The famous tale of
Pentheus
was only one of several myths which
assumed that the new worship encountered opposition before it pre-
vailed in Greece.
assumed that the new worship encountered opposition before it pre-
vailed in Greece.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v1
It was thought bad luck
for a man to see his reflection in any pool or stream. An example was
the beautiful youth Narcissus. Observing his reflected image in a
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? NARCISSUS
spring, he mistook it for a real person and fell in love with it. The
object of his affection proved unattainable and finally reduced him to
despair. Narcissus killed himself with a sword, and from his blood
there grew a flower which bears his name. The idea of a youth enam-
ored of himself was not peculiar to this Boeotian myth, for afterwards
Plutarch was to record a like experience of a certain Eutelidas. The
parents of Narcissus were usually imagined to be the nymph Liriope
(the Soft Voiced) and Cephissus, the god of a river flowing not far
to the north of Thespiae.
That Narcissus should be unable to distinguish between an image
and a real person was improbable. Alexandrian authors rejected this
idea. They retained the peculiar infatuation but explained it as the
effect of a curse. 1
One Alexandrian version probably entered literature during the
first half of the third century, B. C. It survives, however, only in the
work of Conon, a Greek prose writer contemporary with Vergil. The
beautiful Narcissus, he tells us, was courted by many young men. He
repulsed them coldly and occupied himself with hunting. One youth
named Amenias was especially persistent. Faring no better than the
others, Amenias at length grew desperate and prayed that Narcissus,
too, might experience love and despair. He killed himself, the cruel
Narcissus even providing him with a sword. But Nemesis heard and
fulfilled the curse. While drinking from a clear pool, Narcissus ob-
served his reflection and became enamored. In vain he realized his
mistake. The knowledge could not cure his infatuation and merely
showed him that its object was unattainable. He remembered his
cruelty to others and admitted the justice of his punishment. Then
he killed himself. The story in this form belonged to a class popular
with the Alexandrians, which recorded the punishment of those who
repel their suitors cruelly. A more pleasing myth of this kind Ovid
was to repeat in the tale of Iphis and Anaxarete (Bk. 14). This
earlier Alexandrian account of Narcissus, Ovid mentioned in the
Fasti. He spoke of Narcissus as one of several mythical youths whose
blood Flora transformed into a flower.
1 The same improbability in the popular myth impressed the traveler Pausanias.
He retold the tale in the following attractive form: Narcissus had a twin sister
almost identical in appearance. They were exceedingly fond of each other and
delighted in hunting. After her death, the brother used often to wander disconso-
late in the familiar groves or sit by a clear pool gazing fondly on the image which
so closely resembled her.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
A later Alexandrian version made several important innovations.
This version was probably the work of Nicander. According to the
second version, Narcissus attracted not only young men but also
young women. His cold indifference brought despair not only to the
youth Amenias but also to the oread Echo. The author told her story
first. While Narcissus was hunting, Echo observed and loved him.
Concealing herself in the thicket, she followed him and found an oppor-
tunity to reveal her affection. Rebuffed, she hastily withdrew. Tak-
ing refuge in wild and lonely hills, Echo wasted away to nothing but
a voice. The author then repeated the story of Amenias and his
imprecation. Probably he took pains to contrast the gentleness of
Echo with the violence of Amenias. He showed also how Narcissus
realized that he had fallen in love with his own image. But at this
point he altered the story. Narcissus, he said, was not aware that he
was punished for cruelty and did not take his own life. He pined
away and died. A similar change from suicide to wasting away
occurred in an Alexandrian account of Byblis (Bk. 9) and may have
influenced the author here. The youth, he continued, was lamented
by the nymphs and dryads. His body vanished mysteriously from
the shore and on the spot there appeared the white and yellow blossom.
In this form the story afforded a contrast between Echo who pined
away and became a voice and Narcissus who pined away and became
a flower. The second Alexandrian version inspired at least two Pom-
peian frescoes.
Ovid found the tale congenial and endowed it with extraordinary
beauty and splendor of style. He improved also on the conception of
Echo and Narcissus and on the chief incidents given by the later
Alexandrian.
In the opening lines, Ovid introduced from a great marriage ode
of Catullus the graceful repetition of phrases. He invented the idea
that Echo detained Juno with her talk, in order that Juno might not
interrupt the amours of Jove, and that the goddess punished her by
inability to do more than to repeat the words of others. He added
also the remarkable dialogue in which Echo courted Narcissus in the
forest by repeating his own calls to his comrades. By these changes
Ovid not only suggested the modesty of Echo but prepared for a
quite different effect in the similar adventure of Salmacis courting
Hermaphroditus (Bk 4). After elaborating somewhat the wasting of
Echo to a voice, Ovid added that her bones became shapeless rock.
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? NARCISSUS
The idea, though natural enough from her association with cliffs and
caverns, was a little inconsistent with her being described as a freely
moving voice. Echo attenuating to a responsive sound later sug-
gested to Ovid a transformation of Canens into air (Bk. 14).
Ovid came now to the parallel story of Amenias. But after the
attractive and marvellous adventure with Echo, he felt that this more
ordinary courtship would be an anticlimax. He desired, moreover, to
have the reader in sympathy with Narcissus. This would be possible
if he were to present the boy as merely unresponsive. It would not be
possible, if he were to present him as avowedly cruel. Ovid omitted
both the name and the fate of Amenias. He retained only the curse of
a disappointed lover.
The Odyssey and the Hippolytus of Euripides had indulged in de-
scription of charming bodies of water. Theocritus and other Alexan-
drian writers gladly followed their example again and again. And
Ovid often profited by their work, as well as his own observation of
nature. Perhaps we might find anticipated by one or another Alex-
andrian predecessor every detail which Ovid noted in portraying the
lovely pool of Narcissus. Yet he gave freshness and vividness to the
familiar theme; and no predecessor was so delightful in the total
effect. Ovid had wisely avoided a description of the beautiful youth
until the moment when he was startled by the reflected image. Then
he described Narcissus with care, taking many details from an Alex-
andrian painting of the scene. Thus Ovid was able to show not only
the attractiveness of Narcissus but its effect on himself.
