No More Learning

Athena, he said, did not create the olive tree in public view. She
planted it in the temple of Pandrosos and made King Cecrops her
witness. This account was repeated by the Manual. Varro mentioned
as judges of the contest the people of Athens.
Ovid followed in part the version of Phidias and the Greek vase
painters. He spoke of the contest as taking place in public view, add-
ing mistakenly that it occurred on the Hill of Mars, and he showed
Athena as a warrior maid obtaining recognition from the goddess
Victory. But he agreed with Callimachus and the Manual that Jupiter
appointed as judges the twelve gods. While referring to them, he
may well have remembered Euphranor's famous painting of the twelve
gods, which adorned the Athenian colonnade of Jupiter.
Of Athena's lesser designs, Ovid tells us, all four showed mortals
transformed because of their impiety to the gods. In at least three
rases they were guilty of impiety to Juno.
First came Haemus and Rhodope. They were a Thracian brother
and sister who presumptuously took the names of Jupiter and Juno.
As punishment, they were turned into bleak mountains covered with
perpetual snow. Ovid merely alluded to their fate, because already he
bad described the similar transformation of Atlas (Bk. 4).
Next came a tale of the Pygmies, a theme of special interest to
the Greeks and Romans. In prehistoric times dwarf tribes of black
people seem to have inhabited a great area of equatorial Africa. They
were a shy, inoffensive race, now distinguished as the Negrillos, aver-
rging perhaps four feet six inches in height. The Egyptians, through
trade with the tribes of the Upper Nile, learned something of these
small black people and represented them accurately in sculpture at
Sakkarah, which dates from about the year 2,500 B. C. Egyptian
voyagers encountered them also on the west coast of equatorial Africa.
And a stray party of Libyans met with them as far north as the lower
course of the Niger. In modern times the Negrillos have occupied a
much more restricted area near the headwaters of the Congo River
and near Lake Albert Nyanza.
To the Greek world also, there came news of the strange little
people. The Greeks called them Pygmies, meaning (literally) people
only thirteen and a half inches high. The poet of the Iliad mentioned
the Pygmies as living far south by the streams of Ocean. Others
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? PALLAS AND ARACHNE
thought of them more vaguely as inhabiting some unvisited region in
the south, or even far to the north. Greek painters portrayed them
rather accurately and showed them armed with lances. Herodotus
recorded the Egyptian traditions. And Aristotle tried to localize the
Pygmies in the marshes of Upper Egypt.
Other tribes of dwarf black people, the Negritos, inhabited many
islands south of Asia. During Alexander's expedition to India, his
followers learned something of these tribes, and the fact was mentioned
by the historian Ctesias. With the new discovery in mind, later Greeks
tended to identify the Pygmies with the Negritos and to localize them
vaguely in India, a belief which Ovid recorded in his Fasti.
Meanwhile Greek poets had introduced the strange, little known
people into mythology and had associated them with the annual migra-
tion of cranes. During the summer these birds reared their young
throughout the northern half of Europe. In the autumn they gathered
in flocks and flew southwards with loud, trumpeting cries to Africa or
to India. The Iliad declared them on their way to war with the distant
race of Pygmies. Greek poets and vase painters often repeated the idea.
Ovid mentioned it in his Fasti, and Juvenal described vividly what he
thought might be a typical battle.
To account for this peculiar antagonism, the Alexandrians in-
vented another myth. At one time, said Boeus, the queen of the Pygmies
was a certain Gerana. She claimed for herself the worship belonging
to Juno. As punishment she was transformed into a crane and made
hateful to her former subjects. When she tried to visit her son, they
resisted her and began the celebrated war. This account was repeated
by Ovid's friend, Aemilius Macer.
Athena filled her third corner with a design showing the fate of
the Trojan princess Antigone, a daughter of Laomedon (cf. Bk. 11).
Boeus and Macer had told the story as follows. Proud of her long,
beautiful hair, Antigone called herself superior to Juno. The goddess
turned it into snakes, but the gods alleviated her misery by transform-
ing her into a stork. Since the first change resembled that of Medusa
(Bk. 4), Ovid confined himself to the second.
