Such reversal of nature was
associated
chiefly with the in-
cantation of witches.
cantation of witches.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
Marlowe suggested that, if Leander's hair had been
transported to the shore of Colchos, it would have persuaded the Greek
heroes to hazard more than they ventured for the Fleece. Shakespeare
observed in The Merchant of Venice that Portia's sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece,
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.
Still other poets, following Ovid, treated of the events in Colchis.
Remembering that Valerius Flaccus had given Jason an adventure at
Troy, Benoit de St. Maure commenced his Roman de Troie with a long
account of Jason's Colchian experiences. In accord with the practice
of medieval romance, he showed Medea aggressively courting Jason. He
also changed many of Ovid's details. The Italian Guido della Colonna
and the Germans Herbort von Fritzlar and Conrad von Wiirtemburg
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? JASON AND MEDEA
regarded these alterations of detail as a mistake and while translating
Benoit's poem they were careful to reject most of his innovations. Jean
de Meun retold Ovid's tale in the Romance of the Rose. Spenser imag-
ined that the story of Jason and Medea was carved in ivory on Acrasia's
gate.
Many poets showed particular interest in the love story of Jason
and Medea. Chretien de Troyes in Sir Cliges pictured Loredamor as
falling in love under circumstances resembling those of Medea and as
reflecting in a similar monologue that reason was of no avail against
love. His heroine Fenice pondered in a monologue the danger that Cliges
might deceive her and decided, like Medea, that his appearance and man-
ner justified perfect confidence. Fenice also had a nurse, Thessala, who
knew more witchcraft than Medea. Chaucer in his Legend of Good
Women used chiefly the Heroides and later versions than Ovid's; but he
too remembered that Medea was reassured by Jason's appearance and
bearing. In the Knight's Tale he referred to love as inspiring the en-
chantments of Circe and Medea. Tasso described the enchantress
Armida as excelling in beauty both Medea and Circe.
The circumstances under which Medea yielded to temptation in-
terested a number of the greatest poets. Ovid had shown her stating
clearly, both in her soliloquy and in her interview with Jason, that she
knowingly did wrong. The first of these statements had the more obvious
effect. Cowper used it as the text for a poem against the slave trade.
Petrarch, reflecting that he ought to renounce love and worldly glory,
confessed that he too saw the better way and followed the worse. Ariosto
echoed the same idea in a sonnet. In Paradise Regained Milton showed
Satan observing that most men admire virtue who follow not her lore.
Both of Medea's declarations appear to have made a deep impression
on Shakespeare and to have influenced the method by which he pre-
sented his three chief villains, Richard Third, Iago, and Edmund. Early
in the play he gave each of these arch plotters a soliloquy in which the
villain meditated on his future conduct and stated clearly that he under-
stood the wicked nature of his plans. But Shakespeare did not attempt
to enlist the reader's sympathy for the evil character.
Ovid had said that Medea's passion revived as a tiny spark is
kindled by a breath of wind. This detail attracted later poets. When
Dante asked Cacciaguida to tell him of old-time Florence, the spirit
brightened with joy, as if a breath of wind should kindle a spark into
flame. And, according to Ariosto, love for Medore began in Angelica's
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
heart as a tiny spark and kindled into a flame so fierce that she burned
with desire.
Several poets recalled the labors of Jason. Dante in his Paradiso
mentioned the wonder of the Argonauts when they saw their leader suc-
cessfully plowing the field. Boiardo told of Orlando's yoking furious
bulls and killing a crop of armed men, and of Mandricardo's reaping
still another magic crop. He showed Angelica providing her lover with
the means of overcoming a monster. Lucan compared the strife of
Caesar's troops on the raft to that of the earthborn warriors crazed by
Medea's herbs. Spenser, remembering both Horace and Ovid, observed
in his Ruins of Rome that Roman armies grew up as readily as the war-
riors planted by Jason and perished as disastrously by civil strife.
Ariosto noted that, if Doralice had not feared publicity, she would have
joined in celebrating the victory of Rogero. But his imitation was more
temperate and more appropriate than the original. Shakespeare, con-
fusing the hydra with the Colchian dragon, declared in the Second Part
of Henry Fourth that dangerous eyes of the Hydra, war, may be
charmed asleep.
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? AESON REJUVENATED
Aeson Rejuvenated
When Jason and his followers arrived in Iolcus, Ovid continued,
the fathers and mothers of Jason's followers held a celebration in their
honor, offering to the gods incense and a victim with gilded horns. The
parents of Jasons did not share in the public rejoicing. Following the
Theogony, Ovid supposed that Aeson still was alive, but he described
him as old, feeble, and almost dead. For Jason, his father's absence
marred the joy of the festival, and it occasioned his plea that Medea
might prolong old Aeson's life.
Many savage peoples have regarded fire as a potent remedy for the
evil influences which cause blight, disease, old age, and death. At the
annual festivals commemorating Hallowe'en -- the beginning of win-
ter, and Beltane -- the beginning of summer, they purified their villages
with ceremonial fires and drove their cattle through the flames. At the
birth of a child they often arranged for exposing the infant to the fire,
in order that he might have long life, an idea which entered into the
Greek myth of Triptolemus (Bk. 5).
Exposure to fire was considered beneficial in a similar way for per-
sons of riper years. An African tribe near Mt. Kilimanjaro habitually
attempted by the following ceremony to give their chieftains length of
days. At dawn the wizard caused a trench to be dug in the ground and
the chieftain and his favorite wife to lie down in it, side by side. Over
the trench, poles were laid and were covered with banana bark and soil.
Then the hearthstones of the chieftain were set above his head, a fire was
kindled among them, and food was boiled in a caldron for his relatives
and friends. And in this manner he was baked until evening.
Even more remarkable treatments by fire were recorded in popular
mythology. According to a story current among the Papuans of Dutch
New Guinea, a certain magician, finding his wife displeased at his being
old and ugly, built a fire, flung himself on it, and came forth young and
attractive. According to folk tales popular in many European coun-
tries, either Christ or Satan burned some aged man in a forge and so
restored him to his youthful prime. In other mythical tales the same
result was obtained by boiling the man in a caldron of magic herbs.
Often the old man's body had first to be cut to pieces. This was reported,
for example, by the Shans of Lakon in Cambodia. By such mincing and
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
boiling, they declared, a very old, decrepit prince was transformed into
a perfect beau. In other cases the old man was killed but not cut up and
then was boiled and restored to his youth. This method was described in
another Cambodian myth and also in the Greek myth of Medea and
Aeson.
The rejuvenating of Aeson was mentioned in an early epic called
Returns. According to this authority, Medea boiled numerous drugs in
golden caldrons and metamorphosed Aeson from an old man into an
attractive lad of fifteen. Presumably she did this by immersing his body
in at least one of the caldrons. An unknown Alexandrian scholar, who
wrote a preface to the Medea of Euripides, referred to Medea's power of
rejuvenation and quoted three lines from the Returns. This brief refer-
ence gave Ovid the hint from which he developed his remarkable tale.
