He planned to make the
two stories alike in their outline, but as different as possible in their
circumstances.
two stories alike in their outline, but as different as possible in their
circumstances.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
?
Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl.
handle.
net/2027/mdp.
39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www.
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-google
? IOLAUS
generation before the period of the Trojan War and had noted that
some of them had occurred before the death of Thesaus. Otherwise they
had no clear relation to any of the stories which Ovid had been telling.
Ovid put the earliest of these events a few years after the deification of
Hercules. All of them were concerned more or less with the death of
the seer Amphiaraus. And, since Ovid had mentioned the seer as taking
part in the Calydonian Boar Hunt, he implied that all events predicted
by Themis occurred after that famous adventure. To put them at some
time after the death of Hercules and the Calydonian Boar Hunt was
in harmony with tradition. But it was inconsistent with Ovid's own
account of Cephalus. Ovid imagined the sons of Oedipus as flourishing
at a time which was much longer than a generation after their father
overcame the riddling sphynx.
Most of these later Theban events had been familiar to the Greeks
of prehistoric times. The Iliad had mentioned a number of them. A
certain King Adrastus, it said, lived for a while at Sicyon and after-
wards ruled over Mycenae. There a prince named Polynices visited him,
in order to obtain aid against Eteocles of Thebes. At the same time
Tydeus, a younger brother of Meleager, happened to be visiting Myce-
nae on a quest of his own. Both Adrastus and Tydeus agreed to help
Polynices and enlisted other heroes, one of whom was Capaneus. But
they disregarded the will of the gods and failed in their attempt. Later
the sons of a number of these heroes, piously relying on Jupiter, under-
took a second expedition and captured Thebes. The Iliad also alluded
to the idea that Adrastus had been saved after his defeat by the swift-
ness of his horse Arion. The Odyssey gave the following information
about another ally of Polynices, the seer and warrior Amphiaraus.
Although he was honored both by Jupiter and by Apollo, he died before
his time, for his wife Eriphyle took a bribe of gold and caused him to
perish at Thebes. He left two sons, of whom the elder was named
Alcmaeon.
The Thebaid told about the first expedition against Thebes. It
noted that Eteocles and Polynices were sons of Oedipus and that, after
his abdication, they treated him with disrespect and suffered from his
curse. Another early epic called Epigoni (Later Born), told about the
second expedition against Thebes. Both of these epics now are lost.
Aeschylus in a series of plays treated the whole subject of later
Theban history. Only one play survives, The Seven against Thebes. In
this work Aeschylus noted many further circumstances. Oedipus in his
273
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
imprecation had declared that his sons were to divide their inheritance
with the sword. They understood his words as predicting their violent
death. Eteocles exiled his brother. Polynices enlisted in his cause seven
other chieftains,* among them Amphiaraus. The seer tried to dissuade
his allies. Their cause, he said, was bad; and, if they should persist, he
himself must die and be interred in Theban soil. They defied his augur-
ies, and Capaneus behaved in a manner that was especially impious.
On the Theban side Eteocles, feeling that he was doomed, made no
effort to prevent the fatal encounter. Both Eteocles and Polynices fell
in battle. Capaneus, while mounting the wall, was blasted with lightning.
Amphiaraus died by a Theban spear. Only Adrastus escaped. In a sub-
sequent play called Eleusmnians, Aeschylus told how the people of
Thebes refused burial to their fallen enemies until Theseus led an army
against Thebes and was able to perform the funeral rites.
Pindar took great interest in Amphiaraus and mentioned addi-
tional circumstances. At first the seer had made war on Adrastus and
had exiled him to Sicyon. Later Amphiaraus became reconciled to
Adrastus, allowed him to resume authority at Mycenae, and married his
sister Eriphyle. Pindar gave a different account of the seer's death.
While attempting to escape after the defeat, Amphiaraus was pursued
so closely by a Theban named Periclymenus that he prayed to Jupiter
for deliverance. Jupiter cleft the earth with a thunderbolt, and it
swallowed up the seer with his chariot and horses. This afterwards be-
came the usual account. In the Old Testament the similar fate of
Korah and his fellow rebels against Moses was regarded as punishment
from heaven. But Pindar and his successors felt that by engulfing Am-
phiaraus, Jupiter had shown him special honor. Pindar noted that later
the seer spoke from beneath the ground and advised the Epigoni to
choose his son Alcmaeon as their leader. Sophocles declared in his
Electra that Amphiaraus, although still alive, was ruling in Hades.
Herodotus observed that he became a deity.
Both Sophocles and Euripides took great interest in the later
mythical history of Thebes. Sophocles wrote dramas about Eriphyle,
the Epigoni, and Alcmaeon -- all of which now are lost. In his Oedipus
at Colonus, he gave a different reason for the curse against Eteocles and
Polynices. The brothers offended Oedipus, he said, because they exiled
"Aeschylus and Sophocles gave their names as follows: Adrastus, Tydeus, Capa-
neus, Amphiaraus, Parthenopaeus, Hippomedon, and a certain Eteoclus. Euripides
in the Suppliants gave the same list, but in the Phoenissae omitted Eteoclus and
counted Polynices among the seven. The Manual gave both lists.
274
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? IOLAUS
him from Thebes. Euripides in his Phoenissae treated the expedition
of Polynices. At first, he said, Eteocles and Polynices tried to escape
the curse by agreeing to hold power alternately. During the first year
Eteocles was to rule and Polynices was to live in exile. But at the end
of the year Eteocles refused to exchange places with his brother. Ac-
cording to Euripides, the brothers survived the battle but immediately
afterwards killed each other in a duel. Euripides in the Suppliants
recounted the intervention of Theseus. He wrote also a drama about
Alcmaeon, which now is lost. During the fourth century B. C. the inter-
vention of Theseus was discussed again by the Athenian orators Lysias
and Isocrates. They described it as an early instance of Athens bravely
and generously protecting the weak from injustice and urged their con-
temporaries to continue this policy.
The Manual repeated briefly the whole Theban tradition. It added
the following details about Eriphyle. When Amphiaraiis became recon-
ciled to Adrastus, they agreed that she was to decide any future dispute
between them. Polynices learned this fact, and, when Amphiaraiis ad-
vised against the march on Thebes, he resolved to win the favor of
Eriphyle. In the lore of primitive peoples it sometimes had been imag-
ined that a certain valuable object acquired sinister properties and
brought disaster successively to each of many persons who got posses-
sion of it. Probably the most famous example is the Rhinegold of Ger-
manic tradition. According to the ancient Greeks, a similar fatal treas-
ure entered into the story of Amphiaraiis.
