But Ovid far excelled all
predecessors
in the
combat between Perseus and Phineus and he was to excel them again
in his battle of the Centaurs.
combat between Perseus and Phineus and he was to excel them again
in his battle of the Centaurs.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v1
But
it had become more probable that in such a crisis Perseus would rely
on the swift and effective power of the head. Lucian and Natalis
Comis made the change, and later Kingsley followed their example.
Calderon preferred to show Perseus using Athena's Gorgon shield.
On the whole, however, most authors followed Ovid. Boiardo imi-
tated the adventure with fhe sea monster but reversed the roles of
hero and heroine. He showed Angelica hastening on the wing to save
Rinaldo. Ariosto imitated Ovid more closely, borrowing even his turns
of phrase. In his story, Rogero, flying on a hippogriff, saw Angelica
chained and rescued her from the monstrous ore. But Ariosto showed
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? PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA
less delicacy in the treatment of his heroine. Lope de Vega and
Calderon used Ovid much in their dramatic versions of the tale.
Corneille studied him carefully, although he introduced many changes
of his own. For Lewis Morris Ovid became the chief model of an excel-
lent narrative poem. Kingsley and William Morris took only a few
details. Browning enjoyed the story greatly and alluded to it often,
especially in his Francis Fwrini.
In the field of painting the rescue of Andromeda was treated by
Cosimo, Palma Giovane, Guido Reni, Van Thulden, Lemoyne, Nattier,
Coypel, and Rossetti. It inspired masterpieces of Veronese, Titian,
Rubens, and Urueghel. In sculpture the event was a subject for
Cellini, Turnois, Lescorne, Marqueste, Chinard, Puget, and Canova.
Ovid's tales of Medusa were also quite interesting to men of later
times. Lucan borrowed from Ovid in a long account of Medusa's
death, dwelling much on the petrified shapes of men and beasts near
her residence and on Athena's use of the head in her famous shield.
Claudian and Camoens remembered that coral does not harden until
exposed to air; William Morris retold, with excellent effect, the trans-
formation of Medusa's tresses; and in Comus Milton identified Athena's
Gorgon shield with the chaste austerity of the goddess, which con-
founded the violence of her foes. Other poets recalled Medusa in a
more general sense. Dante made her the personification of Despair,
which the Furies summoned to petrify him before the city of Dis.
Petrarch often compared her petrifying gaze to that of Laura when
she reproved him. Rossetti described Medusa allegorically in his fine
lyric, Aspecta Medusae.
In painting Medusa was treated by Caravaggio, Sartorio, Rubens
and Brueghel, Stuck, and the Russian artist Svedomski. Perseus and
Medusa were subjects for a statue by Marqueste and the famous
bronze of Benvenuto Cellini.
In the Fourth Book most of the longer tales were of early origin
and often treated in Greek literature. But several of the longer and
almost all of the shorter tales had not entered literature until Alex-
andrian times, and some appear to have been little known, even to the
Greeks. Most of the stories, both old and new, had received treat-
ment in Greek art. But even the old and well known tales had been
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
little noticed by early Roman authors. It was Ovid who preserved
them for medieval times and made them easily accessible to the Renais-
sance, and he alone saved such tales as Pyramus and Hermaphroditus
from oblivion.
In the story of Mars and Venus, Ovid took his outline from the
Odyssey. For most of the others, he used Alexandrian authors. The
Manual gave him valuable material for the myth of Ino and the chief
adventures of Perseus. Nicander contributed many tales, including
the important myths of Hermaphroditus and of Cadmus and Har-
monia. But a still greater number, including that of Pyramus, Ovid
found in the work of Alexandrian poets whom we can no longer iden-
tify, and Ovid himself invented the transformation of Atlas. This
quite various material, he brought into plausible and effective relation
to the familiar myths of Thebes and Perseus. He gave well known
tales a better setting and contrasted them with other tales which were
quite new. He was careful also to present all these myths in a form
that would harmonize with the rest of his poem. To individual stories
he added new interest. He borrowed adroitly from the Odyssey and
Greek art, from Tibullus, and Horace. And Vergil proved invaluable
for the tales of Ino and Atlas. Ovid made well advised changes and
additions of his own, and often he gave new beauty and animation
by his style.
Several Roman poets after Ovid recalled noteworthy passages of
the Fourth Book. In the Middle Ages it was very popular, and the
tale of Pyramus had a remarkably pervasive influence. Individual
tales inspired imitation or retelling by an extraordinary number of
the chief authors who wrote during the Renaissance. And afterwards
the book enjoyed very unusual favor among the Victorian poets of
England.
The Fourth Book attracted authors rarely influenced by Ovid,
among whom were Gongora, Rossetti, and Matthew Arnold. It had
an especially interesting effect in the work of Tasso and Spenser.
Petrarch, Chaucer, Camoens, and Shakespeare manifested interest in
a great number of tales. But the authors who found most frequent
and valuable help were Dante and Milton.
Many stories attracted modern painters, inspiring a considerable
number of masterpieces. Several were used by modern sculptors. And
the myth of Hermaphroditus had an interesting effect on modern
science.
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? BOOK FIVE
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? BOOK FIVE
Perseus and Phineus
In the first half of Book Five, Ovid continued the story of Perseus.
Beginning at the moment when the hero had finished telling Cepheus
and his court about the successful quest for Medusa's head, he pro-
ceeded to record the most interesting adventures from that time until
Perseus and his bride established themselves in the hero's native Argos.
According to the Manual, King Cepheus had affianced Andromeda
to his younger brother, Phineus. But on the approach of the monster,
Perseus stipulated that he himself was to obtain her hand in return
for saving her life. Cepheus consented and fulfilled his promise.
Phineus, still unwilling to yield, made a hostile demonstration during
the wedding feast. This incident Ovid was glad to use; but he made it
much longer and far more important.
In the Seventh Book of the Aeneid, Vergil had shown how King
Latinus remonstrated when his people gathered for a battle with
Aeneas and how, unable to stay the tumult, he withdrew protesting.
Ovid imagined that King Cepheus made a similar remonstrance and
withdrawal, when his people gathered to attack Perseus. And he gave
his individual combatants at least a few of the names which Vergil
had mentioned in the ensuing battles near the Trojan stockade.
