In the tale of
Callisto
(Bk.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v1
Following the Egyptian custom, Ptolemy Philadelphus
introduced such marriage at Alexandria. Theocritus commemorated
the innovation. The majority of Greeks looked on it with horror.
But Greek mythology imagined in the past at least one case of mar-
riage among mortal brothers and sisters, for the Odyssey recorded
briefly that Aeolus married his sons to his daughters. This myth,
Euripides rejected in his tragedy of Canace. Yet the Greeks con-
tinued to associate the idea frequently with their gods. Since the
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
Theogony Saturn had been both husband and brother of Rhea, and
Oceanus had been husband and brother of Tethys. And since the Iliad
the double relation had been recorded of Jupiter and Juno. Vergil
made it famous in the Aeneid, and Ovid mentioned it frequently not
only in his Metamorphoses but in the Heroides and the Fasti. Re-
ligious conservatism maintained the tradition, justifying it on the
ground that the gods were an order of beings to whom human restric-
tions did not apply (cf. Byblis Bk. 9). Probably the defense would
have proved inadequate, if many of the educated had not either ceased
to take the old myths literally or come to regard them with indiffer-
ence.
The illicit love affairs of Jupiter were survivals from an ancient
institution of polygamy. Among the lower savages, a single wife has
been the rule. Where a few scattered families made a bare livelihood
by hunting or the crudest form of agriculture, no man was able to
maintain more. But with a stronger tribal organization, the chiefs
might profit in some measure by the efforts of the rest. And where
a people lived by raising large numbers of domestic animals or by
using them for agriculture, a number of men might have more than
the mere necessities of living. In such tribes, the majority of men
continued to have only a single wife, but the successful could have
more. This might protect the chief from the evils of having no son to
succeed him in the care and defense of his household. It would often
ally him with a number of prominent families and gave him the advan-
tage of help from a number of wives and children, and the advantage
would be great where he could expect aid only from his kin. And
where there were frequent wars and a high rate of infant mortality, it
would allow more women to marry and bear children who would save
the tribe from extinction. These and other reasons often made more
than one wife appear a benefit, not only for the chief but for the tribe
as a whole. Sometimes the number of wives was limited by law to two
or to four, but often it was unrestricted and might even reach several
hundred. Usually the first wife occupied a distinctly higher position
legally than the rest; but some tribes gave equal rights to all. In
tribes allowing polygamy, it was possible also for a man to have one
or more concubines, often slave women, who did not share all of the
rights accorded a wife but nevertheless were recognized and somewhat
protected by law. In Babylon, for example, a concubine who bore
children might not be sold to another master, and, if there were no
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? JUPITER AND 10
legitimate children, hers might inherit the father's property. Even in
tribes which forbade more than a single wife, concubines were some-
times recognized by law. And nearly all mythologies attributed either
polygamy or concubinage to the gods.
With the growth of civilization both polygamy and concubinage
tended to decline. Less danger and a lower death rate made a single
wife appear sufficient both for the family and the race. And a safer,
easier form of life made it possible for women to avoid a harem by
continuing unmarried. Polygamy occurred in the case of Charle-
magne and a few later Christian sovereigns and for a time among
the Anabaptists and a few other fanatical sects. In Oriental civiliza-
tions it lingered until recently and in the Mohammedan world it per-
sists, at least in theory, today. Concubinage survived longer than
polygamy in most countries and especially in royal and noble families
of Europe. '
During prehistoric times, the Greeks may have indulged in po-
lygamy. The Theogony recorded the names of six goddesses who pre-
ceded Juno as wives of Jupiter. This tradition probably was a
survival from a remote past. Even in Homeric times a Greek had only
one wife; but he might have also a number of concubines, who were
ordinarily women captured in war. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey
show this to have been the practice of the chief Greek heroes, notably
of Agamemnon and Ulysses. The same law applied to the gods. In
the Iliad Jupiter did not scruple to give Juno a long list of those
whom he had loved in the past, and Juno was content with being pre-
ferred in the present. Even much later, serious minded Greeks were
ready to approve such conduct. The Shield of Hercules and the
Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus commended Jupiter's intrigues with
mortal women as making possible the deeds of Hercules. A similar
attitude prevailed with regard to Apollo and other divinities. And
the light loves of the gods were often recorded proudly as the origin
of the heroic family which had distinguished a particular locality in
the past.
But in time the attitude of thoughtful Greeks became less favorable.
Sophocles and Euripides, recording the infidelity of ancient heroes,
began to show the disadvantages of their conduct. Euripides went
further. In his Ion he dealt with an intrigue of Apollo and boldly
questioned its morality. After his time the more serious pagans tended
to reject such myths or to explain them as allegory. The less serious
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
treated the amours of heroes and gods as amiable vices and matter for
diverting story. The Don Juan of ancient times was Jupiter. Juno
assumed more and more the character of the jealous wife. This was
the attitude of Ovid. In treating the story of Io and many similar
tales, he told the myth for its literary possibilities and took irreverent
pleasure in recording the undignified shifts of Jupiter.
The myth of Io was of very early origin and assumed many forms.
It may have developed from a Phoenician worship of the moon which
Phoenician traders brought to the south of Greece. Io seems to have
been the moon; she was thought of as wearing horns; and she wan-
dered far and wide in the heavens. Meanwhile Argus, the sky, kept
watch with his innumerable stars. This conception of Argus appears
to account for Ovid's frequent references to him as starry. Later it
furnished modern Italian thieves the word argo, their dialect name for
the sky.
Io was conceived also as a deity in the form of a cow, who wan-
dered throughout the known world. Worship of the human goddess
Juno supplanted the older cult. Io became an unsuccessful rival, who
was transformed into a cow and suffered exile. Argus became Juno's
watchman, whom Mercury killed with a stone. Both the Iliad and the
Odyssey allude to the myth, referring to Mercury as the killer of
Argus.
The Aeginus gave the earliest literary version. Io, it said, was
daughter of Piren and priestess of Juno. Jupiter seduced her and
transformed her into a cow, hoping to deceive his wife. But Juno,
guessing his intent, consigned her to the unsleeping Argus. The event
occurred in the island of Euboea. This version was repeated with some
changes by the Manual. From the latter Ovid took the circumstance
that Jupiter gave Io her animal form and was obliged to surrender
her to Juno.
