Conon
repeated
this tale,
and Nonnus afterwards made a long allusion to it.
and Nonnus afterwards made a long allusion to it.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
This
idea reappeared in the Phoenissae of Euripides and afterwards was
repeated both in Phoenissae of Seneca and by Statius. Aeschylus com-
posed two dramas about the story of Oedipus, but his account is lost.
In the earliest extant version of the tale, the outcome was disas-
trous. According to the Odyssey, the mother hanged herself and Oedi-
pus was pursued by Furies. The Iliad noted that he died a violent death.
Still another early version seems to have taken a middle ground. The
mother hanged herself, and Oedipus put out his own eyes and went into
exile, but after many sufferings he was forgiven by the gods and died
peacefully at Colonus. Sophocles followed this account in his Oedipus
the King and Oedipus at Colonus. The first of these dramas is the great-
est presentation ever given such a theme and the only one that justly
can be called noble. To write nobly of such matters required a soul as
high as Sophocles. The tragedy Oedipus the King inspired both sys-
pathy for the unwitting offenders and deep, genuine horror at the
offense. In later times the story was retold first by Seneca in his Oedipus
and then by Corneille, Dryden, and Voltaire.
A . somewhat different tale of illicit relations between parent and
child appeared in the Greek tradition of Thyestes. In this tale the child
was a daughter named Pelopia. The prediction concerning her became
known only after her mother had died and she herself was full grown. It
referred entirely to illicit relations with her father, Thyestes; and it
seemed only to offer a strong temptation. Thyestes, the oracle declared,
must give up hope of avenging the murder of his two sons, unless he
should have another son by his own daughter. To prevent such guilt,
the father made his daughter a virgin priestess of Athena. Afterwards
he met with her at night, and, not realizing who she was, he ravished her.
In this tale the means of discovery was a sword, which Pelopia took
from the ravisher. Learning of the unintentional offense, she killed her-
self and exposed her infant son, Aegistheus. Both Sophocles and Eu-
ripides treated the subject in plays which now are lost.
A still different myth appeared in the earliest account of Niobe
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
(cf. Bk. 6). In this tale the idea of evil fate took an unusual form. The
goddess Latona punished Niobe by causing her father, Assaon, to court
her. There was no warning prediction. The father knew that Niobe was
his daughter. He made no attempt to avoid the offense. Niobe repulsed
him but could not escape destruction.
The theme of illicit relations between parent and child occurred
rather often in lore of primitive peoples. The idea of such relations
between brother and sister appears to have been almost unknown. Al-
though public opinion against this offense was strong, there was a ten-
dency to believe that unusual circumstances could make brother and
sister eligible to marry. When the Odyssey declared that far away, long
ago, and under circumstances widely different from ordinary life the
wind god Aeolus married his six sons to his six daughters, early Greek
audiences appear to have accepted the tale without misgiving. An
offense committed by parent and child always was abhorrent. An
offense committed by brother and sister was in some degree a matter of
circumstances. It was less effective either for calumny against a hostile
tribe or for a sensational tale. This theme was apt to appear at a later
stage of culture.
The earliest Greek example was the Aeolus of Euripides, a tragedy
which now is lost. Retelling in a different form the tradition noted by
the Odyssey, Euripides made it more realistic and more nearly in accord
with Athenian standards of his own day. Euripides presented only two
children of Aeolus, the oldest son named Macareiis and a daughter
named Canace. Their relations, he declared, were illicit, and both
Macareiis and Canace were aware of the fact. Aeolus, discovering their
guilt, had a sword delivered to Canace. Macareiis then pleaded with
his father that love ought to have precedence over convention. But
meanwhile Canace had taken her own life with the sword. Macareiis fol-
lowed her example.
Euripides appears to have disapproved vigorously of the offense
committed by his hero and heroine, for afterwards Plato in his Laws
mentioned the tragedies of Oedipus and Aeolus as illustrating normal
Athenian opinion. But Euripides tended to awaken sympathy for the
guilty pair and offended the more conservative men of his time. Aris-
tophanes referred to his work indignantly in the Clouds and the Frogs
and parodied it in a comedy named Aeolosion, which now is lost. Ovid
retold the story of the two children of Aeolus in his celebrated Epistle of
Canace. In actual life guilt of the kind imagined by Euripides and Ovid
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? BYBLIS
is characteristic only of persons who are degenerate and degraded. But
both poets presented Macareiis and Canace as intelligent and externally
attractive. Misrepresentation of this kind afterwards occurred often in
the work of authors who treated such themes.
The Alexandrians in their quest for material that was new and
sensational introduced many tales about illicit relations between parent
and child or brother and sister. Occasionally they explained such con-
duct as punishment for offending Venus. They habitually presented at
least one party as acting with full knowledge of his guilt, and they
tended to present the woman as the aggressor. Such themes appeared
in the writings of almost every important Alexandrian author but were
especially common in the work of Parthenius.
Of the many stories introduced, the best known is that of Myrrha.
Not long before Ovid's time it was retold at great length by the Roman
poet Cinna, and it was mentioned prominently in Vergil's narrative
called the Ciris. Two other stories were those of Nyctimene and Mene-
phron, to which Ovid had alluded in his Metamorphoses (Bks. 2 and 7).
Most Roman authors found such themes uncongenial, and after Ovid's
time they took little notice of any except the tale of Oedipus.
Authors of the medieval period added at least one well-known
story of this kind, for in some accounts of King Arthur, the king and his
sister were parents of the traitor Modred. A number of medieval authors
showed interest in Ovid's treatment of such themes. Jean de Meun trans-
lated his tale of Byblis, a number of poets alluded briefly to the story
of Byblis or to that of Myrrha, and Dante presented Myrrha as one of
the deceivers punished in his Inferno. But on the whole, medieval au-
thors avoided such themes, and Chaucer in the Man of Law's Tale dis-
claimed any wish to treat them, mentioning as one example the tale of
Canace.
Authors of the Renaissance now and then introduced a brief tale
of this kind as an example of extraordinary wickedness. Spenser told of
a shameless giantess who seduced her brother. Shakespeare presented
at the beginning of his Pericles a king who seduced his daughter, and
Milton recorded briefly the complicated immorality of the characters
Satan, Sin, and Death. Different treatment of such material appeared
in the work of the Caroline dramatist, Ford. He made courtship of
brother and sister the theme of an entire tragedy and was anxious to
awaken sympathy for the guilty pair.
Authors of the Pseudo-classic period manifested extraordinary in-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
terest in such themes. They revived the myth of Oedipus and introduced
many stories of their own. Usually they treated illicit relations between
brother and sister. Almost always they regarded an affair of this kind
with strong disapproval and used it as an element of horror. As they
usually presented the tale, the brother and sister had been separated in
their infancy and afterwards met when full grown.