Polynices offered Eriphyle a golden necklace, which originally had
been a wedding present of his ancestress Harmonia. Although Am-
phiaraiis had warned his wife to receive no gift from the Theban prince,
Eriphyle accepted the bribe and required her husband to undertake the
fatal expedition. Realizing her treachery, Amphiaraiis told Alcmaeon
to avenge his death, as soon as he should become a man, first by killing
Eriphyle and then by making war on Thebes.
When the Epigoni were assembling their forces, one of them offered
Eriphyle the robe of Harmonia, and in return for this new bribe she
persuaded Alcmaeon to proceed first against Thebes. Alcmaeon, learning
of her treachery, was confirmed in his purpose. After defeating the
Thebans in the field, he entered their city unopposed. Then he returned
and killed his faithless mother.
As punishment for the crime, he went mad and wandered about,
pursued by the Fury of his mother's murder. At Psophis in Arcadia,
275
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
King Phegeus cured his madness and gave him his daughter in mar-
riage. But the crops failed, and an oracle warned Alcmaeon to obtain
purification of guilt from the river God Acheloiis. Alcmaeon did this and
also married the god's daughter Calirrhoe. A few years later she insisted
that Alcmaeon should try to get her the necklace and robe of Harmonia.
In this attempt he was killed by the sons of Phegeus. Calirrhoe then
prayed to Jupiter asking that her own infant sons might become full
grown in order to avenge their father. The prayer was granted. Her
sons killed the murderers, and also Phegeus and his queen, and pre-
sented the necklace to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, presumably dis-
pelling its fatal properties.
The story of Eriphyle and the fatal necklace attracted brief
notice from several Augustan poets. Propertius referred to it twice,
Horace alluded to it in his Odes, and Ovid mentioned it in his Amores. .
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid showed Themis alluding to many
events of later Theban history. She mentioned the expedition of Poly-
nices, the death of the brothers in a duel, the blasting of Capaneus, the
descent of Amphiaraiis into Hades, and the murder of Eriphyle. She
noted also that Alcmaeon was victorious in the expedition of the Epi-
goni, and that Callirhoe asked him for the fatal necklace. In the story of
Alcmaeon, Ovid may have followed some epic or tragedy which now is
lost. He declared that Alcmaeon never recovered from his madness and
that Phegeus himself killed him. And, probably because Ovid could not
introduce the famous tale of Orestes, he made the story of Alcmaeon re-
semble it. He stressed the fact that by killing his mother Alcmaeon be
came at once pious and impious, and he declared that he was pursued
both by the Furies and by his mother's ghost. The transformation of
lolaiis had changed an old man into a young one. The transformation
of Callirhoe's sons afforded a contrast, for it changed boys into men.
Ovid then invented further circumstances. The idea that it was
possible to alter the age of human beings caused unrest among the
assembled gods. Each of them wanted to claim the benefit of Hebe for
some favorite of his own.
Aurora lamented that her husband Tithonus had become old. Here
Ovid recalled the story, told first in the Homeric Hymn to Venus, that
Tithonus was immortal but subject to the infirmities of age. It was
usual to speak of Aurora as daughter of the Titan Hyperion, but Ovid
referred to her both here and in the tale of Pythagoras (Bk. 15), as
daughter of his brother Titan Pallas. Ceres lamented the white locks of
276
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? IOLAUS
Iasion. The Odyssey had told of her meeting him on a plowed field of
Crete, the Theogony had called them parents of Plutus (Wealth), and
Ovid had recounted the story at some length in his Amores. While in-
troducing the complaint of Ceres, Ovid appears to have forgotten that,
according to the Odyssey, Iasion died prematurely by a thunderbolt.
Vulcan wanted life restored to his son Erichthonius (see Aglauros, Bk.
2). Venus realized that in time her loved Anchises would grow old. The
Iliad had spoken of her as visiting him on Mt. Ida and becoming the
mother of Aeneas, and the Homeric Hymn to Venus had told the story,
noting the future old age of Anchises.
In the Iliad the will of Jupiter seems to have been regarded as
identical with the course of Fate. But an early and widespread belief of
primitive men conceived of Fate as a power that was permanent and
superior to any reigning hierarchy of deities. The Icelandic Eddas pic-
tured it as controlling the future of Odin and the Aesir and bringing
them eventually to the Twilight of the Gods. And Aeschylus in Prome-
theus Bound indicated that Fate was more powerful than Jupiter and
was capable of punishing him for his torture of Prometheus.
This idea of dominating Fate, Ovid introduced into the tale of Iol-
aiis. Jupiter he said, pointed out to the other gods that Iolaiis and the
sons of Callirhoe could be transformed only because it was the will of
Fate. The same idea that Fate controlled even Jupiter, Ovid mentioned
afterwards in the story of Julius Caesar (Bk. 15), but there he per-
sonified Fate as the three sisters called the Parcae. Jupiter noted fur-
ther that he himself could not avert old age from his loved sons Aeacus,
Rhadamanthus, and Minos. These three, Ovid's contemporaries would
have recognized at once as famous for good character and for promi-
nence as judges in the world of the dead.
In the case of Minos, Ovid previously had recalled the story of his
fatal visit to Cocalus (Bk. 8), but had not explicitly mentioned his
death. He now invented the idea that Minos still was alive but had
become old and feeble and no longer was respected. This gave Ovid a
transition to the subsequent tale of Byblis.
In later times several authors recalled Ovid's tale of Iolaiis. Both
Hyginus and Clement of Alexandria remembered the circumstance that
three heroes, Tithonus, Iasion, and Anchises, were loved by goddesses.
Dante in his Paradiso repeated Ovid's idea that Alcmaeon was pious in
one sense and impious in another.
277
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
Byblis
In the previous tale Ovid had referred to Minos as still ruling in
Crete. He now associated him with a Cretan hero named Miletus. Ac-
cording to the Manual and Nicander, this hero was a son of Apollo. He
left Crete and founded the city of Miletus in Caria, a little south of the
estuary of the Maeander River. Ovid agreed in all these particulars, but
he differed in others. He was alone in calling the hero's mother Deione,
and he gave a different account of the circumstances under which the
hero departed for Caria.
According to the Manual and Nicander, Miletus left Crete because
he feared violence from Minos. The Manual added that in a contro-
versy between Minos and Sarpedon, Miletus preferred the latter, and
that Minos defeated them in battle. This account suggested a time
when Minos was comparatively young, much earlier than the rejuvena-
tion of Iolaiis. Ovid felt obliged to reject the greater part of it. He
referred to hostility of some kind between Minos and Miletus and then
declared that Miletus departed of his own accord. Nicander stated that
afterwards Miletus took as his wife a Carian princess named Idothea
and became the father of twins, a son named Caunus and a daughter
named Byblis. Ovid spoke of the mother as Cyanee, daughter of the
river god Maeander.
