CORONIS AND PHOJBUS
After the tale of Callisto, Ovid was unable to introduce the follow-
ing story in order of time.
After the tale of Callisto, Ovid was unable to introduce the follow-
ing story in order of time.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v1
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
Lthe fate of his kinsman, shunned the upper air and chose the water for
his home.
In telling of Apollo's grief, Ovid left the reader uncertain whether
the god refrained from driving for a day or until after the mutation of
Phaethon's sisters, a period of four months. The god's complaint
that he had driven the chariot since the beginning of the world was
needlessly inconsistent with other parts of the poem and was unfor-
tunately querulous in tone. And, after omitting the metamorphosis
of Phaethon, Ovid found no good means of reconciling the god to the
death of his son.
While the myth of Phaethon was far from being one of Ovid's most
successful tales, it had great merit and for the Middle Ages and the
modern period it was the only complete version accessible. It was a
favorite source of reference for later times.
Dante used the tale effectively to illustrate his accounts of the con-
versation with Cacciaguida, the glorious car of the church, and the
terror of descending on the back of the monster Geryon. In the House
of Fame the eagle retold the story to Chaucer at some length. Ariosto
predicted that Azzo should rule Ferrara,' near the stream where
Phoebus lamented
The son ill trusted with his father's beams;
Where Cycnus spread his pinions; and the scented
Amber was wept, as fabling poet dreams.
Tasso remembered the Sun's car while describing the chariot of
Armida. Camoens mentioned Phaethon as darkening the Africans and
as affording an example of foolish ambition. So great was Spenser's
enjoyment of the myth that he referred to it--always at great length
--in The Tears of the Muses and in three remarkable passages of
The Farie Queen--the description of Pride, the adventure in the House
of Busyrane, and the defeat of the Soldan. He was inclined, however,
to vary from Ovid's details with unusual freedom. Ovid's myth guided
Spenser also in a remarkable story of Mutability's obtaining the car
of the Moon and threatening the order of the world.
Shakespeare alluded to Phaethon briefly in Two Gentlemen of
Verona, in Richard Second, and twice in the Third Part of Henry
Sixth. Milton in his Eikonoclastes declared that the whole reign of
Charles the First was like that of Phaethon. Calderon wrote a dra-
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? CALLISTO AND JUPITER
matic pageant The Child of the Sun. Byron recalled Phaethon's fall
in both the Vision of Judgment and The Deformed Transformed.
Goethe's Egmont compared himself to the bold Phaethon, swept on
irresistibly by the eagerness of his steeds, dodging now this peril and
now that, and so occupied with the present as to have no thought
whence he came and no fear of his approaching ruin. In Gerard de
Lairesse Browning described a painting of Phaethon's tomb. And
Blackmore's John Bidd was able to enter the Doone Valley because he
remembered Ovid's precept that the middle way is safest.
The circumstance that Phaethon did not drive at the normal speed
suggested opposite inferences to later poets. Chaucer's Troilus,
awaiting the return of Cressid, found the days so long that he fancied
that Phaethon was again driving the chariot amiss. Shakespeare's
Juliet, impatient for the night, imagined that, if Phaethon were driv-
ing the chariot, he would hasten the end of day.
Ovid's description of the Sun's palace proved unusually interesting.
Jean de Meun borrowed the account of the sea gods carved on the
doors. Boiardo recalled Ovid while describing the Palazzo Gioioso. In
the opera Psyche, Corneille remembered that Ovid had made Vulcan
the builder of the Sun's Palace and attributed to him also a palace for
the God of Love. And Milton made Vulcan the architect of Satan's
great residence, Pandemonium.
Dante recalled the names which Ovid gave the Sun's horses for both
his Convivio and his Second Eclogue. And Chaucer mentioned them in
the Troilus.
Petrarch, imitating much of Ovid's detail, recounted his own grief
when repulsed by Laura and his metamorphosis to a swan.
Ovid's myth inspired paintings by Piombo, Bubens, and Moreau.
Primaticcio treated both the borrowing of the car and the fall of
Phaethon. And Ovid's lines of the dawn suggested Guido Beni's great
masterpiece of Aurora preceding the chariot of the Sun.
. ,
Callisto and Jupiter
.
After the destruction caused by Phaethon, Ovid showed Jupiter
making a careful inspection of the earth and restoring its former
order. Callimachus had declared Arcadia the birthplace of Jove and
so Ovid supposed that Jupiter gave this region Ipecial attention and
hence discovered Callisto, the beautiful daughter of Lycaon. The
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
success of this introduction caused him to invent a similar inspection
of Sicily as introduction to the myth of Proserpina (Bk. 5).
The myth of Lycaon and his daughter Callisto had taken form
before Lycaon was associated with the Deluge (cf. Bk. 1) and it had
continued to grow independently. Thus Ovid found the adjustment
of the two myths rather difficult. Presumably Lycaon and his daugh-
ter should have perished in the flood. Ovid left the reader to imagine
that in some unexplained way they escaped; but he made the difficulty
less apparent by allowing other tales to intervene. This remedy had
a disadvantage, for Callisto would have been much older than most
of Ovid's heroines, if she had waited until both Io and her son had
reached maturity. But the delay was possible and allowed Ovid to
preserve an appearance of succession in order of time.
The myth of Callisto was of early origin and in time assumed
various forms. It had many resemblances to another early Arcadian
myth, the story of Io. Callisto was worshipped originally as a
goddess, who appeared nightly in the constellation that we still know
as the Great Bear. And often she was referred to as the Curver
(Helice) because instead of setting, her constellation moved always in a
curving path round the northern pole. At the same time Callisto was
also a goddess appearing on earth in the form of a bear, and her son
Arcas was reputed to be the founder of the Arcadian tribes. Such de-
scent from a divine animal has been recorded in the tradition of many
peoples and notably in royal genealogies of Egypt. Later, worship of
Diana, a goddess in human form, superseded that of Callisto. Some-
times the two were regarded as the same. But usually Callisto became
Lycaon's daughter, a human attendant of Diana who offended her and
suffered metamorphosis. The myth then became similar to many popu-
lar tales, especially common in northern Europe, in which a human
being is compelled to suffer the hardships of transformation into a
bear. But in the Arcadian tradition there was unusual emphasis on
the fact that a huntress was now in dread of death from her former
'companions and their hounds. In this the tale resembled that of
Actaeon (Bk. 3). The likeness was most clear in the earliest version
but still remained in that of Ovid.