Sometimes the author imagined that both were unaware of their
kinship. In Dryden's Don Sebastian the result was tragedy, in Less-
ing's Nathan the Wise disaster was averted by the vigilance of Nathan.
At other times the author imagined that one party was aware of their
kinship. In Moliere's Don Garde Alphonse knew that Elvire was his
sister, but, in order to escape a tyrant, he pretended to court her as a
stranger. Moliere supposed that Elvire was restrained by instinctive
reluctance, an idea which Noel Coward repeated long afterwards in his
comedy The Marchioness.
Although such themes occurred in important dramas of the Pseudo-
classic era, they appear to have been exceptional on the stage. But they
occurred often in novels. Among authors of prose fiction who treated
the theme of brother and sister, was the earliest American novelist,
William Hill Brown. He presented the story with a tragic ending in his
first work, The Power of Sympathy, and with a happy ending in his Ira
and Isabella. Sir Walter Scott afterwards introduced the idea, with re-
markable lightness and delicacy, in his novel Redgauntlet.
Some authors reversed the familiar situation. They showed their
characters believing themselves related when actually they were not.
Goethe in his play called Die Geschwister showed the heroine believing
the hero was her brother and discovering with relief that she was mis-
taken. Fielding used the idea of mistaken belief to create a short sus-
pense. In his Joseph Andrews the hero and heroine were dismayed by a
false report that they were brother and sister; in Tom Jones the hero
was appalled by mistaken information that Mrs. Waters was his mother.
Walpole in a tragedy called The Mysterious Mother presented
guilt both intentional and unintentional, both of parents and children
and of brother and sister. He attained the doubtful distinction of com-
bining almost every form in a single tale of horror.
Authors of the Romantic period treated such themes in a still dif-
ferent manner. Even when they followed the usual eighteenth century
pattern, they were less willing to make the ending happy. Schiller in
The Bride of Messina and Shelley in Rosalind presented the familiar
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? BYBLIS
situation of a brother unwittingly courting a sister; but, although their
characters escaped guilt, the ending was tragic. There was a stronger
tendency also to show awareness of kinship. Shelley in the Cenci treated
the theme of a father deliberately ravishing his daughter; Byron in
Manfred and Keats in Otho the Great showed the consequences of in-
tentional guilt by a brother and sister.
In all these examples Romantic authors treated the theme with dis-
approval, as an element of horror. But in others they were inclined to
arouse sympathy with the conduct of their characters and to express
revolt against convention. Goethe showed this attitude with regard to
his Augustin and Sperata in Wilhelm Meister, and Grillparzer showed
it in presenting the hero and heroine of his Ancestress. In both cases
the brother was for a long time unaware of any kinship, but, after learn-
ing it, displayed a desire to persist.
Sympathy and revolt appeared more clearly in Chateaubriand's
Rene, where the heroine felt obliged to sacrifice herself to convention,
first by departing secretly from her brother and then by entering a
convent. * But rebellion against convention was even stronger in the
original plan of Shelley's Revolt of Islam and in Chateaubriand's Atala.
Both authors presented courtship of brother and sister as defensible
and worthy of admiration. And in the work of Chateaubriand the fact
was the more remarkable because it seemed gratuitous. His characters
Chactas and Atala were in fact unrelated. The author took advantage
as much as possible of the circumstance that Chactas had been adopted
by the father of Atala, and he showed the reverend priest Father Aubry
uttering a eulogy of the patriarchal age, with its illustrious examples of
brother married to sister.
The Romantic period with its emphasis on tragedy and revolt,
seems to have caused a reaction against such themes. A few isolated
examples appeared later, but with the second quarter of the nineteenth
century, leading authors turned their attention elsewhere.
Influenced probably by the Hippolytus of Euripides, most Alex-
andrian tales of illicit relations between parent and child or brother
'Probably by coincidence, Chateaubriand made his story RerU an interesting
contrast with Ovid's tale of Byblis. The two stories were alike in their chief circum-
stances. In both a young woman experienced illicit passion for her brother, and the
brother continued for a time unaware of the fact and then departed to another
country. The contrast appeared in the behavior of the heroine and the attitude of the
author. Ovid's heroine disclosed her passion to her brother and endeavored to seduce
him; Chateaubriand's heroine concealed her passion and carefully prevented the pos-
sibility of guilt. Ovid expressed disapproval of the heroine, Chateaubriand expressed
sympathy for her.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
and sister described a nurse or some other woman as promoting the
guilty affair. An example was the story of Myrrha, which Ovid planned
to recount later. In the tale of Byblis this element was absent. As an
unusual example of the familiar story and as a contrast with the tale of
Myrrha, Ovid probably thought it appropriate for treating at some
length. He also associated in his mind the stories of Byblis and Canace,
as he noted later in his Ibis, and saw a chance for another contrast. In
the Epistle of Canace, Ovid had shown the consequences of guilt. In the
story of Byblis he intended to study the growth of lawless passion.
The tradition of Byblis and Caunus entered literature early in the
Alexandrian period and took several different forms. According to the
version of Nicenaetus, which now is lost, Caunus was the one who expe-
rienced guilty passion. Fearing to reveal it, he left his native Miletus
and journeyed southeastwards over a range of mountains to a distance
of a hundred miles. There he founded the Carian city of Caunus. Byblis
lamented his absence until she became an owl, which continued wailing
before the gates of Miletus.
According to Nicander, it was Byblis who experienced guilty pas-
sion, and, to make the idea even more sensational, Nicander added that
she had abundant opportunity to love more wisely. Many suitors from
Miletus and other places offered themselves to her, but she rejected them
all and desired only her brother. Fearing that her passion might be
discovered, she hid from her parents in the day time, and at night visited
a cliff near Miletus, with the idea of leaping from the summit. The
nymphs, pitying her, lulled her into unconsciousness, and transformed
her into a hamadryad. A stream, which falls over the cliff, still is called
the Tears of Byblis. Nicander observed that the town of Caunus took
its name from her brother, but he did not associate the town with Byblis.
Both Nicenaetus and Nicander described a lover who was merely
passive and imagined only that Byblis was transformed. Other Alex-
andrian authors told of active courtship and of the sister's violent death.
Apollonius in his Founding of Caunus appears to have elaborated the
story at several points. Euripides in the Hippolytus had shown a nurse
defending the illicit passion of Phaedra by the example of Jupiter and
Semele. Apollonius showed Caunus defending his own passion in a
similar manner by the more relevant example of Jupiter and Juno. This
detail Ovid afterwards imitated in his Epistle of Phaedra. According
to Apollonius, the youth proceeded to court Byblis and was repulsed.
The story then followed the popular Alexandrian conception of
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? BYBLIS
the person who cruelly repels a lover and afterwards becomes inconsol-
able and perishes. After the departure of Caunus, Byblis felt a corre-
sponding passion and endeavored to overtake him. According to Apol-
lonius, the brother was traveling without any particular destination.
