Chapter XII: Book THE FIRST: The Argument. I.1-4 (3)

[Footnote 104: _Soporiferous wand._--Ver. 671. This was the
‘caduceus,’ or staff, with which Mercury summoned the souls of the
departed from the shades, induced slumber, and did other offices
pertaining to his capacity as the herald and messenger of Jupiter.
It was represented as an olive branch, wreathed with two snakes.
In time of war, heralds and ambassadors, among the Greeks, carried
a ‘caduceus.’ It was not used by the Romans.]

[Footnote 105: _A cap for his hair._--Ver. 672. This was a cap
called ‘Petasus.’ It had broad brims, and was not unlike the
‘causia,’ or Macedonian hat, except that the brims of the latter
were turned up at the sides.]

EXPLANATION.

The story of the Metamorphosis of Io has been already enlarged upon in
the Explanation of the preceding Fable. It may, however, not be
irrelevant to observe, that myths, or mythological stories or fables,
are frequently based upon some true history, corrupted by tradition in
lapse of time. The poets, too, giving loose to their fancy in their
love of the marvellous, have still further disfigured the original
story; so that it is in most instances extremely difficult to trace
back the facts to their primitive simplicity, by a satisfactory
explanation of each circumstance attending them, either upon a
philosophical, or an historical principle of solution.

FABLE XV. [I.689-712]

Pan, falling in love with the Nymph Syrinx, she flies from him; on
which he pursues her. Syrinx, arrested in her flight by the waves of
the river Ladon, invokes the aid of her sisters, the Naiads, who
change her into reeds. Pan unites them into an instrument with seven
pipes, which bears the name of the Nymph.

Then the God says, “In the cold mountains of Arcadia, among the Hamadryads of Nonacris,[106] there was one Naiad very famous; the Nymphs called her Syrinx. And not once {alone} had she escaped the Satyrs as they pursued, and whatever Gods either the shady grove or the fruitful fields have {in them}. In her pursuits and her virginity itself she used to devote herself to the Ortygian Goddess;[107] and being clothed after the fashion of Diana, she might have deceived one, and might have been supposed to be the daughter of Latona, if she had not had a bow of cornel wood, the other, {a bow} of gold; and even then did she {sometimes} deceive {people}. Pan spies her as she is returning from the hill of Lycæus, and having his head crowned with sharp pine leaves, he utters such words as these;” it remained {for Mercury} to repeat the words, and how that the Nymph, slighting his suit, fled through pathless spots, until she came to the gentle stream of sandy Ladon;[108] and that here, the waters stopping her course, she prayed to her watery sisters, that they would change her; and {how} that Pan, when he was thinking that Syrinx was now caught by him, had seized hold of some reeds of the marsh, instead of the body of the Nymph; and {how}, while he was sighing there, the winds moving amid the reeds had made a murmuring noise, and like one complaining; and {how} that, charmed by this new discovery and the sweetness of the sound, he had said, “This mode of converse with thee shall ever remain with me;” and that accordingly, unequal reeds being stuck together among themselves by a cement of wax, had {since} retained the name of the damsel.

[Footnote 106: _Nonacris._--Ver. 690. Nonacris was the name of
both a mountain and a city of Arcadia, in the Peloponnesus.]

[Footnote 107: _The Ortygian Goddess._--Ver. 694. Diana is called
“Ortygian,” from the isle of Delos, where she was born, one of
whose names was Ortygia, from the quantity of quails, ὄρτυγες,
there found.]

[Footnote 108: _Ladon._--Ver. 702. This was a beautiful river of
Arcadia, flowing into the Alpheus: its banks were covered with
vast quantities of reeds. Ovid here calls its stream ‘placidum;’
whereas in the fifth book of the Fasti, l. 89, he calls it
‘rapax,’ ‘violent;’ and in the second book of the Fasti, l. 274,
its waters are said to be ‘citæ aquæ,’ swift waters. Some
commentators have endeavored to reconcile these discrepancies; but
the probability is, that Ovid, like many other poets, used his
epithets at random, or rather according to the requirements of the
measure for the occasion.]