After this introduction, Ovid proceeded to tell the story of Byblis
and Caunus. While narrating the course of Byblis's incestuous passion
for her brother, Ovid associated it in his thought with the similar
passion of Myrrha for her father (Bk. 10).
He planned to make the
two stories alike in their outline, but as different as possible in their
circumstances. They were to present two aspects of the same repulsive
theme, and together they would go far towards presenting the subject
in full. It is natural to consider the stories of Byblis and Myrrha to-
gether. They are by no means isolated examples of their theme, for it
has appeared often both in tradition and in literature and has had a
long and surprising history.
Strong public opinion, present in all ages and countries, has for-
bidden marriage between parent and child or between brother and sister
(cf. Io, Bk. 1). The same public opinion has regarded illicit relations
between such persons as different from ordinary profligacy and far more
278
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? BTBLIS
culpable. Prohibition of such conduct was maintained even when other
rules of similar nature were waived. African tribes, which made it
customary for the oldest son to inherit wives and concubines of his
father, always excepted his own mother. Australian tribes, which held
festivals where other forms of license were encouraged, still maintained
their restriction in regard to parent and child or brother and sister. In
communities where law took cognizance of such matters, an offense
committed by persons of such near kinship was treated with special
severity. This widespread public opinion seems to have been a matter of
instinct and not the result of experience, for violations of the rule ap-
pear always to have been the rare exception. But it was fortunate.
Such inbreeding, when it has been tried with animals, tends to promote
mental and physical degeneracy -- slowly where other conditions are
favorable, rapidly where they are not.
In primitive communities there appear to have been times when
public opinion allowed an exception, even for parent and child or full
brother and sister. If very unusual circumstances threatened a family
with extinction, disregard of the rule seems to have been considered as
not only permissible but commendable. An example was recorded in the
Old Testament story of Lot and his two daughters, who became ances-
tors of the Moabites and Ammonites. Another example seems to occur
in the Germanic myth of Siegmund and his sister Sieglinde, who became
parents of the hero Siegfried, -- a tradition that Wagner afterwards
retold in his opera The Valkyrie. If a brother and sister had different
mothers, a number of early peoples considered them eligible to marry.
But in medieval and modern Europe their status was regarded as the
same as that of full brother and sister.
Among primitive peoples of Europe and Asia it sometimes was
customary to decry a hostile tribe by alleging either that the tribe in
question allowed marriage of parent and child or that its members often
were guilty of illicit relations of this kind. Eusebius repeated a Greek
tradition that Persians allowed such marriages. Other Greek traditions
told of similar conduct among the Phoenicians and may have suggested
the story of Myrrha.
Such calumny often took the following form. A certain man and
his wife learned that their newborn son was destined to kill his father
and marry his mother. To prevent this catastrophe, they inflicted a
severe wound on him and then put him in a box and cast him into the sea.
Drifting to a far-off shore, the child was found by some of the inhabi-
279
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
?
tants and was reared in ignorance of his true parentage. When he be-
came a man, he departed from his foster parents and after a while ar-
rived in his native country. There in a chance quarrel he killed his
father, and not long afterwards he married his mother. After some time
had passed, the scar left by his former wound attracted attention and
led to the discovery of the facts. From this abhorrent marriage there
originated the tribe in question.
In the East Indies one savage people rather often has told a story
of this kind about another savage people. And, lest it should be deficient
in abuse, the accusers have added that the father frequently assumed
the shape of a dog and the mother was the offspring of a pig. The
natives of Bantam also told a story of this kind to explain the origin of
the Dutch.
Similar tales appeared in the lore of European peoples. In the
medieval Golden Legend the story was employed to discredit an ob-
noxious individual, the traitor Judas Iscariot. Here there was one
important difference. According to the East Indian tales, mother and
son regarded their conduct with complacency and even made it a prece-
dent for other marriages of the same kind. But Judas was horrified at
his guilt and sought expiation by confessing it to the Master and be-
coming one of the twelve disciples. Among European peoples the idea of
discrediting an enemy seems usually to have been absent. The story
became merely a tale of strange, sensational adventure. In this form it
was told by the people of Finland and Ukraine. Their versions elabo-
rated the idea of the guilty man's endeavoring to atone for his offense
and noted that at last he was forgiven. *
Similar in nature to the stories told in Finland and Ukraine was
the ancient Greek tradition of Oedipus. This tale was unusual chiefly
in having the child cast away on a neighboring mountain and in having
a plague as the occasion for revealing his identity. In some versions the
offense committed by Oedipus and his mother appears to have been
condoned because it was unintentional. According to the Oedipodea and
*In Finland and Ukraine the story recorded atonement by the aid of an under-
standing priest of the Greek Catholic Church. It may have been intended to show that
with true repentance and reliance on the Christian faith any sin may be forgiven. The
idea appeared explicitly in the following medieval tale. Under the influence of Satan,
a young woman first seduced her father and murdered their three illegitimate chil-
dren. Next, to prevent discovery of her guilt, she murdered both her mother and her
father. Then, to escape punishment, she departed to a distant country and led a
profligate life. But at last a wise and good bishop enabled her to repel the fiend. She
repented, confessed her crimes, and after death was received into heaven. Therefore
let no one despair.
280
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? BY BUS
Pisander, Oedipus afterwards married another wife and became the
father of four legitimate children.
The Thebaid seems to have recorded a somewhat less favorable
result, for it did not mention a second marriage and it observed that
Oedipus had to give up the throne. But it indicated that the mother
continued to live at court and to exert herself in behalf of the children
until the civil war between Eteocles and Polynices (cf. Iolaiis). This
idea reappeared in the Phoenissae of Euripides and afterwards was
repeated both in Phoenissae of Seneca and by Statius. Aeschylus com-
posed two dramas about the story of Oedipus, but his account is lost.
In the earliest extant version of the tale, the outcome was disas-
trous. According to the Odyssey, the mother hanged herself and Oedi-
pus was pursued by Furies. The Iliad noted that he died a violent death.
Still another early version seems to have taken a middle ground. The
mother hanged herself, and Oedipus put out his own eyes and went into
exile, but after many sufferings he was forgiven by the gods and died
peacefully at Colonus. Sophocles followed this account in his Oedipus
the King and Oedipus at Colonus. The first of these dramas is the great-
est presentation ever given such a theme and the only one that justly
can be called noble. To write nobly of such matters required a soul as
high as Sophocles. The tragedy Oedipus the King inspired both sys-
pathy for the unwitting offenders and deep, genuine horror at the
offense. In later times the story was retold first by Seneca in his Oedipus
and then by Corneille, Dryden, and Voltaire.