Unable to find him, Byblis continued southeastwards through the whole
district of Caria and on into Lycia -- an improbable distance. At a
place named Caryae, fatigue and despair overwhelmed her. She hanged
herself, and her flowing tears became a spring, which the natives call by
her name. Caunus, traveling at a slower rate, arrived in the same region,
and there a naiad, Pronoe, told him of the death and transformation of
Byblis. It was his son who founded Caunus.
Conon repeated this tale,
and Nonnus afterwards made a long allusion to it.
The historian Aristocritus imagined that Byblis was the aggressor.
She loved Caunus, made overtures, and was repulsed. Caunus fled in
horror, and Byblis hanged herself on an oak tree. There was no trans-
formation. Parthenius retold this version of the tale, first in a poem
which now is lost and then in his book called Loves. Ovid, mentioning
the tale in his Art of Love, appeared to sympathize with Byblis, for he
said that she bravely ended her life by hanging.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid combined ideas from several versions
of the story and added much material of his own. With Nicander and
Parthenius he agreed that Byblis was the one who experienced the law-
less passion. The idea that the guilty woman had other suitors he re-
jected, because he was reserving it for more effective use in the tale of
Myrrha. But it may have suggested to him that Byblis and Caunus
lived in a social atmosphere, and that Byblis envied other women who
seemed more beautiful. Perhaps for contrast with the tale of Canace
and her harsh father, Ovid rejected the idea that Byblis needed to fear
discovery by her parents. He seemed to imply that both Miletus and
Cyanee were dead.
With Nicander, Ovid agreed that Byblis was unable to subdue her
passion, and with Parthenius he agreed that she took the aggressive.
He desired chiefly to reveal the state of mind of a woman who could act
with such extraordinary audacity. In developing this part of the story,
Ovid may have taken details from an elegy of Hermesianax, which de-
scribed the passion of Leucippus for his sister, but undoubtedly he in-
vented much himself. Although Ovid's presentation of thoughts and
feelings gave the story animation and power, it tended to aggravate
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
whatever was undesirable in the theme. Ovid could have elaborated the
subject further, but he withheld some details which he thought more ser-
viceable for the stories of Myrrha and Ianthe, among them a supposed
precedent from the conduct of animals.
Ovid began with pointing a moral. Byblis is an instance that girls
ought not to love unlawfully. He then indicated the development of her
passion. At first, he said, she did not realize that it differed from sis-
terly affection. Presently she began to speak of Caunus not as her
brother but as her lord, and she preferred to have him call her not sister
but Byblis. While awake, she still restrained her desire. But in sleep she
experienced wanton dreams. Ovid spoke at first as if this occurred in
several nights. Later he seemed to think of only one. The issue now was
clearly before her.
Remembering his practice in other tales, such as that of Medea,
Ovid showed Byblis debating the question in a soliloquy, and he made it
clear that she understood the better course but followed the worse. It
will suffice to mention only a few circumstances in this portrayal of a
degenerate woman.
Recalling Apollonius, Ovid showed Byblis encouraging herself with
the precedent of Jupiter and Juno; and, recalling the Theogony, he
showed her adding for good measure the examples of Saturn and Ops
(Rhea) and of Oceanus and Tethys. But she answered this argument
with the idea that gods belonged to a different order from human beings
and were subject to different laws. Later Ovid showed her considering
the tradition about the children of Aeolus. With the earlier version she
noted that brothers had married their sisters, but with recollection of
the later version she recoiled from the tale as the worst possible prece-
dent. Byblis thought it preferable to die rather than to be guilty. She
hoped that Caunus might kiss her lifeless body; but realized that, if he
should guess the cause of her death, he might regard even this as a
concession to her wicked intent. She encouraged herself in her purpose
with the idea that, if he had loved first, she would have treated him
kindly.
Euripides had imagined that Phaedra shrank from pleading with
Hippolytus, and therefore that she sent her nurse with a message. Ovid
imagined that Byblis shrank from pleading with Caunus. But he wished
to avoid introducing a nurse. He imagined that Byblis sent her message
in a letter. And rather against probability -- he assumed that writing
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? BY BUS
materials were so conveniently near that Byblis was able to find them
without leaving her couch.
In Ovid's day it had long been customary for anyone writing a
letter to use a pen made from a certain variety of reed, to dip it in some
kind of ink, write on a sheet of papyrus leaf, and then roll the leaf and
tie it with string. Ovid had indicated this method of writing in his
Epistle of Canace. To Byblis he attributed a much older method. The
idea that she struggled with conflicting motives and yet undertook to
compose a letter suggested to him a passage of Euripides in the Iphi-
genia at Aulis. And, as he followed the details of human conflict, he
repeated also the ancient mechanical process.
According to Euripides, Agamemnon reluctantly composed a letter
ordering that his daughter should be brought for sacrifice. He used a
stylus, an instrument resembling a large needle, and with it scratched
his characters on tablets of pine wood covered with wax. To cancel a
mistake, he pushed back the wax over the mark with the blunt end of
the stylus. After finishing the letter, he stamped the tablets with his
personal seal, folded them on one another in some way, and tied them
with a string. Euripides described Agamemnon as writing, then cancel-
ling, tying and then untying, and throwing the tablet on the ground,
meanwhile weeping and showing evidences of despair. Ovid imagined
Byblis as composing with similar materials and behaving in a similar
manner. He added that her face bore an expression of boldness mingled
with shame.
The idea of an unhappy woman composing a letter to the man
whom she loved reminded Ovid of the epistles in his Heroides, especially
those of Phaedra and Dido. He imagined that Byblis composed a poetic
epistle, presenting her ideas in a similar manner. For the Romans, this
letter had the special interest of being the first and only one which
Ovid composed in hexameter verse. For all readers, Ovid's narrative
setting gave it the advantage of being unusually short and intense.
After writing and cancelling the word "sister", Byblis resolved to
proceed several lines before identifying herself. In the opening phrase
of Roman epistles the writer often used to wish his correspondent well.
The term employed was salus, which might suggest a number of desir-
able things, among them health, well being, and safety. The several
meanings invited a play on the word, in which Ovid had indulged more
than once in his Heroides. At the beginning of the Epistle of Phaedra,
the heroine had wished these good things to Hippolytus but had de-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
clared that she herself must live without them, unless Hippolytus in
turn should wish them to her. With this idea and with almost identical
words, Byblis began her letter to Caunus.
After calling his attention to many mute evidences of her passion,
Byblis declared that she had done everything possible to overcome it
but now was obliged abjectly to take from his hands either safety or
destruction. He ought, she continued, to be disposed favorably towards
her, for she already was associated closely with him and desired an even
closer tie. Phaedra had asserted that no lover stops to consider pro-
priety and that gods themselves offer precedents for putting moral
restrictions aside. Byblis offered the same argument in different terms.
Leave to old men, she said, the nice discrimination of right and wrong.
