Shakespeare displayed an
extraordinary
interest in Ovid's myth.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
The barbarous Tereus rejoiced to see
Philomela cut off from all escape and kept her always in view, gloating
as an eagle might gloat over the hare which he has dropped into his eyrie.
Ovid then returned to the story as told by Sophocles and the
Manual. Both authorities indicated that Tereus conveyed Philomela
secretly to a residence in the country. Ovid said that, after landing at
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
the Thracian port, Tereus proceeded at once to a lonely habitation in
the forest; and, to suggest the brutal eagerness of the Thracian, he added
that Tereus dragged Philomela thither. The building, Ovid tells us later,
had walls of stone. It seems to have been a place well known to Tereus
and perhaps even to Procne. And it was situated within a few miles of
their palace, for the distance could be traversed easily on foot. Evi-
dently there were quarters near by for guards and at least one attendant;
but ordinarily the habitation itself was vacant and gave an ominous im-
pression of solitude. Ovid may have thought of it as a hunting lodge for
the Thracian king. Hither Tereus brought Philomela, terrified and in-
quiring anxiously for her sister.
Sophocles and the Manual had indicated a few of . . the incidents
which followed, and Sophocles may have recorded them in some detail.
Ovid gave vividness to the repulsive event. Barring the door, he said,
Tereus announced his purpose and ravished the unprotected Philomela,
while she called for help to her absent father and sister and to the all-
seeing gods. For a time she remained panic-stricken, as a lamb torn by
the teeth of a wolf or a dove bloody from claws of some bird of prey.
Then, grown desperate, she denounced his treachery and crime. She
would proclaim his guilt, either to men or to the forest and the gods.
Both angered and frightened, Tereus bound her arms and drew his
sword. Believing that she was to die, Philomela rejoiced and offered her-
self for the thrust. But Tereus forcibly drew out her tongue and cut it
off with the sword.
In the case of Emathion (Bk. 5) Ovid had observed that, after his
head was cut off, the tongue still uttered curses. In the case of Philo-
mela, even the tongue by itself gave evidence of conscious life. Vergil
had told in the Aeneid how the severed right hand of Garides sought its
master and the dying fingers twitched and clung to the sword. Similar,
but even more pathetic, was the behavior of Philomela's severed tongue.
It trembled on the dark earth, murmured, twitched convulsively, and
with a dying effort sought the feet of its mistress. Ovid added also the
unfortunate suggestion that in moving it writhed like the severed tail of
a snake.
Even after this atrocity, Ovid continued, Tereus did not spare
Philomela; but, if we may credit report, he violated her again and again.
Ovid implied that he did so on the same occasion, and he may have been
willing by this means to heighten the reader's detestation of Tereus.
But later he implied the following sequence of events. Believing that
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
Philomela was unable to reveal the crime, Tereus arranged to have her
kept a prisoner in the lodge and then departed to his palace. After-
wards, however, he returned from time to time and repeatedly outraged
his helpless victim.
Following Sophocles and the Manual, Ovid declared that Philo-
mela wove her story in a cloak. But he recorded the facts ambiguously,
so that a reader unacquainted with the Greek versions would be uncer-
tain whether she told the tale in woven letters or in pictures. Without
letting her attendant know about the message, she persuaded her by
signs to bear the cloak as a gift to Procne. Presumably the attendant
could not read. After learning her sister's fate, the Thracian queen was
speechless with; grief and rage. Ovid noted that she forgot all scruples
in her eagerness for revenge.
According to Sophocles, the news arrived at the time of a Bacchic
festival, and Procne took advantage of the occasion in order to recover
her sister. Ovid gladly followed his example. Such festivals occurred at
intervals of two years. But Vergil, counting inclusively, had spoken of
Dido as raging like a Maenad in the triennial festival of Bacchus (tri-
aterica Baccho), and Ovid echoed the striking phrase. He described the
festival briefly and showed that on such an occasion Procne could wander
abroad unchallenged and indulge her frenzy.
For Procne's return with Philomela and the events which followed,
Ovid may have profited by many hints in the account of Sophocles.
Philomela, he said, was terrified at finding herself in the palace of Tereus
and ashamed to meet her sister's gaze. Mutely pleading innocence, she
hung her head and wept. Procne bade her prepare for merciless revenge.
But even Procne was in doubt what course to pursue. She thought of
burning Tereus in his palace, or of mangling him with the sword and
leaving him to drag out a wretched existence, or of killing him by re-
peated thrusts. Vergil had mentioned the soul of young Pallas departing
through his mortal wound. Procne wished to drive out the guilty soul
of Tereus through a thousand wounds.
While she remained in doubt, Itys entered seeking his mother.
Procne noted his likeness to his father and immediately planned her re-
venge. The child, suspecting no evil, embraced her and spoke with his
usual innocent charm. Procne hesitated and wept. But she reminded
herself that Philomela did not speak because she could not, and that
the boy's father was the cruel, faithless Tereus. Towards him loyalty
seemed a crime. Euripides had shown how cruelty not only causes suf-
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
fering but also debases the character of the victim. Ovid seems to have
remembered this teaching while he pictured the conduct of Procne and
Philomela. Procne seized the boy, as a tigress on the bank of the Ganges
might seize a fawn. Dragging him to a remote part of the house, she
turned on him, while he pleaded in terror, and struck him down with a
knife. Philomela joined her in the crime. Ovid recorded the traditional
circumstances, added further revolting touches and reveled in horror.
Ovid seems to have given new details and greater vividness to the
hideous feast. Procne, he said, persuaded Tereus that she was preparing
a celebration at which, according to the Athenian custom, attendants
were to be absent and the king was to eat alone. Tereus, sitting in state,
devoured with relish the flesh of his son. Sophocles and the Manual had
imagined that meanwhile Procne and Philomela fled. But Ovid introduced
a new climax of horror. Instead of departing, he said, they waited im-
patiently for the moment when Tereus should discover the real nature
of the feast. At last the king called for Itys to come. Procne did not
conceal her fiendish joy. "You have him already," she answered, "in-
side! " Perplexed, he called again. Then Philomela, her hair streaming
and stained with blood, sprang in and cast the gory head in the father's
face, longing to express her satisfaction in words.
Ovid indicated the violent horror and grief of Tereus. According
to the Manual, Tereus had caught up an axe and pursued the sisters.
Ovid imagined that he drew his sword. But the guilty sisters escaped.
Their transformation, said Ovid, took place, not in Daulia, but in the
Thracian palace. Ovid did not say which one became the nightingale.