Meanwhile Pindar had referred to a different myth. The new story,
which became much more popular than the old, made Io a' native of
Argos. It added that she wandered to Egypt; became the great Egyp-
tian deity Isis; and bore a son Epaphus, who was identified as the
Egyptian god Apis.
Aeschylus treated the new myth in the Suppliants. Juno, he said,
transformed Io in order to prevent Jupiter's courting her further. This
remedy proving ineffectual, she assigned Io to Argus, and then perse-
cuted her with a gadfly. Io took refuge in Egypt and there Jupiter
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? JUPITER AND 10
restored her shape and "tamed" the wrath of Juno. In Prometheus
Bound Aeschylus told the tale again but somewhat differently. Io's
father, he said, was Inachus, king of Argos. Juno afflicted the heifer
with both Argus and the gadfly; and later she terrified her with an
image of Argus playing a shepherd's pipe. Propertius adopted the
idea that Juno transformed her rival. Ovid followed some later form
of Aeschylus' version in the Epistle of Hypermnestra and the Tristia.
But he did not use it for the Metamorphoses.
Although Bacchylides agreed in many respects with Pindar and
Aeschylus, he added some new ideas. Argus, he said, might have
perished after being lulled asleep. And he declared that Io was an-
cestress of Cadmus (cf. Bk. 3). Both these ideas were to become im-
portant later in the work of Euripides and the poets of Alexandria.
Herodotus recorded an attempt to rationalize the myth, doing away
with the supernatural. The Persians, he said, believed that Phoenician
traders abducted Io, princess of Argos, and carried her to Egypt.
This had incensed all Greeks against all Asiatics. In retaliation the
Cretans had carried off the Phoenician Princess Europa, and other
Greeks had carried off the Colchian Princess Medea. Later the Tro-
jans continued the feud by carrying off Helen. This resulted first in
the Trojan War and later in the wars between Greece and Persia. The
explanation implied far too much community of feeling in both Greece
and Asia and in other ways was most improbable. But it affected
several later versions. Lycophron elaborated the tale, bringing it
down to the Roman conquest of Asia Minor. Parthenius made the
abduction of Io the occasion for a myth resembling that of Cadmus
(Bk. 3). These rationalizing versions Ovid did not use.
Other authors, who retained the supernatural elements of the tale,
began to relate it with Europa. In the Phcenissce Euripides made Io
the ancestress of the Phoenician princess. Moschus adopted the same
tradition. He added that the blood of Argus became a peacock.
Callimachus told of Io; dealing perhaps with her worship in Egypt.
These accounts may have helped Ovid in recording the ancestry of
later heroes; but they did not influence his version of Io.
In different versions Argus appeared quite variously. All accounts
agreed that he possessed an unusual number of eyes, but the arrange-
ment of the eyes varied and their number ranged from three to infinity.
Greek art often treated the myth; but it always showed Argus as
merely an ordinary herdsman. Ovid himself gave quite different de-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
scriptions in his Amores and his Metamorphoses. From the
Phcenissce of Euripides he took the picturesque idea that Argus slept
with only a few eyes at a time.
Nicander gave the familiar myth a new and more elegant form. He
made Inachus the god of the Argive river and explained that his grief
for Io prevented his going with the other streams to condole with the
river Peneus for the loss of Daphne. He agreed with Aeschylus that
Juno transformed Io; but he added, near the end of the tale, that
Jupiter compelled her to restore Io's human shape. Mercury, he said,
did not kill Argus with a stone. Taking the form of a shepherd, the
god lulled his victim with the music of a reed pipe and recounted to him
the myth of Syrinx. Then he beheaded the sleeping Argus with the
curved sword, which tradition had told of his lending to Perseus (cf.
Bk. 4). Nicander did not retain the creation of the peacock from the
watchman's blood. Juno, he said, merely transferred the eyes of
Argus to the peacock's tail. The new metamorphosis, like that of
the mulberry darkening with Pyramus' blood (Bk. 4), was peculiar
in effecting only a local change of color.
Ovid was fond of the myth of Io and mentioned it often in his poetry.
For the Metamorphoses he took much from Nicander; but he improved
the story by inserting ideas from many other poets and by changes in
harmony with his general plan. Thus he introduced from Vergil's
Aeneid the meeting of the heifer Io with her father Inachus. And he
improved the incident by adding the recognition of father and daugh-
ter, with many pathetic details. For the terror and hardships of Io
in her animal form, Ovid owed much to an earlier version of Calvus.
This part of the tale he had treated already in his Amores and his
Epistle of Hypermnestra.
In the description of Mercury as a shepherd, Ovid recalled a well
known painting of the Athenian artist, Nicias. Following the picture,
he said that Mercury carried only a wand. But later, returning to
Nicander, he showed the god killing Argus with the curving sword.
Aware of the similarity between his narratives of both Daphne and
Io and Nicander's myth of Syrinx, Ovid soon interrupted the tale as
told by Mercury and merely summarized the rest. The music alone,
Ovid thought, might hardly suffice to overcome so many watchful eyes.
He remembered that both the Odyssey and the Aeneid had given Mer-
cury a sleep inspiring rod. And, since he had already called attention
to the wand, he added that Mercury used it to complete, the effect of his
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? JUPITER AND 10
piping. In the tale of Ceyx (Bk. 11) Ovid followed a different tra-
dition which attributed slumber to the deity Sleep.
Thinking the traditional gadfly a little undignified, Ovid remem-
bered that in another myth Nicander had shown Juno maddening her
enemy Ino with a Fury (Bk. 4). He showed her using a similar agent
for maddening her earlier enemy Io. Wisely omitting an account of
Io's wandering, Ovid passed immediately to an effective description
of her despair in Egypt. At the close of the Aeneid, Vergil had pre-
pared the way for the triumph of his hero by a famous reconciliation
of Jupiter and Juno. The idea harmonized well with Augustan con-
ceptions of the dignity of women. Accordingly, Ovid imitated it
briefly before showing the delivery of Io. It would have been appro-
priate to add, as Nicander had done, that Juno restored Io's human
shape. But Ovid omitted the incident.