A . somewhat different tale of illicit relations between parent and
child appeared in the Greek tradition of Thyestes. In this tale the child
was a daughter named Pelopia. The prediction concerning her became
known only after her mother had died and she herself was full grown. It
referred entirely to illicit relations with her father, Thyestes; and it
seemed only to offer a strong temptation. Thyestes, the oracle declared,
must give up hope of avenging the murder of his two sons, unless he
should have another son by his own daughter. To prevent such guilt,
the father made his daughter a virgin priestess of Athena. Afterwards
he met with her at night, and, not realizing who she was, he ravished her.
In this tale the means of discovery was a sword, which Pelopia took
from the ravisher. Learning of the unintentional offense, she killed her-
self and exposed her infant son, Aegistheus. Both Sophocles and Eu-
ripides treated the subject in plays which now are lost.
A still different myth appeared in the earliest account of Niobe
281
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
(cf. Bk. 6). In this tale the idea of evil fate took an unusual form. The
goddess Latona punished Niobe by causing her father, Assaon, to court
her. There was no warning prediction. The father knew that Niobe was
his daughter. He made no attempt to avoid the offense. Niobe repulsed
him but could not escape destruction.
The theme of illicit relations between parent and child occurred
rather often in lore of primitive peoples. The idea of such relations
between brother and sister appears to have been almost unknown. Al-
though public opinion against this offense was strong, there was a ten-
dency to believe that unusual circumstances could make brother and
sister eligible to marry. When the Odyssey declared that far away, long
ago, and under circumstances widely different from ordinary life the
wind god Aeolus married his six sons to his six daughters, early Greek
audiences appear to have accepted the tale without misgiving. An
offense committed by parent and child always was abhorrent. An
offense committed by brother and sister was in some degree a matter of
circumstances. It was less effective either for calumny against a hostile
tribe or for a sensational tale. This theme was apt to appear at a later
stage of culture.
The earliest Greek example was the Aeolus of Euripides, a tragedy
which now is lost. Retelling in a different form the tradition noted by
the Odyssey, Euripides made it more realistic and more nearly in accord
with Athenian standards of his own day. Euripides presented only two
children of Aeolus, the oldest son named Macareiis and a daughter
named Canace. Their relations, he declared, were illicit, and both
Macareiis and Canace were aware of the fact. Aeolus, discovering their
guilt, had a sword delivered to Canace. Macareiis then pleaded with
his father that love ought to have precedence over convention. But
meanwhile Canace had taken her own life with the sword. Macareiis fol-
lowed her example.
Euripides appears to have disapproved vigorously of the offense
committed by his hero and heroine, for afterwards Plato in his Laws
mentioned the tragedies of Oedipus and Aeolus as illustrating normal
Athenian opinion. But Euripides tended to awaken sympathy for the
guilty pair and offended the more conservative men of his time. Aris-
tophanes referred to his work indignantly in the Clouds and the Frogs
and parodied it in a comedy named Aeolosion, which now is lost. Ovid
retold the story of the two children of Aeolus in his celebrated Epistle of
Canace. In actual life guilt of the kind imagined by Euripides and Ovid
282
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? BYBLIS
is characteristic only of persons who are degenerate and degraded. But
both poets presented Macareiis and Canace as intelligent and externally
attractive. Misrepresentation of this kind afterwards occurred often in
the work of authors who treated such themes.
The Alexandrians in their quest for material that was new and
sensational introduced many tales about illicit relations between parent
and child or brother and sister. Occasionally they explained such con-
duct as punishment for offending Venus. They habitually presented at
least one party as acting with full knowledge of his guilt, and they
tended to present the woman as the aggressor. Such themes appeared
in the writings of almost every important Alexandrian author but were
especially common in the work of Parthenius.
Of the many stories introduced, the best known is that of Myrrha.
Not long before Ovid's time it was retold at great length by the Roman
poet Cinna, and it was mentioned prominently in Vergil's narrative
called the Ciris. Two other stories were those of Nyctimene and Mene-
phron, to which Ovid had alluded in his Metamorphoses (Bks. 2 and 7).
Most Roman authors found such themes uncongenial, and after Ovid's
time they took little notice of any except the tale of Oedipus.
Authors of the medieval period added at least one well-known
story of this kind, for in some accounts of King Arthur, the king and his
sister were parents of the traitor Modred. A number of medieval authors
showed interest in Ovid's treatment of such themes. Jean de Meun trans-
lated his tale of Byblis, a number of poets alluded briefly to the story
of Byblis or to that of Myrrha, and Dante presented Myrrha as one of
the deceivers punished in his Inferno. But on the whole, medieval au-
thors avoided such themes, and Chaucer in the Man of Law's Tale dis-
claimed any wish to treat them, mentioning as one example the tale of
Canace.
Authors of the Renaissance now and then introduced a brief tale
of this kind as an example of extraordinary wickedness. Spenser told of
a shameless giantess who seduced her brother. Shakespeare presented
at the beginning of his Pericles a king who seduced his daughter, and
Milton recorded briefly the complicated immorality of the characters
Satan, Sin, and Death. Different treatment of such material appeared
in the work of the Caroline dramatist, Ford. He made courtship of
brother and sister the theme of an entire tragedy and was anxious to
awaken sympathy for the guilty pair.
Authors of the Pseudo-classic period manifested extraordinary in-
283
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
terest in such themes. They revived the myth of Oedipus and introduced
many stories of their own. Usually they treated illicit relations between
brother and sister. Almost always they regarded an affair of this kind
with strong disapproval and used it as an element of horror. As they
usually presented the tale, the brother and sister had been separated in
their infancy and afterwards met when full grown.
Sometimes the author imagined that both were unaware of their
kinship. In Dryden's Don Sebastian the result was tragedy, in Less-
ing's Nathan the Wise disaster was averted by the vigilance of Nathan.
At other times the author imagined that one party was aware of their
kinship. In Moliere's Don Garde Alphonse knew that Elvire was his
sister, but, in order to escape a tyrant, he pretended to court her as a
stranger. Moliere supposed that Elvire was restrained by instinctive
reluctance, an idea which Noel Coward repeated long afterwards in his
comedy The Marchioness.
Although such themes occurred in important dramas of the Pseudo-
classic era, they appear to have been exceptional on the stage. But they
occurred often in novels. Among authors of prose fiction who treated
the theme of brother and sister, was the earliest American novelist,
William Hill Brown. He presented the story with a tragic ending in his
first work, The Power of Sympathy, and with a happy ending in his Ira
and Isabella. Sir Walter Scott afterwards introduced the idea, with re-
markable lightness and delicacy, in his novel Redgauntlet.
Some authors reversed the familiar situation. They showed their
characters believing themselves related when actually they were not.