One sister flew to the woods, the other to the roof. Vergil in the Georgics
had spoken of the swallow, Procne, as having on her breast the mark of
bloody hands. Ovid declared mistakenly that both sisters retain the
signs of murder, for their breasts are marked with blood. Tereus be-
came a hoopoe, his sword changing to the formidable beak.
Greek authors had implied that Procne acted while overcome by a
temporary frenzy but afterwards repented and mourned the death of
her son. Ovid had given an impression of more calculating cruelty. Per-
haps for this reason he mentioned no subsequent mourning. But he added
appropriately that old Pandion died of grief.
In later centuries Ovid's lurid tale enjoyed great popularity. For
the identity of the birds authors used Vergil or other works of Ovid, and
almost always they showed Procne as the swallow and Philomela as the
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
nightingale. But for particulars they referred continually to the Meta-
morphoses.
During later Roman times allusions appear to have been few and
brief. The Pervigilium Veneris described the nightingale as a sister com-
plaining of a barbarous lord. Lucan remembered Ovid's account of
Philomela's severed tongue. The tongue of a certain Roman leader, he
declared, was cut out and gave similar evidence of life.
In medieval times Ovid's tale began to arouse widespread interest
and to attract many of the chief authors of the period. During the
latter half of the twelfth century, a French poet retold it as a famous
romance called Philomena. The poet has often been spoken of as
Chretien de Troyes, but he seems to have been a less known contem-
porary who wrote in a similar manner. Giving the story an atmosphere
of his own time, he even showed Philomela declining to plead with her
father, on the ground that such conduct was not regarded as proper
among the French. He valued the story chiefly as an opportunity for
the display of subtle and diverting rhetoric, and for this purpose he
borrowed often from Ovid's Amores.
The French poet introduced many changes. To explain the alliance
of Procne with a husband so unworthy as Tereus, he imagined that
Pandion himself was evil and fierce. He expanded Ovid's account of the
wedding and greatly expanded Ovid's account of Tereus in quest of
Philomela. Ovid's sixty-five lines of Latin became more than six hun-
dred lines of French, and Ovid's brief description of Philomela became
a lengthy dissertation on her beauty and accomplishments. For the lat-
ter, the French poet drew chiefly on the Art of Love, but he added the
further accomplishments of skill in embroidery, in hunting, and even in
fishing. After Tereus had gone back to Procne, his deceitful account of
Philomela's death provided another opportunity for elaborate rhetoric,
and the metamorphosis became an occasion for moralizing on the pun-
ishment of Tereus. The tragic events to which Ovid gave prominence,
the French poet dismissed in a relatively brief and colorless manner.
Ovid had not mentioned the song of the nightingale, but the French poet
declared that she keeps repeating as sweetly as possible the word "kill"
( oci).
The Philomena, extending to six times the length of Ovid's tale,
entirely suited the spirit of the time. A century later Chretien Legouais
included it in his Ovide Moralise and also explained it as an allegory.
Three centuries later Gawyn Douglas in a prologue to his Aeneid still
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
called the nightingale Philomena, although he spoke of her notes as
merry.
Dante twice recalled Ovid's tale of Philomela in his Purgatorio, and
in both passages he remembered also Ovid's earlier works according to
which Philomela became the swallow. He spoke of dawn as a time when
the swallow begins her sad lay, perhaps in memory of her first woes.
And among the warning examples of wrath he saw the image of her who
became the nightingale. Petrarch followed Ovid's later opinion. In a
sonnet about the spring he declared that now Procne chatters and Philo-
mela weeps.
Chaucer in the Troilus told how the swallow Procne wakened
Pandarus by lamenting the abduction of her sister. In the Legend of
Good Women Chaucer gave a new version of the story, using Ovid but
adding details from the Philomena and from his own invention. Ovid had
been impressed with the terror of the tale and had wished to show provo-
cation so great that it resulted in murder and cannibalism. Chaucer
thought rather of the pathos of the tale and presented it as an example
of trusting women abused by a faithless man.
He began with a short account of the wedding and the omens of
future ill. He then passed to Procne's desire that Tereus should bring
Philomela to visit her and added appropriately that Tereus yielded only
to repeated requests. The events at Athens he presented more briefly
and clearly than Ovid had presented them, and he supposed more plaus-
ibly that Tereus first coveted Philomela when he saw her pleading with
her father. But Chaucer gave less attention to the father's solicitude
for his daughter. He passed immediately to the arrival in Thrace and
showed Tereus leading Philomela to a cave. Lessening the abruptness of
the attack, he narrated the incidents in clearer sequence and with empha-
sis on the pathos of Philomela's misfortune. For this reason he omitted
her threatening to reveal the crime. He showed Tereus cutting out her
tongue with no provocation but the fears of a guilty conscience. Chaucer
omitted one admirable touch, Philomela's offering herself hopefully to
the sword of Tereus. He made clear at once the arrangement for confin-
ing her in a "castle", and stated definitely that Tereus told of her being
dead when he arrived in Athens.
Ovid had left uncertain the nature of Philomela's woven message.
Chaucer declared that she used both letters and pictures. He added with
advantage that her messenger told Procne the circumstances of her im-
prisonment. Feigning a pilgrimage to the temple of Bacchus, Chaucer
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
continued, Procne found her sister, and both lamented their hapless fate.
The rest of the tale did not serve Chaucer's purpose, and so he ended
with a warning that all men are more or less to be feared. Though not
attempting to show the nature of the ancient myth, Chaucer created a
little masterpiece of clear, pathetic narrative.
Ovid's tale became even more popular during the Renaissance.
Boiardo in his narrative of Marchino and Stella combined the horrors of
the Latin myth with still others both old and new. Ariosto often recalled
Ovid while narrating Bireno's wicked infatuation with the Princess of
Friesland. In a long ode Pontus de Tyard endeavored to show that his
own misfortunes exceeded those of the nightingale and the swallow. Sid-
ney retold Ovid's myth in his Nightingale. And Spenser's shepherd
Cuddie declared in a sestina
Hence with the nightingale will I complain,
That blessed bird that spends her time of sleep
In songs and plaintive pleas, the more to augment
The memory of his misdeed that bred her woe.
At other times narrative poets of the Renaissance recalled a par-
ticular circumstance of the tale. Camoens described Teresa as a worse
mother to Alonzo than Procne had been to Itys. Ariosto used the same
idea in a more general sense. If we are to consider Rome as the mother
of Alphonso, he declared, she was almost as cruel a mother as Procne
and Medea. And Ariosto likened Gabrina to Procne and Medea because
of her treacherous cruelty to a youth who was not in any sense her son.
