Propertius
alluded to the death of Pelias in Medea's caldron.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
And her keen gaze noted successively many other
prominent geographical features of the country.
Directly beneath the car lay the expanse of the landlocked Pagas-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
aean Gulf, with Iolcus crowded into a small area at its northern ex-
tremity. Immediately behind the town rose Mt. Pelion, first of a chain
of mountains, which ran northwards along the coast. Conspicuous
among these, appeared Mt. Ossa, with Lake Boebais glimmering to the
westward at its base. Still farther to the north, beyond the River Peneus
and the Vale of Tempe, Mt. Olympus rose from the sea and with its
snowy summit marked the limit of her view. Other mountains almost as
lofty, extended from Olympus westwards and met at right angles with
yet another lofty range. This range, culminating in Mt. Pindus, ran
southwards, the rugged sides dark with forests, the peaks and ridges
bare and gleaming pale in the moon light. So it continued the entire
length of Thessaly, dividing it from the more western region of Epirus.
A lower range, reaching its height in the peaks of Tymphrestus and
Othrys, ran from the Pindus mountains eastward nearly to the Pagas-
aean Gulf and formed the southern border of the country.
The chief rivers were visible also, their course indicated by the
unusual darkness of the valley and by heavy vegetation. Many of them
began in the general region of Mt. Othrys, near the southern limits of
Thessaly, and all of them flowed in a northerly direction. Rising on the
slopes of Mt. Othrys, the Apidanus and the Enipeus ran northwest-
ward, met in the inland plain of Thessaly, and then continued north-
wards to join the Peneus. The Amphrysius, rising a little to the east of
the others, found a different course northeastwards along the foot of the
Othrys Range and entered the gulf not far from Iolcus. From her lofty
vantage point Medea could even look southward over the crests of the
Othrys Range and observe the course of the River Spercheus, from its
beginning in the ravines of Tymphrestus eastwards until it entered the
narrow Malian Gulf.
All these places Ovid named, but he did not give them in orderly
succession. He appears rather to have sought a studied disorder.
Although Medea's practised eye noted immediately the regions of great-
est promise, her materials were rare and difficult to find. It was neces-
sary to fly back and forth, this way and that, and to scrutinize every
locality again and again. This idea Ovid probably wished to convey.
Although Medea was later to use animal and mineral ingredients, Ovid
indicated that her present quest was wholly for herbs. Some of these,
he said, she pulled up by their roots, others she cut with a sickle. And,
since Vergil had spoken of the Massylian priestess as using a sickle of
bronze, Ovid followed him here and was to do so again in the Fasti.
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? AESON REJUVENATED
Medea gave much attention to grasses, searching every moist region of
Thessaly. She even made a long flight southeastwards to the Boeotian
shore and plucked at Anthedon a species of grass which later was famous
for the transformation of Glaucus into a sea god (Bk. 13).
The search continued through nine days and nights -- three times
the propitious number three. Then Medea returned and alighted in the
open country near Iolcus. As she did so, the herbs gave evidence of their
power. According to ancient belief, the serpent is able by casting his
skin to renew his youth. The mere scent of Medea's herbs, Ovid tells us,
was potent enough to rejuvenate her dragons. As they alighted, they
began to cast their skins, wrinkled with the passage of many years.
As Ovid recorded the subsequent actions of Medea, he seems to have
been influenced by the spring rites of the Bacchanals. Medea was careful
to remain in the open air and to observe chastity during the time of
preparation; and, although she was willing herself to give Jason and
others the necessary instructions, she allowed no one to be present at
the rites of rejuvenation. Tradition had not indicated that these rites
were secret in the case of Aeson, and it had indicated the contrary in the
case of Pelias, for they were witnessed by his daughters. By this inno-
vation Ovid not only made the stories different from each other but
enhanced the picturesqueness of the rites in behalf of Aeson.
Medea propitiated first Hecate and Hebe, goddess of youth. To
each of them she erected an altar of turf, adorning it with boughs from
the forest. These goddesses were to exert their influence for restoring
Aeson's youth. Then she propitiated the divinities of Earth and the
Lower World. She did this by offerings which ancient tradition had pre-
scribed for attracting the dead. In the Odyssey, Ulysses dug a pit and
killed sheep, at least one of which was black, allowing their blood to flow
into the pit. In Horace's Satire the witches made a similar offering of a
black ram. The Odyssey added that Ulysses afterwards poured into the
pit wine and other ingredients. Ovid said therefore that Medea dug a
pit, killed over it a black sheep, and then poured in bowls of wine and
of warm milk. Meanwhile in prayers to Pluto, Proserpina, and the rest,
she urged these divinities to defer their claim on Aeson's life.
Having obtained the favor of the gods, Medea commanded that
Aeson should be carried out and laid on a bed of herbs. Lulling him
magically to sleep, she loosened her hair in the manner of a Bacchante.
In advance she had prepared a considerable amount of wood, which was
split into very small, inflammable pieces. These she dipped in the blood
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
of the sheep and afterwards kindled at the fire on the altar. Then she
purified the old man successively with fire, water, and sulphur, perform-
ing each rite three times.
Before commencing these rites over Aeson's body, Medea had
kindled a fire and had set over it a caldron, containing powerful ingre-
dients. These now were boiling vigorously. Already they included a
great variety of Thessalian plants --- their roots, seeds, flowers, and
keen juices. But, as they foamed and leaped up with the heat, Medea
added more wonderful materials. Some of these were remarkable for
their distant origin. In Vergil's Eighth Eclogue the enchanter used
herbs brought from remote Pontus, and Horace's Canidia used herbs
gathered in Thessaly and Spain. But Medea introduced materials ob-
tained at a much more astonishing distance -- pebbles found in the
farthest Orient and sands gathered on the beach of that Ocean which
formed the eastern limit of the world.
Other materials were distinguished by their strange, uncanny na-
ture. Sophocles in the Root Cutters had spoken of collecting hoar frost
which came down as dew from the moon. Such frost Medea combined
with the other ingredients of her caldron. Horace had mentioned Cani-
dia's using eggs and feathers of the screech owl, and Vergil had spoken
of a sorcerer Moeris who could change himself at will from a human
being to a wolf. Portions of both these ghastly creatures were intro-
duced by Medea. She added the wings and flesh of the screech owl and
the entrails of the eerie werewolf.
Still other materials were not only strange in nature but were ob-
viously appropriate for helping rejuvenation. Medea used the skin of a
Tripolitan water snake -- symbol of its perennial youth, the liver of a
stag-- a creature supposed to enjoy extraordinary longevity*, and the
head of a crow nine centuries old. To increase the uncanny effect Ovid
reminded his readers that Medea was no ordinary enchantress but a bar-
barian woman from unfamiliar regions of Asia.