Ovid had now awakened the reader's sympathy for the youth and
interested him keenly in the strange adventure. By concealing his
art and encouraging his reader to look entirely at the poor youth
gradually dying of hopeless love, he could have attained a tragic
pathos. And he would have enjoyed the further advantage that the
nature of his tragedy was unique. This opportunity Ovid improved
only in part. He repeated and enlarged on the incidents given by
his predecessor with considerable appropriateness and pathos. But
unhappily he was struck by the paradox of a young man dying for
love of himself. He could not resist the temptation to divert the
reader's thought from the sad death of the youth to the preposterous
cause and the dexterity of his own presentation.
In a celebrated Elegy for Adonis, Bion had spoken of Echo's re-
peating the sad cries uttered by Venus over the body of her lover.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
Although only a single line, the passage may have suggested to Ovid
the idea that Echo repeated the laments of the dying Narcissus. Ovid's
use of the incident was much the more effective, for he could show
more poignantly that the nymph had cause to be distressed. And it
added to the gentleness of Echo's character.
Ovid's treatment gave the story fame. In later times it occasioned
almost every brief reference and affected every version of any length.
The earliest allusion appeared in a Life of St. Galgaric composed
during the eleventh century. About a hundred years later, Petrus
Cantor remarked that the minstrels of Provence, when other subjects
failed to please, could always rely on Narcissus. And a century after
this, the Flamenca mentioned it as still a favorite theme. Meanwhile
the tale had become very popular in northern France and was soon
to be mentioned in Italy and England. Even writers unable to read
the Latin were familiar with the theme and able to retell the tale in
versions of their own. Yet medieval authors admired the story with
reservations. They tried to remove all suggestion of unnatural vice
and they avoided any metamorphosis of Echo or Narcissus.
Chretien de Troyes in his romance of Sir Cliges compared Narcissus
to his own hero and contrasted him with another character,
Loredamors. >> He omitted the idea that Narcissus was courted by
young men and became the victim of a curse. The Roman a"' Alixandre
repeated Ovid's narrative briefly and with the same omission.
Guillaume Lorris in the Romance of the Rose caused Echo to give the
fatal curse. He represented her as a proud medieval lady and made
her in general less attractive than Ovid's heroine. His Narcissus be-
came a young gentleman of medieval times. These innovations re-
appeared in a rather long romance, Floris and Liriope, by Robert of
Blois. Somewhat later an unknown French poet carried the same
tendencies still further. He made the heroine a princess and the hero
a youth of humble origin. Thus he was able to present an unattrac-
tive struggle between violent love and the restraint of convention. He
showed both hero and heroine dying under pathetic circumstances as
the result of the heroine's curse.
These authors all implied that both Echo and Narcissus died of
grief. But the ancient writer Eustathius in his comment on the Iliad
had recorded a different version. The deluded youth, he said, had
plunged into the water and perished by drowning. This idea was
mentioned in the Flamenca and affected the story as repeated in the
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? NARCISSUS
Cento Novelle Antiche. Later it influenced an allusion by Marlowe
and the allusions in Shakespeare's two narrative poems.
The chief poets of modern literature have generally shown interest
in the tale of Narcissus. Dante, mistaking for shadows the dim spirits
in the heaven of the moon, observed that his error was opposite to
that which kindled love between the youth and the fountain. Petrarch
compared his Laura to the young Narcissus, who found his own
image so beautiful that he cruelly despised all suitors. He saw
Narcissus and Echo led captive in the triumph of Love and briefly re-
peated their story. Chaucer in the Knight's Tale mentioned their
fate as depicted on the walls of the temple of Venus. Boiardo recalled
Ovid in a passage where Angelica grieved at the coldness of Rinaldo.
The intentness of Narcissus gazing into the water, Tasso compared
to that of Armida looking at Rinaldo asleep. To Guarini, Ovid's
dialogue between Narcissus and Echo suggested the remarkable scene
where Silvio defied the god of Love and the god was able, by returning
from time to time a closing word or syllable, to predict Silvio's defeat.
And both Camoens describing the Isle of Venus and Spenser portray-
ing the Garden of Adonis associated the unfortunate Narcissus with
the flower which bore his name.
Shirley retold the tale in a long narrative poem. In Comus Milton
showed his lady invoking the assistance of Echo and likening her
brothers to Narcissus. In Paradise Lost he told how the newly created
Eve gazed with surprise and delight at her responsive likeness in a
pool until admonished by the divine voice. Calderon and Rousseau
each made Narcissus the theme of a play. Fielding recalled him twice
in Joseph, Andrews, to illustrate the misfortune of one loving a maiden
who was unattainable, in the first case because she was a creation of
the imagination, in the second because she repulsed her lover coldly.
Goethe in Wilhelm Meister gave his name to a young official who was
unduly fond of himself. Schiller touched on his delusion for an attrac-
tive song. And Lewis Morris repeated the tale of Narcissus at con-
siderable length, using it to symbolize the quest of an ideal attained
only with death.
To Echo Chaucer referred somewhat inaccurately in the Clerk's
Envoy and the Franklin's Tale. Shakespeare mentioned her trans-
formation in Romeo and Juliet. Shelley pictured Echo silent with
grief for Adonais, dearer to her than Narcissus for whose disdain she
pined away into a shadow of all sounds.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
To the dramatist Fletcher Ovid's description of the pool may have
suggested the charming lines of his Faithful Shepherdess in which
Amoret gave the river her blessing.
In the Amoretti, Spenser declared his grief as paradoxical as that
of Narcissus and repeated an important conceit of the youth's lament.
Although aware, Spenser said, that the lady was the cause of his
suffering, his eyes could not remove from her
In their amazement, like Narcissus vain,
Whose eyes him starved; so plenty makes me poor.
And by a strange irony Dryden used the same passage to show the evil
of Ovid's ill timed wit.
Ovid's tale of Narcissus inspired paintings of Boltraffio, Curradi,
Tintoretto, Dubois, Grebier, and a disciple of Boucher. Waterhouse
painted Echo and Narcissus; Anning Bell pictured Echo alone. In
sculpture the theme was treated by Cortot, Charpentier, and Hiolle.
Gliick transformed Ovid's myth into an opera with a happy ending.
j . , . ii . .
Pentheus
The strange fate of Narcissus, Ovid observed, was one of many
events which verified the predictions of Tiresias and made him revered
as a seer. But this reputation was challenged by Pentheus, king of
Thebes. Thus Ovid returned to the Theban myths recorded in the
Manual and to the later career of Bacchus.