We, who are young and are emboldened by love, are not hindered by the
thought of deterrents and merely follow the example of the gods. Since
Byblis already had admitted to herself that gods were no precedent, this
plea was remarkably shameless. Phaedra had suggested that, as her
stepson, Hippolytus might associate with her and yet cause no suspi-
cion. Byblis made a similar suggestion to her brother. Ovid's Dido had
closed by warning Aeneas to avoid being noted on her tomb as the
cause of her death. With the same warning Byblis ended her letter to
Caunus.
Like Agamemnon, she marked the tablet with her seal. For some
reason the gem needed to be moistened, and ordinarily she would have
done this with her tongue. But, said Ovid, agitation had left her mouth
so dry that instead she moistened the gem with her tears. Although it
may have been improbable that distress would affect Byblis in this man-
ner, the idea certainly indicated that her distress was intense.
Then Byblis called a servant. She did not tell him the purpose of
her letter. She felt embarrassment at giving him any order at all. She
bade him carry the tables to -- and, after a long pause, added -- her
brother. Since Ovid had noted that she made it a practice to speak of
Caunus as her lord, it seems likely that she would have used this im-
personal term. But, as often in other tales, Ovid was anxious to impress
the idea that wickedness was deliberate. When Byblis gave the letter
to the servant, it slipped from her hands and fell. She regarded this as
an evil omen but sent the tablet none the less.
After waiting for an appropriate occasion, the servant gave her
letter to Caunus. According to Euripides, when the nurse delivered
Phaedra's message, Hippolytus became very angry and denounced the
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? BYBLIS
nurse for cooperating in such an affair. Ovid imagined a like response
from Caunus. The youth read part of the letter; threw the tablet down;
and, imagining that the servant knew its contents, bade him flee and re-
joice that unwillingness to publish the scandal had induced him to spare
the servant's life. The man reported this to Byblis. Ovid assumed that
he then withdrew.
At first Byblis grew pale and faint. But, as she recovered strength,
her passion returned. Ovid showed her deliberating the new problem in
a soliloquy. First she regretted the past. Unwilling to admit that any
fault lay in her purpose, she attributed it to other possible causes --
failure to try her brother with cautious approaches, as a sailor tries
the wind and proceeds with reefed sail into the unknown ocean beyond
the Pillars of Hercules; failure to wait for a lucky day; failure to avail
herself of the many possible advantages of appealing in person; reli-
ance on a messenger who might have been tactless. She reasoned that
Caunus was capable of being moved. Here Ovid recalled various pas-
sages in which Alexandrian and Roman poets had ascribed an implacable
disposition to some extraordinary parentage and nurture. He recalled
especially his own assertion in the tale of Scylla that Minos was the
offspring of an Armenian tigress and the idea of Theocritus that Cupid
was suckled by a lioness in a wild forest. He repeated the traditional
idea, but with the opposite intent. Byblis declared that Caunus was
not born of a tigress or suckled by a lioness and added that his heart
was not flint nor iron nor adamant.
Then she considered what to do next. Already she had disgraced
herself in the opinion of Caunus. By giving up her purpose, she might
incur the further harm of appearing to lack sincerity. By persisting
she would have nothing to fear and much to hope. Vergil in the Cirit
had shown Scylla describing her sudden, disastrous passion for Minos
'with the phrase "I saw, I perished! " Ovid showed Byblis imitating this
phrase in the words "I wrote, I pleaded ! "* After recording the solilo-
quy of Byblis, he made the following apt observation: she regretted that
she had tried and yet wanted to try again.
Ovid was interested in her state of mind, not in the external action
which followed. He observed only that she made repeated attempts and
*The imitation lay chiefly in sound and cadence. Vergil used the phrase ut vidi,
ut periil Ovid echoed it with Et scripai, et petit! Ovid was fond of the Ciris, as he
showed in the tales of Scylla (Bk. 8) and Myrrha (Bk. 10), and his context was
similar. But he may have remembered also that Vergil repeated the same phrase In
a more beautiful and famous passage of the Eighth Eclogue.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
incurred repeated repulse. Caunus, unable to discourage her, fled. Up
to this point Ovid had been elaborating ideas from Nicander and Par-
thenius. And he now alluded to a further idea of Parthenius that
Caunus founded a Carian city of that name. But in the rest of the tale
Ovid wanted to follow Apollonius, to tell how Byblis went in search of
her brother through the whole of Caria and on into the more distant
region of Lycia. If her brother was at Caunus, this would be improb-
able. And so Ovid remarked vaguely that Caunus founded a new city
in a strange land.
Byblis went insane, he continued. She abandoned any concealment
of her disgraceful passion and endeavored at all costs to overtake her
brother. Ovid imagined her traveling on foot southeastwards along the
coast. He recorded only the more picturesque circumstances. Near
Bubassus in the adjacent part of Caria, women observed her howling in
the fields like a bacchanal. Beyond that point Ovid seemed vague about
localities. He spoke of her wandering past a Carian people, the Leleges,
and then noted various places in Lycia, indicating that Byblis followed
the Lycian shore to its southeastern limit, for he mentioned the ridge
inhabited once by the Chimaera.
According to Parthenius, Byblis hanged herself on an oak tree.
According to Apollonius, she hanged herself, and her tears became a
spring. Ovid took suggestions from both authors. He mentioned a holm
oak tree but rejected the idea of a violent death. He elaborated the idea
of transformation. He imagined that Byblis dropped exhausted, with
her face buried in the grass and fallen leaves, and wept oblivious to any-
thing but her grief. Apollonius had spoken of the naiad Pronoe as
taking an interest in the fate of Byblis ; Nicander had spoken of nymphs
as transforming her. Ovid imagined that naiads of the region attempted
to console her, but finding that impossible, granted her an inexhaustible
flow to tears. Byblis wasted away and became a spring at the foot of a
holm oak tree.
Ovid's account of Byblis interested a number of later poets. Old-
ham and Dennis each made a close paraphrase of it. They modernized
some details, especially the writing of the letter, and they said that
Byblis hoped her brother would kiss her, not after she was dead, but
while she was dying. Dennis observed that she died raving and alone,
but neither poet mentioned any transformation.
Other poets referred to Byblis as an example of gross wickedness.
According to Martial, the modest Sulpicia denied even the existence of
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such women as Byblis and Scylla. Petrarch in his Triumph of Love
spoke of observing Semiramis, Byblis, and Myrrha together and de-
clared that each of them appeared to be ashamed of her past. Spenser
noted that Britomart's love for Artegal was very different from the
passion of Byblis or Myrrha.
Still other poets referred to Ovid's account merely as a famous love
story. Gottfried von Strassburg declared that Tristan and Isolde told
it as one of a number of sad tales from classic authors. Chaucer men-
tioned the story in his Parliament of Fowls as one of many which were
portrayed on the temple of Venus. And Swinburne made Ovid's theme
the subject of one of his earliest poems. Petrarch imitated the closing
incident.
idea reappeared in the Phoenissae of Euripides and afterwards was
repeated both in Phoenissae of Seneca and by Statius. Aeschylus com-
posed two dramas about the story of Oedipus, but his account is lost.