Tasso followed both Vergil and Ovid in the weird incident of Gerniero's
severed hand. Still holding the sword with its trembling fingers, he said,
the hand glided over the earth, like the severed tail of a snake, in the
hope of reuniting itself with the body.
The name Philomel, synonymous with the nightingale, appeared in
the work of many poets from Shakespeare's Lucrece to an elegiac epi-
gram of Goethe. And Matthew Arnold, who followed Sophocles in all
other particulars, still called the nightingale Philomela.
Shakespeare displayed an extraordinary interest in Ovid's myth.
To the main theme he referred repeatedly. His Lucrece made a long
comparison of her own misfortunes to those of Philomela. In the drama
Cymbeline, Imogen read Ovid's tale the night when Iachimo spied on her,
and she turned down the page "where Philomel gave up. " Shakespeare
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
used Ovid even more prominently hi Titus Andromcus. Adding circum-
stances which he may have taken indirectly from Boiardo, he presented
the following sensational story. Two young princes, Chiron and Deme-
trius, incited by their mother, plotted against Lavinia. After murder-
ing her husband, they dragged her into the forest and ravished her.
They then cut out her tongue, in order that she might not tell their deed,
and also cut off her hands, in order that she might not weave the story.
Lavinia's uncle, finding her, pointed out the likeness of almost all these
circumstances to those of Philomela. Lavinia then revealed to her father
and uncle the identity of her ravishers by showing them Ovid's myth and
writing the names in the dust. Announcing that he followed the example
of Procne, the father slew Chiron and Demetrius and served their flesh
to their guilty mother. The play Titus Andronicus proved very success-
ful for several years, and afforded Shakespeare valuable training as a
dramatist.
Shakespeare profited also by certain details of Ovid's myth. In
many works he mentioned the female nightingale as singing. In As You
Like It and The Tempest he spoke of Juno as the goddess presiding over
happy marriages. And again and again he named the owl as a prophet
of woe and death.
Milton found Ovid's account less congenial. Though showing great
fondness for the song of the nightingale, he described it ordinarily from
observation, and often he noted that the male bird sings. But the Ovidian
tradition influenced him in three passages of Paradise Lost where he
attributed song to the female; and in Paradise Regained, Ovid probably
suggested Milton's description of the nightingale as the attic bird.
Swinburne recalled a few circumstances from Ovid in his rhapsody
called Itylus.
In modern painting Ovid inspired work of Piombo and Rubens. And
in modern science he probably suggested the name of the east European
nightingale luscinia Philomela.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
BoKEAS AND OaiTHYIA
After the death of King Pandion, Ovid noted the accession of Pan-
dion's son, Erechtheus, and proceeded to tell of the new king's children.
The Manual had named three sons and four daughters. Ovid mentioned
four of each but named only two daughters, Procris and Orithyia. The
Manual had told first of Procris -- her marriage to Cephalus, prince of
Phocis, and their tragic history -- and then had told of Orithyia. Ovid
recorded the marriage to Cephalus, but he reserved the story for a more
striking occasion at the close of the following book. He proceeded at
once to the story of Orithyia and the North Wind, whom he called indif-
ferently either Boreas or Aquilo.
The myth had attracted much attention among the Greeks. At first
Orithyia was regarded as daughter of a much earlier king, Cecrops, and
sister of the notorious Aglauros (cf. Bk. 2). This idea appeared in an
early vase painting, which showed Boreas, veiled in clouds, seizing Orith-
yia in the presence of her father and sisters. Many other vase paintings
dealt with the subject and pictured Boreas either as pursuing or as
seizing the maiden. Both the poet Simonides and the mythographer
Acusilaiis recorded the story. According to Acusilaiis, the royal maiden
was carrying a basket in a procession to Athena's temple, when the god
became enamored and suddenly carried her away.
Herodotus, alluding to the tale, declared that Orithyia was daugh-
ter not of Cecrops but of Erechtheus, and this became the usual version
of the story. Both Aeschylus and Sophocles treated the subject on the
stage. Pherecydes recorded it in prose. Plato alluded to it in his dia-
logue, the Phaedrus.
Apollonius retold the tale as follows. Orithyia was not taking part
in a religious procession but was dancing outside the walls near the river
Ilissus. Boreas carried her from there to the coast of wintry Thrace and
alighted near the river Erginus, on a rock called Sarpedon. In that re-
gion she bore two sons, Calais and Zetes. On their ankles they had wings,
which gleamed with golden scales and were capable of bearing them in
flight through the air. Both sons accompanied Jason in quest of the
Golden Fleece.
The Manual recorded the same tale but more briefly and vaguely.
While Orithyia was playing by the river Ilissus, it said, Boreas carried
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? BOREAS AND ORITHYIA
her away. She became the mother of two winged sons and these later
sailed with Jason in the Argo. The Manual named also two daughters.
Roman poets alluded often to Orithyia. Propertius twice mentioned
the abduction. Vergil in the Georgics named Orithyia as one of those
who lamented the death of Eurydice. Ovid referred to the abduction in
the Amores, the Epistle of Leander, and the Fasti. In the Epistle of
Paris he alluded to a rationalized version of the myth, otherwise un-
known, according to which Thracians carried off the princess in the
name of Boreas.
For the Metamorphoses Ovid used the Manual but elaborated the
story in a very interesting and original manner. He did not indicate the
circumstances under which Boreas first became aware of Orithyia. The
god, he said, courted her for a considerable period of time and at first
attempted to win her by obtaining the consent of her father. But the
disastrous marriage of Tereus and Procne made Erechtheus unwilling
to risk another alliance with a denizen of Thrace, even with the North
Wind himself. For some time the god continued his solicitation. Find-
ing at length that it was in vain, he reverted to his usual boisterous rage.
He reproached himself for descending to persuasion. He described the
range of his fierce storms and his airy combats with his brother winds,
which made the sky resound and lightning dart from the clouds. Lucre-
tius had supposed that violent winds, entering caves, shook the ground
and were the cause of earthquakes -- an idea repeated by Vergil in his
Aetna. Ovid added this to the other formidable activities of Boreas,
observing that such convulsions frightened even the shades in the realm
of the dead. In a similar, violent manner Boreas decided to obtain his
bride.
Rushing southwards in clouds of dust and vapor, the god caught
up the frightened Orithyia and bore her away. The Manual had not
given their destination. But Vergil had mentioned her as inhabiting the
region of the Cicones, a people living on the coast of Thrace, near the
Hellespont, and frequently referred to since the time of the Odyssey.