In the fourth corner Athena pictured Cinyras mourning the loss
of his daughters. Guilty of some impiety, they had become the marble
steps of a temple. This tale we know only from Ovid. Athena enclosed
her entire design with a border of olive sprays.
Ovid then turned to the design of Arachne. He had imagined
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
that both the Pierid and Arachne chose myths discreditable to the
gods. But he made the disparagement different in each case. The
Pierid sang of Olympian cowardice, Arachne pictured Olympian sensu-
ality. Her design comprised many little pictures, each one portraying
an illicit love affair of some major god. Individually such themes were
apt to produce an unfortunate effect. By crowding many of them into
a single tale, Ovid heightened the evil and made it inescapable. In
planning his work he may not have foreseen this result. Afterwards
he showed no desire to amend it.
Arachne began with nine intrigues of Jupiter. First she por-
trayed the abduction of Europa. The story Ovid had told already
(Bk. 2). He now described vividly the white bull swimming through
the waves and Europa looking back frightened at the already distant
shore.
Then came a picture of Jupiter and the rather celebrated goddess
Asterie. According to the Theogony, she was daughter of Coeus and
Phoebe. She married Perses and became the mother of Hecate. In
the Hymn to Delos Callimachus told of her being courted afterwards
by Jupiter. To escape Jupiter, he said, she leaped from heaven into
the sea and became a floating island. The Manual added further cir-
cumstances. Before leaping, Asterie took the form of a quail, and
therefore the name of the island was originally Ortygia (Quail Island).
The name Asterie (Starry One) was given to the goddess because she
fell like a meteor from heaven. Boeus, repeating the story, declared
that Jupiter had pursued Asterie in the shape of an eagle. To this
incident Ovid referred, adding that at least temporarily tho eagle over-
took the fleeing quail.
In the third picture Arachne treated the myth of Jupiter and
Leda. According to the Iliad, Jupiter in his own shape courted Leda,
wife of the Spartan king, Tyndarus; and their offspring was Helen
of Troy.
At this time and ordinarily in later times Venus was thought to
have been either the daughter of Jupiter and Dione or the daughter
of Uranus without a mother. But soon after Homeric times the Greeks
learned from the Syrians a different account of her origin, which soon
altered the tale of Leda. Jupiter, according to this tale, courted
Nemesis. She took the form of a goose, and he became a gander. She
laid an egg, which dropped into the River Euphrates. Fishes rolled
the egg ashore; and doves, tending it, hatched the goddess Venus. This
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? PALLAS AND ARACHNE
tradition, like the earliest myth of Callisto (Bk. 2), assumed that
deities or human beings may have offspring in human form, even if
they themselves have assumed animal shapes.
Most Greeks rejected the new tradition when it was related to
Venus. But they gladly transferred it to Helen of Troy. Leda, they
said, had found the egg laid by Nemesis and had become the foster
mother of Helen. To this incident Sappho referred in one of her odes.
Presumably the egg must have been laid near Sparta. But afterwards
the worship of Nemesis was associated chiefly with a famous temple
at Rhamnus in Attica. Eratosthenes declared that Jupiter and Nem-
esis met at Rhamnus and there Nemesis laid the famous egg. A shep-
herd carried it to Leda. He added that Jupiter became, not a gander,
but a swan. This account was repeated by the Manual.
The Iliad spoke of Leda as the real mother of Helen. Sappho re-
garded her as only a foster mother. Still another tradition reconciled
the two accounts as follows. While Leda was bathing in the Spartan
river Eurotas, Jupiter disguised himself as one of the many swans
inhabiting the stream. By this means he readily surprised and seduced
her. Leda herself laid the egg which became Helen of Troy. The
idea that a young woman might lay an egg was in accord with general
savage belief. In countries as far apart as Java and Mexico, women
have been supposed occasionally to bear animal offspring. Euripides
incredulously told the new story in his drama Helen. The swan, he
said, appeared to be taking refuge from an eagle. This last circum-
stance did not appear in any subsequent version. Euripides told the
rest of the tale in his Iphtgenia at Aulis. The Manual recorded it;
Horace mentioned it in his Art of Poetry; and Ovid alluded to it often,
both in his Amores and in his correspondence between Paris and Helen.