Before entering literature, the tradition seems to have taken the
following form: Jupiter ravished Callisto and, in order to avoid dis-
covery by Juno, turned the nymph into a bear. In time she became
the mother of the boy Arcas. Juno, learning the bear's identity,
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? CALL1ST0 AND JUPITER
caused Diana to hunt and kill her, and her grave was long pointed
out by the Arcadians. But Jupiter made her the constellation of the
Bear, the star first used as a guide by Greek mariners. This tradition
was known to the poets of the Iliad and the Odyssey, for both allude
to the unsetting Bear. It may have been known also to Ovid; but he
would have avoided it as too like his accounts of Io and Actaeon.
In the Astronomy, the tale assumed a different form. Here Jupiter
allowed the nymph to continue as a follower of Diana. While bathing,
Callisto revealed her pregnancy, and the maiden goddess indignantly
metamorphosed her to a she bear. After the birth of Arcas, goatherds
captured both the bear and her infant child and gave them to her
father, Lycaon. Informed in some way of his daughter's misfortune,
Lycaon plotted revenge. He contrived to have Arcas killed and served
to Jupiter at a banquet. But the god detected the plot; punished
Lycaon; and restored Arcas to life. In time the boy grew up and
became father of the Arcadians. But one day Callisto entered a for-
bidden precinct of Jupiter, an offense punishable by death. Pursuing
her, Arcas incurred the same penalty. To save them, Jupiter trans-
lated both to the skies. Arcas became the constellation of the Bear
Ward (Arctophylax or Arcturus) so called because it appeared to
follow the Bear round the northern heavens. A later form of this ver-
sion Ovid used for the translation of Callisto and Arcas which he
recorded in his Fasti; but he did not follow it in the Metamorphoses.
Meanwhile the Phoenicians had long since learned to steer by a con-
stellation much nearer the pole than the Great Bear. This knowledge
passed finally to the Greeks. Of several names which they gave the
new constellation, one was that of the Lesser Bear. The fact that the
group had a similar form to that of the Great Bear would suggest a
likeness in the name, and Aratus implies that the two signs were asso-
ciated at first with a Cretan myth of two bears who nurtured the infant
Jupiter and were rewarded by a place in the sky. But the Great
Bear continued to be related with Callisto and in time the Lesser Bear
was associated with Arcas, although this was illogical, for he had not
lost his human form. This myth Ovid mentioned in his Epistle of
Leander.
For the Alexandrians the tale of Callisto had great interest; Calli-
machus, Eratosthenes, and Nicander retold it in works which are now
lost. What details may have been peculiar to any of these three ver-
sions, it seems impossible to determine. But by the end of the Alex-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
andrian period the story had become much more plausible. It was
recorded that Callisto had sworn perpetual virginity and in return
had become the favorite attendant of Diana. Hence the goddess pun-
ished her in a summary manner. But Diana had been content with
dismissing Callisto from her company. The nymph returned to her
father, Lycaon, and bore a son. Aware that Arcas was a child of
Jove, Juno transformed the mother into a she bear. The bear, return-
ing to the forest, avoided the sight of human beings but contrived to
watch the growth of her son. Arcas, when about fifteen, suddenly
came face to face with his mother. She recognized him; but he sup-
posed her merely a dangerous animal and was about to kill her, when
Jupiter interfered and transformed both mother and son to the con-
stellations of the Great and Lesser Bear. But the story did not end
here. Juno, dreading1 banishment from heaven, resolved to assure
herself of a refuge in the ocean. Visiting Oceanus and Tethys, whom
the Iliad had made her foster parents, she persuaded them to exclude
her rival from the waters.
This account, taken probably from Nicander, Ovid used for the
Metamorphoses. To the Romans Callisto appears to have been well
known, for Ovid did not mention her name. He omitted the oath of
perpetual virginity, perhaps in order to vary from the account in his
Fasti.
Probably following his original, Ovid recorded that Jupiter found
Callisto sleeping towards the hour of noon. In the hot dry countries
bordering the Mediterranean, men would naturally engage in hunting
or other active pursuits during the early morning hours and then
withdraw to spend the middle of the day quietly in a shady place and
often to bathe in a cooling stream. In actual life this was apt to
occasion unexpected meetings and give leisure for important events.
In Alexandrian literature the hour of noon seems to have been men-
tioned regularly as the time for tragic happenings. Ovid followed
the custom repeatedly in his Metamorphoses and Milton seems to have
been influenced by it when he made noon the time of Satan's arrival
in Eden and later of his successfully tempting Eve.
Ovid invented the frivolous reflection of Jupiter that he could either
escape the notice of his wife or bear complacently with her reproof.
When Callisto was alone and asleep, it would have been easy for Jove
to approach her. But, recalling a Greek comedy of the third century
B. C. , Ovid added that Jupiter assumed the appearance of Diana. - Thus
. >>
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? CALLISTO AND JUPITER
he was able to introduce not only an additional metamorphosis but
the whimsical circumstance of Jupiter amused to hear Callisto prefer
him to himself.
The ensuing struggle Ovid vivified by suddenly addressing one of
his characters. As if he were actually looking on at the events, he
exclaimed, "Juno, would that you might see, you would be more merci-
ful! " The same effective method he was to repeat in the tale of
Narcissus and in many other stories throughout his poem. Ovid added
also the very natural circumstances that, even when the real Diana
appeared, Callisto feared deception until she saw the attendant
nymphs. And he imagined that Callisto would have betrayed herself,
if the maiden goddess had not been entirely unacquainted with such
guilt.
After the transformation of Lycaon (Bk. 1), it was no longer pos-
sible to imagine that Callisto returned to her father's house. Ovid
omitted this detail and did not explain how Arcas could survive the
transformation of his mother or how after an interval of fifteen years
she was able to recognize him. The Romans may have been sufficiently
familiar with tradition to take these matters for granted.
That Juno should seize the nymph by the hair and throw her to
the ground was in accord with the general literary practice of both
the Alexandrians and Ovid. They brought the gods down almost to
the ordinary human level. But in this case Ovid could have found
precedent in a passage of the Iliad, where Juno beat Diana cruelly
with a bow.
The interesting elaboration of Io's hardships after she became a
heifer probably suggested to Ovid a similar treatment of Callisto's
hardships after she became a bear. And the situation differed enough
to permit originality and contrast.
After Callisto and Arcas had entered the sky, Ovid made two ad-
ditions to the incident of Juno's visiting Oceanus and Tethys. In
soliloquies at the beginning of the First and Seventh Books of the
Aeneid, Vergil had shown the goddess grieving at her ill success, dread-
ing more serious wrong, and planning a new attack on her enemies.