Ovid imagined that Boreas alighted in a town of the Cicones. He said
nothing about the two daughters but gave a rather long and original
description of the sons. They were twins, he said, and at first grew like
normal boys. But, when the down appeared on their cheeks, feathered
wings resembling those of their father began to sprout from their sides.
Ovid then mentioned them, rather abruptly, as followers of Jason in
quest of the Golden Fleece. At this point he digressed from the mythical
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
history of Athens, and he did not return to it until the middle of the fol-
lowing book.
Ovid spoke of the twins as sailing with the Minyae. This name
ancient authors frequently used to designate the crew of the Argo. Its
origin appears to have been uncertain. Apollonius had suggested that
Jason and his bravest followers were descendants of King Minyas, the
founder of Orchomenus in Boeotia. Ovid spoke of the Argo as the first
ship to sail the seas. In this he followed a tradition common among the
ancients, to which he had alluded already in his Amores, but here
the statement obviously was contradicted by his preceding account of
Tereus.
After Ovid's time the myth of Orithyia was retold by Statius.
During the Renaissance Ovid's narrative interested two leading poets.
Camoens showed Orithyia persuading Boreas to allay the storm, in
order that Gama might arrive safely in India. Milton in his Elegy on a
Fair Infant declared that, when Boreas carried off Orithyia, Winter re-
solved to emulate his example. After long search he found a worthy
bride in the infant but unwittingly killed her with his cold embrace.
Piombo treated the story of Orithyia in painting. Rubens made it
the theme of a famous work. Flamen used it in a statue for the gardens
of the Tuileries.
*******
Of the seven major tales in Book Six the majority were of early
origin and often had been treated by Greek authors. The tales of Niobe,
Marsyas, and Orithyia also had been favorite themes of Greek art. Of
the twenty-seven lesser tales twelve were of early origin, and a number
of these had been popular with Greek authors and artists. But fifteen
had appeared only in Alexandrian times. Although Roman authors had
shown interest in many of the tales, they had told in full only those of
Alcmena and Philomela, and the Tereus of Accius afterwards perished
with the fall of Rome. It was Ovid who made these many stories acces-
sible during the Middle Ages, and his work continued to be the most
convenient source during modern times.
Although Ovid had the advantage of many stories which long had
attracted attention, he seldom used the earlier versions. In the tale of
Iphimidia he followed the Odyssey, and in the tale of Philomela he drew
much from Sophocles. Otherwise he took his outlines entirely from Alex-
andrian authors, and he owed the tale of Philyra to Vergil. Often Ovid
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? BOOK SIX
preferred an Alexandrian source merely because it happened to be the
most convenient, but sometimes by using a little known Alexandrian
author he was able to give the familiar tale a new and very interesting
development. To novelty of this kind in the older stories he added the
further novelty of many other stories which were unfamiliar or wholly
unknown.
In the Sixth Book, the influence of the Manual became more im-
portant than it had been since Book Three. The Manual furnished the
outline for more than half of the major tales, including the important
myth of Niobe, and for several of the lesser tales. The effect of Nicander
became more important than it had been during the preceding book.
Nicander provided the outline for the three major tales of Arachne, the
Lycian Peasants, and Marsyas. Callimachus supplied the important
minor tale of Latona at Delos, incidents of which appeared in each of
the three chief stories in the first half of the book. For three lesser myths
Ovid seems to have used Boeus. At least thirteen lesser tales he bor-
rowed from Alexandrian authors whom we cannot identify, and eight of
these we know only from him.
Throughout the book Ovid found a difficult problem of adjustment.
Almost always the tales which he selected had had no previous relation
to one another. Ovid was obliged to invent a plausible relation of time
and circumstance. On several occasions he was glad to repeat methods
which had proved helpful in his previous books. And in the tale of
Arachne he resorted again to the method of having a character in one
story narrate still others. But he did this in a new manner and with un-
usually brilliant success. In many cases the question of relative dates
proved exceedingly difficult. Ovid wished to give his tales an appearance
of orderly, historical succession. This was difficult in the case of tales
which hitherto had remained isolated. And it was much more difficult in
the case of many other tales which well-known tradition had associated
differently with stories appearing elsewhere in Ovid's poem. To remove
or lessen the inconsistency required continual use of tact and skill.
Ovid not only chose many tales which were new but improved his
material continually by valuable innovations. He took from Phidias sug-
gestions for the contest of Athena with Neptune and from Scopas an
important incident in the tragedy of Niobe. Theocritus and Varro of
Atax suggested a new transformation of Marsyas. Vergil aided Ovid in
many tales, notably those of Arachne, Philomela, and Orithyia. And
Ovid borrowed important incidents from his own earlier stories of Io and
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
Pentheus. But he did not stop with these. Continually he added further
improvements of his own invention. And to the myth of Arachne he gave
special interest by contrasting it elaborately with the previous tale of
the Muses and the Pierids.
By the use of much new material, by great originality and manifold
skill, Ovid made the Sixth Book one of the most remarkable in his mas-
terpiece. And this despite much that was unattractive in his subjects.
Yet few of his books will show more numerous and glaring faults. The
justly famous tales of Arachne, Niobe, and Philomela are marred by
passages of crude maladjustment. The tales of Niobe and Philomela
afford flagrant examples of ill-timed wit. And the stories of Niobe,
Philomela, and Marsyas contain needless obscurities, which (in the case
of the two latter tales) have sometimes perplexed their warmest ad-
mirers. Readers greatly interested in the subject have been willing to
overlook these shortcomings in the treatment. But even those without
such interest will find these faults accompanied and more than compen-
sated by extraordinary merit.
During ancient times the Sixth Book had a very important influ-
ence. It affected interestingly the work of the younger Seneca, Lucan,
and Statius, and the tale of Arachne became a center of violent religious
controversy between Pagan and Christian. In the Middle Ages several
tales interested profoundly the leading poets of the time. With the
Renaissance the effect became still more important and more widely dif-
fused. And again in the nineteenth century many prominent poets man-
ifested unusual interest.
Among authors not ordinarily showing influence of the Metamor-
phoses were Sidney, Byron, and Lesconte de Lisle. A notable effect ap-
peared in the case of Chretien de Troyes, Milton, and Lewis Morris.
Dante and Camoens showed their interest in a great number of tales.
And the Sixth Book as a whole affected deeply the work of Chaucer and
Shakespeare. But with no author was its influence so remarkable as with
Spenser.
A number of tales attracted modern painters and they became the
theme of several influential masterpieces. The tales of Leda, Antiopa,
and Orithyia interested modern sculptors. Those of Arachne and Philo-
mela had a notable effect on modern science.