In the tale of Callisto (Bk.
2) he intended to have Juno complain that it was the work of Jupiter.
Earlier in the story Ovid had avoided a description of Io's altera-
tion to a cow, so that without repeating he might include a detailed
description of her recovery. From some predecessor, Ovid knew that,
when Io was restored, the image of the cow entered heaven as the con-
stellation usually called the Bull (Taurus). This further transforma-
tion Ovid reserved for the Fasti. He merely alluded to the Egyptian
worship of Io. But in the later tale of Ianthe (Bk. 9) he identified
her with Isis.
For nobility and grandeur of conception, no version of Io has ap-
proached that of Aeschylus in Prometheus Bound. Yet Ovid's narra-
tive was certainly easier to follow. Compared with other predeces-
sors, it was more full and interesting. And over all other versions it
had the advantage of being more accessible. Ovid's work suggested
nearly all later allusion to the myth.
Valerius Flaccus used the tale of Io in his Argonauts. Shakespeare
referred to it prominently in The Taming of the Shrew. Milton's
treatise Of Reformation recalled both Aeschylus and Ovid for a de-
nunciation of the prelates. "As Juno in the fable of Io," said Milton,
"they deliver up the poor transformed heifer of the Commonwealth
to be stung and vexed with the breese (gadfly) and goad of oppression
under the custody of some Argus with a hundred eyes of jealousy. "
For later authors Ovid's adventure of Mercury and Argus had par-
ticular interest. Dante declared that the wings of the four beasts
which he saw in the Apocalyptic Procession were covered with eyes
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
like those of Argus and that he himself drowsed under the Tree of Life
as Argus lulled by the tale of Syrinx. In Arcite's dream Chaucer
showed Mercury appearing in the same guise as he did to Juno's
watchman. Spenser in the Shepherd's Calendar alluded to Argus re-
peatedly. Marlowe profited by the incident for his adventure of Mer-
cury and the rustic maid. Shakespeare alluded to it briefly in the
Second Part of Henry Fourth and in Henry Fifth. And in Paradise
Lost Milton pictured the cherubim as
Spangled with eyes more numerous than those
Of Argus, and more wakeful than to drowse,
Charmed with Arcadian Pipe, the pastoral reed
Of Hermes, or his opiate rod.
Calderon in the Fable of Perseus showed that hero using Mercury's
wand for putting the vigilant Gorgons to sleep.
Statius used the tale of Syrinx in the Silva and Pope imitated it for
his myth of Lodona in Windsor Forest.
As introduction for his myth, Ovid had recorded the Thessalian
rivers which came to share the grief of Peneus for the loss of Daphne,
adding that there gathered also the other rivers of the world. To
Spenser this account probably suggested a remarkable passage where
he enumerated the many streams of England, Ireland, and more dis-
tant countries which assembled to honor the wedding of the Thames
and the Medway.
Various parts of Ovid's myth attracted a number of modern artists.
Corregio and Schiavone both painted Jupiter and Io. Juno delivering
Io to Argus inspired a great work of Rubens and a later work of
Claude Lorraine. Mercury and Argus were painted by Elsheimer,
Fabritius, Strozzi, Velasquez, Jordasns, and Debay, and three times by
Rubens. Thorwaldsen treated the same theme in sculpture. Modern
artists, like the ancient, appear to have avoided picturing the hundred
eyes. The myth of Syrinx attracted Jordasns, Van Mieris, Bocklin,
and Arthur Hacker.
Phaethon and Phoebus: See Book Two
In the First Book Ovid chose for the most part myths which had
long interested the ancients. He relied, however, on Alexandrian and
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
Roman versions. For the earlier stories of the book, Varro and
Aratus supplied most of the material. Nicander became important
with the tale of the Giants and continued so until the end. The
Manual was Ovid's chief source for the Deluge but elsewhere was
less useful than in many of the subsequent books. In these predeces-
sors Ovid found most of his raw material. He improved it in many
ways. He added appropriate ideas from Euripides, Catullus, and
Horace. Vergil helped him in almost every story. He omitted what
was inharmonious with his design; he improved many details; and he
introduced valuable inventions of his own. Although not gifted in
planning a great sustained work, Ovid did much to make his stories
consistent with one another and to make them progress effectively
from the Creation through the Deluge. And to all his tales he gave the
charm and brilliance of his style.
To the later Romans the First Book was unusually welcome. Ovid
dealt with ideas that already had proved congenial to their
philosophy and poetry; yet he introduced them in tales that were
comparatively new. He reminded them of other famous poets; yet his
work seemed always original and fascinating. Almost every impor-
tant Roman poet after Ovid's time recalled this book, and Seneca used
it in prose.
With the earlier Medieval authors, the opening tales were popular.
The entire book became a favorite with the chief authors of modern
times. Poets, who appeared to be in other respects utterly different
from one another, had here an interest in common. The First Book
attracted many who ordinarily used Ovid but little. Among them were
Regnier, Heywood, Pope, and Lowell. It contributed much to the
work of Petrarch, Camoens, Lope de Vega, and Browning. Jean de
Meun and Chaucer borrowed repeatedly. Dante, Spenser, and Shake-
speare showed interest in almost every tale. Milton turned to this
book continually at almost every period of his career and profited
by it in much of his greatest poetry. Dryden translated the entire
book.
In painting and sculpture, several of the tales were popular, and
they inspired a few masterpieces. The tale 6f Daphne was of signal
importance in the history of music. And that of Python contributed
interestingly to science.
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? BOOK TWO
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? BOOK TWO
Phaethon and Phoebus
The idea that the Sun had at one time left its proper course and
threatened the whole order of nature has inspired similar myths in
ancient Greece and among the Indian tribes of British Columbia. In
both stories the Sun had a child, who was mortal and grew up with his
mother. When someone doubted his being the child of the great
luminary, the youth tried to confirm his belief by visiting his father.
He then persuaded his father to let him drive the Sun's car for a day.
Unable to obey instructions, the boy left the proper course. To save
the world it was necessary that the Sun should resume the reins.
According to the Indians, the Sun god himself threw the boy from
the car and guided it back. But the Greeks imagined that the youth
was hurled from the car by a bolt of Jupiter.
