Ovid's narrative of the
Teumessian
vixen interested still other
famous authors.
famous authors.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS
lytus that Aurora carried Cephalus to the home of the gods; the Manual
spoke of her as transporting him to Syria. Frequently Greek vase
painters dealt with the story, and Greek sculptors often used it for
ornamenting some temple or colonnade. In these artistic representa-
tions Aurora appeared either pursuing Cephalus or carrying him in her
arms. Ovid himself mentioned the abduction several times in his amatory
poetry. So far the tale of Cephalus and Aurora had been independent of
the tale of Cephalus and Procris. All accounts indicated either that
Aurora carried off a different Cephalus or that she abducted the hus-
band of Procris after his wife had died.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid gave the adventure with Aurora an
essential relation to the story of Procris. He spoke of the abduction as
interrupting the early happiness of Cephalus and Procris and made it
the occasion for the husband's jealousy. Two months after the wed-
ding, Aurora observed Cephalus hunting on Mt. Hymettus, and she
carried him away. Tradition always had referred to the young hunter
as accepting her overtures. According to Ovid, he rejected them and
continually lamented his absence from his wife. Angered at such con-
stancy, Aurora declared that he should return to Procris but should live
to regret that he ever had married her.
Cephalus, impressed by the disloyalty of Aurora to Tithonus, in-
ferred that Procris was unfaithful to him. Here Ovid followed the tradi-
tion that Tithonus was husband of the Dawn, and he followed it later
in the tale of Iolaiis (Bk. 9). But in the Homeric Hymn to Venus and
in most later tradition, Tithonus was a son of King Priam of Troy, who
reigned about a century after the time of Cephalus, so that in both
passages Ovid was guilty of a considerable anachronism. Cephalus
rashly planned to tempt his wife and told his purpose to Aurora. The
unknown Greek author had shown Diana transforming Procris in order
that she might tempt Cephalus. Struck by the idea of divine aid, Ovid
showed Aurora transforming Cephalus in order that he might tempt
Procris.
Ovid refined and elaborated the Greek author's account of the
temptation. Revisiting Athens, Cephalus found Procris lamenting the
absence of her loved husband. Although he seemed to have every reason
for being reassured, he persisted in his purpose. By many clever shifts he
succeeded in visiting his wife repeatedly. Her innocent beauty and
obvious concern for her husband almost persuaded him to desist.
Yet he courted her again and again. Procris answered always that she
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
could love none but Cephalus. The Manual had spoken of the tempter's
offering a golden crown. Ovid, too, imagined an offer of valuable gifts
but heightened it to the limit of belief. Cephalus promised whole for-
tunes and even more. At this Procris showed hesitation. Immediately
Cephalus revealed himself and accused her of being unfaithful. In shame
and anger Procris left her husband's dwelling and all society of men and
shared the sports of the maiden goddess, Diana. From her she obtained
the unerring javelin and the unfailing dog.
Ovid remembered the Greek author's account of the reconciliation
but he retold the incident in a way more favorable to both parties. Ac-
cording to the Greek author, Procris made the first overtures. Imitating
her husband's methods, she disguised herself and offered the javelin and
dog as a temptation to be unfaithful. And Cephalus yielded to the
temptation. According to Ovid, it was Cephalus who made the over-
tures. Admitting that he had done wrong, he asked her pardon and he
added that, if someone had tempted him with an offer of valuable gifts,
he too would have compromised himself. Procris did not tempt her hus-
band to do wrong, and Cephalus was not guilty of disloyalty. Procris
accepted the apology and returned. Then out of pure good will she pre-
sented Cephalus with the unerring javelin and the unfailing dog.
Ovid's Greek predecessors had continued immediately with the
tragedy. Ovid waited long enough to record another tale. Cephalus, he
said, promised to tell Phocus a story about each of the magic gifts, and,
reluctant to pursue the tale of the javelin, he told first of the dog.
This adventure, Ovid's predecessors had mentioned as occurring
after the death of Procris. The Epigoni told it as follows. To punish
the royal family of Thebes, the gods created a vixen which could not be
caught. The animal was extraordinarily fierce and powerful and became
a menace to the whole countryside. Accordingly the Thebans invited
Cephalus to visit them, purified him of guilt, and persuaded him to
hunt the vixen with the unfailing dog. Near Teumessus, a village a few
miles east of Thebes, Cephalus found the quarry. The inevitable dog
pursued the unattainable vixen, until the gods escaped from their
dilemma by turning both animals into stone.
The Epigoni does not seem to have told why the gods were offended.
Later authors usually spoke of them as punishing Thebes for hostility
to Bacchus in the time of Pentheus (cf. Bk. 3). It was Jupiter, accord-
ing to Eratosthenes, who metamorphosed the dog and vixen. Nicander
seems to have named the dog Laelaps (Storm Wind). The Manual
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? CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS
added further details. It mentioned Creon as reigning when the vixen
began to harry Thebes. To avoid worse havoc, the Thebans were obliged
monthly to offer one of their sons as a prey to the devouring beast.