Ovid invented two incidental metamorphoses that added much to
the interest of the tale. When at last the strange mixture was complete,
Medea stirred it thoroughly. For this purpose she chose an olive branch
which long ago had withered to a dry stick. As it moved about in the
rejuvenating liquid, the stick suddenly revived and soon put forth leaves
and fruit. Meanwhile the caldron boiled over from time to time and
*Th;s id"T Ovid had mentioned, with unconscious irony, during the transformation
of Actaeon (Bk. 3).
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? AESON REJUVENATED
clothed the dry ground beneath with the soft grass and flowers of spring.
Aware that her magic fluid was ready, Medea cut the throat of
Aeson and let out his aged blood. Then she applied the contents of the
caldron. Ovid's authority had not indicated how she applied it, and per-
haps for this reason, Ovid left the reader in doubt whether she immersed
Aeson in the liquid or poured it over him. In the tale immediately fol-
lowing, Ovid was to say clearly that Medea plunged the body of Pelias
into the caldron. The mixture, Ovid continued, entered both Aeson's
mouth and the wound in his throat; it coursed through his veins and
began quickly to remove every sign of age. Ovid pictured the transfor-
mation vividly and in considerable detail. According to Ovid's Greek
predecessor, Aeson changed into a boy. But Ovid did not carry the
process so far. Aeson, he said, became the black bearded young man that
he used to be forty years earlier.
This marvellous achievement was followed by another. In the
Nurses of Bacchus, Aeschylus had told how the god rewarded the nymphs
of Nysa by persuading Medea to restore them, and also their husbands,
to youth. The Alexandrian preface to the Medea of Euripides repeated
this tale briefly but did not relate it to the tale of Aeson. Ovid associated
the two events. Impressed by the rejuvenation of Jason's father, Bacchus
persuaded Medea to rejuvenate the nurses. Although this achievement
affected several persons and therefore was the more remarkable, it was
in nature the same as the other and so Ovid recounted it as briefly as
possible, not mentioning the husbands.
In the century following Ovid's death, magic continued to be a
theme of great interest for the Romans. Seneca treated it elaborately in
his Medea, and Lucan gave it extraordinary prominence in his Pharsalia.
Both poets took many of the details from Ovid's account of Medea and
Aeson.
Authors of the Renaissance displayed similar interest in the tale.
Erasmus noted that Folly would make it needless to invoke Medea or
Circe for restoring youth. Ariosto, recalling Ovid, spoke of the witch
Melissa as able to move the solid earth, check the course of the sun,
illumine night, and darken the day. He attributed similar powers to a
naiad who was supposed to have befriended Ricciardetto.
Shakespeare found Ovid's tale of great interest. In The Merchant
of Venice Jessica compared the moonlit night at Belmont to the night
when
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Medea gathered the enchanted herbs
That did renew old Aeson.
In A Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare described Hecate as triple.
Both in King Lear and in Macbeth he spoke of her as presiding over
night and witches. In Hamlet the poison used against the Player King
was composed
Of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected.
Prospero in The Tempest described Caliban's mother as a witch
That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs.
And Prospero himself in a long, beautiful passage emulated Medea's in-
vocation of the terrestrial deities and her account of the marvels which
they helped her perform. The famous witch scenes of Macbeth owed
much to the Ovidian account of Medea's rites about her caldron. Shake-
speare spoke of gathering a vaporous drop on the moon, even before it
should fall to earth; he mentioned repeatedly the threefold rites per-
formed by the witches ; he showed them uttering incantations about their
caldron; and he told how they added to their mixture a long series of
strange, ghastly ingredients.
Milton too gave evidence of his fondness for the tale of Aeson. In a
Latin elegy he declared the university beadle worthy to regain his youth
by Thessalian juices and to enjoy a life as long as that of Jason's father.
In Comus, Milton gave the name Haemony to the beneficial herb which
afforded protection from evil enchantment, Furies, and other malignant
influences. And Medea's dragon car appears to have suggested the idea
mentioned in II Penseroso that a similar car was used by the moon:
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke
Lightly o'er the accustomed oak.
Chateaubriand seemed to remember the weird ingredients of Medea's
caldron, for he showed the aged hero of his A tola comparing his long life
to that of the stag or the crow.
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? PELIAS AND MEDEA'S FLIGHT TO ATHENS
Pelias and Medea's Flight to Athens
In the tale of Aeson, Ovid treated a popular belief that by judicious
use of fire it is possible to make an old man young. In the story which
followed, Ovid was concerned with an idea related so closely to belief in
rejuvenation by fire that many popular tales deal first with one and then
with the other.
The European folk stories which tell how Christ or Satan restored
an old person by treating him either in a forge or in a caldron, tell often
how some bungler tried later to imitate the magic process but was un-
successful. Other popular tales record how the magician himself first
rejuvenated some old person but later was urged to perform another
miracle for the benefit of someone with whom he was displeased, and how
he intentionally failed. According to the Shans of Lakon in Cambodia,
the decrepit old prince was not content with his transformation to a
beau but insisted on a repetition of the treatment, hoping in this way to
become still more attractive. The magician, angered at his persistence,
again cut him to pieces and laid him in a caldron but did not apply the
magic process. In still other popular tales the magician first gave a
demonstration of his power by rejuvenating an animal. According to
another Cambodian myth, a Brahmin restored a dog and then tried the
experiment, unsuccessfully, with a human being.
Greek tradition recorded a similar myth about the wicked King
Pelias. The tale ran usually as follows. Not content with usurping the
throne of Iolcus and sending Jason in quest of the Fleece, Pelias re-
solved to kill his brother, Aeson. The latter, feeling that he could not
escape, drank poison. His wife committed suicide, and Pelias murdered
their infant son, Promachus. When Jason returned from Colchis, he at
first was unable to punish the crime. He delivered the Fleece to Pelias,
dedicated the Argo in Neptune's grove at Corinth, and settled once more
in Iolcus. Then he appealed for aid to Medea. She took advantage of
the fact that Pelias had become old and feeble. Informing his daughters
that it was possible to restore his youth, she won their confidence by a
demonstration with a ram. She cut the animal to pieces, boiled it in her
caldron of herbs, and metamorphosed it into a lamb. By her advice the
daughters minced and boiled their father. But this time the caldron
held nothing but ordinary water. Acastus, son of Pelias, tried to punish
Jason and Medea, but they escaped by fleeing to Corinth.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Pindar alluded to the tale, Sophocles treated it in his Root Cutters,
and Euripides made it the theme of his Daughters of Pelias and men-
tioned it prominently in his Medea. The Manual told the tale in full,
naming four daughters of the king. Greek vase painters imagined that
Medea persuaded Pelias, as well as his daughters. They showed the king
and two of the princesses looking on with surprise and joy, while Medea
brought forth a lamb from her caldron.