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Philomela cut off from all escape and kept her always in view, gloating
as an eagle might gloat over the hare which he has dropped into his eyrie.
Ovid then returned to the story as told by Sophocles and the
Manual. Both authorities indicated that Tereus conveyed Philomela
secretly to a residence in the country. Ovid said that, after landing at
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
the Thracian port, Tereus proceeded at once to a lonely habitation in
the forest; and, to suggest the brutal eagerness of the Thracian, he added
that Tereus dragged Philomela thither. The building, Ovid tells us later,
had walls of stone. It seems to have been a place well known to Tereus
and perhaps even to Procne. And it was situated within a few miles of
their palace, for the distance could be traversed easily on foot. Evi-
dently there were quarters near by for guards and at least one attendant;
but ordinarily the habitation itself was vacant and gave an ominous im-
pression of solitude. Ovid may have thought of it as a hunting lodge for
the Thracian king. Hither Tereus brought Philomela, terrified and in-
quiring anxiously for her sister.
Sophocles and the Manual had indicated a few of . . the incidents
which followed, and Sophocles may have recorded them in some detail.
Ovid gave vividness to the repulsive event. Barring the door, he said,
Tereus announced his purpose and ravished the unprotected Philomela,
while she called for help to her absent father and sister and to the all-
seeing gods. For a time she remained panic-stricken, as a lamb torn by
the teeth of a wolf or a dove bloody from claws of some bird of prey.
Then, grown desperate, she denounced his treachery and crime. She
would proclaim his guilt, either to men or to the forest and the gods.
Both angered and frightened, Tereus bound her arms and drew his
sword. Believing that she was to die, Philomela rejoiced and offered her-
self for the thrust. But Tereus forcibly drew out her tongue and cut it
off with the sword.
In the case of Emathion (Bk. 5) Ovid had observed that, after his
head was cut off, the tongue still uttered curses. In the case of Philo-
mela, even the tongue by itself gave evidence of conscious life. Vergil
had told in the Aeneid how the severed right hand of Garides sought its
master and the dying fingers twitched and clung to the sword. Similar,
but even more pathetic, was the behavior of Philomela's severed tongue.
It trembled on the dark earth, murmured, twitched convulsively, and
with a dying effort sought the feet of its mistress. Ovid added also the
unfortunate suggestion that in moving it writhed like the severed tail of
a snake.
Even after this atrocity, Ovid continued, Tereus did not spare
Philomela; but, if we may credit report, he violated her again and again.
Ovid implied that he did so on the same occasion, and he may have been
willing by this means to heighten the reader's detestation of Tereus.
But later he implied the following sequence of events. Believing that
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
Philomela was unable to reveal the crime, Tereus arranged to have her
kept a prisoner in the lodge and then departed to his palace. After-
wards, however, he returned from time to time and repeatedly outraged
his helpless victim.
Following Sophocles and the Manual, Ovid declared that Philo-
mela wove her story in a cloak. But he recorded the facts ambiguously,
so that a reader unacquainted with the Greek versions would be uncer-
tain whether she told the tale in woven letters or in pictures. Without
letting her attendant know about the message, she persuaded her by
signs to bear the cloak as a gift to Procne. Presumably the attendant
could not read. After learning her sister's fate, the Thracian queen was
speechless with; grief and rage. Ovid noted that she forgot all scruples
in her eagerness for revenge.
According to Sophocles, the news arrived at the time of a Bacchic
festival, and Procne took advantage of the occasion in order to recover
her sister. Ovid gladly followed his example. Such festivals occurred at
intervals of two years. But Vergil, counting inclusively, had spoken of
Dido as raging like a Maenad in the triennial festival of Bacchus (tri-
aterica Baccho), and Ovid echoed the striking phrase. He described the
festival briefly and showed that on such an occasion Procne could wander
abroad unchallenged and indulge her frenzy.
For Procne's return with Philomela and the events which followed,
Ovid may have profited by many hints in the account of Sophocles.
Philomela, he said, was terrified at finding herself in the palace of Tereus
and ashamed to meet her sister's gaze. Mutely pleading innocence, she
hung her head and wept. Procne bade her prepare for merciless revenge.
But even Procne was in doubt what course to pursue. She thought of
burning Tereus in his palace, or of mangling him with the sword and
leaving him to drag out a wretched existence, or of killing him by re-
peated thrusts. Vergil had mentioned the soul of young Pallas departing
through his mortal wound. Procne wished to drive out the guilty soul
of Tereus through a thousand wounds.
While she remained in doubt, Itys entered seeking his mother.
Procne noted his likeness to his father and immediately planned her re-
venge. The child, suspecting no evil, embraced her and spoke with his
usual innocent charm. Procne hesitated and wept. But she reminded
herself that Philomela did not speak because she could not, and that
the boy's father was the cruel, faithless Tereus. Towards him loyalty
seemed a crime. Euripides had shown how cruelty not only causes suf-
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
fering but also debases the character of the victim. Ovid seems to have
remembered this teaching while he pictured the conduct of Procne and
Philomela. Procne seized the boy, as a tigress on the bank of the Ganges
might seize a fawn. Dragging him to a remote part of the house, she
turned on him, while he pleaded in terror, and struck him down with a
knife. Philomela joined her in the crime. Ovid recorded the traditional
circumstances, added further revolting touches and reveled in horror.
Ovid seems to have given new details and greater vividness to the
hideous feast. Procne, he said, persuaded Tereus that she was preparing
a celebration at which, according to the Athenian custom, attendants
were to be absent and the king was to eat alone. Tereus, sitting in state,
devoured with relish the flesh of his son. Sophocles and the Manual had
imagined that meanwhile Procne and Philomela fled. But Ovid introduced
a new climax of horror. Instead of departing, he said, they waited im-
patiently for the moment when Tereus should discover the real nature
of the feast. At last the king called for Itys to come. Procne did not
conceal her fiendish joy. "You have him already," she answered, "in-
side! " Perplexed, he called again. Then Philomela, her hair streaming
and stained with blood, sprang in and cast the gory head in the father's
face, longing to express her satisfaction in words.
Ovid indicated the violent horror and grief of Tereus. According
to the Manual, Tereus had caught up an axe and pursued the sisters.
Ovid imagined that he drew his sword. But the guilty sisters escaped.
Their transformation, said Ovid, took place, not in Daulia, but in the
Thracian palace. Ovid did not say which one became the nightingale.