Drawing on this material, Ovid invented Juno's indignant plea to her
foster parents. The same passages of Vergil were to help him again
in the tales of Semele (Bk. 3), and Ino (Bk. 4). Ovid added also, as a
transition to the following story, Juno's departure in a car drawn
by peacocks, whose tails were bright with the eyes of Argus,
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
Ovid's myth of Callisto occasioned some interesting allusions by
later poets. Dante on the mount of Purgatory heard those guilty of
normal lust recall Diana's banishment of the nymph as an example of
the severe chastity to which they aspire. An early sonnet of Petrarch
described the Great Bear as that beautiful northern constellation
which causes Juno to be jealous. Chaucer in the Parliament of Fowls
mentioned the tale of Callisto as painted in the temple of Venus.
Camoens observed, in a fine account of Gama crossing the equator,
We now disprove the faith of ancient lore;
Bootes' shining car appears no more.
For here we saw Callisto's star retire
Beneath the waves, unawed by Juno's ire.
Spenser, in an admirable description of Pride, compared her glori-
ous coach to the car of Juno
Drawne of fayre peacocks, that excell in pride,
And full of Argus' eyes their tayles dispredden wide.
And in The Tempest Shakespeare announced that Juno was coming
and "her peacocks fly amain. "
Modern painters used the tale oftener even than the poets. Zaccaro
retold it in a series of paintings. The story inspired single works of
Cambiaso, Annibale Caracci, Boucher, and Richard Rothwell and a
masterpiece of Palma Vecchio. Titian treated it in three paintings,
and Rubens in two. And Piombo showed the departure of Juno drawn
by peacocks.
CORONIS AND PHOJBUS
After the tale of Callisto, Ovid was unable to introduce the follow-
ing story in order of time. The myth of Apollo and Coronis had
grown up independently and had no relation with either Callisto or
Phaethon. Ovid put it therefore, in the indefinite past--about con-
temporary with the death of Argus (Bk. 1). But he made the new
story the beginning of another series related in order of time, which
was to end with the myth of Cadmus (Bk. 3).
For the tale of Coronis, Ovid treated a theme which has interested
many savage peoples. In Bengal, Australia, and parts of North
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? CORONIS AND PHCEBUS
America certain tribes have believed that the raven (or the crow)
originally was white and have invented stories to account for his
change to black. Often these stories have shown the bird using human
speech. In savage myth and in folklore such ability has been imagined
for many animals; but it could be ascribed with special ease to the
raven.
Ancient Greece related the bird's change of color to an early love
affair of Apollo. According to the Catalogues, the god loved Coronis,
who dwelt near Lake Boebais in southern Thessaly. While he was
absent at Delphi, she secretly married a youth named Ischys. A raven
flew north to Delphi with the news. In the Catalogues the latter part
of the tale has been lost. But the Manual continued to the following
effect: Apollo returned in haste and shot Coronis with his fatal bow.
Then repenting his violence, he mounted the pyre, where the girl's
body was consuming; rescued his unborn son, Aesculapius; and en-
trusted the infant to the centaur Chiron. For provoking the god's
rash act, the raven was punished by loss of his original white.
Meanwhile several Greek poets had given the myth a different
form. Pindar told it in impressive language and with a more exalted
conception of the god. He was original also in many important de-
tails. According to Pindar, Coronis lapsed into the prevalent folly--
romantic dreams about strangers from distant lands. She began an
illicit love affair with Ischys, whom Pindar made an Arcadian.
Apollo, although absent in Delphi and without information of the
ordinary kind, perceived her guilt purely by the keenness of his mental
vision. To punish Coronis, he sent Diana, who destroyed her and also
many of her neighbors. But later he himself returned to save
Aesculapius. This version, which omitted the part of the raven, had
no influence on subsequent treatments.
Thus far the myth of the raven's dark plumage had been related
only to the tragic story of Apollo and Coronis. Callimachus, in the
Hecale, associated it with two other myths of independent origin.
The first myth told of an early Athenian god named Erichthonius.
Vulcan, it seems, had tried to ravish the goddess Athena, His attempt
was unsuccessful; but it caused Vulcan and Earth to become parents
of the Athenian god. In the sculpture of the Theseum and other early
works of art, Earth was personified as the divine mother. The tale
was known to Euripides and was told at some length by the Manual.
In the latter, Earth became merely the soil on which the event
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
occurred. Hence Ovid referred to Erichthonius as a child without a
mother.
The second myth sought to explain why crows appeared to shun
the Acropolis at Athens. It was invented as a sequal to the first.
Athena undertook the nurture of Erichthonius; but feeling ashamed
of his origin, she kept him hidden in a box On one occasion the
approach of a hostile army caused her to depart and strengthen the
defenses of her city. Meanwhile she entrusted the box to the three
daughters of the Athenian king, telling them not to open it. Disobey-
ing, they found the child guarded by a snake. A crow reported their
disobedience to Athena. She caused the girls to go mad and leap
over a cliff. The crow, as a bearer of ill tidings, she exiled forever
from the Acropolis. This story appeared first in ancient vase paint-
ings. Euripides referred to it at some length in his Ion; but
Callimachus seems to have been the earliest author who told it in full.
Instead of mentioning the exile of crows from the Acropolis, he said
that Athena banished them from her company, and afterwards this
was the usual account. But Lucretius still referred incredulously to
the older version. Both Euripides and Callimachus made all three
girls disobedient. But the Manual and other prose accounts restricted
the guilt to two.
Callimachus told first the myth of the raven and Coronis, and then
that of the crow and Erichthonius. He pointed out that each story
dealt with a bird which was punished for being over eager to tell the
unwelcome truth.
Nicander carried the idea a step further. While the raven was bear-
ing his message to Delphi, said Nicander, the crow tried to dissuade
him from informing Apollo by telling how she herself had been pun-
ished for informing Athena. But the raven refused to heed this warn-
ing. Nicander made only one girl, Aglauros, guilty of disobedience
and he related her punishment to a subsequent tale of Mercury and
Herse.
Nicander had already made the tale of the raven far more complex.
But he carried the process further. The crow, he said, had told not
only why she was banished but how she at first obtained the favor
of Athena. Originally she had been the daughter of Coroneus, king
of Phocis. Courted and pursued by Neptune, she called for help, and
Athena transformed her into a crow. This tale Nicander may have
invented.
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? CO RON IS AND PHOEBUS
Then Nicander complicated the myth still more. Not content with
telling her own history, the crow added a story of the owl, who suc-
ceeded her in Athena's favor. In its earlier form the myth had been
as follows: Epopeus, king of Libya, had a daughter Nyctimene. He
violated her and she hid ashamed in the forest. But Athena pitied
her misfortune and transformed her into the owl, which became her
sacred bird. Nicander made Epopeus king of Lesbos and he greatly
altered the story. Influenced by the famous tradition of Myrrha (cf.
Book 10), he showed Nyctimene guilty of seducing her father. With
this change the sympathy of Athena became improbable; but the story
was new and much more sensational.