Creon appealed first to Amphitryon, stepfather of Hercules. The latter
organized a hunt, but in vain. Creon then obtained the effective help of
Cephalus. After this adventure, the Manual continued, Cephalus de-
parted to the island which afterwards was named in his honor Cephal-
lenia.
Ovid took his outline from the Manual but altered many circum-
stances in accord with his own requirements. Considerations of time
forbade his associating the vixen with the rejection of Bacchus. Ovid
thought of another cause, suggested by the idea that Thebes was ruled
by Creon, successor of Oedipus. According to the Theogony, Thebes
had been harassed by a sphynx. This was a monster with the head of a
woman and the body of a lion. The Oedipodia and other early epics
elaborated the account. Taking her station on a high rock, the sphynx
required every passer-by to answer a riddle and, if he could not solve it,
to perish. At last Oedipus gave the right answer, and the monster
leaped over a cliff and was killed.
Greek authors do not appear to have given any reason for the
visitation of the sphynx. Ovid imagined vaguely that Themis, personi-
fication of divine justice, had sent the monster to punish the Thebans
for their offenses. When Oedipus overcame the sphynx, he said, Themis
despatched another monster to afflict them. Since it was hardly credible
that men and their herds were devoured by a vixen, Ovid spoke only of a
wild beast.
He spoke vaguely also about the earlier hunt and of course did not
mention the purifying of Cephalus for the death of Procris. Cephalus
and other youths from the towns near Thebes endeavored to capture the
beast, he said, using first nets and then a hundred ordinary dogs. At
length Cephalus released Laelaps. Ovid indicated well the dog's amazing
swiftness. Instantly it had vanished, leaving only footprints in the sand.
Hastening up a nearby hill, Cephalus observed the dog already in hot
pursuit of the quarry. In the tale of Daphne (Bk. 1) Ovid had compared
Apollo pursuing the nymph to a hound following a hare so closely that
his jaws seem continually on the point of seizing it. With remarkable
skill he now described a similar breathless chase of dog and quarry, yet
made the two accounts different in almost every particular. But he for-
got to make clear the contradiction of the inevitable dog and the un-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
attainable quarry. Cephalus looked away, he continued, in order to
poise a javelin and, turning again, found the animals congealed into
marble. Some god had willed that both should remain unconquered.
At this point Cephalus was inclined to stop. It would have been
tactful and considerate, if Phocus had spared him the pain of telling
more. But Phocus already had been somewhat importunate in his curi-
osity, and he now insisted on hearing what grievance Cephalus might
have against the javelin. This importunity made it possible for Ovid to
give his readers the chief incident of the tale.
Cephalus described first his happiness after the reconciliation, and
with characteristic rashness he incurred the risk of offending the gods.
Procris, he said, would have been faithful, even if courted by Jupiter;
he himself would have been unmoved even by the charms of Venus. Greek
authors had shown Procris hunting with her husband. In the Art of
Love and again in the Metamorphoses, Ovid thought of her as remain-
ing at home. Daily as the sun touched the summit of the mountains,
Cephalus went forth to hunt. Greek authors had regarded the unerring
javelin only as a means of seduction and had not mentioned it after the
reconciliation of Cephalus and Procris. Cephalus continued to hunt
with ordinary weapons. In the Art of Love, Ovid followed their example.
In the Metamorphoses, he spoke of Cephalus as hunting with the new and
better weapon. It was probable that Cephalus would do this. But Ovid
had a more important reason. He thought of the unerring arrow with
which Apollo shot his loved Coronis (Bk. 2) and realized that an un-
erring javelin would make more plausible and more pathetic the ensuing
catastrophe. Trusting in his magic weapon, Cephalus no longer felt
the need of companions, horses, or dogs. But either companions or dogs
might have prevented his fatal mistake.
When weary, he betook himself to a shady place and the breeze
from cool valleys. In the Art of Love, Ovid noted that Cephalus went
regularly to a certain spring on Mt. Hymettus. In the Metamorphoses
he did not indicate the locality. The reader would suppose that he went
to various places, as time and convenience served, and later would think
it unlikely that Procris could follow him. As in the Art of Love, Ovid
noted the hunter's enjoyment of the breeze {aura) and his urging it to
refresh him. But he imagined a longer address, affording a number of
chances for misunderstanding. He showed Cephalus himself comment-
ing on his rashness. As before, Ovid told how the address was mistaken
for courtship of a nymph and how Procris grieved and planned to
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? CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS
observe her husband's behavior. But this time he showed her willing to
believe that Cephalus was faithful unless she could prove disloyalty with
her own eyes.