Goethe in his play called Die Geschwister showed the heroine believing
the hero was her brother and discovering with relief that she was mis-
taken. Fielding used the idea of mistaken belief to create a short sus-
pense.
? IOLAUS
generation before the period of the Trojan War and had noted that
some of them had occurred before the death of Thesaus. Otherwise they
had no clear relation to any of the stories which Ovid had been telling.
Ovid put the earliest of these events a few years after the deification of
Hercules. All of them were concerned more or less with the death of
the seer Amphiaraus. And, since Ovid had mentioned the seer as taking
part in the Calydonian Boar Hunt, he implied that all events predicted
by Themis occurred after that famous adventure. To put them at some
time after the death of Hercules and the Calydonian Boar Hunt was
in harmony with tradition. But it was inconsistent with Ovid's own
account of Cephalus. Ovid imagined the sons of Oedipus as flourishing
at a time which was much longer than a generation after their father
overcame the riddling sphynx.
Most of these later Theban events had been familiar to the Greeks
of prehistoric times. The Iliad had mentioned a number of them. A
certain King Adrastus, it said, lived for a while at Sicyon and after-
wards ruled over Mycenae. There a prince named Polynices visited him,
in order to obtain aid against Eteocles of Thebes. At the same time
Tydeus, a younger brother of Meleager, happened to be visiting Myce-
nae on a quest of his own. Both Adrastus and Tydeus agreed to help
Polynices and enlisted other heroes, one of whom was Capaneus. But
they disregarded the will of the gods and failed in their attempt. Later
the sons of a number of these heroes, piously relying on Jupiter, under-
took a second expedition and captured Thebes. The Iliad also alluded
to the idea that Adrastus had been saved after his defeat by the swift-
ness of his horse Arion. The Odyssey gave the following information
about another ally of Polynices, the seer and warrior Amphiaraus.
Although he was honored both by Jupiter and by Apollo, he died before
his time, for his wife Eriphyle took a bribe of gold and caused him to
perish at Thebes. He left two sons, of whom the elder was named
Alcmaeon.
The Thebaid told about the first expedition against Thebes. It
noted that Eteocles and Polynices were sons of Oedipus and that, after
his abdication, they treated him with disrespect and suffered from his
curse. Another early epic called Epigoni (Later Born), told about the
second expedition against Thebes. Both of these epics now are lost.
Aeschylus in a series of plays treated the whole subject of later
Theban history. Only one play survives, The Seven against Thebes. In
this work Aeschylus noted many further circumstances. Oedipus in his
273
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
imprecation had declared that his sons were to divide their inheritance
with the sword. They understood his words as predicting their violent
death. Eteocles exiled his brother. Polynices enlisted in his cause seven
other chieftains,* among them Amphiaraus. The seer tried to dissuade
his allies. Their cause, he said, was bad; and, if they should persist, he
himself must die and be interred in Theban soil. They defied his augur-
ies, and Capaneus behaved in a manner that was especially impious.
On the Theban side Eteocles, feeling that he was doomed, made no
effort to prevent the fatal encounter. Both Eteocles and Polynices fell
in battle. Capaneus, while mounting the wall, was blasted with lightning.
Amphiaraus died by a Theban spear. Only Adrastus escaped. In a sub-
sequent play called Eleusmnians, Aeschylus told how the people of
Thebes refused burial to their fallen enemies until Theseus led an army
against Thebes and was able to perform the funeral rites.
Pindar took great interest in Amphiaraus and mentioned addi-
tional circumstances. At first the seer had made war on Adrastus and
had exiled him to Sicyon. Later Amphiaraus became reconciled to
Adrastus, allowed him to resume authority at Mycenae, and married his
sister Eriphyle. Pindar gave a different account of the seer's death.
While attempting to escape after the defeat, Amphiaraus was pursued
so closely by a Theban named Periclymenus that he prayed to Jupiter
for deliverance. Jupiter cleft the earth with a thunderbolt, and it
swallowed up the seer with his chariot and horses. This afterwards be-
came the usual account. In the Old Testament the similar fate of
Korah and his fellow rebels against Moses was regarded as punishment
from heaven. But Pindar and his successors felt that by engulfing Am-
phiaraus, Jupiter had shown him special honor. Pindar noted that later
the seer spoke from beneath the ground and advised the Epigoni to
choose his son Alcmaeon as their leader. Sophocles declared in his
Electra that Amphiaraus, although still alive, was ruling in Hades.
Herodotus observed that he became a deity.
Both Sophocles and Euripides took great interest in the later
mythical history of Thebes. Sophocles wrote dramas about Eriphyle,
the Epigoni, and Alcmaeon -- all of which now are lost. In his Oedipus
at Colonus, he gave a different reason for the curse against Eteocles and
Polynices. The brothers offended Oedipus, he said, because they exiled
"Aeschylus and Sophocles gave their names as follows: Adrastus, Tydeus, Capa-
neus, Amphiaraus, Parthenopaeus, Hippomedon, and a certain Eteoclus. Euripides
in the Suppliants gave the same list, but in the Phoenissae omitted Eteoclus and
counted Polynices among the seven. The Manual gave both lists.
274
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? IOLAUS
him from Thebes. Euripides in his Phoenissae treated the expedition
of Polynices. At first, he said, Eteocles and Polynices tried to escape
the curse by agreeing to hold power alternately. During the first year
Eteocles was to rule and Polynices was to live in exile. But at the end
of the year Eteocles refused to exchange places with his brother. Ac-
cording to Euripides, the brothers survived the battle but immediately
afterwards killed each other in a duel. Euripides in the Suppliants
recounted the intervention of Theseus. He wrote also a drama about
Alcmaeon, which now is lost. During the fourth century B. C. the inter-
vention of Theseus was discussed again by the Athenian orators Lysias
and Isocrates. They described it as an early instance of Athens bravely
and generously protecting the weak from injustice and urged their con-
temporaries to continue this policy.
The Manual repeated briefly the whole Theban tradition. It added
the following details about Eriphyle. When Amphiaraiis became recon-
ciled to Adrastus, they agreed that she was to decide any future dispute
between them. Polynices learned this fact, and, when Amphiaraiis ad-
vised against the march on Thebes, he resolved to win the favor of
Eriphyle. In the lore of primitive peoples it sometimes had been imag-
ined that a certain valuable object acquired sinister properties and
brought disaster successively to each of many persons who got posses-
sion of it. Probably the most famous example is the Rhinegold of Ger-
manic tradition. According to the ancient Greeks, a similar fatal treas-
ure entered into the story of Amphiaraiis.
Polynices offered Eriphyle a golden necklace, which originally had
been a wedding present of his ancestress Harmonia. Although Am-
phiaraiis had warned his wife to receive no gift from the Theban prince,
Eriphyle accepted the bribe and required her husband to undertake the
fatal expedition. Realizing her treachery, Amphiaraiis told Alcmaeon
to avenge his death, as soon as he should become a man, first by killing
Eriphyle and then by making war on Thebes.
