No More Learning

A number of Alexandrian authors dealt with the subject. Theo-
critus often mentioned Adonis. Frequently he spoke of him as a shep-
herd who was successful in love. In the First Idyll he told of his hunt-
ing wild animals, particularly hares. In the Fifteenth Idyll Theocritus
described the second day of an annual festival commemorating the re-
vival of Adonis. The god, he said, was represented as a youth with the
first down on his lips.
Bion wrote a famous lament to be recited on the initial day of the
festival, the commemoration of Adonis's death. * He described the youth
as having white skin, an idea noted often by the Greeks. He spoke of the
fatal wound as appearing in the thigh. Greek artists pictured it on the
inside of the thigh, near the junction with the body. The blood of Adonis,
said Bion, was transformed into roses, the tears of Venus were trans-
formed into windflowers.
Nicander recorded the older belief that it was the blood of Adonis
which became the windflower. Philostephanus retold the tragic story.
He localized it in the hills of Cyprus, near Idalium, and seems to have
declared that Adonis was killed in an upland marsh. This idea was men-
tioned by Propertius.
Most authors regarded the fatal wound as an accident in hunting
a dangerous animal. But some imagined a further cause. Euripides ob-
served in his Hippolytus that, when Venus destroyed that hero, Diana
planned to retaliate by inciting the boar against Adonis. The idea of
Diana's hostility was recorded in the Manual. Other Greeks, associat-
ing the tale of Adonis with that of Mars and Venus (cf. Bk. 4), im-
agined that Mars became jealous and either incited the boar against
Adonis or assumed the form of a boar. An idyll, mistakenly ascribed
to Theocritus, gave still another cause. The boar explained contritely
*Bion's ode afterwards influenced Shelley in his Adonais.
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? VENUS AND ADONIS
that he was impelled by misguided affection. Desiring to kiss the youth,
he had blundered and inflicted the fatal wound. The boar offered to for-
feit his tusks, but Venus forgave him and made him her attendant.
Greek painters often treated the story of Venus and Adonis, espe-
cially the hero's death. Greek and Roman sculptors frequently carved
the tale as an adornment of sarcophagi.
Ovid in his other poems referred a number of times to the subject
of Adonis. He noted in the Epistle of Phaedra to Hippolytus that Venus
and her favorite often reclined under ilex trees, in some grassy spot. In
the Ibis, Ovid alluded to the hero's death. He declared in the Amorer
that Venus grieved as much at the loss of Tibullus as she had at the loss
of Adonis. And he observed in the Fasti that Flora turned the blood of
Adonis into a blossom.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid retold the story. The outline he took
from Philostephanus and Nicander. He added circumstances from other
predecessors and filled in details from his own invention.
Ovid seems to have been original in supposing that Adonis was
reared by the naiads. He spoke of his increase in years and beauty,
from infancy to youth and later to manhood. This would suggest that
Adonis was older than the Alexandrians had imagined him, but prob-
ably not beyond the very early twenties. In the previous tale Ovid had
spoken of his birthplace as southeastern Arabia. There, presumably,
Adonis grew up. But, when Ovid began the love story, he seems to have
agreed with Philostephanus and Propertius in localizing the events near
Idalium in Cyprus.
Following an Alexandrian and Roman idea which had appeared in
many other tales, he imagined that Cupid inflamed Venus with an arrow.
In other tales Cupid was said to have acted deliberately. But in this
account Ovid attributed the wound to accident. While Cupid was kiss-
ing his mother, a barb that projected from the quiver happened to
scratch her breast. Venus pushed her son away and thought the injury
of no consequence. But it proved otherwise. The wound occasioned her
passion for Adonis.
In the tale of Hyacinthus, Ovid had shown Apollo acting as the
typical lover of Alexandrian poetry. He now described Venus as act-
ing in a similar manner. She forsook her usual haunts. Ovid named
favorite places of hers which lay relatively near Idalium -- the isle of
Cythera, the Carian town of Cnidus, and the Cyprian towns of Paphos
and Amathus. To each name he added a picturesque epithet, and mis-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
takenly he referred to the inland town of Paphos as sea-girt. Venus
forsook other places too, he said, for she left even the sky. She preferred
Adonis to heaven.