The rest of the tale Ovid recounted in a new and more effective man-
ner. This time he showed Cephalus calling only to the breeze. Procris,
still deceived, moaned audibly in the thicket. Cephalus persisted in his
entreaty. She stirred the leaves, and, rash as ever, he launched the un-
erring javelin. At her cry of pain he recognized the voice and knew that
it had struck his faithful Procris. In the tale of Coronis, Ovid had re-
corded Apollo's unavailing grief and the last words of the dying wife.
He now pictured a similar event in a manner that was different and even
more pathetic. Cephalus, horrified at the cry, found Procris dying --
her tunic stained with blood, her fingers endeavoring to pull from her
breast the weapon that she generously had given him. Ovid forgot that
her javelin should have returned to the hunter.
Raising the loved Procris in his arms, Cephalus labored to check
the flowing blood and prayed her not to leave him guilty of her death.
At this point there came to Ovid's mind that famous moment of the Iliad
when Achilles had stricken Hector with a mortal wound. Hector, faint
and dying, made a last urgent plea that Achilles would not leave him
unburied. Procris, faint and dying, implored Cephalus not to let Aura
take her place. Realizing the fatal mistake, Cephalus hastened to un-
deceive her. She died in her husband's arms, to the last gazing at him
fondly, her features illumined by a look of joy.
Early peoples often have thought of the soul as leaving the body
with the final breath and have believed that soul and final breath ought
to be inhaled by some loving relative or friend. In Rome this was the
duty of the nearest relative. This idea Vergil mentioned at the death of
Dido. Ovid showed Cephalus observing that Procris breathed out her
unfortunate spirit on his lips.
According to the Manual, Cephalus had been punished with exile
for life and had gone ultimately to Cephallenia. Ovid imagined that he
remained an unhappy but respected citizen of Athens.
Ovid had banished from the tale the coarse elements of earlier ver-
sions and had filled his narrative with originality, charm, and pathos.
His work interested many authors of later times.
The mythographer Hyginus followed Ovid in his own account of
Cephalus. Petrarch in the Triumph of Love mentioned Procris as one of
the fair ladies attending the court of the god. In the fifteenth century
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Niccolo da Correggio used Ovid's tale as a theme for one of the earliest
dramas of the Italian Renaissance. Ovid's great Spanish translator,
Bustamente, retold the story in a manner so congenial to his countrymen
that for over a century it continually influenced their literature. Span-
ish authors frequently used the tale as material for drama, and of these
dramatic treatments the most famous were those of Calderon, who pre-
sented the tale once as tragedy and once as comedy.
Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream mentioned Cephalus
as a proverbial example of the faithful lover. In Milton's Eighth Elegy
the god of Love described himself as shooting more accurately than
Cephalus, who killed his own wife. And during the nineteenth century
Thomas Moore, Austin Dobson, and other English poets retold the
whole story.
The incident of Aurora's carrying Cephalus away attracted several
great poets of the Renaissance. Lope de Vega made it the subject of a
drama. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Oberon de-
scribed himself as a spirit which need not flee at Aurora's approach,
adding
I with the morning's love have oft made sport
And like a forester the groves may tread.
Milton in his Elegy on Spring told how Aurora deserted Tithonus and
hastened to behold Cephalus pursuing the deer on Mt. Hymettus.
Moliere in The Miser named Cephalus as a typical example of youthful
beauty. Ariosto imitated the tale of Aurora and Cephalus at some
length. He showed the enchantress Melissa trying vainly to seduce the
knight of the Italian Palace, then warning him that his wife might not
deserve such loyalty and enabling him to tempt her in disguise. And he
brought in the idea that under similar temptation the husband would
have been equally guilty.
Ovid's narrative of the Teumessian vixen interested still other
famous authors. In the Purgatorio Beatrice cautioned Dante that her
explanation might seem as baffling as the riddle of Themis and the
sphynx but should be made clear without such harm to fields and flocks.
Rabelais used other accounts of the vixen, but he probably was inspired
by the Metamorphoses.
Still other circumstances of Ovid's tale were honorably remem-
bered. Boiardo, mentioning the account of the javelin, attributed to his
Argalia similar beautiful, unerring weapons. Shakespeare was im-
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? CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS
pressed by the description of Procris grieving for the absence of her
husband, yet so beautiful that even grief was becoming to her, and he
emulated it in the still finer description of Cordelia mourning the un-
happiness of King Lear. In Hamlet, Shakespeare remembered also
Ovid's indication of the time when Cephalus began to hunt. He echoed
it in the phrase,
No sooner shall the sun the mountains touch.
Even more remarkable seems to have been Ovid's effect on Chaucer. In
presenting the tale of Cephalus and Procris, Ovid had recorded conver-
sation between a bereaved husband, who was reluctant to speak plainly
of his loss, and a friendly but importunate youth, who insisted on hear-
ing the entire story. Chaucer used the same methods with even greater
delicacy in his Book of the Duchess.