When the Epigoni were assembling their forces, one of them offered
Eriphyle the robe of Harmonia, and in return for this new bribe she
persuaded Alcmaeon to proceed first against Thebes. Alcmaeon, learning
of her treachery, was confirmed in his purpose. After defeating the
Thebans in the field, he entered their city unopposed. Then he returned
and killed his faithless mother.
As punishment for the crime, he went mad and wandered about,
pursued by the Fury of his mother's murder. At Psophis in Arcadia,
275
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
King Phegeus cured his madness and gave him his daughter in mar-
riage. But the crops failed, and an oracle warned Alcmaeon to obtain
purification of guilt from the river God Acheloiis. Alcmaeon did this and
also married the god's daughter Calirrhoe. A few years later she insisted
that Alcmaeon should try to get her the necklace and robe of Harmonia.
In this attempt he was killed by the sons of Phegeus. Calirrhoe then
prayed to Jupiter asking that her own infant sons might become full
grown in order to avenge their father. The prayer was granted. Her
sons killed the murderers, and also Phegeus and his queen, and pre-
sented the necklace to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, presumably dis-
pelling its fatal properties.
The story of Eriphyle and the fatal necklace attracted brief
notice from several Augustan poets. Propertius referred to it twice,
Horace alluded to it in his Odes, and Ovid mentioned it in his Amores. .
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid showed Themis alluding to many
events of later Theban history. She mentioned the expedition of Poly-
nices, the death of the brothers in a duel, the blasting of Capaneus, the
descent of Amphiaraiis into Hades, and the murder of Eriphyle. She
noted also that Alcmaeon was victorious in the expedition of the Epi-
goni, and that Callirhoe asked him for the fatal necklace. In the story of
Alcmaeon, Ovid may have followed some epic or tragedy which now is
lost. He declared that Alcmaeon never recovered from his madness and
that Phegeus himself killed him. And, probably because Ovid could not
introduce the famous tale of Orestes, he made the story of Alcmaeon re-
semble it. He stressed the fact that by killing his mother Alcmaeon be
came at once pious and impious, and he declared that he was pursued
both by the Furies and by his mother's ghost. The transformation of
lolaiis had changed an old man into a young one. The transformation
of Callirhoe's sons afforded a contrast, for it changed boys into men.
Ovid then invented further circumstances. The idea that it was
possible to alter the age of human beings caused unrest among the
assembled gods. Each of them wanted to claim the benefit of Hebe for
some favorite of his own.
Aurora lamented that her husband Tithonus had become old. Here
Ovid recalled the story, told first in the Homeric Hymn to Venus, that
Tithonus was immortal but subject to the infirmities of age. It was
usual to speak of Aurora as daughter of the Titan Hyperion, but Ovid
referred to her both here and in the tale of Pythagoras (Bk. 15), as
daughter of his brother Titan Pallas. Ceres lamented the white locks of
276
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? IOLAUS
Iasion. The Odyssey had told of her meeting him on a plowed field of
Crete, the Theogony had called them parents of Plutus (Wealth), and
Ovid had recounted the story at some length in his Amores. While in-
troducing the complaint of Ceres, Ovid appears to have forgotten that,
according to the Odyssey, Iasion died prematurely by a thunderbolt.
Vulcan wanted life restored to his son Erichthonius (see Aglauros, Bk.
2). Venus realized that in time her loved Anchises would grow old. The
Iliad had spoken of her as visiting him on Mt. Ida and becoming the
mother of Aeneas, and the Homeric Hymn to Venus had told the story,
noting the future old age of Anchises.
In the Iliad the will of Jupiter seems to have been regarded as
identical with the course of Fate. But an early and widespread belief of
primitive men conceived of Fate as a power that was permanent and
superior to any reigning hierarchy of deities. The Icelandic Eddas pic-
tured it as controlling the future of Odin and the Aesir and bringing
them eventually to the Twilight of the Gods. And Aeschylus in Prome-
theus Bound indicated that Fate was more powerful than Jupiter and
was capable of punishing him for his torture of Prometheus.
This idea of dominating Fate, Ovid introduced into the tale of Iol-
aiis. Jupiter he said, pointed out to the other gods that Iolaiis and the
sons of Callirhoe could be transformed only because it was the will of
Fate. The same idea that Fate controlled even Jupiter, Ovid mentioned
afterwards in the story of Julius Caesar (Bk. 15), but there he per-
sonified Fate as the three sisters called the Parcae. Jupiter noted fur-
ther that he himself could not avert old age from his loved sons Aeacus,
Rhadamanthus, and Minos. These three, Ovid's contemporaries would
have recognized at once as famous for good character and for promi-
nence as judges in the world of the dead.
In the case of Minos, Ovid previously had recalled the story of his
fatal visit to Cocalus (Bk. 8), but had not explicitly mentioned his
death. He now invented the idea that Minos still was alive but had
become old and feeble and no longer was respected. This gave Ovid a
transition to the subsequent tale of Byblis.
In later times several authors recalled Ovid's tale of Iolaiis. Both
Hyginus and Clement of Alexandria remembered the circumstance that
three heroes, Tithonus, Iasion, and Anchises, were loved by goddesses.
Dante in his Paradiso repeated Ovid's idea that Alcmaeon was pious in
one sense and impious in another.
277
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
Byblis
In the previous tale Ovid had referred to Minos as still ruling in
Crete. He now associated him with a Cretan hero named Miletus. Ac-
cording to the Manual and Nicander, this hero was a son of Apollo. He
left Crete and founded the city of Miletus in Caria, a little south of the
estuary of the Maeander River. Ovid agreed in all these particulars, but
he differed in others. He was alone in calling the hero's mother Deione,
and he gave a different account of the circumstances under which the
hero departed for Caria.
According to the Manual and Nicander, Miletus left Crete because
he feared violence from Minos. The Manual added that in a contro-
versy between Minos and Sarpedon, Miletus preferred the latter, and
that Minos defeated them in battle. This account suggested a time
when Minos was comparatively young, much earlier than the rejuvena-
tion of Iolaiis. Ovid felt obliged to reject the greater part of it. He
referred to hostility of some kind between Minos and Miletus and then
declared that Miletus departed of his own accord. Nicander stated that
afterwards Miletus took as his wife a Carian princess named Idothea
and became the father of twins, a son named Caunus and a daughter
named Byblis. Ovid spoke of the mother as Cyanee, daughter of the
river god Maeander.