She also gave up her usual pursuits. No longer did she take her
ease in the shade and study how to improve her beauty. Here Ovid may
have recalled his own description of Salmacis (Bk. 4). Venus joined in
the wholly different pursuits of her beloved. Both Euripides and Ovid
had shown Phaedra wishing to accompany Hippolytus in the chase.
Ovid declared that Venus actually did accompany Adonis, and he de-
scribed the rough country through which they passed. Theocritus had
noted that Adonis hunted hares. Ovid observed that Venus joined him
in this and also in the pursuit of stags, does, and other animals which
one may hunt with safety.
She refused to hunt dangerous game, such as boars, wolves, bears,
and lions. Ovid seems to have been the first to imagine that she warned
Adonis to act in a similar manner -- to hunt timid creatures and avoid
those which were bold. On fierce animals, she observed, youth, beauty,
and other qualities attractive to her would have no effect. Ovid spoke of
her as doubtful whether Adonis would heed the warning. She referred
particularly, said Ovid, to boars and lions and added that against lions
she already had a grudge. This remark, which led Adonis to inquire the
reason, permitted Ovid to introduce the tale of Hippomenes and Ata-
lanta. In the pastoral manner, the goddess invited her lover to rest with
her in soft grass under a poplar. Then laying her head on his chest and
mingling kisses with her words, she told the story.
After finishing the tale, she again warned him to pursue only those
animals which turn their backs in flight. Then she departed. The idea
that she left Adonis, even for a brief time, was contrary to the Alexan-
drian doctrine of assiduous courtship. Ovid thought it necessary to
show her absent at the time of the disaster; and, since he previously had
described her as accompanying Adonis in the chase, he was obliged to
point out the fact that she now did otherwise.
Ovid assigned no cause for her departure. He merely diverted the
reader's attention to the remarkable circumstances. Greek authors and
artists often had imagined birds as transporting Venus through the air.
According to Sappho, sparrows drew her in a car. Others mentioned
doves, an idea which Ovid repeated later when he told about the deifica-
tion of Aeneas (Bk. 14). A number of Greek painters and sculptors
had associated Venus with the swan. Usually they represented her as
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? VENUS AND ADONIS
seated between the outspread wings of a swan in flight. But in at least
two paintings she guided a pair of these birds as she stood in a car
formed from a mussel shell. Horace had spoken of Venus as drawn by
purple swans, and Ovid had alluded to the idea at the close of his Art of
Love. Accordingly, Ovid noted that Venus departed in her car drawn
by swans. Afterwards he implied that she left Cyprus, perhaps to visit
her temple at Cnidus.
Although Adonis offered no objection to the warning of Venus, he
was high spirited, and he disregarded it at the first temptation. Ovid
followed the older tradition that death resulted merely from an acci-
dent in hunting. He seems to have invented the details and skillfully
to have made his account of the boar hunt differ from his earlier descrip-
tion in the tale of Meleager (Bk. 8). The dogs, he said, following a clear
trail, roused a boar from his hiding place. As the animal came out
from the trees into some open ground, Adonis threw a spear. The
weapon hit the creature at an angle so oblique as to make only a super-
ficial wound. The boar, wrenching out the bloodstained point, charged
Adonis as he ran for safety and stretched him dying on the tawny sand.
This last detail Ovid took almost verbatim from Vergil's account of the
boxer Dares killing Butes.
Greek authors had imagined that Venus went on foot to the scene
of the disaster. Ovid made the circumstances far more picturesque.
Venus, he said, was returning through the air in her car. Although she
was not yet above the island of Cyprus, her divine ear recognized the
groans of Adonis. Turning her swans in the direction of the sound, she
observed him lying far below, lifeless in his blood. Venus leaped out of
her car and descended through the air to his side. Scripture often had
noted that some one in extreme distress rent his clothes. A similar prac-
tice appears to have existed among the Alexandrian Greeks. Bion had
attributed such conduct to Venus and had observed that she tore her
hair. Ovid repeated Bion's description and noted also that she beat
her breast.