In the earliest extant version of the tale, the outcome was disas-
trous. According to the Odyssey, the mother hanged herself and Oedi-
pus was pursued by Furies. The Iliad noted that he died a violent death.
Still another early version seems to have taken a middle ground. The
mother hanged herself, and Oedipus put out his own eyes and went into
exile, but after many sufferings he was forgiven by the gods and died
peacefully at Colonus. Sophocles followed this account in his Oedipus
the King and Oedipus at Colonus. The first of these dramas is the great-
est presentation ever given such a theme and the only one that justly
can be called noble. To write nobly of such matters required a soul as
high as Sophocles. The tragedy Oedipus the King inspired both sys-
pathy for the unwitting offenders and deep, genuine horror at the
offense. In later times the story was retold first by Seneca in his Oedipus
and then by Corneille, Dryden, and Voltaire.
A . somewhat different tale of illicit relations between parent and
child appeared in the Greek tradition of Thyestes. In this tale the child
was a daughter named Pelopia. The prediction concerning her became
known only after her mother had died and she herself was full grown. It
referred entirely to illicit relations with her father, Thyestes; and it
seemed only to offer a strong temptation. Thyestes, the oracle declared,
must give up hope of avenging the murder of his two sons, unless he
should have another son by his own daughter. To prevent such guilt,
the father made his daughter a virgin priestess of Athena. Afterwards
he met with her at night, and, not realizing who she was, he ravished her.
In this tale the means of discovery was a sword, which Pelopia took
from the ravisher. Learning of the unintentional offense, she killed her-
self and exposed her infant son, Aegistheus. Both Sophocles and Eu-
ripides treated the subject in plays which now are lost.
A still different myth appeared in the earliest account of Niobe
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
(cf. Bk. 6). In this tale the idea of evil fate took an unusual form. The
goddess Latona punished Niobe by causing her father, Assaon, to court
her. There was no warning prediction. The father knew that Niobe was
his daughter. He made no attempt to avoid the offense. Niobe repulsed
him but could not escape destruction.
The theme of illicit relations between parent and child occurred
rather often in lore of primitive peoples. The idea of such relations
between brother and sister appears to have been almost unknown. Al-
though public opinion against this offense was strong, there was a ten-
dency to believe that unusual circumstances could make brother and
sister eligible to marry. When the Odyssey declared that far away, long
ago, and under circumstances widely different from ordinary life the
wind god Aeolus married his six sons to his six daughters, early Greek
audiences appear to have accepted the tale without misgiving. An
offense committed by parent and child always was abhorrent. An
offense committed by brother and sister was in some degree a matter of
circumstances. It was less effective either for calumny against a hostile
tribe or for a sensational tale. This theme was apt to appear at a later
stage of culture.
The earliest Greek example was the Aeolus of Euripides, a tragedy
which now is lost. Retelling in a different form the tradition noted by
the Odyssey, Euripides made it more realistic and more nearly in accord
with Athenian standards of his own day. Euripides presented only two
children of Aeolus, the oldest son named Macareiis and a daughter
named Canace. Their relations, he declared, were illicit, and both
Macareiis and Canace were aware of the fact. Aeolus, discovering their
guilt, had a sword delivered to Canace. Macareiis then pleaded with
his father that love ought to have precedence over convention. But
meanwhile Canace had taken her own life with the sword. Macareiis fol-
lowed her example.
Euripides appears to have disapproved vigorously of the offense
committed by his hero and heroine, for afterwards Plato in his Laws
mentioned the tragedies of Oedipus and Aeolus as illustrating normal
Athenian opinion. But Euripides tended to awaken sympathy for the
guilty pair and offended the more conservative men of his time. Aris-
tophanes referred to his work indignantly in the Clouds and the Frogs
and parodied it in a comedy named Aeolosion, which now is lost. Ovid
retold the story of the two children of Aeolus in his celebrated Epistle of
Canace. In actual life guilt of the kind imagined by Euripides and Ovid
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? BYBLIS
is characteristic only of persons who are degenerate and degraded. But
both poets presented Macareiis and Canace as intelligent and externally
attractive. Misrepresentation of this kind afterwards occurred often in
the work of authors who treated such themes.
The Alexandrians in their quest for material that was new and
sensational introduced many tales about illicit relations between parent
and child or brother and sister. Occasionally they explained such con-
duct as punishment for offending Venus. They habitually presented at
least one party as acting with full knowledge of his guilt, and they
tended to present the woman as the aggressor. Such themes appeared
in the writings of almost every important Alexandrian author but were
especially common in the work of Parthenius.
Of the many stories introduced, the best known is that of Myrrha.
Not long before Ovid's time it was retold at great length by the Roman
poet Cinna, and it was mentioned prominently in Vergil's narrative
called the Ciris. Two other stories were those of Nyctimene and Mene-
phron, to which Ovid had alluded in his Metamorphoses (Bks. 2 and 7).
Most Roman authors found such themes uncongenial, and after Ovid's
time they took little notice of any except the tale of Oedipus.
Authors of the medieval period added at least one well-known
story of this kind, for in some accounts of King Arthur, the king and his
sister were parents of the traitor Modred. A number of medieval authors
showed interest in Ovid's treatment of such themes. Jean de Meun trans-
lated his tale of Byblis, a number of poets alluded briefly to the story
of Byblis or to that of Myrrha, and Dante presented Myrrha as one of
the deceivers punished in his Inferno. But on the whole, medieval au-
thors avoided such themes, and Chaucer in the Man of Law's Tale dis-
claimed any wish to treat them, mentioning as one example the tale of
Canace.
Authors of the Renaissance now and then introduced a brief tale
of this kind as an example of extraordinary wickedness. Spenser told of
a shameless giantess who seduced her brother. Shakespeare presented
at the beginning of his Pericles a king who seduced his daughter, and
Milton recorded briefly the complicated immorality of the characters
Satan, Sin, and Death. Different treatment of such material appeared
in the work of the Caroline dramatist, Ford. He made courtship of
brother and sister the theme of an entire tragedy and was anxious to
awaken sympathy for the guilty pair.
Authors of the Pseudo-classic period manifested extraordinary in-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
terest in such themes. They revived the myth of Oedipus and introduced
many stories of their own. Usually they treated illicit relations between
brother and sister. Almost always they regarded an affair of this kind
with strong disapproval and used it as an element of horror. As they
usually presented the tale, the brother and sister had been separated in
their infancy and afterwards met when full grown.
Sometimes the author imagined that both were unaware of their
kinship. In Dryden's Don Sebastian the result was tragedy, in Less-
ing's Nathan the Wise disaster was averted by the vigilance of Nathan.