Among earlier Roman authors the story appears to have been well
known. In Cicero's dialogue On Old Age, Cato declared that he would
not be tempted by such a boon as Medea promised to confer on Pelias.
He would not desire to regain youth by sacrificing all the experience of a
long life.
Propertius alluded to the death of Pelias in Medea's caldron.
And Ovid in his Epistle of Medea spoke of the daughters cutting their
father to pieces.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid rejected the first part of the story.
With the Theogony and the Returns he imagined that, when Jason re-
visited Iolcus, Aeson was still alive. Pelias suffered not for the murder
but for his earlier acts of hostility. Ovid said nothing of Jason's inciting
his wife against Pelias. According to the Medea of Euripides, Jason
took no part in the treacherous murder, but he knew Medea's purpose
and was willing to profit by the crime. He would not play false and yet
would wrongly win. Following Euripides, Ovid implied that Medea took
the initiative and that Jason was careful not to interfere.
For the deception of Pelias's daughters, Ovid elaborated and im-
proved the incidents given by the Manual. Medea, he said, pretended to
quarrel with Jason and took refuge in the palace of the king. Because
of age and infirmity, Pelias had left the management of his household to
his children, and Ovid, following the Manual, implied that Acastus hap-
pened to be absent, leaving the four daughters in charge. Deceived by
Medea's pretense, they entertained her hospitably and gave her a chance
to continue her plot. According to the Manual, Medea had offered to
rejuvenate the king. Ovid supposed that she was more cautious and
allowed the suggestion to come from the daughters. Beginning with the
idea of rejuvenation in general, she proceeded to tell at some length of
her recent success with Aeson. The daughters then urged her to confer
a similar blessing on Pelias and offered to give any reward that she might
ask. Still careful to disarm suspicion, Medea hesitated for a while and
then offered to give a preliminary demonstration with a ram. Let them
choose the oldest of their flock.
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? PELIAS AND MEDEA'S FLIGHT TO ATHENS
Since Ovid had told in the previous story of Medea's collecting
herbs and of her incantations, he proceeded immediately to the treat-
ment of the animal. The tottering old ram was brought to the caldron.
As before in the case of Aeson, Medea did not cut the body to pieces but
merely severed the throat. This gave Ovid another chance to indicate
the senility of the ram. Vergil in the Georgics had observed that animals
exhausted by the plague would hardly stain the sacrificial knife with their
blood. To such a pass, Ovid continued, age alone had brought this feeble
ram. Yet the potent herbs soon had their effect. Ovid pictured the result
and told humorously of the lamb which jumped out of the caldron and
frisked about in search of his mother. The daughters now were even more
eager to have Medea undertake the rejuvenation of their father.
For the circumstances of the king's death Ovid probably took
suggestions from the Root Cutters of Sophocles. Without warning the
father of their intent, the daughters made their plans. They waited three
days -- a magic number. On the night following, Medea prepared her
caldron. Tradition had spoken of her as using merely water. Ovid
imagined plausibly that she added some herbs without potency. Then
magically she lulled Pelias and his guards to sleep.
At Medea's bidding, the daughters gathered with drawn swords
about their father's couch. By this extraordinary method they felt sure
of delivering their loved father from infirmity and approaching death.
Yet they hesitated, reluctant to strike. Medea was obliged to urge them
on. In the name of filial piety she besought them to let out their father's
exhausted blood and to drive away his grievous old age. The more dutiful
they were, the more quickly they would respond to such an appeal. Ovid
noted the tragic fact but unwisely diverted the reader's attention with
an ill-timed play on words. As each is filial, he said, she is the first to be
unfilial, and in order to avoid being criminal she commits the crime. Even
so, the girls could not bear to see their father bleed. They turned away
and struck blindly with their swords.
Although old Pelias had been lulled to sleep, he wakened with the
pain and found his own daughters mangling him with their bloody swords.
He tried feebly to rise and cried out at their unnatural cruelty. Ovid
softened the traditional horror of the catastrophe. The daughters, he
said, lost their courage and ceased. It was Medea who killed old Pelias
and plunged his body into the caldron.
Ovid already had made it clear that for Pelias there was no recov-
ery. He passed at once to the events which followed. Having said noth-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
ing of Acastus, Ovid did not introduce him as the one who tried to punish
Medea. He probably assumed that his readers were acquainted with the
circumstance, but in any case they might well infer a similar attempt by
the daughters. To avoid punishment, he continued, Medea fled at once,
and he added that she was obliged to use her dragon car. According to
the Medea of Euripides and the Manual, Jason accompanied his wife.
Ovid implied that he escaped later. Since Ovid had allowed the reader to
imagine that Aeson was still residing with Jason and was now enjoying
a second youth, it would appear necessary to indicate whether he too
escaped the wrath of the pursuers. But the ordinary tradition had
spoken of him as having fallen victim to Pelias. With this idea in mind,
Ovid forgot to make allowance for his own innovation.
The Phoenicians, who appear originally to have occupied the site of
Corinth, had worshipped a goddess named Medea. The Greeks who fol-
lowed them associated this older worship with Juno and identified the
Phoenician goddess, Medea, with the Colchian princess, Medea. In the
opinion of the early poets, Epimenides and Eumelus, Medea's father,
Aeetes, had been at first a ruler of Corinth and later had migrated to
Aea. When Jason and his wife left Iolcus, tradition noted their going
to Medea's ancestral kingdom of Corinth. The author of an early epic,
The Taking of Oeclialia, alluded to this belief, adding that Creon was
then ruler of the city. Subsequent authors followed his example.
Ovid observed accordingly that Medea left Iolcus in her dragon car
and flew in a southeasterly direction to Corinth. As before in the tale of
Aeson, he imagined that she soared high in air and was able to observe
below her an immense area of land and sea. This area included many
places famous for mythological events. Ovid saw a chance to mention a
number of tales which otherwise would not enter readily into his plan;
and he seized it, with less regard than usual either for consistent geogra-
phy or for his own established sequence of time. He alluded briefly to
seventeen myths, almost all of them taken from little known Alexandrian
poets. Six of these we know only from him.
Rising from Iolcus, Medea ascended above the summit of Mt. Pelion,
which had been famous as the residence of Chiron. Then, turning in the
direction of Corinth, she flew over Mt. Othrys, which had witnessed
the transformation of Cerambus into a beetle. According to Nicander,
Cerambus offended the local nymphs and was punished by metamor-
phosis. Ovid imagined rather that they desired to save him from the
flood of Deucalion's time (Bk. 1).