Ovid invented the conversation between Jason and Medea. Before
making his request, he observed, Jason admitted that already Medea
had saved his life and had conferred benefits exceeding all his hopes. But
he now desired her to give one more favor -- to shorten by a few years
his own appointed length of life and to prolong by the same amount the
life of his father. Medea was impressed by his pious regard and still
more impressed when she compared it with her own neglect of Aeetes.
Ovid seems to imply that in benefiting Jason's father she hoped to make
some atonement for deserting her own.
But first she deprecated the method which Jason had proposed.
Medea began with the reproach used often by characters of the Iliad,
"What an evil thought has escaped from your mouth! " It would be
wrong, she continued, to help another by shortening her husband's life,
and she could not bring herself to do so. It would even be impossible.
Jason had expressed the belief that spells could accomplish anything.
She declared that Hecate would not allow them to do him such wrong.
Medea would try in some other, less costly manner to prolong the days
of Aeson.
Tradition had suggested a magic process which included the use of
mysterious herbs. Ovid saw here a chance to deal at some length with
the strange, uncanny ways of magic. The theme has interested many
savage and partly civilized peoples. Certain persons have been thought
to control supernatural powers and by their help to accomplish seem-
ingly impossible feats. Among savages a knowledge of magic was
attributed usually to men, but among partly civilized peoples it was
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? AESON REJUVENATED
attributed oftener to women, and this has been the prevalent idea in
literature.
The theme of magic attracted frequent attention of Greek authors.
The Odyssey included a famous account of the enchantress Circe.
Many Greek writers associated magic prominently with the stories
of Triptolemus and Medea, and in the latter tale they sometimes
had treated briefly of gathering materials. Sophocles and Apollonius
told of Medea's obtaining the Promethean herb which protected Jason,
and Sophocles in his play the Root Cutters told of her collecting certain
materials in order to deceive the daughters of Pelias. Theocritus had
made the subject of magic very famous by recording the incantation
with which Simaetha tried to regain her unfaithful lover.
Roman poets found the idea of magic congenial. Vergil and
Horace followed especially the example of Theocritus. In the Eighth
Eclogue Vergil recorded an incantation to recover Daphnis, implying
that it was successful; and in the Aeneid he told of Dido's employing a
Massylian priestess to help her retain Aeneas, but he indicated clearly
that Dido's attempt was doomed to fail and was intended only to ob-
scure her plan of suicide. Horace in an Epode pictured Canidia and
her fellow witches torturing a boy, in order that his liver and marrow
might help Canidia regain her lover. One of his Satires pictured the
same witches in a graveyard collecting their gruesome materials, but he
did not indicate their purpose.
Ovid in his treatise on cosmetics alluded to witchcraft as a means
of retaining love. In the Epistle of Hypsipyle he discussed the idea at
greater length, taking suggestions both from Vergil and from Horace.
The queen of Lemnos accused Medea of winning Jason by the use of
magic and spoke of her as visiting burial places by night, in order to
collect materials for her nefarious art. In the tale of Aeson, Ovid now
planned to deal at still greater length with Medea's use of magic, and he
proceeded to draw many suggestions from his Greek and Roman prede-
cessors.
Although ancient poets believed that magic could be practised any-
where, certain regions were famous for it. One region was Thessaly.
There Chiron had resided and had taught Aesculapius and others the
use of potent herbs. There Medea had dealt in magic when she plotted
against Pelias. By Ovid's time the country appears to have acquired a
fame for witchcraft in general, which Lucan commemorated afterwards
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
in his Pharsalia. Thessaly was auspicious for the scene of a new story
of Medea and the process of magic.
Theocritus had told of Simaetha pronouncing her incantation
under the light of a full moon. Following his example, Vergil spoke of
the Massylian priestess as gathering herbs under a full moon. He noted
also that, when she performed magic rites, her hair was streaming down
her back. He observed that Dido, when she performed such rites, was
dressed in flowing robes and had one foot bare. Ovid followed Vergil.
Medea delayed her gathering of herbs until the moon shone full, and she
went forth with her hair streaming over her shoulders and with flowing
robes. Ovid added that her foot was bare, and, although his phrase was
ambiguous, he seems to have meant that one foot was covered and the
other bare.
Theocritus had contrasted briefly the peace of nature with the
wakeful activity of Simaetha. Horace in his Epode made a similar brief
contrast between the repose of wild creatures in the forest and the fierce
zeal of Canidia invoking the deities who preside over witchcraft. And
Vergil in a very beautiful passage had pictured the calm of night and
the unsleeping sorrow of Dido. Ovid showed the influence of all three.
He contrasted the peace of nature with the wakeful activity of Medea;
he showed her choosing this quiet hour for an invocation of the deities
governing witchcraft; and he described at some length the calm of night.
But the details of his description were as original as they were beautiful.
Theocritus had pictured Simaetha as performing each of her rites
three times. Vergil in his Eighth Eclogue noted a similar threefold repe-
tition and added that by such uneven numbers the deity is pleased. Ac-
cordingly Ovid observed that Medea turned about three times, sprinkled
her hair three times with water taken from a flowing stream, and uttered
three wailing cries. Simaetha, according to Theocritus, had invoked the
goddess Hecate. Vergil's Massylian priestess invoked threefold Hecate,
the triple-faced maiden Diana, alluding picturesquely to the idea that
Hecate, Diana, and the Moon (Luna) were three manifestations of the
same goddess. Canidia in Horace's Epode invoked Night and also
Diana, who presides at the hour when mysterious rites are performed.
Ovid combined freely ideas taken from Vergil and Horace. Medea ad-
dressed both three-headed Hecate and Night, but it was Night to whom
she attributed the care of mysterious rites.
Simaetha had invoked vaguely the other deities associated with
night and the Lower World. The Massylian priestess addressed speci-
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? AESON REJUVENATED
fically Erebus, Chaos, and other divinities, three hundred in all. Ovid
showed Medea, too, invoking the deities associated with night. But she
named also Earth and the many forces of nature -- appropriately, for
these would be potent in furnishing her magic herbs. In this way Ovid
obtained an unusually impressive list. He did not mention any deities
associated exclusively with the Lower World because later Medea would
invoke their special aid to save Aeson from the imminence of death.
From impressive enumeration of deities Medea passed to the theme
of reversing natural law. This had been a favorite subject of ancient
poetry. Euripides had treated it first in a chorus of his Medea. So
great, he said, was the injustice done the heroine that it would seem to
be impossible -- one could now imagine all the laws of nature giving way
to their opposites. Theocritus and Horace used the same idea, and in
the Tristia, Ovid was to associate it with the disloyalty of a trusted
friend. Vergil in his First Eclogue gave the theme a new direction.
Speaking of a certain act which had not occurred, he declared that its
occurrence was impossible -- one could imagine as easily a reversal of
nature. Propertius followed his example, and Ovid was soon to follow
it in the Ibis.
In all these instances ancient authors had considered the possibility
that laws of nature might give way. In still other instances they believed
that such laws had given way. Greek tradition noted in the tales of
Orpheus and a few others that they yielded to the power of song, and,
beginning with Cicero's plea for Archias, the idea had been repeated by
the Romans.