By adding so many independent tales, Nicander tended to confuse
the reader and divert his attention from the tragedy of Coronis. This
Ovid may have realized. But he probably felt that the myth of the
raven was so familiar that it required some novelty of treatment.
And the many stories which Nicander had brought together were not
only very appropriate for his general purpose but difficult to intro-
duce in any better way. Accordingly Ovid followed Nicander's out-
line, adding details from Callimachus and the Manual. But he intro-
duced beneficial changes of his own. For the Romans he retold the
complicated myth effectively. For the modern reader he often took
too many circumstances for granted.
Callimachus had compared the pristine whiteness of the raven to
that of the swan, of milk, and of a wave on the shore. This idea Ovid
improved by making all his comparisons with birds--the spotless
doves, the geese on the Capitol, and the river-loving swan. And he
gave the subject further interest by reminding his countrymen that
these white geese had once preserved Rome from an attack of the Gauls.
Following Nicander, he then told of Apollo's love for Coronis and of
the raven's departure to report her infidelity. This part of the tale,
he wisely abridged, omitting even the name of Ischys. But he failed
to make it clear that Apollo was absent at Delphi. A reader un-
familiar with other accounts would not understand the situation at
this point and later would not know that, before shooting Coronis, the
god was supposed to return from a considerable distance.
During the raven's flight northwards, Ovid repeated the dialogue
between the raven and the crow. He took the precaution to make the
latter notably garrulous. For a crow this was in character. But
Ovid had a more important reason. Of the three stories which the
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
crow was to tell, only that of her own tale-bearing was to the point.
Neither her adoption by Athena nor her being supplanted by the
guilty Nyctimene was essential or at all likely to dissuade the raven.
Yet both might form part of a garrulous complaint.
Believing his contemporaries familiar with the origin of Erichthonius,
Ovid left it obscure. The tale of the crow's disgrace he repeated
briefly as it had been told by Nicander. Proceeding to the early his-
tory of the crow, Ovid gave an admirable account of the metamorpho-
sis. Then he told of Nyctimene, briefly, because he intended later to
tell in detail a similar story of Myrrha.
After an effective description of the dismay with which Apollo heard
the raven, Ovid recorded the death of Coronis. But he hastened the
account so much that it was not clear how the dying mother knew
either the identity or the motive of her slayer. Apollo's repentance
Ovid told more successfully. The tradition that the god's healing
power could not save Hyacinthus (Bk. 10) may have suggested
Ovid's use of the same pathetic circumstance in the death of Coronis.
That the gods were immune from shedding tears was not a usual
. idea with the Greeks: the Iliad had implied that Jupiter wept crimson
dew after the loss of Sarpedon, and Ovid himself was to declare that
every morning we may see the tears of Aurora still grieving for the
death of Memnon (Bk. 13). But Euripides had made the contrary
belief famous in his Hippolytus Crowned.
From Ovid's myth of Apollo and Coronis, Chaucer developed a
strangely different story for his Canterbury Tales. This version,
? ? called the Maunciple's Tale, retold the myth with a number of radical
changes. Thus Chaucer made the raven a trained crow in a cage;
he omitted all the related stories, and he gave the narrative to an
ignorant man who delighted in moralizing. Yet this was almost the
only Ovidian tale where Chaucer retained the metamorphosis.
Ariosto, narrating the plight of Ulania and her companions, re-
called the origin of Erichthonius and the curiosity of Aglauros. In
the House of Busyrane Spenser mentioned a painting of Apollo's
grief for Coronis and added that she became a sweet briar.
The tale of Erichthonius inspired a painting of Piombo and two
important works of Rubens.
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? OCYRHOE AND AESCULAPIUS
OCYEHOE AND AESCULAPIUS
From the death of Coronis, Ovid could pass naturally to the care
of her son by the centaur Chiron and the strange transformation of
Chiron's daughter. This event Euripides had recorded in his
Melanippe the Wise. Although the centaur was only half human in
form, he said, his daughter Ocyrhoe was at first entirely human. From
her father she inherited the gift of prophecy. But so incautiously did
she use her power that Jupiter transformed her to a mare. Nicander
seems to have repeated the tale and made it available for Ovid.
The myth of Ocyrhoe was in itself appropriate and picturesque.
But to Ovid it offered a further advantage. Both Aesculapius, child
of Apollo and Coronis, and Chiron, his foster father, had become well
known mythological characters and had taken a leading part in re-
markable events. Ovid was anxious to include their adventures in his
poem. But he did not think it wise to recount them at length. He
was glad, therefore, to present them as foreshadowed vaguely in the
prophecy of Ocyrhoe. It will be of interest to suggest both the nature
of these events and the cause of Ovid's reticence.
Aesculapius was in prehistoric times a local god of healing, wor-
shiped in southern Thessaly, and related with savage beliefs about the
snake. Many early people imagined that the snake was gifted with
unusual cunning, that he understood the principles of medicine, and
that he had learned by casting his skin to renew his youth and be-
come immortal. Accordingly the serpent was often associated with a
god of healing. The Egyptians associated him with Isis, as Ovid was
to imply later in the tale of Ianthe (Bk. 9), and the Thessalians
related him frequently to Aesculapius. They believed that the god
himself was apt to appear in serpent form. A tradition of this kind
Ovid himself was to repeat, when he told how the Romans brought the
god from Epidaurus in the form of a great crested snake (Bk. 15).
In time the Thessalians came to prefer Apollo, a god of healing in
human form. They then regarded Aesculapius as his son and a mortal
who became a celebrated physician. The Iliad mentioned this belief,
and the Homeric Hymn to Aesculapius made him the child of Apollo
and Coronis. In the Catalogues we hear first of his dying by a
thunderbolt from Jupiter.
Pindar told the story in some detail. Aesculapius, he said, was
reared by Chiron. He grew famous for healing all manner of sickness.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
At length a splendid offer of gold tempted him to revive even a dead
man. But this was usurping a power allowed only to the gods, and
Jupiter destroyed both the physician and his patient. Pindar's ac-
count was not the usual tradition.
Ordinarily we hear that Aesculapius perished, but the resurrected
man continued living. To this Aeschylus alluded ruefully in his
Agamemnon and Euripides in his Alcestis. Later authors wished to
identify the revived man quite variously. In the Aeneid Vergil de-
clared that the physician acted at the request of Diana and restored
the life of her favorite, Hippolytus--a version which Ovid was glad
to use later in his myth of Egeria (Bk. 15).
Still another tradition recorded that, although Jupiter at first pun-
ished Aesculapius with death, he afterwards consoled Apollo by giving
the physician immortality as the constellation of the Serpent Holder
(Ophiuchus). This tradition Ovid followed in the prophecy of
Ocyrhoe. But he was unconventional in important details: he declared
that Aesculapius was not a mortal but a god and that to restore the
dead would have been his privilege, if the power had not been abused.