In the tradition of prehistoric Greece the Sun may have been an
independent god, as we find him in the Odyssey. But later he was
identified with Apollo, the offspring of Jupiter and the goddess
Latona. In either case, the Sun god was the child of divine parents
and thus immortal by birth. But he married a sea nymph, who was
regarded as a being of a much humbler order and destined at length to
die. Tradition required ordinarily that the children of such an un-
equal marriage should have the rank of their lesser parent: Phaethon,
therefore, was mortal. The earliest tradition imagined that he grew
up in the bright region of Ethiopia and that he was struck down not
far from his home. Hence it was not difficult for his mother and sisters
to find and inter his body.
Before the myth entered literature, it coalesced with two others.
One of these tried to explain the origin of the fossil resin, amber. Dur-
ing prehistoric times amber was discovered in several rivers flowing
into the Baltic sea and was transported by land to the mouths of the
Rhone and the Po. From there Phoenician ships conveyed it to the
wealthy towns of Etruria and Greece. From the stories of the
Phoenicians, the Greeks came to believe that amber was the gum of a
contemporary tree, which they usually identified with the poplar, and
that it hardened in the sun while floating down some river in the north-
west, called the Eridanus. They imagined that Phaethon had devi-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
ated from his course far enough to plunge into this river and that his
sisters wandered thither and lamented until they became poplar trees
on the bank. With the new localization of Phaethon's fall, the jour-
neying of his mother and sisters became much longer and more diffi-
cult and their loyalty more impressive. The transformation of
Phaethon's sisters was thought ordinarily to have relieved tlieiri
anguish; but they continued to drop tears of liquid amber in the
stream.
A second myth dealt with the origin of the swan. According to
the earlier form of the story, Phaethon had a somewhat older kinsman
named Cycnus, who lived near him in Ethiopia and regarded him with
special affection. After Phaethon's death his kinsman fell into incon-
solable grief and at length became the swan, a bird with a mournful
cry.
The combined myth entered literature in a lost poem ascribed to
Hesiod. Misunderstanding the Greek epithet for "mourning" (ligus)
the poet made Cycnus a prince of Liguria, in the northwestern part of
Italy. This brought him nearer to the fabulous river Eridanus and
the mourning sisters, but it made any unusual affection for Phaethon
improbable. The poet added that Phaethon became the Morning
Star and thus his father was consoled for his tragic death.
Aeschylus treated the myth in a tragedy called The Sun's Daugh-
ters (Heliades). He identified the Eridanus with an imaginary river
which united the Rhone with the Po--an idea that was repeated much
later in the Argonauts of Apollonius. But Pherecydes identified it ex-
clusively with the Po, and this became the usual tradition. Euripides
retold the myth in his Phaethon, a play which Goethe afterwards tried
to reconstruct. He said that Phaethon's mother was Clymene, a sea
nymph who became the wife of the Ethiopian king Merops. In another
tragedy, the Hippolytus, Euripides retold briefly the tale of Cycnus.
About a century after the death of Euripides, an unknown Alex-
andrian poet repeated the story of Phaethon with many alterations.
By this time educated Greeks had accepted a Babylonian tradition
that the Morning and the Evening Star was the goddess of Love.
Accordingly, this Alexandrian poet altered the conclusion of the myth
by making Phaethon the constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga).
He added that the sisters became the Hyades, Cycnus became the con-
stellation of the Swan, and the river into which Phaethon dropped
became the constellation Fluvius Eridanus. In his mad career, said
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
the Alexandrian, Phaethon at first drove too high, scorching the
heavens and forming the Milky Way; then he drove top low and set
the earth afire. This conflagration was put out by the Deluge. The
tradition that Phaethon caused the Milky Way became popular with
later mythographers and passed from them to Dante, Chaucer, and
Spenser. Phaethon's association with the Deluge proved less interest-
ing than the older myth of Lycaon (Bk. 1), but it was mentioned
again by Lucretius.
Phanocles told at greater length of Cycnus and Phaethon, describ-
ing the former as a suitor of his kinsman. Apollonius recorded that
the Argonauts voyaging up the Po were troubled by the stench of
Phaethon's body still burning under the water and by the shrill lament
of the sisters. And Alexandrian sculptors often carved the tale of
Phaethon on sarcophagi to suggest the transitory nature of human
life.
Nicander retold the entire story. He repeated the idea that Phae-
thon caused the Milky Way and probably added that by driving too
low he occasioned the Cyclad Isles, the Sahara Desert, and the dark
skin of the Ethiopians. And he seems to have related the story to
a problem which had begun to interest the ancients, the mysterious
origin of the Nile. Dismayed by the excessive heat, he said, the Nile
took refuge in unknown regions far to the south, where he still has
his source. Nicander retained the metamorphosis of Phaethon into
the constellation of the Charioteer; but he rejected all other trans-
formation to stars. Many centuries after this, Nicander's version
inspired the late Greek poet Nonnus.
For Ovid the myth of Phaethon had great interest. He mentioned
it frequently and in the Tristia compared the fall of Phaethon to
his own exile by the Emperor Augustus.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid passed from the myth of Io to that of
Phaethon by declaring that Io's child, Epaphus, had been the one who
questioned the divine parentage of Phaethon. Ovid then proceeded to
elaborate and improve on the version of Nicander. With him he
showed Phaethon appealing to his mother and by her advice making on
foot a rather short journey eastward from Ethiopia, across the adjoin-
ing country of India, to the palace of the Sun. For the majority of
Romans this strange idea of geography in the east would have seemed
entirely credible. Although the ancient Egyptians and Persians knew
something of an Indian Ocean lying between Africa and India, such
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
knowledge had passed very slowly to the Greeks. For Aeschylus and
his audience the mainland of Asia was an almost inaccessible region
inhabited by fabulous peoples and extending southwards to the Nile
in its upper course. More than a century later, the victorious
Alexander, arriving at a branch of the Indus, believed that he
was close to the source of the Nile. And, although subsequent war
and commerce dispelled many illusions, the East was even in
Augustan times a distant, marvellous region rarely visited and little
known.