Such reversal of nature was associated chiefly with the in-
cantation of witches. Both Vergil and Horace gave the subject promi-
nence. Ovid had mentioned it in his Epistle of Hypsipyle and in his
treatise on cosmetics. He now considered it at some length in the invo-
cation of Medea.
Although Greek and Roman authors, when they discussed a reversal
of nature, tended to be original in their choice of illustrative detail, there
were a few circumstances of which they were especially fond. Euripides
had introduced a very popular idea of rivers flowing back to their
sources. Vergil and Horace had spoken of drawing the moon down from
heaven and of raising ghosts from the grave. Vergil in his eclogue noted
the power of sorcery to make serpents burst and to shift grain from one
field to another. In the Aeneid he described the Massylian priestess as
able to make ash trees descend from the mountains, stop the flow of
rivers, and cause the earth to rumble beneath her feet.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Some of these traditional marvels Ovid had mentioned separately in
his Amores and his treatise on cosmetics. In the Epistle of Hypsipyle
he recorded several of them. Medea, he said, was able to bring down the
reluctant moon, to move from their places woods and living rocks and
to stop the flow of rivers. He added also that she was able to control
the motion of the seas and to hide in darkness the horses of the Sun.
When Jason had lulled the Colchian dragon, Ovid emphasized the power
of his incantation, noting that it was capable of staying the swollen sea
and swift flowing rivers.
In the tale of Aeson, Ovid proceeded to give an impressive list of
marvels. He not only repeated all the traditional examples but added
many others. While invoking the deities, he said, Medea recalled pre-
vious miracles which they had helped her to perform. Rivers had flowed
backwards; seas had been quieted or made stormy; clouds and winds
had dispersed or assembled; the jaws of vipers had burst; rocks, oak
trees, and forests had moved from their places; mountains had trembled;
earth rumbled; and ghosts had come forth from their tombs. The moon
had been drawn down, the Sun and the Dawn had grown pale.
When Vergil and Horace mentioned the power of an enchantress to
bring down the moon from heaven, they probably meant literally that
the moon descended to the earth. And later, in the tale of the Centaurs
(Bk. 12), when Ovid spoke of Mycale as drawing down the crescent
moon, he appears to have imagined the same occurrence. But in the tale
of Aeson he thought that the moon suffered eclipse and he alluded to an-
other superstition world wide among uncivilised peoples. For such tribes
an eclipse of the moon or the sun was a cause of terror. Without warn-
ing the bright luminary grew rapidly dimmer and seemed to be strug-
gling for its life. In the case of the moon, its color altered to a
ghastly red. Some unknown monster, they thought, must have seized
their familiar luminary in his jaws and must have begun to swallow it
forever. Against such a monster human strength would be of little
avail, although often they launched arrows and other missiles wildly
towards the sky. But it might be possible with noise to frighten or con-
fuse the monster and so cause him to release his prey. With all haste
they rushed forth, yelling, beating their dogs, pounding on drums,
clanging shields and cymbals, and keeping up an indescribable din until
at length darkness departed and the harassed luminary returned again
to its tranquil splendor. Such fears assailed the Greeks and Romans
during an eclipse, and they resorted chiefly to clashing of bronze ves-
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? AESON REJUVENATED
sels. Ovid had alluded to the practice in his account of Hermaphro-
ditus (Bk. 4). He alluded to it again in relation to the achievements
of Medea, and he observed that against her magic the clash of bronze
was of no avail.
After recalling wonders which the deities had helped her perform
for other purposes, Medea spoke of those which they had allowed her
to perform in behalf of Jason -- conquest of fiery bulls, earth-born
warriors, and the unsleeping dragon. In Jason's behalf she must now
try to make an old man young. This was her present task, and she im-
plied that it was the most difficult of all.
In Vergil's eclogue the enchanter declared suddenly that his incan-
tation was successful, and he mentioned as evidence two mystic signs --
ashes on the altar gave out flame and the dog, Hylax, barked outside
the door. Ovid imitated the incident. But as Medea's attempt to reju-
venate Aeson was much rarer and stranger than the attempt to recall
an unfaithful lover, so her signs were proportionately more remarkable,
a car drawn by winged dragons.
The stars gave a sudden flash, and at the same moment there drew near
According to Greek tradition, Ceres had a dragon car, which con-
veyed her rapidly through the air (cf. Triptolemus, Bk. 5). A similar
car was attributed to Medea's grandfather, the Sun. When Medea was
about to leave Corinth, Euripides declared that her grandfather sent her
this car and allowed her to depart through the air to Athens. Accord-
ing to Euripides, Medea was then using the car for the first time. Ovid
thought otherwise. Announcing the arrival of this marvellous chariot,
his Medea implied that she had expected its coming and was familiar
with its use. Apparently she often had summoned the car when she went
in search of her magic ingredients. By this change Ovid added greatly
to the wonder of the quest.
Entering the dragon car, Medea first ascended rapidly to a great
altitude, in order that she might observe places likely to afford her
suitable material. Below, all Thessaly spread out westward and north-
ward, in the light of the full moon. Medea had left the ground at a
point near Iolcus, in southeastern Thessaly, and she was still circling
high above it. But now she could look northwards to the most distant
part of this region and could discern there the deep vale of Tempe, wind-
ing darkly below her. And her keen gaze noted successively many other
prominent geographical features of the country.
Directly beneath the car lay the expanse of the landlocked Pagas-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
aean Gulf, with Iolcus crowded into a small area at its northern ex-
tremity. Immediately behind the town rose Mt. Pelion, first of a chain
of mountains, which ran northwards along the coast. Conspicuous
among these, appeared Mt. Ossa, with Lake Boebais glimmering to the
westward at its base. Still farther to the north, beyond the River Peneus
and the Vale of Tempe, Mt. Olympus rose from the sea and with its
snowy summit marked the limit of her view. Other mountains almost as
lofty, extended from Olympus westwards and met at right angles with
yet another lofty range. This range, culminating in Mt. Pindus, ran
southwards, the rugged sides dark with forests, the peaks and ridges
bare and gleaming pale in the moon light. So it continued the entire
length of Thessaly, dividing it from the more western region of Epirus.
A lower range, reaching its height in the peaks of Tymphrestus and
Othrys, ran from the Pindus mountains eastward nearly to the Pagas-
aean Gulf and formed the southern border of the country.
The chief rivers were visible also, their course indicated by the
unusual darkness of the valley and by heavy vegetation. Many of them
began in the general region of Mt. Othrys, near the southern limits of
Thessaly, and all of them flowed in a northerly direction. Rising on the
slopes of Mt. Othrys, the Apidanus and the Enipeus ran northwest-
ward, met in the inland plain of Thessaly, and then continued north-
wards to join the Peneus. The Amphrysius, rising a little to the east of
the others, found a different course northeastwards along the foot of the
Othrys Range and entered the gulf not far from Iolcus. From her lofty
vantage point Medea could even look southward over the crests of the
Othrys Range and observe the course of the River Spercheus, from its
beginning in the ravines of Tymphrestus eastwards until it entered the
narrow Malian Gulf.
