed the nymph to continue as a follower of Diana. While bathing,
Callisto revealed her pregnancy, and the maiden goddess indignantly
metamorphosed her to a she bear. After the birth of Arcas, goatherds
captured both the bear and her infant child and gave them to her
father, Lycaon. Informed in some way of his daughter's misfortune,
Lycaon plotted revenge. He contrived to have Arcas killed and served
to Jupiter at a banquet. But the god detected the plot; punished
Lycaon; and restored Arcas to life. In time the boy grew up and
became father of the Arcadians. But one day Callisto entered a for-
bidden precinct of Jupiter, an offense punishable by death. Pursuing
her, Arcas incurred the same penalty. To save them, Jupiter trans-
lated both to the skies. Arcas became the constellation of the Bear
Ward (Arctophylax or Arcturus) so called because it appeared to
follow the Bear round the northern heavens. A later form of this ver-
sion Ovid used for the translation of Callisto and Arcas which he
recorded in his Fasti; but he did not follow it in the Metamorphoses.
Meanwhile the Phoenicians had long since learned to steer by a con-
stellation much nearer the pole than the Great Bear. This knowledge
passed finally to the Greeks. Of several names which they gave the
new constellation, one was that of the Lesser Bear. The fact that the
group had a similar form to that of the Great Bear would suggest a
likeness in the name, and Aratus implies that the two signs were asso-
ciated at first with a Cretan myth of two bears who nurtured the infant
Jupiter and were rewarded by a place in the sky. But the Great
Bear continued to be related with Callisto and in time the Lesser Bear
was associated with Arcas, although this was illogical, for he had not
lost his human form. This myth Ovid mentioned in his Epistle of
Leander.
For the Alexandrians the tale of Callisto had great interest; Calli-
machus, Eratosthenes, and Nicander retold it in works which are now
lost. What details may have been peculiar to any of these three ver-
sions, it seems impossible to determine. But by the end of the Alex-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
andrian period the story had become much more plausible. It was
recorded that Callisto had sworn perpetual virginity and in return
had become the favorite attendant of Diana. Hence the goddess pun-
ished her in a summary manner. But Diana had been content with
dismissing Callisto from her company. The nymph returned to her
father, Lycaon, and bore a son. Aware that Arcas was a child of
Jove, Juno transformed the mother into a she bear. The bear, return-
ing to the forest, avoided the sight of human beings but contrived to
watch the growth of her son. Arcas, when about fifteen, suddenly
came face to face with his mother. She recognized him; but he sup-
posed her merely a dangerous animal and was about to kill her, when
Jupiter interfered and transformed both mother and son to the con-
stellations of the Great and Lesser Bear. But the story did not end
here. Juno, dreading1 banishment from heaven, resolved to assure
herself of a refuge in the ocean. Visiting Oceanus and Tethys, whom
the Iliad had made her foster parents, she persuaded them to exclude
her rival from the waters.
This account, taken probably from Nicander, Ovid used for the
Metamorphoses. To the Romans Callisto appears to have been well
known, for Ovid did not mention her name. He omitted the oath of
perpetual virginity, perhaps in order to vary from the account in his
Fasti.
Probably following his original, Ovid recorded that Jupiter found
Callisto sleeping towards the hour of noon. In the hot dry countries
bordering the Mediterranean, men would naturally engage in hunting
or other active pursuits during the early morning hours and then
withdraw to spend the middle of the day quietly in a shady place and
often to bathe in a cooling stream. In actual life this was apt to
occasion unexpected meetings and give leisure for important events.
In Alexandrian literature the hour of noon seems to have been men-
tioned regularly as the time for tragic happenings. Ovid followed
the custom repeatedly in his Metamorphoses and Milton seems to have
been influenced by it when he made noon the time of Satan's arrival
in Eden and later of his successfully tempting Eve.
Ovid invented the frivolous reflection of Jupiter that he could either
escape the notice of his wife or bear complacently with her reproof.
When Callisto was alone and asleep, it would have been easy for Jove
to approach her. But, recalling a Greek comedy of the third century
B. C. , Ovid added that Jupiter assumed the appearance of Diana. - Thus
. >>
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? CALLISTO AND JUPITER
he was able to introduce not only an additional metamorphosis but
the whimsical circumstance of Jupiter amused to hear Callisto prefer
him to himself.
The ensuing struggle Ovid vivified by suddenly addressing one of
his characters. As if he were actually looking on at the events, he
exclaimed, "Juno, would that you might see, you would be more merci-
ful! " The same effective method he was to repeat in the tale of
Narcissus and in many other stories throughout his poem. Ovid added
also the very natural circumstances that, even when the real Diana
appeared, Callisto feared deception until she saw the attendant
nymphs. And he imagined that Callisto would have betrayed herself,
if the maiden goddess had not been entirely unacquainted with such
guilt.
After the transformation of Lycaon (Bk. 1), it was no longer pos-
sible to imagine that Callisto returned to her father's house. Ovid
omitted this detail and did not explain how Arcas could survive the
transformation of his mother or how after an interval of fifteen years
she was able to recognize him. The Romans may have been sufficiently
familiar with tradition to take these matters for granted.
That Juno should seize the nymph by the hair and throw her to
the ground was in accord with the general literary practice of both
the Alexandrians and Ovid. They brought the gods down almost to
the ordinary human level. But in this case Ovid could have found
precedent in a passage of the Iliad, where Juno beat Diana cruelly
with a bow.
The interesting elaboration of Io's hardships after she became a
heifer probably suggested to Ovid a similar treatment of Callisto's
hardships after she became a bear. And the situation differed enough
to permit originality and contrast.
After Callisto and Arcas had entered the sky, Ovid made two ad-
ditions to the incident of Juno's visiting Oceanus and Tethys. In
soliloquies at the beginning of the First and Seventh Books of the
Aeneid, Vergil had shown the goddess grieving at her ill success, dread-
ing more serious wrong, and planning a new attack on her enemies.
Drawing on this material, Ovid invented Juno's indignant plea to her
foster parents. The same passages of Vergil were to help him again
in the tales of Semele (Bk. 3), and Ino (Bk. 4). Ovid added also, as a
transition to the following story, Juno's departure in a car drawn
by peacocks, whose tails were bright with the eyes of Argus,
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
Ovid's myth of Callisto occasioned some interesting allusions by
later poets. Dante on the mount of Purgatory heard those guilty of
normal lust recall Diana's banishment of the nymph as an example of
the severe chastity to which they aspire. An early sonnet of Petrarch
described the Great Bear as that beautiful northern constellation
which causes Juno to be jealous. Chaucer in the Parliament of Fowls
mentioned the tale of Callisto as painted in the temple of Venus.
Camoens observed, in a fine account of Gama crossing the equator,
We now disprove the faith of ancient lore;
Bootes' shining car appears no more.