One sister flew to the woods, the other to the roof. Vergil in the Georgics
had spoken of the swallow, Procne, as having on her breast the mark of
bloody hands. Ovid declared mistakenly that both sisters retain the
signs of murder, for their breasts are marked with blood. Tereus be-
came a hoopoe, his sword changing to the formidable beak.
Greek authors had implied that Procne acted while overcome by a
temporary frenzy but afterwards repented and mourned the death of
her son. Ovid had given an impression of more calculating cruelty. Per-
haps for this reason he mentioned no subsequent mourning. But he added
appropriately that old Pandion died of grief.
In later centuries Ovid's lurid tale enjoyed great popularity. For
the identity of the birds authors used Vergil or other works of Ovid, and
almost always they showed Procne as the swallow and Philomela as the
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
nightingale. But for particulars they referred continually to the Meta-
morphoses.
During later Roman times allusions appear to have been few and
brief. The Pervigilium Veneris described the nightingale as a sister com-
plaining of a barbarous lord. Lucan remembered Ovid's account of
Philomela's severed tongue. The tongue of a certain Roman leader, he
declared, was cut out and gave similar evidence of life.
In medieval times Ovid's tale began to arouse widespread interest
and to attract many of the chief authors of the period. During the
latter half of the twelfth century, a French poet retold it as a famous
romance called Philomena. The poet has often been spoken of as
Chretien de Troyes, but he seems to have been a less known contem-
porary who wrote in a similar manner. Giving the story an atmosphere
of his own time, he even showed Philomela declining to plead with her
father, on the ground that such conduct was not regarded as proper
among the French. He valued the story chiefly as an opportunity for
the display of subtle and diverting rhetoric, and for this purpose he
borrowed often from Ovid's Amores.
The French poet introduced many changes. To explain the alliance
of Procne with a husband so unworthy as Tereus, he imagined that
Pandion himself was evil and fierce. He expanded Ovid's account of the
wedding and greatly expanded Ovid's account of Tereus in quest of
Philomela. Ovid's sixty-five lines of Latin became more than six hun-
dred lines of French, and Ovid's brief description of Philomela became
a lengthy dissertation on her beauty and accomplishments. For the lat-
ter, the French poet drew chiefly on the Art of Love, but he added the
further accomplishments of skill in embroidery, in hunting, and even in
fishing. After Tereus had gone back to Procne, his deceitful account of
Philomela's death provided another opportunity for elaborate rhetoric,
and the metamorphosis became an occasion for moralizing on the pun-
ishment of Tereus. The tragic events to which Ovid gave prominence,
the French poet dismissed in a relatively brief and colorless manner.
Ovid had not mentioned the song of the nightingale, but the French poet
declared that she keeps repeating as sweetly as possible the word "kill"
( oci).
The Philomena, extending to six times the length of Ovid's tale,
entirely suited the spirit of the time. A century later Chretien Legouais
included it in his Ovide Moralise and also explained it as an allegory.
Three centuries later Gawyn Douglas in a prologue to his Aeneid still
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
called the nightingale Philomena, although he spoke of her notes as
merry.
Dante twice recalled Ovid's tale of Philomela in his Purgatorio, and
in both passages he remembered also Ovid's earlier works according to
which Philomela became the swallow. He spoke of dawn as a time when
the swallow begins her sad lay, perhaps in memory of her first woes.
And among the warning examples of wrath he saw the image of her who
became the nightingale. Petrarch followed Ovid's later opinion. In a
sonnet about the spring he declared that now Procne chatters and Philo-
mela weeps.
Chaucer in the Troilus told how the swallow Procne wakened
Pandarus by lamenting the abduction of her sister. In the Legend of
Good Women Chaucer gave a new version of the story, using Ovid but
adding details from the Philomena and from his own invention. Ovid had
been impressed with the terror of the tale and had wished to show provo-
cation so great that it resulted in murder and cannibalism. Chaucer
thought rather of the pathos of the tale and presented it as an example
of trusting women abused by a faithless man.
He began with a short account of the wedding and the omens of
future ill. He then passed to Procne's desire that Tereus should bring
Philomela to visit her and added appropriately that Tereus yielded only
to repeated requests. The events at Athens he presented more briefly
and clearly than Ovid had presented them, and he supposed more plaus-
ibly that Tereus first coveted Philomela when he saw her pleading with
her father. But Chaucer gave less attention to the father's solicitude
for his daughter. He passed immediately to the arrival in Thrace and
showed Tereus leading Philomela to a cave. Lessening the abruptness of
the attack, he narrated the incidents in clearer sequence and with empha-
sis on the pathos of Philomela's misfortune. For this reason he omitted
her threatening to reveal the crime. He showed Tereus cutting out her
tongue with no provocation but the fears of a guilty conscience. Chaucer
omitted one admirable touch, Philomela's offering herself hopefully to
the sword of Tereus. He made clear at once the arrangement for confin-
ing her in a "castle", and stated definitely that Tereus told of her being
dead when he arrived in Athens.
Ovid had left uncertain the nature of Philomela's woven message.
Chaucer declared that she used both letters and pictures. He added with
advantage that her messenger told Procne the circumstances of her im-
prisonment. Feigning a pilgrimage to the temple of Bacchus, Chaucer
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
continued, Procne found her sister, and both lamented their hapless fate.
The rest of the tale did not serve Chaucer's purpose, and so he ended
with a warning that all men are more or less to be feared. Though not
attempting to show the nature of the ancient myth, Chaucer created a
little masterpiece of clear, pathetic narrative.
Ovid's tale became even more popular during the Renaissance.
Boiardo in his narrative of Marchino and Stella combined the horrors of
the Latin myth with still others both old and new. Ariosto often recalled
Ovid while narrating Bireno's wicked infatuation with the Princess of
Friesland. In a long ode Pontus de Tyard endeavored to show that his
own misfortunes exceeded those of the nightingale and the swallow. Sid-
ney retold Ovid's myth in his Nightingale. And Spenser's shepherd
Cuddie declared in a sestina
Hence with the nightingale will I complain,
That blessed bird that spends her time of sleep
In songs and plaintive pleas, the more to augment
The memory of his misdeed that bred her woe.
At other times narrative poets of the Renaissance recalled a par-
ticular circumstance of the tale. Camoens described Teresa as a worse
mother to Alonzo than Procne had been to Itys. Ariosto used the same
idea in a more general sense. If we are to consider Rome as the mother
of Alphonso, he declared, she was almost as cruel a mother as Procne
and Medea. And Ariosto likened Gabrina to Procne and Medea because
of her treacherous cruelty to a youth who was not in any sense her son.