All these places Ovid named, but he did not give them in orderly
succession. He appears rather to have sought a studied disorder.
Although Medea's practised eye noted immediately the regions of great-
est promise, her materials were rare and difficult to find. It was neces-
sary to fly back and forth, this way and that, and to scrutinize every
locality again and again. This idea Ovid probably wished to convey.
Although Medea was later to use animal and mineral ingredients, Ovid
indicated that her present quest was wholly for herbs. Some of these,
he said, she pulled up by their roots, others she cut with a sickle. And,
since Vergil had spoken of the Massylian priestess as using a sickle of
bronze, Ovid followed him here and was to do so again in the Fasti.
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? AESON REJUVENATED
Medea gave much attention to grasses, searching every moist region of
Thessaly. She even made a long flight southeastwards to the Boeotian
shore and plucked at Anthedon a species of grass which later was famous
for the transformation of Glaucus into a sea god (Bk. 13).
The search continued through nine days and nights -- three times
the propitious number three. Then Medea returned and alighted in the
open country near Iolcus. As she did so, the herbs gave evidence of their
power. According to ancient belief, the serpent is able by casting his
skin to renew his youth. The mere scent of Medea's herbs, Ovid tells us,
was potent enough to rejuvenate her dragons. As they alighted, they
began to cast their skins, wrinkled with the passage of many years.
As Ovid recorded the subsequent actions of Medea, he seems to have
been influenced by the spring rites of the Bacchanals. Medea was careful
to remain in the open air and to observe chastity during the time of
preparation; and, although she was willing herself to give Jason and
others the necessary instructions, she allowed no one to be present at
the rites of rejuvenation. Tradition had not indicated that these rites
were secret in the case of Aeson, and it had indicated the contrary in the
case of Pelias, for they were witnessed by his daughters. By this inno-
vation Ovid not only made the stories different from each other but
enhanced the picturesqueness of the rites in behalf of Aeson.
Medea propitiated first Hecate and Hebe, goddess of youth. To
each of them she erected an altar of turf, adorning it with boughs from
the forest. These goddesses were to exert their influence for restoring
Aeson's youth. Then she propitiated the divinities of Earth and the
Lower World. She did this by offerings which ancient tradition had pre-
scribed for attracting the dead. In the Odyssey, Ulysses dug a pit and
killed sheep, at least one of which was black, allowing their blood to flow
into the pit. In Horace's Satire the witches made a similar offering of a
black ram. The Odyssey added that Ulysses afterwards poured into the
pit wine and other ingredients. Ovid said therefore that Medea dug a
pit, killed over it a black sheep, and then poured in bowls of wine and
of warm milk. Meanwhile in prayers to Pluto, Proserpina, and the rest,
she urged these divinities to defer their claim on Aeson's life.
Having obtained the favor of the gods, Medea commanded that
Aeson should be carried out and laid on a bed of herbs. Lulling him
magically to sleep, she loosened her hair in the manner of a Bacchante.
In advance she had prepared a considerable amount of wood, which was
split into very small, inflammable pieces. These she dipped in the blood
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
of the sheep and afterwards kindled at the fire on the altar. Then she
purified the old man successively with fire, water, and sulphur, perform-
ing each rite three times.
Before commencing these rites over Aeson's body, Medea had
kindled a fire and had set over it a caldron, containing powerful ingre-
dients. These now were boiling vigorously. Already they included a
great variety of Thessalian plants --- their roots, seeds, flowers, and
keen juices. But, as they foamed and leaped up with the heat, Medea
added more wonderful materials. Some of these were remarkable for
their distant origin. In Vergil's Eighth Eclogue the enchanter used
herbs brought from remote Pontus, and Horace's Canidia used herbs
gathered in Thessaly and Spain. But Medea introduced materials ob-
tained at a much more astonishing distance -- pebbles found in the
farthest Orient and sands gathered on the beach of that Ocean which
formed the eastern limit of the world.
Other materials were distinguished by their strange, uncanny na-
ture. Sophocles in the Root Cutters had spoken of collecting hoar frost
which came down as dew from the moon. Such frost Medea combined
with the other ingredients of her caldron. Horace had mentioned Cani-
dia's using eggs and feathers of the screech owl, and Vergil had spoken
of a sorcerer Moeris who could change himself at will from a human
being to a wolf. Portions of both these ghastly creatures were intro-
duced by Medea. She added the wings and flesh of the screech owl and
the entrails of the eerie werewolf.
Still other materials were not only strange in nature but were ob-
viously appropriate for helping rejuvenation. Medea used the skin of a
Tripolitan water snake -- symbol of its perennial youth, the liver of a
stag-- a creature supposed to enjoy extraordinary longevity*, and the
head of a crow nine centuries old. To increase the uncanny effect Ovid
reminded his readers that Medea was no ordinary enchantress but a bar-
barian woman from unfamiliar regions of Asia.
Ovid invented two incidental metamorphoses that added much to
the interest of the tale. When at last the strange mixture was complete,
Medea stirred it thoroughly. For this purpose she chose an olive branch
which long ago had withered to a dry stick. As it moved about in the
rejuvenating liquid, the stick suddenly revived and soon put forth leaves
and fruit. Meanwhile the caldron boiled over from time to time and
*Th;s id"T Ovid had mentioned, with unconscious irony, during the transformation
of Actaeon (Bk. 3).
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? AESON REJUVENATED
clothed the dry ground beneath with the soft grass and flowers of spring.
Aware that her magic fluid was ready, Medea cut the throat of
Aeson and let out his aged blood. Then she applied the contents of the
caldron. Ovid's authority had not indicated how she applied it, and per-
haps for this reason, Ovid left the reader in doubt whether she immersed
Aeson in the liquid or poured it over him. In the tale immediately fol-
lowing, Ovid was to say clearly that Medea plunged the body of Pelias
into the caldron. The mixture, Ovid continued, entered both Aeson's
mouth and the wound in his throat; it coursed through his veins and
began quickly to remove every sign of age. Ovid pictured the transfor-
mation vividly and in considerable detail. According to Ovid's Greek
predecessor, Aeson changed into a boy. But Ovid did not carry the
process so far. Aeson, he said, became the black bearded young man that
he used to be forty years earlier.
This marvellous achievement was followed by another. In the
Nurses of Bacchus, Aeschylus had told how the god rewarded the nymphs
of Nysa by persuading Medea to restore them, and also their husbands,
to youth. The Alexandrian preface to the Medea of Euripides repeated
this tale briefly but did not relate it to the tale of Aeson. Ovid associated
the two events. Impressed by the rejuvenation of Jason's father, Bacchus
persuaded Medea to rejuvenate the nurses. Although this achievement
affected several persons and therefore was the more remarkable, it was
in nature the same as the other and so Ovid recounted it as briefly as
possible, not mentioning the husbands.
In the century following Ovid's death, magic continued to be a
theme of great interest for the Romans. Seneca treated it elaborately in
his Medea, and Lucan gave it extraordinary prominence in his Pharsalia.
Both poets took many of the details from Ovid's account of Medea and
Aeson.
Authors of the Renaissance displayed similar interest in the tale.