Modern artists often found inspiration in Ovid's narrative. Ceph-
alus and Procris were the subject of the painters, Peruzzi, Piero di
Cosimo,* Giulio Romano, Guercino, Guido Reni, Claude Lorrain, and
Turner. Cephalus and Aurora inspired paintings of Nicholas Poussin
and of Guerin and a masterpiece of Boucher. Le Gros treated the same
theme in sculpture.
The tale of Cephalus and Procris appeared also as opera, and in
Faraja's version it had the honor of being the first opera presented in
Russia with a Russian libretto.
? *? ? ? ? *
The chief tales in Ovid's Seventh Book had originated early, and
most of them had appeared often in Greek literature and art. But the
tale of Aeson, rejuvenated, had remained almost unnoticed. Although
the earlier Roman authors alluded frequently to several of the stories
about Medea, they retold only her adventures in Corinth, and their
treatments of the subject were doomed to perish with the fall of Rome.
It was Ovid who interested his countrymen in the use of these themes
and made them easily accessible to later times. The many lesser tales
of the Seventh Book for the most part had entered literature in the
Alexandrian Period and had attracted little attention. Six of them we
know only from Ovid.
In treating his material, Ovid took a few ideas from the Theogony,
and in the stories about Medea, he borrowed often from the dramatic
versions of Sophocles and Euripides. But as usual he relied for his in-
*Cosimo and Dobson gave a version in which Cephalus went on hunting, unaware
of the fatal shot.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
formation chiefly on Alexandrian authors. The Manual contributed
much to all the more important tales except that of Aeson. An uniden-
tified author, who wrote probably in early Alexandrian times, was
Ovid's main reliance for the tragic adventures of Cephalus and Procris;
Apollonius, in the translation by Varro of Atax, became the most im-
portant source for the events in Colchis; an Alexandrian preface to
Euripides gave the outline for the tale of Aeson; and Euphorion was
Ovid's authority for the origin of aconite. Of the minor tales, Ovid took
at least five from Nicander, two from Boeus, and the rest mainly from
Alexandrian authors whom we cannot identify.
Much care was necessary in developing this material. Many of the
tales, especially those in the latter half of the book had no relation to
one another and presented difficult problems of adjustment to Ovid's
sequence of time. Ovid often had to invent a plausible relation between
tales and an appropriate background. Although this involved him in
some anachronism and improbability, he was able to keep such defects
inconspicuous and to add much that was picturesque and effective. Sev-
eral important tales included material which Ovid had used elsewhere in
his poetry and was unwilling to repeat. He avoided the difficulty often
by omitting circumstances, and in this he was not always successful.
The tales of Medea in Corinth and of Theseus became fragmentary, and,
for readers not familiar with the subject, other tales were sometimes
obscure. But Ovid tried also to introduce new circumstances -- nearly
always with happy effect. More often than in the previous books Ovid
had occasion to tell differently an incident which he had used earlier in
his Metamorphoses, and in meeting this difficulty he displayed astonish-
ing skill.
In elaborating his material, Ovid borrowed much from the chief
authors of the past. The Iliad afforded valuable suggestions for several
tales. The Odyssey, Theocritus, and Horace proved of great service in
the tale of Aeson. Thucydides and Lucretius contributed important
material to the story of the Myrmidons. And for many of Ovid's best
tales Vergil was invaluable. To borrow so much from his greatest prede-
cessors was to invite dangerous comparisons. But Ovid's boldness was
justified by his success. In selecting his material he judged well not only
its merit but its appropriateness for his own purpose, and often he im-
proved what he took. He varied and sometimes bettered it also by many
inventions of his own, which included not only three lesser transforma-
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? BOOK SEVEN
tions in the tale of Aeson but also in the very important soliloquy of
Medea.
After Ovid's time the Seventh Book influenced a great number of
Roman authors. They found especially valuable Ovid's account of magic
and pestilence. For medieval authors, the chief interest lay in the tales
about Medea, but the story of Procris was appreciated, especially by
Chaucer. Almost the entire book had a wide and important influence
among authors of the Renaissance. After this period it attracted much
less attention. But in the nineteenth century, several English poets re-
told the tale of Cephalus and Procris, and Hawthorne profited by the
almost forgotten tales of aconite and of Theseus.
Among authors who rarely noticed the Metamorphoses, the Seventh
Book attracted Manilius and Rabelais. It was used often by Dante,
Ariosto, and Milton. Seneca, Lucan, and Calderon found it of great
value. But probably the most memorable effect appeared in the work of
Shakespeare.
The tales of Medea in Colchis, of Aurora, and of Procris attracted
a number of modern painters. The tale of Procris was the earliest theme
of Russian opera.