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? PELIAS AND MEDEA'S FLIGHT TO ATHENS
As Medea continued her flight, the coast of Asia appeared at a
great distance to her left. Ovid called attention first to the northern
part and proceeded to note places which had heen the scene of strange
events. At the Phrygian seaport of Pitane a huge snake had been turned
into stone. This was a snake petrified for trying to devour the head of
the singer Orpheus. But later, when Ovid told the story, he localized the
event at Methymna on the neighboring island of Lesbos (Bk. 11).
A little north of Pitane stood a grove on Mt. Ida. Here a son of
Bacchus had stolen a bullock, and Bacchus had concealed the theft by
transforming the animal into a stag. The same region was destined to
include the grave of Paris, who caused the Trojan War (Bk. 12) and
perished by an arrow of Philoctetes. In his youth, Paris was said to have
courted the nymph Oenone and to have become the father of Corythus.
Ovid gave him this obscure title, adding that his grave was distinguished
by a little heap of sand. In the fields near Mt. Ida a certain Maera had
become a dog. Ovid did not tell the story because he intended later to
recount a similar, but more interesting transformation of Hecuba (Bk.
Much farther south from Mt. Ida and Pitane, there were visible the
shores of Caria and the island of Cos. In this island, Hercules, when he
returned from his capture of Troy (Bk. 11), was mistaken for a pirate
and was attacked by the inhabitants. Their king, Eurypylus, fell in
battle, and their women were transformed into cows. A little south of
Cos lay the island of Rhodes, beloved of the Sun (See Leucothoe, Bk. 4).
There Ialysus and other cities were reputed to have been founded by the
Telchins. These were skilled workers in metal, but they were suspected
of causing evil by the glance of their eyes. For this reason, said Nican-
der, Jove changed them into denizens of the sea.
All these places were visible far to the left of Medea's course. To
the left also but much nearer, lay the island of Cea, just east of Attica.
From her lofty position Medea could look down on it and distinguish the
walls of Carthaea. In this town Alcidamas was to behold the transfor-
mation of his daughter, Ctesylla. According to Nicander, the gods took
her life because her father promised her in marriage to a certain youth
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
and then broke his promise, but at the funeral they metamorphosed the
girl's body into a dove. *
To the right of Medea's course other places were discernible, which
had been the scene of remarkable events. One of them was an Aetolian
lake, gleaming among the hills just north of the Corinthian Gulf. Ac-
cording to Nicander, this lake originally was named Conope, and it was
noted for the following story. Cycnus, a child of Apollo, and his mother,
Hyrie, lived among the neighboring hills. Cycnus, who possessed excep-
tional beauty, was courted by many suitors but repelled them with rude
indifference. A certain Phyllius persisted longer than the others but
finally abandoned the courtship. Cycnus then despaired and resolved to
kill himself. In all this the myth resembled a number of Alexandrian
tales of persons who repelled their lovers cruelly, and it resembled espe-
cially the Alexandrian accounts of Narcissus (cf. Bk. 3). But in two
respects the tale of Cycnus was different. Cycnus kept putting off
Phyllius by imposing a series of difficult tasks. At his command Phyllius
brought him first a lion, then some formidable vultures, then a savage
bull. And the denouement was unusual. Cycnus plunged into the lake
Conope; his mother, grief-stricken, followed his example; and Apollo
saved their lives by transforming them into swans. Because of this event
the name of the water afterwards was changed to Swan Lake.
Ovid, retelling the tale, confined himself to the parts which were
unusual, and he considerably improved it. He made more plausible the
boy's attempted suicide. Displeased at the continued evasion of Cycnus,
he said, Phyllius withheld the bull, and Cycnus acted in a fit of sudden
resentment. Ovid gave the mother a different transformation, suggested
probably by that of the nymph Cyane (Bk. 5). Cycnus, he said, leaped
over a cliff. His mother, believing that he had perished, lamented until
she dissolved into a lake. And the name of this lake Ovid altered to
Hyrie, in harmony with the new event.
The idea that Phyllius might capture a wild Aetolian lion was by
no means improbable. During early prehistoric times lions were common
*The youth, whose name was Hermochares, first won Diana's assistance by the
following means. He wrote on an apple the oath, "I swear by Diana that I will marry
no one but Hermochares"; and left the fruit on an altar of the goddess. Ctesylla,
finding the apple, read the oath aloud and was regarded as under obligation to fulfill
it. Hermochares afterwards approached Alcidamas and obtained his promise, sanc-
tioned with an oath by Apollo. In the version of Nicander, these events occurred at
Carthaea, but the death and transformation took place either at the neighboring town
of Iulis or at Athens. Ovid, simplifying the account, imagined all the events as hap-
pening at Carthaea. He may have dismissed the tale briefly, because in the Heroides
he already had told a similar, but more attractive story of Acontius and Cydippe.
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? PELIAS AND MEDEA'S FLIGHT TO ATHENS
in many parts of southern Europe. During the Heroic Age they prob-
ably were to be found at least occasionally in all parts of Greece, for in
the southern district of Argolis tradition localized the adventure of
Hercules with the Nemean lion (cf. Bk. 9). And as late as the fifth cen-
tury B. C. , Herodotus tells us, they still were abundant in Macedonia
and northern Greece, including the whole region of Aetolia, and the lions
of Macedonia made havoc among the camels which bore supplies for the
great army of Xerxes. Although Cycnus lived in Aetolia, Ovid spoke of
his leaping into a vale of Tempe because the name Tempe was trans-
ferred from the Thessalian vale to other valleys of similar nature.
Not far from the lake of Hyrie, Medea could see the village of
Pleuron. There lived at one time Combe, mother of the Aetolian Curetes.
For some reason the Curetes tried to kill their mother, and she escaped
them by transformation into a bird.
Medea now was approaching the Isthmus of Corinth, a narrow,
dark strip of land dividing the luminous waters of the Corinthian Gulf
on the west from those of the Saronic Gulf on the east. Near the head of
the Saronic Gulf she could see plainly the fertile island of Calaurea,
where once a king and queen were metamorphosed into birds. Much
farther ahead and a little to the right, Medea could discern the white
peak of Mt. Cyllene in southern Greece. Within the shadow of this moun-
tain a certain Menephron afterwards committed incest with his mother.
Ovid described the guilty pair as acting in the manner of wild beasts. He
may have alluded to a mistaken idea that such animals are in the habit
of breeding with their near kindred. But probably he referred to a tra-
dition that Menephron and his mother had been transformed into wild
beasts.
prominent geographical features of the country.