After this introduction, Ovid proceeded to tell the story of Byblis
and Caunus. While narrating the course of Byblis's incestuous passion
for her brother, Ovid associated it in his thought with the similar
passion of Myrrha for her father (Bk. 10).
He planned to make the
two stories alike in their outline, but as different as possible in their
circumstances. They were to present two aspects of the same repulsive
theme, and together they would go far towards presenting the subject
in full. It is natural to consider the stories of Byblis and Myrrha to-
gether. They are by no means isolated examples of their theme, for it
has appeared often both in tradition and in literature and has had a
long and surprising history.
Strong public opinion, present in all ages and countries, has for-
bidden marriage between parent and child or between brother and sister
(cf. Io, Bk. 1). The same public opinion has regarded illicit relations
between such persons as different from ordinary profligacy and far more
278
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? BTBLIS
culpable. Prohibition of such conduct was maintained even when other
rules of similar nature were waived. African tribes, which made it
customary for the oldest son to inherit wives and concubines of his
father, always excepted his own mother. Australian tribes, which held
festivals where other forms of license were encouraged, still maintained
their restriction in regard to parent and child or brother and sister. In
communities where law took cognizance of such matters, an offense
committed by persons of such near kinship was treated with special
severity. This widespread public opinion seems to have been a matter of
instinct and not the result of experience, for violations of the rule ap-
pear always to have been the rare exception. But it was fortunate.
Such inbreeding, when it has been tried with animals, tends to promote
mental and physical degeneracy -- slowly where other conditions are
favorable, rapidly where they are not.
In primitive communities there appear to have been times when
public opinion allowed an exception, even for parent and child or full
brother and sister. If very unusual circumstances threatened a family
with extinction, disregard of the rule seems to have been considered as
not only permissible but commendable. An example was recorded in the
Old Testament story of Lot and his two daughters, who became ances-
tors of the Moabites and Ammonites. Another example seems to occur
in the Germanic myth of Siegmund and his sister Sieglinde, who became
parents of the hero Siegfried, -- a tradition that Wagner afterwards
retold in his opera The Valkyrie. If a brother and sister had different
mothers, a number of early peoples considered them eligible to marry.
But in medieval and modern Europe their status was regarded as the
same as that of full brother and sister.
Among primitive peoples of Europe and Asia it sometimes was
customary to decry a hostile tribe by alleging either that the tribe in
question allowed marriage of parent and child or that its members often
were guilty of illicit relations of this kind. Eusebius repeated a Greek
tradition that Persians allowed such marriages. Other Greek traditions
told of similar conduct among the Phoenicians and may have suggested
the story of Myrrha.
Such calumny often took the following form. A certain man and
his wife learned that their newborn son was destined to kill his father
and marry his mother. To prevent this catastrophe, they inflicted a
severe wound on him and then put him in a box and cast him into the sea.
Drifting to a far-off shore, the child was found by some of the inhabi-
279
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
?
tants and was reared in ignorance of his true parentage. When he be-
came a man, he departed from his foster parents and after a while ar-
rived in his native country. There in a chance quarrel he killed his
father, and not long afterwards he married his mother. After some time
had passed, the scar left by his former wound attracted attention and
led to the discovery of the facts. From this abhorrent marriage there
originated the tribe in question.
In the East Indies one savage people rather often has told a story
of this kind about another savage people. And, lest it should be deficient
in abuse, the accusers have added that the father frequently assumed
the shape of a dog and the mother was the offspring of a pig. The
natives of Bantam also told a story of this kind to explain the origin of
the Dutch.
Similar tales appeared in the lore of European peoples. In the
medieval Golden Legend the story was employed to discredit an ob-
noxious individual, the traitor Judas Iscariot. Here there was one
important difference. According to the East Indian tales, mother and
son regarded their conduct with complacency and even made it a prece-
dent for other marriages of the same kind. But Judas was horrified at
his guilt and sought expiation by confessing it to the Master and be-
coming one of the twelve disciples. Among European peoples the idea of
discrediting an enemy seems usually to have been absent. The story
became merely a tale of strange, sensational adventure. In this form it
was told by the people of Finland and Ukraine. Their versions elabo-
rated the idea of the guilty man's endeavoring to atone for his offense
and noted that at last he was forgiven. *
Similar in nature to the stories told in Finland and Ukraine was
the ancient Greek tradition of Oedipus. This tale was unusual chiefly
in having the child cast away on a neighboring mountain and in having
a plague as the occasion for revealing his identity. In some versions the
offense committed by Oedipus and his mother appears to have been
condoned because it was unintentional. According to the Oedipodea and
*In Finland and Ukraine the story recorded atonement by the aid of an under-
standing priest of the Greek Catholic Church. It may have been intended to show that
with true repentance and reliance on the Christian faith any sin may be forgiven. The
idea appeared explicitly in the following medieval tale. Under the influence of Satan,
a young woman first seduced her father and murdered their three illegitimate chil-
dren. Next, to prevent discovery of her guilt, she murdered both her mother and her
father. Then, to escape punishment, she departed to a distant country and led a
profligate life. But at last a wise and good bishop enabled her to repel the fiend. She
repented, confessed her crimes, and after death was received into heaven. Therefore
let no one despair.
280
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? BY BUS
Pisander, Oedipus afterwards married another wife and became the
father of four legitimate children.
The Thebaid seems to have recorded a somewhat less favorable
result, for it did not mention a second marriage and it observed that
Oedipus had to give up the throne. But it indicated that the mother
continued to live at court and to exert herself in behalf of the children
until the civil war between Eteocles and Polynices (cf. Iolaiis). This
idea reappeared in the Phoenissae of Euripides and afterwards was
repeated both in Phoenissae of Seneca and by Statius. Aeschylus com-
posed two dramas about the story of Oedipus, but his account is lost.
In the earliest extant version of the tale, the outcome was disas-
trous. According to the Odyssey, the mother hanged herself and Oedi-
pus was pursued by Furies. The Iliad noted that he died a violent death.
Still another early version seems to have taken a middle ground. The
mother hanged herself, and Oedipus put out his own eyes and went into
exile, but after many sufferings he was forgiven by the gods and died
peacefully at Colonus. Sophocles followed this account in his Oedipus
the King and Oedipus at Colonus. The first of these dramas is the great-
est presentation ever given such a theme and the only one that justly
can be called noble. To write nobly of such matters required a soul as
high as Sophocles. The tragedy Oedipus the King inspired both sys-
pathy for the unwitting offenders and deep, genuine horror at the
offense. In later times the story was retold first by Seneca in his Oedipus
and then by Corneille, Dryden, and Voltaire.