The Sun's palace Ovid described brilliantly, perhaps with some
recollection of the actual mansions in Roman times.
introduced such marriage at Alexandria. Theocritus commemorated
the innovation. The majority of Greeks looked on it with horror.
But Greek mythology imagined in the past at least one case of mar-
riage among mortal brothers and sisters, for the Odyssey recorded
briefly that Aeolus married his sons to his daughters. This myth,
Euripides rejected in his tragedy of Canace. Yet the Greeks con-
tinued to associate the idea frequently with their gods. Since the
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
Theogony Saturn had been both husband and brother of Rhea, and
Oceanus had been husband and brother of Tethys. And since the Iliad
the double relation had been recorded of Jupiter and Juno. Vergil
made it famous in the Aeneid, and Ovid mentioned it frequently not
only in his Metamorphoses but in the Heroides and the Fasti. Re-
ligious conservatism maintained the tradition, justifying it on the
ground that the gods were an order of beings to whom human restric-
tions did not apply (cf. Byblis Bk. 9). Probably the defense would
have proved inadequate, if many of the educated had not either ceased
to take the old myths literally or come to regard them with indiffer-
ence.
The illicit love affairs of Jupiter were survivals from an ancient
institution of polygamy. Among the lower savages, a single wife has
been the rule. Where a few scattered families made a bare livelihood
by hunting or the crudest form of agriculture, no man was able to
maintain more. But with a stronger tribal organization, the chiefs
might profit in some measure by the efforts of the rest. And where
a people lived by raising large numbers of domestic animals or by
using them for agriculture, a number of men might have more than
the mere necessities of living. In such tribes, the majority of men
continued to have only a single wife, but the successful could have
more. This might protect the chief from the evils of having no son to
succeed him in the care and defense of his household. It would often
ally him with a number of prominent families and gave him the advan-
tage of help from a number of wives and children, and the advantage
would be great where he could expect aid only from his kin. And
where there were frequent wars and a high rate of infant mortality, it
would allow more women to marry and bear children who would save
the tribe from extinction. These and other reasons often made more
than one wife appear a benefit, not only for the chief but for the tribe
as a whole. Sometimes the number of wives was limited by law to two
or to four, but often it was unrestricted and might even reach several
hundred. Usually the first wife occupied a distinctly higher position
legally than the rest; but some tribes gave equal rights to all. In
tribes allowing polygamy, it was possible also for a man to have one
or more concubines, often slave women, who did not share all of the
rights accorded a wife but nevertheless were recognized and somewhat
protected by law. In Babylon, for example, a concubine who bore
children might not be sold to another master, and, if there were no
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? JUPITER AND 10
legitimate children, hers might inherit the father's property. Even in
tribes which forbade more than a single wife, concubines were some-
times recognized by law. And nearly all mythologies attributed either
polygamy or concubinage to the gods.
With the growth of civilization both polygamy and concubinage
tended to decline. Less danger and a lower death rate made a single
wife appear sufficient both for the family and the race. And a safer,
easier form of life made it possible for women to avoid a harem by
continuing unmarried. Polygamy occurred in the case of Charle-
magne and a few later Christian sovereigns and for a time among
the Anabaptists and a few other fanatical sects. In Oriental civiliza-
tions it lingered until recently and in the Mohammedan world it per-
sists, at least in theory, today. Concubinage survived longer than
polygamy in most countries and especially in royal and noble families
of Europe. '
During prehistoric times, the Greeks may have indulged in po-
lygamy. The Theogony recorded the names of six goddesses who pre-
ceded Juno as wives of Jupiter. This tradition probably was a
survival from a remote past. Even in Homeric times a Greek had only
one wife; but he might have also a number of concubines, who were
ordinarily women captured in war. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey
show this to have been the practice of the chief Greek heroes, notably
of Agamemnon and Ulysses. The same law applied to the gods. In
the Iliad Jupiter did not scruple to give Juno a long list of those
whom he had loved in the past, and Juno was content with being pre-
ferred in the present. Even much later, serious minded Greeks were
ready to approve such conduct. The Shield of Hercules and the
Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus commended Jupiter's intrigues with
mortal women as making possible the deeds of Hercules. A similar
attitude prevailed with regard to Apollo and other divinities. And
the light loves of the gods were often recorded proudly as the origin
of the heroic family which had distinguished a particular locality in
the past.
But in time the attitude of thoughtful Greeks became less favorable.
Sophocles and Euripides, recording the infidelity of ancient heroes,
began to show the disadvantages of their conduct. Euripides went
further. In his Ion he dealt with an intrigue of Apollo and boldly
questioned its morality. After his time the more serious pagans tended
to reject such myths or to explain them as allegory. The less serious
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
treated the amours of heroes and gods as amiable vices and matter for
diverting story. The Don Juan of ancient times was Jupiter. Juno
assumed more and more the character of the jealous wife. This was
the attitude of Ovid. In treating the story of Io and many similar
tales, he told the myth for its literary possibilities and took irreverent
pleasure in recording the undignified shifts of Jupiter.
The myth of Io was of very early origin and assumed many forms.
It may have developed from a Phoenician worship of the moon which
Phoenician traders brought to the south of Greece. Io seems to have
been the moon; she was thought of as wearing horns; and she wan-
dered far and wide in the heavens. Meanwhile Argus, the sky, kept
watch with his innumerable stars. This conception of Argus appears
to account for Ovid's frequent references to him as starry. Later it
furnished modern Italian thieves the word argo, their dialect name for
the sky.
Io was conceived also as a deity in the form of a cow, who wan-
dered throughout the known world. Worship of the human goddess
Juno supplanted the older cult. Io became an unsuccessful rival, who
was transformed into a cow and suffered exile. Argus became Juno's
watchman, whom Mercury killed with a stone. Both the Iliad and the
Odyssey allude to the myth, referring to Mercury as the killer of
Argus.
The Aeginus gave the earliest literary version. Io, it said, was
daughter of Piren and priestess of Juno. Jupiter seduced her and
transformed her into a cow, hoping to deceive his wife. But Juno,
guessing his intent, consigned her to the unsleeping Argus. The event
occurred in the island of Euboea. This version was repeated with some
changes by the Manual. From the latter Ovid took the circumstance
that Jupiter gave Io her animal form and was obliged to surrender
her to Juno.