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? BOOK EIGHT
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? CONTENTS OF BOOK EIGHT
PAGE
King Minos and Scylla . . . . . . . . 157
The Minotaur and Ariadne . . . . . . 168
Icarus and Perdix . . . . . . . . 178
Meleager and Atalanta . . . . . . . . 184
The Echinades and Perimele . . . . . . . 198
Philemon and Baucis . . . . . . . . . 200
Proteus . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Erysichthon . . . . . . . . . . 211
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? Ik
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lytus that Aurora carried Cephalus to the home of the gods; the Manual
spoke of her as transporting him to Syria. Frequently Greek vase
painters dealt with the story, and Greek sculptors often used it for
ornamenting some temple or colonnade. In these artistic representa-
tions Aurora appeared either pursuing Cephalus or carrying him in her
arms. Ovid himself mentioned the abduction several times in his amatory
poetry. So far the tale of Cephalus and Aurora had been independent of
the tale of Cephalus and Procris. All accounts indicated either that
Aurora carried off a different Cephalus or that she abducted the hus-
band of Procris after his wife had died.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid gave the adventure with Aurora an
essential relation to the story of Procris. He spoke of the abduction as
interrupting the early happiness of Cephalus and Procris and made it
the occasion for the husband's jealousy. Two months after the wed-
ding, Aurora observed Cephalus hunting on Mt. Hymettus, and she
carried him away. Tradition always had referred to the young hunter
as accepting her overtures. According to Ovid, he rejected them and
continually lamented his absence from his wife. Angered at such con-
stancy, Aurora declared that he should return to Procris but should live
to regret that he ever had married her.
Cephalus, impressed by the disloyalty of Aurora to Tithonus, in-
ferred that Procris was unfaithful to him. Here Ovid followed the tradi-
tion that Tithonus was husband of the Dawn, and he followed it later
in the tale of Iolaiis (Bk. 9). But in the Homeric Hymn to Venus and
in most later tradition, Tithonus was a son of King Priam of Troy, who
reigned about a century after the time of Cephalus, so that in both
passages Ovid was guilty of a considerable anachronism. Cephalus
rashly planned to tempt his wife and told his purpose to Aurora. The
unknown Greek author had shown Diana transforming Procris in order
that she might tempt Cephalus. Struck by the idea of divine aid, Ovid
showed Aurora transforming Cephalus in order that he might tempt
Procris.
Ovid refined and elaborated the Greek author's account of the
temptation. Revisiting Athens, Cephalus found Procris lamenting the
absence of her loved husband. Although he seemed to have every reason
for being reassured, he persisted in his purpose. By many clever shifts he
succeeded in visiting his wife repeatedly. Her innocent beauty and
obvious concern for her husband almost persuaded him to desist.
Yet he courted her again and again. Procris answered always that she
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
could love none but Cephalus. The Manual had spoken of the tempter's
offering a golden crown. Ovid, too, imagined an offer of valuable gifts
but heightened it to the limit of belief. Cephalus promised whole for-
tunes and even more. At this Procris showed hesitation. Immediately
Cephalus revealed himself and accused her of being unfaithful. In shame
and anger Procris left her husband's dwelling and all society of men and
shared the sports of the maiden goddess, Diana. From her she obtained
the unerring javelin and the unfailing dog.
Ovid remembered the Greek author's account of the reconciliation
but he retold the incident in a way more favorable to both parties. Ac-
cording to the Greek author, Procris made the first overtures. Imitating
her husband's methods, she disguised herself and offered the javelin and
dog as a temptation to be unfaithful. And Cephalus yielded to the
temptation. According to Ovid, it was Cephalus who made the over-
tures. Admitting that he had done wrong, he asked her pardon and he
added that, if someone had tempted him with an offer of valuable gifts,
he too would have compromised himself. Procris did not tempt her hus-
band to do wrong, and Cephalus was not guilty of disloyalty. Procris
accepted the apology and returned. Then out of pure good will she pre-
sented Cephalus with the unerring javelin and the unfailing dog.
Ovid's Greek predecessors had continued immediately with the
tragedy. Ovid waited long enough to record another tale. Cephalus, he
said, promised to tell Phocus a story about each of the magic gifts, and,
reluctant to pursue the tale of the javelin, he told first of the dog.
This adventure, Ovid's predecessors had mentioned as occurring
after the death of Procris. The Epigoni told it as follows. To punish
the royal family of Thebes, the gods created a vixen which could not be
caught. The animal was extraordinarily fierce and powerful and became
a menace to the whole countryside. Accordingly the Thebans invited
Cephalus to visit them, purified him of guilt, and persuaded him to
hunt the vixen with the unfailing dog. Near Teumessus, a village a few
miles east of Thebes, Cephalus found the quarry. The inevitable dog
pursued the unattainable vixen, until the gods escaped from their
dilemma by turning both animals into stone.
The Epigoni does not seem to have told why the gods were offended.
Later authors usually spoke of them as punishing Thebes for hostility
to Bacchus in the time of Pentheus (cf. Bk. 3). It was Jupiter, accord-
ing to Eratosthenes, who metamorphosed the dog and vixen. Nicander
seems to have named the dog Laelaps (Storm Wind). The Manual
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? CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS
added further details. It mentioned Creon as reigning when the vixen
began to harry Thebes. To avoid worse havoc, the Thebans were obliged
monthly to offer one of their sons as a prey to the devouring beast.