Directly beneath the car lay the expanse of the landlocked Pagas-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
aean Gulf, with Iolcus crowded into a small area at its northern ex-
tremity. Immediately behind the town rose Mt. Pelion, first of a chain
of mountains, which ran northwards along the coast. Conspicuous
among these, appeared Mt. Ossa, with Lake Boebais glimmering to the
westward at its base. Still farther to the north, beyond the River Peneus
and the Vale of Tempe, Mt. Olympus rose from the sea and with its
snowy summit marked the limit of her view. Other mountains almost as
lofty, extended from Olympus westwards and met at right angles with
yet another lofty range. This range, culminating in Mt. Pindus, ran
southwards, the rugged sides dark with forests, the peaks and ridges
bare and gleaming pale in the moon light. So it continued the entire
length of Thessaly, dividing it from the more western region of Epirus.
A lower range, reaching its height in the peaks of Tymphrestus and
Othrys, ran from the Pindus mountains eastward nearly to the Pagas-
aean Gulf and formed the southern border of the country.
The chief rivers were visible also, their course indicated by the
unusual darkness of the valley and by heavy vegetation. Many of them
began in the general region of Mt. Othrys, near the southern limits of
Thessaly, and all of them flowed in a northerly direction. Rising on the
slopes of Mt. Othrys, the Apidanus and the Enipeus ran northwest-
ward, met in the inland plain of Thessaly, and then continued north-
wards to join the Peneus. The Amphrysius, rising a little to the east of
the others, found a different course northeastwards along the foot of the
Othrys Range and entered the gulf not far from Iolcus. From her lofty
vantage point Medea could even look southward over the crests of the
Othrys Range and observe the course of the River Spercheus, from its
beginning in the ravines of Tymphrestus eastwards until it entered the
narrow Malian Gulf.
All these places Ovid named, but he did not give them in orderly
succession. He appears rather to have sought a studied disorder.
Although Medea's practised eye noted immediately the regions of great-
est promise, her materials were rare and difficult to find. It was neces-
sary to fly back and forth, this way and that, and to scrutinize every
locality again and again. This idea Ovid probably wished to convey.
Although Medea was later to use animal and mineral ingredients, Ovid
indicated that her present quest was wholly for herbs. Some of these,
he said, she pulled up by their roots, others she cut with a sickle. And,
since Vergil had spoken of the Massylian priestess as using a sickle of
bronze, Ovid followed him here and was to do so again in the Fasti.
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? AESON REJUVENATED
Medea gave much attention to grasses, searching every moist region of
Thessaly. She even made a long flight southeastwards to the Boeotian
shore and plucked at Anthedon a species of grass which later was famous
for the transformation of Glaucus into a sea god (Bk. 13).
The search continued through nine days and nights -- three times
the propitious number three. Then Medea returned and alighted in the
open country near Iolcus. As she did so, the herbs gave evidence of their
power. According to ancient belief, the serpent is able by casting his
skin to renew his youth. The mere scent of Medea's herbs, Ovid tells us,
was potent enough to rejuvenate her dragons. As they alighted, they
began to cast their skins, wrinkled with the passage of many years.
As Ovid recorded the subsequent actions of Medea, he seems to have
been influenced by the spring rites of the Bacchanals. Medea was careful
to remain in the open air and to observe chastity during the time of
preparation; and, although she was willing herself to give Jason and
others the necessary instructions, she allowed no one to be present at
the rites of rejuvenation. Tradition had not indicated that these rites
were secret in the case of Aeson, and it had indicated the contrary in the
case of Pelias, for they were witnessed by his daughters. By this inno-
vation Ovid not only made the stories different from each other but
enhanced the picturesqueness of the rites in behalf of Aeson.
Medea propitiated first Hecate and Hebe, goddess of youth. To
each of them she erected an altar of turf, adorning it with boughs from
the forest. These goddesses were to exert their influence for restoring
Aeson's youth. Then she propitiated the divinities of Earth and the
Lower World. She did this by offerings which ancient tradition had pre-
scribed for attracting the dead. In the Odyssey, Ulysses dug a pit and
killed sheep, at least one of which was black, allowing their blood to flow
into the pit. In Horace's Satire the witches made a similar offering of a
black ram. The Odyssey added that Ulysses afterwards poured into the
pit wine and other ingredients. Ovid said therefore that Medea dug a
pit, killed over it a black sheep, and then poured in bowls of wine and
of warm milk. Meanwhile in prayers to Pluto, Proserpina, and the rest,
she urged these divinities to defer their claim on Aeson's life.
Having obtained the favor of the gods, Medea commanded that
Aeson should be carried out and laid on a bed of herbs. Lulling him
magically to sleep, she loosened her hair in the manner of a Bacchante.
In advance she had prepared a considerable amount of wood, which was
split into very small, inflammable pieces. These she dipped in the blood
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
of the sheep and afterwards kindled at the fire on the altar. Then she
purified the old man successively with fire, water, and sulphur, perform-
ing each rite three times.
Before commencing these rites over Aeson's body, Medea had
kindled a fire and had set over it a caldron, containing powerful ingre-
dients. These now were boiling vigorously. Already they included a
great variety of Thessalian plants --- their roots, seeds, flowers, and
keen juices. But, as they foamed and leaped up with the heat, Medea
added more wonderful materials. Some of these were remarkable for
their distant origin. In Vergil's Eighth Eclogue the enchanter used
herbs brought from remote Pontus, and Horace's Canidia used herbs
gathered in Thessaly and Spain. But Medea introduced materials ob-
tained at a much more astonishing distance -- pebbles found in the
farthest Orient and sands gathered on the beach of that Ocean which
formed the eastern limit of the world.
Other materials were distinguished by their strange, uncanny na-
ture. Sophocles in the Root Cutters had spoken of collecting hoar frost
which came down as dew from the moon. Such frost Medea combined
with the other ingredients of her caldron. Horace had mentioned Cani-
dia's using eggs and feathers of the screech owl, and Vergil had spoken
of a sorcerer Moeris who could change himself at will from a human
being to a wolf. Portions of both these ghastly creatures were intro-
duced by Medea. She added the wings and flesh of the screech owl and
the entrails of the eerie werewolf.
Still other materials were not only strange in nature but were ob-
viously appropriate for helping rejuvenation. Medea used the skin of a
Tripolitan water snake -- symbol of its perennial youth, the liver of a
stag-- a creature supposed to enjoy extraordinary longevity*, and the
head of a crow nine centuries old. To increase the uncanny effect Ovid
reminded his readers that Medea was no ordinary enchantress but a bar-
barian woman from unfamiliar regions of Asia.