The famous tale of Pentheus was only one of several myths which
assumed that the new worship encountered opposition before it pre-
vailed in Greece. In all probability some such opposition was an his-
torical fact. When the Bacchic religion entered Greece, it was asso-
ciated with the barbaric people of Thrace and its rites were marked by
frenzy and excess. Such a religion could not easily win the civilized
Greeks, a people ordinarily sane and temperate in every way.
In myths dealing with opposition to Bacchus a remarkable circum-
stance is the active aid which the new god received from women. That
the women of a Greek community should accept him the more readily
was natural. Greek tragedy implies often that in the Heroic Age
many of them had come as the spoils of successful war. And such war-
fare might often bring female captives from the neighboring countries
of Thrace and of Phrygia, where the religion of Bacchus prevailed.
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? PENTHEUS
But a number of other myths dealing with Bacchic rites, imply that
even after the new religion triumphed, it regularly gave the women an
important part. Examples are Ovid's tales of Philomela (Bk. 6),
Myrrha (Bk. 10), and Orpheus (Bk. 11). Underlying this, there
appears to have been a profound belief that, in order to obtain a good
harvest for the year, the community must observe chastity for a short
period during the time of planting. At the appointed season, there-
fore, the women left their husbands and departed in a body to pro-
pitiate the god with mystic rites. A similar theory and practice
affected the Egyptian worship of Isis and the religious customs of
many savages in modern times. And in ancient Greece, as in parts of
modern Australia, the women entraced in a secret worship, from which
men were excluded on pain of death.
During early times the spring festivals of Bacchus tended regularly
to a climax of violence and ferocity. With the added fear of perse-
cution, it is probable that they led occasionally to murder of an
atrocious kind. Yet stories of such crimes do not appear until many
centuries after the supposed events and therefore may be suspected of
exaggeration. With the beginning of history, civilized Greece had
toned down the barbaric features of Bacchic worship and laid
emphasis on its doctrine of ascetic purity and spiritual immortality.
Listening to tales of earlier violence and murder, thoughtful Greeks
may well have demurred at a god who promoted such crime. For them
an answer was ready. The religion of Bacchus, its votaries declared,
was naturally mild and beneficial. But when a community refused to
heed or tolerate it, the offense was so gross as to brinsr an extraordi-
nary punishment. The guilty people went mad and did they knew not
what. The crimes which appeared so horrible were committed, not bv
the followers, but the enemies of Bacchus. Euripides still demurred;
but with this explanation the maioritv of the Greeks were content.
Of mvths dealing with opposition to Bacchus, the earliest record
was that of a Thracian kinff. Lvcurerus. Tn the Iliad bis offense was
attacking the nurses of the infant deitv with an oxsroad and compel-
ling Bacchus to take refuse in the sea. For this be incurred blindness
and an earlv death. Tn later accounts his offense lav ratber in oppos-
ing and ,affronting Bacchus when the erod visited Thrace. Sophocles
made thp Tmnishment madness, and the Manual added de>>+h bv wild
horses. |This mvtb Ovid referred to in the opening lines of bis Fourth
Book, i
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
But the most famous myth of opposition was that of Pentheus. The
mother of this ruler was Agave, a daughter of Cadmus. His father
was Echion, a warrior who grew up when Cadmus planted the dragon's
teeth. In an age of continual war and violence, the king must be a man
of abundant physical strength: a ruler who became old and infirm
would have to surrender his authority to some younger member of his
family. This was true of Laertes in the Odyssey and of several other
heroes of ancient myth. Cadmus therefore had transferred the Theban
crown to his grandson, Pentheus. The latter opposed the entry of
Bacchus, and according to the earlier version of the tale he was en-
couraged by his mother, his two aunts, and perhaps the entire Theban
people. Bacchus drove Agave and the other Theban women mad.
They withdrew to Mt. Cithaeron, and here Pentheus came into their
power and was torn to pieces. This myth Aeschylus referred to in his
Eumenides and told at length in a tragedy called Pentheus.
Euripides retold the story in his Bacchce, presenting the case rather
unfavorably for all concerned. Bacchus, he said, had already won all
Asia to the eastern frontiers of Persia and had sailed with a company
which included chiefly Lydian women for Greece and his native Thebes.
In the story itself, Euripides made a number of changes. Pentheus
opposed Bacchus chiefly because he feared that his methods would
result in general profligacy. The suspicion, though it proved to be
needless, was not unreasonable according to the generally accepted
opinion of Lydian character. Most of the Thebans appear to have
supported Pentheus. But Cadmus and Tiresias took the other side.
Pentheus had the god brought before him; treated him injuriously; and
consigned him to prison. But the god and his followers were magically
released. Not only the women but also Pentheus became mad. The
deluded ruler went forth unattended in order to observe the secret rites,
taking as his point of vantage the crest of a lofty pine. Summoned
by the god, the women mistook Pentheus for a dangerous wild beast.
They threw down the tree, and rent him asunder. Cadmus showed
Agave her mistake. She repented and reproached Bacchus for his
cruelty. The end of the play is missing; but Vergil seems to imply in
his Culex that Agave forsook Bacchus and took refuge in the forest,
and Lucan mentioned her bearing the head of Pentheus to Thessaly.
This version of the tale enjoyed extraordinary popularity I and in-
spired a famous painting which adorned the temple of Bacchus at
Athens.
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? PENTHEUS
Theocritus retold the latter part of the story. In his version, the
god bore no active part. Pentheus observed the rites from the summit
of a cliff, hiding himself in a bush, and was discovered accidentally.
Theocritus did not speak of the women as mistaking Pentheus for a
beast, but he mentioned their subsequent repentance. More cautious
than Euripides, he bade his readers refrain from blaming the actions of
the gods.
The Manual, too, recounted the story. It added Egypt and Thrace
to the regions already accepting Bacchus and did not say that Pen-
theus attempted any concealment. Otherwise it repeated very briefly
the incidents recorded by Euripides.
Meanwhile there had grown up independently another myth relating
to the earthly career of Bacchus. The story originated probably to
explain why sailors were in the habit of decorating their ships with
vine leaves and grapes for some vintage festival.