EXPLANATION.

This appears to have been an Egyptian fable, imported into the works
of the Grecian poets. Pan was probably a Divinity of the Egyptians,
who worshipped nature under that name, as we are told by Herodotus and
Diodorus Siculus. As, however, according to Nonnus, there were not
less than twelve Pans, it is possible that the adventure here related
may have been supposed to have happened to one of them who was a
native of Greece. He was most probably the inventor of the Syrinx, or
Pandæan pipe, and, perhaps, formed his first instrument from the
produce of the banks of the River Ladon, from which circumstance
Syrinx may have been styled the daughter of that river.

FABLE XVI. [I.713-723]

Mercury, having lulled Argus to sleep, cuts off his head, and Juno
places his eyes in the peacock’s tail.

The Cyllenian God[109] being about to say such things, perceived that all his eyes were sunk in sleep, and that his sight was wrapped[110] in slumber. At once he puts an end to his song, and strengthens his slumbers, stroking his languid eyes with his magic wand. There is no delay; he wounds him, as he nods, with his crooked sword, where the head is joined to the neck; and casts him, all blood-stained, from the rock, and stains the craggy cliff with his gore.

Argus, thou liest low, and the light which thou hadst in so many eyes is {now} extinguished; and one night takes possession of a {whole} hundred eyes. The daughter of Saturn takes them, and places them on the feathers of her own bird, and she fills its tail with starry gems.

[Footnote 109: _The Cyllenian God._--Ver. 713. Mercury is so
called from Cyllene, in Arcadia, where he was born.]

[Footnote 110: _That his sight was wrapped._--Ver. 714. Clarke
translates ‘Adopertaque lumina somno,’ ‘and his peepers covered
with sleep.’]

EXPLANATION.

The ancient writers, Asclepiades and Pherecydes, tell us, that Argus
was the son of Arestor. He is supposed by some to have been the fourth
king of Argos after Inachus, and to have been a person of great wisdom
and penetration, on account of which he was said to have a hundred
eyes. Io most probably was committed to his charge, and he watched
over her with the greatest care.

It is impossible to divine the reason why his eyes were said to have
been set by Juno in the tail of the peacock; though, perhaps, the
circumstance has no other foundation than the resemblance of the human
eye to the spots in the tail of that bird, which was consecrated to
Juno. Besides, if Juno is to be considered the symbol of Air, or
Æther, through which light is transmitted to us, it is not surprising
that the ancients bestowed so many eyes upon the bird which was
consecrated to her.

FABLE XVII. [I.724-779]

Io, terrified and maddened with dreadful visions, runs over many
regions, and stops in Egypt, when Juno, at length, being pacified,
restores her to her former shape, and permits her to be worshipped
there, under the name of Isis.

Immediately, she was inflamed with rage, and deferred not the time of {expressing} her wrath; and she presented a dreadful Fury before the eyes and thoughts of the Argive mistress,[111] and buried in her bosom invisible stings, and drove her, in her fright, a wanderer through the whole earth. Thou, O Nile, didst remain, as the utmost boundary of her long wanderings. Soon as she arrived there, she fell upon her knees, placed on the edge of the bank, and raising herself up, with her neck thrown back, and casting to Heaven those looks which then alone she could, by her groans, and her tears, and her mournful lowing, she seemed to be complaining of Jupiter, and to be begging an end of her sorrows.

He, embracing the neck of his wife with his arms, entreats her, at length, to put an end to her punishment; and he says, “Lay aside thy fears for the future; she shall never {more} be the occasion of any trouble to thee;” and {then} he bids the Stygian waters to hear this {oath}. As soon as the Goddess is pacified, {Io} receives her former shape, and she becomes what she was before; the hairs flee from off of her body, her horns decrease, and the orb of her eye becomes less; the opening of her jaw is contracted; her shoulders and her hands return, and her hoof, vanishing, is disposed of into five nails; nothing of the cow remains to her, but the whiteness of her appearance; and the Nymph, contented with the service of two feet, is raised erect {on them}; and {yet} she is afraid to speak, lest she should low like a cow, and timorously tries again the words {so long} interrupted. Now, as a Goddess, she is worshipped by the linen-wearing throng[112] {of Egypt}.