After the retreat of Cepheus, Ovid proceeded to record a struggle
between the parties of Perseus and Phineus. In the Manual this had
been brief and undistinguished. But it occurred under remarkable
circumstances: there was a wedding feast, a sudden attempt to carry
off the bride, and the defeat of the would-be ravishers In all these
particulars the traditional combat with Phineus resembled the much
more famous combat with the Centaurs. It needed only to be magni-
fied into an elaborate and sanguinary battle. Struck by this idea,
Ovid remembered that he had planned already for such a battle be-
tween the Centaurs and the Lapithae (Bk. 12) and that for this he
had good material in readiness--both his recollections of the great
frieze in the Parthenon and a quite elaborate narrative by Nicander.
Taking care to avoid obvious resemblance between the two stories, he
could use the same material as the basis for a new battle piece, which
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK V
should give variety and distinction to the earlier half of his poem. This
design he carried out on the whole with notable skill. - But he took
over from the battle with the Centaurs two incidents--the killing with
a billet of wood and the hurling of a great sculptured bowl--which,
though very striking, were rather inappropriate for the swordsman
Perseus.
With the idea of an elaborate battle, Ovid thought naturally of the
greatest epics. The Odyssey had pictured a similar conflict in a ban-
quet hall between Ulysses and the three hundred suitors. In the begin-
ning it told how Athena gave protection and help to Ulysses and later
it told how the suitor Leiodes pleaded abjectly for his life. Both cir-
cumstances were of advantage to Ovid. At the beginning he showed
Athena giving similar aid to Perseus and towards the end he recorded
an even more abject appeal of the defeated Phineus. The Iliad sug-
gested to Ovid his pathetic incident of the friends Athis and Lycabas,
who found some comfort in a common death. The same epic had
recorded of the traitor Dolon that, while he spoke, his head was rolled
in the dust; and the Odyssey made the same observation of the suitor
Leiodes. To Ovid this suggested the extravagant incident of
Emathion's tongue still uttering curses, while his head was cut off
and lay among the altar flames. A similar incident Ovid was to use
more skilfully in the tale of Philomela (Bk. 6).
In such epics as the Iliad or the Aeneid, certain general methods had
usually given distinction to the account of battle. Ovid tried to
emulate them in his combat of Perseus and of Phineus. His com-
batants he made notable men, often from distant and picturesque
lands. And frequently this gave him striking effects. But he failed to
explain the presence of this brilliant assemblage at a court so stricken
that it had just exposed the King's only daughter to the mercy of a
dread sea monster. And he did not make it at all probable that so
many distinguished strangers would give their lives for so mean a
cause and such an uninspiring leader.
The Iliad had established it as epic practice to record circumstan-
tially the prowess of each important hero and the names and histories
of those whom he vanquished, and it had shown infinite variety in tell-
ing of the death dealing wounds. Vergil followed the practice in the
Aeneid. And the same methods prevailed later with such famous epics
as the Song of Roland and Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. In the excite-
ment and confusion of battle, such detailed observation would be im-
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? PERSEUS AND PHINEAS
possible, and this Euripides had long since pointed out. The epic
poets were not drawing on observation of actual life. They were trying
to profit by a literary convention. But this was no further from life
than such other conventions as the soliloquy in drama or the detailed
record of a character's thoughts in a psychological novel. It was
merely a convention which allowed the author to imagine what he
could not know, and if his imagination was in accord with human ex-
perience, it added greatly to the value of his work. This advantage
Ovid sought and obtained in his battle of Perseus and Phineus. But
unwisely, he deviated from his predecessors in one particular. Both
the Iliad and the Aeneid were careful to show on which side a given
warrior was fighting. Ovid frequently neglected this precaution and
left the reader bewildered.
When picturing a scene of battle, the chief epic poets had been care-
ful to enlist the sympathy of their readers for a great, dominating
hero and to give them the sense of a great cause at issue. This was
true for example when the hero of the Odyssey fought for his kingdom
against the insolent suitors, or when the noble Aeneas battled for the
future of Rome against the host of misguided Latins. With such an
occasion there might well be need for effort and carnage. Yet even so,
the great epic poets found it wise to relieve the terrors of battle. The
author of the Odyssey showed by many successive stages that Ulysses
did not proceed further than necessary in the killing of his foes. And
Vergil frequently introduced touches of mercy and tenderness which
might soften the prevailing ferocity and slaughter. These precautions
Ovid did not observe. He told of a seemingly uncalled for and
atrocious melee. Amid confused combat and incidents of sensational
horror, Perseus became merely the warrior who appeared most fre-
quently. And there was no adequate relief. Always Perseus showed
himself fierce and unsparing. The bard and the priest perished with
the rest, and the poet described without pity the destruction of the
bad and the good.
After many striking incidents Ovid raised the battle to an exciting
pitch. The invaders were on the point of rushing forward in a body
and overwhelming the almost solitary Perseus. At this point Ovid
returned to the account in his Manual. He showed Perseus suddenly
confronting his enemies with the Gorgon head. Like the Manual, he
failed to explain the presence of the object at a wedding feast, where
it would seem very undesirable but happened to be most fortunate.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK V
Yet he introduced the event with dramatic effect and described the
ensuing petrification with admirable fullness and brilliance.
After so great a conflict, Ovid realized that he could not detail the
remaining adventures of Perseus without a feeling of anticlimax. But
he mentioned as briefly as possible two which included metamorphosis.
First he told the destruction of Proetus. According to the Manual,
this chieftain had been merely an enemy of the hero's grandfather,
Acrisius. Ovid invented his usurpation of power and his death by
Medusa's head. Then he told the fate of Polydectes. Pindar had
recorded his conversion into stone and it became rather often the sub-
ject of vase paintings. The Manual retold the story, making the
event occur before Perseus returned to Argos. But Ovid, thinking
it more interesting than the adventure with Proetus, reversed the
sequence of time.
The battle of Perseus and Phineus had much less effect in later
times than the adventures with Atlas, Andromeda, and Medusa. Yet it
was often remembered. Jean de Meun retold it with the rest of the
cycle. Corneille and William Morris took from Ovid the idea that
Phineus became a rival of Perseus, and William Morris repeated a few
details about his invading the banquet hall. To Tasso the tongue of
Emathion still cursing in the severed head may have suggested the
weird incident of Gerniero's hand cut off yet retaining the sword and
gliding over the ground in the hope of uniting with his body. To
Shakespeare the petrifaction of Phineus and his party probably sug-
gested the words of Macduff after Duncan's murder:
Approach the chamber and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon.