In the Homeric Hymn to Bacchus the tale ran as follows: The god
appeared on a headland, taking the shape of a young prince.
Tyrsenian, that is Thracian, pirates, hoping to obtain a ransom,
carried him off and endeavored to chain him. The chains fell away
miraculously. At this the helmsman declared that the prisoner must
be some great divinity and urged the others to release him. The cap-
tain tauntingly refused. Suddenly fragrant wine streamed through
the ship; a fruitful grape vine overhung the sails: ivy with berries
twined round the mast; garlands covered the thole-pins. Too late the
pirates repented. The god, standing on the prow, took the form of a
lion and seized the captain. He put a savage bear in the stern. The
crew leaped overboard and became dolphins. But the god spared
the helmsman and revealed his own identity. This version of the tale
was treated later in vase paintings.
Euripides in the Cyclops mentioned two further circumstances. The
pirates, he declared, were sent by the hostile Juno, and Silenus with a
crew of satyrs attempted the rescue of the god. Perhaps a century later
a sculptor treated this version in the frieze of a monument with which
Lysicrates commemorated his victory in drama. The sculptor showed
the satyrs in possession of the pirate vessel, binding and killing some
of the pirates and driving the rest into the sea. This form of the myth
did not affect later accounts.
The Manual gave a third version quite different in many respects
from the other two. Thus far both the time and the place of the ad-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
venture had been left uncertain. The Manual stated that the event
occurred after Bacchus had overcome Pentheus and his other oppo-
nents in Greece. It localized the headland in Icaria, near Athens,
and added that the god was desirous of crossing to the famous island
of Naxos. The pirates, according to the Manual, were Tyrrhenians,
that is Lydians from a colony in Etruria. Their offense, too, was
different. The god asked them to transport him to his destination and
they promised to do so. But when the ship was within view of Naxos,
they turned off towards the coast of Asia. Several details altered in
the ensuing miracle; thus the god retained his human form but he
changed the mast and oars into serpents. The sailors did not repent.
The Manual had told first of Pentheus and then much later of the
sailors becoming dolphins. Nicander appears to have combined the
two myths into one. The tale of Pentheus he used only as an occasion
for the other. While the Theban king was planning to oppose Bacchus,
said Nicander, the seer Tiresias attempted to dissuade him by recount-
ing the transformation of the pirates. In the main Nicander followed
the Homeric Hymn. He showed the pirates guilty of abducting the
god by force and in the miracle he merely replaced the bear by a tiger.
But he represented the god as a beautiful boy whom his captors des-
tined for slavery and he mentioned ten pirates by name.
About a century and a half later, the theme of Pentheus attracted
the early Roman dramatist Pacuvius. Probably his version owed
much to Euripides; but he seems to have been original at least while
treating the madness of the king, for Vergil in the Aeneid referred to
Pentheus as seeing double and being terrified by the Furies. Horace
alluded to the . story more than once. And Propertius referred both
to Pentheus and the mariners.
Ovid mentioned Pentheus briefly in the Tristia and in the Ibis. For
the Metamorphoses he evidently took suggestions from all his impor-
tant predecessors. But he so altered and rearranged the details as
to give a most unfavorable impression of Pentheus. This gave the
account unity and a more powerful effect. Later Ovid was to use the
same method even more successfully in the tale of Erisychthon (Bk. 8).
During the early part of the story, Ovid profited chiefly by the
work of Euripides. But while following the general movement of the
plav, he arranged every detail with regard to the predetermined effect.
He introduced the king as the godless Pentheus and showed him heap-
ing uncalled for abuse on the blind Tiresias. Unlike Euripides, Ovid
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? PENTHEVS
represented Pentheus as alone in his impious opposition. All the rest
hastened to do Bacchus honor. Instead of giving the king a reason-
able ground for his conduct, Ovid represented him as making vague
charges that Bacchus was effeminate and an imposter. And he re-
corded that the king's uncle and all the counsellors remonstrated,
with no result except to augment his angry obstinacy.
In the speech of Pentheus Ovid showed the king praising the oppo-
sition given Bacchus by Acrisius ruler of Argos. This event the
Manual narrated as occurring after the death of Pentheus. But Ovid
ignored the difficulty in order to score a rhetorical point. Ovid al-
lowed Pentheus to declare also that the older Thebans had come from
Tyre. In this he followed the Manual, forgetting that in his own
account only Cadmus had survived the encounter with the snake.
Following Euripides, Ovid had the king's attendants bring in a
prisoner and he even hinted that this was really the god. But Ovid
made the prisoner ostensibly a Lydian priest of Bacchus, named
Acoetes. Recalling both Menander and Theocritus, Ovid showed
Acoetes' father as the typical fisherman of Alexandrian poetry--
always hopeful and always poor.
As a warning for Pentheus, Nicander had caused Tiresias to repeat
the tale of Bacchus and the Mariners. Ovid gave it instead to the
former sea captain Acoetes and thus gained the advantage of narra-
tive by an eye witness. In order to attain a still more lively effect,
Ovid tried, like the Manual, to have his geography precise. But he
felt unable to make the point of departure Icaria. Tradition brought
the god there only much later. Accordingly he showed the sailors
meeting with Bacchus in the island of Chios. If they intended to pro-
ceed from there to some port on the Asiatic coast, it was not probable
that they would pass within view of Naxos, an island near the middle
of the Aegean Sea. But regarding this matter Ovid could assume
that the Romans would not inquire too curiously.
In the tale of the mariners Ovid pursued his former policy. He was
careful to discredit as much as possible the opponents of Bacchus.
Acoetes he described as a lawful tradesman, so that for the time at
least the rest were not pirates. But evidently they were in other
respects an impious and flagitious lot. Ovid identified Acoetes with
the pious helmsman of Nicander's version, but he made him at the
same time the captain. By flouting his wishes, the crew incurred the
additional guilt of mutiny. Nicander had shown them abducting the
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
god. by force. The Manual had shown them breaking their solemn
promi|e to land him in Naxos. Ovid made them guilty of both offenses.