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
Lthe fate of his kinsman, shunned the upper air and chose the water for
his home.
In telling of Apollo's grief, Ovid left the reader uncertain whether
the god refrained from driving for a day or until after the mutation of
Phaethon's sisters, a period of four months. The god's complaint
that he had driven the chariot since the beginning of the world was
needlessly inconsistent with other parts of the poem and was unfor-
tunately querulous in tone. And, after omitting the metamorphosis
of Phaethon, Ovid found no good means of reconciling the god to the
death of his son.
While the myth of Phaethon was far from being one of Ovid's most
successful tales, it had great merit and for the Middle Ages and the
modern period it was the only complete version accessible. It was a
favorite source of reference for later times.
Dante used the tale effectively to illustrate his accounts of the con-
versation with Cacciaguida, the glorious car of the church, and the
terror of descending on the back of the monster Geryon. In the House
of Fame the eagle retold the story to Chaucer at some length. Ariosto
predicted that Azzo should rule Ferrara,' near the stream where
Phoebus lamented
The son ill trusted with his father's beams;
Where Cycnus spread his pinions; and the scented
Amber was wept, as fabling poet dreams.
Tasso remembered the Sun's car while describing the chariot of
Armida. Camoens mentioned Phaethon as darkening the Africans and
as affording an example of foolish ambition. So great was Spenser's
enjoyment of the myth that he referred to it--always at great length
--in The Tears of the Muses and in three remarkable passages of
The Farie Queen--the description of Pride, the adventure in the House
of Busyrane, and the defeat of the Soldan. He was inclined, however,
to vary from Ovid's details with unusual freedom. Ovid's myth guided
Spenser also in a remarkable story of Mutability's obtaining the car
of the Moon and threatening the order of the world.
Shakespeare alluded to Phaethon briefly in Two Gentlemen of
Verona, in Richard Second, and twice in the Third Part of Henry
Sixth. Milton in his Eikonoclastes declared that the whole reign of
Charles the First was like that of Phaethon. Calderon wrote a dra-
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? CALLISTO AND JUPITER
matic pageant The Child of the Sun. Byron recalled Phaethon's fall
in both the Vision of Judgment and The Deformed Transformed.
Goethe's Egmont compared himself to the bold Phaethon, swept on
irresistibly by the eagerness of his steeds, dodging now this peril and
now that, and so occupied with the present as to have no thought
whence he came and no fear of his approaching ruin. In Gerard de
Lairesse Browning described a painting of Phaethon's tomb. And
Blackmore's John Bidd was able to enter the Doone Valley because he
remembered Ovid's precept that the middle way is safest.
The circumstance that Phaethon did not drive at the normal speed
suggested opposite inferences to later poets. Chaucer's Troilus,
awaiting the return of Cressid, found the days so long that he fancied
that Phaethon was again driving the chariot amiss. Shakespeare's
Juliet, impatient for the night, imagined that, if Phaethon were driv-
ing the chariot, he would hasten the end of day.
Ovid's description of the Sun's palace proved unusually interesting.
Jean de Meun borrowed the account of the sea gods carved on the
doors. Boiardo recalled Ovid while describing the Palazzo Gioioso. In
the opera Psyche, Corneille remembered that Ovid had made Vulcan
the builder of the Sun's Palace and attributed to him also a palace for
the God of Love. And Milton made Vulcan the architect of Satan's
great residence, Pandemonium.
Dante recalled the names which Ovid gave the Sun's horses for both
his Convivio and his Second Eclogue. And Chaucer mentioned them in
the Troilus.
Petrarch, imitating much of Ovid's detail, recounted his own grief
when repulsed by Laura and his metamorphosis to a swan.
Ovid's myth inspired paintings by Piombo, Bubens, and Moreau.
Primaticcio treated both the borrowing of the car and the fall of
Phaethon. And Ovid's lines of the dawn suggested Guido Beni's great
masterpiece of Aurora preceding the chariot of the Sun.
. ,
Callisto and Jupiter
.
After the destruction caused by Phaethon, Ovid showed Jupiter
making a careful inspection of the earth and restoring its former
order. Callimachus had declared Arcadia the birthplace of Jove and
so Ovid supposed that Jupiter gave this region Ipecial attention and
hence discovered Callisto, the beautiful daughter of Lycaon. The
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
success of this introduction caused him to invent a similar inspection
of Sicily as introduction to the myth of Proserpina (Bk. 5).
The myth of Lycaon and his daughter Callisto had taken form
before Lycaon was associated with the Deluge (cf. Bk. 1) and it had
continued to grow independently. Thus Ovid found the adjustment
of the two myths rather difficult. Presumably Lycaon and his daugh-
ter should have perished in the flood. Ovid left the reader to imagine
that in some unexplained way they escaped; but he made the difficulty
less apparent by allowing other tales to intervene. This remedy had
a disadvantage, for Callisto would have been much older than most
of Ovid's heroines, if she had waited until both Io and her son had
reached maturity. But the delay was possible and allowed Ovid to
preserve an appearance of succession in order of time.
The myth of Callisto was of early origin and in time assumed
various forms. It had many resemblances to another early Arcadian
myth, the story of Io. Callisto was worshipped originally as a
goddess, who appeared nightly in the constellation that we still know
as the Great Bear. And often she was referred to as the Curver
(Helice) because instead of setting, her constellation moved always in a
curving path round the northern pole. At the same time Callisto was
also a goddess appearing on earth in the form of a bear, and her son
Arcas was reputed to be the founder of the Arcadian tribes. Such de-
scent from a divine animal has been recorded in the tradition of many
peoples and notably in royal genealogies of Egypt. Later, worship of
Diana, a goddess in human form, superseded that of Callisto. Some-
times the two were regarded as the same. But usually Callisto became
Lycaon's daughter, a human attendant of Diana who offended her and
suffered metamorphosis. The myth then became similar to many popu-
lar tales, especially common in northern Europe, in which a human
being is compelled to suffer the hardships of transformation into a
bear. But in the Arcadian tradition there was unusual emphasis on
the fact that a huntress was now in dread of death from her former
'companions and their hounds. In this the tale resembled that of
Actaeon (Bk. 3). The likeness was most clear in the earliest version
but still remained in that of Ovid.
Before entering literature, the tradition seems to have taken the
following form: Jupiter ravished Callisto and, in order to avoid dis-
covery by Juno, turned the nymph into a bear. In time she became
the mother of the boy Arcas. Juno, learning the bear's identity,
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? CALL1ST0 AND JUPITER
caused Diana to hunt and kill her, and her grave was long pointed
out by the Arcadians. But Jupiter made her the constellation of the
Bear, the star first used as a guide by Greek mariners. This tradition
was known to the poets of the Iliad and the Odyssey, for both allude
to the unsetting Bear. It may have been known also to Ovid; but he
would have avoided it as too like his accounts of Io and Actaeon.