The idea of presenting a battle as a confused melee, with examples
of strange, atrocious carnage, seems to have appeared first in Athenian
and other sculpture representing the monstrous battle with the Cen-
taurs. And it probably affected the narration of other battles by
the Alexandrian poets.
But Ovid far excelled all predecessors in the
combat between Perseus and Phineus and he was to excel them again
in his battle of the Centaurs. Lucan followed his example in the sea
fight at Marseilles. He invented similar confusion in the struggle and
even stranger and more numerous horrors. But he lacked Ovid's merit
of coming to a decisive finish.
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? PALLAS AND THE MUSES
Both Perino del Vaga and Burne Jones, treating the cycle of Per-
seus, included the battle in their series of paintings.
Pallas and the Muses
After finishing the adventures of Perseus, Ovid wished to retell a
number of remarkable myths, which he found chiefly in the work of
the Alexandrian poets. These would afford excellent material for the
latter half of his Fifth Book and the first half of the Sixth, ending
with the tale of Pelops. In subject they would form a homogenous
group, for the majority dealt with punishment of those who had shown
impiety to the gods. But none of them had any relation to Perseus
and most of them had no relation to one another. These associations
Ovid had to invent.
As the introduction to the Origins, Callimachus had told of his
being transported to the home of the Muses and hearing from their
sacred lips the myths with which he was to deal in his poem. This
gave Ovid a valuable suggestion. During the battle with Phineus, he
had mentioned Athena's giving aid to Perseus. It occurred to Ovid
that she might continue to aid her brother in his subsequent perils and
then that she too might visit the Muses and listen to their tales.
From earliest times the Greeks had looked on the Muses as inspirers
of poetry and art. The Iliad and the Odyssey made them daughters
of Jupiter. The Theogony added that Mnemosyne was their mother.
And this became the usual tradition. The Odyssey spoke of them as
nine in number. According to the Iliad they lived on Mt. Olympus;
but the Theogony transferred them to Mt. Helicon near Thebes and
associated them with the inspiring founts of Hippocrene and Aganippe.
This locality was accepted by the majority of later writers, and so
Ovid brought Athena to Mt. Helicon.
The Muses were not only half sisters of the goddess but congenial
in their tastes, so that it would be natural for her to visit them. But
Ovid added a special reason. Among the Greeks there had been some
curiosity as to the origin of the name Hippocrene (Horse's Spring).
In several countries popular tradition has declared that a spring rose
supernaturally where a horse had kicked the soil. And in this case
the explanation seemed most appropriate. Nicander recorded that
the winged Pegasus, offspring of Medusa, flew hither; spurned the
slope of Mt. Helicon; and ascended to become the constellation which
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK V
bears his name. Athena had witnessed the remarkable origin of Pega-
sus. But since then she had been occupied entirely with the subsequent
adventures of Perseus. To her the fountain would be something quite
new and strange. Hence Ovid showed her coming as soon as possible
to view it with her own eyes. The entry of Pegasus among the stars he
reserved for his Fasti.
Ovid described Athena as conversing chiefly with Urania, Muse of
astronomy, and learning from her the adventure of the Muses with
Pyreneus. Nicander had told how this Thracian conqueror persuaded
them to avoid a sudden rain by entering his palace and then attempted
to violate them. Running to the inner court, said Nicander, the Muses
suddenly grew wings and by this remarkable change were able to
escape over the roof. Hoping perhaps that he, too, might gain such
aid, Pyreneus ran to the summit of a tower and leaped forth in pursuit,
only to perish by the fall. Ovid repeated the story, rather too briefly
for comprehension by the modern reader.
In later times the visit of Athena to the Muses attracted many emi-
nent poets. Jean de Meun retold it in his Romance of the Rose.
Milton recalled many of Ovid's details for a great invocation of Para-
dise Lost:
Descend from heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly called, whose voice divine
Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the flight of Pegasean wing.
The meaning not the name I call; for thou
Nor of the muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwellst, but heavenly born,
Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed,
Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse
Wisdom thy sister.
Because Ovid had associated Pegasus with the inspiring fount of the
Muses, Dante addressed the Muse herself as divine Pegasea. And
Boiardo invented the famous conception of the inspired poet soaring
on the back of Pegasus.
During the Middle Ages much attention was given to the adventure
with Pyreneus. Imitating Ovid, Chretien de Troyes showed his
Lancelot growing desperate from love and attempting to throw him-
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? THE MUSES AND THE PIERIDS
self from a tower. Jean de Meun retold Ovid's tale. And Dante in an
eclogue described the Muses as those who fled
Affrighted by Pyreneus' evil heat.
The Muses and the Pierids
Continuing the story of Athena's visit to the Muses, Ovid showed
her conversing further with Urania and learning of the recent conflict
between the Muses and the Pierids. This tale had grown up compara-
tively late and for most of Ovid's readers would have been entirely new.
Originally the Muses were thought to reside on Mt. Olympus, and
themselves to have been born in Pieria, a Macedonian village near the
foot of the mountain. Although the Theogony transferred their resi-
dence to Mt. Helicon in Boeotia, their birthplace was still thought to
be Pieria. Hence the Muses were often called Pierids, and Ovid re-
ferred to them under this name in his Amores and his Fasti. Some-
times they were thought even to be daughters of Pierus, a Macedonian
king. The Boeotians were loth to admit that their Muses had origi-
nated elsewhere. They felt also the improbability that the Muses
should have been natives of a barbarous land and should have come
from so great a distance, and so they associated King Pierus and his
daughters with a new tradition.
Profiting by this change, Nicander declared that the Muses
originally had nothing to do with Macedonia. King Pierus, he said,
was the father of nine quite different daughters, the Pierids. And on
one occasion these Pierids tried presumptuously to supplant the Muses.
For the details of the myth Nicander imitated earlier traditions. Greek
mythology had shown other characters vying with the nine sisters in
a contest of music. It had imagined similar combats of Apollo with
such opponents as Marsyas and Pan (cf. Bks. 6 and 11). And rivalry
in music had been a favorite theme of Alexandrian pastoral. Nicander
imagined such a conflict between the Muses and the Pierids. Proceed-
ing southward to Mt. Helicon, the Pierids challenged their divine
rivals. Each party was to be represented by one of their number.
If the Muses should win, they might have Macedonia. If they should
lose, they were to yield their place on Mt. Helicon. The river nymphs
should judge. Thus far Nicander imitated earlier contests in music.