On each occasion he showed Acoetes protesting and endeavoring to
prevent their evil conduct and the crew not only deriding their com-
mander but overcoming him by violence. Ovid then added a most
reasonable but unavailing remonstrance by the god himself. He made
it as plain as possible that the god's opponents were guilty of deliber-
ate, repeated and heinous wrong doing.
for a man to see his reflection in any pool or stream. An example was
the beautiful youth Narcissus. Observing his reflected image in a
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? NARCISSUS
spring, he mistook it for a real person and fell in love with it. The
object of his affection proved unattainable and finally reduced him to
despair. Narcissus killed himself with a sword, and from his blood
there grew a flower which bears his name. The idea of a youth enam-
ored of himself was not peculiar to this Boeotian myth, for afterwards
Plutarch was to record a like experience of a certain Eutelidas. The
parents of Narcissus were usually imagined to be the nymph Liriope
(the Soft Voiced) and Cephissus, the god of a river flowing not far
to the north of Thespiae.
That Narcissus should be unable to distinguish between an image
and a real person was improbable. Alexandrian authors rejected this
idea. They retained the peculiar infatuation but explained it as the
effect of a curse. 1
One Alexandrian version probably entered literature during the
first half of the third century, B. C. It survives, however, only in the
work of Conon, a Greek prose writer contemporary with Vergil. The
beautiful Narcissus, he tells us, was courted by many young men. He
repulsed them coldly and occupied himself with hunting. One youth
named Amenias was especially persistent. Faring no better than the
others, Amenias at length grew desperate and prayed that Narcissus,
too, might experience love and despair. He killed himself, the cruel
Narcissus even providing him with a sword. But Nemesis heard and
fulfilled the curse. While drinking from a clear pool, Narcissus ob-
served his reflection and became enamored. In vain he realized his
mistake. The knowledge could not cure his infatuation and merely
showed him that its object was unattainable. He remembered his
cruelty to others and admitted the justice of his punishment. Then
he killed himself. The story in this form belonged to a class popular
with the Alexandrians, which recorded the punishment of those who
repel their suitors cruelly. A more pleasing myth of this kind Ovid
was to repeat in the tale of Iphis and Anaxarete (Bk. 14). This
earlier Alexandrian account of Narcissus, Ovid mentioned in the
Fasti. He spoke of Narcissus as one of several mythical youths whose
blood Flora transformed into a flower.
1 The same improbability in the popular myth impressed the traveler Pausanias.
He retold the tale in the following attractive form: Narcissus had a twin sister
almost identical in appearance. They were exceedingly fond of each other and
delighted in hunting. After her death, the brother used often to wander disconso-
late in the familiar groves or sit by a clear pool gazing fondly on the image which
so closely resembled her.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
A later Alexandrian version made several important innovations.
This version was probably the work of Nicander. According to the
second version, Narcissus attracted not only young men but also
young women. His cold indifference brought despair not only to the
youth Amenias but also to the oread Echo. The author told her story
first. While Narcissus was hunting, Echo observed and loved him.
Concealing herself in the thicket, she followed him and found an oppor-
tunity to reveal her affection. Rebuffed, she hastily withdrew. Tak-
ing refuge in wild and lonely hills, Echo wasted away to nothing but
a voice. The author then repeated the story of Amenias and his
imprecation. Probably he took pains to contrast the gentleness of
Echo with the violence of Amenias. He showed also how Narcissus
realized that he had fallen in love with his own image. But at this
point he altered the story. Narcissus, he said, was not aware that he
was punished for cruelty and did not take his own life. He pined
away and died. A similar change from suicide to wasting away
occurred in an Alexandrian account of Byblis (Bk. 9) and may have
influenced the author here. The youth, he continued, was lamented
by the nymphs and dryads. His body vanished mysteriously from
the shore and on the spot there appeared the white and yellow blossom.
In this form the story afforded a contrast between Echo who pined
away and became a voice and Narcissus who pined away and became
a flower. The second Alexandrian version inspired at least two Pom-
peian frescoes.
Ovid found the tale congenial and endowed it with extraordinary
beauty and splendor of style. He improved also on the conception of
Echo and Narcissus and on the chief incidents given by the later
Alexandrian.
In the opening lines, Ovid introduced from a great marriage ode
of Catullus the graceful repetition of phrases. He invented the idea
that Echo detained Juno with her talk, in order that Juno might not
interrupt the amours of Jove, and that the goddess punished her by
inability to do more than to repeat the words of others. He added
also the remarkable dialogue in which Echo courted Narcissus in the
forest by repeating his own calls to his comrades. By these changes
Ovid not only suggested the modesty of Echo but prepared for a
quite different effect in the similar adventure of Salmacis courting
Hermaphroditus (Bk 4). After elaborating somewhat the wasting of
Echo to a voice, Ovid added that her bones became shapeless rock.
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? NARCISSUS
The idea, though natural enough from her association with cliffs and
caverns, was a little inconsistent with her being described as a freely
moving voice. Echo attenuating to a responsive sound later sug-
gested to Ovid a transformation of Canens into air (Bk. 14).
Ovid came now to the parallel story of Amenias. But after the
attractive and marvellous adventure with Echo, he felt that this more
ordinary courtship would be an anticlimax. He desired, moreover, to
have the reader in sympathy with Narcissus. This would be possible
if he were to present the boy as merely unresponsive. It would not be
possible, if he were to present him as avowedly cruel. Ovid omitted
both the name and the fate of Amenias. He retained only the curse of
a disappointed lover.
The Odyssey and the Hippolytus of Euripides had indulged in de-
scription of charming bodies of water. Theocritus and other Alexan-
drian writers gladly followed their example again and again. And
Ovid often profited by their work, as well as his own observation of
nature. Perhaps we might find anticipated by one or another Alex-
andrian predecessor every detail which Ovid noted in portraying the
lovely pool of Narcissus. Yet he gave freshness and vividness to the
familiar theme; and no predecessor was so delightful in the total
effect. Ovid had wisely avoided a description of the beautiful youth
until the moment when he was startled by the reflected image. Then
he described Narcissus with care, taking many details from an Alex-
andrian painting of the scene. Thus Ovid was able to show not only
the attractiveness of Narcissus but its effect on himself.