Greek painters and sculptors delighted in representing Leda with'
the divine swan. A Pompeiian fresco showed the bird overcoming Leda
as she stood knee-deep in the water. But according to most paintings
he covered the lower half of her body with his outspread wings and tail
as she lay supine in a meadow. For contrast with the swan's white
plumage, the Greek painters often gave Leda black hair, and Ovid
mentioned the circumstance in his Amores. In the web of Arachne he
followed the usual artistic conception.
Another picture showed Jupiter courting Antiopa. According to
the Odyssey, she was a daughter of the Boeotian river Asopus, and
she boasted that Jove was the father of her twin sons, Amphion and
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
Zethus, who built the walls of Thebes. Euripides in his tragedy Antiopa
declared that Jupiter took the form of a satyr. Both Horace and
Propertius alluded to the story, and Pacuvius adapted the version of
Euripides for the Roman stage. The Manual treated the subject also
but called Antiopa a daughter of Nycteus. Ovid followed the Manual
and spoke of Nycteus as the father of Antiopa, because in the next line
he was going to call Asopus father of the maiden Aegina.
In still another picture Arachne showed Jupiter with Alcmena.
As parents of the mighty Hercules, they had been a favorite theme of
Greek authors from the beginning. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey
mentioned them as parents of Hercules, and both poems indicated that
Alcmena was the wife of Amphitryon. The Shield of Hercules told the
story to the following effect. Amphitryon, prince of Tiryns, married
Alcmena. His bride persuaded him to depart immediately afterwards
on an expedition against the Taphians, in order to avenge the death of
her brothers. Meanwhile Jupiter, desiring a benefactor of gods and
men, consorted with Alcmena and became father of Hercules. Amphi-
tryon, returning soon after, became father of the slightly younger boy
Iphiclus. Here the tale included a belief, common among primitive
men, that, if twin children are born, one of them is the offspring of a
divinity. Sophocles, Euripides, and Phercydes retold the story in
works which now are lost. Many poets alluded to it, and Ovid himself
mentioned it both in his Amores and in his Epistle of Deianira.
In the story told by the Shield of Hercules Alcmena would seem
remarkably disloyal and ungrateful. Pindar gave a more favorable
version. Jupiter deceived her, he said, by taking the shape of Amphi-
tryon. This idea became the theme of a very popular Alexandrian
comedy, which Plautus adapted for the Roman stage. * The Manual,
repeating the story, added that Jupiter made deception still easier
by telling Alcmena news of Amphitryon's victory. Probably remem-
bering the account in the Manual, Ovid spoke of Arachne as including
the tale, despite a considerable anachronism.
In the next picture Arachne showed Jupiter with Danae, the future
mother of Perseus. Since the Iliad, Greek poets often had alluded to
the story. But the Manual seems to have been the first to say that
Danae was immured in a tower and that, to gain access, Jupiter be-
? Plautus suggested in turn the modern drama Amphitryon, one of the most
remarkable comedies of Moliere. Dryden made a crude adaptation of Moliere's play.
Two other leading modern dramatists handled the same theme, Rotrou in his Two
Sosias and Klelst in his Amphitryon.
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? PALLAS AND ARACHNE
came a shower of gold. Propertius referred to the incident; Horace
treated it satirically as evidence of the great obstacles which we may
overcome by improper use of riches; and in the Amores Ovid twice
followed his example. For the tale of Arachne he returned to the
older, literal meaning.
Arachne then portrayed Jupiter and Aegina. According to the
Manual, the god loved Aegina, daughter of the River Asopus, and car-
ried her off to the island which afterwards took her name. Other
Alexandrian versions added that Jupiter had disguised himself either
as an eagle or as a fire. Ovid followed the latter account. The dis-
guise as an eagle would have been more plausible, but he had used it
already in the myth of Asterie.
For the eighth picture Arachne chose Jupiter's courtship of
Mnemosyne, mother of the nine Muses. In the Theogony Jupiter chose
her as one of his seven lawful wives. In later tradition she became
one of the many goddesses whom he seduced. His disguise as a shep-
herd we know only from Ovid.