At other times the author imagined that one party was aware of their
kinship. In Moliere's Don Garde Alphonse knew that Elvire was his
sister, but, in order to escape a tyrant, he pretended to court her as a
stranger. Moliere supposed that Elvire was restrained by instinctive
reluctance, an idea which Noel Coward repeated long afterwards in his
comedy The Marchioness.
Although such themes occurred in important dramas of the Pseudo-
classic era, they appear to have been exceptional on the stage. But they
occurred often in novels. Among authors of prose fiction who treated
the theme of brother and sister, was the earliest American novelist,
William Hill Brown. He presented the story with a tragic ending in his
first work, The Power of Sympathy, and with a happy ending in his Ira
and Isabella. Sir Walter Scott afterwards introduced the idea, with re-
markable lightness and delicacy, in his novel Redgauntlet.
Some authors reversed the familiar situation. They showed their
characters believing themselves related when actually they were not.
Goethe in his play called Die Geschwister showed the heroine believing
the hero was her brother and discovering with relief that she was mis-
taken. Fielding used the idea of mistaken belief to create a short sus-
pense. In his Joseph Andrews the hero and heroine were dismayed by a
false report that they were brother and sister; in Tom Jones the hero
was appalled by mistaken information that Mrs. Waters was his mother.
Walpole in a tragedy called The Mysterious Mother presented
guilt both intentional and unintentional, both of parents and children
and of brother and sister. He attained the doubtful distinction of com-
bining almost every form in a single tale of horror.
Authors of the Romantic period treated such themes in a still dif-
ferent manner. Even when they followed the usual eighteenth century
pattern, they were less willing to make the ending happy. Schiller in
The Bride of Messina and Shelley in Rosalind presented the familiar
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? BYBLIS
situation of a brother unwittingly courting a sister; but, although their
characters escaped guilt, the ending was tragic. There was a stronger
tendency also to show awareness of kinship. Shelley in the Cenci treated
the theme of a father deliberately ravishing his daughter; Byron in
Manfred and Keats in Otho the Great showed the consequences of in-
tentional guilt by a brother and sister.
In all these examples Romantic authors treated the theme with dis-
approval, as an element of horror. But in others they were inclined to
arouse sympathy with the conduct of their characters and to express
revolt against convention. Goethe showed this attitude with regard to
his Augustin and Sperata in Wilhelm Meister, and Grillparzer showed
it in presenting the hero and heroine of his Ancestress. In both cases
the brother was for a long time unaware of any kinship, but, after learn-
ing it, displayed a desire to persist.
Sympathy and revolt appeared more clearly in Chateaubriand's
Rene, where the heroine felt obliged to sacrifice herself to convention,
first by departing secretly from her brother and then by entering a
convent. * But rebellion against convention was even stronger in the
original plan of Shelley's Revolt of Islam and in Chateaubriand's Atala.
Both authors presented courtship of brother and sister as defensible
and worthy of admiration. And in the work of Chateaubriand the fact
was the more remarkable because it seemed gratuitous. His characters
Chactas and Atala were in fact unrelated. The author took advantage
as much as possible of the circumstance that Chactas had been adopted
by the father of Atala, and he showed the reverend priest Father Aubry
uttering a eulogy of the patriarchal age, with its illustrious examples of
brother married to sister.
The Romantic period with its emphasis on tragedy and revolt,
seems to have caused a reaction against such themes. A few isolated
examples appeared later, but with the second quarter of the nineteenth
century, leading authors turned their attention elsewhere.
Influenced probably by the Hippolytus of Euripides, most Alex-
andrian tales of illicit relations between parent and child or brother
'Probably by coincidence, Chateaubriand made his story RerU an interesting
contrast with Ovid's tale of Byblis. The two stories were alike in their chief circum-
stances. In both a young woman experienced illicit passion for her brother, and the
brother continued for a time unaware of the fact and then departed to another
country. The contrast appeared in the behavior of the heroine and the attitude of the
author. Ovid's heroine disclosed her passion to her brother and endeavored to seduce
him; Chateaubriand's heroine concealed her passion and carefully prevented the pos-
sibility of guilt. Ovid expressed disapproval of the heroine, Chateaubriand expressed
sympathy for her.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
and sister described a nurse or some other woman as promoting the
guilty affair. An example was the story of Myrrha, which Ovid planned
to recount later. In the tale of Byblis this element was absent. As an
unusual example of the familiar story and as a contrast with the tale of
Myrrha, Ovid probably thought it appropriate for treating at some
length. He also associated in his mind the stories of Byblis and Canace,
as he noted later in his Ibis, and saw a chance for another contrast. In
the Epistle of Canace, Ovid had shown the consequences of guilt. In the
story of Byblis he intended to study the growth of lawless passion.
The tradition of Byblis and Caunus entered literature early in the
Alexandrian period and took several different forms. According to the
version of Nicenaetus, which now is lost, Caunus was the one who expe-
rienced guilty passion. Fearing to reveal it, he left his native Miletus
and journeyed southeastwards over a range of mountains to a distance
of a hundred miles. There he founded the Carian city of Caunus. Byblis
lamented his absence until she became an owl, which continued wailing
before the gates of Miletus.
According to Nicander, it was Byblis who experienced guilty pas-
sion, and, to make the idea even more sensational, Nicander added that
she had abundant opportunity to love more wisely. Many suitors from
Miletus and other places offered themselves to her, but she rejected them
all and desired only her brother. Fearing that her passion might be
discovered, she hid from her parents in the day time, and at night visited
a cliff near Miletus, with the idea of leaping from the summit. The
nymphs, pitying her, lulled her into unconsciousness, and transformed
her into a hamadryad. A stream, which falls over the cliff, still is called
the Tears of Byblis. Nicander observed that the town of Caunus took
its name from her brother, but he did not associate the town with Byblis.
Both Nicenaetus and Nicander described a lover who was merely
passive and imagined only that Byblis was transformed. Other Alex-
andrian authors told of active courtship and of the sister's violent death.
Apollonius in his Founding of Caunus appears to have elaborated the
story at several points. Euripides in the Hippolytus had shown a nurse
defending the illicit passion of Phaedra by the example of Jupiter and
Semele. Apollonius showed Caunus defending his own passion in a
similar manner by the more relevant example of Jupiter and Juno. This
detail Ovid afterwards imitated in his Epistle of Phaedra. According
to Apollonius, the youth proceeded to court Byblis and was repulsed.
The story then followed the popular Alexandrian conception of
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? BYBLIS
the person who cruelly repels a lover and afterwards becomes inconsol-
able and perishes. After the departure of Caunus, Byblis felt a corre-
sponding passion and endeavored to overtake him. According to Apol-
lonius, the brother was traveling without any particular destination.