But for the nature of his battle he turned to a famous rivalry in weav-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK V
ing between Athena and Arachne (cf. Bk. 6). Adding impiety to pre-
sumption, he said, the Pierid told stories discreditable to all the gods.
The epic Muse, Calliope, replied with tales indicating their greatness
and power. The nymphs gave their decision for the Muses. At this
the Pierids grew still more insolent, and the Muses changed them into
nine varieties of birds, one of which was a magpie.
Taking his outline from Nicander, Ovid made several changes for
the better. He began dramatically with the sudden arrival of the new
birds lamenting their fate. This interrupted the conversation between
Athena and Urania and gave occasion for the story. Ovid probably
enlivened very much the account of the metamorphosis and he showed
all nine of the Pierids changing appropriately into the noisy and gar-
rulous magpies.
As a theme for the Pierid song, Nicander imagined first the cele-
brated war between the gods and the Giants. This Ovid had told
elsewhere (Bk. 1) and so he merely stated that the Pierid made the
story sound as unfavorable as possible for the gods. But for the lat-
ter half of the song Nicander used a recent myth dealing with the war
between the gods and Typhoeus.
In the Iliad Typhoeus was mentioned as an enemy of Jupiter" who
lay buried "in Arimi"--meaning apparently in a volcanic region of
Asia Minor inhabited by the Arimi. Much later Lycophron identified
this locality with Inarime, a volcanic island in the Bay of Naples, and
Vergil and Lucan followed his example. Meanwhile the Theogony had
given a long acount of Typhoeus--his terrible appearance and his
desperate battle with the gods. Thus he became in Greek tradition the
chief enemy of Jupiter, and Aeschylus showed him pictured on the
shield of the impious Capaneus. Pindar mentioned Typhoeus on sev-
eral occasions. He spoke of him as inhabiting a cave in Cilicia and
related his defeat with a great contemporary eruption of Mt. Aetna,
of which he gave a wonderful description. The monster, he said, lay
buried under this great mountain and was convulsing it with his furious
struggles. Aeschylus repeated the idea at some length in his
Prometheus Bound. The Manual agreed substantially with both the
Theogony and Pindar. It recorded in detail the war between Typhoeus
and the gods and then the burial of Typhoeus under the Sicilian vol-
cano. To this account Ovid alluded briefly in his Epistle of Sappho
and at greater length in the Fasti. In the, Metamorphoses he was to
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? THE MUSES AND THE PIERIDS
use the idea again; but he reserved it appropriately for Calliope's
answer. 1
In the fifth century B. C. ancient Greece became acquainted with the
venerable civilization of Egypt. Both Greeks and Egyptians soon
found resemblances between their mythologies and both were ready to
give their deities added prestige by identifying them with one another.
Thus Herodotus declared Jupiter to be a Greek equivalent of Ammon,
the great sheep deity of Thebes and Libyan Ethiopia. And he pro-
ceeded to identify many others, notably Apollo with Horus, Diana
with Bubastis, and Typhoeus with Seb. When the Greek Alexander
conquered Egypt, such identification gained a political value. It
helped the new ruler and his successors to assure the permanence of
their conquest by making Greek institutions congenial to their Egyp-
tian subjects. Alexander himself made a pilgrimage to the chief shrine
of Ammon; worshipped him as Jupiter; and pretended that he him-
self was a son of the great Egyptian deity. The Egyptians had ex-
plained their strange worship of gods in animal form by reporting that
Seb at one time threatened the other divinities and caused them to
abscond in their now familiar animal shapes. Profiting by this tra-
dition, the Alexandrian Greeks revised their account of Typhoeus. At
first, they said, Typhoeus had the advantage. The adherents of Jupi-
ter fled to the Nile valley and there assumed various animal disguises,
still held sacred by the inhabitants of Egypt. This myth was repeated
briefly in the Manual.
Nicander made it the second part of the Pierid song. For his pur-
pose the tale was doubly appropriate. It suited the impious character
of the Pierid and it included a number of remarkable transformations.
Accordingly he gave the latter part of the story in some detail, telling
how each god became the well known likeness of his Egyptian counter-,
part. Apollo, he said, became a hawk (Horus), Bacchus a goat
(Mendes), Diana a cat (Bubastis), and Mercury an ibis (Thoth).
For Ovid's Roman contemporaries the feeling towards Egyptian
myth had changed. Antony and Cleopatra had made Egypt a dan-
gerous rival of Rome. Even after their defeat, Augustus and Other
1 This was not the only explanation of volcanic activity in Mt. Aetna. Euripides
in the Cyclops related it to the buried Giant Bnceladus; Callimachus repeated the
idea; and Vergil made it famous in the Aeneid. Ovid himself followed Vergil in a
Pontic Epistle. There were also attempts by Alexandrian scientists to account for
the eruptions by natural means. Varro dealt with this material, and the young
Vergil treated it in his long andTjuite interesting poem called Aetna.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK V
patriotic Romans thought it wise to frown on the religion and civili-
zation of the Nile. Hence in the tale of Andromeda Ovid had called
Ammon unjust. In the tale of the Pierid he tried to discredit all
identification of Roman and Egyptian deities. But he gladly repeated
Nicander's story in detail, changing Apollo from a hawk to a raven;
and he even added further metamorphoses. He included the famous
identification of Jupiter with the ram (Ammon) and invented a new
likeness of Juno to the cow (Isis), and he observed that Venus became
a fish. This transformation he probably added from the Syrian myth
of Derceto (cf. Bk. 4). In the Fasti he was to show how Typhoeus
drove Venus and Cupid to the Euphrates valley and how they escaped
on the backs of two fishes, which became the well known constellation
of the zodiac. In the song of the Pierid, Ovid mentioned all suitable
detail, yet he was careful to make the narrative brief and dry. This
emphasized the beauty of Calliope's answer.
Ovid's account of the Muses and the Pierids proved interesting for
a number of medieval poets. Jean de Meun retold it in the Romavge
of the Rose. In the Purgatorio Dante referred to Calliope and the
other Muses as vanquishing the Pierids so clearly that they despaired
of pardon. In De Vulgare Eloquio he noted the incident of the mag-
pies talking, as illustration of his belief that animals occasionally
mimic the sounds of human speech, but not intelligently, for the expres-
sion of ideas. Chaucer showed his man of law hesitating lest he appear
as much inferior to the earlier story tellers as the Pierids were to the
Muses.