Erasmus noted that Folly would make it needless to invoke Medea or
Circe for restoring youth.
transported to the shore of Colchos, it would have persuaded the Greek
heroes to hazard more than they ventured for the Fleece. Shakespeare
observed in The Merchant of Venice that Portia's sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece,
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.
Still other poets, following Ovid, treated of the events in Colchis.
Remembering that Valerius Flaccus had given Jason an adventure at
Troy, Benoit de St. Maure commenced his Roman de Troie with a long
account of Jason's Colchian experiences. In accord with the practice
of medieval romance, he showed Medea aggressively courting Jason. He
also changed many of Ovid's details. The Italian Guido della Colonna
and the Germans Herbort von Fritzlar and Conrad von Wiirtemburg
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? JASON AND MEDEA
regarded these alterations of detail as a mistake and while translating
Benoit's poem they were careful to reject most of his innovations. Jean
de Meun retold Ovid's tale in the Romance of the Rose. Spenser imag-
ined that the story of Jason and Medea was carved in ivory on Acrasia's
gate.
Many poets showed particular interest in the love story of Jason
and Medea. Chretien de Troyes in Sir Cliges pictured Loredamor as
falling in love under circumstances resembling those of Medea and as
reflecting in a similar monologue that reason was of no avail against
love. His heroine Fenice pondered in a monologue the danger that Cliges
might deceive her and decided, like Medea, that his appearance and man-
ner justified perfect confidence. Fenice also had a nurse, Thessala, who
knew more witchcraft than Medea. Chaucer in his Legend of Good
Women used chiefly the Heroides and later versions than Ovid's; but he
too remembered that Medea was reassured by Jason's appearance and
bearing. In the Knight's Tale he referred to love as inspiring the en-
chantments of Circe and Medea. Tasso described the enchantress
Armida as excelling in beauty both Medea and Circe.
The circumstances under which Medea yielded to temptation in-
terested a number of the greatest poets. Ovid had shown her stating
clearly, both in her soliloquy and in her interview with Jason, that she
knowingly did wrong. The first of these statements had the more obvious
effect. Cowper used it as the text for a poem against the slave trade.
Petrarch, reflecting that he ought to renounce love and worldly glory,
confessed that he too saw the better way and followed the worse. Ariosto
echoed the same idea in a sonnet. In Paradise Regained Milton showed
Satan observing that most men admire virtue who follow not her lore.
Both of Medea's declarations appear to have made a deep impression
on Shakespeare and to have influenced the method by which he pre-
sented his three chief villains, Richard Third, Iago, and Edmund. Early
in the play he gave each of these arch plotters a soliloquy in which the
villain meditated on his future conduct and stated clearly that he under-
stood the wicked nature of his plans. But Shakespeare did not attempt
to enlist the reader's sympathy for the evil character.
Ovid had said that Medea's passion revived as a tiny spark is
kindled by a breath of wind. This detail attracted later poets. When
Dante asked Cacciaguida to tell him of old-time Florence, the spirit
brightened with joy, as if a breath of wind should kindle a spark into
flame. And, according to Ariosto, love for Medore began in Angelica's
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
heart as a tiny spark and kindled into a flame so fierce that she burned
with desire.
Several poets recalled the labors of Jason. Dante in his Paradiso
mentioned the wonder of the Argonauts when they saw their leader suc-
cessfully plowing the field. Boiardo told of Orlando's yoking furious
bulls and killing a crop of armed men, and of Mandricardo's reaping
still another magic crop. He showed Angelica providing her lover with
the means of overcoming a monster. Lucan compared the strife of
Caesar's troops on the raft to that of the earthborn warriors crazed by
Medea's herbs. Spenser, remembering both Horace and Ovid, observed
in his Ruins of Rome that Roman armies grew up as readily as the war-
riors planted by Jason and perished as disastrously by civil strife.
Ariosto noted that, if Doralice had not feared publicity, she would have
joined in celebrating the victory of Rogero. But his imitation was more
temperate and more appropriate than the original. Shakespeare, con-
fusing the hydra with the Colchian dragon, declared in the Second Part
of Henry Fourth that dangerous eyes of the Hydra, war, may be
charmed asleep.
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? AESON REJUVENATED
Aeson Rejuvenated
When Jason and his followers arrived in Iolcus, Ovid continued,
the fathers and mothers of Jason's followers held a celebration in their
honor, offering to the gods incense and a victim with gilded horns. The
parents of Jasons did not share in the public rejoicing. Following the
Theogony, Ovid supposed that Aeson still was alive, but he described
him as old, feeble, and almost dead. For Jason, his father's absence
marred the joy of the festival, and it occasioned his plea that Medea
might prolong old Aeson's life.
Many savage peoples have regarded fire as a potent remedy for the
evil influences which cause blight, disease, old age, and death. At the
annual festivals commemorating Hallowe'en -- the beginning of win-
ter, and Beltane -- the beginning of summer, they purified their villages
with ceremonial fires and drove their cattle through the flames. At the
birth of a child they often arranged for exposing the infant to the fire,
in order that he might have long life, an idea which entered into the
Greek myth of Triptolemus (Bk. 5).
Exposure to fire was considered beneficial in a similar way for per-
sons of riper years. An African tribe near Mt. Kilimanjaro habitually
attempted by the following ceremony to give their chieftains length of
days. At dawn the wizard caused a trench to be dug in the ground and
the chieftain and his favorite wife to lie down in it, side by side. Over
the trench, poles were laid and were covered with banana bark and soil.
Then the hearthstones of the chieftain were set above his head, a fire was
kindled among them, and food was boiled in a caldron for his relatives
and friends. And in this manner he was baked until evening.
Even more remarkable treatments by fire were recorded in popular
mythology. According to a story current among the Papuans of Dutch
New Guinea, a certain magician, finding his wife displeased at his being
old and ugly, built a fire, flung himself on it, and came forth young and
attractive. According to folk tales popular in many European coun-
tries, either Christ or Satan burned some aged man in a forge and so
restored him to his youthful prime. In other mythical tales the same
result was obtained by boiling the man in a caldron of magic herbs.
Often the old man's body had first to be cut to pieces. This was reported,
for example, by the Shans of Lakon in Cambodia. By such mincing and
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
boiling, they declared, a very old, decrepit prince was transformed into
a perfect beau. In other cases the old man was killed but not cut up and
then was boiled and restored to his youth. This method was described in
another Cambodian myth and also in the Greek myth of Medea and
Aeson.
The rejuvenating of Aeson was mentioned in an early epic called
Returns. According to this authority, Medea boiled numerous drugs in
golden caldrons and metamorphosed Aeson from an old man into an
attractive lad of fifteen. Presumably she did this by immersing his body
in at least one of the caldrons. An unknown Alexandrian scholar, who
wrote a preface to the Medea of Euripides, referred to Medea's power of
rejuvenation and quoted three lines from the Returns. This brief refer-
ence gave Ovid the hint from which he developed his remarkable tale.