Ovid invented two incidental metamorphoses that added much to
the interest of the tale. When at last the strange mixture was complete,
Medea stirred it thoroughly. For this purpose she chose an olive branch
which long ago had withered to a dry stick. As it moved about in the
rejuvenating liquid, the stick suddenly revived and soon put forth leaves
and fruit. Meanwhile the caldron boiled over from time to time and
*Th;s id"T Ovid had mentioned, with unconscious irony, during the transformation
of Actaeon (Bk. 3).
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? AESON REJUVENATED
clothed the dry ground beneath with the soft grass and flowers of spring.
Aware that her magic fluid was ready, Medea cut the throat of
Aeson and let out his aged blood. Then she applied the contents of the
caldron. Ovid's authority had not indicated how she applied it, and per-
haps for this reason, Ovid left the reader in doubt whether she immersed
Aeson in the liquid or poured it over him. In the tale immediately fol-
lowing, Ovid was to say clearly that Medea plunged the body of Pelias
into the caldron. The mixture, Ovid continued, entered both Aeson's
mouth and the wound in his throat; it coursed through his veins and
began quickly to remove every sign of age. Ovid pictured the transfor-
mation vividly and in considerable detail. According to Ovid's Greek
predecessor, Aeson changed into a boy. But Ovid did not carry the
process so far. Aeson, he said, became the black bearded young man that
he used to be forty years earlier.
This marvellous achievement was followed by another. In the
Nurses of Bacchus, Aeschylus had told how the god rewarded the nymphs
of Nysa by persuading Medea to restore them, and also their husbands,
to youth. The Alexandrian preface to the Medea of Euripides repeated
this tale briefly but did not relate it to the tale of Aeson. Ovid associated
the two events. Impressed by the rejuvenation of Jason's father, Bacchus
persuaded Medea to rejuvenate the nurses. Although this achievement
affected several persons and therefore was the more remarkable, it was
in nature the same as the other and so Ovid recounted it as briefly as
possible, not mentioning the husbands.
In the century following Ovid's death, magic continued to be a
theme of great interest for the Romans. Seneca treated it elaborately in
his Medea, and Lucan gave it extraordinary prominence in his Pharsalia.
Both poets took many of the details from Ovid's account of Medea and
Aeson.
Authors of the Renaissance displayed similar interest in the tale.
Erasmus noted that Folly would make it needless to invoke Medea or
Circe for restoring youth. Ariosto, recalling Ovid, spoke of the witch
Melissa as able to move the solid earth, check the course of the sun,
illumine night, and darken the day. He attributed similar powers to a
naiad who was supposed to have befriended Ricciardetto.
Shakespeare found Ovid's tale of great interest. In The Merchant
of Venice Jessica compared the moonlit night at Belmont to the night
when
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Medea gathered the enchanted herbs
That did renew old Aeson.
In A Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare described Hecate as triple.
Both in King Lear and in Macbeth he spoke of her as presiding over
night and witches. In Hamlet the poison used against the Player King
was composed
Of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected.
Prospero in The Tempest described Caliban's mother as a witch
That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs.
And Prospero himself in a long, beautiful passage emulated Medea's in-
vocation of the terrestrial deities and her account of the marvels which
they helped her perform. The famous witch scenes of Macbeth owed
much to the Ovidian account of Medea's rites about her caldron. Shake-
speare spoke of gathering a vaporous drop on the moon, even before it
should fall to earth; he mentioned repeatedly the threefold rites per-
formed by the witches ; he showed them uttering incantations about their
caldron; and he told how they added to their mixture a long series of
strange, ghastly ingredients.
Milton too gave evidence of his fondness for the tale of Aeson. In a
Latin elegy he declared the university beadle worthy to regain his youth
by Thessalian juices and to enjoy a life as long as that of Jason's father.
In Comus, Milton gave the name Haemony to the beneficial herb which
afforded protection from evil enchantment, Furies, and other malignant
influences. And Medea's dragon car appears to have suggested the idea
mentioned in II Penseroso that a similar car was used by the moon:
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke
Lightly o'er the accustomed oak.
Chateaubriand seemed to remember the weird ingredients of Medea's
caldron, for he showed the aged hero of his A tola comparing his long life
to that of the stag or the crow.
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? PELIAS AND MEDEA'S FLIGHT TO ATHENS
Pelias and Medea's Flight to Athens
In the tale of Aeson, Ovid treated a popular belief that by judicious
use of fire it is possible to make an old man young. In the story which
followed, Ovid was concerned with an idea related so closely to belief in
rejuvenation by fire that many popular tales deal first with one and then
with the other.
The European folk stories which tell how Christ or Satan restored
an old person by treating him either in a forge or in a caldron, tell often
how some bungler tried later to imitate the magic process but was un-
successful. Other popular tales record how the magician himself first
rejuvenated some old person but later was urged to perform another
miracle for the benefit of someone with whom he was displeased, and how
he intentionally failed. According to the Shans of Lakon in Cambodia,
the decrepit old prince was not content with his transformation to a
beau but insisted on a repetition of the treatment, hoping in this way to
become still more attractive. The magician, angered at his persistence,
again cut him to pieces and laid him in a caldron but did not apply the
magic process. In still other popular tales the magician first gave a
demonstration of his power by rejuvenating an animal. According to
another Cambodian myth, a Brahmin restored a dog and then tried the
experiment, unsuccessfully, with a human being.
Greek tradition recorded a similar myth about the wicked King
Pelias. The tale ran usually as follows. Not content with usurping the
throne of Iolcus and sending Jason in quest of the Fleece, Pelias re-
solved to kill his brother, Aeson. The latter, feeling that he could not
escape, drank poison. His wife committed suicide, and Pelias murdered
their infant son, Promachus. When Jason returned from Colchis, he at
first was unable to punish the crime. He delivered the Fleece to Pelias,
dedicated the Argo in Neptune's grove at Corinth, and settled once more
in Iolcus. Then he appealed for aid to Medea. She took advantage of
the fact that Pelias had become old and feeble. Informing his daughters
that it was possible to restore his youth, she won their confidence by a
demonstration with a ram. She cut the animal to pieces, boiled it in her
caldron of herbs, and metamorphosed it into a lamb. By her advice the
daughters minced and boiled their father. But this time the caldron
held nothing but ordinary water. Acastus, son of Pelias, tried to punish
Jason and Medea, but they escaped by fleeing to Corinth.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
Pindar alluded to the tale, Sophocles treated it in his Root Cutters,
and Euripides made it the theme of his Daughters of Pelias and men-
tioned it prominently in his Medea. The Manual told the tale in full,
naming four daughters of the king. Greek vase painters imagined that
Medea persuaded Pelias, as well as his daughters. They showed the king
and two of the princesses looking on with surprise and joy, while Medea
brought forth a lamb from her caldron.