In the Astronomy, the tale assumed a different form. Here Jupiter
allowed the nymph to continue as a follower of Diana. While bathing,
Callisto revealed her pregnancy, and the maiden goddess indignantly
metamorphosed her to a she bear. After the birth of Arcas, goatherds
captured both the bear and her infant child and gave them to her
father, Lycaon. Informed in some way of his daughter's misfortune,
Lycaon plotted revenge. He contrived to have Arcas killed and served
to Jupiter at a banquet. But the god detected the plot; punished
Lycaon; and restored Arcas to life. In time the boy grew up and
became father of the Arcadians. But one day Callisto entered a for-
bidden precinct of Jupiter, an offense punishable by death. Pursuing
her, Arcas incurred the same penalty. To save them, Jupiter trans-
lated both to the skies. Arcas became the constellation of the Bear
Ward (Arctophylax or Arcturus) so called because it appeared to
follow the Bear round the northern heavens. A later form of this ver-
sion Ovid used for the translation of Callisto and Arcas which he
recorded in his Fasti; but he did not follow it in the Metamorphoses.
Meanwhile the Phoenicians had long since learned to steer by a con-
stellation much nearer the pole than the Great Bear. This knowledge
passed finally to the Greeks. Of several names which they gave the
new constellation, one was that of the Lesser Bear. The fact that the
group had a similar form to that of the Great Bear would suggest a
likeness in the name, and Aratus implies that the two signs were asso-
ciated at first with a Cretan myth of two bears who nurtured the infant
Jupiter and were rewarded by a place in the sky. But the Great
Bear continued to be related with Callisto and in time the Lesser Bear
was associated with Arcas, although this was illogical, for he had not
lost his human form. This myth Ovid mentioned in his Epistle of
Leander.
For the Alexandrians the tale of Callisto had great interest; Calli-
machus, Eratosthenes, and Nicander retold it in works which are now
lost. What details may have been peculiar to any of these three ver-
sions, it seems impossible to determine. But by the end of the Alex-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
andrian period the story had become much more plausible. It was
recorded that Callisto had sworn perpetual virginity and in return
had become the favorite attendant of Diana. Hence the goddess pun-
ished her in a summary manner. But Diana had been content with
dismissing Callisto from her company. The nymph returned to her
father, Lycaon, and bore a son. Aware that Arcas was a child of
Jove, Juno transformed the mother into a she bear. The bear, return-
ing to the forest, avoided the sight of human beings but contrived to
watch the growth of her son. Arcas, when about fifteen, suddenly
came face to face with his mother. She recognized him; but he sup-
posed her merely a dangerous animal and was about to kill her, when
Jupiter interfered and transformed both mother and son to the con-
stellations of the Great and Lesser Bear. But the story did not end
here. Juno, dreading1 banishment from heaven, resolved to assure
herself of a refuge in the ocean. Visiting Oceanus and Tethys, whom
the Iliad had made her foster parents, she persuaded them to exclude
her rival from the waters.
This account, taken probably from Nicander, Ovid used for the
Metamorphoses. To the Romans Callisto appears to have been well
known, for Ovid did not mention her name. He omitted the oath of
perpetual virginity, perhaps in order to vary from the account in his
Fasti.
Probably following his original, Ovid recorded that Jupiter found
Callisto sleeping towards the hour of noon. In the hot dry countries
bordering the Mediterranean, men would naturally engage in hunting
or other active pursuits during the early morning hours and then
withdraw to spend the middle of the day quietly in a shady place and
often to bathe in a cooling stream. In actual life this was apt to
occasion unexpected meetings and give leisure for important events.
In Alexandrian literature the hour of noon seems to have been men-
tioned regularly as the time for tragic happenings. Ovid followed
the custom repeatedly in his Metamorphoses and Milton seems to have
been influenced by it when he made noon the time of Satan's arrival
in Eden and later of his successfully tempting Eve.
Ovid invented the frivolous reflection of Jupiter that he could either
escape the notice of his wife or bear complacently with her reproof.
When Callisto was alone and asleep, it would have been easy for Jove
to approach her. But, recalling a Greek comedy of the third century
B. C. , Ovid added that Jupiter assumed the appearance of Diana. - Thus
. >>
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? CALLISTO AND JUPITER
he was able to introduce not only an additional metamorphosis but
the whimsical circumstance of Jupiter amused to hear Callisto prefer
him to himself.
The ensuing struggle Ovid vivified by suddenly addressing one of
his characters. As if he were actually looking on at the events, he
exclaimed, "Juno, would that you might see, you would be more merci-
ful! " The same effective method he was to repeat in the tale of
Narcissus and in many other stories throughout his poem. Ovid added
also the very natural circumstances that, even when the real Diana
appeared, Callisto feared deception until she saw the attendant
nymphs. And he imagined that Callisto would have betrayed herself,
if the maiden goddess had not been entirely unacquainted with such
guilt.
After the transformation of Lycaon (Bk. 1), it was no longer pos-
sible to imagine that Callisto returned to her father's house. Ovid
omitted this detail and did not explain how Arcas could survive the
transformation of his mother or how after an interval of fifteen years
she was able to recognize him. The Romans may have been sufficiently
familiar with tradition to take these matters for granted.
That Juno should seize the nymph by the hair and throw her to
the ground was in accord with the general literary practice of both
the Alexandrians and Ovid. They brought the gods down almost to
the ordinary human level. But in this case Ovid could have found
precedent in a passage of the Iliad, where Juno beat Diana cruelly
with a bow.
The interesting elaboration of Io's hardships after she became a
heifer probably suggested to Ovid a similar treatment of Callisto's
hardships after she became a bear. And the situation differed enough
to permit originality and contrast.
After Callisto and Arcas had entered the sky, Ovid made two ad-
ditions to the incident of Juno's visiting Oceanus and Tethys. In
soliloquies at the beginning of the First and Seventh Books of the
Aeneid, Vergil had shown the goddess grieving at her ill success, dread-
ing more serious wrong, and planning a new attack on her enemies.
Drawing on this material, Ovid invented Juno's indignant plea to her
foster parents. The same passages of Vergil were to help him again
in the tales of Semele (Bk. 3), and Ino (Bk. 4). Ovid added also, as a
transition to the following story, Juno's departure in a car drawn
by peacocks, whose tails were bright with the eyes of Argus,
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
Ovid's myth of Callisto occasioned some interesting allusions by
later poets. Dante on the mount of Purgatory heard those guilty of
normal lust recall Diana's banishment of the nymph as an example of
the severe chastity to which they aspire. An early sonnet of Petrarch
described the Great Bear as that beautiful northern constellation
which causes Juno to be jealous. Chaucer in the Parliament of Fowls
mentioned the tale of Callisto as painted in the temple of Venus.