Ovid invented the conversation between Jason and Medea. Before
making his request, he observed, Jason admitted that already Medea
had saved his life and had conferred benefits exceeding all his hopes. But
he now desired her to give one more favor -- to shorten by a few years
his own appointed length of life and to prolong by the same amount the
life of his father. Medea was impressed by his pious regard and still
more impressed when she compared it with her own neglect of Aeetes.
Ovid seems to imply that in benefiting Jason's father she hoped to make
some atonement for deserting her own.
But first she deprecated the method which Jason had proposed.
Medea began with the reproach used often by characters of the Iliad,
"What an evil thought has escaped from your mouth! " It would be
wrong, she continued, to help another by shortening her husband's life,
and she could not bring herself to do so. It would even be impossible.
Jason had expressed the belief that spells could accomplish anything.
She declared that Hecate would not allow them to do him such wrong.
Medea would try in some other, less costly manner to prolong the days
of Aeson.
Tradition had suggested a magic process which included the use of
mysterious herbs. Ovid saw here a chance to deal at some length with
the strange, uncanny ways of magic. The theme has interested many
savage and partly civilized peoples. Certain persons have been thought
to control supernatural powers and by their help to accomplish seem-
ingly impossible feats. Among savages a knowledge of magic was
attributed usually to men, but among partly civilized peoples it was
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? AESON REJUVENATED
attributed oftener to women, and this has been the prevalent idea in
literature.
The theme of magic attracted frequent attention of Greek authors.
The Odyssey included a famous account of the enchantress Circe.
Many Greek writers associated magic prominently with the stories
of Triptolemus and Medea, and in the latter tale they sometimes
had treated briefly of gathering materials. Sophocles and Apollonius
told of Medea's obtaining the Promethean herb which protected Jason,
and Sophocles in his play the Root Cutters told of her collecting certain
materials in order to deceive the daughters of Pelias. Theocritus had
made the subject of magic very famous by recording the incantation
with which Simaetha tried to regain her unfaithful lover.
Roman poets found the idea of magic congenial. Vergil and
Horace followed especially the example of Theocritus. In the Eighth
Eclogue Vergil recorded an incantation to recover Daphnis, implying
that it was successful; and in the Aeneid he told of Dido's employing a
Massylian priestess to help her retain Aeneas, but he indicated clearly
that Dido's attempt was doomed to fail and was intended only to ob-
scure her plan of suicide. Horace in an Epode pictured Canidia and
her fellow witches torturing a boy, in order that his liver and marrow
might help Canidia regain her lover. One of his Satires pictured the
same witches in a graveyard collecting their gruesome materials, but he
did not indicate their purpose.
Ovid in his treatise on cosmetics alluded to witchcraft as a means
of retaining love. In the Epistle of Hypsipyle he discussed the idea at
greater length, taking suggestions both from Vergil and from Horace.
The queen of Lemnos accused Medea of winning Jason by the use of
magic and spoke of her as visiting burial places by night, in order to
collect materials for her nefarious art. In the tale of Aeson, Ovid now
planned to deal at still greater length with Medea's use of magic, and he
proceeded to draw many suggestions from his Greek and Roman prede-
cessors.
Although ancient poets believed that magic could be practised any-
where, certain regions were famous for it. One region was Thessaly.
There Chiron had resided and had taught Aesculapius and others the
use of potent herbs. There Medea had dealt in magic when she plotted
against Pelias. By Ovid's time the country appears to have acquired a
fame for witchcraft in general, which Lucan commemorated afterwards
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
in his Pharsalia. Thessaly was auspicious for the scene of a new story
of Medea and the process of magic.
Theocritus had told of Simaetha pronouncing her incantation
under the light of a full moon. Following his example, Vergil spoke of
the Massylian priestess as gathering herbs under a full moon. He noted
also that, when she performed magic rites, her hair was streaming down
her back. He observed that Dido, when she performed such rites, was
dressed in flowing robes and had one foot bare. Ovid followed Vergil.
Medea delayed her gathering of herbs until the moon shone full, and she
went forth with her hair streaming over her shoulders and with flowing
robes. Ovid added that her foot was bare, and, although his phrase was
ambiguous, he seems to have meant that one foot was covered and the
other bare.
Theocritus had contrasted briefly the peace of nature with the
wakeful activity of Simaetha. Horace in his Epode made a similar brief
contrast between the repose of wild creatures in the forest and the fierce
zeal of Canidia invoking the deities who preside over witchcraft. And
Vergil in a very beautiful passage had pictured the calm of night and
the unsleeping sorrow of Dido. Ovid showed the influence of all three.
He contrasted the peace of nature with the wakeful activity of Medea;
he showed her choosing this quiet hour for an invocation of the deities
governing witchcraft; and he described at some length the calm of night.
But the details of his description were as original as they were beautiful.
Theocritus had pictured Simaetha as performing each of her rites
three times. Vergil in his Eighth Eclogue noted a similar threefold repe-
tition and added that by such uneven numbers the deity is pleased. Ac-
cordingly Ovid observed that Medea turned about three times, sprinkled
her hair three times with water taken from a flowing stream, and uttered
three wailing cries. Simaetha, according to Theocritus, had invoked the
goddess Hecate. Vergil's Massylian priestess invoked threefold Hecate,
the triple-faced maiden Diana, alluding picturesquely to the idea that
Hecate, Diana, and the Moon (Luna) were three manifestations of the
same goddess. Canidia in Horace's Epode invoked Night and also
Diana, who presides at the hour when mysterious rites are performed.
Ovid combined freely ideas taken from Vergil and Horace. Medea ad-
dressed both three-headed Hecate and Night, but it was Night to whom
she attributed the care of mysterious rites.
Simaetha had invoked vaguely the other deities associated with
night and the Lower World. The Massylian priestess addressed speci-
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? AESON REJUVENATED
fically Erebus, Chaos, and other divinities, three hundred in all. Ovid
showed Medea, too, invoking the deities associated with night. But she
named also Earth and the many forces of nature -- appropriately, for
these would be potent in furnishing her magic herbs. In this way Ovid
obtained an unusually impressive list. He did not mention any deities
associated exclusively with the Lower World because later Medea would
invoke their special aid to save Aeson from the imminence of death.
From impressive enumeration of deities Medea passed to the theme
of reversing natural law. This had been a favorite subject of ancient
poetry. Euripides had treated it first in a chorus of his Medea. So
great, he said, was the injustice done the heroine that it would seem to
be impossible -- one could now imagine all the laws of nature giving way
to their opposites. Theocritus and Horace used the same idea, and in
the Tristia, Ovid was to associate it with the disloyalty of a trusted
friend. Vergil in his First Eclogue gave the theme a new direction.
Speaking of a certain act which had not occurred, he declared that its
occurrence was impossible -- one could imagine as easily a reversal of
nature. Propertius followed his example, and Ovid was soon to follow
it in the Ibis.
In all these instances ancient authors had considered the possibility
that laws of nature might give way. In still other instances they believed
that such laws had given way. Greek tradition noted in the tales of
Orpheus and a few others that they yielded to the power of song, and,
beginning with Cicero's plea for Archias, the idea had been repeated by
the Romans.