Unable to find him, Byblis continued southeastwards through the whole
district of Caria and on into Lycia -- an improbable distance. At a
place named Caryae, fatigue and despair overwhelmed her. She hanged
herself, and her flowing tears became a spring, which the natives call by
her name. Caunus, traveling at a slower rate, arrived in the same region,
and there a naiad, Pronoe, told him of the death and transformation of
Byblis. It was his son who founded Caunus.
Conon repeated this tale,
and Nonnus afterwards made a long allusion to it.
The historian Aristocritus imagined that Byblis was the aggressor.
She loved Caunus, made overtures, and was repulsed. Caunus fled in
horror, and Byblis hanged herself on an oak tree. There was no trans-
formation. Parthenius retold this version of the tale, first in a poem
which now is lost and then in his book called Loves. Ovid, mentioning
the tale in his Art of Love, appeared to sympathize with Byblis, for he
said that she bravely ended her life by hanging.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid combined ideas from several versions
of the story and added much material of his own. With Nicander and
Parthenius he agreed that Byblis was the one who experienced the law-
less passion. The idea that the guilty woman had other suitors he re-
jected, because he was reserving it for more effective use in the tale of
Myrrha. But it may have suggested to him that Byblis and Caunus
lived in a social atmosphere, and that Byblis envied other women who
seemed more beautiful. Perhaps for contrast with the tale of Canace
and her harsh father, Ovid rejected the idea that Byblis needed to fear
discovery by her parents. He seemed to imply that both Miletus and
Cyanee were dead.
With Nicander, Ovid agreed that Byblis was unable to subdue her
passion, and with Parthenius he agreed that she took the aggressive.
He desired chiefly to reveal the state of mind of a woman who could act
with such extraordinary audacity. In developing this part of the story,
Ovid may have taken details from an elegy of Hermesianax, which de-
scribed the passion of Leucippus for his sister, but undoubtedly he in-
vented much himself. Although Ovid's presentation of thoughts and
feelings gave the story animation and power, it tended to aggravate
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
whatever was undesirable in the theme. Ovid could have elaborated the
subject further, but he withheld some details which he thought more ser-
viceable for the stories of Myrrha and Ianthe, among them a supposed
precedent from the conduct of animals.
Ovid began with pointing a moral. Byblis is an instance that girls
ought not to love unlawfully. He then indicated the development of her
passion. At first, he said, she did not realize that it differed from sis-
terly affection. Presently she began to speak of Caunus not as her
brother but as her lord, and she preferred to have him call her not sister
but Byblis. While awake, she still restrained her desire. But in sleep she
experienced wanton dreams. Ovid spoke at first as if this occurred in
several nights. Later he seemed to think of only one. The issue now was
clearly before her.
Remembering his practice in other tales, such as that of Medea,
Ovid showed Byblis debating the question in a soliloquy, and he made it
clear that she understood the better course but followed the worse. It
will suffice to mention only a few circumstances in this portrayal of a
degenerate woman.
Recalling Apollonius, Ovid showed Byblis encouraging herself with
the precedent of Jupiter and Juno; and, recalling the Theogony, he
showed her adding for good measure the examples of Saturn and Ops
(Rhea) and of Oceanus and Tethys. But she answered this argument
with the idea that gods belonged to a different order from human beings
and were subject to different laws. Later Ovid showed her considering
the tradition about the children of Aeolus. With the earlier version she
noted that brothers had married their sisters, but with recollection of
the later version she recoiled from the tale as the worst possible prece-
dent. Byblis thought it preferable to die rather than to be guilty. She
hoped that Caunus might kiss her lifeless body; but realized that, if he
should guess the cause of her death, he might regard even this as a
concession to her wicked intent. She encouraged herself in her purpose
with the idea that, if he had loved first, she would have treated him
kindly.
Euripides had imagined that Phaedra shrank from pleading with
Hippolytus, and therefore that she sent her nurse with a message. Ovid
imagined that Byblis shrank from pleading with Caunus. But he wished
to avoid introducing a nurse. He imagined that Byblis sent her message
in a letter. And rather against probability -- he assumed that writing
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? BY BUS
materials were so conveniently near that Byblis was able to find them
without leaving her couch.
In Ovid's day it had long been customary for anyone writing a
letter to use a pen made from a certain variety of reed, to dip it in some
kind of ink, write on a sheet of papyrus leaf, and then roll the leaf and
tie it with string. Ovid had indicated this method of writing in his
Epistle of Canace. To Byblis he attributed a much older method. The
idea that she struggled with conflicting motives and yet undertook to
compose a letter suggested to him a passage of Euripides in the Iphi-
genia at Aulis. And, as he followed the details of human conflict, he
repeated also the ancient mechanical process.
According to Euripides, Agamemnon reluctantly composed a letter
ordering that his daughter should be brought for sacrifice. He used a
stylus, an instrument resembling a large needle, and with it scratched
his characters on tablets of pine wood covered with wax. To cancel a
mistake, he pushed back the wax over the mark with the blunt end of
the stylus. After finishing the letter, he stamped the tablets with his
personal seal, folded them on one another in some way, and tied them
with a string. Euripides described Agamemnon as writing, then cancel-
ling, tying and then untying, and throwing the tablet on the ground,
meanwhile weeping and showing evidences of despair. Ovid imagined
Byblis as composing with similar materials and behaving in a similar
manner. He added that her face bore an expression of boldness mingled
with shame.
The idea of an unhappy woman composing a letter to the man
whom she loved reminded Ovid of the epistles in his Heroides, especially
those of Phaedra and Dido. He imagined that Byblis composed a poetic
epistle, presenting her ideas in a similar manner. For the Romans, this
letter had the special interest of being the first and only one which
Ovid composed in hexameter verse. For all readers, Ovid's narrative
setting gave it the advantage of being unusually short and intense.
After writing and cancelling the word "sister", Byblis resolved to
proceed several lines before identifying herself. In the opening phrase
of Roman epistles the writer often used to wish his correspondent well.
The term employed was salus, which might suggest a number of desir-
able things, among them health, well being, and safety. The several
meanings invited a play on the word, in which Ovid had indulged more
than once in his Heroides. At the beginning of the Epistle of Phaedra,
the heroine had wished these good things to Hippolytus but had de-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
clared that she herself must live without them, unless Hippolytus in
turn should wish them to her. With this idea and with almost identical
words, Byblis began her letter to Caunus.
After calling his attention to many mute evidences of her passion,
Byblis declared that she had done everything possible to overcome it
but now was obliged abjectly to take from his hands either safety or
destruction. He ought, she continued, to be disposed favorably towards
her, for she already was associated closely with him and desired an even
closer tie. Phaedra had asserted that no lover stops to consider pro-
priety and that gods themselves offer precedents for putting moral
restrictions aside. Byblis offered the same argument in different terms.
Leave to old men, she said, the nice discrimination of right and wrong.