Ovid had now awakened the reader's sympathy for the youth and
interested him keenly in the strange adventure. By concealing his
art and encouraging his reader to look entirely at the poor youth
gradually dying of hopeless love, he could have attained a tragic
pathos. And he would have enjoyed the further advantage that the
nature of his tragedy was unique. This opportunity Ovid improved
only in part. He repeated and enlarged on the incidents given by
his predecessor with considerable appropriateness and pathos. But
unhappily he was struck by the paradox of a young man dying for
love of himself. He could not resist the temptation to divert the
reader's thought from the sad death of the youth to the preposterous
cause and the dexterity of his own presentation.
In a celebrated Elegy for Adonis, Bion had spoken of Echo's re-
peating the sad cries uttered by Venus over the body of her lover.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
Although only a single line, the passage may have suggested to Ovid
the idea that Echo repeated the laments of the dying Narcissus. Ovid's
use of the incident was much the more effective, for he could show
more poignantly that the nymph had cause to be distressed. And it
added to the gentleness of Echo's character.
Ovid's treatment gave the story fame. In later times it occasioned
almost every brief reference and affected every version of any length.
The earliest allusion appeared in a Life of St. Galgaric composed
during the eleventh century. About a hundred years later, Petrus
Cantor remarked that the minstrels of Provence, when other subjects
failed to please, could always rely on Narcissus. And a century after
this, the Flamenca mentioned it as still a favorite theme. Meanwhile
the tale had become very popular in northern France and was soon
to be mentioned in Italy and England. Even writers unable to read
the Latin were familiar with the theme and able to retell the tale in
versions of their own. Yet medieval authors admired the story with
reservations. They tried to remove all suggestion of unnatural vice
and they avoided any metamorphosis of Echo or Narcissus.
Chretien de Troyes in his romance of Sir Cliges compared Narcissus
to his own hero and contrasted him with another character,
Loredamors. >> He omitted the idea that Narcissus was courted by
young men and became the victim of a curse. The Roman a"' Alixandre
repeated Ovid's narrative briefly and with the same omission.
Guillaume Lorris in the Romance of the Rose caused Echo to give the
fatal curse. He represented her as a proud medieval lady and made
her in general less attractive than Ovid's heroine. His Narcissus be-
came a young gentleman of medieval times. These innovations re-
appeared in a rather long romance, Floris and Liriope, by Robert of
Blois. Somewhat later an unknown French poet carried the same
tendencies still further. He made the heroine a princess and the hero
a youth of humble origin. Thus he was able to present an unattrac-
tive struggle between violent love and the restraint of convention. He
showed both hero and heroine dying under pathetic circumstances as
the result of the heroine's curse.
These authors all implied that both Echo and Narcissus died of
grief. But the ancient writer Eustathius in his comment on the Iliad
had recorded a different version. The deluded youth, he said, had
plunged into the water and perished by drowning. This idea was
mentioned in the Flamenca and affected the story as repeated in the
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? NARCISSUS
Cento Novelle Antiche. Later it influenced an allusion by Marlowe
and the allusions in Shakespeare's two narrative poems.
The chief poets of modern literature have generally shown interest
in the tale of Narcissus. Dante, mistaking for shadows the dim spirits
in the heaven of the moon, observed that his error was opposite to
that which kindled love between the youth and the fountain. Petrarch
compared his Laura to the young Narcissus, who found his own
image so beautiful that he cruelly despised all suitors. He saw
Narcissus and Echo led captive in the triumph of Love and briefly re-
peated their story. Chaucer in the Knight's Tale mentioned their
fate as depicted on the walls of the temple of Venus. Boiardo recalled
Ovid in a passage where Angelica grieved at the coldness of Rinaldo.
The intentness of Narcissus gazing into the water, Tasso compared
to that of Armida looking at Rinaldo asleep. To Guarini, Ovid's
dialogue between Narcissus and Echo suggested the remarkable scene
where Silvio defied the god of Love and the god was able, by returning
from time to time a closing word or syllable, to predict Silvio's defeat.
And both Camoens describing the Isle of Venus and Spenser portray-
ing the Garden of Adonis associated the unfortunate Narcissus with
the flower which bore his name.
Shirley retold the tale in a long narrative poem. In Comus Milton
showed his lady invoking the assistance of Echo and likening her
brothers to Narcissus. In Paradise Lost he told how the newly created
Eve gazed with surprise and delight at her responsive likeness in a
pool until admonished by the divine voice. Calderon and Rousseau
each made Narcissus the theme of a play. Fielding recalled him twice
in Joseph, Andrews, to illustrate the misfortune of one loving a maiden
who was unattainable, in the first case because she was a creation of
the imagination, in the second because she repulsed her lover coldly.
Goethe in Wilhelm Meister gave his name to a young official who was
unduly fond of himself. Schiller touched on his delusion for an attrac-
tive song. And Lewis Morris repeated the tale of Narcissus at con-
siderable length, using it to symbolize the quest of an ideal attained
only with death.
To Echo Chaucer referred somewhat inaccurately in the Clerk's
Envoy and the Franklin's Tale. Shakespeare mentioned her trans-
formation in Romeo and Juliet. Shelley pictured Echo silent with
grief for Adonais, dearer to her than Narcissus for whose disdain she
pined away into a shadow of all sounds.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
To the dramatist Fletcher Ovid's description of the pool may have
suggested the charming lines of his Faithful Shepherdess in which
Amoret gave the river her blessing.
In the Amoretti, Spenser declared his grief as paradoxical as that
of Narcissus and repeated an important conceit of the youth's lament.
Although aware, Spenser said, that the lady was the cause of his
suffering, his eyes could not remove from her
In their amazement, like Narcissus vain,
Whose eyes him starved; so plenty makes me poor.
And by a strange irony Dryden used the same passage to show the evil
of Ovid's ill timed wit.
Ovid's tale of Narcissus inspired paintings of Boltraffio, Curradi,
Tintoretto, Dubois, Grebier, and a disciple of Boucher. Waterhouse
painted Echo and Narcissus; Anning Bell pictured Echo alone. In
sculpture the theme was treated by Cortot, Charpentier, and Hiolle.
Gliick transformed Ovid's myth into an opera with a happy ending.
j . , . ii . .
Pentheus
The strange fate of Narcissus, Ovid observed, was one of many
events which verified the predictions of Tiresias and made him revered
as a seer. But this reputation was challenged by Pentheus, king of
Thebes. Thus Ovid returned to the Theban myths recorded in the
Manual and to the later career of Bacchus.