Camoens observed, in a fine account of Gama crossing the equator,
We now disprove the faith of ancient lore;
Bootes' shining car appears no more.
For here we saw Callisto's star retire
Beneath the waves, unawed by Juno's ire.
Spenser, in an admirable description of Pride, compared her glori-
ous coach to the car of Juno
Drawne of fayre peacocks, that excell in pride,
And full of Argus' eyes their tayles dispredden wide.
And in The Tempest Shakespeare announced that Juno was coming
and "her peacocks fly amain. "
Modern painters used the tale oftener even than the poets. Zaccaro
retold it in a series of paintings. The story inspired single works of
Cambiaso, Annibale Caracci, Boucher, and Richard Rothwell and a
masterpiece of Palma Vecchio. Titian treated it in three paintings,
and Rubens in two. And Piombo showed the departure of Juno drawn
by peacocks.
CORONIS AND PHOJBUS
After the tale of Callisto, Ovid was unable to introduce the follow-
ing story in order of time. The myth of Apollo and Coronis had
grown up independently and had no relation with either Callisto or
Phaethon. Ovid put it therefore, in the indefinite past--about con-
temporary with the death of Argus (Bk. 1). But he made the new
story the beginning of another series related in order of time, which
was to end with the myth of Cadmus (Bk. 3).
For the tale of Coronis, Ovid treated a theme which has interested
many savage peoples. In Bengal, Australia, and parts of North
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? CORONIS AND PHCEBUS
America certain tribes have believed that the raven (or the crow)
originally was white and have invented stories to account for his
change to black. Often these stories have shown the bird using human
speech. In savage myth and in folklore such ability has been imagined
for many animals; but it could be ascribed with special ease to the
raven.
Ancient Greece related the bird's change of color to an early love
affair of Apollo. According to the Catalogues, the god loved Coronis,
who dwelt near Lake Boebais in southern Thessaly. While he was
absent at Delphi, she secretly married a youth named Ischys. A raven
flew north to Delphi with the news. In the Catalogues the latter part
of the tale has been lost. But the Manual continued to the following
effect: Apollo returned in haste and shot Coronis with his fatal bow.
Then repenting his violence, he mounted the pyre, where the girl's
body was consuming; rescued his unborn son, Aesculapius; and en-
trusted the infant to the centaur Chiron. For provoking the god's
rash act, the raven was punished by loss of his original white.
Meanwhile several Greek poets had given the myth a different
form. Pindar told it in impressive language and with a more exalted
conception of the god. He was original also in many important de-
tails. According to Pindar, Coronis lapsed into the prevalent folly--
romantic dreams about strangers from distant lands. She began an
illicit love affair with Ischys, whom Pindar made an Arcadian.
Apollo, although absent in Delphi and without information of the
ordinary kind, perceived her guilt purely by the keenness of his mental
vision. To punish Coronis, he sent Diana, who destroyed her and also
many of her neighbors. But later he himself returned to save
Aesculapius. This version, which omitted the part of the raven, had
no influence on subsequent treatments.
Thus far the myth of the raven's dark plumage had been related
only to the tragic story of Apollo and Coronis. Callimachus, in the
Hecale, associated it with two other myths of independent origin.
The first myth told of an early Athenian god named Erichthonius.
Vulcan, it seems, had tried to ravish the goddess Athena, His attempt
was unsuccessful; but it caused Vulcan and Earth to become parents
of the Athenian god. In the sculpture of the Theseum and other early
works of art, Earth was personified as the divine mother. The tale
was known to Euripides and was told at some length by the Manual.
In the latter, Earth became merely the soil on which the event
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
occurred. Hence Ovid referred to Erichthonius as a child without a
mother.
The second myth sought to explain why crows appeared to shun
the Acropolis at Athens. It was invented as a sequal to the first.
Athena undertook the nurture of Erichthonius; but feeling ashamed
of his origin, she kept him hidden in a box On one occasion the
approach of a hostile army caused her to depart and strengthen the
defenses of her city. Meanwhile she entrusted the box to the three
daughters of the Athenian king, telling them not to open it. Disobey-
ing, they found the child guarded by a snake. A crow reported their
disobedience to Athena. She caused the girls to go mad and leap
over a cliff. The crow, as a bearer of ill tidings, she exiled forever
from the Acropolis. This story appeared first in ancient vase paint-
ings. Euripides referred to it at some length in his Ion; but
Callimachus seems to have been the earliest author who told it in full.
Instead of mentioning the exile of crows from the Acropolis, he said
that Athena banished them from her company, and afterwards this
was the usual account. But Lucretius still referred incredulously to
the older version. Both Euripides and Callimachus made all three
girls disobedient. But the Manual and other prose accounts restricted
the guilt to two.
Callimachus told first the myth of the raven and Coronis, and then
that of the crow and Erichthonius. He pointed out that each story
dealt with a bird which was punished for being over eager to tell the
unwelcome truth.
Nicander carried the idea a step further. While the raven was bear-
ing his message to Delphi, said Nicander, the crow tried to dissuade
him from informing Apollo by telling how she herself had been pun-
ished for informing Athena. But the raven refused to heed this warn-
ing. Nicander made only one girl, Aglauros, guilty of disobedience
and he related her punishment to a subsequent tale of Mercury and
Herse.
Nicander had already made the tale of the raven far more complex.
But he carried the process further. The crow, he said, had told not
only why she was banished but how she at first obtained the favor
of Athena. Originally she had been the daughter of Coroneus, king
of Phocis. Courted and pursued by Neptune, she called for help, and
Athena transformed her into a crow. This tale Nicander may have
invented.
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? CO RON IS AND PHOEBUS
Then Nicander complicated the myth still more. Not content with
telling her own history, the crow added a story of the owl, who suc-
ceeded her in Athena's favor. In its earlier form the myth had been
as follows: Epopeus, king of Libya, had a daughter Nyctimene. He
violated her and she hid ashamed in the forest. But Athena pitied
her misfortune and transformed her into the owl, which became her
sacred bird. Nicander made Epopeus king of Lesbos and he greatly
altered the story. Influenced by the famous tradition of Myrrha (cf.
Book 10), he showed Nyctimene guilty of seducing her father. With
this change the sympathy of Athena became improbable; but the story
was new and much more sensational.
By adding so many independent tales, Nicander tended to confuse
the reader and divert his attention from the tragedy of Coronis. This
Ovid may have realized. But he probably felt that the myth of the
raven was so familiar that it required some novelty of treatment.