Tasso followed both Vergil and Ovid in the weird incident of Gerniero's
severed hand. Still holding the sword with its trembling fingers, he said,
the hand glided over the earth, like the severed tail of a snake, in the
hope of reuniting itself with the body.
The name Philomel, synonymous with the nightingale, appeared in
the work of many poets from Shakespeare's Lucrece to an elegiac epi-
gram of Goethe. And Matthew Arnold, who followed Sophocles in all
other particulars, still called the nightingale Philomela.
Shakespeare displayed an extraordinary interest in Ovid's myth.
To the main theme he referred repeatedly. His Lucrece made a long
comparison of her own misfortunes to those of Philomela. In the drama
Cymbeline, Imogen read Ovid's tale the night when Iachimo spied on her,
and she turned down the page "where Philomel gave up. " Shakespeare
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
used Ovid even more prominently hi Titus Andromcus. Adding circum-
stances which he may have taken indirectly from Boiardo, he presented
the following sensational story. Two young princes, Chiron and Deme-
trius, incited by their mother, plotted against Lavinia. After murder-
ing her husband, they dragged her into the forest and ravished her.
They then cut out her tongue, in order that she might not tell their deed,
and also cut off her hands, in order that she might not weave the story.
Lavinia's uncle, finding her, pointed out the likeness of almost all these
circumstances to those of Philomela. Lavinia then revealed to her father
and uncle the identity of her ravishers by showing them Ovid's myth and
writing the names in the dust. Announcing that he followed the example
of Procne, the father slew Chiron and Demetrius and served their flesh
to their guilty mother. The play Titus Andronicus proved very success-
ful for several years, and afforded Shakespeare valuable training as a
dramatist.
Shakespeare profited also by certain details of Ovid's myth. In
many works he mentioned the female nightingale as singing. In As You
Like It and The Tempest he spoke of Juno as the goddess presiding over
happy marriages. And again and again he named the owl as a prophet
of woe and death.
Milton found Ovid's account less congenial. Though showing great
fondness for the song of the nightingale, he described it ordinarily from
observation, and often he noted that the male bird sings. But the Ovidian
tradition influenced him in three passages of Paradise Lost where he
attributed song to the female; and in Paradise Regained, Ovid probably
suggested Milton's description of the nightingale as the attic bird.
Swinburne recalled a few circumstances from Ovid in his rhapsody
called Itylus.
In modern painting Ovid inspired work of Piombo and Rubens. And
in modern science he probably suggested the name of the east European
nightingale luscinia Philomela.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
BoKEAS AND OaiTHYIA
After the death of King Pandion, Ovid noted the accession of Pan-
dion's son, Erechtheus, and proceeded to tell of the new king's children.
The Manual had named three sons and four daughters. Ovid mentioned
four of each but named only two daughters, Procris and Orithyia. The
Manual had told first of Procris -- her marriage to Cephalus, prince of
Phocis, and their tragic history -- and then had told of Orithyia. Ovid
recorded the marriage to Cephalus, but he reserved the story for a more
striking occasion at the close of the following book. He proceeded at
once to the story of Orithyia and the North Wind, whom he called indif-
ferently either Boreas or Aquilo.
The myth had attracted much attention among the Greeks. At first
Orithyia was regarded as daughter of a much earlier king, Cecrops, and
sister of the notorious Aglauros (cf. Bk. 2). This idea appeared in an
early vase painting, which showed Boreas, veiled in clouds, seizing Orith-
yia in the presence of her father and sisters. Many other vase paintings
dealt with the subject and pictured Boreas either as pursuing or as
seizing the maiden. Both the poet Simonides and the mythographer
Acusilaiis recorded the story. According to Acusilaiis, the royal maiden
was carrying a basket in a procession to Athena's temple, when the god
became enamored and suddenly carried her away.
Herodotus, alluding to the tale, declared that Orithyia was daugh-
ter not of Cecrops but of Erechtheus, and this became the usual version
of the story. Both Aeschylus and Sophocles treated the subject on the
stage. Pherecydes recorded it in prose. Plato alluded to it in his dia-
logue, the Phaedrus.
Apollonius retold the tale as follows. Orithyia was not taking part
in a religious procession but was dancing outside the walls near the river
Ilissus. Boreas carried her from there to the coast of wintry Thrace and
alighted near the river Erginus, on a rock called Sarpedon. In that re-
gion she bore two sons, Calais and Zetes. On their ankles they had wings,
which gleamed with golden scales and were capable of bearing them in
flight through the air. Both sons accompanied Jason in quest of the
Golden Fleece.
The Manual recorded the same tale but more briefly and vaguely.
While Orithyia was playing by the river Ilissus, it said, Boreas carried
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? BOREAS AND ORITHYIA
her away. She became the mother of two winged sons and these later
sailed with Jason in the Argo. The Manual named also two daughters.
Roman poets alluded often to Orithyia. Propertius twice mentioned
the abduction. Vergil in the Georgics named Orithyia as one of those
who lamented the death of Eurydice. Ovid referred to the abduction in
the Amores, the Epistle of Leander, and the Fasti. In the Epistle of
Paris he alluded to a rationalized version of the myth, otherwise un-
known, according to which Thracians carried off the princess in the
name of Boreas.
For the Metamorphoses Ovid used the Manual but elaborated the
story in a very interesting and original manner. He did not indicate the
circumstances under which Boreas first became aware of Orithyia. The
god, he said, courted her for a considerable period of time and at first
attempted to win her by obtaining the consent of her father. But the
disastrous marriage of Tereus and Procne made Erechtheus unwilling
to risk another alliance with a denizen of Thrace, even with the North
Wind himself. For some time the god continued his solicitation. Find-
ing at length that it was in vain, he reverted to his usual boisterous rage.
He reproached himself for descending to persuasion. He described the
range of his fierce storms and his airy combats with his brother winds,
which made the sky resound and lightning dart from the clouds. Lucre-
tius had supposed that violent winds, entering caves, shook the ground
and were the cause of earthquakes -- an idea repeated by Vergil in his
Aetna. Ovid added this to the other formidable activities of Boreas,
observing that such convulsions frightened even the shades in the realm
of the dead. In a similar, violent manner Boreas decided to obtain his
bride.
Rushing southwards in clouds of dust and vapor, the god caught
up the frightened Orithyia and bore her away. The Manual had not
given their destination. But Vergil had mentioned her as inhabiting the
region of the Cicones, a people living on the coast of Thrace, near the
Hellespont, and frequently referred to since the time of the Odyssey.