The flight of the gods to Egypt also had its admirers. Jean de
Meun repeated the story. Milton alluded to it while enumerating the
followers of Satan:
After these appeared
A crew, who under names of old renown,
Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train,
With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused
Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek
Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms.
it had become more probable that in such a crisis Perseus would rely
on the swift and effective power of the head. Lucian and Natalis
Comis made the change, and later Kingsley followed their example.
Calderon preferred to show Perseus using Athena's Gorgon shield.
On the whole, however, most authors followed Ovid. Boiardo imi-
tated the adventure with fhe sea monster but reversed the roles of
hero and heroine. He showed Angelica hastening on the wing to save
Rinaldo. Ariosto imitated Ovid more closely, borrowing even his turns
of phrase. In his story, Rogero, flying on a hippogriff, saw Angelica
chained and rescued her from the monstrous ore. But Ariosto showed
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? PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA
less delicacy in the treatment of his heroine. Lope de Vega and
Calderon used Ovid much in their dramatic versions of the tale.
Corneille studied him carefully, although he introduced many changes
of his own. For Lewis Morris Ovid became the chief model of an excel-
lent narrative poem. Kingsley and William Morris took only a few
details. Browning enjoyed the story greatly and alluded to it often,
especially in his Francis Fwrini.
In the field of painting the rescue of Andromeda was treated by
Cosimo, Palma Giovane, Guido Reni, Van Thulden, Lemoyne, Nattier,
Coypel, and Rossetti. It inspired masterpieces of Veronese, Titian,
Rubens, and Urueghel. In sculpture the event was a subject for
Cellini, Turnois, Lescorne, Marqueste, Chinard, Puget, and Canova.
Ovid's tales of Medusa were also quite interesting to men of later
times. Lucan borrowed from Ovid in a long account of Medusa's
death, dwelling much on the petrified shapes of men and beasts near
her residence and on Athena's use of the head in her famous shield.
Claudian and Camoens remembered that coral does not harden until
exposed to air; William Morris retold, with excellent effect, the trans-
formation of Medusa's tresses; and in Comus Milton identified Athena's
Gorgon shield with the chaste austerity of the goddess, which con-
founded the violence of her foes. Other poets recalled Medusa in a
more general sense. Dante made her the personification of Despair,
which the Furies summoned to petrify him before the city of Dis.
Petrarch often compared her petrifying gaze to that of Laura when
she reproved him. Rossetti described Medusa allegorically in his fine
lyric, Aspecta Medusae.
In painting Medusa was treated by Caravaggio, Sartorio, Rubens
and Brueghel, Stuck, and the Russian artist Svedomski. Perseus and
Medusa were subjects for a statue by Marqueste and the famous
bronze of Benvenuto Cellini.
In the Fourth Book most of the longer tales were of early origin
and often treated in Greek literature. But several of the longer and
almost all of the shorter tales had not entered literature until Alex-
andrian times, and some appear to have been little known, even to the
Greeks. Most of the stories, both old and new, had received treat-
ment in Greek art. But even the old and well known tales had been
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK IV
little noticed by early Roman authors. It was Ovid who preserved
them for medieval times and made them easily accessible to the Renais-
sance, and he alone saved such tales as Pyramus and Hermaphroditus
from oblivion.
In the story of Mars and Venus, Ovid took his outline from the
Odyssey. For most of the others, he used Alexandrian authors. The
Manual gave him valuable material for the myth of Ino and the chief
adventures of Perseus. Nicander contributed many tales, including
the important myths of Hermaphroditus and of Cadmus and Har-
monia. But a still greater number, including that of Pyramus, Ovid
found in the work of Alexandrian poets whom we can no longer iden-
tify, and Ovid himself invented the transformation of Atlas. This
quite various material, he brought into plausible and effective relation
to the familiar myths of Thebes and Perseus. He gave well known
tales a better setting and contrasted them with other tales which were
quite new. He was careful also to present all these myths in a form
that would harmonize with the rest of his poem. To individual stories
he added new interest. He borrowed adroitly from the Odyssey and
Greek art, from Tibullus, and Horace. And Vergil proved invaluable
for the tales of Ino and Atlas. Ovid made well advised changes and
additions of his own, and often he gave new beauty and animation
by his style.
Several Roman poets after Ovid recalled noteworthy passages of
the Fourth Book. In the Middle Ages it was very popular, and the
tale of Pyramus had a remarkably pervasive influence. Individual
tales inspired imitation or retelling by an extraordinary number of
the chief authors who wrote during the Renaissance. And afterwards
the book enjoyed very unusual favor among the Victorian poets of
England.
The Fourth Book attracted authors rarely influenced by Ovid,
among whom were Gongora, Rossetti, and Matthew Arnold. It had
an especially interesting effect in the work of Tasso and Spenser.
Petrarch, Chaucer, Camoens, and Shakespeare manifested interest in
a great number of tales. But the authors who found most frequent
and valuable help were Dante and Milton.
Many stories attracted modern painters, inspiring a considerable
number of masterpieces. Several were used by modern sculptors. And
the myth of Hermaphroditus had an interesting effect on modern
science.
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? BOOK FIVE
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? BOOK FIVE
Perseus and Phineus
In the first half of Book Five, Ovid continued the story of Perseus.
Beginning at the moment when the hero had finished telling Cepheus
and his court about the successful quest for Medusa's head, he pro-
ceeded to record the most interesting adventures from that time until
Perseus and his bride established themselves in the hero's native Argos.
According to the Manual, King Cepheus had affianced Andromeda
to his younger brother, Phineus. But on the approach of the monster,
Perseus stipulated that he himself was to obtain her hand in return
for saving her life. Cepheus consented and fulfilled his promise.
Phineus, still unwilling to yield, made a hostile demonstration during
the wedding feast. This incident Ovid was glad to use; but he made it
much longer and far more important.
In the Seventh Book of the Aeneid, Vergil had shown how King
Latinus remonstrated when his people gathered for a battle with
Aeneas and how, unable to stay the tumult, he withdrew protesting.
Ovid imagined that King Cepheus made a similar remonstrance and
withdrawal, when his people gathered to attack Perseus. And he gave
his individual combatants at least a few of the names which Vergil
had mentioned in the ensuing battles near the Trojan stockade.