Creon appealed first to Amphitryon, stepfather of Hercules. The latter
organized a hunt, but in vain. Creon then obtained the effective help of
Cephalus. After this adventure, the Manual continued, Cephalus de-
parted to the island which afterwards was named in his honor Cephal-
lenia.
Ovid took his outline from the Manual but altered many circum-
stances in accord with his own requirements. Considerations of time
forbade his associating the vixen with the rejection of Bacchus. Ovid
thought of another cause, suggested by the idea that Thebes was ruled
by Creon, successor of Oedipus. According to the Theogony, Thebes
had been harassed by a sphynx. This was a monster with the head of a
woman and the body of a lion. The Oedipodia and other early epics
elaborated the account. Taking her station on a high rock, the sphynx
required every passer-by to answer a riddle and, if he could not solve it,
to perish. At last Oedipus gave the right answer, and the monster
leaped over a cliff and was killed.
Greek authors do not appear to have given any reason for the
visitation of the sphynx. Ovid imagined vaguely that Themis, personi-
fication of divine justice, had sent the monster to punish the Thebans
for their offenses. When Oedipus overcame the sphynx, he said, Themis
despatched another monster to afflict them. Since it was hardly credible
that men and their herds were devoured by a vixen, Ovid spoke only of a
wild beast.
He spoke vaguely also about the earlier hunt and of course did not
mention the purifying of Cephalus for the death of Procris. Cephalus
and other youths from the towns near Thebes endeavored to capture the
beast, he said, using first nets and then a hundred ordinary dogs. At
length Cephalus released Laelaps. Ovid indicated well the dog's amazing
swiftness. Instantly it had vanished, leaving only footprints in the sand.
Hastening up a nearby hill, Cephalus observed the dog already in hot
pursuit of the quarry. In the tale of Daphne (Bk. 1) Ovid had compared
Apollo pursuing the nymph to a hound following a hare so closely that
his jaws seem continually on the point of seizing it. With remarkable
skill he now described a similar breathless chase of dog and quarry, yet
made the two accounts different in almost every particular. But he for-
got to make clear the contradiction of the inevitable dog and the un-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
attainable quarry. Cephalus looked away, he continued, in order to
poise a javelin and, turning again, found the animals congealed into
marble. Some god had willed that both should remain unconquered.
At this point Cephalus was inclined to stop. It would have been
tactful and considerate, if Phocus had spared him the pain of telling
more. But Phocus already had been somewhat importunate in his curi-
osity, and he now insisted on hearing what grievance Cephalus might
have against the javelin. This importunity made it possible for Ovid to
give his readers the chief incident of the tale.
Cephalus described first his happiness after the reconciliation, and
with characteristic rashness he incurred the risk of offending the gods.
Procris, he said, would have been faithful, even if courted by Jupiter;
he himself would have been unmoved even by the charms of Venus. Greek
authors had shown Procris hunting with her husband. In the Art of
Love and again in the Metamorphoses, Ovid thought of her as remain-
ing at home. Daily as the sun touched the summit of the mountains,
Cephalus went forth to hunt. Greek authors had regarded the unerring
javelin only as a means of seduction and had not mentioned it after the
reconciliation of Cephalus and Procris. Cephalus continued to hunt
with ordinary weapons. In the Art of Love, Ovid followed their example.
In the Metamorphoses, he spoke of Cephalus as hunting with the new and
better weapon. It was probable that Cephalus would do this. But Ovid
had a more important reason. He thought of the unerring arrow with
which Apollo shot his loved Coronis (Bk. 2) and realized that an un-
erring javelin would make more plausible and more pathetic the ensuing
catastrophe. Trusting in his magic weapon, Cephalus no longer felt
the need of companions, horses, or dogs. But either companions or dogs
might have prevented his fatal mistake.
When weary, he betook himself to a shady place and the breeze
from cool valleys. In the Art of Love, Ovid noted that Cephalus went
regularly to a certain spring on Mt. Hymettus. In the Metamorphoses
he did not indicate the locality. The reader would suppose that he went
to various places, as time and convenience served, and later would think
it unlikely that Procris could follow him. As in the Art of Love, Ovid
noted the hunter's enjoyment of the breeze {aura) and his urging it to
refresh him. But he imagined a longer address, affording a number of
chances for misunderstanding. He showed Cephalus himself comment-
ing on his rashness. As before, Ovid told how the address was mistaken
for courtship of a nymph and how Procris grieved and planned to
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? CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS
observe her husband's behavior. But this time he showed her willing to
believe that Cephalus was faithful unless she could prove disloyalty with
her own eyes.
The rest of the tale Ovid recounted in a new and more effective man-
ner. This time he showed Cephalus calling only to the breeze. Procris,
still deceived, moaned audibly in the thicket. Cephalus persisted in his
entreaty. She stirred the leaves, and, rash as ever, he launched the un-
erring javelin. At her cry of pain he recognized the voice and knew that
it had struck his faithful Procris. In the tale of Coronis, Ovid had re-
corded Apollo's unavailing grief and the last words of the dying wife.