The famous tale of Pentheus was only one of several myths which
assumed that the new worship encountered opposition before it pre-
vailed in Greece. In all probability some such opposition was an his-
torical fact. When the Bacchic religion entered Greece, it was asso-
ciated with the barbaric people of Thrace and its rites were marked by
frenzy and excess. Such a religion could not easily win the civilized
Greeks, a people ordinarily sane and temperate in every way.
In myths dealing with opposition to Bacchus a remarkable circum-
stance is the active aid which the new god received from women. That
the women of a Greek community should accept him the more readily
was natural. Greek tragedy implies often that in the Heroic Age
many of them had come as the spoils of successful war. And such war-
fare might often bring female captives from the neighboring countries
of Thrace and of Phrygia, where the religion of Bacchus prevailed.
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? PENTHEUS
But a number of other myths dealing with Bacchic rites, imply that
even after the new religion triumphed, it regularly gave the women an
important part. Examples are Ovid's tales of Philomela (Bk. 6),
Myrrha (Bk. 10), and Orpheus (Bk. 11). Underlying this, there
appears to have been a profound belief that, in order to obtain a good
harvest for the year, the community must observe chastity for a short
period during the time of planting. At the appointed season, there-
fore, the women left their husbands and departed in a body to pro-
pitiate the god with mystic rites. A similar theory and practice
affected the Egyptian worship of Isis and the religious customs of
many savages in modern times. And in ancient Greece, as in parts of
modern Australia, the women entraced in a secret worship, from which
men were excluded on pain of death.
During early times the spring festivals of Bacchus tended regularly
to a climax of violence and ferocity. With the added fear of perse-
cution, it is probable that they led occasionally to murder of an
atrocious kind. Yet stories of such crimes do not appear until many
centuries after the supposed events and therefore may be suspected of
exaggeration. With the beginning of history, civilized Greece had
toned down the barbaric features of Bacchic worship and laid
emphasis on its doctrine of ascetic purity and spiritual immortality.
Listening to tales of earlier violence and murder, thoughtful Greeks
may well have demurred at a god who promoted such crime. For them
an answer was ready. The religion of Bacchus, its votaries declared,
was naturally mild and beneficial. But when a community refused to
heed or tolerate it, the offense was so gross as to brinsr an extraordi-
nary punishment. The guilty people went mad and did they knew not
what. The crimes which appeared so horrible were committed, not bv
the followers, but the enemies of Bacchus. Euripides still demurred;
but with this explanation the maioritv of the Greeks were content.
Of mvths dealing with opposition to Bacchus, the earliest record
was that of a Thracian kinff. Lvcurerus. Tn the Iliad bis offense was
attacking the nurses of the infant deitv with an oxsroad and compel-
ling Bacchus to take refuse in the sea. For this be incurred blindness
and an earlv death. Tn later accounts his offense lav ratber in oppos-
ing and ,affronting Bacchus when the erod visited Thrace. Sophocles
made thp Tmnishment madness, and the Manual added de>>+h bv wild
horses. |This mvtb Ovid referred to in the opening lines of bis Fourth
Book, i
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
But the most famous myth of opposition was that of Pentheus. The
mother of this ruler was Agave, a daughter of Cadmus. His father
was Echion, a warrior who grew up when Cadmus planted the dragon's
teeth. In an age of continual war and violence, the king must be a man
of abundant physical strength: a ruler who became old and infirm
would have to surrender his authority to some younger member of his
family. This was true of Laertes in the Odyssey and of several other
heroes of ancient myth. Cadmus therefore had transferred the Theban
crown to his grandson, Pentheus. The latter opposed the entry of
Bacchus, and according to the earlier version of the tale he was en-
couraged by his mother, his two aunts, and perhaps the entire Theban
people. Bacchus drove Agave and the other Theban women mad.
They withdrew to Mt. Cithaeron, and here Pentheus came into their
power and was torn to pieces. This myth Aeschylus referred to in his
Eumenides and told at length in a tragedy called Pentheus.
Euripides retold the story in his Bacchce, presenting the case rather
unfavorably for all concerned. Bacchus, he said, had already won all
Asia to the eastern frontiers of Persia and had sailed with a company
which included chiefly Lydian women for Greece and his native Thebes.
In the story itself, Euripides made a number of changes. Pentheus
opposed Bacchus chiefly because he feared that his methods would
result in general profligacy. The suspicion, though it proved to be
needless, was not unreasonable according to the generally accepted
opinion of Lydian character. Most of the Thebans appear to have
supported Pentheus. But Cadmus and Tiresias took the other side.
Pentheus had the god brought before him; treated him injuriously; and
consigned him to prison. But the god and his followers were magically
released. Not only the women but also Pentheus became mad. The
deluded ruler went forth unattended in order to observe the secret rites,
taking as his point of vantage the crest of a lofty pine. Summoned
by the god, the women mistook Pentheus for a dangerous wild beast.
They threw down the tree, and rent him asunder. Cadmus showed
Agave her mistake. She repented and reproached Bacchus for his
cruelty. The end of the play is missing; but Vergil seems to imply in
his Culex that Agave forsook Bacchus and took refuge in the forest,
and Lucan mentioned her bearing the head of Pentheus to Thessaly.
This version of the tale enjoyed extraordinary popularity I and in-
spired a famous painting which adorned the temple of Bacchus at
Athens.
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? PENTHEUS
Theocritus retold the latter part of the story. In his version, the
god bore no active part. Pentheus observed the rites from the summit
of a cliff, hiding himself in a bush, and was discovered accidentally.
Theocritus did not speak of the women as mistaking Pentheus for a
beast, but he mentioned their subsequent repentance. More cautious
than Euripides, he bade his readers refrain from blaming the actions of
the gods.
The Manual, too, recounted the story. It added Egypt and Thrace
to the regions already accepting Bacchus and did not say that Pen-
theus attempted any concealment. Otherwise it repeated very briefly
the incidents recorded by Euripides.
Meanwhile there had grown up independently another myth relating
to the earthly career of Bacchus. The story originated probably to
explain why sailors were in the habit of decorating their ships with
vine leaves and grapes for some vintage festival.
In the Homeric Hymn to Bacchus the tale ran as follows: The god
appeared on a headland, taking the shape of a young prince.