While giving her words of lament, Ovid appears to have recalled
those of Apollo for Hyacinthus, particularly Apollo's regretting the
superior power of the Fates. Venus reproached these goddesses for
taking the life of Adonis and declared that they should not wholly de-
stroy him. Like Bion, Ovid showed her predicting that her lament should
have annual repetition ; and, like Nicander, he showed her declaring that
her lover's blood should become a flower. Ovid associated the transfor-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
mation with the traditional rivalry of Venus and Proserpina. He
showed Venus observing that she did no more than Proserpina had been
allowed to do for the nymph Menthe, whom Proserpina turned into
mint. This tale Ovid probably found in the work of Nicander. We
know it only from him.
In the tales of Actaeon and Ascalabus, a goddess had transformed
a man by sprinkling him with water. Venus transformed the blood of
Adonis by sprinkling it with nectar. Ovid gave a brief, and obscure,
description of the process. The clotting fluid swelled, as if clear bubbles
were rising from tawny mud, and in an hour's time there grew up a
blood-red flower. Ovid likened the color to that of a pomegranate
blossom. Probably following Nicander, he explained the name "wind-
flower" by the fact that its delicately hung petals remain only until a
wind arises and shakes them off.
In later times Ovid's version of the tale was the most accessible and
the only full account that survived. Medieval and modern writers seem
always to have recalled Ovid, even when they used the work of others.
Many poets retold the story. Jean de Meun included a brief ver-
sion in the Romance of the Rose. Three minor Italian poets treated the
theme towards the middle of the sixteenth century. Ronsard retold the
tale with pathetic charm, Lope de Vega made it the subject of a drama,
and Marini elaborated it into a long poetical romance, with continual
moralizing and allegory. He showed both Mars and Diana plotting the
hero's death and the boar making an apology to Venus. Thomas Lodge
retold Ovid's tale in Scilla's Metamorphosis, and Greene treated it in a
lyric.
Ovid had intimated that love was shown chiefly on the part of Venus
and that Adonis cared more for hunting than for her wishes. Several
poets retold the story with emphasis on this idea. Spenser in his descrip-
tion of Castle Joyous told how Venus used elaborate courtship and im-
plied that Adonis felt unwillingness like that of Ovid's Hermaphroditus.
Allusions to the idea appeared in Marlowe's Hero and Leander and
Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare in Venus and Adonis
made the hero's reluctance the most important element in the story. His
version inspired Griffin's three sonnets in The Passionate Pilgrim. Keats
followed both Spenser and Shakespeare in his Endymion.
Many poets alluded to Ovid's tale. Dante compared the brilliant
eyes of Matilda to those of Venus, when Cupid accidentally inflamed
her. Chaucer in his Troilus and his Knight's Tale and Pope in his pas-
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? VENUS AND ADONIS
toral, Summer, recalled the passion of Venus. Guarini in the Faithful
Shepherd and Moliere in The Miser noted Adonis as typical of youthful
beauty. In The Princess of Elis, Moliere remembered the warning to
hunt only timid animals. In Paradise Lost, Milton observed that Adam
mingled kisses with words, as he told a story. Spenser in the Protha-
lamion recalled the swans which drew the car of Venus, and Shakespeare,
after introducing them correctly in his Venus and Adonis, referred in
As You Like It to Juno's swans. Pope in his pastoral, Winter, men-
tioned the death of Adonis. And both Camoens in his description of the
Isle of Love and Milton in his Nature and Old Age remembered the.
origin of the flower.
A number of modern authors combined with their recollection of
Ovid some idea of a garden of Adonis. To the Greeks a garden of this
kind had meant the plants grown in shallow pots for the annual festival,
and Plato had observed in his Phaedo that such gardens were proverb-
ially fast growing and transitory. To this idea Shakespeare alluded
vaguely in the First Part of Henry Sixth. But Pliny had mentioned a
permanent garden in some unvisited region of the earth, where after
death Adonis enjoyed a new and happy existence. A French poet of the
sixteenth century, Charles d'Estienne elaborated the idea. Spenser
referred to this Garden of Adonis in two passages of the Faerie Queene,
one of them of great length. Milton recalled the subject both in Comus
and in Paradise Lost, and Keats remembered it in his Endymion.