To her, at length, Epaphus[113] is believed to have been born from the seed of great Jove, and throughout the cities he possesses temples joined to {those of} his parent. Phaëton, sprung from the Sun, was equal to him in spirit and in years; whom formerly, as he uttered great boasts, and yielded not {at all} to him, and proud of his father, Phœbus, the grandson of Inachus could not endure; and said, “Thou, {like} a madman, believest thy mother in all things, and art puffed up with the conceit of an imaginary father.”

Phaëton blushed, and in shame repressed his resentment; and he reported to his mother, Clymene,[114] the reproaches of Epaphus; and said, “Mother, to grieve thee still more, I, the free, the bold {youth}, was silent; I am ashamed both that these reproaches can be uttered against us, and that they cannot be refuted; but do thou, if only I am born of a divine race, give me some proof of so great a descent, and claim me for heaven.” {Thus} he spoke, and threw his arms around the neck of his mother; and besought her, by his own head and by that of Merops,[115] and by the nuptial torches of his sisters, that she would give him some token of his real father.

It is a matter of doubt whether Clymene was more moved by the entreaties of Phaëton, or by resentment at the charge made against her; and she raised both her arms to heaven, and, looking up to the light of the Sun, she said, “Son, I swear to thee, by this beam, bright with shining rays, which both hears and sees us, that thou, that thou, {I say}, wast begotten by this Sun, which thou beholdest; by this {Sun}, which governs the world. If I utter an untruth, let him deny himself to be seen by me, and let this light prove the last for my eyes. Nor will it be any prolonged trouble for thee to visit thy father’s dwelling; the abode where he arises is contiguous to our regions.[116] If only thy inclination disposes thee, go forth, and thou shalt inquire of himself.”

Phaëton immediately springs forth, overjoyed, upon these words of his mother, and reaches the skies in imagination; and he passes by his own Æthiopians, and the Indians situate beneath the rays of the Sun,[117] and briskly wends his way to the rising of his sire.

[Footnote 111: _The Argive mistress._--Ver. 726. Clarke renders
‘Pellicis Argolicæ,’ ‘of the Grecian miss.’]

[Footnote 112: _The linen-wearing throng._--Ver. 747. The priests,
and worshippers of Isis, with whom Io is here said to be
identical, paid their adoration to her clothed in linen vestments.
Probably, Isis was the first to teach the Egyptians the
cultivation of flax.]

[Footnote 113: _Epaphus._--Ver. 748. Herodotus, in his second
book, tells us, that this son of Jupiter, by Io, was the same as
the Egyptian God, Apis. Eusebius, quoting from Apollodorus, says
that Epaphus was the son of Io, by Telegonus, who married her.]

[Footnote 114: _Clymene._--Ver. 756. She was a Nymph of the sea,
the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys.]

[Footnote 115: _Merops._--Ver. 763. He was king of Ethiopia, and
marrying the Nymph Clymene, was either the stepfather of Phaëton,
or, as some writers say, his putative father.]

[Footnote 116: _To our regions._--Ver. 773. Ethiopia, which, in
the time of Ovid, was generally looked upon as one of the regions
of the East.]

[Footnote 117: _The rays of the Sun._--Ver. 778. ‘Ignibus
sidereis,’ means here the ‘heat,’ or ‘fire of the sun,’ the sun
being considered as a ‘sidus,’ or ‘luminous heavenly body.’]

EXPLANATION.

To the elucidation of this narrative, already given, we will only add,
that some of the mythologists inform us, that when Mercury had lulled
Argus to sleep, a youth named Hierax awoke him; on which Mercury
killed Argus with a stone, and turned Hierax into a spar-hawk.