Meanwhile Pindar had referred to a different myth. The new story,
which became much more popular than the old, made Io a' native of
Argos. It added that she wandered to Egypt; became the great Egyp-
tian deity Isis; and bore a son Epaphus, who was identified as the
Egyptian god Apis.
Aeschylus treated the new myth in the Suppliants. Juno, he said,
transformed Io in order to prevent Jupiter's courting her further. This
remedy proving ineffectual, she assigned Io to Argus, and then perse-
cuted her with a gadfly. Io took refuge in Egypt and there Jupiter
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? JUPITER AND 10
restored her shape and "tamed" the wrath of Juno. In Prometheus
Bound Aeschylus told the tale again but somewhat differently. Io's
father, he said, was Inachus, king of Argos. Juno afflicted the heifer
with both Argus and the gadfly; and later she terrified her with an
image of Argus playing a shepherd's pipe. Propertius adopted the
idea that Juno transformed her rival. Ovid followed some later form
of Aeschylus' version in the Epistle of Hypermnestra and the Tristia.
But he did not use it for the Metamorphoses.
Although Bacchylides agreed in many respects with Pindar and
Aeschylus, he added some new ideas. Argus, he said, might have
perished after being lulled asleep. And he declared that Io was an-
cestress of Cadmus (cf. Bk. 3). Both these ideas were to become im-
portant later in the work of Euripides and the poets of Alexandria.
Herodotus recorded an attempt to rationalize the myth, doing away
with the supernatural. The Persians, he said, believed that Phoenician
traders abducted Io, princess of Argos, and carried her to Egypt.
This had incensed all Greeks against all Asiatics. In retaliation the
Cretans had carried off the Phoenician Princess Europa, and other
Greeks had carried off the Colchian Princess Medea. Later the Tro-
jans continued the feud by carrying off Helen. This resulted first in
the Trojan War and later in the wars between Greece and Persia. The
explanation implied far too much community of feeling in both Greece
and Asia and in other ways was most improbable. But it affected
several later versions. Lycophron elaborated the tale, bringing it
down to the Roman conquest of Asia Minor. Parthenius made the
abduction of Io the occasion for a myth resembling that of Cadmus
(Bk. 3). These rationalizing versions Ovid did not use.
Other authors, who retained the supernatural elements of the tale,
began to relate it with Europa. In the Phcenissce Euripides made Io
the ancestress of the Phoenician princess. Moschus adopted the same
tradition. He added that the blood of Argus became a peacock.
Callimachus told of Io; dealing perhaps with her worship in Egypt.
These accounts may have helped Ovid in recording the ancestry of
later heroes; but they did not influence his version of Io.
In different versions Argus appeared quite variously. All accounts
agreed that he possessed an unusual number of eyes, but the arrange-
ment of the eyes varied and their number ranged from three to infinity.
Greek art often treated the myth; but it always showed Argus as
merely an ordinary herdsman. Ovid himself gave quite different de-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
scriptions in his Amores and his Metamorphoses. From the
Phcenissce of Euripides he took the picturesque idea that Argus slept
with only a few eyes at a time.
Nicander gave the familiar myth a new and more elegant form. He
made Inachus the god of the Argive river and explained that his grief
for Io prevented his going with the other streams to condole with the
river Peneus for the loss of Daphne. He agreed with Aeschylus that
Juno transformed Io; but he added, near the end of the tale, that
Jupiter compelled her to restore Io's human shape. Mercury, he said,
did not kill Argus with a stone. Taking the form of a shepherd, the
god lulled his victim with the music of a reed pipe and recounted to him
the myth of Syrinx. Then he beheaded the sleeping Argus with the
curved sword, which tradition had told of his lending to Perseus (cf.
Bk. 4). Nicander did not retain the creation of the peacock from the
watchman's blood. Juno, he said, merely transferred the eyes of
Argus to the peacock's tail. The new metamorphosis, like that of
the mulberry darkening with Pyramus' blood (Bk. 4), was peculiar
in effecting only a local change of color.
Ovid was fond of the myth of Io and mentioned it often in his poetry.
For the Metamorphoses he took much from Nicander; but he improved
the story by inserting ideas from many other poets and by changes in
harmony with his general plan. Thus he introduced from Vergil's
Aeneid the meeting of the heifer Io with her father Inachus. And he
improved the incident by adding the recognition of father and daugh-
ter, with many pathetic details. For the terror and hardships of Io
in her animal form, Ovid owed much to an earlier version of Calvus.
This part of the tale he had treated already in his Amores and his
Epistle of Hypermnestra.
In the description of Mercury as a shepherd, Ovid recalled a well
known painting of the Athenian artist, Nicias. Following the picture,
he said that Mercury carried only a wand. But later, returning to
Nicander, he showed the god killing Argus with the curving sword.
Aware of the similarity between his narratives of both Daphne and
Io and Nicander's myth of Syrinx, Ovid soon interrupted the tale as
told by Mercury and merely summarized the rest. The music alone,
Ovid thought, might hardly suffice to overcome so many watchful eyes.
He remembered that both the Odyssey and the Aeneid had given Mer-
cury a sleep inspiring rod. And, since he had already called attention
to the wand, he added that Mercury used it to complete, the effect of his
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? JUPITER AND 10
piping. In the tale of Ceyx (Bk. 11) Ovid followed a different tra-
dition which attributed slumber to the deity Sleep.
Thinking the traditional gadfly a little undignified, Ovid remem-
bered that in another myth Nicander had shown Juno maddening her
enemy Ino with a Fury (Bk. 4). He showed her using a similar agent
for maddening her earlier enemy Io. Wisely omitting an account of
Io's wandering, Ovid passed immediately to an effective description
of her despair in Egypt. At the close of the Aeneid, Vergil had pre-
pared the way for the triumph of his hero by a famous reconciliation
of Jupiter and Juno. The idea harmonized well with Augustan con-
ceptions of the dignity of women. Accordingly, Ovid imitated it
briefly before showing the delivery of Io. It would have been appro-
priate to add, as Nicander had done, that Juno restored Io's human
shape. But Ovid omitted the incident.
In the tale of Callisto (Bk.