The story of Venus and Adonis often attracted modern artists. It
was treated in painting by Peruzzi, Giordano, Tito Ghisi, Furini,
Rubens, van Haarlem, Lemoyne, Terraval, and Lecomte. Veronese
treated the subject twice. And both Titian and Prudhon were inspired
to create masterpieces. Rubens and Brueghel pictured Adonis beginning
to hunt. The death of Adonis was portrayed by Caracci, Piombo, Mor-
etto, and Poussin.
The windflower attracted Albani and van der Near.
Venus and Adonis were treated by the sculptors Nicholas Coustou and
Thorvaldsen. The death of the hero appeared in a cast of Michelangelo
and in statues by Danti and Rodin.
Modern scientists gave the name Adonis to a European variety of
blue butterfly and to a genus of plants which have either yellow or red
flowers.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
HlPPOMENES AND AtALASTA
The story which Ovid showed Venus telling Adonis was concerned
with Atalanta's unsuccessful attempt to avoid marriage and its ill
consequences. The first part of the tale dealt with a theme popular in
Greek lore, that of a bride won by an athletic contest. In this it re-
sembled the stories of Pelops contending in a chariot race for Hippo-
damia (cf. Bk. 6) or Hercules contending in archery for Iole and in
wrestling for Deianira (Bk. 9). But the tale of Atalanta was unusual
in having the hero contend with the heroine. He was required to van-
quish her in a foot race.
The earliest version of this tale appeared in the Catalogues. The
account ran as follows. Atalanta, daughter of Schoeneus of Boeotia,
was beautiful, despite a fierceness in her gaze. She was averse to mar-
riage. A certain Hippomenes courted her and desired the consent of her
father. Schoeneus appears to have been favorably disposed, for he
offered to consent and add gifts and good will, if Hippomenes should
vanquish Atalanta in a foot race. But the penalty of failure should be
death. This penalty was to be inflicted after the race, but the method
was not stated. Fearing the result, Hippomenes obtained three apples
from Venus. The author implied that they were of more than ordinary
charm. Atalanta ran swiftly, with the breeze fluttering the light gar-
ment over her breast. Hippomenes addressed her as he ran, offering
gifts, and then threw down successively the three apples. Atalanta de-
layed to pick them up and was vanquished. The modern reader might
be surprised that Hippomenes should be allowed to win by such irregu-
lar methods. But in the Aeneid, Vergil described a race where Nisus was
allowed to defeat an opponent by tripping him.
The Catalogues had given an impression that Schoeneus prescribed
the test of the foot race. A later version, repeated by Hyginus, made
this clear. Atalanta asked her father to let her remain a virgin, and he
tried to fulfill her wish by the requirement of a race. According to this
version, Hippomenes was the offspring of a certain Megareus. Although
athletes of the Heroic Age appear to have worn light clothing, the
Catalogues declared that Hippomenes ran naked. Greek artists went
further and showed Atalanta doing likewise. They pictured a number
of spectators watching the contest.
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? HIPPOMENES AND ATALANTA
Euripides referred to the hero's success, and Ovid alluded to it both
in his Epistle of Paris and in his Ibis. Plato observed in the Republic
that, after the death of Atalanta, her soul was reincarnated as an ath-
lete. Theocritus, mentioning the use of apples, referred to the heroine
as yielding to mad desire. This might imply that she fell in love with
Hippomenes. Catullus expressed the idea clearly. The swift maiden, he
said, welcomed the apple that loosed her girdle, too long tied.
Some authors described Atalanta as a daughter of Iasus of Ar-
cadia and declared that she took part in the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Following this version, the Manual introduced many further changes.
It spoke of Atalanta as herself prescribing the test of the foot race. Her
father urged her to marry, and she resorted to this means of avoiding it.
The Manual described the race as having an unusual form. Anyone
desiring to marry Atalanta must run from a certain stake to a distant
goal. Meanwhile Atalanta, carrying weapons, pursued him in order to
overtake and kill him. Many suitors tried and failed. Where a number
of youths were concerned, it became improbable that Atalanta could
have enforced so harsh a penalty. According to the Manual, the suc-
cessful contender was named Melanion, and he resorted to the apples
when in danger of being overtaken. Since Atalanta was pursuing him,
it would have been easy for him to attract her attention.