The ninth picture revealed still another amour of Jupiter. Ac-
cording to some Arcadian myths, Neptune and Ceres had been the
parents of Proserpina. In accord with this idea, a Cretan myth added
that Jupiter, taking the form of a snake, courted Proserpina, the
Queen of Hades, and became the father of Bacchus (cf. Semele, Bk. 3).
To seduce the wife of his own brother, Pluto, was in itself unusually
bad. But, since the time of the Odyssey, Jupiter had been regarded
ordinarily as himself the father of Proserpina. Hence, the affair was
a scandal which Ovid could mention effectively as Arachne's final insult
to the ruler of the gods.
The impious girl did not stop here. She proceeded to six illicit
amours of Neptune. In the Epistle of Hero, Ovid had listed seven
amours of this kind. * He now attributed an almost entirely different
list to Arachne.
First came the seduction of a daughter of the wind god, Aeolus,
For this purpose Neptune took the form of a bull. In some accounts
the maiden's name was Arne. The Manual named her Canace, adding
that she bore Neptune several children.
Then followed an adventure with Iphimedia, whom Ovid evidently
confused with Tyro. The Odyssey had given an account of both.
*These seven favorites of Neptune were Amymone, Tyro, Medusa, Alcyone,
Calyce, Laodice, and Celaeno.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
Iphimedia, wife of Aloeiis, became the mother of two enormous boys,
who were called Aloidae from the name of their supposed father. The
mother declared them sons of Neptune. Tyro, wife of Cretheus, en-
gaged in a love affair with Enipeus, god of a Thessalian river. Nep-
tune, taking the form of her lover, seduced her and became the father
of Pelias and Neleus (cf. Bk. 7). Ovid spoke correctly of Iphimedia
as mother of the Aloidae, but he added mistakenly that she was de-
ceived by the impersonation of Enipeus.
A third picture showed Neptune with Theophane, daughter of
Bisaltus. The Alexandrian account seems to have been as follows.
Neptune taking the shape of a ram, carried Theophane to the island
of Crumissa in the Black Sea. There he transformed her into a ewe,
and they became parents of the famous ram with the golden fleece
(cf. Jason, Bk. 7). Greek authors attributed similar disguise as a
ram to Mercury in his courtship of Proserpina and to Pan in his court-
ship of Luna. In the tale of Theophane her offspring took the animal
form assumed by the parents. Such ideas have occurred often in savage
mythology. A certain Hindu goddess tried to escape her divine lover
by assuming one animal form after another. The lover always took
the same form and so became father of all the animal species.
Still another picture revealed Neptune's courtship of Ceres. The
Arcadians of a prehistoric time had worshiped not only Callisto, a
goddess in the form of a she-bear (cf. Bk. 2), and Io, a goddess in the
form of a cow (cf. Bk. 1), but also a third goddess in the form of a
mare, whom they identified later with Ceres. At Lycosura and else-
where their sculptors gave this goddess a human body with a mare's
head and mane. Neptune was supposed to have courted her, taking
himself the form of a stallion. According to the earlier version of the
myth, they became parents of the horse Arion and of the maiden
Proserpina. This was indicated in sculpture at Thelphusia. After-
wards the myth was related to the idea of Ceres as a goddess in human
form and to her famous quest for her daughter (cf. Bk. 5). While
the goddess wandered sadly through Arcadia, Neptune courted her.
Anxious to escape him, she took the form of a mare and entered the
cave at Phigalia. There she became the mother of Arion. As before
in the tale of Theophane, the offspring took the animal form assumed
by the parents. This version was shown in sculpture at Phigalia and
was mentioned by Herodotus. Ovid probably found the story in the
work of some Alexandrian author.
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? PALLAS AND ARACHNE
The fifth picture showed Neptune ravishing Medusa. The story
Ovid had told already in his Fourth Book, reserving for this passage
Neptune's disguise as a huge bird. But he should have said again that
Neptune followed Medusa into Athena's temple and defiled the shrine.
Arachne would not have omitted a circumstance so unwelcome to her
divine rival.