After the retreat of Cepheus, Ovid proceeded to record a struggle
between the parties of Perseus and Phineus. In the Manual this had
been brief and undistinguished. But it occurred under remarkable
circumstances: there was a wedding feast, a sudden attempt to carry
off the bride, and the defeat of the would-be ravishers In all these
particulars the traditional combat with Phineus resembled the much
more famous combat with the Centaurs. It needed only to be magni-
fied into an elaborate and sanguinary battle. Struck by this idea,
Ovid remembered that he had planned already for such a battle be-
tween the Centaurs and the Lapithae (Bk. 12) and that for this he
had good material in readiness--both his recollections of the great
frieze in the Parthenon and a quite elaborate narrative by Nicander.
Taking care to avoid obvious resemblance between the two stories, he
could use the same material as the basis for a new battle piece, which
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK V
should give variety and distinction to the earlier half of his poem. This
design he carried out on the whole with notable skill. - But he took
over from the battle with the Centaurs two incidents--the killing with
a billet of wood and the hurling of a great sculptured bowl--which,
though very striking, were rather inappropriate for the swordsman
Perseus.
With the idea of an elaborate battle, Ovid thought naturally of the
greatest epics. The Odyssey had pictured a similar conflict in a ban-
quet hall between Ulysses and the three hundred suitors. In the begin-
ning it told how Athena gave protection and help to Ulysses and later
it told how the suitor Leiodes pleaded abjectly for his life. Both cir-
cumstances were of advantage to Ovid. At the beginning he showed
Athena giving similar aid to Perseus and towards the end he recorded
an even more abject appeal of the defeated Phineus. The Iliad sug-
gested to Ovid his pathetic incident of the friends Athis and Lycabas,
who found some comfort in a common death. The same epic had
recorded of the traitor Dolon that, while he spoke, his head was rolled
in the dust; and the Odyssey made the same observation of the suitor
Leiodes. To Ovid this suggested the extravagant incident of
Emathion's tongue still uttering curses, while his head was cut off
and lay among the altar flames. A similar incident Ovid was to use
more skilfully in the tale of Philomela (Bk. 6).
In such epics as the Iliad or the Aeneid, certain general methods had
usually given distinction to the account of battle. Ovid tried to
emulate them in his combat of Perseus and of Phineus. His com-
batants he made notable men, often from distant and picturesque
lands. And frequently this gave him striking effects. But he failed to
explain the presence of this brilliant assemblage at a court so stricken
that it had just exposed the King's only daughter to the mercy of a
dread sea monster. And he did not make it at all probable that so
many distinguished strangers would give their lives for so mean a
cause and such an uninspiring leader.
The Iliad had established it as epic practice to record circumstan-
tially the prowess of each important hero and the names and histories
of those whom he vanquished, and it had shown infinite variety in tell-
ing of the death dealing wounds. Vergil followed the practice in the
Aeneid. And the same methods prevailed later with such famous epics
as the Song of Roland and Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. In the excite-
ment and confusion of battle, such detailed observation would be im-
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? PERSEUS AND PHINEAS
possible, and this Euripides had long since pointed out. The epic
poets were not drawing on observation of actual life. They were trying
to profit by a literary convention. But this was no further from life
than such other conventions as the soliloquy in drama or the detailed
record of a character's thoughts in a psychological novel. It was
merely a convention which allowed the author to imagine what he
could not know, and if his imagination was in accord with human ex-
perience, it added greatly to the value of his work. This advantage
Ovid sought and obtained in his battle of Perseus and Phineus. But
unwisely, he deviated from his predecessors in one particular. Both
the Iliad and the Aeneid were careful to show on which side a given
warrior was fighting. Ovid frequently neglected this precaution and
left the reader bewildered.
When picturing a scene of battle, the chief epic poets had been care-
ful to enlist the sympathy of their readers for a great, dominating
hero and to give them the sense of a great cause at issue. This was
true for example when the hero of the Odyssey fought for his kingdom
against the insolent suitors, or when the noble Aeneas battled for the
future of Rome against the host of misguided Latins. With such an
occasion there might well be need for effort and carnage. Yet even so,
the great epic poets found it wise to relieve the terrors of battle. The
author of the Odyssey showed by many successive stages that Ulysses
did not proceed further than necessary in the killing of his foes. And
Vergil frequently introduced touches of mercy and tenderness which
might soften the prevailing ferocity and slaughter. These precautions
Ovid did not observe. He told of a seemingly uncalled for and
atrocious melee. Amid confused combat and incidents of sensational
horror, Perseus became merely the warrior who appeared most fre-
quently. And there was no adequate relief. Always Perseus showed
himself fierce and unsparing. The bard and the priest perished with
the rest, and the poet described without pity the destruction of the
bad and the good.
After many striking incidents Ovid raised the battle to an exciting
pitch. The invaders were on the point of rushing forward in a body
and overwhelming the almost solitary Perseus. At this point Ovid
returned to the account in his Manual. He showed Perseus suddenly
confronting his enemies with the Gorgon head. Like the Manual, he
failed to explain the presence of the object at a wedding feast, where
it would seem very undesirable but happened to be most fortunate.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK V
Yet he introduced the event with dramatic effect and described the
ensuing petrification with admirable fullness and brilliance.
After so great a conflict, Ovid realized that he could not detail the
remaining adventures of Perseus without a feeling of anticlimax. But
he mentioned as briefly as possible two which included metamorphosis.
First he told the destruction of Proetus. According to the Manual,
this chieftain had been merely an enemy of the hero's grandfather,
Acrisius. Ovid invented his usurpation of power and his death by
Medusa's head. Then he told the fate of Polydectes. Pindar had
recorded his conversion into stone and it became rather often the sub-
ject of vase paintings. The Manual retold the story, making the
event occur before Perseus returned to Argos. But Ovid, thinking
it more interesting than the adventure with Proetus, reversed the
sequence of time.
The battle of Perseus and Phineus had much less effect in later
times than the adventures with Atlas, Andromeda, and Medusa. Yet it
was often remembered. Jean de Meun retold it with the rest of the
cycle. Corneille and William Morris took from Ovid the idea that
Phineus became a rival of Perseus, and William Morris repeated a few
details about his invading the banquet hall. To Tasso the tongue of
Emathion still cursing in the severed head may have suggested the
weird incident of Gerniero's hand cut off yet retaining the sword and
gliding over the ground in the hope of uniting with his body. To
Shakespeare the petrifaction of Phineus and his party probably sug-
gested the words of Macduff after Duncan's murder:
Approach the chamber and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon.
The idea of presenting a battle as a confused melee, with examples
of strange, atrocious carnage, seems to have appeared first in Athenian
and other sculpture representing the monstrous battle with the Cen-
taurs. And it probably affected the narration of other battles by
the Alexandrian poets.