The Manual recorded another tale about Atalanta, which seems to
have been unknown to Plato and which appears to have been introduced
after his time. The story was as follows. One day, while Melanion and
Atalanta were hunting wild animals, they visited an area sacred to Jove
and profaned it by sexual intercourse. Jupiter transformed them into
lions. The Manual seemed to use the word as a generic term, with the
implication that Melanion became a lion and Atalanta became a lioness,
and it seemed to imply that Jupiter desired to punish them with a less
attractive existence. Ovid afterwards accepted both ideas and made
them clearer. The Manual indicated that Melanion and Atalanta were
transformed somewhere in Arcadia. This idea may imply recollection of
actual lions in prehistoric Greece (cf. Death of Hercules, Bk. 9).
The story of Atalanta which afterwards was repeated by Hyginus
included a similar transformation of Hippomenes and Atalanta. This
version differed in the circumstances. The lovers were traveling from
the scene of the race to the residence of Hippomenes. Their journey
took them near an area on Mt. Parnassus which was sacred to Jupiter.
In visiting it their original intention was to offer a sacrifice. This ac-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
count specified that Jupiter transformed them into a lion and a lioness.
It assigned a different purpose for the change -- to prevent them from
ever repeating the offense. It then explained mistakenly that lions never
mate with their kind. Other mythographers added, also mistakenly, that
lions mate only with leopards. In the Ibis, Ovid mentioned the trans-
formation of Hippomenes into a lion.
Propertius called the victorious suitor Milanion and spoke of his
winning Atalanta by assiduous courtship. He noted that Milanion
helped her first in the pursuit of dangerous animals and then in a battle
with two centaurs, in the course of which he received a painful wound.
Although Propertius did not mention the race, he probably thought of
it as the final test. Ovid followed this version in his Art of Love.
Both the Catalogues and the Manual attributed the three apples
to Venus, but said nothing about their nature. An Alexandrian author
whom we cannot identify appears to have added that Venus aided the
successful youth with apples of solid gold, which came from the Garden
of the Hesperides. To this idea Vergil alluded in the Sixth Eclogue.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid had told of the Arcadian Atalanta as
a huntress loved by Meleager (Bk. 8), and he had given examples of
assiduous courtship in the tales of Hyacinthus and Adonis. He thought
it best to have Venus tell of the Boeotian Atalanta, daughter of Schoe-
neus, and to begin with the subject of the race. By this means he also
avoided any problem of historical time. Venus recounted an isolated tale
of the indefinite past.
Although Ovid took his outline from the Manual, he invented a
close relation between the two parts of the tale. According to the Man-
ual, Schoeneus had urged his daughter to marry. Ovid imagined that
she visited an oracle to inquire about a suitable husband. The god bade
her avoid marriage and added, with true oracular obscurity, that she
was not destined to escape but was to live after losing herself.
Frightened by the answer, she heeded the part that she understood.
She avoided marriage and retired to live in the dark forest. When
suitors followed her, she arranged for the ordeal of the race. Regard-
ing its nature, Ovid agreed with the Catalogues and the Greek artists.
He described the race as conducted in the usual manner and implied
that Atalanta had some one else inflict the penalty, after the finish.
Evidently he imagined the race as occurring near some town and as
attracting many spectators. He seemed to have in mind athletic events
of his own time and to imitate them, even in the irrelevant detail of
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? HIPPOMENES AND ATALANTA
showing the winner crowned with a wreathe. He imagined a circular
course, about which he may have supposed that the contestants ran sev-
eral times. The total distance was considerable, requiring not only
speed but endurance.
Following the Manual, Ovid observed that many suitors contended
for Atalanta. He spoke at first as if she ran only on one occasion, but
later he agreed with the Manual that there were a number of such occa-
sions. The Manual had left it ambiguous whether Atalanta contended
with more than one suitor at a time. Ovid gave the impression that at
least in one race she contended with a number. Just before this race, he
said, the hero arrived.