Last came Neptune's intrigue with Melantho, a daughter of Deu-
calion. To deceive her, the god took the form of a dolphin.
Following the nine pictures of Jupiter and the six of Neptune,
Arachne added four of Apollo. Callimachus had imagined that because
of fondness for Admetus, the god disguised himself as a farm hand (cf.
Battus, Bk. 2). This idea Arachne made the subject of a pictorial
design. Two other designs portrayed Apollo, first as a hawk and then
as a lion. These myths we know only from Ovid. The fourth picture
showed Apollo and Isse, daughter of Macareiis. She was a Lesbian
girl, in love with a shepherd. Apollo had impersonated her lover.
There still was room for two more pictures. The first showed
Bacchus transforming himself into a cluster of grapes, in order to
court Erigone, daughter of Tcarius. The second portrayed Saturn with
the nymph Philyra. According to the Titanomachia, Saturn took the
shape of a horse. Ovid followed a brilliant allusion to the story which
Vergil had made in the Georgics (cf. Ocyrhoe, Bk. 2). To complete the
work, Arachne enclosed all her pictures with a border of flowers and
twining ivy.
In planning the contest between Athena and Arachne, Ovid seems
to have given it the following course. Arachne was to challenge Athena.
Nymphs of the river Pactolus were to be appointed as judges. Athena
was to portray edifying themes in a simple, orderly design. Arachne
was to portray impious themes in a design which, although full of
interest, was ill arranged and over crowded. The river nymphs were
then to decide in favor of Athena. This would have made an excellent
story. But at the last moment Ovid hesitated. At the close of the
previous book he had just shown river nymphs deciding a similar con-
test in favor of the Muses. Although he was to make the new contest
different in many other respects, Ovid shrank from recording another
decision by the nymphs. He omitted the appointment of judges and
proceeded at once to the contest. But how was Athena to obtain the
victory? Ovid found himself in an awkward predicament. Rather
without cause, he declared the work of Arachne so admirable that
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
neither Athena nor Envy herself could raise an objection. Unable to
win the contest by skill, Athena resorted to violence. She tore Arachne's
work and struck her rival on the head with the shuttle. This was
variety, but with an inconsistent and disagreeable effect.
In telling of the metamorphosis itself, Ovid made a number of de-
sirable changes. Chagrined at the ill usage, he said, Arachne hanged
herself. Athena relenting, loosened the rope and saved her from death.
The innovation was appropriate, for Greek authors in general regarded
Athena as the personification of reason, and Callimachus had shown
that even when offended by Tiresias she treated him with kindness and
consideration. But Ovid obtained the further advantage of contrast
with his subsequent tale of Marsyas. Without emphasizing the differ-
ence, he allowed his readers to contrast the humanity of Athena with
the notorious cruelty of Apollo.
Athena then declared that for punishment Arachne and all her
race must continually dangle from cords. Before Diana transformed
Actaeon (Bk. 3), Ovid had shown her sprinkling him with water. He
had repeated the circumstance, when Proserpina metamorphosed
Ascalaphus (Bk. 5). Ovid attributed a similar act to Athena. But
instead of water, Athena sprinkled juice prepared by Hecate, goddess
of witchcraft, whom Ovid afterwards mentioned frequently in his tales
of Medea and Circe. Ovid then described elaborately the transforma-
tion of Arachne into a spider.
After Ovid's time his remarkable story continued to enjoy popu-
larity and to exert important influence of many kinds. It was, first
of all, by far the best account of Arachne, and it soon became the only
one. As such it attracted a number of the chief poets in later times.
Among warning examples carved on the terrace of Pride, Dante
saw Arachne half transformed, lamenting over the web which had
proved her undoing. Tasso mentioned her name as synonymous with
skill in the household arts, which his Clorinda despised. Ariosto de-
scribing Alcina's perfumed sheets, Spenser portraying Acrasia's deli-
cate veil, Shakespeare repeating the gloomy meditation of Troilus --
all named Arachne as excelling in the preparation of a fine and beautiful
woof. Spenser referred to her again as the spider spinning webs under
the roof of Mammon's cave.