Among earlier Roman authors the story appears to have been well
known. In Cicero's dialogue On Old Age, Cato declared that he would
not be tempted by such a boon as Medea promised to confer on Pelias.
He would not desire to regain youth by sacrificing all the experience of a
long life.
Propertius alluded to the death of Pelias in Medea's caldron.
And Ovid in his Epistle of Medea spoke of the daughters cutting their
father to pieces.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid rejected the first part of the story.
With the Theogony and the Returns he imagined that, when Jason re-
visited Iolcus, Aeson was still alive. Pelias suffered not for the murder
but for his earlier acts of hostility. Ovid said nothing of Jason's inciting
his wife against Pelias. According to the Medea of Euripides, Jason
took no part in the treacherous murder, but he knew Medea's purpose
and was willing to profit by the crime. He would not play false and yet
would wrongly win. Following Euripides, Ovid implied that Medea took
the initiative and that Jason was careful not to interfere.
For the deception of Pelias's daughters, Ovid elaborated and im-
proved the incidents given by the Manual. Medea, he said, pretended to
quarrel with Jason and took refuge in the palace of the king. Because
of age and infirmity, Pelias had left the management of his household to
his children, and Ovid, following the Manual, implied that Acastus hap-
pened to be absent, leaving the four daughters in charge. Deceived by
Medea's pretense, they entertained her hospitably and gave her a chance
to continue her plot. According to the Manual, Medea had offered to
rejuvenate the king. Ovid supposed that she was more cautious and
allowed the suggestion to come from the daughters. Beginning with the
idea of rejuvenation in general, she proceeded to tell at some length of
her recent success with Aeson. The daughters then urged her to confer
a similar blessing on Pelias and offered to give any reward that she might
ask. Still careful to disarm suspicion, Medea hesitated for a while and
then offered to give a preliminary demonstration with a ram. Let them
choose the oldest of their flock.
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? PELIAS AND MEDEA'S FLIGHT TO ATHENS
Since Ovid had told in the previous story of Medea's collecting
herbs and of her incantations, he proceeded immediately to the treat-
ment of the animal. The tottering old ram was brought to the caldron.
As before in the case of Aeson, Medea did not cut the body to pieces but
merely severed the throat. This gave Ovid another chance to indicate
the senility of the ram. Vergil in the Georgics had observed that animals
exhausted by the plague would hardly stain the sacrificial knife with their
blood. To such a pass, Ovid continued, age alone had brought this feeble
ram. Yet the potent herbs soon had their effect. Ovid pictured the result
and told humorously of the lamb which jumped out of the caldron and
frisked about in search of his mother. The daughters now were even more
eager to have Medea undertake the rejuvenation of their father.
For the circumstances of the king's death Ovid probably took
suggestions from the Root Cutters of Sophocles. Without warning the
father of their intent, the daughters made their plans. They waited three
days -- a magic number. On the night following, Medea prepared her
caldron. Tradition had spoken of her as using merely water. Ovid
imagined plausibly that she added some herbs without potency. Then
magically she lulled Pelias and his guards to sleep.
At Medea's bidding, the daughters gathered with drawn swords
about their father's couch. By this extraordinary method they felt sure
of delivering their loved father from infirmity and approaching death.
Yet they hesitated, reluctant to strike. Medea was obliged to urge them
on. In the name of filial piety she besought them to let out their father's
exhausted blood and to drive away his grievous old age. The more dutiful
they were, the more quickly they would respond to such an appeal. Ovid
noted the tragic fact but unwisely diverted the reader's attention with
an ill-timed play on words. As each is filial, he said, she is the first to be
unfilial, and in order to avoid being criminal she commits the crime. Even
so, the girls could not bear to see their father bleed. They turned away
and struck blindly with their swords.
Although old Pelias had been lulled to sleep, he wakened with the
pain and found his own daughters mangling him with their bloody swords.
He tried feebly to rise and cried out at their unnatural cruelty. Ovid
softened the traditional horror of the catastrophe. The daughters, he
said, lost their courage and ceased. It was Medea who killed old Pelias
and plunged his body into the caldron.
Ovid already had made it clear that for Pelias there was no recov-
ery. He passed at once to the events which followed. Having said noth-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
ing of Acastus, Ovid did not introduce him as the one who tried to punish
Medea. He probably assumed that his readers were acquainted with the
circumstance, but in any case they might well infer a similar attempt by
the daughters. To avoid punishment, he continued, Medea fled at once,
and he added that she was obliged to use her dragon car. According to
the Medea of Euripides and the Manual, Jason accompanied his wife.
Ovid implied that he escaped later. Since Ovid had allowed the reader to
imagine that Aeson was still residing with Jason and was now enjoying
a second youth, it would appear necessary to indicate whether he too
escaped the wrath of the pursuers. But the ordinary tradition had
spoken of him as having fallen victim to Pelias. With this idea in mind,
Ovid forgot to make allowance for his own innovation.
The Phoenicians, who appear originally to have occupied the site of
Corinth, had worshipped a goddess named Medea. The Greeks who fol-
lowed them associated this older worship with Juno and identified the
Phoenician goddess, Medea, with the Colchian princess, Medea. In the
opinion of the early poets, Epimenides and Eumelus, Medea's father,
Aeetes, had been at first a ruler of Corinth and later had migrated to
Aea. When Jason and his wife left Iolcus, tradition noted their going
to Medea's ancestral kingdom of Corinth. The author of an early epic,
The Taking of Oeclialia, alluded to this belief, adding that Creon was
then ruler of the city. Subsequent authors followed his example.
Ovid observed accordingly that Medea left Iolcus in her dragon car
and flew in a southeasterly direction to Corinth. As before in the tale of
Aeson, he imagined that she soared high in air and was able to observe
below her an immense area of land and sea. This area included many
places famous for mythological events. Ovid saw a chance to mention a
number of tales which otherwise would not enter readily into his plan;
and he seized it, with less regard than usual either for consistent geogra-
phy or for his own established sequence of time. He alluded briefly to
seventeen myths, almost all of them taken from little known Alexandrian
poets. Six of these we know only from him.
Rising from Iolcus, Medea ascended above the summit of Mt. Pelion,
which had been famous as the residence of Chiron. Then, turning in the
direction of Corinth, she flew over Mt. Othrys, which had witnessed
the transformation of Cerambus into a beetle. According to Nicander,
Cerambus offended the local nymphs and was punished by metamor-
phosis. Ovid imagined rather that they desired to save him from the
flood of Deucalion's time (Bk. 1).