Tyrsenian, that is Thracian, pirates, hoping to obtain a ransom,
carried him off and endeavored to chain him. The chains fell away
miraculously. At this the helmsman declared that the prisoner must
be some great divinity and urged the others to release him. The cap-
tain tauntingly refused. Suddenly fragrant wine streamed through
the ship; a fruitful grape vine overhung the sails: ivy with berries
twined round the mast; garlands covered the thole-pins. Too late the
pirates repented. The god, standing on the prow, took the form of a
lion and seized the captain. He put a savage bear in the stern. The
crew leaped overboard and became dolphins. But the god spared
the helmsman and revealed his own identity. This version of the tale
was treated later in vase paintings.
Euripides in the Cyclops mentioned two further circumstances. The
pirates, he declared, were sent by the hostile Juno, and Silenus with a
crew of satyrs attempted the rescue of the god. Perhaps a century later
a sculptor treated this version in the frieze of a monument with which
Lysicrates commemorated his victory in drama. The sculptor showed
the satyrs in possession of the pirate vessel, binding and killing some
of the pirates and driving the rest into the sea. This form of the myth
did not affect later accounts.
The Manual gave a third version quite different in many respects
from the other two. Thus far both the time and the place of the ad-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
venture had been left uncertain. The Manual stated that the event
occurred after Bacchus had overcome Pentheus and his other oppo-
nents in Greece. It localized the headland in Icaria, near Athens,
and added that the god was desirous of crossing to the famous island
of Naxos. The pirates, according to the Manual, were Tyrrhenians,
that is Lydians from a colony in Etruria. Their offense, too, was
different. The god asked them to transport him to his destination and
they promised to do so. But when the ship was within view of Naxos,
they turned off towards the coast of Asia. Several details altered in
the ensuing miracle; thus the god retained his human form but he
changed the mast and oars into serpents. The sailors did not repent.
The Manual had told first of Pentheus and then much later of the
sailors becoming dolphins. Nicander appears to have combined the
two myths into one. The tale of Pentheus he used only as an occasion
for the other. While the Theban king was planning to oppose Bacchus,
said Nicander, the seer Tiresias attempted to dissuade him by recount-
ing the transformation of the pirates. In the main Nicander followed
the Homeric Hymn. He showed the pirates guilty of abducting the
god by force and in the miracle he merely replaced the bear by a tiger.
But he represented the god as a beautiful boy whom his captors des-
tined for slavery and he mentioned ten pirates by name.
About a century and a half later, the theme of Pentheus attracted
the early Roman dramatist Pacuvius. Probably his version owed
much to Euripides; but he seems to have been original at least while
treating the madness of the king, for Vergil in the Aeneid referred to
Pentheus as seeing double and being terrified by the Furies. Horace
alluded to the . story more than once. And Propertius referred both
to Pentheus and the mariners.
Ovid mentioned Pentheus briefly in the Tristia and in the Ibis. For
the Metamorphoses he evidently took suggestions from all his impor-
tant predecessors. But he so altered and rearranged the details as
to give a most unfavorable impression of Pentheus. This gave the
account unity and a more powerful effect. Later Ovid was to use the
same method even more successfully in the tale of Erisychthon (Bk. 8).
During the early part of the story, Ovid profited chiefly by the
work of Euripides. But while following the general movement of the
plav, he arranged every detail with regard to the predetermined effect.
He introduced the king as the godless Pentheus and showed him heap-
ing uncalled for abuse on the blind Tiresias. Unlike Euripides, Ovid
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? PENTHEVS
represented Pentheus as alone in his impious opposition. All the rest
hastened to do Bacchus honor. Instead of giving the king a reason-
able ground for his conduct, Ovid represented him as making vague
charges that Bacchus was effeminate and an imposter. And he re-
corded that the king's uncle and all the counsellors remonstrated,
with no result except to augment his angry obstinacy.
In the speech of Pentheus Ovid showed the king praising the oppo-
sition given Bacchus by Acrisius ruler of Argos. This event the
Manual narrated as occurring after the death of Pentheus. But Ovid
ignored the difficulty in order to score a rhetorical point. Ovid al-
lowed Pentheus to declare also that the older Thebans had come from
Tyre. In this he followed the Manual, forgetting that in his own
account only Cadmus had survived the encounter with the snake.
Following Euripides, Ovid had the king's attendants bring in a
prisoner and he even hinted that this was really the god. But Ovid
made the prisoner ostensibly a Lydian priest of Bacchus, named
Acoetes. Recalling both Menander and Theocritus, Ovid showed
Acoetes' father as the typical fisherman of Alexandrian poetry--
always hopeful and always poor.
As a warning for Pentheus, Nicander had caused Tiresias to repeat
the tale of Bacchus and the Mariners. Ovid gave it instead to the
former sea captain Acoetes and thus gained the advantage of narra-
tive by an eye witness. In order to attain a still more lively effect,
Ovid tried, like the Manual, to have his geography precise. But he
felt unable to make the point of departure Icaria. Tradition brought
the god there only much later. Accordingly he showed the sailors
meeting with Bacchus in the island of Chios. If they intended to pro-
ceed from there to some port on the Asiatic coast, it was not probable
that they would pass within view of Naxos, an island near the middle
of the Aegean Sea. But regarding this matter Ovid could assume
that the Romans would not inquire too curiously.
In the tale of the mariners Ovid pursued his former policy. He was
careful to discredit as much as possible the opponents of Bacchus.
Acoetes he described as a lawful tradesman, so that for the time at
least the rest were not pirates. But evidently they were in other
respects an impious and flagitious lot. Ovid identified Acoetes with
the pious helmsman of Nicander's version, but he made him at the
same time the captain. By flouting his wishes, the crew incurred the
additional guilt of mutiny. Nicander had shown them abducting the
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK III
god. by force. The Manual had shown them breaking their solemn
promi|e to land him in Naxos. Ovid made them guilty of both offenses.
On each occasion he showed Acoetes protesting and endeavoring to
prevent their evil conduct and the crew not only deriding their com-
mander but overcoming him by violence. Ovid then added a most
reasonable but unavailing remonstrance by the god himself. He made
it as plain as possible that the god's opponents were guilty of deliber-
ate, repeated and heinous wrong doing.