A . somewhat different tale of illicit relations between parent and
child appeared in the Greek tradition of Thyestes. In this tale the child
was a daughter named Pelopia. The prediction concerning her became
known only after her mother had died and she herself was full grown. It
referred entirely to illicit relations with her father, Thyestes; and it
seemed only to offer a strong temptation. Thyestes, the oracle declared,
must give up hope of avenging the murder of his two sons, unless he
should have another son by his own daughter. To prevent such guilt,
the father made his daughter a virgin priestess of Athena. Afterwards
he met with her at night, and, not realizing who she was, he ravished her.
In this tale the means of discovery was a sword, which Pelopia took
from the ravisher. Learning of the unintentional offense, she killed her-
self and exposed her infant son, Aegistheus. Both Sophocles and Eu-
ripides treated the subject in plays which now are lost.
A still different myth appeared in the earliest account of Niobe
281
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
(cf. Bk. 6). In this tale the idea of evil fate took an unusual form. The
goddess Latona punished Niobe by causing her father, Assaon, to court
her. There was no warning prediction. The father knew that Niobe was
his daughter. He made no attempt to avoid the offense. Niobe repulsed
him but could not escape destruction.
The theme of illicit relations between parent and child occurred
rather often in lore of primitive peoples. The idea of such relations
between brother and sister appears to have been almost unknown. Al-
though public opinion against this offense was strong, there was a ten-
dency to believe that unusual circumstances could make brother and
sister eligible to marry. When the Odyssey declared that far away, long
ago, and under circumstances widely different from ordinary life the
wind god Aeolus married his six sons to his six daughters, early Greek
audiences appear to have accepted the tale without misgiving. An
offense committed by parent and child always was abhorrent. An
offense committed by brother and sister was in some degree a matter of
circumstances. It was less effective either for calumny against a hostile
tribe or for a sensational tale. This theme was apt to appear at a later
stage of culture.
The earliest Greek example was the Aeolus of Euripides, a tragedy
which now is lost. Retelling in a different form the tradition noted by
the Odyssey, Euripides made it more realistic and more nearly in accord
with Athenian standards of his own day. Euripides presented only two
children of Aeolus, the oldest son named Macareiis and a daughter
named Canace. Their relations, he declared, were illicit, and both
Macareiis and Canace were aware of the fact. Aeolus, discovering their
guilt, had a sword delivered to Canace. Macareiis then pleaded with
his father that love ought to have precedence over convention. But
meanwhile Canace had taken her own life with the sword. Macareiis fol-
lowed her example.
Euripides appears to have disapproved vigorously of the offense
committed by his hero and heroine, for afterwards Plato in his Laws
mentioned the tragedies of Oedipus and Aeolus as illustrating normal
Athenian opinion. But Euripides tended to awaken sympathy for the
guilty pair and offended the more conservative men of his time. Aris-
tophanes referred to his work indignantly in the Clouds and the Frogs
and parodied it in a comedy named Aeolosion, which now is lost. Ovid
retold the story of the two children of Aeolus in his celebrated Epistle of
Canace. In actual life guilt of the kind imagined by Euripides and Ovid
282
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? BYBLIS
is characteristic only of persons who are degenerate and degraded. But
both poets presented Macareiis and Canace as intelligent and externally
attractive. Misrepresentation of this kind afterwards occurred often in
the work of authors who treated such themes.
The Alexandrians in their quest for material that was new and
sensational introduced many tales about illicit relations between parent
and child or brother and sister. Occasionally they explained such con-
duct as punishment for offending Venus. They habitually presented at
least one party as acting with full knowledge of his guilt, and they
tended to present the woman as the aggressor. Such themes appeared
in the writings of almost every important Alexandrian author but were
especially common in the work of Parthenius.
Of the many stories introduced, the best known is that of Myrrha.
Not long before Ovid's time it was retold at great length by the Roman
poet Cinna, and it was mentioned prominently in Vergil's narrative
called the Ciris. Two other stories were those of Nyctimene and Mene-
phron, to which Ovid had alluded in his Metamorphoses (Bks. 2 and 7).
Most Roman authors found such themes uncongenial, and after Ovid's
time they took little notice of any except the tale of Oedipus.
Authors of the medieval period added at least one well-known
story of this kind, for in some accounts of King Arthur, the king and his
sister were parents of the traitor Modred. A number of medieval authors
showed interest in Ovid's treatment of such themes. Jean de Meun trans-
lated his tale of Byblis, a number of poets alluded briefly to the story
of Byblis or to that of Myrrha, and Dante presented Myrrha as one of
the deceivers punished in his Inferno. But on the whole, medieval au-
thors avoided such themes, and Chaucer in the Man of Law's Tale dis-
claimed any wish to treat them, mentioning as one example the tale of
Canace.
Authors of the Renaissance now and then introduced a brief tale
of this kind as an example of extraordinary wickedness. Spenser told of
a shameless giantess who seduced her brother. Shakespeare presented
at the beginning of his Pericles a king who seduced his daughter, and
Milton recorded briefly the complicated immorality of the characters
Satan, Sin, and Death. Different treatment of such material appeared
in the work of the Caroline dramatist, Ford. He made courtship of
brother and sister the theme of an entire tragedy and was anxious to
awaken sympathy for the guilty pair.
Authors of the Pseudo-classic period manifested extraordinary in-
283
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015005276665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
terest in such themes. They revived the myth of Oedipus and introduced
many stories of their own. Usually they treated illicit relations between
brother and sister. Almost always they regarded an affair of this kind
with strong disapproval and used it as an element of horror. As they
usually presented the tale, the brother and sister had been separated in
their infancy and afterwards met when full grown.
Sometimes the author imagined that both were unaware of their
kinship. In Dryden's Don Sebastian the result was tragedy, in Less-
ing's Nathan the Wise disaster was averted by the vigilance of Nathan.
At other times the author imagined that one party was aware of their
kinship. In Moliere's Don Garde Alphonse knew that Elvire was his
sister, but, in order to escape a tyrant, he pretended to court her as a
stranger. Moliere supposed that Elvire was restrained by instinctive
reluctance, an idea which Noel Coward repeated long afterwards in his
comedy The Marchioness.
Although such themes occurred in important dramas of the Pseudo-
classic era, they appear to have been exceptional on the stage. But they
occurred often in novels. Among authors of prose fiction who treated
the theme of brother and sister, was the earliest American novelist,
William Hill Brown. He presented the story with a tragic ending in his
first work, The Power of Sympathy, and with a happy ending in his Ira
and Isabella. Sir Walter Scott afterwards introduced the idea, with re-
markable lightness and delicacy, in his novel Redgauntlet.
Some authors reversed the familiar situation. They showed their
characters believing themselves related when actually they were not.
Goethe in his play called Die Geschwister showed the heroine believing
the hero was her brother and discovering with relief that she was mis-
taken. Fielding used the idea of mistaken belief to create a short sus-
pense.