But Ovid far excelled all predecessors in the
combat between Perseus and Phineus and he was to excel them again
in his battle of the Centaurs. Lucan followed his example in the sea
fight at Marseilles. He invented similar confusion in the struggle and
even stranger and more numerous horrors. But he lacked Ovid's merit
of coming to a decisive finish.
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? PALLAS AND THE MUSES
Both Perino del Vaga and Burne Jones, treating the cycle of Per-
seus, included the battle in their series of paintings.
Pallas and the Muses
After finishing the adventures of Perseus, Ovid wished to retell a
number of remarkable myths, which he found chiefly in the work of
the Alexandrian poets. These would afford excellent material for the
latter half of his Fifth Book and the first half of the Sixth, ending
with the tale of Pelops. In subject they would form a homogenous
group, for the majority dealt with punishment of those who had shown
impiety to the gods. But none of them had any relation to Perseus
and most of them had no relation to one another. These associations
Ovid had to invent.
As the introduction to the Origins, Callimachus had told of his
being transported to the home of the Muses and hearing from their
sacred lips the myths with which he was to deal in his poem. This
gave Ovid a valuable suggestion. During the battle with Phineus, he
had mentioned Athena's giving aid to Perseus. It occurred to Ovid
that she might continue to aid her brother in his subsequent perils and
then that she too might visit the Muses and listen to their tales.
From earliest times the Greeks had looked on the Muses as inspirers
of poetry and art. The Iliad and the Odyssey made them daughters
of Jupiter. The Theogony added that Mnemosyne was their mother.
And this became the usual tradition. The Odyssey spoke of them as
nine in number. According to the Iliad they lived on Mt. Olympus;
but the Theogony transferred them to Mt. Helicon near Thebes and
associated them with the inspiring founts of Hippocrene and Aganippe.
This locality was accepted by the majority of later writers, and so
Ovid brought Athena to Mt. Helicon.
The Muses were not only half sisters of the goddess but congenial
in their tastes, so that it would be natural for her to visit them. But
Ovid added a special reason. Among the Greeks there had been some
curiosity as to the origin of the name Hippocrene (Horse's Spring).
In several countries popular tradition has declared that a spring rose
supernaturally where a horse had kicked the soil. And in this case
the explanation seemed most appropriate. Nicander recorded that
the winged Pegasus, offspring of Medusa, flew hither; spurned the
slope of Mt. Helicon; and ascended to become the constellation which
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK V
bears his name. Athena had witnessed the remarkable origin of Pega-
sus. But since then she had been occupied entirely with the subsequent
adventures of Perseus. To her the fountain would be something quite
new and strange. Hence Ovid showed her coming as soon as possible
to view it with her own eyes. The entry of Pegasus among the stars he
reserved for his Fasti.
Ovid described Athena as conversing chiefly with Urania, Muse of
astronomy, and learning from her the adventure of the Muses with
Pyreneus. Nicander had told how this Thracian conqueror persuaded
them to avoid a sudden rain by entering his palace and then attempted
to violate them. Running to the inner court, said Nicander, the Muses
suddenly grew wings and by this remarkable change were able to
escape over the roof. Hoping perhaps that he, too, might gain such
aid, Pyreneus ran to the summit of a tower and leaped forth in pursuit,
only to perish by the fall. Ovid repeated the story, rather too briefly
for comprehension by the modern reader.
In later times the visit of Athena to the Muses attracted many emi-
nent poets. Jean de Meun retold it in his Romance of the Rose.
Milton recalled many of Ovid's details for a great invocation of Para-
dise Lost:
Descend from heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly called, whose voice divine
Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the flight of Pegasean wing.
The meaning not the name I call; for thou
Nor of the muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwellst, but heavenly born,
Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed,
Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse
Wisdom thy sister.
Because Ovid had associated Pegasus with the inspiring fount of the
Muses, Dante addressed the Muse herself as divine Pegasea. And
Boiardo invented the famous conception of the inspired poet soaring
on the back of Pegasus.
During the Middle Ages much attention was given to the adventure
with Pyreneus. Imitating Ovid, Chretien de Troyes showed his
Lancelot growing desperate from love and attempting to throw him-
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? THE MUSES AND THE PIERIDS
self from a tower. Jean de Meun retold Ovid's tale. And Dante in an
eclogue described the Muses as those who fled
Affrighted by Pyreneus' evil heat.
The Muses and the Pierids
Continuing the story of Athena's visit to the Muses, Ovid showed
her conversing further with Urania and learning of the recent conflict
between the Muses and the Pierids. This tale had grown up compara-
tively late and for most of Ovid's readers would have been entirely new.
Originally the Muses were thought to reside on Mt. Olympus, and
themselves to have been born in Pieria, a Macedonian village near the
foot of the mountain. Although the Theogony transferred their resi-
dence to Mt. Helicon in Boeotia, their birthplace was still thought to
be Pieria. Hence the Muses were often called Pierids, and Ovid re-
ferred to them under this name in his Amores and his Fasti. Some-
times they were thought even to be daughters of Pierus, a Macedonian
king. The Boeotians were loth to admit that their Muses had origi-
nated elsewhere. They felt also the improbability that the Muses
should have been natives of a barbarous land and should have come
from so great a distance, and so they associated King Pierus and his
daughters with a new tradition.
Profiting by this change, Nicander declared that the Muses
originally had nothing to do with Macedonia. King Pierus, he said,
was the father of nine quite different daughters, the Pierids. And on
one occasion these Pierids tried presumptuously to supplant the Muses.
For the details of the myth Nicander imitated earlier traditions. Greek
mythology had shown other characters vying with the nine sisters in
a contest of music. It had imagined similar combats of Apollo with
such opponents as Marsyas and Pan (cf. Bks. 6 and 11). And rivalry
in music had been a favorite theme of Alexandrian pastoral. Nicander
imagined such a conflict between the Muses and the Pierids. Proceed-
ing southward to Mt. Helicon, the Pierids challenged their divine
rivals. Each party was to be represented by one of their number.
If the Muses should win, they might have Macedonia. If they should
lose, they were to yield their place on Mt. Helicon. The river nymphs
should judge. Thus far Nicander imitated earlier contests in music.
But for the nature of his battle he turned to a famous rivalry in weav-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK V
ing between Athena and Arachne (cf. Bk. 6). Adding impiety to pre-
sumption, he said, the Pierid told stories discreditable to all the gods.