Such reversal of nature was associated chiefly with the in-
cantation of witches. Both Vergil and Horace gave the subject promi-
nence. Ovid had mentioned it in his Epistle of Hypsipyle and in his
treatise on cosmetics. He now considered it at some length in the invo-
cation of Medea.
Although Greek and Roman authors, when they discussed a reversal
of nature, tended to be original in their choice of illustrative detail, there
were a few circumstances of which they were especially fond. Euripides
had introduced a very popular idea of rivers flowing back to their
sources. Vergil and Horace had spoken of drawing the moon down from
heaven and of raising ghosts from the grave. Vergil in his eclogue noted
the power of sorcery to make serpents burst and to shift grain from one
field to another. In the Aeneid he described the Massylian priestess as
able to make ash trees descend from the mountains, stop the flow of
rivers, and cause the earth to rumble beneath her feet.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Some of these traditional marvels Ovid had mentioned separately in
his Amores and his treatise on cosmetics. In the Epistle of Hypsipyle
he recorded several of them. Medea, he said, was able to bring down the
reluctant moon, to move from their places woods and living rocks and
to stop the flow of rivers. He added also that she was able to control
the motion of the seas and to hide in darkness the horses of the Sun.
When Jason had lulled the Colchian dragon, Ovid emphasized the power
of his incantation, noting that it was capable of staying the swollen sea
and swift flowing rivers.
In the tale of Aeson, Ovid proceeded to give an impressive list of
marvels. He not only repeated all the traditional examples but added
many others. While invoking the deities, he said, Medea recalled pre-
vious miracles which they had helped her to perform. Rivers had flowed
backwards; seas had been quieted or made stormy; clouds and winds
had dispersed or assembled; the jaws of vipers had burst; rocks, oak
trees, and forests had moved from their places; mountains had trembled;
earth rumbled; and ghosts had come forth from their tombs. The moon
had been drawn down, the Sun and the Dawn had grown pale.
When Vergil and Horace mentioned the power of an enchantress to
bring down the moon from heaven, they probably meant literally that
the moon descended to the earth. And later, in the tale of the Centaurs
(Bk. 12), when Ovid spoke of Mycale as drawing down the crescent
moon, he appears to have imagined the same occurrence. But in the tale
of Aeson he thought that the moon suffered eclipse and he alluded to an-
other superstition world wide among uncivilised peoples. For such tribes
an eclipse of the moon or the sun was a cause of terror. Without warn-
ing the bright luminary grew rapidly dimmer and seemed to be strug-
gling for its life. In the case of the moon, its color altered to a
ghastly red. Some unknown monster, they thought, must have seized
their familiar luminary in his jaws and must have begun to swallow it
forever. Against such a monster human strength would be of little
avail, although often they launched arrows and other missiles wildly
towards the sky. But it might be possible with noise to frighten or con-
fuse the monster and so cause him to release his prey. With all haste
they rushed forth, yelling, beating their dogs, pounding on drums,
clanging shields and cymbals, and keeping up an indescribable din until
at length darkness departed and the harassed luminary returned again
to its tranquil splendor. Such fears assailed the Greeks and Romans
during an eclipse, and they resorted chiefly to clashing of bronze ves-
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? AESON REJUVENATED
sels. Ovid had alluded to the practice in his account of Hermaphro-
ditus (Bk. 4). He alluded to it again in relation to the achievements
of Medea, and he observed that against her magic the clash of bronze
was of no avail.
After recalling wonders which the deities had helped her perform
for other purposes, Medea spoke of those which they had allowed her
to perform in behalf of Jason -- conquest of fiery bulls, earth-born
warriors, and the unsleeping dragon. In Jason's behalf she must now
try to make an old man young. This was her present task, and she im-
plied that it was the most difficult of all.
In Vergil's eclogue the enchanter declared suddenly that his incan-
tation was successful, and he mentioned as evidence two mystic signs --
ashes on the altar gave out flame and the dog, Hylax, barked outside
the door. Ovid imitated the incident. But as Medea's attempt to reju-
venate Aeson was much rarer and stranger than the attempt to recall
an unfaithful lover, so her signs were proportionately more remarkable,
a car drawn by winged dragons.
The stars gave a sudden flash, and at the same moment there drew near
According to Greek tradition, Ceres had a dragon car, which con-
veyed her rapidly through the air (cf. Triptolemus, Bk. 5). A similar
car was attributed to Medea's grandfather, the Sun. When Medea was
about to leave Corinth, Euripides declared that her grandfather sent her
this car and allowed her to depart through the air to Athens. Accord-
ing to Euripides, Medea was then using the car for the first time. Ovid
thought otherwise. Announcing the arrival of this marvellous chariot,
his Medea implied that she had expected its coming and was familiar
with its use. Apparently she often had summoned the car when she went
in search of her magic ingredients. By this change Ovid added greatly
to the wonder of the quest.
Entering the dragon car, Medea first ascended rapidly to a great
altitude, in order that she might observe places likely to afford her
suitable material. Below, all Thessaly spread out westward and north-
ward, in the light of the full moon. Medea had left the ground at a
point near Iolcus, in southeastern Thessaly, and she was still circling
high above it. But now she could look northwards to the most distant
part of this region and could discern there the deep vale of Tempe, wind-
ing darkly below her. And her keen gaze noted successively many other
prominent geographical features of the country.
Directly beneath the car lay the expanse of the landlocked Pagas-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
aean Gulf, with Iolcus crowded into a small area at its northern ex-
tremity. Immediately behind the town rose Mt. Pelion, first of a chain
of mountains, which ran northwards along the coast. Conspicuous
among these, appeared Mt. Ossa, with Lake Boebais glimmering to the
westward at its base. Still farther to the north, beyond the River Peneus
and the Vale of Tempe, Mt. Olympus rose from the sea and with its
snowy summit marked the limit of her view. Other mountains almost as
lofty, extended from Olympus westwards and met at right angles with
yet another lofty range. This range, culminating in Mt. Pindus, ran
southwards, the rugged sides dark with forests, the peaks and ridges
bare and gleaming pale in the moon light. So it continued the entire
length of Thessaly, dividing it from the more western region of Epirus.
A lower range, reaching its height in the peaks of Tymphrestus and
Othrys, ran from the Pindus mountains eastward nearly to the Pagas-
aean Gulf and formed the southern border of the country.
The chief rivers were visible also, their course indicated by the
unusual darkness of the valley and by heavy vegetation. Many of them
began in the general region of Mt. Othrys, near the southern limits of
Thessaly, and all of them flowed in a northerly direction. Rising on the
slopes of Mt. Othrys, the Apidanus and the Enipeus ran northwest-
ward, met in the inland plain of Thessaly, and then continued north-
wards to join the Peneus. The Amphrysius, rising a little to the east of
the others, found a different course northeastwards along the foot of the
Othrys Range and entered the gulf not far from Iolcus. From her lofty
vantage point Medea could even look southward over the crests of the
Othrys Range and observe the course of the River Spercheus, from its
beginning in the ravines of Tymphrestus eastwards until it entered the
narrow Malian Gulf.
All these places Ovid named, but he did not give them in orderly
succession. He appears rather to have sought a studied disorder.