Ovid called the youth Hippomenes. He imagined him as a stranger
unacquainted with Atalanta, who chanced to be near the place and who
attended out of curiosity. This gave Ovid an opportunity to empha-
size the girl's charm. At first, he said, Hippomenes called the suitors
foolish for risking their lives to get a wife. But, when Atalanta ap-
peared, Hippomenes withdrew his rash opinion. Recalling the work of
Greek artists, Ovid observed that Atalanta laid aside her clothing; and,
recalling the Catalogues, he noted that she wore colored ribbons, which
fluttered at her knees and ankles. He declared that Atalanta, the swift
racer, had a beauty like that of Venus, an idea which would seem im-
probable. Hippomenes began to fear lest one of the other youths might
win the race. He decided that, if all of them should fail, he would try
his own fortune.
Ovid described Atalanta's appearance in running. He spoke of her
hair as tossed over her white shoulders and of a flush that suffused her
tender skin. He likened it to the hue which a purple awning reflects
over a marble court. This illustration from Roman life of Ovid's day
was neither happy in itself nor appropriate for Venus to use in the prim-
itive times of Adonis. Atalanta won the race, and the young men with
groans paid the penalty.
Then Hippomenes boldly challenged Atalanta to race with him.
He declared that she would incur no disgrace, whatever the result, for
his father was Megareus of Onchestus and his great grandfather was
Neptune, and he was worthy of his divine origin. Ovid probably found
this ancestry in the work of an Alexandrian predecessor. Theocritus
and Catullus had hinted that Atalanta felt willing to be vanquished by
Hippomenes. Ovid imagined that she loved him at first sight. He
showed her, like many of his other heroines, debating the problem in a
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
soliloquy, and he imagined that Venus was able to repeat every word.
In the case of Atalanta the soliloquy was less effective than usual, for a
number of reasons. In the beginning of the speech, Ovid allowed the
reader to suppose that her words were addressed to Hippomenes. For a
simple, athletic maiden vacillation seemed out of character. And Ovid
increased the difficulty by allowing her words to sound weak and silly.
In the course of her meditation Atalanta praised the girlish beauty of
Hippomenes and even desired that he might win, but declared that for
her, marriage was forbidden by an evil fate. Ovid observed that she was
so naive as to love without realizing it.
While she pondered the matter, her father and the other spectators
called insistently for the race. Apparently no one thought it unfair to
have her run twice in so short a time. Hippomenes prayed Venus to
favor the love that she herself had kindled. Venus heard with approval.
Ovid gave a new account of the golden apples. In the middle part of
Cyprus lay a district rich in copper and in fertility of soil, which was
called the Field of Tamasus. It was sacred to Venus. Philostephanus
appears to have added that in the field was a tree with golden apples.
Ovid imagined that here Venus gathered the fruit. He described the tree
as itself golden, like the tree of the Hesperides (Bk. 4). When Hippo-
menes prayed to Venus, he said, the goddess chanced to be carrying
three of the apples. Without revealing herself to anyone else, she gave
them to Hippomenes and told him their use.
In describing the race Ovid recalled the work of epic poets and
especially the Iliad and the Aeneid. As in Vergil's account of the boat
race, the signal was given with a trumpet. The Iliad had mentioned
certain horses of Erichthonius, whose father was the North Wind, and
had told how they would run over standing grain without breaking down
the ears or would run over the topmost waves of the hoary sea. Apol-
lonius had told how the Argonaut Euphemus used to run over the waves
of the gray sea, not wetting his swift feet but just dipping the tips of
his toes. Vergil, recalling both the Iliad and Apollonius, had attributed
similar lightness and swiftness to Camilla. But he stated the idea more
cautiously. She might have flown over the tops of standing grain and
not bruised the tender ears or sped over the mid sea, poised on the swell-
ing wave, and not dipped her swift feet in the flood. Ovid ascribed the
same ability to his hero and heroine. But in stating the thought he was
even more cautious than Vergil, and he reversed the order of ideas. You
would think, he said, that Hippomenes and Atalanta could run over the
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? HIPPOMENES AND ATALANTA
sea with dry feet or pass lightly over the ripened heads of standing
grain.
The Catalogues had shown Schoeneus favorable to Hippomenes.
Perhaps for this reason Ovid imagined the spectators in general as
favoring him.