And the many stories which Nicander had brought together were not
only very appropriate for his general purpose but difficult to intro-
duce in any better way. Accordingly Ovid followed Nicander's out-
line, adding details from Callimachus and the Manual. But he intro-
duced beneficial changes of his own. For the Romans he retold the
complicated myth effectively. For the modern reader he often took
too many circumstances for granted.
Callimachus had compared the pristine whiteness of the raven to
that of the swan, of milk, and of a wave on the shore. This idea Ovid
improved by making all his comparisons with birds--the spotless
doves, the geese on the Capitol, and the river-loving swan. And he
gave the subject further interest by reminding his countrymen that
these white geese had once preserved Rome from an attack of the Gauls.
Following Nicander, he then told of Apollo's love for Coronis and of
the raven's departure to report her infidelity. This part of the tale,
he wisely abridged, omitting even the name of Ischys. But he failed
to make it clear that Apollo was absent at Delphi. A reader un-
familiar with other accounts would not understand the situation at
this point and later would not know that, before shooting Coronis, the
god was supposed to return from a considerable distance.
During the raven's flight northwards, Ovid repeated the dialogue
between the raven and the crow. He took the precaution to make the
latter notably garrulous. For a crow this was in character. But
Ovid had a more important reason. Of the three stories which the
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
crow was to tell, only that of her own tale-bearing was to the point.
Neither her adoption by Athena nor her being supplanted by the
guilty Nyctimene was essential or at all likely to dissuade the raven.
Yet both might form part of a garrulous complaint.
Believing his contemporaries familiar with the origin of Erichthonius,
Ovid left it obscure. The tale of the crow's disgrace he repeated
briefly as it had been told by Nicander. Proceeding to the early his-
tory of the crow, Ovid gave an admirable account of the metamorpho-
sis. Then he told of Nyctimene, briefly, because he intended later to
tell in detail a similar story of Myrrha.
After an effective description of the dismay with which Apollo heard
the raven, Ovid recorded the death of Coronis. But he hastened the
account so much that it was not clear how the dying mother knew
either the identity or the motive of her slayer. Apollo's repentance
Ovid told more successfully. The tradition that the god's healing
power could not save Hyacinthus (Bk. 10) may have suggested
Ovid's use of the same pathetic circumstance in the death of Coronis.
That the gods were immune from shedding tears was not a usual
. idea with the Greeks: the Iliad had implied that Jupiter wept crimson
dew after the loss of Sarpedon, and Ovid himself was to declare that
every morning we may see the tears of Aurora still grieving for the
death of Memnon (Bk. 13). But Euripides had made the contrary
belief famous in his Hippolytus Crowned.
From Ovid's myth of Apollo and Coronis, Chaucer developed a
strangely different story for his Canterbury Tales. This version,
? ? called the Maunciple's Tale, retold the myth with a number of radical
changes. Thus Chaucer made the raven a trained crow in a cage;
he omitted all the related stories, and he gave the narrative to an
ignorant man who delighted in moralizing. Yet this was almost the
only Ovidian tale where Chaucer retained the metamorphosis.
Ariosto, narrating the plight of Ulania and her companions, re-
called the origin of Erichthonius and the curiosity of Aglauros. In
the House of Busyrane Spenser mentioned a painting of Apollo's
grief for Coronis and added that she became a sweet briar.
The tale of Erichthonius inspired a painting of Piombo and two
important works of Rubens.
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? OCYRHOE AND AESCULAPIUS
OCYEHOE AND AESCULAPIUS
From the death of Coronis, Ovid could pass naturally to the care
of her son by the centaur Chiron and the strange transformation of
Chiron's daughter. This event Euripides had recorded in his
Melanippe the Wise. Although the centaur was only half human in
form, he said, his daughter Ocyrhoe was at first entirely human. From
her father she inherited the gift of prophecy. But so incautiously did
she use her power that Jupiter transformed her to a mare. Nicander
seems to have repeated the tale and made it available for Ovid.
The myth of Ocyrhoe was in itself appropriate and picturesque.
But to Ovid it offered a further advantage. Both Aesculapius, child
of Apollo and Coronis, and Chiron, his foster father, had become well
known mythological characters and had taken a leading part in re-
markable events. Ovid was anxious to include their adventures in his
poem. But he did not think it wise to recount them at length. He
was glad, therefore, to present them as foreshadowed vaguely in the
prophecy of Ocyrhoe. It will be of interest to suggest both the nature
of these events and the cause of Ovid's reticence.
Aesculapius was in prehistoric times a local god of healing, wor-
shiped in southern Thessaly, and related with savage beliefs about the
snake. Many early people imagined that the snake was gifted with
unusual cunning, that he understood the principles of medicine, and
that he had learned by casting his skin to renew his youth and be-
come immortal. Accordingly the serpent was often associated with a
god of healing. The Egyptians associated him with Isis, as Ovid was
to imply later in the tale of Ianthe (Bk. 9), and the Thessalians
related him frequently to Aesculapius. They believed that the god
himself was apt to appear in serpent form. A tradition of this kind
Ovid himself was to repeat, when he told how the Romans brought the
god from Epidaurus in the form of a great crested snake (Bk. 15).
In time the Thessalians came to prefer Apollo, a god of healing in
human form. They then regarded Aesculapius as his son and a mortal
who became a celebrated physician. The Iliad mentioned this belief,
and the Homeric Hymn to Aesculapius made him the child of Apollo
and Coronis. In the Catalogues we hear first of his dying by a
thunderbolt from Jupiter.
Pindar told the story in some detail. Aesculapius, he said, was
reared by Chiron. He grew famous for healing all manner of sickness.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
At length a splendid offer of gold tempted him to revive even a dead
man. But this was usurping a power allowed only to the gods, and
Jupiter destroyed both the physician and his patient. Pindar's ac-
count was not the usual tradition.
Ordinarily we hear that Aesculapius perished, but the resurrected
man continued living. To this Aeschylus alluded ruefully in his
Agamemnon and Euripides in his Alcestis. Later authors wished to
identify the revived man quite variously. In the Aeneid Vergil de-
clared that the physician acted at the request of Diana and restored
the life of her favorite, Hippolytus--a version which Ovid was glad
to use later in his myth of Egeria (Bk. 15).
Still another tradition recorded that, although Jupiter at first pun-
ished Aesculapius with death, he afterwards consoled Apollo by giving
the physician immortality as the constellation of the Serpent Holder
(Ophiuchus). This tradition Ovid followed in the prophecy of
Ocyrhoe. But he was unconventional in important details: he declared
that Aesculapius was not a mortal but a god and that to restore the
dead would have been his privilege, if the power had not been abused.