2) he intended to have Juno complain that it was the work of Jupiter.
Earlier in the story Ovid had avoided a description of Io's altera-
tion to a cow, so that without repeating he might include a detailed
description of her recovery. From some predecessor, Ovid knew that,
when Io was restored, the image of the cow entered heaven as the con-
stellation usually called the Bull (Taurus). This further transforma-
tion Ovid reserved for the Fasti. He merely alluded to the Egyptian
worship of Io. But in the later tale of Ianthe (Bk. 9) he identified
her with Isis.
For nobility and grandeur of conception, no version of Io has ap-
proached that of Aeschylus in Prometheus Bound. Yet Ovid's narra-
tive was certainly easier to follow. Compared with other predeces-
sors, it was more full and interesting. And over all other versions it
had the advantage of being more accessible. Ovid's work suggested
nearly all later allusion to the myth.
Valerius Flaccus used the tale of Io in his Argonauts. Shakespeare
referred to it prominently in The Taming of the Shrew. Milton's
treatise Of Reformation recalled both Aeschylus and Ovid for a de-
nunciation of the prelates. "As Juno in the fable of Io," said Milton,
"they deliver up the poor transformed heifer of the Commonwealth
to be stung and vexed with the breese (gadfly) and goad of oppression
under the custody of some Argus with a hundred eyes of jealousy. "
For later authors Ovid's adventure of Mercury and Argus had par-
ticular interest. Dante declared that the wings of the four beasts
which he saw in the Apocalyptic Procession were covered with eyes
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
like those of Argus and that he himself drowsed under the Tree of Life
as Argus lulled by the tale of Syrinx. In Arcite's dream Chaucer
showed Mercury appearing in the same guise as he did to Juno's
watchman. Spenser in the Shepherd's Calendar alluded to Argus re-
peatedly. Marlowe profited by the incident for his adventure of Mer-
cury and the rustic maid. Shakespeare alluded to it briefly in the
Second Part of Henry Fourth and in Henry Fifth. And in Paradise
Lost Milton pictured the cherubim as
Spangled with eyes more numerous than those
Of Argus, and more wakeful than to drowse,
Charmed with Arcadian Pipe, the pastoral reed
Of Hermes, or his opiate rod.
Calderon in the Fable of Perseus showed that hero using Mercury's
wand for putting the vigilant Gorgons to sleep.
Statius used the tale of Syrinx in the Silva and Pope imitated it for
his myth of Lodona in Windsor Forest.
As introduction for his myth, Ovid had recorded the Thessalian
rivers which came to share the grief of Peneus for the loss of Daphne,
adding that there gathered also the other rivers of the world. To
Spenser this account probably suggested a remarkable passage where
he enumerated the many streams of England, Ireland, and more dis-
tant countries which assembled to honor the wedding of the Thames
and the Medway.
Various parts of Ovid's myth attracted a number of modern artists.
Corregio and Schiavone both painted Jupiter and Io. Juno delivering
Io to Argus inspired a great work of Rubens and a later work of
Claude Lorraine. Mercury and Argus were painted by Elsheimer,
Fabritius, Strozzi, Velasquez, Jordasns, and Debay, and three times by
Rubens. Thorwaldsen treated the same theme in sculpture. Modern
artists, like the ancient, appear to have avoided picturing the hundred
eyes. The myth of Syrinx attracted Jordasns, Van Mieris, Bocklin,
and Arthur Hacker.
Phaethon and Phoebus: See Book Two
In the First Book Ovid chose for the most part myths which had
long interested the ancients. He relied, however, on Alexandrian and
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
Roman versions. For the earlier stories of the book, Varro and
Aratus supplied most of the material. Nicander became important
with the tale of the Giants and continued so until the end. The
Manual was Ovid's chief source for the Deluge but elsewhere was
less useful than in many of the subsequent books. In these predeces-
sors Ovid found most of his raw material. He improved it in many
ways. He added appropriate ideas from Euripides, Catullus, and
Horace. Vergil helped him in almost every story. He omitted what
was inharmonious with his design; he improved many details; and he
introduced valuable inventions of his own. Although not gifted in
planning a great sustained work, Ovid did much to make his stories
consistent with one another and to make them progress effectively
from the Creation through the Deluge. And to all his tales he gave the
charm and brilliance of his style.
To the later Romans the First Book was unusually welcome. Ovid
dealt with ideas that already had proved congenial to their
philosophy and poetry; yet he introduced them in tales that were
comparatively new. He reminded them of other famous poets; yet his
work seemed always original and fascinating. Almost every impor-
tant Roman poet after Ovid's time recalled this book, and Seneca used
it in prose.
With the earlier Medieval authors, the opening tales were popular.
The entire book became a favorite with the chief authors of modern
times. Poets, who appeared to be in other respects utterly different
from one another, had here an interest in common. The First Book
attracted many who ordinarily used Ovid but little. Among them were
Regnier, Heywood, Pope, and Lowell. It contributed much to the
work of Petrarch, Camoens, Lope de Vega, and Browning. Jean de
Meun and Chaucer borrowed repeatedly. Dante, Spenser, and Shake-
speare showed interest in almost every tale. Milton turned to this
book continually at almost every period of his career and profited
by it in much of his greatest poetry. Dryden translated the entire
book.
In painting and sculpture, several of the tales were popular, and
they inspired a few masterpieces. The tale 6f Daphne was of signal
importance in the history of music. And that of Python contributed
interestingly to science.
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? BOOK TWO
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? BOOK TWO
Phaethon and Phoebus
The idea that the Sun had at one time left its proper course and
threatened the whole order of nature has inspired similar myths in
ancient Greece and among the Indian tribes of British Columbia. In
both stories the Sun had a child, who was mortal and grew up with his
mother. When someone doubted his being the child of the great
luminary, the youth tried to confirm his belief by visiting his father.
He then persuaded his father to let him drive the Sun's car for a day.
Unable to obey instructions, the boy left the proper course. To save
the world it was necessary that the Sun should resume the reins.
According to the Indians, the Sun god himself threw the boy from
the car and guided it back. But the Greeks imagined that the youth
was hurled from the car by a bolt of Jupiter.