The epic Muse, Calliope, replied with tales indicating their greatness
and power. The nymphs gave their decision for the Muses. At this
the Pierids grew still more insolent, and the Muses changed them into
nine varieties of birds, one of which was a magpie.
Taking his outline from Nicander, Ovid made several changes for
the better. He began dramatically with the sudden arrival of the new
birds lamenting their fate. This interrupted the conversation between
Athena and Urania and gave occasion for the story. Ovid probably
enlivened very much the account of the metamorphosis and he showed
all nine of the Pierids changing appropriately into the noisy and gar-
rulous magpies.
As a theme for the Pierid song, Nicander imagined first the cele-
brated war between the gods and the Giants. This Ovid had told
elsewhere (Bk. 1) and so he merely stated that the Pierid made the
story sound as unfavorable as possible for the gods. But for the lat-
ter half of the song Nicander used a recent myth dealing with the war
between the gods and Typhoeus.
In the Iliad Typhoeus was mentioned as an enemy of Jupiter" who
lay buried "in Arimi"--meaning apparently in a volcanic region of
Asia Minor inhabited by the Arimi. Much later Lycophron identified
this locality with Inarime, a volcanic island in the Bay of Naples, and
Vergil and Lucan followed his example. Meanwhile the Theogony had
given a long acount of Typhoeus--his terrible appearance and his
desperate battle with the gods. Thus he became in Greek tradition the
chief enemy of Jupiter, and Aeschylus showed him pictured on the
shield of the impious Capaneus. Pindar mentioned Typhoeus on sev-
eral occasions. He spoke of him as inhabiting a cave in Cilicia and
related his defeat with a great contemporary eruption of Mt. Aetna,
of which he gave a wonderful description. The monster, he said, lay
buried under this great mountain and was convulsing it with his furious
struggles. Aeschylus repeated the idea at some length in his
Prometheus Bound. The Manual agreed substantially with both the
Theogony and Pindar. It recorded in detail the war between Typhoeus
and the gods and then the burial of Typhoeus under the Sicilian vol-
cano. To this account Ovid alluded briefly in his Epistle of Sappho
and at greater length in the Fasti. In the, Metamorphoses he was to
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? THE MUSES AND THE PIERIDS
use the idea again; but he reserved it appropriately for Calliope's
answer. 1
In the fifth century B. C. ancient Greece became acquainted with the
venerable civilization of Egypt. Both Greeks and Egyptians soon
found resemblances between their mythologies and both were ready to
give their deities added prestige by identifying them with one another.
Thus Herodotus declared Jupiter to be a Greek equivalent of Ammon,
the great sheep deity of Thebes and Libyan Ethiopia. And he pro-
ceeded to identify many others, notably Apollo with Horus, Diana
with Bubastis, and Typhoeus with Seb. When the Greek Alexander
conquered Egypt, such identification gained a political value. It
helped the new ruler and his successors to assure the permanence of
their conquest by making Greek institutions congenial to their Egyp-
tian subjects. Alexander himself made a pilgrimage to the chief shrine
of Ammon; worshipped him as Jupiter; and pretended that he him-
self was a son of the great Egyptian deity. The Egyptians had ex-
plained their strange worship of gods in animal form by reporting that
Seb at one time threatened the other divinities and caused them to
abscond in their now familiar animal shapes. Profiting by this tra-
dition, the Alexandrian Greeks revised their account of Typhoeus. At
first, they said, Typhoeus had the advantage. The adherents of Jupi-
ter fled to the Nile valley and there assumed various animal disguises,
still held sacred by the inhabitants of Egypt. This myth was repeated
briefly in the Manual.
Nicander made it the second part of the Pierid song. For his pur-
pose the tale was doubly appropriate. It suited the impious character
of the Pierid and it included a number of remarkable transformations.
Accordingly he gave the latter part of the story in some detail, telling
how each god became the well known likeness of his Egyptian counter-,
part. Apollo, he said, became a hawk (Horus), Bacchus a goat
(Mendes), Diana a cat (Bubastis), and Mercury an ibis (Thoth).
For Ovid's Roman contemporaries the feeling towards Egyptian
myth had changed. Antony and Cleopatra had made Egypt a dan-
gerous rival of Rome. Even after their defeat, Augustus and Other
1 This was not the only explanation of volcanic activity in Mt. Aetna. Euripides
in the Cyclops related it to the buried Giant Bnceladus; Callimachus repeated the
idea; and Vergil made it famous in the Aeneid. Ovid himself followed Vergil in a
Pontic Epistle. There were also attempts by Alexandrian scientists to account for
the eruptions by natural means. Varro dealt with this material, and the young
Vergil treated it in his long andTjuite interesting poem called Aetna.
193
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:21 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015003854125 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK V
patriotic Romans thought it wise to frown on the religion and civili-
zation of the Nile. Hence in the tale of Andromeda Ovid had called
Ammon unjust. In the tale of the Pierid he tried to discredit all
identification of Roman and Egyptian deities. But he gladly repeated
Nicander's story in detail, changing Apollo from a hawk to a raven;
and he even added further metamorphoses. He included the famous
identification of Jupiter with the ram (Ammon) and invented a new
likeness of Juno to the cow (Isis), and he observed that Venus became
a fish. This transformation he probably added from the Syrian myth
of Derceto (cf. Bk. 4). In the Fasti he was to show how Typhoeus
drove Venus and Cupid to the Euphrates valley and how they escaped
on the backs of two fishes, which became the well known constellation
of the zodiac. In the song of the Pierid, Ovid mentioned all suitable
detail, yet he was careful to make the narrative brief and dry. This
emphasized the beauty of Calliope's answer.
Ovid's account of the Muses and the Pierids proved interesting for
a number of medieval poets. Jean de Meun retold it in the Romavge
of the Rose. In the Purgatorio Dante referred to Calliope and the
other Muses as vanquishing the Pierids so clearly that they despaired
of pardon. In De Vulgare Eloquio he noted the incident of the mag-
pies talking, as illustration of his belief that animals occasionally
mimic the sounds of human speech, but not intelligently, for the expres-
sion of ideas. Chaucer showed his man of law hesitating lest he appear
as much inferior to the earlier story tellers as the Pierids were to the
Muses.
The flight of the gods to Egypt also had its admirers. Jean de
Meun repeated the story. Milton alluded to it while enumerating the
followers of Satan:
After these appeared
A crew, who under names of old renown,
Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train,
With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused
Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek
Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms.