Ovid imagined that Boreas alighted in a town of the Cicones. He said
nothing about the two daughters but gave a rather long and original
description of the sons. They were twins, he said, and at first grew like
normal boys. But, when the down appeared on their cheeks, feathered
wings resembling those of their father began to sprout from their sides.
Ovid then mentioned them, rather abruptly, as followers of Jason in
quest of the Golden Fleece. At this point he digressed from the mythical
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
history of Athens, and he did not return to it until the middle of the fol-
lowing book.
Ovid spoke of the twins as sailing with the Minyae. This name
ancient authors frequently used to designate the crew of the Argo. Its
origin appears to have been uncertain. Apollonius had suggested that
Jason and his bravest followers were descendants of King Minyas, the
founder of Orchomenus in Boeotia. Ovid spoke of the Argo as the first
ship to sail the seas. In this he followed a tradition common among the
ancients, to which he had alluded already in his Amores, but here
the statement obviously was contradicted by his preceding account of
Tereus.
After Ovid's time the myth of Orithyia was retold by Statius.
During the Renaissance Ovid's narrative interested two leading poets.
Camoens showed Orithyia persuading Boreas to allay the storm, in
order that Gama might arrive safely in India. Milton in his Elegy on a
Fair Infant declared that, when Boreas carried off Orithyia, Winter re-
solved to emulate his example. After long search he found a worthy
bride in the infant but unwittingly killed her with his cold embrace.
Piombo treated the story of Orithyia in painting. Rubens made it
the theme of a famous work. Flamen used it in a statue for the gardens
of the Tuileries.
*******
Of the seven major tales in Book Six the majority were of early
origin and often had been treated by Greek authors. The tales of Niobe,
Marsyas, and Orithyia also had been favorite themes of Greek art. Of
the twenty-seven lesser tales twelve were of early origin, and a number
of these had been popular with Greek authors and artists. But fifteen
had appeared only in Alexandrian times. Although Roman authors had
shown interest in many of the tales, they had told in full only those of
Alcmena and Philomela, and the Tereus of Accius afterwards perished
with the fall of Rome. It was Ovid who made these many stories acces-
sible during the Middle Ages, and his work continued to be the most
convenient source during modern times.
Although Ovid had the advantage of many stories which long had
attracted attention, he seldom used the earlier versions. In the tale of
Iphimidia he followed the Odyssey, and in the tale of Philomela he drew
much from Sophocles. Otherwise he took his outlines entirely from Alex-
andrian authors, and he owed the tale of Philyra to Vergil. Often Ovid
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? BOOK SIX
preferred an Alexandrian source merely because it happened to be the
most convenient, but sometimes by using a little known Alexandrian
author he was able to give the familiar tale a new and very interesting
development. To novelty of this kind in the older stories he added the
further novelty of many other stories which were unfamiliar or wholly
unknown.
In the Sixth Book, the influence of the Manual became more im-
portant than it had been since Book Three. The Manual furnished the
outline for more than half of the major tales, including the important
myth of Niobe, and for several of the lesser tales. The effect of Nicander
became more important than it had been during the preceding book.
Nicander provided the outline for the three major tales of Arachne, the
Lycian Peasants, and Marsyas. Callimachus supplied the important
minor tale of Latona at Delos, incidents of which appeared in each of
the three chief stories in the first half of the book. For three lesser myths
Ovid seems to have used Boeus. At least thirteen lesser tales he bor-
rowed from Alexandrian authors whom we cannot identify, and eight of
these we know only from him.
Throughout the book Ovid found a difficult problem of adjustment.
Almost always the tales which he selected had had no previous relation
to one another. Ovid was obliged to invent a plausible relation of time
and circumstance. On several occasions he was glad to repeat methods
which had proved helpful in his previous books. And in the tale of
Arachne he resorted again to the method of having a character in one
story narrate still others. But he did this in a new manner and with un-
usually brilliant success. In many cases the question of relative dates
proved exceedingly difficult. Ovid wished to give his tales an appearance
of orderly, historical succession. This was difficult in the case of tales
which hitherto had remained isolated. And it was much more difficult in
the case of many other tales which well-known tradition had associated
differently with stories appearing elsewhere in Ovid's poem. To remove
or lessen the inconsistency required continual use of tact and skill.
Ovid not only chose many tales which were new but improved his
material continually by valuable innovations. He took from Phidias sug-
gestions for the contest of Athena with Neptune and from Scopas an
important incident in the tragedy of Niobe. Theocritus and Varro of
Atax suggested a new transformation of Marsyas. Vergil aided Ovid in
many tales, notably those of Arachne, Philomela, and Orithyia. And
Ovid borrowed important incidents from his own earlier stories of Io and
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
Pentheus. But he did not stop with these. Continually he added further
improvements of his own invention. And to the myth of Arachne he gave
special interest by contrasting it elaborately with the previous tale of
the Muses and the Pierids.
By the use of much new material, by great originality and manifold
skill, Ovid made the Sixth Book one of the most remarkable in his mas-
terpiece. And this despite much that was unattractive in his subjects.
Yet few of his books will show more numerous and glaring faults. The
justly famous tales of Arachne, Niobe, and Philomela are marred by
passages of crude maladjustment. The tales of Niobe and Philomela
afford flagrant examples of ill-timed wit. And the stories of Niobe,
Philomela, and Marsyas contain needless obscurities, which (in the case
of the two latter tales) have sometimes perplexed their warmest ad-
mirers. Readers greatly interested in the subject have been willing to
overlook these shortcomings in the treatment. But even those without
such interest will find these faults accompanied and more than compen-
sated by extraordinary merit.
During ancient times the Sixth Book had a very important influ-
ence. It affected interestingly the work of the younger Seneca, Lucan,
and Statius, and the tale of Arachne became a center of violent religious
controversy between Pagan and Christian. In the Middle Ages several
tales interested profoundly the leading poets of the time. With the
Renaissance the effect became still more important and more widely dif-
fused. And again in the nineteenth century many prominent poets man-
ifested unusual interest.
Among authors not ordinarily showing influence of the Metamor-
phoses were Sidney, Byron, and Lesconte de Lisle. A notable effect ap-
peared in the case of Chretien de Troyes, Milton, and Lewis Morris.
Dante and Camoens showed their interest in a great number of tales.
And the Sixth Book as a whole affected deeply the work of Chaucer and
Shakespeare. But with no author was its influence so remarkable as with
Spenser.
A number of tales attracted modern painters and they became the
theme of several influential masterpieces. The tales of Leda, Antiopa,
and Orithyia interested modern sculptors. Those of Arachne and Philo-
mela had a notable effect on modern science.
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