He now pictured a similar event in a manner that was different and even
more pathetic. Cephalus, horrified at the cry, found Procris dying --
her tunic stained with blood, her fingers endeavoring to pull from her
breast the weapon that she generously had given him. Ovid forgot that
her javelin should have returned to the hunter.
Raising the loved Procris in his arms, Cephalus labored to check
the flowing blood and prayed her not to leave him guilty of her death.
At this point there came to Ovid's mind that famous moment of the Iliad
when Achilles had stricken Hector with a mortal wound. Hector, faint
and dying, made a last urgent plea that Achilles would not leave him
unburied. Procris, faint and dying, implored Cephalus not to let Aura
take her place. Realizing the fatal mistake, Cephalus hastened to un-
deceive her. She died in her husband's arms, to the last gazing at him
fondly, her features illumined by a look of joy.
Early peoples often have thought of the soul as leaving the body
with the final breath and have believed that soul and final breath ought
to be inhaled by some loving relative or friend. In Rome this was the
duty of the nearest relative. This idea Vergil mentioned at the death of
Dido. Ovid showed Cephalus observing that Procris breathed out her
unfortunate spirit on his lips.
According to the Manual, Cephalus had been punished with exile
for life and had gone ultimately to Cephallenia. Ovid imagined that he
remained an unhappy but respected citizen of Athens.
Ovid had banished from the tale the coarse elements of earlier ver-
sions and had filled his narrative with originality, charm, and pathos.
His work interested many authors of later times.
The mythographer Hyginus followed Ovid in his own account of
Cephalus. Petrarch in the Triumph of Love mentioned Procris as one of
the fair ladies attending the court of the god. In the fifteenth century
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Niccolo da Correggio used Ovid's tale as a theme for one of the earliest
dramas of the Italian Renaissance. Ovid's great Spanish translator,
Bustamente, retold the story in a manner so congenial to his countrymen
that for over a century it continually influenced their literature. Span-
ish authors frequently used the tale as material for drama, and of these
dramatic treatments the most famous were those of Calderon, who pre-
sented the tale once as tragedy and once as comedy.
Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream mentioned Cephalus
as a proverbial example of the faithful lover. In Milton's Eighth Elegy
the god of Love described himself as shooting more accurately than
Cephalus, who killed his own wife. And during the nineteenth century
Thomas Moore, Austin Dobson, and other English poets retold the
whole story.
The incident of Aurora's carrying Cephalus away attracted several
great poets of the Renaissance. Lope de Vega made it the subject of a
drama. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Oberon de-
scribed himself as a spirit which need not flee at Aurora's approach,
adding
I with the morning's love have oft made sport
And like a forester the groves may tread.
Milton in his Elegy on Spring told how Aurora deserted Tithonus and
hastened to behold Cephalus pursuing the deer on Mt. Hymettus.
Moliere in The Miser named Cephalus as a typical example of youthful
beauty. Ariosto imitated the tale of Aurora and Cephalus at some
length. He showed the enchantress Melissa trying vainly to seduce the
knight of the Italian Palace, then warning him that his wife might not
deserve such loyalty and enabling him to tempt her in disguise. And he
brought in the idea that under similar temptation the husband would
have been equally guilty.
Ovid's narrative of the Teumessian vixen interested still other
famous authors. In the Purgatorio Beatrice cautioned Dante that her
explanation might seem as baffling as the riddle of Themis and the
sphynx but should be made clear without such harm to fields and flocks.
Rabelais used other accounts of the vixen, but he probably was inspired
by the Metamorphoses.
Still other circumstances of Ovid's tale were honorably remem-
bered. Boiardo, mentioning the account of the javelin, attributed to his
Argalia similar beautiful, unerring weapons. Shakespeare was im-
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? CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS
pressed by the description of Procris grieving for the absence of her
husband, yet so beautiful that even grief was becoming to her, and he
emulated it in the still finer description of Cordelia mourning the un-
happiness of King Lear. In Hamlet, Shakespeare remembered also
Ovid's indication of the time when Cephalus began to hunt. He echoed
it in the phrase,
No sooner shall the sun the mountains touch.
Even more remarkable seems to have been Ovid's effect on Chaucer. In
presenting the tale of Cephalus and Procris, Ovid had recorded conver-
sation between a bereaved husband, who was reluctant to speak plainly
of his loss, and a friendly but importunate youth, who insisted on hear-
ing the entire story. Chaucer used the same methods with even greater
delicacy in his Book of the Duchess.
Modern artists often found inspiration in Ovid's narrative. Ceph-
alus and Procris were the subject of the painters, Peruzzi, Piero di
Cosimo,* Giulio Romano, Guercino, Guido Reni, Claude Lorrain, and
Turner. Cephalus and Aurora inspired paintings of Nicholas Poussin
and of Guerin and a masterpiece of Boucher. Le Gros treated the same
theme in sculpture.