We, who are young and are emboldened by love, are not hindered by the
thought of deterrents and merely follow the example of the gods. Since
Byblis already had admitted to herself that gods were no precedent, this
plea was remarkably shameless. Phaedra had suggested that, as her
stepson, Hippolytus might associate with her and yet cause no suspi-
cion. Byblis made a similar suggestion to her brother. Ovid's Dido had
closed by warning Aeneas to avoid being noted on her tomb as the
cause of her death. With the same warning Byblis ended her letter to
Caunus.
Like Agamemnon, she marked the tablet with her seal. For some
reason the gem needed to be moistened, and ordinarily she would have
done this with her tongue. But, said Ovid, agitation had left her mouth
so dry that instead she moistened the gem with her tears. Although it
may have been improbable that distress would affect Byblis in this man-
ner, the idea certainly indicated that her distress was intense.
Then Byblis called a servant. She did not tell him the purpose of
her letter. She felt embarrassment at giving him any order at all. She
bade him carry the tables to -- and, after a long pause, added -- her
brother. Since Ovid had noted that she made it a practice to speak of
Caunus as her lord, it seems likely that she would have used this im-
personal term. But, as often in other tales, Ovid was anxious to impress
the idea that wickedness was deliberate. When Byblis gave the letter
to the servant, it slipped from her hands and fell. She regarded this as
an evil omen but sent the tablet none the less.
After waiting for an appropriate occasion, the servant gave her
letter to Caunus. According to Euripides, when the nurse delivered
Phaedra's message, Hippolytus became very angry and denounced the
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? BYBLIS
nurse for cooperating in such an affair. Ovid imagined a like response
from Caunus. The youth read part of the letter; threw the tablet down;
and, imagining that the servant knew its contents, bade him flee and re-
joice that unwillingness to publish the scandal had induced him to spare
the servant's life. The man reported this to Byblis. Ovid assumed that
he then withdrew.
At first Byblis grew pale and faint. But, as she recovered strength,
her passion returned. Ovid showed her deliberating the new problem in
a soliloquy. First she regretted the past. Unwilling to admit that any
fault lay in her purpose, she attributed it to other possible causes --
failure to try her brother with cautious approaches, as a sailor tries
the wind and proceeds with reefed sail into the unknown ocean beyond
the Pillars of Hercules; failure to wait for a lucky day; failure to avail
herself of the many possible advantages of appealing in person; reli-
ance on a messenger who might have been tactless. She reasoned that
Caunus was capable of being moved. Here Ovid recalled various pas-
sages in which Alexandrian and Roman poets had ascribed an implacable
disposition to some extraordinary parentage and nurture. He recalled
especially his own assertion in the tale of Scylla that Minos was the
offspring of an Armenian tigress and the idea of Theocritus that Cupid
was suckled by a lioness in a wild forest. He repeated the traditional
idea, but with the opposite intent. Byblis declared that Caunus was
not born of a tigress or suckled by a lioness and added that his heart
was not flint nor iron nor adamant.
Then she considered what to do next. Already she had disgraced
herself in the opinion of Caunus. By giving up her purpose, she might
incur the further harm of appearing to lack sincerity. By persisting
she would have nothing to fear and much to hope. Vergil in the Cirit
had shown Scylla describing her sudden, disastrous passion for Minos
'with the phrase "I saw, I perished! " Ovid showed Byblis imitating this
phrase in the words "I wrote, I pleaded ! "* After recording the solilo-
quy of Byblis, he made the following apt observation: she regretted that
she had tried and yet wanted to try again.
Ovid was interested in her state of mind, not in the external action
which followed. He observed only that she made repeated attempts and
*The imitation lay chiefly in sound and cadence. Vergil used the phrase ut vidi,
ut periil Ovid echoed it with Et scripai, et petit! Ovid was fond of the Ciris, as he
showed in the tales of Scylla (Bk. 8) and Myrrha (Bk. 10), and his context was
similar. But he may have remembered also that Vergil repeated the same phrase In
a more beautiful and famous passage of the Eighth Eclogue.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
incurred repeated repulse. Caunus, unable to discourage her, fled. Up
to this point Ovid had been elaborating ideas from Nicander and Par-
thenius. And he now alluded to a further idea of Parthenius that
Caunus founded a Carian city of that name. But in the rest of the tale
Ovid wanted to follow Apollonius, to tell how Byblis went in search of
her brother through the whole of Caria and on into the more distant
region of Lycia. If her brother was at Caunus, this would be improb-
able. And so Ovid remarked vaguely that Caunus founded a new city
in a strange land.
Byblis went insane, he continued. She abandoned any concealment
of her disgraceful passion and endeavored at all costs to overtake her
brother. Ovid imagined her traveling on foot southeastwards along the
coast. He recorded only the more picturesque circumstances. Near
Bubassus in the adjacent part of Caria, women observed her howling in
the fields like a bacchanal. Beyond that point Ovid seemed vague about
localities. He spoke of her wandering past a Carian people, the Leleges,
and then noted various places in Lycia, indicating that Byblis followed
the Lycian shore to its southeastern limit, for he mentioned the ridge
inhabited once by the Chimaera.
According to Parthenius, Byblis hanged herself on an oak tree.
According to Apollonius, she hanged herself, and her tears became a
spring. Ovid took suggestions from both authors. He mentioned a holm
oak tree but rejected the idea of a violent death. He elaborated the idea
of transformation. He imagined that Byblis dropped exhausted, with
her face buried in the grass and fallen leaves, and wept oblivious to any-
thing but her grief. Apollonius had spoken of the naiad Pronoe as
taking an interest in the fate of Byblis ; Nicander had spoken of nymphs
as transforming her. Ovid imagined that naiads of the region attempted
to console her, but finding that impossible, granted her an inexhaustible
flow to tears. Byblis wasted away and became a spring at the foot of a
holm oak tree.
Ovid's account of Byblis interested a number of later poets. Old-
ham and Dennis each made a close paraphrase of it. They modernized
some details, especially the writing of the letter, and they said that
Byblis hoped her brother would kiss her, not after she was dead, but
while she was dying. Dennis observed that she died raving and alone,
but neither poet mentioned any transformation.
Other poets referred to Byblis as an example of gross wickedness.
According to Martial, the modest Sulpicia denied even the existence of
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? BY B LIS
such women as Byblis and Scylla. Petrarch in his Triumph of Love
spoke of observing Semiramis, Byblis, and Myrrha together and de-
clared that each of them appeared to be ashamed of her past. Spenser
noted that Britomart's love for Artegal was very different from the
passion of Byblis or Myrrha.
Still other poets referred to Ovid's account merely as a famous love
story. Gottfried von Strassburg declared that Tristan and Isolde told
it as one of a number of sad tales from classic authors. Chaucer men-
tioned the story in his Parliament of Fowls as one of many which were
portrayed on the temple of Venus. And Swinburne made Ovid's theme
the subject of one of his earliest poems. Petrarch imitated the closing
incident.