In Muipotomos, Spenser retold the tale of Arachne at some length,
to account for the spider's hostility to the butterfly. He altered many
particulars, and, for his own purpose, he made the story far better.
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? PALLAS AND ARACHNE
First he described Arachne's work and attributed to her only the pic-
ture of Europa, which he elaborated effectively from several ancient
accounts. Then he described Athena's picture of the contest with
Neptune. He omitted her four lesser designs; but he imagined that in
her border she wove an exquisite butterfly. Seeing this, he said,
Arachne knew that she was vanquished and she became a spider, mother
of the insect in Spenser's own poem.
Ovid's myth of Arachne was valuable also for its many subordinate
tales. A number of them were available elsewhere, and some of them
had been told more fully. But Ovid's version was ordinarily the first
which was read by men of later times and it provided by far the largest
and most accessible collection. It became a favorite source of reference.
Athena's web afforded the best account of the contest with Nep-
tune. Dante mentioned this contest in his Purgatorio. Camoens de-
scribed it, somewhat inappropriately, as represented in the sculpture
of Neptune's palace.
Far more important were the tales in the web of Arachne. They
treated a picturesque and perennially interesting theme, the loves of
the pagan gods, and within brief compass they included twenty-one
stories. This was a collection which later authors found valuable from
several points of view.
Less than two centuries after Ovid's time, it had an important
place in religious controversy. These many stories telling how a god
engaged in some illicit love affair and descended to the trick of dis-
guising himself as a human being or a beast had originated among
people living in a savage state. They were inherited either from pre-
historic times or from some backward community of later Greeks.
With the advance of culture and morality, enlightened Greeks found
them both irreverent and immoral and would have been glad to let them
sink into oblivion. They excluded them where possible from public
worship and turned to a purer, more philosophic belief. It was im-
possible to keep the irreverent and the ignorant from repeating the
old, unworthy stories; but these tales had ceased to be respectable, and
in general no one took them seriously. Alexandrian authors continued
to record them as matters of literary and scientific interest, and Ovid
used them cleverly as scandals told by the impious Arachne.
Suddenly the pagan religion was assailed by zealous leaders of the
Christians. Both Greek and Latin converts seized on the old, immoral
myths and paraded them as typical examples of pagan belief. Arachne's
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
web became a veritable arsenal for invectives both in verse and prose.
Clement of Alexandria used at one time or another nineteen of the
twenty-one stories, and he referred to an Alexandrian version of a
twentieth. This use of Ovid's tale for religious controversy was im-
portant, but it ended with the triumph of the Christian faith.
During the Renaissance more than one author began to use
Arachne's tales for literary effect. Sometimes it was possible to draw
on a number of them in a single passage. In a prose romance, Dorastus
and Fawnia, Greene showed the young prince justifying his disguise
as a shepherd by recalling the fact that Jupiter became a bull for the
sake of Europa, Neptune a ram for Theophane, and Apollo a swain
for Admetus. This passage Shakespeare gladly repeated in A Winter's
Tale. Moliere in his Amphitryon showed the goddess Night marvelling
that Jupiter should forsake his divinity not only for human forms but
even for such animal shapes as a bull, a snake, or a swan. And Herrick
in his poem To Maids Who Walk Abroad observed that Jove
Put on all shapes to get a Love:
As now a Satyr, then a Swan;
A Bull but then ; and now a Man.
Spenser went much further. Pictured in tapestry of the House
of Busyrane, he said, Britomart saw eighteen of Arachne's tales.
Spenser sometimes expanded Ovid's references effectively, either from
another account or from his own imagination, and sometimes he altered
part of the story. In substantial agreement with Ovid, he included
the adventures of Jupiter with Europa, Danae, Leda, Alcmena, Asterie,
Antiopa, and Aegina. But Proserpina became the "Thracian maid. "
As in Ovid's tale, Neptune courted Theophane, Iphimedia, Arne, and
Melantho. And he ravished Medusa. But for this adventure he did
not take the form of a bird; more appropriately he took the form of a
winged horse. Apollo became a lion and a falcon. But Spenser added
another disguise as an old woman.