The tale of Cephalus and Procris appeared also as opera, and in
Faraja's version it had the honor of being the first opera presented in
Russia with a Russian libretto.
? *? ? ? ? *
The chief tales in Ovid's Seventh Book had originated early, and
most of them had appeared often in Greek literature and art. But the
tale of Aeson, rejuvenated, had remained almost unnoticed. Although
the earlier Roman authors alluded frequently to several of the stories
about Medea, they retold only her adventures in Corinth, and their
treatments of the subject were doomed to perish with the fall of Rome.
It was Ovid who interested his countrymen in the use of these themes
and made them easily accessible to later times. The many lesser tales
of the Seventh Book for the most part had entered literature in the
Alexandrian Period and had attracted little attention. Six of them we
know only from Ovid.
In treating his material, Ovid took a few ideas from the Theogony,
and in the stories about Medea, he borrowed often from the dramatic
versions of Sophocles and Euripides. But as usual he relied for his in-
*Cosimo and Dobson gave a version in which Cephalus went on hunting, unaware
of the fatal shot.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
formation chiefly on Alexandrian authors. The Manual contributed
much to all the more important tales except that of Aeson. An uniden-
tified author, who wrote probably in early Alexandrian times, was
Ovid's main reliance for the tragic adventures of Cephalus and Procris;
Apollonius, in the translation by Varro of Atax, became the most im-
portant source for the events in Colchis; an Alexandrian preface to
Euripides gave the outline for the tale of Aeson; and Euphorion was
Ovid's authority for the origin of aconite. Of the minor tales, Ovid took
at least five from Nicander, two from Boeus, and the rest mainly from
Alexandrian authors whom we cannot identify.
Much care was necessary in developing this material. Many of the
tales, especially those in the latter half of the book had no relation to
one another and presented difficult problems of adjustment to Ovid's
sequence of time. Ovid often had to invent a plausible relation between
tales and an appropriate background. Although this involved him in
some anachronism and improbability, he was able to keep such defects
inconspicuous and to add much that was picturesque and effective. Sev-
eral important tales included material which Ovid had used elsewhere in
his poetry and was unwilling to repeat. He avoided the difficulty often
by omitting circumstances, and in this he was not always successful.
The tales of Medea in Corinth and of Theseus became fragmentary, and,
for readers not familiar with the subject, other tales were sometimes
obscure. But Ovid tried also to introduce new circumstances -- nearly
always with happy effect. More often than in the previous books Ovid
had occasion to tell differently an incident which he had used earlier in
his Metamorphoses, and in meeting this difficulty he displayed astonish-
ing skill.
In elaborating his material, Ovid borrowed much from the chief
authors of the past. The Iliad afforded valuable suggestions for several
tales. The Odyssey, Theocritus, and Horace proved of great service in
the tale of Aeson. Thucydides and Lucretius contributed important
material to the story of the Myrmidons. And for many of Ovid's best
tales Vergil was invaluable. To borrow so much from his greatest prede-
cessors was to invite dangerous comparisons. But Ovid's boldness was
justified by his success. In selecting his material he judged well not only
its merit but its appropriateness for his own purpose, and often he im-
proved what he took. He varied and sometimes bettered it also by many
inventions of his own, which included not only three lesser transforma-
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? BOOK SEVEN
tions in the tale of Aeson but also in the very important soliloquy of
Medea.
After Ovid's time the Seventh Book influenced a great number of
Roman authors. They found especially valuable Ovid's account of magic
and pestilence. For medieval authors, the chief interest lay in the tales
about Medea, but the story of Procris was appreciated, especially by
Chaucer. Almost the entire book had a wide and important influence
among authors of the Renaissance. After this period it attracted much
less attention. But in the nineteenth century, several English poets re-
told the tale of Cephalus and Procris, and Hawthorne profited by the
almost forgotten tales of aconite and of Theseus.
Among authors who rarely noticed the Metamorphoses, the Seventh
Book attracted Manilius and Rabelais. It was used often by Dante,
Ariosto, and Milton. Seneca, Lucan, and Calderon found it of great
value. But probably the most memorable effect appeared in the work of
Shakespeare.
The tales of Medea in Colchis, of Aurora, and of Procris attracted
a number of modern painters. The tale of Procris was the earliest theme
of Russian opera.
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? BOOK EIGHT
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? CONTENTS OF BOOK EIGHT
PAGE
King Minos and Scylla . . . . . . . . 157
The Minotaur and Ariadne . . . . . . 168
Icarus and Perdix . . . . . . . . 178
Meleager and Atalanta . . . . . . . . 184
The Echinades and Perimele . . . . . . . 198
Philemon and Baucis . . . . . . . . . 200
Proteus . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Erysichthon . . . . . . . . . . 211
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