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? PELIAS AND MEDEA'S FLIGHT TO ATHENS
As Medea continued her flight, the coast of Asia appeared at a
great distance to her left. Ovid called attention first to the northern
part and proceeded to note places which had heen the scene of strange
events. At the Phrygian seaport of Pitane a huge snake had been turned
into stone. This was a snake petrified for trying to devour the head of
the singer Orpheus. But later, when Ovid told the story, he localized the
event at Methymna on the neighboring island of Lesbos (Bk. 11).
A little north of Pitane stood a grove on Mt. Ida. Here a son of
Bacchus had stolen a bullock, and Bacchus had concealed the theft by
transforming the animal into a stag. The same region was destined to
include the grave of Paris, who caused the Trojan War (Bk. 12) and
perished by an arrow of Philoctetes. In his youth, Paris was said to have
courted the nymph Oenone and to have become the father of Corythus.
Ovid gave him this obscure title, adding that his grave was distinguished
by a little heap of sand. In the fields near Mt. Ida a certain Maera had
become a dog. Ovid did not tell the story because he intended later to
recount a similar, but more interesting transformation of Hecuba (Bk.
Much farther south from Mt. Ida and Pitane, there were visible the
shores of Caria and the island of Cos. In this island, Hercules, when he
returned from his capture of Troy (Bk. 11), was mistaken for a pirate
and was attacked by the inhabitants. Their king, Eurypylus, fell in
battle, and their women were transformed into cows. A little south of
Cos lay the island of Rhodes, beloved of the Sun (See Leucothoe, Bk. 4).
There Ialysus and other cities were reputed to have been founded by the
Telchins. These were skilled workers in metal, but they were suspected
of causing evil by the glance of their eyes. For this reason, said Nican-
der, Jove changed them into denizens of the sea.
All these places were visible far to the left of Medea's course. To
the left also but much nearer, lay the island of Cea, just east of Attica.
From her lofty position Medea could look down on it and distinguish the
walls of Carthaea. In this town Alcidamas was to behold the transfor-
mation of his daughter, Ctesylla. According to Nicander, the gods took
her life because her father promised her in marriage to a certain youth
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SEVEN
and then broke his promise, but at the funeral they metamorphosed the
girl's body into a dove. *
To the right of Medea's course other places were discernible, which
had been the scene of remarkable events. One of them was an Aetolian
lake, gleaming among the hills just north of the Corinthian Gulf. Ac-
cording to Nicander, this lake originally was named Conope, and it was
noted for the following story. Cycnus, a child of Apollo, and his mother,
Hyrie, lived among the neighboring hills. Cycnus, who possessed excep-
tional beauty, was courted by many suitors but repelled them with rude
indifference. A certain Phyllius persisted longer than the others but
finally abandoned the courtship. Cycnus then despaired and resolved to
kill himself. In all this the myth resembled a number of Alexandrian
tales of persons who repelled their lovers cruelly, and it resembled espe-
cially the Alexandrian accounts of Narcissus (cf. Bk. 3). But in two
respects the tale of Cycnus was different. Cycnus kept putting off
Phyllius by imposing a series of difficult tasks. At his command Phyllius
brought him first a lion, then some formidable vultures, then a savage
bull. And the denouement was unusual. Cycnus plunged into the lake
Conope; his mother, grief-stricken, followed his example; and Apollo
saved their lives by transforming them into swans. Because of this event
the name of the water afterwards was changed to Swan Lake.
Ovid, retelling the tale, confined himself to the parts which were
unusual, and he considerably improved it. He made more plausible the
boy's attempted suicide. Displeased at the continued evasion of Cycnus,
he said, Phyllius withheld the bull, and Cycnus acted in a fit of sudden
resentment. Ovid gave the mother a different transformation, suggested
probably by that of the nymph Cyane (Bk. 5). Cycnus, he said, leaped
over a cliff. His mother, believing that he had perished, lamented until
she dissolved into a lake. And the name of this lake Ovid altered to
Hyrie, in harmony with the new event.
The idea that Phyllius might capture a wild Aetolian lion was by
no means improbable. During early prehistoric times lions were common
*The youth, whose name was Hermochares, first won Diana's assistance by the
following means. He wrote on an apple the oath, "I swear by Diana that I will marry
no one but Hermochares"; and left the fruit on an altar of the goddess. Ctesylla,
finding the apple, read the oath aloud and was regarded as under obligation to fulfill
it. Hermochares afterwards approached Alcidamas and obtained his promise, sanc-
tioned with an oath by Apollo. In the version of Nicander, these events occurred at
Carthaea, but the death and transformation took place either at the neighboring town
of Iulis or at Athens. Ovid, simplifying the account, imagined all the events as hap-
pening at Carthaea. He may have dismissed the tale briefly, because in the Heroides
he already had told a similar, but more attractive story of Acontius and Cydippe.
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? PELIAS AND MEDEA'S FLIGHT TO ATHENS
in many parts of southern Europe. During the Heroic Age they prob-
ably were to be found at least occasionally in all parts of Greece, for in
the southern district of Argolis tradition localized the adventure of
Hercules with the Nemean lion (cf. Bk. 9). And as late as the fifth cen-
tury B. C. , Herodotus tells us, they still were abundant in Macedonia
and northern Greece, including the whole region of Aetolia, and the lions
of Macedonia made havoc among the camels which bore supplies for the
great army of Xerxes. Although Cycnus lived in Aetolia, Ovid spoke of
his leaping into a vale of Tempe because the name Tempe was trans-
ferred from the Thessalian vale to other valleys of similar nature.
Not far from the lake of Hyrie, Medea could see the village of
Pleuron. There lived at one time Combe, mother of the Aetolian Curetes.
For some reason the Curetes tried to kill their mother, and she escaped
them by transformation into a bird.
Medea now was approaching the Isthmus of Corinth, a narrow,
dark strip of land dividing the luminous waters of the Corinthian Gulf
on the west from those of the Saronic Gulf on the east. Near the head of
the Saronic Gulf she could see plainly the fertile island of Calaurea,
where once a king and queen were metamorphosed into birds. Much
farther ahead and a little to the right, Medea could discern the white
peak of Mt. Cyllene in southern Greece. Within the shadow of this moun-
tain a certain Menephron afterwards committed incest with his mother.
Ovid described the guilty pair as acting in the manner of wild beasts. He
may have alluded to a mistaken idea that such animals are in the habit
of breeding with their near kindred. But probably he referred to a tra-
dition that Menephron and his mother had been transformed into wild
beasts.