In the tradition of prehistoric Greece the Sun may have been an
independent god, as we find him in the Odyssey. But later he was
identified with Apollo, the offspring of Jupiter and the goddess
Latona. In either case, the Sun god was the child of divine parents
and thus immortal by birth. But he married a sea nymph, who was
regarded as a being of a much humbler order and destined at length to
die. Tradition required ordinarily that the children of such an un-
equal marriage should have the rank of their lesser parent: Phaethon,
therefore, was mortal. The earliest tradition imagined that he grew
up in the bright region of Ethiopia and that he was struck down not
far from his home. Hence it was not difficult for his mother and sisters
to find and inter his body.
Before the myth entered literature, it coalesced with two others.
One of these tried to explain the origin of the fossil resin, amber. Dur-
ing prehistoric times amber was discovered in several rivers flowing
into the Baltic sea and was transported by land to the mouths of the
Rhone and the Po. From there Phoenician ships conveyed it to the
wealthy towns of Etruria and Greece. From the stories of the
Phoenicians, the Greeks came to believe that amber was the gum of a
contemporary tree, which they usually identified with the poplar, and
that it hardened in the sun while floating down some river in the north-
west, called the Eridanus. They imagined that Phaethon had devi-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
ated from his course far enough to plunge into this river and that his
sisters wandered thither and lamented until they became poplar trees
on the bank. With the new localization of Phaethon's fall, the jour-
neying of his mother and sisters became much longer and more diffi-
cult and their loyalty more impressive. The transformation of
Phaethon's sisters was thought ordinarily to have relieved tlieiri
anguish; but they continued to drop tears of liquid amber in the
stream.
A second myth dealt with the origin of the swan. According to
the earlier form of the story, Phaethon had a somewhat older kinsman
named Cycnus, who lived near him in Ethiopia and regarded him with
special affection. After Phaethon's death his kinsman fell into incon-
solable grief and at length became the swan, a bird with a mournful
cry.
The combined myth entered literature in a lost poem ascribed to
Hesiod. Misunderstanding the Greek epithet for "mourning" (ligus)
the poet made Cycnus a prince of Liguria, in the northwestern part of
Italy. This brought him nearer to the fabulous river Eridanus and
the mourning sisters, but it made any unusual affection for Phaethon
improbable. The poet added that Phaethon became the Morning
Star and thus his father was consoled for his tragic death.
Aeschylus treated the myth in a tragedy called The Sun's Daugh-
ters (Heliades). He identified the Eridanus with an imaginary river
which united the Rhone with the Po--an idea that was repeated much
later in the Argonauts of Apollonius. But Pherecydes identified it ex-
clusively with the Po, and this became the usual tradition. Euripides
retold the myth in his Phaethon, a play which Goethe afterwards tried
to reconstruct. He said that Phaethon's mother was Clymene, a sea
nymph who became the wife of the Ethiopian king Merops. In another
tragedy, the Hippolytus, Euripides retold briefly the tale of Cycnus.
About a century after the death of Euripides, an unknown Alex-
andrian poet repeated the story of Phaethon with many alterations.
By this time educated Greeks had accepted a Babylonian tradition
that the Morning and the Evening Star was the goddess of Love.
Accordingly, this Alexandrian poet altered the conclusion of the myth
by making Phaethon the constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga).
He added that the sisters became the Hyades, Cycnus became the con-
stellation of the Swan, and the river into which Phaethon dropped
became the constellation Fluvius Eridanus. In his mad career, said
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? PHAETHON AND PHOEBUS
the Alexandrian, Phaethon at first drove too high, scorching the
heavens and forming the Milky Way; then he drove top low and set
the earth afire. This conflagration was put out by the Deluge. The
tradition that Phaethon caused the Milky Way became popular with
later mythographers and passed from them to Dante, Chaucer, and
Spenser. Phaethon's association with the Deluge proved less interest-
ing than the older myth of Lycaon (Bk. 1), but it was mentioned
again by Lucretius.
Phanocles told at greater length of Cycnus and Phaethon, describ-
ing the former as a suitor of his kinsman. Apollonius recorded that
the Argonauts voyaging up the Po were troubled by the stench of
Phaethon's body still burning under the water and by the shrill lament
of the sisters. And Alexandrian sculptors often carved the tale of
Phaethon on sarcophagi to suggest the transitory nature of human
life.
Nicander retold the entire story. He repeated the idea that Phae-
thon caused the Milky Way and probably added that by driving too
low he occasioned the Cyclad Isles, the Sahara Desert, and the dark
skin of the Ethiopians. And he seems to have related the story to
a problem which had begun to interest the ancients, the mysterious
origin of the Nile. Dismayed by the excessive heat, he said, the Nile
took refuge in unknown regions far to the south, where he still has
his source. Nicander retained the metamorphosis of Phaethon into
the constellation of the Charioteer; but he rejected all other trans-
formation to stars. Many centuries after this, Nicander's version
inspired the late Greek poet Nonnus.
For Ovid the myth of Phaethon had great interest. He mentioned
it frequently and in the Tristia compared the fall of Phaethon to
his own exile by the Emperor Augustus.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid passed from the myth of Io to that of
Phaethon by declaring that Io's child, Epaphus, had been the one who
questioned the divine parentage of Phaethon. Ovid then proceeded to
elaborate and improve on the version of Nicander. With him he
showed Phaethon appealing to his mother and by her advice making on
foot a rather short journey eastward from Ethiopia, across the adjoin-
ing country of India, to the palace of the Sun. For the majority of
Romans this strange idea of geography in the east would have seemed
entirely credible. Although the ancient Egyptians and Persians knew
something of an Indian Ocean lying between Africa and India, such
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK II
knowledge had passed very slowly to the Greeks. For Aeschylus and
his audience the mainland of Asia was an almost inaccessible region
inhabited by fabulous peoples and extending southwards to the Nile
in its upper course. More than a century later, the victorious
Alexander, arriving at a branch of the Indus, believed that he
was close to the source of the Nile. And, although subsequent war
and commerce dispelled many illusions, the East was even in
Augustan times a distant, marvellous region rarely visited and little
known.
The Sun's palace Ovid described brilliantly, perhaps with some
recollection of the actual mansions in Roman times.