Although Medea's practised eye noted immediately the regions of great-
est promise, her materials were rare and difficult to find. It was neces-
sary to fly back and forth, this way and that, and to scrutinize every
locality again and again. This idea Ovid probably wished to convey.
Although Medea was later to use animal and mineral ingredients, Ovid
indicated that her present quest was wholly for herbs. Some of these,
he said, she pulled up by their roots, others she cut with a sickle. And,
since Vergil had spoken of the Massylian priestess as using a sickle of
bronze, Ovid followed him here and was to do so again in the Fasti.
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? AESON REJUVENATED
Medea gave much attention to grasses, searching every moist region of
Thessaly. She even made a long flight southeastwards to the Boeotian
shore and plucked at Anthedon a species of grass which later was famous
for the transformation of Glaucus into a sea god (Bk. 13).
The search continued through nine days and nights -- three times
the propitious number three. Then Medea returned and alighted in the
open country near Iolcus. As she did so, the herbs gave evidence of their
power. According to ancient belief, the serpent is able by casting his
skin to renew his youth. The mere scent of Medea's herbs, Ovid tells us,
was potent enough to rejuvenate her dragons. As they alighted, they
began to cast their skins, wrinkled with the passage of many years.
As Ovid recorded the subsequent actions of Medea, he seems to have
been influenced by the spring rites of the Bacchanals. Medea was careful
to remain in the open air and to observe chastity during the time of
preparation; and, although she was willing herself to give Jason and
others the necessary instructions, she allowed no one to be present at
the rites of rejuvenation. Tradition had not indicated that these rites
were secret in the case of Aeson, and it had indicated the contrary in the
case of Pelias, for they were witnessed by his daughters. By this inno-
vation Ovid not only made the stories different from each other but
enhanced the picturesqueness of the rites in behalf of Aeson.
Medea propitiated first Hecate and Hebe, goddess of youth. To
each of them she erected an altar of turf, adorning it with boughs from
the forest. These goddesses were to exert their influence for restoring
Aeson's youth. Then she propitiated the divinities of Earth and the
Lower World. She did this by offerings which ancient tradition had pre-
scribed for attracting the dead. In the Odyssey, Ulysses dug a pit and
killed sheep, at least one of which was black, allowing their blood to flow
into the pit. In Horace's Satire the witches made a similar offering of a
black ram. The Odyssey added that Ulysses afterwards poured into the
pit wine and other ingredients. Ovid said therefore that Medea dug a
pit, killed over it a black sheep, and then poured in bowls of wine and
of warm milk. Meanwhile in prayers to Pluto, Proserpina, and the rest,
she urged these divinities to defer their claim on Aeson's life.
Having obtained the favor of the gods, Medea commanded that
Aeson should be carried out and laid on a bed of herbs. Lulling him
magically to sleep, she loosened her hair in the manner of a Bacchante.
In advance she had prepared a considerable amount of wood, which was
split into very small, inflammable pieces. These she dipped in the blood
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
of the sheep and afterwards kindled at the fire on the altar. Then she
purified the old man successively with fire, water, and sulphur, perform-
ing each rite three times.
Before commencing these rites over Aeson's body, Medea had
kindled a fire and had set over it a caldron, containing powerful ingre-
dients. These now were boiling vigorously. Already they included a
great variety of Thessalian plants --- their roots, seeds, flowers, and
keen juices. But, as they foamed and leaped up with the heat, Medea
added more wonderful materials. Some of these were remarkable for
their distant origin. In Vergil's Eighth Eclogue the enchanter used
herbs brought from remote Pontus, and Horace's Canidia used herbs
gathered in Thessaly and Spain. But Medea introduced materials ob-
tained at a much more astonishing distance -- pebbles found in the
farthest Orient and sands gathered on the beach of that Ocean which
formed the eastern limit of the world.
Other materials were distinguished by their strange, uncanny na-
ture. Sophocles in the Root Cutters had spoken of collecting hoar frost
which came down as dew from the moon. Such frost Medea combined
with the other ingredients of her caldron. Horace had mentioned Cani-
dia's using eggs and feathers of the screech owl, and Vergil had spoken
of a sorcerer Moeris who could change himself at will from a human
being to a wolf. Portions of both these ghastly creatures were intro-
duced by Medea. She added the wings and flesh of the screech owl and
the entrails of the eerie werewolf.
Still other materials were not only strange in nature but were ob-
viously appropriate for helping rejuvenation. Medea used the skin of a
Tripolitan water snake -- symbol of its perennial youth, the liver of a
stag-- a creature supposed to enjoy extraordinary longevity*, and the
head of a crow nine centuries old. To increase the uncanny effect Ovid
reminded his readers that Medea was no ordinary enchantress but a bar-
barian woman from unfamiliar regions of Asia.
Ovid invented two incidental metamorphoses that added much to
the interest of the tale. When at last the strange mixture was complete,
Medea stirred it thoroughly. For this purpose she chose an olive branch
which long ago had withered to a dry stick. As it moved about in the
rejuvenating liquid, the stick suddenly revived and soon put forth leaves
and fruit. Meanwhile the caldron boiled over from time to time and
*Th;s id"T Ovid had mentioned, with unconscious irony, during the transformation
of Actaeon (Bk. 3).
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? AESON REJUVENATED
clothed the dry ground beneath with the soft grass and flowers of spring.
Aware that her magic fluid was ready, Medea cut the throat of
Aeson and let out his aged blood. Then she applied the contents of the
caldron. Ovid's authority had not indicated how she applied it, and per-
haps for this reason, Ovid left the reader in doubt whether she immersed
Aeson in the liquid or poured it over him. In the tale immediately fol-
lowing, Ovid was to say clearly that Medea plunged the body of Pelias
into the caldron. The mixture, Ovid continued, entered both Aeson's
mouth and the wound in his throat; it coursed through his veins and
began quickly to remove every sign of age. Ovid pictured the transfor-
mation vividly and in considerable detail. According to Ovid's Greek
predecessor, Aeson changed into a boy. But Ovid did not carry the
process so far. Aeson, he said, became the black bearded young man that
he used to be forty years earlier.
This marvellous achievement was followed by another. In the
Nurses of Bacchus, Aeschylus had told how the god rewarded the nymphs
of Nysa by persuading Medea to restore them, and also their husbands,
to youth. The Alexandrian preface to the Medea of Euripides repeated
this tale briefly but did not relate it to the tale of Aeson. Ovid associated
the two events. Impressed by the rejuvenation of Jason's father, Bacchus
persuaded Medea to rejuvenate the nurses. Although this achievement
affected several persons and therefore was the more remarkable, it was
in nature the same as the other and so Ovid recounted it as briefly as
possible, not mentioning the husbands.
In the century following Ovid's death, magic continued to be a
theme of great interest for the Romans. Seneca treated it elaborately in
his Medea, and Lucan gave it extraordinary prominence in his Pharsalia.
Both poets took many of the details from Ovid's account of Medea and
Aeson.
Authors of the Renaissance displayed similar interest in the tale.
Erasmus noted that Folly would make it needless to invoke Medea or
Circe for restoring youth.
